S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Poppy Toki Meki Crisis Gamer Level X Gallery

"I will make Emu smile again."

Most Bugsters use their powers to try to become whole. Seeking human hosts, feeding off their lives. Poppy is different. Created by Kuroto from the remnants of his mother, Poppy is a strong willed caring and courageous Bugster ready to defend humans from her less than savory kin. But rebooted and with her memories erased, Poppy became an unwilling part of the Kamen Rider Chronicle program. Forced to fight Ride Players, and her allies as well, Poppy becomes a rider under the control Parad & Graphite. But with the help of Emu and the others, Poppy's old memories break through. Rejecting the battles of Chronicle, wishing only to play with her friends and help others, Poppy awakens to her true heroic spirit as Kamen Rider Poppy! Ready to save Emu from Parad's clutches, Poppy will do anything. Even if it means resurrecting a defeated evil...

Packaging
As with most all Ex-Aid line releases, Poppy has a pretty basic two-tone box in black & pink. Thought I'm in love with the little added details or her release, some pixelated hearts! They add a bit of fun and character that's totally appropriate for her to otherwise boring packaging. The stock photos are likewise quite gorgeous for this release.

Main Figure
My review for Poppy is long overdue. And I apologize for that. It's been on the back burner for a bit while I've tackled so many other new releases this year. The most time consuming of which has been Hasbro's Power Rangers Lightning Collection. With an entirely new line of figure's to review on top of my S.H. Figuarts slate, it's been difficult to stay current. With that out of the way though, I finally had some time to finish up this gallery of Kamen Rider Poppy!

Poppy is one of very few entirely new molds in the line. The last one we had was GenM Level Billion. While Kamen Rider Cronus featured a number of new parts, he was still basically the same Level 2 rider body at his core. Poppy had to be an entirely new mold and as such presents plenty of improvements on the tried and true gamer riders, but some problems as well. Poppy does feature essentially the same feet and legs as most of the other riders. Though a bit more slender, the design is nearly the same. The sort of sporty sneaker look still fites really well for this figure, though the ankle tilt issue is still present after so many successive Ex-Aid releases. The knees do provide her a really great backward bend, and I'd like to spotlight the excellent fabric folds lining the knee joint as well. I love realistic touches like this with recent figures.

Poppy also has the same really excellent thigh swivels as the riders that use the Level 2 body for a base. However, you may run into some issues with the hips. While they're pretty open and excellent themselves, you have to contend with Poppy's new skirt armor. Sadly the lessons of Cronus were not learned in this area. Like him, her skirts are on very limited hinges and they're made of very rigid material. The combination means they just can't move all that much. So your mileage may very in terms of the articulation you squeeze out of this setup. At the waist is the Buggle Driver Zwei. This Driver is carried directly over from Kamen Rider Cronus and functions the same, though it is of a different shade of teal. The only difference with Poppy's is the new Toki Meki Crisis Gamer readout. The Zwei can also be removed from it's buckle, to simulate when Poppy (or GenM Level 0) uses it instead as the Bugvisor Zwei hand weapon.

Poppy's tapered torso features more of those wonderful molded in fabric folds that I like so much. While her upper body is a really nice thick armored design, Poppy's suit always tended to look a bit odd in show to me. But I think it's translated wonderfully to figure form. While the torso doesn't have the most dynamic articulation, it certainly gets the job done in expressing her positive personality. Surprisingly her arms also have quite a good range to them. While big rounded shoulder pads often spell doom for articulation, in this case they angle up nicely over the main body to provide nearly straight out poses. Standard Ex-Aid style elbows and nice open wrists joints again contribute to Poppy's electric persona.

Poppy's head is also by far one of the most unique and interesting rider helmets out there. Ex-Aid is known for basically all the riders having some kind of hair theme to their helmets. Poppy's sort of bucket style hair is just so damn unique and exactly the kind of wacky choice that Kamen Rider thrives on. The large eyes and hair bow go a long way to both humanizing her non-human character and belying her pretty fierce fighting style. The overall package of this figure is one of pretty solid quality and design with just a few minor caveats.

Accessories
Poppy pretty much comes with exactly what she needs. Though there's one glaring omission:

3 - sets of hands. Poppy was a super expressive character, full of energy and spirit, and occasionally a little menace. So I'm happy to see that she comes with plenty of hands to replicate her various moods and actions. Two different types of open expressive hands and a pair to hold her included weapon, give you all the options you need.

1 - set of Bugvisor Zwei parts. While typically worn on her belt, Poppy's Bugvisor can be removed in show and used as a forearm mounted weapon in the same fashion that GenM & Cronus use the Zwei. This set of alternate parts is intended for use once you've removed her driver and set it to the side. Though by default in box it's in Chainsaw Mode, the Bug Visor itself is just a plate in the center that makes up most of the mass of the accessory. It's attached to a long board with the saw extended on one end. The Grip Knuckle is likewise a separate part plugged onto this board. An alternate piece is included that when used in conjunction with the Visor and Knuckle, creates the standard Beam Gun version of the weapon we see GenM typically use. Though in truth Kuroto only ever borrowed this weapon from Poppy on occasion. She most often uses it as a chainsaw, or as a Bugster capture device to punish Kuroto.

The one big omission of this release, is the lack of a red eyed Poppy head. While her status as an "evil" Bugster was fairly brief in series, it was pretty powerful stuff to see her opposing the CR Riders. I feel like it would have been quite simple if nothing else to include and alternate set of red eyes, if not a completely separate head with this release. It's doubtful this mold would ever see second release as well so there's no hope of seeing the head then. Maybe they could include it with another future Ex-Aid rider? Even then I'm skeptical, as is I feel like it's a big miss for this figure not to include it.

Final Thoughts
I know my review was a long time coming, but honestly so was the release of this figure. The female Kamen Rider is kind of a rare thing. The last one we had before Poppy was Marika in Gaim, and before that was Mage in Wizard. Female representation in Kamen Rider is pretty standard in the supporting cast, often featuring extremely competent and interesting characters. But the one big problem the franchise still has is proper female representation of Kamen Riders. Kamen Rider Poppy could have and should have bucked that trend. Sadly after her programming was broken and she returned to normal, you can count on one hand the number of times she transformed in the series afterward. And she did it even fewer times in the Another Ending post-series film trilogy. Toei seems to be changing the formula with Kamen Rider Valkyire in Zero-One, having her around right from the start. Let's hope that this is the beginning of a new trend for the franchise. Maybe then, the wait between a female character's debut in a series and the release of a Figuart will be mere months, rather than years as it was in Poppy's case. In terms of this figure though, Poppy is an stand out and fun addition to a line a colorful and eye popping figures.

Part 2

The Tokimeki Crisis background shots here FTW!

Yeah Poppy was very fun to fiddle around with poses. Though judging by Zero One your hope in the final thoughts may not be too far off

Pic 51 says it all. So very good.

God this is so good. Here's hoping for Ride Player Nico!!

I was thinking this looked really good and was happy with it until reading the review. I'd completely overlooked a red eye version to represent her time as an evil bugster; that would have been an awesome addition.

Still, it looks awesome regardless

I'm really pleased by all the positive comments this gallery is getting. I let this gallery sit on the back burner for months after I shot it, I just didn't have time to finish it. But I'm glad you all still like it. I was afraid this thread would have like 10 views since she came out so long ago

Never too late for more Poppy!

I do admit to being surprised at how much shorter she is than the other riders, though; and this gallery really helps me see that. She was of course a shorter character in the show but height differences are so extremely uncommon between Riders that it's weird to see it when it does happen

People do really love Poppy. And I'm including me in people.I have her SODO, and it is a really nice design. Shame the figuart doesn't come with an evil head, but I guess these days you can't have everything.

Also, Toei better not mess up Valkyrie, especially when there's so much positivity riding on her.