After taking these photos and uploading them onto WordPress, I suddenly realised I forgot to crop them. But as promised, I will write about the SHF Masked Rider Kabuto. Mysteriously the figure wasn’t inundated with light compared to yesterday even though I placed the lamp in the same position.
The red parts of the armour are done in gloss. Unlike Kick and Punch Hopper, Kabuto does not have any chrome parts despite official product photos showing him to have chrome silver knee pads and details on the thighs. Instead, it is done in a drab silver which makes the colour consistent across the whole figure. Strangely, this figure seems to be suffering from bow-legged syndrome. Perhaps I had a bad one.
The head horn is hard plastic along with the rest of the head while the Kabuto Zecter on the belt is made up of soft plastic.
Obligatory rear view.
These are the weapons and extra hand parts provided. Sadly, the Kunai Gun comes in 2 forms instead of being two-in-one like the SH version, giving it less playability. Also, its size is reduced. The hand parts provided include a pair of open palms, Tendou’s signature sky-pointing hand as well as a pair of weapon-gripping hands.
Mysteriously, the colour balance of the photos was changed starting from the above one. I turned the camera off when preparing for the next group of shots and I guess the low battery power resulted in the inconsistency of photos. Blame it on my old rechargeable batteries that seemingly run out of power less than two weeks after charging them.
This is Kabuto with his Kunai Gun in Gun mode. The hand grips the weapon tight enough for it not to fall out by itself. Holding the weapon is achieved by forcing it into the grip. The hands are not made from hard plastic, allowing for some flex in them.
Pardon the blur shot, it’s Kabuto with his Kunai Gun in Ax mode. Strangely, I could not get the camera to focus when I took this shot, no matter how long the camera was pointing at him.
Lastly, it’s the Kunai mode, a separate part entirely, unlike the SH version where it is pulled out of the gun.
Kabuto in his signature sky-pointing pose.
“Walking the path of Heaven, the man who will rule over everything.”
Kabuto in preparation for his Rider Kick. In the show, he does it by pressing the Kabuto Zecter’s leg buttons in sequence…
<< ONE, TWO, THREE >>
Pushes the horn lever right and announcing,
“Rider Kick…”
Before pulling the horn back to the left, with the Zecter announcing,
<< RIDER KICK >>
The articulation of the SHF body is good enough for it to achieve the always well-timed finishing move.
Like all the other SHF figures, Kabuto uses the standard base body which consists of the following:
- a joint in the head and one in the base of the neck,
- a swiveling joint in each shoulder with the shoulder armour capable of lifting off the shoulder,
- rotation along the axis of the arm,
- double elbow joints,
- double wrist joints (one ball joint in the hand and one Revoltech-style joint),
- ball joint in the upper torso,
- ball joint in the waist,
- pelvis ball joints capable of bending downwards from the waist to improve leg articulation range,
- rotation along the axis of the leg,
- double knee joints,
- triple ankle joints and
- foot joints in the die-cast feet.
This gives the figure a whopping amount of articulation range. While the knee joints are now tighter compared to the SHF Rider 1, 2 and V3 which were extremely loose and had lots of play perpendicular to the joint (ie. left and right), my gripe with this figure is the bow legs it has. I would say that the figures with do not have any of these problems would be the Kick and Punch Hoppers. Also, some people may complain that the waist and head are too narrow, giving it a skinny silhouette instead of the bulkier form the SH version has.
