Kamen Rider Blade

Greeting my brothers and sisters in toys collecting or to whoever it is that is reading this. Ghost_XIII here, reporting in to bring you guys yet another review. For this time around we gonna look at one of the infamous series from the SIC which is the SIC Volume 35 Kamen Rider Blade. Get ready to see the word ‘blade’ a lot :p.

Kamen Rider’s fans surely know who this particular rider is so I’m not gonna talk about the background of the character. Why infamous? There was once, a dark time where the SIC line is plagued with fragile joint and the SIC series for Blade is infected with it. So if you buy a new one, there are high chances that the joint may have cracked or broken inside. I’m quite fortunate to bought mine used and the joints are still in a good condition. So lets get on with the review.

Just a normal box themed after Blade. If you find any volume of this SIC with a black theme, those are actually just extra outer sleeves with the normal box inside which shows the one you bought is a rerelease of the same volume with no differences whatsoever except for a Hero Saga booklet included inside. Mine is the initial release by the way so no said booklet.

Inside the package, everything is laid out on two plastic layers. You are going to get:
The first layer:

-Blade himself
-Blade Rouzer
-King Rouzer
-King Form’s armor parts(head, chest, shoulderX2,forearmX2,shinX2,thighX2)
-alternate red ‘horn’

The second layer:

-Blade Rouzer’s holster
-fanned out Absorber’s card
-splayed open hands(left and right)
-holding things hands(left and right)
-heel attachment thingy(left and right)
-effect piece
-King Form’s armor parts(back, bicep coverX2, thighX2, shinX2)

and of course, instruction manual.

Right out of the box, you need to attach the heel attachment thingy(I don’t know if there any English official name for said part) to complete the figure.

Blade redesign is one of the designs that I would say quite extreme. This is clearly not the Blade you see in the show but it is still Blade in essence. I don’t know how the screen-accurate purist gonna evaluate this but I like it. The details are crazily abundant. One of the minor complain some SIC fans have is the base body is black in colour compare to the dark blue used on the on-screen costume. Duh…this is SIC for crying out loud, its not show-accurate to begin with. I don’t care :p.

The buckle is not flippable by the way. No biggie.

The diecast on Blade is quite decent and give a bit of heft to him. They are on his forearms, shins, kneepads and his belt buckle. The one on the forearms really like to fall off.

Surprisingly, the articulation for Blade is great. The huge shoulder pads(they are on ball joint connected to the back armor) do limit some degree of arm motion and his leg can’t move outward all that much because of his thigh armor but I don’t find much difficulties when posing him around.

The arm can bend really nice even though its on a single hinge. One thing I find a bit weird is his left knee can bend further than that. Other than that, he got a nice waist rotation, biceps swivel, thighs swivel and a toe joint which can only point downward.

Blade can look up and down nicely unaided by the waist joint.

Surprisingly, he can assume the Ironman pose but I highly recommend that you don’t try this in fear of the joint breaking ^^; .

What’s Blade without his personal er….blade, the Blade Rouzer.

The details are insane. I just cant get enough looking at it but sadly the paintjob on my copy is kinda sloppy. The Blade Rouzer’s blade is diecast by the way.

Just like in the show, you can fan out the cards on Blade Rouzer but sadly, the back of the cards are blank. Maybe fine printing technology is not that advance back then.

Also included is the Blade Rouzer’s holster which is meant to be attached to the left thigh. You need to remove the default thigh armor beforehand.

The Blade Rouzer is a tad too big I think and looks quite awkward inside its holster while equipped on Blade. To use Blade Rouzer, a ball-jointed holding things hand is included and it does a nice job in holding the weapon.

Despite the diecast blade, Blade’s joint can actually support it. I find it very ironic that the joint of a figure from a series known for fragile joint can actually be this strong. I’m lucky I guess?

Next on the accessory list is this clear red ‘horn’ meant to show Blade before he kick an Undead to oblivion.

To equip it, just remove the default clear ’horn’ on Blade and peg in the red one. This gives Blade a lot angrier looking cranium which I like more.

The red ‘horn’ is supposed to be used in tandem with the effect part. The Blade Rouzer’s blade is removable and the rest can be slotted in the effect part to show Blade thrusting his sword into the ground before delivering any of his rider kick.

Enough with the default form and lets transform.

To change Blade to King Form, the whole process is quite involved. You gonna have to strip Blade right down to the core and armor him up.

Be very careful with this particular part. They are meant for the King Form’s shoulder pad. They do not feel fragile but I’ve heard people breaking theirs and I can see why. Be very careful when you push the shoulder pad in or removing them as quite a strong force is required and if applied at the wrong angle, will break this particular joint.

Here is the King and he is gorgeous. He is more or less similar to the on-screen counterpart but that head, I really like how his SIC-fied face looks. Its quite mind boggling as how the sculptor managed to carve all the 13 Undead on his armor. Makes me want to look at the smaller SHF and Kiwamii Tamashii version to see how it turned out. Little trivia, King Form first demonstrates his combat ability in episode 35. Well played Bandai.

That peg on his back does stick out too much for my liking.

Two complains from me. First, is his colour. Sure, you can tell its gold just by looking but I wish his gold is more lustrous like Kiva Emperor. Second, unlike the default form, King Form’s paintjob is sloppy. Particularly on the Undead carving. But you cant really see it from a distance so I guess that’s ok.

As for articulation, true to the show, King Form trades the default form’s agility for more power. The arms are a lot more restricted by the shoulder pad. But one trick I found out to give the arm a lot more wiggle room is do not push the shoulder pad all the way in. Sure, they will fall off quite a lot but by doing so, you give the shoulder pad the ability to move around thus freeing more space for the arm to move about. From the waist down, it’s the same deal as default form.

The head can’t really look up or down effectively even with the help of the waist joint.

As for accessories, King Form came with his Absorber. Its already equipped on him but it is removable.

The card on the side is removable and can be swapped out with the fanned out version.

But just like Blade Rouzer, the cards are blank which make this little gimmick feel useless to me.

Also packed in is King form signature weapon, the King Rouzer.

Just like Blade Rouzer, I guess King Rouzer was painted during an earthquake or something.

There is a hole at one side of King Rouzer where you can peg it in on King’s back.

Surprisingly, even with more mass and a bit more heft than Blade Rouzer, the joint have no problem in holding King Rouzer.

I’ve read some review for this volume and all of the reviewer mentioned King form could not assume his pre-royal straight flush pose. I humbly proof they are wrong. King Form can do so.

No trick whatsoever. I didn’t even use the shoulder pad trick I mentioned earlier but it is quite scary to push those joint into position ^^;.

Heck, I can even do the full sequence of that finisher with King Form.

For some ridiculous awesomeness, dual wielding!

But with the arm restriction, its quite difficult to put him in most pose I can think of.

So, should you buy this?

I don’t think I ever mentioned this before but the list of series of SIC that have fragile joints are:
-Blade
-Ryuki(this is the worst in my opinion)
-Faiz
-Agito(Just the G3 and G4 set)
-Hibiki(some people say Hibiki series is fine but I’ve seen some volume from that series breaks so I guess I just include it in.)

With that in mind, before buying any of the mentioned series try to meet some of these criteria:
-Get it as cheap as you can.
-Buy a used set(if it didn’t break with the old owner, favorable chances it won’t break on you.).
-You know how to repair broken joints or know someone that can.

So is this volume worth it? I will have to say YES. Looking at it as the usual SIC release, this set is awesome. I love how the default form looks and I love King form even more. Everything is gorgeous and there is so much stuff packed into it. Sadly, this set is quite rare and thus, pricey. Although suspectable to breaking, Blade SIC line is quite sought after.

Even with the joint durability issue, I really have to say that the things this set does right outweigh that issue by like a ton. It’s worth the hassle with this set. The fact it didn’t break on me make me loves this set even more. I’ll review the next Blade series I have in hand which showcase the breakage issue.(Hint, take a good look at Chalice.)

And finally……

I cant help but to put this picture in. This two will be my favourite for a long, loooooong time.

And with that, it’s the end of this review. I hope you guys enjoy reading it. As usual, any comments or critics(positive or negative) are always welcomed to improve my review. This is Ghost_XIII reporting out :).