I love Native. They extend the collection experience beyond most companies. Native doesn’t stop at the figure, at least with the three in my collection (Kotone, Shoujo-S, and Trunk Girl). Each of the figures came with an almost designer-like box. I didn’t take photos of the boxes, a) because it’s a pain and b) it might just look like a colored box in a tiny jpeg. Something about that little extra thought in the package design makes Native figures feel like “Special Collector’s Edition” stuff. The box is not just this thing protecting it in transit and then quickly cut open. Trunk Girl’s box was shaped like a suitcase, looking like one of those gift packages that come from a spa or a boutique. Those boutique packages are designed to make you feel special with your little treasure. Native has the right idea with their approach on their boutique items.

(Bare plastic beyond this point).

Since I never did a post on Shoujo-S, I decided to “review” her too and do a Native group shoot, though since Kotone had her own post kept her in the background. Had a spell where I barely updated this blog for a year, so there are huge chunks of my collection un-reviewed, not that I “reviewed” everything I got when I updated almost weekly. Hell, I still have a few EMS boxes that are unopened after a year. There’s a space issue in my apartment. I can’t open a new figure without retiring one, unless I just start putting them in the dining room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the freezer (which I could have Metamo-Haruhi guard my supply of Late Night Snack, Fair Goodness Cake and Imagine Whirled Peace), etc.

So that this feels special mood which Trunk Girl’s packaging imparted inspired me to put a little bit of effort into creating a little backdrop for these pictures. Creating a simple set looks simple, but I knew better than that and educated guessed that it would take at least a weekend of making it while watching football. Even accounting for it taking triple the time I imagined it should, it took even longer than that, even with half the stuff I wanted to put on set removed due to lack of skill in making things like night stands for the bed. Yeah, even easy looking “contemporary” minimalist furniture requires patience and care. It takes trial and error time, and well, sometimes it’s better to just finish something than to wait until every detail comes together.

Thank goodness I decided to move on and not include things that wouldn’t be in the image frame anyway. I tend to be aggressive in my crops when I compose a shot. While I should work on using space in image composition more often, when deciding which images to include the less aggressively cropped images wind up going unprocessed. The way I shot them just isn’t strong.

After spinning my wheels trying to make decent looking night tables, for the “contemporary hotel room” set, the only elements in the set wound up being a wall design that didn’t make any of the final images (the corner of the room has an inverted corner). The headboard looks terrible in person, but kept out of focus it’s good enough. My favorite parts are the wall lamps, which are made with two LEDs, scrapbook paper, and glue. Unfortunately, one of them had a weak battery, so they looked really unbalanced when both were on, but they actually do light up. With tighter lighting, a pretty beam pattern can be achieved; however, that would make the beam pattern the focus of the image and not the figures. Plus, the beam pattern falling on the headboard calls attention to how sloppy the headboard actually is, so there was that as well. Even though the set took a lot of time to assemble, they’re not the point or the focus of the images. If they are, it’s sort of a fail to me. Sure, people looking at the photos and not just quickly scrolling might take time to decipher the background, that’s different. I don’t want the scroll viewer to pay more attention to the background in that .34 seconds they’re looking at the images.

The picture frame is strip wood with ebony stain. Should have included white matting to make it look more like a framed image, since those usually have matting. I was just happy I cut the wood with perfect 45 degree angles where they join. The image is a 5 Centimeters Per Second still if you’re trying to guess.

Trunk Girl comes from this illustration by Nishieda, who has a style that is distinct from other ero artists. There’s like this fusion of anime with a color palette and tone that melts in a little of those old Saturday Evening Post cover illustrations. Nishieda’s coloring style probably won’t translate to a figure at all, so it presents a challenge for Dendobrium, the sculptor, to capture the same feel without benefit of the color rendering which is a significant part of the artist’s style.

For the most part, I’m okay with the sculptor’s interpretation of the image. The lock of hair across the face didn’t quite do it, but given the physics of PVC, probably isn’t going to get much better without abandoning the lock across the face entirely. Positioning of the lock could have been better. The main point of contention would be the face (especially her eyes), which as a figure collector is just something you get used to, as more often than on it doesn’t line up. One reason of course is 2D vs. 3D and foreshortening. Sometimes in the illustration the foreshortening is done in such a way as to be physically impossible. It looks charming on the page, but if you could actually rotate the axis you’ll often find noses ending up in very strange places and a lot of crooked brow ridges. Trunk girl comes with interchangeable breast pieces. The alternates are supposed to be sheer fabric. Default configuration looks better.

I’ve always thought of the ‘S’ in Shoujo-S to stand for ‘strawberry.’ It’s based off this image by Naruko Hanaharu. The mood of the figure differs a little bit from that in the illustration. The sculpt has a more tentative interpretation of her expression, which feels a little more eager in the illustration, even in the body language. The cock of her hip is a bit more aggressive in the illustration, but whoever sculpted this really did fantastic work on her body, the shapes, the curves, all stellar for me. Softer somehow. She comes with a chair, strawberries, a tube of icing and a strawberry for her mouth. Would have been fantastic if they included the desk she’s got her hand resting on.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

The official character illustrations for Mikoto and Kuroko appeal to me due to a distinct art style, a little sharper, a little less soft, a bit more linear than cute girls get drawn. So yeah, I like the characters via the designs and the expressive images I’ve seen floating around. In much of the official looking art I see for this franchise, many of the images tell some kind of story, often with Kuruko as the instigator of something to funk up Mikoto. Kuroko seems awesome like that, at least, that’s what I’m going with based on random images I see.

Before getting fetish outfit figures of Mikoto and Kuroko, I should have gotten figures of them in their standard attire, particularly since these are probably the only ones of the characters I’m likely to get. There really aren’t that many of them. Alter has figures for two of the other characters, but none of Mikoto, which seems odd to me. Weird. So, french maid outfits it wound up being. Not that it really matters. Most figures I buy for how much I like them instead of getting them because I like the character or am a fan of a show.

I like the contrast of personalities and body language between the two. These Kotobukiya figures are decent enough, but nothing all that special other than being 1/6 scale. If these were 1/8 scale, I don’t know if I would have ordered them. They’re screw mounted onto an uninspired bases, which thankfully don’t have a huge footprint and interlock with each other. Kuroko seems a little crooked in how she’s mounted, like the person screwing her onto the base might have needed a work break, rather than completely smashed on toxic fumes.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m a little surprised that there haven’t been more Rin figures made over the last few of years. I can see why Saber figures outnumber Rin. Armor. Big sword. A wider variety of costumes and outfits. Plus if you go with the extremes of Rei and Asuka spectrum of anime girls, Saber is closer to Rei, who as it’s been thrown around, is more appealing to otaku. Rin on the other hand, at least as far as the anime goes, is more of a bitch, doesn’t wear armor or carry a big frakking sword. A serious lack of props that a pendant and a dagger can’t compare with. Still, expected more Rin figures than what was released.

As far as sexy goes I think Rin wins hands down, but Saber makes a much better D&D character. So she’s always had that appeal for me, which is why I have way too many Saber figures. On the other hand, trying to stat out a character sheet, Rin doesn’t even work that well as a magic-user — (as a side-note Rider, would rock out with spiked chain cheese in D&D 3.5). But you know if manufacturers actually released more Rin figures I probably would have almost as many as I do of Saber. Those two Fate/Stay Night Rin and Saber figures that Good Smile Company released a few years ago, ordering from Japan for the first time, waiting for them to arrive from overseas, and finally un-boxing them, unboxing an anime figure for the very first time got me hooked on collecting figures. I didn’t even know who they were. They just looked frakking cool and thought those figures were amazing. So yeah, Saber and Rin, have that sentimental appeal.

Of the two summer figures released by Alter, I think Rin wins in the more interesting department. Seated poses score points with me, plus this Saber pose is a straight vanilla line. I think that’s why the small handful of shots that I have here focus on Rin. Love her gaze here. Overall though, the detail isn’t very high, but my soft spot for these two character designs, and camis yay, makes me happy enough to have them.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Walking up to a house cat, pointing at it and calling it an aardvark makes about as much sense as pointing to sauerkraut and calling it honey. On some level names are just arbitrary sounds attached to an object, a label and we all know labels stink. Limiting. Confining. Why get bent out of shape if that guy calls a house cat an aardvark if I know exactly what it is that guy is pointing to. It’s just a tag and not exactly what that thing is. Still, getting back to the subject. I have problems calling her a dwarf.

A pixie, a sprite, a fairy or any other fey-tinged name and I’m not thinking about this at all. Those small creatures hide in gardens, bushes, and mushroom circles and shoot bows with heart shaped arrowheads at hapless humans needing a change in expectations. Dwarves don’t do any of that. Dwarves drink ale for breakfast, mine for ore, and grumble when things change too quickly. A tunnel carved too quickly will collapse twice as soon. Dwarves reject the whimsy with which fey folk indulge. Dwarves carry axes and hammers. Sturdy weapons that extend their stodginess.

There’s nothing about this – what should be called a pixie – that even looks remotely dwarven. Everyone knows dwarven women have four measurements, not three as with other vaguely humanoid creatures, the ideal measurements being 38 chest, 36 waist, 38 hips and an 18 beard. I don’t care what the manual or errata document says, a 0 beard does *NOT* count as a beard with a length of zero. There is no beard, so there is no way I’m calling this pixie a dwarf!

Doot-dee-doo-dee-doo.

“Dwarf” is a non-scale figure, but stands about the same height as a 1/8 scale figure. Being some sort of pixie, I assume she’s really small, probably closer to the size of the figure.

Overall, it’s a pretty cute figure, sculpted by Osirus, produced by Orchid Seed. Being called “Dwarf” in spite of not seeming dwarven at all in how I’m used to dwarves was the main reason for purchase. It might be the first, but no more than the second Orchid Seed figure in my collection. Costume detail is good and the base looks like it was meant to be with the figure with it being clear, pink, and cute. Always a plus. Orchid Seed fell a little short on painting her hair, at parts the plastic underneath shows through and in general the paint seems a little too clumpy, not smooth. It sort of looks like this was painted in thick to do it in one pass, as opposed to a couple of passes with finer paint. That’s all conjecture since I really don’t know. Just trying to describe my impression on it.

One could remove the Dwarf’s bloomers if they wanted to, but leaving them on gives it a more playful air, in spite of the seam on the bloomers being very obvious due to them being removable. She brightens up my mostly black computer desk area.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

A 1/8 scale PVC Taiga has spent the past couple of months on my desk and I didn’t mind it at all. The highlights of the figure are a seated pose, the chair, and the sort of a china dress. In the real world, the china dress never looks as good as it does on anime characters or in movies. It’s such a form fitting garment that it can be unforgiving. Anime characters can be impossibly skinny and proportioned to have the long slender legs needed to work the dress. That’s the beauty of animated girls and their deformities. Nevermind Taiga is supposed to be a shrimp.

Wave produced this figure (Abira sculpted it). Overall I like it, since Taiga looks a lot less bothersome than other Taiga figures I’ve seen, but I have a gripe with the base. It’s awful ugly. I’m tempted to cut off the peg on Taiga’s extended foot that gets planted into the base so that her foot would rest flush with the ground. That way Taiga could sit on the chair and I could throw away the ugly base. The chair has some seriously thin legs though, so I wonder if they might bow if required to hold her weight. As it is now, the peg actually supports all her weight and she barely even touches the chair. The chair bears none of the weight. There might be some stability issues using the chair as the primary support with such a narrow footprint, but I don’t plan to do P90X in my second floor apartment anytime soon. Anyway, thought the figure was pretty enough to do a quick set.

She has two hair configurations, twin-tails or no tails. Even though I am a twin-tails fan in general, I think the no tails look runs less interference on the main features of the figure. At this point, I don’t remember which is the default and which is the alternate setting, but she sported the no tail look while she was on desk duty.

I really should continue with Toradora. I saw the first episode. Not really a huge fan of Taiga yet, the cute and compact girl archetype doesn’t appeal to me that much and yuck, her apartment was freaking gross, not to mention that her personality hasn’t really come out in that one episode. I’m actually more interested in finding out what Ryuji is all about. However, I expect that since he’s a male lead in an anime, I shouldn’t expect him to be an interesting character in the long run.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I still totally dig the Black Rock Shooter. To me she’s a style and a design. Because that’s sort of what she was. Because I’ve chosen not to learn more about her. The bliss of ignorance. Knowing isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Stuff in your head sometimes trump the facts, especially when it’s something that’s just for fun. I’m a little wary, or more like wondering should I bother, about learning more about a character design that’s captivated my imagination. Maybe if there was universal praise for the BRS OVA, I’d find a way to see it. The mixed signals I’m getting tells me to enjoy the mystery and fantasy of this stylish chic with a big fucking gun blasting through the bleak corridors strewn with rubble and chains of my imagination. Do I need anything more from her than that?

This is a sweet figure, everything about it, from how she’s rushing forward ready to swing that BFG around (I’d love a figure with her in a blast somethings head off position, blaster pointed full forward), the flying chains, that slick pleather hybrid tracksuit trench coat hoodie, hits me where I want to be hit. I also have the first BRS figure that GoodSmile released and like having both. There isn’t a feeling of redundancy since the sculpts depict different things.

One of the interesting things about these figures is how the diorama base and the cannon perform a role in carrying over the style. Most of the BRS artwork, Huke’s in particular, use a lot on grungy texture as part of her image, which presents a problem when transferring the qualities of the 2D artwork to a figure. How exactly do you put the grunge texture on her skin and on her clothes? That texture isn’t exactly on her. It’s just part of the medium of the image. So the base carries the grunge. These shots, being clean, are more shots of a figure than BRS images. I think someone with PS skills could grunge photos of a BRS figure and shift them into being BRS images. It’s just a random thought I had typing up this review.

Given how much these things cost these days, something like forgetting a detail like the star on the front of her coat, which GoodSmile Company forgot, can be bothersome. I’ll just insert a placeholder comment about the trajectory GSC figure quality here and move on. In any case, if you are fortunate enough to secure the star decal, Tier has a decent suggestion on where to slap it on this bad girl.

Black Rock Shooter (Animation Versions) has a number of good viewing angles. The cannon-side view has a strong x-shape, along with the lines of her coat and hair, it reminds me of power in the sense of a motorcycle in shape. The sculpt could probably be at home as a hood ornament a la Jaguar, except mounted on a BRS themed itasha car. If only I were eccentric enough. I need to add two more zeros in my bank account to flawlessly pull off eccentric vs. man, there’s something off about that guy.

Anyway, unlike the first one where I think she looks better without the flame-eye, this version looks better with the flame-eye, at least from the front on view. In the shot below, the way the eyes line up from that angle gives her more of a moody expression vs. a straight deadpan.

With the exception of this last shot, I tried to keep the contrast down on these photos. In general, I’ve been trying to hold up on the contrast a little bit. Not by a lot, since a number of these have some pretty hot highlights. Contrast does create visual interest.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Time evaporates. Her hair streams, the cloth of her sleeves dance, and her encased sword waits on edge for the sweetness of release. Alter’s Momohime qualifies as a masterwork, a Michelangelo of Japanese cute girl figures, both in grace, and nudge/wink, the size of her large hands.

When Momohime was announced there was a pretty strong buzz, a couple of notches below Saber Lily and Black Rock Shooter buzz, but definitely at must get levels. So what makes this delicate and murderous princess more divine than the others released lately?

A little truth first, as the retail version is not the flawless gem I wish it could be called. There is a phenomena where one on the verge of “perfection” sabotages oneself before carrying the ball over the line to become the greatest forever. Something went wrong and to make matters worse, the wound was self-inflicted. Alter’s decision to include swappable parts creates a gap in the figure where none should be that visible. It’s almost hard to imagine the green light for this considering Alter tends to avoid swappable parts as a matter of habit and here we have swappable parts executed to something less than Alter’s well earned reputation for awesome. This is truly a dude, why? decision. Fortunately, this flaw is mitigated by the armor placement blocking most of the seam.

Close-ups also reveal her pupils are misaligned and are not the same shape. The misalignment causes fewer problems since her eyes are shifted to the side, where eyes tend to misalign anyway, but the incongruent shapes of the pupils is harder to waive. It is almost as if whatever painting template that was used during production was accidentally flipped for one of her pupils.

The English language side of the Japanese figure fandom, or at least those who I read, appears to be in love with her. The rush to lavish adoration on Noritaka Fukumoto’s sculpture is full-on, to which I add my name to the list (Tentacle Armada, Exelica Meteor, Tomopop, Autaku). True, I don’t get around much and have a limited, thus skewed, perspective on other bloggers, but it’s rare that 4 of the blogs I read review the same figure within days of each other. Something this pretty increases the desire to do something special with the pictorial or review, maybe try something different with photography or post-processing — or get all douche y with the text. I think the quality of the photos in the reviews above in a roundabout way testifies to the beauty of Noritaka Fukumoto‘s rendition of Momohime. Noritaka Fukumoto also sculpted Alter’s Gwendolyn, which is also a top flight figurine.

As you can probably guess from her name and the game title, Momohime is a princess of some sort, possessed by a demon. It’s a lovely character design that has something interesting to see at every angle, which is always a plus for something like a figure where every angle should look complete. It also manages to do this without a lot of clutter either. Noritaka Fukumoto took full advantage of the character and costume design for this sculpt. The flow of the elements feed or link to each other is such a way as to pull you back to her. Her exposed thighs almost act as the “whitespace” of the figure, rather than as a focal point as it is for many bishojo figures, at least from the front. On the reverse angle the exposed thighs then draw focus, which I think is a function of her left sleeve. Kind of interesting how it works to draw you to her face when it can in the front, but enough minutia.

There are so few figures which have as many appealing angles of view. Be cool to put Momohime on a turning table to appreciate all of the candy on display. Check the rivets in her armbands, the flowers in her hair, her scabbard, her leg-wraps, the bottom of her footwear, or the distress on the armor. It’s all sweet.

Even if you’re remotely inclined, buy this.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Sanya V. Litvyak flies the night skies, often alone, for the 501st aerial division. She soars between a ceiling of stars and a carpet of moonlit clouds, while tuning in the radio transmissions of the world.

I’ve done a bit of a 180 on Strike Witches. Just a few months ago I would have told you that I found them gross. Cat-girls or any of the animal eared girl things are not my thing at all. Outside of the Strike Witches, I still feel the same way about cat-girls or any other type of animal eared girl. I avoid things like Spice and Wolf. The dog-fights in Strike Witches turned me around as when they do it, the witches look pretty cool, so I can overlook the animal ears.

Photographing this figure of Sanya has led to a greater appreciation of her character. She spends a lot of time alone, so she’s often not with the other girls so she is kind of a hidden character and can be forgotten. I think she represents solitude in a way that some can relate to pretty well. How many of us are still awake long after the rest of the world has fallen asleep?

It’s a beautiful sculpt. Otsuyama Houjin captures Sanya through her facial expression and body language. Very sweet from the front and blatantly ecchi in the rear view. I’m of two minds on that, but it is Strike Witches after all.

Not being much of a mechamasume fan was another thing that kept me away from Strike Witches, but seeing the witches in action did a lot to make leg obscuring striker units visually acceptable. However, her striker unit looks slick. You can also swap out the propellers between the default spinning mode or have it so you see the individual propeller blades. The texture on the striker units looks very good in normal room light, not just in the photos.

The one I bought is very clean. It takes a macro lens to find the two paint boogers on the figure.

I was all done taking shots, but then thought to myself, even though Sanya is nocturnal, Strike Witches fly through these blue skies. Slipped a sheet of pink paper underneath to color the highlights pink for some sense of early morning light or something, which is more noticeable on the first two blue sky shots.

Went with a wider aperture than I normally do for the blue sky shots. The super shallow depth of field gets over used, but then I probably don’t use a shallow depth of field often enough as a consequence of holding that opinion. Every now and then it’s a good idea to tell yourself you’re wrong.

Foo-bar-baz has a comprehensive 360 view of Sanya.

I’m a little surprised that we haven’t seen more Strike Witches figures, after all from what I gather this show is a big hit amongst the types of people who buy figures. Of course, there’s likely a number of other factors involved keeping a flood at bay, or they’re not as popular as I assume. If Alter released one of each witch, I’d likely buy most, if not all of them. I still haven’t bought Yoshika Miyafuji, but that was due to her being released at a time where I wasn’t a fan of Strike Witches.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

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.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I really don’t know how on-or-off model the figure is and don’t care too much. Probably seen more fanart images than official ones by now. Like any popular character that’s been rendered by many people over the years, her appearance has probably morphed. Still feels like Tamaki though. Her breasts have probably grown. They’re kind of pushing against the border of too far here.

The figure itself is a bit on the ecchi side, but I don’t think it’s too tacky for an anime girl figure. Not that I’ve been online that much this year (so there’s probably a new set of figure blogs I don’t know about), but it seems like this Tamaki didn’t set the figure world on fire, but those who got her liked her just fine: foobarbaz, Exelica-Meteor, and Mukyaa.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh