[Den-O]

"Long live Shocker!"

After the defeat of the great Doctor Shinigami, Shocker needed a new general to command it's forces in Japan. To destroy the Kamen Riders, Shocker leadership enlists the help of an executive member of their American west coast organization. The deadly and dangerous, Ambassador Hell! Capable of assuming a Kaijin form as Gargaranda, Hell is a force of pure evil in his humanoid form as well. Utilizing his trademark whip to bind his enemies and rally his forces, S.H. Figuarts Ambassador Hell is here to build a new Shocker Army all his own!

Packaging
Ambassador Hell comes in extremely similar packaging to other Shinkocchou Seihou-adjacent releases, Takeshi Hongo & Shocker Combatman. The plain black boxes are punctuated by nice stock photos of the figure itself, in Hell's case a huge Shocker logo on the front, and a romanization of the character's name on the spine. In this case, Bandai has chosen some bizarre mixture of direct translation and untranslated text. So instead of having "Ambassador Hell" on the box like it properly should, it says "Jigoku Ambassador". The name would be spoken in Japanese this way as though Jigoku/Hell is a surname, so it comes first. But the decision to print the name in this fashion on the box is quite bizarre. His name is indeed recognized as Ambassador Hell.

Main Figure
Alright. So Showa Kamen Rider has been having quite the renaissance in the last year or so. A number of new renewals and first time figure releases with more on the way have really gone a long way to giving collector's what they want. Shinkocchou Seihou Rider's 1 & 2, then there's Takeshi Hongo, the Shocker Combatman, the upcoming Gel Shocker Combatman, and the recently released S.H. Figuarts Ambassador Hell. Ambassador Hell is a pretty pleasant new addition to the line as it's really the first time we've gotten an iconic villain like this in it. The Combatman has been done a few times before, but we've never gotten Shocker Generals like this.

And while this is indeed a first, Ambassador Hell is not without his faults. While the figure gets the overall look down, functionality needs to be on point too. Sadly, problems begin with his feet. I'm not entirely sure I've ever dealt with more frustratingly difficult ankle joints. They just don't rotate properly like standard figuarts ankles. So to get the feet posed flatly for action poses will also require you to angle he hips and knees out quite a bit. However, flattening the feet is near impossible anyway. They're so poorly designed that the toe joint is very difficult to get even with the sole of the foot in the first place. They do now provide balance whatsoever. And without balance as a base, the rest of the figure will suffer accordingly. The knees while fine, do look a bit ugly when posed, thanks to the interior joints being solid red for everything, it really breaks up the silver paint on the rest of the body. The hips, share the same basic design as those of Seihou Rider 1 & the Shocker Combatman, so they provide a decent range of motion and keep the sculpt looking appropriate. But because of the way the thighs and waist "diaper" are painted, he looks very awkward. They have plenty of range of movement to them, allowing Hell to even pose in a sort of rider kick. But they do look quite odd.

The waist line features a glorious giant buckle with the Shocker Eagle crest, which I love. While awesome, this buckle does keep the lower torso from spinning completely around, though the upper body is a bit more free to move. The sort of wrinkles in the upper body as well as the arms and legs, help give the figure a greater sense of realism. In the same way that other recent releases from the Showa era have featured real world details like fabric creases, these help sell the overall design. Thanks in no small part to a complete lack of shoulder armor, Ambassador Hell actually has better arm articulation than many other figures. My one big gripe with the arms is those ugly red joints, but the fact that they work so well makes things good enough for me. The wrists are just a tiny bit limited, but they get the job done.

The biggest deal about this figures is Hell's massive helmet and face. This is honestly something I didn't expect to work so well. While it's huge and cumbersome, and not always ideal to pose, you actually can get plenty of movement thanks to a long neck and a decent joint there. Splitting the head open to change faces can be a pain, but overall the effect is worth it. The likeness to actor Kenji Ushio is just perfect. Also I kind of like his cape? Rather than going the premium route with a cloth/wired cape like Seihou Eternal, or going the disastrous way with a hard plastic hinged cape like with Brave Level 100, Ambassador Hell has a soft rubbery plastic cape that can move if need be and not look so stiff. If Bandai isn't going to do cloth capes on everyone, then at the VERY least, they should do this.


Accessories
Ambassador Hell is one oddball release. but he comes with a fair amount of accessories:

2 - right hands. 1 of them is open palmed, 1 is an open fist for holding the included weapons. Not much variety. Obviously no reason to expect alternate left hands since he has that permanent hook/claw hand.

2 - extra antennae. As with Seihou Rider 1, these are in case you break or lose the ones that come pre-attached to the helmet. They appear to be red plastic that's been painted gold given the color of the parts sprue they're injection molded on.

1 - Whip (rolled). It comes apart at the grip so you can insert it up in through the bottom of the fist. It gives the effect of the whip being held in the fist rolled up, and maybe if they'd sprung for the whip to be made from a soft fabric material that would be believable.

1 - Whip (extended). Comes apart the same way as the other one. Again, the whip part itself just doesn't really look like one. It's a glossy red tube, and doesn't really look believable as a whip. I'm surprised that something more flexible wasn't included.

1 - alternate sneering face. This is a weird one. Ambassador Hell is quite well known for his crazy facial expressions, and that's mostly due to the way that original Hell actor Kenji Ushio's face was squished into that helmet. This face, as well as the standard one, both have a fantastic likeness to the late actor. To use these faces you have to pull apart the two halves of Hell's helmet which is trickier than it looks. I know it's weird probably only to me, but inside the helmet all of the plastic is flesh colored like the faces, and that creeps me the hell out for some reason. There's a dark paint wash applied just around the edges of each face to give them the effect of a shadow from the edge of the helmet.

Not too bad honestly. Given what this figure is, and that they can't just straight up pack Hell in with his monster form Garagaranda, they ticked all the boxes as far as I'm concerned. I'd still have preffered a better whip.

Final Thoughts
S.H. Figuarts Ambassador Hell is hopefully just the first in a long line of Shocker Kaijin and generals to come. We've seen a number of prototypes shown off at various Tamashii events for the last year like Great Leader, Garagaranda, and Ikadevil. While this figure clearly makes some mistakes in it's design, it does have a charm in a way. I can't say I recommend getting it immediately. But surely once prices drop on the aftermarket you should get it to begin commanding what will hopefully become an ever-growing Shocker Army.

[Den-O]

Part 2
- Destory Kamen Rider & V3!

[KaijuUltraFan]

great job on the photos. Some really nice ones there.

thanks.

[Annuga]

Ambassador Hell is one of those goofy ass hell designs that ypu wouldn't expect to work

[Dormamu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Annuga

Ambassador Hell is one of those goofy ass hell designs that ypu wouldn't expect to work

Amen to that. Wow. I was avoiding Rider 1 and 2 because they put me to sleep. Now I may just have to make two robot sidekicks and launch myself into space to lampoon this dude.

[Tokumonkey]

That last shot of Hell crushing Ichigou under his boot is great, although the facial expression - specifically, the eyes pointing up - kinda undercuts it. My hope, given that the face came out so well, is that they'll continue to experiment with human-looking characters with the Heisei Riders, as well. Genm is a good sign. Nevertheless, I can't quite convince myself to pick this up the way I did with Hongo, since I'm not really interested in Showa Rider stuff, and I really only picked up Hongo to vote with my dollars for non-transformed Riders.

[Sunred]

Every time I see Ambassador Hell I want to go find a Japanese restaurant and eat shrimp tempura and onigiri.

[Shame08]

That suit does not age well

[Thessair]

Oh, man, I totally forgot that sexy beast was being released! Nice pics! I'm totally jealous.

[GurrenPrime]

Its such a goofy design, but it looks really nice next to the showa figures.