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.