So after a little too long break comes a new figure review. Todays figure is Homura, the gloomy girl with a firearm and other weaponary fetish. Her origin is the all so famous Puella Magi Madoka Magica, where a more or less sad destiny was delivered to every magical girl involved.

Akemi Homura is portrayed as a smart person with a graceful appearance and a cool contained attitude, but actually I never liked her attitude or I don’t like what became of her (episode 10).

A disliking for the character doesn’t automatically mean that I will pass on an appealing figure. One thing really caught my interest, this Homura figure was adapted from a GK figure sculpted by Ousaka Miki. I love GK figures but sadly good GK’s are hard to get and are rarely turned into PVC figures. I want to support such things, in hope to see more such adaptions in the future.

This figure of Akemi Homura was manufactured by Wave and the release occured in the end of June 2013. Wave is very famous for their Beach Queens line, where they adapt the heroines of fresh anime shows in beach attire. These 1/10 scaled figures are of solid, sometimes even very nice quality, they often have moveable neck joints and a nice design overall.

Miette and Exilehero from Otagamers recently proved how photogenic these figures are, great job guys. Btw this was once my Misaka Mikoto, it’s good that the cutie has a sister now ^^

As nice as Beach Queens are, 1/10 is a quite small scale and they have a lack of presence when placed next to larger scaled figures. One of the reasons why I parted with mine after some time.

Homura might be mistaken for another  Beach Queen figure, but surprisingly the figure is scaled 1/8 and part of Waves Dream Tech line. With 1,55 m Homura is a rather small girl, the figure here is 185 mm in height, but for a real 1/8 scale she should be 9 mm taller, but it’s no really big deal. In terms of size and proportions the figure is close to ALTER’s Menma.

Hair & Face

Homura has nice dark brown hair with nice long strands, I really like the bangs in front. The hair is cleanly produced and leaves a positive impression. There is a red hairband with a ribbon on the left of her head. The face is beautifully sculpted and painted, the rounded corners give her a nice appeal. The anime is captured very well in her face, there are attractive eyebrows, lovely blushmarks that really boost her cute side. And Homura’s eyes are as deep as the ocean.

The figure also has a nice little mouth opening, overall her face turned out very pretty. Im not really sure how to interpret her expression, maybe you have an idea. To me Homura seems to be spacing out, there is also a little yandere touch, but also a lot of cuteness can be found.

Body & Outfit

Homura is approximately 14 years old, and as the young teenager she is Homura has a quite petite and skinny body. She is standing straight with her head tilted backwards and turned to the left. This rarely used pose makes the figure quite interesting and gives her a nice touch.
On the downside this pose also gives her some strangles, she is supposed to face the viewer.

Homura has no real female curves, but  she is a quite skin revealing figure, her belly is rather nice as well as the shoulderblades. The sculpting here is also done in a convincing way, she is nearly free of molding lines and these single little fingers are skillfully and cleanly pressed PVC. They could have chosen a lazy way to execute this part of her with no space between her fingers, but they didn’t.

The skimpy rainbow striped bikini is very cute and colorful which adds some contrast to the skin and the dark hair. it’s not a super detailed piece of sculpted clothes, but it’s enough to create a pleasing sight.

Final Words

So what are my final thoughts about this Akemi Homura from Wave, Im quite satisfied with her. The face is very detailed and makes a cute figure out of her. I also like her unique and kind of fascinating pose. One thing I learned again was, that I don’t necessarily have to like the character to appreciate a certain figure, when the design is nice and appealing for me and this GK adaption definetely was something I like. Of course there are more cheerful and curvier swimsuit figures, but Moemura manages to convince with her interpretation of vulnerable cuteness. It’s good to see a figure from Wave which is not scaled 1/10, while she’s still not a real 1/8 scale, Homura doesn’t look awkward when being placed next to other 1/8 scaled figures.

I ordered her on HOBBY SEARCH for 5,525 yen

Hi and welcome to my review of Sayaka Miki from Good Smile Company

Haha after all the the ecchi figure reviews recently it’s kind of a combo breaker.

This figure of Sayaka is scaled 1/8 and has a height of 20 cm, her release date was in July 11th.
Her origin is the very popular anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica which is considered to be a revolutunary anime inside the magical girl genre. I was happy with the magical animes before, but oh well who asks me anyway. Sayaka Miki is the best friend of Madoka, the main heroine of the show. Sayaka is a very kind and cheerful person, she has a tomboyish personality and likes fooling around. In dangerous situations she protects her small fragile looking friend Madoka.

After the anime ended people wished for cool and dynamic figures of the characters in their fancy costumes, there didn’t pass much time until GSC presented their figure lineup of this anime.

Well, how should I say it all of them appeared rather underwhelming in terms of posing, they could have been adapted from a more interesting illustration than the one which was used.

Nevertheless these figures still had their lovely outfits and a very good quality. Additional to that the Puella Magi Madoka Magica girls also resembled the look of the anime very close.

From the figure line up Sayaka caught my interest the most, I really liked the design and colors. She wasn’t my favorite character, in case you’ve watched the anime you might know why. Her naive thinking of being a magical girl was a bit odd, lets say she wasn’t suited for that job.

I found a nice part of an  Staff discussion where the persons in charge of crucial elements of the anime were talking about the character of Sayaka.

UROBUCHI: And then I answered, “That would be impossible now.” (LOL)

UROBUCHI: Guess I bullied Sayaka a bit too much (LOL). But then the reason why I do not feel that sorry for Sayaka is this thing, that I just do not feel that even if she hooked up with Kyosuke that girl would really be happy ever after. Most likely Kyosuke is a guy who will stand her up in dates and go to practice the violin, I think.

Hair & Face

Ok, sorry for the slightly off topic talk now I’ll start with review part of this Sayaka Miki figure.

The first thing that meets the eye is her hair, look there is no seamline to be found. Her hair is nice and smoothly sculpted with the strands in the right position the hair resembles the look from the anime very well. Nevertheless there was a shirtstorm about the changes which were made to the final figure in terms of haircolor. People were cursing “seagrass“, “too dark“, “GSC betrayed“.

I rewatched some episodes of this show and now I would say that this figure has the right haircolor, a mixture of blue and grey, if at all the prototype had the wrong too bright hair color.

Im really satisfied with the way the face turned the eyes with the partially dotted iris and pupil.  The unique 2D character designs of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica appear to be a bit more difficult to put into 3D shape, but  it wturned out very nice in this case, there is not really an odd angle were Sayaka looks disappointing. Furthermore this figure features all the facial details from the anime character design, like the blush marks and the dark lined mouth.

Well it might be a bit odd, that the face still looks kind and happy, even when she is wielding the two optional cutlass swords. An optional head would have been a great feature to match the look of a girl in a fancy suit with sharp weapons weapons in her hands.

Outfit & Body

From the girls in Puella Magi Madoka Magica I liked the outfit of Sayaka the most I guess it was also the main reason I ordered this figure. The design is a little on the tomboyish side but also has a prominent female appearance. Her outfit looks more suited for close combat than the one of Mami or Madoka for example. Her top is a shoulder free corsage resembling dress, the quillings above and below are kind of cute, the top exposes her belly with the blue C symbol.

The white cape gives Sayaka  the extra  chivalrous touch, I like the flow of it a lot. At her nice skirt there are these impressively detailed creases. Im a big fan of her stockings with the blue belts around her thighs. I really like the color combination of navy blue, white and golden details.
The colors and the golden lines and buckles are applied in a quite accurate way.

Quality wise there is not much to complain about in terms of outfit and painting.

Her weapon looks like a combination of a cutlass, a weapon often used by Naval forces, and a katana. The long straight blade indeed resembles a katana. On the hilt has the typical cutlass look, in case you are wondering about the look of the hilt, no there is no trigger function it’s just a design element. The base is a small transparent diesk with a blue radial gradient effect.

Sayaka is actually captured in a happy situation with her arms and hands stretched out it looks like she imitates a plane, while having a kind smile on her face. GSC decided to give this figure a second hand option, where Sayaka can hold her two cutlass weapons. In this stage the face expression is a bit too friendly I would say but overall she looks nice in both display options.

Typically for the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime Sayaka has a big wide head, she is 13-14 years old so her body is young and petite. She was crafted with care, there are nice armpits, also the transition from arms to body looks quite nice, her shoulder free outfit slightly reveals one of her collarbones and her budding chest. Sayaka also has nice legs, they are accentuated by her stockings and the crossed pose. In my opinion she has the best pose of the bunch.

Final Words

I’m glad about this purchase and that I didn’t cancel her order, like I intended close before the release. I like her overall design a lot, a pretty head, a nice body and very nice colors. Even though I’m still not a big fan of her character, she is a beautiful figure and that is what counts. She has very nice details and the quality of sculpting  and paintjob are very well done.

I purchased this Sayaka Miki figure for 5,750 Yen at AmiAmi, now she is sold out unfortunately.

Reviews of Madoka Kanami can be found at Figyura and Nopy’s blog who also reviewed Homura Akemi