[Kamen Rider Die]

Desserttime SO-DO!



All
I wanna do
Is see you turn into
A tiny woman
A tiny woooommaann

Hey, it’s *checks sticker sheet* Kamen Rider Valkyrie, in her Rushing Cheetah form! I didn’t really plan on putting this tiny woman together yet, since I haven’t watched any of Zero-One, but a) the pictures of her Figuart that just got posted made me remember how cool I thought this suit was, and b) it’s International Women’s Day (that’s right ladies, a whole day, you are welcome), so it felt like a good time to put her together.

I really like the fact that Valkyrie exists. Female Kamen Riders, it’s dumb that there are so few. It’s even dumber that the ones that have been added to the franchise… it’s like, points for representation, and not much else. I want to say Mage, the Mayu Mage, that’s the only female Kamen Rider I don’t think embarasses herself. Kiva-la’s in, like, four minutes of a movie. Nadesico and Poppy, they’re very Kawaii Riders, with goofy butt bumps and clumsy attacks. Marika, it drives me insane that her story is all about supporting powerful men. (ANY powerful man, as it would turn out. She’s got a type!) Ride Player Nico is in a grey area, where it’s established that she’s a force to be reckoned with, but Snipe/the show keeps her in a real Assistant To The Regional Manager role. Overall, when it comes to actually including women in the ass-kicking parts of the franchise, I haven’t seen much to get excited about. I really, really hope Zero-One doesn’t drop the ball with Valkyrie.

(That said! I haven’t seen Ryuki through Decade, so maybe there’s awesome women in those shows exploding monsters from hell to breakfast. I would love to be totally off-base on my dim views of how this franchise tells women’s stories.)



Anyway, this SO-DO! It’s crazy how the white bits come in one box, with the orange bits in the other box, because it makes for one mostly-empty box (the white one) and one overflowing box (the orange one). The white one has four stickers you add to the belt, and that’s it. All of the stickering is on the orange parts, and… it’s okay? It’s foil stickers, and that makes it pop off of the surface, visually, in a way that I don’t think it’s supposed to. It’s supposed to just be filling in the black spots, but the shine of the sticker means you’re constantly aware of separation between sticker and base. It’s a little distracting up-close. The one sticker on the gunmetal, around the collar, that blends great. I think it’s mostly the shiny orange doesn’t blend with the plastic orange. Those sections, it could look better.

The accessories are a mixed bag. Her gun-Driver thing, the plug-in one looks great, the handheld one looks ridiculously bad. It’s a blue sticker that covers one side of a stark white gun, so it looks for all the world like she’s carrying a miniature replica of a piece of foamcore that has a picture pasted on it. Is… I have n’t watched the show, does she carry a piece of foamcore shaped like a gun? Did the SO-DO people nail this one? It looks like a parody of Kamen Rider weapons to me, but maybe it makes sense in context.

The articulation’s fine. I can’t get much rotation with the orange leg, the way the leg part flares up at the hip keeps it from being able to turn more than slightly. The fists, like, point down more than it seems like they should, so her punching poses look weak. The open hands look good, though, so that’s probably how I’ll leave her. The default pose, the Standing Heroically, that looks great. I love the Build-esque asymmetry of the Valkyrie/Vulcan suits. I love how it’s one color on white, with some grey accents. That’s a great visual.

It’s just a good-looking suit, you know? Even with an imperfect toy (those orange stickers, THAT GUN), I still really like looking at it. I hope she ends up being a cool character!

Happy International Women’s Day!