So a few days ago, Blowfish posted a writeup on the Queen’s Blade Leina Battle Book. It’s a great-looking book and the best part about it is that it features Nyx, the peasant girl-turned-sorceress-turned-tentaclebait. However, that means that his site has more tentacles than mine. I’ve been running this site for over a year, I’m a big fan of tentacles, my site is even named after tentacles, but now Blowfish has more tentacles on his site than I do on mine. That’s unacceptable, it’s completely unacceptable, and I need to do something about it. So to restore balance to the universe, here we have a quick review of the artbook Mahou Shoujo Ai Illustration Collection.

Mahou Shoujo Ai – localized in the United States as Sexy Magical Girl – follows the crusade of the sullen, taciturn heroine Ai Kagano against the various slimy, lecherous baddies plaguing her city. She was first introduced in an h-game developed by colors and subsequently appeared in two anime series, Mahou Shoujo Ai and Mahou Shoujo Ai San: The Anime. Unfortunately for tentacle fans, the US licensor of the first anime seems to have no plans for releasing the fifth and final volume of the show and most of the second series isn’t as good as the first, apart from its first episode’s opening sequence, which is epic.

This artbook actually comprises three volumes, the main book which is almost entirely artwork with very little text, a second book which mostly shows off some of the CG sequences from the games, and a third book which has a few full-page pieces from different artists and then covers some of the Mahou Shoujo Ai merchandise that is available. One note: I’ve seen this book referred to as Groundwork of Ai, but the pages say “Illustration Collection,” so that’s what I’m going with.

Here’s the front cover of the main book inside the dust jacket.

I’ve said elsewhere that I’m not a big fan of flat-chested girls, but Ai is definitely an exception. She’s feisty, she’s spunky, she gets molested quite a bit, and she’s the only hentai heroine I know of who uses her teeth when she can. She’s a great character and fun to watch in the anime.

The brown-haired girl is Rin; I’m not sure if she has a last name. Actually, I don’t know much else about her at all, as she didn’t figure into the first anime series. The large-breasted magical girl is Meg, whose last name also seems to be Kagano, so I’d guess she is related to Ai.

I’m not entirely certain which artists are featured in the book. Masahiro Kuroki did the original character designs and the art here is done by Ugetsu Hakua (best known for his Burst Angel character designs), but there’s some other artwork in the book whose style I am unfamiliar with.

There we go, getting raunchier.

And getting cuter, with chibi versions of magical girls and tentacle monsters. I’ve got the feeling you won’t ever see nendoroids of these characters.

The first half of the book (about fifty pages, with some pages containing multiple illustrations) is composed of color illustrations, and it’s not actually overly explicit, although there are a few tentacle rape pictures. The second half is all sketch art, and it’s entirely explicit, as you can see here.

If I knew how to draw, I’d probably spend all my time drawing subject material not overly different from this.

The second book shows off sequences from the video games. Here’s Ai in battle …

And here’s how the bad guys celebrate after they win.

It wouldn’t be a magical girl game without the obligatory nude transformation sequence.

And it wouldn’t be a tentacle rape game without, well, tentacle rape.

Sora says, “I like it, but is it art?”

Here’s the cover to the third book. Very classy.

Some more art following the common theme here. The piece on the right was done by Takuya Inoue, who’s inspired a couple of Orchid Seed figures, perhaps most noticeably this one of Al Azif.

I kinda get a Rei and Asuka vibe from this picture on the right. Ai’s definitely more emotive when she’s angry than Rei is, though.

Some coverage of the various figures that have been produced of Ai and Rin and Meg. I always wanted that Volks X-brand figure, and I’ve seen it up on YJA a few times; maybe I ought to think about possibly putting in a bid one of these days. This book was published in 2004 so it doesn’t cover some of the more recent Mahou Shoujo Ai figures that have come out, like this one by Miyabiya, which doesn’t look all that great. Hmm … I’ve got this figure of Shiraki from Bible Black preordered, and it’s also by Miyabiya; that’s a bit concerning.

And some pictures from the anime. The first anime series is fantastic, although I’m guessing the drill and pillar sequences in the third and fourth episodes may make some people queasy, and if that doesn’t, the gore and violence in the later episodes may very well turn viewers away.

Overall, this is a very nice set of books, particularly the main volume. I very much like the emphasis on art at the expense of words, and as a fan of Ugetsu Hakua and Masahiro Kuroki as well as tentacles in general, the pictures are very pleasing to the eye. This is an older book so it may be a bit difficult to track down but I think that tentacle lovers will enjoy it.

Up to the tizzop

With the exception of a brief moment of weakness during the recent Star Trek Online beta test, I’ve been MMO free since kicking the Warcraft habit a year and a half ago. I don’t miss the games at all, but I still like looking at the character designs that populate the various games in the genre. Apparently E2046 does as well, as they’ve turned time and again to MMOs for inspiration, and so here we have Zabrina, their latest figure.

Zabrina comes from the free-to-play MMO Cabal Online. When one looks at Zabrina, it may come as no surprise to learn that Cabal Online comes from Korea, as one of the most common (and best) aspects of Korean MMOs is scantily-clad warrior girls. I really wish that American developers would take note of that design philosophy.

She’s part of E2046’s ORI lineup, which is their series of home-produced figures. Sculpted in 1/5 scale, she stands an imposing 26 centimeters tall to the top of her head and just over 34 centimeters to the highest point of her shield. Her spread-legged stance gives her an impressive sense of presence, and she demands a good bit of shelf space due to her sword and pose.

She arrives in disassembled form, but everything fits together easily and intuitively without any noticeable gaps or seams, no glue required. Her base is a straightforward black rectangular slab with one hole for a foot peg to hold her upright.

Like many female characters in MMOs – particularly Korean ones, as mentioned – her armor seems to be mainly cosmetic rather than functional, with lots of exposed skin and suggestiveness. It’s a great design choice and her costume is perhaps my favorite part of this figure, particularly the thong back. It gladdens me that E2046 and the Queen’s Blade franchise both know how to dress girls up for combat.

Zabrina has something of a steely but placid expression on her face, and I think I’d prefer a more emotive look. Then again, she’s a tank type; back in Warcraft, the DPS would always be asking for damage meters and the healers would track overheal but there wasn’t much for tanks to get excited about, since either the healers healed you and you lived or the healers didn’t heal you and you died. I played a feral druid alt and tanking was maybe the least exciting party role to me; most of it was backing my bear’s ass up against a wall and spamming mangle and swipe and praying that the group’s healer didn’t suck.

If her armor is my favorite part of this figure, the pose is a close second. She seems to be foregoing the use of her shield here, but she still looks like a badass. She is not overly musclebound but still features a powerful build, which is a nice change from all the skinny-bodied, large-headed anime figures that I’ve got on my desk here.

The paintwork is outstanding. Her armor has a lustrous, metallic finish, and the charcoal gray and green color scheme is visually striking.

Zabrina’s a great figure, and as long as E2046 makes figures that looks as good as this one, I’ll keep buying them. Looking at E2046’s ORI page, they’ve got several other figures that look interesting. Their rendition of Saber looks promising, and I’ve always liked seeing reinterpretations of characters. I’ve got the feeling that Saber purists and Magna Carta 2 fans won’t be pleased, though. I’ve got their upcoming Misato figure preordered and she’s looking fantastic. I’m sure Misato purists won’t be pleased by her either, though. I’m not as enthused about their upcoming Miss Nobody figure; she looks more like Hakufu to me. Maybe if she weren’t wearing pants. Speaking of no pants, Ming Yue looks very promising; her pose complements Jian Xue perfectly. I’m not really digging Julia or Gianna much.

Up to the tizzop

I own a lot of perverted figures and I’ve staked out a niche in the figure reviewing community as someone who likes perverted figures, but this figure might be the most perverted one I own. I wasn’t sure if I was depraved enough to buy this figure, and judging by the dearth of reviews, I suppose not too many other people were, either. With time running out in Amiami’s half-price shipping promotion, I finally caved in and tossed her in the shopping basket. Of course, Amiami extended the discount for an entire month the next day. That’s the way life goes, I guess.

Tomomi Aizawa is a character from the visual novel Welcome to Pia Carrot. She first shows up in the second game in the series and becomes a major character in the third game. She also appears in the anime movie Welcome to Pia Carrot!! Sayaka no Koi Monogatari.

Like To Heart, Fate/stay night, and a bunch of other games, Pia Carrot is less noted for its original eroge roots and more for its cute characters. The Pia Carrot franchise seems to not have had the longevity of those other titles, however, with little new media having been released in the past five years or so. Cute characters never fade away, though, and now Wave has brought her back in plastic format with not one but two figures.

Tomomi comes in 1/5 scale, although her sitting posture makes her fairly compact. She has a clear disc-scaped base printed with the Pia Carrot 3 logo, but she obviously doesn’t need it to sit upright.

My favorite aspect of this figure is her exuberence, arms enthusiastically stretched out, face locked in an expression of joyful, possibly drug-induced rapture. She’s definitely a girl who wants something – another hit, maybe. Contrasting with her youthful elation is the slight spread of her legs and the detailing thereby revealed, adding a bit of an edge to this figure. Just a bit. Yep.

I also have no problem admitting that I like girls in tight athletic wear. That’s one of the primary reasons I picked up Kyou a few months back and it’s another reason I picked up Tomomi. Her gym suit is very nicely rendered: her shirt is form-fitting but still baggy enough to be believable, and her shorts look quite real despite being plastic, wrinkles on its sides suggesting looseness while the front is pulled up tightly. She also wears athletic shoes, which I like very much; I wish more anime schoolgirls would wear gym shoes rather than the ubiquitous, boring loafers you see so often.

Tomomi isn’t a very colorful figure but I think the color scheme works very well, the striking violet hue of her eyes and her hot pink shorts effectively complementing the subdued, natural tones of her brown hair and white shirt and socks and shoes.

There are some peculiar paint anomalies, though. She’s got a dark smudge on the tip of each of her fingers, and I’m not sure why that is. There’s also some noticeable darkening of her skin around the tops of her socks. Speaking of her socks, I’d also have liked it if they were sculpted so that the elastic band pinched her skin in a bit.

Tomomi is perhaps a bit younger in appearance than most of the figures that I buy, but regardless, I think that this is still a pretty cool figure. I’ve got the feeling that I’ll be able to find her in the bargain bin in a few months and that I probably could have saved myself a few bucks by waiting, but I don’t regret buying her at all. She’s got a great balance of cuteness and perversity, and for a character like this, I can’t ask for much more.

Wave has another version of this figure that features navy blue shorts and longer hair. I think that figure uses her character design from Pia Carrot 2. I don’t like that version quite as much; I’m sure she has the same face as this Tomomi, but for some reason, her eyes look even more crack-addled.

Sometimes, if you just add a prop or two to a figure, you can change the whole tenor of a picture:

TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT DORSIA NOW, YOU … ahem.

Oh the detailing. How old is this character supposed to be again?

She balances better than you’d expect in this pose.

You know, Tomomi is 1/5 scale, but her small stature makes her comparable in size to a more adult 1/6 scale figure … like my Barack Obama doll. Hmm …

Ehh, nah, it was just a passing thought.

Up to the tizzop

So I wanted to buy this porno manga. The first place I checked was Amazon JP but unfortunately they’ve labeled this item as adult and thus will not ship it overseas. Undaunted, I next hit up J-List, knowing that they have a selection of h-manga. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them. I looked up Sasuga Books but they didn’t have it either. Then I found out about Rakuten, saw that they had it, and was delighted to find out that they ship internationally. Delight turned to dismay as I found out that this isn’t one of the items that they’ll ship internationally, but they did provide a link to Tenso along with a recommendation to use them for items that can’t be shipped outside of Japan.

I went to the Tenso website and signed up and then looked up their policies (sort of the reverse way of doing things, but that’s how I roll) and found that one of their prohibited item categories is anything deemed “obscene.” So what do they define as obscene? Do they have a set list of guidelines, or do they just know it when they see it? I didn’t bother asking, since I’m pretty sure that this book has tentacle rape, gang rape, bondage rape, and probably bestial rape (knowing Subaru’s penchant for pigs), and I suppose most people would define any of those as obscene. Can’t quite figure out why anyone would think that, myself. Finally I wound up just asking a proxy service to buy the book for me, but I’m really disappointed at how difficult it is to buy such things. All I want to do is buy some porn; is that really so unreasonable?

I did notice some nifty things on Amazon JP while looking through their selection of ero stuff and having never bought from them, decided to give it a shot. The first thing I will say about them is that their shipping fees are freaking expensive. They’re also a bit inconsistent with what they label adult, as several of the books I bought are clearly ero in nature. Maybe it’s because those books seem to actually be novels; being Japanese-illiterate, this is somewhat problematic, but it just gives me some additional motivation to learn Japanese someday. I’m not sure what these books are about, exactly, but I figure that officially-produced tentacle rape fiction has to be pretty cool, right?

The main thing I wanted from Amazon JP was the Moe Moe Shin Weapon Collection, mainly because I like the cover illustration. This book purports to be a reference for historic, famous weapons but it curiously eschews realism in favor of depicting the associated warriors as cute, often half-naked girls. Wish it had more pictures, but I guess it’s supposed to be an encyclopedia so it’s pretty dense with text. The book breaks up the selection by region, and here’s an image of a couple of warriors whom I think are supposed to be German:

The chapter intro says this comes from a German folk tale, although I’m not sure which one that could be. I guess German girl fighters wear fur-lined cloaks. And run around half naked. On a glacier. Are there glaciers in Germany? I’ve never been to Germany (or Europe, actually) but I don’t think there are glaciers in Germany.

The book says that this battler comes from Norse mythology, although I’m not sure exactly which exotic part of the world she comes from.

I really need to get a new scanner so I can scan these. Pro tip: you know how scanners have a switch to lock the scanning unit when packing it up? It’s actually a good idea to use that switch while moving.

The end of the month is usually when a bunch of figures ship, but curiously the end of February was pretty quiet as far as figure releases go. Since I’ve got no figure reviews ready and I’m too lazy to properly photograph Miku or gangsta lean Saber yet, here’s some throwaway pictures that I took when I was trying out some new things:

Narika

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

KOS-MOS

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Dizzy

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Yoko Ritona

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Metatron

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Rei Ayanami

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Kureha Touka

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Seena Kanon

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Sora Kasugano

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

1600 x 1200
1920 x 1200

Over the past few years, I’d given thought to starting up a figure blog, but when I actually kicked it off, I figured that the most likely result would be that I’d have gotten bored after a couple of months and called off the entire enterprise. A year later, I’ve somehow kept up with it and nobody is more surprised that this thing is still going than me.

The two blogs that provided the motivation to create this site were HappySoda and RIUVA (though I have no idea what that site is about now; it’s definitely not about figures anymore). When I decided to give this a shot, I thought that maybe I could establish a niche by covering figures that most people wouldn’t buy – porno figures, in other words. It hasn’t gone entirely that way since my tastes don’t completely diverge from the mainstream so I’ve tried to distinguish my writing by not taking myself or this hobby seriously whatsoever.

The fact that I’m very lazy and not particularly disciplined or self-motivated is one reason for me to be amazed that I’ve kept at this, but I’ve also been surprised at how interesting photography has become to me. I cringe at some of my earliest pictures and I’m still planning on reshooting a lot of the figures whose photos show off my cluelessness in bald, stark garishness. Here’s one of the earliest photos I took for this site:

Yipes. I started practicing figure photography in late 2008, a few months before I took this shot, and those pictures are even worse. I’ll see about uploading one of those for the general amusement of the world.

I think that I’ve gotten better at taking pictures although I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as being good (I figure that a good photographer has some idea of what he or she is going to get before taking the shot; me, I shoot a test shot, transfer it to my computer, run my standard post-processing routine on it, hope that the photo comes out reasonably close to what I was looking for, and then I do the shoot). The creative aspect of this hobby is probably my favorite part, so much so that figure photography has superseded my interest in most of my other hobbies.

Whenever one celebrates a blog anniversary, it is customary to provide traffic statistics. Everyone wants to see everyone else’s stats; it’s sort of like high school, where everyone wanted to know who was going out with each other and went to great lengths to uncover that information, listening with clandestine rapture and passing it around with breathless incredulity and raised-octave ohmigods. That is, if you ran in those social circles; I did not, I wasn’t the most popular guy in school nor did I particularly care very much about the lives of my classmates. I have the feeling most people in this hobby come from a similar background and … ehh, well, anyway, here’s visitor stats:

As you can see, the blog basically got no traffic for the first three months of its existence. I’m pretty sure what traffic I did get was me, since I didn’t start filtering out my own IP addresses until a couple months after I began logging statistics. Also, those two spikes really cramp the graph. Here’s the graph for pageviews:

It’s a bit more interesting. Pageviews is an important stat for me to track since the core of this site is the figure reviews; most people who visit this blog don’t actually ever load the front page.

Incidentally, I hit the 300k mark only yesterday, and for a while I was thinking that I’d have to compromise my integrity and turn off the self-filters and click on every link on this site myself to push it over. Happily that wasn’t necessary.

Here’s where people are coming from:

I’ve gotten no visits from loser countries like North Korea, Cuba, and Turkmenistan. People over there need to hurry up and overthrow their dictators and visit my site.

I use Google Analytics as my main traffic logging tool; I figure that the people at Google know a thing or two about web applications and I’ve also noticed that their analysis seems to be more conservative than similar sites, and I’d rather underestimate than overestimate my actual traffic. For example, I also use Statcounter and there’s a bit of a discrepancy here:

Traffic was sort of discouraging at the start, although I’ve always had the attitude that I really write this blog for myself and accordingly I try not to let traffic patterns affect this site too much. I decided at the start that I didn’t want a Sankaku Complex or Danny Choo feed on this site; I don’t like cluttering up the sidebar here and you see those things on every other figure site on this planet, and I wanted to be different in that respect. I also stopped trying to actively generate traffic a while back; I used to post on figure.fm, for instance, but it seems to be mainly a Dollfie joint these days and that’s not really my thing, so I don’t put much stuff up there anymore.

Anyway, it’s been a good year and a fun year and I’m hoping that the next year is just as fun and that I get better at photography and that figure manufacturers finally make me a freaking figure of Irma and Itsuki Kannagi already. One can hope, no?

Having become intrigued by Keumaya’s figure lineup, I put in a bid for Violet on Yahoo! Japan Auctions only to lose out in the last hour. Undaunted, I run a search on eBay and Violet shows up the next day. After a very brief moment of hesitation, I punch in a bid value and put the mouse cursor over “Place Bid” and then …

COMMON SENSE: Hey man.
ME: Oh for the love of basketball, not you again. Don’t you got anything better to do?
CS: This is my job man, I’m here to stop you from doing stupid things. And I had this feeling that … wait, what’s that up on the monitor?
ME: This? This is Zanjibaru.
CS: No, not your porn game. Wait, that’s eBay! You’re buying another perverted girly figure again, aren’t you?!
ME: … Mebbe.

CS: Another one?! Do you even know how much money you’ve wasted on these things?
ME: Uhh, well, Tsuki-board says my collection cost ¥827,853, although I got some figures on sale and of course the exchange rate doesn’t stay the same and -
CS: Dude, it’s a helluva lot of money however you slice it and – holy jeebus, what the hell is wrong with her chest?
ME: Who, Kyoko? Well, in this game she can get implanted with eggs by this bug thing and when they hatch they need to feed so they crawl out of her and up her breasts and -
CS: No, I’m not talking about your freaky-ass porno game, that’s something we need to talk about later. I mean this figure, those breasts … I mean, dude, what the hell, man?

ME: Uhh, I guess they’re sorta big?
CS: Sorta big?
ME: Uhh, okay, yeah, they’re maybe a little bit bigger than I like but big girls need love too. I’m not gonna hate on tits, okay? It’s not in our nature. I like tits.

CS: They’re disgusting is what they are.
ME: Hey, I just said that I’d like ‘em a little bit smaller. I like something that’s like a handful, you know? Something you can grab onto.
CS: Yeah, that’s about the right size and – aww, dammit, now look, you got me talking like a pervert like you.
ME: Hey, you’re the one who brought up breastages, not me.

CS: Alright, forget the breasts. Dude, look at the price tag on this auction.
ME: I see it.
CS: Do you think you can afford that?
ME: Sure, we paid more than this for those Spheres doujins, remember?
CS: I’m trying to forget that. That store was run by a bunch of pricks.
ME: They were. I think they’re out of business now, if that makes us feel any better.
CS: It does. But look, you could get your car fixed for this money. You know what sorry-ass shape your car is in?

ME: It’s pretty bad.
CS: When was the last time you got your tires rotated?
ME: Uhh … back in school I guess. That was what, like four years ago?
CS: Do you know the last time you got an alignment done?
ME: Alignment? Uhh, isn’t that something from like Baldur’s Gate?
CS: You need to get the struts checked, you need to get all those scrapes buffed out of your back bumper, and you should re-do all the wiring for your stereo. That was a sorry-ass job you did on that, by the way. How the hell do you screw up the wiring that badly when you did EE?
ME: Hey, do you think they teach car installs in circuits lab?
CS: Maybe not, but that’s another thing you should fix. You could at least replace the rear speakers with working ones.

ME: I’ll just solder some wires to the posts and hope it works. You can fix anything by soldering.
CS: In fact, instead of blowing all this money on dirty girly figures, you could be a good way towards saving for a new car. Instead of the hundred-horsepower gimpmobile you’re driving now, you could rock a G35 or a 3-series like everyone else here.
ME: Every asshole here, you mean. Do I look like an asshole to you?
CS: What? What the hell are -
ME: I don’t think you have my best interests at heart. In fact, I – ooh, hey, this figure comes with a comic book with pictures of naked girls in it! I think I’ll buy this for sure.
CS: Dude, listen, don’t -
ME: You talk too much. I’m gonna be the decider here, I decide what’s best.
CS: Ahh, you idiot!
*click*

Okay, it’s grown-up time now so I suppose I ought to say a few words about the figure. Violet was one of the figures that Circle Keumaya produced in late 2007 for Comiket 73 and seems to be a variant of Axia Black and Red. Violet was also produced in a pink version that can be seen on that page. A note on Heisei Democracy indicates that Violet was inspired by a character from the light novel Odin no Yari.

The most obvious aspect of this figure is her bust size. She’s quite stacked, and when I first saw this figure on Heisei Democracy, I lamented this design decision because her boobs were way larger than I liked. Over time, my stance on this issue has moderated somewhat so having been given a second chance to buy this figure on eBay (I’m pretty sure that the guy who beat me on Yahoo! Japan was the guy who was selling it on eBay), I couldn’t pass it up.

Violet is sculpted in 1/8 scale and is about 19 centimeters tall. She has a small rectangular base that attaches to one foot; she’s meant to lean on a larger plastic pillar and cannot stand up on her own. Unfortunately she’s still a bit unstable and the pillar is much flimsier than it should be so it’s fairly easy to knock her (and the pillar) over. I might see if I can find some weights that I can attach to the inside bottom of the base for a bit more support.

Like Kotone-chan, she’s got a ton of accessories, including a pair of alternate hands, several weapons, and a face visor. She can wield a pistol, a knife, or a lance; I didn’t take pictures of the knife, but it’s the same one that Tsubasa Amano has. One nice touch is that the weapons are made of metal, a bit like the playing pieces in Monopoly games, which gives them a bit of heft.

The face visor attaches to her head by a magnet, but it’s very weak and has a maddening way of falling off at the slightest nudge. I much prefer her look with the visor attached so maybe I ought to just glue it to her head. Presumably Axia’s head has the same magnet, since I’ve seen photos of the two figures with the heads swapped.

Like her weapons, her handcuffs are made of metal. They can be slipped over her wrists while her hands are detached, adding a bit of kink to a figure that’s already quite edgy.

One final accessory is her top, which can be removed to display her chest in all its rounded glory.

Violet is an older figure and the craftsmanship isn’t nearly as good as it is with Kotone-chan or any of Keumaya’s recent figures. The paintwork is flat across most of the figure, with a glossy sheen given to her skin. This finish is most apparent on her face, which is peculiarly shiny, and the paintwork of her eyes isn’t nearly as crisp as what you’d see on a more modern figure. There are very apparent mold lines running down her legs and along the sides of her breasts, and her nipples aren’t particularly detailed.

Despite her questionable construction, I like the sculpt a lot. She’s got something of a futuristic valkyrie design which I love, other than her very large breasts. The kinky aspects like the handcuffs and the metal garter and the thong leotard are also very appealing. In retrospect, I’ll concede that her quality probably did not justify the price tag, but given her rarity, I don’t feel too badly about the expenditure.

I like high-tech girls in kinky armor. Here she is with KOS-MOS, who looks like she’s about to start crying here.

And since I’ve got no other place to put this, here’s a Japanese-language review with more pictures of Violet, and over on Hunting the Elusive, Pireze has a review of Axia Red, who shares the same basic body as Violet.

Violet comes with a short comic book which shows off some of the concept art. I should probably get a new scanner for pictures like these but for now camera shots will have to do.

Up to the tizzop

The Ikki Tousen franchise is a licensing juggernaut, and with five Kanu Unchous in my collection, I am scarcely immune to its wiles. However, while the manga fields a bewilderingly large cast, for years my only non-Kanu figure was Griffon’s awful Ryofu Housen figure from way back. Now, with Daiki Kougyou’s Ryomou Shimei in my collection, that count increases to two.

Kanu, Ryomou and Hakufu Sonsaku comprise the trifecta of major Ikki Tousen characters but while Kanu is my favorite girl in the series, I’m less enamored with the other two. I don’t mind that Hakufu is a brainless ditz – I find it quite charming, actually – but there’s not much more than that to her personality and she simply doesn’t have many good figures. My reticence to like Ryomou has a more peculiar explanation. When Tokyopop localized the manga, they renamed it Battle Vixens and handed the translation duties to Keith Giffen, who’s more noted for his mainstream work with Marvel and DC Comics. Apparently, he was given a very basic version of what the characters were saying and was told to write the dialogue in a way that would appeal to Americans. So he did that, eschewing subtlety and charging every scene with blatant, profane sexuality. I gather that most of the manga’s readership here did not support this decision, but I didn’t actually mind; I felt that the vulgar writing fit well with the lewd nature of the art. It was crude, perhaps sophomoric, and excessive, but at that time Ikki Tousen’s core themes were nothing but excessive, and Ryomou was the very essence of that; when she accosts Gakushu in the first volume, she is loud and carnal, threatening to climax with every arm lock.

Despite having bought and read all of the manga volumes, I was surprised as anybody when Ikki Tousen took a turn towards the conventional, moderating the innuendo and bestowing distinct, well-defined backgrounds on its characters. I wonder if Yuji Shiozaki knew what which direction he wanted to take the series when he started off; I tend to doubt it, as the early volumes portray Hakufu and Koukin as the main characters and present Kaku Bunwa, Ryofu Housen, and Chuuei Toutaku as antagonists, with Kannei and Ryomou being somewhat enigmatic but generally troublesome wild cards. However, Toutaku and Ryofu are killed off in short order, Kaku just sort of shifts into the background as eye candy, and Kanu and the Seito Academy group eventually move in as co-leads against Moutoku. In the anime, Ryomou becomes the even-keeled, quiet, logical foil to the boisterous and impulsive Hakufu, replacing Koukin to some extent in that role. However, my view of Ryomou is still colored by her depiction early in the series, and even though I found the idea of a violent, uncontrollable, sadistic Rei Ayanami clone to be irresistible at first, she also faded a bit as the story progressed and I can’t quite remember much of what she did subsequent to her introduction. It’s also hard for me to think of her as one of the more normal characters in the anime, given the first impression given of her in Battle Vixens.

Anyway, on to the figure. This rendition of Ryomou Shimei comes from Daiki Kougyou and is sculpted in 1/6 scale, standing about 26 centimeters tall at the top of her head, plus about another two centimeters to account for the optional handcuffs. Her base is a featureless black plastic disc which does all that it needs to do without getting in the way.

This figure is based off of an illustration done by Shunya Yamashita, making Daiki Kougyou the latest manufacturer to have found inspiration in his artwork. Ryomou is often depicted in maid garb, a sartorial choice that is wholly incongruous with her sober, introspective mannerisms, and Yamashita has given his typical spin on Ryomou’s wardrobe, decking her out in a leather collar, bonnet and dress with frills and ribbons in plenty, and chunky purple boots. She also wears her trademark sealing eyepatch.

She’s given more of a realistic, adult body build here than in the anime or manga and I think it suits this figure very well. Her pose is also quite distinctive, although I’m not quite certain what she’s supposed to be doing … is she dancing, maybe? Regardless, it’s dynamic and appealing even if it does look a bit silly, although considering her wild outfit, perhaps that’s fitting.

The sculpting of her clothing is quite detailed, with her skirt, headdress, and garters all crinkled with ruffles. Her blouse features folds that emphasize the forward thrust of her lower torso, and her panties are, uhh, realistically creased as well. One flaw is there is a seam right on the front side of her left leg; it’s difficult to notice under normal room lighting and I didn’t even see it until I looked at my full-size photos, but once you know it’s there, it’s hard to miss.

The paintwork is also very nice. Her hair and ribbons have strong shading which give depth to the figure. Her overall color scheme is rather muted, with lots of black and white, but the bright red bow ties and the violet boots and gloves give her the appearance of being much more colorful than she really is. A hint of blush and lipstick highlight her facial features, and she also has her mole next to her lower lip.

She comes with just one accessory, her favorite set of handcuffs. They’re made of fairly rigid plastic with one open end which slides into her right hand. Besides that, she keeps faith with the source material by separating at the torso so that her skirt can be removed, revealing plain but lovingly-detailed underpants.

I bought Ryomou mainly to go with Daiki Kougyou’s Kanu, but I think she’s a great figure on her own merits. It’s a bit of a different take on the character, coming from Shunya Yamashita’s art and putting her in an unusual costume, but it all comes together very well. Now, I’m ready for a manufacturer to make some figures of Roshuku, Bashoku, and Houtou Shigen, who’s with me?

Daiki Kougyou is putting out two more versions of this figure. The Junior High School Student figure purports to depict her as she might have looked in the 7th grade, although I know of no junior high schoolers with breasts like that. Mou-chan looks quite cute anyway. The Original Face version dispenses with the Shunya Yamashita-inspired face in favor of a design a bit closer to the anime. Her undergarments are given a wet, transparent look, making this version the Ryomou of choice for perverts and letches.

Up to the tizzop

Curiously, figure manufacturers don’t often look to fighting games. I’m not sure why; fighting games are rife with awesome and awesome-looking characters. Okay, Iroha briefly achieved it-girl status and Mai Shiranui, Cammy, and Mina Majikina get figures every now and then, but there’s nothing from Tekken, nothing from The Last Blade, nothing from Virtua Fighter. Even the Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, and The King of Fighters series – which feature some of the most iconic fighters in video games – are barely represented in the figure hobby. There are no scale figures of Helena or Lisa, Sophitia or Seung Mina, Kula Diamond or Mars People.

Above all of those, I’ve wanted a figure of Dizzy. She’s my favorite character in all of fighting games, but apart from Max Factory-produced figures of a Shunya Yamashita-inspired I-No and the transvestite Bridget, there seemed to be no inclination on the part of figure manufacturers to look at Guilty Gear X. But fortune works in strange ways, and thanks to the popularity of the Queen’s Blade series, there is now a figure of Dizzy, the Guilty Gear X character who was adapted into a Queen’s Gate book, which is itself an adaptation of the Queen’s Blade series, which is itself an adaptation of Scottsdale, Arizona-based (of all places) Flying Buffalo’s Lost Worlds game books. Strange ways indeed.

Dizzy’s first appearance in the Guilty Gear series was as the boss of Guilty Gear X, although she was unlockable by playing through the game’s survival mode. Subsequently, she became a normal character in Guilty Gear X2 with her own story path. Despite her appearance, she is canonically three years old, almost certainly making her the youngest character that I am ever going to have in my collection.

The Guilty Gear games take place in the aftermath of a great war between humankind and Gears, artificially-engineered organic superweapons. Dizzy’s rapid maturation is due to her Gear biology. Fearful of her extraordinary powers, she is cast from human society and comes under the care of Testament, a reclusive, androgynous, scythe-wielding Gear. Following the events of Guilty Gear X, she ends up joining the Jellyfish Pirates, a band of seifuku-wearing girls led by the cheerful, irrepressible May and the debonair ladies’-man Johnny.

Dizzy dislikes violence, and many of her special moves are initiated by her wings, which seem to be sentient. Undine is the angel wing, a long-haired, pale-colored female, and Necro is the reaper wing, a hooded, robe-clad skeleton. While Dizzy throws punches and kicks and attacks with her tail (which can reveal a huge, fanged mouth at its tip), she also spends much of her fights pleading with her wings to stop.

She is gentle and innocent, rather reserved, a bit lonely, and quite cognizant of her debt to Testament and May and Johnny. She also has an extraordinary constitution, as proven by her survival after a fall of four miles after being thrown off of an airship by I-No.

Dizzy is one of those characters that is variably drawn as a very young child, a mature woman, or anything between. The official artwork generally sticks to presenting her as a bit older. Here she is from Guilty Gear Isuka, the side-scrolling spinoff.

And here she is from Guilty Gear XX Accent Core.

When talking about Guilty Gear, one always has to mention the soundtrack, which features some of the best music in all of video games. If you like instrumental rock music with lots of thrash guitar work and you haven’t heard this game’s music, you should go hit up Youtube and give it a listen. Simple Life (Bridget’s theme) and Suck a Sage (Chipp’s theme) are two of my favorite songs.

Daisuke Ishiwatari, the protean South Africa-born game designer who created the series, composed the music, and designed the characters, is known as a huge fan of rock music, and the Guilty Gear series makes numerous references to rock and heavy metal. Dizzy’s name is apparently taken from Guns n’ Roses keyboard player Dizzy Reed, the second longest-tenured member of the band. (I suppose it’s possible that she was also named after Dizzy Gillespie, the famous jazz musician.)

This figure comes from Kotobukiya and Hobby Japan. She was technically an exclusive, although as usual there are other channels through which she can be acquired; I got my figure from Tokyo Hunter. She’s sculpted in 1/8 scale and is about 18 centimeters tall to the top of her head, although her swirling hair makes her a bit taller than that and she occupies quite a bit of space due to her lively pose.

Assembly of the figure is quite straightforward; or rather, it should be straightforward. She comes attached to her base, and the only thing that needs to be done is to insert her wings and each hair tail into sockets on her back and her head. Unfortunately, I found it quite difficult to get her hair inserted all the way, and I wound up snapping one of her yellow ribbons off. I keep super glue around for little emergencies like that, but I still haven’t been able to get her hair firmly locked to her head. I may try filing down the pegs a bit more to see if that helps the fit but until I do that, her hair is quite prone to falling off of her head.

As mentioned, this version of Dizzy is patterned after her Queen’s Gate rendition rather than the Arc System Works art, and so she looks quite young here. The Queen’s Gate book was drawn by Takumi Inoue, and curiously there’s a person by that name listed as the voice actor for Robo-Ky in Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus; I have no idea if they’re the same person or not.

Dizzy is given a playful, energetic pose, hair flying with her body thrown forward. I like it quite a bit; it gives her a childlike, girlish quality which contrasts with her revealing outfit. Her youthfulness is also accentuated by her round face, wide eyes, and slender neck. Her mouth is not particularly detailed and while it looks like she has a slight smile from the front, she can take on a more neutral expression from other angles.

Her wings suffer from a sad lack of detail, especially from the top. They look far more like a plastic toy than anything real, which is a shame. Kotobukiya should have looked to E2046’s Caroline figure for some pointers on how to do wings on a figure.

There’s nothing youthful about her chest, which is quite glorious, as well as her backside, which is sculpted very nicely. She’s supposed to be wearing a thong but it looks like her bottom is bare; presumably the small size of the figure prevented the sculptor from providing greater detail. Either way, it looks great to me.

I should mention that I didn’t try to remove her clothing. Her outfit seems to be cast as a separate piece but I am not certain whether there’s an easy way to get it off. Some enterprising Japanese individuals did remove her clothing, although I think they had to rip her clothes off to do so, and so I know that she doesn’t have nipples. Being that that’s the case, I don’t think it’s worth the trouble to try. She does seem to have a hint of genitalia though. (Man that sounds messed up.) Anyway, if you want to see her in all her bare glory, here’s a review that shows off the goods (or lack thereof).

The paint job is more of a mixed affair. She’s got heavy shading on her legs and torso which wouldn’t be quite so noticeable if her face weren’t so pale in comparison. Her clothing has sort of a matte black finish which looks quite a bit like, well, plastic rather than leather.

However, I freely admit that my objectivity can be compromised or negated by my affinity for a character, and despite this figure’s flaws, I still love it and am very glad to own it. Do I wish it was in 1/6 scale? Sure. Do I think that Alter or Max Factory would’ve done a better job? You bet. Despite all of that, I’m very pleased that there’s at least one scale figure of Dizzy out in the market now.

The next Queen’s Gate character is Kasumi from Dead or Alive. I would’ve liked a less well-known character such as Yuki from The Last Blade but I’m still looking forward to the book. She does look very young in the cover art though, which is rather off-putting.

I could have sworn that I saw a resin kit of Yui Kutuna from Vanguard Princess at Wonder Festival the other week. Am I imagining things? Regardless, it’d be pretty cool if some of the characters got turned into figures. And by “some of the characters” I mean Luna.

I have the feeling that Millia Rage is never going to get a scale figure. What a shame that would be. I know I did see a Noel Vermillion resin kit so maybe she’ll get some PVC love in the future.

Up to the tizzop

While Western popular culture features a number of parallels to its Japanese counterpart, one aspect that does not have a corresponding analogue is doujin, the vast conglomeration of self-published comics, video games, music, and more. Doujin is such an integral part of both the culture and industry that such works can command influence and popularity far beyond their humble origins; for example, the Touhou Project started as a series of 2D shooting games but has since grown into a powerful franchise complete with its own fan-made doujin works, and its significance as a cultural phenomenon is probably greater than its importance as a video game.

When one thinks of doujin, one often thinks of comic books, and probably pornographic ones at that. Certainly fan-made comics are a huge part of this mass of culture worship – the attendance figures of Comiket are proof enough of that. However, doujin encompasses all forms of media, including figures. There are numerous fan-made figures, usually sold in very limited quantities as resin model kits. Preassembled figures, however, are quite rare; while it is not technically complicated to create a comic book or a music video, manufacturing a complete, painted figure seems to be beyond the means and ambitions of many creators.

However, there is one doujin circle that is known primarily for their PVC figures. Keumaya has been making their own figures since 2006 and selling them at conventions and on Toranoana. They’ve carved out a comfortable niche as an independent figure creator, which is quite impressive even without taking into account the quality of their products.

I first came across Keumaya’s work while reading Heisei Democracy a few years back. The idea of independently-made figures was intriguing to me, and the character designs were outlandish, fascinating, and far different than anything else I had seen.

I think that this circle is composed of one person, who goes by the handle Keuma. I may be wrong about that, though.

Hyper Nurse Painkiller Kotone-chan is a result of a collaboration between Keumaya and Vispo, a sculpting group probably best known for their amazing renditions of the Evangelion girls perched on motorbikes. As I understand it, Keuma does the drawings, Vispo does the sculpts, and the figures are manufactured in China. Sounds like a good deal to me. This version of Kotone-chan is called the black version for obvious reasons, and seems to sadly mark the end of the Vispo and Keumaya partnership, as the set of figures sold at Comiket 77 are labelled “The Final Figure.”

The original version of Hyper Nurse Painkiller Kotone-chan and the Black Goat Daughter caused a bit of a stir at Comiket 76. Apparently their genitalia was a bit too detailed for the sensibilities of the convention’s organizers and so these wares were tossed from the show. The banning was widely reported and I’m sure that the publicity did nothing but help Keumaya’s image and sales.

I picked up Kotone-chan off of Yahoo! Japan Auctions as usual. Kotone-chan is sculpted in 1/6 scale and is about 25 centimeters tall at the pinky finger of her right hand. She arrived in a small box swathed in plastic bubble wrap, with all her parts held in small plastic bags, and she needed quite a bit of assembly, as the instruction sheet indicates:

This figure on the upper-left of the sheet is Hyper Nurse Commander Erika-chan, while Kotone-chan’s parts are to her right. The sheet also seems to suggest having some tools at hand, including a hair dryer, tape, tweezers, and some aerosol can emblazoned with Japanese hieroglyphs. The sheet also provides some guidance as to what to do if Kotone starts leaning.

She also comes with this doujinshi, which is the same as the one packed with the earlier version of Kotone-chan. In it, Kotone appears to make a house call to a grossly overweight, bespectacled man, who promptly overpowers and rapes her. Good stuff. I don’t know of any other culture on the planet that could get away with this sort of thing.

Putting her together wasn’t easy, given the number of parts that comprise her. Her body separates at the torso just under the zig-zagging strap of her harness. Getting the two parts together without leaving a gap was difficult; reading through the Keumaya blog with the aid of Google Translate, it seems that he originally meant to sell these things during the summer when the temperature is warmer, and so he suggests using a hair dryer to heat up the plastic to make it easier to fit the two parts. Unfortunately, my hair dryer is busted so I’ll just have to deal with it.

Kotone’s wearing some sort of futuristic thong, and I spent some time trying to figure out how to get it off. Then I realized that it doesn’t come off; the earlier version of Kotone-chan had her modesty protected by nothing but her belts and a package of saline solution, but this version has her wearing these futuristic panties. I presume that this was a precaution that Keumaya took to avoid being jettisoned from Comiket again. It’s funny how I didn’t notice that; a figure’s undergarments are often one of the first things I look for. I like thongs though, so I don’t really mind the lack of full nudity options on this figure.

Although her panties don’t come off, she still has a huge amount of accessories. She’s still got the aforementioned saline pack – less vital here than on the earlier figure – a vest, two belts, a rather intimidating hand saw, two gats loaded with syringes, an extra hand posed in a manner slightly reminiscent of Ranka Lee’s kira sign, and an eyepatch. I’m not a huge fan of pirate patches so I didn’t bother putting it on her. She also comes with a sticker meant to resemble several pairs of band-aids that you can cut out to cover up her nipples. Getting all this stuff on her takes some time but it’s fairly intuitive; a word of warning though, I did notice quite a bit of black paint transfer on her skin from her belts and vest so I’d recommend deciding how you want to dress her and leave her that way. Another word of warning; while her saw is made of plastic, her syringe tips are quite pointy and sharp, so care is called for while handling them.

The base is a black plastic disc with Keumaya’s project logo on it and a large caption that reads “MADE IN CHINA.” There’s also a protrusion in which a supplied support strut can be inserted to help keep Kotone stable; I’m not sure if it’s necessary so I’m not using it now.

Being that this figure is independently made, I had no idea what its quality would be like. Happily, she looks quite nice. I find the sculpt to be very attractive, particularly her wild outfit and pose. While I’m not an ardent advocate of the flat chest, I do admire a nice backside, and Kotone-chan surely does have that. It appears that all of Keumaya’s current figures use the same lower torso and leg sculpt, and while their figures run the gamut of cup sizes, they’ve eschewed going for a happy medium as far as rump size goes and have instead settled on a gloriously round and prominent butt. I’m not a big fan of cat ears either, but I’ll make an exception in this case.

The paint is also very good, surprisingly good, even. She has a very dark, industrial color scheme here. The metal parts are given the appropriate chrome-like paint, including the soles of her high-heeled boots, the straps of her thong, parts of her hat, and numerous little knobs meant to represent rivets and clasps.

I also noticed some black flecks of paint on her skin; I’m not sure where they came from. They did not come off with rubbing alcohol so I’d guess that they weren’t caused by me putting her clothing on her. There’a also some oily residue that is visible on her skin, particularly on her ass; I’m not sure what that is, but I may try to remove it with Goo Gone later on.

Kotone-chan is the first doujin figure I’ve bought and she looks fantastic. I love her bizarre, bondage-like outfit, the ridiculously large saw, her dual handguns, and her joyful look. She cost a bit to acquire, but she was definitely worth the price.

Ashlotte has a review of the original version of Kotone-chan. This version isn’t wearing any panties.

I’ve also got Hyper Nurse V Yuno – at least, I think that’s her name – on order, but sadly she won’t be arriving for a couple of months since I ordered her off of Toranoana. She’s already up on Yahoo! Japan Auctions, though; I guess them’s the breaks when one shops for oddball figures.

There are a peculiarly large number of very cheap Keumaya figure auctions up on eBay. Given that the list price of these figures was around 7000 yen, I’m thinking that if something seems too cheap to be real, it probably isn’t real.

I wonder what Keumaya will do for their next series of figures? Or might they get out of the figure business entirely? The world will be a darker place if they do that.

Up to the tizzop