Hi a new figure has finally arrived, after a lot of anime related posts I can present you a new figure review. Today it will be about Hirasawa Yui, she’s a premiun prize figure manufactured by SEGA.
Her origin is the popular anime adaption K-on!!, the slightly airheaded Yui was the unofficial main character in the first season. In this figure adaption she is shown in her official HTT (Happy Tea Time) band t-shirt which she sported at the last performance on the school festival with Mio, Ritsu, Mugi and Azusa in episode 20. Ah that scene afterwards was such a big tearjerker, parting with your schoolmates and previous schoollife can be so sad hard. “stop crying damn wimp” XD
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pOoLvamGvM&feature=related
I never thought about buying a Sega figure before, last year, I began to notice, that their quality seemed to be better than I actually thought. I couldn’t find this Yui figure at japanese shops and ordered this figure at an US-shop, later she appeared on Mandarake for around 1600 Yen, I paid a little bit more, 35 $ + shipping (rage!), for prize figures you should give Mandarake a try.
First Impressions
Despite beeing a prize figure Yui comes with a nice looking box, she is a fully assembled figure, already fixed on her flip-flop colored base and with her beloved guitar “gitah” in her hands.
This “Windmill” Yui figure is quite big, she measures 21 cm which lets her look like 1/7 +
As I first unpacked her I felt a bit dissapointed with her, Yui was so unexpectedly big, I expected something more close to 1/8. Because of the huge size the lack of details on this prize figure is very prominent. I guess I became a bit spoiled with the level of detail from my high price figures.
Well, while doing the shooting with Yui, I slowly got the feeling that Yui actually is a very nice looking figure and that I was too harsh with her at the beginning even though there is still a difference in comparison with figures from other manufacturers that have a higher reputation.
Pose and random Infos
As you see this is a quite dynamic pose SEGA had chosen for her, I think they wanted to recreate the trademark windmill move of Pete Townshend, a member of The Who, he also owned the same Gibson Les Paul guitar like Yui, in fact he had 9 different Les Paul guitars for the concerts.
Yui raises her plektrum in the air like she wants to ROCK!, her movement with the spread and slightly crooked legs is captured very nicely, well her back is more leaned forward, but thats mainly because of the weight of her guitar, I suppose it’s a quite heavy instrument for a girl of her size. Yui’s guitar is the Les Paul Standard Sunburst made by Gibson, they did a very good job in recreating the details of this popular guitar model, the plastic has a nice polished wooden look, the turning knobs are on the right placed and also the belt around Yui’s shoulder looks cool.
Yui has a wild waving hairstyle with several detailed strands and her 2 yellow clasps. There are also some shading effects which have been rarely used on the rest of this figure. They gave her face a nice open mouth and some cute blushmarks and nice eyes, overall she resembles Yui very well, maybe her eyes appear a bit too big in comparison with her face, what do you think?
The reason why I have ordered this figure adaption and not one of the other Yui’s is mainly based on this cool looking pose and partly based on my aversion to western styled private school uniforms, they are so plain and bourgeois. With the white HTT t-shirt her outfit has more credibility, now she really looks like a member of a band. Thats the spirit of Rock n’ Roll!
Well, Im ok with the skirt and her black pantyhose, since they accentuate her nice legs.
Also the sculpting of her dress with the detailed wrinkles on skirt and shirt is very well done. There are nearly no visible seamlines, also the simple paintjob looks clean and smooth.
Final Words
Yui is a premium prize figure and in terms of quality she’s actually a very good figure. At first I was a bit dissapointed because of her big size, but after the shooting and some days on my desk, she grow on me a bit more.
Well, you can clearly see where Sega cut the budget for prize figure Yui, aside from the hair this figure has no shading and the good sculpted guitar has no strings, nevertheless it’s remarkable, that a prize figure comes with such a good quality. Well for the price I’ve paid I would had expected a decent figure, but when you’ve just paid 1500 Yen this is more than a very good deal.
Persocom
Sounds like a great deal indeed. I don’t buy prize figures but have considered several times, the price is tempting and I’m not so much worried about quality, but running out of space to place figures XD Yui looks good especially next to Mugi there. I like the choice of clothing she has as well, I should really look into getting a prize figure or two some time, and I’ll keep Mandarake in mind for them ^^ I’ve only bought Busou Shinki figures there so far.
wieselhead
Well I still prefer the full price figures, but in case there is a prize figure with a special outfit, pose or a very cute appearance I would give Sega or Banpresto a second try. Their quality seems to be better than in the past. I somehow running into a little space problem as well, but I don’t want to stop collecting figures for the time being.
Bakayaro
Ich liebe diese Pose von Yui :3
Also ich finde für eine Prize Figur, sieht diese eigentlich sehr gelungen aus. Obs nun an der Figur liegt – die du übrigens wunderbar in Szene gesetzt hast – oder einfach an deinen tollen Fotos, weiß ich noch nicht. ^^ Aber wenn ich sie mir so anschau möchte ich sie irgendwie haben. Aufjedenfall ein schönes Review mit schönen Fotos. Die Hintergründe gefallen mir besonders gut.
P.S. Habe dich mal zur Blogroll hinzugefügt… warum habe ich das eigentlich nicht schon früher getan? ^^”
wieselhead
Hallo danke fürs vorbeischauen ^^
Ja eine sehr schöne Pose, nicht wahr. Dankeschön, hab das setup diesmal ein wenig einfacher gehalten als sonst.
Yui ist jetzt keine must have Figur, aber ich wollte sie doch sehr gerne haben. Bis auf das sie deutlich größer ausgefallen ist,als ich erwartet habe ist das schon eine ordentliche Figur.
Ah dankeschön, naja ein englischsprachiger Blog von einem aus D ist vielleicht für den ein oder anderen etwas seltsam ;D So kann ich neben reviews schreiben noch mein english aufpolieren^^
feal87
Yep, definitely a great deal as for that price you won’t get anything normally…:P
wieselhead
Haha thats true, she’s more than you would expect 😉
fabricerequin
I didnt know such figure was released. Pretty decent i must admit, Normally i would go on the (safer) side with mostly the renown companies but this one really is interesting.
To wrap it up, this picture:
http://wieselhead.de/wp-content/gallery/yui-hirasawa-windmill/yui-windmill-01.jpg
Has in fact made it ten times better and prefer it more that way than when shown in front, not that i dont like it but it suits it well, if only you had a background of the audience in a concert type scene looking and cheering up to Yui.
Thw picture is nevertheless brilliantly taken.
Another i must mention are the colors, what a great blend to the figure! nothing really i can say negative, kuddos to the painter ^^
wieselhead
I wanted to give Sega and their Yui a try and Iam nearly pleased with the way she turned out. Theres still a gap between normal figure manufacturers and merchandise machines like Sega or Banpresto with their prize figures. The sculpting of her is quite good, but without shading on her clothes, she appears a bit plain.
I tried this effect with the Miku lat type figure via photoshop crowd, but it turned out to look very strange, so I gave up on it.
Maybe it works better with a black cardboard crowd. thx a lot, Fabrice dark purple goes very well with this Yui figure.
BioToxic
This Yui is certainly a change from the usual K-ON figures out there. I’ve become a bit tired seeing the same uniform on different characters so it’s nice to see something different. It’s nothing too flashy either, just a plain T-shirt and I’d say it looks great. It looks really good from behind – the way the guitar strap appears to be creasing the shirt.
Her facial expression looks a little lacking though. It doesn’t seem to match up with her body language. She looks more confused than anything, to me anyway. As you say she’s probably one of those figures that grows on you over time in that respect.
I’m liking the purple fabric you used. Plus the added sparkle effect is a nice touch.
wieselhead
Her outfit looks cooler with the t-shirt I think. western school uniform just don’t look very good in general ^^
Yeah it is a bit I would say her face is nice, but when getting closer the eyes seem to be a bit off.
Thank you, its a good fabric for creating a dark setting, the sparkles were created with a brush set in photoshop.
Aya
wow don’t looks like prize item at first, surprisingly she looks very good 😀
wieselhead
Yeah she’s nice, but I guess I will sell her soon
Miette-chan
Indeed, prize figures are surely looking much better than I expected. Makes me want to give some Sega prize figures a go too. Banpresto also catches my eyes with some of their prize figures.
I like this figure, so full of motion, I like the nice details like Yui’s wild hair, how her body bends to accommodate her silly windmill move.
I think I like the picture of Yui playing in front of the speaker the best out of this set, quite nice.
This is quite a nice figure from Sega, much bigger than I expected too.
wieselhead
She turned out quite nice and yeah Banpresto looks good as well.
I like what they did with their latest Asuka and Fate figures, but I guess
I will rather stay with the figures of Companies like Orchid Seed, Alter, Max Factory and so on.
somehow I don’t like this “cheap” merchandise flair of these figure, lol that was harsh 😀
thx a lot
I would have preferred her smaller ^^
tanohsimini
Great review and great pictures as always. Not so fond of the purple background though^^” but loved the one with the lights.
If what you said was right regarding what they wanted to remake her as that person, that would be wow^^”
Definitely a great figure but the price for it was a bit steep; despite you being able to get it cheaper. bad luck^^”
Sega has definitely done well, especially with the quality of prize figures
image 2 and 14 are my favourites!
wieselhead
thx a lot, matty
The purple cloth is nice for dark pictures, in brighter pictures it looks a bit weird.
Yeah that would have been quite cool, there weren’t many rockstars who used that pose.
Haha yeah really bad luck, but I guess I wouldn’t have liked her more if I paid less.
Sevie
Für eine Sega-Figur sieht sie wirklich gut aus ^^
Wahrscheinlich würde ich mich dennoch nicht dazu bewegen lassen, eine Sega Figur zu kaufen xD Dafür gibt es einfach zu viele “richtige” Figuren, die ich noch will :3
Deine Fotos sind natürlich wie immer super geworden : D
Die 12 gefällt mir besonders gut ^_^
wieselhead
Ja ist schon recht gut was die abgeliefert haben. Haha, ja deinen Punkt verstehe ich, mir sagen die “Marken” Figuren auch eher zu ^^
Dankeschön, Sevie
Zai
She’s cute! I agree about the K-On school uniform being a bit boring.. it reminds me of what I used to have to wear to school, bleh.
I don’t have any Sega prize figures but I have a couple of Banpresto ones now, I was surprised by the quality of them and it looks like Sega ones might be just as lovely. I think 1/7 is a bit big for me though.. unless the figure is really detailed.
My favourite photo is the one with Mugi in it, the shiny bokeh looks really cool~
Thank you for the review and I hope you find a good home for her! ^^
wieselhead
oh you had a school uniform, haha 😀
Both companies have made some good figures lately. Oh you hit the point here, I wouldn’t really mind the bigger size, when the figure has a lot of details. Well, Yui is nicely sculpted, but she’s not very detailed.
thx for your praise ^-^
exilehero
Wow, I think you really nailed the concert feel with this one. Very nice.
Kind of unexpected, but I never thought that prize figures would be this nice. I see what you mean about the lack of details but I can’t help to think that her pose and clean paint job make up for it.
I’ve seen quite a bit of prize figures that I say “hey that looks really nice, too bad it’s a prize figure so it’s probably not very good”. I think I might just look into some prize figures.
wieselhead
Thank you very much that was my intention ^_^
the weak light form the side accentuated Yui’s outline very well.
Only the crowd is missing <-<
I also thought so in the past "eww don't come closer prize figures"
But some seem to be very nice.
Yui is a bit less detailed than my other figures,
albeit the pose and the sculpting are very well done.
Xine
Yui looks good and for 1500 yen, I think it’s really a great deal.
I like the dynamic pose and crease detail on her shirt. Nice photos! ^^
wieselhead
For the ones who got her for 1500 it was a great deal for sure 😀
Yeah really good sculpting on this figure. thank you, Xine
Nopy
I’ve noticed that prize figures have been getting better in terms of quality over the last few years. I guess it’s to compete with the more expensive quality figures with a decent and cheaper alternative. I’m impressed with the details on Yui’s guitar, that’s something I would expect to see on a more expensive figure.
wieselhead
They keep getting better, not only Sega, Banpresto also increased their quality, their Nunnally
looks great 🙂 It’s a great looking guitar, only the strings are missing 😀
Hoshiko
She looks so cute here. I like your pictures, by the way, especially the ones with sparkly background.
wieselhead
Yui is a cute figure the wild hair together with her pose is such a good combination.
Thank you ^^
Cherlyn
thanks, just what I needed to finish ny paper