Coming off our 400th anniversary special our resident Photo & Content contributor Ryan is back to continue his series of classic Kamen Rider W galleries! Today he’s taking a look at S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider W Luna/Trigger!
One of the myriad two tone forms Kamen Rider W has access to, Luna/Trigger is one of his 3 “basic” combos. The Luna Gaia Memory gives W the ability to stretch his limbs in incredible inhuman ways, whil the Trigger Memory gives him access to the powerful Trigger Magnum. The potent combination of the two allows W to hit otherwise impossible targets in spectacular ways.
Check out our full review & gallery of this figure by clicking “discuss on the TokuNation forums” at the bottom of this post.
Continuing on with the Kamen Rider W Figuarts, next up is Luna Trigger! This form trades out the wind and extra fighting powers for stretchiness and a gun, giving W some ranged combat abilities. How does this figure rank?
Packaging
The box is fairly boring. I do like that it follows the color scheme of the figure, where Cyclone Joker's box was green text on black, Luna Trigger gets yellow text on blue, but that's the most interesting thing about these boxes. It has a couple of pics of the figure posing on the back, and that's it, nothing special.
Main Figure
Luna Trigger is nice and shiny, with a metallic sheen to the blue and yellow. The paint work is all clean, all the black and silver lines separating the other colors and crisp and clean. Looking at the closeup of the Double Driver I'm seeing some slop in the blue and black paint on the Trigger half of the driver, it looks pretty bad in the close up, but I never noticed it in person at all, so it's not a big deal to me.
What I really appreciate with the Kamen Rider W Figuarts body is the suit detail. I like the lines on the main suit, that makes it look a bit like armor plates, and the ribbing at the knees, hips, elbows and shoulders, that matches the ribbing of the undersuit. But all of the W figures have that, what distinguishes the different forms, aside from the color, the unique sculpting hand and ankles cuffs and the chest bit which forms a 'W'. Each side has different sculpting, and I think Trigger's are my favorite, being all straight lines and right angles in the cuffs, but adding circles to the chest bit. This design element is something I liked in the show, and I greatly appreciate it being carried over into the figures.
The articulation is the same as Cyclone Joker, of course, but nearly all of the problems I have with Cyclone Joker aren't nearly as big a deal with Luna Trigger. The inner shoulder joint was the biggest problem on the first figure, but on this one they're not nearly so loose, they pretty much stayed where I wanted, even with the big, heavy extended Luna arm from the Luna Metal/Luna Joker two pack. For more on the poseability, see my SHF Kamen Rider W Cyclone Joker Gallery, but this one is better at doing what I want it to.
Accessories
The accessory count is actually lower on Luna Trigger, compared to Cyclone Joker, somewhat unintuitively. Cyclone Joker had 4 pairs of hands and 2 scarves, while Luna Trigger has 3 pairs of hands and 2 guns. This low accessory count a bit of a recurring problem with the three main forms of W. Luna Trigger has punching fists, gun slinging hands, and jazz hands. Each fills their roll fine, but no pointing hands, no henshin pose hands? Come on Bandai! I just got SHF Meteor Storm and he has a whopping 13 distinct hands! That hardly seems fair. In fact, Accel, the secondary Rider from Kamen Rider W has 10 hands, why is poor Luna Trigger limited to a measly 6 hands?
Anyway, moving on. The Trigger Magnum is present in both regular form and Maximum Drive form. The sculpt is very detailed, and there's a black wash over it to bring out all the lines. The paint is good, little bit of slop on some of the silver, but it's not terrible, and it is a small item. But it's very accurate, both shades of blue are present, in addition to the silver, blue and yellow (accurately depicting the 'W' on the left side only). Of course it's not accurate, but since he has a pair of gun slinging hands, W can dual wield the Trigger Magnums.
There are other accessories it would have been nice to get, such as any of the Gadget Memories that can connect to the Trigger Magnum, but alas, you have to buy one of the two packs to get those (or an SIC set if you want Gaia Memories). Effect parts would have been awesome, but Bandai wasn't doing that sort of thing at the time, so a couple hands and the two Magnums is all you get. Adequate, but not impressive.
Final Thoughts
Of course, I'm going to say everyone should buy this, but that's because I love the show and I have a 'gotta have them all' mentality. As a figure, I think Kamen Rider W Luna Trigger accomplishes what it sets out to do, but not in a particularly special way. If you want a representation of this form of W, you shouldn't be disappointed with this figure. But you're probably not going to be wow-ed by it either, it's not horrible by any means, but it's not super great either, it just kind of is.
What's the shooting effect from?
Sure, the W figures have issues, but I still love them. Luna/Trigger is a really nice looking addition to the line-up. I really need to buckle down and grab the rest of the line.
Outstanding pics as always, ryan!
Outstanding pics as always, ryan!
I agree you should pick them all up. With only a couple of exceptions they're all pretty inexpensive on Mandarake, particularly the 2 packs.
I agree you should pick them all up. With only a couple of exceptions they're all pretty inexpensive on Mandarake, particularly the 2 packs.
As I've been messing with these, the hand tightness varies a bit from figure to figure, as do the hips. I haven't messed with CJX yet, but I seem to recall him being fine. We'll see when I get there.
This is the only W Rider Figuart I own and do enjoy it, despite its low accessory count and unusually-hard-to-swap-out hands.
Nice pics; it has me thinking whether I should reconsider the Heat two-pack and CJ Gold Extreme.
I like the 2 packs. Aside from the forms being necessary for me to own, Heat Trigger is probably my favorite of the 9 original forms, plus they 2 packs come with extra accessories. The Heat set has the Gadget Memories, which can attach to the included Metal Shaft and Trigger Magnum. For the $20-$30 it goes for on Mandarake I'd say it's well worth it.
I still need CJ Gold Extreme, too.
Full Thread: S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider W Luna Trigger Gallery
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