KudoNiro aka JyudenFourze aka UltraCyclone: SHFiguart Kamen Rider Ouja Review

                 Let's begin..the hell's review... No, seriously, that's what I would say in real life... considering the things I do in real life, but that's not of concern right now. What we are reviewing this time is the ONE AND ONLY.... Kamen Rider Ouja! Yes, he is one of my favorite riders and probably many people's as well. I do have to admit that his design is amazing and just his idea and story is just epic. And I could go on forever about him, but enough of the character, let's get on with the figuarts review! 

                 To begin, I love Ouja's box design. Kamen Rider Ryuki's series's figuart box designs have to be one of my personal favorites. The front shows an amazing art of the rider with shiny colored words. The back, is what catches your eyes (even though you usually see the front first). The back cover displays images of the rider with some kind of "cracked" mirror, a reference to the Mirror World. The back doesn't show as much images as some other figuarts, but it's enough to make you want to buy him. 

                 Now let's take a look at the man himself. Before I start, you might be wondering: "What's that Yu-Gi-Oh! Card doing there?" Well, if you've watched Kamen Rider Ryuki and have knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! It's a simple pun that you'll understand soon enough. Anyways, unlike ALL my other figuarts, Ouja actuallly has the best - close to perfect joints. I was really satisfied with Ouja when I got him. He is definitely my favorite figuart as of now. His double joints and movements are amazing as always, and the texture that they have for Ouja is just plain awesome. One to to note though, if you are not careful, you might lose his deck because it CAN be loose, and it doesn't always want to fit back into the belt perfectly, so you'll have to mess with it a little bit. Other than that, the figure's great. 

                         Like all Ryuki's series's figuarts, Ouja comes with his advent cards. Ouja comes with 6 advent cards: Final Vent, 2 Contracts, Sword Vent, Advent, and Steal Vent. The cards are barely large enough to see, well, not literally. This picture above is actually a really close up picture, but you cans till tell it's small. In addition to the cards, Ouja brings along his Veno Visor and Veno Saber. The Visor can open up so you can fit an advent card in there, as shown in the picture above. The Veno Saber is just a good looking venom sword. 

                    Above are the hands that come with Ouja. As you can see, there are A LOT. There are 6 pairs of hands, and 2 stand-alone ones that are used to hold the card and the deck. Most of these hands are just for poses and aesthetic reasons, but still cool to have a figuart with so many hands. I'm also glad that Ouja's hands aren't hard to switch around with, they aren't loose, but not too tight either. Perfect. 

Aaaand that's about it for my S.H.Figuart Kamen Rider Ouja Review. Overall it's an amazing figure. My favorite so far because of everything I just mentioned in this review. It's rare I give something such a high rating, but I do give this figure a 9.5 or 10/10. It might not be the best in many's opinions, but it would be a great "first", as it's not too expensive either. So, that's about it. Thanks for taking your time to read this review! ^_^

This was KudoNiro aka JyudenFourze aka UltraCyclone,

I hope you enjoy your stay, and don't forget to like my page!

Super sentai : colored heroes protecting the Earth from evil? who cares?

That title may seem a little provocative, but sometimes, that's the feeling I get when I watch some sentai series, who really shift the focus from that stock main storyline.

It's especially true in sentai series penned by Naruhisa Arakawa.
In Abaranger, the Evolian invasion pretty much takes the backseat, since the main conflicts in the show are the Asuka/Jeanne and the Ryouga/ Mikoto ones, and in both cases, the true evil comes from within the characters more than a true evil force (Asuka being lured by the power of the evil armor, and letting himself be possessed by it; Mahoro becoming evil, after having been raped, and as a result, wanting revenge against the one who should have protected against that but didn't; more than Dezumozorya, both characters have first to get over their own mistakes and their dreadful consequences to survive; they had to win first against themselves before winning against the enemy ; Mikoto was a man who felt he didn't have any real purpose in his life, so he became obsessed with having excitement, even if it means dying in the process ; and how can you care about the lives of others, if you don't even care for your own life? That's why Ryoga, who believes in others, wanted so much to save Mikoto: because he wanted him to care about his own life, because it was the only way for him to be able to care about others and stop playing sick games. It's interesting to notice that Mikoto "turned good" once he's found a purpose, and a reason to live). The other Evolian were pretty much in the background, and Lije began to get development once she's been involved with Abarekiller.

Dekaranger: Deka is a show which had only one main villain, the Agent Abrella; and unlike most regular villains, he wasn't the leader of the Alienizers, but rather their dealer. As such, Dekaranger was dealing with the daily life of a special police group, rather than a plot about saving Earth from evil, since they fought against evil as an everyday job. The show was mostly parodying police stock plots, with the Alienizers being colorful criminals.

Gokaiger was the tribute series, who was more caring about being an homage of the sentai franchise than anything else; despite having a traditional enemy group (the Zangyack invaders) they were pretty much underused, and kept in the background.

It can be noticed that Arakawa isn't the only main writer who want sentai series to go well beyond the "colored heroes vs evil" plot ; in her most personal series, Kobayashi tried it as well; it's especially obvious in Timeranger,  as I've described in a previous post; http://tokuwarriors.blogspot.fr/2013/01/timeranger-very-atypical-plot.html  ; and I think that the reason Shinkenger suffered from "plot stalling" is because Kobayashi cared more about describing the relationship between a lord and his servants, and what it means to have people putting their lives at risk for you (and the Kagemusha plot made that theme even more powerful, since Takeru knew he wasn't the one he pretended to be, even if he had to do that deception for the greater good)  than the actual conflict itself.

Your thoughts?