[Lbsammills51]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shin Densetsu

Awesome! Let us know how it turns out!

Sorry it took awhile, but finally had a chance to open all these guys up. Pic spam ahead!




Leangle Jack:

- Obviously top heavy, but much more posable than I was anticipating. Elephant tusk-shoulder pads are on a swivel connected to the back, allowing them to rotate up and giving the arm the ability to move up all the way up.
- Despite all the armor on the upper body, he has a bit of an ab crunch. It's not huge, but I wasn't really expecting much, so pleasant surprise.
- As you can guess, given the spindly legs and significant upper body, you have to be mindful when posing him so he doesn't tip over. That said, he can get in decent poses and remain stable.
- Swapping out the right hand was easy; swapping in the other right hands is NOT easy because of the awkward angle you have to get the hand back into the peg, with little room to maneuver. It's not impossible, but it doesn't "feel" secure, like it'd be easy to knock it out.



- It is possible to get a dual-wielding pose on his rouzer, but just barely.



- There are two display options for the wrecking ball: the chain that pegs directly into the ball, or a small peg that allows the ball to be pegged directly into the enlarged left hand. Be VERY careful if you ever use the latter connection; the peg piece pegs into the hand very snugly, making it a bitch to get it out again.



- In short, not quite the same accessory count as other SICs, but a very dynamic figure. It's an added bonus to have a Blade Rider SIC that doesn't fall apart on you, let alone looks this good! Please bring on Leangle King Form Bandai!



Wizard Water Style:

- If you own or are familiar with SIC Flame Style, this will be very similar to that. One added bonus of the body is there is blue pinstriping paint aps added to the suit; the molded detail is present in Flame Style but no paint aps are used to bring that detail out like it is in Water Style.
- One minor annoyance, though it doesn't surprise me; though the peg connection for a Tamashii stage remains, no stand is included.




- Yellow Kraken's upper body actually pegs into the leg base, allowing it to swivel.




- As for the added "kraken mode," it's like Flame Style's "fire chicken" mode in that it looks a lot better in hand than it did in pics, to me anyways. That said, I still wish they'd embraced the "imaginative" part of SIC and made the tentacle pieces a clear blue instead of yellow. So much of the aesthetic appeal to the Wizard forms, for me, is each type's consistency in color, and the yellow tentacles break that up in a way that Flame Style's fire chicken parts or Flame Dragon's dragon parts do not.
- Like Flame Style, you remove the little nodule things on the back of the cloak to peg the back tentacle pieces in. The facemask is removed and replaced with the tentacled facemask (this type of connection will come into play again with Flame Dragon, but in a more interesting way).






Wizard Flame Dragon/All Dragon:

- Bandai took the SIC Wizard body and tweaked it for the "Dragon" body, and it looks GREAT. The new shoulder pads don't inhibit posability in any way, and the bottom cloak pieces are in a gorgeous clear orangey red plastic. My only nitpick is the way the suit/cloak is broken up, it doesn't look like one contiguous piece like it does with the "Style" figures (though more on the potential "why" in a moment).
- No major QC differences from the "Style" body either. Things peg & unpeg, connect & disconnect with no new issues. The only caveat to that are the wrist guards; they're not fragile or inhibit posability or connections at all...but they don't truly secure themselves to the arms at all, so they just roll around a lot as you move the arms. I haven't been able to push them into the forearm enough to truly secure them in a set position. Not a big deal to me, but weird to see.




- He comes with no weapons at all, however. Normally I'd be fine with that (I could just pull a sword or gun from the two Style figures), but Flame Style comes with a "normal" Wizarswordgun while Water Style comes with a Wizarswordgun with the blade in clear blue plastic. This would've been a great opportunity to throw in a Wizarswordgun with the blade in clear red plastic.
- The only truly unique accessory, aside from the dragon parts, is an extra wrist piece. Unlike the standard wrist guard, this does connect more securely to the arm, allowing it to stay in a set position instead of rolling/flopping around like the normal wrist guards.



- Here's the aforementioned part about the head/mask connection & body design. The facemask is removable...but there's no reason for it to be. It's also a different connection type from Water Style. You aren't asked to remove the facemask so the head can fit within the dragon neck; it fits within the neck with no problems, despite the pointy crests of the Flame Dragon facemask. I immediately wondered...could this be to allow for a Water/Hurricane/Land Dragon upgrade set? The way the Flame Dragon body is set up, the unique Flame pieces (facemask, arms, upper body, lower skirt pieces, lower skirt tail connector plug) are all removable one way or another. We've also seen Hurricane & Flame Style as completely separate figures; the blue pinstriping on Water Style makes me think those figures could contain that additional detailing, making "upgrade" sets of replacement parts for those figures hard to do (if not impossible) because of Flame Style's lack of that pinstriping and Water Style's blue pinstriping. That's not a problem with the Dragon body, however. I don't know if it'll happen, and maybe I'm overthinking it, but I can't think of any reason why the facemask is removable here.



- Now, the dragon parts. Despite all the pieces, it's blissfully easy to peg apart and put together all the pieces. I wasn't sure if this would be a cumbersome nightmare, but it's so easy I'll actually be tempted to go back and forth in how I display Flame Dragon going forward.
- There's an alternate chest piece for the dragon head & neck. Minor pet peeve - compared to the standard chest piece, the alternate piece makes the body look crooked since the collar isn't in the middle of the chest. It's not with the normal chest piece either, but given you're going to have one of two things connected to the alternate chest when you're using it, not a big deal.




- You can again connect the dragon head directly (by unpegging it from the neck piece) or connect the dragon head/neck as a "helmet" of sorts. Both connections are secure, and the standard head fits perfectly within the neck piece. Unfortunately, the dragon head doesn't offer much in the way of posability. It can only slightly look to the left and right (up & down movement is excellent though). Jaw opens, but the tongue is a molded piece that's part of the lower jaw, rather than articulated.
- The ears are also articulated, but as a point of necessity (they have to be able to angle up/forward to allow the dragon head to peg directly into the chest). They are on a ball joint though, allowing for them flare a bit outwards.





- Dragon claws replace the forearms at the elbow. The claws are all one molded piece; they can swivel forward but that's it.
- Dragon feet peg into the standard feet (similar to the fire chicken feet on Flame Style). There is an articulated toe piece on each as well.
- The wings are very nice; primarily clear gray plastic with the outer wing piece articulated on a swivel peg and a fold out "filler" wing piece. The back is molded differently, so the nodule piece you remove is different, but not hard to remove.
- A piece of the bottom skirt/cloak is removable, and that's where the tail pegs in. Unlike the wings, the connection doesn't feel as tight? It's not loose though, it just feels like you're not pushing it in enough even though you are. The tail, like the head/neck and claws, isn't very articulated.



- There's also a piece in the middle of the back which is removable, allowing for a Tamashii stage (which IS included, like Flame Style but unlike Water Style) to plug directly into the figure. I didn't bother trying it, since it's the same type of stage included with the OOO Riders and Flame Style and those aren't capable of holding up a SIC very well, let alone one with all the dragon parts included.



- Combined, it looks rather nice. I do wish the dragon parts were more articulated though; it feels like a huge missed opportunity to not include more articulation in the claws, head and tail. I can understand the lack of posability in the dragon neck piece as well, but I would've exchanged the clear plastic in the neck for normal plastic and joints in a heartbeat.
- Due to the added parts, it does cause Flame Dragon to do the splits in certain positions. I kind of wish the dragon feet had been die-cast (or had rubber stoppers on the bottom) to help avoid this, but it's only in certain positions. You can still get dynamic poses with Flame Dragon and all the dragon parts.

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- All in all, a very pleasing release, albeit one that had room to be even more dynamic than it is. I think I'll be even more excited for this figure if Water/Hurricane/Land Dragon parts are made available as an upgrade set (with the dragon parts all included here, I'm not sure there's much reason to release the other Dragon forms individually anyways) for greater variety, especially if the lower skirt pieces are cast in clear plastic like Flame Dragon's is (that's such a nice touch).