Hi mina-san today I will show you a review about a figure which I was searching for a long time. As I started with collecting figures my sources for figure related news were very limited and so it was no surprise that some nice figures slipped under my radar. After some time I was able to find more sites with figure related news and data, like nekomagic and myfigurinecollection.
Often old figures turn out as hard to get especially when you are very interested in them, well you sometimes find these coveted figures for crazy prices at ebay, or if you are lucky you can get them for reasonable and even cheap prices. The sale feature at myfigurinecollection.com is also a good place to aquire rare and older figures. Luckily so I was able to get nearly every old figure I wanted, like Alter’s Reinforce II, Alter’s Al Azif and last month I was finally able to get the lovely Melissa Seraphy from Good Smile Company which I always wanted to have in my collection.
That was the intro part lets start with the main part now, Melissa Seraphy was manufactured by GSC and released in August 2006, yes this figure is that old, her sculptor Muraki Akihide only had his fingers on this single figure, what is a bit strange when you look how well this figure Im talking about is done. The price at that time was about 5500 Yen, I had to pay 14476 Yen to persuade the seller to hand out her Melissa Seraphy figure XD. Well I don’t regret anything about the deal, I had enough time to deliberate about whether I really want this figure or not.
The origin of Melissa is Wagamama Capriccio, a visual novel game released by Unisonshift in 2005. There she is one of the three main heroines, Melissa is a princess from the underworld. I don’t have further knowledge about the game, but the CG looks nice ^^ From the official site I could just gather some informations about her body measurements, she is 1,48m in height weights 40 kg and her three sizes are 72–47–74, haha sorry for such useless informations ^o^.
This figure of Melissa comes with a castoffable pumpkin skirt, and a slightly grey transparent base, unfortunately the base only supports her when Melissa wears the pumpkin skirt, since I prefer this figure being castoff, I made a base myself out of different parts, it turned out a bit slope, but it supports her very well. Even when I prefer Melissa being castoff the pumpkin skirt is a great accessory, the cutted halloween face looks very funny and the ribbon adds a feminine touch to it, it is sculpted in a very clean way and has great shading effects as well.
Hair & Face
As you can see Melissa is a blonde, my second blonde figure btw ^^, the bangs and the backside of her hair show a nice level of detail with all these strands, the curls and the shading. Only on top it looks like a helmet, regarding her age her hair is done vey well . On top of her head she has a golden colored crown, how it behooves for a princess. As you’ve might noticed the small ahoge looks a bit strange, as I looked through my pictures I noticed the damage. Maybe I damaged the ahoge or if it was like that before I unpacked her, but I will be able to fix it with some glue.
The face of Melissa is just dropdead georgous, the dark thin eyebrows, these expressive and beautiful green eyes, the natural looking blushmarks on her cheeks and the cute open mouth
with the fang are the details that make her face so adorable. Melissa is so cute ^-^
Body & Outfit
Melissa Seraphy has a rather small and petite body, she’s around the same size as my Itou Noemi and Maaryan figure. At her upper part there isn’t much to talk about aside from her being a DFC type. The figure has a nice belly and the waiste and hip area are making me dizzy, especially in combination with the nice nice small and low cutted panties.
In terms of outfit her shiny black top with the skull logo on it looks really cool and I love the design of these shiny black gloves. The single fingers are a nice detail. There is a castoff option, but this figure is supposed to be displayed with her skirt on, because the base can’t support Melissa without the skirt. As long as you don’t want to build a selfmade base for her like I did, you have to live with that restriction. Personally I don’t want to have her best parts hidden :p, maybe some people prefer her with the skirt, but honestly I think she looks great both ways.
Painting
The paintjob of this figure looks fantastic, the shiny parts of her outfit are great. There are stronger shading effects on her skin and on her wings, somehow it gives the figure a Garagekit like look. From some people I’ve heard that they have a copy of Melissa with a shiny belly, but my version doesn’t have this problem, its all nice and matte. The pumpkin skirt also has a great paintjob, it is slightly shiny with dark shading effects on it. There is no noticeable fading on her colors, which is very good for a 5 year old figure I hope it stays like this some more years. Have you ever thought about the lifespan of a figure, I hope the plastic doesn’t get brittle or that the color comes off,someday would be quite horrible 🙁
Final Words
Im totally happy about this figure purchase and that I finally had the chance to get this Melissa Seraphy figure. Regarding her age, this Melissa Seraphy figure turned out to be a masterpiece. She’s exactly my kind of figure, cute, sexy and petite (Ok I also like other kinds of figure) this figure is very well made on top of that. The sculpting of her and the pumpkin skirt looks great and has a nice level of detail even the paintjob is very well done. What I like the most is her beautiful and expressive face, also the outfit with her shiny gloves and the black top really meets my taste. Personally I like the stronger shading effects, on figures nowadays such effects are done in a much more fainter way. I don’t like the base and took no pictures of it.
I guess the age of this figure can be estimated when you look at the base, it looks cheap in comparison with the figure and the pumpkin. But overall this figure is just awesome even in comparison with new figures. I guess the damaged Ahoge was my fault, but I will fix that as soon as possible.
Do you have an older figure you always wanted, but were never able to find it ?
Thx for your attention I will see you off with this picture of the lovely Melissa, the next review is around the corner, maybe Max Factory’s Mugi Waitress or Yamato’s Soniko Babydoll version.
Miette-chan
You know all this time I thought you were talking about the nendo. Never knew she had a scaled figure.
I like this figure, I think I would display it without the pumpkin as well. Plus, I’m a fan of nice petite bodies so Melissa is right up my alley. Pretty cool that you made your own stand for her too.
wieselhead
Oh I see well the nendo of Melissa is easier to get on ebay and mandrake for example. But I was only interested in the figure of her.
Ah you also like nice petite bodies *high five* ^^
thx baebjuilding is fun when you have an idea in mind
James
Your pics are simply AWESOME <3
Love your work with those, it surely took you quite some time to do all of this.
Can i ask you again what lens did you use ? Still the same macro lens ?
Anyway, great job, i'm jealous (of your beautiful pics, notyMelissa, i have her too ^^)
wieselhead
Thank you very much james 😉
Well, It took some time to get an idea for the shooting, I was pretty clueless as the figure arrived 😀 the shooting itself was done in 2 hours or even less.
Yeah again the sigma ex 50mm, love that lens ^^
Oh cool, when have you bought her?
tabetaiii
For a 2006 figure, she is definitely gorgeous and the quality is great. I wonder what happened to the sculptor=/
Quite a hefty price you paid for the figure. I probably wouldn’t pay that much for a 1/8 figure. Most expensive figures I’ve ever got was the Asuka and Simca^^” which cost around 200 dollars + each.
You should of at least included a picture of the base! Your self made base looks pretty nice;) She looks good in both options. I would probably go with the pumpkin ! but without the pumpkin is also lovely.
Lovely reviews and pictures as usual. I see you can post side by side pics! *anger*
wieselhead
Yep too bad that the sculptor isn’t active anymore, maybe he just changed his name.
Indeed but at ebay she was available even more expensive XD Oh 200 $ is also a lot, have you already reviewed both figures?
Well the base actually is in the picture its this small black baseframe, here in pic yesterday I improved it a bit more
that is possible thx to the ng gallery plugin.
tabetaiii
Yeh>< definitely was a good one.
Ah I see, then I guess it's not bad;) Ah yes I have! Asuka – http://goo.gl/ej6g4 and Simca- http://goo.gl/5fsMH. I might redo these reviews, as the pics are terrible^^"
Wow, surprisingly small for a base but good job!
grrrr! I did mine manually and failed! thanks for answering XD
wieselhead
oh you think he already died 🙁
Ah cool I will read them later. this Simca is cute 😉 your start picture there is delicious^^.
I have to watch Air Gear full of sexy and lovely chicks XD
This Asuka looks great it is the same which softz have in his collection, very nice.
do you have ng gallery?
luth
Nice photos! I actually didn’t notice her broken ahoge until you mentioned it. I like her curly hair and the painting is just awesome, both on the pumpkin and her skin. Can you put a candle inside the pumpkin like a real jack-o-lantern?
As for your photos, the blue cloth background was really interesting: kinda like a night sky with its sparklies which gave it a Halloween kinda feel.
wieselhead
thank you. I only noticed it when sorting the pictures, I was like “Oh,ok X< " No, no I think that pumpkin would burn, but led light should work ^^ thank you good to hear that the effect worked. I glued every single sparkle part on the cloth 😉
Sotaku
14476? Well, I am not a bit surprised over the fact that you were willing to pay that much, because she is definitely one of the best (and cutest) scale figures from GSC so far. Congratulations on getting her!
wieselhead
hi sotaku thx for your visit and comment ^^
Yeah quite a lot but in € its sounds less just 126,xx. Well I don’t own many scale figures from GSC, but because I love this figure I want to agrwe with you 😉
BioToxic
Melissa is really cute. I remember her mainly because of that huge pumpkin skirt she wears. There’s not that many pumpkin figures out there either sadly. She’d fit right in with GSC Hiyori Pixy who also wears a cool pumpkin.
I like the top Melissa is wearing with that strange looking skull. It’s quite an uncommon design which swaps out arm straps for a single necklace type strap. I also like her shiny black gloves. Instead of ending flat against her skin they burst out a little bit in a star pattern, which is nice (this description is one of those times where I wish I could just point to the screen and go ‘that bit’).
It’s unfortunate her bottom half isn’t as exciting as her top half to me, but then that’s probably the giant pumpkins fault :lol:.
I remember when I first started collecting I wanted to get my hands on a C.C. figure by Banpresto. I eventually bit the bullet and shelled out +£100 for one on eBay. I’d love to get hold of an original colours MegaHouse Nanael, but she’s so expensive now and I’m not as willing to pay the inflated price.
I’m loving your last photo with the feathers and blue tone.
wieselhead
I guess I was more attracted by her panties than the pumpkin, but the pumpkin isn’t bad either XD
I love her outfit a lot, this shiny black looks just awesome. Haha that’s true, but I get what you want to say ^^.
Im ok with her bottom half, just the shoes are a bit plain.
Oh oh 100 for a banpresto figure? I hope you are satisfied with her. The blue haired Nanael is closer to her origin, but I like my pink haired Nanael she is also very nice ^^
thank you
Nopy
You are SOOO lucky!
I had the chance to buy Melissa a long time ago, when I started collecting figures. I passed her up because I thought she was too expensive, but now I’m regretting that choice. She looks wonderful, and it’s good that you’re happy with your purchase. Hopefully a bit of glue will fix her ahoge.
wieselhead
Thank you Im quite happy to finally have her in my collection. Ah I see what a pity 🙁 well the price was more or less my limit, but I think Melissa was worth the money, even though her price on release date was a joke in comparison to the amound I’ve paid for her 😀
Yeah the Ahoge is fixed since yesterday ^_^
Aya
Congratulation 😀 and like what they said that’s the price of Beauty +_+ *press like on last pic*
rare figures that I want hmm only 2 so far Alter’s Enma Ai(Jigoku shoujo) and Hitotsubashi Yurie(kamichu!) maybe can find in mandrake for around 15k yen each >_<
wieselhead
Yeah indeed thank you Aya
I guess Enma A would be the right figure for you 😉 I have already given up on getting Hitotsubashi Yurie she’s just too expensive when shipping is added 🙁
Tier
I remember this figure; it came out not long after I started collecting PVC figures. She’s really cute and she seems to have held up surprisingly well over the years; I’ve got a lot of older figures which look pretty bad compared to newer ones, but Melissa still looks great.
I’ve been looking for some older figures recently, since there are a ton I missed out on that I wish I had bought, like Pixy Hiyori, Char, Golden Darkness, and GSC’s old Saber, which I really, really wanted but got too expensive for me soon after she was released. Then I think she got a re-release and her price plummeted. I still kinda want to get her for nostalgic purposes but she looks pretty bad nowadays. Actually, I’m thinking about picking up another Saber, Max Factory’s Fate/zero version of her. I think she looks great but with Fate/zero getting an anime really soon, I’m thinking she’ll probably be getting more figures and I’m not sure if I should just wait and see if she does.
wieselhead
I guess this figure was too good for her time ^^
Char is a very nice figure I think. But yeah this Saber looks a bit bad in comparison with the new Saber figures.
I guess better Fate/zero characters will come out, I would suggest to wait a bit more. Oh Im looking forward to the new Fate anime^^
Im glad that I now have nearly every old figure that I always wanted, only this Dengeki Magazin Exclusive Akihime Sumomo is really hard to get,maybe she isn’t worth the effort, but I really want to have her
Of course there is always the possibility to stumble over nice old figures you’ve never heard of 😀
anonymous_object
Quite a lovely figure, congrats on finally acquiring her! I used to try hard to get older figures I liked such as the rare Lucky Star Nendoroids, but after spending a small fortune collecting the sets, I realized it wasn’t feasible to continue it. I’m more realistic on how I will spend to get an older figure now.
Still, I can understand why you would really want this figure. She’s downright cute. I love the pumpkin skirt, the curly hair, and the fanged tooth tops it off ^^.
Looking forward to your Mugi waitress review :3
wieselhead
Yup she is thank you.
Yeah I think you have to know your limits, I also have my limits in terms of space and money ^^
Oh I should be able to publish the Mugi review this week =)
Zai
It’s hard to believe that she’s from 2006! She looks like she has held up really well. Her face and little elf ears are exceptionally cute.. I have a little bit of a thing for pointy elf ears but sadly not many of my figures have them, lol.
Her stomach sculpt is very nice and I think I’d display her without the pumpkin too. It’s a nice pumpkin but she looks so tiny and cute and I wouldn’t like to cover her up with it!
Your photos and set up look wonderful and I’m having trouble choosing favourites from the set you have shown. Maybe Melissa_Seraphy – 31.jpg or Melissa_Seraphy – 20.jpg! 😀
wieselhead
Her face is incredible cute and the cheerful expression is just ^-^ Ah yes pointy ears are nice I agree.
haha it would be a shame to cover her whole lower body I prefer her without it.
Oh thank you very much =)
Yi
Ooh gorgeous photos! I love that shot with the candle especially.
Agreed she looks great both ways, but I think I prefer the pumpkin by a small margin.
wieselhead
thank you very much Yi, yeah I like that one as well. I had o cary the stones inside the house and fixed the candle with wax.
Ah I see both ways its fine ^^