Legends of the Kamen Riders

Okay, this is literally the first sign of this I've seen or heard so details are still sketchy, but...

No word yet on what Toei plans to do for the 10th Anniversary of Kamen Rider back on TV, but Bandai will be pulling out all the stops. In tandem with the release of the new card battler game "Rider Battle: Ganbaride" (similar to the wildly popular Ultraman version all over the place now), they'll be repeating the success of Ultraman by including cards with all future soft vinyl figures. But that's not the best part.

The best part is that the Rider Hero Series soft vinyl line is getting a big upgrade. In addition to new RH Kiva figures, there's now a spin-off of sorts called Legend Rider Series, which will see past Riders re-released in new packaging including the special cards for use in the game. And what's more, all the older Riders will be all-new figures while more recent ones will be updated repaints.

When it comes to the earlier Riders, Bandai has kept re-using the same old RH molds for well over a decade now, and despite the occasional repainted re-release, they've always still felt a bit... antiquated. I mean we got a good new Rider 1, but that was a special exclusive with the Kodansha Official File magazine binder set. And then Bandai started it's "Sould of Sofubi" line anyway (and that seems to have slowed down after Kamen Rider THE NEXT.) But in other words, the regular, neutral-posed versions you can easily get in any toy shop have been the same old, slightly disproportioned ones from a time before Kamen Rider was even back on our screens.

Ultraman was in the same state until the early 2000's, when new versions were made of almost everybody to modernize the line and make it really worth getting them all again. Kuuga Mighty Form & G3-X got similar treatment not long after their shows ended, but the original versions weren't even that dated. Honestly, from Kuuga onwards RH has been in pretty good shape, although I do think they really should include at least one weapon with most of the figures: Den-O's especially somewhat suffers from the fact that a toy with the word "sword" in its name comes with no sword. Then again, not like there's any shortage of Sword Form toys with swords!

With the figures before that, it's still an aesthetic that's long since gone; in these days of H.G.C.O.R.E. and DX Medicoms, collectors want more accuracy and overall better-looking figures (usually, there is a market for the really retro-looking stuff, but that's usually because it's intentionally meant to look retro.)

So Bandai is finally giving the old Riders much-needed upgrades, and look at the difference:



The old versions are below with the new ones above. In the first wave we've got Rider 1, Rider 2, V3, Stronger, and BLACK. All of them are brand new. We also have Kuuga Mighty Form, Ryuki, Knight, and Den-O Sword Form, all repaints. Still no sword for Sword Form, but hey; he couldn't hold it anyway. No word yet on if Ryuki & Knight will include the weapons their original versions came with, but it'd be nice.

But of course, the important thing is the new molds. They look nice, and while they probably won't be any more poseable than the old ones, it's at least nice that we're getting them, because they're long overdo and I'd like to eventually see all RH Riders brought up to the same level of uniform quality.

I'll probably pick these guys up, repaints and all. I also hear something about possible re-releases of the Henshin Belts, at least the "low-priced" versions of the Typhoon, Double Typhoon, and Kuuga~Faiz era belts. Nice.

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