Tag: banpresto

Assassin – Fate/Zero – Banpresto DXF

This is a figure I’ve been considering buying for years. After getting Caster, and seeing her in a shop in Belgium, I decided I would. The price was a bit high at the shop I was at, but found AmiAmi was selling her nice n’ cheap… cheaper than the store I was in, even with shipping factored in. So I left the shop and ordered her 😛

A week or two after I got back she arrived:

One notable thing about her is she’s nowhere near as heavy as Caster. Also… a lot less parts. The sculpt and the paint are still good though. She isn’t as impressive as caster, but she’s still a solid figure. Her body is sculpted well, and she looks the part. 

Left:

There’s not much shading to speak of – this figure largely relies on natural light to provide that. The knives on her hip look and “feel” very basic. Feel they could’ve done something here. The bandings on her wrist and leg could’ve done with some paint accents to make them more leathery or something. 

Right:

Bit of a seam not-in-hiding here, on her middle. And her wrist. The bangles on her wrist are nice though, along with the ones around her neck. The creases on her clothes feel nice and realistic. 

Back:

I think her hair helps sell this figure. I love the shades of blue running through the hair. I feel the sides and front of her hair work better than the back of it, though… which is probably a good thing, seeing as I won’t be staring at this angle much. 

Overall, I love the pose of this figure, and for some reason, I have a soft spot for Assassin from Fate/Zero. I’m not surprised she goes for less than the other DXF servants do, as she’s not as impressive, but she’s still a solid figure imo. However, if you want an in-proportion figure of her it’s… this one or this one. So. Yeah. This one it is! 

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:

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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:

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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. 

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. 

Morrigan Aensland – Large Prize Figure!

Now for a jumbo prize figure of Morrigan:

This is one large lady and I still haven’t fully sorted her legs out ><. They have bent over time, so she wouldn’t stand up properly out of the box. Did try to set them into the correct positions, but failed thus far. Also the box… was in a REALLY bad condition – looks like mould had grown on the inner part of the box, and the glue had failed on the window for the box. Chucked out the inner of the box as I don’t really want to “collect” some mould! 

I really like this figure, though she is a bit on the simplistic side, in terms of finish. She has some paint detail on her skin, but not so much anywhere else. The bats on her leggings are nicely done though, if she’ll stand up kkthx. 

Left side:

Her wings are a good size, and look good from the front and sizes. Here you can see there is some crease detailing in her top, but it’s not really visible from the front. The white tassels are a nice addition. 

Right side:

Not too much different from the left, so I’ll mention the obvious side boob – yep, plenty of that. Her hair does look like a “lump” of green, not sure what they could’ve done to alleviate that, maybe have more shape on the bottom? It’s also thick as this is where her wings attach, as we’ll see in this next shot:

Getting these wings in was a bit of a pain. They could’ve possibly done with using more “regular” pegs, but I guess they didn’t due to weight and getting them to stay. Once they’re in there, they’ll stay though. I had to heat up her hair to get it to relent enough to get the lugs in. We can also admire her backside from this angle, and the ends of her gloves, which have been done nicely. 

So let’s get some close-ups in. Here’s her face:

Here I noticed the slight abrasions on her hair grumble. They don’t particularly show from a distance though. She has some lighter paint on her collarbone – for a figure of this size, it really helps that they actually did some shading on her – it’d end up looking pretty flat if they didn’t. Some stray white paint, but not too much. Her lips have been done nicely. 

Arms:

An obvious seam here, but not visible from the front. The purple-pink of her gloves is nice. In the previous shot, you can see they’ve also moulded the edges on her gloves, which is a nice detail. 

My main gripe with this figure is she’s overly shiny from the front, but that’s not uncommon in prize figures, especially older ones. If there were more readily-available Morrigan figures, I may not have got this one, but for an affordable Morrigan figure, I’m happy with her. Just need to fix them legs properly… 

Morrigan & Lilith – Summer Edition

These figures are part of a set of summer figures, however I was only interested in the Darkstalker figures of the set. They do come with a segmented beach base, but I didn’t take photos of this. Here is the pair posed together:

These are small, older trading figures, so they’re not super-detailed, but they are posted and painted well for the most part. 

Let’s have a closer look at Morrigan:

Hair is rough around the seam, but the face is painted nicely, along with her bracelets and wings. Yes, this is Morrigan, despite the palette swap ;). There is a bit of stray paint on the upper parts of her top, but it’s not much. 

Morrigan’s front:

Here you can see the stray paint, were they didn’t manage to get clean edges. Around her hips there’s a join, hence why those lines are clean. The bat has been done well, and the straps are OK. 

Her back:

Not much to see here, but some moulding has been done in her hair. Most things are pretty flat back here. 

Opposite side:

She looks good from this angle mostly, but she does have a seam running up her leg. I think the black and purple wings work well. Most Morrigan figures have a more pinkish colour for her wings, so not sure if this counts as palette swap or not :P.

Now for Lilith:

She’s stolen Morrigan’s hair dye for the day. Unlike Morrigan, her wings are definitely a palette swap, as she’s usually red “struts” with black wings. Bit of stray paint on her skirt, and an… interesting expression. 

Her front:

A simple outfit. The shorts are nice, but the top looks super-flat and a bit out-of-place because of that. Looks like I might have to attack her belly with an eraser and see if I can clean up some of those blobs… Hair is a bit flat. 

Back:

Hair is very flat here. Back of her top looks nice, and I like the way they’ve don her wings. If it weren’t fro the hair, I don’t think I would have any complaints about this angle. 

Opposite side:

Leg seam line is more noticeable on this side, but other than that, pretty much the same story as the rest of it. OK, with a couple of minor flaws. 

As two separate figures they’re OK prize figures, but together, they look like a very cute pair, which is how I intend to display them. So if you get one, for maximum enjoyment, I’d recommend buying the other, so you can pose them as designed :). 

Lilith – Christmas figure – Banpresto

I bought a bunch of Lilith and Morrigan figures from Mandarake recently. First up, we have Lilith, ready for Christmas:

This figure is made to fit with other figures, so there is a chance I’ll make a custom base for her. With this figure, I like the striking red and yellow colour scheme, which makes her a bit different. However, the mould line in her hair is not-so-good. She was a cheap prize figure though. 

Left side:

Some shininess, and that finish older prize figures tend to have. The cane is mostly painted well. I like the texture they managed to achieve on the white fluffy areas. Hair is simplistic, but that’s sorta to be expected with an old, small figure like this.

Right side:

I like her pose. Her pointing fingers are a bit drowned in paint though, I like the way her wing curls around her. 

Back:

No real detail on the back of the wings, but I like the finish. Is a seam running up her leg, but this angle isn’t really much of a viewing angle. The base looks nice, and would probably look really good… if I had the set. If I did a custom base/modified this base, I’d likely keep the cream splats, as they’re done well. These both peg into the base, and her scarf/stole is a separate piece. Rest of her is pre-assembled. 

I’d only recommend this figure to people who are interested in collecting older prize figures. 

Sinon – SAO: Code Register – Ocean Cat

And the third of these figures I purchased, Sinon:

This one doesn’t have any additional accessories, but does have a “full” stand. I love her cute pose, and well, she’s a cat. The shading on her face is a very nice touch. 

Left:

Here you can see the cat-paw detail on her swimsuit top – a nice continuation of the theme. She holds the ball well, and the motion in her top is nice. She also has her signature plaits, which is a necessary feature of Sinon.

Right:

Here’s her tail. This comes as a separate part, and plugs into a hole in her back. He has a hood on her top, but doesn’t look big enough for her head, lol. The colours of this figure work well imo.

Back:

Don’t think there’s much new to talk about from this angle. Her hair has been sculpted with a good amount of detail. Her foot pegs are a bit visible, which can make her foot look a little odd if you’re looking at her close-up. 

Overall, I’m very pleased with these figures. They’re nice and big, plus they’re painted well, with interesting sculpts. If you’re into these figure designs, I would happily recommend them. 

Leafa – SAO: Code Register – Aqua Sylphide

Time for our second of three Sword Art Online: Code Register prize figures.

This one is Leafa:

And man, she’s a pig to assemble. Body-to-legs is fine, but the ball is attached to her head. This made it a fun game of getting the hair slotted around her arms, then fighting with her bows & arms until each goes in the right places relative to each other. For anyone assembling it, I’d recommend threading her hair through her arms to get it in the vicinity, then heat up the bows so you can freely bend them around her arms, until everything’s in the right place, and hopefully you can jam her head down on her neck. 

She comes with some waves, identical to Asuna’s. She also has a stand base, but she doesn’t really need hers, unlike Asuna, who won’t sit right without hers. I’m going to use the stand anyway, as it’s not intrusive, and it’ll ensure she doesn’t bend over time. 

Elevated shot:

Here you can see how I’ve chosen to pose the waves, plus well, her assets that are seemingly competing with the beach-ball. 

From the front:

She has a very nice, smiling expression, and her hair has some lovely shades to it. All her bows flow nicely, and I find her skin less shiny and plain than Asuna’s. 

Left side:

Bit of a paint slop in evidence on her straps. The ball fits well in her hands, once assembled. The bottoms of her feet are sculpted nicely. 

Right:

Her wonderful hair sweeping around her. I love that they chose to do this, and the daintiness of her hand holding the ball. She also has a bow around her wrist, which is a nice attention to detail. 

Back:

A decent enough backside, plus some sculpting detail on her back. Most of the painting is within the lines, but a tiny bit lacking on the lower strap on mine. This is where she joins though. 

Closeup of the top of her hair:

Here you can see the ball is most definitely affixed to her hair. It looks a little odd if you look at it closely like this, but it looks fine from the front. 

Close-up of her back:

Hm, maybe her head needed one more shove :P. The back sculpt comes out nicely, and the ball appears to rest well in her hands, which I was worried about given the arrangement.

This was the first of the three figures I saw, and I really wanted to get this one. Certainly glad I did. 

Asuna – SAO: Code Register – Blue Marine ver.

I saw these prize figures for sale some time ago, but only recently decided to fit them into my budget. This is a set of four, but I only bought three of them, as the fourth was pricier than the other three, and I didn’t like it as much, as well as being a character I wasn’t attached to. 

So first up, Asuna:

She wasn’t too bad to assemble – head joint was a bit tight, but some heat and force sorted that out. However, she has a small stand underneath her backside (not visible here), which can be a bit of a pain to position correctly, but once in place, it stays fine. 

Elevated view:

The mould and details in the pose are all very nice. Main thing she lacks is shading on her skin, which leaves her looking prize-figure-y. When the light catches her right, she’s very nice looking though. 

From the top:

The seam hiding is better than some scales from the top! That was a bit of a surprise. The hair is really nice on this figure. Here you can see the two parts that make up the waves. These are a nice addition.

Asuna from the front, without the waves:

Just goin’ for her ice-cream. The flower in her hair is a very nice detail, and the curling of her feet give her more emotion in her pose. 

Left side:

Darn, didn’t get her ring in this shot, but it’s there and nicely painted… behind her hair. Which is very nice and blue indeed! Some decently sculpted side-boob, plus the plait in her hair, which is true to her design. The one major flaw with this figure is also visible here – the dent where her left knee is supposed to be sat in/covering up. It doesn’t seem quite the right shape, so I’m not sure bending her leg would be worth it, but it isn’t visible from a display angle. Kind of a shame, given the rest of this figure. 

Right side:

Here we get a better look at the flower, and her expression as she goes to eat her lolly. Here you can see the stand that I mentioned – the transparent blue nub underneath her backside. I like the way her ankles have the bones moulded in them. 

Back:

Some very blue hair, and the plastic stand. I really love the shades they’ve put in her hair – it really makes this figure eye-catching. The stand does its job, once you find the right place for it to sit. 

Overall, I’m really please with this figure. She’s a good size, and very nice for a prize figure. I’d say she looks a bit more plastic-y irl with her skin, but with the right lighting, she’s definitely good for the price. 

Sheryl Nome – Banpresto SQ

This was the second of the two figures I got from the seller that contacted me on MFC:

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And wow, what a figure she is. The outfit is what attracted me to this figure, and the amount of detail. She’s especially nice for a prize figure.

Her left:

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That’s a mess of hair! A lot of different pieces plus some of her outfit.

Her right:

Her face captures that mid-singing moment. I do really like her top, but wish she’d picked some shorts that matched better with it, though both are well-presented here. No accounting for taste 😛

Her back:

Here you can really see the flowing parts of her outfit, which look really nice. The support on her left leg looks a little odd from the back, as she seems to be mid-step.

From the top:

Here you can see the bow/fascinator in her hair, and where all the strands meet up. Looks more natural than some more expensive figures. 

Now for some close-ups. Here is one of her upper half:

Slight miracle she hasn’t lost her shorts! I do love that top though. 

Face:

I do love her expression. Yeah, the end of the mic is broken – not been tempted to glue this yet. This was done prior to my owning of the figure (was mentioned by the seller). I may wait for it to be knocked off before gluing it though, as it doesn’t really show once positioned.

She even has a ring:

For a prize figure, she is very nice. My main gripe would be the skin – it could do with a bit of shading. Overall, she is a very nice figure, and glad I chose her.