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.

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2010. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, Alter, Hyakka Ryoran, Tanaka Senu

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Sora Kasugano has a pensive air around her. She would be just another character from an eroge, except for the softly contrasted monochromatic colors of her skin, clothing, and hair caught my eye. I find all of the Yosuganosora characters illustrated by Hashimoto Takashi attractive, mainly for how well the line work and color palette match so well.

Houjun Otoyama sculpted Sora based on this illustration. The adaptation of that illustration to the figure, particularly in her body language is well done. Otoyama caught the pensive body language as well as the physical shape and tone. Her hips and subtle torso twist look far more solid in the figure. I’m a fan of tummies, so I enjoy the extra tone that Otoyama included on Sora. All that’s missing is some water glistens, but I don’t imagine there’s currently a way to include that detail without it looking eww-chunky. Last thing you want to do with an already questionable desk ornament is to have to explain that stuff on her is supposed to be water.

Her towel is rendered surprisingly well for being made of plastic. As far as the base goes it does the job and is unobtrusive. The black rabbit doll acts as a counterweight to Sora’s lightness. Keeping it on the base grounds the figure well. Check out one of the thumbnails at the end that show the figure without the rabbit doll and towel to see how the composition of the figure is a bit unsettled without these accessories.

MegaHouse’s Sora Kasugano isn’t completely chocolate and unicorns. Sora’s head tilt looks better in the illustration, conveying a bit more personality than the more straight ahead positioning on the figure sculpt. Her figure face is a little more generic than resembling the illustration. As far as the detailing, shading in places is a bit over dark. In particular around her knees and ankles, it looks more like dirt than the natural darkening of these areas on an idealized body.

The over-shading isn’t enough to detract from her legs, which are a bit more realistically proportioned than in a good number of figures, where the tendency is to really elongate the leg area. Sora’s head and body are about the same combined length as her legs. Often times this proportion can make a drawing or figure appear stubby, rather than long and elegant. Sora appears to be anything but stubby.

I hope to see a Brilliant Stage treatment of some of the other Yosuganosora characters. Sora turned out better than I expected and a little bit more interesting than I thought she would be. Foo-bar-baz gave the figure 5-stars and I think its a good figure as well. I guess, if I had to score points against the sculpt itself, it would be her butt. The shape around her lower back, the tailbone on up seems off.

Extra Shots

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2010. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, bows, MegaHouse, swimsuit, twin-tails

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Perhaps a three-dimensional representation of the Black Rock Shooter cannot scoop up all of the style of the two dimensional art, but Akeji pretty much rocked this out anyway. The best part of the figure are her blue eyes, giving off a melancholy vibe. They’re really mysterious looking. However, facial expression really only matters up close, like when the figure is on your desk. On the shelf, the rest of the figure is what should speak and keep it interesting for several months or more.

Even though it is a background element, the massive cannon makes this figure shine. That and the massive base. Both elements have more visual mass than the shooter herself and work to contrast with her long twiggy body. It’s almost like the shooter herself is a placeholder for the gun and the flowing coat, which kind of fits her sad expression. That coat is fantastic, a perfect amount of shine, and the folds superb.

I love how the hair came out. It sort of looks like there’s streaks of different shades in her hair, rather than just one color. Have the figure people been seeing some hair color commercials?

Here’s some other opinions of BRS: foobarbaz and Persocom’s.

In the end, an excellent rendition of the Black Rock Shooter character. Anyway, does she actually have a name?

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 28 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, boots, GoodSmile, gun

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Hello again. Time for plastic and jpegs. This go around it’s Yagyu Jubei from Alter and Hobby Japan, the first in the Hyakka Ryoran series, featuring a quartet of legendary warriors turned girly by Nitro+. Jubei is a standard release figure, but some of the others in the series are Hobby Japan exclusives. Nitro+ designs usually translate very well into figure form, so I’ve been looking forward to these figures.

The individual design elements are appealing. Her swords mounted on rope belts around her thighs are ridiculous, but they look great. A skirt would just get in the way, so Jubei’s smart not to wear one. Function should win over modesty in these situations, after all.

The sculpt, by Mirano, emphasizes triangles to keep the eye looking over the figure. The wide hips are a triangle pointing up and the neckline of her shirt a triangle pointing down, where the two points meet in between her breasts. There’s a couple other natural triangle patterns that have been emphasized and put to good use, which helps give the figure a good visual flow overall.

While I love the decent sized hips, full size boobs, and the face/eye design, Jubei looks slightly off in her proportions. It could be the chunky shoes elongating her legs that’s throwing me off, but her torso feels a touch compact. Also, from some angles the placement of her neck/head gets thrown off by the drum on her back.

I had a good impression of the figure when I took it out of the box. Although, there are a couple of things that dampened the sweetness, I still have a favorable view of the figure after a longer look. It looks like Foobarbaz, gave Jubei 3 out of 5 stars, which I could see, but I think I like it a little better than that. Could just be that I like the designs and it’s tilting me a little.

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 26 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, Alter, anime figures, Hyakka Ryoran, Nitro+, pantsu, swords

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Summer is way too slow a time for figure collecting. Given the heat and the low melt point of PVC, there’s probably a good reason why July and August feel like all the figure companies went on vacation. Commerce happens year round, so it probably has nothing to do with that and I’m just linking two coinciding patterns that have nothing to do with one another. Still, this time of year it always feels like I’ve stopped collecting figures. Thank goodness Narika arrived to push the summertime blahs away.

The Narika figure from Alter comes from the eroge Beat Blades Haruka, a game from Alice Soft, who know a thing or two about this type of character design. Obviously, the figure depicts Narika in battle gear. It’s eroge battle gear, so not all that practical for anyone but those looking at Narika.

Narika’s battle suit contrasts elements to frame her slender assets. She’s got a giant snowboard blade thing and ballooned out MC Hammer pants. Color-wise the battle regalia uses highly contrasty red and white to flank her pink hair. These high color and high detail areas create a couple of voids to draw the eye to her face and then to her bikini area, which in case you get lost along the way have a couple of line elements pointing straight to it.

I’m real happy with the figure. Alter’s Narika has invigorated my anticipation for the impending fall figure onslaught. What I like is how the twists of Narika’s slender body contrast with the overlarge battle gear elements, that and there’s a pleasing amount of detail rendered in her costume. The sculptor (Aketagawa Noboru) also managed to create some subtle muscle mass in her arms and torso while still keeping her slender looking. Sometimes these thin pettanko characters lack that nuance and have very basic limbs and torsos to maintain the illusion of slenderness. There’s also a pretty pronounced detail in the bikini area, but Narika comes from an eroge, so that’s fine and expected. I’d only consider that kind of detail a bad thing if the character comes from non-eroge roots. Of course, that’s a detail that some find distasteful regardless.

She’s got an ABS leg that connects to the white diamond-shaped base. It’s a very similar mount to the Haruka figure from last year and that’s held up perfectly. The big blade is mounted via a peg on Narika’s back. The right forearm and hand are made from a very flexible plastic so that you’re able to easily get the blade into position and her hand around the grip.

Narika is a great figure. Kodomut has some pics where she’s all wet, which is a nice effect. It was a fun figure to take pictures of simply because it’s just an awesome figure, plus red and white always make a striking color combination.

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 33 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, Alter, battle suit, gloves, Highly-Recommended, pink-hair, thigh highs

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

The pose and the costume struck my fancy, what with the skirt being short, the legs being long, the butt being nice, and some things being striped. I like it. Still I know, she’ll likely hit the bargain bin and could have waited, but I’ve never been much to wait on a bargain with figures. I probably should. Every time there’s a big figure sale I can’t buy anything since all that I wanted I already have.

So yeah, summer was good, especially since it wasn’t very hot at all. Now it’s time to brace myself for the onslaught of the fall figure releases!

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, GoodSmile, nice butt, pink-hair, thigh highs

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Just a quick scene between Drossel and Haruhi. Drossel is such an amazing action figure, so expressive, which is funny since it’s a robot character.

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Drossel, figma, The-Melancholy-of-Haruhi-Suzumiya

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Figure Review: Yoko by Kotobukiya

My first Yoko. I’m so far behind Dancing Queen on the Yoko love. Actually, this isn’t the first Yoko that I’ve ordered, but it just happens to be the first one to my door. Bounty Hunter Yoko from Alter was supposed to be the first one, but I got impatient when that got pushed back and I went ahead and ordered this one from Kotobukiya.

Beyond the awesomeness of Yoko’s character design, this figure has a decent plus column: nice pants; nice rack; nice gun. Koto left space where there should be space along the waist of her short-shorts, a definite plus, especially for a 1/6 scale figure. Would be pretty cruddy if it were solid fill. I dig the belt and the studs too. Though the gun and her arms cover her boobs for the most part, the flaming bikini top is visible, so nice positioning there. And finally, the gun is cool because there are options and the bolt moves, which doesn’t mean much, but’s sweet that they went the extra step there. Also, the figure paint is quite clean.

In the not so hot column: hair and face. The big line and flow of her pony-tail is good, but some more strand rendering would have been nice on a figure this size. Yoko’s face on the box, from the prototype, looks a lot better than the one from the actual pvc figure and is not a change for the better. Still, it’s passable and you’ve got choices when it comes to the face and skull clip.

All in all, pretty sweet, though would have preferred leggings that weren’t torn up.

Other Stuff

I’m glad that Figure.fm is back. I never really took to using Danny’s Member News, even though that’s where stuff that was on figure.fm was meant to go.

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:6-scale, anime figures, gun, Gurren Lagaan, Kotobukiya, nice rack, thigh highs

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Review of Haruhi Gekisou Version from Max Factory

This figure is sweet for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the guitar fan service (note: the Fender Twin Reverb amplifier model does not come with the figure). See what makes this cool is Max Factory’s rendition of the Italia Mondial Deluxe — it has strings, which totally rocks. If the guitar fan service wasn’t enough, well there’s Haruhi and this figure gives her long-legged glory and a costume with details and frill. These things were executed well for a mass produced figure. The macro lens might be a little unkind, showing what looks like a tarnished A-string among a set of clean strings on her Mondial Deluxe, but it’s not that bad.

Kind of wish her face were slightly more refined, but I think it captures Haruhi pretty well. Gekisou Haruhi has really long legs. More normally proportioned and she’d probably look stubby straddling the Fender Twin instead of rocking like she does. About the only thing I’d put on a wish list would be a more sheer looking stocking or shading to make the gray tone less flat, though I’m not actually complaining about how it looks, which looks good as is. The figure was sculpted by Masanori Kuroda.

Other Stuff

I’ve passed on the Gekisou Versions of the other characters. To me this one is the best of the bunch, unless you really must have the SG (iirc) that Yuki sports. Mikuri’s dislocated leg just weirds me out. What would be great if Max Factory can do the K-ON! girls with their instruments in the same scale as the Haruhi Gekisou figures, especially with Ritsu on drums, and mix and match for a KyoAni all-star girl band.

Hehe, I have to learn a little self control with pushing the colors and contrast around a little. She’s a bit red here. I like how it looks though, which is why I didn’t bother to fix it. Also added a bunch of noise to the guitar shot. I was going to do it on all of them, but changed my mind. The other ones are a bit more normal.

This figure was reviewed quite a while ago and I’ve seen a number of reviews: foobarbaz, persocom, meronpan, exelica-meteor, YuKi-To, Optic and there’s probably more that I can’t remember off the top of my head — she’s a popular figure, so I think a high proportion of figure blogs have her reviewed. Still, I’ll link you up if you point me to your review.

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 25 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gothic, guitar, K-ON!, Max Factory, The-Melancholy-of-Haruhi-Suzumiya

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

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)

HappySoda sponsor:

© super rats for HappySoda, 2009. | Permalink | 25 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1:8-scale, ahoge, anime figures, Kotobukiya, thigh highs

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh