Kamen Rider Kiva - DX IXA belt

Whoa, it's been a while.  Stuff happened, I moved to a new place, so not that I'm sort of settled in, here's a review.  I've actually not had this belt for very long.  I think I got it earlier this year, considering how long it's been since Kiva came out.

Like the Kiva belt, it comes with 6 Feustles, the IXA Knuckle (instead of Kivat), and the belt itself.  Photos down below:

Garulu, Basshaa, and Dogga Fake Fuestles.

Powered IXA, IXA Knuckle, and IXA Caliber Fuestles.

All right, let's talk about the IXA Knuckle first.  The Knuckle is... strange.  It talks to you in robot speak, which makes it very difficult to understand what it's saying.  Like in the series, it will pronounce ever single syllable of Engrish.  Every single one.  It will ask you how you're doing and say things like "yes" and "no," but it feels rather cold while saying them.  Like I said about Kivat, he has a personality and (like I totally forgot to mention in my review) can have moods where he is either happy or sad.  The IXA Knuckle is just a robot and isn't very warm.  However, if you're into having broken conversations with robots, go right ahead.

Moving on, to get it to the point where it will make the transformation sounds, there's a button on the knuckle that you can either push like a normal button and hold, or you can do like in the show and press it against your hand until it makes the stand-by sounds.  It'll say "ready" and then it's all right for you to slide that bad boy into it's slot.  Line up the notch on the back to the insert on the belt and after it gets into place it'll say "FI-SU-TO ON."

Putting the Fuestles into it is fairly easy.  Just pick your Fuestle, drop it into the hole (make sure it's facing the right direction, otherwise it won't make any sounds), then punch the fist into it.

How the Fuestles look from above.  AKA what you see when you look down at it.

 

To take the Knuckle off the belt, push that reddish button that you can see in the previous image.  It'll unlock the belt and you can just slide it off easily.  And make sure to put the Fuestles back to their Feuslots when you're done with them!

Overall, I suppose this belt is decent.  It was cheap, as I guess they made a whole bunch of them?  I dunno, I got this for about $60 including the shipping, brand new, never opened.  My main issue with this belt is that it's ridiculously bulky.  As noted before, I have a tiny waist and this belt just over powers my torso.  Once the IXA Knuckle is in place, it becomes very difficult for me to use my right arm proficiently.  Another problem with this belt is that it's sometimes hard to get the Fuestle sounds to work.  I have to use more strength than I feel is completely necessary for the sounds to go off.  I have the same strength as a kid in the age group identified for playing with these toys, and if I'm having trouble, then I'm certain the child is, too.

I'd have to say that if you're a huge Kiva fan or in love with IXA, then you'll probably want this belt just because it's the IXA belt.  However, for anyone else, you're probably not going to need this belt.  It really doesn't do enough to justify throwing a lot of money into it.  I mean, even I've tried to justify why I spent my hard earned money on this belt, only to be disappointed by it.  I mean, it's not bad, but it feels almost like a cheap imitation of the Kiva belt.  Which, given the series, I guess that was kind of the point.  IXA in the series was like a knock off of Kiva's belt, so I suppose the toy version would of course have that feel to it.

Kamen Rider OOO - Character Book: Count the medals!

Wow, it's been a while.

Instead of reviewing an actual toy, I'll be reviewing this.  As you can see, it's a photo book.  I'm too busy these days to write a really long review, so just live with this for now, okay?  Many apologies for neglecting this place despite having a lot of stuff prepared.

Anyway, in the same tradition of the Kiva books (and the W book, which I have yet to review here despite having already scanned it), this book is a showcase of the sexy males of the series.  Featured in this book's pages are Watanabe Shu, Miura Ryosuke, Iwanaga Hiroaki, Kimijima Asaya, Yamada Yusuke, Hashimoto Taito, and many others (including the suit actors).  I have to admit that I was afraid that this book wouldn't live up to my expectations, but I was certainly mistaken.  The fangirl part of me wished that there were a bunch more full color photos of Ankh being incredibly pretty, but the rational part of me knows better.  Per usual, it's a lot of gratuitous pics of hot men looking hot while still in character.

If you're interested in downloading my scans from this book, you can download them via the following link: Kamen Rider OOO Character Book: Count the medals!

EDIT: The download link has been updated!

Kamen Rider Kiva - DX Kiva Belt

Two reviews in one day.  Yeah.  THE BELT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR~


This is the Kiva belt.  I... have no idea where the box to this is anymore, but I know it's around here somewhere, so just be satisfied with a pic of it around my waist.  As you can see, it's very Kiva-like.  Unlike the other belts which are mostly white or gray, this one is very red--a color I am not fond of, but for Kiva it works.  The belt comes with the belt, Kivat, and six Feustles (Kiva, Castle Doran, Buroon Booster, Garulu, Basshaa, and Dogga).  Pics are below:

His wings can spread out.

So many Feustles!

First things first, I'm going to talk about Kivat before even getting to the main belt part, mostly because he's the thing that makes the belt work.  And, yes, I am calling him with male pronouns because we know he's not an "it."  On the left side of his head is an on-off switch.  Turn it on and he will say a phrase in Japanese.  I don't know Japanese, so I just kind of guess as to what he's saying.  This time around, he said he was feeling good.  While waiting for you to do something, his eyes will glow on-and-off red.  There is a button at the top of his head where, when pushed, it will open his mouth and he will say "Gabu!"  Push it again, and he'll say it again.  On a third push, he will say "gabu" and then say another phrase.  He has a good number of phrases that he will say.  To get his mouth to stay open, just push the button very hard and his jaw will just stay dropped.

With his mouth open, push his fangs to your hand (or just push them like a normal button)  and he'll make an annoying, high pitched sound.  Take Kivat, turn him upside-down and perch him on the belt.  Upon releasing him to swing back into the belt, he'll make the transformation sound and lock into place.  Now that he is secure, it's time to put some Feustles into him.

Like in the series, open up Kivat's mouth and slide a Feustle so it sits like the above picture.

Push the Feustle down to close Kivat's mouth and it will play the appropriate sounds and music.

To take Kivat off the belt, simply pull the button behind his left ear (on the belt, it will be on the right).  With Kivat off the belt, he will still talk to you when you push his button and because his wings can come in and out, you can play with him as a stand alone toy.  Like with other henshin belts, there's a button on the belt to take it off.

Another thing with Kivat is that he can take all Feustles and will play a sound or say a phrase with them.  This includes IXA's fake Feustles, where apparently Kivat will object to them being put in his mouth and say that he can't use them.  I don't have the IXA belt, so I can't really confirm that, but all the other Kiva-related Feustles I have used on him work.  Kinda like how all Gaia Memories tend to work with the Double Driver.

My verdict for the Kiva belt is obvious adoration for it.  It was my first henshin belt purchase and I have been completely satisfied with it.  It's my favorite and unlike some of the other belts, I can play with Kivat even without the use of the belt.  He's his own toy.  I basically got two toys for the price of one when I bought this belt.  And I honestly have no idea what Kivat says, so maybe some person out there will someday transcribe and translate everything he says (today he was being rather uncooperative and called me a liar, though I'm probably just mistranslating him).

Anyway, this is a great belt!  If you're a fan of Kiva, I highly recommend this belt.  Heck, I recommend this belt even if you're NOT a Kiva fan, just because this belt is amazing!  Sending my love to Kivat-bat the 3rd~ <3

Kamen Rider Den-O - DX Den-O System Belt

And here's the Den-O System belt.  This belt is much like the Zeronos belt in that it really is just a big, gaudy belt that has flashy lights.  As you would expect this thing comes with a belt, a Rider Pass, and one Rider Ticket.

 Belt and Pass.

I put the blank ticket in the pass, but it is easily taken out just like how it's shown in the series.  Like with the Zeronos belt, this belt is insanely simple.  You put batteries in it and it's ready to go.  Switch the on button to turn it on and press the buttons on the belt for the corresponding forms (red for Sword, blue for Rod, yellow for Ax, and purple for Gun).  Pass the Rider Pass over the blinking belt and it will make the appropriate sounds.

 

Like with the Zeronos belt, I'm not really impressed with this belt.  It's a nice, simple belt and all, but for the amount of money I paid for them, they really don't do it for me.  I'm glad I have them to help in filling out my Den-O collection, but beyond that they are pretty worthless.

...I still like them, though.

Kamen Rider Den-O - DX Zeronos Belt

Long ago, in 2007, I inadvertently fell in love with Kamen Rider because of a fanart posted by one of my favorite Avatar: The Last Airbender fanartists.  The fanart was of Kamen Rider Den-O.  Three years later, I would obtain henshin belts from that series.  This is one of those belts.  Say hello to the Zeronos belt.

Out of the pair of Den-O belts I had bought, this was the one I opened first.  It was used but not damaged in any way.  As you can see, it looks like what you would expect the Zeronos belt to look like.  The belt comes with a case to keep Zeronos cards in and comes with only one Zeronos card.

One side is for Altair form and the other side is for Vega.  Now, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because this belt is very basic.  Unlike the Double Driver, the Den-O belts are really just belts.  Really big, exceptionally gaudy belts.  When you push the button to turn the belt on, it makes sounds, you then slide the slide button at the top of the belt to the right, push a Zeronos card into it, and it'll take the card and make the appropriate sounds.  Fair enough, right?  Here's what it looks like when you do the motions for transforming:

Belt on.

Pull out card.

Run card through slot (after pushing the slider over).

Altair form.

Or...

Vega form.

My biggest problem with this belt isn't so much that it's kind of useless (it really is pretty useless, by the way), but the fact that the cards, when fed through the card slot, tend to either go through to hard and fast or not hard or fast enough.  It has nothing to do with the user's strength, either.  There have been times when I've used to much strength and the card won't go through at all, or I'll use too much strength and the card will get flung through way too fast.  This goes for using too little strength, as well.  It's really weird.  The card catcher at the other end of the card slot doesn't really do that great of a job catching the cards, either.

To be frank, I'm not very impressed with this belt at all.  I love Den-O with all my heart, but these belts are really just too simple.  The newer belts are so much more sophisticated compared to this, and because I started off buying the more sophisticated belts before these, I feel like this (and the Den-O System belt) are complete let-downs.  If you like collecting Den-O items, then you'll probably want this just for the nostalgia factor, but if you're wanting a ton of bang for your buck, this belt is not what you're looking for.

Kamen Rider Kiva - Kiva Gaia Memory

MOST POINTLESS ITEM I HAVE EVER BOUGHT!!!!  I still love it, though.  This was about $2 on some website somewhere and I was like "why not?"

So I bought it and put it together.  I think it's some kind of capsule toy thing?  I really have no idea.  It's actually quite neat for an impulse buy in some online store's bargain bin.  Unlike a real Gaia Memory, this one doesn't light up, but is does have sounds.  Push once and it'll say "Kiva!"  Push again and it'll go "Gabu!"  A third push will make the henshin sounds for Kiva and a fourth push will make the Kiva Feustle sound for Darkness Moon Break.

Surprisingly, it actually works with the Double Driver.  As you can see, it's silver, so it goes into Philip's right-hand slots.  Push it in and it'll go: "Kiva!  Joker!  [Kiva transformation sound followed by Joker's music]"  I was quite excited when I found this out!  Sadly, it doesn't work in the Maximum Drive slot, but the fact that it works at all on the driver is quite impressive!

Best $2 purchase ever!

Kamen Rider Kiva - Character Visual Guides 1-3 and Official Photo Book

Kamen Rider Kiva managed to put out a lot of character books during its run on television, probably due to the fact that it was quite the ikemen paradise.  The series was filled with beautiful and handsome men, to which female fans couldn't really object against.  Kiva is one of my personal favorite Kamen Rider series, not because the plot was spectacular (it wasn't), but because I fell in love with all the handsome men!  I believe that's what this collection of photo books was there for: to appeal to the female demographic that was watching to catch a glimpse of all the hot, young men.  So here are the books:

 Prelude
The first of the photo books, Prelude has two chapters.  The first chapter is beautiful photos of all the males in the series: Wataru, Otoya, Nago, Jiro, Kengo, Riki, and Ramon.  At the end of the chapter are purple and black pages that serve as an episode guide up to episode 16.  Chapter 2 has group shots, behind the scenes images, and the back has black and white interview pages.  At the front of the book is a poster, one side featuring Wataru and the violin, Bloody Rose; the other side has Nago and Otoya.  All in all, this book is gorgeous and is one of my favorites of the four photo books.

 

Official Photo Book
The Official Photo Book is the only photo book and guide that doesn't have any black and white pages, and unlike the other books, it features only Seto Koji, Takeda Kouhei, and Kato Keisuke.  For the most part, this book features high quality screen captures of scenes from the Kiva movie, with very little text getting in the way of the beautiful shots.  At the middle of the book is a time line for people to understand where in Kiva's continuity the movie happens, and after that are shots of the actors being themselves.  Model shots, I suppose would be the best way to describe the pictures in the back.  There are a few interviews, but mostly this book is for those who just want to stare at the pretty boys.  I've found this book useful for making graphics, as many of the images are very clean and makes it easier for me to edit the images for icons or whatever.  If you like Seto koji, Takeda Kohei, or Kato Keisuke, this book is definitely for you! 

Concerto
The second of the Character Visual Guides, Concerto has always bothered me.  Like the first Visual Guide, Concerto has interviews and beautiful shots of the boys being their beautiful selves, but my only problem with this book is how it spends most of its time promoting the movie.  There are pages filled with nothing but screen shots from the movie, and it gets a little annoying after a while.  This isn't to say that it's not as lovely as the other books, but I feel this book would have been more effective without the need to shove the movie down the reader's throat.  A lot of my favorite shots are from this book, however, which gives it some merit.  Otoya giving Wataru a piggy-back ride and Kengo thrusting his admiration upon a not-so-impressed Nago always make my day brighter!  The episode guide at the back of the book gets you up to episode 24 and there are many nice black and white photos as well.

 Celebrate
The final visual guide, Celebrate, is probably my favorite of the photo books.  It doesn't have a lot of gorgeous photos or promos of anything, but you can tell that the cast had a great time making this book together.  The majority of this book is group and pair photos, getting everyone to sit down (or not, in many cases) and have some fun as production wraps up.  Like always, there's an episode guide in the back, but there are also great interviews and 20 questions with the main cast and a lot of the black and white photos I sort of wish were in color.  If you're looking for seriousness in this book, you're not going to find it.  You take off the dust cover and the book is plastered in photos of everyone being dorky; it's completely apparent that this book is about having one last hurrah before the series ends.  This is definitely a good book for people who enjoyed Kiva.

To wrap this up, I love all my Kiva books.  Every single one of them has something unique about them and I simply adore them.  I'm really glad that I managed to find them, and just taking a look at how their covers are beginning to become worn just shows that I do look at them regularly.  Below are download links to some of the scans I did from Concerto and Celebrate should anyone want them.

Kamen Rider Kiva Character Visual Guide 2 Concerto

Kamen Rider Kiva Character Visual Guide 3 Celebrate 

[In the Mail] A Lot of W

So this week in the mail I've received some nice goodies, so I'm sharing.  First up are these sexy sons of guns:

The Project BM! Philip and Shotaro figures.  They were super expensive, but definitely worth the hassle I went through to get these guys.  It's really hard to find them in online stores, so when I actually did find them, I knew I had to get them.  I'll take them out of their boxes at a far later date for personal reasons.


Today, the mailperson brought me something that I don't have to feel like I must guard with my very life:

I might do a review of these, but for now, just stare at the ikemen and be happy.  The one on the left is Character Book 02. and the one on the right is... I can't read Japanese, but the English subtitle reads "All About 'Futo' & 'Kamen Rider W.'"  Both are quite lovely in their own ways!


I'll be putting a review up soon of something no one cares about.

Kamen Rider W - Fang Memory

Fang Memory showed itself about half way through the series as a sort of "ultimate" Gaia Memory.  In the shape of a dinosaur, it can wander around and seems to have some kind of sentience.  In toy form, it looks pretty much the same as it does in the series.

  As you can see, he's a dinosaur, and a very mechanical-looking one at that.  He's about 10 inches from nose to tail tip and about 6 inches tall, meaning that he's a pretty big toy.  In this form, it's a little hard to tell what kind of dinosaur he is, but he's actually a Tyrannosaurus rex (you'll see that in a moment).  He looks more like an Allosaurus, but he's a T. rex and a very cute one at that.  I like dinosaurs, so even though he's a Kamen Rider toy, I've actually added him to my dinosaur collection.

Anyway, in this form, it doesn't really look like he does much, but in fact he's not as useless as you'd think.  His tiny arms have a limited range of motion, and his hip joints can make a 360 degree rotation (it's necessary).  His head can move up and down to a degree, as well.  He has a funny looking tail, but if you push down on it in dinosaur mode, he will make three different roaring sounds.  However, he is a Gaia Memory, so let's see what he looks like in his Memory form.

Front and back of the Memory.  To get him to this form, you flip his tail up, push his head into his chest, and push his feet up to where his head used to be.  It also helps if you push his arms up, but that's more for aesthetics more than anything else.  Like others Memories, he has a button that you push and it'll say "Fang!" and the color of the light will be a very vibrant blue.  It ends up taking the color of the sticker bearing the Memory's name instead of the color of the Memory itself (which is a clear plastic that's somewhere between purple and blue).  This thing is huge when you put it in the Double Driver.

It's taking up the entire chair.  But you can see the color of the light and that it's obviously really big.  I really can't imagine a child wearing this thing without the belt overtaking the poor kid.

That horn-thing is practically in my armpit.  It's big I'm telling you!  Now that it's on the belt, you can see that the dinosaur head is more similar to a Tyrannosaurus rex more than any other creature (or even a Giganotosaurus).  In his dinosaur form, though, he somewhat resembles a short-necked Compsagnathus.  But let's not make this anymore geeky than it already is!


When pushed, the horn on the Fang Memory will say the attacks that it's supposed to.  One push for Arm Fang, two pushes for Shoulder Fang, and three pushes for Fang Maximum Drive.  Unlike other Memories, Fang doesn't work in the Maximum Drive slot on the right side of the belt.


Truthfully, this guy is great, not so much as an extension of the belt, where's he bulky, but as a cute little dinosaur toy.  I like just having him hang out on my desk and push his tail to make him roar and despite having so few points of articulation, he's still quite expressive.  As an add-on to the belt, though, he's a bit in the way.  He's heavy and really hard to get into and out of his Memory slot.  If you like dinosaurs like I do, he's definitely a great buy, but otherwise that's really all he's good for.

Kamen Rider W - DX Double Driver

The most recent henshin belt I have bought, this is the Double Driver henshin belt.  As you can see from the box, it contains the belt, buckle, and four Gaia Memories: Cyclone, Heat, Luna, and Joker Memories.  So, let's see what this sucker looks like outside of the box and lovingly put together.

This looks about right, right?  This is probably the simplest belt I've put together.  All the batteries required are in the Gaia Memories, and they use watch-type batteries and require one of those tiny jewelry screwdrivers to get into them.  There was a pull-strip on the back of each one that I pulled to get them to work (is it called "completing the circuit"? ).  Like all henshin belts, the belt straps are sized for a child, so if you're bigger around the gut than a child, you'll need to buy an extender.  I'm petite, so I usually put these on the second-to-last hole and keep them set at that forever.

As you can see, the belt looks like it does on the show, and it's made of sturdy plastic and the Gaia Memories themselves are really great to look at.  Like in the series, there are buttons on the face of each Memory that, when pushed, will make the appropriate sound (i.e. "JOKAA!!").  On the driver, the left side is indicated with a gold piece and the right side is indicated with a silver piece.  Memories whose USB inputs are silver go into the silver side (all of Philip's Memories) and gold ones will go onto the gold side (Shotaro's Memories).  The belt automatically comes with all of Philip's Memories, minus Fang Memory, so if you're wanting to cosplay Philip, this makes it really easy.  The right side of the driver is the Maximum Drive slot and all Memories will work within that slot.  Below are some close ups of the Memories themselves:

The Memories are sized for an adult, surprisingly, so they end up looking big and awkward in my tiny hands.  This is actually a good thing, though, as it makes them seem more realistic.  You can't tell it, as I didn't take a photo of it, but whenever you push the button, they light up with the color of the Memory's case.  Cyclone is green, Heat is red, Luna is yellow, and the exception is Joker, which is purple as black isn't a viable light color choice.  Here's what it'll look like around the waist:

Ack, snow glare!  No, that's not my "waist" but more close to my ribcage, but you get the idea.

There's a button on the right side to clasp the belt around your waist, just like any other belt.  When you put a Memory into one side, you push it down and it'll make that annoying "hurry up and put the other Memory in the slot already" sound that will continue until the second Memory is placed in the opposite slot and pushed down.  Spread the driver into make a W-shape and it'll make the correct sounds "Cyclone!  Joker!  [insert music here]."  One memory contains one half of the transformation music, while the other memory has the other part.  If you put only one memory in the slot, it will just make the sound that memory is supposed to make.  Memories in gold slots will have a delay because they're the ending to the music that the silver slot makes.  Memories will work in any slot, but it'll mess with the sounds.  The mechanisms to make everything work are in the USB plug at the bottom of each Memory, so if you have really tiny fingers or really long nails (like I do), you can get up in there and figure out what combination of buttons make what sounds.  The coolest part is when you take a Memory out of the slot, as it makes a quite satisfying "power down" sound when you pull them out.

All in all, I really like this belt.  I think it's my second favorite belt next to the Kiva one (I mean, come on, Kivat talks!) and I was very impressed with how intelligent this belt was.  I wish I had more Memories for it, but it's nearly impossible to get the Trigger Magnum or the Metal Rod.  Even when I do find them, they end up being stupidly expensive, so I've stopped trying.  I definitely recommend this belt to any fan of the series.  It's chic, it's cool, and it's vastly entertaining.