S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Drive Type Formula Gallery – Toku Toy Box Entry

For-For-For-Formula!

Kamen Rider Drive's penultimate form arrives in our latest gallery before the holidays commence! Today we're showcasing S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Drive Type Formula!


** I've basically taken 2 galleries here. Post #1 has an extensive look at this figure without decals applied, [/B] post #2 features the Trailer Cannon, & post #3 features the full figure with all decals applied.

Packaging
As with all previous Kamen Rider Drive releases, the only new thing to say about this packaging is that it feature a windowless box because it's a Tamashii Web Exclusive. So this is totally normal for web exclusives. In this case, just as with Heart, we get to see a lot more awesome box art because of it. Everything else is business as usual.

Main Figure
I'll start off by saying I never really understood the distaste that many people had for Drive Type Formula. To me it's an incredibly unique and fun design that takes the car theme to it's extreme, in a good way. The figuart down scales that fantastic design perfectly. And of course because it shares molding with the previous Drive releases it's an already excellent figure. So let's break it down.

For starters, aside from minor mold changes and color differences much of Type Formula's lower body is indentical to Type Speed & Proto-Drive. The first significant change is the new Formula readout on the Drive Driver As with all previous uses of this part the Driver can be removed and the readout can be swapped out.

The upper body of course features extensive new molding & remolding. Beginning with the arms we get the new "flipped" Shift Formula in the Drive Brace. Also new to the forearms are the Type Formula Tires. These smaller tires thankfully do no significantly hinder the arms posability. The Tire Koukan Formula figure, as well as the show prop, could exchange these tires in favor of other power ups but much like Proto-Drive this figure has not been designed for these Tires to be removable.

The most interesting new molding on this figure is the entire chest assembly. Basically the entire upper body is new. The chest has a rather large pair of spoiler wings modeled after an F1 car called the Power Gail Wing. This assembly can be removed exposing the flat chest beneath and also allows you to plug on one of the below listed accessories, an exposed Core Driviar-N. The shoulder pads greatly resemble car fenders and do hinge up, but not quite enough to give the arms quite the forward & back range they require. Don't get me wrong you can plenty of use out of the arms, but the combination of the tires, shoulders, & large breast plate make it difficult to get some poses out of this guy. On the back side Drive has the newly molded in X-Fan-Boost. Essentially a booster jet on his back with a spoiler. And finally we have a new remold of the standard Type Speed head. Formula's head features the same basic design of Type Sped with a new vent on top for aerodynamics and an epic pair of shades over his visor. The shades can be removed by the nature of their design but there's no real purpose to it.

As I'm sure everyone is wondering, yes this figure had an extensive decals sheet to deal with. I was pretty skeptical of having to apply ALL of the Shift Car sponsor logos myself too, I still firmly believe Bandai should have just done these as tampographs. I'd even have been willing to pair even more for that. But that being said, applying the decals was not difficult in the slightest. While the layout of the decal sheet itself and the instructions don't quite match up, it's not too hard to get everything where it goes. There's a certain margin of error I was willing to accept and I'm glad to say I never came close to it. I expected to ruin these decals and I didn't. If you use a fine point curved pair of tweezers as I did then applying these is a piece of cake. Oddly there are several totally unused decals on this sheet, a couple of Drive "R" symbols and the FULL readout that would go on the Trailer Cannon. The directions make no mention of these additional labels.

Accessories

1 - Shift Formula Car. Standard un-flipped version, the flipped one is in the Drive Brace already.

1 - Core Driviar-N. A swap out part for the chest. Not much point in it really without a figuarts version of the Pit Crew to do repairs on the suit as the only time this part was exposed in show meant Drive had been damaged.

2 - sets of hands. Just so Drive can actually hold the Trailer Cannon and the 2nd set just for expressive purposes.

1 - Trailer Cannon. Now this is a pretty great example of how S.H. Figuarts should strike the balance between functionality & accuracy. When not in use by Drive the Trailer Mode can be left on it's own as an oversized Shift Car. To become a handheld weapon you just need to pull down on the handle and lock it into place. However the Trailer Cannon can also replicate the Rider Shooting Full Throttle attack. To do this you can first remove the Shutter Gate Panel, its the sort of sight on top of the Cannon, a small peg for Shift Cars is there. Just plug on the one of you're choosing. This replicates how the real deal would physically load Shift Cars through a slot in the same place. You can also pull on the silver panel on the front of the cannon to full the entire Shift Container Barrel out, which itself has 2 Shift Car pegs on it. So you can mix & match Shifts as you please to recreate Drive's attacks.

I can't really think of anything else that Type Formula should have come with that it didn't. That's everything relevant to it, and while the hand selection is slim it's all you really need for this figure. It's got the perfect accessory loadout. I do wish the Pit Crew Shift Cars & tires (Sparner, Jacky, & Mantan) had been released but I doubt they would have been included with this. As is though I'm more than pleased.


Final Thoughts
Overall I'm ridiculously happy with how this figure turned out. Being what it is many people wrote this design off as goofy, cumbersome, and ultimately pointless as of Type Tridoron's debut in the series. But S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Drive Type Formula, labels and all, is an exceptionally nice release that includes everything you could need for this form.

Nice Drive!

Part 2!

- Trailer Cannon Modes

Post 3!

- FULLY applied decals!

I hate just about everything about this design. That being said, Bandai did a very good job converting it into a plastic figure, minus the stickers. At the very least, he looks nice with the other Drive Types.

Holy crap, I forgot this thing was even coming out! And while I'm not a fan of the suit as a whole, you did a fantastic job with this gallery Den-O! Cracking work!

I've always had bad luck with putting on labels, but boy do they bring detail to this figure....and even on its own it always looked so cool to me.

That hasn't changed at all. Drive Formula is a nice looking form and if I'm allowed to be so bold it looks better than the sea of red that is Type Trideron.

I hate figuart stickers. I just got Blade and I after over a month have yet to try to put on the stickers for fear of messing them up and the whole thing looking like garbage.

Yeah this i why I just got the TK Version, despite it not being as mobile and the tires being larger than normal I still prefer it.

If only because I dread stickers, I really, really dread stickers. Especially smaller ones. It's why I always dread Gunpla ever so slightly, because of the tiny eyes.

That being said, Type Formula still makes a good looking figure.

i wished the decals was preapply. the effect parts with the figure makes the Drive formula figure really spark. i can totally see bandai making this in a model kit form.

He looks amazing next to Kachidoki arms. Both not quite ultimate forms that look better than their successors and gun wielders