Year Four Retrospective

written on February 23, 2013 by Tier

Tentacle Armada is four years old today. That’s 232 figure and doll reviews, 38 dakimakura cover reviews, and one tentacle stand review. I’m pretty amazed that this site is still around, and that I’ve managed to stick to a fairly consistent posting pattern (six posts per month for the last twelve months). As I provide every 23rd of February, here is the usual anniversary wrapup post where I write about my thoughts regarding the past year and what my plans are going forward.
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Dakimakura Review – Inori Yuzuriha from Guilty Crown (Evening Call Version) (NSFW)

written on February 21, 2013 by Tier
Inori Yuzuriha Dakimakura Review

Guilty Crown is often compared to shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Code Geass, but regardless of their parallels in plot structure, characterization, and themes, it seems clear that it is not their equal when it comes to merchandising power. Evangelion’s popularity needs no commentary, and Code Geass just got this pretty awesome dakimakura cover from Movic, but while Guilty Crown came in riding a wave of hype and anticipation, it now seems to be the show that everyone wants to forget. I had thought that Good Smile Company or someone would show a few Guilty Crown figures at the recent Wonder Festival, but I don’t recall seeing any – not even Figmas (quite surprising, being that the bar to get a Figma is set pretty low). On the plus side, Azone’s big-ass Inori doll is looking pretty. Also on the plus side, lead girl Inori Yuzuriha and some of her castmates were popular subjects for dakimakura cover artists, as we see here.
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Fate T. Harlaown from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (Bunny Version)

written on February 16, 2013 by Tier
Fate T. Harlaown Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha StrikerS Figure Review

The latest bunny figure from FREEing is Fate T. Harlaown, Nanoha’s adversary-turned-best-buddy. It was a little weird seeing Nanoha in the skimpy bunny costume, since her sex appeal isn’t typically played up, at least when it comes to figures. However, Fate looks right in her bunnysuit, which is actually not much less modest than what she normally wears to a fight. They look great together, though, and while Fate and Nanoha are meant to be a matched pair (or threesome, if you count Hayate), Fate offers a number of contrasts to her partner that make this figure even more appealing.
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Shizuru Nakatsu from Rewrite (NSFW)

written on February 8, 2013 by Tier
Shizuru Nakatsu from Rewrite Figure Review

There are scads and oodles of swimsuit figures out there, so let’s take a look at Shizuru Natsuru, one of the heroines from Key’s well-regarded visual novel Rewrite. Rewrite is notable for being an all-ages game, unlike many of their earlier visual novels. However, that isn’t stopping figure maker BEAT from interposing their own bit of raunchiness on Shizuru, as one can easily see.
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Dakimakura Review – Fate T. Harlaown from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (Evening Call Version) (NSFW)

written on January 31, 2013 by Tier
Fate T. Harlaown Dakimakura Review

While I enjoy taking pictures of the figures that I buy, I’m a collector like everyone else in this hobby, and one of the things that I enjoy doing is finding stuff featuring characters that I like, particularly if it is created by artists whose work I admire. To that end, I’ve been searching for the right Fate pillowcase for a while. At first, it doesn’t seem like it should be that difficult an endeavor; Fate is, of course, one of the most popular anime characters out there, and she can be seen on a number of dakimakura covers. For me, though, the right Fate pillowcase depicts her in her adult form, which rules out a number of pillowcases from the start, and it also depicts her in her Shin Sonic uniform – you’d think that wouldn’t be an obstacle, but for some reason, it’s not a popular look for her, at least on dakimakura covers. I thought that the HOP-produced pillowcase by Briest would be the one, but some nasty and unexpected mosaic censoring drops it in my esteem. A few months ago, this one popped up on Evening Call’s website. Is it the right one?
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Preorder Outlook XXIV

written on January 30, 2013 by Tier

Since I have a self-mandated quota of six posts per month to reach, it’s time to look at some of the stuff due for release later this year (that also means that there will be a pillowcase review tomorrow). Although we haven’t even gotten past January, manufacturers are already unveiling their summer release schedules. It seems like a bit of a slow year thus far, but with Wonder Festival just a couple of weeks away, we’ll certainly be seeing a lot more good stuff. For now, let’s take a look at a few figures that are already available to order.
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Samurai Katanako from 7th Dragon 2020

written on January 26, 2013 by Tier
Katanako from 7th Dragon 2020 Figure Review

The schoolgirl-with-weapons theme is a very popular one, so much so that it’s made its way into Hollywood films like Kill Bill and Sucker Punch. Still, it is a quintessential theme associated with pop Japanese culture, particularly anime and video games, and as such one of the most common weapons for such a schoolgirl is a traditional Japanese sword. It’s odd, then, that looking at my collection, I see I’ve only got a couple of figures of schoolgirls with swords. This one here is one of them.
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Dakimakura Review – Kimi Aoi from Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere (NSFW)

written on January 19, 2013 by Tier
Kimi Aoi Dakimakura Review

The last few dakimakura covers featured here have been mostly of rather young-looking, physically-undeveloped characters, so to speak, so this time we’ll look at a pillowcase depicting a full-grown lady. This character is Kimi Aoi, the older sister of Toori Aoi, the lead male character of the light novel and recently-concluded anime series Horizon on (or in) the Middle of Nowhere. Although the anime seems reasonably popular – surely due in no small part to its attractive and expansive cast of colorful, likeable characters – it hasn’t gotten a lot of love from the figure industry. That’s rather unfortunate, since I really like the character designs and they would lend themselves well to figures. However, we’ll talk more about the anime and the few figures it has spawned later on; for now, let’s take a closer look at this dakimakura cover.
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diskvision Elsa (NSFW)

written on January 13, 2013 by Tier
Elsa Figure Review

Nearly three years after releasing Eve, Daiki Kougyou has finally gotten around to releasing the second of diskvision‘s original nude figure sculpts. This character is named Elsa, and she is going to be released in three different color formats. This particular figure features blonde hair and pale skin and is the first version to hit stores.
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Sister Misa from Mahou Shoujo (NSFW)

written on January 7, 2013 by Tier
Sister Misa from Mahou Shoujo Figure Review

Native figures are always a treat to receive, and here is the newest one yet. This character is Misae Suzuhara, also called Misa-nee, and she comes from a doujinshi series simply titled “Mahou Shoujo” – no “Mahou Shoujo Misae” or anything like that, just Magical Girl. Most of Native’s figures are labelled as part of the Creator’s Collection, for which they take the work of particular artists and turn their 2D art into 3D sculpts. While most of the figures in this set are of fairly conventional design regardless of the artist, Misae definitely is not.
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