Wednesday 19 July 2017

Toybox REVIEW S.H. Figuarts -Shinkocchou Seihou- Kamen Rider Accel


Release Date: June 2017
RRP: 6480 yen

Last year the S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou line made its first foray into villains and secondary Riders with the release of N Daguva Zeba and Kamen Rider Gatack, but as expected both figures came as Tamashii Web exclusive releases. However with S.H. Figuarts premium offshoot now covering the immensely popular Kamen Rider W, Bandai Tamashii Nations are shaking things up a bit. S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Kamen Rider Accel is the first secondary Rider in the line to be released at retail, with Kamen Rider Skull arriving later in August as its first movie Rider.



Kamen Rider Accel comes in the usual Shinkocchou Seihou two-piece box style packaging, nicely decorated with a big headshot of the figure on the front/lid. As usual the spines are solid black with the figure’s name written across in silver foil lettering, while the underside features a handful of stock images against a pristine white backdrop. Inside the contents are spread across two white plastic trays – one for the figure and one tucked underneath for the accessories.




Admittedly all of the original Rider Figuarts who now how Shinkocchou Seihou releases look extremely dated, but even back in its heyday Accel was a particularly problematic release. So much so that the release of Accel Booster even included a more accurate headsculpt for the original. Of course there’s nothing like to worry about here, and instead you have perhaps the most perfect Accel you could ever hope for at this scale. Yes it doesn’t transform, but accuracy is the priority with this line and Tamashii Nations have done exactly what they set out to do. From the cherry red and silver metallic paint to the various bits of motorbike paraphernalia dangling from the suit, Kamen Rider Accel is six inches of perfection. The wheel on his back is even free-spinning, as absolutely pointless as that is. As well as looking notably different to the other W Riders, Accel is among the more unique Kamen Riders in the franchise and a figure that perfectly captures his base form is long overdue.





Similarly articulation is exactly what you’d expect from Shinkocchou Seihou. Kamen Rider Accel sports the usual ball-jointed head, neck, shoulders, wrists, torso, abdomen and hips along with double-hinge elbows and knees with ankle rockers and hinged toecaps. Despite the bulk chest the waist joint has plenty of forwards and backwards bend (although pushing too far forwards may result in the Driver popping out of place), while the shoulder pads are attached via the usual levered ball-joints to give them some clearance when posing the arms. Even the ankles, a point of articulation which can be hit or miss for Figuarts, are perfect - with plenty of sideways movement to ensure balance in the most dynamic of poses.





Accessory-wise Accel comes packaged with 10 additional hands, an alternate head with lit-up visor and his signature Engine Blade weapon. As expected the Engine Blade looks absolutely fantastic, with Bandai not just perfecting the sculpt, scale and colours but also including an opening gimmick to store the Engine Memory just like the toy itself. The really nice touch here though is the alternate head, which could have so easily been forgotten about even in this more premium line. Getting a Figuart with a working LED function still seems like a bit of a pipedream (though not impossible, as Tamashii have displayed an LED-eyes Kamen Rider Black in the past) so this is the next best thing – allowing fans to recreate some of Accel’s coolest shots.




Of course accuracy is everything with these figures, so they just wouldn’t be complete without a bunch of tiny Gaia Memories for you to easily lose. Kamen Rider Accel comes with both the Accel and Engine Memories, which can fit inside their respective Accel Driver and Engine Blade slots. Both Memories are amazingly detailed for something so small, but because of their size handling them is still terrifying. Thankfully the Accel Memory fits nice and firmly inside the Driver and the Engine Memory goes into a sealed compartment, so once they’re inserted there shouldn’t be too much chance of them going AWOL.



It’s probably no surprise to anyone to hear that S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Kamen Rider Accel is another winner for the line. It’s been three years and the Shinkocchou Seihou range is still yet to put out anything less than perfect, and with secondary and movie Riders now on the cards for retail releases as well as exclusives it feels like there’s more possibilities than ever before. Kamen Rider Accel is every bit as brilliant as Double was, and at this stage there’s little doubt Skull and Eternal (release date pending) won’t turn out just the same. The currently-airing Rider Figuarts are always going to be the hottest topic, but these are the figures you don’t want to miss out on.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you have the original release? If so, do you know if the knee guard can be removed and replace one on the renewal? My carpet stole yet another figuarts piece and I'd rather just buy the first edition since it's priced at an all time low lol.

Alex said...

Unfortunately I never had the original release, so can't give a sure answer sorry! In my experience the connection for the kneecaps tends to be the same, but the difference in colour/build might not make it a good fit.

Gabriel said...

God this figure rocks

Any word when Eternal SS is being released?

Alex said...

January 2018 as a Tamashii web exclusive. Preorders are already up through middlemen services!