Kamen Rider Den-O Sword Form and Momotaros Imagin
Greetings my fellow brothers and sisters in toys collecting. Ghost_XIII reporting in here to bring you yet another review. This time around, I’m gonna introduce you guys to something quite special. This is the first SIC I’ve ever laid my eyes on (although not the first I’ve purchased) and what sparks some interest in me about toys that I’ve left for a long, long time. I present you, the Super Imaginative Chogokin Volume 42: Kamen Rider Den-O Sword Form and Momotaros Imagin. Also, this will be the first two-pack review from me so expect a long review.
The box is clearly themed after Sword Form (I’ll be calling him just SF onward) with a nice shine of metallic white / silver for all the words. I won’t be judging the packaging so let’s move on.
Love your country, not your government. Stand up my brethren!
*Ehem*
Out of the package, all the goodies are served on a single tray and sadly this volume was released in the age where Bandai R&D budget went into sculpt and articulation research and they haven’t discovered the double clamshell technology. Trust me, there’s a lot of twisties than it looks here. You will be getting:
For SF:
-the front and back piece of the chest for Plat Form (just PF from now on)
-the ‘face’ for PF
-the Den-Gasher in sword configuration
-Den-liner/Rider pass
-alternate belt buckle for PF
-two thigh plate for PF
-a small “blade” for disassembled Den-Gasher
-two splayed open hands
-two holding things hand
-one right thumbs up hand
For Momotaros:
-two alternate face (half opened eye and closed eye)
-his sword
-a cup of coffee and a saucer
-two splayed open hands
-two holding things hands
-a right hand meant for holding the cup
and of course, instruction manual.
To kick things off, let’s start with Momotaros. This is the “after contract” version (JoshB did a review on the limited “Uncontracted” version which you can read here ) so he is all coloured up. Design wise, he does not differ too much from his on screen counterpart which I guess not a bad thing as this guy have a somewhat cartoony role in the show so not having a beastly-looking design is a plus. Despite all that, there is no mistaking some SIC element is there with all the pimped out details. The clear red used on him adds even more pleasing visual queue.
I do wish his teeth can be closed a little bit more. It’s like he’s gapping his mouth here.
Dat ass.
Sadly, there is no gokin at all on him.
Articulation wise, this guy is almost perfect and I kid you not.
He have double jointed elbow, bicep swivel, double jointed knee, thigh swivel, ankle tilt with some forward/backward movement and a toe joint. The ab crunch and flex is a little limited but there is a nice waist rotation.
The head can look down and up effectively and sideways motion is no problem.
If a figure can pull off an Ironman pose nicely, you can bet it’s highly poseable.
One slight nitpick is at the forearm. The “sleeve”(I guess you can call it that) have no locking place what so ever and they tend to rotates around the forearm when you fiddle with the hand which can be a little irritating.
Moving on to the accessories, Momotaros has two alternate faces with different eyes, half closed and totally closed.
The face is on a peg and to switch them out, just pulls out whatever faces Momotaros is equipped with and plug in the face you want.
The peg on mine do not stay as tight so most of the time, my Momotaros will look like this…
A coat of clear nail polish should fix it up.
The faces really did a good job in putting some emotion in to this figure in tandem with the articulation.
“*Zzzz…*”
“One more push…..”
Next up is the cup of coffee and the saucer.
For such a small item, it’s nicely detailed with those pink and blue creams just like in the show.
To hold the cup, Momotaros is given quite a weird right hand to hold it but it does the job pretty well.
The saucer has no specific hand to be used with.
“*Slurps*”
“Ah….”
The final piece of equipment Momotaros could use is his sword. It is nicely detailed with design faithful to the show. Momotaros can hold it nicely. If you bought the first release of this pack, you will be getting an unpainted version of this sword but made from pure diecast which sadly I don’t have :(.
“Come at me bro”
As a conclusion, Momotaros is a fun figure to mess with. His looks, articulation, accessories, all tied up nicely in this package. I’ll talk more about it at the end.
Continuing on, lets look at PF.
OK, the figure is in SF at first but seeing how SF is like and upgraded form for PF so I start with that. Feels wrong to start with an upgrade and then downgrade :p.
This is by far, the plainest SIC I’ve ever seen but it is acceptable as PF in the show is a lot plainer than this.
As plain as it is, some SIC touch is there like the rivets on his chest but that’s really it. Nothing much is going on him.
Dat ass (again XD). Seriously, if Bandai ever went bankrupt, Takeya and Ando should really consider becoming a plastic surgeon.
The diecast on him is just nice(for me at least ;p) to give some satisfying weight to him. They are at his wrists, shins, ankles and the buckle of his belt.
Articulation wise, he is identical to Momotaros with the exception his toe could not point downward. One thing that bumps me, his Den-Gasher holster could not rotate forward or backward. It looks like they can but I can’t move the one on mine so I’m not gonna push it and break a somewhat expensive toy. They can move outward though, and don’t really get in the way of posing.
The only thing PF can use in this form like in the show is the Rider pass. It’s a neat accessory with the printing of Den-O’s emblem like the one in the show although you can’t open it up to slot any card which I don’t really care about.
As nice as it is, I doubt you would play with him in this form all that much so lets HENSHIN!!
*Insert SF SFX here*
To change PF to SF, the process is very simple. Just remove his face, chest and thigh plate and replace them with the one for SF. Note the ‘empty’ front part of the belt.
“Ore”
“Sanjou!”
Here is the main star of the set. At first, my reaction is just “Meh..” when I see him in hand (probably I’m being pampered too much by the OOO SIC line ^^;) but upon closer look, this guy aesthetic is quite good. There’s not much redesign going around but the SIC treatment works great on him like the etching on his chest and the techno, mechanical look of his head.
This is the correct way to attach the Den-Gasher parts on the holster if you really are a stickler for show accuracy :p.
Left
Right
Do be careful when trying to attach the Den-Gasher parts on as the peg on the holster are small and quite thin. The force I use to push the Den-Gasher part in can be a little scary considering the nature of the holster’s peg. I heard story the pegs broke and the broken part stuck in the Den-Gasher :O. Wouldn’t want that to happen.
Articulation is 100% identical to PF. I also found out that the hole for hands on the left hand is a little too big for the hands’ peg to effectively grip so the hands really like to slip out when holding stuff. Again, clear nail polish to the rescue.
“Ironman Mark SF: After having problem thinking about a new Ironman armor, Tony Stark apparently made a contract with kaijin outside the Marvel universe and come out with this design.”
In the accessories department, as you can see from the previous pictures, he got the “Ore Sanjou!” signature hand and also in this form, he can use the Rider pass.
The final accessory for SF is of course his sword.
The sword can be disassembled down to the individual part of the Den-Gasher. A small “blade” part will be used to replicate the separated look of the sword. That small part doesn’t like to stay in all that much. Just a bump is enough to dislodge it. I wish Bandai provide us with one solid piece sword and the disassembled Den-Gasher parts separately. It’s quite cumbersome to combine and disassemble the sword plus the combined sword is not as solid as I would like although it will stay attach. Also, the blade that looks like an axe is removable but you don’t need to do that.
SF can hold his weapon nicely but trying to put the sword in his hand requires some force and a lot of patience. The holding things hands on my copy are molded too closely and not much space to wiggle the hilt in. I ended up prying the hand open and forced the sword hilt in which make me worried about breaking the fingers at the knuckle. The hand is somewhat flexible but I don’t want to push my luck.
The upside for that hand is they can hold the sword really tight.
Overkill?
Overkill. Plus I don’t know how to pose when dual wielding ^^;.
A little sneak preview of my next review 🙂
“Any last wish?”
So, should you buy this?
YES. Absolutely yes. This pack is one of, if not the best SIC release ever made. Judging by what you gonna get, how the whole things gonna feel and look, what the figures do, I highly, HIGHLY recommend this pack.
Some people might felt a little forced in buying Momotaros (like me :p) but after fiddling with him, it amaze me how fun it is handling him and there is so much emotion that can be put into the figure. But its kinda sucks that you gonna need all the four(five if you consider Sieg) Den-O Imagin to get the maximum play value out of him.
For SIC fan, you love or hate Den-O, this is a must have. Even if you are not an SIC fan, if you love highly detailed, highly poseable, and good for display toys, you really should give this pack a try. In fact, if you want to start collecting SIC, I highly recommend this pack for a start.
The price might be a little off putting for people who are not used to SIC (bought mine for MYR190 (about USD60 or so) by the way) but honestly, if I’m not constraint by my student’s life budget I would pay up to MYR250. It is just that good. So if you can find one for the price you are comfortable with, go get it. I highly doubt you will be disappointed.
And so, that wraps up my review for this time around. Hope you enjoy it and as usual, any comments or critics (positive or negative) are always welcomed. Ghost_XIII here, reporting out :).