To be honest, I wasn’t excited for this release at all. As a whole, I didn’t really enjoy The First or The Next, and while I like the suit designs and the molds for the Figuarts, I had no real reason to be excited for his bike release. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised once I finally got the thing in hand. Despite technically owning it twice (I’ll get into that later), Cyclone turns out to be a great, perhaps one of the best recent bikes released.
The box is a standard bike box in size. However, this box is done entirely in white, with red lettering to match the bike’s color scheme. As always, it features the bike in the corner, with some pictures of Ichigo and Cyclone on the back. These colored boxes are pretty fantastic.
The bike itself is an extensive remold of the HardBoilder that no longer splits apart. The underchasis itself is identical, sans a slight remolding in the front axel. The main chasis, for the most part, is new, but features the same overall shape, particularly in the front of the body. The seat is slightly modified. Of course the front and back are completely new. The front is pretty nice, featuring a cool Shocker logo, also present on the sides of the bike. The back sports a giant muffler, that’s painted beautifully in a nice rainbow of magicalness. The paint on this blows the HardBoilder out of the water. The white plastic is spot on, and the red paint has a very nice gloss to it. The wheel axel area being painted red and brown is great compared to the HardBoilder’s solid silver, n and the back silver just looks overall nicer. The painting on the muffler is also really nice in person, as odd as it seems.
No Tamashii Stage with this one either. Or the upcoming Decader. Bikes used to be a great purchase, considering you got a really slick Tamashii Stage design. Unfortunately, once Bandai had to begin making NEW MOLDS for the bikes (HardBoilder, SkullBoilder, and Cyclone all have the same base molding, so this is ridiculous to me.) they stopped including Tamashii Stages and instead began packing them with tiny plastic stands for the rear wheel. Dumbbbbbbbbbbb. Anyway, this bike comes with an additional set of handles made out of a soft rubber, supposedly for better gripping when a figure is on the bike. Speaking of which, Ichigo has no hands suited for riding a bike, so he has to molest the bars. How feral.
Overall, I almost feel like this is an easier pass then the HardBoilder, despite the fact that I like it a whole lot more. For the average buyer, the HardBoilder, being from W, is a better overall buy then Cyclone, being from one movie that wasn’t that great. If you are a huge The First fan though, I’m sure you’ll love it. Despite how good it is, it’s still just the Cyclone, so my excitement really isn’t there.
—