Have you ever bought a figure or item just to document it? Well, now I can firmly add myself to that list. I have bought stuff out of curiosity, but this one firmly falls into this camp. If you are just here to see the figure, feel free to skip down to where the pretty pictures start :).
I did a review of the original figure – which can be found here
The ordering
I skipped out on the pre-order. I was curious about seeing it but didn’t feel the need to own it – whilst she had 90s cool, I had the original which has a more appealing colour scheme to me. I could just wait for photos to appear on the internet from someone else who bought it right? Was especially curious how the silver parts would turn out.
So I waited. And I waited. Nothing. She’s not MFC-eligible, so that was one source that was out. Nothing appeared on hpoi or anywhere else I searched.
Finally I cracked, and tried ordering her from the ClayM store – only the order languished unfulfilled so I cancelled it. AmiAmi had stock – playing with the basket they only appeared to have one in stock – so it felt like now or never. No waiting for her to hit clearance like I originally expected her to go – her original version did get clearanaced at AmiAmi. So I ended up ordering her, she went to “orders closed” as expected, but then a day or two later they had another in stock. Not sure if they didn’t know their stock level or found another one when they went to pack my order – but she’s now out of stock again. As of writing, Hobby Search as “a few left” of the deluxe edition.
As she’s a big box I sent her surface. Took 78 days to arrive to my door – surface has been slowww from Japan to the UK for the past 6-12 months. But she finally got here, for me to share with the world.
Notes about the figure
Manufacturing/Production
This figure is a prime example of how the whole Chinese “pipeline” works and why the MFC data with manufacturers and producers gets all tangled up.
Both Sanis figures were produced (which includes manufacture) by 寶德(香港)貿易有限公司’s (Baode (Hong Kong) Trading) subsidiary 惠州市盛世文化有限公司 (Huizhou Shengshi Culture). However, for the first release this was distributed under Lechery in the Japanese region – some Japanese “manufacturers” actually just commission stuff to be produced under their name. Years ago, this would be an opaque process and it’d be regarded as some nameless factory did the production, however in the 2020s we’ve seen a lot of “behind-the-scenes” manufacturers become their own brands and market their own figures. For this recolour, Lechery wasn’t involved and Shengshi released it under their own branding of ClayM in all regions. A lot of what is presented as a manufacturer, especially for Chinese figures, is actually just a brand. Often the underlying company has a longer Chinese name and then the brands are often in English and have much more attractive names to a casual audience. For ClayM, you will have also seen their releases under the Kaitendoh branding – Time Rabbit Yuki was also a ClayM product and you’ll see their logo on the box.
If you want to know how the Chinese work out who is related to who, they can look up the company on their company registry (which they have now locked down from foreigners, RIP) and see what trademarks are registered to the parent company. Ones that are separate company entities can share directors, revealing there’s a relation between certain companies.
Scale
With the mixed distribution, the scale of this figure is either 1/5 or 1/6 depending on who you believe. So whilst you’ll see the original marketed as 1/5 or 1/6 depending where you buy, there isn’t two different-sized versions of this figure – ClayM advertised her as 1/6 and Lechery advertised her as 1/5. Which is right? Who knows. If it helps you decide a scale, her head is about 43mm tall from chin to top of head (not including horns). By my calculations, if you believe her to be human-sized she’s 1/5 (average human head is 18-20cm, so 21.5cm full size is close), if you think she’s more Amazonian then she’s 1/6. As far as I know, the original artist hasn’t been fully revealed, so can’t ask to see if she has anything of a canonical height.
Review!
Box
Front:
Interestingly, despite going back and editing the box they haven’t updated with new photography – we see the original colour variant on the front and the sides. As the sides are identical to the original, I didn’t photograph them. For the front the ClayM logo is now printed onto the box and the “Sanis” logo has been refined. It does look classier, but is less legible. The heart pattern that existed as a background on the lower half of the box is also gone.
Continue reading “Sanis Alternate Colour ver – ClayM”