S.H. Figuarts Hell Bros Gallery

"Hell Bros. At your service."

Fu & Rai Washio grew up as Nanba Children. Once orphans, they were Indoctrinated by the industrialist Juzoburo Nanba, and raised with unwavering loyalty to the man who saved their lives. As a result these brothers underwent the enhancements that would transform them into weapons for the 3-sided war for the nation. Representing Seito, and making use of the Nebula Steam Gun, the Washio brothers became Engine Bros & Remocon Bros! Faced with Kamen Riders that continue to evolve and threaten their master's will, the brothers break out a secret trump card, a fusion of their powers. Using both the Remocon & Engine Gears, Fu unites his and his brother's powers to become Hell Bros! Despite the continually rising hazard levels of the Kamen Riders, the Hell Bros combination was formidable, and even after the death of both brothers' the suit would be resurrected as a Clone Smash.

Packaging
As with practically all Build releases Hell Bros has a pleasing two tone package design. Nothing's really changed aside form color choice and stock photos this go around.

Main Figure
If you're a fan of the Kamen Rider Build series, or a collector of it's toyline, then undoubtedly you recognize a lot of what makes up this figure very much. This series made excellent choices in how costumes and parts were reused or altered to make something new a number of time. The Hell Bros offer another very good example of this familiar practice.

At the base, the Hell Bros body is one we're familiar with. Night Rogue, and by extension Blood Stalk. The Nebula Steam system (lifted from the original Kaiser system) shares the same basic design philosophy through out all of it's various users. The original Kaiser & Reverse Kaiser, Bi-Kaiser, Night Rogue, Blood Stalk, Remocon Bros & Engine Bros, Nebula Hell Bros, and finally Hell Bros all share an under suit with mere cosmetic changes on the upper body. I really appreciate the way this system has changed and evolved with each generation of users as well. The S.H. Figuarts which share this body is currently limited to just 3 however. So we limit our comparison of Hell Brow, to Stalk & Rogue.

For starters the biggest change to the figure is that Hell Bros features the first use of the brown under suit. There was a bit of controversy early on in Build's TV run where Night Rogue went from a primarily black suit, to one with a mostly brown base fabric. The change was made with no real explanation and went unaddressed in show. The Nigh Rogue figuart was released using the original black costume design, though the figure turned out a bit more blue than black. Stalk was of course red, and the Hell Bros of course opt to use the brown suit for the first time. Oddly, the original two Kaisers from the Build/Ex-Aid movie shared the black Night Rogue suits at the time. But by the time they were reused for the Remocon, Engine, and Hell Bros suits in the TV series later, the under suits were changed to brown as well. So this figure presents the interesting possibility that Bandai could easily re-release Night Rogue in his second color scheme.

One of 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 in all directions. And despite appearances the bulk of the thighs doesn't impede leg movement either. As with Rogue & Stalk, this figure can pose with the best, though not perfectly. As before with this mold, I recommend you definitely pull the hips down far enough before moving them up, if you don't then the waist armor can dig some small grooves into the hips. There's plenty enough to work with in the legs to make this figure fit right in to the war for Pandora's Box.

The greatest difference with this figure is the new and bulky upper body armor. The hallmark of the various Kaisers & Bros is the mechanical design inherited from their substitute for Full Bottles, Gears. The base of the chest is built out with the basic design of the Nebula Hell Bros form, one which is an in-between of the Hell Bros final fused state, but you can see that come across in the final design none the less. This is topped off with a combination of well sculpted and nicely painted white and green gears. The back of the torso is physically identical to Night Rogue & Blood Stalk with mere cosmetic paint changes applied.

The arms offer some big departures as well. Each use of this mold has varying designs for forearms, shoulders, chest, and head. Each themed to the user. For Hell Bros we again get the gear themed bits. Each shoulder now features a large set of gears set into a mechanical interface with a large semicircle protruding out and up. It's a really menacing design that probably loses a small chunk of it's threatening aura with the safer color choices. Now these shoulders definitely impact articulation, but not nearly as much as you'd think. They can angle out a decent amount to salvage a lot of the movement that's built into the mold. As with previous releases we get a pretty nice bicep swivel, but sadly an elbow that only hits about 90 degrees. The forearms feature another large mechanical gear protrusion that you may find annoying when holding weapons and posing. The Hell Bros head is another really pleasant deviation from the last two figures. The basic helmet is the same, but the visor portion is replaced with a large two-tone gear, and some big industrial looking chevrons that come off the sides of the helmet. You can see the basic shape and mold of the standard Kaiser/Nebula Hell Bros visor under there too. And I'm sure an avid customizer could easily turn this figure into any number of the other Kaiser or Bros figures with ease.

Given that this figure is yet another easy but great repaint of a tried and true mold, I'd like to think that further official repaints and remolds are just a matter of time rather than a question of if. I'm pretty happy with what we have in Hell Bros.

Accessories
You get just what you need with this release:

3 - sets of hands. 1 set purely for expression, another to hold the steam blade, and a 3rd set to hold the steam gun.

1 - Nebula Steam Gun. This is a really gorgeous repaint of the original Transteam Gun, and weirdly enough, it is *not* a repack of the one that came with Kamen Rider Rogue. Rogue's was a recast in translucent purple with gold & green detailing. Hell Bros Steam Gun is an actual metallic purple repaint of the weapon. It's subtly different but really nice. It's still capable of accepting Full Bottles and or Gears, and can combine with Steam Blade parts which are included.

2 - Gears. Repacks of what came with Kamen Rider Rogue, you get the Remote Control & Engine Gears. They can interact with any versions of the Steam Gun.

1 - Steam Blade. A repack of the components included with both Night Rogue & Blood Stalk. The new Nebula Steam Gun can still use them in the exact same way, combining to form the Nebula Steam Rifle.

Final Thoughts
Overall this isn't an essential release unless you're a pretty big fan of Build like myself. It's always great to have other secondary villains like the Hell Bros to go with the heroes in my collection. It's a mold I've gotten familiar with twice already, so if like me you enjoyed it the first two times, then I can safely recommend that you'll enjoy Hell Bros as well! I do however hope that next we can get a two-pack of the Remocon & Engine Bros to compliment this release.

Part 2

He still reminds me of those industrial shredders. But awesome pics and awesome looking figure!

I swear the Remocon half is a different colour than it was in the show

I can't be the only one who finds the apostrophe placement in "Hell Bro's" upsetting?

Hmmmm, this looks like a fine figure, I just cant find anything interesting to say about them, which from what I've heard about build and Fu and Rai is appropriate.

Oh, man. The juxtaposition of Bros with PunchHopper and KickHopper is inspired. Story impact: extremely similar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawf

I can't be the only one who finds the apostrophe placement in "Hell Bro's" upsetting?

The Hell Bro's Design (and yes, that apostrophe is annoying as anything) is surprisingly good and memorable, to say how it was designed for a movie villain, and then re-used in the show, and I'm glad they did a figuart of it. Now, who wants to put money on a BiKaiser repaint?

The only Hell Bros I love are those two former ZECT employees who got rejected by a sentient mechanical wasp and has since been eating ramen noodles on the streets and wear potentially unsanitary leather clothes they probably salvaged from a literal dumpster fire.

Would've been nice if there had been an option to swap between each brother's configuration.