This figure was an instant preorder for me – I like monster characters, especially of the aquatic variety. I did have some small reservations as I didn’t think Tomato Girl came out as well as it could’ve done. I don’t actually own Tomato Girl, but haven’t been that impressed by the photos I’ve seen. However, for an octopus girl I was prepared to risk it.
I preordered this before orders in Japan were available so didn’t get to get the AmiAmi scroll. Would’ve been a nice bonus to have.
So let’s see what we got!
Box
The box colours work well with the black and the muted blue. The tentacle designs are a nice inclusion to decorate the box instead of leaving it plain.
The box unfolds to reveal a lid, and underneath there is supposed to be the two pairs of ribbons tied in the middle. However on mine these were already untied as the proxy had done an inspection so wasn’t sure how they were supposed to go – there are photos from other users in the MFC gallery for her, if you wish to see the inside of the box. The figure and her accessories are in a cut EPE foam block, so everything is held securely. Which, based on the rough time that the figure I had her shipped with (ODD Lille – see previous blog), is a good thing!
Overall the box is good-looking and functional. Two very good traits for a figure box!
Sadtiems
When I first inspected the figure, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was talking to someone on Discord who mentioned they sent theirs back for a break. What break? I inspected the figure more closely and:
Damnit. Some glue on the end of a sharpened BBQ stick later and I had it repaired. I left the figure for 24 hours to check if the glue was going to hold and luckily it did. Looks like there’s a QC issue where this bundle of tentacle wasn’t given enough glue and the slime pulls on it a bit, resulting in it separating like this. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad to repair as it may look – pull it down slightly, apply glue with stick, then hold in place for 1-2 mins. I held it longer than I normally would due to the weight and the slime potentially not helping! If you need to do this repair yourself, I’d recommend a long pointy object for glue application and to do a test fit before starting glue application – you have to push it in a certain way to go back into the right place, and the damaged paint should be fully hidden if it’s back in its original position.
Figure overview
The figure mostly comes as one piece, so didn’t do an accessories section – there is a small amount of assembly with putting on the treasure chest lid, sword, dagger and necklaces.
The figure comes with various paper bits, which are folded up like a sealed treasure map. I forgot to take a photo, so here is one by Toprharley:
Annoyingly, the loyalty card is slightly bigger than credit card size but did just fit in my card holder.
So let’s look at her set up:
Wow, certainly a lot to look at here – no shortage of tentacles and she has been hoarding some treasure. I love the shiny finish on the tentacles and the colours came out well. We also have plenty of slime.
A couple of other angles:
Colours so pretty… prior to getting her, I was worried she was going to be a bit too washed out but was glad to find out that was not the case, and I love her purple-blue hues.
Left:
The slime looks good, plus there is a good amount of ‘animation’ in the tentacles.
Back:
She also has tentacles back here, guarding the back of the chest.
Top:
From this angle you can get a feel for her size. She’s not a small lass! From here we can see she’s about as wide as she is long. But as a 1/3 scale, she wasn’t going to be small XD.
Figure close-ups
Now we’ve seen the figure in its entirety, let’s look at the smaller details.
Top of her head:
The shading nicely converges towards the middle of her tentacle ‘hair’. The spikes are also nicely shaded, but only one of them seems to have green speckles, which makes it look a little odd.
Face:
She has a cute face nested in the tentacles. There is some purple shading on her face.
Body:
Her body sculpt is good, but the shading is lacking in my opinion – she has painted nipples which is nice, but the body doesn’t have much distinction otherwise. I feel this is partly stylistic but I think would’ve benefitted from a bit more subtle shading around her chest/belly button.
Legs:
She has very lean legs – not much in the way of muscle or fat here.
Feet:
If you like your figures barefoot this is a part of the figure that may appeal. I like the way she’s spreading her toes on one foot to give her more character.
Weapons:
She’s not left unarmed to protect her treasure – she has a sword and a dagger to keep her jewels safe. Getting the sword into place was a little bit difficult – needed to use the light on my phone to find the hole it slots into. Once you know which way to direct it, it slots into the hole easily. If it won’t go, try rotating the sword. Both weapons look nice and are sturdy once assembled.
Chest lid:
The connector is pretty small for this part but feels decently sturdy once in place. The sculpting and shading has been nicely done on this part, though the metal banding could possibly do with more shading to sell the damage more. The wood finish is pretty shiny which is a bit of an odd choice to me.
Nestled gems:
She has a couple of these translucent balls – not quite sure what they are. I like the way she’s holding one instead of them just lying about the place. As for what they do and what they’re worth… who knows?
Necklaces:
She comes with two necklaces to hang off of the chest ‘teeth’. They’re a little awkward to get into the right place, but do look nice when added.
With the chest having these green spiky teeth, I do wonder if it could protect itself if it wanted. Or maybe it’s some kind of trap set by the octopus girl herself? Maybe this is some kind of interesting couple? Monster and the Mimic? Whichever way, the shading is nicely done on these protrusions.
Gooey slime:
Liquidy parts on figures often look bad, but I’m glad to report the slime looks slimy. It is rubbery to the touch. I’m really happy with the way the stretchy slime parts came out.
Suckers:
Also really happy with the way the suckers came out – they’re actually sucker-shaped unlike Idol Cthulhu’s. The bottoms of the tentacles nicely transition to paler colours. If she grabs on, she isn’t going to be easy to shake loose!
Back tentacle:
Just admiring the shiny finish and the speckles :). The purple sheen really adds to the figure.
Gem decorations
She comes with some gems to decorate the base with:
A fun way of making a boring base not boring! However they will likely go all over the place when setting them up – the bits vary in size a lot so you may find the smaller and larger bits pinging off in various directions as you pour out the gems. Initially they do start plastic-wrapped, but the ones in the hessian sack the bag burst at the bottom, so pulling them out just ended up with a plastic bag in my hand XD.
These photos is with roughly half of the hessian sack contents, with none of the extra golden ovals (whatever they are? Not sure).
If you buy this figure, I would suggest putting it where you intend to display then pour the gems out carefully a bit at a time to cover the base. Putting them back in the bag after the photo session was a mildly time-consuming process.
I’d say they’re worth the effort though – it does a good job of decorating the base.
Conclusion
She’s a big beast, and here she is displayed in my cabinet:
Whew, just fits on the shelf! At ~8kg I wouldn’t recommend trying to display her in a detolf lest it breaks the shelf. This cabinet is a shop display cabinet so is designed to be able to take a good amount of weight.
I haven’t put all the gems on the base – there are a lot of them! So I’ve left the extras in the bag and displayed it next to her. To get the gems on the base, I cupped my hand and poured some into the larger spaces available on her base. From there, I spread them out before pouring more. Some went flying, but not too many.
Overall, I’m really pleased with this figure and glad I got her. Some may find her rather small for a 1/3 but I was expecting it to be like that. The paint is mostly great, though I’d like to see a tad more shading on her body. The manufacturing flaw with too little glue on the tentacle is not great – I’m not the only person that had them separate – but easily fixable. And if you squidge out any glue… hey, more slime! There are some parts that should’ve probably been sculpted to touch like the tentacle going through the chest teeth, but they don’t stand out enough to bother me.
I think most people will be pleased with this figure so long as it survives the journey, though it does have its imperfections. Whichever way, it’s nice to have a monster girl that isn’t some kind of cat.