After playing through Sengoku Rance, I decided that I wanted more figures of characters from the game. I wound up getting Kenshin and Isoroku Yamamoto, and if Shikibu had a figure, I’d get that too. Sadly, she does not, and sadly, many other worthy characters from the game haven’t been so honored. Kotobukiya or Orchid Seed or someone should retool to make a figure of each female Sengoku Rance character; the world would be a better place for it.
In the game Sengoku Rance, Isoroku Yamamoto is a captain who has been coerced into serving House Ashikaga. As Ashikaga’s territories are adjacent to the player’s starting location, Yamamoto is one of the first commanders you can defeat and coerce into joining your own army. I tend to keep her in my main force even though I haven’t had a lot of luck using archers, particularly towards the end of the game.
Isoroku is depicted as a gentle, duty-minded person intent on extending her family line. Unfortunately, being that she is the last of her family, that means she needs to squirt out a baby. Rance – the titular main character of the game – eagerly volunteers his services as the prospective father, but Isoroku declines due to the impropriety of birthing a half-gai-jin heir. Such concerns do not deter Rance, who resorts to manipulation, seduction, and misrepresentation to get his way.
Rance shows off his ventriloquist steez.
Many of the characters from Sengoku Rance draw their names and backgrounds from medieval Japanese history, but Yamamoto is instead based on a Japanese naval admiral. The real Yamamoto served as commander of the Combined Fleet during World War II and was one of the architects of the zerg rush that clobbered the American battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor. After enjoying a period of unprecedented dominance in the Pacific, his forces suffered a crushing reversal at Midway. Yamamoto, not knowing that Americans were listening to his Vent channel, was subsequently assassinated by US Army Air Forces pilots over Bougainville Island.
The mission to kill Yamamoto was performed by pilots in P-38 Lightning aircraft, one of the most distinctive-looking fighters ever made. Curiously, a few decades later the Japanese game developer Capcom would release a game called 1942 in which players took control of a P-38 and went about blowing up Japanese ships. One wonders how the American public would react if a major American game company made a game in which you controlled a Taliban insurgent and ran around shooting NATO soldiers.
Anyway, on to the figure. This figure comes courtesy of Kotobukiya and is built in 1/8 scale. She’s a bit under 20 centimeters tall to the top of her head, although her ponytail adds a bit more height.
I normally don’t take note of a figure’s box, but Isoroku comes packaged with multiple twist ties holding her in and scads of plastic. Wire cutters are a useful thing to have while trying to extract her from her packaging. Fortunately, she’s pretty easy to set up once you finally free her; you stick her ponytail to attachment points on her head, butt, and lower right leg and then work her bow and arrows into their proper positions. I do not see any pegs or anything that secure her armament to her hands, so this is one of those figures that you don’t want to knock down or bump. She comes attached to her base; her right foot is even held down by a metal screw.
Incidentally, I overlooked that third attachment point for her hair so her hair is looser in these photos than it really should be.
Unlike some of Volks’s figures, Kotobukiya’s version stays fairly close to the game design, and they’ve done a very nice job of it. Isoroku is given a rather unemotional, business-like expression, which I think works pretty well being that Isoroku fights to secure the future of her family rather than because she gains thrills or joy from battles and victory.
The paint is quite good, with no major problems. I do think that it would have been better if they had used a brighter red for her eyes. Some of the gold outline on her clothing is a bit sloppy, particularly on the bottom edge of her trousers, but you’d have to be looking very closely at the figure to notice it.
The sculptor did a very good job of detailing her clothes, from the two little puff balls dangling off the front of her shirt to her three-pointed hair ornament to her two-toed tabi socks. I particularly like the detailing on her sword, which has a little square link on the end that you can move around.
The only aspect of this figure that I dislike is the base. She’s mounted on a transparent pink plastic slab which is hideously incongruous to the more muted colors of the figure. It’s also got House Ashikaga’s emblem on it, which is sort of annoying, as I like to kick around House Ashikaga first thing when I play the game.
I actually got this figure about a month ago but didn’t get around to unboxing it until just the other day, but now that I look at her, I think that this is a really cool figure. Isoroku wears perhaps a bit more clothing than I usually like, but other than that, she looks great, and I hope that Kotobukiya keeps on making Sengoku Rance figures.
I don’t recall seeing many reviews for this figure out on the internets. The only one I can think of is Ashlotte’s review over on Tsuki-board. It’s an excellent review with awesome pictures. Pay no mind to his slander of Senhime, who is indisputably, incontrovertibly, indubitably one of the two most awesome female characters in the game. For real yo. Anyway, go clicky. Right now.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:51 AM
A gorgeous review with beautiful pictures (I am always impressed by your pictures). This figure is nice. I don’t really like the base but the character have a good and dangerous expression ^^ Thanks for this sharing !
January 28th, 2010 at 12:38 PM
Thanks! I was in a big rush when I took these pictures so I’m glad they turned out decently. I really like her face too; she looks really serious and determined, which contrasts a bit with her naivete in the game.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:54 PM
Haha what can I say I can’t stomach her…Will agree to disagree I suppose. ~_^
I was wondering why that review ballooned up in hits this morning haha…Now I see why…Fearsome power you wield Tier.
Fantastic review though…You made her look far better then I did and I thank you much for the shots of which I’ve stolen several to save in my folders. :p
She really is a damn impressive effort on Koto’s part…Shame she has to sit on that pink monstrosity… T_T
January 28th, 2010 at 4:28 PM
Great pictures again!
Just curious, on the back of her skirt, right side, there’s a little hole – is something supposed to plug into that? Maybe her hair? Looks like there’s a little nub in the hair that might fit in the hole.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:09 PM
>> Ashlotte
I always use Senhime in my main group, but I have the feeling I’d dislike her a lot if she went off AWOL after I left her on the bench. I wasn’t all too impressed by Kotobukiya’s Senhime figure but Isoroku came out awesome. Nanjyou Ran looked okay but she’s not one of my favorite characters in the game (partly because I’ve never actually gotten her in my army).
I really do not know what they were thinking with the base. At least it doesn’t take up too much space, although that’s not really a big deal since her bow is so big, I guess.
>> VF
Thanks! Yeah, that’s where her hair is supposed to attach to keep it close to her body. I completely overlooked it when I was setting the figure up for photographing.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:26 PM
Haha see thats exactly what she did to me my first play through…I wasn’t using a guide or anything so when she suddenly just up and left I was like “What the freaking hell…that bitch!” so yea it left a bad impression on me and I killed her every time she showed up as an enemy commander after that. >_>
Aye Koto’s Senhime is rather lackluster…The line has a huge quality flux along it drives you nuts, but I guess you could say that about Koto in general.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:26 PM
Interesting this little text about Sengoku Rance names origins. I didn’t know that at all.
Indeed, you are one of the few who did a review of this figure. And i’m glad because i always wondered if it worth buying it.
With koto, you’re not sure of anything… The result is satisfying.
Shame for the horrible base :/ and the amount of hairs on the front of her face seems too compact for me.
January 30th, 2010 at 1:31 AM
>> Ashlotte
OMG you are a butcher :O I usually gun for Tokugawa pretty early just to recruit her quickly.
I’m hoping that FREEing makes more Sengoku Rance figures, since I much prefer bigger figures to smaller ones. Being that I have no FREEing figures I suppose I will be seeing whether their quality is any good.
>> Lylibellule
Yeah, Kotobukiya is really inconsistent. That wasn’t too big a deal when their figures were cheap in the US, but I don’t know if they distribute their anime figures here by themselves anymore.
I’m trying to decide if this is the worst base I own. It’s either this or the ones that come with all my Griffon figures.
January 30th, 2010 at 6:14 AM
Wow gorgeous pictures! I really love this Isoroku. It’s my favorite Sengoku figure by far. But that’s mostly because Isoroku is my favorite character. I’m really impressed with Kotobukiya. They manage to make a solid figure worth the price this time. My favorite parts have to be her hair and that stare she has on her face. It’s very enticing. The base is indeed horrible though. But I noticed most of Koto’s Sengoku figures have this horrible see-through base.
January 30th, 2010 at 6:42 AM
That’s lots of information. I finally learned some history and origins of their names. No wonder when I did a search for Senhime, some obasan showed up in the results which left me puzzled. Thanks pal. You cleared it for me.
I do agree that Koto is hard to predict. When I first started this, I bought most of the left over at very cheap price and found out that they are… er… so-so only. But, everyone learns from experience so I guess I have to too.
Lastly, your photos are always great! Cool
January 31st, 2010 at 1:46 AM
>> Ami
I like Isoroku as well, that’s why I keep her in my main army even though I’d usually be better off swapping her out for a more effective commander. Looking at her face, it’s pretty cool how she has a serious but somewhat passive look to her, but if you look at her up close, she can look like she’s snarling mad.
>> softz
Thanks! Senhime was a member of the Tokugawa family who wound up as a nun, I think. Curiously, the most famous Tokugawa shows up in the game as a big fat raccoon dog.
While Kotobukiya’s quality is a bit less than the top tier figure makers, I like them a lot, since they make such a broad range of figures. They’ve got stuff from h-games, Final Fantasy, Marvel comics, Halo, and everything in between.
January 31st, 2010 at 6:27 AM
Yuck how can they deliver a graceful figure with such an awful base like this :/
Really interesting what you wrote about the origins. Very informative ^^ I’ll sleep less stupid tonight.
About the figure itself, she looks very cool, serious and determined.
Same as you i usually like my figure with less clothes but this one worth it.
As lylibellule said i think a bit more hairs would have been appreciable.
Great pics
February 1st, 2010 at 12:28 AM
At one point I wanted to major in history, but then I figured that getting a job was probably more important and that I could read history books on my own time. I guess Isoroku is one of the more elegant characters in Sengoku Rance? I’ll admit that for me, raunchiness almost always trumps elegance in anime-style character design as far as appeal goes.
February 15th, 2010 at 9:47 AM
Ah Koto delivered such a nice figure?
I only own Koto`s Kanzaki Kaori and wasnt that impressed with it.But this one is pretty tempting.
Btw Buddy could you be a buddy and tell me where to find the english patch fpor rance? I feel compelled to play it now.
Any game that sports a perverted main lead gets my two thumbs up
February 15th, 2010 at 9:18 PM
You can get the translation here, you’ll want to install the 1.0 patch and then copy over the file in the update patch into the directory you installed the game in.
Yeah, Kotobukiya made a pretty good figure here. Very much hit and miss they are but Yamamoto turned out quite nice … too bad I don’t think too many people bought her.