Kouwan Seiki – Wonderful Hobby Selection – Max Factory

Hey folks, I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like all of my figures get constantly delayed, October could be a better month for releases, but we will see about this soon . The lack of new figures made me take a look at my figure wishlist once again and I decided to get the Kouwan Seiki. Coincidentially, that is the subject of todays figure review.

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.