“You boys, never stood a chance against me.”
After devastating Mars, the extraterrestrial being Evolt came to Earth seeking to repeat this tragedy. To rebuild his arsenal & powers and become a complete being once again, he would play the long game of manipulating humans to do his bidding. Helping to create Faust, the Rider System, and taking on the guise of Blood Stalk, Evolt has meddled in human affairs for a over a decade. Now, he can also meddle with your collection thanks to the release of S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk!
Blood Stalk sees the return of the well received mold created for Night Rogue with a few key changes to give Stalk his trademark Cobra theme. As ever this mold is nicely poseable and full of personality. But it’s the accessories that really sell it. Thanks to a full compliment of hands, a functional Transteam Rifle, and some new Steam Effect parts. This mold will undoubtedly return at least a third time for Mad Rogue and I eagerly await it!
For now though, you can check out our full review and complete 80 image gallery of S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk after the jump by clicking “Discuss on the TokuNation Forums” at the bottom of this post. We’ll be back later this week with a review of S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Lazer Turbo!
"Ciao!"
The menace of Mars, Evolt has had many forms and guises over the course of his time on Earth. By far the most memorable of them all, was as the secreat founder of Faust, Blood Stalk. At one time the mysterious Blood Stalk pulled strings from the shadows orchestrating the rise of the Kamen Riders and the fall of Gentoku Himuro. While he may terrorize the nation as the all powerful Kamen Rider Evol now, there's something to be said for the unique personality and intrigue this character cultivated in his early interactions with the cast. Following on from the release of Night Rogue, today we have a gallery of S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk!
Packaging
Uniquely Blood Stalk features some rather different packaging than Build or Night Rogue. In large part due to the effect parts included. The front half of the box features Stalks' trademark green & red colors while the back half is grey for the effect parts. It comes across as a really unique two-tone look, though at he cost of any stock photos of the figure itself on the back. It is quite interesting though.
Thankfully the packaging gets the romanization of his now down just as it needs to be. No more "Blood Stark" or "Brad Stark". Just Blood Stalk, making the correct implication about his motif being that of a snake.
Main Figure
This figure looks good. Very very good. People seemed to have some misgivings about the design of Blood Stalk prior to release. Complaining that both stock photos and display prototypes looked inaccurate. I have never seen these flaws and in hand I most certainly don't. Night Rogue was a great design that translated extremely well to figure form. That mold has been used again extremely well. One of the few flaws I originally found with the mold, was the ankle design. Because of the way the cuff of the shin armor comes down around them, you do lose a small portion of movement. But as you can see in this gallery, that doesn't make it difficult to pose him. I was a bit worried about the way the hips and thigh swivels may not be useful as well just because of his bulk. I'm happy to report and show you that Blood Stalk is every bit as poseable as Rogue. Though I recommend you definitely pull the hips down far enough because if you don't, the waist armor will dig some small grooves into the hips. There's plenty enough to work with in the legs to get Stalk in poses just brimming with personality. Also I just want to mention how really cool and well defined all of the details on the lower body are. At first glance they're easy to miss because of the uniform color scheme. But ever rivet, zipper, strap, and seam is present that should be, and it looks very good.
As with Night Rogue, one could reasonably assume that the upper body would suffer from the bulk of the chest armor as well. Fantastically though Tamashii has managed to give Blood Stalk the same dynamic upper body as Night Rogue. It's pretty wild that the ab section cam move as much it does, albeit in a little more limited fashion than Rogue. The chest can still arch pretty far back and move a fair bit forward. While slightly more limited than Night Rogue, this is still some excellent upper body articulation. The detailing of and around the Cobra emblem, the sort of electrical wiring, all the little details are just really well done. The whole upper body is fantastic.
The arms do leave just a little to be desired however. The bicep swivel is a bit tight and somewhat limited because of the shape of it's design. The elbow can hit about a 90 degree angle so that's all good as far as I'm concerned, but they could have had just a little bit more freedom. The biggest issue with it is the wrists. Where Night Rogue had some limited movement because of how flush the hands sat with the wrists, Blood Stalk has the opposite issue. The hands are rather shallow, or perhaps the wrist pegs are long? Either way you can more easily make use of the wrists, but the fists themselves actually have a rather loose fit. So the hands do come off very easily.
Finally that brings us to the head. I've seen a number of people both before & after this figure was released who thought it was inaccurate, just like Night Rogue. Again, I simply don't see it. The subtlety of how the eyes can be seen under the visor is just perfect in proper lighting. The effect is just fantastic. The shape of the heads seems on point to me as well so again I don't really get the complaints I see off and on. This is an excellent sculpt with very good detailing. Overall this is just a really fantastic figure. It's just got true presence in hand. If you don't believe me then check out the photos below.
Accessories
Blood Stalk's accessories are actually identical to Night Rogues. In fact the only difference being the color of the hands. There are however some bonus effects.
1 - Transteam Rifle. The trademark weapon used by both Night Rogue & Blood Stalk, this multi-form weapon is actually real well done in toy form. As the full Transteam Rifle it's a nice long range weapon that looks good and hefty and adds quite nicely to Stalk's look. The components can break down into the Transteam Gun & Steam Blade. The standard handgun form is the one used for transformation sequences and the most common version of the weapon either user was seen with. The Transteam Gun also contains the Cobra Full Bottle which is removable like the Bottles in the Build Driver, though it is so sparsely detailed that it looks exactly like Rogue's Bat Bottle. The Steam Blade uses the Stock of the rifle mode for a handle, it's a bit too thick to be held perfectly, but it works. The pressure valve on the side of the blade can be turned freely, though the scope on the end of the blade can't be properly lifted like in the show. But honestly this is still a really great accessory. I love full functionality, or at least as close as possible functionality. The Transteam Rifle and it's alternate configurations more than make the grade.
3 - sets of hands. You get one pair to hold the Blade, 1 pair to hold either the Rifle or Gun modes, and one open palm pair of hands. Not bad really. Even the Gun holding hands work well as just menacing open hands. I'm pretty well satisfied with these. Dedicated "finger guns" hands would have been great to have though for obvious reasons.
1 - set of Steam Effects. Meant to replicate the steam that shoots from Stalk's chest as he transforms, these parts are versatile enough to work with Build & rogue as well. They can be attached to the two included stands if you so choose, or they can be used with regular Tamashii Stage arms.
As with Night Rogue's wings there's one noticeable thing missing from Blood Stalk. His big green Cobra. The CG model used in the show for this summon is actually a modified version of Kamen Rider Ouja's Contract Monster, Venosnaker. I included some shots in this gallery with S.H. Figuarts Venosnaker for reference and I think if that figure was modified appropriately it would be the perfect add-on. Make it happen Bandai! Of course the most simple inclusion would have been a to scale Pandora Box. I tried to make due with what I had lying around for this shoot, but it's just not the same.
Final Thoughts
The Kamen Rider Build line of Figuarts is 3 for 3 as far as I'm concerned. S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk is just brilliant. This figure has so much personality. Even though it's practically the same as Night Rogue, the playful and menacing persona of Evolt shines right through. The additional steam effects just give this figure another layer of play bility that it's predecessor didn't quite have. I eagerly await getting hold of Cross-Z and the Machine Builder this month.
Part 2
- More Steam Effects
- Transteam Rifle (all modes)
- Night Rogue
- Pandora Box(s)?
Great looking figure, the best suit for the most iconic character of his series IMO.
Couldn’t pre-order one at the time and I'm not feeling like hunting it down now, I'm content with getting the Riders of Build, but looking at the pictures alone is lots of fun.
Really hoping he gets a figuart as Kamen Rider Evol, because I'm regretting not getting a figure of the best character in Build. Head still looks a bit oversized to me, but everything else about the proportions look so much better now that people are getting the figure in hand
A great suit design, and great to see everyone's fears with this boy were proved wrong. Also, proof Minecraft was evil all along.
I managed to get one and it arrived a few days ago funny enough. Also, I believe Bandai said they'd address the criticisms pre-release about inaccuracies
Nice, Cobra Commander.
From An asian dude in a Mint cape with a bug helmet, To a Badass Red snake assassin, Oh how far we've come
It's funny; I pretty much consider Blood Stalk to be an inferior design to Night Rogue, if only due to the colors used, but the Stalk's suit's frequent use in the show - along with the Night Rogue suit being phased out - finally got me to stop noticing. I'm enjoying owning both. Figuarts has stepped back from producing much in the way of villains who aren't Riders, so these were something of a welcome surprise.
Does anyone know a good chair you can buy for either Blood or Rogue?
Keep reading: S.H. Figuarts Blood Stalk Gallery - Page 2
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