Nico, Nico Niii!

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

Today I’m going to review my first Love Live! figure, I’ve ordered one of ALTER‘s sparkling
Love Live! School Idol Festival figures of my favorite Love Live! character Nico.

I wasn’t really interested in getting Idol related figures until I noticed the Love Live! School Idol Festival version of Kotori, I was amazed by the level of details and her beautiful appearance, unfortunately I did not order her yet.

For me Love Live! was a really nice anime, a bunch cute girls become friends and achieve something great was nice to watch. Also all the different types of characters with their unique charm and quirks added a lot to the shows appeal.

Nico is not the usual anime girl, her extremely cute appearance is paired by a slightly evil personality. She has a professional attitude about everything Idol related. She is very confident about herself, which comes off arrogantly. Still she’s not obnoxiously, after all.

She’s really happy to be a part of µ’s and is an essential member. I really like her for being different, her small personality flaws are charming and interesting, Nico also is a funny girl.

Yazawa Nico Love Live! School Idol Festival was sculpted by Takaku & Takeshi. The figure was released in late June 2016. She is scaled 1/7 with a height of 24 cm. As additional feature, next to being awesome, Nico comes with an optional hat and exchangeable left arm.

Nico has a traditional twintail hairstyle, she probably chose it since it’s cute. The blueish-black hair looks nice and recreates the look from the anime very well. The hair is decorated with small red ribbons and differently colored ties. As optional item the figure has a really fancy hat with ribbons everywhere and a golden emblem with an “N” on it.

Nico is the most petite girl in Love Live! it’s gives her a very adorable appearance, although with her personality she isn’t a real sweetheart. She is the little devil of the group and therefore has red eyes, the sparkling eyes are an essential appeal point in Love Live! and ALTER adapted it perfectly. Nico is the happiest girl when she’s in idol mode, her figure was adapted with a happy open mouth and upper front teeth line, it makes her look very cheerful.

As all the “School Idol Festival” figures Nico also has a striking details, brimming with lots of details. The main part consists of a frilly black tube top with a matching miniskirt, every frilly layer has a golden rim. The star pattern skirt also has another transparent layer underneath.

On her chest she has elaborate ribbon, it’s all wrapped around the upper part of the figure. There is a huge red ribbon at her back, it shows a golden rim with elaborate pattern.

different kinds of socks/stockings, fancy kneesocks on the right, dark thigh highs on the left. Both legs are decorated with a cute frilly garter. The “socks” are both decorated with
differently colored and elaborately designed ribbons, pink and green. The green color has a air of christmas, while the creative idol outfit has a few elements related to christmas, calling the figure christmas Nico is a bit of a stretch. She looks also good in the summer, I assure you.

The figure has glossy red shoes with a golden sole, a short girl wears a bit of heel.

Of course an important thing for an idol figure is dynamic movement, ALTER put Nico in an interesting pose where is marching along the stage cheerfully. With wildly fluttering miniskirt and twintails the figure appears very lively, yes her skirt is super short (//∇//). In her stage outfit Nico also shows some skin, her arms, the belly and her slender legs are cute.

Final Words

ALTER‘s sparkling Love Live! School Idol Festival figures are state of the art products, I actually say it’s the current peak of figure manufacturing quality.

I’m happy that I have bought the most pretty Nico figure to date. Taking pictures with her was so much fun. I was already a real fan of her character, but having a figure of her is so nice, I even have the impression that having her on my desk is a good luck charm. I can say nothing bad about her, Nico is beautiful and elaborately sculpted and stands firmly on her base.

Because of a change in the release list of Alter, I also ordered the Toujou Nozomi Love Live! School Idol Festival figure. Considering how pretty and sparkling the School Idol Festival figures are I might order a few µ’s members more. The announced Sonoda Umi and Ayase Eli are looking gorgeous, too.

I had a few doubts about Love Live Sunshine! this season, it looks visually appealing, but partially the story feels a bit like a copy, but I have to tell you that I totally adore it, it’s more crazy, the characters are really different and also because Chika is a much better leader.

…and Ruby is an angel ♡♡♡