[Lbsammills51]

Finally got around to tinkering with Zangetsu & Drive.



Zangetsu's pretty similar to Gaim, so my complaints with Gaim are repeated here. Seeing Zangetsu Shin up above, I know they added black up the sides to differentiate the bodies, but Zangetsu would've shot up a lot in my eyes if they'd included the Shin Melon Energy bits, so you could display it based on preference, but SIC's really departed from the "2 in 1" approach for some time, so that's hardly a surprise. That said, Zangetsu is much more appealing in-hand than preview pics made him look to me. The white "pops" a bit better, and there's a lot of detail in his green bits. The screen being thrown in was a nice unexpected touch.

He isn't without little annoyances that Gaim doesn't have. The lockseed has a habit of popping off of the belt, and his (not as comically large in-hand, but still big) forehead crest can also pop off if you don't peg it in fully.

The shield can actually transform into a pincer weapon of sorts, so that was an unexpected (though slightly odd) feature. He does have an added handle, but I wasn't really comfortable with the connection. It's much easier to just peg it into his forearm, where the fit is snug.



Drive is....ok. I know Mashin Chaser's SIC-related suit origins, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Drive reminds me a lot of a Mashinified Drive, but the aesthetic doesn't work for me as well as it does on Mashin Chaser. The red used is a metallic, fluorescent(?)ish red, instead of something more like the slick sports car red that Drive normally sports. Because of all the detail, he doesn't have the same degree of posability in the elbows as your average Tamashii Nations figure. The following shot is about as much as you can get out of the elbows.



You actually have to swap out quite a bit of parts for "Flaming Man" mode/type Max Flare.



You can swap out the pipes on his legs (one on each, for Flaming Man mode) and the fit is surprisingly snug. The flame parts actually have a tougher time getting that fit just tight enough compared to the default pipes.



You can swap the belt pieces, but unfortunately no faces for Mr. Belt, and the clear piece really obscures the swappable pieces so much that it's hard to see the point.



Plenty of shift cars are included. I don't know if it's the cars or belt, but the fit on the belt isn't snug, so it's easy to knock them off as you futz about with Drive, which is terrifying when the cars are so small.



Removing the chest tires reveals a lot of nice detail underneath, front and back.




As for weapons, the wheel on the Steering Wheel Sword can actually turn, which is cute, but there's a molded bit of detail on the back of the wheel that prevents it from doing a full 360. The connection, once you first turn it (it was so tight initially I wasn't sure if it was supposed to turn) that it's a bit easy to disconnect.



The Door Gun is, honestly, pretty boring. The door bit moves, but that's it.




Flaming Man Mode is ok, but doesn't wow me. The flames attached to the Max Flare tire make him more back heavy than he looks. The flames are in that gray area between hard & malleable clear plastic; that makes the wristband flames & hands not the easiest parts to swap on. The worst bits are the shoulder flames; the slots are supposed to slide into the groove on the front & back of the pads, with a peg in the rear piece that then pegs them together for a firm connection. Yeah they're not that firm; they more sit on the shoulder pieces and rely on the peg to hold on to the shoulders. If you shake Drive even a little, they're liable to fall off.



Drive's one of the few SICs that leaves me unsatisfied. Where OOO, Wizard and even Gaim (while flawed) excel at the "Imaginative" part of SIC, Drive falls flat on its face there for me. It's just "Drive with Mashin Chaser's aesthetic." To be fair, there are plenty of earlier SICs that aren't terribly imaginative (the more recent Showa Riders, Den-O Riders), but the aesthetic choices used there work for me. Drive's don't work as well, for me. I think if Bandai/TN had gone all-out, batshit crazy, like a Drive that has car parts even more overtly hanging off of him because he transforms into his own vehicle would've been more creative (even if way too on the nose) and fun to tinker with. It also makes me wonder how I'll react to SIC Mashin Chaser - while I love Mashin Chaser's design, he's basically just a big version of the design we are already familiar with. If they'd at least thought to swap Mashin Chaser's SICesque aesthetic onto Drive, while turning Mashin Chaser into a normal Rider, that would've showed off some point to what they did with Drive and been a more intriguing way of playing with the line.

At the very least, Drive feels like a (no pun intended) "mileage may vary" figure for others. If the aesthetic used really works for you, then you'll probably like Drive much more than I have.