Fate Testarossa is an Alter beast. She is a loli beatstick with a giant sword and cape lashing out at the wind, yet for all her lightning fast power and the determined expression on her face, she is quite a sad girl.
Poor Fate Testarossa has a wicked mother who doesn’t love her. A lot of anime characters don’t have decent folks, seeing as there are way more parents like Gendo Ikari (Evangelion) than there are parents like Hiroyuki and Miyako Miyazawa (Kare Kano). In anime good parents often die before the show even begins and we only get to see them in hazy flashback scenes. Seriously, I could do with a stronger parental presence in anime along the lines of Kiriko Aoi (Godannar).
So yeah, Fate’s messed up because of a psycho mom. Fate does whatever her mom wants her to do and takes up the same type of magic, but really all that does is give her mother even more power over her. Trying to please parents can be stressful enough when they’re normal. I think that’s what makes her an appealing character for me, in that I can relate. I can root for her and hope someday she’ll break free. I’ve not seen any Nanoha, just going by reading the Wikipedia article up until it started to get spoilerish — apologies if I wandered into way-offsville.
What led me to explore her character background was the expression that sculptor Hiroyuki Tsumeduka gave her. Fate at first appears determined in her power stance, but after looking through the lens I picked up on the sadness of Fate, which surprised me. I bought the figure for the power stance and flowing cape, but came to appreciate and understand her through the cracked mask that is her facial expression. This is a tremendous sculpt.
Build-wise, this is Alter, nothing more needs to be said. The figure is a beast though and is too large to fit in my Detolf display case. Some might be concerned about the cape, but it is made of rigid plastic, so it will most likely keep it’s shape.
Other Views
For better reviews of this figure, you can also visit:
Ready to Meet My Fate Testarossa (moemoerabu)
1/8 Alter Fate Testarossa Figure (xebek’s blog)
Fate vs Fate = Awesome (tea shop beloved)
Cool. I’m still waiting for mine to restock.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos! The soft focus from the business end of Bardiche Zamber was my favourite.
Indeed its a beast! Notice the best thing about Fate is when she’s with a black backdrop she just looks totally awesome?
[...] on, though, HappySoda has a high quality, yet classy, review of Alter's extremely dynamic Fate PVC. Yessir, she's high quality… just look at the damn thing and hit the jump for the [...]
Great pics. I just got my Alter Fate a few days ago and I absolutely love it. I have both the GSC and Alter Fate figures now, so I was thinking of writing up something quick comparing the two of them because I really haven’t seen that online anywhere.
You mentioned that Fate didn’ fit into a Detolf display case and was wondering as to whether it was too wide, long, or tall. Is it her barrier jacket or Bardiche? I was planning on getting one of those in the couple months, so I was curious.
She does look awesome! I have the GSC one, and was a little disapointed by the support for Bardiche.
I’m thinking more and more about getting this one… and more again after having seen your great pictures!
SUPERRATS! What happened to your usual trademark of adding foreign objects into the shot? This photoshoot feels so incompete! How can you do this to the great Fate-tan-onee-sama! xD
LianYL, my original order wasn’t filled either, so I wound up ordering it on the US release.
Thanks Zyl.
Adun, she does look great with the black background. It emphasizes the yellow in her hair and Bardiche.
You should definitely do that comparison deftoned (edit: I see you already have). I haven’t seen it either. As far as her not fitting, it’s because of the Bardiche. She fits without it, but having a huge sword makes her look cool.
lu-k, are you saying that the Bardiche on the GSC Fate doesn’t stay on properly?
Tsubaki, I knew somebody was going to call me out on that one! XD Actually, I had the same idea Adun did with the stars and clouds…but he beat me to it. Didn’t really feel like using the same gimmick and every other gimmick just felt meh in comparison, so I took the non-gimmick route. I’ll use it on someone else at some point.
I had just sold my Fate. She’s too big to fit anywhere, and I had no room to store the box. Beautiful clean sculpt though. Nice simple details. But in the end, I couldn’t keep her.
The box is beastly too. I’m kind of starting to wonder why I’m keeping the boxes to all these figures though.
Nop, it doesn’t. Well in fact it does, but not horizontally. It needs a support. You may have noticed it thanks to deftoned comparison.
Now that you point it out, I see it.
Fantastic shots as usual.
Would love to see where you keep your figures usually.
I keep trying to tidy up the place before I do that, but my dog, she just loves chewing up paper and boxes and all that stuff so it always looks like I’ve not vacuumed the floor in weeks, even though I do it two or three times a week.
[...] I wonder if I should bother taking bad photos of her, even though someone else already did [...]
[...] not need to be a fan of Fate to enjoy this figure. Lots of pictures abound of this lovely figure, Super rats has absolutely lovely shots, as well as [...]
[...] yen Friend Bought it for About $90.00 AU Availability – HLJ (at time of writing) May Restock Links HappySoda’s entry ENG Moé Moé Rabu’s entry ENG Otadesho’s entry ENG Toys Workz entry [...]
Click here….
Nice site. Check out this one sometime……
Really nice figure. Too bad it’s really hard to find her nowadays.
I guess I’ll have to make due with the True Sonic Form version, though I would love to get my hands on this one.
That is one of the unfortunate things about figure collecting. The shelf life of these things is very short. If a figure gets a US release, it has a longer window, but after six months and it gets real difficult to go back and get something. On the plus side there’s a new Fate figure coming out from Alter.