Review: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Decade (Violent Emotion)

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俺は全ての破壊者だ。
俺はそれを受け入れた。
それだけものだ。

Kadoya Tsukasa, to me, is probably the most powerful Kamen Rider of all. No matter who stands in his way, he will have your card and trash you like a rug doll. Especially when he is in Violent Emotion, he is double the bad ass. A good boy gone bad.

Even if you gang up against him, chances are, he will use one of his many cards to turn one of many you into one of his many weapons. For example, KR Blade, Faiz or Kiva etc.

I skipped the normal release of S.H.Figuarts KR Decade simple because of the inaccurate helmet design as well as the wrong choice of color. He is supposed to be Magenta, not totally pink.

I was totally turned off until Tamashii released “Violent Emotion” which I find it a beauty the moment I set my eyes upon it even though it is still in the box up on the shelve sealed away from me in the shop. *breathe*

Lets jump straight into the review, shall we?

First Impression

To be honest, I am kinda bias when I say this figurine is nicely sculpted simply because he is one of my favourite Kamen Rider and I am totally obsessed about owning one. The colour chosen is totally accurate and matches the movies. Or probably because the normal release was done so poorly that even a small enhancement in this release makes me overjoyed?

Then again, I was hoping that the black colour is whole matted instead of being glossy in certain areas because if you were to shine lights at this figurine, the reflection of light can be very annoying.

Now the whole figurine feels like Strawberry short cake with cream. And Tsukasa isn’t shy about it. XD

The name Gekijōtai (激情態) is a pun on the word for “theatre” (劇場 gekijō), which literally translates as “Fury Form”. The May 2010 issue of Hyper Hobby magazine and Bandai’s S.H.Figuarts toy line officially translate this name as “Violent Emotion”, a literal translation of the word gekijō (激情) which omits any translation for the word tai (態, “form”).

Source taken from Wikipedia.

The Head

This release comes with two heads. Both have the same sculpting. The only difference is probably the colour on the forehead. One is purple while the other is yellow. The other head will be covered in a while.

The eyes are gorgeously done to bring out the unique design of compound eyes. Bandai really spent lots of effort getting this done simply because the insides are so detailed before being covered by another clear material to form the eyes. The plus points lay in the area where the eyes reflect light! Like when the Kamen Riders do their henshin, their eyes light up.

Simply gorgeous. The head is beautifully and accurately done. If you compare it to the normal release, you will know what I meant. I don’t own a normal release so I don’t really know much of the existing difference.

The Body

I have a slight issue about the body. Decade’s body seems to be over-killed by the armour plates. The chest and the stomach area seemed to be out of place. What I am trying to say is that the chest looks too big for the stomach and makes the design look kind of heavy and uncomfortable.
While the piece joining the chest and the waist area is a separate piece of plastic, it gives the body two articulations. A point to take note is that if you turn the articulation between the chest and the stomach, you can see the insides of the figurine, not very nice. I was quite disappointed with that when I first discovered it. I was hoping that the stomach piece could be a larger piece of mould. But then again, that could have hindered the articulation? Maybe Bandai gave a lot of thoughts in this so I didn’t bother to post a picture of the problem.

The Belt (aka DX DecaDriver)

*Using the same picture as reference

I think this figurine is a budget release considering that it is in mass production. Probably Bandai has set out to disappoint the Decade fans once again with a green blotch on the belt. Not asking the belt to include detailed drawing of the different Kamen Riders’ logos but if you are going to give us a blotch, might as well include nine more dots of gray paint?

At least that gives the illusion of the nine Kamen Riders’ logos being visible from afar. Bandai, you owe me nine dots of gray paint, I tell you!

The rest of the belt is nicely detailed. Especially the core of the belt, it is like a gem, a cherry on the cake, a gummy that looks gummy! And of course you can expect the belt to be able to open and close.

The Ride Booker is located at the right side and is detachable prior to the kind of pose you wish to have. I will be explaining that in a minute.

This figurine has got a sexy back! Nicely sculpted close to the show! Kudos!

The Upper Limb

It is connected to the body with a ball joint located at the axilla, giving you a nice articulation. However the articulation at the elbow can be annoying due to the articulation at the arm simply because many poses are highly depended on the upper limb since KR Decade’s only weapon is the Ride Booker if you exclude the usage of cards. KR Faiz probably has the same problem. Maybe it is just me? But I still want it included.
There is also a ball joint articulation at the wrist. The hands are interchangeable which will be covered later.

And the good thing is that the shoulder pads aren’t in the way, thus, making poses with the upper limb is somewhat enjoyable.

The Leg

Tsukasa is a very lean actor. Same like the upper limb, the legs are also lean, which helps me build a reference and link this toy to the show. At least it is done properly, unlike KR Faiz, you can tell that it is a guy’s leg.

The kneepads are doing their job in covering the knee joint articulation. I heard of incidents where the kneepads will just pop out if you are not careful with the handling of the figurine. Mine are strongly stuck in the places where they should be although I am afraid that the worst might happen any soon. I am not going to touch them again! Eeek!

The articulation that connects the leg to the waist provides a 45 degrees turn for the entire leg. However I feel that it is not enough. You can’t really make poses that requires the legs to split. Sigh…

Or maybe I was asking too much?

There is an articulation at the ankle as well as the foot. At least when you are posing the figurine, the foot sticks to the ground.

The Accessories

This release comes with a number of accessories which I am quite satisfied with.

These includes:
1. And extra head (which has a yellow paint on its forehead instead of purple).
2. Ride Booker (Gun mode).
3. Ride Booker (Sword mode).
4. A pair of holding card hands (both left and right).
5. A pair of weapon holding hands (both left and right).
6. A pair of clenching hands (both left and right).
7. One pointing right hand.
8. A pair of relaxed hands (currently on the figurine).

I wonder what’s with the extra head. Many fans justified that Bandai included this head in the release hoping to rectify the wrongly sculpted head in the normal release. What do you think?

Or probably it is just another reason for fans to purchase this release?

And I don’t know what the pointing right hand is for. Can anyone enlighten me, please?

The Ride Booker

The Ride Booker is probably KR Decade’s only weapon in the show if you were to exclude the usage of cards. It is located at the right side of the DX DecaDriver and is detachable prior to the kind of pose you wish to have.

And the best part is that, you can open the Ride Booker! Kudos!

And no, there is nothing in there, it is just pitch black. No, you can’t put cards in them and no you can’t even put one card in, if that’s what you are thinking…

It is pretty much expected that the Sword mode and the Gun mode comes in different pieces, which is good since people like me is prone to breaking things. I guess it runs in the family. Or not?

And of course you will need to remove the Ride Booker from the belt if you were to pose the figurine using the Sword or Gun mode. So that the figurine will make sense…

Unless you have the normal and Violent Emotion release! I was thinking of doing the illusion effects but then I am too lazy to photoshop…

Conclusion

This is a solid release. As a fan of KR Decade, this is probably a release you wouldn’t want to miss. And if you already have the normal release then this will probably make your day. I am pretty disappointed with the body (particularly the chest armour) of this figurine but it isn’t that bad if you are able to look past this minor flaw since everything else makes it moderate.

The head is beautifully done. If you grab one of this, you may want to replace the normal release with the extra head included? But then, the colour scheme is totally different so please bear that in mind.

And I somehow feel that this release is incomplete. Bandai should include the row of Kamen Rider Cards thought it was included in the normal release. I don’t mind cutting them out one by one if I have to… 😦

All right, thank you for reading!

~Tulcus