#5. Sasara Kusugawa

Volks’s Moekore figures are hit-or-miss in my experience. Sasara, fortunately, is a fantastic figure, exuding confidence and sexiness in equal measure. Of all the To Heart 2 figures out there – and there’s a helluva lot of them – Sasara ranks as among the best, and given the price premium this figure is commanding on the secondary market, I’m surely not alone in that assessment.

#4. Lacia from BEATLESS

The newest figure in my collection, her inclusion in this list wasn’t certain until today but it was by no means a hasty decision. I’ve been looking forward to this figure since the sample reviews went online and it’s as good as I hoped it would be. Her outfit is tremendously appealing, particularly the high heels, which she makes look right despite how incongruous they ought to be, and I’ve also got this thing for purple hair.

#3. Saber Alter from Fate/stay night

As good as Sasara is, I don’t think she’s even the best armored girl figure to be released this year. That honor goes to Good Smile Company’s Saber Alter, which forgoes Sasara’s leg-baring sexiness and replaces it with badass attitude. Is this the best Saber figure ever? I think it’s either this or Saber Lily; who you got?

#2. Rin Tohsaka from Fate/stay night

Collectors expressed doubts about Good Smile Company’s Rin Tohsaka – her shirt was too glossy, the eyes on her prototype were badly misaligned. However, in the end GSC came through and the final figure is absolutely beautiful. Her sculpt is stunning, her attitude is defiant, and the result is, I think, one of the best figures ever made. Any other year, I’d call it my favorite. But not this year.

#1. Dizzy from Guilty Gear X2

This one is a fairly obvious choice, though I did have to think about it for a little bit. Truthfully, if I had never played Guilty Gear, I might’ve picked Rin here instead. Objectively, I like the Rin figure a bit better; the sculpt is a bit more appealing and Rin’s size is much more attractive than Dizzy’s, who has one of the smallest 1/8 scale bodies Alter has sculpted. However, Dizzy is one of my favorite video game characters and that’s all the tilt that this decision requires. Dizzy is my favorite figure of this year. Looking forward to 2012, a Mu-12 figure would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?

Overall, I think it’s been a great year for figure collectors. Last year, the list wasn’t too hard to put together – though in retrospect, I might’ve bumped Momohime off the list, added Sora Kasugano, and if I had received Kiriko Hattori earlier, that figure would’ve been #1. This year, I had to put some thought into the ranking and it was very difficult to leave off figures like Fate Testarossa, Junko Hattori, Chie, Matabei, and Triela.

Let’s take a look at what a few individual manufacturers did during this last year.

Alter is, by general consensus, the best manufacturer of scale-size anime figures, and they had a pretty good year. However, I can’t say I was as excited by their product range this past year as I have been in years prior. Consider the source breakdown of their 2011 lineup:

2011
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha – 4 figures (+2 re-releases, +1 limited edition)
Strike Witches – 3 figures
Bakemonogatari – 2 figures
A Certain Scientific Railgun – 2 figures (+2 re-releases)
K-On! – 2 figures (+2 re-releases)
Fate/stay night – 2 figures
Guilty Gear X2 – 1 figure (+1 re-release)
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls – 0 figures (+2 limited edition)
Okami-san and her Seven Companions – 1 figure
Shining Wind – 1 figure
Working! – 1 figure
Yosuga no Sora – 1 figure

Here’s the thing: almost all of these properties have someone else making figures of those characters right now. Good Smile Company is making figures of the Bakemonogatari characters that are at least as good as Alter’s figures, and quite possibly superior. I get Kotobukiya’s Strike Witches figures confused with Alter’s all the time. Same with their casual clothes Nanoha figures. And the same with their Railgun figures. Wait; I take that back, I can remember the difference between the two Saten figures, because Alter’s Saten-san has a head shaped like a melon and Kotobukiya’s does not.

Compare that lineup to their product range from 2009:

2009
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha – 4 figures (+2 re-releases)
Tower of Druaga – 2 figures
Teppen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 2 figures
Zero no Tsukaima – 2 figures
Bamboo Blade – 1 figure
Beat Blades Haruka – 1 figure
Demonbane – 1 figure
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls – 1 figure
Kara no Kyoukai – 1 figure
Makai Tenshi Djibril – 1 figure
Penguin Musume Heart – 1 figure
Persona 4 – 1 figure
Sengoku Rance – 1 figure
Xenosaga – 1 figure

You used to be able to count on Alter to produce figures from eroge, obscure shows, and other sources that you’d never heard of but recently, most of their figures come from very mainstream series. Houmei is possibly the least-known character they made a figure of last year, but every figure collector has heard of Shining Wind. Dizzy is possibly the least-known character they made a figure of but one can’t really call Guilty Gear an obscure series, being that it’s on a half-dozen platforms and is internationally renowned.

What’s Alter got on tap for next year? Another Nanoha figure, another Strike Witches figure, and another Samurai Girls figure, among other things. Hopefully they’ll mix things up and surprise us.

FREEing has made a bunch of 1/4 scale figures in the past, mostly of Lucky Star characters, but they’ve recently released a number of 1/4 scale ero figures, including a couple from Freezing (Satellizer review is pending here) and two figures of Shiratori Amane (review also pending here). That’s a great trend and I hope they keep it up – but I also hope that they make some of those Freezing figures stand up rather than lie down, because I’ve got no shelf space available for Satellizer, let alone the entire West Genetics student body.

What a difference a year makes. In 2010, I bought only one Good Smile Company figure – the Animation Version of Black Rock Shooter – and immediately regretted it because her price plummeted to 2,500 yen a few weeks after she was released. And then there was that problem with the star … which I still haven’t placed on her ass, by the way. But they’ve had a great 2011. Their Fate/stay night figures are amazing, Junko Hattori is, in my view, the best Queen’s Gate figure, and Triela and Nadeko Sengoku are also superb. They’ve also reached out to the international community, offering an English version of their company blog and taking overseas orders in their store. Maybe the biggest dud in their catalog are the actsta figures, which are rather undersized and hugely overpriced for what you get, particularly given that you can get a Figma for about a third of the price. Oh wait, there was one other dud, a most mysterious one that still demands clarification:

What the shizzle? And yes, that is an actual tweet from the Doggfather hisself. So what’s that about? Where’s my 1/8 scale Snoop Dogg figure? Lacia needs an owner, you know.

Kotobukiya is perhaps the most consistent of all figure makers in that their stuff usually isn’t terrible and it usually isn’t outstanding. A curious thing is how similar their product lineups are to a couple of other manufacturers: Alter does Nanoha figures in casual wear, Kotobukiya does figures in casual wear. Max Factory does figures of Shining Wind characters in swimsuits, Kotobukiya does figures of Shining Wind characters in swimsuits. They pretty much did what they’ve always done: pump out nice but not particularly ambitious figures of popular characters.

A second interesting trend is how hard they’re pushing their Bishoujo line. They must be pretty good sellers for them but personally, I think I like Yamashita’s artwork more than the figures themselves. On that note, one wonders if they’re monopolizing all his time or something, since it seems like they’re the only ones making figures based on his artwork now.

Every Wonder Festival, Orchid Seed shows up with a bunch of artwork showing off what they plan to make figures of. We’re still waiting on a lot of those. They had a really quiet year; Super Sonico was nice and Eleanor Mercer was very cute, but lately, they’ve been scheduling recolored versions of older figures. One wonders if effects from the calamitous earthquake or some other problem is disrupting things over there. It seems like we’ve been seeing that figure of Ignis in the wedding dress with the bouquet-hilted sword forever, and I’m still hoping they’ll make that dark elf figure from Lineage II.

Perhaps the most eclectic manufacturer in the hobby, Yamato’s catalog is more diverse than the We Are The World rehearsal and less consistent than Tim Tebow. They’ve got mecha toys, including some of the best Macross Valkyrie toys out there. They’ve got big-ass vmf50 dolls, of which I’m a big fan. They’ve got PVC anime figures of wildly varying quality and polystone figures based on Western fantasy art, also of wildly varying quality. They’re bringing back 1/7 or 1/8 scale poseable figures. I think I have more affection for Yamato than most collectors, but I didn’t buy many of their figures. I did get Heat Blade, which was finally released after a very lengthy delay. I also got Yukihime, whose review is still pending. Most of the Yamato stuff I got was vmf50 clothing. And although it’s not a Yamato product, this is a good time to bring up the tentacle stand again, just because it’s that awesome.

That’s that for 2011. Happy new year everyone. Next review goes up in a few days but for now, here’s some bonus pictures for the photographers out there.

Back to the top

It’s the end of the year and in accordance with tradition, it is time for a list of my favorite figures of 2010. As with last year, this list only includes mass-produced PVC figures.

#5. Tamaki Kousaka

Max Factory has mainly manufactured Figmas this year and Tamaki Kousaka is sort of an oddity in their lineup. However, it turns out that Max Factory was prescient as their product presages a deluge of Tamakis scheduled to drop in early 2011. However, none of those upcoming figures can match Max Factory’s. It combines cuteness, seductiveness, and innocence all in one beautiful figure.

#4. Momohime

Momohime’s unpainted sculpt didn’t attract much notice but her painted sample set the collecting community on fire, and the love she’s received is well-deserved. One of the most attractive sculpts Alter has ever produced, she combines the dynamic appeal of an action girl with the classical elegance of a Japanese princess.

#3. Velvet

Many figure collectors hoped that Bubba’s superlative sculpt of Velvet would be produced in PVC format but few anticipated – or preferred – that Yamato would be the ones to do it. However, Yamato has surpassed themselves with their adaptation, crafting a beautiful figure that even offers an attractive castoff option. And yet, in defiance of my usual practice I’ve never removed her skirt other than when I did my review because displaying such an elegant figure in her underwear seems overly crass, even for me.

#2. Vivio

With her tight bodysuit and her action pose, Vivio’s design hearkens back to the late 1980s and 90s anime that I grew up on. It seems that she may be the last of Alter’s StrikerS line, although I wouldn’t mind seeing Ginga get a figure and I’m hoping that they look at the characters of Force, particularly Isis Egret, whose official art shows that she has some attractive qualities. Vivio does as well, with her dynamic look, but unfortunately she’s been consigned to the bargain bin of just about every major Japanese retailer. More the shame, that, but the least I can do is honor her with runner-up status. When I got her, she was set to take the crown, but another figure that was released only recently has surpassed her to claim the throne.

#1. Buddy

I was surprised when Alter unveiled their prototype of Buddy, as she’s an obscure character from one of Leaf’s most obscure properties. I’m very glad that they did, though, because I loved her character design from the moment that I first saw it. Is she the most exciting figure of the year? No way. Is she the most impressive? Probably not. But like Metatron from last year, Alter has plucked a character from an ero game and done a wonderful job in bringing her to three dimensions. Her enigmatic expression, her fearsome scythe – and yes, her lack of pants – all come together to make for a gorgeous sculpt, and Buddy is my favorite figure of 2010.

Thoughts on 2010
Anime hasn’t changed much in the last few years. Studios still make shows based off of the same tired tropes and cliches. Goods manufacturers still pump out merchandise. Every season is more of the same thing. If you look at a list of the 2011 winter season shows, I bet you can make reasonably accurate guesses as to which series will succeed and which will fail just based on recent history. And yet, it feels like 2010 was a year of transition for the figure collecting hobby. There were a number of shifts that occurred and progressed this past year, some of them subtle and some of them readily apparent.

It was common to speak of Alter, Good Smile Company, and Max Factory as the Big Three of the figure manufacturing industry, but that Big Three has now become the Big One. Max Factory has become mostly an action figure company, with their scaled figures mainly comprising some Shining Wind girls in swimwear and a couple of undersized Vocaloid figures that rapidly hit the bargain bin. Likewise, Good Smile Company mainly chucked out nendoroids, even though they produced arguably the two most anticipated figures of this year. However, their Black Rock Shooter figure was marred by a very peculiar production error and their Dead Master figure seems to have not made so much as a ripple in the collecting community despite the number of people who bought her.

Alter had a typically superb year, producing a number of beautiful figures. I really hope they don’t ever get into the chibi figure business. Unexpectedly, Yamato also had an excellent year, with Velvet being a product that any manufacturer would have been proud to call their own. They teamed with REFLECT to make a couple of fine figures with their Shunya Yamashita-inspired Asuka and Kiriko Hattori, and they also further established their commitment to their doll line by introducing a number of new vmf50 products. Their Compact Hog was a bit of a miss and it’s disappointing that Heat Blade got kicked back into 2011, but overall, they did very well.

Another noticeable change has been in the figure collecting community itself. It seems like the community has become markedly stratified, with nendoroid, Figma, scaled PVC, and doll collectors consolidating their collections and focusing on their respective core interests. It also feels like that the scaled PVC market is the loser out of all of these niches, with more companies introducing chibi-style products and getting into the action figure market at the expense of their PVC figures.

Doll collecting took off this past year, and it’s not hard to understand why. Dollfie Dream dolls in particular became very popular, although they’re really not my thing and the proliferation of Dollfie Dream stuff on figure.fm is a major reason why I don’t often visit that site anymore. I do like Yamato’s vmf50 stuff though, and you’ll be seeing more vmf50 stuff on this site soon. However, I’m still mainly a scaled figure collector, and that will always be the focus of this site.

Speaking of figure sites, a whole bunch of them withered and died or are on long-term hiatus. Even foo-bar-baz wasn’t immune to ennui, having taken a couple of long breaks through the latter half of the year. Back when I was scrabbling for traffic, I used to try to get my pictures done and my review up as quickly as possible with the expectation that being first would lead to more hits. These days, I don’t really care about being first and yet, my posts are sometimes the only English-language reviews of a figure up on the web. Sometimes I feel like the guy at the party who doesn’t realize the music’s been turned off. Sometimes I feel like the hobby’s hit a saturation point where people see so many new figures and products coming out that they start to tune the coverage out.

However, 2011 is already off to a bright start, with GSC’s Saber Alter and Rin Tohsaka and Alter’s Dizzy looking to be instant winners, and undoubtedly there is more high-quality stuff yet to come. 2010 was a year of change and not all of it was for the better, but 2011 is looking very good already. Here’s hoping all its promises are golden.

5.

Narika from Beat Blades Haruka (Alter)

Despite being neither a big fan of twintails or the flat chest, I love Alter’s rendition of Narika. She’s got a great pose and her face expresses sauciness and playfulness in equal measure. Her split-front trousers and that huge weapon – whatever it is – are too cool as well.

4.

Seena Kanon from Shining Wind (Orchid Seed)

Seena was one of the figures I was most looking forward to, and Orchid Seed did not disappoint me. She’s an elegant mix of sexiness and subtlety, of quiet repose and martial prowess. Tony’s designs usually make for excellent figures, and Seena doesn’t deviate from that expectation.

3.

Kanu Unchou from Ikki Tousen (Daiki Kougyou)

Daiki Kougyou is one of the enigmas of the hobby; one has to wonder why they green-lit some of the figures they’ve churned out, but when they are at their best, they stand right up there with the big boys. Many companies – including Daiki – have made figures of Kanu Unchou, but their miko version stands out not just as my favorite Kanu, but one of my favorite figures of all time. They’ve done a great job making Kanu look sexy as hell in a sarashi and low-rise hakama combo, and if her fashion sense isn’t to one’s taste, they can be taken off altogether.

2.

Collet from Tony Taka (Native)

I’ve already noted how this figure answered one of my long-held dreams, but even besides that, this is an incredible figure. Ero figures are usually the province of smaller, less skillful manufacturers or niche garage kit makers, but Native shows us how to do them right. The combination of Tony’s art and Max Factory’s craftsmanship is unbeatable, and sculpting the figure in 1/6 scale elevates Collet from excellent to transcendent. Truly one of the best figures of 2009.

1.

Metatron from Demonbane (Alter)

I suspect that Metatron was not one of Alter’s more popular releases in 2009, but of all the figures that they’ve made, she stands out as my favorite. I normally don’t like the looking-back-over-the-shoulder pose, but it works perfectly here, allowing the viewer to admire both her face and backside at the same time. She looks hot, capable, and confident, and she’s the 2009 figure that I like the most.

The most annoying trend of 2009
If I wanted to be snarky, I’d nominate the rampant proliferation of nendoroids for this prize. Instead, I’ll say that the increasing proclivity of figure manufacturers to sell their products solely on exclusive websites or at particular events is the most annoying trend of the past year. This sort of marketing strategy was once principally employed by less-mainstream companies like Volks, but now we see Alter jumping on board with several of their Hyakka Ryoran figures being exclusively sold through a magazine and their highly-anticipated Saber Alter maid figure being a Hobby Channel exclusive. MegaHouse retailed their Kagura and Yomi figures only through Digitamin, and Max Factory packed one of their figmas with a Gantz manga. I’m certain that the various deputy services in Japan are loving this, but for the rest of us, it’s quite the hassle.

Actually, you know, if I really, really wanted to be snarky, I’d claim that the unceasing torrent of Drossel pictures is the most annoying trend of 2009. But that would be unlike me, no? Me? Snarky? Unthinkable.

One thing I don’t ever want to see in 2010 but I know I will
Anything to do with Rin Kokonoe.

Three things I want to see in 2010 but I know I won’t

Two of these three girls have figures but one does not.

Beat Blades Haruka has some of the coolest character designs around, an opinion not lost on Alter, who have put out superb figures of Haruka and Narika. Conspicuously missing from their lineup is Subaru, the third ninja heroine. Now admittedly, she’s a bit quirky compared to her compatriots; Haruka is kind-hearted and loyal, Narika is spastic and mercurial, but Subaru is duty-minded, somewhat humorless, and something of a martinet. None of that is unusual, you say? She is also an amputee who gets a set of tentacles to replace her lost arm, she can potentially violently rape Haruka depending on how good you are at the game (or how sick you are in the head), and she seems to have a thing for pigs – don’t ask about that last one. Just join me in transmitting mental thoughts to Alter’s offices to persuade them to complete the Jougenshuu trio.

Moving on …

One of these three girls has a figure but two do not.

So I was watching Sora Kake Girl, and I notice this thing on the right side of the screen:

See that? Now either Good Smile Company paid money to get their logo up there, or GSC’s chairman has some photographs that Sunrise’s chairman would much prefer to keep secret. Given their sponsorship and also the fact that the cast of the show is composed almost entirely of female teenagers, one would think that GSC would be chucking out Sora Kake Girl figures left and right, no? Or at least, one would think that after they made Akiha, that Itsuki would be next, yes? I mean, they even let her cosplay as this character, whom I’m certain does not need an introduction:

This is not actually who she appears to be.

Heck, I’ll even settle for a cosplaying Itsuki figure. Maybe. Wait, no I won’t. GSC, I demand that you give us Itsuki in her Q-tector suit.

MegaHouse, you are the key that can set Irma free.

I took a look at the Queen’s Blade roster, and of the nineteen characters in the main line, I think only two haven’t gotten figures: Melpha and Irma. Melpha I can understand, she’s one of the more recent characters and she’s fat. Irma’s situation, however, confuses me. She’s not a new kid on the block – she was Queen’s Blade character number three. Her hair and eyes evoke Rei Ayanami, and like most of the lineup, she doesn’t wear many clothes. She received a bit more love (and even more pain) in the recent anime series, so hopefully that raises her profile enough that MegaHouse or Griffon sees fit to give her the PVC treatment.

Here’s a few comparison pictures of Haruka:

And a couple from my Nanjyou Ran photo sets:

And finally a couple before-and-after sets of Senhime:

I like how the flowers turned out, particularly on Nanjyou Ran’s shoot; they’re kinda psychadelic. I usually use plain black or white backgrounds but I think I might try to change things up a little bit with props every now and then.

Part of me says that I should keep the old pictures the way they are as a sort of historical record that shows how bad my pictures were. On the other hand, a much more strident and overpowering part of me says that this is my blog and I should do what I feel like and that newbie pictures aren’t something that I want to show off to the world.

Next up for reshoots are probably Lala and Canal. I’d like to re-shoot Alter’s Senhime too; I have some ideas for what sort of setting I’d like to use but it’s going to take some time to put it together.