Favourites from Tamashii Nations 2016

Last weekend Bandai Tamashii Nations held their annual Tamashii Nations event, and as usual it was packed full of new items from the likes of S.H. Figuarts, S.H. MonsterArts, S.I.C., Super Robot Chogokin, Soul of Chogokin, Hi-Metal R and more. As usual a lot of these items will probably never see release (I’m personally still waiting on the Kikaider REBOOT Figuart from 2014) but it’s always fun to speculate what could be coming soon. Here are my five personal highlights from the event, based on the items which were available for photography and not on display for attendees only.

And as usual, there was absolutely no sign of Kamen Rider Kiva at the event. Because why break tradition?

Toybox REVIEW: S.I.C. Kamen Rider Gaim Orange Arms

Bandai Tamashii Nations may have been providing collectors with highly articulated show-accurate Kamen Rider figures with the S.H. Figuarts line for over eight years, but they also have one line that's been doing more interesting things with your favourite tokusatsu characters for much longer. The Super Imaginative Chogokin (or simply S.I.C. for short) line has been going strong for the past  18 years, creating wild and highly detailed reinterpretations of characters that go far further than any suit could. Running a few years behind the current Kamen Rider show, the line has now begun tackling the highly popular Kamen Rider Gaim - pushing the traditional armour styling of the suits even further to the point where it looks like they could have jumped straight out of the history books. The first of these releases is of course Kamen Rider Gaim Orange Arms, with Kamen Riders Zangetsu, Baron and Ryugen soon to follow.

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.