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Souske Sagara is an elite member of Mithril, a secret military organization in the world of Full Metal Panic!. Souske was assigned to protect Chidori Kaname, a teenage girl with an ability even she doesn’t know of. During the course of Full Metal Panic first season, Souske was handed AS (Arm Slave, a mecha in FMP series) with advance technology called ‘Black Technology’. Souske’s new Arm Slave, ARX-7 Arbalest, is far more advanced than the average AS with Lambda Driver (more on that later). With Arbalest. Souske Sagara has fought against other advanced AS units. Robot Damashii line was nice enough to include Arbalest in their line, which was a huge news for FMP fans.

SH Figuart’s cousin, indeed. The packaging has similar feeling to SHF lines, with its no-tie packaging and the overall layout of the box. However, unlike SHF boxes, the Robot Damashii box looks more vibrant with its red-stripe label and slightly more colors being involved.

Arbalest comes with lot of accessories. Arbalest comes with two heads, one with knife on its mouth and one without. Below the knife-mouthed face are 4 parts to turn Arbalest into Lambda Drive Mode. One complaint I have about accessories is that there are no trigger hands and knife-grabbing hands for left hand. So, no deal if you want to have Arbalest hold weapons on left hand.

UPDATE: Arbalest’s shotgun has three point of articulations. The shoulder stocks are on two hinge joint, and the shotgun pump slides front and back. Also the combat knife can slide into the sheath that comes with Arbalest. All these are such a nice detail that makes Arbalest more interesting.

Design-wise, Arbalest is spot-on. The ankle guards and the white piece between dark gray and navy blue on torso area are separate pieces, which really makes Arbalest look mechanical. Proportional body design, reinforced by hard plastic, also helps out the Arbalest‘s appearance.

Color-wise….

Notice the neon-yellow accents around vents and holes. I have no idea why Bandai would opt for this color. If they used cadmium yellow, it may have been easier on the eyes. Instead, the bright yellow distracts the color chemistry on Arbalest. As if the color isn’t bad enough, the paint job on the vents leave something to be desired. Half, if not more, of vent coloring has inconsistency such as bleeding. Hell, I don’t think the blue piece on top of thighs and side hip panels aren’t supposed to have yellow on them (REFER TO HERE). Does the color and paint job kill the aesthetical value of Arbalest? Not quite. But it’s something that I feel has to be mentioned since it’s a bit of eyesore.

Other than neon-yellow, Arbalest has navy blue, gray, dark gray and white. Solid presentation of Arbalest.

Arbalest has good amount of articulations. The elbows are double jointed, as well as the knees. Torso has three joints, including the white piece between dark gray and navy blue. Shoulder can rotate and spread open-wide, but because of shoulder pads the arm spread is heavily limited. Same goes for toe-joint, where there barely is any articulation. The hip joint articulation is slightly limited, as the blue pieces on top of thighs doesn’t allow 90 degrees leg lift straight-up. You may have to pivot the leg sideways a bit for that to happens. Head’s on double-neck joints, and ankles are on ball-peg joints. Overall, every articulations SH Figuarts have, Arbalest has them too. They just don’t exactly work well.

To swap the faces, pluck off the face pegged in the middle of head and replace. Sometimes the face without knife doesn’t want to come out, so might want to really dig your nail into it.

So what is Lambda Driver you ask?
Lambda Driver is one of the Black Technology device where an AS pilot’s emotional thought pattern can transform into a raw energy that can be used offensively and defensively (think AT Field from Evangelion).

To put Lambda Driver accessories onto Arbalest, replace the shoulder pads and two back pieces with yellow holes on them with proper Lambda Driver pieces (above shown are default pieces taken out in order to place in Lambda Driver pieces).

The Lambda Driver accessories look decent enough. The flaps between shoulder pads could’ve been tiny bit longer and colored gray. Other than that it’s decent enough.

Side-to-side with Revoltech Levatein. Surprisingly, Arbalest is almost in-scale with Levatein. Levatein is still short by about ¼ inch at most, but still looks great standing next to Arbalest.

Knife Fight!!

And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be.
In nomine Patri
Et Fili
Spiritus Sancti

VERDICT:  3.5 Chidori’s paper fans out of 5

What could’ve been a excellent toy is marred by bad choice of paint and slightly limited articulations. Still, the play-ability with large amount of accessories (which are missing few things) should interest enough people. It’s a good toy, just fell a bit short of my expectation seeing as how I’m quite a fan of Full Metal Panic series. Recommended to Full Metal Panic fans mostly, although I won’t stop you if you want to wait till Revoltech version of Arbalest comes out.

‘I will become the only Agito!’

Saint, that’s one word to describe Kaoru Kino. A former surgeon, he was praised for his brilliance. However, he lost his right arm due to winter expedition accident with his brother, where he received transplant of his dead brother’s right arm after the said accident. Despite his loss of license, Kino still performs surgery for those that desperately need his talent. After Akatsuki-Gou incident, Kino evolved into Agito (or rather, Another Agito). Obsessed is another word, as he started attacking Ryo and Shouichi to become the only Agito. However, towards the end, Kino realized his mistake and  fights alongside Agito.  Bandai released SHF Another Agito for those that loves Kino-sensei (like Vangelus‘ subtitle friend)

Another Agito comes with 4 pairs of hands (2 fists already on figure itself) and two wing scarves. There are two sets of head, one which reveals Another Agito’s teeth (pre-Rider Kick head) and the one which seals the teeth. The hands themselves look phenomenal, as each finger joints have grooves on them and the overall look has organic feels to them.

The name of the game is details, and Another Agito scores really high on it.

Immediately you will notice an organic overall look, with grooves, veins, and serious muscle tones. The body mass feels different as well, straying from the lanky look of usual SHFs. It’s like one day, someone in Bandai got sick of some people bitching about how SHFs are skinny and decided to give them a big FUCK YOU by injecting Another Agito with some serious steroids. The bodywork looks bulky without being too bulky, an exact look from Agito series. Front to back, there are just in-surmount of details which further elevates Another Agito aesthetically. The scarves are attached to wings, which even has feather details molded in. Bandai really took no prisoner with Another Agito’s detail works. It’s not just molded details that work, it’s also the paint job. The helmet has a gradient paintjob to it, and every paint apps are done excellent. As Vangelus pointed out in his Another Agito review, the shoulder armor does feel naturally set onto AA’s arms, but it’s not just the shoulder armors. Even though AA has two different tone of greens (armor and the rest of dark green have slight discrepancy in contrast), they work together so well that the entire color scheme feels natural. The only nitpick I can think of is that Agito symbol on AA’s left shoulder has no red outline, but that is easily disregarded.

Another Agito still maintains the usual articulations. His scarves can rotate around due to its ball pegs, and his head is on double-jointed neck as well. His ankle joints are ball peg  joint, much like Domon Kashuu SHF. While not as versatile as triple ankle joints, it does help maintain the ankle details while having good amount of ankle articulation. Let’s face it, that ankle bracelets are pimp. Even with insect legs sticking up, the knee articulation is not hindered in any matter due to the insect legs being soft rubber (same with arm insect legs).

To switch the heads, simply pop out one head and peg another head onto the ball peg on top of the neck. In few occasionals it may take more than one try but most of time, its relatively easy to replace heads.

Another Agito’s henshin belt looks terrific as well. There are numbers of pieces carved in and molded in. Even without using clear plastic, the center of belt manages to look semi-realistic.

You may be the ultimate Agito in the series, but I am the ultimate Agito in Figuarts world!!!

Yes, I’ve seen this in a movie somewhere. I believe it was called Face Off….

Hey you, Imagin!! Come here and fight me!!
…What did you call me??

(well, he does kinda look like Imagin without the mouth-guard…albeit frightening Imagin)

Lesson of the day: Never call Kaoru Kino ‘Imagin’

VERDICT:  5 FUCK YES YOU ARE TEH ULTIMATE AGITO! out of 5

As far as Kamen Rider SHFs go, Another Agito is by far the best. With rich details, show-accurate proportion, great articulations, and good enough play-ability, Agito triumphs over all Rider figures so far (will see when IXA and Double come out next year). Absolutely recommended to Agito fans, and even general Kamen Rider fans. Maybe this will finally get you to watch Kamen Rider Agito if you haven’t already.

Hana first appeared in front of Ryoutaro searching for her Denliner pass in first episode of Kamen Rider Den-O. Since then, Hana and Ryoutaro, along with four imagines that we all know and love, went back and forth in time to fight against evil imagins and Kai (quite possibly the worst Kamen Rider villain ever). I’m not sure what the original intent was, but Hana was changed to Kohana towards the end of series due to the fact that Yuriko Shiratori (actress portraying Hana) would rather focus on Gravure DVD than to finish what she started. Some time after the debut of SH Figuarts line, Bandai decided to manufacture female model of Figuarts. Hana is the first official female Figuarts to be released to the masses.

Not a bad box. Wine purple and all.

Hana comes with two optional faces and an extra pair of hands. I’m willing to be lenient on accessory issue since, a) this is first and experimental figure when it comes to female Figuarts figures and b) Hana really didn’t do much except slapping around Momotaros.

You can exchange facial expressions by taking apart Hana’s hair and installing different expressions, much like Domon Kashuu SHF.

Hana’s look is based on Girls in Uniform: Kamen Rider wave 1 line. In that case, it’s an interesting and nifty take on Hana. Everything is in proportion and looks pretty cool for what it’s worth. Hana’s skirts, bodice, and shirt have good details, as skirts have imitated engravings on their edge. The shirt itself even has micro bumps here and there to replicate the fabric type. Overall, a solid translation of Girls in Uniform Hana.

The biggest problem comes right off the bat, when trying to Stand Hana up straight. Granted, when you get it right, Hana does stand still decent. But it takes hell of a lot fiddling just to stabilize her. Her ankles are on same type of joint as her wrists, which makes it hard to position the feet right. Ball joint like Domon Kashuu would’ve worked better, but for some reason Bandai made things harder with this revoltech-type joint. It doesn’t help that her feet are small and flat.

Hana still does have good amount of articulations. However, as mentioned above, the ankle joints are also hard to move around, which makes posing a bit of chore. Good news is, the rubber skirt doesn’t hamper the movement as much as I thought it would.

Hana can pull some nice and sometimes funny poses. Such as this:

Let’s see how much of wrestling fan you are. Can you recognize any of these moves?

Hana standing side-to-side with Momotaros. Hana stands at about 5.5 inches.

VERDICT: 3 Momotaro’s bruises out of 5

SH Figuarts Hana is a tough figure to recommend. On one hand, it’s a nice take on Hana in anime version and a good first try on female Figuarts. On the other hand, the stabilizing issue and lack of accessories may make lot of people turn away from it. It doesn’t help that Hana’s unfortunate connection to Yuriko Shiratori and hatred towards Shiratori from most Den-O fans could lowers the appeal more-so. Recommended to hardcore Den-O fans for the most part.

you know.. Im not going to lie to anyone.

I did not like Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. ‘Twas a bad movie, but that’s a whole different discussion for a whole different time. The toys where actually pretty good as Stan has pointed out in his various reviews for the blog: the figures themselves are pretty neat. While he’s off collecting all the scout class for the most part, I decided to stick to my guns and collect all the larger scale figures that came out in the movie, a practice that I’ve been doing since the first TF movie: a collector of all on screen characters, and Rampage was one of the more surprising choices I’ve gotten.

Rampage’s alt form is a huge ass Caterpillar D9 Bulldozer… reduced to a size of a regular deluxe figure size. In this mode, the figure feels a bit frustrating, especially when trying to align the figure with it’s pistons that are on the front. It’s in a nice bright yellow pain scheme, as far as a Bulldozer is concern: it works.  It’s nicely detailed overall, really capturing how the Rampage looked in the movie. Transitioning from his alt mode to his first robot mode is pretty hard at first, and most likely this will be the first attempt:

But for once (GASP) Hasbro made the instructions understandable to some extent, even though you’ll be confused as a 5 year old in a porno theater for the most part, but it’s pretty clear cut as to how it’s suppose to go.

As we shift from his alt form to his in-between form, it becomes apparent what the problem with the figure is when we hit this form, apply called the Jackhammer form. In this form, it sort of resembles how we saw Rampage in the movie: a giant ass pogoing robot monster… that was red. I’m sure someone at Hasbro was pretty peeved at Michael Bay and ILM for doing this, but that’s why we have repaints and customs. In this mode, the back shove piece becomes a stand and his feet are his jackhammer, again, not seen in the movie, but for practicality sake, I’ll allow it. His only Mech-Alive gimmick comes in this form as you attack the pistons to his upper legs and when you lift up the legs, it does a piston motion of going up and down as the legs thrust down. Now you can detach all the back stuff and make him go off in his own, but if you want to stand the figure on it’s own in this mode… you’ll be SOLed.

With a few simple spreading of some pieces in this mode, we finally get his spidercrab mode, aka Ze Small One mode. If we are going into the argument of accuracy, this is the mode you see a “Rampage” go underwater and get taken a few pieces by the Doctor with. Yes he was yellow. In this mode, he stands pretty tall, a few heads shorter then 1-Go that standing next to him (he was the only figure in arm’s length that was there for me to use as reference.This mode is my personal favorite, it’s stable and it’s esthetics are unique for a transformer, it’s not that articulated, but his unique design and his evil Crab-like look just makes him a good centerpiece to have with your other ROTF toys.

Another unique aspect is how it was constructed makes for this figure to have tons of fanmodes, I can’t list all of them off the top of my head for ovious reasons (too many to list) but a search online can bring up many, MANY of these modes.

Overall, this figure has a lot of playability for it’s price. It’s a bit frustrating for novices to get a solid grasp of it’s transformation, but for an expert and want more playability and something more then just a run on the mill figure, then Rampage is a must buy.

‘I’m just a passing through Kamen Rider. Remember that.’

Kadoya Tsukasa is an amateur photographer who uses Blackbird, Fly 135 Twin Lens Reflex Camera. One day, he appeared out of nowhere in front of Hikari photo studio and has been taking picture of anything that comes across since then. However, all the peaceful atmosphere would break as the alternate dimensions collide and threaten the existence of all the world, including the alternate rider worlds. Tsukasa, along with Natsumi Hikari, travels through the 9 rider worlds to prevent the complete destruction. This is the how Kamen Rider Decade began. Decade may be over (as it ended last weekend), but Bandai released SH Figuarts Decade to keep the journey going.

PINK!! PIIIIIIINK!!!!!!!!
GOD, MY EYES!!!

Decade comes with 4 pairs of hands (including the one attached already), 3 modes of Ride Booker (the book mode, blaster, and sword), and cardboard Rider cards. The Ride Booker opens and closes in book mode, and the Rider Cards are great additional details which Bandai could’ve easily ignored but didn’t. Sadly, the card collection does not contain Final Attack Ride card like Diend. But if you have internet and your google-fu is strong, you can make your own Final Attack Ride card.

The 4 pairs of hands are fists, open-hands, grip-hands for weapons, and card-grip hands.

Bret Hart would be proud.

Decade comes sporting his signature plastic pink, black, and white color scheme. The picture may not seem like it, but the plastic pink has more neon pink contrast in real life. So the color really depends on the degree of lighting.

Decade himself looks pretty accurate. The bodywork contains show accurate details on his armor, as well as the overall color scheme matches the real life counterpart. Fists look good with details, and his head looks very accurate. One bit of warning though, is that his black head crowns are very flimsy. So be careful when you move his head around.  Also, maybe it’s just mine but the green lens pop off for some reason. Intentional or isolated QA issue, I don’t know. But it’s weird.

Everything looks solid. However, there are some paint apps done shoddy. Pink would be seen bleed over black on shoulder armors and couple of painting flaws are apparent. Also, the lack of finishing on the paint diminishes the appearance a bit, as the pink parts of Decade looks flat up-close.

As always, Decade comes with heavy amount of articulations. Again, this may be just my SHF Decade, but the right shoulder is slightly more loose than left. It’s not too severe to the point the shoulder joints are floppy, but it is irregularity.

As for Deca Driver, it looks decent enough. There is no 9 rider symbol engraving, but that may be asking too much (even though it would be nice).

KAMEN RAIDO…

KABUTO!!

ATTACK RAIDO…

CLOCK UP!!

FINAL FORM RAIDO…K-K-KUUGA!!
This will tickle a bit
Wait what?

…this isn’t exactly what I had in mind

Decade side-by-side with Kuuga. They’re about same height.

VERDICT: 4 ONORE DICKAIDO! out of 5

If SHF Decade is an apology for SHF Agito, then it worked somewhat. Decade would’ve been perfect had it not been for some paint app mishaps and QA issues. Still, the figure is great overall with lot of play-ability and show accurate details. The figure works the best if you own any other SH Figuarts. Definitely recommended to Decade fans and SHF fans.

Click Here for the liveblog link

in anyrate, the new movie is coming up and the figures for it are pretty nifty for the most part. Using a lot of borrowed and new 25th and Modern Era bodies and styles, the Rise of Cobra Line has been a hit with the fans so far. This one is one of the more unique figures in the line as it does share a body with a Modern Era Joe that was petty meh at best and with it’s sheer amount of accessories, it made for a decent little figure.

Just like The Baroness figure that I reviewed Earlier this year, this figure is based on actor/douche Channing Tatum. But for some reason, he looks 30% less Douche-y in this figure, he almost comes off being more COD4-ish then anything in this figure. (not to say that Channing Tatum is still a Douchebag)

The first thing that I saw that struck me (other then looking like a COD4 NPC) is that he’s a lot more cleaned up then the prototype figure we saw earlier this year in Toyfare and at Toy Fair 2009, But like all good things, things change before they are release and even though it looks like a good overall figure, some of it’s Pre-Production stuff still lingers.

As I mentioned earlier, the figure itself it based on an earlier mold from the G.I. Joe 25th/Modern collection, to be more precised: it’s based off the Entertainment pack Dusty. The articulation is good, but where it sort of fails is with the huge Flak Vest duke has, it hinder it’s articulation just a bit, but you can take it off… but he ends up looking petty Plain Jane after that, doesn’t help that the cameo print was not applied to the parts in the flack vest.

Accessory wise, he’s pretty armed to the teeth, he comes with a Machine gun with the Cannon strapped at the barrel of the gun (Can’t remember the type worth my life. You can see it above), he also comes with a Helmet w/ Night Vision Goggles, a Backpack, a handgun and a small Nanomite warhead.

Whats interesting to note is both the Nanomite warhead and the Gun. In my Baroness review, I made mention that the figures would have some peg hole to put guns on their hips. It seems now the concept was scraped at the last minute and thus, Duke has a choice as to what he can bring with him on his mission. The Nanomite Warhead does not fit in any of Duke’s Arsenal at the present moment, but it does fit in one surprisings place: In the Baroness’ Briefcase. The final version of the figure is also empty, but the nanomite warheads fit in her briefcase perfectly. One last thing to note is that the figure comes with an Embarrassingly huge missile launcher that I didn’t bother taking out. If you read my Baroness review, you pretty much know my thoughs on such a thing.

OVERALL

this figure is pretty good, it has a lot of flaws and a lot of interesting backstory to it, but if you want your Joes with less X-men uniforms and more of a realistic taist, then check this figure out, it’s pretty good.

‘Awaken the soul!’

Shouichi Tsugami is a man with amnesia who loves every aspect of life. By day, he takes care of Mana and her brother while living in professor Misugi’s home. However, when a hostile life forms known as ‘Unknowns’ attack humans, Shouichi transforms into Agito and fights off unknowns. After releasing Kuuga, Bandai recently released Agito in SH Figuarts form.

Agito comes with two hands and a face plate.

…wait what?

Just two hands?

uh….

maybe I missed something… maybe few of them slipped out or something….

…..

SON OF A BITCH!!

Yes, Agito comes with only two extra hands. This is quite fucked-up, since he doesn’t come with the pre-rider kick hands.

Case in point:

Notice the hands in above pic. Now,

See how awkward it looks now?

They had enough room to include two extra hands, yet they didn’t include straight open palm hands. This officially makes Agito the figuarts with least accessories overall so far, and it’s quite disappointing.

Despite the lack of hands, Agito figure itself looks good. One gripe I have with Agito is that his feet are very glossy compared to his overall body. At least with Kuuga, Bandai tried to match the body parts in unison. Here, Agito’s feet look quite metallic while the rest of his body parts look plastic.

His henshin belt looks pretty good with nice sculpting and clear yellow plastic in the middle.

As always, Agito retains the usual articulations much like other SH Figuarts. One odd thing is that his ankles don’t pivot sideways as much as other SH Figuarts do. Agito’s ankle moves sideways short of 1 degree, compared to other SHF figures. Despite that, Agito’s pose-ability is still great.

One unique gimmick that comes with Agito is the interchangeable face plate, which allows Agito to have full-crested head. All you have to do in order to change Agito’s face is, pop the face out by digging your fingertip into Agito’s chin and then peg the full-crest faceplate onto his head. It’s a nice gimmick that doesn’t require more packaging space and easier to apply. However, you have to wonder how long the pegs will last in long term since the pegs are plastic.

When applied, the full-crest face looks excellent on Agito.

The faceplate exchange gimmick does allow funny moments like this:

OH GOD WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY FACE?!!?!

Why won’t you love me for who I am?

Side-to-side with Kuuga. They look very cool right next to each other.

VERDICT: 2 Clumsy Hikawas out of 5

Out of all the SH Figuarts I have, this one is the most disappointing figure so far. That’s not to say Agito is terrible figure, as Agito itself looks great. It’s just that his lack of extra hands and couple other gripes cuts the figure’s potential greatly. Recommended to hardcore Agito fans only, otherwise you can skip this one.