S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Cross-Z Charge Gallery

"Dragon in Cross-Z Charge!"

With a 3 sided war for Japan's future (and the power of Pandora's Box) underway, Hokuto's own warrior Kamen Rider Grease has appeared. His arrival on the battlefield brings with it the powerful and dangerous Sclash Driver. Fueled by Sclash Jellies, this wild driver has detrimental side effects on the users' body. In Ryuga Banjou's case, his drive to find a reason to fight, to protect his friends has given him the strength to overcome these hazards. But will this power be enough? When the time comes, can the muscle headed hero face his destiny? We'll see today in our gallery of S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Cross-Z Charge!

Packaging
Charge continues the trend of two-tone boxes for Build releases despite the rather bland combination of blue & gray on it. This one's not particularly interesting honestly, but I'm not here for the box. I'm legitimately quite happy to finally have a chance to review this figure and form.

Main Figure
It's odd the by the time this form has finally made the crossover to figuarts, that it literally doesn't exist in the show anymore. Cross-Z Charge took over for Banjou's original Cross-Z form fairly early on. The original only having a few outings to speak of including 1 movie. But with the introduction of Cross-Z Magma, Charge was literally no longer viable. That was several months ago now. Despite this I've been excited to see how this design translated to toy form and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Cross-Z Charge is pretty strikingly different when compared to Cross-Z, Magma, or Great. It's shiny silver and translucent blue color scheme really go a long way to setting it apart from Cross-Z's various evolution's. But that's pretty appropriate given the different Driver being used, the transition from Grease to Grease Blizzard is very similar. Anyways, that striking color scheme is what I'd like to touch on first. Charge is almost fully painted in a really gorgeous metallic silver. The only notable exceptions being the shins, abdomen, and translucent parts. The finish on this is really excellent, I've only noticed a few iffy spots where the application is either over sprayed or a little under applied. The legs are accented by some ice blue on the feet, and some very sharp white techy detailing on the thighs. The legs themselves feel like they have a much greater range of movement than the standard Build/Cross-Z or Night Rogue/Stalk molds. I do wish the ankles had a little more clearance, but the overall performance of the legs is nice.

The waist features a brand new driver as well, the Sclash Driver! I always liked the design of this driver and felt like it's ultimately been under used. Originally billed as the "big upgrade" near the middle of the series, and certainly used to great effect by Grease, Rogue, & Cross-Z, it has been outclassed. To the point that by the oncoming series finale, only Rogue is still using it. And even then he's about to get a Build Driver based upgrade form in an upcoming DVD/V-Cinema. That's all beside the point. This driver works very well at this scale. The Wrench handle can move up and down and the include Dragon Sclash Jelly can be removed as well as inserted into the Twin Breaker weapon.

The upper body has an elaborate translucent blue dragon emblem stretched across it that I'm totally in love with. In a coincidence of the suit and toy designs, the peg holding the dragon to the chest is placed where the eye is so it syncs up well enough to hide it despite the translucence. The sculpt for this part is very well defined and the blue plastic just the right opacity. The arms are pretty much standard, though the elbows are hindered a little bit by the way the forearm ends on a point. They do look quite nice thanks to that silver paint application and the white tamphographed details on the biceps. The shoulder pads have magnificent airbrushed style dragon art that would look very much at home on the side of a van I would love to drive. I love it. These big dumb shoulder do however limit some of what you can do with the upper arms, they tend to impact the chest at very strange angles, though they are surprisingly well jointed. It's imperfect but they work.

Finally, the head. Made with the same glorious clear plastic as the chest. I absolutely *Love* how it turned out. I half expected the opaqueness of the plastic to be off like in the past with Meteor Storm. But I'm happy to report that it's dead on. The faceplate is sharp and well defined, while the features underneath it shine through in almost any lighting. They just nailed it on this one. Bravo. Overall this is a really excellent figure that I think excels in several areas that the first Cross-Z did not. It's not absolutely perfect, but it's turned out so much better than I ever expected too.

Accessories
Charge comes with a pretty balanced set of accessories:

2.5 - sets of hands. That's an open pair, one set of open fists for either holding the Sclash Driver handle or possibly the handlebars of the Machine Builder, and one left hand to hold the Twin Breaker.

1 - Twin Breaker. This dual mode weapon always looked a bit clumsy to me in the show, but I like it for the most part here. The hand meant to grip it, holds it an angle but that can help navigate around the forearm a bit. I wish it could rest flush against the arm but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. The twin breaker comes packaged in Beam Mode with the gun barrels pointed forward. You can easily transition it to Attack Mode by rotating them back and extending the golden spear point in the middle. This locks nice and snugly in place, just be careful not to scratch it.

The Twin Breaker also comes equipped with the Cross-Z Dragon and Dragon Full Bottle. They can be removed and are identical to those included with standard Cross-Z. They fit very snugly into the slots of the Breaker so you'll need a little force to get it out. These slots can also accommodate any Full Bottle, or Sclash Jelly.

Really that's everything this form could need and I'm very satisfied with the Twin Breaker's functionality.

Final Thoughts
Cross-Z Charge was a form I was prepared to dislike i the show, but damn it all Banjou sold it and it's deadly ramifications so well that I couldn't not love it. I was prepared to dislike this figure as well, but it's wound up being one of the more solid releases this show has had to offer frankly. I'm even more pumped now for Cross-Z Magma & Great Cross-Z than I ever was before. Build has been such a rewarding show over time and it looks like this line of figures will follow a similar pattern as well. S.H. Figuarts Cross-Z Charge will be another excellent addition to your collection.

Part 2

Keen gallery! I wish I could get into this form, but I was never able to forgive it for almost immediately replacing the terrific Cross-Z design. I don't know that I'll pick it up; if I buy a Slash Driver-using figure, it's likely to be Grease. It feels a bit odd to pass on what are fundamentally attractive, well-put-together figures, but my shelf space isn't getting any less limited.

You've been getting an incredible amount of mileage out of effects parts, and I kinda love it.

Yeah, the figure looks amazing for what it is but the design never worked for me. But seeing how good this one came out, it really makes me even more excited about Grease.

This guy is probably my least favourite of Banjou's forms. And you know what? He still looks great, either in show, or in this gallery here. A proper testament to the Build design team!

It says a lot when a bad form can turn out so good, if they didn't get the head right then what was the point

It's a shame about the really dumb box shoulders because otherwise this form would look superb. You can see it especially in poses where the arms are forward so you can't see the box shoulders as much; like in this image.

Either way these are some excellent pictures of a bleh design executed very well. Good job on this as usual!

Haven't seen the show, but I really like the look of this design/figure. Great gallery!