Kamen Rider Skull Crystal is a basic form retroactively introduced in Movie Wars CORE.

Although the Movie War was titled “Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider OOO & W Feat Skull: Movie War CORE”, the main focus of the W segment is undeniably on Skull, who admittedly didn’t get much backstory revealed in Movie War 2010′s Begins Night or the W TV series. Prior to MWCore’s “Message for W”, pretty much all that was known about Skull was that he’s Akiko’s dad, Shotaro’s hardboiled mentor, fought Dopants as Skull and died saving Phillip from Museum. Thus, it’s great that ‘Message for W’ provided a more detailed origin story and characterisation for Skull (albeit via a very strange plot device known as the Memory Memory…)

In addition to a backstory, Toei gave Skull a basic form of sorts, somewhat like Kuuga’s Growing Form. Skull Crystal is essentially a weaker version of Skull, with a translucent head  and lacking Narumi’s white fedora. The form was unnecessary and not of much consequence to the movie, but Toei probably wanted to make a new form to milk, like what they did with Eternal’s Red Flare form.

Skull Crystal’s head is translucent, enabling you to see what’s inside it. It generally looks great from most angles, but it looks pretty strange from the side view, since there’s nothing behind the mouth at all.

A comparison of both heads. The Crystal head lacks the “S” crack on the forehead.

This release of Skull comes with 2 fedoras (1 intact, 1 with a tear), 2 scarves (1 hanging down, 1 flying in the wind), the 2 heads, a SkullMagnum, and 2 plastic caps for the hats. The plastic caps are a nice touch. As the fedoras are made of rubber, owners of the original Skull release had issues of the paint rubbing onto the head and vice versa.

The Skull and Crystal heads are entirely new sculpts, and are more proportionate to the rest of the body, compared to the original release which had a bigger head. In addition, Skull Crystal has a really great matte coating on his body, making him look more screen-accurate.

Nothing much to talk about with regards to his poseability, since he shares the standard W-series body type.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a hand that allows him to hold his hat really well.

To sum it up, Skull Crystal’s an excellent figure which far surpasses the predecessor.

G3-X is the upgraded version of G3, from 2001′s Kamen Rider Agito.

G3-X, being a newer version of the G3 armor, shares a similar design aesthetic with G3. His design is quite similar to G3′s, apart from a different chest armor and having holsters on his thighs and biceps for storing his many weapons. Also, his mouthplate has vents on them.

Unlike G3, who has huge melee weapons and just a small gun, G3-X has huge firearms and small melee weapons.

G3-X’s gatling gun is really well executed in toy form here. Like the previously-reviewed Faiz Blaster, the gatling gun is able to change modes.

It basically folds up into its more compact form.

G3-X also comes with a huge missile that can be fitted onto the barrel of the gatling gun.

In addition, G3-X carries 2 spare ammo packs on his backpack.

Accessory-wise, G3-X is very well equipped. He comes with the various weapons and some alternate hands. Sadly, he doesn’t have an alternate hand for the saluting pose on the front of the box.

I would highly recommend G3-X (and his counterparts G3 and G4). The sculpt and detailing are very accurate, the paint is well done, the accessories are sufficient, not to mention that G3-X is a fun character.

Using the T2 Joker Memory and Narumi Sokichi’s LostDriver, Shotaro henshins into Kamen Rider Joker.

On first glance, Joker might seem to be just a lazy design, being a totally black repaint of W’s basic forms or a stripeless JokerJoker form from Movie Wars 2010.  However, he’s actually a homage to Kamen Rider Black, much like how W is a homage to Riders #1 and #2.

Kamen… Raidaa… Bla- oops.

Joker is pretty much a movie-exclusive form or a movie Rider. However, he did appear in the last episode of the TV series.

What’s really amazing about Joker is that Hidari becomes pretty badass. He thrashed Heat “Fire Girl” Dopant with an oldschool Rider Kick, and defeated Metal “Macho Man” Dopant with an equally oldschool Rider Punch.

Now, back to the figure itself. Joker’s a remold of the standard W body, except with the LostDriver instead of the DoubleDriver.

However, Joker has this really awesome flatcoat on him, giving him a nice matte texture. Interestingly, the W forms have different level of matteness: CJ was glossy, FJ was semigloss, and Joker’s all out matte.

Joker doesn’t have much accessories apart from alternate hands, since he doesn’t use any weapons or equipment. A Rider Kick/Punch effect part would’ve been nice though.

Overall, Joker’s a very fun Figuart to have, and is an essential part of any W fan’s collection.

Faiz Blaster Form is the final/ ultimate form of Kamen Rider Faiz.

Using the Faiz Blaster, Takumi Inui accesses his final form, Faiz Blaster form.

Designwise, Faiz and Blaster Form are pretty much the same, with the differences being the chest, shoulders, wrists and right leg armor. Also, the eye texturing of Blaster is actually different from Faiz; it’s closer to Faiz Axel’s instead.

The Faiz Blaster works by inserting the Faiz Phone into the Blaster itself. Hence, Faiz Blaster’s belt buckle is always empty.

Surprisingly, the red paint on Blaster Form’s head is pretty well done, as compared to Faiz’s red paint. His head is painted a shade of metallic red, with a gloss coat over it.

Close-up shot of the Blaster itself, in Blaster mode.

The Faiz Blaster can be changed into its sword mode too, thanks to alternate parts.

In addition, a effect part for the blade is included as well. It’s a nice touch on Bandai’s part; I really hope that they’ll include more effects parts in future releases.

Also, Faiz Blaster Form’s backpack can flip out to become shoulder blasters. As with the Faiz Blaster, this is accomplished via partswapping, but it works quite well.

As with Faiz, Blaster Form comes with a fair bit of accessories: alternate hands, weapons, alternate belt buckles, the Faiz Pointer, etc.

All in all, I wouldn’t say that Blaster Form is a “must-have”, but he’s not a bad figure to mess around with.

Just back  from my Dec’11 trip to Hong Kong.

Quite a small haul compared to some of my previous trips.

Revoltech War Machine – SGD34

Figma Homura Akemi – SGD39

Figma Strength- SGD32

SHF Knight – SGD68

SHF Shin Nigo – SGD40

SHF Ouja – SGD42

SHF Riotrooper – SGD29

SHF Climax Form – SGD45

SHF Accel Booster – SGD60

SHF GokaiGreen – SGD33

SHF GokaiBlue – SGD33

Ghost in The Shell: SAC DVD Boxsets – SGD17 per boxset, 4 DVDs per boxset. (These are officially licensed, with good English subtitles.)

Gundam Seed Destiny Special Edition 1/2/3 + Final Plus – SGD5.50 each

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa – SGD5.50

Kamen Rider The NEXT – SGD5.50

The DVDs are all officially licensed releases.

Just a really quick review of W’s CycloneJokerGoldXtreme form.

CycloneJokerGoldXtreme’s basically the movie-exclusive form W gets in his AtoZ movie. Powered by the hopes of the people of Futo (later rewritten as being powered by… a strong gust of wing. Yes, Inoue, you’re such a genius.), he gains this upgraded form and promptly defeats Eternal.

CJGX is pretty much CJX – silver + gold + wings. As such, his Figuart is just a repaint/remold of the standard CJX, with the main feature being the wings.

Accessory-wise, he comes with a stand, wings, hands, but no weapons. Which kinda sucks, I guess.

Sadly, CJGX isn’t quite poseable with those huge cumbersome wings on. The stand isn’t quite solid enough to handle the weight either, so I wouldn’t recommend leaving him posed with the wings flying for long periods.

Kamen Rider Eternal is the antagonistic movie Rider from Kamen Rider W’s movie, AtoZ/Gaiamemory of Fate.

Eternal, being a W-series Rider, uses the basic W body as its base template. Unlike all of W forms though, Eternal has 26 Maximum Drive slots, which he put to good use at the final battle.

Eternal wears a harness on his chest, arm and thigh, giving him the 26 Maximum Drive slots. Hence, his Figuart rendition reuses the W waist, shoulders and legs.

Instead of the Doubledriver, Eternal uses the Lostdriver. The Figuart’s Lostdriver was pretty poorly done and lacked paint details.

Eternal comes with a pretty badass cape/cloak, which gives him a very menacing look.

Unfortunately, the cape is molded in a rather dull and static posture, rendering it only suitable for a normal standing pose. You can bend the cape a bit to pose the arms, but the rubber is pretty solid.

“Now…”

“…Enjoy Hell!”

In addition to the cape/cloak, Eternal comes with optional hands and that blade/knife of his.

One flaw with the figure is that the gem on his forehead wasn’t done properly. Instead of a diamond shape, it was painted as a round dot instead. Eternal has really nice eyes though, so I don’t really bother about the gem that much.

I would say that Eternal’s definitely a must have, regardless of whether you’re a fan of the W series or not. Unfortunately, you would have to get the recently released Eternal Red Flare just to get a more dynamic cape…

Fangjoker’s the “berserker” form of W, being the end result of the wild Fang Memory and Shotaro’s normal Joker memory.

Fangjoker was pretty hyped up when it first appeared, being heavily promoted as the strongest W form (at that time). Furthermore, it appeared in Movie Wars 2010 / W Begins Night, albeit for a short battle.

Unlike the other W forms, where both Shotaro and Phillip maintained full control, Phillip goes into a raging mode in Fangjoker form (at least during the first few times; he gains control eventually).

Notably, Fangjoker had a screen-accurate W-fin that swept backwards, unlike the other W forms. Also, the Joker half was semi-matte, unlike CycloneJoker’s, which was glossy.

Fangjoker comes with 3 spikes: One on the wrist, one on the anklet, and one on the shoulder armor. The shoulder one is detachable and can be wielded as a weapon.

Bandai pulled off Fangjoker’s multiple spikes/blades by providing swappable ankle/wrist armors and shoulder armor. I had some difficulty getting them on though, since the blades are REALLY sharp.

Another point to note is that while the other W forms (including CJX) have black elbows, Fangjoker is the only one (apart from CycloneAccelXtreme) to feature correctly colored elbows. Wonder what Bandai was thinking when they did that.

In my opinion, Fangjoker’s easily the best W Figuart, due to the higher level of accuracy. The other forms just seemed to be shoddily done compared to Fangjoker.

Diend’s Complete Form can be considered as a m0vie-exclusive form, having appeared only in the Cho Den-O movie, Episode Yellow.

Let’s face it, Diend Complete Form isn’t the best design out there. He’s just a recolor of the standard Diend, but with a recolored Ktouch, the 8 cards on the chest, and the Diend Complete Card on his head. Still, I couldn’t pass on him because, well, he’s Diend.

Diend’s Ktouch is just as detailed as Decade Complete’s with the individual Rider logos being printed on them.

While Diend Complete looks relatively okay from the front (once you’ve gotten used to the cards, that is), his back is utterly boring. Unlike Decade Complete, which had those magenta stripes on the back, Diend Complete’s back was pretty much just black.

See what I mean? It’s certainly very dull.

Diend Complete comes with 1 brand new accessory: the Diend Driver in the closed mode. 

Diend Complete’s definitely not one of the more impressive exclusives, but still, he’s a must have for any Diend fan.

Standing By // Complete

A quick review of Kamen Rider Faiz/555, the titular character of 2003′s Kamen Rider 555.

I’ve had Figuarts Faiz for a while now, finally gotten around to reviewing him. Faiz’s Figuart rendition faced a fair bit of criticism upon its release, mainly due to its “fat thighs” and the lack of silver paint on his fingertips. Faiz’s thighs didn’t bother me, to be honest. The onscreen costume generally made the thighs seem thicker too, so I guess that it’s pretty screen accurate. The silver fingertips, on the other hand, appeared to have no justification at all. Releases like Kiva Emperor, Shadowmoon and Amazon had painted fingers/fingertips, so I have no idea why Bandai decided to scrimp on Faiz.

Faiz comes with a crapload of accessories to depict his equipment’s various modes. As shown above, he comes with multiple buckles (1 without the Faiz Memory, 1 without the entire phone), the Faiz Edge, the Faiz Phone (in phone, gun, and gun+pointer modes), and the Faiz Shot which comes molded with a hand.

The belt itself is very detailed. Interestingly, the entire belt is a separate, removable piece, much like The First/Next.

The Faiz Phone’s level of detailing is very impressive too.

Strangely, Figuarts Faiz has a somewhat womanly figure, especially when it comes to the rear. Faiz did have a female user, but still, this is pretty weird.

Overall, Faiz is a pretty good Figuarts release, and the accessory count more than makes up for the lack of the painted fingertips.