Monday, February 27, 2012

Totally not the ED-209: An S.I.C. Kiwami Tamashii Side Basshar Review


I've been anticipating this release since I bought Kaixa last year, and finally earlier last week I was able to get it. It was the last one in stock at the store and thank god I had a reservation done the day before. Anyway, it's been a week since I got this bad boy so I'm over the initial glee stage, and thoroughly had time to get my thoughts on this release together. 


First of all, I'm very glad they're making more bikes for this line and especially for the Faiz series (which, in case you haven't noticed by now is my second favorite Heisei series), Autovajin was very nice and solid, Sidebasshar is (somewhat) big and best appreciated in bike mode. A point I'll come back to in a bit. but first let's look at the detail on this thing:


There's so much eye candy. The amount of detail and sculpting is impressive, even more than the rider, the paintjob matches (black with gold trim, silver/gunmetal detailing) as well but it's slightly a different shade, which is nice as well, and the weathering on some parts is awesome! Especially on the engine, seat/AI treads, and exhaust pipes/missile launchers.


The bike isn't too big for Kaixa and I'd say it's a believable size for the rider. Not too small, but not exaggeratedly large as well.  

 
Plus since it's a bike with a sidecar, it eliminates the need for a kickstand. and that makes posing it easier.
...then again there's not much of a choice in how you'll pose the damn thing when it's so heavy looking. 

I can't stress how much i like seeing Kaixa on this thing. Yes it is his bike and yes obviously he has to be on it, but there's something about having the two of them together that really blows me away. They just look so awesome. 



The only real disappointments  I have is the sidecar. You can't ride anyone there unless you slice their legs off.
And then there's the fact that the handlebars are too tiny to hold with kaixa's gripping hands.

Oh well, they fucked up Kaixa's torso so whatever, Bandai. 

Overall, bike mode is my favorite since I won't have to deal with the problems of AI Mode...



Here's the fun part, converting the bike to AI mode is relatively simple, though in my opinion the transformation less integrated into the design than Autovajin, but the result is pretty great.



I honestly thought not a lot of parts had to be removed to make that, but then again engineering at this scale would make the price even more prohibitive, so I'll take what I can get. It's pretty dinosaur-like if you squint, but even if you don't it's still pretty badass. 



Mounting Kaixa is tricky since there's no grip on the handles and the footrests are obscured by the robo legs. He has to do this all by piggy-back. I wouldn't mind if the connection points for AI mode didn't get loose too quickly but they do after only 2-3 conversions from bike to AI.


So what's the verdict on this?  If you have Kaixa you're damn well obligated to buy this thing. The issue of the loose AI mode joints can be ignored if you don't play with the thing too often and only display it in the mode of your choice, and I highly recommend keeping it in bike mode, and placing other figures under the tires often, so the point that Kaixa is a huge dick comes across clearly in your display case.

I got mine for 2.2k php ($51 (mother of god.)) which is really steep but this thing's heavy. 
Save up for it if you gotta have it and you already have Kaixa, but just as an impulse buy you can skip. 


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