Toybox REVIEW: S.I.C. Hakaider (CR Kikaider S.I.C. Version)

Pachinko is a game Japan seems to take very seriously, and judging by the vast number of high quality and innovative machines produced starring various anime and tokusatsu franchises it isn’t hard to see why. Just one example among them is 2015’s CR S.I.C. Kikaider machine, which featured new interpretations of the Android Kikaider cast based on Bandai’s Super Imaginative Chogokin line. With Tamashii Nations releasing a brand new Kikaider figure based on that design at the end of 2015, it was only a matter of time until his arch rival Hakaider joined him. Released as a Tamashii web exclusive in February 2016, this new Hakaider figure brings the character into the modern era of the S.I.C. line – continuing onwards from the minimally articulated Kikaider figures that helped build the line at the very beginning.

Toybox REVIEW: S.I.C. Kikaider (CR Kikaider S.I.C. Version)

While today Bandai's S.I.C. (which stands for Super Imaginative Chogokin) toy line is most reserved for "monstrous" and more detailed redesigns of the various characters from the Kamen Rider franchise, it didn't start out that way. In actual fact, the first five figures in the line (along with many other entries in its early years) were actually from Kikaider. Now 17 years later, the two-coloured android hero has returned. Based on the redesign that appear in the CR Kikaider S.I.C. pachinko machine, this is a brand new Kikaider figure that shows just how far the line has come in that time. No more minimally articulated figures that easily fall apart, these days the line gets the full Tamashii Nations treatment and stands proudly as the S.H. Figuarts older and more alternative brother.