Today, I will present you a newU Preorder post. Uhh, what has the Figure Hobby turned into, it is more expensive than ever before, release dates became unreliable and updated dates are pushed around more regularly than ever.

Although with all those negative aspects one can not complain about the lack of beautiful figures.
This month was full of very nice figure announcements, which actually needs to the next problem…

Which one should I purchase!?

Rikka Takarada – I Believe in Future from GSC

From the SSSS Gridman show that I liked just a little bit, main heroine Rikka appears in an nice pose with parts of the base flying around her. The cute expression aside this figure is a rather ecchi creation, some will like it some won’t.

The figures proportions seems to be more inspired by pixiv artworks than how the girl looked in the anime, but that is fine since I love nicely shaped thighs like that. There aren’t many figures around with such voluminous thighs and I really like the figures expression, so I would be very happy to order the figure here. She is scheduled to be released 2021, that is for sure a long time, but I would not have to worry too much about expenses for 2020.

release date: April 2021 – list price: 19,800 Yen

Chino – Summer Uniform from PLUM

Plum just makes the best figures of young girl characters and this Chino could be easily one of their best.
The sculpt and overall presentation are so enchanting, everything about her is just so sweet and happy.
Her summer uniform accentuates her cuteness once more and everything looks quite lively.
I think from all the figures listed in the post her preorder will be set by me soon.

release date: 03 2020 – list price: 14,850 Yen

Hurdle Girl Illustration from Skytube

An figure adaptation based on a character drawn by Kekemotsu, the color palette is strong, the bold yellow jacket for example is striking. I approve about hurdle running in a black bikini and I also really appreciate that they combined the rather daring outfit with a very sweet facial expression and the golden eyes are beautiful. It seems to be a pretty figure of a nice, sweet girl in a skimpy outfit and a great looking butt.

release date: 08 2020 – list price: 19,580 yen

ARMS NOTE Kouhai-chan of the Swimming Club from AMAKUNI

I would really appreciate it if AMAKUNI would start giving bigger promo pictures to the shops, it’s just so tiny!

Ahem, while I don’t know a lot about ARMS NOTE, this stunning figures positive aura is contagious, really love the golden eyes and the happy fang. The tan suits the figure very well, especially in combination with the blue sports bikini.

release date: 09 2020 – list price: 13,618 Yen

Kantai Collection Suzuya [Xmas]mode from AMAKUNI

I forgot about Kancolle to be honest, still remember the characters that were dear to me, but I only play Azure Lane nowadays. Nevertheless this Suzuya figure is especially pretty in the nicely textured red christmas dress, the exposed shoulders and overknee black santa boots.

release date: 09 2020 – list price: 14,500 Yen

Ore o Suki nano wa Omae dakekayo – Sanshokuin Sumireko from Aniplex, Aquamarine

Her anime is on my “going to watch” list, but I really know nothing about this character. Nevertheless her figure appears to be very nonchalant and attractive, also her pose looks cool. The alternative top looks very interesting together with this school uniform, I really like the long skirt version in blue.

release date: 08 2020 – list price: 13,182 Yen

Teletha Testarossa: Maid version from Phat Company

In 2018, 13 years later FMP received a new season, not as great as I wanted it to be, you can’t just use content from 13 years ago and expect people to be all excited about a so so adaptation that ended with a cliffhanger. I did finish the light novel because of it and at least Tessa got 3 more figures because of it, but I think this one was the nicest.

release date: 08 2020 – list price: 16,280 Yen

Iya na Kao Sarenagara Opantsu Misetemoraitai Hon Chitose Itou STD version from Alphamax

The angry panty flashing girls are surprisingly popular and this character even got the second adaptation. doing something you don’t like, but still doing it nevertheless is a weird fetish. Anyway a scornful maid is somewhat interesting. There are 2 versions available, one with castoff option and one without, in any case you get the 2 faces, one that shows you even more disgust, you swine!

release date: 06 2020 – list price: 19,580 Yen

Asuka Soryu Langley -Gothic Lolita Ver.- :Re from Kotobukiya

This figure is apparently a reissue from a figure first time released in 2004, the new Asuka figure has a nicer anime style face and a few more smaller differences made, I really like the base with the stairs, the gothic lolita dress is nice anyway.

release date: 05 2020 – list price: 12,800 Yen

Sansei Muramasa – Character’s Selection from Rocket Boy

I really like Sansei Muramasa, but this here is the tainted love version apparently, bondage, chain around the neck, it’s all quite kinky. The figure has an alternative face plate and alternative hip part. I’m really not sure about purchasing this figure, it’s a bit too erotic and display in the open might be interesting.

I know the origin of the figure and while most visual novels have sexual scenes, but Soukou Akki Muramasa is very grim and not vanilla. Still seems to be a great looking figure just not really my cup of tea.

release date: 08 2020 – list price: 17,500 Yen

And now I will show you my latest preorders concerning 2020. The ambitious plan is to order only 8 new figures in 2020, delayed figures doesn’t count at this. I admit with those delays together it looks like I lost control ahahaha.

Asuka Langley – RADIO EVA Original Color

A quite nice figure adaptation of Asuka. There are 2 color variations of this Asuka figure, I decided to get the less saturated one.

Lacia – Black Monolith Deployed version

I’m outing myself … as fan of the Beatles anime, a big reason was the charming Lacia voiced by Touyama, Nao. The figure doesn’t show Lacia’s pretty smile but at least she looks like from the anime. I decided against the cheaper version, I rather want the cool one haha.

Takimoto Hifumi – Witch version

Ummm, why did I buy a figure of Hifumi, I think it’s a very cute figure with the breezy witch outfit and the gigantic hat.

Juliana Eberhardt

I became quite a fan of the odd Raita design, while the body proportions look something special, I’m really addicted to great faces Raita creates. Great coincidence that I also love summer and bikinis, Phat Company also announced a figure of the more friendly looking Riela Marcellis. I will definitely order her, too.

Matoi – Nidy-2D version

The nidy version is so adorable I decided to watch a few episodes of the anime Phantasy Star Online 2 – Episode Oracle, before I would order this Matoi, unfortunately also there she is a cute angel, although she didn’t wear this great outfit so far.

I wish everyone a wonderful start into 2020, I look forward to another year of exciting figures in 2020.

“A look back …” basically means to do a reshoot a figure with a more refined idea in mind. After A look back at Momohime and A look back at Sonico Bath Time I did a reshoot of Sansei Muramasa, a great maid themed figure from Max Factory released in March 2012.

My experience with this figure was overshadowed by bad luck, not the figure was to blame, it was rather my fault, first I named her Sandaime Muramasa in the review. Around a year later I noticed this blogging disaster and I wanted to sink into the ground out of embarrassment. This really shouldn’t happen in a review, never *facepalm*

A more dramatic thing was, that I somehow set the camera to a low resolution for the shooting, a few pictures turned out quite nice, but I had really small files, maybe I was drunk. Anyway this really bothered me, so  lets try to make Sansei Muramasa, sparkle once again.

This year the Nitro+ VN, Soukou Akki Muramasa received a lot of attention in terms of figures releases and announcements, mainly from manufacturer Wing. Aside from Muramasa, they also gave attention to Ashikaga Chachamaru.

In the 2 (nearly) 3 years I constantly had Sansei Muramasaon display, the figure showed no effects of leaning or desaturation of colors, accidentally one of her antennas fell off, but was easy to fix.

About the model

In the year 2012 Sansei Muramasa was released, she was sculpted by Shining Wizard @ Sawachika, a really talented artist, who created some really good looking figures. The character of Sansei is based on the dark visual novel Soukou Akki Muramasa made by Nitro+. At 1/7 scale the figure has a nice size and has an appealing look on my shelf, she has a red carpet base and a single table with loose dishes. Check out her “older” review for reference.

Sansei Muramasa is an especially nice maid related figure balance between looking like a fully fledged maid and making the figure look attractive, the elaborate sculpting makes her uniform appear light and detailed. The hair is long and has a pretty shape, a creamy color and a cool looking fringe. Her beautiful facial expression is unique and interesting, changing between annoyed and being flustered, her golden eyes make her expression very strong.

Overall, the figure has a beautiful appearance and covers a number of my appeal points, elf ears, maid uniform, thigh highs and an attractive looking body. The uniform has a very appealing design, colored in black and cream white, the white parts are decorated flouncy.

A sexy feature is the detachable skirt, that reveals more of Sansei’s sensual body, her dark, fancy underwear is a real eye catcher. I don’t want to sound like an European conqueror, so I won’t call her dark skin exotic, it’s very pretty, though and suits the figure very nicely. The dark skin is also interesting. More dark skinned figures have appeared since 2012, still we rarely see this on figures. Naturally, anime/game characters live in Japan and rarely have dark skin.

The idea

Having a real idea for the shooting would be an exaggeration, I had a classic cafe in mind, where Sansei serves coffee and tea. So I’ve build a fancy window frame out of cheap wood parts and ornaments of the right size, I’ve bought on ebay. Afterwards I attached curtains on left, right and a fancier lace stripe on top of the frame.

To gain more height for the backdrop I also made a background wall made of MDF and painted it in light brown. To have more detail I glued bricks at certain areas, I’ve painted the scale bricks in different, but still related colors.The floor isn’t that important, since it doesn’t appear that often when I’m using a 50 mm lens, nevertheless I also gave it some thought as well, in this shooting I used leather with interesting texture to imitate an expensive looking floor.

Obviously Sansei Muramasa is a beautiful figure, not entirely flawless, on very close inspection of the pictures at the PC screen, the figure has some seam lines, visible at the ribbon at the back, the backside of her thighs and very faint ones at the waist. Her hair also has a few unclean spots, but as I’ve already said, this can only be noticed from a very close distance.

Summary and Impressions

I had a lot of fun with Sansei Muramasa, also this second time I took pictures of her, she is very photogenic, I think the new pictures turned out a little better in terms of lighting and sharpness. Partially, a good model makes good pictures ^^ I like the figures appearance of a very pretty grown up girl with a still youthful expression. She’s a very good looking Elf lady.

With a little self critism at the end, I could have planned her background to be a little higher, in the lower angle shots it’s a little obvious where the background ends. I also learned again that dust can be quite persistent.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures of Max Factories Sansei Muramasa, the next post is scheduled for December 24th.
I guess the next “A look back …” related Post might be about Sayaka Miki, one of my alltime favorite figures. I already have the idea for the setup, but will have to invest some more time in building the props.

Do you have any suggestions which of my figures I should choose to do another photoshoot?

Today I’ll let down my pants, only in the figurative sense, of course

Inspired by Adam’s Figure Financials posts I decided that I wanted to create something similar by the end of this year. I’m fully aware that a detailed look at the figure expenses of this year might be a shocking experience, but join me  and face the ugly truth in this post.

Let’s take a look at the things I’ve bought this year, overall it were 27 figures that I’ve purchased and received this year, 1 less compared to 2011. Since I already sold 2 figures I end up with a number of overall 25 collected figures in 2012, it was one of my goals to stay under 28 figures.

monthly figure expenses

In the diagram below every bar shows what I’ve spent each month, surprisingly I ordered nothing in February and May. With 4 figures, I kind of overdid it in June and October, it were expensive months, but this also partially happened because of unforeseen events. In November I also ordered 4 figures, but these figure were from the aftermarket and comparatively cheap.

I won’t write down the entire sum I’ve spent this year, it would be a too big shock for me XD

manufacturer appointments

It looks like I chose ALTER for most of my purchases, their figures really caught my interest even some older figures from them. Surprisingly GSC, which I really can’t stand or better said it’s the constant hype about their products. Anyway I went out of my way and ordered four of their figures, I really like Sayaka and Shinobu. I also got really nice figures from Max Factory.
For some reason I only ordered 3 (4) Orchid Seed figures, maybe that will change in 2013.

I also tried different companies, that I’ve never bought from before, like Alpha Max, Native, Daiki Kougyou, PLUM, Phat Company and Volks who will relase their Nagisa figure soon. Unlike my bad experience with Griffon, these companies provided solid quality and very good figures.

Shop appointments

new exclusive and old figures comparison

Aside from 15 new figures, I bought 5 Exclusive figures (Sonico – Bath Time version,
Noel Vermillion, Miku Hatsune – Cheerful Japan, the Sonico Nendoroid and Nagisa).
The 7 old figures were Max Factories Tamaki Kousaka and Haruhi Suzumiya Gekisou version, Echidna from Megahouse. From ALTER I ordered the Louise Francoise – school uniform version, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia – Saber Maid R and non R version and Fauna at last.

I spent a lot for the Tamaki figure, but in other cases there were a number of significant price drops at Mandarake and AmiAmi preowned in this year, these prices were so low that I couldn’t resist these figures I always was slightly interested in. Asida from Echidna, who had a stained butt (it wasn’t me XD) I made no bad experiences with these aftermarket figures.

additional costs

When looking a these numbers I’m quite surprised that the custom fees only take ten percent of the spent budget, hehe four times my packages weren’t charged. 17 percent for shipping also appears lower than expected, this year I used more SAL shipping and domestic shipping, when more figures arrive in one month it makes no sense to use EMS for all orders. I used EMS 11 times, SAL 12 times and domestic shipping for local shops was used 4 times.

favorite figures of the year

Ok, enough of these dry statistics lets end this post with my personal favorites of the figures I’ve purchased this year this year.

Bakemonogatari – Oshino Shinobu (Good Smile Company)

This was my first GSC figure that I actually like a lot. The donut eating loli vampire Shinobu from Bakemonogatari was very well recreated in this figure, be it the adorable and cute face, the petite appearance of her body. Also the outfit with the cool motorcycle helmet and the light looking summer dress are also a convincing part of her. While not being sculpted perfectly sharp, the donut bed like base with it’s overload of details is a nice addition to the figure.

Another nice detail is that she can be taken off her base and be placed nearly everywhere.

Ikki Tousen Xtreme Xecutor – Kan’u Unchou (Daiki Kougyou)

I saw, drooled in excitement and ordered ^^. This figure appeared convincing for me from the day she was announced. I like Ikki Toussen quite a bit, but I never bought a figure of it before.

With this figure Daiki came especially close to my image of Kanu. Her powerful fighting pose and the well trained, attractive body were quite appealing. The figure of Kanu has a kinda angry determined face expression, while I prefer cute expressions in general, I was fascinated by the look of this figure. As my first experience with Daiki Kougyou, Im quite satisfied with their work. The sculpting and the painting on clothes and figure turned out very well

Soukou Akki Muramasa – Sansei Muramasa – Maid (Max Factory)

This was quite maid year in terms of figures for me, but Sansei Muramasa throned above all of them. I was interested in her since a certain Wonfes a few years ago. I am totally happy that I was convinced to get her in the end. Her appearance of a grown up and very attractive dark skinned elf is really enchanting. Muramasa has a beautiful face, the eyes are very expressive and also the unique combination of a slightly embarrassed and pouting  face expression are nice.

Her dress is lovely with the detailed ruffles and also the color combination of cream white and silky shine black a quite classy, elaborate look is created. The figure also offers a cool looking base with red floor and a pretty table where parts of the included coffee dishes can be placed.

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai – Takayama Maria (Max Factory)

Im still not a fan the Maria character, but she’s cute loli anyway. As image for the sculpting and painting Max Factory relied on the illustrator of the Novels, Buriki who has a quite unique style.
I really love how the face of this figure was adapted, she has super detailed eyes, blush marks and a cute open mouth with a sharp little fang. This Maria Takayama is a high quality figure with great looking body sculpting and an overall lively and playful appearance.

The dress is a little odd for a figure of a young girl, but is is very well done with pretty gloss and detailed shading effects. With a happy Maria inside the dress actually looks more cute than lewd.

To Heart 2 – Kousaka Tamaki – (Max Factory AquaPlus)

I saw this figure in the past, but in this year I noticed how appealing this figure actually is and was searching on the aftermarket. friend on MFC helped me and so I got my Tamaki Kousaka.

Not a cheap deal, but it was worth every cent. She looks a little different compared to her visual novel and anime origin, but in this case that is nothing bad.  On her fluffy, round base Tamaki radiates a romantic, cozy atmosphere what is quite charming in my eyes. The long red hair is pretty, the round face with the big eyes, rosy cheeks and the gentle smile on her mouth is really enchanting. The combination of a quite innocent appearance and an attractive curvy body works very well with this figure. Overall, the sculpting and paintjob of her are really top notch.

I still think that her boobs are too big, but with a cute face like this I accept this “minor” detail ;D

Nitro Super Sonic – Sonico –  Bath Time version (Native)

This was my first figure from Native actually, more importantly is that she’s a huge 1/6 scaled Sonico. I liked the creativity of pose and base a lot, these three little bathing friends are really cute accessories. The figure also has a very detailed and convincing face expression. I also like that they added more meat to this sculpt of Sonico like the Tsuji Santa artstyle always implies.

The figure can be displayed naked, not to the extent of most Native figures, but in my opinion  she looks best with one of her towels applied.Minor flaws are too faint blush marks and a  not that sexy looking butt, but nevertheless she is without question one of the best Sonico figures so far with the  Sonico – Bondage version from Orchid Seed following close afterwards.

Senran Kagura – Hibari (Phat Company)

I was quite happy as the cute GK of Hibari was quickly adapted to be turned into a PVC figure.
I didn’t had that much trust into Phat Company to begin with. But after unpacking her I was very much delighted, she looked very well done and came without major flaws. I love the cheerful face of Hibari with her flower eyes and the happy open mouth. I also liked her busty schoolgirl appearance dressed up in cute sportswear, like the jersey and the short bloomers that accentuates her meaty thighs. Her loose socks and the shoes are also a very cool detail.

Since I awaited this figure from Phat Company with lowered expectations my joy about her very good quality and looks were kinda amplified and Im still very happy about her purchase.

Do you have favorite figures from the ones you’ve bought?

Final Words

So far I always planned my purchases on a monthly basis, so that I won’t overstep my budget, in this post it was  interesting to take a look at the overall purchases of my figure hobby in this year. It appears like a lot of money and it probably is, but the truth is that there were more nice and pretty figures that I wanted to get n 2012, but I wanted to show at least a little retention.

Next year will be full of nice figures as well and I already preordered a few things, but lets see what and how many figures I will add to my next orders.

And you, Do you take a look back at your purchases and expenses of this year?

I there anyone who spent more? please let me know.