A photo of a Bandai R&M2 Kamen Rider Knight, one of 13 Kamen Riders from the 2002 Kamen Rider Ryuki series.

It’s one of my favourite Kamen Rider designs despite the absence of most of the traditional Rider suit elements. Bandai translated the design into a fine action figure which is only let down by the fact the toy company used pliable plastic for the sword. You can see how it’s been warped in the photo.

A photo of a …

Wait, let me break it down for you:

• 1999 repro of a 1975 Microman M114 figure
• 14 Robolinks (a.k.a Takara Blockman) figures from 1985 Force 30 and Force 32 sets.
• Bruticus fists from a 1986 Transformers Combatron giftset
• Sword from a bootleg of a 1980 Takara Magneborg Death Cross figure.

It’s not a great fan-mode but I was attempting to showcase the coolness of 5mm peg/port connectivity using parts from different Takara toylines.

Takara had some geniuses for designers. The company was also terribly poor at marketing. There was no indication whatsoever that parts were interchangeable between different toy lines and I suspect most toy fans wouldn’t have realised this until years later.

(Bandai is guilty of the same thing as well. If it wasn’t for some fans, few would realise that Machine Robo Mugenbine, Machine Robo Rescue, various sentai robo and Ultraman Nexus vehicles all made use of the same connectors.)

If it had been advertised back then, this 5mm connectivity could have boosted sales for smaller lines like Blockman. If you were a kid in mid-80s and you knew that parts from one line could boost the cool factor of a figure you owned from another line, wouldn’t you pester your parents get it for you?