Wednesday, December 16, 2009

DX Leangle Buckle (courtesy of Lordie, my good friend and a Rider fan)

I never watched Kamen Rider Blade except for the few episodes of it in Kamen Rider Decade, so I can’t really tell much about Leangle’s story. What I know is, Leangle is the only Rider in Kamen Rider Blade which has an ‘Open Up’ type belt instead of the ‘Turn Up’ types which is used by Blade and Garren. (Also the only rider which has a gay-ass color scheme.)

Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket

On to the buckle! What you get when you buy the DX Leangle buckle is :
1) Right belt strap with clip-on for main buckle.
Photobucket
2) The Buckle itself attached to the left belt strap.
Photobucket
3) Back belt piece to secure the belt when it is put together.
4) Instruction manual.
*Belt straps on both side features holes for you to attach card holders that come with Rousers.

Photobucket

5) 3 cards: Change, Leangle and Buckle.
The belt needs 2 AAA batteries to operate (like most of the DX toys).
To start playing, you first pull out the card tray on the right side of buckle. You put the CHANGE card on it and slide it back in (You don’t actually need the card for it to work). Connect the buckle to the right belt strap so that it forms a belt and push the panel on the buckle to the right for “OPEN UP!” (it sounds more like “AOHPEN UP” XD). That’s all you get, the buckle lights up once in a while if you leave it on.
Photobucket
Photobucket


The Pros of this buckle:
1) Functions 100% like in the show. Perfect toy.
2) Great quality, feels very good sliding the panel.
The Cons of this buckle:
1) One sound –I know it’s true to the show, but one sound T_T-
2) GAY ASS COLOR SCHEME. PURPLE, YELLOW AND BLACK!!!
My conclusion: This is a great belt, full accurate to the one in the show. Makes a great display piece too, highly recommended for collectors. For the kids they will surely get bored with this one pretty fast. Better if you can get it cheap (very).

Saturday, December 5, 2009

DX Faiz Axel

Alright, I haven't been doing any reviews here and so here I am again with another exciting item to review. Behold the DX Faiz Axel.

Photobucket

The one I have is the Bandai Korea version as all the texts are in Korean. Look how the box was so badly dented? It was MISB when I got it and the box was already in such a state.

Photobucket
The back of the box is completely similar to its Japanese counterpart and look, Faiz toys came in the same year as Hong Kong and Malaysia, 2004. This was of course a Bandai Japan repack. This thing is simple and yet it attracts me pretty well because it is the first watch type item in Rider history, which even Decade has one in his Faiz form.

Photobucket

The contents is quite simple and not very complicated. You get the Axel Watch, a cloth strap as an enforcer for your wrist and a Hong Kong manual that has English and Chinese. Don't mind the manual, this guy is simple to operate.

Photobucket

The cloth strap goes here and when you're done, you can wrap both straps over your wrist. However, only the cloth strap fits adult wrists while the watch strap doesn't. However, you play this thing even without the strap.

To play, follow these simple steps:
1) First, make sure the Mission Memory is inserted before you start anything.
Photobucket
The Memory looks like this when separated. When you insert the Memory in the slot, you don't get any sound but removing the Memory gets you a "Reformation" sound.

2) Start by pressing the 'RED BUTTON'. This will initiate the 'START UP' sound and the countdown timer begins with an engine sound running while the numbers are ticking. Do note that the numbers in the 2nd numerical slot does not run in a logical order.

3) When the first numerical slot's number reaches 3, it will start to have a sound of "3....2....1.... TIME OUT!". This is when Axel Form ends and you revert back to normal Faiz.

4a) However, because this item is around 3000 yen in retail, such simplicity cannot be tolerated by both the fans and Bandai themselves. Thus, they added a little snake game in it where you can access by PRESSING and HOLDING the BLACK BUTTON for around 3 SECONDS. This will activate the GAME MODE where you navigate the little snake to eat pieces and get longer, just like your regular cell phone snake game. Both Black and Red Buttons are useable for controls but I still don't know how the buttons really work in GAME MODE yet.

4b) Another interesting gimmick is that when you PRESS and RELEASE the BLACK BUTTON instantly, you'll get some funny number movement sequences. Pressing the BLACK BUTTON again will change it to another mode. You have a total of 5 to 6 modes in this and it's just for show.

FINAL VERDICT: I would say this item is accurately detailed. I like how the sounds are loud and how the functions actually work like in the show. The inclusion of the EXTRA MODES in 4a) and 4b) were fun but not totally necessary. They could have just reduced the price of this thing to 2500 yen or so and remove the EXTRA MODES that serve no purposes in the show. I'd give 4/5 stars for total and 4.5/5 stars for value for money alone. If you ever encounter this, do get it. It's a very sought after item that most of us tend to forgo.