So that is the last post of this kind, to end these vacation posts, I will show you a few of the figure photos I’ve taken during my stay in France. I took three figures with me cause I didn’t want to miss the chance to capture them in these nice south European scenery. It was really hard to decide which figures to pick for the vacation, but these three were the chosen ones.

Haruka Amami – Cu Poche from Kotobukiya

Takamachi Nanoha – Swimsuit version from Alpha Max

Kanbaru Suruga from Good Smile Company

I mainly took outdoor pictures because of better light conditions. For most pictures I have used my Sigma AF 28mm f/1.8 EX DG lens and to have more freedom with the aperture settings, I used a weak ND filter , one of the advantages of it is that you can work with a reduced the depth of field, it prevents the pictures from being overexposed when working in very bright light.

Haruka Amami

Haruka was my trustworthy companion this 2 weeks, she is good for carrying around and offers a great poseability. Additional to that her cute presence is something really enchanting (>◡<) Even in chibi deformed anatomy you can do all kinds of poses with her thx to long limbs and strong ball joints. The magnet feet turned out very helpful. I had a lot of fun with Haruka.

Takamachi Nanoha

I reviewed her some time ago, but it was also a good decision to take the figure with me to France. On the terrace or next to the pool (it’s really good to have one) Nanoha proved what an exceptional beautiful swimsuit figure she is, I think she looks just stunning outdoor. The nice sculpting of the figures body and face really gets more prominent in nice natural light.

Kanbaru Suruga

The last scale figure girl is Kanbaru, compared to the other two figures I didn’t do much with her, but tried to create something as I discovered an interesting tree. I really like the picture where she is sitting in the oak tree, it wasn’t that easy to find a tree Kanabaru could lean on with her elbow. In terms of location I unfortunately didn’t have that many ideas for this figure, maybe Kanbaru doesn’t like the countryside or I was too lazy to try harder.

And so this post is coming to an end. Thanks for your attention, I hope this few vacation related posts were a little interesting, for my next vacation I will take some figures with me again for sure, since it is nice to capture them in a different location than at home or the near landscape.

– Fin –

Next time there will be a review of the Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA figure…

I’ll try to publish it very soon so stay tuned!

Todays review is about Kanbaru Suruga from the popular anime Bakemonogatari.

I was always interested in getting this certain figure, but I didn’t order her back in 2011,
the year she was released. With Senjougahara as spearhead most of GSC’s figures from the Bakemonogatari line – up are super popular and so the figures rise in price on the aftermarket.

After a lot of thinking if I really wanted the Kanbaru figure, I couldn’t wait any longer and gort her from a friendly American, who never unpacked his Kanbaru. Not that I can really understand, but I’m happy that I got a new, unopened Kanbaru. I’ve recently seen what sick things some people do things with their figures, so I got a bit cautious of used figures :p

Kanbaru Suruga is an 1/8 scaled figure that was manufactured by GSC, after the sculpt of Tokunaga Hironori. The release happend on July 28, 2011, one day before my birthday actually. The retail price was 9333 Yen, I paid 135 $ (13872 Yen). Quite a lot more *cough* *cough*

All of GSC’s Bakemonogatari figures are based on the Blu-Ray/DVD Covers, and Kanbaru is no exception, she’s an elaborate figure, Kanbaru has an impressive base, that shows her sitting in between towers of yaoi literature with an satisfied evil expression of a smile on her face.

In the anime Kanbaru is one of the girls the main character coincidentally mets. Kanbaru is actually into girls, even though she doesn’t bother to flirt with Araragi and reads yaoi related literature. She was a bit scary at first and I actually hated her for butchering Araragi, but in the Nadeko Snake story, she became a friendly girl, still a bit perverted, but likeable. She’s not that much focused on as others in the show, but Kanbaru definitely made an impression.

Hair & Face

The figure has a tomboyish short hair style, it has rounded edges and is colored in dark with a blueish tint. A bit hidden underneath she has quite strong eyebrows. Kanbaru’s face has a nice tone and a soft looking shape. The half closed eyes create a nice expression and some kind of atmosphere, under her eyes some subtle color for the rosy cheeks has been applied like they are often shown in anime. On her mouth Kanbaru Suruga shows a satisfied wide smile, Im actually not a fan of GSC’s red lined mouths, but here it is rather acceptable and looks good.

The short hair with the bushy eyebrows and half closed eyes gives this  figure a kind of subtle wild sex appeal, I really like that about her. From the right her face looks best, from the left the stronger jaw and chin give her a slightly monkey like look, like in the art she is based on.

Outfit & Body

In contrast to the sexy look on her face Kanbaru’s outfit is the innocent standard uniform of her High School, like Hanekawa and Hitagi are wearing. Yeah it’s a summer uniform with some nice shading and realistic wrinkles, but it is nothing really fancy actually. Kanbaru has some extra details, like her bandaged arm or the basketball sport-shoes. Under the purple skirt she is wearing black biker shorts instead of panties.

The figure has a nicely articulated pose, she is sitting on her boobs books in a very relaxed manner. It is cute how she supports her tilted head with one arm, the other arm with that she holds a book, these little fingers looks quite realistic with these joints. Ah yes the book isn’t fixed to her hand.

Kanbaru Suruga is a normal healthy High School girl, there are no parts on her body that stand out especially, maybe her chest is more developed than Hitagi’s. Sitting figures have their own appeal, in terms of display and photography options they offer many possibilities. In most cases such figures can be taken off their base and placed on different things or on different places.

Base

The base of this figure is quite awesome and elaborately made, it shows Kanbaru sitting on her throne of books on green floor which slightly resembles grass. It consist of five pillars and as little accesoires there is also a potted plant and a basketball, who find their place on the base.

The different sized books are very detailed with several bookmarks and clean transitions between the white pages and the cover. A cool figure on a cool base.

Final Word

Kanbaru is a great figure, I should have made this purchase a lot earlier, but no I had to wait and payed the aftermarket price, I nevertheless think she’s worth the money. On first sight she might appear a bit unimposing on her quite elaborate throne of books, but the interesting pose and cute ,bold face expession are something that make her special. This is no T & A figure, but it’s something really nice to be put on ones shelf. Im quite satisfied with Kanbaru chan and her pretty face, she’s actually nearly as nice as Oshino Shinobu (that I bought on release *u*).

Adapting  Blu-Ray/DVD covers into figures can be a great idea, the Bakemonogatari line up was quite succesful as a whole, but sometimes it works less good, which can partially be said about the Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica figures, who stayed a little behind the expectations.

After just one month in between, it is already time for a new preorder post, in the last few weeks several manufactures announced their latest  and upcoming figures that were shown at the last Wonder Festival. It was hard to choose, this time I added some longer awaited figures to my list.

Recently announced figures I find partially interesting (not ordered)

Estellise Sidos Heurassein – ALTER

Hehe look at this adorable strawberry milk drops, isn’t she jjust adorable with her charming smile. I don’t know her game, but Im quite enchanted by this figure, her face is already quite nice, but also her outfit is simply beautiful. The figure comes with landscape like base and a chibi figure of Estellise. I should actually consider to get this charming beauty.

Saten Ruiko – Chara Ani / Toy’s Works

This figure of Saten is enchanting … and here my manufacturer prejudices sense kicks in.

 Nyaruko – Max Factory

I love Haiyore! Nyaruko-san and I like Nyaruko as character, but my natural “naked apron” aversion prevents me from iordering this figure. Even though the frills are very cute.

Ishikki Akane – GSC

I was sure to get her, after I’ve seen her unpainted at Wonfes, despite her silly origin XD Now that I look at it something is missing, I can’t say what, can you say whats wrong with Akane?

Mamiya Marie – FREEing / Dragon Toys

Milf anyone? What are you saying Wieselhead don’t use such lewd words here that might scare the audience X<. Well, forgetting about her fetish origin Starless, Marie is a very attractive figure, portraying an adult woman. She has great curves, obviously, but the part I like the most is her beautiful face. Marie is scaled 1/6 but on the downside she costs 13.400 Yen, literally too much.

Hasegawa Kobato – Kotobukiya

This one isn’t up for preorders at the moment, but definetely something I consider to get. Kobato is the archetype of a cute goth loli and I like what Koto did with her, the face is cute and the dress looks lovely. I also think that the chair is a cool accessory/base. Kobato get.

Kashiwazaki Sena – Aoshima

Ah GK adaptions my secret love, GK always feel much more inspired than popular PVC figures. Aoshima got the rights for one of Sena’s best GK, Aoshima who also makes diecast kits of cool Japanes cars, recently found their love for girls. I want to give them a chance when this Sena is up for preorders soon. On the pictures so far she seems to be promising.

The False Songstress – Sheryl Nome – Max Factory

Thats a pretty much elaborate sculpt of Sheryl Nome, with an artistic diorama base and a very detailed sculpting of the character. Im sure that Max Factory will deliver a fantastic figure, but I don’t like Sheryl enough to spend around 16000 Yen for this figure.

Oda Yae – Daiki Kougyou

She’s pretty nude *huh* ? I can’t help myself, but I like her healthy proportions and her wide face with this cute expression. Displaying her like that would be rather troublesome, I actually could try to give her some clothes, but Im not if it’s worth the trouble to begin with.

What I actually ordered instead.

Maeda Keiji – ALTER / Hobby Japan

Lets start this post with a BANG! This is the figure of Maeda Keiji from the action – comedy anime Hyakka Ryouran. Maeda is a Hobby Japan Exclusive, the order period  is  from 2013/4 till 2013/6/.  She was sculpted by Tanaka Sen’u who already made a number of nice figures.
The figure grabbed my attention as I’ve seen her illustration in the Wonfes Wishlist Winter 2013 post at Plastic Parfait.  I thought it would be something worth to keep an eye on.

A few days ago her painted prototype was revealed and I totally love how the figure turned out, her colorful outfit is great and the upbeat looking face is lovely, the Nitro+ style is very well recreated on this figure. I also like the amount of revealed, sexy skin and the huge umbrella.

Maeda Keiji is scaled 1/8 (280mm) and her release is planned for September this year.

Super Sonico PKG ver. – Orchid Seed

It got a bit silent in terms of announced Super Sonico figures that I want to have, but Orchid Seed came to my rescue and announced the imo best Sonico figure ever! Yeah Im pretty much excited about this one. Since she was a grey prototype, I waited impatiently to order her.
Im happy about nice and new figures of this cute and curvy, pink haired girl, called Sonico.

PKG is no nameplay on a popular manufacturer of headphones, it stands for Sonicomi Package version. The figure is based on the illustration of the Sonicomi game manual the swimsuit with stockings and heavy boots is an unusual yet nice creation. I like that Sonico is standing up.

This figure shows her in a rather chilled way which is quite nice in my opinion, after all the flustered and happy faces. The Sonico PKG figure is scaled in a not very common 1/5 with
330 mm she will be a rather tall figure. The release is sheduled for December 2013. ♡(>◡<)♡

Alleyne – Queen’s Blade – Orchid Seed

A 1/6 scaled Queen’s Blade figure from a Company known for great body sculpting, count me in. Swimsuit figures are nice when put into interesting poses that differs  from the hundreds of other swimsuit girls. Alleyne looks a bit like she’s annoyed by her wet hair. I have a weak spot for pointy ear elf girls and this one also has cute, flushed cheeks and an overall pretty face.

The leaf bikini of this figure looks rather interesting, the contrast between skintone and green is very nice. In case someone wants to see whats below, the figure is also completely castoffable.

1/6 is a nice scale for such a  figure, 270 mm of appealing and flushed elf service *Wafuuu*. Nevertheless the release is far away, I actually have to wait for the release date until January 2014, on the other hand it’s good that Alleyne  isn’t part of my figure budget of 2013.

Kanbaru Suruga – Bakemonogatari – GSC

Finally! Finally !!! I didn’t get my hands on this figure as she could be preordered, but in the end I got her from a nice MFC member in an unopened state, for a higher price than on release of course. Why can’t I sell my figure like that? Im probably too impatient to wait for “victims”.

Anyway the fgure arrived a few days ago and she looks really cool with her booktowers base and michievous smile. Im happy to have her and looking forward to take pictures of Kanbaru.

On a sidenote I hated her character with passion in the anime, but only at first. For the rest of the show and the second season she really grow on me, and turned into one of my favorite Bakemonogatari characters. With Shinobu and Kanbaru I now have the Bakemonogatari figures from GSC that I’ve wanted. Too bad they made no figure of Araragi so far.

Mission accomplished!

Haruka Amami –  Cu-Poche – Idolm@ster – Kotobukiya

I already mentioned this one in the New Preorders part 15 post, but after I’ve seen pictures like here, I definetely wanted to get her. Due to high demand the figure was restocked and I secured my order instantly. A Cu Poche is something like a Nendoroid sized action- figure with doll joints and mangnetic feet. I never was a fan of posing Nendoroids, maybe it will be a bit more comfortable with this adorable and cute looking Haruka from Kotobukiya.

The Delays

Due to some delayed figures I could sqeeze two more orders into the already full April. The Delays were rather unwanted ones, even though the overall sum of figure purchases in April decreased because of it . Man I really wanted my Akari in April, but ALTER seems to have a few problems with their production facilities and pushed her back to summer. Akari included they nearly delayed all of their announced figures for the next few months. Prism Illya was only delayed by one month.

Which figures from my listed items, have you ordered ?

sorry all vote plugins are bullying me!

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