Hi there my figure friends, today I will talk about my recently received figure of Noel Vermillion.

This figure was sold as exclusive item, it was a collaboration between Hobby Japan Magazine and AMAKUNI. Noel Vermillions origin are the Beat Em Up BlazBlue and Queen’s Gate Spiral Chaos.

Noel Vermillion is scaled 1/8 figure and has a overall height of 190 mm, Noel was released in April 2012. On first sight I was interested in this figure, even without knowing her origin or character. What counts for me is the overall look not the knowledge of the character in the first place.
As I was finally convinced to buy her, the preorder period was already over, but thanks to Figuya.de I was able to get her a few weeks after the order deadline.

On a funny note I know nothing about her origin Blaz Blue, a game I’ve never played, Im such a lame Gamer. The story behind it is quite complex and I would just embarrass myself while trying to explain more about it. So for now just a little bit of backstory about the character herself.

Noel is an artificially created human, who was born on December 25, 2194. Later she was adopted by the Vermillion Family. She was accepted at the Military Academy and before her graduation she had the rank of an lieutenant in the 4th division of the Praetorian Guard. Noel is the shy and clumsy kind of girl, who likes everything cute, writing poems and online shopping.

This figure of Noel is nicely crafted adaption, I will talk about her head first.The hair of Noel has a pale yellow color with a somewhat metallic gloss. The single strand appear quite detailed. Short hair can be very nice, but don’t be fooled, Noel actually has long hair, but hidden by her blue cap.

A very nice part of this figure is her face, I like the beautiful and big green eyes which are pointed to the right. She also has a pretty and soft looking face, especially the area of her mouth looks very appealing and the slightly opened mouth gives the figure a very convincing expression.
In general I actually would complain about a lack of blushmarks, but not in case of this figure.

Noel has an attractive and petite body, with slender arms and legs. The legs are very sexy and the slightly meaty thighs add some feminine charm. As you might have noticed Noel has small but perky boobs which look very well in combination with her petite body, her back also looks very nice thanks to the nicely sculpted scapulas. A lot of attention to detail was also put to her armpits, they look quite soft and nice, even though that is not really one of my fetishes ;D

This figure is presented in Noel’s battle outfit, a jolting sapphire NOL uniform, that actually looks more like a short summer dress. but with the white collar and a short red tie, a uniform look was created. The color scheme is a combination of black, white and deep blue with silver and red details. She has seperated sleeves with big silver rings at her forearms. At her legs she is wearing matte black stockings, further below she has nice and elaborately sculpted boots.

As a character based on a fighting game Noel naturally carries weapons, she has two long pistols with a long barrel called Arcus Diabolus: Bolverk. They can be used for shooting and hitting.

The figure doesn’t need many assembly steps, there is the figure, the base and two long red straps. These straps are somewhat flexible, but you shouldn’t try to bend them too much while pushing them into the slits at the rings of her sleeves. They give the outfit an extra cool look.

The outfit captivates with it’s details sculpting, there are detailed folds and wrinkles where they belong. Next to her lovely armpits, Noel also offers a bit of mainstream fanservice in shape of a very short and flowing dress that barely covers her butt. I like how her butt flashes from some angles. Before the release there was a little discussion if the figure would have no underwear. Because in the Game her undergarmentswhere never shown directly in Calamity Trigger.

Final Words

It’s time for a conclusion Noel Vermillion is a nicely sculpted figure with an appealing face and interesting outfit. She has an attractive petite body and shows a good amount of skin without revealing too much.  Im quite happy about her purchase and despite the high price I’ve paid, it’s actually the first exclusive figure (Native’s Bath Time Sonico aside) where I don’t feel a bit like being robbed by the company. This figure is very nice in terms of appearance and quality.

another review was written by Tier from Tentaclearmada

Stand to attention! Good morning recruits, today I’ll show you a review about ALTER’s Charlotte E. Yeager figure, this figure is scaled 1/8 with a height of 230 mm and her release date was on 1th July 2011.  Charlotte E. Yeager is a character from the popular anime show Strike Witches.

On first look Strike Witches is all about young witches who are fighting against the Nazi’s Neuroi in a World War II setting. The Neuroi invaded europe and the young witches are the only weapon that is effective against these new agressors. These witches are from many different countries, they are all members of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing which is stationed in Britannia.

All the witches have special skills to fight the Neuroi aside from their standard weaponry. For flying they are using striker units which are resembling the front half of warplanes from the 1940’s. The witches stick their legs inside of these striker units and are controlling them via magical power.

But that isn’t all for some reason the witches never wear skirts or trousers in this anime, so there are panty shots galore XD. Under the thick fanservice layer, this show is mainly about cute girl girl relationships and friendship, the main story of the second season wasn’t that good and the last battle was more a copy from the first season, but the character driven episodes were very good.

Half of the female characters can be considered as lolis or loli lookalikes, The producers didn’t want to completely throw out guys with other preferences, so a few mature and mature looking girls have been placed into the cast like Sakamoto Mio, Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke, Gertrud Barkhorn and the Charlotte E. Yeager. From the younger characters I really liked Lucchini, but so far I’ve seen no good figure of her, so I wasn’t that interested in owning a figure from Strike Witches to begin with. After some time I was interested in Kotobukiya’s Lynette Bishop and I noticed that ALTER’s Yoshika was a also great looking figure, but for some reason I decided to pass on both.

Intro

The prototype pictures of ALTER’s Charlotte E. Yeager instantly caught my interest and as colored prototype pictures appeared I fell in love with her look and the design of her striker unit.

Charlotte, nicknamed “Shirley” is sixteen years old and comes from the United States of Liberion like it is called in the anime. She has the rank of a Flight Lieutenant in the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. Her hair is orange, her body is tall and has a buxom appearance. Charlotte likes the thrill of speed, and highspeed actually is her special magical skill. I don’t know more about her aside that she has a generous personality and is the bosom friend of Francesca Lucchini, litereally ;D.

Now more about the figure, on her nice box we see the description of the Strike Witches anime in english and some data about Charlotte’s character and her striker unit. An instruction sheet tells you how to put the weapon inside her hand, how to exchange the propeller blades and about how to connect the figure with the base. The base is a blue circle with text printed on it. The base is connected to the figure via a small metal rod, the figure is a bit shaky when you are causing vibrations next to her, but it seems to be safe and shouldn’t be a big problem in the future.

Hair & Face

Her hair is orange and her strands are sculpted in a flaunting way, it shows a clean sculpting  job and well done shading effects. When Charlotte’s witch power is activated  she grows a pair of white rabbit ears and a tail, these parts are glued to her body and can’t be taken off. Between the ears is a rather big seam line, but it’s not noticeable in normal handling.

This figure has a very pretty face, her clear blue eyes and the small and small open mouth give Charlotte a good mooded and excited expression. Personally I would have liked to see a few faint blush marks on her cheeks to add more detail and liveliness to her apart from that pretty face.

Outfit & Body

Charlotte’s outfit has two layers of clothing, on top there is the olive military jacket which has a taunt fit from her well shaped boobs, underneath is a sand colored shirt. I love the way it comes forth underneath her jacket, the sculpting and shading of her jacket looks beautiful as well as all the small details on it, I also love her belt. The lack of a skirt or trousers appears not very bold on this figure as long as you display her from the front, this figure looks quite modest to be honest.

From the backside Charlotte shows that she’s from the Strike Witches anime, she has nice thighs and tight and sexy buttocks which are scantily covered by her white panties. They look very detailed, also her crotch area is more detailed than I would have expected it from ALTER.

The pose look like Charlotte is on her daily patrol, while having fun with one of her wingmen.
Her forward leaned upper body with the arched back, the flattering shirt and hair and also the position of her legs gives a lot of dynamic to this figure, she’d looks very good on every shelf.

I think it would have been a nice gimmick, when there where a option to display this figure with bare  legs and with the striker unit, a leg swapping feature like GSC’s Nadeko Sengoku has.

Striker Unit

I like the design of her propellar legs a lot, the metallic finish and the detailed sculpting do look very cool. The small wings, the exhaust pipes and the noseart are also really cool, it really looks like a small plane :). The Striker Unit looks like new from the factory, maybe a few weathering or dry brush effects would have given it a more realistic look. But thats owing to the anime origin.

This figure comes with two different propeller blades, a pair where you can see every single blade and an in action pair which looks like a moving propeller. I was to lazy too change them, sorry.

Charlotte’s striker unit is based on the Mustang P51 D, a superior and powerful plane which was used by the US – Air Force in mid 1944 during WWII, it has a powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, among the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, she has the fastest striker unit. I always felt that her striker unit looked the best next to the loser planes based striker units of the the other girls ;P

The weapons aren’t integrated in the striker units, so the pilot has to carry them during the flight, like the real P 51 D Charlotte uses a M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, well the real P51 D had six.

The rifle has a nice gunmetal color with great dark shading effects, the brown wooden looking parts are also nice, but they look more like anime wood ;), a detailed belt is also attached to the weapon. One hand is detachable and so the weapon can be placed in her hand with one finger at the trigger. When you like, Charlotte can also be displayed without the weapon in her hands.

Final words

Charlotte E. Yeager is a beautiful figure from the Strike Witches lineup from ALTER, she has a pretty face and a nice mature looking, buxom body and like you can see a great looking butt ^^ With her olive jacket and sand colored shirt combination she also has a very good looking outfit. Another good point is the good looking flying pose the sculptor Makio Munetoshi had realized.

The painting of this figure looks great, especially the shading on her jacket and the metal finish of her striker unit. The sculpting is also very well done and nearly flawless, on my copy there is just a small pimple on her right buttock, it is really nothing very bad, but it should be mentioned.

I would have liked it if Charlotte had shown a little amount of blushmarks, to make her face a bit livelier, but aside from that I can’t really complain about this well done Charlotte E. Yeager figure.

What do you think, is Charlotte E. Yeager a Strike Witches figure you might like?

Thx for reading, take care everybody. see you next time with a post about my summerseason anime watch list, maybe ;D

Another nice review of her can be found at Tentacle Armada

Three japanese reviews can be found at

d.hatena
studiorzhobby
amata.info

Since my Soniko – Bondage version from Orchid Seed review I became quite a Soniko fanboy. After I searched for informations about her character and origin in order to find material for the intro of my review of the Soniko – bondage version. At the beginning I just liked her character design with her charming girl next door look and the supercute face, after I heard her voice nd saw how she behaves in a trailer and in a song, I really fell for her. I ordered the upcoming game Communication With Sonico, where Soniko is starting her idol career and the player is her personal photograph who supports her in her work and takes care of her. Furthermore I’ve ordered a CD and I’ve also put a cute picture of her on my wall =).

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEcQAwQCJQ0&feature=related

For the ones of you who don’t know who this Soniko is here are some Info about her origin. Super Soniko was created by the Nitroplus Company in 2007, to be the mascot for their yearly Nitro Super Sonic Music Festival held in Japan. Since her creation, she has become quite popular, she gained a lot of popularity over the last few years. I would say the peak of her popularity was reached in this year, there were made several figures, and other merchandising products of her.

Here is the illustration this figure is based of

Oh no I broke my one figure of a character rule for the second time, well this Soniko babydoll version is my second Soniko figure. This Soniko was manufactured by Yamato, and caught my interest when I saw the grey prototype at the Wonfes 2010. I impatiently waited for the day preorders were opened and placed my preorder for her as soon as possible.

Unfortunately this figure was delayed several times, her first listed release date was in December 2010, then February 2011, then March 2011 and finally she was released in 18th May 2011.

Soniko is listed as non scale, but she looks like the right size (21 cm) to be considered as a 1/8 scaled figure. There also was a Soniko babydoll – DX version of this figure with some cool accessoires for her, like a fridge, a guitar and a huge bear, but the price of around 11,520 yen was a lot higher than for the standard version which was around for just 7,020 yen.

The Non DX version comes with a lovely heartshaped base like the DX version and as accessoires two kittens, a plate of macaroons + a single macaroon are included. The box of this figure is small and saves shipping cost, but aside from that it looks not very nice, its a baby blue box with polka dots on it and on the backside there is only a washed out picture of the Soniko figure.

Hair & Face

The pink hair with many strands looks very nice, is very well sculpted and shows nice shading. The headphones look slightly chunky, especially the bows appear rather big, but the silver paint on it looks good. Her head has a nice looking shape, points to the right and is tilted downwards, so you better give her a higher place, when you want to have a good view at her face.

Her face is very well made and is quite pretty, the pink eye decals look great and this Soniko has the blushmarks I would like to have seen on my other Soniko bondage version figure as well :p

The mouth is very detailed with the upper front teeth line and some shiny effects inside her mouth. During the shooting I was a bit bothered by the uncomfortable face expression which she has from some angles. Most of the time it looks like a surprised expression, but to me it sometimes looked a bit like someone (the three colored kitten) is going to do bad things to her maybe it’s just my imagination or its just my fault because I’ve put her in strange poses, like in the pictures where Soniko lies on the furry floor XD.

Outfit & Body

This transparent “shortie” on her is called a babydoll, it has a nice flow and is painted with a faint transparent blue color on the outside it has purple quillings. The small printed on hearts which are also on her shoes and underwear are very cute, as underwear Soniko wears a tiny white painted on G-string. Both parts of her outfit have a good quality in terms of paintjob and sculpting.

Unlike Soniko’s character design Yamato decided to ignore the fact that she normally is slightly chubby and so they gave her a nearly model like body, of course her body looks attractive and very sexy this way, but the more flesh on her body is something that distinguishes her from other 2D character it’s nearly a trademark of her, nearly as important as the headphones.

Sorry for the short ranting ;p, well at least Yamato gave her alluring curves, a beautiful round butt and supersexy long legs, her body looks just great in combination with the pose of this figure. Furthermore this figure has a bright, slightly pink but overall a natural looking skintone.

I don’t care much about bare feet in real live and even less when it are the feet of a figure, but just look at these cute and tiny toes of her, even these small painted nails. Lol I hate the three colored cat for some reason, it makes Soniko feel uncomfortable and thats unforgiveable ^w^.

The shoes could have been painted more accurately but the level of detail is nice. Ah yes the base underneath has a really nice design, a pink heartshaped plastic disk with stars. Soniko and the base are connected via one peg, because of that the figure can be rotated. The other two holes on the base are for the feet of that three colored bastard who holds the shoe with his dirty paws.

It was a real pain to find these two chairs and a table which are fitting for a figure of that size, but re-ment had the right equipment, obviously the cool furniture is just props and wasn’t included with this figure, but the plate with the macaroons is included, from close view they have a badly made paintjob and on the backside of my copy is a super ugly paint run, but luckily it is not noticeable from the other side. The plate with the macaroons has no peg or hole, so it only can be placed loosely on Soniko’s hand and there is the possibility of loosing it because of that.

This Soniko figure also has a castoff option, first you have to take off the arms underneath the ribbons and then you can open the babydoll from the front and slide it down the shoulders, taking this thing off is easier than putting it back in place, but her body is worth the castoff.

children cover your eyes its castoff time!

Without the babydoll top, the tiny G-string and the bare feet this Soniko figure looks really nude.
haha with the tiny G-string it looks she wears nearly nothing, I would also go that far to say that she looks more ecchi than my other Soniko bondage version figure. What first meets the eye
(at least in my case XD) are her delicate shoulders and the slightly indicated collarbones.

Also her nice boobs draws attention, they have non erected nipples, but I like the shape of her boobs a lot, they are a little bit droopy and fit very well to the rest of her body.

No matter if Soniko wears her babydoll outfit or is displayed in castoff mode, the pose of this Soniko figure is fantastic, be it the turned upper body, the position of her arms or the way she is standing on one leg while the other one is pulled upwards looks really pretty, additional to this her arched back and the way her butt sticks out adds a lot of sensualism to this nice figure.

A very dynamic and sexy look is created in this pose, which makes this Soniko babydoll version figure from Yamato look adorable nearly everywhere she is placed. Well regarding her tilted down head and in case you want to have a better view at her face, she looks best at higher places.

Final Words

It is time to conclude this review, the Soniko babydoll version from Yamato turned out very nice. There are no real flaws in her painting, her dress is pretty and her bright skintone looks nice.

Yamato did a very good job with the pose and the sculpting, the body of this Soniko figure looks very attractive even though they pretty much ignored the slight chubbiness of Soniko. This figure also has a very lively and also dynamik pose. Also the face is very well done, but personally I have problems to get used to her face expression and these macaroons should have been painted with more care, but this two things are my only concerns I have about this figure.

Another review of this Soniko babydoll version and more pictures can be found at

Plastic Parfait
kaijin.akiba.coocan
nonscale.blog37

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

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 ^__^

Today I have this lovely angel with pink hair on review she’s called Nanael and her origin is Queen’s Blade. I bought the 2P Color Limited Edition, Nanael is a 1/8 scaled figure which was manufactured by Megahouse and released in December 2008. I saw that figure before but at that time I wans’t very interested, until I saw pictures of her at howagirlfiguresl. The blue version she reviewed was already sold out so I took the 2P Color Version which I found for a fair price.

Nanael is a character from the anime show Queens Blade, I admit that I’ve watched the two seasons of this show and enjoyed them quite a bit. Nanael is an energetic angel with a bad personality, she is  greedy and is mainly interested in her own profit, but at some points in the show she shows her good heart. Nanael was my the first figure from MegaHouse that I’ve ever bought, on first look she already appears very pretty, but lets take a closer look at her.

Hair & Face

Nanael has a short pink hair cut, her hair has nicely sculpted strands and shows some nice dark shading at the tips. With her open mouth the face has a very cheerful expression, the deep mouth is sculpted very detailed and shows a nice upper line of her fronteeth. There is a lot of detailism in Nanael’s clear blue eyes. In combination with the blush marks and the strongly defined eyebrows her face is done very well and appealing.

Outfit & Body

Nanael is wearing a light and short summer dress which is painted in a shiny pear white color. I like the wrinkles at the end, that give the illusion of Nanael flying around in the sky. It’s also nice how the dress seems to have become to small for her boobs. Around her waiste there is a nice brown belt, that holds her holy  milk bottle, it’s an important item for Nanael. The dress is so short that her plump thighs, the polka dot panties and her butt are revealed easily. More heavy parts of her armor are the gloves and the armor at her legs, which looks really cool. The dark shading on the armor and the detailed belt behind her knees add some more realism to it.

As to be expected from a Queen’s Blade figure Nanaels dress is also castoffable, you have to take off her head and open the brown belt before, then you can open the white dress at the left side and pull it off. Nanael has a well sculpted body, she is a little bit chubby character with some meat overall, which I like a lot. Nanael has nice and fairly sized breast, but it’s no exxagerated size unlike it can be seen on other busty characters from the Queens Blade franchise.

Kibayashi Norio @MegaHouse nailed down her appearance from the anime very well, sculpting and shading are especially well done. Nanael looks good dressed and nude, but I slightly prefer her dressed look, the dress is cute and a bare breasted flying angel looks slightly funny. One of her wings is chastened which I never really noticed in the first half of the QB anime.

 Pose & Base

The base is a clear round plate which holds the figure very stable at one foot, the base also has a moveable holder for the sword, but Nanael can also hold the sword in her left hand. The pose is very well done with the posing of her legs she seems like she takes off from the ground,Her head is tilted to the left which also the side where she looks best. The dress has a good looking flow it seems like it is blowing in the wind,during her flight.

Shooting Session
The first indoor shooting didn’t turn out like I expected, but then I came up with an idea for an outdoor shooting. I wanted to photograph her with the sky as background, so I had to attach a plate onto the tripod to place Nanael on it and extended the tripod to an height of 1,75m. Well, to be honest it was a bit shaky, but luckily Nanael didn’t hit the ground.

Final words

MegaHouse’s Nanael 2P Color Version is a very well done figure, the figure as well as her clothes have nice details plus a dinamic pose. The 2P Color Limited Edition has a good looking color sheme, but I would have preferred the wing color from the normal version in a cloud like white color than in tainted looking grey/black.

Pros

• Nice details
• Good paintjob
• Nice dress

Cons

• Pose looks strange from some angles
• Dark wings

Here we have our next figure review, it’s about Touka Kureha. The figure was manufactured by Max Factory and was released on October 2007. Touka Kureha is 1/7 scaled figure she’s about 240mm in height which is very huge in comparison with my other figures I mostly own 1/8 scaled ones. Kureha was one of my first “bigger” figurines I ever bought.

This figure is sculpted after an illustration of the popular artist Toni Taka. Her real origin is a famous game called Shining Wind. She also plays a role in the anime show which has the same title as the game, but many people told me that the show was not so good and so far I’ve never watched it. Maybe I’ll watch it this year if I find the time. As I’ve ordered her I didn’t know about her origin, what caught my attention was the flashy look of her outfit and the cute appearance of Kureha. The eye-catching parts of Kureha are her huge orange sleeves and her long legs.

In comparison with her upper body her legs seem to be a bit unrealistic long and big.

The design of her sleeves is very well done and looks very pretty on the outsides they are shaded witch a darker orange tone. The orange and brown colors of her outfit fit together very well. Nearly everything on her outfit is sculpted very nicely, the strings at her arms and boots are pretty detailed to complete the overall look. The pose looks like the illustration it’s not dynamik or very special, but she looks very good in her pose. Kureha also comes with a long bow as weapon which an be placed in her hand.

Her skirt is made of soft material, it is brown and at white jags at the outsides, the skirt is also castoffable but since her butt is very small and her panties plain white it’s not very interesting

The light brown hair is sculpted very detailed and shows finely sculpted strands, the light purple ribbon on top of her head is a nice item and adds more cuteness to her head, unfortunately at the backside the hair looks less detailed than on the frontside.
Kureha has a very pretty face her eyes as well as the area around her eyes is very well painted, she has a shy nearly sad face expression. In her illustration her face looks a bit more mature, but without knowing her origin at that time I didn’t care about that and now I also dont care.

Final words

Overall Kureha is a big and beautiful figure her nice looking fantasy outfit looks great and resembles the illustratiobn very well. The parts about her which bother me a bit is the big ribbon at her stomach it looks a bit cheap in comparison with the rest of the outfit. It is well sculpted but has no painted shadows or highlights. Another not so nice the back part of her hair which looks a bit undetailed in comparison with the front of her hair.

For most of the pictures I’ve taken I’d used a new method which Samejima mentioned in one of his blogpost. In short, It’s a plate which you attach to your tripod, I was very interested in this idea so I searched for such a plate with a ¼ nut. At the beginning of this week my plate arrived and so I tried it out. Ok my plate isn’t transparent but I don’t need this for my purposes.
The advantages of this method are the freedom of choosing a good background without searching for a spot for placing the figure safely. It also gives you more control for the depth of field. by changing the distance between the figure and the background. The background can get more or less blurry its up to you.

When putting tripod to full height I was a bit scared that the figure would fell down, but nothing bad happened.

Her sculptor was Numakura Toshiaki also was in charge of other great and appealing figures like Aozaki Touko, Ritsu with the drums and the Akiyama Mio School Festival version.

This cute loli is named Al Azif, she is one of the main characters of the anime and H-game Demonbane.The anime was loosely based on the Chtulu legend from author H.P. Lovecraft.  Aside from some interesting parts the show had some flaws here and there, but the romantic relationship between Al Azif and Kurou, the two main characters saved it for me.

AL Azif is the original copy of the Necronomicon, normally she’s has a direct, bold and upbeat personality, but also shows hints of surliness from time to time. She teams up with Kurou, a private detective from London. Al Azif sometimes refers to herself as Kurou’s “property” to tease him in front of others. Although her true age is of over a millennium, she usually takes the form of a 10 year old girl with lavender hair and a Gothic Lolita dress or like here in a stylish bikini. Alter’s Al Azif is sculpted after her interesting swimsuit from the Demonbane anime episode 05.

In two aspects the figure distinguishes from the anime character, the sculptor gave Al a really happy smile unlike in the show, where she rarely smiled like that and in the show her sandales were red. Aside from that the figure resembles Al Azif very well and has a very good quality.

Face

As well as the nicely sculpted hairstyle Al Azif’s face is also very well done. The turquoise – green colored eyes look very pretty and give her a very lively expression. The wide open mouth shows Al Azifs in an almost too happy mood. From the side her face looks especially cute I think

Body & Pose

Overall her body is sculpted very nicely and resembles Al Azif’s character from the anime very well. Her arms and legs are very well shaped in a nearly anatomical correct way, the limbs have an realistic looking pose,too. The sculptor put a lot of effort in giving Al Azif a dinamic non static pose. In combination with her face Al Azif  looks nice and cheerful, it really emits a happy beach atmosphere of a warm summer day at the ocean. Al Azif also has a cast-off option for her black skirt, she can be seperated at her waist area over her pantys. Oh I shouldn’t forget to mention that the figure also has detailed sculpted fingernails and footnails.

Paintjob

The paintjob is also done very well, it shows nice shading effects on her skin, also the darker purple hair shows nice shading effects. The swimsuit itself has a simple dark grey and white colormix, the fine imprints and lines on it are some nice details. I couldn’t discover any flaws on her paintjob as already said its very well done.

Accessoires

Her accessoires are one removable shoe and the removeable black skirt and a yellow semi transparent rubber swim ring, which looks very cool, so far I haven’t tested if it is able to float (edit: unfortunately it can’t float). She also comes with a very nice base (Oh I took no picture of it, sorry X( ) Well it is a round base and has a realistic sand on a beach texture on it

Her some additional shots which I took last summer 2010, it was nice that the sun came out at the day of the shooting.

Final words

Im really happy that I was able to get this small yet well detailed figure of Al Azif. Considering that she was made in 2007, she looks very well done, her dynamic pose is nice, her face is nice  and in my opinion she is one of the better swimsuit figures ever made. The accessories included, like the rubber swim ring and the base are also very nice. Im really satisfied with this figure and I’m glad that I was able to get her, even though it was from second hand without her box.

When buying figures I don’t really care about the origin what counts the most for me is the look.

It happens very often that I see older figures by chance which I really want to own and then when you’ve decided that you really want it, in most cases the figure is sold out everywhere.
This was also the case with Clalaclan. Well there were several items at ebay for 140€, but no thanks that is way too much. After some weeks I got her from ebay for 50€ from a guy in my country. Its nice when you don’t have to pay horrendous shipping cost from time to time XD.

Her base looks like something from Tupperware but it’s ok because its very small. Clalaclan wears a white and shiny dress which has some very nice silver details. Her dress also has a lot of frills from her skirt to the sleaves. Clalaclan is castoffable so you can pull her big skirt off, only the skirt not the shirt XD then you have a better view at her beautiful long legs. Around her waiste she wears a blue foundation garment like thing, which adds a bit of contrast to her overall bright white appearance.

Her face expression looks very friendly and calm, she has detailed green eyes. on her head she has a silver crown. The paintjob of her face and her upper body is nearly not noticeable her hair looks also a bit plain, painted shadows or highlights are only on her dress and her legs. Well that sounds worse than it actually is in a shadow area she looks a bit plain but with some light she looks really good.

What first meets the eye is her voluptuous cleavage which looks nice, on the other hand her butt is very flat so in real life she would probably fell over :D.She wears realistc looking white thigs highs whith nice ornaments at the top and fitting white shoes. Clalaclan comes with a shield which can hold in her hands.

Final words

Clalaclan is a nice figure with some really good details at her dress, the paintjob at the skin of her upper body and the hair could have been a bit better. Nevertheless Clalaclan is a good looking figure with a friendly face and an attractive body. The pose looks good and is stable,overall im very satisfied with this figure.

Next time we will have a review about Alter’s Al Azif figure which lately arrived at my house.

Emi Kizaki is an older figure of mine so I’ll only write a few lines, I mainly want to show some pictures of her. Emi Kizaki is a 1/8 scaled figurine made by Kotobukiya, her release date occured in march 2009.  She comes in a very small box with a tropical theme printed on it.

Emi Kizaki is from the Manga and Anime Kurogane no Linebarrels, a mecha show with lots of ecchi and comedy. She looks a bit younger than the character of her origin, but you can identify her clearly as Emi Kizaki. This figure has an oval sand colored base, which has a soft texture.
Emi Kizaki has a very nicely sculpted pose the way she holds her arm to cover her loose bikini top strap and with her face expression, she creates an athmosphere of shy cuteness.

Her hair shows some detailed streaks which matches her look from the anime. The body itself is very well sculpted with nice long legs. She has a pale and bright skintone. Emi’s upper body looks nice too, even though she is not as well  endowed as in the anime =D

The gray bikini has some nice details, like the hanging straps for example. She uses her left arm to support her pose and with the right arm she holds her loosen bikin top. In her cleavage sits a small stuffed rat, I don’t know why Kotobukiya included the rat since it wasn’t in the anime show, maybe it was in the manga I don’t really know.

On her right side the face appears a bit square cut when you look from some angles.Where she looks the best are from the front and the left.

The figure is a very nice item for photgraphy, she looks good in outdoor and indoor shootings.
She is pretty resistant against direct sunlight, in my room I put her in very well lit areas and so far I couldn’t find any place where her color changed or her arms and legs deformend because of the heat even though You shouldn’t display your figures in direct sunlight!

Emi Kizaki is a very nice bikini figure with a pretty and petite body, the grey bikini
looks nice and the rat between her boobs makes the overall look some kind of unique.