[Toys] Souchaku Henshin Series: Kamen Rider Kiva

Hello, ghouls and and goblins! I received this guy a couple weeks ago, but decided to save him for Halloween given his design.

This entry in the Souchaku Henshin Series is an interesting one, for it's the LAST show to have the armor removal gimmick. Once SH Figuarts took over as the standard Kamen Rider figure line, Souchaku Henshin devolved into the gimmick-based toylines we have today such as Fourze's Module Change Series.

That said, let's BITE down into this spooktacular figure!

At this point in the engineering, things in the Souchaku Henshin line were already pretty close to what we have today in SH Figuarts. I will say now that while I believe Den-O's figure is pretty alright as a standin for a non-existent Figuarts Den-O, I think this guy... isn't quite as lucky.

The last of his kind to have an armor removal gimmick, what is there to say here? Well, for one, the helmet removal is completely gone now. With Den-O you at least had a removable face piece, here it's all solid and in place, and well sculpted at that.

The things he comes with is rather limited, I must admit. Once you put all the armor on, the only things he has left on the table are spare hands. I would've liked if he came with some kind of accessory or weapon, but that's the thing; Kiva's base form has no weapons.

I'll also explain the hands here; Fists, splayed open hands, item-holding hands, and standard Souchaku Henshin articulated hands. Like with Den-O, the last pair has no wrist joint to make him feel more like a Souchaku Henshin release. If I had to comment on anything here it's that the item-holding hands could get potentially ruined because they have a layer of crackable red paint, and you need to flex them open to fit items in. A potential danger to look out for. 

The armor assembly is pretty simple. I like how, given the nature of Kiva's design, he essentially has a metal vest that's incredibly shiny and--it's hard to photograph, so please excuse the quality.

If I had one complaint it's that you have to fidget with the arms a bit to make everything attach properly. If I may also point out, you can now see the two joins the shoulderpads have; more on that in a bit.

The articulation is more or less what you get from Figuarts, give or take a few limitations. Interestingly, this release has balljointed wrists, which the Den-O figure lacked (it used the peg system the hands already had built in.) He can assume some good poses, but...

Okay. First off is the shoulderpads. I do not like these things. You saw the joints they have; even with these two different hinges, they are hard to work with. In fact I'm fairly sure those hinges were just for the sake of attaching the armor since they serve such little purpose in posing him. You can have him reach out all the way to the side, but if you want to make him reach forward (like the picture above) or reach straight up, the shoulderpads require you to suspend your disbelief somewhat and pretend nothing looks out of place.

This is not really a fault in the toy design, no; it's the costume design that has awkward shoulderpads which only work in an actual costume, because a costume can have these made of a flexable material; when made out of solid diecast, you can't really do much with 'em. You can still have him assume a few good poses, mind you, but it's still rather annoying trying to find poses that work.

While he has no weapons, he does have a small gimmick of sorts; in order to recreate his Rider Kick, you can remove the foot piece and open up the shin armor to reveal the bat-like piece featured inside. Given the simplicity of Souchaku Henshin it doesn't really look like a bat, but if you use your imagination...

Also due to his mass amounts of diecast, you'll need a display stand in order to give him the kick-to-the-sky pose he has when he's about to jump.

Overall, do I like this guy? He's definitely not without faults, but yeah; I do. I think that it would definitely be worth picking up if you're not still waiting for a Figuarts release. He blends in well with the Figuarts releases (shiny diecast aside) and should be articulated enough for your interests.

Now then, I've run out of new things to review. Let's see what the following months bring me as we draw closer to the holiday season. Have a good Halloween, everybody.