[ryan]

Bandai appears to be bringing back the Figure-rise 6 line, with two new releases in March 2014, Masked Riders Faiz and Kabuto. I picked them up on AmiAmi for 1500 yen and 1700 yen, respectively. Being that I'm in the middle of watching Kamen Rider Faiz, I immediately set about constructing him.

In short, this model kit was fun to build, it's quite detailed, it is very poseable, and has a great selection of accessories. It's a little bigger than the Figuarts, closer in scale to the Star Wars Black 6" figures and Marvel Legends. That's the minimum you should know about this kit. For further thoughts and info, read on.

I have a smattering of experience with Bandai models, having assembled a couple each of Gundam High Grades, Master Grades and Real Grades, as well as some Kamen Rider Master Grade Figure-rise kits (TaToBa and all of the W kits, except CycloneJoker). This is my first experience with the Figure-rise 6 line, and it reminded me most of the more recent High Grade Gundam kits, in that it was both simpler than the Master Grade lines, but still surprisingly detailed.

Consisting of 6 trees of parts (one of which is the stand, one being the effects pieces), Faiz doesn't have a super high parts count, but what he has is impressive. A lot of the detail is dealt with via stickers (there is an impressive sheet of around 60 labels), but a decent amount is managed through plastic.

Take the red power lines all through Faiz' suit. It's about 50/50 split between red plastic and red stickers. The stickers are slightly metallic red, while the plastic is a more dull red, but the difference isn't all that noticeable. It is the main point where a Master Grade would be an improvement though, as I would expect much more of the red lines to be handled by plastic. I found the stickers to be a breeze to apply, even the longer straight ones weren't difficult to get aligned correctly. The only stickers that don't go one easily, or don't look pretty natural when applied, are those that go over the Mission Memory sculpts. It's hard to get them to lie smoothly on the big, rounded surface.

The kit snaps together easily, everything fits together snugly. Some of the pieces require a decent amount of force to snap into place. I didn't push the arms into the shoulder joints hard enough at first, so you may notice that in some of the pictures there's a bit of a gap between the biceps and the shoulders.

The articulation is quite good, nearly on part with a Figuarts, in most places. The biggest disappointment to me, is that the foot is one solid piece. I really like toys to have toe joints. The wrists are probably the most limited joint, with almost no range to them. Everything else is going to give you all the range you want. The two torso ball joints, in particular, I found to have a really good range of movement. The hips even hinge downward like the Figuarts to, allowing the legs to reach higher than the sculpt would otherwise allow (though it can introduce unsightly gaps in the sculpt in some poses).

The figure is much lighter than the Faiz Figuarts, despite being a little bit larger. It balances very well, despite the light, plastic feet, though one of the one-legged poses I put him in require a couple extra minutes of fiddling with to get him to balance right.

As for accessories, Figure-rise Faiz comes with everything he could possibly need for his default form, and a little more even. He has two pairs of hands, fists and open hands, and two gripping right hands. He has the Faiz Pointer in two modes, the Faiz Shot with working handle and holder, as well as an extra Faiz Shot sculpted into the holder. There are three versions of the phone, the Faiz Edge, and finally, there is the Axel Watch, which can attach to his left wrist. Comparing the accessories to those of the Figuarts, the Figure-rise versions are a little bit more detailed, in some respects, thanks to the stickers, but the Figuarts make up for it in paint.

We get three variations on the Faiz Phone, one molded in gun mode (with a slight chunk removed from the handle so it fits in the gun-holding hand better). The other two phones are constructed of three pieces and are functional in ways I did not expect on a 6 inch figure, indeed, the Figuarts doesn't include functional phones like this either. The phones flip open and closed, and can even turn into the gun mode. It's definitely something I would have only expected for the larger MG Figure-rise line. The difference between them is that one is sculpted and stickered without the Mission Memory.

The only drawbacks to the accessories is firstly, the Faiz Edge remains nearly colorless in the stock build. There is no red sticker for the blade part of it, nor the black grip. All we get is a Mission Memory sticker, and that's a bit disappointing, though likely stickers would have been unpleasant to apply, or looked bad. Secondly, I would have really liked a case to hold the Faiz Gear in. I have a thing for gear that stores neatly in cases, and the Double Driver case and memories that comes with MG Figure-rise Skull is honestly half of the reason that I bought that kit. But, while a case for the gear would have been an awesome addition, it is by no means a requirement for a kit such as this, so it's not something that really counts against it.

For this review, I build the figure as directed by the manual, to show what the stock build looks like. It's mostly quite nice, but to improve it a little, all of the red plastic lines could be painted over with metallic red, to make them match the stickers better, and, like the Figuarts, the fingertips lack the silver paint that is one of the standout aspects of the Faiz suits.

The silver plastic is noticeably swirly in places, so it would also benefit from some silver paint (I did so on the MG Figure-rise Accel kit, and it massively improved the look). Speaking of silver paint, this figure can be customized into Faiz Axel Form by painting all the red lines silver, and opening the chest pieces, which are constructed specifically for this option.

Overall, I was very please with this kit. It's an excellent representation of one of my favorite suit designs, I would definitely buy a Faiz Blaster Form kit, as well as kits of the other Riders from this show. It features all the play options you could really hope for, has very functional articulation, and is a good size to blend in with my growing collection of Hasbro 6" figures, because doesn't want to see Kamen Riders beating up on the Empire?