People are surprised when I tell them that I collect dolls, and what is perhaps even more surprising is that I’ve been collecting dolls for far longer than I’ve been buying anime figures. I don’t play around with them much – most are stuck in a drawer or in a couple of cardboard boxes now – but I do enjoy buying them and dressing them up. More recently, I’ve begun collecting doujinshi, and with most of my June preorders yet to ship I thought that I’d take some time to share these things.

Perhaps my favorite doujinshi is Grindcore. This book was published by Gin no Hoshitei, the circle of Akito Tamiya. He also did the artwork for the h-visual novel Zanjibaru, which I liked a lot. Zanjibaru incorporates some strange fetishes, such as belly expansion, massive insertions, and larva birthing, but this book is fairly straightforward tentacle sex. What makes it hot is that it seems that Nanoha is the one plugging up Fate with tentacles.

This doujinshi is mostly black and white, with several colored pages in the middle.

Gin no Hoshitei has also done a sequel, or at least a book that is identical in theme, called In Search of Sanity. It’s more of the same and it looks great.

Have you ever seen anyone take as much joy in their work as Nanoha does here?

Moving on to another Fate Testarossa doujinshi, this one is from the circle Type-G. This one’s a pretty fun book, and there’s an English translation floating around out on the internet so I can understand what’s happening.

And here’s the followup book, which has Fate getting banged by some faceless guys.

This one is by Studio PAL. I randomly came across one of their works – a Dragon Quest doujinshi – on the English version of DLsite. I went ahead and bought it and was slightly disappointed to find that it was in PDF format, which is a bit unwieldy to view compared to a directory of JPEGs. However, I really liked the artwork, so I was happy to learn that they’ve put out a number of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha books. This one is called Mahou Shoujo Dai Pinch, I think, and has Fate being accosted by some evil dude. Anyone know who this metro-looking purple-haired wanker is?

Unfortunately the Fate part is pretty short, and the rest of it shows a brief sexual encounter between Teana and Subaru. At least, I think that’s who they are; it’s not in color and being generally unfamiliar with the Nanoha characters, I rely on hair color to help identify them.

There sure are a lot of Nanoha doujinshi out there. This one’s from Cyclone, and despite what it says on the cover, is entirely black and white on the inside. It’s basically just an omnibus reprinting of several of Cyclone’s doujinshi: 840, 850, 860, and 865. Very nicely drawn, though being Japanese-illiterate it’s difficult for me to tell what’s going on. It seems that Fate gets mind-controlled in one of these books, because she beats up and rapes Nanoha. I think, anyway. It’s a couple hundred pages long, which gives it good value for the money.

Taking a quick break from the porno stuff, this book is titled Daughters of Mogthrasir. At least, I think that’s what it says. What’s a Mogthrasir? Wikipedia has the answer. Back when I was a kid, I wished that I had a machine that could answer any question I wanted to ask, and now, we have Wikipedia! Is technology not wonderful? Unusually (for me), this book doesn’t involve any sort of sexual activity. I pretty much bought it because I liked the cover. And Muv-Luv. For someone who knows almost nothing about Muv-Luv, I sure do buy a lot of Muv-Luv stuff.

Uhh, no idea what that says on the cover. I plugged it into an auto-translator and it comes back with “Sandome no Make Sen Torawa Reno Hime.” No idea what that means, either. Anyway, this book is about my favorite Sengoku Rance girl, Senhime, and is by the circle Veronicanoha. She doesn’t seem to have many doujinshi out there, so I’m glad that this book has some very nice artwork. I wish that I could read Japanese, since it seems that she’s either recounting a fantasy of hers to Rance or she’s describing something that actually happened. I’d like to know which it is. Maybe I ought to try learning Japanese one of these days. I studied engineering in school, and half of it was in bloody Greek letters, so it can’t be that hard for me to learn a foreign language, can it?

Punching this book’s title into the same translator gives its name as “Deriketo Bangaihen Kaki Kudashi.” It translates that as “Delicate Bangaihen Oyster Evacuation,” which I am thinking is not an accurate interpretation. Also, this book is for adlut comics! I guess I shouldn’t make fun of that typo, their English is certainly far better than my Japanese. Anyway, this book involves a couple of cheerful girls who share a guy. It’s full of happy sex which is a bit of a difference from most of the books that I bought.

All right, that’s enough pictures of porno comics for now, let’s move on to the doll stuff.

I got this doll a few months back after seeing some pictures of it on Akibahobby. Right after seeing those, I googled the name and got HLJ as the first hit. Happily, HLJ stocks some of Yamato’s limited edition items and they had this doll in stock. I went ahead and ordered it, which I suppose was their last one, since it’s showed up as discontinued ever since. The doll is named Risa, and Yamato has a few other dolls in the series named Miu (who looks pretty cool) and Miki (who looks utterly terrifying). I wanted a name that sounded a bit more like a porn actress’ name, so after some consultation with friends I renamed this doll Simone.

This doll is part of Yamato’s vmf50 series line, and they sell a bunch of clothes on their website. Most of the options look like hooker suits, so it’s pretty obvious what sort of demographic Yamato is targeting. For example, there’s this swimsuit which is basically see-through. Then there’s this outfit and this one and that one. Straight up ho-wear. Well, maybe not that last one. Or maybe it is, I dunno. I like them all, though.

I don’t have a lot of clothes for this doll; I got the transparent swimsuit (a real pain to put on her), the gym outfit she’s wearing now, and some underwear. Most of the clothing options are relatively expensive and sell out quickly, so I’m not all that inclined to buy more stuff.

I also got these hooker boots for the doll. The vmf50 body is somewhat anatomically correct (no anus though) and I did get a request to display it, so here it is:

As the product name suggests, this doll is about fifty centimeters tall, putting it somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4 scale. It’s too big to easily display right now so I usually just keep her in her box, like a vampire.

The first dolls I bought were Blue Boy Toys’ Cy Girls. These were licensed versions of Takara’s Cool Girls dolls and are in 1/6 scale, like most action dolls. They came with a bevy of guns, holsters, and accessories and generally were sold for around thirty bucks back in the day. The two here are Electra (brunette) and Bloody Rose (orangehead). They were part of the third group of Cy Girls and I got them back in 2003, if I remember right. If anyone thinks the Cy Girls name sounds familiar, it’s probably because there was a forgettable PlayStation 2 action game based on these dolls.

Bloody Rose is wearing her original clothing but Electra is wearing a suit from Triad Toys. I’ve got a bunch more Cy Girls but I ran out of time while shooting these photos so they’ll have to wait till a follow-up post.

My newest doll is Deunan Knute, the heroine of Appleseed. This doll was manufactured by Hot Toys. I had wanted it for a very long time but could never quite afford it, but I had an opportunity to acquire it not so long ago and jumped at it. She comes with a ton of accessories – rifle, handgun, sword, watch, holster, sighting system – and a bunch of hands. The hands are the weakest part, I think – they mount using some very narrow pegs, which seem quite fragile. In fact, I snapped one while taking these photos. Fortunately I keep super glue around for such contingencies, but now I can’t pose her right hand. Regardless of her delicacy, this is a great, great doll. Maybe I ought to give Deunan her own review because she looks fantastic.

I’ve got a couple of male dolls, most notably the president of the United States. This doll was manufactured by a company called DID. The president came with some extra hands, an American flag, a blue necktie, a watch, and a work stool (no idea why). He also comes with two different heads – one shouting, one calm-looking – but it’s a real pain to swap them; the plastic of his neck isn’t very elastic, so it’s very difficult to fit it over the thick neck post.

This is how the president makes love. Though Deunan definitely has the upper hand here because none of the president’s extra hands are shaped to hold a gun.

Why is the president pointing there? Well, because I don’t remember where I stashed his hands so I can’t swap it out. And besides, this president is a fan of booty; he’s not afraid to show that he knows what he likes.

I’ve got more doujinshi and more dolls, but since this post is already running long I’ll break it into a two-parter. Stay tuned!

Up to the tizzop

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular figures on Tsuki-board. There’s this K-On! girl, who’s just a skinny little kid. Black Rock Shooter‘s chest is practically concave. Miku’s head looks wider than her shoulder blades. Dead Master appears to be in desperate need of some Plumpy’nut. Anime girls generally trend towards the anorexic, but some studios appreciate the curvature, and Nitroplus definitely falls in that category. We’ve seen a lot of figures of Nitroplus characters and many of them are busty and full-figured, but Amanda redefines what it means to bring the boom.

Amanda Werner is sculpted and sold by Yamato. The product description lists her as being made in non-scale size, though at about 25 centimeters in height, she comes closest to 1/6 scale.

Amanda hails from the Gonzo and Nitroplus anime Blassreiter, yet another Japanese property with a garbled German title. She seems to wear a fairly typical jumpsuit as her normal uniform in the show, but here she’s wearing something a bit more revealing.

I’m not certain what she’s supposed to be doing, but her pose does fulfill the most important responsibility of any figure’s pose, which is to emphasize the ass. With her broad hips and chunky thighs, I’m guessing that Amanda’s sculpt will be a love-or-hate affair, but me, I think her ass is spectacular. Usually the face is the most important thing I consider when deciding whether to pick up a figure, but in this case, Amanda’s ass won me over.

Amanda’s face isn’t quite as great as her ass. Her eyes are very dark, the dominating irises combining with her headdress to give her an alien-like appearance. But that’s fine, since really, it’s her ass which is her best part.

The paint is pretty decent, although there isn’t much to remark upon since she’s showing so much skin. She’s got a fairly basic color scheme that isn’t exciting in the least.

I thought she was a Chi Alpha Tau sister at first, but apparently XAT stands for Xenogenesis Assault Team.

When I pulled Amanda out of her box, I was distraught to see that her ankle had broken off. After inspecting it, I found that her foot had simply fallen off of her leg peg. Some super glue fixed that problem, and while I’m hoping that she doesn’t suffer from any leaning problems, Amanda is a hefty figure so it would not surprise me if she did develop a lean.

I’m a big fan of girls with guns figures, but an outfit like this and an ass like Amanda’s elevates this figure substantially in my esteem. If someone asked me to design a figure, I’d probably come up with something like Amanda. Perhaps with a bit cuter face, but the strappy suit and the ass and the breasts are spot-on to what I’d want. A great figure with a great ass, that’s all I’m looking for.

Up to the tizzop

Last year, when figure sites posted up pictures of Velvet, the figure-buying collective gushed over Bubba’s latest creation. Would it make into mass-market form? If so, who would do the honors? Max Factory, maybe? They and Bubba had collaborated before, and Max Factory has certainly always had the full confidence of the fanbase.

Then Yamato announced that they would be doing the job. Exuberance evaporated into anxiety and exhilaration flash-boiled into exasperation.

I wasn’t too distressed since I like Yamato, but I wondered how she’d turn out; Yamato’s done a nice job with REFLECT’s sculpts, but I was curious as to whether they could do justice to Bubba’s masterpiece. How did she turn out?

Velvet hails from Vanillaware’s well-regarded PlayStation 2 RPG Odin Sphere. Being that I’ve played the game for maybe a half hour total, I haven’t yet gotten to play as Velvet, and as I might someday want to play it, I’ll hold off of consulting the character bio on Wikipedia and go straight to the figure. Velvet is a bit over 24 centimeters tall from her toes to the top of her hood; she’s listed as non-scale, which I don’t really understand since every figure obviously has a height ratio. Assuming Velvet is an average-sized girl, this figure is somewhere between 1/6 and 1/7 scale; I like 1/6 scale better so that’s what I’ll call this.

Bubba is most famous for his superlative bunny Haruhi sculpt, which never did made into PVC form. It was sold as a model kit almost three years ago; it doesn’t seem that old.

Velvet’s base is a six-pointed star with a faux-marble surface and an intricate raised plant motif embossed on its side. While I’m not certain of its significance or meaning, I can appreciate its appearance, and it looks gorgeous; it’s definitely a nice step up from the typical black or transparent round plastic base supplied with most figures. I had a bit of difficulty keeping her left foot attached the foot peg, but pushing down on it with a bit more pressure seems to have done the trick.

Velvet’s main accessory is a chain with a large red gem on each end. Yamato thoughtfully provides a couple of plastic half-bracelets to drape the chain over the back of each of her hands. However, much to my amazement, I managed to misplace those bracelets not more than ten minutes after opening up the box. Doubtless they’ll turn up around here somewhere, but in the meantime, I’ve just wrapped the chain around her hands.

One of the admirable things about Velvet’s sculpt is that she looks great from almost every angle. It’s a testament to Bubba’s talent that there are so many individual aspects here that stand out: the arch of her back, her elongated legs, her curved backside, her billowing skirt and hood, and especially her heavy-lidded, expressive eyes. Velvet has one of the most beautiful faces I’ve seen on an anime figure, and it’s remarkable how her demeanor seems to change with how you look at her; from behind, she looks cool and dismissive, from the side she wears a neutral expression, and from the front her face takes on an apprehensive cast.

The photographs of the original garage kit version showed Velvet with very liquid, luminous eyes, and I liked that look a lot, so I brushed a bit of floor wax onto PVC Velvet’s eyes. Model kit builders have known about the usefulness of Future floor wax for years, and I thought that it could make her eyes a bit more glossy. I didn’t use very much though and I’m not certain whether it had any effect.

Another aspect of Velvet’s appeal is of course the fan service angle. Her crop top looks as if it were made of nothing more than body point and her chest and rear are thrust forward and back, a pose that might seem excessively wanton but Velvet still manages to look classy. However, that dignity disappears when her skirt is pulled off as Yamato has happily made her skirt removable. Velvet separates just under her bustline and her skirt slides up and off.

Bubba and Yamato have done a superb job rendering her undergarments; no plain white panties here, Velvet is wearing some very sultry and very skimpy black panties that are sheer and sexy. Fully dressed or sans skirt, she looks fantastic either way.

Velvet is an amazing figure and I’m very pleased that Yamato did an excellent job with her. While I’m guessing that Alter will be putting forth their own rendition of Velvet at some point, it’s hard to imagine how they can top Yamato’s version and that’s not something that you can say about Alter all that often. We shall see.

Up to the tizzop

Here is yet another manifestation of Kanu Unchou, the preeminent poster girl of the Ikkitousen franchise. Some people – probably a lot of people, actually – would say that Kanu is ridiculously overrepresented and that the plastic used to manufacture Kanu figures could be better used elsewhere. Like on that Black Rock Shooter girl, for instance. I wouldn’t be among them, myself; I like Kanu, I’ve liked Kanu since she first appeared in Battle Vixens. I initially thought Hakufu and Kaku Bunwa were going to be the series’ main characters, so I’m quite happy that Kanu has received the love that she has. While there are about a billion figures of her out there, this version of Kan-san is a little bit different than the rest.

This particular Kanu is from Yamato and is part of their Project Dynamite lineup. Kanu is sculpted in a giant 1/5 scale by Toshirou of Cobra Kai. He’s sculpted several works that have received PVC treatment, such as Mai Shiranui, Saber, Koyori and a few figures derived from Tsukasa Jun’s artwork. I find it a bit amusing that his sculpting group takes its name from The Karate Kid, a white man’s take on Asian martial arts from the 80s.

At 38 centimeters long from the ends of her hair to the toes of her left foot, Kanu takes up a considerable amount of space. After breaking out the trusty tape measure, I’d guess that she’d stand about 35 centimeters tall if she were standing. Or capable of standing, anyway, being that she’s all chained up.

This particular version of Kanu comes from a scene in volume 12 of the manga where Kanu is subdued and captured by some of Sousou Moutoku’s goons. She also goes through some mild torture. And gets sexually assaulted. By another girl. As one might imagine, it’s a pretty cool scene.

It’s my can of sliced pears! I’ve talked about my can of pears before, and here it is, making its first appearance before the camera. Really, the can of pears deserves its own review, but one review wouldn’t be enough to do justice to its majesty; it would need an entire fan site devoted only to it to fully describe just how awesome it is.

The lewdness of this figure is readily apparent, but once you get past that I think its most distinctive element is the face. Toshirou’s faces are his trademark, and here you can see – once you get past the bangs – the heavy-lidded eyes and full lips that he favors. It’s an exceptionally expressive face and Kanu looks rather like she’s crying, which doesn’t entirely fit her character as a stoic, imperturbable warrior. Then again, the anime series also dispenses with that depiction by having her act like a lovesick fool when around Ryuubi, so I suppose the liberty can be excused.

I like the sculpting job quite a bit; Kanu’s given a reasonably realistic sculpt, with powerfully-muscled thighs, a well-defined stomach, and flowing tendrils of hair. The paint is more of a mixed bag; her skin has a very glossy appearance, and I’m not certain whether I like it or not. She’s got a nipple peeking out from under her shirt, but it’s painted the same color as her skin, so it’s both difficult to see and rather strange-looking once you do notice it. As for a base, no such thing is included or needed.

Her accessories include her chains, which attach without too much difficulty. The manacles on her wrists are split in half and are held together by small pegs; they separate easily. Additional chains attach to her upper arms via some small D-shaped clips, which are packed in their own little plastic baggy and are easily overlooked when unpacking the figure. I’ve seen an alternate version of this figure which includes a disembodied arm and hand complete with a staff to poke and prod Kanu while she’s down, but no such coolness is included here. I’m a bit disappointed by that; I can think of a bunch of ways that a free-floating arm would enhance my figure reviews.

It’s obvious that this figure is going to appeal only to a certain type of figure collector, and that quite a few people are going to be turned off by either the unusual sculpt or the figure’s context. I surely don’t mind its mature theme – heck, the name of this site is partially inspired by a peculiar anime subgenre – and I like how this Kanu looks. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite interpretation of her and I wouldn’t have purchased her at full price, but she was on sale at HLJ the other week and for the price I paid I’m pretty happy with this figure.

The only other review I’ve seen of this Kanu is over on Heisei Democracy, and Shingo’s enthusiasm is positively effulgent as he makes no bones about how much he likes it. You can also see the disembodied arm I spoke of in his pictures. Doesn’t the backdrop there look a bit like a bathroom?

Up to the tizzop

We have here Iroha, another female combatant from a fighting game. Iroha has had a peculiarly enduring presence in the figure world considering her limited exposure in the Samurai Shodown series. Here we have the latest figure in her likeness, sculpted by diskvision and manufactured by Yamato as part of their SIF EX lineup.

Thus far, Iroha’s only appearance in Samurai Shodown is in Samurai Shodown VI but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming an exceptionally popular subject for hobby goods. She’s been featured in the Queen’s Gate series of books, and has had something like a dozen different figures made of her.

This is my second Iroha figure, my first being Good Smile Company’s 1/5 scale version. Man my old pictures look awful. Yamato’s figure has a very similar pose and size but a very different overall sculpt; diskvision departs from the usual big anime-style eyes in favor of a more realistic face and body build.

Iroha is built in a solid 1/6 scale, standing about 27 centimeters tall including her hairband. The trailing tails of her back ribbon come detached, as do her curiously-shaped knives. I was a little confused as to how to attach her weapons at first, but the simple answer is that you have to pry open her fingers and slide them into her hands. I was a bit nervous about that but the plastic is fairly pliable. Her base is a big purple circle, which differs from the prototype shots which had her standing on a wooden pedestal.

If her clothing looks a bit loose, that’s because it is. Oddly, her maid tunic is cast as a separate piece and appears to be removable. I took a quick peek at her chest and found that she has no nipples, so I wasn’t all that inclined to take off her clothes. Personally, being that they didn’t bother detailing her chest, I would have preferred that Yamato glued her clothes down, since the visible clasps don’t look that great.

The rest of Iroha looks great, though. She’s got an expressive look to her face, as if she’s offering empathy or about to burst into tears. Or trying to suppress a sneeze.

Her sculpt is fantastic, with her chest and especially her backside being particularly nicely done. It’s great that she’s got some curves there, as all too often sculptors are disappointingly reticent to give proper definition to the rump. Iroha definitely does not have that problem.

I like her toeless socks. She’s got cute toes, and she even has toenails. I also like her splayed-out ribbons, even though they take up a huge amount of space. I’m not as big a fan of her cleavers, which look a bit clunky for close-range battle.

Painting is good, although admittedly, she’s got a pretty simple color scheme.

I ordered this figure as a bit of an afterthought, but now that I have it, I like Iroha much more than I thought I would. The figure looks great, the character design is awesome, and I always approve of big figures; put all that together and you have an outstanding figure.

Up to the tizzop

Hobby Link Japan had this free shipping dealy going on a couple weeks ago, and I took advantage of it to pick up Cammy. This version of Cammy comes from the Street Fighter Zero/Alpha games, as does my other Cammy. I like her Delta Red costume more, and it’s a bit curious that figure manufacturers seem to prefer depicting her in her Shadaloo uniform.

Cammy comes in 1/6 scale from Yamato. The original sculpt comes from REFLECT, which I assume is an alias for Mitsumasa Yoshizawa. He’s collaborated extensively with Yamato, primarily on Shunya Yamashita-inspired figures. It appears he also sculpted the other Cammy figure I own, although that one was manufactured by Kaiyodo.

Cammy is posed in a straightforward manner, standing at attention with her hand raised in a salute. Workmanship is pretty solid; the sculpt looks good and the paint is fine. In particular, there’s a nice wash effect which highlights the ribbing on her uniform, which is a nice touch. Her backside is a bit flatter than I like, which is a shame but not a surprise.

The base is a very small circle labelled with her name. It gives her a very small form factor, which I appreciate since I’m running desperately short on shelf space.

The art style in Street Fighter has varied over the years; Street Fighter IV features relatively realistic (albeit heavily-muscled) character designs, while the designs in the Street Fighter Zero games were more strongly influenced by anime. Obviously, this Cammy evinces a realistic styling.

Her face is expressionless, which is understandable given her status as an amnesiac Shadaloo assassin. Her pinpoint pupils give her stare a disturbingly vacant look, particularly in dark lighting.

I’ll admit it’s not easy to say a lot about this figure. I like it, but there’s not much that stands out. Cammy fans will probably be interested, but I don’t think there’s much here that will appeal to people who aren’t Street Fighter fans.

Up to the tizzop

Back to the backlog! This week has been filled with Kanu reviews and here we have another popular subject for figure manufacturers, Rei Ayanami, perhaps the superstar of the figure world. Rei’s legacy is as enduring and persisent as Brett Favre, and with at least two more figures up for preorder on Hobby Search as of the time of this writing, she is not going to go away anytime soon. This particular figure, set in 1/7 scale from Yamato, is inspired from a Shunya Yamashita drawing, and it’s been out for a while. I think I got this particular figure around a year ago, and a resin kit version has been around for even longer than that.

The Rei we all know and love in the anime is taciturn, placid, and anhedonic, but this figure departs from those traits and presents her as a seductive temptress, lips parted and waist tilted, hips cocked to one side.

The original resin kit swathed her head and one eye in bandages, and I think Yamato should have retained them for their PVC figure. They would have added a sense of vulnerability to Rei, accentuated by her raised arms and contrasting with her confident posture and cool gaze. Also, Shunya Yamashita’s drawings have always highlighted his flair for unconventional fashion, and nobody pulls off the sexy bandaged look like Rei does.

Paint and sculpting are both very good, and I haven’t noticed any obvious flaws. Well, maybe there’s one: she appears to be leaning forward, and I guess a dip in a hot water bath might be in her future. Besides her ankles, she is rather robust, as she has the ignominious distinction of being the figure that has taken the most swan dives off of my desk; I think I’ve knocked her to the floor twice, perhaps three times, and she doesn’t seem to be any worse for the experience.

This is a figure I like a lot. It puts a very appealing spin on a well-known character, dialing up Rei’s sexiness while retaining the core aspects of her character design. Add in Shunya Yamashita’s distinctive design touches and this figure is a winner.

Back up to the top

The first computer I ever used was an Apple II+ clone. By today’s standards, it is prehistoric in performance, with a 1 MHz clock speed and 48 KB of system memory. The particular computer I had featured two full-height 5.25″ disk drives which emitted a particularly loud series of clicks when in operation (I found the noise peculiarly soothing). Its built-in BASIC interpreter was amusing, and I spent many hours playing games like The Bard’s Tale and Wasteland, but otherwise it wasn’t a very useful computer. Certainly it gave me no idea of what computers would allow people to do twenty years later. However, I loved that ancient machine. You remember first things fondly, and sentimentality always cloaks their limitations, deficiencies, and flaws.

Like my old computer, I think this Kanu Uncho figure is great, not because it’s a beautiful figure (it’s definitely not), but because it’s the first one I owned.

Coming from Yamato in 1/7 scale, I acquired this Kanu on Christmas of 2005. There weren’t many figures then – Alter didn’t even exist and Max Factory seemed like a high-end boutique brand – and those that were around were usually small, non-scale figures about the same height as an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy. Yamato gets a mixed reception these days, but I had a couple of their transformable Macross toys and those were some of the highest quality VF-1 Valkyrie renditions available. Since I already like their products, I decided to pick up this figure.

Figure sculpts were decidedly more conservative then, and I remember being surprised that Yamato would market such a risque figure. Who can forget the ad copy that spoke of “the enormous talents of this lovely young lady”?

Her face looks rather strange. It definitely doesn’t look like her manga or anime counterpart, although as I recall, the Kanu in the first season of the anime didn’t look that great either. I think it’s the mouth that causes the problem; it’s oddly-shaped with visible teeth, and here she appears to be snarling. Or maybe it’s because you can see both of her eyes; the hair-over-one-eye look is something of a Kanu trademark.

Her skirt isn’t attached to her body, and it can be slid up to her waist if desired. There’s no real point in doing so though. I don’t know why they cast the skirt as a separate piece; perhaps it was easier to manufacture the figure this way or something. It can be cut off, but there’s not point to doing that either, as Yamato didn’t bother hiding the seams joining Kanu’s legs to her torso. Cast-off figures didn’t really appear for some months after Kanu’s release.

Here and in the manga, Kanu is presented as dark-skinned, but the anime and subsequent figures have curiously cast her as being much more pale, possibly because she has arguably become the principal character of the franchise. I like her better with the darker complexion.

Her polearm doesn’t attach to her either; you just balance it on her hands. Generally this works out fine, but I tend to knock it away whenever I move her around on the shelf because it’s so long.

Paint is not super fantastic, and she has a particularly prominent light-colored halo rimming her head. Seam lines are also highly conspicuous. Despite these technical problems, I think this is a great figure. She looks sexy, the size is good, and she got me into this deeply rewarding and horrifyingly expensive hobby.

I should have spent more time dusting her off. I wiped her down and blasted her with a can of compressed air, but I guess three and a half years’ worth of dust doesn’t come off without a fight.

Back to the tizzop