Action Figure #371: S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Emperor Kiva

  How do you make Kiva even better? You paint him in gold.

 I struck gold, pun intended, with Kamen Rider Kiva, it was my first time watching Kamen Rider, not the Masked Rider adaptation, and I instantly fell in love with it. Vampires, a shy protagonist, monsters, two storylines set in different times... it was amazing. I would then go on to watch other Kamen Rider series, but none have felt so special to me as Kiva. This is Kiva's enhanced form, Emperor Kiva!

 I love the figure. When I set out to buy him, I was looking for the stickers on the box. Some said "True Bone Carving", but the box didn't have stickers, so was it a knock off? So I decided to go for the one that had stickers on the box. Turns out this was the older release, and the True Bone Carving version is the updated figure, with a cloth cape and better proportions. Oh well, live and learn!

 I'm still quite happy with it, he looks exactly like I remember him, the gold paint they used is just so captivating, I just love to look at the guy. He's also full of different parts and details and armor pieces and the such, to the point that it can feel a bit odd to handle him, because the sculpting has so many layers and details. The eyes have a translucent red plastic set on top of them, so they are always shining, it's so cool! And the cape is made up of four plastic pieces, so you can pose it as you see fit.

 One thing to keep in mind is that he feels very fragile. Pictured above are the pauldrons, which are held onto the shoulders by a tiny, tiny hinge. His back has a lot of pieces made out of hard plastic too, so if this guy falls down... those are going to break.

 By the nature of how the cape was sculpted, it can look a bit weird from the back when fully extended, because there's this gap in between the two pieces.

 His feet feel... like they are a bit too long. It might be just me, or it might be the wing thingies on his heels, but they just look too long to me!

 He comes with the usual assortment of hands, and you can move Kivat alongside the edge of the Sword! The articulation is fairly good. He has double-jointed elbows and knees, and the legs and arms rest on ball joints. The way the shoulder pads were engineered, you can just pop them up a bit and he gets his full range of movement on his arms. He has drop-down hips in case you need more range with the legs. Both the ab crunch and the waist have ball joints, but due to the nature of his design, namely the armor plates and belt, he doesn't have too much range to play around with. His beck too, due to the shape of the helmet, can't do a lot of crazy things. He's a bit shorter than Bucky Cap.

 Oh! He also has a few doodads on his belt and on one of his arms, you can very easily pop them off if you want.

 Overall, I think he is a great figure, he looks great and he is a character I adore, so I can't wait to display him on my shelves! He does have a few shortcomings, but I think the overall figure is very much worth it.

8.5