[Kurona]

W wo Sagaseeee!



A little fun, a little not fun; that build was... kinda mixed!

I definitely see why some of you are saying this is a great FRS for people to start with. The main body and limbs are very simple in a positive fashion - simplified enough for newcomers while still being fun to put together and resulting in a great end product - and while I haven't messed around with it much, the body swapping and Joker Xtreme gimmicks seem pretty intuitive! W himself ended up looking superb as well. Very well articulated and proportioned, and personally speaking the green they used is perfect for what I want.


There are, though, a couple negatives and ones that I would emphasise as reasons I wouldn't recommend this as a first over something like perhaps Zi-O. For one thing, there were a couple sections in the build itself that didn't feel great -- while there are hardly any stickers (another lovely positive!), the ones that are there are a dread to put on. It's either extremely tiny ones that are a journey to make stay on correctly (the head gem, the memories -especially-), or they're the Joker markings which you're never quite sure if you've applied right. The eyes also felt extremely intuitive to put on and I was worried if I'd messed up cutting off the sprues that early for something so important -- it really feels like a matter of luck and just jamming them in there until it works. Perhaps more majorly though, and this isn't to the extent that it ruins the figure; is the head/neck joint and the body/arm joints. The latter feel quite stiff; not terrible but definitely feels like you need more force to move them than you should... and the head barely feels like it's actually connected. It -kind of- stays on there, and it wouldn't come off if you shook him upside down I don't think; but I found it kept coming off so easily. It's a shame when otherwise the functionality is perfectly fine.
I also wanna quickly criticise the decision to not have what I see as relatively important extra pieces -- for one thing, the included sticker sheet has stickers for three different W combos represented on the driver; Cyclone/Joker, Heat/Joker and Luna/Joker. However, there's only actually one driver piece to put these on. Much like Den-O only having one belt to put a Sword or Plat form sticker on, it seems odd that they wouldn't include extra Driver pieces to make the form switching smoother. Lastly, while the included one does a very good job and is still pretty versatile; it's odd to me that there wasn't at least one additional scarf like the original SHF for extra posing options.


Now that all looks like a LOT of criticisms and you'd think I hate this kit... but at the end of the day this mostly boils down to a few teething problems with the build, the lack of one or two accessories that would have been nice, and certain connections not feeling quite as good as they should. Overall this was still a very wonderful figure, and looks just as wonderful as Zi-O and Ex-Aid did to me. If you really want him and you think he looks like a good substitute to the ever-overpriced or unavailable Seihou (seriously, Bandai, there's certain re-issues that would just print money), then yeah; don't let the few criticisms I've said here prevent you from jumping on him -- go for it, this is a great kit! I'm ecstatic to have him in my display at last and I'm excited to get to Den-O tomorrow!