S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Woz Gallery

"Indeed the power of Kamen Rider Woz, is in the hands of Woz."

Woz as we first knew him was the mysterious servant to the future demon king Sougo Tokiwa, Oma Zi-O. As the series progressed he became both friend and real ally. But when Zi-O refused his path to the overlords' future, a divergent timeline came into being. And with it came a divergent Woz, Another Woz, White Woz! In the present day, White Woz wielded the futuring power of Kamen Rider Woz! That is until Black Woz, with the aid of the Time Jackers, stole this power for his own. Two Woz's, One Rider! "Woz! WOZ!!"

Packaging
Woz's packaging follows along the same pattern established by Zi-O & Geiz, it's a fairly minimal style just with Woz colors swapped out this go around, and some new stock photos. I do generally prefer the look of his box over vanilla Zi-O & Geiz, though honestly I did enjoy the respective Build & GenM Armor packaging. Overall the box isn't the point, but I appreciate a good presentation.

Main Figure
Kamen Rider Woz builds on the pretty solid foundation laid by the Zi-O/Geiz mold. While Zi-O & Geiz are really just two sides of the same coin (being simple remolds and all) Woz is entirely new, just engineered similarly. Oddly enough, original retail price on Woz was 5940 yen which is about 140 yen more than Geiz had been. Geiz also came with that awesome Ridewatch stage pack for him and Zi-O. Woz only includes hands and his weapon the Zikan Despear, so the price disparity is a bit odd. Though it must be pointed out that of the 3 riders, only Woz included his weapon. I can only chock up the price to this mold being a bit more elaborate with more paint apps than the other two.

Woz functions in basically exactly the same manner as Zi-O & Geiz. Wide feet, decent toe bends, and nice rocker ankles go a long way to allowing a figure to hit all the right balanced poses yet again. Add to this basically wide open hip joints and double jointed knees and you've really got the full package. The only issues present with Woz are the less than perfect thigh swivels and the extra thickness of the hips themselves. The additional armor bulk of the hips/thighs means they impact the edges of the waist armor pretty easily unless you pull the joint down and out. But watch our as repeated rubbing of the thigh against the waist will wear the paint down as well. Remember, essentially every silver surface you see, is painted.

Woz also features the first new rider belt in the line with the Beyond Driver. I always found the design to be a bit boring in show and sadly i can't say the figuart really elevates it either. The basic black and neon green look fine, though ultimately a bit boring? The left facing side of the Driver can accommodate any of the 5 included Miridewatches. As with the Ridewatches of the 4 previous releases in the Zi-O line, none of them have properly painted watch faces. The lack of rider faces on each watch is unfortunately more apparent in this case as there are no sculpted details either, like were present on standard Ridewatches. Pre-attached to the Beyond Driver is the Woz Miridewatch, however spread across the two forearm holsters are the Shinobi, Kikai, Quiz, and 1 Blank watch as well. The Woz watch is properly molded in the open position for use with the Driver while the others are all in inactive positions. Any can be plugged onto the handled and pressed in to the Driver to simulate functionality though. The rider readout has a pretty decent approximation of the standard Woz form painted on the interior, though it can be hard to see when not in the proper light.

The upper body is where Geiz's radically different all digital smart watch theme really comes into play. The wrist band going down the front and back of the torso really sells the look. These same straps present on the arms and legs really lend to the more futuristic nature of this rider, despite the fact that really all the riders in this series are of the future. Woz seems to stand apart. Like Zi-O & Geiz the upper body doesn't really suffer from any detrimental restrictions thankfully. Woz has plenty of expressive personality built into the upper body. As I'd mentioned above, this figure really does have a ton of paint applications and that's so apparent here. While the green and black parts are largely just molded in these colors, all of the silver and various shades of blue used are applications. These applications really help set Woz apart from his allies who are primarily just black (Zi-O) and red (Geiz) plastics.

The arms work surprisingly better than either Zi-O or Geiz. The shoulder pads are on a far batter swivel joint allowing them to spin around the shoulder section and angle up out as needed so you won't see much of any obstruction. The bicep swivel and elbow joint function in essentially the same way as the others but they really feel like a smoother affair all around. As I mentioned before each arm has 2 removable Miridewatches attached. And finally Woz's head is another really unique entry in the line. His vibrant blue visor spells out "Rider" in Katakana. I really didn't care for the general sort of oval shape of the head at first, but honestly I think it lends itself better to being a watch face than Zi-O or Geiz. Overall it's far less limited by the design of the neck collar than either of the others as well, which helps make this figure easily my favorite of the 3 main forms released thus far. Which was a definite surprise to me.

Seeing as there are still no Another Riders in the line, and sadly unlikely to be, I decided to throw in Dark Drive to square off against Woz below. Two future riders fighting it out just made sense, plus I'll take any excuse I can to bust that beautiful boy out! And, in recreating the spirit of episode 28 of Zi-O, Diend, Baron, & Knight cameo for a fight against Woz. Obviously the original Diend Figuart is quite old and dated, though the Seihou will be out next month to rectify that. But for now he works as a Woz foil.

I've also tossed in shots with with a couple other guest stars. Seeing as Kamen Rider Kikai, one of the future riders whose power Woz draws upon doesnt have his own figuart, I tossed in the original Kikaider. Kikai is after all played by Kikaider Reboot actor Jingi Irie. Likewise there's a shot with Red Buster in there for fun. Red Buster's actor, Katsuhiro Suzuki, portrayed Kamen Rider Quiz. Unfortunately I don't have a Starninger figure to throw in as a stand in for Kamen Rider Shinobi, I did however have Drive's Midnight Shadow Shurikens to utilize! While each form of the Zikan Despear doesn't necessarily correspond to each of the future riders whose Miridewatches Woz uses, I tried to mirror the characters as best I could. And you guys know me at this point. I just love character cameos.

Accessories
Woz includes the following:

2 - sets of hands. That's one set of hands to hold his weapon, and one set of open expressive hands as well.

1 - Zikan Despear. Woz's signature weapon is quite the interesting one. A sort of Y2K aesthetic inspired javelin? Between the bright green, super techy molded details and the app style interface, that just feels like the best way I can describe it. And given Woz's familiar techno music henshin jingle, it's all pretty appropriate. The Despear has three modes; Yari Mode, Kama Mode, and Tsue Mode. Yari is basically a spear and most often how it's used. Kama mode is a scythe, mostly associated with the Futuring Shinobi form. And Tsue Mode or "Cane" is very clearly a question mark themed around the Futuring Quiz form. The SHF version of the weapon rotates on the blade for each mode, though the Yari blade will need to be replaced with a smaller equivalent so that it can fully rotate within the shaft. Despite the weapons very wide grip, Woz has a nice firm grasp of it at basically all times.

Now. I know what your going to say, he should have included the Twilight Chronicle. And I 100% agree. It's Black Woz's or rather just original Woz's most significant accessory. He should have come with it, even as just a non-opening static accessory. I would have also been happy to get White/Another Woz's tablet version of the book. Either would have been ideal. Neither, was not a good choice on Bandai's part sadly.

B]Final Thoughts[/B]
Unexpectedly, Kamen Rider Woz has turned out to be my favorite figure outing from Zi-O thus far. When this suit appeared in show, I didn't necessarily care for it. To me, it honestly looked like a future tech version of Necrom, and I did't care for it. Over time, as Woz became in my opinion a better character, the design really grew on me. Now we're at the point where the Figuart I was probably least excited about from the line, has turned out to be a real winner in my book. I definitely recommend picking up S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Woz, especially for the decent retail price discounts being offered on him currently.

Part 2

Terrific gallery! Woz may be the nicest of the Zi-O figures. Still, it's weird; I think the voices on the BeyondDriver - both on the show and in Kamen Rider City Wars - may have ruined the character for me. I'm sure some people like the shrillness, but it just grates on my nerves like nothing else.

While the lack of paint on the Miraidewatches doesn't bug me as much as on the other figures because it's not really apparent in head-on shots, the absence of the images still baffles me; there's no awkward molding to work around, which is, I assume, the reason we didn't get images on the RideWatches. FigureRise still puts Figuarts to shame in that regard.

It's great that he comes with his weapon, even though it's a damned shame that I'm counting this as a plus and not as something we should be able to take for granted.

Man, this is a lot of grousing in response to a great gallery. I never get tired of the henshin shots. ZOMG the DiEnd.

If Kamen Rider Vulcan and Valkyrie ever get Figuarts, weapons are a MUST (considering that their weapons are, you know, their transformation devices).

I wouldn't be surpised if Vulcan doesn't come with an Attache Shotgun though, unfortunately.

I love this smartwatch-man. His great debut in the show plays a big part in that, but I've grown really fond of this design. His weapon is rather odd, and I'm pretty sure the cane mode was only ever used in literally one fight, but it definitely looks good in his hands.

Very much appreciate the gallery. The big fight with DiEnd is great, as are cameos from the future 'riders'. Whenever the GingaFinally review might come in the far-off future, maybe either Evol or an Ultraman come stand-in for the rider from space.

Maybe the Vulcan Punching Kong Figuarts will be included with Attache Shotgun.

That much is guaranteed at least, thankfully. And I'm pretty sure Vulcan is the second retail release right after Zero-One, Valkyrie will probably be the first Web-Exclusive.

Yeah, the shotgun is probably included with the Rise Hopper bike, alongside the Attache Calibur.

If they even make that one... considering that we have 5 Riders from the get-go they'll probably focus on getting those out and by the time they are we'll already be in super form territory.

Honestly the lack of the book is just too much of a flaw for me, it's like trying to make orange juice without any oranges

It would have been so ideal if this figure came with White Woz's tablet, and then GingaFinally came with Woz's chronicle.

Definitely wanted the Tablet or Chronicle seeing as how even the Sodo line managed to throw it in.