Once again Otaking lend me some help and advise about the text for this review, I’m quite grateful about the help.

I probably haven’t logged into my Kancolle account since 3 years, but I have fond memories of the time where I played actively and took care of the adorable ships girls. Too bad that I was forced to use an VPN every time I wanted to play.

Today I will show you one of my older grails that I always wanted since it’s release. I recently purchased this Kouwan Seiki, She is also known as Harbour Princess from the Kancolle game. This figure was manufactured by Max Factory and released in 2017. She’s been sculpted by Akimof and is scaled 1/8 with measures 155 mm in height.
On release her price was around 18.000 yen, which still was a lot at that time.

The figure is also part of the Wonderful Hobby Selection line of Max Factory. In 2016 I received the Sorceress from the WHS line which was a bad joke partially. The figure of course looked great, but arrived with a broken peg that prevented me from setting up the figure, Max Factory was kind enough to send a spare part, but that also arrived broken … .

That experience actually prevented me from preordering. You can probably imagine how I felt when I opened that figures package earlier this year, but fortunately everything was fine and without flaw.

Kantai Collection is not at its prime days anymore, nevertheless the character design hasn’t lost it’s appeal. Kantai Collection has been a super popular gatcha game that convinced figure manufacturers that gatcha game characters attract more customers than purely anime based characters.

If anyone of you wonders about the sparkles in the pictures background, it is a polycarbonate board with sculpted water droplets on the surface, with the right amount of DOF (depth of field) and light it creates a lovely bokeh.
To match the figures partially eerie atmosphere I decided for purple as main color. As flooring I used a small white carpet and spread some bigger and smaller rocks above, to create some ocean bottom. I thought that the fishing net would be a matching addition to the set.

Coming up with a stage has always been kind of a challenge, compared to earlier years figure photography became more challenging and ambitious. I think I became a little bad recipient, it’s really frustrating. Some fellow figure photographers invest an immense amount of work to create diorama like settings, it’s amazing! I always see myself debating about how much work I want to invest in a figures set and if it is worth the effort.

Figures of antagonists are generally a rare event, except they are especially remarkable. Kancolle has cool designs, also for the Abyssals that were turned into figures, like Kuubo Wo-kyuu or Senkan Re-kyuu, Kouwan Seiki convinced me the most.

Since then the gatcha game character based figures keep growing in numbers. As anime enthusiast this trend is regrettable for me, since less figures based on anime are made, but it can’t be helped these days.

Harbour Princess is a pretty figure with her ghost like white skin, the huge claws and pointy horn on the forehead, she is obviously a monster, but a cute one. The character design of Harbour Princess has been illustrated by Akira (アキラ)

Her shy and vulnerable expression are anything less than adorable. I really like the heavy eylashes design, they are even sculpted and not just lines from a brush, I’m also a big fan of the dramatic makeup anyway. The long hair is nicely done, it has smooth looking long strands and a cutely cut bangs. Her red eyes are very pretty and mesmerizing.

Haurbour Princess is dressed in something called “virgin killer sweater” which was a popular meme some years ago. The outfit has some dark grey weathering, living in the vast ocean surely has a few disadvantages for the Abyssal’s. Furthermore the sweaters vertical creases accentuate the characters dynamite body with the ample bosom, thin waist and quite wide hips. The sweater is also equipped with decorative black armor pieces, the style and pattern looks very interesting and pretty. As shoes she has some kind of kneesock boots with black sole.

Part of her outfit are also the separate sleeves, they have the same vertical creases as the sweater and those pretty black armoir bits, because of her big hands the sleeves have a huge opening, the mechanical claws have a nice roughed up look and intimidating design. Kouwan Seiki is portrayed as mature character with a well endowed and attractive body. Obviously, she also has nicely sculpted big boobs, the outfit also reveals a bit of sideboob which is a little bit risky, but nothing when compared to the shameless hotties from Azure Lane. The figure has really nice thighs.

The figure has been put in a kneeling pose, encircled by a muddy looking base, that intentionally shows traces of wear and destruction painted in shades of black and rusty brown. She is holding onto the remaining pieces of her once proud airfield. I like the tiny particles that have been applied on the runway, they give the illusion of glowing sparks.

Next to the main figure, sits the runway monster with its huge jaw, compared to Kouwan Seiki that is a really nasty monster with teeth and grey tongue.

Final Words

I like the figure a lot, she looks great and has an unique design, a bishoujo monster girl is something I didn’t have in my collection so far. It’s a great design with the dramatic makeup and the overall visual presentation is very well done. Is this figure worth the Wonderful Hobby Selection tag? I have a specific opinion about it.

Max Factory figures are already well done in general. WHS should bring something more. I think that the WHS manufacturing quality is not outstanding enough to justify it. A label like WHS should indicate the highest level of craftsmanship, and I don’t see this big difference on Kouwan Seiki and I definitely didn’t saw it at the Sorceress figure. They both had problems that take away from the overall quality. Nevertheless I’m really happy to have the Kouwan Seiki WHS in my collection now.

Yuudachi is based on Kantai Collection ~Kan Colle~ the once extremely popular browser game, it’s been a while since I’ve played, I honestly miss seeing and hearing all my cute shipgirls, but the game concept is so frustrating, starting from the login and going to the endless task of leveling up and always these long repair times after another failed map.

GSC created a wonderful figure of Yuudachi in her Kai Ni version, she was sculpted by Urakawa Akinori following an illustration of Kujou Ichiso. Yuudachi Kai Ni is scaled 1/8 and measures 22cm, I’ve purchased her for 12,980.00 JPY.

Yuudachi has a very cute face with detailed red eyes and a confident smirk. Overall she a a great and attractive expression. She has faint blonde hair, at the sides of her hair are flaps and wildly flowing strands placed further below with an orange gradient effect at the tips. On top of her head she wears a cute, small, black ribbon.

Yuudachi is actually just a Destroyer ship, the smallest type within a fleet, nevertheless her figure is combined with a big amount of parts. She has a really huge backpack that consist of one funnel with the decorative sail and red propeller, the backpack also carries her gun installations. The detailed guns can be rotated and elevated. At her legs the figure wears her torpedo launchers, on a closer look you see that the torpedoes Yuudachi is holding have funny faces.

The figure of Yuudachi is truly amazing, she is one of the more dynamic Kancolle figures, her pose indicatetes speed and agility and the girl really looks like she is having fun, the nicely made flame parts make her base look more attractive and underline the figures powerful pose. I guess Yuudachi is my favorite from all the Kancolle figures so far.

In the anime Yuudachi started as random Destroyer girl, cheerful and cute, but a rather bad student. After noticing how hard Fubuki tried to improve, she also wanted to get stronger, in the end she showed even more talent than the girl she admired all the time and became Yuudachi Kai Ni.

“I’ll show you the nightmare of Solomon” So lets have a short history lesson, but remember war is always a bad thing. Yuudachi is also referred to as Salomon no Akuma because of her historical counterpart.

In November 13th 1942 a group of the IJN fleet headed out to retake Guadalcanal, because of bad sight the IJN fleet and US fleet were on collision course and started engaging each other in close combat. Close quarter battles especially in he middle of the night are very dangerous for any ships, even with all the armaments, warships are actually very vulnerable under fire. Yuudachi was the first in the IJN fleets formation to break the enemy lines.

in between the US group Yuudachi fired everything at her disposal, creating confusion and damage on all the ships around her. With her fleets assistance Yuudachi actively sunk three ships, at the end of the battle she was damaged and unable to move, but really, most of the crew could be rescued by Samidare. Yuudachi’s actions prevented the IJN fleet from a disaster at least on that day. After the 40 minute long battle ended, the US group have been reduced to 2 remaining fully operateable ships, the chaotic close quarter combat proved that the ships of the IJN were actually really well made, but wasted in a war that never could have been won. Individual achievements, such as Yuudachi’s are quite rare in naval warfare. The other ships portrayed in Kancolle can’t really compete with Yuudachi’s war story.

It’s funny though that her “poi” which means something like “maybe” is related to rumors that other ships maybe should receive the credit partially. Anyway I actually don’t care about that, in the end or better said in her Kantai Collection fiction Yuudachi is a friendly and cheerful ship and it made this especially great looking figure possible.

Yuudachi is the second figure adaption of a Kancolle Shiratsuyu-class ship, the first one was Shigure, she also is a very nice figure, but compared to this exciting Yuudachi figure she is kind of plain, do you know how difficult it is to combine two figures in a picture, these two really gave me a hard time, their bases made it nearly impossible.

Final words

Yuudachi turned out very nice with her cute appearance and pretty black uniform, she is one of the prettiest Kancolle ship girl figures and unchallenged in terms of dynamic appearance, her standing one one leg and pushing forward in a bold manner pose looks cool and is articulated very well. The big mechanical backpack and surrounding flames the whole figure has an impressive, powerful look. Her figure is elaborately sculpted and extremely detailed, because of that some parts are really thin and the figure should be handled with care. Since the figure demands a bit of assembly work, I was a bit worried to break something, but everything fits neatly together.

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Shigure Kai Ni – Good Smile Company

I – 168 – chuuha version – Max Factory

Kongo – chuuha version – Max Factory

Yamato – mizugi mode – Banpresto

Some weeks ago, the wonderful Shigure figure from Good Smile Company arrived. Shigure is from the browser game Kantei Collection, where she is a special Destroyer girl. After Kongou and also I-168 from Max Factory, Shigure is my third Kancolle figure, certainly not the last. Shigure is one of my favorite ship girls in my fleet and in the game I take good care of her.

A little WWII Trivia, the historical ship Shigure was considered to be a lucky ship, after she survived two mayor naval battles nearly undamaged while everyone else was destroyed.
The japanese navy did not perform that succesfully in the last two years of the war. I left my military interest in the past and Kancolle is mainly war fiction mixed with Sci Fi elements.

We focus on the pretty figure instead, Shigure is scaled 1/8 and was released in December 2015. The figure shows Shigure in her Kai Ni verrsion, it is based on her card in Bushiroad’s card game ‘Weiβ Schwarz’ it looks slightly more badass than her browser Game illustration.

In general my figures purchases appear to be rather focused on sexy onee – sans, rarely but sometimes it also happens that figures of my favorite characters are being made.

What I like about Shigure, she is a naturally cute ship girl. The figure doesn’t really show, but Ingame she has a really nice smile. I also like her softly, calm voice. Shigure is quite humble, friendly and polite. Judging from her appearance she is a younger highschool student.

A very appealing part of the figure is the beautiful face. The shape of her eyebrows and mouth give her expression a serious direction, still she looks quite enchanting. Her detailed eyes give Shigure some extra bishoujo points. Also the detailed brown hair is very nice, I like the short braid and metallic hair ornament. The hair accentuates her pretty face nicely.

Together with Yudachi and other Shiratsuyu-class girls, Shigure Kai Ni has the coolest Destroyer girls uniform design in Kancolle, I love the dark colors, the tie and the short sleeves.

The outfit of Shigure is mainly a normal dark school uniform, she only wears a mechanical belt where everything else is attached. Oh and her shiny shoes are equipped with cute rudders.

Shigure is not only a bishoujo character, she also some weapons and mechanical parts.
The things at her thighs are torpedo tubes, the backpack shows her 12,7 cm cannons and the smaller guns are 13 mm anti air guns. Shigure Kai Ni is not a simple figure to put on display as it is, sculptor Sai developed a nice idea about how to give the figure different ways to display.

You can have Shigure with bare fists, with one small AA gun and you can also put the backpack cannons in her hands with support arms coming from her back it looks really cool. It’s only a little complex at first, so it’s good that there is a manual included.

Final Words

Shigure Kai Ni turned out so nice, I’m really happy about having another favorite Kancolle character as figure. The sculptor and GSC created a convincing and very elaborate 1/8 scaled figure of Shigure, everything about her looks amazingly good, be it the sculpting, the articulation, the paintjob or the shading.

Shigure is a high quality figure, the great sculpting and the elaborate paintjob on her hair, her clothes and the mechanical parts is quite impressive…

the two main display options are very good, in both ways Shigure is an extremely appealing figure. With 12,7 cm guns in her hands Shigure looks very powerful and bulky with these weapons attached as backpack, she appears lighter and sporty.

Hello don’t worry I’m not completely lost in the fashion doll realm. So today I will take a look at the Kongou Battleship from Max Factory, it’s a figure based on the very popular online Game Kancolle, it is also my first figure from this franchise.

This was the first thing from Kongou and Kancolle I’ve seen, weeks later I have joined the Admirals who play this Game. It was a little difficult to get in, but it’s definetely a lot of fun.

My first Burning Love interests were Samidare, Mutsuki and Hatsuharu, no one announced a figure of these, but Mutsuki became a main character in the currently airing anime adaption.

Kongou is one of the very popular ships, admired by many male admirals for her extremely energetic, cheerful, weird and caring personality. Since the anime I’m also a fan of her, she reminds me of a friendlier version of Suzumiya Haruhi.

I changed the adress for my RSS feed recently, so if anyone was following me through this, I would advice you to update these feeds. This for posts, this for comments.

Kongou was released in January 2015, I’m somewhat late with the review, but here we go…

YOSHII was in charge of crafting this figure after her official damaged state illustration, all Kancolle figures from Max Factory are based on the damaged state fleet girl illustrations.

The combination of pretty animes girls and weapons isn’t new, yet kancolle puts it to another level, by adding heavy WWII equipment for naval warfare on different looking bishoujo characters. Kancolle is incredibly succesful, also in terms of elaborate fanart, most is partially erotic, but there are other amazing illustrations, too.

Kongou has a huge battleship in tow which is supposed be attached to her hips, here you can pose the figure like you want, since the “ship” is part of the base. The weapons look elaborate to a certain degree, but have no further function or moveable parts. The base is solid and fiting for a game based figure, but somehow it leaves a lackluster feeling.

It’s rare for Max Factory to make 1/8 scaled figures of such popular characters, but they did… I’d rather have her as big as indicated on her windowless box honestly.

Kongou as she sits here is a fantastic and beautiful figure, but I notice that she is not as elaborately done as other figures from Max Factory at 1/7 or 1/6. The tattered clothes could partially look more natural, the golden chain looks rather cheap. Although this so so impression only applies to parts of her outfit, boots and the pleated skirt look especially nice.

Her hair shows a natural brown with darker shading, the alice band like headgear with cute, golden radar system rests on her head. The face with the closed eye shows signs of pain, shock and sadness, the uncomfortable expression is nevertheless beautiful and adorable.

Not every in game illustration is appealing in Kancolle, compared to the damaged state illustration of Kongou, the face appears rounder and wider, in my eyes a big improvement.

Partially the figure has a nicely sculpted body, thighs, arms and face in particular, yet the sculpting of other areas dissapoints. Her back and belly is very low on details, where are the shoulderblades? Also the boobs don’t convince in this half exposed way, it somehow has not the desired sex appeal. So that aside Kongou’s main selling points for me is the beautiful and nicely detailed face. The mouth has a great depth with a cute tongue and sculpted lower lip.

Final Words

Lets sum this up in a few words, Kongou is an appealing figure also at 1/8 scale and the adaption of the official illustration with some improvements conidering her face.
Although she has not the quality as other larger scale Max Factory figures, the smaller scale lead to unnecessary quality and sculpting cutbacks, most prominent at her backside.

I expected something more elaborate for the 11.700 Yen that I’ve paid for an 1/8 scale figure.

Still Kongou’s strong point is the face and pose that portray her vulnerable side and asks for comfort, Teitoku!!! In case you rather see Kongou as the cool and sweet ship she is, take a look at Phat Company’s Kongou. Another Kancolle figure I’ve ordered is I-168 from Max Factory.

Sorry for the rather negative sounding impression, I like the figure more than you would imagine, I also took many pictures with her. What is your impression of this figure after this review?