Good morning. This is Funasen, CSM development manager.

One day has passed since the 20th anniversary of the broadcast of the final episode of Kuuga yesterday... and this was announced today!
The latest CSM work has been decided to be "CSM ALTERING "from "MASKED RIDER AGITO," which will celebrate its 20th anniversary since its broadcast began next week on January 28th!!!



We apologize for the long wait.
This product will be released at this long-awaited time as a "MASKED RIDER AGITO 20th Anniversary Product."​
Did you notice the text at the beginning of the teaser page? It's a homage to the caption at the beginning of the first episode of Agito.

The "CSM ALTERING" page will be updated at 8:00 a.m. next week on Thursday, January 28th, exactly in time to mark the 20th anniversary of the show's broadcast!
(Reservations open from 11:00.)

Because ALTERING is very similar in shape and structure to ARCLE, we will begin development after we have fully released CSM ARCLE and identified its successes and areas for improvement.
Since the release of ARCLE, we've had a lot of requests as to when ALTERING would be released, but it takes at least nine months from the start of development to delivery of a completely new CSM.
The products after ARCLE had already been decided (the survey ranking trilogy at the time, Blade, Delta, and Amazons, and the event announced item, Kivat), and the earliest they could be released after that would be mid-2020.
Rather than releasing it out of context at this awkward time just before the 20th anniversary, we decided to wait another six months and make it a commemorative item to help celebrate Agito's 20th anniversary, which is why we are announcing it today.

ALTERING was a much more difficult product to develop than ARCLE.
There were many difficult aspects to recreating the gimmicks and effects from the play, and it took quite a bit of trial and error.
We made repeated revisions right up until the very last minute of this announcement, and I believe that we have created ALTERING with the best specifications (as the person in charge believes) that are currently possible.
Please look forward to the announcement next week.


By the way, I think that ALTERING will undoubtedly be compared to the CSM ARCLE in terms of size, gimmick, and price, but I don't want there to be any misunderstandings when the details are announced next week, so let me tell you one thing in advance.
ALTERING comes with fewer accessories than ARCLE, but is a little more ARCLE.

As written in the blog when ARCLE pre-orders began (https://toy.bandai.co.jp/series/rider/topics/detail/534/?t=blog), the "CSM ARCLE" was priced at a special price of 25,000 yen (excluding tax) as a "thank you price celebrating the 20th Heisei KAMEN RIDER film," starting with KAMEN RIDER ZI-O.
*The old Concert Edition ARCLE was 35,000 yen (excluding tax).
Even at this price, we were told "Don't inflate the price by including a cell phone", but ARCLE 's price was a special price that even offset the cost of the cell phone and reduced the price further.
Therefore, it is not "unreasonably expensive" compared to ARCLE, but is a fair price for ALTERING, so please do not misunderstand!​
The consumption tax has also gone up since ARCLE days...
(When asked if we could offer special prices to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Agito and the 50th anniversary of Rider, we can only say sorry. There are extremely difficult circumstances that forced us to change the payment method, as described below.)


Also, here is an announcement about PREMIUM BANDAI BANDAI TOYS SHOP.
This time, the two payment methods "cash on delivery" and "deferred payment (convenience store/bank)" will no longer be available for reservations for "CSM ALTERING".
Please see below for details.
https://p-bandai.jp/b-toys-shop/paymentinfo/

Going forward, all products sold at "BANDAI TOYS SHOP" will only accept this payment method.
*"BANDAI TOYS SHOP" https://p-bandai.jp/b-toys-shop/ is a store that mainly sells NARIKIRI items such as Kamen Rider, Sentai, and Ultraman.
Tamashii Web Shop, which sells Figuarts and other items, already has a similar payment method.

In recent years, there have been many cases of fraud and violations of regulations, such as refusals to accept deliveries when paying by cash on delivery or paying later, and the impact of malicious behavior by a small number of individuals has been particularly large.
We have taken measures to date, but have not been able to make any improvements, so we have now decided to discontinue these two payment methods at future BANDAI TOYS SHOPs.
For deferred payment, you can still have the payment deducted from your credit card in the month of shipment, but for other payments you will need to pay in advance by bank transfer.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to customers who are using the service correctly, and we appreciate your understanding.


Finally, this has become a bit of a realistic discussion, but I would like to end today's blog by revealing a little bit about the gimmick of the "Lockseed Team Baron Set."



In the Knuckle Jimber Maron transformation scene, when he locked on to the Maron Energy on the Genesis Core, unlike Gaim's Jimber transformation scene, the Genesis Driver's system voice said, "Lock on!"
To recreate this, the program is set up so that "the lock-on sound for the Genesis Core changes to one with voice only when the Knuckle Faceplate is attached and then replaced with the Genesis Core."​

That's all for today's blog.
The next update will be on Thursday, January 28th. We are closed on Tuesdays.

Let's all celebrate Agito's 20th anniversary in style on this day!