Kitana from Mortal Kombat (Pop Culture Shock Version)

Kitana from Mortal Kombat

As an even cursory inspection will make obvious, this site focuses mostly on figures from Japanese anime culture, and so we don’t spend too much time looking at figures made for white people. Every now and then, though, we’ll make an exception. Today is such a day; here we’ll take a look at Kitana, the ten thousand-year old princess of Edenia and leading lady of the Mortal Kombat series.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Like many genres reliant on 2D graphics, the side-scrolling fighting game has struggled to maintain its place in contemporary video gaming. The three major franchises from the 1990s – Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and The King of Fighters – floundered through much of the Nintendo 64/PlayStation and Xbox/PlayStation 2 generations, yielding virtually all their ground to technologically impressive 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter, Tekken, and Soul Calibur. Facing increasing irrelevance, Capcom, Midway, and SNK attempted to redefine their core fighting game properties to better fit a changing game market. Capcom rolled out a variety of versus fighters and even made a furtive attempt at incorporating 3D graphics into the Street Fighter EX series. Perhaps their boldest move was introducing an almost completely new character roster in Street Fighter III, their flagship fighting game; unfortunately, it went unappreciated by almost everyone but fighting game purists. Meanwhile, SNK actually went bankrupt in 2001, losing control of their game titles for several years before reforming as SNK Playmore. Midway’s Mortal Kombat, usually one of the more commercially successful video game franchises, fared better, at least in terms of initial sales, but the series descended further into self-parody, leading to a peculiar mash-up featuring characters from DC Comics. Midway then went bankrupt themselves, with control over Mortal Kombat passing to Warner Brothers.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Interestingly, all three franchises were resurrected at around the same time, and in much the same way: each company went back to the roots of their respective series, reinventing their games as stripped-down, technically-competent fighters (even Mortal Kombat, which, like Dead or Alive, has never been highly regarded for the precision of its gameplay). Capcom dropped Street Fighter III’s parry system and dispensed with the tag team-based insanity of the Versus games; SNK gutted their game’s roster (perhaps too much, as KOF XII is less well-regarded as KOF XIII). NetherRealm rebooted the plot of Mortal Kombat, incorporating an elaborate and lengthy story mode while dropping much of the over-the-top silliness of its predecessors.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

It is odd that Mortal Kombat is not just one of the most influential games in video game history; it is also one of the least influential fighting game series as well. Its importance is well-known to anyone who grew up in the 1990s; for one, it prompted Congress to scrutinize video game violence, which instilled a greater awareness of politics amongst video game players. (As a leading advocate of video game censorship, Sen. Joseph Lieberman was particularly reviled by gamers. Some years later, he would serve as Al Gore’s running mate during his presidential campaign, and one wonders if memories of his crusade against video game violence might have caused a few hundred voters in Florida to stay home on election day.) It convinced many gamers to buy a Sega Genesis because the Super Nintendo port of Mortal Kombat lacked red blood and fatalities (shortly thereafter, Nintendo dropped their proscription on graphic violence). At a time when video game playing was still considered a nerdy activity, it was one of the few game franchises to enter mainstream culture, spawning a couple of movies, television shows, a cartoon, a well-known techno theme song, and various comic books.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Within the fighting game genre, however, Mortal Kombat’s influence is less significant. That would have been difficult to predict back in the 1990s; indeed, between 1993 and 1994, a high-profile Mortal Kombat derivative was released on every console (Eternal Champions on the Genesis, Killer Instinct on the SNES, Kasumi Ninja on the Atari Jaguar, and Way of the Warrior on the 3DO). Tellingly, aside from the 3DO game, all of those games were developed by first or second party studios: testimony to the respect held for Mortal Kombat’s commercial success. Numerous, lesser-known games followed, and for a while it looked like Mortal Kombat represented the future of games. A number of developers attempted to replicate Mortal Kombat’s use of digitized sprites, incorporating video-recorded footage into their games. (It may be difficult to remember or even believe that full-motion video was a big, huge thing in video games back in the 1990s, but it really was.)

Then the PlayStation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64 came out and 3D graphics became all the rage. Suddenly, Mortal Kombat’s digitized sprites looked silly. The FMV genre vanished overnight and with it went the real-life actors. At around the same time, id Software released Doom II, popularizing the first-person shooter; gamers could now inflict graphic violence in a far more immersive and visceral experience than they could in a side-scrolling fighting game. Without two of its signature elements, Mortal Kombat had little left to influence other fighting games. Even its control scheme has faded out; while every fighting game fan knows what a fireball or dragon punch motion is, Mortal Kombat’s unusual move system – based on discrete joystick taps to initiate special attacks rather than quarter or half-circle movements – has, to my knowledge, not been used in any other significant 2D fighting game. (Perhaps Mortal Kombat was simply ahead of its time, though; its joystick inputs, as well as its usage of a standalone block button, have become core features of many 3D fighting games.)

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Mortal Kombat can’t really lay claim to having the most innovative character designs in fighting games, either – at least, not initially. Street Fighter’s characters are iconic, and if Ryu, Ken, and Chun Li seem a bit too familiar, it is because they set the pattern followed by almost every fighting game developer thereafter. SNK and Namco have some of the most interesting, stylish, and unique character designs in fighting games. In contrast, Mortal Kombat’s characters look pretty much like an American take on Japanese ninja stereotypes – which is, of course, exactly what they are. Kitana is certainly no exception; she and her counterpart Mileena were initially designed as less-dressed female analogues to Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Her design also has parallels to the X-Men’s Psylocke, another ninja from American pop culture. The Wikipedia article for Kitana includes a quote from series co-creator John Tobias that her name was created by combining a couple of Japanese words to form a generically Asian name; comically, there is a kanji for “kitana”, which means dirty or impure, among other things. (Another note regarding Mortal Kombat’s take on Asian language; my dad, being Japanese, used to crack on the game when he heard “Raiden wins”; he’d always mutter, “Morons, it’s rye-den, not ray-den!”)

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

In the Mortal Kombat universe, Kitana is the daughter of Queen Sindel and the rightful princess of Edenia. Initially, she serves the evil tyrant Shao Kahn; after learning of his deceptions and atrocities, she turns against him. In the most recent Mortal Kombat game, she’s depicted as resolute, fearless, and caring, but also rather headstrong and impulsive. She is close friends with Jade, who serves as an advisor and bodyguard. Mileena is an evil clone of her who constantly seeks to usurp her throne; their sibling rivalry is a core part of their storyline together.

There is a longer, game-by game look at the Mortal Kombat series up at Hardcore Gaming 101; it makes for very interesting reading for anyone who is into video game history.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

With that lengthy bit of historical exposition out of the way, let’s talk about this statue. Kitana is manufactured by Pop Culture Shock Toys, who’ve been in business for a while, making statues and busts of mostly Amreican properties (although they’ve also done one of the few Cammy figures of her in her Delta Red uniform). This statue is 1/4 scale but to say that it is large doesn’t really do it justice; compared to most PVC figures, it is absolutely enormous. Let’s compare it with Buddy, a fairly average-sized 1/8 scale figure.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Buddy’s total height is about level with Kitana’s knee, and that’s only because Kitana isn’t standing up straight. Not including the base, she’s about 40 centimeters in height to the top of her head, and in excess of 50 centimeters tall in overall height. She is really, really big.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Unfortunately, she’s also really, really fragile. For one thing, her hands are separated from her body for ease of packing, and they attach to her body by magnets. Unfortunately, the magnets don’t seem to be very strong, and the fit of her hands into her wrist sockets is suspect at best. When I first set up this statue, her right hand fell off, scratching the paint on her leg. My attempts to repair the damage exacerbated the problem (note to anyone who owns this statue: do not use rubbing alcohol on it), and I e-mailed Pop Culture Shock to see if they would be able to repair the damage. Much to my surprise, they offered to replace the entire body, for free. I was pretty happy about that and I have to give their customer service a big thumbs-up, since they didn’t have to do that.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Unfortunately, I can’t give the same praise – or any praise, really – regarding their quality assurance process. The replacement body looks great but doesn’t seem to fit the old body’s hands, base, or loincloth part (which I kept). The hands are particularly problematic; while photographing this statue, her right hand fell off again, breaking into four pieces. Happily, it didn’t scratch the paint, and the breaks were clean enough that I could glue them back together again. That’s why her wrists are wrapped up in black tape here; I want to present all the figures I review in their natural state, but I’m not dumb enough to tempt fate three times. I figure athletes and fighters are always wrapping various body parts with tape, anyway, but I’m probably going to need to find a better solution for keeping her hands in place.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Similarly, her front loincloth flap is a separate piece which doesn’t quite fit properly on this body, though it did on the old one. This is less of a problem to me since the risk of detachment is not as great as it is with her hands, but it’s still annoying, as it is obvious that the waistband strap doesn’t line up correctly.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

This statue is obviously based on Kitana’s appearance in the 2011 Mortal Kombat video game. Notably, there’s a heavy emphasis placed on Kitana’s musculature; her abs and biceps are strongly defined, giving her a very distinctive appearance compared to many other figures or statues of female fighting game characters. Personally, while ripped muscles isn’t that high up on my list of appealing physical traits in female character design, I really like how Kitana’s body looks here; despite being a noble-born princess, she looks like a girl who is built to tussle.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

One of the interesting things about the 2011 Mortal Kombat game is that most of the female characters are next to naked, but their physical appeal doesn’t really get played up during the course of the game; they just happen to look that way and none of the characters, male or female, really remark upon it. Indeed, even though its obvious that the game designers wanted their female characters to look sexy, they spend much of their time covered in blood and gore (and getting killed, of course) that it’s sort of difficult to think too much about their appearance. I thought that this approach to character design was pretty cool, considering that there’s this odd philosophy nowadays that mandates that female characters cannot be effectively realized unless they are desexualized. I’m not sure where this puritanical viewpoint comes from or why these two things are conflated. (Personally, I found a recent television advertisement for a Battlefield game – in which warfare was labeled as “glorious” and “mind-blowing” – to be far more offensive than any female video game character design I’ve seen. But I digress.)

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

At any rate, Kitana obviously doesn’t wear a lot of clothes. What she does wear looks very nice; it is textured and painted with a metallic blue paint that looks beautiful. The best part of her outfit, though, is the way it shows off her body. Unfortunately, the paint of her skin doesn’t quite show the same quality; her skin is painted a flat brown which looks a little odd, as Kitana is usually depicted with a light-colored skin tone.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Kitana is posed in a combat stance, fans lifted, with her back strongly arched, reminiscent of the way many comic book artists used to draw back in the 90s. This pose highlights her rear, which is covered by just a thong. It looks great, though I wish that her character design dispensed with the front loincloth flap, as her 2P costume does; I’m not too big a fan of those sorts of front flaps.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Her face is mostly covered up by her ninja mask, and so it’s virtually impossible to read any emotion in her expression. Pop Culture Shock did sell an exclusive version through Sideshow Toys that had a separate head with no mask, but I didn’t buy that version. I think her face looks adequate, but in truth there isn’t a whole lot to look at there.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Her fans look nice, though on my particular copy, I guess I’d say they looked nicer before I broke her right hand weapon.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

She comes with a very elaborate (and very heavy) base that evokes the sort of busy, apocalyptic fighting grounds that the Mortal Kombat characters do battle upon. There’s some nice looking modeled water splashing onto the shoreline, and a gigantic disembodied hand that looks like it’s going to snatch Kitana up. I can’t quite remember what stage this might be, though I do remember there being a stage with an inflowing tide. To complete the scene, a large spear and smaller wooden stick are provided that slot into sockets built into the base.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

I’ll close out this writeup with this one last shot, showing off perhaps her best aspect.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

Kitana is a statue that evokes love and heartache at the same time. I really like the way she looks; she looks beautiful, defiant, and dangerous all at once. Her muscular body is absolutely sexy – to me, anyway. Kitana is one of my favorite fighting game characters so I’m very happy that Pop Culture Shock made such a large and ambitious statue of her. But then there are the QA problems, which, judging from what I’ve read elsewhere, are an endemic problem with this figure. Indeed, a number of collectors wound up returning Kitana for refunds. I like this statue enough that I never really considered doing so, but it grieves me that it falls short in some very basic respects, such as being able to keep her hands stable (I’m still not yet sure what I’m going to do with her left hand, which I’ve since removed, as I don’t trust tape to be a long-term solution). I’m hopeful that Pop Culture Shock will do more statues of the female Mortal Kombat characters – they’ve announced plans for Mileena, but I’d like to see Jade – but I’m also hesitant to go all-in on a piece, not without hearing reports from other collectors first. Hopefully their future products will look as good as Kitana, without the fragility and stability problems.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock

I bought Sideshow’s Psylocke statue a while back, and I wound up having to ask for a replacement as well due to paint flaking (this doesn’t really say much good about large-sized polystone statues, does it?). I had to destroy my existing piece, so here are the photos of smashed Psylocke. Considering how fragile polystone parts are, I was surprised at how difficult it was to break the statue apart; even smashing it with a hammer took a good deal of effort to shatter it.

Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
Kitana statue by Pop Culture Shock
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28 Responses to Kitana from Mortal Kombat (Pop Culture Shock Version)

  1. Asa says:

    Wow, what a trip down memory lane. Also some useful information of what came later. I haven’t had any consoles since the SNES/Megadrive, so missed the 64bit era entirely. MK was one of my favourite games way back when, though. Though I ended up mostly just playing story/ladder mode, because my brother would rage when I beat him and yank the cartridge out of the console, or throw controllers across the room. Even threw his (CRT) TV out of the window of his 4th story apartment, with console attached, once. Major rage issues.

    I plan to get a PS4 next year, probably. Having skipped two decades of consoles, it’s going to be a bit strange to get back in to, but I feel I probably should. I bought a 3DS a few months ago due to Pokemon X/Y hype. That’s raised my interest in modern console gaming.

    Anyway, this is one bigass statue. I have Buddy, so I was thoroughly shocked at that comparison shot. One big bitch. I don’t really remember much about the characters, was she even in MK II? I think I only played I and II. I know a III came out but I don’t recall having it. But then, it was 20 years ago, so I don’t remember much of anything back then. As time goes by more and more of the past blurs together.

    • Tier says:

      I missed most of that era as well; I was still a big Sega fanboy then, but the Saturn never got the support in the United States that it deserved. It’s sort of ironic that Sega of America resisted bringing over RPGs when it was Squaresoft’s PS1 support that played a big role in killing them in the US. When it became apparent that the Saturn was on its way out, I played PC games instead … there were some really great games that came out around that time (all the Infinity Engine RPGs, Wing Commander Prophecy, Might & Magic VI … I have great memories of all of them).

      Haha, wow, that is crazy … and, from a detached perspective, hilarious as hell. I’m a very passive video game player; I just sit there, inert, whether I’m really enjoying the game or becoming intensely frustrated. I’ve never broken a controller or anything; I can’t even imagine destroying a TV.

      I did enjoy MK1 and MK2 a lot as well; I was never very good at it (and am still pretty terrible at just about every fighting game), but I always liked playing them (at home, anyway; I used to go to the arcade on the Army base in Seoul but I’d usually play the 2D shooters, since the MK and SF cabinets were always occupied by players who could kick my ass, and being eleven or twelve years old, I couldn’t waste those quarters).

      I recently bought a PlayStation 3, during the Black Friday discount; it’s still sitting in my living room, unopened. A friend of mine got an Xbox One and while Forza 5 is really, really pretty, I think I was most interested in trying to get Kinect to recognize verbal commands. I guess that’s not really a compelling reason to get a new console and I’m not sure when I’ll get either the new Xbox or PlayStation (I’m not sure which I prefer), but I’m sure I’ll get one or both eventually.

      She is huge indeed! Yeah, she’s in MK2; she and Mileena were playable, though Jade was not (Sonya wasn’t playable either, so Kitana and Mileena were the game’s token female characters). She had a much simpler appearance than; both of them were just wearing ninja masks and tank leotards.

      • Asa says:

        The Saturn and Dreamcast really weren’t marketed here at all, and ended up flopping entirely. Though the entire console market and environment was changing in that time, anyway. Sega didn’t keep up. I do miss them, but at least they still make games (for Nintendo, mostly it seems).

        I have been a PC gamer since before consoles, even, but after the 16bit era ended I went strictly to PC. Recent years have seen that become subpar, since just about all games we get are crappy console ports. At least I have Star Citizen to look forward to, though. (if you liked Wing Commander, you should really check it out).

        • Tier says:

          Yeah, their myopia was pretty frustrating, though I guess one can now look back in history and see a lot of consoles and companies that buried themselves through a lack of vision.

          The PC scene is kinda depressing; I went to an electronics store to buy a PS3 and was shocked that the PC section was basically a one foot-wide section of shelf; I remember not so many years ago, it was three or four shelves, each double-sided and around forty or fifty feet long. I guess digital distribution is the way to go but personally, I still much prefer buying boxes. (Not that I’ve even been doing much of that on PC; I’m not a big FPS fan and the glut of high-profile shooters doesn’t interest me all that much.)

          I’ve heard of Star Citizen – mostly in the context of its fund-raising rather than its gameplay, admittedly – and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it; if I remember right, Chris Roberts is doing the game and it’ll be interesting to see if he can launch another space-based game franchise. I’m also keeping an eye on Wasteland 2, another Kickstarter-funded game; the first game is one of my favorite games of all time so I’m hoping the sequel can live up to expectations.

  2. DP says:

    While I enjoy your photography, let me tell you that I also really appreciate the lengthy background essays you do on some of the figures. (I guess that makes you the Playboy of bishojo figure photography sites: we really do read you for the articles…)

    • BostonBrandon says:

      Agreed

    • Tier says:

      Thanks XD I really enjoy history, so getting to write this sort of article is a lot of fun. I always like writing posts where I can go into background and history and trivia rather than just jabbering about seam lines or the glossiness of the paint and such.

  3. Wieselhead says:

    So polystone is not the best material for pretty figures after all.

    Only played MK on Game Boy what was fun, I liked all the shooting moves and the music.
    I liked Sub Zero and his design relatives, but also Jade and Kitana, both looked so similar 😀

    The figure is super big haha. I like the eastern/persian look of her, black hair,, tanned skin and her characteristic face.

    I prefer it more feminine, but a few more muscles are nothing bad, the sculpting looks nice, especially her buttocks, only her back is too broad for my taste. Reminds me 300 what I rewatched a week ago.

    Picture 10 and 30 are really nice.

    • Tier says:

      It’s kinda funny, I read a figure forum where most of the products that are discussed are large-sized polystone statues, and there’s always a bit of disdain for PVC, which I don’t really understand because PVC looks a helluva lot better to me. I mean, if Alter ever decided to make 1/4 scale figures, I’m sure they would be breathtaking. Not that Kitana isn’t eye-catching herself (at least due to her size, and from a good distance), but I don’t really see what the advantages of polystone are (perhaps it’s easier to manufacture? I dunno.).

      Haha, playing a fighting game on a Game Boy must’ve been an interesting experience. Looking back at video game history, it’s pretty amazing how we got by with those tiny monochrome screens and only two buttons. Still, there’s something really charming about how low-tech those games were; somehow, there seems to be a purity there that a lot of contemporary games lack.

  4. BostonBrandon says:

    I picked up the latest ps3 Mortal Kombat a few months ago and was very pleased. There is a new system in place where you accumulate points and can spend them on various things like “headless combat” or different costume options for the characters. The gameplay is good and the endings for most characters at least are pretty fun.
    Considering the last fighter I owned was Mortal Kombat 3 for the first play station it was very surprising at how quickly I became obsessed. Definitely worth a try and getting to fight as Freddy Krueger was a lot better than say Superman or anyone from the dcu for that matter.
    Brutal fatalities, great x-ray special moves, and superbly funny babalities.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, I picked it up on the 360, mostly on a whim; I hadn’t paid much attention during the game’s development, but I saw that it got really good reviews and people said that it played like the original Mortal Kombat games. I was really surprised by how much I liked it; I played through the whole story mode, which is not something I often do with fighting games, particularly one as lengthy as MK’s. I still suck at the game, though.

      • BostonBrandon says:

        I usually rely on Sindel to reach Kahn before switching to whoever’s ending I’m after.

        • Tier says:

          I typically pick the most attractive female character in fighting games, so Kitana is the character I’m best with, as she’s the character that I play with the most. I had a rough time with the story mode, though, so I had to play as all the characters and I’m particularly bad with most of the ones introduced in MK3 or later (I could get by with muscle memory with some of the original characters like Sub-Zero and Scorpion).

  5. bear says:

    This is quite an imposing figure, not just in size, but thanks to her powerful pose as well. It’s kinda funny how I keep getting (probably) unintended impressions from this figure. Something about her masked face (her eyes?) and her upper arms makes my trap senses tingle. The joint on the side of her thong keeps screaming “cast-off” even though it obviously isn’t.

    • Tier says:

      I was surprised that they went with an action pose; it seems like Sideshow and PCS usually go with relatively staid glamour poses for their large-sized female figures. I kinda wish more of her loincloth were removable, so that she’d just be wearing a bikini bottom; I think it’d look better, and it would avoid all the unpleasantness of the poor fit.

  6. aggrogahu says:

    That’s quite the lengthy history on fighting games. Besides anime, I’m also a pretty big fan of the fighting game community and I rather enjoy when those two hobbies cross paths every now and then, though the only fighting game figure I have is Cammy. I really ought to grab a Soul Calibur figure one of these days.

    • Tier says:

      It was going to be even longer! I had planned to write a bit about how Mortal Kombat came at a pivotal time in my own childhood, since I was about eleven or twelve that’s sort of when you start becoming more aware of the world, particularly what is socially “cool” and such. But I figured it was already too long and nobody really cared about that, anyway.

      It’s a bit unfortunate that there aren’t more figures of fighting game characters; I had really hoped that Kotobukiya might expand their Bishoujo line to the Mortal Kombat series, since it fits the profile of the audience they’re going after with those figures. I’m happy to see Cammy getting the Bishoujo treatment, though.

  7. Tian says:

    Kinda surprising to hear about the quality issues. It’s good that they sent you a replacement body I guess.

    I really like what Pop Culture Shock did with the body. The musculature makes her look powerful, but it isn’t distracting like with Listy from Queen’s Blade.

    Your writing on the history of vfighting games really took me back a ways. I haven’t been the biggest MK fan since downloading MKII for the PS3. That AI is straight up bullshit. Back in the day, my preference was for 2D fighters until my buddy showed me Soulcalibur on the Dreamcast. It was the stunning mocap and responsive controls that sold me on it. Nowadays I’m too old and slow to play any fighting games 🙁

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, I was happy to get the replacement body but it’s kind of a mixed bag. Sorta like when a superstar athlete returns from an injury and you’re all thrilled but then he promptly gets hurt and you get that numb, dazed feeling again.

      Haha, yeah, it’s too bad arcades have died; kids don’t know how cheap some of the AI programming was (though Dead or Alive 3’s boss was about the cheapest fighting game boss I’ve ever played against). I like 3D fighting games a lot, but I think my preference is still for 2D games, just because most of them follow the Street Fighter pattern of control and I can usually throw out some special moves just by rolling out dragon punch and hadouken motions, whereas I never really learn the combos in 3D games.

      I’ll be honest though, as much as I like Soul Calibur, I probably spend as much time in Create-a-Soul mode, trying to make characters in bikini armor and in training mode, using Ivy’s whip moves on Taki and Seung Mina.

      • Tian says:

        Too soon man… also sucks about Kobe.

        My split between create a soul and actual fighting is about 80/20.

        • Tier says:

          Haha, did I ever tell you about the hex I placed on the Lakers? I’ve got enormous respect for Kobe Bryant but hearing about him going down again cracked me up. Nothing personal against him or anything, but any sort of misfortune that happens to the Lakers makes me happy.

  8. NegativeZero says:

    “That’s a big *****!” lol. All joking aside, she is beautiful. Her fragility is scary but Sorry to hear about her hands and weapons breaking, I can’t imagine how that may have hurt. The size, the color, the sculpting; all amazing. I own this through you 🙂 Thanks for the great write up.

    • Tier says:

      That cracked me up too XD Yeah, it was kinda funny; I had the camera to my eye when her fan started falling (there wasn’t enough tape) and I got all confused, since my figures normally aren’t moving when I photograph them. Then I lowered the camera and saw the fan fall, almost in slow motion. I’m glad I was able to find all the pieces, at least.

  9. John says:

    Heh, I was thinking of getting her myself, but then she got buried by a bunch of new bookmarks and I completely forgot about her.

    Then upon seeing your review I kicked myself for forgetting about her, but then I read about those quality issues…
    Maybe I should get her off ebay, but $450 is quite a bit. Then again, she’s 20″ tall.

    Quality issues aside, I absolutely love the design, and by design I mean visible muscles. It is so rare to see women portrayed with muscles, even if they’re supposed to be top-tier fighters or warriors. Maybe I should set down the cash for her after all…

    As for polystone, what I’ve read so far indicates that the material allows for finer detailing as opposed to pvc, and a different and higher quality paint can be used on it. I’m not enough of a figurine aficionado to say whether that’s true or not though. Aside from the base, it doesn’t look like this figure would benefit from polystone at all.

    • Tier says:

      If you do want her, BigBadToyStore still has her in stock at her normal retail price, I think. Yeah, I really love the design as well; in fact, had she not had those quality control problems, she might have been #1 on that top-five figure list I posted recently. It is really too bad because her sculpt is so amazing (and I also really like her basic character design).

      I’m not really a materials expert myself so I could not say for sure; I know a few Japanese companies have shown how they make figures and it looks like they use a lot of CAD programs and 3D printers. Curiously, aside from their construction material, a lot of 1/4 scale figures don’t seem to feature as much intricate detail as many smaller figures, even 1/8 scale figures. That seems backwards as the larger figure ought to be easier to work with.

  10. Corey says:

    Sorry about leaving a comment, I wanted to contact you directly but I don’t see an email address or contact form. I love your blog and was wondering if you would be interested in doing some cross promoting with my site? Feel free to email back at your leisure and we can talk about it.

    Thanks and keep up the great work!

    • Tier says:

      Thanks for the kind words. I do actually have an e-mail address (though it’s squirreled away on the About page, since I’m generally really bad about responding to e-mail). What sort of cross promotion did you have in mind?

      • Corey says:

        Maybe featuring some of the NSFW stuff on my site and link back to here. I’ll email you directly. I found your email address on your About page. Thanks

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