Hello, today I have a figure review of Kotobukiya’s Mayoi Hachikuji. Mayoi Hachikuji is an 1/8 scaled figure with a height of 180mm, the figure was released by Kotobukiya in November.

Mayoi Hachikuji is a character from the popular anime Bakemonogatari and in my humble opinion an awesome anime from SHAFT which I already watched two times, its great.

The figure is sculpted after the illustration from the opening theme of the Hachikuji story.

As Kotobukiya announced their Mayoi Hachikuji figure and showed the first prototype pictures which looked quite promising I was fired up about this figure. While the attention of the fans was mainly drawn torwards Hitagi Senjougahara, I can understand the point why she is so popular, Hitagi is attractive and has a cool personality, but I never was a big fan of her, next to Koyomi Araragi and Suruga Kanbaru, Mayoi Hachikuji was one of my favorite characters.

So here are some small background infos about her character

Ten years ago Mayoi was a 5th grade elementary school girl. Her parents got divorced and Mayoi lived together with her father, someday she missed her mum and went out to search for her.

In the show she was cute and funny and also acted a bit tough sometimes, her fight scenes with Koyomi were hilarious, maybe another reason why I liked her character was that I liked snails a lot in my childhood I really like how they combined the look of a cute schoolgirl and a snail with twintails as feelers, a huge backpack as snail shell and the snail like mouth.

So lets head over to the review part

On first look this figure resembles Mayoi Hachikuji very well, the twintails, her face, her body proportions as well as the look of her nice dress really look like in the anime, one exception is the color of her dress, in the anime her skirt is dark blue, but there also was an illustration of her with a wine red colored skirt on the DVD cover. I don’t know why they decided to pick the other color in the end, but if you ask me I prefer the wine red color.

In comparison with other 1/8 scaled figures Mayoi is on the bigger side, her head is huge and in fact she looks strange next to my other figures figures of that scale, she looks better when she’s placed next to 1/7 scaled figures. In general when producing a whole figure line manufacturers should pay more attention to the scale of all the figures so that they look good when placed together instead of scaling them indifferently.

The area around her nice red eyes looks pretty accurate, underneath she has light blush marks on her cheeks, what I also really like is her snail like mouth. Her hair is sculpted very nicely, with the bangs and the short sideburns her hairstyle appears very lively, the long  twintails with the twisted strands are also looking very good.

The visual trademark of Hachikuji is the big backpack at her back. The backpack has a leather like texture and shows some very good color shading. It looks nice and detailed, the white outlines are adding a nice contrast to the pink backpack. There are pockets and playful stuff on the sides which elementary school students would like . On the left side there is a patch with her class and name written on it and a paw comes out under the cover at the top.

snail shoe

The small details on this figure, like the star on her blouse, the cherry print on her skirt and the green transparent bracelet on her arm are nice. The white short sleeved blouse has pretty sculpted seam lines and wrinkles. Her panties are also sculpted very detailed, but I hope you understand that Im not that interested in peeking under the skirts of elementary school girls =D

If you want to take a look please visit the linked reviews at the end of this post.

Her pose appears very dynamik, like she is strolling around twinkle-toed after the school day has ended, her hands are holding the belts of her heavy backpack. The flow of the skirt is also nice to look at and fits according to her pose. Because of the angle, Mayoi is suited to be on display on higher places, she doesn’t look good from every angle because of that.

The paintjob looks very good, when you look very close some areas aren’t painted 100 % accurate,but from a normal distance this is hardly noticeable and so there isn’t much space for complains. Her base is desinged a bit simple, it is a clear round bas with a dark clear silhouette of a snail. The good news is that the base is very solid and supports the figure very well.

Initially I planned to make a shooting together with real snails but it’s winter now and the snails around here are hibernating in this season. So I had to do an indoor shooting, unfortunately the outcome of my shooting didn’t turn out like I expected, but at least some pics were useful enough for this review. I added some new pics from spring 2011 to this review.

I admit that Hachikuji doesn’t look very fancy in her outfit, in comparison with most of my other figures. I doubt that I would have ordered this figure if I had no knowledge about her origin, but nevertheless in my opinion Hachikuji is one of the more interesting school uniform figures.

Kotobukiya did a good job in putting the anime character Mayoi Hachikuji from Bakemonogatari into a good looking figure, sculpting and painting is very well done. I’m really satisfied with this figure. I paid 5,430 yen at AmiAmi so I think it was a fair deal. I would recommend this cute figure to fans of Mayoi Hachikuji and people who like girls in school uniforms, oh my god that sounds so wrong XD

other reviews of Mayoi can be found at

kaijin.akiba.coocan.jp
yotsubatofigure.net
they are only in japanese but the pictures should be enough

thx for watching see you next time

Today I have the Saber super moveable Nendoroid on review (another nendo *lol*)
I have good news for my readers who dislike Nendoroids, that was the last
Nendoroid Review for once next time I will return to PVC figures =D .

This Nendoroid  has the same look as the 1/7 scaled Saber Triumphant Excalibur,
from Good Smile Company which was released in October 2010.

Her origin is the popular Fate/Stay night franchise which consist of some Games,
an anime and lately even a Movie called Unlimited Blade Works was made.
Saber is a strong and brave servant whio was summoned by Emiya Shirō

I always was more a Rin fan than a Saber fan and so far I owned no single Saber Figure.
So this Saber Nendoroid was a pure Impulse buy,I saw it at AmiAmi Shop
and thought “Ah how cool” after checking the price, Saber landed in my shopping cart.

So what is included in the box:

• Saber and base

• two spare faces

• four spare hands

• three swords

• two scabbards

And here comes the freak face of Saber

I think the swords and scabbards have special names but I don’t have them in mind.

Good Smile Company made many Saber Nendoroids, the special feature of this one is that it is “Super Moveable” which means that Saber has nearly the same articulation like a Figma.
You can give her nearly every pose which comes to mind, she has joints at her neck, shoulders, elbows, legs and feet, you can also spread the skirt to the sides. For posing noobs like me these kind of posing freedom is a bit over the top, but I think more Nendoroid experienced or more creative people will have their fun with such a variety of possible poses,the only limiting factor is her head and the length of her arms.

Saber is the first kind of moveable Nendoroid, so I didn’t know how her moveability would turn out, there were some comments on MFC about loose parts and joints, but I only discovered that her right arm comes off easily when you pose it.

Another nice aspect of this Nendoroid is the base, it’s connects at the back of Saber. It supports Saber very well and helps you to create cool and dynamic poses. I think the connection at the back is the best way to display a Nendoroid. Honestly I’d like to drill a hole in the backs of my two older Nendoroids and equip them with such kind of bases.

The quality of GSC’s Nendoroids was always very good, after I bought Saber and Amano Tooko which was released at around the same time, I can say that their quality has even increased, the parts fit together perfectly. The paintjob is nearly flawless the same goes for the sculpting.

Talking about quality have you heard about the commotion about BRS Anime Version? As GSC was getting flamed when it came out that they forgot to put the star decal on her jacket and gave her beige colored shoe soles, personally I don’t really care about the beige boots nor the missing star I didn’t even know she had a star there until Wednesday. That they’ve forgotten to put on the star is a bit embarrassing, but even if I am no fan of  Good Smile Company I felt a bit sorry for them. I will cover my impressions about the BRS Anime Version figure in the next review.

Back to Saber’s outfit, it is very nice and detailed, as I said before she has the same. Outfit as the one of the 1/7 scaled Saber Triumphant Excalibur Version. The blue combined with the silver colored parts looks really good, especially the detailed silver colores armor plates are very cool and and I like the slightly shiny metallic paint. The different layers of her skirt which consist of the outer armor, the blue dress and the white underskirt looks really nice together.

I tried to switch the head with another Nendo, but the neck of Sumomo was a bit too thick, to fit in Sabers body so I had to switch the neck peg.

Final Words:

This Saber Nendoroid is a very nice and cool Nendoroid, she offers you a lot of freedom for creating cool and dynamic poses. I am really astonished about the moveability of such a small figure. The paintjob of her outfit looks great with the combination of blue and silver colors. The three different faces are also nice and have diversified expressions, my favorites are the kind and the serious one, Sabers eyes look very nice. Also the sculpting of this Saber Nendoroid is accurate and very well done.

Another Review of her can be found at nendonesia.com

Hi, today we have Good Smile Companies Nendoroid No. 118, Amano Tooko in the house.
Her origin is the Light Novel ““ where she is the president of the literature club.

She is a very kindhearted and lively person, she likes literature to the extent that she happens to eat what she reads. I only learned about her origin after I watched the Bungaku Shoujo: Kyou no Oyatsu – Hatsukoi sidestory. I  haven’t read the light novel, but I really enjoyed the OVA’s of this franchise, called Bungaku Shoujo Memoire which I watched after Kyou no Oyatsu – Hatsukoi.

In the OVA it is said that she can’t feel the taste of food, but she can feel the taste of literature, she hides that secret, only people who are close to her know of that secret. She and her clubmate Konoha are in the literature club, where Konoha has to write “tasty” stories for her .

I also recently watched the movie Bungaku Shoujo but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the OVA’s
because they added a stupid yandere girl to the main characters cast, what a bitch ;D.

I bought two big Nendoroids so far, in the past I accidently broke their bases after only a few minutes of posing, well I was able fix them but not in a satisfying way, that made me that angry that I nearly gave up on buying more Nendoroids… Well, in the end I’ve bought anotherone, I really liked the look of this Amano Tooko Nendoroid with the sitting pose option, as well as the monster option, which gives her a different and crazy look so I couldn’t resist her *damn GSC*.

Now I will start to tell you my opinion and thoughts about this Nendoroid.

in general Nendoroids (not the standard bases ^^) from gsc have a very good quality. Tooko is no exception, she has clean and accurate painted parts. The blue colortones of her are looking really good together with her white shirt, also the shading of the hair is very well done. The faces and their expressions are painted clean and accurate as well. Overall the parts are fitting very good together, I noticed that the tips of her braids fell off some times, but the other parts like the arms, the hands, the legs and the heads were fitting accurately and were easy to handle.

Tooko has three different options for the main posing.

My favorite option is the one where Tookou can sit on her chair. It looks very cute in combination with her paper chewing face. But I miss a second hip part, it is a bit uncomfortable to make the sitting pose, you have take off the standing legs as well as the joint balls out of the hip part and put the sitting legs into the free holes.

In the second option Tookou can stand.

Unfortunately her braids aren’t enough to support her stand alone so you have to use the base.
As mentioned before I had bad memories with these bases, so I haven’t use it in my review.

Here is the last and third option, where Tooko is a monster in a Surströmming tin.

Surströmming is a Swedish fish delicacy, which is preserved by acidification, I heard it should smell intense and foul. Bon appetit XD This option looks crazy and hilarious,there are Stickers of a bat and a bull skull, which you can use as decorations for monster Tooko. You can use these stickers a few times they are still sticky even after some usage.

Here is all the stuff  which was included in the box.

As you can see it is a lot there are a few hands, a few books, stickers, 2 spare heads, a spare skirt, a chair and so on.

Time for the Final Words
Im not very good at posing but I tried my best to show the good sides of this Tooko Nendoroid. Tooko Amano is a nice and cute figure with a very good quality. Taking pictures of her was a lot of fun especially in her monster option XD If you are wondering about the school room in the background it is the Culture Festival Set A from Phat Company. When you are a Nendoroid fan you shouldn’t miss to get this cutie.

A few weeks later I stumbled over a link which lead to a review of the figure UJ-14 at Happysoda.

I wasn’t to sure about getting a figure for myself but after looking at UJ-14 I knew that I wanted this figure. At that time I also didn’t know where to get these figures, so Google was my friend and luckily I found her for a very fair price at an US online store.

UJ-14 is a 1/8 scaled figure manufactured by Beagle, she is made of PVC and ABS, ber release date was in November 2006. Her origin is from the Range Murata‘s illustration book: FORM CODE.
It’s pretty obvious that the design of UJ-14 isn’t anime like at all, you can easily recognize the Range Murata style of this figure.

Hair & Face

UJ-14 has light purple hair with some detailed strands, she wears a white colored headset, with some copper colored antennas like objects at the sides of her head. The almond eyes as well as the nicely sculpted mouth are underlining her some timid and shy, yet cool face expression.

Outfit & Body

The outfit of UJ-14 looks very interesting it’s a smooth looking white body suit, it’s seam lines and folds emits a feeling of softness. She has a detailed backpack which is connected to her headset with the copper colored antennas,these electronical looking parts are very cool, other nice details are the belts and buckles which are holding her backpack in place.

The pose is also very well done it looks natural and shows a silent yet cool body. gesture,which fits perfectly to her face expression. Her left butt cheek is a little bit lifted up by her left boot which adds a little bit natural sexyness to UJ-14 without looking vulgar by any means. The heavy boots of her are also showing detailed highlights at the outside and the sole.

I also like this harmonic colorsetting of her: the skin tone, the light purple hair as well as the black and white of her clothes, everything fits together very well, additional to this the mix of matte and shiny colors is also very well done, while the colors of her body and clothes mainly consists of matte colors, her electronic devices are painted with shiny colors.

All these cleanly painted and very well sculpted details of UJ-14 are really great considering her age and of course the price of this figure, she was more than a fair deal.

In this review I took some of my new and some of my old pictures for the newer pics I wanted to create a some kind industrial setting. I used the bowels of an old transistor radio as background and an aluminium sheet for the ground . Next time I should clean the dust off more properly by using water, before taking the pictures I shortly wiped over the figure but after sighting the pics at the pc there was still some ugly dust left.

Final Words

I am really satisfied with this UJ-14 figure, she resembles the art of Range Murata very well. The pose of UJ-14 is very interesting, with her cool outfit and her facial expression this figure has a quite unique look, Beagle did a really good job with the very good quality of the sculpting and painting. Im happy to have her in my collection.

The review which made me buy this lovely figure is at

Happysoda

Today I show you a review about an older figure of mine, it’s a review about the Endoh Ifrina Vol.2 A Type version figure from Gigapulse, her origin is the eroge/visual novel Figu@mate.

Endoh Ifrina Vol.2 A Type Version is a 1/1 scaled figure and her height is around 7 centimeres, she was released in December 2008 and was manufactured by Giga Pulse. As I was scrolling through the Akibahobby blog I discovered the Figu@mate figure Lineup, normally Giga Pulse only make hentai figures which are quite borderline, but Ifrina looked quite tame for their standards.

They had five variations of  Endoh Ifrina, the Vol.2 A Type Version instantly caught my interest.
I couldn’t find her on shops like HLJ or AmiAmi, but luckily I found a german online shop, who had her in stock.

She was the first more daring figure I wanted to buy, but I had some doubts about ordering her, so I consulted a friend of mine about it and the conversation went like this.

I: Theres a figure I likeF: Show me
I: But… but she’s half naked
F: I wouldn’t mind that shes cute and when you like her it’s ok
I: Ok then I will order her…

After I had the figure on my desk for several month I looked after the game Figu@mate, out of curosity I started to play it, I never played such a game before, so my first reaction to the first erotic scene was something like this… XD

Origin: figu@mate

In the game Endoh Ifrina is the main heroine, she’s a magical girl from a distant planet, her character is always upbeat and playful, but she is also some kind of a short tempered and violent Tsundere. Because Endoh used a forbidden spell on her homeplanet, she was exiled to earth and incarnated into a gashapon sized figure the male hero recently bought, he’s called Kaigo and is a college student who likes collecting and modelling figures and is always short on money.

As Ifrina arrived she is in a very weakened state and needs help. Kaigo acquiesces to help Ifrina with gainig back her full magical energy and her human sized body. He can help by having erotic daydreams about her. I takes more than one daydream until Ifrina will turn back into human, but she can slowly gain the magic energy she needs with that method. And so Kaigo and Ifrina start spending the summer together having entertaining adventures in the city.

The game is very related to the figurine collector world, the different outfits Ifrina has during the “daydreams” have a creative design. As I said its an nice eroge game, but the game also has other aspects. The game has an interesting storyline and the chapters are also very diversified.

The humor of the game is very nice and it also has interesting side characters. Playing the game was fun but also pretty exhausting, when you have to translate every sentence with the help of a text extractor and google translator. Nevertheless I understood most of the plot and was able to clear 3 endings, the worst one, the less bad one and one of the good endings by myself.

Ehh sorry the review was intended for the figure not for the game XD

First impressions

The figure was sealed in a small box, all the parts like the body, head and the cape were wrapped seperately, so you have to put the three parts together, you can also choose to display her with or without the cape. Endoh also comes with a popsicle which is the base of this figure, because she can stand on her own and I don’t like the popsicle base I kept it in the box.

a size comparison UJ 14 on the left is a small 1/8 scaled figure

As I unpacked her I was surprised how small the figure actually is, like her character in the game Endoh is a very small figure around 7 cm in the disription it was written that she about 12 cm.
Thats not really correct, maybe you get this height when you add the length of the legs to it.

Face

From most angles the face shows a cute expression, her pink eyes are very well painted and detailed, they gave them a nice shiny finish. The smooth skintone of her face shows some cute blush marks. Ifrina has an open mouth with a nice depth and an upper front teeth line, she sticks out her tounge as if she wants to lick at her finger. Her pink voluminous hairstyle is also nice.

Body & Outfit

The people at Giga Pulse were very creative with the pose, in the game she never striked this pose or had any ice with her, but putting this aside the figure resembles the CG look of her origin very good. The body is sculpted clean and shows some really nice proportions and alluring curves.

I really like her smooth looking skintone and the way it absorbes light. As you can see her pretty butt is exposed a lot and she also has her breasts exposed, at least she’s wearing panties XD
I wouldn’t be brave enough to buy figures without any. It is possible to pose her so that arms are hiding her bare boobs and you don’t have to look directly at her butt. But honestly that would be a shame since her but is really pretty also the stomach is nicely sculpted.

Attention to detail is also shown at her fingers, every tiny finger looks nicely sculpted.

Her pose is very sexy, a bit suggestive and also cute in some way, she looks very nice from a few angles, but because her neck is a bit slope and long she looks a bit strange from some angles.

I really like the remaining magical girl outfit of Ifrina a lot even though it is not much. The big ribbon on top of her head and the straps in her hair are really cute, and the long fingerless gloves are sexy, additional to that the figure is wearing a striped pantsu. The different colored thigh highs and the white boots are a nice eyecatcher of this figure also some smaller details, like the buckles at her gloves, the stockings and the stars on her hair give this figure a very nice look.

Even though the figure is small, the paintjob is very well done and the details are painted in a really clean way, as long as you don’t use a magnifying glass you’ll see no real flaws. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that her nipples are painted a bit blurry.

Final Words

I really like this figure a lot, after I’ve played the game I like her even more, she’s one of my favorite figures and is always on the left of my desk. Endoh is a mix of cute and sexy with some surprising details for her size, I paid a bit much for such a small figure, well the very clean sculpting and the clean paintjob justifies it a bit. I wouldn’t mind to buy a more modest figure of Endoh in her complete outfit, but unfortunately there is none.

Next time I will show you a review of a more modest figure I promise !

Omake pic

Hallo boys and girls, today I will review this cute Kagami Hiiragi, it’s another figure from Wave’s Beach Queens.
She is a 1/10 scaled figue manufactured by Wave and has a height of  120cm.

Her origin is the famous anime Lucky Star, a funny slice of life comedy. I have a amusing memory , as my dad bumped into my room during the crazy opening. I don’t wanna know what he was thinking at that time but it was very funny. Kagami is my favorite Character from Lucky Star I always liked her more feminine and tsundere side a lot. Kagami is sculpted after this illustration. Wave also made a Beach Queen figure of Konata which is nearly as cute as Kagami, but I didn’t ordered her. They look very good together and can be placed like in the illustration.

Kagami comes with a lot of accesories, she has two interchangeable hairstyles, you can choose between the more common Twintail and the cute Knots. Kagami also comes with a popcycle ice which she can hold in her hand and a  swimring which you can hang over one of her arms.

WAVE is none of my favorite figure manufacturs, but I ordered Kagami because the official shots looked very promising. As I opened the box this figure surprised me a bit, she isn’t just totally cute, shes also very well sculpted and painted. The nice hat from Azone isn’t included in the box.

Typical for Lucky Star characters are big heads, so despite from her small size Kagami’s face has enough place for details she has detailed eyes with blush marks and an open mouth.
The main feature of the Beach Queen’s is the “H-Neck”, a ball joint at her head which allows you to change the direction and angle of her head. Its a nice feature for playing around, don’t do it too roughly or you have her head in your hand. But even when that happens you can easily put it back into place.

I like the texture and the shading of her hair it looks very nice and resembles the pastel look from the anime quite well. The bikni top has some nice little stars printed on it, the wrinkles on the top let the sculpt appear more lively and give it a more realistic look.

For the shooting I’ve used a printed out picture of a beach scenery as background, a 1/35 scaled palm tree which I’ve build beforehand and 2 kg of sand for the proper floor. I considered to do an outdoor shooting, but I had no beach nearby and the weather sucked as well.

Final words

Kagami is a cute and small figure, which is nice and clean sculpted, the pose is also very nice and her body has some petite proportions. The hair also looks very good, the interchangeable hairstyles are a nice extra. Her twintails are nice, but I prefer the hair knots which are supporting Kagami’s cuteness more. One minor critique point is the swimring, I’d prefered it if the swimring would be made of soft plastic instead of hard plastice. So far I’ve sold every figure after some time from WAVE I bought, but I will keep Kagami for sure.

Good job Wave ^^

You can find two nice reviews of Kagami and also Konata at thebanzaieffect and shadonia.com

Hi, Im back to business and today I’ll talk about Vivio in my review, Vivio was manufactured by ALTER and is a 1/7 scaled figure with a height of 280 mm. This figure was released in July 2010.

Her Origin is the anime called Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS where her character was introduced for the first time. Vivio was found in a canalisation by two members of the Striker S team. In the progress of the story she was adopted by Nanoha, because of that her full name turned into Takamachi Vivio and also Fate took good care of her. The small family was fun to watch with Nanoha in the role of the loving yet strict father and Fate as the kind mother ;D

Normally Vivio is a 6 year old friendly child, but near the end the bad guys used a spell to transform her into a powerful and fearsome adult, Nanoha had to face in the final battle.

Vivio wasn’t my favorite character in the anime and no figure which was on my wishlist to begin with. This figure caught my interest when I saw her review at Tentacle Armada, she looked and sounded like a nice figure to own. I instanly checked my favorite figure supplier AmiAmi if she would be still in stock and I ordered her instantly. If I had waited a few weeks more I could have bought her for 60% off instead of paying the full price, because this Vivio figure turned out as a shopkeeper everywhere and all the shops keep listing her with crazy discounts, even today.

Face

A trademark of Vivio are the bicolored green and a red eyes, she is showing a very serious and agressive face expression. I’m no big fan of figures with open mouths and here lays the only bad part of this figure. From the left her face looks a bit weird with her mouth like this, she looks far better when you look at her face from the other side. Anyway her mouth is sculpted in a very detailed way with the small front teeth area and a tounge. Her beautiful orange sidetail hairstyle with the nice blue ribbon fits very well to her overall look, some strands are hanging in her face and are covering her left eye a bit.

After unpacking her I’ve noticed that Vivio is in fact a huge piece of PVC in form of a nice figure. What meets the eye are her proud boobs which are very prominent in that pose of her. The pose looks very dynamic with the energy ball in her hand she looks like she is throwing a powerful baseball pitch ^^.

Outfit

Her outfit looks like it comes from an Xmen Movie, she looks very cool in it, her outfit is a tight, matte blue greyish body suit with metallic looking armor parts at her stomach, she also wears a shiny dark grey coat and a shiny grey skirt with blue outlines, the high collar of her coat looks also very cool. A nice detail is that she has several gems all over her outfit, if she would also wear army boots and sunglasses, Vivio would have one of the coolest figurine outfits ever ;D.
The gloves are also a cool detail of this figure her fingers are very well sculpted, Vivio comes with a energy ball which can be placed into her hand, it was her main weapon in the show.

The paintjob and sculpting of Vivio is very well done, I couldn’t discover any flaws in this figure. Albeit the weak point of her pose is definetely her face from the left, it looks a bit strange I would display her with the other side around. Vivio has the typical base from the Nanoha line of Alter, a plain white and shiny rectancle with grey font not very attractive but it serves it purpose. It is very stable, Vivio’s shoes won’t come off that easily when put together with the base.

Final Words

This figure of Takamachi Vivio looks very good and the overall quality is very impressive with all the details on her sculpt and her suit. Vivio’s battle suit looks really cool and stylish. Also her pose is very well done it shows a strong and powerful body expression. On thing that is not so good is that Vivio’s face does look strange from some angles, which mainly the fault of her wide open mouth. I would recommend this Vivio to everyone who likes big 1/7 scaled figures with a cool battle outfit, a dynamic pose and a more serious or better said agressive face expression.

After ordering Vivio I had doubts if this was the right decision to order her, because she’s really huge with her 280 mm in height. I thought about reselling her after taking the pictures for the review and oh well I sold her after some month. I didn’t sell her because of her size, I couldn’t get used to her agressive face expression, I just prefer figures with friendlier face expressions.

Three other reviews can be found at

Tentacle Armada
Wawawa
howagirlfigures

After my vacation was ruined by a cold I was at least happy, that one day after my return the postman ringed to deliver my figures of Seena Kanon from Max Factory and Momohime from Alter. The Customs intercepted my parcels so I had to pay 22€ customs fee additional.

Seena Kanon is a character from the popular game called Shining Wind. I haven’t played Shining Wind nor have I watched the anime adaption, but I really like the character design of Toni Taka.

This figure of Seena Kanon was manufactured by Max Factory she is a scaled 1/7 figure which makes her 235mm in height, to me who mainly owns 1/8 scaled figures she appears quite huge. Max Factory released her July 20107 and also announced bikini versions of Kureha, Xecty and Clalaclan, for once I’m not planning to buy another figure of this Shining Wind bikini series.

Hair & Face

In general I’m no fan of short haired figures, in case of Seena Im loving it, her hairstyle, the radiant color as well as the freely sculpted strands which look really pretty.

One of Seena’s biggest charm points is definetely her face, honestly it looks so damn cute. The shiny brown eyes are painted very detailed and the shiny finish really brings them to live, under her eyes Seena has some light blushing marks. Her mouth is very well sculpted and puts a gentle smile onto her face.

The detail of sculpting at her upper body looks very good. Nice details are the collarbones, the stomach as well as her backside with the area around her scapulas, there is also a subtle shading effect at some parts of her body. The size of her chest fits to Seena’s overall look, not too small and not too big. It is characteristical for characters from Shining Wind is, that they have unrealistic long legs in comparison to their upper body. Seena is no exception here, because of their length, the legs appear a little bit less detailed than the upper body.

Outfit

There isn’t much to say about her outfit, it’s a simple looking orange bikini with black holder strings and ribbons at the backside. A nice detail is the fancy skirt with the square pattern.
I tried to cast off the skirt but I didn’t want to rip it apart so I can’t provide pictures of her bikini slip. Nevertheless her paintjob of her clothes looks pretty accurate without showing any noticeable flaws. Afterwards I noticed that the figure can be seperated at the bustline so then you can take off the skirt.

Her pose looks simple but nice with the arms entangled behind her back Seena appears very petite which matches the innocent and cute look of her face very well.
There could be a tendency of leaning to one side in the future, but so far her pose is pretty stable even though her whole weight only lays one one leg.

Final words

If you are searching for bikini figure with an innocent, girl next door charisma and an overly cute face, this Shining Wind Seena Swimsuit version would be the right choice.
here you can find a short review where you can see her box and here base

See you next time with Alter’s Momohime review.

Today I have a review of the last Kotobukiya I own. Kirisame Marisa is a 1/8 scaled figure manufactured by Kotobukiya, her release date was 12/2009 (not for me muhaha, but more
about that later) Her origin is Touhou Project as far as I remember it’s a pc game franchise.

I haven’t much knowledge about the Touhou universe, I only know that the characters of Touhou are shown in many awesome pictures on several image boards ^^.

She was an exclusive figure again like my Usami Haru from the last review.
At that time I was possesed by the get exclusive figure demon .

I ordered her at toyslogic for 129,99€, the waiting time nearly killed my patience. First they’ve sent me the payment request and the day after I paid I got the message that Marisa was delayed. In the end she was shipped to me on April 19th. It’s a bad feeling when everybody else already has the figure and only you have to wait 4! additional month. In the future I will consider if I’ll preorder at an US Store again, waiting time sucks. But lets put this aside and get started.

Face

Marisa has a very pretty face, her eyes are very detailed and have a strong expression, her eye lashes are supporting this strong expression very well. The wide mouth and the marks under her eyes are adding a friendly look to her face. In the preview pictures I saw her nose seemed a bit too spiky but in reality it looks really good. The flow of her hair is very nice as well as the mix of blonde and light brown highlight colors on it.

Body & Pose

Marisa’s body resembles the figure of a teenager, she has nice looking, accurate sculpted legs and arms the rest is coveredby her heavy layered dress. Marisa has a very bended pose with her legs loosely in the air. It looks like she takes a relaxed flight on her broom. The bended pose was a bit difficult for taking pictures from some angles. I sometimes lost my temper during the shootings because some angles were not that easy to achieve.

Outfit

In comparison with most of my figures Marisa’s outfit looks quite modest. Her main dress is black skirt with four big buttons which aren’t painted at her chest part, she has a white underskirt beneath and wears granny pants. Marisa also wears a big white apron over her black skirt. The white parts of her outfit have a lightly gray shading. I really like the short puffy sleeves which only covers her shoulders. On one hand she wears one flashy glove with a silver buckle. Marisa’s hat is very well sculpted, it is magnetic so you can take it off. like her skirt it also has a frill part underneath and a big ribbon at the upper part. Another great detail of Marisa are her heavy brown boots, which have very detailed bootlaces with a dark blue ribbon on them and detailed silver buckles as well.

Overall her clothes, especially the frills are nicely sculpted and show a dynamic flow. A nice extra part of this figure is the bamboo broom which is very detailed. The paintjob looks good, the laces around the brush part of the broom have a realistic look.

Base

Her base is a huge black round plate with a silver star on it. Marisa has a hole in her back to put her on the star, there is also a big white ribbon included which fits between Marisa and the star.
The star can be rotated a bit to the left and right which is very helpful for choosing a nice angle for Marisa. The star can be illuminated since an led is built in, the on/off switch is under the base
I havent used it a lot since flipping the base + Marisa for turning on the light everytime is not very comfortable. Marisa doesn’t really needs her star base her pose also allows her to sit somewhere else.

Final Words

It was some trouble untill she was shipped, but in the end I got her. I really like her beautiful hair and the deep expression of her eyes, Furthermore, I like the colors of her outfit with the vintage look of it. The black and white colors suit her well and are a nice contrast to her lively hair color. Another good part is that the pose allows to put Marisa on other things without the huge star base. Two small flaws I discovered are the not fully silver painted buckle on her glove and a small seam line at one of her boots. Oh and the broom falls off very easily. Nevertheless Kotobukyia did a good job with this figure of Marisa.

I hope you enjoyed this review a bit and that the text wasn’t too long, sorry for the dust in some pictures,I forgot to clean Marisa properly ^^.

Usami Haru is a 1/8 scaled figure manufactured by Kotobukiya and released in November 2009. She was an exclusive figure and only sold at Toranoana online & retails shop. As so often some other figure shops also got their hands on a few of thes exclusive items, so people who live outside Japan could also order her. I was a bit late, so the last chance left for me was ebay.

Dog related figures are pretty rare on the figure market, bunny dress and cat  related figures
are more common in the Otaku universe. I don’t know anymore why I wanted this figure that badly,maybe I wanted the challenge of getting this exclusive item, in the end I paid too much money for this figure *damn*but let’s put that aside for now and start with the review.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48rIDaUdj2I
 
Usami Haru is from the Visual Novel Game Devil on G String   “G Senjō no Maō“ No, the title has nothing to do with underwear, it’s related to the female lead character who plays the violin.
I havn’t played the game so I unfortunately can’t provide informations about her character.

Hair & Face

The flow of the long hair is smooth and nicely sculpted, but it looks quite chunky at the strands. It is colored in a dark brown tone and has no shading. Usami Haru’s eye region is well done even though it’s a bit hidden by the thick hair strands. Usami’s eyes are very detailed and painted in a dark purple color. She has a spiky nose and her cheeks are showing some faintblush marks.

Body & Pose

The pose looks very well done, it’s nice how Usami takes a cautious look over her shoulder.
One hand pulls the bikini slip to the side so her butt is exposed halways. The articulation of her arms and legs looks natural. Her butt is sculpted pretty nice and Usami’s waisteline is also very attractive. The well endowed bust size fits very well to her overall proportions. The skintone of Usamis body and face have a pale color and a smooth looking texture. The shading of Usami’s body is done in an restrained way, also around her thigh highs and bikini clothes.

Outfit

To some people her outfit would appear like crazy fetish cosplay, but I somehow like it.
Lately I get a liking to Neko related figures but the dog costume is also ok for me.

Usami wears a choker,which is a very hidden detail that I have just discovered. Obviously Usami doesn’t wear much more, everything she has is a nice and simple white bikini. Her slip shows some authentic looking wrinkles, the ribbons at her bikini slip and at her bikini top also add a nice detail to the bikini. Another nice part of the outfit are the striped thigh highs with frills.

The dog ears and the tail are magnetic, so you can put them on and off, I think they also should have made this bone in her mouth magnetic, because after some time it looks a bit retarted.

Production errors & flaws

Now to the bad points, it’s the first time a figure of mine had a few more critique points.

At the right side of her hips is a visible seam line due to the production progress, another more or less visible seam line is at the backside of her leg and her right arm. I think the Figure had needed more accurate grinding in the finishing process. Another production error can found at the right side of her upper body, it is a rather big hole. Thanks to her pale skin color this flaw isn’t that noticeable but it’s annoying nevertheless.

Final words

Before writing this review I considered to sell this figure, but now Im not so sure about that anymore, it’s a pity that the production quality shows some flaws like the small hole at the side of her upper body. Aside from that Usami is nicely sculpted figure with attractive proportions and creative design. Usami Haru looks good on my desk In my opinion Usami looks best with dog ears on. Usami Haru is a nice figure but I wouldn’t buy her again for the same price.

see you and thx for your attention ^__^