[Den-O]

Cast Off: Change, Beetle!

We're headed back into classic Kamen Rider Kabuto territory this week with another retro gallery. In light of the recently released convention exclusive Shinkocchou Seihou Dark Kabuto, we thought it best before reviewing it, to look at the classic version first. So today we're taking a look at Souji Tendou's dark twin. Once a man, he was the victim of the Hyper Zecter Experiments, who would one day rediscover a sliver of his former humanity in self sacrifice. This is S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Dark Kabuto (original release)!

Packaging
As we've discussed in the past with the original release of Gattack & this era of packaging is pretty boring. Gray boxes with gray scale photos of the riders and a handful of official images is all you get.

Main figure
Also as I've discussed before, the original Kabuto lineup all features basically the same generic body with a few variations. Dark Kabuto is literally the original Kabuto figuart in a new paint scheme. No physical differences whatsoever. Just think of him as the Nemesis Prime to Kabuto.

As I've mentioned numerous times before, the original Kabuto line suffers from a decent list of QC & design errors. Which generally leads to nice cheap secondary market prices for almost all of them. The Kabuto riders all feature a pretty similar and basic body and because of that the issues that do exist permeate the line. Most have one glaring flaw, and that's bowed legs with random degrees of severity. Inexplicably most of them have legs that bow inward near the knee giving them a rather awkward stance when in an upright position. Dark Kabuto's bowlegs aren't nearly as pronounced as most so that's good. The legs themselves are still pretty puny. This figure (this whole line) came out at a time when Bandai still just hadn't nailed down how to make proportionate looking figures that represented people wearing suits.

Showing their relation to the Souchaku Henshin line, the Kabuto riders also featured a small selection of die cast parts. The old style diecast feet, as well as the hip/thigh & shin panels. On topic, where the legs meet the body we sadly get a pretty ugly breaking up of the sculpted in lines on the undersuit. The much more modern Shinkocchou Seihou Kabuto & Dark Kabuto fix the hip & leg issues after all these years, but these older release all carry that trait.

The upper body is at least painted pretty well given the intricate tech detailing, though it isn't nearly as accurate as the detailig on the Shinkocchou Seihou. The back of the figure seems to be the most iffy, but for the most part the details come across well. Sadly of course as a mere repaint of the original Kabuto this figure carries with it Kabutos' greatest fault, that absurdly inaccurate head. The colors are a bit off anyway, but the head itself is severely undersized and very narrow making the face look very weird straight on. Now as for the upper body articulation, while it can't execute incredible poses or anything Dark Kabuto makes more full use of the standard joints and cuts given to it than say the original Gattack or TheBee did.

This isn't a perfect figuart by any stretch of the imagination, even given the context for the time it was released in. But for many years it was a serviceable figure. It's simply been replaced now.

Accessories

2 - sets of additional hands. Standard fare for the time of this release.

1 - ZECT Kunai Gun (Gun/Ax Mode). Generally associated with the Masked Form of a Rider, this weapon is still a nice inclusion. It easily could have been overlooked. But as with everything else about this figure, it's a straight repack & repaint of regular Kabuto. The Ax mode is literally the gun flipped sideways so it doesn't do anything, nor does it need to.

1 - ZECT Kunai Gun (Kunai Mode). The most used version of this weapon, the Kunai mode looks the best as well. It tends to be the standard weapon used by Kabuto & Dark Kabuto, when they actually bother to use weapons at all.

That's it. Nothing shocking, nothing amazing. Pretty much in line with the releases of this era.

Final Thoughts
Overall this line had some pretty lanky proportions that put many people off from buying them way back when. Now however they enjoy very modest prices for the most part. So it's easy to fill out a display with them. Given the fact that Shinkocchou Seihou Dark Kabuto was just released, the modest prices the original release enjoys will likely fall even further. So if you aren't in the market for the new Seihou or you're on a budget then this is your chance to pick up the original S.H. Figuarts Dark Kabuto quite cheaply. Personally though I'd say hunt down the S.S. Dark Kabuto if you can. We'll see you again next month for our full gallery of Shinkocchou Seihou Dark Kabuto as well!