Although I have been a fan of Kamen Rider and ULTRMAN since I was a child, I did not buy the Kamen Rider hollow soft rubber series in the 90s! The reason is that the proportions of this batch of human bodies produced in 1989 were not good, and they did not even have transparent parts like compound eyes. So there is a lack of interest….
What Hong Kong people call “shirted dolls” is the MEDICOM series. For me, the proportions are too large. Although they are beautiful, they are sometimes inappropriately dressed. Leather clothes will fall into pieces after a while, and cloth clothes sometimes have too rough tailoring lines. And based on its size ratio, it is too big to launch a trailer or a car! (1/12 cars are too big for me…)
So 1/12 movable figures are ideal, but robots are okay, figures usually have to overcome joint appearance issues! Like BATMAN, it’s okay to be all black, which can hide the joints, but for leather-covered heroes like Kamen Rider and ULTRAMAN, it’s easy to see the flaws and make them unsightly.
SHF→MG→Real bone carving→FRS
So I didn’t buy the first-generation S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider because it smelled like joints and was an eyesore! But as it launched a series of Showa Knights and their mounts, I became excited. I thought, can I buy a motorcycle without buying the characters? After buying the Tornado and the New Tornado, I saw that the V3 Typhoon was not very beautifully made… I didn’t want to buy it! Then some soul-limited speculators slowly gave up collecting this series. It wasn’t until the launch of real bone sculptures that I paid attention to S.H.Figuarts again!
It turns out that as long as the proportions of the human body are well done, the joint positions can be ignored! Like the ULTRAMAN series of S.H.Figuarts, even though it is not a real bone sculpture, the proportions are very good because it is supervised by Tsuburaya! Even though it’s full of joints, the scene is so similar to the scene in the play that you don’t really care about the joints anymore!
But here comes the problem. Although Showa will temporarily launch real bone carvings from the 1st to ZX, there is no news about their exclusive carriages except for the new version of the New Tornado! For example, those who bought V3, RIDERMAN, X, and real bone carvings from Amazon can only buy the high-priced sub-carts! And even if you buy it, you will find that the real bone carving does not match the old version of the SHF. Usually, the person is bigger and the car is smaller…
So when I gave up collecting old versions of SHF, I set my sights on MG’s Showa Kamen Rider! However, Bandai only released the old No. 1 and the new No. 1, and the new No. 2 and Sakurajima No. 1 also had limited edition products! And the development of this series stopped after the launch of the OOO series…
As a result, Bandai shifted the focus of the Kamen Rider model version to FRS (Figure-rise Standard). FRS launched 555 and KABUTO a long time ago and then paused for a period of time. As a result, the Kamen Rider series was resurrected! Take Kuuga as an example. Not only have they launched almost all models, but they have even launched their special tow truck, the TRYCHASER 2000, and the finished product is also pretty good! It is suitable for FRS that is slightly taller than a real bone sculpture. I originally thought that it would be great to continue to launch an enhanced version or a direct AGITO mount that can be transformed! There was no news at all. Maybe the sales of the motorcycles were not good?
I thought that the goal of FRS was to focus on Heisei and Reiwa Riders. When they launched the retro “New Kamen Rider”, they didn’t even release the second version. I thought that Showa Rider would have no place in FRS… Yeah… even though they promoted “Kamen Rider BLACK”
Unexpectedly… Bandai recently announced the FRS model of “Kamen Rider Shinichi”. What is this?
SHF→MG→Real bone carving→FRS
Although FRS is only the first “CG preview” released, the CG previews are always not too far apart, so the accuracy is still very high!
I didn’t think the first version of SHF was beautiful, so I set my sights on the MG version. The MG version was indeed better than the SHF version back then! But after the real bone sculpture was launched, I felt that the MG body shape was not good-looking! So I believe this FRS version should be at least better than the MG version, but someone reminded me that the MG version is actually not bad, at least better than the FRS! Moreover, MG’s body shape is closer to the Heisei version of Shin-ichi and Shin-ichi (the chest and abdominal muscles are more prominent), while the real bone sculpture tries its best to restore the dilapidated feel of the Showa TV series.
So this FRS version looks a bit subtle… but at least it looks much better than the old SHF version! But I wonder if he will release Showa to the end. Even if he doesn’t finish it, at least he will release a model version of the new Tornado, right?
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