S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Fourze Elek States Review

Now, i'm going to be honest here, I was not a huge fan of Kamen Rider Fourze. I liked the riders, certain characters, and some of the plot elements, but the overall series was too childish and dumb for me. Now, I know there are a lot of fans of the show, and I respect your opinion, but Fourze just isn't my cup of tea. Which is funny because I never would've thought that the Fourze Elek states would be my first S.H.Figuarts, and my first figure of a character well...ever. I caved in this when I was shopping with a friend when I found this guy due to his cheap price, and considering the amount of accessories, as well as the beautiful gold suit, I had to pick it up, despite my problems with the show.

Box:

The box is quite nice, the box is mainly yellow with a pixelated monochrome image of Fourze Elek states on the front. You get a window showing the figures and a few of it's accessories as well as the name of the figure and description of the line.

The back of the box has some product shots, and shows most of the many goodies and accessories that comes with the figure

Product:

The finished product looks pretty good, the stature is nice, details are well painted, proportions are decent, and the gold paint used looks really good. I especially like the eyes, the silver paint along with the clear blue really look good with the gold. My only real gripes would be the face is made in this rough plastic which doesn't look like the bright electric effect mask on the show. The joints are also in this mustard yellow which looks really bad compared to the beautiful shiny gold, but I don't think it's bad enough. I am very satisfied with this figure's looks.

Articulation:

The head is on a ball joint, but mostly swivels, up and down is slightly limited due to his giant thruster neck.

Shoulders are easily the most limited part in terns of articulation, they only go up about 80˚.

As well as move forward only 70˚, quite bad honestly, and it's due to the vest padding design.

Elbows bend about 100˚ and swivels at the bicep.

Ab crunches back quite well and does decent forward too.

The thigh can be pulled down lower so the figure can kick up lighter.

Legs bend about 160˚  and has a floating kneecap and swivel a bit.

Legs also move forward and back, as well as have a toe joint.

Accessories:

As I said, you get quite a bit of accessories with this guy for the price.

Besides the pair of fists on the figure, you get a pair of open hands, a flat open hand, and a right pointing hand for his "lets do this man to man" pose.

You also get 3 pairs of astroswitches, each with are tiny things..

You can switch them out for the astroswitches on his Fourze Driver. Each astroswitch is molded with their own segment of the driver, so you switch them by removing the segment of the driver and putting the new switch on. I'm glad they did this instead of doing an actual astroswitch gimmick since those would just be too small to handle. OOB, the figure comes with an activated Elek switch, and deactivated Launcher, Drill and Radar switches.

They switch quite easily, as shown here, I have replaced the launcher and radar switches with the deactive beat and scissors switches.

One of the astroswitches is a flipped version of the Elek astroswitch for "de-henshining" poses.

You get the Beat Module, as well as both an activated and de-activated beat module to go with it. Telling the difference requires a keen eye, the activated has a dent at the front, while deactive has a dent at the back.

Beat is a right leg module, so it replaces the X part of Fourze. To replicate this, you pull off the foot and thigh from the lower leg before replacing it with the Beat Module.

Now he can destroy any Zodiart's hearing with some loud soundwaves.

You also get the scissors module as well as both active and deactive scissors astroswitches. The deactivated has the clips open, while the activated has them closed.

Scissors is a square module, so it replaces the left arm. Just take off the whole left arm and replace it with the scissors module.

Now he can cut stuff, note the scissors only have one blade on a hinge, so it's on a weird angle, but it is accurate.

You also get an active and deactive version of the Burgermeal foodroid. Unfortunately, Burgermeal can't stand up on his own, so you might want some blu-tack for him. In the show, this guy is used for reconnaissance and video-taking, and in-canon, uses the Camera astroswitch to use, you don't get one with this figure though.

Finally, you get his main accessory, the Elek Module Billy the Rod, which is really an electric sword with a silly name.

The way Billy works is that you use the plug called the Ignition Plug and put it into one of 3 sockets, or United Taps. Depending on each tap inserted, the attacks, damage and strength will vary.

I like the fact they made it work, it's a nice detail and really helps with displays.

You also get an extra end of Billy with the Elek astroswitch inserted. This is to be used alongside with the empty circle astroswitch part to emulate a limit break with Billy.

Now he's ready to unleash his electrical finisher of electricity.

The handle on the Fourze driver can also move in order to emulate a regular limit break.

Size Comparison:

The guy is quite tall, far taller than Madoka and taller than a 1/144 Gundam. He's a bit too tall to be displayed with figma, as Madoka and Fourze are supposed to have a 50 cm actual height difference, however I honestly don't mind.

Verdict:

Despite any problems I have with the show, I will say that this figure definitely satisfied me, and was a nice introduction to the world of human figure collecting. I had collected Gunpla before this, and Transformers before that, but never had I owned an S.H.Figuart or figma despite my high interest in them, they were simply too expensive compared to the cheap kits I bought. After buying this though, it prompted me to save up more money to buy the rightful representations of characters that I want on my shelf, because this guy was a very nice figure. Articulation, while a bit limited in the arms, overall is pretty decent, and the figure looks awesome to boot, with beautiful gold paint, very well painted details, and good proportions to boot. With the cheap price and accessory count, I can definitely say I got my money's worth with my first S.H.Figuarts.

Pros:

- The attention to detail with the minor paint apps and gimmick detail is absolutely superb, can replicate many actions from the show. (!)

- Large amount of accessories with this figure. (!)

- Retails for 3,200 yen, pretty good value considering the amount of detail and accessories on this figure.

- Gold paint looks really good on this figure.

- Articulation is overall quite good.

Cons:

- Articulation in the arms is quite limited.

- Joints are this weird mustard gold which does not look very nice with the gold paint.