When the character sketches for the first four Hyakka Ryoran figures were shown, Senhime was the one I was most looking forward to. For more than I year, I’ve been into the way of the spear. My barbarian in D&D used a greatspear, Moribito had some wicked fight scenes featuring spears, and martial arts movies often feature spears. I think the blind spear fighter in Samurai Champloo kicked off my whole spears are cool thing, though I do remember the spear chicks in The Wheel of Time books had some serious mystique going on, but lost interest in the series halfway through the fourth book and the spear chicks were more talked about as awesome than shown as awesome at that point in the series.
As far as the figure, it’s beautiful except for the face. Senhime, like Jubei before her, rock the curvy thighs style, maybe not as far as the Yamashita based figures rocked the thigh, but those spilled a little over into too much, I think. Regardless, stepping away from the slender and tiny body frame is appealing and seems like we’re getting more of it outside of “office lady” figures, which is a good thing for variety.
The render of her clothing and hair flows very well and has a pleasant amount of detail. In particular the volume of her sleeves seems perfect in how much and how deep the folds would be for that kind of material. It’s not overdone and it’s not vague. Flow carries over to the major body masses and how they line in the s-curve.
For all that I think is so right with the figure, her face is a bit of a spoiler. I’m not sure the expression here works and I keep thinking frumpy when I look at the face, as opposed to serious, or intense, or even grumpy. This doesn’t compute with the rest of the figure. Still, I think overall that the Hyakka Ryoran figure series was a good one and I do like the four that I got.
Tier seems to like her face a lot more than I do, which is my only complaint the frumpy face. I think we both changed our respective opinions on the figure from when we ordered to when we took her out of the box, though we moved in different directions. Senhime is a sweet looking figure, in spite of any of my poo-pooing.
Ya, I was interesting in getting Senhime but when I keep looking at her face I keep thinking, “I’m going to have to see this face from now on if she’s in my room” and that made me lean away from her. Overall I like the pose, design, and weapon but ya, the face was a no go. It’s a shame, maybe if the lips were a little more horizontal and the eyes a bit smaller and slanted it might have been better.
.-= AS´s last blog: Japan Trip January 2010 Part 2 =-.
Another great set with lots of emotion. I like the cold eyes.
.-= kusakabemisao´s last blog: Something to fill in the slot =-.
Very pretty figure, especially her kimono jacket thingy (^^;). As always, the lighting in your photos is spectacular. I need to experiment with shadows in my figure photography more ^^; Thanks for sharing!
.-= anonymous_object´s last blog: Yui’s Day Out =-.
I really like the style and costume design this line has. Although out of all the ones I have seen Jubei is probably my favorite so far.
As for Senhime, I don’t know what expression would have worked better but I agree with your opinion regarding her face. Other than that, I really like how she looks.
Alter made another great work with this Hyakka Ryoran figure, even if she is not my favorite (I prefer Jubei for her colors and Sanada for her demon eyes). One thing that I don’t really like in this adaptation, maybe the face expression. I don’t know why I don’t like but.. ^^’ Kimono is really beautiful, and colors.. mm great ! I hope that she will be not the last figure of the license. I would like Naoe Kanetsugu ! Thanks a lot for this review, I really like the ambience ^^
For some reason, I’ve never really liked spears much, even as a little kid. My Lego knights always had swords (except for the one elite knight who had a crossbow), the foot soldiers with the conical helmets got the poleaxes and bows, and the soldiers I didn’t like so much got the helmets with the nasal and spears. My #1 paladin in Warcraft almost always had a big mace, but my #2 paladin used a spear. Maybe it’s because they’re sorta low-tech, unsexy weapons; I do like halberds and bardiches, and my favorite Diablo 2 character was my javelin amazon.
Yeah, I have the feeling that my view is an uncommon one. It seems like reviews of this figure are uncommon, too … I think I’ve only seen a couple of Japanese ones and two English ones, not including my own. Kinda strange for a figure that everyone bought.
.-= Tier´s last blog: Meiya Mitsurugi from Muv-Luv Alternative Volks X-brand Version NSFW =-.
I thought there would be a higher number of reviews for this considering I saw a number of tweets and things about it before. Perhaps the disappointment deflated some people. On the other hand, I found this figure a little difficult to photograph, whether it was the let down that made it difficult, I don’t know.
I didn’t pre-order Senhime cause her facial expression totally turned me off. But after all the reviews and beautiful photos of this excellent detailed figure, I finally decided to get one. Didn’t want to regret not getting it later on – I hate it when that happens. lol
I really don’t understand why the face was sculpted this way, not too sure what her facial expression is trying to convey. From what I’ve been reading though, is that her facial expression appears different in person – I guess I’ll find out in a week or so!
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