I usually like to space out my preorder posts every few months, but I spent several hours last night shooting pictures, all of which I am going to throw out. That means I have no figure review ready and you know what that means: that’s right, it’s filler time! On the positive side, there have been a number of nice new figures that have been announced in the last couple of months. As usual, pictures are taken from Hobby Search, my favorite place to buy figures.

October

Ibuki Ikaruga from Asu no Yoichi!
This figure is really cute and the combination of skimpy swimsuit and giant bow tie is very appealing, but the price tag really dampens my enthusiasm for Ibuki. I’m not certain why there’s such a disparity in pricing in Alphamax’s product line, but it’s tough to justify the cost when I’m unfamiliar with the company’s quality and reputation. Still, though, I really like how this figure looks. Maybe she’ll be a possibility if I find some skrills under the couch cushions or something.

Black Rock Shooter (Animation Version)
In an ideal world, I’d hock my existing Black Rock Shooter figure on eBay, make back near what I paid for it, buy this one and come out ahead in the bargain. Or alternatively, Good Smile Company would have done this figure in a different scale, or given it something to distinguish it stylistically from their other BRS figures. Unfortunately they did not, and even more unfortunately they’ve decided to reissue their first BRS figure, removing the option of selling the original figure for an inflated price. I don’t really like buying multiple figures of the same character unless I’m very fond of that character or unless there’s something to set them apart – different scale, different sculptor, different theme, something different. I’m not sure that this figure is sufficiently distinct from the one I’ve got for me to want it, but it’s a nice-looking figure, I can’t deny that.

Buddy from Kimi ga Yobu, Megiddo no Oka de
Out of all the scythe girls that have been announced recently, I like how Buddy looks the most. It’s great how Alter plucks characters from random h-games for PVC adaptation, since some of my favorite anime-style character designs come from eroge. Now, how about a figure of Subaru from Beat Blades Haruka? Okay, I’ve come to terms that that’s never going to happen. How about figures of the two girls from Majutai 2? Even the small-boobed girl would be fine. Okay, that’s never going to happen, either.

Klan Klang from Macross Frontier
Klan Klang is looking great and I have this figure preordered. I like mecha girls and mecha girls don’t come much more badass than this. It’s funny how Amiami lists her as being 1/72 scale; hopefully she doesn’t look too far out of scale with my 1/48 Yamato VF-1s.

Kagari from Ninja Girls
I have no clue who this is, but this figure caught my eye nonetheless and I put in a preorder without thinking too hard about it. Here’s a funny thing I noticed about the manga: the image at RightStuf uses the original cover art without significant modification. However, there’s a version of the cover that censors Kagari’s backside by giving her a more conservative pair of shorts, and if you go to the publisher’s website, you get the cover for volume 3 rather than either of those images. I went to the local comic store to pick up the first volume but they didn’t have it, so I’m not certain what the US cover actually looks like. I did pick up volume 2 and flipping through it really quickly, there isn’t quite as much fanservice as I was hoping for. It still looks like a fun read, however.

November

Nodoka Haramura from Saki
I thought about ordering this figure, but I don’t think I like her stiff pose. I can think of one thing I do very much like about this figure, and I’m crass enough to admit that it’s a very persuasive argument in favor of this figure’s merits, but ultimately, I think I’m going to pass. Those wings look real bad, too; perhaps the promo pictures aren’t as flattering as they could be, we shall see.

Asuka Langley Soryu
There was an opportunity to make a really great adaptation of Asuka here, but Yamato and REFLECT blew it by giving Asuka no backside at all. I mean, look at this, she’s flirtatiously thrusting her butt out except she has no butt to thrust. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment on this list, but regardless I’ve preordered this figure because I’m a shallow moron. I’ll just have to keep her turned towards the front.

Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
I have to admire Alter’s ambition and willingness to manufacture figures that many manufacturers couldn’t even prototype, but I think their second version of Fate looks a little off. It’s the size of her head; her head looks wider than her shoulders and hips and longer than her thighs. Maybe it’s just me, I dunno. I’m not really one for lolis, though I admit that I do very much like Alter’s first Fate figure.

Xecty from Shining Wind
After waffling for a while between Max Factory’s and Kotobukiya’s version, I decided to roll with this one. I much prefer 1/6 scale to 1/7 but Kotobukiya’s looks too similar to their Elwing figure. And besides, this one looks very nice in its own right, with Xecty sporting an enigmatic expression that should be a lot of fun to photograph. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to Xecty when she was announced but now I’m quite looking forward to her.

Dead Master from Black Rock Shooter
I think I am the only figure collector in the universe who is not in the least excited by this figure.

January

Fate Testarossa from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
Alter’s version of Fate is kinetic, dynamic, and alive; you can almost hear her screaming strangely-named battle moves in mangled English with magic circles and pyrotechnics detonating all around her. Cospa’s version is, hmm, way more chill in comparison. Staid, even. Not that staid is bad – boring would be bad but Cospa’s figure is interesting enough, with her shy smile and confident pose. Oh, and those killer abs; you could bounce a silver dollar off of those. It’s a good-looking, laid-back figure.

But that price! Man, that price is crazy. I went back through my e-mail archive and found my invoice for Alter’s first Fate figure from early 2007. She cost $64.98, and that’s from a store that is one of the more expensive mail order retailers on the web. Furthermore, I padded out the order with a bunch of Zone of the Enders DVDs to get free shipping. Considering the way the exchange rate has cratered in the last few years, both of these recently-announced Fate figures are around twice as expensive as Alter’s original, and that figure is barely more than three years old. Insane, I tell you.

I think I’m skipping both of these Fate figures, though I reserve the right to change my mind. That said, I’m keeping an eye on a couple of Fate figures, both of which exist only in kit form for now.

This figure is from Cobra Kai and is not in a chump’s 1/8 scale, not a nice 1/6 scale, but a godly 1/4 scale. 1/4 scale! That sword’s gotta be nearly two feet long. Moeyo‘s got more pictures. Both Yamato and Daiki Kougyou have adapted Cobra Kai’s work into PVC form, but a post on the sculpting circle’s message board indicates that they haven’t gotten much interest, which is a real tragedy.

This version of fate is from BUBBA, a well-known sculptor in the figure hobby. I really hope one of the big manufacturers picks this one up, because I prefer it over Alter’s and Cospa’s and would preorder it in a heartbeat. Yamato perhaps? Or maybe Max Factory? I can only hope.

Up to the tizzop

Saya Tokido from Little Busters!
I’ve preordered this figure and I’m very much looking forward to her. I’m not familiar with the source game at all and I find its Wikipedia entry more confusing than enlightening, but I know that I like girls with gats, and an open shirt and an impressive rack are big, big bonuses.

Mizuho Kagami from Onegai Teacher
I’m thinking about ordering Mizuho, although it’s unusual that I haven’t seen any sample pictures on any Japanese websites yet. I have the feeling this one’s a good candidate to get pushed back, which wouldn’t make me unhappy, since while I like 1/4 scale figures, I could use more time to come up with the required funds and space.

Compact Hog from Tsukasa Bullet
What a great name for a figure. It’s technically the name of her gun, but it’s such a good name that I’ll use it for the girl, too. I’ve preordered this figure and I’m very much looking forward to it, although a second look at the promo pictures suggests that her neck is pretty long. Daiki Kougyou’s 1/4 scale Saber suffers from the same problem – one of two major problems with it, in my view – but hopefully it won’t be as obvious an issue with the production figure.

Mothra Larva from Godzilla
I’m not a big Godzilla fan – the only one I’ve seen was the unbelievably bad American movie by the hacks who made Independence Day – but the descriptions of this figure are very entertaining: “Please enjoy the cute Mothra larva as it wiggles innocently towards its target” Hobby Search suggests while Amiami gushes, “A great rendition of the larva that actually manage to be cute – in amazing 30cm form!”

Anyway, I’ve got the larva preordered. You don’t want to ask. You don’t want to know.

July

Momohime from Muramasa
I’ve preordered this, like everyone else. I’ve been hoping that Muramasa would come out for the PS3 or 360, but I suppose there’s little chance of that. At least I’ll get to ogle Momohime on my shelf even if I can’t ever experience the Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife level.

Vivio from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
I’ve also preordered Vivio, as I cannot resist a cute girl in a tight bodysuit. A Ginga figure would be nice too.

Seena Kanon from Shining Wind
Ehh … you know, I ought to be really excited about Max Factory’s Shining Wind girls, since I like swimsuit girls and Tony Taka’s art, but for some reason, I don’t find any of them all that compelling. I like Seena better with long hair, and she looks kinda like a little boy here, so I think I’m going to pass.

Revy from Black Lagoon
See, this is how you get me excited about a swimsuit figure; give her a big gun, a sheathe knife, and a spliff. Okay, I’m hoping you can pull the cigarette out of her mouth, since I despise cigarettes, but the rest of the figure looks very nice. I’ve preordered Revy and this will be my first New Line figure, so I’m hoping it turns out aight.

Ikaros from Sora no Otoshimono
Is it just me or does it seem like this figure dropped off of everybody’s radar when it went up for preorder? The promo photos don’t look quite as good as some of the convention photos and that gives me pause, but I like the character design a lot. I haven’t preordered this figure yet but I think I might do so yet.

Lady Robin from Kinnikuman Lady
Now here’s an unusual-looking figure. I’m not sure if I like it as much as I would if she had normal proportions, but I’ll give props to MegaHouse for trying something different. She looks pretty cool, so I’m thinking about preordering her, despite the odd elongated design.

August

Leina from Queen’s Blade
I’ve got Reina preordered even though she’s not really one of my favorite Queen’s Blade characters. I can’t resist a sword-packing thong-wearing fighter girl, though, and maybe good sales will encourage someone to make an Irma figure (ahahaha, who am I kidding, that ain’t ever happening).

Rin Kagamine from Vocaloid
You know, I really didn’t like this figure when it was first announced, but over time, it’s been growing on me, and I’m thinking about putting in a preorder. I really didn’t like her hair or the shape of her head at first, but now I think she looks pretty cool. I also really like the design of her face; she looks older here than in most of the Vocaloid art. I don’t really care for her big frilly skirt or the strange sharpened stakes behind her, though. I’ll have to think about Rin a bit more.

Xecty from Shining Wind
I’m not entirely certain how I feel about Xecty. On one hand, she looks very nice, she’s very large, and I like Elwing a lot, and Xecty is the mirror image of Elwing. Wait, no she’s not – Kotobukiya posed her curved in the same direction as Elwing. I wish that they’d flipped her, but them’s the breaks. She looks nice, but I’m thinking that my money might be better served being spent on a more interesting figure, like Rin.

September

Rider from Happoubi Jin’s Sweet Body
Preordered and I don’t think I really need to explain why.

Kurisu Makase from Steins;gate
I’ve preordered this figure, although I have some reservations about her sculpt; her legs look peculiarly long. I love the stockings and hot pants combo, however. And besides, her product page on Hobby Search quotes, “I feel like opening your head and stabbing an electrode in your hippocampus.” Have you ever heard a better pickup line than that?

Kureha Touka from Shining Wind
I like Kureha best out of all of the Shining Wind girls, so I’ve preordered her, despite not being particularly thrilled by this figure. I suppose one can’t have too many of Max Factory’s Kurehas.

Sasami Sasasegawa from Little Busters!
This figure sure does give off a very different vibe than Saya Tokido does. Anyway, I’ve preordered Sasami, since I can’t turn down a figure that gives off such a nice view of the goods. Not that you’d know that from the promo pictures, though; it continually amazes me how clever figure manufacturers are when it comes to avoiding pantyshots in their official photos. I suppose in this case they were simply judicious with the crop tool rather than artful with the camera, though.

Asuka Langley Shikinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion
Two Asuka figures were announced in a very short span of time, and I like big figures rather than small, so if I get one of them, it’s likely going to be Kotobukiya’s version. Still, I find it difficult to get over just how ugly that test plugsuit is. Asuka seems to know it, too, since she looks very uncomfortable here, which I think is incredibly hot.

Ryomou Shimei from Ikki Tousen
Interestingly, it seems that Daiki Kougyou is drifting away a bit from Toshirou’s original sculpt in favor of a more conventional facial design. Perhaps they’ve taken to heart some of the criticism leveled at their earlier Saber figure (though my beef is with the lengthened neck and the lack of castoff option). I really like how she looks in some of the recent Akibahobby photos, but Ryomou isn’t really one of my favorite Ikki Tousen characters and I don’t know if I can justify spending the skrills on this figure.

October

Clalaclan from Shining Wind
I’m not planning on getting this figure, but does it look to anybody else like her navel is too low? I went and checked some of my por – I mean, reference videos and it looks to me like her navel ought to be higher up on her stomach. Maybe it’s just me, I dunno. Great swimsuit bottom, though.

Hitagi Senjyougahara from Bakemonogatari
Ehh … I like this figure but I’m not too familiar with the source TV show. In fact, the only thing I really know about Bakemonogatari is that I sort of share a name with one of the characters in the show, which is unusual since it’s a relatively uncommon name. I’ll put this one down as a maybe; I don’t really have a lot of feeling for the character design, and it seems odd to me to buy a figure purely because of some tumbling school supplies.

Asuka Langley Shikinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion
When I think of Asuka, I think of a tactless, cocky loudmouth. This version of Asuka appears gentle and shy, and I can’t quite reconcile these two images of Asuka in my mind. On the other hand, Asuka looks great and I know this figure is going to turn out very well, so it’s hard to pass up. I wish that Alter had put her in her normal plugsuit or given her blonde hair or something to make her stand out more, but as it is, I’ll have to think about it some more.

Tsumugi Kotobuki from K-On!
Okay, I have no intention of ordering this figure, and I wouldn’t do so even if I cared for K-On! due to the ridiculous eyebrows, but what I’m wondering is, where are these girls getting the money for their instruments? Mio uses a bass that costs four figures, and Tsumugi appears to be using a Korg Triton Extreme. This keyboard’s out of production and it’s been a long time since Musician’s Friend has sent me any catalogs, but I recall that this synth ran around two grand. So is it ever explained how these kids are buying their gear? Do they have after-school jobs? What sort of after-school jobs? Curious minds want to know (without actually having to watch the TV show).

Heat Blade from Tsukasa Bullet
I’m lazy so I haven’t gotten out my credit card to preorder Heat Blade (you’d think I’d have it memorized by now), but I’ll order this figure pretty soon. I think she looks great and I’ve been looking forward to seeing the painted sample for a while now.

December

Mai Shiranui from The King of Fighters
This is an amazing figure, and the only reasons I haven’t put in a preorder yet are the price and my lack of familiarity with Alphamax’s work. VF’s recent review of Spica allays the latter concern, so now I need to decide whether I feel comfortable putting in an order with Hobby Search or Amiami that I can’t cancel. Then again, I’m not sure that it’s all that likely I’ll want to cancel this figure anyway.

Up to the tizzop

Most of my discretionary spending budget is allocated to figure purchases but every now and then I buy other stuff. Here’s a few things that I’ve picked up in the past month or two.

I bought some DVDs from RightStuf; I’m not quite sure when I’ll get around to watching them, though, as I’m trying to keep up with a few ongoing series (notably Seikon no Qwaser, the greatest anime of all time).

I got this dakimakura depicting Natsuru Senou, the genderbending protagonist of Kampfer. This makes dakimakura #6, but I’m not done yet, as I recently won one off of Yahoo Japan. I’ll probably review Natsuru sometime this week.

I got this Total Eclipse artbook at the same time as I got the Mahou Shoujo Ai book. I will freely admit that I bought it in the hope of seeing pictures of cute girls in tight piloting suits, but the book is mostly mecha art (and text, natch). I guess I don’t mind that too much – the art, that is – since I like mecha. I wish I could read all the words in the book, though, since there’s a lot of them.

H-manga! The Nanoha doujinshi is by Cyclone, who have put out quite a few good Nanoha books, and the other two books are from Kill Time Communication. The Lightning Warrior Raidy book seems to be an anthology of stories from different artists and series, as Raidy’s sequence only takes up maybe fifteen pages, but the other book is all about Beat Blades Haruka. It’s a great book with great artwork (although I could’ve done without futanari Narika, I guess) and I’m hoping that KTC chucks out a sequel, since it ends at about the point where Haruka encounters Subaru in the modern age.

I saw a review of Yamato’s VMF50 Risa doll on Akibahobby a few weeks ago and I liked how it looked so I picked it up. Why did I like it? For one, it wasn’t too expensive for such a large doll and for two, I’m insane. And for three, she’s pretty realistic. You know what I mean. I ordered some gym clothes and underpants for her but they aren’t here yet. A friend of mine suggested that “Simone” sounds a bit like a name for a porn actress, so that’s what I named her.

This is perhaps the strangest impulse purchase I’ve ever made.

I bought a new camera cuz, you know, more expensive camera means better pictures. Everybody knows that, it’s a scientifically proven fact.

I also recently picked up Resonance of Fate and Sakura Taisen, but I figure everybody knows what those look like so I don’t need to put pictures of them up here. Actually, I completely forgot to take pictures of them and while I’m trying to actually complete Resonance of Fate (it’s a great game but I don’t have a good track record of beating games), my list of RPGs that I’ve bought in the last six months or so and not even played for more than five minutes is impressive: Mass Effect 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, Dragon Age (technically, I played far enough to name my dog), Fallout 3, and Ar Tonelico II are in that list and I’m sure there are more that I’ve forgotten about.

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:

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?

Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2
I’d like to get this figure since it’s cute and I like Griffon’s Sasara figure, but I’m not certain that I like her face all that much; her chin looks like it could punch open a can of evaporated milk. Despite that, I think there’s a good chance I’ll wind up putting in an order for Tamaki.

Haruka from Beat Blades Haruka
Here’s another Griffon figure where I’m not certain whether I like the face. The pose isn’t all that interesting either, although in some cases I don’t mind a simple pose. What I want to know is, what’s that she’s standing on? Haruka comes from one of those porno games where she gets raped by monsters all the time, so is that what I think it is?

Rider from Fate/stay night
There aren’t nearly enough Rider figures out there, which is a damn shame, and there are only a few that depict her in her combat outfit. Now, the problem with this figure is that Griffon seems to be going for a cutesy look and being that I hate nendoroids, that’s not something that should appeal to me, but in this case, it does. Maybe I can pretend that this is Rider at twelve years old, which brings me to …

Tomomi Aizawa fro Pia Carrot 3
Oh god I feel dirty from just looking at this figure. I’m not certain that I’m perverted enough to buy this, even though I really want it. I’ve got a feeling that if I wait, this is the sort of figure that you’ll see in the discount section in a couple of months, but on the other hand, she could sell out and then I’d feel really dumb. I just don’t know if I can compromise my personal purity by buying something like this.

Izulha from Rulilura
This appears to be a recolor of an older figure, which foo-bar-baz reviewed and gave a middling grade. I like her new colors a lot, and if she’s the same figure as the 2007 version, you can take off all her clothes, which always makes a figure worth looking at. I’ll have to give this one a bit more thought.

March

Birdy from Birdy the Mighty
Uplark made another Birdy figure and she’s still on sale over at HLJ, but I don’t think I like that figure’s face all that much and I’m not certain I like this figure’s face much more. I do like the character design in general, though, and I wouldn’t mind owning a figure of Birdy. However, given that this figure is going to cost upwards of 10k yen, I don’t think this is the figure I’m waiting for.

Spica from Skytube
This figure looks fantastic, and if it weren’t for the $150 price tag, I’d be getting this for sure. As it is, I’m pretty sure I can’t afford this, as nice as it looks.

Vanessa from The King of Fighters
Vanessa isn’t as well-known as Mai and Yuri and Athena, but all the SNK fighter girls are awesome. This figure is from a manufacturer called A-label and I know nothing about them, but Akibahobby reviewed a sample and Vanessa is looking really nice. She’s also not all that expensive for a 1/6 scale figure, so I’m leaning towards preordering this one.

Kakouen Myousai from Ikki Tousen
Preordered and I can’t wait. It’s about time that someone made a figure of Myousai (incidentally, does anyone know what her first name is? I’ve never been able to keep name order straight with any of the Ikki Tousen characters). I really hope that the next season shows Kanu giving up her pursuit of the bespectacled bookworm and hooking up with Myousai in the hottest anime lesbian pairing ever but I know that ain’t happening.

Ryomou Shimei from Ikki Tousen
I might skip Ryomou Shimei, but I’m not certain of that. She’s not one of my favorite Ikki Tousen characters – and I’ll admit that her portrayal in the English adaptation of the manga is a large factor in that – and I don’t really have a big huge maid fetish.

Sister Hell from Prism Ark
I do, however, have a big nun fetish, and being that I liked First Class’s Spider Girl, I’m thinking about preordering this figure. My real hope, however, is that Teresa from Seikon no Qwaser gets a bunch of figures, as the greatest anime of all time deserves to have lots of merchandise put out into the marketplace.

Kasumi from Dead or Alive Xtreme 2
Dead or Alive is a big franchise, having spawned a ton of video games and even a live-action movie, but for some reason, there aren’t a ton of figures of its characters out there. That’s a bit odd, seeing as how its major claim to fame is its cast of bubbly, bouncy females. I like the Kokoro figure in this line, but I don’t think I’m digging Kasumi much – her face looks a bit like she has Down syndrome. No offense to anyone who actually knows anyone who has Down syndrome.

Hattori Hanzo from Hyakka Ryoran
I liked Jubei, but I don’t like this reimagination of Hattori Hanzo all that much. As I said, I don’t have a big huge thing for maids (is it me or are there a ton of maid figures coming out this month?) and her pogo shoes and especially her expansive forehead and eyebrows don’t appeal to me.

Lineage elf girl from Lineage II
Preordered already and she looks amazing. foobarbaz has a review up already and she truly is mighty fine. This elf girl might be the figure I am looking forward to the most right now.

Alphard from Canaan
I know I can’t be the first person to think that Alphard looks like Sei’s evil twin sister. Does anyone know if there’s a reason why Canaan and Alphard look like less sexy versions of Jo and Sei from Burst Angel? I’m probably passing on this one since I don’t like the face a lot, but the pose is awesome, with her coat flapping upwards and her gat held gangsta-style.

Amanda Werner from Blassreiter
Oh my god Becky, look at her butt. It is so big. She looks like one of those rap guys’ girlfriends.

Haven’t preordered this one yet, but I’m pretty sure I will. I don’t care much for the horns but I surely approve of everything else.

Elwyn from Shining Tears
Elwyn (Elwing?) is preordered already, and the promo shots look great. 1/6 scale is good, too. I’m hoping that the complementing Xecty figure turns out as nicely.

Psylocke from the Uncanny X-Men
Psylocke is my favorite character in all of Marvel comics so this figure is preordered. I’m not sure that her face looks all that great; her mouth particularly looks a bit strange. It’s all good though, I can hardly pass up a Shunya Yamashita-designed Psylocke figure.

Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2
Preordered already and this looks like the best Tamaki figure of all time. Her breasts are about at the upper limit of what I’d find attractive, but she still looks outstanding. Her 1/6 scale size just makes this figure all the more appealing.

Senhime from Sengoku Rance
Also preordered; April is shaping up to be a great month, if these figures come out on time (and I know they won’t). Senhime is one of my two favorite characters in Sengoku Rance, and being that FREEing is sculpting her in 1/5 scale, I can hardly pass up this figure. Plus her clothes can be taken off, as Akibahobby’s review illustrates. Her head looks a bit large while she is half-naked, but I suppose one can’t have everything.

Rika Shiraki from Bible Black
I’m not too familiar with Miyabiya’s work, but this figure looks awesome. I like the character designs in Bible Black a lot, but there haven’t been too many figures from that series that I like. Rika’s probably going to be the first Bible Black figure I get. Curiously, there’s a limited edition version exclusive to Amiami that they’re selling for a couple of bucks less than the ordinary version. I think I’d rather have the regular version though, since I really like the red, black, and white clothing color scheme.

Ayane from Dead or Alive
It’s nice to see a figure of a Dead or Alive character in her normal fighting costume rather than a bikini (and I do realize how strange it sounds for me to say that). Ayane’s pose looks a bit awkward here, although she does have an eccentric fighting style. I’m waffling a bit on this one but depending on whether I owe the tax man money this month, I might add her to the preorder list.

M.M. from Kemeko Deluxe!
I am unfamiliar with this show and character, but anything with tentacles and a cute girl will instantly get my attention. Kaitendoh’s sort of a strange company; they’ve done a Tamaki figure that I like a lot, and then they’ve done this figure which inexplicably has two versions that are both sold out at Hobby Search. I’ll have to think about this one, but I really want a good tentacle figure and this might fit the bill.

Black Rock Shooter from, uhh, Black Rock Shooter
I’m pretty sure that one Black Rock Shooter figure is enough for me.

May
Nothin’. Maybe MegaHouse will surprise me and announce an Irma figure for release this month? Ha! Yeah right.

June

Miku Hatsune VN02 from Vocaloid
I really like this figure, except for the banana hair. She’s got a great face, but given the price, I don’t know that I can compromise on the hair. I’ll have to give it some thought. Max Factory’s other upcoming Vocaloid figure (the one of that blonde girl) needs a lot less thought, as it looks awful. Rin looks anorexic and why do all these anime bass players use picks?

Shoujo S
Preordered, or it will be, when Native opens up the preorder period. She’s looking great, as all of Native’s figures do. I’m still waiting on Shoujo M, who is due for release in March.

July

Saber from Fate/stay night
I was bored at work this past week so I went looking through Animenano for some interesting stuff to read, and I kept coming across blogs with whole posts written up celebrating this Saber figure’s preorder opening. I guess that means that a lot of people like this figure. Me, I can’t get over the fact that when I see this figure’s face, I see Emiya Shirou.

I want to take his face … off. Eyes, nose, skin, teeth. It’s coming off.

Shirou’s one of those anime characters that if he were a real life person, I’d punch him in the balls until he fell over and then defecate on his head. My view of this Saber is thus necessarily tainted, and I’m not sure I can get over that.

I recently spent some time practicing my Photoshop photography skills, and I shot some new pictures of Aegis and Rei. My Aegis photos were one of the earliest photo shoots in which I played around with shadows and a black background. I liked those photos a lot at the time and in retrospect, I can’t quite remember why:

I really am not digging the folds and creases in the background. It makes me want to re-shoot pictures of every figure I reviewed using a cloth backdrop.

I like my new pictures, but I wonder if I’ll look back at these photos a year or two from now and think, “What in the world was I doing? C’mon man.”

Here’s one more image that isn’t quite as dark as the first:

Rei was one of the earliest figures I photographed, and I was still using a ragged blue curtain then as the background. I also used three lamps, one shining from each side and a third illuminating from above. It made for a lifeless photograph, as if Rei were nothing more than a chunk of molded, painted plastic:

How boring is that? Really bloody boring. Rei’s an albino clone girl who slides herself into a tight bodysuit to fight off huge monsters bent on genocide in an apartment-sized robot; she shouldn’t be boring. I think my new pictures are more interesting than my old ones, even though I don’t really have any clue what I’m doing. They’re probably not quite as useful from a review perspective, but I’m comfortable with making that sacrifice in the name of prettier pictures.

Or more precisely, new computer parts. My current computer (5.5 years old at this time) is just about dead; it takes around eight hours to reboot and the video card croaked. Being that nobody makes AGP video cards anymore – and that I was very lucky a friend still had an old machine that I could scavenge working parts from – I felt that it was time to get a new machine. My new computer is going to have a 2.66 GHz Intel i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and 300 GB and 1 TB hard disks. I had hoped to include a Radeon 5850 card but they were sold out planetwide when I bought the parts, and as I mainly play console games, I don’t feel too badly about having to settle for a lesser video card.

In keeping with my indomitable spirit of laziness, I’m probably not going to get around to building it until the weekend. No doubt I’ll need the additional time to fix the inevitable problems that are going to occur; something always goes wrong when I build computers.

I got asked to provide a size comparison picture of Kenshin and Meiya, so I also thought this was a good opportunity to provide the goods.

Of the eight figures that I had preordered this month, six have been delayed till next month or beyond. I’m not sure why figure manufacturers don’t tack on extra month on all their pending figure releases just to sync their schedules back up with reality. Even this pornographic figure that I preordered got kicked back a month. You know things are messed up when a small-scale manufacturer like Giga Pulse can’t meet their projected ship date. I bet transvestite Yoko doesn’t make it out this month, too. (And as I type this, I am proved correct! I wish I could say that this prognostication was built upon careful deduction, but anybody could see this coming.)

Serendipitous it is indeed, then, that HLJ is holding a holiday sale with shipping costs waived if you buy a sale item. With funds freed up for this month, this sale is a pretty good opportunity to pick up anything that I had passed on. Or at least, it would be, if there were anything that I wanted to buy. I went through HLJ’s inventory for Alter, Max Factory, GSC, Yamato, and all the other major figure manufacturers and I’m having a real tough time finding something that I want that I don’t already have. I guess Akiha might be a possibility (where’s the Itsuki figure, GSC?). Given the expense of EMS shipping, I feel like I should take advantage of this sale. I was really hoping that they’d have GSC’s 1/4 scale Nanoha or the Aegis Figma still in stock, but unfortunately they do not. I guess I will have to take a second, less discriminating look through HLJ’s inventory. I should probably also take this as a sign that perhaps I shouldn’t throw money at every figure that I want as soon as it comes out.

Lacking anything more productive to do on this cold, wet holiday, I decided to reshoot Kokoro, being that my earlier pictures were particularly hideous. While I was at it, I thought that I’d provide a look at the “studio” in which I take my figure pictures. It’s not a particularly complicated setup, although it certainly is a mess.

This isn’t a particularly large area; I’ve got maybe a little more than two square feet available to me. It’s an annoyance to have to clear off the area whenever I want to take pictures, so I don’t get as much photography practice as I would like.

I ordinarily use two or three lights to take pictures, but for white backgrounds, I use up to five lamps. You can see three of them here; one of them is cut out of the picture up top (although you can see the clip) and the other is hidden by the Kleenex box that I’m using to block light. There’s nothing special about them; I bought them for eight to ten bucks at Lowe’s or Wal-Mart, and I use ordinary daylight fluorescent bulbs (either 60W or 100W equivalent; for a shoot on a white background, I usually have the brighter bulbs lighting up the background with the dimmer bulbs lighting the figure). Being lazy, I don’t use a standalone diffuser to soften light; I just tape paper towels to the front of the lamp. I’m thinking I might try Kleenex or tracing paper or something less opaque, though. I constrain light by taping paper right onto the lamp; I’m using red construction paper here that I had bought for a diorama idea I had a while ago. Like many of my ideas, it went nowhere, but the construction paper proves useful nonetheless. I also sometimes use packing invoices to block light; I just fold them in half and tape them to the side of the lamp. They tend to let more light leak through so I don’t use them as much as of late. I also use solid objects; I’m using a box of tissues here, but I’ve also used sandpaper, other figure boxes (very useful, since I have a bunch of these and they come in various sizes), and books. I don’t use my camera’s onboard flash since it kills the battery, and I have not the slightest clue how to use an external flash.

I used to use various sheets of fabric as a backdrop; my earliest pictures featured a ratty blue curtain, and I also experimented with various colors of cotton sheets (as seen in my earlier Kokoro pictures). I switched over to using black fabric and that worked much better, but I now use foamboard most of the time. It’s cheap and stays in place fairly well, whereas I had to use a ton of duct tape to tape the black fabric backdrop to my wall. If I want reflections on the ground, I use a transparent plastic cover sheet from a cheap poster frame. It works pretty well, although the plastic is susceptible to getting scratched up. You can get some interesting effects if you place it over a sheet of colored posterboard. For example, I placed some red posterboard under the poster cover in this shot of Sheryl.

For Kokoro, I used a large index card as a reflector, but I usually prefer to use a comic book backing board. I also usually prefer to prop it up on my favorite can of sliced pears; this can’s been with me through half of college and expired last year. I’m kind of afraid to open it, so I keep it around to hold things up or to weight things down. I should take a picture of it sometime; actually, you can see it in this post on figure.fm for one of the contest giveaways. It’s in the photo with the Master Chief over the Matrix sentinel, over on the right; I forgot to Photoshop it out. I love my can of pears.

The box of Kleenex can also prop things up, like Meiya’s hair.

If anybody is curious about the equipment I use, I use a Canon Rebel XS, the lowest-end DSLR that Canon manufactures. I use the cheap 50mm f/1.8 lens for most of my pictures, and the kit lens (18-55mm f/3.5-5.0 or something, I think) for the rest. Most of the pictures in my recent Kenshin review were taken with the kit lens, since Kenshin was too bloody big to completely fit in the frame while using the prime lens. I use a cheap tripod that I got from Best Buy; it’s flimsy, it wobbles a lot, but it works alright. Actually, I tend to use its looseness to make adjustments to the camera position. I recently got a set of inexpensive close-up lenses to futz around with pseudo-macro shots and do depth-of-field tricks. I don’t really know whether I want to buy more lenses, but I’m sort of interested in getting a wide-angle lens to play around with.

And that’s pretty much all there is to my photo studio. All my figure pictures have been taken here, and it’s a real pain to try to fit more than one figure into this space. It’s not a very high-tech setup, but it does the job.

Meiya and the president get ready to throw down.