This time her version is called Sangatsu Hen. Alter also made a matching version of Hoshisora Rin, both would have looked great together, but I only could afford one. Hanayo was sculpted by Tobita Takafumi and was released in May.

Hanayo is based on this illustration from the Love Live! School Idol Festival smartphone game.

This figure is scaled 1/7 and measures 22 cm in height, as optional item she has a cutely designed microphone staff.

Hanayo wears her usual dark blonde hairstyle without any decorations, her cute face is brimming with happiness and her wonderful smile has a contagious effect. With the big reflection spot in her purple eyes one could get the idea of her being slightly drunk, but she is probably only intoxicated with joy because she became a self confident idol now.

Her expression is really sweet, unfortunately this Hanayo figures comes without glasses, I always liked her appearance as bespectacled cutie, so I would have prefered it to have the glasses option, maybe in a funky cherry blossom design.

Hanayo is wearing a shoulder free top and a frilly mini skirt. Her cute costume is heavily influenced by the cherry blossom theme, it shows different shades of pink, white and green. The amount of detail on the beautiful outfit is incredible, you probably see it yourself, but I will nevertheless write about a few aspects of her enchanting outfit.

For example her wide open sleeves; they have a frilly green inlay painted in the color of young cherry tree leafs, a different tone of green is present at her over the knee boots, the pastel green is quite nice, but additionally pink cherry blossoms are printed on it, the shiny pink soles are a nice highlight as well. The rim is decorated with a pink frilly rim.

The outfit also highlights the attractive body of the rice loving Hanayo. Her fancy skirt has a striped top layer and several layers of frill underneath, the details on it are very elaborate. At first it appears a little odd what a short skirt Hanayo wears from a slightly lower angle, her nice behind can barely be ignored. The plumpness of her thighs or other areas is quite prominent overall and gives the figure an sweet, sexy and appealing appearance.

Hanayo is articulated in a cute looking pose, which captures her during idol dancing, the lifted open arms make it look quite adorable. Her legs are showing a nice articulation as well, the highs are close together, which highlights the Zettai Ryōiki in a great way. The angled left lower leg adds some more movement to the sweet pose.

Unlike ALTER’s other Love Live! School Idol Festival figures, the Hanayo Sangatsu Hen version has a different looking base, smaller in size and in shape of a cherry blossom with pink cherry blossoms and petals printed on.

Final Words

The figure is without a doubt a very enchanting adaption of Hanayo’s character, Koizumi Hanayo is my fourth Love Live! School Idol Festival figure. I really like this style, she has a lovely outfit with a pretty color selection and an amazing level of detail. Her face is very cute and I just love her happy expression, the lack of glasses is a little letdown, but I knew that in advance. I also like that the sculptor adapted Hanayo as pleasingly plump as she is supposed to be .

I’m really happy with the Koizumi Hanayo – Love Live! School Idol Festival – Sangatsu Hen version, ALTER’s Love Live! figures just never disappoint. Are there any of  ALTER’s Love Live! School Idol Festival figures you would like to see another version of? I would like a new Kotori and Nozomi figure or Nozomi in a swimsuit, please.

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The figure was released in late November 2017 and I received her shortly before christmas. Hanasaki Marika was sculpted by Hashimoto Ryou, my favorite figure sculptor if I had to name one. She is scaled 1/7 and 22 cm in height.

The figure includes a few parts to assemble a bath corner diorama with mirror, plant, a cup and toothbrushes, it’s really cool that the doors can be opened and that the light works. It’s definetely a nicely made addition to the figure with a convincing design. Although it is also possible to display the figure on a smaller base without the bathroom closet.

The two toothbrushes and too wide shirt could indicate that the character spend the night with her boyfriend.

The figure has been captured in an interesting scene, where the cute Marika brushes her teeth half asleep. Haha she is actually dressed like someone who fell out of bed. Her slightly surprised and still dozy expression is quite adorable.

Marika is a very curvy girl with mature proportions. Her ripe pawpaws and juicy peach bottom are quite inviting. Of course you would always turn the figure in a way that she would look at you, but she has beautiful boobs for sure.

What is more prominent though are her wide hips and the beautiful big butt attached to them. Bigger butts aren’t so common in the figure market, this pink haired figure is a great exception though. The way the panties are digging into her skin accentuates the nice volume and shape. I love it together with these marvelously sculpted thighs (/∇＼*)○♡.

The figure has no additionally cast off magic, you get what you see, nevertheless it would be no real Native figure without additionally lewdness, below the hanging panties you can notice the figures accurately sculpted sweet spot,
it’s not too obvious so that it’s actually a nice detail of the Hanasaki Marika figure.

It’s very obvious that Marika is sexy, but looking at these cute, striped ribbons and hairstyle one can never be too sexy for having kawaii pigtails.The style of her fringe is very cute and girly, the longer parts of the hair have a more mature appeal. The pink hair is nicely done and shaded in soft and also more vivid tones of pastel pink.

I also llike the figures nicely articulated pose, from boobs to butt … EHH! from head to toe of course (⁄ ⁄^⁄ᗨ⁄^⁄ ⁄) it’s an interesting and convincing pose. I really like how her arm partially hides the left breast for example. Additionally the movement of the hair and white shirt have a kind of elegance and make the figure more dynamic.

The face is great as well with the 1/3 closed, blue and beautiful eyes, distintive eye makeup and flushed cheeks. Together and with the small opening of her cute mouth an appealing expression has been created.

Her expression appears ashamed and of slightly pouting character, maybe we should not stare too much at her butt.

The illustration by Pyon-Kti has been adapted very pretty and faithfully, except the sweat traces, but that is probably difficult to recreate and no desired detail anyway. For me the nice skintexture and smooth body sculpting is perfect.

I really appreciate the great looking bathroom corner that was added to the main figure. It was desinged with love and attention to detail. The “wooden” framed mirror, the tiles around the sink or the faucet itself. The tiny accesoires as well as the opening doors and light feature bring the figure to life. The diorama is also pretty useful for photography.

On summary Native’s Hanasaki Marika is a lovely figure with gorgeous curvy body and appealing face. I like her proportions a lot, Hashimoto Ryou did a great job again with this buxom but at the same time cute character. The quality is great, only on second thought the figure could be scaled 1/6 but it’s allright to see her as 1/7 figure instead.

Nico, Nico Niii!

Nevertheless, today I will write a figure review of the never fading Saber character, a few weeks or more ago I’ve received Saber – Type-Moon Racing ver. The figures design is based on the Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works anime adaption, I dont remember any grid girls, but Takeuchi Takashi came up with the illustration for this figure.

Saber – Type-Moon Racing version was manufactured by Stronger, actually my first time that I`ve ordered a figure from them. Saber was released in late September 2017. She is scaled 1/7 and comes together with an umbrella, with the umbrella the figure measures 24 cm. Her sculptor was Musasabi YU-ko a fresh person with relatively few works.

I’m actually a Fate Stay Night fan, I always enjoyed the adapted animes in terms of story and setting, basically Saber isn`t my favorite character, only in the Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works anime, where she had a really great character episode I began to appreciate her character, Saber going shopping with her friends, playing baseball and having a picnic. As normal girl Saber is quite lovely.

Her usual appearance is that of a stoic armor clad Knight, but with the expanding Fate universe and more games, different Sabers appeared with different looks and quite different personalities, in Fate Go they overdid it a bit with the Saber based characters nevertheless. Why did I decide for this Saber, when there are like 200 figures of her around?

I really like unusual Saber designs that portray Saber in a good mood and without armor, so far I’ve bought the
Saber – Fate/Hollow Ataraxia – Maid R and Saber EXTRA – Fate/EXTRA – Swimsuit version from Alter.

The Type Moon – Racing version was just such a vibrant and lively figure adaption I just couldn’t say no to.

The Saber figure has nice hair, sculpted in detailed and dynamic manner, it also has a appealïng tone of blonde. The ahoge is a seperate piece that had to be pressed into her head, at first I wondered what the tiny plastic bag was for.

Her face is accurately adapted from the Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works anime, but it’s additionally beeming with happiness. Saber has sparkling eyes and a very cute appearance. The detailed open mouth with upper front teeth line looks really nice, Overall this Saber has a pretty face with an enchanting and surprisingly upbeat expression.

Saber’s is rather skinny or better said sporty with her abs well trained and a modest chest. Based on her character data, Saber is no tall girl, but with those long legs this figure is looking quite tall. The sculptor gave her well defined and attractive buttocks from my perspective her butt is nevertheless small. I actually wouldn’t mind if she was a little chubbier than she is in this adaption, the figure is very pretty and a bit of variety in ones collection is positive.

I also would like to mention the petite hands with nicely articulated fingers of this figure, they look quite realistic and the fingernails paint has been carefully applied. Saber comes with an exchangeable left arm, one has a gripping hand.

The Saber racing version has a stunning outfit with a cool white jacket with short sleeves, the golden enblem is a nice additional eyecatcher. The hotpants adds a bit of fanservice, but reveals no too much of her firm butt. Her trademark color, royal blue was used on her attractive tube top, the end of the sleeves the hotpants and the blue ribbon at the back of her hair. Around the hotpants she wears a nice white belt. The thigh high boots are really cool with silver heals and toe cap, the long zipper at the front goes all the way up, around the upper part the boots are a little loose.

The shiny finish on her clothes looks high quality and creates a very nice contrast to the skintexture, it’s quite nice that metallic paint was used on the smaller details. The shading effects on the white clothes turns out quite nice.

A cool feature of the Saber – Type-Moon Racing version is her big “escabrella” it’s quite funny that they turned her pretty Escalibur into a fancy looking umbrella. It has a nice pattern and quite detailed framework, If you ever zapped through the sports channel you will see grid girls holding the umbrella over the pilots, to protect them fromn the sun. The grid girls on TV are always pretty, it feels a little odd that the pilots are always just focused on the race, though.

Her base looks a little cut into pieces, the reason for that is simple, there are 2 more figures from the Type-Moon Racing lineup, Tohsaka Rin and Saber/EXTRA, if you buy all 3 you can complete the “puzzle”.

Final Words

Without a doubt this is a great figure, the concept of sporty Saber is very convincing with her cheerful expression she has a youthful atmosphere. Her slender body and articulation show a lot of feminine attractivity. A great aspect of the figure is the awesome outfit with it’s really nice details. Stronger apparently makes great figure and the Saber – Type-Moon Racing version is one of them.

Umi was manufacturered by ALTER and released in August 2017. As her other School Idol Festival friends she is scaled 1/7 and 20 cm in height. Nearly every of those figures was made by a different sculptor, Umi was sculpted by Sai.

Umi’s character is relatively complex, she is a level headed girl with a quite conservative and demure view on everything. Nevertheless at heart she is a pure maiden with sweet natured behaviour. Umi has problems with showing her legs in public, she feels quite embarrased about it and don’t want to wear the skimpy idol outfit, that Kotori desinged. The regular school uniform also features a quite short skirt, so it is kind of weird that Umi isn’t bothered by that.

Another funny thing about her is that the level headed attitude often leads to her bossing around her less level headed friends, which often lets Umi appear a bit too strict for her age. In the idol group Umi has 2 different tasks, in the first place Umi is in charge of choreography and the regular fitness training, but also is the main lyricist for the songs.

An distinctive feature of the Love Live! anime(s) is the beautiful character design, the characters have very detailed, sweet faces and sparkling eyes. In these Love Live! School Idol Festival figures this particular style has been adapted faithfully. Umi looks quite happy in her idol performance, her winking eye is quite charming. The open amber colored eye on the other hand is so beautiful and shining, these is a gorgeous eye decal there. Furthermore eyebrows and other details as well as blushmarks are also really nice. Something I really appreciate on her face are the lightly painted lips.

Umi has dark blueish hair, the front hair is pretty and sculpted after her appearance in the anime, the hair at the backside is quite long, it is sculpted in a flowing backwards style, at the sides she has two strands separated by frilly ribbons, it looks like narrow twintails. On the left side she wears a pretty orange flower and ribbons as decorations.

The outfit of the figure is so pretty, the yukata combines a traditional look with a mordern design. The dress consists of a top, a skirt with transparent underskirt, as well as separate sleeves and loose “socks”, around the waist she is wearing a cute belt, The details on it look really elaborate. The light blue dress has a lovely flower pattern with blue, purple and violet and orange flowers. The geta shoes fit to the overall design, although they might no be too practical for dynamic dancing. Everything looks really nice together. The Love Live! School Idol Festival figures have all different outfits which is nice, if I would have to decide for one outfit for all 9 members, this yukata would be my favorite choice.

At her back Umi has a fancy fan with her name printed on it, unfortunately to my discontent it can’t be taken off.

Umi is articulated in a cheerful and quite dynamic pose based on one of her Love Live! School Idol Festival cards; with the right hand she is pointing at the audience while holding up the vintage microphone with the other hand she is holding the cable, so that she is not stepping on it accidently. Haha while assembling the figure getting that cable into place as it was shown on the box was quite a challenge. The pose also accentuates her pretty legs, behind the separated sleeves, the figure shows a bit of her bare shoulders and you can also take a peak at her nice armpits.

About the setup, because of a change of the figures release date, the setup was planned a bit more in advance, I had the idea of Umi performing at the beach. So at first I made a pier matching the figures sïze, painted it and added weathering effects. Flower chains of different colors were wrapped around a wooden bow, at the end I also added LED lights to the low cost construction. For the figure shooting Umi was put on a transparent base. For a complete look sand and a background were added, scrunched transparent gift paper works great to create a realistic water surface.

Final Words

On summary I’m very happy to have this sweet figure of Umi – chan, she looks very lively and I’m impressed by how elaborately made this figure is. The lovely face and her stunning yukata are so nice with ALTER’s Sonoda Umi you would have a extremely beautiful and also adorable Love Live! School Idol Festival figure at home. Before sitting down to write this review and taking another look at Love Live!, I actually did not have a real liking to Umi, but now I have grown fond of her. I might have ordered this figure just for the looks, but now I’m even happier that it’s a great figure of Umi.

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Nico – Love Live! School Idol Festival – ALTER

Nozomi – Love Live! School Idol Festival – ALTER

A whole lot of figure adaptions have been made of Sora, she is surprisingly popular, given her unsocial personality,
that she showed in her VN and anime adaption Yosuga no Sora, but she is a caring little sister. The illustration that this figure is based on was created by Hashimoto Takashi who was in charge of the character designs in the VN. 

The bunny style version of Sora was sculpted by one of my favorite figure artists, Hashimoto Ryou. She was released in late April 2017. I received her before I started my 3 week long vacation this year, so I publish this review a bit late.

The figure is scaled 1/7, comes with a stool that has a magnetic sitting surface to hold Sora in place, the trademark black plush bunny is also part of the set. Alltogether while sitting on the stool, the figure has a size of 27 cm.

Sora has her hair tied into two twintails of impressive length, the deep hanging fringe made photography a bit difficult, but the hidden areas give the pictures an artistic touch. The figure has shiny, yelllow gray ish eyes and the face is quite pretty and has a somehow erotic expression, the slightly open mouth with the sculpted lips is really nice on her. Sora’s gaze over her shoulder is an halfway interested, also halfway desinterested one. while nibbling on a single cherry.

She is a very interesting figure that conveys a strong atmosphere, it’s not what you would describe as cute, although by default Sora is someone I would consider as cute. In this figure adadaption though, Sora appears quite mature with a mysterious aura, the whole figure radiates a sense of elegance, a bunny dress in general is not something I would consider as elegant at all, but Sora with her un-boxum body manages to give the outfit a refined, mature appearance.

I really like Sora in a bunny suit, the slender body and less endowed curves make it look nice and not sexually overloaded as other bunny girl figures that have big boobs and butts. Of course I like those as well, but there is a reason why I have chosen this figure of Sora over the dozen amazing bunny girls from FREEing, like Himejima Akeno. 

The sculpting of her body is really detailed, be it the arms, the lovely thighs or the modest chest, it all looks beautiful. My personal favorite aspect is the detailed sculpting of the backside with her shoulders and upper back.

Sora is quite petite and thin, but she is also a beautiful young girl. Compared to the slim upper body Sora proudly presents her hips in this nicely articulated arched back pose. The pose also lets her butt look firm and attractive,
I also should mention her very pretty legs, the on the stool position lets them appear longer than they actually are. In her league Sora is a beautiful and cool bunny girl in a nicely designed bunnysuit with puffy bunny ears, collar and the obligatory cuffs around the wrists. The top part of the bunny suit is painted in pearl white, it’s shiny texture makes it quite appealing to the eye. Obviously also the sculpting with the seams and creases is perfectly done. Her hips and legs are clad in a dark brown pantyhose with good shading effects that accentuate the nicely shaped legs and bottom.

Final Words

Kasugano Sora – bunny style version is a marvelous, attractive, slender bunny girl figure, her articulation and overall presentation are perfect and create a certain atmosphere. Sora looks just cool, she doesn’t feel cheerful, but she is also not especially fanservice heavy, she is a surprisingly classy looking character for someone in such clothes. This Sora is another awesome and elaborately manufacturered figure made by Alter, but also something special in my eyes.

She is not my first figure from Kalmia Project, earlier this year I reviewed the Pin Up Girl, which is also from their Magic Bullets line. What makes this company interesting for me are their choices of not so well known, but appealing source material to adapt their figures from. I was really drawn to this cute Takigawa Kotori figure .

On a personal or rather technical note, I wanted a new camera since ages and so I recently turned my back on Sony and the DSLR world, the pictures of this review were taken with a Panasonic LUMIX G DMC-GX8, a micro four thirds, the differences in size and weight are quite amazing on first impression it’s a cute camera. The petite black lady does a great job so far with taking figure pictures and pictures of my dolls. My first lens of choice was the H-HS043E.

Now back to todays truly adorable figure, Kotori is a character in Nanairo Reincarnation, I haven’t started playing it yet, so I only have limited knowledge about her character, as you can actually tell from her appearance, that she is a deredere girl, sweet and friendly. The open mouth underlines her cheerful appearance and atmosphere.

Kotori sports a short twintail hairstyle in a natural brown color, it’s a nicely sculpted and it’s a very cute hairstyle with the strands that are covering her forehead. The hair decoration reminds me of Alicia Melchiott from Valkyria Chronicles, although Kotori has the cuter one. The detailed facial expression also indicates that she is a character based on a VN. The figure shows a cute smile with her green and sparkling “VN eyes” based on Sumeragi Kohaku’s pretty design.

Kotori is a relatively short, slender and petite schoolgirl, in her revealing waitress outfit it’s noticeable that the girl isn’t what I would define as skinny and I really like that fact, she looks very attractive with the softly sculpted body of hers.

I like her legs with the well defined thighs, the transition from there to her butt really looks great, for being a petite girl Kotori has an beautiful round butt, in my opinion it’s one of best figure butts I’ve seen so far, awww it’s so marvelous.

The cute figure has a nice  modest bust, that isn’t small nor too big, on figures I don’t really mind too bîg, as you might have noticed when following my blog regularly. with her top on she has a nice cleavage, but Kalmîa Project’s Takigawa Kotori also has a cast of option to expose her beautiful boobs, the shape is quite nice as well as her nipples.

Kotori shows what she got in this figure adaption, the outfit of the figure is actually as sexy and revealing as ït’s cute, a kind of underwear and incomplete waitress uniform, she also wears a thong with a cute red ribbon and frilly decorations in innocent white at the sides. A big, prominent garter is wrapped around her right leg. Her red shoes have a quite adorable design with the short heel is not so tantalizing which underlines the young deredere characters appeal.

Final Words

Kotori Takigawa turned out to a nice figure and was worth the purchase. She wears a cheerful and sweet expression with lovely and lively green eyes. She has a nicely articulated pose, that accentuates every part of her beautiful petite yet womanly body. A highlight there is definetely her firm round butt. With her skimpy waitress outfit, she certainly has a fanservice oriented design, but also distributes a cute and fluffy atmosphere. With her visual appeal and above average quality she is a convincing figure made by Kalmia Project, I’m curious to see more figures from that company.

A new Sonico has been released recently, well I’ve been on vacation and so we’ll take a belated look at the Super Sonico – racing version manufacturered by Max Factory, based on Super Sonico – The Animation anime.

This particular figure has been made by Max Factory, sculpted by YOSHI, who is one of the very talented and busier people in the figure prototype sculpting scene. Sonico is a big figure, scaled at 1/7 measuring 22 cm in height.

In this figure adaption Sonico cosplays as Hatsune Miku in a futuristic grid girl outfit. In the outfit of the fairy like Miku, the curvy Sonico gives it a very different appearance, obviously both characters are cute, but the body proportions couldn’t be more different. I have the feeling that the costume isn’t really her size, much to my enjoyment *ahem*

At first you should notice that for the first time a Sonico figure wears a different hairstyle, the official illustrator of Sonico actually gave her different hairstyles from time to time. As racing version she wears adorable twintails, the hairstyle suits her very well and is fitting for her youthful happy face. Her hair looks great in general, the detailed strands and the dynamic movement, it also shows the usual gradient effect from pale to a stronger shade of pink.

It’s a really sweet expression Sonico makes in this figure adaption, she seems naturally happy with her cheerful and also lively smile. The whole face is designed extremely cute with an open mouth that has some depth and shows some teeth. The prominent blush and beautiful eyes bring her to life and turn her into a really pretty Sonico based figure.

The outfit looks very bold and flirty, but surprisingly Sonico doesn’t seem to be bothered by it, the usually so easily embarrassed gravure idol, wears a big cheerful smile. I guess after all the other embarrassing outfits she had to wear, she got used to wear skimpy outfits. It’s actually very nice too see a happy Sonico in a skin revealing outfit.The sculptor did a great job with this nicely sculpted Sonico, she looks so attractive with her curvy, buxom body.
There is a lot to admire with these womanly shapes of this body, design and volume are are beautiful and voluptuous.

I was a bit surprised, I don’t know if Sonico’s boobs always were of epic size? It could be less volume in my opinion, but I like what I see nevertheless. The tops cutout and the generous size of her assets generate a marvelous cleavage with her arms turned inwards the proud bosom cleavage is additionally highlighted, that the neck tie vanishes between her breasts is a naughty, but also funny idea.

Sonico has a balanced buxom body, she not only has big boobs, also at the backside there is a lot of sex appeal, often figure butts sadly lack a bit of attention and also volume, fortunately the sculptor wasn’t scared to make it a bit more projecting. Sonico has a beautiful big, plump and round butt, which is strongly emphasized by her bendover pose.

Super Sonico – racing version is not only cute and curvy, she also wears this really cool and futuristic suit.
The interesting unkown device on her back is really pretty. The skin tight, light gray bodysuit has a few cutouts and thong design at the lower parts, the skirt makes the outfit more complete, the clear winglets are nice decorations.
It’s an extremely short skirt and won’t cover the figures butt at all. Further parts of her outfit are black, arm long gloves, one has “GOODSMILERACING” printed on it. Her black stockings tightness accentuates the soft thighs.

Final Words

The Sonico from Max Factory turned out really pretty, sweet and sexy, Super Sonico – racing version combines a very cute face with a curvy bombshell body and futuristic outfit. The majority of Sonico figures is portrayed embarrassed and half nude, so It’s lovely to see a cheerful Sonico in such revealing clothes once in a while. The figures pose shows great articulation that emphasizes her voluptuous womanly curves. I like her big butt and the overall soft looking body. In the 1/7 scale she has a nice big size and is also very detailed, she is really a marvelous figure .

In late summer I got myself a wonderful Ichiban Kuji prize figure based on Kancolle, it was manufactured by Banpresto. It’s called Yamato – mizugi mode. It is a premium A prize figure.

In general prize figures are affordable compared to regular figures, though somehow this figure appeared for a heavy prize in several big stores. I got mine for around 13.000 Yen.

…Yeah I know, but when I saw these lovely product pictures I could not resist.

The origin of the figure is the always popular browser game Kantai Collection aka ~Kan Colle~.
In the game, Yamato represents the famous Japanese battleship from the WWII era. The Yamato was an ambitious project, in order to build the biggest and technically advanced battleship. It was mainly a prestige Symbol, before the end of the war, the Yamato didn’t take an active role that would risk the ship. She was often just docked in harbors and used as living quarters and the ship had more luxury interior compared to other ships, the ship received a funny nickname because of that. Yamato also had it’s own Ramune (ラムネ) factory inside.

The Yamato is very special thing for many Japanese citizens, even considering that the ship did not take part part in any big battle, aside from her last mission, which was simply an useless attempt. Still Yamato remained a symbol of hope and readiness to make sacrifices, also in modern media as “uchuu senkan yamato”, where the ship was the last hope of mankind.

When playing Kancolle I randomly get upset to know what really happened to these “shipgirls” in reality. Of course since Japan had a questionable role during WWII, the strangely positive glorification of the ships feels slightly awkward, because the reasoning behind Japan’s expansionary policy was wrong and the japanese navy wasn’t all that smart. Coming to terms with the past is not easy for any country, be it the victors nation or the losing nation. I often have the feeling that Japan feels honest remorse for their deeds during WWII, but on the other hand with shrines that are used for glorification of the military regime and war museums that don’t portray any atrocities, leaves a bitter aftertaste to Japan’s coming to terms with the past.

Since we talked a whole lot about WWII in school, I was thinking Germany did an exemplary good job in coming to terms with the past, but when I see the News recently, I have the feeling that all the efforts made by the state still don’t reach everyone.

Kancolle is not amoral, it mainly is a cheerful game with cute girls that are intentionally based on old ships. But the attitude of trivializing historical events is always a questionable thing.

Her dedicated anime episode in Kancolle did a good job with portraying her character in a fitting way, Yamato is a tall girl with dignified elegance in terms of appearance and attitude, she is also portrayed as a really sweet girl with a friendly personality. The anime staff made a bit of fun of her, with showing her serving first class food and calling her a hotel.

The figures outfit is based on the Seasonal Summer 2016 event from Kancolle.

Yamato wears a bikini in white and red colors with black stripes, that doesn’t reveal too much. It is a decent beach outfit. The top supports her main artillery in a gentle way. At the hips she has a pareo wrapped around her. It has one red and a transparent layer and underneath she wears a white bikini bottom. It is closed with a little anchor, it’s a nice little detail as well as the small garter around her left leg with a small life belt attached to it. The paintjob on her bikini top is a bit rough, the other areas are passable.

Final words

I really like this Yamato – mizugi mode figure, this adaption turned out very cute.
Her rather big  size and the standing pose give her a beautiful and graceful atmosphere.
The pretty and long hair looks quite nice on her also with a little roughness at the edges.

The umbrella is a cool accessory, I like how it increases Yamato’s ladylike presentation. Her cute face, articulation and the sculpting of Yamato’s body are really great. On first look she doesn’t give me the impression of a prize figure, but nevertheless, a few minor things that could be slightly better are there, it mainly concerns the open mouth which could have been sculpted a little sharper and the base, on my copy is a bit uneven underneath, one side is 2 – 3 mm higher and therefore it shakes a bit.

Toujou Nozomi is in the spotlight today. I’ve bought the Love Live! School Idol Festival version from ALTER, sometimes it’s nice when a changed release date plays into your hands.

This figure of Nozomi was sculpted by Yagyuu Toshiyuki, she is scaled 1/7 and measures 25 cm. The pretty figure was released in early August 2017.

ALTER made an incedibly good job with all Love Live! School Idol Festival figures so far. each figure wears an unique outfit, based on a certain illustration card from the LLSIF game.

I already reviewed the Love Live! School Idol Festival version of Yazawa Nico and I’m all

~ Nico Nico Nii ~ about her

My Love Live! favorites are the cute and strangely hot Kotori, the sweet Hanayo and the petite little devil Nico. Also Nozomi is a big favorite of mine. She is the big sister type, who cares about her friends and holds much authority inside the µ’s. Although Nozomi is never bossy and is the good heart of the group. She is close friends with Eli and general very kind and understanding. In case one of the girl is acting weird, Nozomi shows her habit of groping their boobs with a naughty expression in her face, as a method of punishment or distraction.

In the anime she is also there to attract the more grown up viewers with her more mature and flirty aura and obviously womanly body she is one of the more popular characters. She has a strong liking to tarot cards and sometimes uses them for certain personal crucial decisions.

Nozomi has a lovely twin braid hairstyle colored in the nicest shades of purple, the details are awesome, you can really see the single strands within the braids.

I always was enchanted by the beautiful faces of the Love Live! characters. Especially the very shiny eyes. The style of the anime was adapted without fail. The very first ti I was seeing this figure I felt slightly upset, because Nozomi had one eye closed. Anyway the figure at least opened one of her pretty eyes, furthermore she has a cute small mouth, cute blush and a very appealing skintone.

The elaborately adapted outfits of the Love Live! School Idol Festival version figures appear a league ahead of everything on the market, the great and clean looking result is convincing in every aspect. Nozomi wears an dynamic looking outfit, that appears to be inspired by ancient chinese fashion. The pretty patterns are extremely detailed.

The golden rims on the different parts of her outfit are definitely interesting highlights. The figure also has these longer ribbons attached to her wrists, they swing in a dynamic way.

The top has a nice purple color and a frilly white rim above, the opening reveals most parts of her belly, that in my opinion should be a bit more chubby. Nozomi wears a frilly black skirt with a low opacity. The black color reappears further below in her ringmaster styled boots.

Garter, thigh highs, thighband and the additional band around her arm are placed in an asymmetrical way.

From the backside Nozomi also shows her beautiful shoulders and backside .

Obviously the figures details are overwhelming, see it for yourself (in my amazing pictures ).

From most angles her dynamic pose looks quite nice, sometimes the tilted pelvis appears rather strangely twisted.

The figure shows quite some skin and ALTER’s sculptor also did a nearly perfect job with portraying the characters softness, most obvious at the arms and thighs, although she simply just looks slightly sturdier than the other girls, the sculptor adapted this little difference nicely. In my opinion they could have added just a touch more weight, since Nozomi is a “bigger” girl.

I still remember the episode where Honoka and Hanayo were forced to get in shape again, but Nozomi could swing her buxom body around as always without any teasing comment from the others. So Umi is actually a bully, who only is picking on the weak .

Final Words

The Toujou Nozomi Love Live! School Idol Festival – version figure from ALTER turned out great, she is really gorgeous in nearly every regads. Of course with the 14.330 I’ve paid it was an expensive figure, but in return I received a wonderful Nozomi figure with a stunning level of detail and a more than above average quality. A thing I really appreciate is that the scale seems to be accurately spread around in this lineup, Nozomi is noticeable taller than Nico, as it should be.

The next Love Live! School Idol Festival figure I will receive is Umi. I’m also interested in Eli.

…and one day, maybe one day, I will add the lovely Kotori, too .