S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Grease Blizzard Gallery

"Are you ready?!"
"Damn right I am."

Evolt is mere minutes away from total victory, harnessing the power of Pandora's Box & the Lost Bottles, he will consume the Earth and countless more planets. Sento & Banjou must press on to fight him, but standing in their way are clones of the Hokuto Three! With only his life left to give, Kazumi will face his fallen friends one more time. But the power of Grease alone just isn't enough. A parting gift from Sento, Kazumi must wield the deadly Blizzard Knuckle and walk the lonely path of a hero. With frozen fists and an icy resolve, Grease becomes Kamen Rider Grease Blizzard!

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

Main figure
A big portion of this review will identical to that of my review for the original Grease Figuart. There are some obvious paint and molding differences between the two which I will call attention to, but the bulk of things will be the same.

The abrupt difference in color scheme is of course the biggest change. Grease was almost fully painted in a really gorgeous metallic gold, Grease Blizzard tradse this out for a fantastic dark metallic blue. When it hits the right light it really shines like ice on a cold moonlit night. Essentially almos the entire figure is molded in black plastic with blue painted on top of this. This makes the more intricate applications on the shins and shoulders that much more impressive. The finish on this is really excellent, no iffy spots like the first figuart. That said, the body itself is almost totally different.

This release, and the show suit, uses Kamen Rider Cross-Z version of the basic suit for it's core. So that means Grease's entire lower body is Cross-Z parts for sure. The legs are the same mold as Cross-Z, having removed the unique parts from build like the rabbit spring. the excellent and far covering paint may obscure this at first but these are Banjou legs and feet through and through. You're going to get exactly the same range of motion out of these legs as you would with Build, Sparkling, Hazard, etc. They work really great and with successive releases it seems joint tightness has been resolved.

The waist features a brand new driver for Grease, this is his first outing with a [B]Build Driver.[B] I love the circular nature of upgrades in this show. Ultimately the 3 secondary heroes have all come back to the power of the Build Driver for their most powerful upgrades. Rogue has Prime Rouge and Cross-Z has Cross-Z Evol. Meanwhile Grease had Grease Blizzard as his most powerful form in the TV series, while the upcoming Grease New World film will give him a new final form based on the Build Driver with Kamen Rider Grease Perfect. The Build Driver still remains one of my favorite Figuarts scale devices and thankfully this go around it's also equipped with another new trinket, the Blizzard Knuckle. A very stylish blue repaint of the Magma Knuckle which came with Cross-Z Magma, the Blizzard Knuckle is every bit as removable. It transforms (so to speak) as well. To make a handheld weapon mode for any figure to hold, rotate the handle backwards and pop off the face plates & plug them back on closer to the center. You can also add or remove a Full Bottle as you wish. Pre-installed in the Knuckle is the North Blizzard Full Bottle, a really gorgeous clear blue bottle. Grease Blizzard doesn't come with any other bottles so if you want to do more swapping you'll need to grab another one of you Build family figuarts. As is the option to use the Knuckle in this way gives you lots of photo and posing opportunists, as you can see below.

The upper body has an elaborate translucent black robot/mechanical design stretched across it that I really dig. For this release it's a bit darker and compliments the blue of the torso very well The sculpt for this part is very well defined and the black plastic is just the right opacity compared to the original feeling a bit too translucent. The entire torso is an identical sculpt to the first SHF as well. The arms are pretty much the same as well, aside from the new and intricate blue paint apps. The shoulder pads do have a fantastic new airbrushed logo on one of them. While the right pad still features the Robot Full Bottles emlbem, the left now features the North Blizzard Bottle emblem. As before the shoulder pads can fully rotate to recreate Grease's rider kick. Taking the place of Grease's left forearm is a new robotic claw, officially known as the GBZ Demolition One. With fully articulated fingers and nice tight joints this thing works great and has a very firm grip as well as a rotational wrist joint.

Ultimately the head is one of the most striking changes for this release. Where the original was beige underneath with a semi-translucent black plastic casing around it, the new one is a darker shade of black but is largely painted over in dark metallic blue. The faceplate is sharp and well defined, but the most striking aspect here is the crimson compound eyes. Just that perfect shade of practically blood red. If this form belonged to any other character I think it would instantly be recognized as a villain. But in Kazumi's hands, it's the form of a cold and calculated warrior. The entire figure comes together flawlessly. If you loved the original Grease you absolutely must own this one.

Accessories
Despite my love of this form and this figure, this is the aspect where it really falls short. Grease Blizzard comes only with two alternate right hands. While that makes sense given the articulated claw he now has for a left hand, I am disappointed. But on the flip side, there's not really anything this figure could have come with. Much like a similar form that preceeded it (Chaser Mach) Grease Blizzard is a single episode power up. The transformation finishes in the last seconds of episode 46 and it's debut fight and ultimately Grease's death are in 47. Making it a one and done appearance. There are no weapons or other accessories unique to this form other than the claw and the already attached Blizzard Knuckle. Would some ice effect part have been nice? You bet. But that isn't really what Tamashii does with exclusives. So it's no great shock that there's no thing else in the box. As is Blizzard is a solid enough figure on it's own that I don't lose much sleep over lack of anything else.

Final Thoughts
In a line that's been largely populated by repaints and slight remolds, Grease Blizzard is a true stand out. A stylish repaint and slight remold of an already audaciously stylish release, Blizzard will bring a ton of intimidating presence to your shelf. Pick him up now before prices inevitably sky rocket on the after market.

Part 2

I wish I'd still made the money I did a couple years ago, because I would absolutely love to be able to afford to get all the Build character's and their final forms. Build has some of my favorite suits in the series, and just having the RKF line as representations of them isn't enough

Repainting what used to be translucent pieces into flatter colours really does make it feel like a lot more drastic of a change to the aesthetics than a recolour normally would. This suit and it's appearance in the show was a great and wonderful surprise. The most difficult question is if one is on a budget, how do you go about choosing between his regular Robot Jelly suit or this special literal final form!

I'm tempted to say this is the most gorgeous looking figure from Build so far.

The colors on this one are absolutely amazing. Pair that with a great appearance of the suit in the show worn by a great character, portrayed by an amazing actor – SHF Grease Blizzard is a must-have IMO.

I have him displayed next to my Grease SHF and I'm very glad that I decided to double-dip on the mold. Thanks for taking your time to shoot this gallery for us, as always.

Aw fuck I should have gotten this

It was a suffer to get these figures oversea.

I definitely need to snag this.

Great figure, just wish regular grease wasn't so hard to get.

You'd think, a year on, Grease's death would be less sad. But it ain't. Rest in peace, you potato farmer. At least you got to go out in style. While I do prefer the OG Grease (OGrease?), there's enough icy blue coolness in this to carry it into second place.