HappySoda » Featured

Nanjou Ran

super rats — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:42:27 +0000

I’m the forgotten one. The one lost in the forest. The one who goes to what everyone else wants to do, but always winds up going alone to something that I care about. Maybe I don’t ask well enough, or what interests me nobody else cares about, or I just gave up asking. I’m insulating myself, I know, but at some point I know it will be no or that’s boring or something came up or, most often, they “forget” that there was something I wanted to do. My name is Nanjou Ran. Don’t ask what I want; you don’t mean anything by it.

Review of Nanjou Ran from Kotobukiya

Nanjou Ran comes from the game Sengoku Rance, beyond that I don’t really know. I picked her up on a whim at AnimeNEXT. The curves on her back, arms, and legs, are visually appealing, as is her costume in general. The ahoge make a pair of horns, which is interesting since she’s a caster making me think it’s some sort of pact based magic.

This is a decent figure made by Kotobukiya, not great, not bad. Some of the stuff on the back side is fairly sloppy, but otherwise the front view is good. Sculpt doesn’t feel as accomplished as it should to truly wow. While the curves of her body are appealing of themselves, not sure if it’s a solid description of the motion of flaring out her papers like that. It’s half pose, half motion.

Ran is mounted by screw to a clear purplish triangle, which is pretty weak and detracts from the overall look of the figure.

Other Stuff

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “set” for a figure shoot, which I’ve been getting away from more and more. It’s tough to do, so it’s a little because of the lazy. Plus, more often I find it a distraction, which it is here to some extent. I like the red on the white, it’s usually a striking combo, so I kept it in spite of how distracting, rather than complimentary, it can be.

(View the album on Flickr)

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:8-scale, ahoge, anime figures, Kotobukiya, thigh highs
Comments: 25 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Shana-chan Cafe Mode

super rats — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:29:34 +0000

As I have for the past twenty-seven days, I took a seat today in Shana’s station and ordered a chocolate milk shake. Everyone else in the cafe glances over and gives me a look. Ice clinks in glasses. Flatware gently clangs. A dull thrum of people talking. The walls are reddish-brown. I pretend not to notice their looks, but it’s obvious, obviously, yet somehow Shana doesn’t seem to notice that there’s anything odd with this guy who sits in her station, orders the same thing every single day, twenty-seven days in a row. Come to think of it, it’s kind of odd that Shana’s been here every single one of those days. Doesn’t she ever get a day off? My milk shake comes. Shana sets the long spoon down next to it like nothing is going on. But there is something going on. Right? There has to be.

Cospa’s Shana Waitress

This figure was released a while ago, but I didn’t get it until some time in March. It’s cute and I totally dig the diner stool Cospa used as the base, which makes up for any of the short-comings the figure has in production value. There’s nothing but gravity holding her onto the base, so when I was turning her for pictures she slid off the diner stool more than a few times. She’s a bit more stable while fully dressed.

A lot of bad figures have been made of Shana. While this one doesn’t top the Max Factory version, it’s a worthy pick-up for a Shana fan.

Headset Service

The headset is pretty plain, but the headset fan service as well as the usual cast-off variety of fan service makes for a good package. There’s extra panchira to show off the headset. “Shana Panchira” is definitely my favorite image in the set.

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:6-scale, anime figures, Cospa, maid, nice butt, pettanko, Shakugan-no-Shana, thigh highs
Comments: 36 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Unity May

super rats — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:41:20 +0000

It was such a great night, she had to call May, but May’s phone went straight to voice mail. She sat on her bed and had slid her tight jeans down to around her knees when she was prompted to speak. Her feet were cold and felt good trapped inside the still warm pant legs. She tilted back, lifted her legs, and plopped her whole body onto her bed.

“Hey, May. It’s me. I just got in. We all miss you. Are you coming back during break? Anyway, there was this party and the house got so trashed. I felt bad, so me and Trina decided to help clean up. Kasey was there too. She’s doing okay, but her wardrobe is malfunctioning. She needs your help, May. You’ve been away forever. I can’t believe it, May. Next year it’ll be us who’re going away. I still haven’t decided where yet. I got in at my top choice, but I don’t know, it’s so far away. Anyway, hope to see you during the break. Bye.”

Unity May Review

Eroge games spawn great figures. May looks like a stand-offish type of girl. Her face is in a scowl. Don’t get any closer. Her flowing robes guard her in a fight or they give her flight should May want to get away. Those robes are stunning in the way they surround her to add to May’s appeal without dominating or distracting from her. Her entire costume is like that, perfectly framing the character’s features, wherever you decide to look. The balance between an interesting costume and character itself is outstanding.

The only part that doesn’t look great is where her robe wings attach to her back. The seam is a pretty wide gap, but from the front, there are no construction compromises to ruin the image of the angsty May.

Other Stuff

One of the reasons I wanted to switch to a lighter weight theme was I’m thinking of moving away from Flickr. Their image servers are very fast, but their image size presets aren’t as large as I’d like. I wanted the medium size image to be a little larger (450×600) than they are on Flickr (375×500). Now that my home monitor is 1920×1200, the Flickr sized image was starting to look a bit small. Still, Flickr is mighty convenient and serves images faster than my website host does, so I may stay with Flickr anyway. This post is kind of a test.

Also, I’ve changed my lightbox plug-in. You can now click on an image and page through larger versions of the image. It auto-scales to your browser.

Other views: Exelica Meteor, Shin-Otaku.

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:8-scale, anime figures, GoodSmile, hat, Highly-Recommended, thigh highs, Unity Marriage, wings
Comments: 29 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Yuki Nagato Kneeling

super rats — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:55:10 +0000

When Yuki reads, I wonder what she thinks. How does she process the less literal? Something simple, such as, as warm as a mother’s touch. Most would understand that the warmth was comforting, even those who didn’t have a mother would understand that mothers are supposed to be nurturing and get what the author meant by warm as a mother’s touch. When Yuki reads it, does she think the author means to convey that something was 98 degrees in temperature? She can link up to any satellite and know exactly where she is better than anyone, but she always seems a little lost. Maybe it’s those eyes. They are cute.

Flickr link

Review of Alter’s School Uniform Yuki Nagato

Yuki has amazing eyes in this figure from Alter. The figure is really very simple and clear. No extra parts or gimmicks, just Yuki and that gaze she has, which I’ve always interpreted as searching rather than lacking emotion. Yuki looks like she’s on the verge of emotion.

The base is white with a molded H. Not pictured, because I’m like that.

Flickr link

Other

This is my fourth Yuki figure. While all of them I think are excellent figures, this one shares the same trait as the others in that they yield very few angles for photos. Still, I find the expression on this one engaging.

Flickr link

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:8-scale, Alter, anime figures, glasses, school-uniform, The-Melancholy-of-Haruhi-Suzumiya
Comments: 21 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Sakura Going Home

super rats — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:30:19 +0000

It was late and Sakura was tired. They were all tired, except everyone else had fallen asleep hours ago. Second in the world was a victory for the program, so they celebrated several years of hard work and training at a big restaurant and then brought the party back to the athletes’ village. But as of the morning, it was all over for her. She was already packed, including souvenirs for people back home and her medal. Sakura cried. There isn’t anything closer to gold than silver, but they’re completely different. Silver hurts.

View at Flickr

Review of Sakura Nanako by MegaHouse

Sakura is a cute 1/8 scale figure from MegaHouse and comes in two versions. This is a review of the regular version. She comes with three accessories, a hoop, a ball, and whatever those juggling things that look like bowling pins are called to create the whole rhythmic gymnastics thing for Sakura — that ribbon wand thing would have been nice addition too. Initial impression is it’s a very cute figure, but she’s from an ero game, so there’s cast-off, and some detailed anatomy definition going on. Her top layer can be removed to make it look more like a practice leotard, but it’s a bit too Jekyll and Hyde a transition for me to appreciate the ero configuration of this otherwise cute looking figure.

View at Flickr

The overall flow of the sculpt is very good, particularly her hair and the flow of her torso, and there’s an appealing level of definition of her tone, so in that respect I’m happy with the sculpt. Maybe the area where the thigh and hips meet could be a little more sophisticated and a little less of a gap in the cast-off top coverlet. Minor nits aside, if you like pink, this should be on your list.

Anyway, the base she comes with is fairly attractive. It’s white with some sakura petals painted on, and thankfully, completely optional to display Sakura properly.

View at Flickr

Other Stuff

If you’re curious about the more ero side of this figure, Foobarbaz (alternate version) and Exelica-Meteor have those shots for you.

View at Flickr

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:8-scale, anime figures, blue eyes, cute, MegaHouse, pink-hair
Comments: 29 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Kousaka Tamaki Mosaic

super rats — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:00:44 +0000

Tamaki was wet and breathing hard. We had just come into my house after running several blocks through a rain that surprised us. An hour ago the sun was up and the sky was blue, but then the clouds moved in, swelled up, and burst into rainfall. We both collapsed on the rug to catch our breath and after a moment Tamaki began to pull off her wet clothes. The swimsuit she wore underneath her uniform was also wet. My uniform wasn’t bad, so I moved up to the sofa, laid back, and told her to stay on the ground. This drew a look. Okay, so now, do I have the balls to take it further? I’m a lonely otaku, so what do you think? That’s right, C) Stick it in!

Obligatory Flickr link

Review of Griffon’s 1/7 Scale Kousaka Tamaki

This is an okay figure from Griffon. Presenting Tamaki in a state of undress is a very good idea and the sculpt itself looks good, but the overall finish is kind of rough compared with the recent output from companies like Alter and Max Factory. While it’s fairly common for a figure to have a slightly different skin color for the head vs. the body, the difference in shade and color is a little too high on Tamaki. And given the exposed shoulders putting the two skin colors relatively close to each other, it makes the difference more pronounced.

Obligatory Flickr link

Negatives aside, the figure delivers on the swimsuit fetish for those who like well endowed girls. This is boosted by a faux-discrete view of the inner thighs, which are set up by the stockings. The natural shadows the sculpt creates obfuscates without getting in the way of seeing what the eye seeks. I like the shapes on the figure.

She comes with a black display base that is large and generic, by which I mean it’s not just plain, but it doesn’t even look like it’s something made specifically for anime girl figures. I could easily see this base used to display a small model car or a geode. It feels like a total afterthought. Not only that, she doesn’t rest completely flat, so the base doesn’t do anything that any other flat surface would do. Thank goodness it’s optional.

Other Stuff

This is my first Griffon figure. I’ve stayed away from their figures, since none of them looked high quality, but I saw the gothic Yuki at Exelica Meteor and thought the detail on that was amazing. This figure not so much. True it’s a swimsuit figure, so naturally there’s less detail, but the finish wasn’t all there. Every company has good and bad figures and this one is somewhere in the middle, so I’m still open to getting some Griffon stuff.

Obligatory Flickr link

And finally, able to work Cinamorrol into a figure shoot.

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:7-scale, anime figures, clothes pull, Griffon, red hair, school-uniform, swimsuit, thigh highs, twin-tails
Comments: 22 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Twin-Tail Goodness, Teana Lanster

super rats — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:40:30 +0000

Teana Lanster rushed up the steps, twin-tails swaying, past the bouncer and the chumps waiting to get inside, puffed up her cheeks and blew out her pent up breath, popping her lips like a gum bubble bursting, into the late night air. The basement club that she left, the sounds the chatter and the bass line a laughing echo in her head, the thick air, the collective exhale and evaporating sweat of two hundred people, a steam that stretched into the cool night, it was gone. Cars and their exhaust smelled sweet as she pulled in the cold air, pushing the last life out of the club scene she just fled. She felt so light for a moment breathing the fumes, but grew to feel heavy. Why do I always do this, she thought. It was too late to go back.

View on Flickr

Review of Teana Lanster from Alter

I haven’t gotten many of the Nanoha figures Alter is releasing, but I can’t pass up a dual pistol wielding twin tail girl. Haven’t seen any Nanoha, but I assume twin tails = tsundere, yeah, whatever. Cute figure is cute.

She’s a 1/7 scale figure, which is probably my favorite figure scale, made by Alter. Like all the Nanoha figures, Teana comes with a large base with her name and almost a trading card like description on it. Teana don’t need no stinking base to stay upright, which is always a good option when shelf space is a premium.

Her guns can turn into gun-swords, which look very cool. Instead of coming with optional gun parts, Alter opted to have each one of her arms an optional part, so you swap out her arms instead of just the weapon to get the variant. I like this option as it makes sure the weapons stay put and fit right.

View on Flickr

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:7-scale, Alter, anime figures, blue eyes, boots, gloves, gun, Nanoha, sword, twin-tails
Comments: 26 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Saber from Gift

super rats — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:04:50 +0000

Sayne kept his eyes on the battle aftermath instead of turning away when he heard his servant, Saber, approach from behind. She stopped and kept silent, giving him a moment. The sun hung low and continued to fall, darkening late afternoon down to twilight so that the men and women salvaging and scavenging were silhouettes, dark shadows shambling over corpses. Sayne stared into the sun. If he stood on the other side of the battlefield and watched the vultures prying gear from dead men’s hands, they would be bathed in golden sunlight. He collected himself, a battlefield swathed in golden light, that was not his perspective. There were only to Magus left and he and Saber still had much to do.

Go to Flickr

Review of Saber from Gift

The main attraction here is finally getting Saber in armor after a string of non-armored Saber figures. Saber in armor was much desired that I ordered it even though both faces that come with the figure are pretty awful. Now that the PVC version is here, nothing really has changed. The armor rocks and the faces suck. It comes with an over-large mirrored base, which takes up a lot of shelf/desk space without really needing to.

Go to Flickr

Other Stuff

I think the armor and costume details are enough to keep the hideous faces somewhat in check. The less anime looking face has some major eye alignment issues, so I’ll stick to the anime face. This really makes me look forward to GSC’s Saber Lily version.

Another review at Foobarbaz.

Go to Flickr

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with ahoge, anime figures, armor, Gift, ribbon, Saber, sword
Comments: 32 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Pixy Hiyori [nsfw]

super rats — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:45:36 +0000

Even after six months Pixy Hiyori still had problems with the common tongue. Her main problem was word order. The structure of her native language was almost the complete reverse of the common structure. So each morning, when the maids came in to dress her, Pixy Hiyori recited all of their actions while clothing her to practice thinking and speaking in common. When the maid slid her leggings on, Pixie would say the leggings were sliding over her foot, then over her knee, the pumpkin headdress rested on her head, etc. Pixy paid particular attention to not call the codpiece between her legs a “piece of cod”. The last time she flipped codpiece the maids laughed for several minutes, causing Pixy to be late for the King, and the maids to be disciplined by the head mistress. Even though the maids laughed at her and despised her for being so close to the King, as some of them no doubt used to be in her position as the King’s taster, Pixy made sure to be careful with her words to spare them a beating.

View on Flickr

Pixy Hiyori from GoodSmile

I forgot I even ordered Pixy Hiyori, so I can’t really say why I ordered the figure, but it was a GoodSmile thing from the Chu x Chu Idol series so it didn’t bug me to see the shipping notice. As much as a rail against cast-off in general, I’ve still got otaku tendencies, so I could at least look forward to the cheap thrill of unwrapping. The costume skirts the snag most cast-off figures encounter — clothing thickness. Since Pixy’s clothes are basically a bunch of belts the cast-off looks good both off and on. Nothing needs to be compromised to accommodate this gimmick. The legging cast-off leaves a bit of an obvious seam, but it really doesn’t bother me that much my eye doesn’t tend to rest there.

The important parts are all tip-top: eyes, check; eyes, check; hair paint, awesome; molding artifacts are unavoidable, but better than average; base has a design; interesting outfit; and, a sweet pose that twists and curves nicely. Support pegs in the base are a little suspect, being a little shallow, so might not be that secure as turning the figure while taking pictures the figure was slipping off the pegs. Not worried about warp, rather about peg snappage since her pumpkin headdress is a little on the heavy side.

Pixy is good, but that’s not a surprise. If you meant to pick this up, but had to hold-off for one reason or another this post is a reminder.

View on Flickr

Other Stuff

Those strands are one of those cheap and cheesy fiber optic lamps that I’ve had since college. I don’t even think it works anymore. Wouldn’t generate enough light to glow over the lights shining on Pixy. It’s old. There was so much dust on it that I had to clean Pixy after the threads touched her. Also had to clean up my spelling on “Pixy” as I kept writing “Pixie”, which was particularly annoying when renaming my full-res files.

Since I didn’t do any full cast-off shots, I’ll direct the curious to Foobarbaz and Exelica-Meteor. I know, I’m a bad person for not documenting Pixy in a state of undress.

View on Flickr

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:8-scale, anime figures, blue eyes, cast-off, Chu x Chu Idol, ecchi, GoodSmile, nice butt
Comments: 24 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Gwendolyn, Odin Sphere’s Valkyrie

super rats — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:37:05 +0000

Gwendolyn sighed. It was a weird feeling. She won; she was the champion, touching perfection for a moment; but, what was this emptiness? All around her the people she knew moved jubilant, smiled bright, congratulating her, exploding with joy for her victory, but she couldn’t wait for the party to end so she could wonder, what now?

Flickr link

Review of Alter’s Gwendolyn (Odin Sphere)

Maybe armchair psychologists could turn how one views this figure as a personality test, is Gwendolyn landing or about to take flight in this figure? I think she’s landing.

The dimensions of Alter’s rendition of Gwendolyn makes the valkyrie a standout on my shelf. She stands above many of them due to her stature and the pose at the top of that tree stump. People get a clear view of her since her body is almost on her own horizontal plane of view since her body starts a bit higher than other figures. Also, those wings draw a lot of attention, so it’s a good thing that the rendering of them is beautiful. The detail and the material holds light in an appealing way.

The paint on Gwendolyn’s hair is pretty mediocre, which has quite a lot of detail in it, but the paint makes it look clumpy when looked at closely. It’s several notches below the rest of an otherwise nicely painted figure.

Definitely enjoy having this in the collection.

Flickr link

Otro Shiz

That braid bun on the back of her head for some reason just reminds me of Saber. Though it’s not a big stretch considering it’s a girl in armor. Anyway, I have to give a thumbs up to Alter deciding to do something with the base. It’s nice to see, though given the fairly small footprint, how tall the figure is and the wings all spread out, the high center of balance on the figure, it’s somewhat wobbly. It shouldn’t be a problem unless you like do DDR or something with a lot of jumping right next to her. On the plus side, the small footprint helps with cramming as many figures into a Detolf as possible.

So far, those I’ve seen reviewing Gwendolyn (foobarbaz and Exelica-Meteor) decided to go plain white for the background. I did too. The contrast of the dark wings, skirt, and leggings against a stark white background was too good to pass up. The wings are worth highlighting that way.

Even with something as mechanical and technically defined as photography, there can be a decent bit of variation from one photographer to another, even when shooting the same object with a very similar functional use of the visual environment (or lack of one), the three Gwendolyn on white sets look different.

Flickr link

Posted in Featured, Figure Review | Tagged with 1:8-scale, Alter, anime figures, armor, diorama base, Fukumoto Noritaka, Highly-Recommended, nice butt, thigh highs, wings
Comments: 32 comments

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh