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?

Hi there, I added 4 new items to my Preorder List and so it is time to take a look at the recent preorders, further below I will also show you other recently announced figures I’m partially interested  in. Under Preorder Roadmap you can see all of my preordered figures for 2014.

The prices are retail prices, without the discount most figure related shops have to offer.

Recent  Preorders

Kongou – Kantai Collection ~Kan Colle~

For gods sake I still wasn’t able to get in this stupid online game, even with all the “tricks”. Just how difficult can it be ｡ﾟ(TヮT)ﾟ｡ !!? Even without being able to play the game, I love the visual style of Kantei Collection. Combining a cute girl with a classic battleship from WWII makes you nearly forget about the tragedy that befall this and many other ships. Back to the admirals darling, Kongou looks simply gorgeous, considering that she is only scaled 1/8 this figure is super detailed, the few damage effects on her and the clothes give her some sexy appeal .

Max Factory also makes three of the cute submarine girls, I -19, I – 168 and I – 58

manufacturer: Max Factory release date: September 2014 scale: 1/8 price: 13.704 Y
 

 Nitro Super Sonic – Sonico – Beach Queens

As Sonico fan, I just couldn’t ignore this new Beach Queen, Wave sculpted her nicely with all of her convincing physical attributes, just look at her thighs, she’s pure dynamite. I also like the little red crab which will be included .

manufacturer: Wave release date: September 2014 scale: 1/10 price: 6.000 Y
 

Ikaros – Sora no Otoshimono Final 

Recently I have finished the manga from Sora no Otoshimono, it ended pretty unspectacular, you should expect nothing from a harem setting in the end. The authors just don’t have the guts to let the main character pick one girl. One of Sora no Otoshimono’ good part is the appealing character design and likeability of it’s characters. Kotobukiya decided to make a figure of Ikaros under their 4 Leaves lable. She looks lovely from head to toe, I just love her puppy eyes. From the backside she also convinces with her detailed braids.

manufacturer: Kotobukiya release date: August 2014 scale: 1/6 price: 12.000 Y
 

Kashiwazaki Sena – Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT

I ordered this figure as soon as she was available, sure she is huge, but I’m sure that I will like this curvy girl, the sculpting is so well done. Also her face is convincing, Gift did a very good job at recreating the face of Sena with all of it’s details, while other companies failed at it so far.

manufacturer: Gift release date: June 2014 scale: 1/4 price: 13.000 Y

Finally a release date

Kirigaya Suguha – Sword Art Online

manufacturer: ALTER release date: 1th May 2014 scale: 1/8 price: 7.800 Y

I’ve been waiting ages for Suguha to be released, at first she was scheduled for November 2013, but now the day of her release is close. The figure has a nice natural sitting pose where she is placed on a cute veranda, I guess she will be a cute companion for outdoor shootings.

Interesting figures

I haven’t ordered these figures, but at least I find them overly interesting and like to list them.
Feel free to tell my which one you like or which not, or would like to see in a review

Cecilia Alcott – IS: Infinite Stratos 2 – Bunny ver.

manufacturer: Freeing release date: October 2014 scale: 1/4 price: 18.333 Y

As it was already announced at last Wonfes, FREEing is going to turn all IS girls except Houki into large scale figures. I always checked out FREEing’s big figures at Tentacle Armada and thought that they are pretty. Nevertheless, when looking at Cecilia I’m kinda impressed how faithful she is to her anime appearance with blush and a lively expression, she looks quite gorgeus. Let’s hope that there will be no cutbacks on the details in the final product.

Original Character – Kondo Yume

manufacturer: Native release date: September 2014 scale: 1/8 price: 10.185 Y

It is mean that Native mixed this adorable cute character design with so much lewdness, ok the illustration was already like that. Yume is really cute, she is petite, pretty and yeah she even has glasses. I like her type quite a bit, there are a number different ways to display her.

These battery powered things in her bag give me the creeps and actually are superfluous for me and I will let them stay in the box. Aside from that, she comes with a mattress and pillows. I’m probably going to order her, even when it takes all of my courage to do so. You can order her from the 25th April 2014 at your proxy of choice or directly from Native.

 
 Taimanin Asagi – Igawa Asagi

manufacturer: Milestone release date: September  2014 scale: 1/8 price: 9.000 Y

Oh I nearly forgot to add Asagi, this is the second figure that I’ve seen of this character. I like the design of her. Her origin is quite  hard stuff, I’m not talking about fights, I took a look in one part, it was not really my thing. Anyway I’m happy that she is made modest in a cool pose

Sonsaku Hakufu – Ikki Tousen

manufacturer: Dragon Toy release date: August  2014 scale: 1/6 price: 14.500 Y

I have a week spot for the latest Ikki Toussen figures from Daiki/Dragon Toy. The latter one made this super pretty Hakufu figure in damaged clothes, I think she would look good next to my Kan’u , both have a similar style and very good body sculpting. This hole in her shirt will be a bit difficult to cover, I assume, that I can worry about that later ;D

Souryuu Asuka Langley – Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Q – Jersey ver.

manufacturer: ALTER release date: September 2014 scale: 1/7 price: 10.800 Y

Thats probably the most fashionable Asuka figure to date, the hat alone is awesome, ALTER included a different posing option to recreate two different, appealing poses. Overall she looks very good and has a cool expression, I would consider to add her to my collection.

Mikasa Ackerman – Shingeki no Kyojin

manufacturer: GSC release date: October 2014 scale: 1/8 price: 12778 Y

Ackermann looks really good as figure, she has cool clothes is super detailed and a without a doubt pretty face. Well, even though I like this story Mikasa comes from a lot, strangely I don’t feel much for anyone of the characters.

Kinomoto Sakura – Card Captor Sakura – Nendoroid

manufacturer: GSC release date: September 2014 scale: Nendoroid price: 4.444 Y

Better late than never a Nendoroid of Sakura appears, I just watched the whole Cardcaptor anime like two years ago, it’s the perfect example of a very nicely concluded anime. You could order her from the 25th April 2014 , I probably will.

Mankanshoku Mako – Kill la Kill – Nendoroid

manufacturer: GSC release date: August 2014 scale: Nendoroid price: 3.889 Y

This is a real comedy Nendoroid, I like her funny expressions a lot, she will also have special bendable arms. The special edition comes with a beaten up face, which is just creepy X<.
 

Urusei Yatsura – Lum Invader – ARTFX J

manufacturer: Kotobukiya release date: September 2014 scale: 1/7 price: 9.000 Y

Upcoming figures I’m interested in

Kousaka Honoka – Love Live! School Idol Project

manufacturer: GSC scale: 1/8

Love Live is such an entertaining show, there are my animes related to the Idol culture, but Love Live is special. Sparkling animations and character designs, mixed with a number of different, but likeable personalities. GSC chose Honoka as figure to be made, she looks great so far. Actually I like the “big”girl, but the one that steals my heart is the little devil, Nico.

Koshimizu Sachiko – iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls

manufacturer: Phat Company scale: 1/8

This is so good, an enchanting yandere type of Idol, I love her cute demonic expression, it’s a rarely used theme, her pose is also unique, I hope the final figure looks as shiny as this.

Tachibana Makoto – Free!  ALTAiR

manufacturer: ALTER scale: 1/8

Well, here we have a sexy boy, oh my I’m watching too many sport anime lately. I never watched Free! for it’s lack of female characters, well I have heard that the female swim coach was pretty. Makoto is not really the bishounen type, but I think he looks pretty cool in this pose and outfit. Preorders haven’t opened so far.