Tag Archives: Max Factory

Haruka Morishima from Amagami

Haruka Morishima from Amagami Figure Review

Here we have a figure from Amagami SS, a school romance show featuring a male lead who sleeps in a closet. Ordinarily, I’d rather have nothing to do with a harem-based school romance show, given how bad Princess Lover! was and how bad Mayo Chiki! is looking to be, but one guess should suffice to divine what aspect of this figure enticed me enough to buy it.
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Chie from the Art of Ishikei (NSFW)

Chie figure by Native

Dizzy? Great figure. Junko? Great figure. Saber Alter? Great figure. But as great as those figures are, sometimes a person wants something different. Sometimes a person wants something really special. Sometimes a person wants a porno figure. Okay, Erina was pretty nice but she’s more on the softcore side of things, as far as figures go. Fortunately, Native is always willing to oblige the more explicit side of the hobby. Except for this figure, anyway. And this one. Oh, and this one. Okay, maybe they’re going soft on us, and that’s a bit disappointing coming from a company whose motto is “Naked & Creative,” but beggars can’t be choosers. And fortunately, Ishikei’s Chie is such a nice figure that she more than makes up for any concessions those upcoming figures make.
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Xecty from Shining Wind (Swimsuit Version)

Max Factory Xecty Figure Review

It’s not uncommon for figures to get delayed, but some delays are just inexplicable. Like Xecty’s, for instance. I ordered her last summer during Hobby Search’s EMS shipping discount sale. And then I waited. And waited. I mean, this is a swimsuit figure, it’s not like they haven’t made them before. I guess the factories must have been too busy rolling out nendoroids and Figmas.

With some things – like the novel A Dance With Dragons – my enthusiasm is undimmed by delays. And with other things – like Starcraft II – I find myself not caring at all when they finally get released. Xecty falls in the second category – when Hobby Search sent me her bill, I was like, “Aww man, I ordered this?” I left her in her box until a few days ago and needing something to review, decided to take her out. I was a bit conflicted on how I feel about her, but seeing her now, she’s a nice figure. Special? No way. But nice, yeah, I can agree with that.
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Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2

Max Factory Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2 Figure Review

Here are a few certainties in life: music that people half your age like will always suck, politicians will always lie, the Washington Redskins will always make terrible personnel decisions, and figure manufacturers from Alter to Yamato will always turn to the Ikkitousen and To Heart franchises for inspiration. In particular, Kanu Unchou and Tamaki Kousaka are consistent winners, and with a barrage of Tamakis scheduled to drop in the near future, now seems like a good time to look at the Tamaki that Max Factory released in May of this year.
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Kureha Touka from Shining Wind (Swimsuit Version)

Max Factory Kureha Touka Figure Review

At first, I wasn’t too enthused by Max Factory’s line of swimsuit-clad Shining Wind girls and I’m not really sure why. It’s a terrible thing when a man can’t get excited by cute underaged girls in tiny bikinis, however, and I finally decided that Kureha and Xecty had too much appeal to pass on them. It would’ve been cooler if they’d picked out some suits out of Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, though; Kureha looks pretty good here, but she’d be bangin’ in the Venus or Mach.
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Shoujo S from the Art of Hanaharu Naruko (NSFW)

Native Shoujo S from Hanaharu Naruko Figure Review

I got a shipping payment request for Shoujo S from Tokyo Hunter the other week, and after I sent off the money, I had the feeling that something felt unusual about the whole deal. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but after thinking about it for a moment, I realized what it was: Shoujo S came out right on time! How rare is that? Native listed June as her release month, and she came out right on schedule, which is very peculiar. It’s a bit like where I work; we had this big party a few months back because we managed to ship out a patch for our product on time. Now that’s more sad than peculiar.
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Miku Hatsune from Vocaloid


Max Factory Miku Hatsune from Vocaloid Figure Review

Way back when I was in college, I was interested in making electronic music, and being that I did not and still don’t have any musical talent to speak of, I figured the easiest way to do it would be via computer. I had a copy of ReBirth for drums and a MIDI controller that I could use for basslines, my roommate played the guitar so I could ask him for samples, but one thing I didn’t have was vocals. While I might have been able to fake some sort of musical ability with instrumentals, there was no way I was going to embarrass myself by trying to sing. One day, while reading the news from that year’s NAMM on Harmony Central, I learned that Yamaha had developed voice synthesis software intended to provide musical vocals. They had a couple of voices, and I listened to the samples; one of them was of a voice called “Miriam” singing old traditional songs like Auld Lang Syne and Scarborough Fair. They were interesting and innovative in an academic sense, but they were still rather rough and being a broke student, I couldn’t buy the software anyway, so I quickly forgot about them and the whole enterprise and went back to doing my homework.

Fast forward years later; I’m out of college, I’m buying figures, I see a ton of people talking about some young green-eyed girl in dire need of a haircut. Wondering what anime she was from, I Google her name and find out that she’s from “Vocaloid.” How curious, I think, that an anime was named after voice synthesis software. Then I find out that she’s not from an anime at all; Yamaha made a mascot character to ostensibly represent one of their voice packs and it succeeded beyond their wildest expectation. I’m not certain if this whole phenomenon is an ingenius example of marketing or a demonstration of how simple it is to get money from anime fans.
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Yoko Ritona from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Real Image Version)


Max Factory Yoko Ritona from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Review

Backstage we’re having the time
Of our lives until somebody say
Forgive me if I seem out of line
Then she whipped out her gun and tried to blow me away!

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Collet from the Art of Tony Taka (NSFW)


Native Collet from Tony Taka Review

We all have our dreams, things that we hope to do, things that we hope to become, things that we hope will come to be. For me, this figure represents the culmination of a dream that I’ve dreamt for a long time. It’s one that I always wished would be fulfilled but never really expected to. After waiting for so long, after holding out hope for so long, my dream has come true: I can finally say that I own a figure with a realistically-sculpted anus.
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Kotone Ousaka from the Art of Tony Taka (NSFW)


Native Kotone Ousaka from Taka Tony Review

Those in this hobby know that if you sleep on a figure, you can miss out. I had already preordered Kotone Ousaka from a domestic retailer, but with no assurance that they’d be able to fulfill my purchase and encouraged by the spate of reviews popping up on Japanese websites, I went ahead and picked her up off of eBay. Reactionary? Certainly. Worth it? Oh hell yeah.
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