Nico, Nico Niii!

Umi was manufacturered by ALTER and released in August 2017. As her other School Idol Festival friends she is scaled 1/7 and 20 cm in height. Nearly every of those figures was made by a different sculptor, Umi was sculpted by Sai.

Umi’s character is relatively complex, she is a level headed girl with a quite conservative and demure view on everything. Nevertheless at heart she is a pure maiden with sweet natured behaviour. Umi has problems with showing her legs in public, she feels quite embarrased about it and don’t want to wear the skimpy idol outfit, that Kotori desinged. The regular school uniform also features a quite short skirt, so it is kind of weird that Umi isn’t bothered by that.

Another funny thing about her is that the level headed attitude often leads to her bossing around her less level headed friends, which often lets Umi appear a bit too strict for her age. In the idol group Umi has 2 different tasks, in the first place Umi is in charge of choreography and the regular fitness training, but also is the main lyricist for the songs.

An distinctive feature of the Love Live! anime(s) is the beautiful character design, the characters have very detailed, sweet faces and sparkling eyes. In these Love Live! School Idol Festival figures this particular style has been adapted faithfully. Umi looks quite happy in her idol performance, her winking eye is quite charming. The open amber colored eye on the other hand is so beautiful and shining, these is a gorgeous eye decal there. Furthermore eyebrows and other details as well as blushmarks are also really nice. Something I really appreciate on her face are the lightly painted lips.

Umi has dark blueish hair, the front hair is pretty and sculpted after her appearance in the anime, the hair at the backside is quite long, it is sculpted in a flowing backwards style, at the sides she has two strands separated by frilly ribbons, it looks like narrow twintails. On the left side she wears a pretty orange flower and ribbons as decorations.

The outfit of the figure is so pretty, the yukata combines a traditional look with a mordern design. The dress consists of a top, a skirt with transparent underskirt, as well as separate sleeves and loose “socks”, around the waist she is wearing a cute belt, The details on it look really elaborate. The light blue dress has a lovely flower pattern with blue, purple and violet and orange flowers. The geta shoes fit to the overall design, although they might no be too practical for dynamic dancing. Everything looks really nice together. The Love Live! School Idol Festival figures have all different outfits which is nice, if I would have to decide for one outfit for all 9 members, this yukata would be my favorite choice.

At her back Umi has a fancy fan with her name printed on it, unfortunately to my discontent it can’t be taken off.

Umi is articulated in a cheerful and quite dynamic pose based on one of her Love Live! School Idol Festival cards; with the right hand she is pointing at the audience while holding up the vintage microphone with the other hand she is holding the cable, so that she is not stepping on it accidently. Haha while assembling the figure getting that cable into place as it was shown on the box was quite a challenge. The pose also accentuates her pretty legs, behind the separated sleeves, the figure shows a bit of her bare shoulders and you can also take a peak at her nice armpits.

About the setup, because of a change of the figures release date, the setup was planned a bit more in advance, I had the idea of Umi performing at the beach. So at first I made a pier matching the figures sïze, painted it and added weathering effects. Flower chains of different colors were wrapped around a wooden bow, at the end I also added LED lights to the low cost construction. For the figure shooting Umi was put on a transparent base. For a complete look sand and a background were added, scrunched transparent gift paper works great to create a realistic water surface.

Final Words

On summary I’m very happy to have this sweet figure of Umi – chan, she looks very lively and I’m impressed by how elaborately made this figure is. The lovely face and her stunning yukata are so nice with ALTER’s Sonoda Umi you would have a extremely beautiful and also adorable Love Live! School Idol Festival figure at home. Before sitting down to write this review and taking another look at Love Live!, I actually did not have a real liking to Umi, but now I have grown fond of her. I might have ordered this figure just for the looks, but now I’m even happier that it’s a great figure of Umi.

related posts

Nico – Love Live! School Idol Festival – ALTER

Nozomi – Love Live! School Idol Festival – ALTER

Figures of Hoshizora, Rin and Yazawa, Nico were also part of this lineup of three.

In general Hanayo is a shy and demure person, but she is an ambitious Idol fan. Deep down she wanted to be part of µ’s very early, but thought that she wasn’t good enough and had the wrong personality for it. Rin and Maki litterally had to drag her to the roof to make her decide to join the group, but actually Hanayo took the final step. Episode 4 of Love Live! School Idol Project season one was really great. Eventually, Hanayo can overcome her shyness and is able perform on stage with everyone on a same level. I really like Hanayo for everything she is, her looks, the cute behaviour and funny antics. Oh and her obsession with rice is just hilarious

Hanayo looks perfectly like Hanayo in this figure adadaption from the good looking hair to the chin she has a pretty head. She is very charming with her beautiful eyes which are precisely printed and a cute mouth with her gentle smile.
I was really happy that Hanayo came with glasses, I like such figure a lot, Hanayo is my 2nd figure with such a feature.

Often in anime media you see glasses as kind of beauty defect and to be exchanged with contact lenses and characters suddenly getting prettier, to me such such things are unnecessary, wearing glasses doesn’t mean that you are an ugly duckling. I always thought of glasses as fashionable item, also before it became an hipster item for people that don’t need it. Aside from being a big help for people with bad eyes it can give a certain look interesting or also attractive look to a person. Hanayo can also be displayed without glasses, but why should I do that? she looks gorgeous this way .

Hanayo’s regular school uniform set looks lovely, it was adapted faithfully and looks elegantly casual, the dark blue blazer with it’s dark shading has a convincing look, also the white collar and sleeves from the shirt below give it a lively appearance. Her skirt is painted in a lighter blue color it has a nice pattern, although it’s not as detailed as the blazer, it also looks good. The number of details and the texture give her outfit a very good and dynamic look, the cute ribbon around her neck and the golden buttons add the finishing touch to her appealing uniform. Hanayo likes to wear panty hose, the brown one suits her very well and the dark shading at the right places accentuates the girls beautiful legs.

The cute Hanayo is a modest figure, nevertheless with some tricks here and there the sculptor managed to accentuates her pretty body with the help of her clothes. The blazers sits quite close to her body, which highlights her narrow waist and wider hips. As already mentioned the pantyhose also makes her legs very pretty, haha I really like her cute thighs. Alltogether the outfit and bodysculpting gives Koizumi, Hanayo an attractive but also still a decent appearance.

The chosen pose of Hanayo is very nice, the lively articulation or her body, limps and hands is cute and appealing.

Final Words

This figure of Hanayo turned out lovely, sweet and lively. Even though when ALTER plays in another league with their fancy Love Live! School Idol Festival figures, FREEing also did a very good job with their Koizomi, Hanayo in her regular school uniform that follows the anime design closely, considering the price it was a real surprise for me that the figure turned out so nicely made. I did not always have the best opinion of the smaller scale figures from FREEing, but sculptor Yokoyama and the manufacturer apparently did an excellent job, since this figure here is surprisingly detailed and elaborately sculpted, a pretty uniform, a sweet pose and most importantly a beautiful head make an appealing figure out of her. As fan of Hanayo I’m extremely satisfied with this figure and happy about my decision to order her.
 

Toujou Nozomi is in the spotlight today. I’ve bought the Love Live! School Idol Festival version from ALTER, sometimes it’s nice when a changed release date plays into your hands.

This figure of Nozomi was sculpted by Yagyuu Toshiyuki, she is scaled 1/7 and measures 25 cm. The pretty figure was released in early August 2017.

ALTER made an incedibly good job with all Love Live! School Idol Festival figures so far. each figure wears an unique outfit, based on a certain illustration card from the LLSIF game.

I already reviewed the Love Live! School Idol Festival version of Yazawa Nico and I’m all

~ Nico Nico Nii ~ about her

My Love Live! favorites are the cute and strangely hot Kotori, the sweet Hanayo and the petite little devil Nico. Also Nozomi is a big favorite of mine. She is the big sister type, who cares about her friends and holds much authority inside the µ’s. Although Nozomi is never bossy and is the good heart of the group. She is close friends with Eli and general very kind and understanding. In case one of the girl is acting weird, Nozomi shows her habit of groping their boobs with a naughty expression in her face, as a method of punishment or distraction.

In the anime she is also there to attract the more grown up viewers with her more mature and flirty aura and obviously womanly body she is one of the more popular characters. She has a strong liking to tarot cards and sometimes uses them for certain personal crucial decisions.

Nozomi has a lovely twin braid hairstyle colored in the nicest shades of purple, the details are awesome, you can really see the single strands within the braids.

I always was enchanted by the beautiful faces of the Love Live! characters. Especially the very shiny eyes. The style of the anime was adapted without fail. The very first ti I was seeing this figure I felt slightly upset, because Nozomi had one eye closed. Anyway the figure at least opened one of her pretty eyes, furthermore she has a cute small mouth, cute blush and a very appealing skintone.

The elaborately adapted outfits of the Love Live! School Idol Festival version figures appear a league ahead of everything on the market, the great and clean looking result is convincing in every aspect. Nozomi wears an dynamic looking outfit, that appears to be inspired by ancient chinese fashion. The pretty patterns are extremely detailed.

The golden rims on the different parts of her outfit are definitely interesting highlights. The figure also has these longer ribbons attached to her wrists, they swing in a dynamic way.

The top has a nice purple color and a frilly white rim above, the opening reveals most parts of her belly, that in my opinion should be a bit more chubby. Nozomi wears a frilly black skirt with a low opacity. The black color reappears further below in her ringmaster styled boots.

Garter, thigh highs, thighband and the additional band around her arm are placed in an asymmetrical way.

From the backside Nozomi also shows her beautiful shoulders and backside .

Obviously the figures details are overwhelming, see it for yourself (in my amazing pictures ).

From most angles her dynamic pose looks quite nice, sometimes the tilted pelvis appears rather strangely twisted.

The figure shows quite some skin and ALTER’s sculptor also did a nearly perfect job with portraying the characters softness, most obvious at the arms and thighs, although she simply just looks slightly sturdier than the other girls, the sculptor adapted this little difference nicely. In my opinion they could have added just a touch more weight, since Nozomi is a “bigger” girl.

I still remember the episode where Honoka and Hanayo were forced to get in shape again, but Nozomi could swing her buxom body around as always without any teasing comment from the others. So Umi is actually a bully, who only is picking on the weak .

Final Words

The Toujou Nozomi Love Live! School Idol Festival – version figure from ALTER turned out great, she is really gorgeous in nearly every regads. Of course with the 14.330 I’ve paid it was an expensive figure, but in return I received a wonderful Nozomi figure with a stunning level of detail and a more than above average quality. A thing I really appreciate is that the scale seems to be accurately spread around in this lineup, Nozomi is noticeable taller than Nico, as it should be.

The next Love Live! School Idol Festival figure I will receive is Umi. I’m also interested in Eli.

…and one day, maybe one day, I will add the lovely Kotori, too .

Today I’m going to review my first Love Live! figure, I’ve ordered one of ALTER‘s sparkling
Love Live! School Idol Festival figures of my favorite Love Live! character Nico.

I wasn’t really interested in getting Idol related figures until I noticed the Love Live! School Idol Festival version of Kotori, I was amazed by the level of details and her beautiful appearance, unfortunately I did not order her yet.

For me Love Live! was a really nice anime, a bunch cute girls become friends and achieve something great was nice to watch. Also all the different types of characters with their unique charm and quirks added a lot to the shows appeal.

Nico is not the usual anime girl, her extremely cute appearance is paired by a slightly evil personality. She has a professional attitude about everything Idol related. She is very confident about herself, which comes off arrogantly. Still she’s not obnoxiously, after all.

She’s really happy to be a part of µ’s and is an essential member. I really like her for being different, her small personality flaws are charming and interesting, Nico also is a funny girl.

Yazawa Nico Love Live! School Idol Festival was sculpted by Takaku & Takeshi. The figure was released in late June 2016. She is scaled 1/7 with a height of 24 cm. As additional feature, next to being awesome, Nico comes with an optional hat and exchangeable left arm.

Nico has a traditional twintail hairstyle, she probably chose it since it’s cute. The blueish-black hair looks nice and recreates the look from the anime very well. The hair is decorated with small red ribbons and differently colored ties. As optional item the figure has a really fancy hat with ribbons everywhere and a golden emblem with an “N” on it.

Nico is the most petite girl in Love Live! it’s gives her a very adorable appearance, although with her personality she isn’t a real sweetheart. She is the little devil of the group and therefore has red eyes, the sparkling eyes are an essential appeal point in Love Live! and ALTER adapted it perfectly. Nico is the happiest girl when she’s in idol mode, her figure was adapted with a happy open mouth and upper front teeth line, it makes her look very cheerful.

As all the “School Idol Festival” figures Nico also has a striking details, brimming with lots of details. The main part consists of a frilly black tube top with a matching miniskirt, every frilly layer has a golden rim. The star pattern skirt also has another transparent layer underneath.

On her chest she has elaborate ribbon, it’s all wrapped around the upper part of the figure. There is a huge red ribbon at her back, it shows a golden rim with elaborate pattern.

different kinds of socks/stockings, fancy kneesocks on the right, dark thigh highs on the left. Both legs are decorated with a cute frilly garter. The “socks” are both decorated with
differently colored and elaborately designed ribbons, pink and green. The green color has a air of christmas, while the creative idol outfit has a few elements related to christmas, calling the figure christmas Nico is a bit of a stretch. She looks also good in the summer, I assure you.

The figure has glossy red shoes with a golden sole, a short girl wears a bit of heel.

Of course an important thing for an idol figure is dynamic movement, ALTER put Nico in an interesting pose where is marching along the stage cheerfully. With wildly fluttering miniskirt and twintails the figure appears very lively, yes her skirt is super short (//∇//). In her stage outfit Nico also shows some skin, her arms, the belly and her slender legs are cute.

Final Words

ALTER‘s sparkling Love Live! School Idol Festival figures are state of the art products, I actually say it’s the current peak of figure manufacturing quality.

I’m happy that I have bought the most pretty Nico figure to date. Taking pictures with her was so much fun. I was already a real fan of her character, but having a figure of her is so nice, I even have the impression that having her on my desk is a good luck charm. I can say nothing bad about her, Nico is beautiful and elaborately sculpted and stands firmly on her base.

Because of a change in the release list of Alter, I also ordered the Toujou Nozomi Love Live! School Idol Festival figure. Considering how pretty and sparkling the School Idol Festival figures are I might order a few µ’s members more. The announced Sonoda Umi and Ayase Eli are looking gorgeous, too.

I had a few doubts about Love Live Sunshine! this season, it looks visually appealing, but partially the story feels a bit like a copy, but I have to tell you that I totally adore it, it’s more crazy, the characters are really different and also because Chika is a much better leader.

…and Ruby is an angel ♡♡♡