Toku Toy Box: S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Zi-O Decade Armor Gallery

"Hei! Sei! Hei! Sei! Hei! Sei! H-H-Hei!"

With Tsukasa Kadoya's arrival, the world is always in danger. The Destroyer of Worlds has witnessed or instigated the destruction of many, for better or worse. And allying himself with the Time Jackers raises many questions. But entrusting his power to Sougo, raises even more. Decade Ridewatch in hand, Zi-O will don the Decade Armor to face both Kamen Rider Decade, as well as Ohma Zi-O! Will the power of the 10th Heisei Rider be enough, or will Sougo have to take some of the power of Ohma for his own, just to survive?

Packaging
Decade Armor comes in the same standard style of box as the rest of Zi-O's line. The only difference here of course really being the official images of this gorgeous figure.

Main Figure
It's been a while since I revisited Kamen Rider Zi-O's line. The last go around we took a look at Ohma Zi-O, a drop dead gorgeous figure, albeit it one with some unfortunate design flaws. And while Decade Armor is an entirely different beast for the most part, some of the same issues exists.

Decade Armor shares some general engineering with previous Zi-O molds, though it's really it's own figure entirely. While a lot of what we see appears to be much the same as the previous Build Armor or GenM, looks can be deceiving. While those figure really were the basic Zi-O/Geiz mold with sort of an extra later of armored laid over this, the Decade armor is one big beefy boy all on his own. Sadly this shows through in much of the articulation as well. Starting with the feet, Decade Armor has very wide and angular boots which can make him pretty stable most of the time. The ankles however leave a lot to be desired, making dynamic poses a little more difficult. This can also be said of the forward/backward tilt of the ankle, which means you will have to rely somewhat on the toe bends for many poses.

The legs are substantially more thick than those of Zi-O's other forms. So much so that you can really tell when you begin to pose them. The primarily silver finish on these parts is really stunning, but the added Decade magenta really helps break things up. When posing this figure you'll find that because of these huge chunks of leg armor, that joints can look fairly small by comparison. The knee in particular looks emaciated because of those thunder thighs and calves. Functionally it's just as bad though. The knee can just barely barely bend back into a 90 degree angle because the thick armor will impact the back of the thigh. This means you lose a lot of otherwise expressive articulation.

The hips suffer a similar fate. While they an drop down a bit to angle around the thickness of the waist, their own additional armor may take a few scratches in the process if you aren't careful. The bulk on the thighs will always keep you from really getting Zi-O into super wide and expressive poses. Moving up to the waist we see the tried and true Ziku Driver returns, once again adorned on either side by a Ridewatch. In this case the Zi-O Ridewatch and Decade Ridewatch. Both are removable and like the DX toy the Decade Ridewatch may also accept another watch in it's slot. So far the Decade watch is the only one in the SHF line for Zi-O that even comes close to getting it's detailing right as well. The readout on the driver is of course the year 2009, for Decade's debut as well.

The upper body continues the heavily armored aesthetic. Mimicing Decade's own chest sash design, Decade Armor is a pretty unique looking design. The chest features the date "2009" again as well as the numbers "453145" which is code for "Decade". Just in case we didn't know who this form was based on (ha!). The large chunk of the upper body does have a small bit of trouble angling around the lower torso as one might expect given the bulk of it, but you can get a decent amount of movement our of the torso parts. Honestly the number of sculpted details present on this part of the body are really astounding, definitely something I can appreciate about this mold.

Like much of the figure, the arms do suffer a bit from their own design as well. The large angular shoulder pads are hinged to make them maneuverable. But the added bulk of the upper torso means that when you rotate the arms, the shoulders look very unnatural in almost any pose. The elbows can manage a standard 90 degree angle, while the wrists are mostly unencumbered by the armor surrounding them. On each wrist is also a pair of Ridewatches, the left wrist has Gaim & Ridestriker while the right wrist has Ghost & Build. Each is removable and can be used with any Ridewatch accessible item in the line.

Finally that brings us to the head, with what I've always described as a tablet. It's an incredibly unique design for a rider, and brought back memories of the old Ganbarider at the time of this designs reveal. It's an interesting look and one that I quite like as well, and it manages to look pretty great in figure form. The screen of it's face is very glossy and reflects quite a bit of light at certain angles. The printed face underneath is a fairly sharp piece of art that evokes Decade perfectly. Oddly enough the head of this figure isn't nearly as impacted by the overall design as you might think. The neck is largely unencumbered, the head is just rather large and will eventually impact the shoulder hinges. Otherwise though, you can get a lot of use from it.

Considering the nature of how this form swaps powers for previous Heisei Riders mid-season upgrades, I'm surprised the figure isn't intended to do that out of the box. Given Tamashii's penchant for occasionally releasing standard and deluxe versions of figure simultaneously, I'm surprised one wasn't released for this figure with swappable Build Sparkling parts or something similar.

Accessories
Decade Armor is a pretty sparse release in it's accessories:

3 - sets of hands. One for holding the sword, one for general open hand posing, one for Zi-O's signature pose. Not a ton of variety but enough to get the job done.

1 - Ride Heisaber. The best play on words ever? You bet. A creative albeit short lived weapon, the Heisaber looks brilliant in Figuarts form. While the limits of the figure mean you aren't going to knock any crazy poses out of the park with this thing, it still looks brilliant in Zi-O's hands. The back of the hilt can accept a Ridewatch, while the clock hand on it's face can be spun. Just be careful because it's on a very very tight joint, wouldn't want to break it.

Like I mentioned in the figure section, I wish they'd have gone the extra mile to give us swap out parts for the form changes. This form had very few appearances as I recall, only a couple of episodes really as it was quickly outclassed and replaced by Zi-O II. So it makes sense it doesn't come with much else as it never used much else.

Final Thoughts
Overall this figure isn't exactly a slam dunk. Like Ohma Zi-O it has a number of design flaws that impact it's overall flexibility as a toy. It's a great looking shelf piece but it could have been handled a bit better in my personal opinion. If you're a big fan of Zi-O and some of his more fleeting forms such as this one, then it may work well for your colleciton. As is I think Kamen Rider Zi-O Decade Armor is a bit of an average release.

Part 2

Just in time for toku toybox, huh?

This is definitely one of those ridiculous designs that very easily grew on me over time. It's just silly enough to work and your gallery shows that this figure gets it across very, very well -- I've been tempted to get it once or twice and I've had to stop myself!

Part of me honestly wants it for the Heisaber alone. Easily my favourite Kamen Rider weapon and one who deserved more than it got

I agree, the Heisaber was fantastic. I loved the name when it's you first got announced, and was so disappointed with how fast it got ignored

So glad to see more Decade love. Needed more pink though lol.

Always felt mixed on this form, but the figuarts does a pretty good job

Ehhhh I think including the form's actual gimmick wouldn't actually work at all considering how the gimmick works with undersuits

I'm nearly grateful that I don't like the flat face, since this is otherwise my favorite Zi-O alternate form with his best weapon. Good to know it's a lacking figure for purposes of posing.

I absolutely love the transformation sequence in this review. SO cool.

As much as it annoys me that it was almost immediately forgotten in-series, it's at least fitting that a form whose gimmick was mid-season upgrades got quickly discarded just like the mid-season upgrades of those other shows.

Personally, the knee bend problem could've been solved if they added a vertical swivel peg to the joint like the ones in the OOO Seihou Figuarts or like the shoulder joints seen in earlier HG Gundams (e.g. HG Nu Gundam) to allow the lower leg to swivel into a position where the lower armor won't collide with the upper armor. Wouldn't have been too expensive to implement too.

I kinda figured this form would grow on me but in the end I just find it kinda average. A little too bulky for my taste, and the figure just sort of exacerbates my issues with the suit. Zi-O has enough good designs in general to make up for it at least.