Kamen Rider Yuuki

Here we go. The first review from me (be nice to me). What we’re looking at here is the Super Imaginative Chogokin (SIC for short) Kamen Rider Yuuki.

Yuuki is a movie exclusive villain rider which made his appearance in Kamen Rider Den-O movie, Saraba Kamen Rider Den-O: Final Countdown. I’m not really a big fan of Den-O series but I do enjoy the movie. Do check it out if you are Den-O or Kamen Rider fans. 

Yuuki is an exclusive released from Bandai so you can expect an exclusive brown box but I bought my set used and the previous owner doesn’t have it. Oh well, it’s just a brown box with some mailing detail. The box is a standard fare like all Tamashii exclusive SIC, no window and some picture of the figure inside.

The set came with two layers of plastic tray.

The first tray holds:

• the figure itself
• two shoulder pad for Skull form
• head for Skull form
• two exchangeable hand(relax and grabbing)
• left alternate arm to be used with Skull form(removable relaxed hand attached)
• a grey muffler(?)(I don’t really know what they are called)

The second tray holds:

• four parts of the den-gasher
• the Savage Gasher
• the Ghost Imagin’s sword
• a whip
• four tops

and of course, instruction manual.

Aesthetic

Right out of the box, the figure is in Hijack form, and after attaching the den-gasher to the side skirt, we’re good to go. Yuuki stands at around 18cm.

The reason I love SIC line is the detail and so far, I’m never disappointed with that department. The design is much more stylized than the costume used in the show and SIC tend to go a bit too far sometimes (like their showa riders) but I dig this design especially the left arm. In the show, it has a shovel in the end but this iteration has some claw as replacement. A lot cooler in my opinion. The paint apps on this guy is (at least on my copy) is almost flawless.

The pony tail and muffler are made from rubbery plastic material .

Having chogokin in its name, yes ,this baby does have metal in him but if you buy SIC just for the metal content, you’re gonna get disappointed. The metals are at his ankle cuff, shin, and wrist. That’s it. 

Articulation

Yuuki came from what I would say the third generation of movable SIC body, the durable and highly articulated. This guy doesn’t feel fragile at all.

His knees and elbows are double jointed, there are biceps and thighs swivel, waist joint, ab crunch, ankle tilt, ball jointed neck, toe joint and so on. Everything to be expected from today’s figures. Some nitpicking, those shoulder pads do limit the arm articulation quite a bit but not too much, at least to me. The left arm weights the arm down a little. The left arm also has a swiveling ‘thumb’ kinda thing that moves up and down just above the wrist area.

The skirt is made from rubbery material so it doesn’t get in the way all that much but when you try to move the leg forward, that rubber piece in the red circle will get in the way. Why are they there anyway? Made me feel as if I want to cut those off. The den-gasher compartment can move forward and back and swivel outward but they do feel annoying at times. They can be totally removed if you so choose.

Accessory

In this form, Yuuki is can use:

The spinning tops.

There are four tops, two that can be plugged in the palm of Yuuki and two that can’t. Both have small and slightly bigger versions. Nothing fancy. These only have meaning if used with the whip.

The whip is a nicely detailed accessory with a spine motif. Even the colour looks like a bone.

It even has a skull at the end. I love small detail like that.

To use the whip, just pull out the fist hand and plug in the holding things hand. Some effort is needed to wiggle the whip in. Another nitpick – I do wish the whip would be more pliable and stay in shape when bent like those slash harken from Robot Damashii Code Geass Knightmare. It is kinda stuck in the S shape. That’s sad.

The Savage Gasher is Yuuki personal sword and quite a sight to behold. It’s big. I atlmost looks a little silly with the two axe blades sticking on the side.

Again, the detail is fantastic but I did wish it have more paint to show those sculpted details. Despite its size, it’s really light. Do be careful with these as I can feel some fragility from it. One shelf dive, wrong angle landing can break this thing easily.

Yuuki can hold it with no problem.

Seriously.

Form change

Yuuki can change from the default hijack from to Skull form. The whole process is simple. Just pop the head off, remove the muffler, remove the chest piece, switched out the shoulder pad, close the chest, put the grey muffler on, pop Skull form head on, switch out the arm and you are done. The whole process is simple. Only the muffler is kinda tight to remove for the first time.

This form doesn’t differ much from Hijack but with all those skulls, it gives Yuuki more sinister and deadly appearance which I really like. I do wish Bandai also included a fist for the alternate left hand. Since there’s none, I opted for the relaxed open hand for the right.

Notice the tattering at the end of the muffler.

Yuuki still maintains the same articulation in this form except for the head. The back part of Skull form head is a little bigger and it starts to hit the collar of the figure. Sideways and down view is ok but this guy can’t look up that much in this form.

Yuuki came with the Ghost Imagin sword in this form. It doesn’t have that much detail compared to Savage Gasher but it is still well made. I bet it was made with the same stuff as the Savage Gasher as I can feel the same lightness and fragility but not as bad as Savage Gasher but be very careful with the tip of the sword. It is pointy and fragile.

I do wish Bandai provided a holding things hand for the left side so Yuuki could dual wield (not really show accurate but hey).

You can also remove the muffler which I feel looks better as you revealed more detail but there’s that hole which not that easy to notice nevertheless.

Just to show balancing this guy is not an issue.

Oh, I forgot to mention this in the articulation section, Yuuki can kneel beautifully but

the side skirt kinda stopping his knee from laying flat on the ground. 

Should you buy this?

So everything came down to this. Should you buy this guy? If you are the show accurate guy, the SHF is the way to go. But if you like a cool looking figure, with crazy ass detailing, excellent poseability and don’t really mind (or don’t care at all) about show accuracy, this might be up your alley. The only reason I could not recommend this to everyone is his price point. Being SIC, they are pricey by nature, and being limited will make it even pricier. This guy cost around MYR350-400 (with the current currency exchange at time of writing, about USD110-126) for a mint set. Even used one cost MYR250-300. I got a great deal on mine which is MYR180 (USD56 or so). It’s a great figure, I love it but at its market price, for a single figure, I don’t think it’s that worth it. You might want to try the other SIC Den-O series have to offer (Sword form in particular). If you really want this guy, just wait for a good deal. But if you got the money and can’t wait, go grab it.

(PS: special thanks to Jmann and ArshadAA for helping me making this. oh and not forgetting one of my bro for taking the pic for this review [amir suka h@#I%@&]

any comment and critics are gladly welcomed to improve the quality of my review next time.)