The long awaited S.H.Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Masked Rider Dark Kiva was finally released last month on 28th August 2021. However, I received mine quite late, in fact almost 2 weeks after it was released. Nevertheless, it doesn't spoil the fun to enjoy the latest SKC entry.
Since I have the older S.H.Figuarts version of Dark Kiva, I put up a detailed comparison between the two, hopefully it will be useful for those who are still indecisive whether to get it or not.
First let's have a quick comparison of the box arts
Next up, the comparison of the contents, i.e. the accessories
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| SKC Dark Kiva comes with 4 pairs of exchangeable hands and 6 flutes; SHF Dark Kiva on the other hand comes with 3 pairs of extra hands, 2 weapons & the cape extension accessories. |
Now let's see how they look like when displayed side-by-side:
Overall, the old SHF version of Dark Kiva is slightly shorter and skinner compared to his SKC counterpart. Also, notice the two figures are using slightly different shade of red for the main body paint.
Let's have a closer look:
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| Putting them both side-by-side, you can really tell the shortcoming of the SHF version. SKC Dark Kiva obviously has better representation of the actual suit: the visor's curvature, the batwings design on the helmet... They all added up to a more show-accurate figure |
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| Comparing the two at this angle, you'll notice SKC has taller collar. Additional small details you might find is the color of the batwings on the helmet - SKC has done a better job to mimic the actual helmet |
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| Unlike SHF, SKC usually go with assembling separate parts for the armor instead of producing the whole armor in a one-piece plastic and paint it. You can see the green pearls of the SKC are translucent parts which were installed onto the armor. For the chest pieces, both have separate parts assembled on the main body, the noticeable difference are the matte black used in SKC and the glossy black used in SHF. You can see how SKC's chest pieces diffuse the light while SHF's reflect them |
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| The same amount of details & effort can be found in the Kivat the 2nd for SKC. Unlike the SHF version (which is just a piece of PVC with paint), SKC Kivat 2nd features movable parts i.e. wings that can be spread and mouth that can be opened or closed |
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| Having such features on Kivat 2nd leads to another gimmics i.e. you can now put the flute inside its mouth and recreate the scene in the show |
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| Speaking of flutes, SKC version of flutes are removable and not just one-piece plastic like SHF |
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| SKC Dark Kiva's arms have more details from the excellent paint job. The wrist band has its red pearl painted and additional details, which is lacking in the SHF version. Also notice the slight difference in the vambrace design here. |
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| It's also worth highlighting that the joints used for the shoulder pads are different. |
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| Similar to the arms, SKC has more detailed paint job compared to SHF. The red pearl on the anklet, however, is a translucent parts. IMO this kind of small details really increase the aesthetics value of the figure |
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| SKC Dark Kiva utilized flexible cape, meeting its usual standard. SHF Dark Kiva's cape is a 4-parts plastic cape, with the outer 2 parts removable as shown. |
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| SKC Dark Kiva also feature the covers to hide the hip joints |
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| Last but not least, the details of the sole, let's just say I prefer SKC's version |
From the comparison, I can say that a lot of effort had gone into SKC to recreate the suit in 1/12 scale. Does it justify the price tag of 8800JPY? Not necessarily, but if you're a fan of Dark Kiva (or his design), or you're just a completionist aiming to collect all SKC, I highly recommend to get this beauty. Trust me, you won't regret a thing.
