Toku Toy Box: S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Amazon Neo Alpha Gallery

"You cattle. How dare you defy human nobility!"

** Spoilers for Amazons The Last Judgement abound in this review. Read at your own risk!

Two years on from Neo's death, Omega is hunted. Haruka and Mizuki have barely escaped 4C when they cross paths with an unusual home for children and a man named Midou. Little do they know, this place is merely a buffet, but not for Amazons. For humans. A new terrifying iteration of the Sigma Project has been undertaken, and the discovery of what keeps it going, will shake Haruka to his core. As the hunters become the hunted, the man named Midou proclaims himself Neo Alpha, the one to surpass Jin Takayama and the original madness of the Amazon Cells.

Packaging
Just as the Amazons that preceded him, Neo Alpha comes in a pretty dark box with some great stock photos. Alpha's color scheme is pretty dark as well however so everything tends to blend together a lot unfortunately. As with regular Alpha, the name is spelled as "Alfa" on the box. In Jin/Alpha's case the name Alpha is relative to Haruka's Omega. Midou sees himself as the better version of Jin, hence his self naming as Neo Alpha. Regardless, it should be "Alpha" not "Alfa". It's just a bad romanization.

Main Figure
The end is nigh for the creatures known as Amazons. And sadly, it would seem the same can be said for their figuarts as well. As of the writing of this review, no further Amazons figures have been confirmed for release. In fact the only displayed prototypes seen since the dual reveal of Crow Amazon & Neo Alpha, were the Last Judgement Ver. Alpha & Omega. Neither of which have been seen for some time. So it's fitting that Neo Alpha ends the line as it currently stands, especially considering his well, violent, death.

You're probably familiar with this figure already, that is if you own Amazon Neo. Neo was absolutely one of my favorite release in the Amazons line. It was a really great mold that changed things up from previous releases, and it helped that the design deviated to a more armored & cybernetic look. I also enjoyed how elements of the design were borrowed for New Omega. Neo Alpha takes the Neo mold and really militarizes the design. Which in the context of the film's story, makes so much sense when you think about the job Midou is tasked with.

In the same way that Neo was decked out in some gorgeous metallic blue and brushed silver, a color scheme that really sold me on the figure, Neo Alpha sells me so hard with the finer details of the paint scheme. Using quite a few more paint applications than usual, Neo Alpha features 4 distinct shades of green both metallic and glossy. There's some bright yellow pin-striping that really offsets the varying greens and glossy blacks nicely as well. The best details however are the alternating gray camo stripes that cover the abdomen hips and arms. These bits are patterned the same way as Neo's red and blue, but the subtlety of the grays really works well with the various greens and yellows of the suit.

The various Alpha & Omega releases, and to a lesser extent Sigma as well as Mole & Crow all had faults that irked me. But the Neo mold was a real winner to me. Unlike the others, most of the articulation is solidly intact with this design. Despite the bulk of the armor carried over to Neo Alpha, the figure is very free to move. The ankles are unobstructed so you can get nice solid balance from them. Their forward motion is limited only by the bottom of the shin armor, but not terribly so. The knees are really perfect. Unlike with Omega where the leg fins limited the legs to 90 degree angles, Neo Alpha is free to move because the shin armor can rotate the fins away from the back of the leg. I'm still not super in love with the drop down hips the two Neo's feature, but they aren't a huge detractor in their cases.

Now this is a really odd thing for this figure, but more so the character in the film. Neo Alpha has the Neo Amazons Driver attached to his belt, with an Ampule molded into it just like New Omega & Neo. However, in The Last Judgement, Midou only uses his unique Amazons Register attached to the left arm to transform. In much the same way that Iyu/Crow did. Only using the driver to summon his weapon arm. I can only assume a Driver was incorporated into his design simply as a way to set him apart from standard Amazons and make him a rider like the other 4, and I can get that. But he's already a remold of the Neo suit in both mediums, so the Driver was unnecessary to communicate his rider-ness. It's just weird.

The upper body is engineered in such a way that it allows you to arch the back up and lean him forward for really savage and animal like poses, though it does expose a gap on his back side when done. The arms are free of most obstruction thanks to some great shoulder pad design, swivel biceps, and rotating forearm guards. My only real gripe with the arms is that the fist pegs are a little tight, and the hands a little difficult to exchange, mostly on the left arm which features the unique Militant Amazons Register.

Amazon Neo Alpha does however deviate from the original Neo in one big way, the head. Taking inspiration for this design from a monitor lizard, Neo Alpha has a much more elongated and pronounced head than his predecessor. The new sort of bucket style head features really pretty blue compound eyes, a first for Amazons, and also has some admittedly oddly placed face guards that seem to emulate a football helmet a bit. The most striking piece of the helmet is the very elongated and fragile horn. The figure is packaged sideways in box because of it. So just be careful.

As you can see I've assembled all of the Amazons together in this gallery for a big family photo and some comparisons. There's a shot in there as well where you'll notice a silver Amazon Neo as well. Don't let me deceive you, that's not an official figure. It's a custom Amazon Neo Sigma that was made by @Gigabeetle and made it's way to me. I just wanted to give him a brief little spotlight because Neo Sigma is honestly the direction I expected a repaint of that mold to go in rather than the militarized one we actually got in Neo Alpha. And Gig's makes good stuff! Give him a follow if you haven't already.

Accessories
Neo Alpha comes pretty sparsely accessorized but that's to be expected honestly:

2 - sets of additional hands. Sadly these are both quite similar, just two different types of open palms. One relaxed, one a bit more savage. I would have liked some dedicated "holding things" hands to use with the Jungraider or something else of that nature.

1 - Neo Alpha Sweeper Arm. This just like the Amazon Neo Blade Arm that Neo came with. It's a brand new forearm with a weapon and hand attached that you can swap out for the standard one. It pegs on very securely. The Sweeper is interesting because it's both a gun and chainsaw in one unique weapon. Even more interesting is an essentially undocumented feature that allows you to detach the chainsaw with the hand holding it entirely. Leaving a normal wrist peg for a hands to attach to and leaving a wrist mounted gun behind.

I've gotta be honest, the thing that kills me most here is that we don't have a proper set of tamashii flames to go with this guy like the other 4 Amazon riders. In one form or another Alpha, Omega, Sigma, & Neo all have flames included with at least one of their figures. Neo Alpha is the only one who doesn't get any at all. Like Sigma he was only sold as a web exclusive, but unlike him no flame parts were included. They're just an easy repack, and for an otherwise fairly standard release they would have really made the difference with this figure. Especially considering Neo Alpha is bathed in an orange/gold light when transforming. Luckily I had some flame effects from the US exclusive release of SHF Doctor Strange to make due with on this one.

Final Thoughts
The first Amazon Neo was a really nice refresher for the Amazons line at the time. I think the same could be said for Amazon Neo Alpha. As the line dwindles down, and we currently have no more confirmed releases, this is a pretty solid one to finish things up on. While lite on accessories this is undoubtedly a really gorgeous release that's worthy of joining the other monsters in your collection.

Part 2
- The Last Judgement
- Believe in Amazons

What a weird coincidence, I just watched the movie on my way home from work. Overall I wasn't too impressed with Neo's designs but the figure looks pretty good.

I don't dig his design either but as a figure I think this works fine. The details and colors really shine. I love the blue compound eyes!

Much like with Neo I think it's fun to imagine what he'd look like without the armor - a black version of Alpha with white strips.

Also, the hyper-murder-chaingunsaw-arm-of-doom has to among the most hardcode Rider weapons ever

I haven't watched the movie as of yet but as far as the figure goes it does look kinda cool. A bit of a pity this particular line is apparently ending here. But then again outside of the more key characters how many monster designs would actually sell.

Beautiful suits, beautiful figures, uncomfortable memories.

Great work den-o! These Amazons galleries have been a highlight.

Thanks for reminding me I need to watch that movie still.

Probably should've gotten this figure to "complete" the line up for me, but eh... I still don't care a lot for the suit. It's the head mostly. But I was also never crazy about the mechanical bits on Neo Omega, so the hart turn towards militarization of this one is kinda worse.

As an action figure, it looks to function great - already like most everything in the Amazons as it was anyway, so that comes as no surprise. Just still not my cup of tea for a design.

Gorgeous. Probably the best looking Rider figures, in my opinion.

This figure is on my "must have" list. I love the design. The weapon is awesome!!