Toy Review: R/D Kamen Rider OOO Tatoba Combo

This maybe is your first actual look at the R/D or Real Deform Kamen Rider OOO by Banpresto. Banpresto is more known to manufacture sofubi - a rubbery plastic that is in forever in a static standing position. Well Banpresto suddenly took their sofubi and gave it some joints. That's the birth of R/D - their answer to the long gone Deforide series.

Impressively, Banpresto gave a lot of colour to the box art with the R/D logo on the top left hand side and opposite is Banpresto's logo. Additional decals include the OOO show logo, the 30 point action insert and of course the name Kamen Rider OOO. Still in its infancy, R/D OOO box has the figure in front with the subtle image of Tatoba highlighting where the joints are.

The Banpresto offering has a simple number of accessories mainly two holding hands and one Medajalibur. The Medajalibur is made out of soft rubbery plastic that is why it is too darn flexible. The downside of this is that on extreme heat, the plastic could warp and the paint applications will wear down. That is according to my experience living in a tropical climate. I wish that the OOO Scanner can be detached so I can do more action to the 4-inch deformed masked rider.

As mentioned earlier that Banpresto's poseable Tatoba has 30 points of articulation enough to create OOO's signature fighting stances and battle poses, even with just two open hands and a pair of holding hands. From what I read, the holding hands will have an extra purpose when OOO's R/D version of his kamen rider bike hit shelves soon.

OOO's deformed head is also subtle and smaller unlike Chibi-Arts Kamen Rider W but its definitely bigger than S.I.C. Kiwami Tamashiis. So its not a bubble head in its sense. This figure is made by the same rubbery material that Banpresto uses for their sofubis, and even the balljoints are made the same. The con that I see for this is that in the long run, OOO would not be as stable as the moment you take the figure out of the box and you might even struggle making him stand straight.

Paint applications all over the body are almost perfect and might be compared to S.H. Figuarts even better than the current sofubi counterpart. The only unpainted area is the scanner. But this is only a minor nitpick. It is very impressive to see that the guys at Banpresto did a lot of effort in making this small scale chibi masterpiece. It is clean and almost has a near perfect blend of both glossy and matte paint apps. I like and what I see is good.

Technically, the price of one is about US$14.30. But I am not sure how it would really be priced on different markets. As of the moment, I'm just lucky to get this and the other two from friends from high places.This will be released in late April 2012.