I don't know what to tell you. I could make the same comments of "where is the SHF Standard Build" since that one comes with even less than Saber and with a dull red/blue metallic paint. Never seen much ppl talk about that. Or how ZI-O's pink isn't as bright and neon pink as the actual show suit or its P-Bandai counterpart and again has pretty much nothing as well.

I guess all I can answer is: there is no SHF standard Saber. I can say it's Dragonic Knight, but few would be convinced otherwise since it's P-Bandai and isn't the base form.

It sucks that these are the mishaps plaguing a main rider's release, and we've seen that Tamashii Nations know this, too. Are they gonna do anything about it? Probably, probably not. In a perfect world, I wish they'd go back to having the main rider just be 40-50$ like the rest and keep its quality up par with a standard release.

It is frustrating that Build doesn't come with accessories (and he should), but at least what he does have is done well rather than having glaring flaws all over the figure like the main riders that came after him. It's just a shame that this line isn't doing anything to counteract its flaws and is instead content to just keep diving down into mediocracy.

It's pretty far from that, in all honesty. Quite a bit of the red on the arm doesn't match up and looks a lot darker than it should; and what articulation is there is heavily hindered and in service of a pretty meh product. It's higher quality than a model kit, sure, but not in any way that actually matters. At least a kit would come with stickers for the driver and not skimp out on accessories.

Maybe Bandai should improve RKF so it can serve as the "main line" while SHF stays as an expensive collector line, eliminating the need for barebones entry-priced releases.

I mean, that's pretty much what they've been doing with the RKF Saber line. RKF is pretty fucking fantastic for its price point(especially the Saber releases) - I genuinely don't see how they could really improve it much further. We have torso rotations for figures that hover between 8USD to 15USD(only time it's higher than that is for big releases). Gimmick/budget line figures in the past hovered around 30USD AT LEAST and never had that(in fact, most of these lines sacrificed articulation for playability).

I think RKF will stick to its motto, "it's cheap and it moves", until the very end.

The crazy part is that RKFs to this day are DIRT cheap, to the point that Bandai is probably barely breaking even by manufacturing and selling these figures. I've never seen any other product line that is literally always on sale - even if you pre-order it. I cannot find a single website or retailer where you can actually buy these figures at full price.

I want something closer to Hasbro's 6-inch stuff in terms of quality and articulation. But like you say, sales probably aren't strong enough to justify it. Anyway, back to SHFs.

I strongly feel the same way. Something like Lightning Collection would blow my mind. Our next Rider will be the 50th anniversary series Rider, so that might egg Bandai on to start a completely new line of action figures. They've said some pretty concerning things about whether or not RKF will continue after Saber, which could lead to a new line, as well.

I still have a huge collection of 6-inch gimmick figures from past Kamen Rider series and at the end of the day, I still appreciate the quality. They were not cheap(even for their time), but they were cheaper than SH Figuarts and it was just nice to have an alternative that was close to 1/12 scale.

Honestly, no. I'm far more content what SHF has to offer than Hasbro. I've seen way too many and much more unforgivable mishaps (unpainted morphers, missing paint, inaccurate colors, wonky proportions fight me). I'm also not a huge fan of their gummy plastic. It's supposed to encourage play with it, I guess, but it doesn't mean I completely vibe with it. "But it's 25$", yeah, and entry Rider SHFs are 30$, maybe 28$ depending where you live.

That's hilarious; you just described a good amount of Figuarts(Kamen Rider, especially), which is less forgivable, given that they're sold at much higher prices. If the top of the line 1/12 scale figures can't get everything perfect, there's no way in fuck that the budget lines are pulling it off, either. Compromise is everywhere.

And how many Rider SHFs nowadays are sold at that price?

I'd rather pay $25 each to pick up as many Riders as I wanted from a series, than 1 main character per year.

It's pointless to compare the two lines, anyways. Power Rangers fans don't have a lot of other options, and neither do Kamen Rider fans. It's not like a Lightning Collection-esque line for Kamen Rider would have any impact on SHF Kamen Rider releases.

Entry Rider SHFs are 30$ if you have a fast enough internet connection and good enough luck and the free time to get in on the 1-minute pre-order window in the early hours, otherwise it's about 50$ on mandarake