Wow, SHODO Delta and Garren? Failure Riders Unite! I heard Delta was so bad at being a Rider, that he gave Garren tips on being a terrible Rider!

(I'm sorry, I just watched Episode 06 of Blade. It's a very Tachibana-heavy episode, which is to say it features a ridiculously pathetic Tachibana performance. I love him so much. He's the worst.)

Tachibana: "Dude, you gotta believe me, this belt is killing me, it's gonna make me disintegrate, and I'm so terrified of turning green and exploding!"

Mihara, who has seen 90% of his class killed by trying to wear one of two belts and just wants to go home: "Yeah, seems legit."

MIHARA: "Wait, it's killing you and you don't want to wear it? Why?"

I believe for Agito, that only leaves G3, G3 Mild and Exceed Gills? Fake Agito if you really wanna push it!

Kabuto and Blade of course still have a lot to go, but Faiz only has to do Axel, Blaster, Psyga and Orga I'm pretty sure!

I'm pretty sure that all checks out!

The real question is, why Kick and Punch Hopper first? Why not Gatack, the secondary? Or TheBee, the bee Rider? Are they popular? Easy pair of releases because they're redos of each other?

Well the hell brothers did show up in Zi-O...

:lolol

The Hell Brothers are intensely popular, yeah -- even Gatack doesn't compare to how much clout these two get; they're practically memes!

Like, even Seihou decided to do those, yet it's been years and we haven't even seen Tamashii Event showfloor models of TheBee, Drake or Sasword. They're just that beloved

I think this is like the third time I've been informed of the Hell Brothers' immense popularity, and I'm still surprised everytime. Maybe I should watch Kabuto sometime to figure it out... right after I finish R/B. And do X, so I can finally get that "has seen some Showa" badge for flaunting purposes.

Hey, so was Kiriya, and most Hibiki fans will reply to this message to tell me he doesn't exist!

RIP Leangle. They will be dearly missed.

Okay, SHODO.

All these excellent pictures of Riders of dubious effectiveness have got me interested in maybe adding these tiny mans to my other collections of tiny mans. But, in trying to get an idea of which older figures I might want to grab, I see that there are three series of SHODO: VS, X, and O. Am I getting that right? How do they work together in one collection? Am I going to look at, say, Kiva (from VS) next to Kaixa (from O) and think they look awful? Or are they pretty good together? I got an OOO and a Birth already (from VS, I think?), are those still pretty representative of the SHODO output?

I'm really thinking about trying to nab some of these figures, but I'm curious what SHODO collectors think. Is it worth going back to VS? Anyone got a good site to find older boxes? (I zero percent want to buy cases with Showa stuff I got no use for.)

Thanks in advance, and I don't know why I even come to this thread when I still have to buy food and pay bills.

Just stop eating, Die. Food is such an expensive product, and what do you have to show for it? Nothing. (Please don't do this).

In actual helpful info, the three types of SHODO do, in fact, work together - the letters on the end are more in terms of rebrands and spin-off lines than any major differences. Basically, we have

SHODO-VS: The first line, ended a couple of years ago. Called as such because they included at least one villain per wave, such as Doras, Tigerroid, and other less memorable ones. They managed to do close to every Showa rider, plus a few others. Chase figures were used occasionally, so if you ever go looking and see a Kabuto box marked as "Dark Kabuto" for silgithy more money, that's why. It was eventually 'upgraded' (aka given a new name to refresh sales I imagine) to...

SHODO-X: The current 'mainline' of SHODO, focusing primarily on main Riders and their bikes. They've gone and redone pretty much every Showa Rider with their bike, which do look better, as well as continuing the Heisei series _ think, minus Den-O, you can have all main riders up to OOO hanging around together, and they all scale fine!

SHODO-O, short for SHODO-Outsider, started the most recent, and focuses on building around the main SHODO-X range - villains, secondaries, popular characters, etc. I think they cost like 100 yen more than your typical SHODO-X, and so have slightly better paint and accessories? I've not actually bought any. I also haven't made a wiki page on them, so I Know what I'm doing today. I *do* know they scale perfectly with normal SHODO, so if you manage to pick up, say, Faiz Kaixa and best-Rider, they'll look great together.

As for buying them, ummm Mandarake? Idk, I don't know anything outside of that. The problem is that, unlike SO-DO, they don't do a "buy only one of everything" set, only an "Assortment of 12", so unless you can split them up, you have to hope the second-hand market will provide. Hope this helps!

Unfortunately, SHODO boxes don't even come with a piece of gum or (disgusting) candy, so I have to choose!

Thanks for the info, and thanks for updating the Wiki. That's the first place I checked, and when that came up empty, I decided to go to the source!

I'd looked over Mandarake, AmiAmi, and Jungle for older boxes, but it's a very limited selection. (At least for Heisei characters.) I was just curious if someone had the inside track on a SHODO-heavy retailer.

Thanks again! Youhaven'tbetrayedus!

Suruga-ya.com is another place that does a lot of candy toys. Though most of them will be opened already.

From what I understand, the smaller candy toys are just not very profitable for online retailers. They were really meant for impulse buys at grocery stores.

I'll check 'em out! Thanks!

(Also, that signature image! Outstanding!)

The wiki now has all the SHODO-O info on it! I wish I could put it somewhere else that isn't wikia, but it's the simplest place.

Excellent work! +3 Rider Points, and Oren Pierre Alfonzo commends your industriousness and attention to detail. Please update your TokuNation scorecard accordingly.

My scorecard says "Brain won't let me rest if I don't get it all right", is it meant to do that?

welcome to the kamen rider fandom, akibasilver

Actually question, does the combined price of two SO-DO boxes cost more then 1 SHODO box? If so why does SO-DO have so many stickers sometimes compared to SHODOs none?

I think Shodo retails for ~400 yen, so definitely cheaper than two boxes of SO-DO. SO-DO's come with stickers to allow them to do finer detail, and put the money into sculpt and articulation.

Shodo-X (and VS) are ￥500 per box
Shodo-O are ￥600 per box (they come with more accessories and paint)

SO-DO (Main line like Zero-One) are ￥400 per box.
SO-DO Chronicle are ￥450 per box.

Not sure who gets what where, but the Gaim SO-DO and 4th wave of SHODO-O are up for preorder on AmiAmi and HLJ. I guess they're probably up everywhere? Get those orders in!

Not exactly sure how much it applies to Kamen Rider, but for Gundam gashapon toys, the designers are allotted a budget for each wave of figures. A really nice figure in a wave means the wave is also gonna get a goon or repaint.

And sometimes a line of toys is not profitable at all (due to a combination of costs, sales, and associated popularity), but the line will continue as a legacy sometimes at a cost to Bandai. The high quality SD Gundam Gashapon Senshi Forte line being an example. The SD gashapon were such a crucial part of Gundam's early popularity that it would be shame for the line to end today.

And when a line gets to that point, the designers often make figures of stuff they personally admire or know for sure will sell because its older. In Kamen Rider's case, the Showa figures which appeal to older buyers uninterested or lacking in time for stickers and assembly. Also, the Heisei phase 1 riders are much less complicated than the phase 2 ones.

Source: they often talk about this aspect on the gashapon blog https://gashapon.jp/blog/?p=7758

That being said, all the SHODO I have are super impressive. More articulate than SODO, better detailed, and great paint applications for their size (significantly smaller than SODO). My Ichigo figure even has drop-down hips to allow him to ride his bike! The plastic is altogether different from SODO, being much softer and most often sublimated rather than molded into the color.

Unfortunately, SHODO are even harder to find than SODO, otherwise I'd probably be collecting those!

The practice of budgeting for a wave (versus budgeting per figure) is pretty common in other toy lines. Transformers, for example, will do one figure in a wave that's absolutely slathered in paint, while another figure is 99% molded plastic. Same thing with figure sizes (Cliffjumper is tiny, so Hoist can be larger.)

What's weird about SHODO availability is that price doesn't seem to enter into it. There's hard-to-find SO-DO, but all that really means is you might have to pay more to get it. (OOO Series 1, for example.)

SHODO, it's all either 500 yen or nowhere. It's like there's somehow no aftermarket for it. Crazy to me.

Finished painting the Quartzers for now.

https://i.imgur.com/uHUU976.jpg

I thought I was done with Barlckxs earlier, but I had missed all the panel lining on the belt, some silver on the abs, and even a little red on the shoulders. Also painted the knees, hips, elbows, and shoulders flat black. Not sure if it shows up on camera.

https://i.imgur.com/pnogYno.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GmIiuo3.jpg

Didn't have the right blue or brown for Zamonas, but I think my substitutes worked fine. I really like how much the panel lining and painting the armor bits silver change the look of him. He's the one I should've waited to sticker as I had to paint around a lot of them.

https://i.imgur.com/BaYYb4w.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CvaMoYx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oDKp0m8.jpg

Zonjis turned out better than I thought. My green isn't dark enough, but it does look good with the dark green. Also finished the gold and added the red to the robe, added the the silver to the arms, and even the white on the head. Also painted boob missiles. Because the sticker ripped.

https://i.imgur.com/CFzfJR5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WjERxJl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rGYeuRV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/2zzwkTS.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hSVCkpJ.jpg

Wait the stickers for Zamonas's ride watch holder doesn't go all the way around the wrists and forearm?

Those forearm bands are normally painted on most Zi-O Riders and even then only half of it's painted (and no stickers for the rest). Zamonas and Barlckxs are just using incomplete stickers in place of incomplete paint. And I totally forgot to finish Zamonas's bands. Eh, he's silver plastic. It's fine.

I don't know if there's a SO-DO activity that feels more like unnecessary busywork (bordering on an actual Bandai prank) than adding black stickers to Build's HawkGatling Hazard Form. I love stickering up SO-DO, but... it's almost impossible to know if you've got them lined up right, because they are the exact same color as the plastic. I put two stickers on the leg before I just went What In The Hell Am I Doing?! This is insane. This is insane.

Ha, it's mainly a matter of a different sort of shine between the plastic and the stickers. I can't remember which is more matte and which has a bit more of a shine, but I swear if you look closely there's a difference.

It is, hand-to-god, virtually indistinguishable. You would have to a) genuinely stare it, and b) have been the one who put the stickers on in the first place. The stickers are shiny paper, while the figure is shiny plastic. They are both pure black. It's bonkers. It feels like a contractual obligation, like they were required by Japanese law to include a sticker sheet, no matter how irrelevant. It's almost a critique of figure customization. It is a satirical sticker sheet.

Ah, that sounds frustrating then. I remember being quite surprised when the So-Do blog first showed the figure coming with stickers. I believe the guy running the blog at the time commented on it, but I don't remember what he said.

Got Ride Plus 2 stickered yesterday! They all came out pretty well, outside of Ginga's eyes being a bit asymmetrical. While I miss the extra eye detail we've lost out on ever since eyes started being painted, I don't miss the struggle to put them on symmetrically. Hattari and Diend are my favorites of the wave, so they get the two stands.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a2f95dcf...f675983521.jpg

Ignore the melatonin bottle, Ginga's cape makes it impossibility for him to stand on his own

Iirc, the choice for stickers in the Hazard box was to give *some* variety of texture for the figure, as well as to have a little less bare plastic on display.

In other news, I've been putting together a Build box, so it's time for me to ramble about... Ex-Aid?

https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net...58&oe=5F411BFF

Bet you all forgot about these guys, huh? A pair of V-Cinema forms for two of Ex-Aid's most popular side-characters. Well, they got a release in BUILD 8, which is a pretty essential box for any Build collector (I'll leave it up to you to guess why), so I'd suppose that lots of people just have these anyway. And they're solidly alright!

Lazer-X is a design I never really liked. It's effectively Lazer Level 3, but covered in a weird shade of blue. In hand, though, he's not so bad. The blue is nice in person, and the stickered flame decals add some nice detail. His downside, however, is down to his basic build. His core body is still the same bike Lazer released all the way at the start of Ex-Aid, and while it does help me imagine just how Lazer goes from a bike to a human, it also massively hinders his articulation. Also, his arm construction means his right shoulder just pegs out all the time, and the angle of how it's constructed means you have to disassemble his shoulder to peg it back together. Static, he looks great, but it's hard to find a decent pose.

We also have Wide Genm, using the form that everyone and their aunt made a mock-up of back when Maximum Mighty X debuted, and then it became real and kept getting released before the protagonist's version because Kuroto moves merch. It's weird. But anyway, he's pretty good! The design is striking, with Maximum Mighty X's bulk done up in purple and black looking much nicer than Lazer's blue. He doesn't come with a stand, the plastic going into bulking him up enough that he is a presence compared with your typical SO-DO. Not much taller, but thiccer. His big problem is his feet. I was expecting the footbads to have balljoints in them, to connect to the leg. Instead, he just has normal sized feet which "peg" into footbads. The peg does not like to stay in. Posing this guy below the waist is a pain, which is a shame, because his articulation isn't bad for being such a lorge boy.

https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net...58&oe=5F3FEE62

Overall, they're good figures at core, let down by a combo of things. Genm's is just the footpads tbf, but Lazer is hurt more fundamentally. Between his design choices being hard to realise, along with what I can guess is the team not having found their footing yet - this comes from SO-DO's 2nd or 3rd wave *ever*, and it shows. I'm glad to have them, though. God Maximum is my only Kuroto figure, and I quite like the Lazer Vs Genm film, so I'll take what I can get.

I really enjoyed reading this review of these two figures (I haven't done Build 8 yet), but this throw-away line feels like a personal attack. Kuroto?! KIRIYA?! SIDE-CHARACTERS?!?!

Kuroto, I'll give you, but Kiriya is busy being trapped in a video game cartridge for half the plot!

That's just a testament to his greatness, that he can be inactive for that long and still be the best character on the show.

Also, he's only gone from the middle. They need him in the beginning to get kids excited about the show, and they need him in the end for the heroic finale. The middle, you can give that to secondary Riders like Taiga and Emu.

Maybe the true secondary Riders were the friends we made along the way.

Oh, and also because I forgot I took this until just now:

https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net...b4&oe=5F41179D
You may not like it, but this is peak physical performance.

Gemn's true final form.

Those hips don't lie, but every other part of him does.

Thanks, I hate it.

Yes! Got Ikazuchi and the standard Humagear courtesy of Akibasilver.