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.

Introduction

Welcome to Moe Rider Reviews.  My name's Erin and I'm a 20-something female living in Indiana, USA who works for a hospital in a position that required a 4-year college degree and a credential.  And I happen to really like Kamen Rider.  A lot.  And anime and manga and Asian shows in general, but Kamen Rider seems to be the big, long-term love of my life.

I got into Kamen Rider back in 2007 by being accidentally introduced to Den-O.  Since then, I have watched all current heisei Kamen Rider series, and though I haven't watched anything predating Den-O, I am aware of them and respect them as having come before.  If I weren't so busy lazy, I'd probably watch the older ones, but that probably won't happen.  Ever since getting hooked onto this thing that is Kamen Rider, I haven't looked back.  Yes, there are series (okay, only one series) that I disliked, but that hasn't destroyed my love for Kamen Rider.  As such, I have been collecting a lot of Kamen Rider toys and things.  It's now bigger than my Gundam collection, which is sad in a way.  When the Kamen Rider collection gets bigger than my stuffed animal collection, then I'll realize that there is a problem (I don't anticipate this ever happening, though).

Anyway, this blog right here will be for me to "review" my Kamen Rider toys and paraphernalia that I've collected over the years.  There will be pictures and my dopey commentary, and I put "review" in quotes because it will most likely end with me saying how much I love said item rather than giving it a proper review.  And this won't be entirely Kamen Rider (I hope) as I do have other items in my vast collection of stuff, like plush toys and statues and all that, but the focus is on Kamen Rider.  I hope to update this place at least once a month, but it may end up being whenever I feel like it.

So, why "Moe Rider Reviews" for the name?  I like moe, okay?  I like moe a lot.  If you can't handle the cute, then I'm sorry, but... there's a lot of cute stuff in my collection.  I may be a bit of a tomboy, but I like girly things, too.


I hope everyone enjoys this place (and I hope I don't end up getting bored of it).