Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls (Queen’s Gate Version) (NSFW)

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Good Smile Company’s Nanoha actsta action figure has been sprawled out on my desk for the last week. I planned on photographing it for my next review but a couple days back, I found out that I’ve misplaced part of her base. Being anything but an exemplar of self-motivation, I put off looking for it until the other night, when I decided that I really ought to write a new post. However, a comprehensive search of my room didn’t turn it up and now I have no clue where it might be. So instead of doing a Nanoha review, I thought that I’d take Jubei out of her box and photograph her instead. I was saving her for some time when I had more interesting ideas for photographing her, but life is about adapting when things do not go as planned. Besides, I can’t say I was too enthusiastic about doing a poseable figure review since I’m no good at them, anyway.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Yagyu Jubei is the central heroine of Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls. The television show married appealing character designs and a distinctive visual style with a ludicrous plot and trite, flaccid characterization jacked right out of the handbook of tired anime tropes. I had eagerly anticipated the series but when I watched it, I couldn’t make it through the third episode. Maybe it gets better later, but I doubt it. Anyway, the less said about the anime, the better.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Alter released Jubei’s debut figure over a year ago, and it was well-received enough to get a second production run just before the anime aired. This version of Jubei, however, is part of Hobby Japan’s Queen’s Gate series. The Queen’s Gate books are a spinoff of the Queen’s Blade series and feature licensed characters in artbooks incorporating Flying Buffalo’s Lost Worlds game rules. Several companies have made figures of the Queen’s Gate characters: Kotobukiya did a figure of Dizzy, which is the only other Queen’s Gate figure I own, though I also have Junko Hattori on order. Curiously, Junko is being done by Good Smile Company; she seems to be a bit outside their typical portfolio but she’s looking good, regardless. This Jubei figure was made by MegaHouse and is listed as 1/8 scale, but at 18.5 centimeters tall, she’s on the low end of that scale size. She comes with a circular pink base and a couple of weapons, a sheathed sword which slots into a notch in her forearm and a whip-like sword, which slides into her left hand.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Removing her from the box, my first impression of her is that she’s smaller than I hoped she would be. She’s considerably smaller than Alter’s Jubei as well as most other 1/8 scale figures. Between Jubei and Vocaloid Lily, I’m annoyed by these manufacturers who can’t properly calculate how large the figure should be.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

My subsequent impression is that Jubei is not wearing many clothes. Alter’s figure kitted her out in a revealing yet elaborate costume, with ropes and platform sandals and more ropes. MegaHouse’s Jubei omits most of the ropes and just about everything else as well. In particular, not only has she dispensed with her short dress, she’s thrown away her panties. It’s an inspired fashion decision and I wish more female anime characters would do the same.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

While the only article of clothing girding her hips is a belt, she protects her modesty via a bandaid. It’s a curious anime trope that was also featured by one of my pillowcases. I do not know if Jubei was ever shown wearing this bandaid in the anime, but a similar placement did appear in an episode of Kanokon. The bandaid is pretty cute and I’m a big fan of maebari in anime-style art, but it seems a bit incongruous with her fierce expression and heavy armament.

Oh, and if anyone is curious, she lacks a realistically-sculpted anus. How sad.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Speaking of her weapons, her whip looks very cool indeed, but it’s made of plastic and is quite fragile. I’ve already had to superglue together a couple of the segment-connecting plastic pieces. I’ve also heard that some people received broken whips before even opening the box.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

I don’t remember much of the anime but I vaguely recall that she had relatively large breasts, breasts that were the utter terror of the lead male invertebrate. Her breasts don’t stand out as much in this figure, perhaps because her waist is so tiny. And perhaps also because her hips are so broad. Jubei is quite wasp-waisted despite her petite build, and she manages to look both slender and curvy at the same time.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

While the initial broadcast of the anime was censored to protect tender, unformed minds from the onslaught of nipples, owners of this figure can proudly show off Jubei’s breasts. Her castoff system is straightforward – just pull her head off and pull her shirt apart at two edges.

Despite its straightforwardness, Jubei’s castoff system is still unnecessarily aggravating. Her shirt connects on each side via a pair of pegs and I found it very difficult to get both pegs on her left side slotted into their sockets. Her left arm gets in the way and the separation point could have been placed better. I never did get both of them seated and I gave up after a while.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Her head looks a bit like a headcrab, with its four tendrils of hair and the antennae sprouting from the top.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Jubei has a fantastic ass, as she should, since it is quite prominent. I don’t think I can criticize any aspect of how her backside was sculpted. Definitely a good job by the sculptor there.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Her mouth is wide open and extends a bit into her head, giving it some realistic depth. I like her facial expression, perhaps because her determined look doesn’t fit at all with what she’s wearing.

This version of Jubei has a ton of hair compared to the Alter figure. I don’t recall her having this much hair in the anime, either. I think it looks cute as well, but it is strange how her hair by itself seems to be twice as large as the rest of her head.

Yagyu Jubei Figure Picture

MegaHouse’s Yagyu Jubei was a Hobby Japan exclusive and thus required using a proxy service to procure her. That additional expense coupled with her small size militates against me being completely happy with her, but I still like this figure a lot. She has an attractive, distinctive look and a dynamic stance. Her overall sculpt is pretty good and the paintwork is decent, but what I like best about Jubei is that she’s nearly nude while carrying a couple of big swords. Any half-naked swordsgirl is already going to start quite highly in my esteem. Worth all the money? Perhaps not. But I like her anyway.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review

Check out Visual Fanfare for another review and more pictures of Jubei.

MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
MegaHouse Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls Figure Review
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27 Responses to Yagyu Jubei from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls (Queen’s Gate Version) (NSFW)

  1. Shashin says:

    Any figure that has boobies exposed can’t be all that bad; though it’s a shame about the lack of sculpted anus. I like the figure nonetheless, and the same goes for the nice ass, even if it’s lacking in one aspect that is often overlooked (then again, how many figures go with a complete lack of panties/overall censoring to begin with?) Fairly funny that she has a bandaid to cover the goods, since we just recently talked about the subject in your dakimakura review, as you mentioned.

    Overall, I’m very happy with the Megahouse cast off figures I have; though I’m not fond of removing heads and such, just to take off some clothing. I remember my Megahouse Reina (I think it is, I don’t know Queen’s Blade’s characters for shit… it’s the short haired blonde chick you did a review of a few months back – though a different figure) had an overly complicated dress system. She wasn’t wearing much to begin with, some leather straps and such…. which to get off, you had to remove at least one arm, possible the other, and more or less solve a puzzle to figure out which way it unwrapped. It was even more a pain in the ass to put on, because she had pegs on her body that you connected the leather on to several points.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, it’s a shame, though I never get tired of making that joke anyway. I do have a figure in the review queue that includes that very important detail.

      Nowadays, I’m less enthusiastic about complex castoff systems since I usually just wind up throwing the extra parts back in the box and forgetting about them. A lot of them are also not very well done, often resulting in odd-looking body shapes to accommodate the bulky clothing.

      Yeah, that sounds like Reina .. Leina … one or the other. I’ve got their Mirim figure and taking off her clothes is frustrating because it’s really difficult to get her leotard strap passed between her legs. It doesn’t sound like it ought to be difficult and it probably shouldn’t, but it is. Aldra was relatively complex too; I had to disassemble her to get all the plastic wrap off when I unboxed her, and the process was so complicated that I didn’t bother putting her clothes back on. It sounds like Reina was much the same way.

  2. Cantan says:

    Those pegs for securing clothing are a pain. I bought Siggy because she was cheap a while back and then discovered that all of her garments were covered in pegs… just to dress her when she came out of the box took bloody ages.

    Think it might be trend for Megahouse now… pretty sure I had another figure a while back that annoyed me with pegs… whoever it was is safely stored away in a cupboard somewhere…

    For a moment I thought this was Hattori Junko (then I’d have to chase mine as I hadn’t received her yet!) Still, can’t help thinking that shipments from Japan are going to be disrupted for a good while yet.

    • Tier says:

      Kotone Ousaka used a similar system for her bikini bottom, which was absolutely maddening to reattach. I don’t think I ever accomplished it, in fact. So did MegaHouse’s Mirim. I really would have preferred that they gone with something easier to work with. The annoyance of having to figure out how castoff systems work is part of the reason I don’t value removable clothing nearly as much as I used to. I once paid a markup of something like 200% for a figure just because you could show off its tits. Now, it doesn’t matter a ton to me whether the clothes can come off or not.

      Yeah, I imagine a national shock of that magnitude will take a long time to recover from. 9/11 doesn’t provide a very good parallel, overall, but one thing the two incidents may be similar in is that the lasting effects of the terrorist attacks weren’t so much the property damage and deaths inflicted (although both were obviously considerable and extremely tragic), it was the damage to the psyche of the US and the paranoia generated by fear of another attack. Since Japan is so earthquake-prone, I wonder how traumatized Japanese society will be in years to come. I hope they are more resilient than the US was.

      • Cantan says:

        The attacks on the US were so small and localised (both towers and the Pentagon only wasn’t it?) but the markets and media overreacted (and just keep banging on and on about it). By contrast the earthquake has caused widespread damage over a far wider scale, effecting all walks of life (instead of just stock brokers) – think comparisons would be misleading.

        This is largely irrelevant (or very tenuous)… but on the subject of Queen’s Gate/Blade… have you seen any reviews of Toranoana’s Alleyne anywhere?

        Trying to decide if I want her or not

        • Tier says:

          I do know what figure you’re talking about but curiously, I haven’t seen any such review, and a quick search on Akibahobby and Moeyo doesn’t bring one up. I do remember thinking she looked pretty good though if I had picked up an Alleyne figure, it probably would’ve been Megahouse’s, although I passed on that one too, which I’m thinking might’ve been a mistake.

  3. BioToxic says:

    Nice, you got this version of Jubei from Queen’s Gate. I would have bought her straight away if she wasn’t exclusive. I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for a proxy. The upcoming Junko however is a completely different story. Can’t wait for her myself.

    I really like this Jubei because she looks more slender than her other versions. Although after watching the anime I must admit this version doesn’t really look like the “real” Jubei. I do however think her face is very cute and her hair is nicely done. Oh and you didn’t really miss much by not getting past episode 3 of the anime.

    The cast-off is also a nice addition and nicely detailed as always by MegaHouse (and needlessly fidgety too it appears). She looks great both cast on or off, and since she’s wearing nothing but a belt below you always get a nice view of her rear. Her exposed back looks really nice, probably my favourite part of this figure.

    Maybe it’s just me but I don’t remember her having a imitation Zabimaru (Renji from Bleach zanpakutou) blade in the anime. It’s unfortunate it’s so fragile as well, but at least it looks cool.

    • Tier says:

      That’s not what I was hoping to hear about the anime but it’s not surprising in the least. I had really high hopes for it but man, the characters just suck so hard, other than maybe Matabei but she wasn’t much more than eye candy and comic relief in the part I saw. I couldn’t stand Senhime and I really couldn’t stand the loli whose name escapes me at the moment … Sanada, I think. Oh, and the male was a pussy, too. God, what a waste … a waste of characters, a waste of an interesting premise, and a waste of my time to watch.

      Hmm, she didn’t have the whip in the anime? Curious. I guess Hobby Japan just decided she’d look cool with one. It does look cool but it also consumes more shelf space than she would otherwise need.

      Junko looks great and I’m really hoping her castoff system is easy to manage. I guess I should get back to watching Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou … the first few episodes I saw weren’t too bad and I’m not really sure how Junko went from mercurial, violent student to ninja girl; I ought to at least learn about that before I get her.

      • Ashlotte says:

        She’s always been a Ninja girl Tier what are you talking about haha.

        But yea Daimaou is worth watching…Got cut too short with a rush end, but other then that I enjoyed it.

        Stay as far away from Samurai girls as you can though…Like you said a giant waste of some very nice character designs. (Having a pussy lead voiced by Makoto of all things doesn’t help either…)

        • Tier says:

          I probably ought to figure out where her sister comes from, too. It seems like a lot of these moe-centric shows have a problem figuring out how to do a proper ending … it’s like they have to spend so much time introducing the girl characters one by one and doing the moe stuff that they forget that there’s supposed to be a story somewhere in there.

          Man, I knew I heard that dude’s voice somewhere. Thanks a lot, now I’m never gonna be able to look at Muneakira the same way.

          • Ashlotte says:

            Meh it’s why I hate 12 episode shows…By the time the story has finished introducing the characters the damn things over with! Hell in some like Angel Beats they don’t even get enough time to properly introduce all the characters…

            I know it’s less of a financial risk for companies to do these short series, but it’s damn frustrating to say the least…

          • Tier says:

            Yeah, I was kinda frustrated by Ga-rei Zero; I really liked the premise, Yomi is a great character, but the show opened up with a couple of episodes that had a huge emotional impact but were basically throwaway shows as far as the plot went, and then sorta dawdled around for half of its remaining run time before getting back to the story. It really could’ve used another 12 episodes to flesh things out.

  4. Fabienne says:

    Oh she appears quite small in comparision, but on the other hand Alter’s Samurai Girls are bigger than many other 1/8 scaled figures.

    I own one Queens Gate figure, Alice from Alpha x Omega, very nice figure.
    Jubei is a sexy looking figure I like the detailed sculpting of her body with the small waist a lot. Oh and she really has a beautiful butt ;D somehow I miss a skirt or pantsu on her, but the belt makes up for it, the belt has a very cool design, I like the pink printed flowers on it.
    I don’t know who came up with the idea of placing a band aid down there, I guess it must feel itchy after some time XD

    She also has a good looking face, the wide open mouth is the only thing I don’t really like about her, its just too =O for my taste, Well from some angles I like it like in yagyu-jubei-09.jpg, yagyu-jubei-16.jpg and yagyu-jubei-01.jpg.
    As I saw the single head in your picture I thought about the possibility to put the head of my Endoh Ifrina figure on Jubei’s body, but I guess it wouldn’t fit or look strange ;D
    This is again an interesting background you are showing in your pictures, very fitting.

    • Tier says:

      I love how she’s not wearing any pants or panties but yeah, when I first saw her promo photos, I immediately thought, “Uhh, where’s her skirt?” She does look a bit unbalanced with her shirt but no skirt but I don’t mind at all XD I also wonder how the bandaid stays sticky since it’s placed on an, uhh, moist place.

      Endoh Ifrina would look pretty cute on this body, I think XD I’d like to see Giga Pulse make some new some cute figures like her.

      • Fabienne says:

        they are able make cute and sexy figures, too bad they mainly do hardcore stuff 🙁 The latest figures of Gigapulse were extremely disturbing, I saw one with cut off limbs *puke*

        • Tier says:

          Haha, yeah, that figure is hilarious XD I saw it on their website a few months ago and I thought about adding it to the Tsuki-board database myself, but I wanted to see if anybody else would do it first. Sometimes it seems like people trip all over themselves to be the first to add something but in this case, nobody seemed to be too eager to be the one to do it. I wonder why XD

  5. drakanity says:

    The comparison between the two figures seem quite huge for the same scale. The back side is indeed nice.

    It always seems the castoffs are always so difficult to put back on. A shame as well for figures nowadays to have broken pieces right out of the box or a little touch will break it. I’m surprised you’re willing to let her head stand using her hair. I’d be a bit afraid of breaking the hair.

    Overall it looks good. Although like usual for me, face is sorta iffy. I didn’t even know they made this one though. I know there’s that upcoming one from alphamax though which looks pretty cute.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, in particular I heard a lot of people had problems with GSC’s BRS Animation Version figure; it seems her hair was vulnerable to breakage during shipment. Fortunately I haven’t had too many issues with figure damage in transit. I did accidentally rip the sleeve right off of Kaori Saeki’s school uniform recently, but that’s entirely my fault. That’s also another castoff system that took me a while to figure out, if you call destroying the clothing figuring it out.

      I notice that there seem to be a lot of Samurai Girls stuff coming out soon, now that the anime is done. There’s even a giant 50 centimeter tall of Senhime that Azone is putting together; I wonder what it will look like. I’m also curious why Charles D’artagnan hasn’t gotten any merchandising love.

  6. Chag says:

    Shucks, I guess Nanha’s molestation will have to wait until another day.

    I said this in VF’s review but I’ll say it again: HAIR IS TOO BIG. Considering the importance of eyes in anime art, obscuring them is a big no-no. Unless an eyepatch is involved…or a blindfold. Yes, a blindfold would be be than acceptable.

    I don’t mean to be too negative on this figure, but I guess I just like the Alter version a LOT more. I also think they went a little overboard with her hourglass figure — her waist is awfully thin! When I see a woman with large breasts, I like it better if they have the frame to support them. I’m not sure why stuff like this bug me, since I’ve never felt the back pains from having giant breasts — maybe I was a well-endowed woman in a past life? That WOULD explain a lot of things.

    • Tier says:

      Still cannot find that bloody support strut. I have no clue where I might’ve put it; I did a careful search on and behind and around my desk, which is the last place I remember seeing it. Now I’m wondering if I did the dumbest thing I could have possibly done, which was to put it away somewhere for safekeeping. Every time I do that, I can’t ever remember where I stash the thing.

      I’m one of the few figure collectors that isn’t a huge fan of the earlier Yagyu Jubei figure, though it’s not because of Alter, it’s because she has so much red and pink. Too much red and pink, I think. It’s not one of my favorite color combinations. I kinda like the big hair, since it reminds me of the 80s anime I grew up on, where hair would easily comprise half of a character’s head and there weren’t any twintails to be found. Not that I have a problem with twintails but they are everywhere in anime these days.

      Yeah, her waist looks really thin to support her upper body. A little more fleshing out would’ve been nice, particularly given how wide her hips are.

  7. Ashlotte says:

    Another figure that looks better from behind to me… >_>

    Haha nice to know I’m not the only one that always loses optional parts…One of the reasons why I hate any figures that come with swappable parts…

    • Tier says:

      I’m kinda waffling on buying that Fate figure with the big-ass head again, now that I see how many spare parts she comes with. I’ve got bags and bags full of spare figure parts and I don’t even know which figures most of them belong to. I’ve got oodles of little plastic tits on my shelves and desk and I have no idea whose chests they are supposed to plug into.

  8. Steve Chen says:

    Just got both Jyubei’s a month ago. I agree that for a 1/8 scale, Megahouse’s is smaller and equally………100% on the mark is your review. Too bad about her whip samurai though. Mine is still solid though.

    Btw, could you send me a link on the Junko figure you mentioned?

  9. Steve Chen says:

    Thanks kimosabe!

  10. Cantan says:

    Oh, finally got confirmation that my Hattori Junko is in store in Japan… you got yours yet?

    • Tier says:

      Nope, I haven’t heard anything. Hopefully I’ll hear something this week but if not, I’ve still got a massive queue of stuff I need to take pictures of so I suppose I won’t be too stressed about it.

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