Yakimura Sanada, the crimson demon of war, is sculpted by Tanaka Senu. I doubt Sanada ever imagined wearing a funkified Captain Morgan costume, but when the cold sets in and all you’ve got is a gym class swimsuit, whatever works, works. Such is the life of a twin fan wielding samurai girl.
She is the second of the Hyakka Ryoran figures and my favorite of the initial designs. Unfortunately, Yukimura Sanada was only available through Hobby Japan, the dreaded mail-order exclusive. Fortunately, Tokyo Hunter was able to get this for me. I’ve had Tokyo Hunter get a couple of things for me and have always been happy with the service. If I really want that mail-order exclusive that’s the first place I check.
Back in junior high, after school, my friends and I would pump all of our paper-route money one quarter at a time into Karate Champ and Yie Ar Kung-Fu. It took us a lot of quarters to figure out how to get past Chain, but after that it didn’t take us long to beat the rest of the characters. I always thought Fan was a cool enemy flinging her fans all over the arena. Too bad we weren’t stuck on Fan like we were with Chain. We beat Fan the first time we tried. Her fan attack was pretty to watch, so it was disappointing that we beat her so quick. I was a weird kid. Since then, I’ve always liked the image of fan-bladed warrior girls. So, I felt this dual fan wielding demon girl had a place in my collection.
These next three photos have an odd tint on purpose. I kind of liked how it looked, but if you want to see the ones without the color filter on it, you can check out the extra shots at the end.
There’s a lot of touches all over the place as far as rendering anatomy. Even better than that is an attention to weight and gravity in the overall flow of the figure, which see in a lot of Tanaka Senu’s figure work. You can easily draw an action line through many of Senu’s figures and see the weight follows action. Sanada has a great swooping curve. The solid line through her removes a lot of questions from the pose, making it easy to view without a lot of turbulence.
Even though I make a little fun about having a little Captain in her, I do dig the digs. Details from the “embroidery” on her coat and hat to the braids on the ropes are sharp.
There are two things I would criticize. One, even though you can’t see them, the area above her ankles seem to be a bit long. This opinion is based mostly on where her calf muscles end. However, the chunky shoes hide it very well (or maybe it is throwing me off). The other would be her bangs. They lack the confidence that the rest of the sculpt has in spades.
Extra Shots
I figured I’d leave the crotch shot small for those who don’t want to be assaulted by a 666 pixel high image of it. The shot shows some of the fantastic detailing of the sculpt, that tendon along the inner thigh. Also, the subtle shapes of the muscle area just below the swimsuit line.
The mix between sukumizu and traditional outfits is kindda… well not my cup of tea actually ^^;;;
Though fan-blades are one of the best appealing weapons for bishoujo, for sure.
And wooha the lighting on those shots is wonderful!
Don’t know this figure but the details are nice and the body sculpt is ‘realistic’ (well, not exaggerated st least).
The warm-color shots are great and work with the black background.
Excellent lighting, as usual. (Oh, and your Sora pix rocked as well.)
You make everything pretty. ^__^
I love the shots, especially the shadowy ones. They give the figure that extra bit of mystique.
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I really like the (seemingly incongruous) juxtaposition of old-style and modern fashion here, although I didn’t notice that she also looks like a Caribbean pirate captain until you pointed it out. I passed on her because I didn’t want to go through the trouble of acquiring her, but now I’m thinking that I made a mistake because it certainly looks like she would have been worth the trouble. The only thing I would’ve liked for them to have done differently is to change her shoes; I’m not a big fan of platform shoes, I think she’d look better in a pair of Chuck Taylors.
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Chuck Taylors would be a nice bit of mixed style.
Kinda agree with lu-k in there, when I looked at the first picture I didn’t notice the swimsuit, was more focused on the traditional clothes. But then as I scrolled down the picture and noticed the swimsuit I was like “what the heck”. The design is very unique no doubt about that, but if it were with full traditional clothes I think the figure itself would gain a bigger impact.
I actually kinda like the pirate-ish feel of the figure. I’m with Tier though, those platform shoes are terrible. The figure overall though is quite nice, white swimsuits seem to work better than blue, most of the time. There are exceptions like with Kotobukiya’s Mikoto Misaka, I prefer the blue then.
I like the unconventional mix of clothing, she looks pretty nice that way. The fans are a plus, as well as the pose. Too bad it’s such a hard to get figure but glad you were able to get her ^^
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I love her hat. The entire outfit looks extra-vaganza but its ok on her
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Damn exclusive mail-orders! And dayum you make this figure look SO GOOD! Definitely loving the dark tinted effect. It’s got such great atmosphere!
I’m on the same boat as lu-k and belela-san on this. The traditional clothes look amazing, and the swimsuit underneath sorta takes away from it.
.-= radiant´s last blog: Taiga, Olympics, Valentines, CNY, Oh My! =-.
Hmmm…This is an interesting mash-up of styles.
I totally dig the Pirate Part of her Outfit and while I am indifferent to her swimsuit outfit,the clunky shoes kill the figure for me.
I dont know what it is but for me they are too distracting from the rest of the figures.Theres some nice anatomical finesse in the figure though
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I guess since I see them as leg extenders, I don’t mind them so much. To me they kind of blended in with the rest of the mishmash of elements. Platform shoes IRL are usually awful though.
Her outfit is outrageously awesome!
The details on the outfit are pretty sweet. Stems and flowers all over and in such a fine detail it makes me wonder how much work it took to make it look like that. The rope/string? on the hat looks very real. Can’t imagine that its made out of pvc. Dual-wielding is always cool (^.^)b.
.-= AS´s last blog: Happy Birthday Tomoyo ^_^ =-.
This figure looks so good (like other Hyakka Ryoran character). She is probably my favorite with Jubei. Sadly, Sanada was exclusive, and I did not have money when I could pre-order. Now, price are hight.. Snif, I hope that I can have her one day. Thank for this sharing. With yours pictures, I still want her more. My wallet is not happy
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Very nice review for an awesome figure^~^
Normally i prefer the navy blue Sukumizu but i think i make an exception on this one.
I may have to contact Tokyohunter in the future if you’re able to miss such little gems because of the Mail order specials (still mad about the first swimsuit Taiga >.<)
i want it
too bad it’s limited hobby japan 
love the last photo, a really good expression 
I didn’t want to post here because i hate you for getting this one :p
I so want her but hard to find/lots of money
But she is so beautiful and your pics are forcing me to buy her …
I’ll get her someday :’(
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that doesnt look like me
[...] For detailled and more better pics of Sanada V1, check the review of the awesome super rats on Happy Soda. [...]