[ryan]

Hailing from the show Kamen Rider Decade, Kaito Daiki uses the Diendriver to become Kamen Rider Diend. Traveling from world to world, the self-confident sneak-thief's goal appears to be to steal each world's greatest treasure, while annoying Tsukasa whenever he can.


Main Figure
This Figuarts is primarily a repaint of the previously reviewed Kamen Rider Decade, (with only a new chest, shoulder pads, head and belt buckle), and as I stated in that review, its age is really starting to show. The more I shot this gallery, the more I was subconsciously comparing it to the other figures I was shooting it with, and the more apparent the flaws, or just old design, became. I didn't have as big an issue with it when I shot Decade, but that's probably because I was mainly shooting him solo, or with Diend.

While Diend and Decade have what appears to be the same number of joints, in the same places, the motion of the joints is much improved in newer figures, particularly those from the Blade and Gaim lines, but even Fourze and Den-O are pretty obviously superior. I was usually able to get Diend into the poses I wanted, but it took a lot more futzing with than the newer Figuarts, and gaps like to appear between certain joints, such as the lower torso and waist piece.

There are two specific drawbacks to Kaito's articulation, and that's the neck, and the backward motion of the body. The design of the character kinda makes Kaito look like he has no neck, and the execution of the toy means he effectively has no neck. He gets maybe 1 degree of downward motion, and maybe 1 and half degrees of upward motion. In other words, practically no up-down movement at all. And while he can lean forward alright, this figure can barely lean backward. Couple that with the inability to look up or down, and Diend is limited to looking forward and sideways. It does limit the personality of the toy a bit.


Accessories
Something that's always been a driving reason for me to collect Figuarts is that they (usually) include a plethora of accessories. However, SH Figuarts Kamen Rider Diend is a little bit lacking in that area. He's not as bad as SHF Agito Ground Form by any means, but he just doesn't feel like he has a lot. So what does he have? Hands, cards, and a gun. That's it. Okay, there's a little bit more to it than that.

Diend has 4 pairs of hands: a pair for punching things, one for holding cards, one for holding other things (like the Diendriver), and one sorta calm open hands, or maybe for reaching like he's going to grab things. The hands are nice and painless to swap, but I don't know if the problem is the ends of his forearms are too small, or if Kaito just has giant hands, but the look kinda out of scale. Obviously, Tsukasa had this problem too, and I don't think I brought it up, but the hands on these figures look a little too big.

The Diendriver looks nice, sculpt- and paint-wise, but it does nothing. It doesn't open, there's no slot for a card, and sadly, there's only the one. SHF Diend Complete comes with 2 Diendrivers, one open, one closed, so you can more accurately simulate Diend putting a card in, but this version only has the one, and I consider that a fairly significant drawback.

Finally, Kaito includes a sheet of cardboard, with 9 cards nicely printed on it, twice. As with Decade if you want to use them as cards, you'll have to cut them out yourself, so that might be a small drawback, and they're quite thick cards, unlike the thin plastic ones that come with the Blade or Ryuki Riders. The cards included are the Diend henshin card, Final Attack Ride, Blast, Invisible, one I don't recognize (Final Form Ride?) and four Rider cards: Riotrooper, Ouja, Kaixa and Rey. It's a good selection, but I would have liked more Rider cards. And I seem to have lost one of the Final Attack Ride cards.

Counting the individual cards, Diend has a decent number of accessories, and I don't know what else he should have come with, (other than an open Diendriver) but I sort of feel that he's lacking in the accessories department. Maybe one of the treasures he tries to take during the show,

Conclusion
Still, despite the sometimes frustrating articulation, and the perception I have of a lack of accessories, I ended up having a lot of fun making this gallery, once I hit upon the idea of having Kaito try to steal everything valuable from all my other toys. It's definitely a case of me projecting the character's personality onto the toy, but even so, it helps me enjoy what is now a sub-par toy. If you really like the character of Kaito, or if you're into posing your figures in silly manners, then I definitely recommend getting SHF Diend, so he can steal stuff from your other toys.

See the second post for more pictures!