Category: Eastern

Kuroyukihime & Arita Haruyuki – Banpresto

I saw these appear on an Urban Mine auction some time ago, but I believe that they went for more than I wanted to pay for them.

Then I was just browsing Mandarake randomly – and found they were in the store! And for the grand sum of ¥100! I quickly put a Mandarake order together for these two, and they arrived some time later. 

So here they are:

image

Yay! A cute pair of prize figures. Arita’s avatar form isn’t much to look at, but it has been nicely painted. Kuroyukihime in avatar form though… is nicely detailed and well-painted. Definitely worthy of a B-Prize. Kuroyukihime’s base has her name on, and does have some of a design, but it’s mostly covered up by her dress. I like the way Arita’s base has a curly pink tail on it, and he sits in the middle, but it would’ve been nice to have his name on the base, to match Kuroyukihime’s. 

Left:

image

Here we can see Kuroyukihime’s wings, which have been well reproduced in chibi-form. She has two pegs on her feet and this head stand, so she is stable. The dress is a nice texture, but her hair is on the shiny side. We can also see Arita’s cute, curly tail. 

Right:

Nice amount of strands in her hair on this side, helping it not look flat, though the top of the hair is standard for this kind of chibi figure. 

Back:

Here we can see more of the wings, which have been very nicely done. The paint and detailing is good. The dress also looks really nice, with the purple trim and the folded fabric. Not much to see with Arita, not that anything is really expected. His ears are shaped nicely though. 

Super-pleased with this set. I don’t usually go for these small chibi figures, but I really like this pair. Her hair does suffer from prize-figure shininess, but the rest of her is really well done. Glad I picked these up, especially for the cheap price! 

And just before I finish this blog, a quick addition:

I also bought these with this Mandarake order, but they’re not really worthy of their own blog post XD. Been on the fence about ordering them for some time, but decided to go for it. They’re a nice addition to one of my keychain rails. I think they look better than I was expecting, but I don’t think they’ll be a “favourite thing”. Still happy to get Evangelion loot though :D. 

Illusionless Time Dragonbound, Myr

After receiving the previous Myr, I decided I need more Myr. So… more Myr!

The simpleness of the dress with the small details make this a striking figre. She’s supposed to be motioning to her backdrop… but this was in her box at the time of taking pictures. I love her expression and the orange ribbons on her dress. And one feature prize figures frequently don’t have: shading in her hair! 

Close-up of her face:

Some lovely, small details in her bows and lipstick. I like her blue eyes too. Hair lacks the definition a scale would usually have, but the shading makes it look the part. The horns also have eye-catching shapes, as well as being shiny. 

Here she is, more angled on the stand:

I think she is designed to be displayed at roughly this angle. but not so good for photographs to show her details. The lower half of her dress flows well over the empty part of the stand, and definitely looks like it was designed to be seen at this angle. I like the way there are cuts in the side of the dress, so you can see some of her, and her lithe body. It is a pretty outfit. The range of finishes on this figure work really well too. 

Let’s take a closer look at that staff:

Tiny scratch on mine. Mostly looks the part, but close up, you can see how flat it is – not sure it’s really like this in the artwork, so I suspect they flattened it for the sake of quality – making it rounded would be prone to more flaws, as well as being more difficult to manufacture. From a distance, it looks fine. 

Left side:

Here we can see her revealed skin. Some amount of detail has gone into sculpting her hand. Her tail looks good, and the lines painted well on the ribbon that’s on there. Love the amount of detail that’s gone into the ribbon and cloth “boot” she’s wearing on this side.Also you can see her ear poking out from her hair, which is a nice detail.

Right side:

Here, she’s less revealed. You can see the seams in the dress,the upper one is pretty neatly done, the lower one about average. I think she’s saying “that camera? I’m gonna destroy it if you keep pointing it at me…”. Uh, please don’t, I’m nearly through with this review, I swear!

Back:

The ripples on the dress are continued around to the back. Her wings are nicely detailed on the back, and catch the light well. Here you can see where her hair is darker towards the bottom – nice that they continued the shading all the way around. 

Let’s get a closer look at those horns and wings:

Some paint shading in the horns, which is a nice touch. And those wings are looking small but amazing. 

So… what if we don’t want a great big massive stand in her back?

Erm, er well…. Not too attractive! But we can get a better look at her tail like this. I find it interesting they’ve joined the tail far higher up than most creatures have a tail. We can also admire the neat painting they’ve done  on her tail ribbon. It’s kind of a shame they went for a back stand, as she looks really good from this angle too – would’ve been nicer to have a stand that maybe went under her dress or a clear claw stand. Foot pegs may’ve worked, but even if they were clear, she probably wouldn’t look like she was floating, which is the look they were going for. Ah well, can’t have everything.

Also she doesn’t work too well without a stand from the front:

You can lean her so she stands, but she’s looking down. You could get away with doing this, if you displayed her on a high-up shelf, but really she’s designed to be displayed with the stand. 

Really pleased with this figure – Eikoh has done a really good job with it. Would recommend it if you like what you see. 

Tiger – Tiger & Bunny – Figure-Rise 6

And what would Bunny be without Tiger?

This one, the stickers were easier than Bunny’s I felt. Especially as the ridged ones sit in the ridges. Main downside of the stickers on this one is the leg stickers are prone to peeling on the pointy bits. The bits that go over his shins are two pieces, which is why they peel back from the edge, when clipped. Second annoying thing is his hips don’t like to be straight, and he seems to like to stand with a slight wonk at all times. Like Bunny, I find he looks impressive, and articulates well. 

Left:

Love the armour on his lower arms, and the angular armour on his lower leg. And a wonderfully pointy face. 

Right:

The lines add a lot of detail to his legs, but with them being several stickers, it was a bit of a laborious process sticking them all on. Worth it though! Not so worth it: Those white arm stickers. I don’t find they lie particularly well on the moulded plastic. 

Back:

Love the lines on the backs of his legs. The back shoe stickers were a pain though, as they’re a rounded blob that you have to sort of try and smooth them onto. There are some cuts in the sticker to aid with this, but not sure how much they helped. He also has a hidden peg hole, underneath a piece on his spine. I like the way this part blends well into his back, but it does have a protrusion, so it’s easy to remove with just a fingernail. 

Overall, these figures were mostly fun to build. Did make some mistakes along the way, but these weren’t too hard to rectify. Am pleased with the end result, and was worth it. If you want to kill an evening and end up with a nice-looking action figure, these kits may be for you. 

Let’s say goodbye Tiger:

Thanks for reading!

Barnaby Brooks Jr – Tiger & Bunny – Figure-Rise 6

After making the Black Lotus and Silver Crow model kits, I decided I needed more. After hunting around for something from an anime I was familiar with, I came across Tiger & Bunny. There were two versions – I chose the “Style 2″, as these ones looked nicer than the original counterparts. Doing the research for this blog, I think I made the right choice, but these ones were the far more involved to build, owing to the number of stickers they have. 

So, let’s see what the end result looks like:

I think he was worth the effort, and came out really well. The articulation is good too, and you can do a range of poses:

Here he is, running into battle. Or stopping Tiger from doing something stupid. The stickers, once on, work really well and give the figure a decent amount of detail. I love the blue shiny stickers. The downside of doing Barnaby’s stickers was that most of them sit on top of the ridges, meaning they’re hard to get in place. This is due to most of these areas having a coloured border. 

Left side:

Love the clear areas on the armour. His head has a good shape, and his head “fins” look neat. Also love the way the side of the legs turned out, where the colours work well together. 

Right side:

Not too much different from the left. Looks good 🙂

Back:

Love the wings/jets on his back. The detail of the red plastic behind the clear plastic works really well imo. Here you can see where some of the sticker son the back of his thighs didn’t quite sit right on the ridges. Annoying. And one of his butt stickers has since walked off :/. Not sure where that one went, sadly. 

The base of his spine comes out, to reveal a peg hole. I have some bases on order, so I can put Tiger & Bunny in action poses, when I display them. 

Overall, I’m definitely pleased with this figure, despite having to be careful not to nudge the stickers, and the amount of rude words that went into putting them on XD. If you’d like a more involved model kit, I would recommend this. 

Figure Spotlight – Naked Jehuty

This figure was a birthday present from my husband, though it took the form of pointing him at the direction of the auction and having him buy it. Iirc it was on eBay as Buy-It-Now. When my birthday rolled around, this fella came out:

image

Originally I didn’t think he came with a stand, but I had a spare Play Arts Kai one, from a figure that could stand up fine on its own (a rarity with PAK!). Later, I got a second Revoltech figure, and found the stand taped to the back of the plastic. I then went up into the loft to retrieve the box, and indeed Jehuty did have a stand! Though I never switched to it, as the Revoltech stands aren’t very good, and this figure especially would pull it over. 

Here’s his back, with the shiny gold plating:

image

Here’s his side, showing his arm and face:

image

And a shot of his other side, showing the cable coming from him, and some of the detail on the back of his leg:

image

I love the colour scheme on this figure, and I have a thing for this kind of mecha. I did watch ZOE, Dolores, I but this dude doesn’t feature in it. I did enjoy it somewhat, but it isn’t a firm favourite. 

Still love this figure, maybe one day I’ll go hunt a playthrough of the game, so I can watch and learn more about the characters. 

Figure Spotlight: Figma Silver Crow

To complete the three “larger” Silver Crow figures that exist, here is Figma Silver Crow:

He has an extra-tall stand, which is great for displaying him. I love the lithe body on this silver crow, and Figma excel at the thinner body types imo. His wings look nice too, but I’ve always had a problem with one wing getting it to stay in good places, and it has always had a habit of dropping down. The second one has got a bit worse over time. It’s a bit of a shame, because he looks really good with his wings posed properly, but if he’s statically placed, you can use some putty to support the wings in place. Here, I managed to get them to stay in the positions shown. 

Left side:

Looks good. His knee joints are rather visible, which will likely put some people off. 

Right side:

Here it seems I went for a non-charged gauntlet… showing his other forearm accessory choice. Both look good. 

Back:

Some nice scuplting on his upper back. Here you can see the pegs which have the hinge in, for the wings. The weight of the wings has a tendency to pull them down. Might be possible to add a layer of polish on the pegs, to prevent them slipping down. There are some metal covers which partially hide the hinges. 

Close-up of a wing:

Nice and silvery :). Only downside of these is seeing the S. H. Figurarts and admiring the effect they achieved on those. 

There are some transparent “charge” effects you can put on his arms, but these kept falling off All. The. Time. so they went back into storage, and I couldn’t be bothered with the fiddling to get them back onto his arms for the photo shoot.. sorry. Definitely one of the downsides to this figure. Overall, the base figure is very nice though, and I would recommend this one for anyone who wants a Silver Crow figure. 

Silver Crow – S. H Figuarts

So… more Crow! This time we have the S. H. Figuarts version, so not much assembly here!

He’s noticeably darker than all the other Silver Crow figures I have. His wings are set into a transparent layer of plastic though, which can give them a “floating plate” look from certain angles. I really dig this effect. 

Close-up of one of those wings:

Here you can see the shininess from the plastic coat on the wing. Also you can see the joint mechanism – this articulates well, and is definitely one of the strengths of this figure. 

Left side:

Here you can see the “floating plate” look. Yeah, I didn’t do good in posing this for the photo shoot… his hand is looking a bit broken :P. The details on his arms are good, and he looks streamlined from the side. No complaints here.

Right side:

Here we can see the “charged” arm piece. Looks OK from this distance, but looks a bit “cheapy” close-up. He has a hand replacement for the “full” blast, but I wasn’t a big fan of that, so have left his “chopping”  hand on. 

Back:

Back details are OK. Nothing much to comment on here. Stand goes in firmly, and holds him well. 

Close-up of the arm blast:

A little bit messy in the middle, and the blue semintranslucent stuff looks a bit iffy. 

“Charged” arm on the other side:

Grasping hand looks good, and this forearm looks better than the other imo. But I’m a sucker for the charge effect. 

Overall, I like him, but wish he were paler like the other figures. His midriff looks a little odd-shaped, and could’ve done with better matching in the sculpt with the other bits, but suspect this may’ve been done to assist with articulation. If I could have his wings on another Silver Crow, I’d really like that. If you like his appearance, I can recommend this figure, but I don’t think his overall look is nicer than the others. 

Silver Crow – Bandai Figure Rise 6 Model Kit

I ordered this from Suruga-ya… then found I could’ve got it cheaper on Mandarake. Not sure if it was in stock when I first looked. However, I got this for around the same price as the Black Lotus kit, so I don’t feel like I overpaid. 

Here’s the completed Crow:

I do like the look of this Silver Crow. The silver stickers also worked better than I expected, which is a nice touch. The wings do have some plastic flaws in them from the moulding process though. 

Close-up of his face:

His mask is almost a bit too see-through, so you can see he doesn’t have a face. The green bits on his shoulders are stickers, along with anything silver. 

Left:

Though viewing his mask from the side is pretty cool – does look like there’s a head in there from this distance. The wings aren’t poseable sadly, so they’re stuck at this angle, if you equip them. There is the option to display him without them, though, if you prefer. I think the angle is a good choice, so not overly bothered by the lack of movement within the wings. 

Right:

Here I have the blast arm parts equipped – I think these look good. The upper arm needs to be specially constructed, but the lower part simply fits onto her hand. 

From the back:

His back looks good, but his wings… have plastic-saving holes. Would’ve been nice if this part was flat, or had a part to clip onto the back of the wings to cover it up. 

Here’s Silver Crow’s arm in combat mode, without the blast: 

Looks pretty cool and bulky. 

Close-up of the arm with the blast:

The blast replaces the “forked” parts of the bracer. 

Overall, I’m pleased with the result of this kit. He’s decently poseable, but the clip part that allows him to stand on the stand could do with being a fraction taller – he just about stands with this, but it’s a bit of a squeeze. If you don’t want him standing, then you have a few more options I feel. 

Black Lotus – Bandai Figure-Rise 6 Model Kit

Now for the first model kit I constructed. I have done these model kits in the opposite order, as I have some more Accel World goodies coming up.

So, here she is:

In her black, kind-of-annoying-to-photograph form! She wasn’t too bad to build – main annoyance was ensuring I was building the parts for combat mode instead of “normal” mode. Near the beginning I made a mistake, but I was able to rectify it pretty easily. She’s not really swappable between forms – you have to pick one or the other when building. Seeing as I prefer combat mode, I went for that one. Gotta have moar purple and longer swords!

Left side:

The blasts hold reasonably well. They simply wedge onto her blades. Bottom ones can come loose if she gets nudged. The blocks on the back of her legs have two ways they can sit, to show and hide the purple parts. The purple protrusions from her head have black stickers on them, to make them purple and black, and that came out well. 

Right side:

I do like the way the arms came out – they’re really cool. 

Back:

Some lovely lininess going on. The purple part on her skirt was the bit I missed at the beginning – ended up putting in the “normal” mode one, then realising it wasn’t “plug n play”, and I had to pick during construction. 

She also comes with some landing “splash” effects, if you want to pose her, as if she’s coming in to land:

Imo, they look pretty cool, and love the fact they included them:

Here’s a close-up of her head:

In which you can see the three stickers adhered to the fins on her helmet, to make them appear as they do. 

Close-up of her upper half:

I like the shininess of the stickers provided – they really add to the figure, though I balls’d up the gem in the middle a bit. She also has some extra purple plastic accents on her arms and shoulders here, for the combat mode. 

Am really happy with the finished result. She’s articulated quite well too, so you can do all sorts of posing with her too. Is quite cool, building your own articulated kit. Certainly happy with this kit, and will be building more Figure Rise 6 kits in future. 

VF-31F Siegfried (Messer Ihlefeld’s) – Macross Delta – Bandai Model Kit

Now for my new “thing” – model kits! I bought two larger kits from one of my favourite series, and stuck this in on a Mandarake order on a whim. 

After a lot of bitching at stickers later, I had this:

Next time I’m totally going to be using my tweezers to help out with the stickers, and there will be a next time! The pictures were pretty easy to follow, despite me not reading a word of Japanese. You do need to look carefully to work out what’s going on though, if you can’t read what’s being said.

Here it is from the other side, similar angle:

Quite happy with the end result, but I would’ve liked to get that cockpit sticker a bit flatter. It’s amazing how the stickers transform it from being a boring, grey and white plastic model to something quite colourful. 

From the top:

Looks pretty neat from the top. Not sure if the logo is quite in the right place – I did centre the logo on the centre of the plane, but the wing does just touch that black line on the other sticker. Also you can see where the cockpit doesn’t quite align. 

Side shots:

Looks nice in profile. Some very small stickers with writing on, to tell you that it’s a VF-31 Siegfried. One cool thing about this stand is that the peg that goes into the craft is on a ball joint, so you can angle it however you’d like and turn it around. 

From the back:

Engines look OK, though lack of fire :P. The small block on the back of the stand can go into the bottom of the fighter, if you don’t wish to have it on the stand. I love the fact they provided a space for this block on the back of the stand, so you don’t lose it. What I love less is the fact that I ended up putting this block in during the building of this craft, then I had to get some hooked pliers to get it back out again :P. Wasn’t so bad as I had some on hand. I guess the instructions may’ve said something about what it was for, but oops. 

After completing it, I quite like this craft. It is very small (10cm/4″ from the engines to the tip of the cockpit), but it cost me the grand total of £4.08, so I can’t complain about the price. I enjoyed building it enough, that I’ve ordered some more. They’re quite quick to build (at least for a model kit), so if I’ve got an hour or so spare, then I can entertain myself with building one of these! 

Rider – Fate/Zero

In my Suruga-ya order, I had two Rider figures. 

First one one is a chibi-style figure by Taito:

The paintwork is nice on this one, and she’s OK for a chibi.

Side shot:

Knife-onna-spike looks nice, hair seam, kinda average.

Back:

Some sculpting to convince us that she has hair. 

Now for a trading figure by GSC:

This one is really nice, but she hasn’t had the easiest life. There is a few marks on her. Thought I ordered the masked version, but looking back at my order… I didn’t. Oops. Her colours are represented well in this figure, and there’s some nice details in the moulding – with the secions on her boot, and the wrinkles in her clothes. Her face is nicely painted too. 

Back:

Some lovely shades going on in her hair, plus detail in the way it has been represented as strands. Her dagger has been well-sculpted, and looks nice. Really pleased with this figure, despite it being her non-blindfolded version. 

Accel World – Kuroyukihime

This is an “odds n’ sods” blog of two items. First up, we have a keyring of Kuroyukime:

She’s in her school avatar outfit, which has been rendered nicely in a simplified form. She was added to a Mandarake order, to fill it up to the customs threshold. Glad I added her. 

And another Kuroyukihime in figure form:

This one was in my Suruga-ya order, because she was cute and pouty :P. 

From the side:

Bit of mould markings. The arm with the shirt was a pain – it didn’t want to stay in. Finally got it in and staying though.

Back:

Her hair looks OK for a trading figure. She was pretty much order filler, but she’ll find a space among some of my other trading figures. The paintwork is OK, but she’s nothing special. 

And that’s my random bits featuring Kuroyukihime :). And I think I’ve finally learned to spell her name, with English letters at least.

Toy’s Works Collection – Accel World

This set of figures I came across on Suruga-ya, and had to buy. There are two Toy’s Works sets for Accel World, but the other one was more expensive, and this one I actually wanted more, as it has characters I don’t have in figure form. 

Let’s start with Ash Roller, stalking into battle:

The paintwork is pretty decent on these, Love the red and yellow flames.

Here’s a second Ash Roller, who is supposed to be giving a thumbs-up:

His thumb is pointing towards the camera, as I accidentally had his arm tilted down a bit. 

Side shot showing the flame pattern on his leg, and white-flame skull:

Back:

Nice pair of Ash Roller figures. Wish this guy had a scale/prize figure, especially as he’s one of the iconic characters. 

Now for Ash Roller’s nemesis/friend, without wings:

The shiny silver paint has been done really well, and all the armour details seem to be there. Lovely, cute figure.

And here he is with his wings deployed:

Love the flying sideways pose. And his visor is shiny enough to see me in it :P. Love this figure too. 

Lastly, Cyan Pile:

Looking menacing with his pile driver. Here’s the side of it:

And his other side:

And his back:

Nice fan detail on the back of his driver, plus lots of little details in his armour.

These small figures are very nicely done. Really glad I got these, the quality of these is good, which is great for a series that doesn’t really get a lot of figures for most of its characters (wouldn’t expect the cameos to get them, but nothing for Ash Roller? Pfft). They aren’t what I’d class as poseable (mostly just head movement), but I don’t think they really need to be, as the poses are pretty cool. 

Caster – Banpresto DXF figure

This is Giles de Rais, who was the caster in Fate/Zero:

And most of the reason I did a forwarded order from Suruga-ya. And man, I shouldn’t have been ignoring this guy – he’s a really nice figure, and heavy! The paintwork on this figure is really nice, and the details are good. My main gripe is that his underskirt isn’t recessed, so the colour change on his robe looks odd. At first I wasn’t sure why it was like that, but looking up pictures of him, his robe is formed of two layers, one darker than the other. 

Here is a close-up of the marks on his arm:

The lines have been nicely done, and do look like he’s carved them into his arm. The shading is really nice on his hand, the rings look good when you’re facing him, but here you can see where they chickened out of painting them between his fingers. 

Close-up of his face:

Yep, looking like his crazy self! I love his oversized robe, with the insane collar. 

Before we look at his other angles, let’s have a good look at that book of his:

Love the sculpting on this. Everything has been painted well, with minimal slop. Love the attention to detail they’ve put into this part of him. 

Left side:

Love the blue highlights on the cowl. Here you can see there is some concession to marking out his under-robe, but it sort of falls short for me. 

Right side:

Here it almost looks like the upper robe is recessed instead of the under-robe. No wonder i was confused initially. Lovely shading accents throughout his robe, on all layers. Really adds to the detail, and gives this figure a scale feel. 

Back:

The fabric on his cape hangs well, and looks good with the blue highlight. 

Overall I’m really happy with this figure. Don’t think I could ask for much better. Just for that under-robe really! I’d recommend this figure, if you can get a hold of it. Most of the Fate/Zero DXF figures are hard to get hold of now. 

Sonia Blanche – Shining Beach Heroines – FREEing S-Style

Lastly, we have Sonia Blanche:

Originally I didn’t order this one, as I wasn’t aiming to collect the set. Then I decided I wanted all the S-Style figures, so I waited until she was near release for pre-orders to re-open. She came up on Nippon Yasan, pay immediately. So I did. Then a few days later she got delayed a month. D’oh. Out of the three, I think this one is the least visually interesting. She does seem very happy to see the beach though! I think she has a nice bikini top, and the bows on her shoes are very nice. 

Left side:

Plenty of side-boob going on there. And she has some nicely sculpted bows on the side of her bikini bottoms. Her hairs have strands to them, making it a lot less plain than just one moulded section. The ponytail towards the front of her hair is a nice touch. 

Right side:

She isn’t hiding too much ;). Her hair looks good from this angle imo. 

Back:

I think the hair works well on this figure. The back of this figure is sculpted well, and painted well. Not too much to say really!

Overall, I’ve warmed up to this figure since owning her, but I still think she’s the visually least interesting of the three, so I’d only recommend her to anyone who wants a Sonia Blanche figure, or people who are nutters like me who are collecting the set. She’s definitely not the worst of the set – there isn’t anything wrong with her imo, unlike some of the others, she’s just a happy beach figure. 

Rinna Mayfield – Shining Beach Heroines – FREEing S-Style

Next up, Rinna Mayfield:

image

Uh, wait, something seems to be wrong with this… Hair is not supposed to defy gravity… 

image

Ah, that’s better! That looks like the prototype shots! I totally didn’t have to redo these shots at a later date, owing to not noticing her head was on backwards… Nope. Nosiree. What attracted me to this one was her interesting pose and nice combination of colours. In the promo shots the swimsuit looked blue, but I think this more turquoise colour works better. I like the way her hair hangs – with one ponytail flicking upwards, and one dangling down. 

Other side:

image

Bit of a gap where her leg connects to her body. I love the hairbands – they look like flowers to me, and here is a close-up of them:

image

The hair is also nice – enough detail to make it look like hair to me, and the shading is nicely done. 

Front of her body:

image

Ended up focusing on her hair braid, but that’s probably the most exciting part of this angle. Little bit of globby paint visible, but not noticeable unless you’re looking for it. Here you can see where she’s scratching her ear/head. 

Back:

image

Her backside looks good, not much to report on this angle. She does look to lean a bit with her legs though.She doesn’t seem to be standing in the stablest of angles, with her toes pointed inwards, but she is in a turning position. 

Top:

Here you can see the way her hair flows over hr back – I like the way they did this. The top of her hair seam isn’t the best though. It’s sort of hidden near her ear, but less so on the very top of her head. There aren’t any seam issues on her back. 

Close-up of her bikini:

Love the bow dangling down from it, and there’s some wrinkle lines. It also sits on her, instead of being a part of her, which is nice. 

Overall, I really like this figure now that I’ve figured her head was on backwards.The paintwork is really nice, with a good choice of colours, and her pose is dynamic and interesting. 

Excela Noa Aura – Shining Beach Heroines – FREEing S-Style

Finally the Shining Resonance S-Style figures were released, after a month’s delay. 

First up, we have Excela Noa Aura:

The thing that attracted to me was her colour scheme – love the black-purple-pink, with her grey hair complementing them. Her pose isn’t overly exciting, but it does convey personality. She has an anklet, which is a nice added detail, and I love the bow on her swimsuit top. 

Left:

Not too much to see here, but a good body shape. I love the ruffled skirt. 

Right:

Not sure how well these high-heels will work on the beach… The bows in her hair are nice though, and match the bands around her arms. She also has a small black bow on her skirt. 

Back:

Some concession to sculpting in her hair, but it has emphasised a mould line, sadly. Her back is nice though – I think the join lines are nicely concealed, and the shading is good. Her hair strands flow nicely around her, as if she’s just turned her head. 

I love this figure, mostly for the colours. Would’ve been nice if her hair bows were more visible from the front – in her promo pics I did wonder what kind of hair accessory they were, as they looked flatter/straighter. Now I have her, they’re clearly bows on her hair ties. She seems quite a reserved character, so I see her as being on the edge of the beach. 

Klan Klang – Pearl ver.

Today, we have the pearl version of Klan:

As you can probably see, her hair and dress are shiny on this version, and she sports the same expression and pose. Her eyes are also green instead of blue on this one, but anime couldn’t seem to make its mind up what colour her eyes are. 

Left side:

Here you can see the shiny finish on her hair and dress. Looks nicer on the dress than the hair. The pink of her headband is more of a hot pink, and personally I prefer the colour used on the normal version. 

Right side:

This side really shows off the shine in her hair. 

Back:

Glossy! Not sure the gloss really works for her hair, but the dress is nice as being pearly. 

So after reviewing them both, which do I prefer? My vote would have to go to the normal version. I like the headband more on the original, which looks kinda faded on the special edition (I checked pics – it looks like it’s meant to be like it is), and the gloss on the hair looks kind of odd. However, as my figure collection was Klanless, I have space for both of these Klan figures :D. 

Klan Klang – Normal ver.

I was looking at this Klan figure, and saw there was two versions. Couldn’t make my mind up which I wanted, so I did the obvious thing and ordered both. Yep. 

So today we have the normal version:

I love her smiling expression, and the shade of her hair. She has a nice matte finish, which is a rarity for prize figures. Her dress also features some shading. The logo is rendered well on her hairband. 

Left:

I love the way they have her leaning forward slightly – it really adds to the pose. Her sideboob and armpit are sculpted well, and her fingers are nicely rendered. With the way they’ve done the hair on her head, it goes some way to hide the seam line.

Right:

Looks good on this side too. Love the splay of hair that’s on top of the ribbon. 

Back:

Some nice flows of hair, sculpted in a way so they don’t look plain. Her hair looks really nice from this angle, and her dress looks good. I like the bow on the back, and the fact she has some of her back revealed. 

She’s on the shorter side of things, as far as prize figures go, but she is a very nice figure. Certainly happy with her for the price I paid. 

Al Azif – Max Factory

This is a figure I’ve gone back and forth on owning. As it’s Al Azif, I decided to add it to a recent large Mandarake order, as she’s over the customs limit, and it was a parcel that was going to go over anyway. 

Here she is:

image

Dat frakkin’ wall. OK, let’s start with some of the nice stuff: The figure is very nice. I love the flowing of the hair and ribbons, and the colours are very nice. Her dress is well-sculpted and nicely painted. The figure part of this figure is really nice – it’s everything else I have to complain about! She comes pre-screwed to the bottom part of the stand, which isn’t the prettiest piece of plastic ever. Not a fan of the nondescript greyish colour, and it’s shiny. 

Left shot:

image

Now to go more into this wall. Seeing it not sit strait, due to Al Azif resting on it, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if it wasn’t that, and I bent it from the sheer force you need for it to go in ><. Eagle-eyed viewers may also spot the white tack – the pin on the “cookie” on this side snapped off soon as I touched it up against the wall – it must’ve been stressed already, and snapped before I started applying force to push it through the wall. Argh. If you have this figure, and you do get both “cookies” pegged to the wall don’t take them out. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d break during the process. At least with it white tacked, I can actually now move this one to any position I like… 

Right side:

image

This one did peg OK, but I daren’t try and push it any further. This one luckily fouls less on the figure, so it doesn’t need to go in all the way. Here we can see her ribbons and hair in the wind, which looks very nice. 

Back:

image

Here she is from the back. Her hair looks nice, and I like the way she’s propping herself up on the wall. Here you can see the remnant of the left cookie peg. I you look carefully on the upper right, you can also see a scratch on the wall. She was unopened, so I guess the wall rubbed up against part of the figure/box during shipping. 

Close-up of her face:

image

I like the look on her face, but I’d prefer it if she had a head up a tad more, so you could see it from more angles. 

Close-up of her shoes:

image

These have been nicely sculpted and painted. The tiny bows on her shoes are nice, and the big, flowing ribbons on her socks are well done. The socks are slightly raised in the sculpt, so that it doesn’t look like she’s got white legs. One of the differences that tend to separate scales from prizes – details like socks are actually moulded instead of just painted. 

Overall, I can recommend the figure, but not the stand. If I were to recommend an Al Azif figure, it would be the BEAT normal version. Both parts of the stand kinda look cheap imo, and if I get into replacing bases, this one would quite honestly be a candidate. I think if it weren’t for the issues I had with the stand during assembly, I would’ve felt more positive about this figure – she’s in a nice pose, well-painted and well-sculpted, but the stand detracts from this.