#kikaida

He's Not Human...

He Will Kill God

S.H. Figuarts Gill Hakaider

- from Kikaider 01

- by Premium Bandai

Quick Shot

Another blast from the past - and not just from the 70s show. We actually showed this figure in the early days of this page - after doing a quick and dirty repair on a broken hip joint.

The horrifying fusion of Hakaider and Professor Gill - an iconic antagonist made just a little less cool by having an evil scientists brain stuffed in his head.

But at least he still looks cool.

More on these classic characters later.

Early Figuarts had extending hip joints hidden inside the body - small swivel joints with a ball and socket on the end.

Unfortunately, as the plastic ages, the hinge on this joint gets brittle and crumbles. Hakaider was an unfortunate victim - because he's one of my favorite figures; and because he's very hard to replace.

Thankfully the repair is easy - on older Figuarts anyway

Find the screw cover on the back, pry it off - unscrew the waist and swap the joint with a spare. Then glue the screw cover back on. The tricky part is finding spares.

Newer figures are sonic-welded, so repairs are very difficult.

But the newest generation of Figuarts have mostly done away with this joint entirely - or reinforced it significantly.