[ryan]

The first of the SIC figures from Kamen Rider W, CycloneJoker includes a plethora of plastic pieces, nearly ever possible thing you could ever need for the CycloneJoker form, as well pieces to transform W to his upgraded CycloneJoker Extreme form. There's too many accessories to list them all out, but the highlights include 5 tiny regular Gaia Memories, the Etreme Memory, the Prism Bicker, two Double Drivers, an articulated scarf, a Tamashii Stage Act 5, several swapable hands, and various swapable parts to implement the form change.

The figure was released in March 2011, with a retail price of 5500 JPY. I was able to get mine on clearance from Hobby Search in late 2011 or early 2012, for I think around $30 USD shipped, and frankly, that's a much better price. The figure is very nice looking, but the stylized design of the W SICs isn't my favorite, at least, not on the regular forms. It looks unbelievably amazing on FangJoker and Skull, but I'll leave that for a later gallery/review.

Besides being of a stylized look, rather than show accurate, the SIC figures are also significantly larger than the Figuarts. SHF CycloneJoker is about 5.5" to the top of his head, whereas the SIC is nearly 7".

Let's talk accessories, since those were some of the biggest draws for me. SIC CJ comes with 5 of the regular, USB sized memories: Cyclone, Joker, Heat, Luna and Prism. These are molded in a transparent plastic, with painted silver (or gold) tips and even feature the appropriate symbols on them. They look fantastic, though I think Joker is too light, instead of being a dark smokey gray, it's only ever so slightly gray. They're awesome and neat, and very tiny and lose-able.

The Extreme Memory is made out of three pieces, two halves for to split when in the Driver, and a tail for 'bird mode'. It's super detailed, but at the tiny size it's at, that detail also kinda makes it look cluttered or messy. The Prism Shield is also super detailed, with lots of lines and greeblies and whatsits sculpted on, and looks like it has at least 5 different paint colors on it. It also has a large slot for the Prism sword and the four small slots for the Memories (which do fit in), as well as the holes needed to see the Memory symbols. The Prism Sword is also very detailed, and cast in a transparent plastic, with clear green paint on the edge, to match the prop. It too has a slot for the Prism Memory.

The five pairs of hands are very nice, including four matched pairs of fists, holding things, sorta relaxed/opened, and the henshin pose hands, and then there's a unique left and right hand, the left hand for pointing and calling out the catchphrase, and the left for holding the Gaia Memories.

I really like the playability aspect of these toys, though the execution isn't perfect. The Memory slot in the Prism Sword is too loose, the Prism Memory will not stay in, and since it's in the hilt of the sword, and always pointing down, that's a bit of a problem. The Memories fit in the Double Driver, but one side is slightly looser than the other so the Memory can fall out when your messing with the figure. Additionally, the Driver is a bit loose, and tends to want to fold up when posing the figure, rather than staying expanded in the W shape.

The form change is neat, in theory, but a complete pain to work with. The figure disassembles into so many pieces, that it's a hassle to switch it back and forth. The Prism Sword is great, amazing, perfect even, except for the loose slot. The Prism Shield, is too heavy for the arm to hold up properly, usually.

Which leads me to the articulation. By count, I think this figure is every bit as articulated as the SHF, but the usefulness and range is significantly lowered. And worse, many of the joints are far too loose to me worthwhile. Going back to the shield, it's such a heavy chunk of plastic that the arm has almost no chance of holding it up. Combined with the loose elbow joints, and I needed to use the stand to prop the arm up to make W hold the shield in any practical position, except for a few times when I got lucky.

Also, due to the way that this figure completely disassembles for the Form change means that the arms can pop out too often, and worse, the legs can fall off far too easily, at the thigh joint. Its can be pushed on tight, but then whenever the thigh cut is rotated, it loosens up so it starts to fall off again.

One final complaint: the stomach portion of the figure floats loosely over the articulated skeleton. What this means is that the piece is almost never positioned the way you want it, and it easily, almost always moves to a position that make the figure look unnatural while you're arranging the rest of the figure. I especially had problems with the CJX stomach, in that it would float up high enough and sort of get stuck under the chest piece, so there was a visible gap above the belt where the stomach should be.

The scarf, however, is perfect. It has a hinged peg joint that plugs into W's back, and it can be put in any direction desired. And the hinge is sufficiently tight that you can have the scarf posed pretty much anywhere you want it. Additionally, it's a nice sculpt that works in both dynamic or more static poses.

SIC CJ/CJX looks great, the paint is excellent, CJX in particular is really beautiful, with the clear plastic over a metallic center strip, and it can be put into some nice poses, but it takes more fiddling than I think it should. It definitely feels more like a display piece than a toy. You put it in a pose you like, and leave it for a while. It can do most things you want, but no deep stances, and nothing too crazy with the shield, and it will look good once you get it there, but it can be a chore to get it to that point.

Oh! It even comes with a bunch of extra pieces, and special stand bits, to recreate the Joker Maximum Drive finishing kick. It looks just as weird on the figure as it did in the show, and it's kind of neat, but also not something I would display for very long.