Native has recently been busying themselves with rolling out new figures for preorders. Undoubtedly the most anticipated is Olga Discordia, and for obvious reasons, but another dark-skinned girl has become available, and that’s Homare’s Ade-Sugata II. That name implies that there was an Ade-Sugata I, and of course there was, and that’s who we’re looking at here. Ade-Sugata isn’t an actual name; rather, it means something like “charming body” or “alluring figure” or somesuch. That this character has no name is going to make it harder to talk about this figure, but we’ll make do as best we can.

This figure is based off of artwork by Mibu Natsuki. She’s a prolific doujin artist, having created a number of books under the circle name LilyLilyRose, and she’s perhaps best known to the mainstream audience for designing and illustrating Ymir from the Queen’s Blade series.

Miss Charming Body is manufactured by magicbullet(s) – that is apparently the way that they spell their name – and distributed by Native. This figure is sculpted in 1/7 scale and stands approximately 24 centimeters in height. magicbullet(s) appears to be a label of the Kalmia Project, which has produced a few figures that I already own, including Kotori Takigawa, Kirie Kagarino, and the unnamed White Elf girl. Judging by the product descriptions of the available figures, the Ade-Sugata line comprises nice-looking girls who give in to their innermost lusts, the foremost of which appears to be a desire to get tied up.

That’s rather obvious here, as we have an East Asian-looking girl (aside from the blue eyes) lifting up her dress to reveal her body wrapped up in rope bondage. She’s also wearing a red collar, further establishing the masochistic theme of this figure.

Let’s talk about the face, which to me looks fine from a normal viewing distance, but then appears a bit unusual as you look closer. Mibu Natsuki has a distinctive and recognizable style, but it’s not too unusual, and the strange layout of the face seems to be more of a reflection of the sculptor’s choices rather than of the source material. Her eyes are set wide apart, and her nose is almost vestigial.

The oddness of the shape of her face is perhaps most apparent from the side. I don’t think her face looks bad, mind you; it’s just a bit unconventional. As with most figures that are sitting down or leaning against something, there’s only a limited range of viewing angles that work well, and I don’t think she’s really meant to be viewed in profile.

One of the ropes crossing over her stomach doesn’t actually connect with anything, which strikes me as being rather lazy.

That said, you can actually remove that entire part of her body in favor of this part, which includes a large vibrator shoved up into her vagina. It actually comes that way from the factory (sparing the owner from the pleasure or indignity of having to insert it oneself) and while I’m not certain if it’s removable, I think it is, as a spare vibrator is provided in the package. I rather prefer this display mode as it sidesteps the problem of that rope just mysteriously ending on her abdomen and reinforces the submissive nature of her pose.

Incidentally, paint transfer is a significant issue when separating her upper and lower body; the purple paint of her dress smears all over the backs of her legs. People who are OCD about this might want to place a sheet of plastic behind her legs to mitigate this problem before swapping out her body parts.

I really like her combat boots; they seem wildly inappropriate for her traditional costume but I think that’s part of their charm. I do feel like the heels should be a little longer, though.

Going back to her head, the color of her hair transitions from black to sort of a mauve color. I think it’s an interesting touch, though again, this seems to be an affectation from the manufacturer; the illustration shows her with only black hair.

Even without the vibrator, she still looks great. Her body shape is very pleasing, with a slender build and with enough detailing around her genitals to make it obvious that they are there. It’s interesting – and perhaps a bit puerile – to note how the various manufacturers that fall under the Native umbrella have different thresholds as to the level of explicit detail they commit to their products.

I should note that there’s one more display option that I forgot to photograph; there’s an extra set of panties that can be placed below the vibrator, as if they are stretched out and holding it in. You can go look at the official product photos if you are curious about how that looks. There’s also this display option here, where her hips are covered up by these panties. I’d imagine this mode will be the least popular of all the possible choices.

I really like this figure, even with its quirky facial design. Miss Ade-Sugata has a very fine body, and the bondage theme is particularly attractive. I like the way she looks not completely pleased with her circumstances, but not upset with what’s happening to her as well. With respect to what they set out to do – create figures of innocent-looking girls giving in to bondage – magicbullet(s) has done a very nice job, and this is yet another solid figure in Native’s lineup.

Incidentally, there’s another figure of this same character in the works; it’s titled Ade-Sugata Rei. Rei of course means “zero”, so apparently we are going backwards in numbering.

All of my figure preorders scheduled to ship in August have been delayed, except for the big-ass, half-meter tall statue of Taki from Soul Calibur; a strange turn of luck, that, being that was the one preorder that I was sure would get pushed way back, as often happens with big-ass statues. I’m not sure whether I will review it, anyway; therefore, we’ll spend the next month going through the backlog and looking at some older figures. First up is Cecilia Alcott, the British girl and love interest from Infinite Stratos. We looked at her castmate Houki quite a while back, and with FREEing rolling out bunnygirl after bunnygirl, I think it’s worthwhile to talk about their products in general, in case anyone who doesn’t own one was interested in picking one up, such as their upcoming Kurisu Makise.

First, a bit of background: Cecilia is one of the principal characters from Infinite Stratos. She’s one of the first girls we see in the anime adaptation, where she’s initially dismissive of lead boy Ichika Orimura. However, as is often the case in this sort of show, she succumbs to his masculine wiles after they tumble together in some sort of head-to-head competition (my memory is hazy on the details).

She kind of fades from the main storyline after that, as Charlotte Dunois and Laura Bodewig overshadow the remainder of the cast, but we did get this pose early on in the show, which was perhaps the highlight of the entire series (another part I liked was Laura declaring that she’d make Ichika her wife).

This figure is manufactured by FREEing and is sculpted in 1/4 scale, standing about 39 centimeters tall at the top of her head and 46 centimeters in overall height. As with most of FREEing’s bunnygirls, no accessories are provided and assembly requires nothing more than fitting some standoffs to the bottom of her feet to ensure that she’ll stay affixed to the base.

As mentioned, FREEing’s bunnygirls are almost unvaryingly of uniform concept and design, and Cecilia is no exception to this dictum. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – I happen to like this product line a lot, and so Cecilia’s appearance is essentially what I expected it to be.

Well, except for the appearance of her lower left leg, which seems to have a dark stain below the knee. I’m not sure if the pantyhose caused that or not; I’ve never seen that on any of my other figures, but that would be the logical explanation. It’s fairly disconcerting but the tights obscures the blotch to a certain degree.

Perhaps the most obvious facet of the bunnygirls are their outfits, which always comprise a high-cut leotard, fishnet pantyhose (their quasi re-release of Eleonora Viltaria sans tights is a peculiar exception), high-heeled pumps, wrist cuffs and collar, and bunny ears. The color of the leotard typically matches the character’s usual outfit, and so Cecilia wears a blue suit. The outfit is, of course, meant to emphasize the character’s sex appeal, and it does precisely that.

Not so obvious in photographs but quite impressive in person are the size of these figures. Not a lot of companies make 1/4 scale anime figures, and so FREEing’s bunnygirls appear colossal in stature. Their size makes their physiques more apparent; the exaggerated length of their legs is prominent, as is the broadness of their hips and, on those characters with fuller endowments, the size of their breasts. None of these things are bad but it can give one an odd impression of these figures; for example, I sometimes feel like the bodies of these figures are designed separately and when FREEing decides to put a character in their bunnygirl lineup, they just sculpt a head and find a body to slap it on. I’m sure they don’t do that but there is sometimes a disconnect because they’ve made figures of so many characters with a singularly consistent body build, with the occasional smaller chest for younger or less buxom characters.

That said, I don’t recall that Cecilia got many figures at all; I can remember this one, an earlier bunnygirl figure that had her on her knees, and I think there was one more of dubious quality that had her dressed in her underwear. Further, Cecilia’s appearance in the anime has generally portrayed her as tall and willowy, so her adaptation here by FREEing isn’t much of a departure from her actual look. She’s got a lovely body, gigantic hair with several locks corkscrewing downwards, and a big, somewhat goofy-looking grin. As is usual with the bunny figures, the face tends to be less detailed than what one might hope for in a figure this large; Cecilia’s face is rather flat and featureless, as is common with these figures. Hash marks under her eyes are supposed to represent a blush but otherwise, her skin tone is fairly even.

But really, the outfit is the main draw of these figures, unless you’re like me and prefer giant figures to smaller ones. The outfit looks great; glossy and tight-fitting, yet loose enough at the top to tantalize the imagination. The tights are made of real fishnet material, and she’s got this appealing thigh gap.

Here are those mile-long legs.

They’re also quite heavy due to their size, which can lead to leaning concerns. I haven’t had one fall over yet, however; my figure of Nanoha appears to be leaning but she was doing so from when I first put her on her base, so I’m not too concerned that she or any of my other bunnygirls will fall over, despite their heft.

FREEing’s bunnygirls generally also have more curvature to their backsides than many figures, which is certainly a nice touch.

FREEing’s bunnygirls are of generally uniform design, and so Cecilia is by definition a good example of what they look like, aside from that odd stain on her leg. She’s tall, sexy, and looks great in her leotard. The lack of detailing is unfortunate, particularly at this size, since everything becomes more apparent when the figure is scaled up, but I think the attractive outfit compensates for that deficiency. I’m definitely happy to have Cecilia and I look forward to getting more of their bunnygirls; indeed, I still have four more (Yui and Mikan from To Love-Ru and another Yui and Ilfriede, the Muv-Luv girls) that still need reviews.

Daiki Kougyou’s figure of Noel Marres Ascot went up for preorder last week, fully half a decade after their Celia Cumani Aintree figure was released. Let’s take a look today at the hotheaded and aristocratic Bertille Althusser, the third figure to be released, way back in September of 2015.

While not a main character – or even a romantic option, at least not until the fandisc Walkure Romanze More & More was released – Bertille is the catalyst for the events in the game and its anime adaptation. Early in the story, an unfortunate incident between her and Mio Kisaki results in Bertille demanding satisfaction in the form of a joust, and that leads to all sorts of hijinks involving Takahiro Mizuno, the game’s protagonist. Bertille then steps out of the story for a while, but she apparently gets her own love route in the aforementioned fandisc, and she even gains a rival in the form of transfer student Alice Weinberg, who appears to be just as crazy as Bertille is.

I enjoyed the TV anime of Walkure Romanze quite a bit, and I’m a bit sad that no United States company has licensed it for distribution in North America. It was a pretty silly show but the girls were likeable, the protagonist was a decent guy (if completely devoid of personality, which is pro forma in romantic visual novel adaptations), and the character designs were quite appealing. I suppose the other thing I’m sad about is that it has never gotten a hentai anime OVA adaptation like its predecessor series Princess Lover! did.

This figure is manufactured by Daiki Kougyou; it is sculpted in 1/6 scale and stands about 29 centimeters in height, or an even 30 centimeters with the base. Bertille’s sculptor is Toshirou, a long-time veteran of the industry who has sculpted a number of figures I own, including the aforementioned Celia and gangsta lean Saber, whom I hope to finally review soon, being that FREEing is rolling out their own 1/4 scale Saber and I feel like I ought to review the original. No accessories are provided and the base, as is typical with Daiki Kougyou figures, is a plain black circle.

When I reviewed Celia, one of the things I wasn’t too thrilled about was the figure’s body build, which took great liberties with her design. That is, she was a good deal thicker than she actually is. That doesn’t bother me as much now, and being that Q-Six is rolling out their own Walkure Romanze figures that are much in the same vein as Daiki Kougyou’s but with slimmer proportions, I feel like I can enjoy these figures for what they are. Bertille does have a fairly plump look here, with prodigious curves, very broad hips, wide thighs and exceptional breasts. It’s a good look overall, I think, and I’m interested to see how Q-Six’s Bertille compares, being that she’s scheduled for release later this month.

Bertille – and all of Daiki Kougyou’s Walkure Romanze figures – is wearing some sexy bikini armor, which is quite literal in its implementation. Unfortunately, the bikini looks pretty terrible; it doesn’t fit well, and the thong is actually just a flap that covers up the top of the cleft of her ass. That at least makes it easy to remove; no instructions are provided but if anyone should happen to be interested in buying Bertille, her top detaches on the bottom of the right cup and her bikini detaches on the left side of the top of her thong back.

Instead, Bertille looks a good bit better wearing just her thigh-high greaves, gauntlets and pauldrons. Bertille is a fancy girl from a wealthy family and thus her armor is quite distinctive; it is colored in sort of a rose gold tone with silver accents and filigree. The detailing is astonishing, from the wings on her shoulders to the flower ornamentation on her legs. Obviously the main highlight here is her naked body but the armor is equally as pleasing to look at.

As a girl with a patrician complex, it’s only fitting that her hair is magnificently ornate. She’s got corkscrews framing her face, a French braid encircling her head, a big bun, two ahoge poking up and back and more tendrils of hair projecting from her nape.

Speaking of the nudity, Bertille’s vagina is sculpted but there’s not a great deal of detail there. Obviously this figure is three years old and SkyTube has set the bar quite high in terms of explicitness, but this is still a little disappointing. I am curious to see what Q-Six’s Bertille looks like in this regard.

Bertille has a pretty face which doesn’t particularly reflect her excitable nature, but she looks good anyway. She’s know to be well-endowed but her breasts are quite a bit larger here than they are shown to be in the source material.

Going back to the armor, even the plating over her fingers is detailed. It’s truly impressive.

As is her thickness.

I picked up this figure a year after its release from Mandarake, being that I wasn’t sure how much I liked the curvier style presented here. I like it quite a bit now; this figure of Bertille is very sexy and extremely well executed, particularly with respect to the armor and the hair. I’m a big fan of the theme espoused here – that is, nearly-naked girls in plate armor – and I’m happy that there are so many figures that revolve around this concept, with Bertille being no exception. I wonder if Lisa will ever get a figure, though?

After looking at Bertille a few days ago, we’ll continue our examination of Daiki Kougyou’s Walkure Romanze figures by taking a look at Ayako, the elder girl of the series. This figure was released in July of 2017, after Celia, Mio, Bertille, and Akane, making her the most recent of Daiki’s lineup to be released. She was an odd candidate to receive a figure adaptation, being that she was very much an ancillary character in the original visual novel and anime, and lead girls Noel and Lisa hadn’t yet gotten figures (Noel will be getting a figure version early next year, whereas apparently nobody loves Lisa). That said, she actually got another figure, sold on Native’s store, which came out just the other week; that one is pretty lewd, with her having her ass way up in the air. I didn’t buy it, unfortunately, so this one will have to suffice.

Ayako is the school nurse of the institution attended by the series’ characters; as such, and being the oldest girl in the game, she naturally has the largest breasts, as is the convention in visual novels and anime. She’s also a former knight, which is why she is wearing armor here, and she runs a cafe called Tart Time, which serves as a hangout for the younger characters. She’s also the cousin of the protagonist Takahiro Mizuno and serves as a romantic option in Walkure Romanze Re:tell, making their relationship quite incestuous.

This figure is manufactured by Daiki Kougyou in 1/6 scale, as are all of the figures in this line. Ayako is about 28.5 centimeters in height. The sculptor is Toshirou, the same guy who designed Celia and Bertille, and thus she is thus thickly built in terms of body physique, which is certainly a high point of this figure for those who like that sort of thing.

Toshirou’s style has its own idiosyncrasies, meaning that his figures are often not all that faithful to the original source material. That’s the case here, being that you probably couldn’t tell that this character comes from Komori Kei’s illustrations (whereas the BINDing figure sold by Native is easily discernible as being from his work). I don’t think her face looks quite as pretty as Celia’s or Bertille’s, though her little smile is still cute.

Like pretty much every figure in this series, the swimsuit looks bad; it doesn’t fit well, with the gaps between clothing and skin being absurdly obvious. The thong doesn’t actually run between her legs, which doesn’t look great but does make it easy to remove, which is what I recommend doing.

Ayako is stoutly built in this adaptation but her thickness is a little less conspicuous here than with Celia or Bertille due to the sinuous curve of her body. On her own, I think her pose looks a little awkward just because the way she’s leaning looks a bit unnatural, but with one or more of the other Daiki figures I think her pose looks more fitting; the other girls have more relaxed stances and I think her showy pose contrasts well against them.

When she’s wearing her swimsuit, her left hand is meant to tugging her waistband away frmo her body in a flirty manner; when she’s nude, obviously her hand isn’t pulling anything, but her fingers look like they’re making a hang-ten gesture, which I think is cute.

Her posture also provides a contrast to her armor, which is noticeably less ornate than Celia’s or Bertille’s. It’s not entirely plain, as it has some nice gold trim and overlapping shells on some part (I think her shoulder armor looks sort of like a trilobyte). However, the detail is far less noticeable than it is with Bertille’s. I suppose that makes some sense as Ayako doesn’t have nearly as flashy a personality as Bertille.

As expected, Ayako’s breasts are the largest of all the Walkure Romanze figures produced by Daiki. I don’t recall that that’s the case in the game’s graphics, but the size of her bust is noticeably larger when the figures are placed together. That’s not unusual and thus aficionados of larger bust sizes will find much to be happy about here.

Some of Daiki Kougyou’s figures feature a yellow tint to their skin tone; Celia and Bertille certainly do. Akane has a noticeably paler skin tone that looks a little more natural.

One smaller note: at least on my figure, the heel of her right foot didn’t seem to quite contact the base, which meant she wobbled a lot. I didn’t feel too comfortable about that, since that might lead to her falling over and snapping the base pegs, so I stuck a small ball of adhesive putty under her heel to stabilize her. It’s not really an elegant solution but it does keep her stable.

This is a pretty nice figure that looks quite nice in the company of Daiki’s Walkure Romanze girls. I don’t think she looks quite as appealing alone, nor does she look as good as her peers, though the combination of plate armor and nude body is still pretty attractive, I think. She’s a good pickup for anyone who likes this sort of theme, or who is collecting figures of the girls from this series.

Occasionally we look at a statue meant for the American audience, and today we’ll do just that. Being that summer is just about over, we’ll examine a nice-looking girl in a bikini: Aspen Matthews from Top Cow and Aspen Comics.

Aspen Matthews is the central character of the comic book series Fathom. Created by the late (and much lamented) Michael Turner – who also created Witchblade, which starred Sara Pezzini and Masane Amaha – it focuses on a young girl with extraordinary abiliites to control water. She can also turn parts of her body into water, which features prominently in the structure of this statue.

Aspen is manufactured by Sideshow Collectibles as part of their Premium Format line. This means that she’s 1/4 scale, standing an impressive 54 centimeters in height, including the base. The version we’re looking at here is the exclusive version, which has a swap-out right arm.

One unfortunately common issue with statues like this is that sometimes, the character’s face isn’t particularly attractive. For example, Sideshow’s upcoming Psylocke statue – a statue that I was very much looking forward to – looks sort of like a space alien, or a woman who swung for the fences on cosmetic surgery. (I think they tried to make her look Asian or something, but I’m Japanese-Korean and I lived in Seoul for ten years; I can attest that I’ve never seen an Asian person that looked like that.) Aspen, however, is very pretty; some observers have compared her looks to Adriana Lima, which I think is both reasonable and approbatory. She has striking blue eyes, large lips, and an enigmatic expression which looks considerably better than the factitiously aggressive expressions on Sideshow’s upcoming X-Men figures.

Aspen is wearing a fairly revealing bikini, cut high on her hips and showing a lot of underboob. Her bikini has a thong back so if you turn her around, you can see just how nice her ass looks. Unfortunately the paintwork of her thong doesn’t quite go all the way between her legs but I suppose that’s not too unusual.

She’s also obviously wearing a great deal of pale gray growths which I suppose are coral or shells or bone. Regardless, it all adds a great deal more visual interest, as if a pretty girl in a bikini weren’t visually interesting enough.

The base, comprising an assortment of tendrils of water spiraling around Aspen, is impressive in its own right. They are made out of clear resin and feature a color that graduates from clear to blue towards the bottom. Normally I’m not a big fan of these sorts of special effects done in figures or statues as they often look unconvincingly cheesy but here, the result is astonishing. I’m also happy that the water splashes are concentrated on the figure’s left side, which complements the Witchblade statue that I have, as that figure’s tendrils spiral her right leg.

The musculature of the statue is also quite appealing. Aspen’s body build is feminine but obviously physically fit, which looks great.

One very cool aspect of this statue that might not be obvious at first glance is that her legs transition from flesh to water. Like the materials that compose the base, the effect is quite dramatic.

The optional item packaged with the exclusive edition is this right arm, which is also meant to simulate water. I like it but I prefer the regular arm instead, not because I dislike the water effect, but because I think the regular arm makes for a more appealing pose. I like how Aspen looks with her arms turned outwards with palms up; the position of her optional arm disrupts the symmetry of her original pose and doesn’t look quite as nice to me.

I think that this is an incredible statue, one of the best female statues that Sideshow has ever produced. She has an undeniably sexy look, a strong and dignified pose, and all aspects of the sculpt are top notch. The water effects are impeccably executed, which surprised me, as they aren’t easy to pull off. Overall, I think this is the best figure or statue I’ve received this year and one of the best in my collection. Would that Sideshow could do this well on all of their products.

It’s a big month for figure releases but I’m still waiting for my Hobby Search box to arrive, so today we’ll look at an older figure: SkyTube’s Ai Saeki. This figure came out in Feburary of this year and it is, oddly enough, the third figure of Ai Saeki that Alphamax has produced; meanwhile, it appears that the twintailed tsundere Mio Sugiyama and the petite teacher Rika Hayama will get no love from figure makers. Indeed, Alphamax has a second version of this figure in the works, where Ai is wearing a black veil and underwear. I imagine this figure and the upcoming version will otherwise be the same.

This figure is manufactured by Alphamax via their SkyTube imprint in 1/6 scale. It measures about 12 centimeters in height with a base width of around 24 centimeters. A large variety of optional parts is included: a swappable left arm, a different face, a veil, an extra set of hips, and a second pair of panties. This offers a variety of display options but I’m mostly interested in the most pornographic mode, and that’s mainly what we’ll be focusing on here.

Perhaps two things are most eye-catching at first glance. The first is her outfit, which comprises a wedding dress hiked up in the lewdest manner possible. Bridal outfits have been a popular thing in figures as of late, but rarely do they look as sexy as Ai does here.

The other thing is her pose, where Ai is leaning back with her legs spread wide. This isn’t an uncommon pose for figures, but again, rarely do they look as erotic as this.

Particularly since Ai is depicted as pleasuring herself here with two fingers. It’s a very nice touch that elevates the sexiness of this figure. It can be a little tricky to get her fingers properly positioned inside her vagina; one has to put a bit of pressure on her arm to get her hand placed correctly. Indeed, that’s a thematic problem with this figure; the various swappable parts don’t fit quite as well as one might hope. At least with my figure, there are some noticeable gaps under her breasts where her torso detaches and around her thighs, where her legs can be removed.

Maybe the most annoying example of this issue concerns her garters; each garter strap slots into a hole in her upper thigh but they do not stay in place all that well. I’m not sure why they chose to design her garters this way; they don’t even seem to connect to her stockings, which just looks bizarre.

You get two different faces, one with the typical wide-eyed Tony Taka look and the other depicting Ai as being in the throes of orgasm. Both faces look pretty nice; I’m not sure which I like better but I think I’m going to use the standard face, just because I like the juxtaposition of her wearing such an innocent expression while masturbating. Incidentally, the ragged, chopped-off bangs remind me a bit of Nadeko Sengoku from the Bakemonogatari series and I think one could be forgiven for wondering if this is her all grown-up.

You also get two different sets of panties, one that fits close to her skin and one with a little more room in front; the first is meant to have her hand in front, covering her crotch, and the second is meant to have her hand thrust into her underwear. I did not take any photographs of the second set.

She also comes with this veil, which is topped with a crown made of little butterflies. It’s pretty cute but again, it doesn’t fit all that well on her head.

I think that this is a pretty good figure with a few annoying issues regarding fit. Ai looks very sexy, and there aren’t a ton of figures that depict sexual penetration, so that’s a plus in this figure’s favor. Perhaps one downside, aside from the gaps between parts, is that the pose really only works with one viewing angle, which I think makes this figure a little less interesting – though then again, it’s a figure of a girl pleasuring herself, and that’s interesting in and of itself. Overall, it’s a very nice hentai-themed figure, just as one would expect from SkyTube.

Between some unexpectedly time-consuming work obligations and a two-week encounter with bronchitis, this month has been a total bust as far as personal productivity is concerned. That said, I try to do at least one post per month, and luckily I’ve had these photos of Alphamax’s Renge stashed away for a few months, waiting for a length of time where I couldn’t do a normal post. Normally I’d have my five favorite figures post ready to go on this day but that’ll have to wait a couple more days, particularly since I am not sure which figures out to take the fourth and fifth spots (the top three have been locked up since summer). In the meantime, we’ll take a quick look at an older figure that I still quite like.

Renge was manufactured by Alphamax in 1/6 scale; she stands about 26 centimeters in height to the top of her head, though she’s a bit taller overall due to the size of her base and her wings. Dimensionally, she fits in fairly well with Kotobukiya’s Daisy, Annabel, and Freesia, and so people who own and like the earlier figures ought to be pleased with this one.

While the Kotobukiya fairy girls wore outfits that were composed of colorful lingerie, Renge’s clothing goes for a Japanese motif, with a red and white miko color scheme and a very wide sash, itself featuring a butterfly-shaped ribbon. Her attire is no less skimpy than the the Kotobukiya girls, however, being that it comprises a high-cut leotard and a couple of detached sleeves.

Renge’s face is readily identifiable as quintessential Tony. The color of her hair and eyes are a striking periwinkle blue that contrasts quite nicely with the red, white, and gold tones of her outfit.

Her happy expression complements Daisy’s joyous look very nicely. If one did not know the provenance of these figures, one could be excused from thinking that they were from the same manufacturer.

The figures do show a number of differences in detail, though. The obligatory comparison of backsides shows that Renge’s leotard is quite a bit more revealing than Daisy’s panties. Another difference can be seen in the design of their wings; Daisy’s wings are reminiscent of stained glass while Renge’s wings seem less elaborate, albeit much larger. A third discrepancy is that Renge doesn’t have the antennae that the Kotobukiya figures possess.

Perhaps a more obvious difference is that Renge is bare-legged aside from a fairly uncomfortable-looking rope wrapped around her left thigh.

I don’t particularly care for the bases on the Kotobukiya figures, and I don’t really like Renge’s base either. It mimics the dome shape of the other fairy girls but is colored a garish transparent pink, which I don’t think looks all that great.

But otherwise, I think this is a very nice figure, particularly being that I bought it out of the bargain bin – one of the few times I’ve avoided paying full price for something, since I usually preorder the figures that I purchase. I’m a fan of Tony Taka figures, I’m a fan of scantily-clad fairy girls, and I’m a fan of 1/6 scale figures; put all of those things together and I’m likely to be very happy with the result. Hopefully the upcoming Native fairy girl is of similar size.

The series Gantz is experiencing a somewhat unexpected revival, not with respect to its original manga or anime adaptation but rather at the hands of figure and statue companies. Union Creative released two figures of Reika Shimohira a couple of years ago – one dressed in a black bodysuit and the other wearing a much more abbreviated version of that outfit – and FREEing is due to release their 1/4 scale version of Reika in a bunnysuit soon. In addition, the Japanese statue company Prime 1 Studio will be producing two versions of Reika, one called the Black Version and the other called the White Version, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who glances at each statue. And then we have this figure here, which came out late last year, if I recall correctly. This figure is the counterpart to Union Creative’s Reika, as she and Anzu seem fated to be paired together forever.

I must admit I don’t really know much about Reika or Anzu, given that my familiarity with Gantz stems from a cursory glance at the TV anime that aired in 2004. The female star of that show was Kei Kishimoto, whom I do not believe has ever gotten a figure. Evidently Reika and Anzu are considered more attractive subjects by figure makers and I don’t suppose I’d disagree.

A perusal of the Gantz wiki reveals that Anzu is a 23-year old mother of a 3-year old son. She is also an artist – I’m told of erotic illustrations, though I do not know that for certain – and she later strikes up a romantic relationship with Masaru Kato, one of the main protagonists of the series.

This figure is manufactured by Union Creative. No scale factor is given – which is sort of silly – but being that she stands a bit over 24 centimeters in height, we can calculate that she’s sculpted in 1/7 scale. Her one accessory is a sword which fits into her left hand.

As with the earlier Reika figure, two versions of Anzu were created, one sheathed in a skin-tight Gantz suit and this one, which has much of the suit removed to reveal much more skin. This suit obviously will appeal to collectors who prefer a more lewd interpretation of the character design. Anzu’s pose emphasizes this point, as she’s turned to the side in an archetypical 1990s comic book pose, where her large breasts and ass are visible simultaneously.

While her outfit looks fantastic, I am more equivocal on whether I like Anzu’s face. Her broad grin looks a little strange to me; it’s a little too wide, a little too artificial-looking. I have the feeling that the sculptor was trying to give her a semi-realistic look and made her mouth a bit too large.

That said, I don’t think it detracts too badly from the figure as other aspects of Anzu’s design more than compensate.

Going back to her outfit – being that it’s the highlight of this figure – her futuristic thong leotard will surely appeal to collectors with a thing for sexy women in tight, shiny outfits. The contrast between the piano-black portions and matte panels of her costume are quite nice, and the way the straps of her suit are stretched above her body do a nice job in emphasizing the size of her chest.

Anzu comes with a big sword, finished in black as all of the equipment supplied to the Gantz characters seems to be. The base of the tip can be removed to facilitate fitting it into her left hand.

While Gantz is a series that incorporates principles of nihilism, of sacrifice, and of survival through strength, it also expresses the baser themes of violence and female sex appeal, and that latter aspect is on full display here. That’s not surprising, of course – Union Creative surely wants to sell figures, and a pretty anime girl with a sexy rack, an exposed backside and a big scary sword will definitely find an enthusiastic market. Personally, that’s all I’m looking for. Despite the one issue I have with the design of Anzu’s face, I really do like this figure; I think it’s a superb counterpart to their earlier version of Reika. Union Creative’s products tend to vary in quality and attractiveness but in my view, Anzu scores highly in both respects.

In the last couple of years, society in the United States has been riven by cultural and philosophical divides, with little hope of either compromise or reconciliation. But perhaps all sides can agree on one thing: there is nothing so quintessentially American as a school shooting, and on that note, we take a look at this figure, which depicts a heavily-armed high school girl ready to get down with some extracurricular warfare.

This figure is based off of a picture created by Fukai Ryousuke as part of an original series called ARMS NOTE. Joshi Kousei – simply “high school girl,” I think, as this character has not been given the courtesy of a proper name – was the first figure to be released in this series, but Magic Mould has plans for at least one more, and Max Factory also has a line of Figma toys representing this series.

Joshi Kousei is sculpted in 1/7 scale, measuring a shade over 23 centimeters tall. Being that I am now old, crotchety, and in possession of several hundred figures, I don’t particularly like it when a figure is difficult to set up, and Ms. High Schooler was indeed an appalling pain in the ass to assemble. To that end, there are also some parts missing from my figure thanks to both my clumsiness while attempting to put her together and the looseness of her torso section. She should have two grenades hanging from her backpack as well as knives attached to her lower leg shields, but they went skittering off when her body abruptly clattered in half while I was trying to figure out how to mount those knives, and I have yet to figure out where they flew off to. Too bad for me, but I wasn’t enjoying the process of getting her built so I do not regret the incompleteness of my figure.

I’m not sure if Magic Mould is a new company or if it’s just an imprint of Good Smile Company but that is who is credited with manufacturing this figure, at least judging by the box. They apparently have done only one other figure, which is from a series called “Heavily Armed High School Girls,” which suggests that this particular theme is one that they have a specific affinity for.

Ms. Bionic is dressed up in a fairly standard high school getup – a blazer and a pleated skirt, though I suppose the latter item’s abbreviated length might not conform to regulations. She’s also carrying a smartphone, which I suppose is still a weird thing for me; back when I was last in high school (a frightful twenty-two years ago now), bringing a device with the capabilities of a mobile device to class would have been unthinkable (my high school didn’t even let us wear hats). The handset, as best as I can tell, fits in between cheek and hand like sandwich filling, which lends no confidence as to the likelihood of it not falling away and becoming lost – a recurring issue with this figure.

She’s also got a peculiarly-shaped backpack, which looks like maybe it’s shaped to hold a large thermos. As mentioned there ought to be two grenades dangling off of it but I’ve only got the one now.

And she also has these interesting devices strapped to her legs, which I suppose is what lends her her moniker.

And of course, no heavily-armed high school girl would be caught dead without her gun. In this case, it appears to be some sort of bullpup assault weapon with a silencer, which are the terms I’m using since they drive certain gun nuts insane. I’m pretty sure that this gun is entirely fictional in design but I certainly could be wrong on that.

When this figure first went up for sale, I liked the design but I was hesitant to order it because of its massive price tag (close to 18,000 yen, as I recall, which was an exorbitant amount back in 2018 for a figure of this size but isn’t all that abnormal these days). However, this figure does have a feature which was not revealed by any of the publicity photographs – namely, that her skirt is removable. Why they chose not to highlight this quality, I have no idea. One would think that they would want to sell figures and that this sort of thing would only help them to do just that.

At any rate, with her skirt removed Ms. High Schooler looks even more silly, but who’s going to tell her that when she’s packing this kind of heat? Her panties are a curious green color and what’s even more interesting is that half of it is hooked into the cleft of her buttocks, clearly indicating that the designer put some careful thought into what sort of visual appeal he or she wanted this figure to convey.

Overall, I like this figure, but the massive price tag and the fitment issues are a bit off-putting. Nonetheless, she is very cute, particularly with the skirt removed.

And a note about the lack of posts in the last few months. I feel badly about the lack of content and I’m grateful to the people who inquired about my status but truth be told, there isn’t really an interesting reason for my long absence; rather, it’s almost entirely due to a combination of me playing World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, Azur Lane, and Epic Seven, often simultaneously. All of these games have a variety of daily maintenance tasks which really appeals to me, as someone who values both incremental progress as well as regimented routine (I’ve often said that if I had total control over my life, I would want every day to be just like the day before).

I was about to plead that I haven’t bought as many figures as I usually do, but looking at my receipts I’ve bought around thirty thus far this year, which seems like a lot, especially since I have been feeling that I’m not as into many of the figures that have gone up for preorder in recent times. Strangely, the ones that I think I am most interested in are FREEing’s bunnygirls, which is odd since I generally don’t like animal ears (real or fake) on anime girls, and they are all sort of generic-looking. Nonetheless, I want to buy a bunch.

I’ve recently been collecting polystone statues at a more enthusiastic clip, but I haven’t been photographing them since I don’t think they’re of as much interest to this site’s audience and given their large size, it’s a humongous nuisance to take pictures of them because my shooting space isn’t large enough for them. What I’m thinking I might do is to just take a few shots of them as I receive them and combine them into an aggregated post.

At any rate, I’ve actually had three photo sets ready to go (this being one of them) for the last couple of months, so hopefully reviews will resume on a somewhat typical schedule. Although it seems unseemly to write comment replies months after they were posted, I’m going to try to get all my replies done, as well.

It’s been well over a year since we looked at a FREEing bunnygirl, but I’ve purchased a bunch of them in that time – three Muv-Luv girls, two To-Love Ru girls, Lucifer, and Reika Shimohira, whom we are looking at here. Truth be told, they all tend to look more or less the same, so for the sake of minimizing unnecessarily repetitive redundancy, we’ll just quickly highlight the main points of this figure.

Reiko Shimohira is one of the central heroines of the manga, anime, and film series Gantz. Gantz has gone through something of a merchandising revival as of late, and I’m not entirely sure why. I’m certainly not complaining though, as Reika and Anzu Yamasaki are both visually pleasing characters.

This figure is manufactured by FREEing and measures about 42 centimeters in height. She comes with an instruction sheet to assist in setup, which is nice as it takes a little bit of work to get her gun placed in her right hand. She also comes with a useful metal stand to brace her body against, which I did not include in these photographs. It’s a nice inclusion as these figures are fairly heavy and as they invariably wear high heels, they tend to wobble a bit.

The Gantz franchise has experienced multiple incarnations and each version has had its own aesthetic in terms of character design. The television anime featured a fairly conventional style whereas the Gantz:O film used more realistic designs. This figure, however, appears to take its cues from the manga design by Gantz creator Hiroya Oku. Personally, it’s my least favorite design of the group, but I don’t think it looks all that bad. Reika has an intense but enigmatic look; it’s not clear what sort of emotion she is supposed to be conveying. She’s also got a very sharp, slightly masculine jawline, a bit reminiscent of some of the male characters from Final Fantasy.

Moving down, we see two of the better aspects of this figure – Reika’s gun and, of course, her body. The main heroines of Gantz have always tended towards a more generous endowment, and it’s well-modeled here, with Reika’s leotard barely succeeding in covering her up. Her bunnysuit is modeled after the bodysuits seen in the series, with small circular nodes placed along its surface. Two smaller caps are strategically placed at her crotch, which is a neat detail.

Here is Reika’s gun, which careful research indicates is called an X-shotgun. Oddly, it looks like she has two fingers extended to operate the trigger; I do not know if that is its typical method of operation.

The high point of this figure is almost certainly Reika’s marvelous backside, which is – mostly – in full view. Her ass is large, shapely, and thanks to her bunnysuit’s thong back, highly visible.

Of course Reika’s bunnysuit features the requisite bunny tail.

While Reika’s buttocks are the best part of the figure, the stock of her gun obscures them a little bit, which is unfortunate. Also, the support pole stabilizes Reika’s right leg, which means that if you choose to use it – and you don’t have to if you’re willing to forgo the stabilization it provides – it partially blocks the view. I would have preferred it if the pole were placed in front of Reika by her left side, where it would be less visible.

And of course the figure uses a real fishnet material for the pantyhose. Hopefully it does not discolor the legs; that has happened on at least one of the bunnygirl figures I own.

After having collected many bunnygirl figures over the years, I can say I’m a big fan of FREEing’s products, and Reika is not an exception. She looks great, combining big presence and a sexy body with a great ass. The face is the one part I’m less fond of, and it’s an important part, but it’s one I can overlook since it’s not entirely visible the way I have the figure displayed. I have pretty much no space left for these bunnygirls, but I keep buying them anyway.

All that said, if I had to choose just one quarter-scale figure of Reika, this isn’t the one I would pick; it would be Prime One’s statue which is due out next year. It’s a lot more spendy but it looks amazing.

We looked at a FREEing bunnygirl last time, and we’ll continue the trend today by reviewing Lucifer. Somehow this figure is the first from the Seven Mortal Sins that I have reviewed, which is a bit shameful, as I own quite a few figures from the series, but as today is Christmas and thus commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, taking a look at Lucifer seems only apropos.

The Seven Mortal Sins – or Sin: The Seven Deadly Sins, or Sin: Nanatsu no Taizai, which is not at all to be confused with the Seven Deadly Sins, or Nanatsu no Taizai, was a media series launched by Hobby Japan, way back around 2012, if I remember right. Like many of their properties – Queen’s Blade and Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls, amongst others – the principal rationale for their creation seemed to be to sell figures. Like its predecessors, the Seven Mortal Sins received an anime adaptation, but the show was a notably quirky affair, combining a globe-trotting set of protagonists with copious fanservice, freestyle rap battles, and a hapless lead heroine who has her heart torn out of her chest in the first episode. It’s not an especially good anime, but it does seem like the showrunners tried to put something together that was more than just an extended commercial to market merchandise.

Lucifer is manufactured by FREEing in 1/4 scale and stands approximately 32 centimeters in height. She’s not a difficult figure to set up, needing just some inserts into her high heels to keep her upright. The base of this figure is a small black disc, which is nice; she doesn’t take up as much room on the shelf as one might expect given her size.

Most of FREEing’s bunnygirls aren’t all that different from each other, and this one mostly follows the expected formula: a glossy, form-fitting leotard worn over fishnet pantyhose, high heel pumps, and a sexy body sculpt with relatively little detail on the exposed matte-finished skin.

However, while many of the bunnygirls have simple standing or kneeling poses, Lucifer is perching in a provocative squat, variously called an M-pose or a kimchi squat, depending on where you are from.

Her stance obviously directs attention to her groin, where the tightness of her leotard is conspicuously distinct.

Another interesting aspect of this figure is that an additional set of cups for her suit are provided, allowing her breasts to be revealed. Most of the bunnygirls don’t provide for castoff options – I can only think of a few, as this level of explicitness seems to be reserved more for the BINDing bunnygirls sold by Native. Given the racy nature of the series, this feature seems only appropriate.

Lucifer’s expression conveys confidence, arrogance, and contempt for the subject of her gaze. It isn’t always the case that FREEing does a superb job with designing the face of their bunnygirl figures, but they’ve done an excellent job of capturing Lucifer’s personality here.

Other highlights include her ponytail and horns.

And, of course, her ass, which is rendered very well.

The FREEing bunnygirls tend to all look a bit similar but I really like Lucifer. Her haughtiness and sexiness perfectly encapsulate what the character is about, even if she likely would never be caught dead in this sort of outfit. Her suggestive pose further enhances her eroticism while also providing the practical benefit of not taking up a great deal of room. Overall, this is one of the best bunnygirls in my figure collection.

Unsurprisingly, virtually all of my preorders from the last two months have been delayed, and so I’ve only received one figure order in that time (a virtual cookie goes to whoever guesses which figure that might be). Therefore, we’ll take a look at Kotobukiya’s Scarlett, which came out last summer. I actually took these pictures shortly after receiving it, as this was a figure that I had been excited about since I saw Shunya Yamashita’s concept art the year prior. Growing up, G.I. Joe was one of my favorite cartoons – no surprise, as I spent much of my childhood on an Army base – and Scarlett was my favorite character. To say that I was eagerly anticipating this figure would be an understatement.

Unlike many of her compatriots – many of whom are based on stock archetypes – Scarlett’s roles, characterization, and appearance has varied through the years. As I recall, she’s listed as an enlisted intelligence specialist on her original action figure filecard. In the cartoon, she was sort of a generalist – I remember her flying a Skystriker fighter jet – and a love interest for Duke (contrary to the comic book, which paired her with Snake Eyes) as well as an occasional damsel-in-distress. She’s also variably been a helicopter pilot, a ninja, and a very high-ranking commander type; I’m not certain but being that she’s gone from sergeant to colonel over the years, she may have the widest disparity of all the Joe characters in terms of rank.

This figure is manufactured by Kotobukiya as part of their long-running Bishoujo series. Despite my fondness for Japanese interpretations of American entertainment properties, I haven’t actually bought many of them, for no reason that I can discern. Given their willingness to incorporate characters from both horror films and fighting games, I hope that they one day produce figures of characters from the Mortal Kombat series; that would be hilarious and I think I would buy them.

Also of note is that Kotobukiya launched a website for the Bishoujo series this month. It’s a very comprehensive site that provides a detailed overview of more than a decade of figure production.

Scarlett is sculpted in 1/7 scale and is about 21 centimeters in overall height. She’s attached to her base and is thus ready for display right out of the box.

Scarlett is one of the most iconic and easily-recognizable characters from G.I. Joe but she’s gone through myriad costumes over the years. Her later outfits have generally been more reminiscent of military-issue battlefield dress, with the unfortunate result of deemphasizing her sexiness. That’s not the case with this figure, however; Kotobukiya and illustrator Shunya Yamashita have adapted Scarlett’s appearance from the old Marvel comic books, with her clad in a purple bodysuit and yellow leotard ensemble. It’s an outfit that is emblematic of the 80s but with nostalgia for that decade so prevalent in the contemporary zeitgeist, it’s a welcome sight.

Her bodysuit features an unusual snakeskin pattern; it’s a bit unusual to see since texturing on her costume was never apparent in her earlier appearances and any sort of ophidian styling cue was more of a Cobra thing. Nonetheless, it certainly catches the eye. Also attracting interest – probably in larger measure – is the way her bodysuit positively sheathes her body. G.I. Joe toys have never really been noted for their sex appeal and one wonders what sort of opinion the approvers at Hasbro had when they viewed the prototype figure. A high-cut leotard further emphasizes the curves of her body.

Scarlett’s outift is completed by elbow gloves, boots, and a practical belt that, while certainly not required to hold up her trousers, offers some useful pouches. Indeed, her costume is festooned with pouches. Tight-fitting clothing typically offers little in the way of storage options but Scarlett was seemingly determined not to suffer that inconvenience.

G.I. Joe is a military-themed series and as such virtually of the characters are associated with weapons. The women of G.I. Joe have some atypical preferences regarding their weapons of choice, though; Lady Jaye chucks javelins, Cover Girl rolls with a tank, and Scarlett is usually associated with a crossbow, which is what she is holding here. No reloads are visible, but she does have what looks like a grenade clipped over her left breast.

Scarlett is aiming that crossbow in a threatening posture, but her pose is decidedly relaxed; she’s depicted as casually leaning on a large rock or something. There’s this odd thing on this rock; it looks like a sea urchin or a nautical mine or a stylized coronavirus, but the illustration shows that it’s actually some sort of laser beam hitting the rock (and very narrowly missing Scarlett’s foot). As I recall, the Joe team used red lasers and Cobra fired blue lasers, but this laser is yellow, so who knows who’s shooting at her.

The design of Scarlett’s face is instantly recognizable as being Shunya Yamashita’s handiwork. It’s kind of amazing that both he, Kotobukiya, and the various licensors have maintained their relationships to keep the Bishoujo line going for this long. We’ve seen so many trends in the figure industry come and go – Black Rock Shooter, Ikkitousen, Nanoha; even Kantai Collection seems to be on the way out, at least as far as figures go, but the Bishoujo series is still going as strong as it ever has.

Going back to Scarlett’s costume, it’s particularly pleasing how well it clings to her form, particularly her backside, the view of which reminds me a bit of Konami’s G.I. Joe arcade game. Indeed, one of the very best aspects of this figure is how most views of Scarlett highlight the prominent swell of her hips.

There are a lot of things I like about this figure, so it’s no surprise that it was one of my favorite figure releases of 2019. I hadn’t really expected anyone to ever make a superb scale-size figure of Scarlett, so I was happy that Kotobukiya took a shot at it, and I’m even more thrilled that they did such a great job of it (I’m not as big a fan of Prime 1’s 1/4 scale statue of her, and I’m curious to see if Pop Culture Shock makes one of her). Scarlett is a figure I’m very happy to own, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where else Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line goes.

Despite being an avid consumer of all manners of news concerning the coronavirus epidemic, somehow it escaped my notice that Japan Post has suspended the delivery of parcels via EMS to the United States and that means I will not be getting any new figures until perhaps next month. As such, the only thing left to do – aside from abandoning this site, which I already feel pretty badly about and do not wish to perpetuate – is to review some older figures. Let’s begin with one of the biggest and most in-your-face in terms of callipygian excess, Erika Kuramoto from the doujin series Zettai Junpaku Mahou Shoujo.

First, a bit of background: Zettai Junpaku Mahou Shoujo is an original doujinshi series created by noted anime artist RAITA, who is perhaps better known for being the character artist of Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles series and for designing Fate/Grand Order’s Minamoto no Raikou. Mahou Shoujo is, as far as I can tell, about a relatively hapless guy who happens to have some special powers that enable him to help out a cast of young girls, who putatively battle lecherous beasties and occasionally get raped by them. That said, the story seems to focus more on the romantic experiences between the various protagonists. As for Erika herself, she is depicted as a popular idol as well as a traditional tsundere type, traits which are not readily apparent from this particular figure.

This figure of Erika is sculpted in 1/4 scale and stands approximately 44 centimeters in height. It’s manufactured by BINDing, which I assume is the ero-figure manufacturing label of FREEing, and if you have ever seen one of FREEing’s bunnygirls you already know what you’re getting with Erika.

As part of the Native product catalog, Erika’s appearance is played up for maximum sex appeal. Accordingly, she’s bent over a stool with her backside proudly thrust towards the viewer. The somewhat unlikely body proportions characteristic of Raita’s style is evident here, though somewhat played down compared to his illustrations; Erika has a gigantic ass, long and prominently tapered legs, a wasp waist, and huge breasts, each easily the size of her head. Erika’s arms are rather short and slender, and I feel like if she were in a more conventional and less dynamic pose, her stylized physique might diminish the overall effect of the figure. As it is, her positioning turns what might be a distraction into a benefit.

FREEing has been re-releasing some of their older bunnygirl figures sans fishnet pantyhose, often at a cheaper price. As nice as the fishnets look – and they are real fishnet material – I think the bare-legged look is more attractive and doesn’t run the risk of staining the plastic skin underneath. I would not have minded if they had dispensed with them here.

Her breasts are equally impressive and are too large to be contained by her leotard. There’s no way to cover her up unless the owner improvises something by themselves; her breasts are freely visible with no castoff system implemented.

I’m not a fan of the tsundere trope, and I think the prevalance of this archetype is one of the reasons I haven’t really watched a lot of anime in the last few years (other reasons are that I generally loathe both light novel adaptations and isekai stories). You wouldn’t really know that Erika starts off as a tsundere girl by looking at her here, though; she looks quite cheerful and friendly.

The magical girls from this series feature small wings such as these. They’re a bit difficult to install since the gaps in her hair covering up the insertion slots are not very wide, but they look nice once they’ve been properly placed.

I’m not actually sure what this is but it fits into a slot in her left thigh.

Erika comes with a nicely-designed stool that does look like something one might find in a nicely-appointed bar or casino. She also comes with these little plastic cards, presumably meant to show a poker hand. The obverse is printed with the ace of spades on the top card.

She also comes with this drink tray and a beverage. This is perhaps less well-designed than I would have liked; the tray fits on her fingertips with nothing actually securing it, so bumping the figure will likely send the tray and the drink toppling down. The drink actually comprises three parts: the cup, the simulated liquid, and the ice cube, which are each loose pieces. I lose figure parts with some frequency so I put these pieces back in the box to keep them safe.

I think this is the first BINDing figure I’ve reviewed (though it’s not the first I’ve owned – I think that was Olga Discordia, and I still need to take her out of her box someday) and while Erika is not vastly different from most of the FREEing bunnygirls I own and have photographed, I think this might be my favorite one of the product line thus far. The giant size of these figures is still something I enjoy and the additional appeal from the explicit lewdness enhances the attractiveness of this figure. This is – I’m sad and a bit embarrassed to admit – the first figure I’ve photographed this year but I think Erika is already a strong contender for my list of favorite figures of 2020.

We’ll pick back up with another Native figure, this one considerably smaller than the last one we looked at. This haggard-looking young girl is Magic the Gandhi, an unlikely-named character from Alicesoft’s famous Rance series. In normal times she’s a magician, a princess, and a romantic interest of the series’ titular anti-hero. As can be surmised, the circumstances she is depicted in here are not indicative of normal times.

This figure is manufactured by FROG and distributed by Native. This isn’t the first figure by FROG that I have purchased, but the first was Queen Pharnelis and that figure is still in its shipping box somewhere here. Sculpted in 1/7 scale, Magic herself is about 17.5 centimeters in height but the frame that she is shackled to takes up considerably more space; it’s a bit under 24 centimeters in height and 14 centimeters in width. Speaking of those restraints, they all come as separate pieces and thus this figure requires substantial assembly to prepare for display, but we’ll talk about that a bit further down.

Magic does have an ostensibly non-explicit display mode, represented by the black panties and the belt bra shown up at the top, but nobody who purchases this figure is spending money to show her off that way. The real way to display her is entirely au naturel, the way she was seen in Rance 10.

Having not played Rance 10, I’m not sure what prompts this scene but having some familiarity with Alicesoft games I would guess that this is an optional bad end rather than Magic’s canonical fate. English speakers are actually supposed to be able to play this game someday as Mangagamer is localizing it, but I don’t recall hearing any news of their progress in recent times.

The figure shows a major difference from the artwork in that it lacks the bruises and other evidence of violence committed against Magic. Purists may not be thrilled by this change but it’s probably for the best; this figure is already in rather poor taste (though to be fair, the Rance series positively revels in poor taste and exults in its flaunting of social norms).

I didn’t actually recognize who this character was when I first saw the figure, mostly because it covers up Magic’s most obvious design element, her expansive forehead. That’s probably also for the best.

Anyone who prefers to have Magic go without her spectacles is going to be disappointed; her eyewear slots into a socket positioned squarely between her eyes.

One distinctive aspect of the artwork that was preserved are the tally marks scrawled on her abdomen, an obvious accounting of how many friends she has made.

Magic gets to sit on this toilet – at least the third miniature commode in my figure collection. That I can’t remember how many plastic toilets I have is a sign that both my memory is failing in my old age and that my figure collection is too large.

I found it easier to position her on the toilet with the seat raised up (the toilet doesn’t actually have a lid nor a water tank). I’m not sure if she’s supposed to be positioned that way but she seemed not to be able to reach the pegs in the base. Not that the base pegs were that useful, since they’re very small (they actually go into her big toes rather than the soles of her feet, which is a strange way to do things).

She comes with an extra accessory not depicted here – a stream of simulated semen dripping from her vagina. I’m not actually sure how to position it on the figure so that it stays put, or if that’s even possible. The instruction sheet seemed to provide guidance but I was not in a good humor while photographing this figure so I dispensed with it. At any rate, if you get your own Magic figure, you’ll have the opportunity to figure out how to show off Magic with her own special liquid.

This figure requires a great deal of setup to complete for display, far more than I really like to perform these days. Each of the chains connects to an S-shaped hook which neither holds the chain securely nor fastens to Magic’s cuffs and collar, so getting things to stay attached can be an aggravating process.

There were a couple more things – a pair of small simulated steel plates that I suppose are supposed to go on the base – that I didn’t include in the photographs here.

That said, it’s a worthwhile amount of annoyance as this figure does look pretty good. She’s a little smaller than I expected – she’s not a large-framed girl but even accounting for that, she appears about as petite as a 1/8 scale figure but that’s not really too important here. What’s more to like is the presentation and the themes that this figure espouses; we’ve seen a bevy of pervy porno figures from various manufacturers in the last few years but not many that look quite like this. Fans of figures of chained-up girls – not actually a popular theme amongst figure makers – will find a lot to like here.

First, a couple of random thoughts: I recently logged in to my Hobby Search account and saw this, which has caused me to consider whether I want to continue receiving figures while Japan Post is not dispatching parcels to the United States. Second, I recently turned forty, which ought to give me pause and compel me to think about the direction my life is going, including whether I am wasting too much time and money on pervy plastic anime figures and gacha games. I’ve actually found that getting older has made me more comfortable with who I am, though; I’ve found myself being less unsure of the path I’ve taken and more content with where I am. The lack of updates here has less to do with me falling out of love with this hobby and more to do with me being lazy and having photographed some uninspiring figures that I don’t feel that compelled to write about.

And that leads me to talk about this figure: this is Narika Shihoudou, one of the three main heroines of the eroge Beat Blades Haruka. I’m always happy to see a figure from an Alice Soft property, even if it’s not executed particularly well, which is unfortunately the case here. And while I enjoyed Beat Blades Haruka quite a bit, I’d probably say that Narika was my least favorite of the ninja trio, and I don’t think I actually ever went through her route. Nonetheless, let’s go over her very quickly.

This figure was released almost exactly a year ago, and while it isn’t exactly new, Beat Blades Haruka is a really old property for a figure maker to pull a character from, so seeing Narika get yet another figure is unexpected. This is actually the second version of this figure; a previous version had her in a squatting pose, which was actually more faithful to the in-game sequence from which it was derived. I liked the game and so was happy that Kaitendoh did produce this figure, but I can’t help but be a little sad that Subaru – the game’s third playable protagonist – will apparently never get a PVC figure of her own.

Narika is sculpted in 1/6 scale and stands a solid 25.5 centimeters in height. The base is of unusual design and thickness; it adds a bit over two centimeters to the figure’s total height. She comes with a few accessories, the most notable of which is a stream of urine which I presume aligns with her crotch to create a peculiar scene that might appeal to some, but as this particular vein of watersports really isn’t my thing, I’m not including it here. I will, however, provide this image in case anyone is curious as to what it looks like. I’m also keeping it in mind if I ever obtain a Trump doll being that it might facilitate certain scenes, perhaps with him as the recipient of his predecessor’s liquid largesse.

Narika’s expression evinces discomfort and embarrassment – appropriate reactions given the source material but her pose is sort of stiff and unemotive. Her pigeon-toed stance is pretty cute, though.

One peculiarity is that I wasn’t able to fit her left arm fully into her shoulder. This may have been my fault but I spent some time working at it and I could not get the extruded part of the arm to fit into the socket.

Narika’s costume is both agreeable and scanty in appearance. Of note is that she wears no pants, leaving her underwear exposed. Her panties do appear to be removable – the urine stream wouldn’t make much sense otherwise – but I didn’t feel like spending a lot of time figuring out how to remove them, so I didn’t.

My figure reviews have always focused more on aesthetic appeal and emotive quality rather than as examinations of technical defects and manufacturing mishaps. I’m willing to forgive a certain degree of quality if I like a figure, but it’s difficult even for me to look at this figure and say that it is well-built. Things like the poorly-fitting arm point to a lack of quality control and her overall look lacks a certain level of detail.

And frankly, we’ll just leave it there. This is a fairly mediocre figure and not one that I’d recommend to anyone but hardcore Alice Soft fans. The main virtue of this figure in my view is its size; I prefer larger figures and Narika is quite large, even compared to other 1/6 scale figures. The flaws include questionable quality control and a fairly nondescript appearance. I’m not sure what Alice Soft is up to these days, being that the Rance series appears to have ended, and I’m not sure what sort of figures we might see from their properties in the future. Hopefully this isn’t amongst the last, since it’s a rather weak one to leave a final impression.

The post Narika Shihoudou from Beat Blades Haruka (Stand Pose Version) first appeared on Tentacle Armada.

Happy Christmas everybody. We’ve seen a few figures from massively-multiplayer online RPGs, primarily from the Lineage series, but today we’ll be looking at a figure from the Mu series. Mu Online was originally released in 2001, making it one of the first MMOs to be released after EverQuest, the defining game of the genre. Some years later, Webzen released the mobile games Mu Origin and Mu Origin 2. I’m not actually certain which game this character comes from; Japanese stores say Mu Online, American stores say Mu Origin, and the box simply says Mu. I’m inclined to think that she comes from Mu Origin 2 as her design matches some of the concept art, but being that I know virtually nothing of this series apart from having bought a few Mu comic books about fifteen years ago, it’s hard to tell for certain.

Speaking of MMOs, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft as my primary game for the last eight years but I think I’m close to throwing in the towel; Shadowlands isn’t really appealing to me and I’m not enthused by Blizzard’s current game design philosophies. These days, I’m mostly playing Epic Seven and I’m enjoying it quite a bit more than Warcraft.

A few notes before we begin: this figure was riotously expensive when it went up for preorder, being around thirty thousand yen or thereabouts. That is a ton of money for a figure of this size, though we’ve since seen other figures being listed for prices that would have been both unthinkable and untenable just a few years ago. Such a price tag could be justified if the manufacturer had a pedigree that merited such or if the figure were of unusual size or decoration, but this figure comes from Vertex, a maker that, in my eyes, seems wildly inconsistent in terms of quality. As for size, the Fairy Elf herself isn’t particularly large; she’s listed as 1/7 scale but her more realistic body build makes her appear similar in proportion to a 1/8 scale figure. This figure is about 36 centimeters in height from the base to the uppermost tip of her wing, and though the figure itself is not overly large, her wings and jumping or floating pose do cause her to require a significant amount of shelf space to display.

The Fairy Elf’s look is decidedly atypical, being that it does not show much influence from anime styling. I think she looks quite pretty, but her wide-spaced eyes, mannequin-like features and the absence of any discernible emotion gives her a somewhat alien look.

While her face lacks some detail, her outfit more than compensates. She’s not wearing a lot of clothing but what she does wear is elaborate and stylized, with her armor featuring a surfeit of gold trim and filigree work.

Her outfit essentially comprises an open babydoll, black string panties, and thigh-high boots. It’s a very attractive ensemble that reveals quite a bit of skin, providing a sexy (some might say crass) contrast to its ornate elegance.

Oddly enough, she comes with two left hands, one holding this bow and one simply clenched into a fist. I’m only showing the one with the weapon; her pose would look a little strange without it. The bow is just as complex as her armor, though no bowstring is provided as far as I can tell. The arrow is a loose part that does not seem to have any specific attachment points to the figure; I’ve simply tried to balance it between her right hand and the bow handle as best as I could.

Speaking of her pose, the Fairy Elf is depicted in mid-leap, twisting backwards to aim at some target off to her side. It’s a very dynamic pose that adds a great deal of visual interest to the design of this figure.

However, as sexy as her outfit is and as striking as her pose might be, her wings are just as captivating, and it’s a bit of a shame that it’s less likely they’ll be noticed because most of their complexity is behind the figure. Turn the figure around and one can see that her wings are made of multiple tendril-like projections framed by a kind of curved golden lattice. There’s a remarkable level of detail here and it’s gratifying that Vertex did not skimp on this element.

The wings are substantial and so a pylon is provided to hold up her left leg. The peg in her right foot is metal but it is not as long as one might expect, and hopefully this figure will not suffer from sagging or leaning issues in the future.

One aspect of the figure that is a little less impressive is the base, which is a rather large white disc with a simple Mu logo printed on it. I don’t normally pay much attention to bases but I do think a black base would have provided a better contrast to the Fairy Elf’s color scheme.

As large and heavy as her wings are, they were also pretty difficult to fit them into the Fairy Elf’s back. They slot into specifically-shaped sockets, but I did not find them to fit particularly well, and the fact that her hair partially obstructs the sockets didn’t help.

I’m not certain that this figure was worth its eye-watering price tag but I’m happy to have it nonetheless. I’ve been fond of character designs from Korean role-playing games ever since I saw Hyung-tae Kim’s artwork for the War of Genesis and currently there aren’t that many such figures out there (I’m really hoping that Smilegate realizes that the world would appreciate a mass-produced Luna figure). The Fairy Elf’s design is particularly attractive and it’s great to see that Vertex is capable of making a figure of this quality.

The post Fairy Elf from Mu Origin 2 first appeared on Tentacle Armada.

I’ve had this figure of Nier: Automata’s YoRHa No. 2 Type B – hereafter called 2B – for some time; since I’m not getting many figures in the mail these days due to the current moratorium on EMS shipments from Japan to the United States, and since this figure recently went up for preorder again, I figure it’s a good time to take a look at her. It’s something of a wonderment that this figure was released at all; I don’t recall that Square allows many of their properties to be adapted into figures, at least not by third-party manufacturers. That they allowed Yoshizawa Mitsumasa to do the design is even more odd, but we’ll get into that in a bit.

2B is the lead heroine of Platinum Games’s well-received game Nier: Automata. I haven’t actually played this game yet, in large part due to having played World of Warcraft for the last eight years, but I did buy it during a Steam sale some time ago. Unfortunately I’ve heard that the PC version suffers from some major technical issues without applying a fan-made patch, which is a little discouraging, but it’s on my list of things to play now that Warcraft has substantially fallen off in my esteem. Nier: Automata was a breakout hit for the developer – as it should have been, given the accolades it received, but the design aesthetic of the main characters has also attracted gamers in a way that the dichotomous male protagonists of its predecessor – one of whom was a hulking old man included as a curiously quixotic ploy to entice Western audiences – never had a chance of succeeding at.

This figure of 2B is manufactured by Flare and was first released back in 2019 and is due for a re-release this October, presumably in conjunction with the release of the mobile game Nier: Reincarnation. No height scale is given but given that she stands about 168 centimeters in height and that this figure is about 28 centimeters in height, we can calculate that figure is exactly 1/6 scale, which looks right to me.

Flare released two versions of this figure, a normal edition that came with only a blindfolded face and a fully-clothed torso, and a DX version, which includes an additional head with an uncovered face as well as another torso which omits the dress. The DX version also includes a Pod unit, a flying, box-shaped robot; I don’t think the normal version includes that accessory, though I might be wrong about that.

Despite the game’s relative recency, 2B’s design is iconic, as proven by the thousands of illustrations, cosplay, doujinshi, and other such examples of fan appreciation visible on the internet. Much has been written on the game’s characters, gameplay, music, and philosophical underpinnings so I’m not going to spend much time describing 2B; rather, I’ll just say that I really like her look, particularly her boots, leotard, and blindfold. Also, while I usually much prefer anime-type girls to have long hair, I think 2B’s bob cut is cute; her hair reminds me a bit of Rei Ayanami, and I’m much more of a Rei fan than an Asuka fan.

Yoshizawa Mitsumasa – also known by the group name REFLECT – is, by my estimation, one of the most veteran sculptors still working in the figure industry. When looking at his work, several themes are evident: his predilection for long legs and lean torsos, mature and glamorous facial features, and tight-fitting outfits with high-heeled footwear. He’s also apparently no fan of large backsides, as virtually all of his figures have very flat rears. Further, these traits always supersede the canon appearance of the characters he sculpts; I’ve sometimes complained that figure makers are at times slavishly faithful to whatever illustration they are adapting as a figure, but that’s never a concern with REFLECT’s work.

All of this is to say that Mitsumasa was a very strange choice to design what is, to my knowledge, the only fixed-pose, scale-size PVC figure of 2B currently in existence. I’m a big fan of Mitsumasa’s work – I own a bunch of his figures – but I’m not so sure I would not have preferred a less idiosyncratic style. Or put more crudely, it might have been better had 2B been given a bigger ass, the way she is depicted in the video game.

Regardless, it is what it is (a phrase I found myself using a lot in 2020). As mentioned earlier, this is the DX version, which includes an extra head sans blindfold. With her eyes uncovered, 2B’s countenance manifests in a steely, emotionless stare – appropriate for an android but perhaps not particularly compelling. Also as mentioned, 2B looks older than the typical teenagers that populate a great many Japanese games, though having not played Nier: Automata, I’m not sure how old she seems to be, or whether maturity is even a characteristic evinced within the game.

Her basic costume includes this dress, evocative of Gothic fashion. Rather than make the dress removable, the DX version supplies an additional torso; the detachment point is not initially conspicuous but once you know where it is – it’s the prominent seam just under her bust – it becomes quite apparent.

Swapping to the alternate torso leaves her clad in a high-cut leotard, which is also visible in the game if the player would prefer to admire her backside. An emphasis on sexiness has fallen out of vogue as an element of video game heroine design, but it’s nice to see that series creator Yoko Taro is as incorrigible as ever.

In this display mode, one can see the slim waist and prominent hipbones common in Mitsumasa’s work.

The unfortunate thing is that her backside is really flat. Lamentably flat. Indeed, her whole body is very slender, almost unhealthily so, if body mass were a concern for androids. That said, the thong back of her leotard is a nice inclusion.

This flying robot pod is included in this version of the figure. The arms feature an impressive degree of articulation.

The face of the robot looks scratched here, though it’s not as obvious in normal viewing as the pod is not particularly large.

2B’s sword is impressively detailed. Thankfully, it’s also pretty easy to slide into her group thanks to the detachable handle. Instructions are included to demonstrate how to assemble and disassemble the figure and oddly enough, English translations are provided – that’s a very rare practice, and it’s nice to see that Flare appreciates their overseas customers.

I guess I don’t really participate in the figure-collecting community these days – I’m not actually even sure if there is a figure-collecting community, or where its nexus might be – but I seem to recall that there was some displeasure when this figure was unveiled, partly due to its price and partly due to the liberties taken with 2B’s design. I think that this figure has become more appreciated over time – both in terms of collector sentiment as well as monetary value. I have to admit I thought once or twice about selling mine since I left it unopened until just a couple of weeks ago. However, I’m very happy to have it and I think she looks great; I’m a big fan of REFLECT’s work, aside from the lack of rear definition, and while it wasn’t the most obvious style to use for a figure of 2B, I think it works fine. And even if it didn’t, there is not a surfeit of 2B figures to choose from, at least not in terms of licensed or fixed-pose products. But I’m more than satisfied with the way this figure turned out.

Incidentally, Nier: Automata endures in the popular consciousness of video gaming not only because of the game’s quality and telegenic characters, but also because Square Enix is happy to let the likenesses of its characters be used in numerous other games, including Soulcalibur, Phantasy Star Online 2, Final Fantasy XIV, Punishing: Gray Raven, and Shadowverse, amongst several others. Yoko Taro has said that he’s happy to see his characters in other properties, and as a fan of Epic Seven, I’m sort of hoping that game might get a collab that brings over 2B, 9S, and A2. Or really, anything but Hololive.

The post YoRHa No.2 Type B from Nier: Automata (Flare DX Version) first appeared on Tentacle Armada.

Today we’ll take a look at another leotard-wearing girl with an appearance in a fighting game – Cammy, quite possibly the reigning queen of them all. This figure is not new, having been released in March of 2018, but it’s a relatively recent pickup for me; I bought it during Kotobukiyua’s Memorial Day sale last year, partly due to a a moment of lockdown-induced ennui, but also because I’m a big fan of Cammy. I own a bunch of her figures, including her previous Bishoujo figure. I also have PCS’s Shadaloo Cammy and I’m expecting to receive PCS’s super-sized 1/3 scale Cammy soon. I don’t expect to review either statue, since they’re way too big for me to comfortably photograph and I don’t think there’s much interest here for statues meant for Western audiences; therefore, we’ll have to be content with looking at this figure.

As mentioned, this figure was manufactured by Koyobukiya. She’s sculpted in 1/7 scale, standing about 20.5 centimeters in height. Like all of the figures in the Bishoujo series, she’s based off of an illustration by the artist Shunya Yamashita, and like many Kotobukiya figures, she’s basically ready for display right out of the box, which is a definite plus in my view.

Kotobukiya’s previous Cammy was posed in a dynamic, body-twisting stance that highlighted her chest and ass simultaneously; in contrast, this figure features a relatively sedate pose, with Cammy standing upright, one hand on her hip while flashing an unimpressed glare. Both styles have their own merits and advantages, but strangely enough, I think I prefer this less flashy pose over the more conspicuously salacious Delta Red version; the pose looks more natural, and Cammy always looks sexy regardless of what she’s doing.

I’m not as big a fan of Cammy’s Shadaloo costume versus her Delta Red uniform. I think it’s the hat; I like her beret better than the garrison cap. That said, the high-cut leotard still looks great.

Her pose looks fairly normal from the front, but a profile view shows that her back is arched in a most peculiar manner. It’s a little incongruous how the front view is fairly nondescript but the side view looks a bit strange.

Cammy’s leotard features a thong back, as is expected of her. It looks great, though her ass is perhaps not as defined as one would like.

The face is typical of Yamashita’s style; anyone familiar with his hallmarks (and that should include many figure collectors, given that the Bishoujo collection must number dozens of figures released over more than a decade of time) will easily be able to identify the source of this figure’s look.

I’d sum up this figure by saying that she looks pretty good and fans of Cammy will find much to like. Moreover, this figure didn’t cost that much, relatively speaking, and cost me less since I bought her during a holiday sale. This figure’s design certainly isn’t adventurous or evocative, but I think the simplicity works well, aside from the curiously contorted look of her pose from the side. Nonetheless, I do like this figure a lot and I think she’s a great addition to my Cammy collection.

The post Cammy from Street Fighter Alpha (Bishoujo Alpha Costume Version) first appeared on Tentacle Armada.

Today we’re looking at yet another leotard-clad girl from a fighting game – in this case, Marie Rose from Tecmo Koei’s Dead or Alive series. She’s a character I’m conflicted on; I like her design, in a general sense, but I have not been enthusiastic about what her – and Honoka’s – introduction to the series has meant for the Dead or Alive franchise. Nonetheless, in figure form, we can simply admire her for what she looks like, and that’s good enough for me.

This figure is manufactured by Max Factory, in something of a followup to their figure of Kasumi, released all the way back in 2004. That figure was one of the first scale-size figures I ever received; oddly, it got an update and re-release last year, sixteen years after it was first sold. Marie Rose was released in 2018 and is sculpted in an unusual 1/5 scale, standing an impressive 27.5 centimeters in height.

First, the good, or rather, the things I like about Marie Rose’s design: I like her costume quite a bit. If I remember right – and it’s been a while since I played Dead or Alive 5 – this blue leotard was one of her default costumes in Dead or Alive 5, but Tecmo then made her less revealing black-and-white dress her standard outfit in Dead or Alive 6 and locked this costume behind some sort of point or currency shop. Regardless, it’s a daring costume to give to such a young-looking character and while Marie Rose doesn’t really fill it out all that well, she still looks pretty nice in it.

Perhaps it’s untoward to expound on Marie Rose’s sexiness but her pose certainly emphasizes her appeal. She’s depicted leaning forward in a playful and saucy pose, flashing a mischievous smile. Her stance also conveys her childish and impish personality.

I’m not sure if she actually adopts this pose in the game, though; I don’t play as Marie Rose often but I do remember her intro and victory poses and I don’t recall any of them looking exactly like this.

Another virtue of her pose is, of course, viewers get to admire her backside in all its glory. My particular figure appears to have an unsightly scuff, though, which is unfortunate.

Fortunately for me the scratch isn’t all that visible in ambient light. I usually display my figures facing forward, anyway.

A profile view reveals how much of her back and sides are also visible; there would be some prominent sideboob visible here if Marie Rose were more well-endwoed. She’s also wearing frilled thighhighs and long arm sleeves with large, rather puffy gloves, which are quite cute.

One aspect of Marie Rose’s design – and the design of all the female Dead or Alive characters, really – that I am conflicted on is that in Dead or Alive 5, Tecmo transitioned away from the anime-styled faces of the previous games and debuted a more realistic look for each of the characters. That shift is evident on this figure, and it’s particularly obvious when compared to the earlier Kasumi figure. Personally, I liked the anime styling of the earlier games, and I think the previous look worked better with the traditional motifs of the series, which focused heavily on exaggerated aesthetics and copious amounts of fanservice.

One other thing about this figure is that the hair is sculpted with a sort of translucent look. I own several figures with this feature and I’m really not a big fan of it; I’d prefer hair to be sculpted with a solid look and matte finish.

I think that the main thing I dislike about Marie Rose and Honoka is that they represent some tired tropes that I wouldn’t mind not seeing, particularly in a series like Dead or Alive. I don’t really think the franchise needed an underaged gothloli nor an airheaded Super Sonico knockoff. That they’ve effectively become the faces of the franchise is even more unfortunate in my view. I guess what I’m really saying is that I wish that Tomonobu Itagaki were in control of the series again, even if he is apparently not that great of a human being.

But regardless of how I feel about the character or the present circumstances of the Dead or Alive franchise, the figure does look really good. It’s big – perhaps not an important consideration to many collectors but me, I much prefer larger figures and a 1/5 scale figure is something I respect and celebrate. Although I’m not an ardent loli fan – as a survey of my figure collection would confirm – I like Marie Rose’s design, with her shiny leotard and cute socks and gloves. This is quite a nice figure, one that I’m happy to own. I’d also love for someone to make a figure of Lisa, but given that she seems to be the least popular female character in the series, that’s probably too much to hope for.

The Dead or Alive franchise was incorporated into the Azur Lane universe via a collaboration last December; as Marie Rose was one of the included characters, I think that this review is technically the first review of an Azur Lane character on this website. That’s a really odd fact given that I’ve been a fan of Azur Lane since its global release and that I own several figures from the series.

We’re looking at another telegenic girl in a leotard: this time it’s Kasumi Yoshizawa, one of the newest additions to the Persona universe. I’ve yet to play Persona 5, despite it being a game that I was very much looking forward to, despite the fact that I own two copies of it (the original game and its expanded Royal release), and despite Persona 3 being one of my favorite games of all time (I rank it third or fourth, behind Phantasy Star II, Wasteland, and alternating spots with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic depending on how I feel on any particular day). In lieu of actually playing the game, I can at least appreciate the look of its cast, starting with Kasumi here.

Being that I haven’t played Persona 5 yet, we’ll skip discussing Kasumi’s character background and go straight to looking at this figure. She’s manufactured by MegaHouse under the label name Lucrea. No scale factor was provided for this figure, but she’s about 22.5 centimeters in height counting her upraised ponytail, making her appear to be sculpted in 1/8 scale. Given that the art style of Persona tends towards slender, willowy characters, she’s noticeably diminutive compared to her contemporaries.

One thing I do know about Kasumi is that she’s a gymnast, and thus she’s depicted wearing a rather fetching black leather leotard. Setting off this somewhat risqué design choice (by puritanical 2020 standards, anyway) is a cropped jacket and glossy thigh-high boots, both in matching black. The effect of her ensemble gives her an elegant yet sexy look, tinged with more than an insinuation of fetish styling.

The red of her gloves and her hair provides a sharp contrast to the monochrome of her outfit. Overall, her look is austere yet graceful. I’ve noticed that the styling of the Persona 5 characters is a good deal more provocative compared to the Persona 4 characters; the latter stuck mostly to conventional school uniforms with spectacles, whereas the Persona 5 characters dress in bodysuits, kinky boots, and spiked shoulderpads.

Kasumi’s flashing a playful V gesture over her face, but her look is serious rather than playful, adding to the more mature look of her design.

I found it interesting that her weapon is a sword. There’s sort of an unofficial rule in RPGs that the main character gets a sword and that the supporting characters use anything but a sword but nonetheless, Kasumi has a sword. It looks surprisingly practical; it’s not unusually oversized or ornate for a video game weapon.

Her stance is reminiscent of a floor dance routine, or so I believe, being not all that familiar with gymnastics.

Circling back to Kasumi’s outfit, I would be remiss if I didn’t provide a shot of her backside, so here it is.

Kasumi comes with two accessories, one being this facemask. The front of her face swaps out; the detachment seam in her hair is quite obvious.

The other accessory is a removable hand with the facemask attached, so that she can be posed lifting it up like a visor.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from displaying both at the same time, other than that doing so would make you a weirdo of some sort.

I really like this figure, though the one aspect I would have changed is that I wish this figure were larger than it is. Kasumi has a great design and it’s translated very well here. I really should play this game sometime. It’s unfortunate that my queue of games that I want to play is so extensive.