Quick Look: S-T Kamen Rider THE NEXT LIMITED EDITION figures

Sadly, this is one of those times where I'll be telling you about something which, had you been in Japan a few months back, you could have gone and ordered and just now gone to pick up because it finally came out today. Well, it'll be showing up on Yahoo! Auctions and ebay probably, but here's the deal.

To commemorate the release of Kamen Rider THE NEXT onto DVD, a special limited edition set of figures is now being sold through the popular convenience store chain Lawson (Japan has a ton of these, also see 7-11, Family Mart, Circle K, etc.) The catch however is that you had to prepay for them back before the end of June, where after you were given a special ticket to hang onto until July 30th, when the set was actually released. Thus I went down to the local Lawson, traded in my ticket, and got these boys:



It's basically retooled versions of the Sofubi-Tamashii Kamen Rider 1, 2, & V3 (NEXTy versions) that saw release late last year. Rider 1 & 2 are making use of the arms from the later FIRSTy versions we saw back in February, albeit repainted accordingly. V3 has all-new arms to recreate one his iconic poses. So it's basically like an "that scene from near the end of the movie when they all do the classic poses" set, minus a few things (like Hurricane, a ton of bad guys, and a restaurant to fight in.) But it's got a nice box, and again, it's limited edition, so just owning one makes you feel special.

As I said, this will probably show up on the secondary market in due time. I'd say it's for Sofubi-Tamashii completists (if they exist!) or people like me who, in spite of everything else, still liked the part of THE NEXT that had Kamen Riders fighting Shocker in it. It's nice, but don't break the bank trying to get one, because the regular release versions of the figures are very good too!

One more pic of the box:



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