Review: RS Rider Expansion Belt Collection Box

Rangers Strike: The Masked Rider Expansion "Belt Collection" Box
It's big, bold and mostly black.

Don't ask me how, but through some miraculous turn of events, the Sentai-themed TCG (or maybe it's CCG, I'm not an expert in these things!) Rangers Strike has managed to do the impossible and not only get out several waves but also launch an entire Rider-related expansion which itself just got a second wave. And on top of all that, it's still around! I say this because generally, Rider-themed card games tend to come and go on a whim; remember Rider's Legend? The Kamen Rider vs. Shocker one that was GREAT but nobody knew about it? And the annual series-based ones we now have which, while popular enough, generally are forgotten about by the time the show is over and done with. And they're usually only collected for the cards themselves rather than the game (show of hands: how many people actually learned to play the game they made up for the Rider Tickets last year?)

I wouldn't necessarily say that there is some sort of curse on Kamen Rider where it can never have a long-running card game to go with it, but it is refreshing to see that for once, it doesn't look like it'll be going anywhere any time soon. This is probably due in large part to the fact that even if you don't care about the game aspect of the cards, they look great thanks to a wide variety of talented people doing the artwork. Rangers Strike, and especially the expansion set, have proven popular enough for Bandai to come up with this little number. It's basically a big ol' black box which contains the following:



Well okay, there's a bit more than that. Basically, you get a binder, ten 9-card clear sleeves to put in it, a box for your deck (or in my case, extras) and 40 stylized sleeves to protect the cards you use if you play the game (or for the rest of us, to protect the cards you don't have any other room for!) You also get 18 special cards that are included with this set only, and which I will be scanning the heck out of for use on the site some day (you'll know them when you see them.) They're basically where the "Belt" part of the name comes into it. So basically, this set appeals to both those who want to collect the cards to play the game and those who simply want to collect the cards and have something nice to put them in.

Speaking of collecting the cards, I also picked up a Starter Set and a box of booster packs, and you know, I think it's almost next to impossible to collect all of these without going totally insane. It doesn't help that the number of "rare" cards almost rivals the amount of normal cards, and since it is a game, you tend to get extras quite often since, hey, you can use those extras in the game. If you're just collecting the cards to get 1 of every one though, get ready to hurt. Also, a booster pack has 6 cards. 6! Compared to other card sets (Like the Kamen Rider THE FIRST/THE NEXT Complete Collection with 10 card to a pack) it's tough to get 'em all. But you know what? They look really, really cool. And sometimes that's all that matters.

Although all told, I did manage to end up with all the regulars, a couple of the rare ones (including a very shiny Hasami-Jaguar!) and a ton of extras to be given away in the next contest or something. So it's not as bad as it sounds. But I do hope they up the number of cards-per-pack to offset the cost or something next time.

As for the Belt Collection Box itself, if you like anything Rangers Strike-related, it's a must-have. Unfortunately, Amazon.jp (where I got mine) won't ship it outside of the country, so by all means, if anybody knows where folks outside of Japan can get it, let us know!

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