It’s almost Halloween so what better way to celebrate than taking a look at S.I.C. Kamen Rider Kiva so we can all have a little vampire in our Monday mornings? This new look at the classic Kamen Rider Kiva character doesn’t fail to disappoint, and our own photo contributor ryan took over 50 images of this beautiful figure! Do yourself a favor and check it out by clicking here!
Kamen Rider Kiva is not a perfect show, but it does feature the single best Rider design in the titular character. I really enjoy the show, despite the flaws, but I absolutely love Kiva's design, and as soon as I learned of the existence of the SIC Kiva figures, I began conspiring to purchase them, and I was not disappointed with Kiva form when I got it.
Packaging
The packaging is decent and functional, with a large window to show of the figure and accessories. The deco on the box features several Kiva-esque design elements, such as chains wrapping around it and a silhouette of Kivat. The back shows the figure in a few poses. It does its job nicely, as far as I pay attention to packaging.
Main Figure
SIC Kiva looks great! The suit design is exaggerated, but not over the top. There are lots of extra detail lines sculpted into the body suit portion, which are picked out in a ghostly blue color. The eyes are a little elongated and cast in clear yellow plastic, the mouth area is more narrowed, and the teeth lines made slightly more apparent. Other than that, the only other noticeably exaggerated element is Kivat, who comes in two varieties. The main one, meant for the belt, looses the toyetic qualities of the design, looking more like a bat-inspired gothic mask. The second Kivat looks much more like the character, but with a more bat-like appearance, especially in the wings.
Speaking of wings, the Wake Up! wings are cast in a brilliant translucent red, with a nice shiny silver painted on the back. The red has lots of intricate lines sculpted that make them look very leathery/bat-like, it's super neat. The paint on this figure is very solid, with light blue in many of the sculpted lines, the red is a nice deep glossy color, not too bright but not too subtle. On Kiva's head and belt the red is a bit metallic as well. The fuestles are silver with the details picked out in the appropriate colors (slightly metallic at that), and the sculpting on the fuestles is also very detailed, despite their tiny size. Both Kivat's have clear red plastic eyes, and intricate paint jobs of gold and silver on black. Kiva's Wake Up leg has extra red, gold and green paint, not only on the shin and top of the foot, but also the sole of the foot.
Finally, the shoulder armor (and chains), the knee armor, right leg armor, and wrist cuffs are all metal.
Articulation-wise the figure is quite good, with ball joints at the top and bottom of the neck, Kiva can look pretty much anywhere you want him to. Two ball joints in the torso (though the lower is severely limited, giving only mild additional range to the fore and back motion, being mostly useful as a waist swivel). The hands all feature a single hinge at the wrist, which pegs into the forearm for 360 rotation. Double elbows with excellent range, the biceps swivel, and the shoulders would have good motion but are significantly limited in their for- and backward motion by the shoulder armor, which rocks up and down slightly, and that's it.
The legs are near Figuarts level with ball hips, thigh swivel, double knees, rotating ankle hinges and rockers, and toe crunch. The only limitations in the legs are from sculpted butt, which doesn't let them move back much, and the right leg, where the metal wing things hinder the back movement, a little bit. Oh, and the thigh armor will pop off you the legs are moved into too extreme of positions, but that's not too big a deal.
Now to some negatives, some of the joints are a bit too loose. It's not always a problem, in fact, the same joints may be a problem for some poses, but hold great in others, but it's kinda bothersome when you're posing the figure in a lot of different ways for photos, I encountered slop in the motion far too often. And of course, the areas where it's most noticeable are in the knees or ankles. I did manage to get Kiva balanced on one leg for the beginning of the Wake Up! attack, with the wings on, but when I tried to do it again with the metal leg coverings, I could not get the left ankle rocker to cooperate with out a stand to help with the balance. But by and large, this shouldn't really be an issue, though I suppose this may vary from figure to figure.
I neglected to shot comparisons with other toy lines. SIC Kiva is the same size as the SIC Den-O line (about 7.5" tall), which makes it too big to display with Figuarts, so I guess it's a good thing I own most of the Den-O SICs.
Accessories
SIC Kiva is loaded with accessories. He has four pairs of hands: fists, holding-things hands, relaxed hands, and his fighting pose hands. They swap out via a simple peg, which unlike the Den-O SIC figures, has a slight raised ring that helps them stay in place better, which is very much appreciated. Also included is the violin Otoya made, the Bloody Rose, and a bow, and there are two versions of Kivat, the mask-like belt version, and the 'live' flying-around version. Mine also included an unpainted die-cast version of the belt Kivat, only this one has the mouth closed. Apparently this was in a little baggie which was taped to the tray, so I guess maybe it was some sort of extra piece included at the last minute, or maybe a first run bonus type thing? IDK. It's rather boring because it's just plain metal colored.
Oh, and there's a tiny port cover on the back of the 'live' Kivat that you can remove (and lose) which lets you plug in a tiny peg (if you haven't lost it) so the 'live' Kivat can attach to Kiva's belt. Seriously, it's a tiny, very lose-able peg; based on the instructions of the 3 SIC Kiva sets I have, each of them should have one of these pegs, but I can only find 1, so either the instructions are lying to me, or I've lost 2 of the 3.
Finally, there are the leg coverings and the swap out wing parts for the Wake Up! finisher kick. The leg coverings are made out of metal and are rather intricate, with two hinges, a long metal chain and a clasp, so the chain can be wrapped around the coverings and secured in place. Swapping them out is a simple matter, the only problem being that the wings fit a little too losely in the slots, they don't peg or clip in as tightly as I would like. They have a tendency to work free and fall of while posing Kiva, so it's easier to get him posed like you want, and then attach the wings.
Oh wait! There's also six small fuestles, which attach to the belt via tiny peg holes, and can be placed in Kivat's mouth to summon the Garulu Saber, the Basshaa Magnum, the Dogga Hammer, Castle Doran, Buroon Booster, or initiate the Wake Up! final attack. These fuestles kinda can be held by one of Kiva's hands, but it's a precarious arrangement, they're prone to falling and bouncing into small corners or other hard to reach places. But they look cool.
And hey, if you cut the cardboard backing from the plastic tray, you've got a cool full moon with the Kiva logo you can use as a backdrop!
Final Thoughts
While not a perfect figure, SIC Kamen Rider Kiva is a really great figure. It's faults are few and minor, it's successes are many. The poseability is high, the detail and look of the figure is amazing, and I'm just overall very pleased with it. My biggest complaint with it is that I couldn't buy it three more times to form-change it into Garulu, Basshaa or Dogga form. I would have definitely bought multiples to display those other forms, had they been made. There's one listed on Mandarake right now for about $50, and I'd say it's totally worth it.
More pics!
God that son of a manslut is beautiful. It just is.
The only high-end Kiva we'll ever have
Nice gallery!
The biggest bummer for me about the death of the SIC Kiwami Tamashii line is that there was never an affordable, pocket-sized version of this sculpt.
Good Review, definettly one of my favorite Kamen Rider designs. Another great figure worthy of a review for halloween could be from the Garo series. I think Kiba, Baron or Crow would fit in well.
Nice gallery!
Also, thanks!
KT in general died off too soon. I would love to have a mini SICified Tendou to carry around. Finish up the Kuuga forms, Armed Hibiki, and of course, dip into the Showa riders.
Oh man what a sweet gallery, great job Ryan!
I still don’t own a single SIC but that Kiva figure and the Den-O stuff make me want some.
But I still wait for the SHF, it will come around one day.
ℒovelii. ❤
Keep reading: SIC Vol 50 Kamen Rider Kiva Gallery - Page 2
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