Yo whazzup, review time!
This will probably be the most unmotivated figure review since this blog started.
This weeks figure review is about Hasegawa Kobato, she’s a character from the lovely anime adaption Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai. Kobato is the little sister of Kodaka, the main character, both live alone since they decided to stay in town when their father moved away.
The figure was made by Kotobukiya and released in October 2013, the figure is scaled 1/8.
Kobato is obsessed wih a certain vampire anime and copies the behaviour of the main heroine very accurately and dresses like a goth loli. One would actually think a girl like her would have no friends or be bullied, but as we learned in the second season, her classmates adore her.
In this illustration of Buriki, Kobato lookds quite adorable and I was happy that this was adapted as figure. The figure sold like hot cake and the shops played the sold out – in stock game, Actually, it was not easy to catch one for people who didn’t order early, the first day.
Speaking of that I actually ordered the Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai artbook, but the shop messed up and never acquired a copy for me (╯︵╰,).
In the promo pictures the figure had nice opaque, pale skin, instead the final figure shows the skintexture of a marzipan pig, it’s the kind of PVC Griffon or Ques q often uses. What doesn’t appear like a big deal, annoys me so much, I can’t help myself, it just makes me angry. I don’t know which idiot decided to change the material for the final product, Why! Why! I could always count on Kotobukiya for appealing skintones, at least but for some reason not this time.
I’m already too biased to write a review like usual, I change my usual review pattern this time.
Review
The figure resembles her character from the anime quite well, although she doesn’t seem too smile that often in the show, when her brother pays too much attention to other girls.
Kobato has a cute face, the heterochromia eyes are nicely detailed, there is also a little blush on her cheeks and the friendly smile is really charming. The hair shows a very bright blonde color, there is a fading transparency effect incooperated what I actually like, the strands are sculpted surprisingly good.
The dress is looks good and appealing, fingerless gloves, a corsage top with white rims, a number of blood red ribbons and lovely hair decoration. Kobato also is wearing stockings, a garterbelt and black panties. Partially the details on it could be a bit finer, when you look at the ruffles of her skirt, they appear slightly thick compared to rest of the dress.
See, the figure is not bad overall, you get your little, goth loli with nice hair and a pretty dress.
The pose actually looks like falling off the chair with a big smile, but to whatever Kobato is up to it looks cute. She has a shiny black base in oval shape with some white ornaments printed on.
On the base is a cream white chair, in an antique, Victorian design, the red velvet seating is a quite nice detail of it. The legs behind are halfway sunk in the base, it would be cool to have a full chair though. You connect Kobato and the chair via metal rods that slide in the holes of her knees. You can’t really use the chair with other figures, well it’s glued to the base anyway.
Final words
Of course Hasegawa Kobato is no bad figure, she has a pretty face, nice hair and a pretty goth loli dress. The details are nice and the paint is applied cleanly, it shows the actually good quality of this figure. Why I’m that dissapointed is hard to tell, I guess I had too high expectations after Max Factory’s wonderful Kobato and Maria figures and the fact that the skin tone turned out a lot different from the promo pictures, didn’t help either. So Kobato is no figure for me.
What is your opinion about this figure?
Luth
Wow, that’s really crap they changed the material on you. That happened to me once with a Gurren Lagann from Bandai, the promo shots all showed metallic red paint and the final product was just the normal red paint. After that, I promised myself I would never preorder another Bandai product again.
That aside, Koto looks like they did a nice job on her face and hair. It’s rare to find figures doing the Buruki blush well and this one got it. The rough edges in detailing always bug me in Koto figures but I’m a bit of a snob like that. It’s nice to see the extra bits like the red velvet cushion on the chair but man, how much dust is that thing going to absorb.
wieselhead
Yeah unfortunately, I was like what!? Why does she look like that, is it bootleg?
Well, but it seems like I’m the only one who is seriously offended by it, I guess it bothered me so much because taking pictures didn’t turn out as expected.
Actually there are many nice things about the figure, but the skintexture ruins my impression too much to appreciate.
Oh I see, changing such things in the final product is not playing fair, we don’t even have the option to get refunded.Hehe I probably won’t preorder a figure from Koto next time, Leafa looks lovely though ^^
But her sculptor also was in charge of this damn Kobato XD
Tier
Ahahahaha, that is harsh. It really does suck when you’re sitting there, unable to find the words to say what you really think about a figure, but knowing that you’ve already taken the pictures so you might as well write something. I’ve had a few figures like that and they really are a big struggle to write. Though sometimes I take the opportunity to do something really weird, like talk to myself. I can’t really see the difference in skin tone between her and the promo photos, but I’m sure it’s much more obvious in person. It’s really a bummer when there are big differences like that, though; you almost feel like you got ripped off. I had kinda thought about getting this one, but then she sold out so quickly that I didn’t really think about it anymore, and now I’m kinda wishing I’d bought the one of her in the leotard and cat ears, since I’m sure it’s a higher-quality figure and it’s lots more lewd, too.
wieselhead
Yes, it seems harsh, I felt like flaming Kotobukiya for this, but I’m too well raised it seems.
After I’ve taken a look at the pictures that day, I felt utterly defeated, haha well I expected something different at least.
What!? seriously!? maybe I got crazy XD
But believe me it is less opaque than the general stuff Im used too, and that’s what I dislike, I did a bit of postprocessing to meet my image a bit more.
The Max Factory figures are of really high quality, I only got Maria, but often thought about adding Kobato, she often appears on Mandarake.
NY Otaku
Nice pics! Shame about the material change on the figure. For some reason when I first saw the released pictures I thought something was off with the face/head. I don’t know for some reason I thought the head looked way too big/out of proportion for the size of the figure, but maybe I just need to see it in person. The rest of the figure looks lovely, with the dress & chair and all, but for me the face/head is what makes the figure look a bit weird imo.
wieselhead
Thank you ^^
loli characters often tend to have big heads in comparison with the body, like older characters with big bust have small heads.
But I guess it could also be the angle of her head which is a bit tilted.
Yeah most parts about this figure are very good, the head/skintexture seem a bit debateable for us.
feal87
I agree with you that changing material isn’t fair, but she still looks AWESOME! Now, this is probably one of the cutest figure I watched in your blog so far. I really like it.
(I may be A BIT biased considering how much I like Kobato. :D)
wieselhead
It’s not as bad as I made it sound, but I was really shocked about the difference.
Kobato is of course a cute little loli sister, and a good figure. Oh,you might be right about this ^^
It feels like there more cute loli characters in the past in both, anime and figures.
I wouldn’t mind to have another cute loli figure though haha.
Bakayaro
Hier, nimm meinen Neid… ich muss leider noch ein wenig warten da ich sie in Deutschland vorbestellt habe.^^ Vom Preis her macht es bei Kotobukiya Figuren da kaum einen Unterschied aber man muss halt ein wenig länger warten. Was meiner Geldbörse wiederum aber gut tut. Tolles Review übrigens. Bei einigen Fotos die ich bereits vorher gesehen habe dachte ich mir dass ihr Gesicht zu plastisch wirkt aber bei deinen sieht es wieder ganz anders aus. Bei solchen eher Farblosen Kostümen mag ich es wenn der Hintergrund ein wenig mehr Farbe mit sich bringt daher gefallen mir die Fotos mit den Lila/Blau Hintergründen am besten. :3
wieselhead
Haha ^^
Ich bestelle momentan wenig Figuren im Inland, die japanischen Preise sind momentan ein Witz, da kann ich nicht anders.
Besten Dank, dabei wollte ich mir garnicht so viel Mühe geben *lach* Bei beleuchtung mit Kunstlicht hatte ich echt Schwierigkeiten, hoffe du hast da weniger Last mit.
Aya
they did such a thing ow that’s sucks 🙁 , but I still like how she looks in that pose
wieselhead
Indeed it does, but I already sold her and don’t have to worry about it anymore ^^
I would still say that she was nice, overall.
Kai
Or perhaps the official pictures are photoshopped? Not likely but could be a possibility nonetheless :p They likely wanted to match the colors to the original colors of the anime, which is in pale skin color. I don’t know how the real color looks from my side here, but I can see the tone shifts just a bit slightly. It’s not easily noticable at least from my side here though.. >_>
wieselhead
Well, other Koto figures have this kind of skincolor from the promo pictures, hell knows why they changed it for Kobato.
I feel like I overreact about this minor change, but it made me sick to no end.
kixkillradio
Hahah I feel you bro, it happens to me a lot of times. Being unmotivated and such but have to write and post. ( ˘ ³˘)
Ah, kobato-chan! She’s one of my fave character in the anime. So cute!!! Love the detail of her dress here. It sucks that there was a change of material, but I love the detail of her dress in this figure.
Btw, lovely set of photos. My fave are the last 4 photos. ♥♥
wieselhead
Ha sometimes it’s difficult, but in general I love this freetime activity a lot.
She’s really cute and I like her playing rich and powerful vampire, like in the gif.
The outfit is really pretty and well done by Kotobukiya, I also like it a lot.
If they hadn’t changed the skintone in the end, it would be an even better figure.
really? thank you (;*△*;) Im a bit relieved, I felt thaat I really failed with the lighting for her.
Miette-chan
Hahaha… so much hate, kinda.
I do agree this illustration is very pretty, a good choice to choose it to base a figure on. I kinda see what you are going on about. Still, there is a lack of nice Kobato figures in her usual goth loli dress. All things considered Koto did fair job in translating the illustration to figure form. I like the base is not an ugly piece of cheese and fits the figure quite nice.
If only Alter or GSC would make a figure of Kobato in her usual outfit. Until then this is in my opinion the best Kobato figure out there.
wieselhead
Yeah we won’t be friends, well I tried to be fair at least.
Kobato from Koto has many good points, like the pose and the pretty dress.but she didn’t met my expectations with this material which has been used for her skin.
It is really strange that it was changed, did they expect no one would notice?
Haha yeah no cheese, are you still annoyed by the Tenshi-san base?
I see, but Im not interested in buying another one, I prefer her when animated in the show =)