by Loran
Much like OOO, I still need to watch Kamen Rider Double/W. Why haven’t I? Well, laziness, really. I will say, though; Double’s style really appealed to me right out the gate. It was such a return to basics, something missing from most modern Riders. All of the designs were incredibly evocative of the phrase “elegance in simplicity”, which I just love. I think this is why the designs for OOO were so hated at first. They were way too different from what we’d just seen. Sure, Rider shows always have wildly different art styles, but going from Double’s “Back to basics” look to OOO’s… unique style was a bit much.
Of all of the combos in Double, the ones that just struck me in all the right places were the Heat combos. That shiny red just looked so good to me. Of course, my favorite of all of them was Heat Metal, but unfortunately, I’ve been having the worst time trying to get one, so I had to settle for the two pack of Heat Trigger and Heat Joker. And you know what? It was worth every penny; these two ROCK.
They both use the standard Double body, which looks great but has a few flaws. Most noticeably, Bandai didn’t color the joints—all of them have black joints. It really kind of hurts the look of the whole design. Also, the mold’s ab crunch is almost nonexistent. It’s more due to the design of the suit itself than just figure, but it’s still unfortunate. Lastly, the hands are REALLY annoying to swap. It’s hard to explain, but they just do NOT like to go in. It’s made even worse by the armor on the wrists that loves to slide off…
The rest, though, is pretty good. It has the great older SHF feel, with that nice heft you can’t not like. Metal feet and rocker ankles, man, I wish figures still used these.
Between the two, I think I like Heat Joker the most. The black and red look so nice together, and the purple and orange complement each other perfectly. The flaming punch hand is quite possibly one of my favorite SHF accessories of all time. Seriously, it’s awesome.
Heat Trigger is cool, but not as cool, at least to me. Whenever I see him I just think of a can of Pepsi. Still, the shiny blue is WAY cooler than I thought it would be and looks pretty nice. He includes more accessories than Joker, coming with two versions of the gun.
Both figures essentially share hands, but there isn’t anything special; just open, closed, and “holding stuff”—naturally the hands for Trigger have, well, trigger fingers. Just use a hairdryer or something to get the plastic soft enough before swapping them…
But there’s one great accessory in this set that REALLY makes me regret not having Heat Metal, and that’s the flaming W Rod. Holy crap, this thing is AWESOME. It’s also unwieldy as sin, but this will make Heat Metal into one heck of a display piece once I get him.
Overall, my first foray into the Double figuarts has been a good one, and while I do want more, I think I’ll be content just getting the three Heat forms and Cyclone Joker; maybe Skull too. These guys are great entry-level Figuarts, which is great since most people are getting into the franchise with that series. Just don’t let the hands drive you insane like they did to me… Highly recommended, and come to FPNYC to get yours!
