One of the things that I am thankful for is that there is such a huge assortment of high-quality ero figures. Not all that long ago, it was scandalous for a figure company to even reveal a sculpted nipple and now we have, well, this sort of thing. There are a bunch of similarly explicit figures in the current review queue but we’ll start with Rie Kawai, who is all dressed up in a superb outfit.
Rie Kawai is the lead girl of Jellyfish’s 2003 eroge Lovers. The developer is remarkable for shipping just three products despite being in existence for almost two decades: Green, Lovers (about a boy and a girl who are lovers), and Sisters (about knocking up one’s sisters), with the upcoming title I Virgin (about a character who presumably is a virgin) still in development. Jellyfish is also particularly noted for animating the sex scenes in their games rather than simply scrolling descriptive text over static images while the voice actress squeals and squawks. And it’s real animation, not the cheesy After Effects distortion that some low-budget titles incorporate; it’s a little bit surprising that none of their games has ever gotten an ero anime adaptation, at least so far as I can recall.
However, Lovers has gotten a ton of doujinshi and artwork material from Taki Minashika, the artist of Lovers and Sisters. This isn’t even the first time we’ve looked at Rie here; I put up a post about a Rie pillowcase many years back. Funny how it doesn’t feel that long ago.
This figure is manufactured by Q-six. It’s the first Q-six product I’ve ever owned and as such, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The first impression is pretty good; the figure has a solid, substantial feel. Maybe even too much so; she’s quite top-heavy as one can see and hopefully this won’t cause any leaning issues in the future. This is also a very large figure; Rie is sculpted in 1/5 scale and stands about 29 centimeters in height, which is quite impressive given that she has a notably stubby body build. She comes with several accessories, and we’ll talk about them in turn in a bit.
As far as I know, Lovers is more of a romantic sort of eroge, even though some of the themes it touches on are a little more hardcore or kinky than the average Japanese high school porno game. Rie is often depicted in official artwork as enjoying sex. Here, though, she looks a little nonplussed, as if she is waiting for something, or as if she doesn’t quite know how to react to her situation. Interestingly enough, the other high-profile figure of a girl in bondage gear – Native’s Nana Chigusa – had a similar sort of expression.
One of the most appealing aspects – at least for me – of this figure is Rie’s outfit. She’s wearing a black leather bondage harness with cuffs around her thighs, wrists, and ankles. She also has a thick collar with a metal leash. It’s a great-looking outfit, a style that I wish more anime figure manufacturers would incorporate into their products.
It’s also a very lewd outfit, though it’s also not quite complete, as the straps that frame her crotch aren’t actually painted all the way between her legs. It’s not really a big deal but it looks a little peculiar if you examine this figure closely.
Rie’s design shows off a number of idiosyncrasies, including a very large head, relatively short and thick limbs, and a cylindrical body form with a broad waist.
She also has a rather compact backside. Her outfit does reveal her ass in an inviting manner but I think this is more of a boob lovers’ figure. Note also that although her arms are positioned behind her back, they aren’t actually restrained by anything, though I suppose an enterprising collector could improvise something to remedy that.
Rie comes with an instruction sheet (printed on sturdy, glossy paper) that illustrates how to disassemble her. It’s fairly straightforward, with her head and arms detaching. I found that on my figure, the head comes off easily but the arm pegs make for a very tight fit. Removing her arms allows her to be dressed in a white shirt that doesn’t quite cover her up. I recall her wearing a dress shirt in a number of her official illustrations but I don’t particularly care for it here.
She can also be depicted with an alternate arm pose. Some of the promotional photographs show her holding her leash in her white hand and a vibrator in her left hand. She could also be posed with one arm extended and the other arm held behind her back; I didn’t think to do so but I guess if one were going to do that, one could put a pointer in her outstretched hand, as if she were giving a lecture.
Here’s that vibrator. This is going to come in handy for future photo reviews.
I didn’t show a couple of her other accessories. She comes with a post that attaches to her base that can be used to hold her leash; I don’t really have a problem with it dangling off of her neck. She also comes with a sheet of pubic hair decals; Taki Minashika is, along with Satoshi Urushihara and Onigirikun, one of the few ero artists to prefer drawing pubic hair on their female characters. I like the shaven look more so I didn’t bother applying them; I’m not actually sure how they are affixed, anyway.
I like this figure quite a bit. Admittedly a large part of my bias is due to my fondness for her outfit and the whole bondage theme, but even without that I’ve always liked Minashika’s work (hence the reason I bought the pillowcase a few years back). It’s too bad that even though there is an abundane of ero figures on the market, there really aren’t that many in bondage gear (or wrapped in tentacles …). This is a fine example of one, though, and hopefully more will follow.
Hi Tier, I hope everything is all right? reviewing figures feels lonely these days lol
Interesting choice of figure ^^ Yeah, she’s actually quite cute. The wide torso gives her a small sturdy appearance, The little, chubby girl either has a less thin waist or no wide hips. Buttocks unfortunately seem to be less supported with bodyfat, compared to thighs and boobs. I think her puffy cameltoe entrance looks nice (â„ â„^â„á—¨â„^â„ â„) It’s an elaborately looking outfit that she’s wearing with a good amount of gloss. The feature with turnable arms is funny, but also really useful.
Ehh, I guess I can’t say anything’s too bad, other than I’ve had the flu for the last ten days or so and every time I think I’m getting better, I start feeling sick again. The really slow reviews is mainly due to my job, which I don’t like much and I’m really hoping to find a new job in the next couple of months (right now, I go to work, come home feeling exhausted, play video games till it’s almost bedtime, and then I think, “Crap, I should’ve done some work on the website”). Yeah, Rie kind of has an odd, almost barrel-shaped body. It’s unusual but I kinda like how it gives her less of a glamorous or exotic appearance than a lot of anime characters; it makes her seem a little more real, I think.
I see, take care of your health ^^
Ah I see, so this hasn’t really improved since you mentioned it first.
It’s unfortunate when work eats all your energy of the day.
Recently I also see myself in a situation with limited time for my favorite hobby, photography. I could nearly do that the whole week.
I also want to improve my Doll phography as fast as possible haha
In one week I can only dedicate my effort into one of both.
Yeah her body except the glamurous boobs lol is more influenced by the looks of a random short girl with imperfections. Speaking of that, It’s funny how the trend of “healthy proportions” that started with Sonico, ended at Pochako with even bigger boobs XD
Somehow I managed to catch a cold on three separate occasions last month. Hopefully that means I’ve built up a big store of antibodies. I’ve pretty much given up on ever trying to get good at photographing poseable figures; I don’t really have the imagination to do them justice.
I think I recently saw another character in the Super series; she was yet another massive tub of lard, and I’m starting to feel nauseous when I see one of Tsuji Santa’s designs,
Very nice, as my days of collecting come to an end, your reviews continue to entice me to buy. Definitely my kind of figure. Keep up the great reviews.
Thanks! Man the pace has been slow. Way too slow. At least I’ve got a couple of weeks off pretty soon so hopefully I’ll crank some long-delayed stuff out before the end of the year.
I love that figure i own the regular black one and the premium edition, i like the perfect paint job though it’s tough with the bondage suit on it is still very accurate, and i think the parts where you think that it’s not completely painted i guess it’s just meant to show that the suit is digging into her skin or something like that. She is impressive and heavy but yeah the arms were hard to place but the head is easy enough to handle. This was my first Q-six figure too and I’m not disappointed at all.
Yeah, I’m pretty happy with the way she turned out; Q-six made a pretty good first impression on me with Rie. I kinda wish I’d bought their Velvet Kiss figure a while back; it seems pretty hard to find now and I don’t think anyone else is ever going to make a figure of Kano.
Bondage is not my type ….I love a well castoffable figure but this outfit does not help her figure at all .It makes her butt square her facial expression does not help either ,nor her hair ….I like her tits as well as her chubby crotch though …..without those straps, of course ..
I vaguely recall that there’s a figure of her wearing socks and a smile while lifting her leg up, and that someone’s doing a PVC version of it. At least, I think I remember seeing that, somewhere.
You’re right about that. I think that there are three garage kits out there of Rie. All three of them have rather nice naturally droopy breasts, which I like a whole lot better than the ones portrayed here. In fact I didn’t get this figure because of that… On a side note, I think that for a 1/5 figure she’s a bit too short. At 29-30 centimeters, that would mean her “real” height would be just about 5 feet. I know that there are small and petite women out there, but I still feel there’s something a bit off. They could either have made her bigger, or labeled her with an other scale. But that’s just nitpicking on my part 🙂
The one PVC version you’re mentioning is made by Orca Toys. Although we’ve seen a painted prototype as long as ten months ago, there’s been no news since 🙁
I think her height is reasonable, since I can only think of a few (one, actually) figures where the scale divisor was given as a fraction. She’s definitely not 1/4 scale and 1/6 scale would be too small, so 1/5 scale seems about right, even if it’s really more like 1/5.3 or something (one thing I’ve occasionally noticed is that the size of the figure’s head sometimes provides a better ballpark estimation of the figure’s scale size than trying to work out its height from the figure’s measurements).
I know its not your thing to do display shots but I’ve always been curious as to what kind of set up you use for displaying them. I generally work in loose themes and if you did it in a similar fashion than I would kill to see your bondage figure shelf. Also any thoughts on Daiki’s Housewife Misao?
Uhh, man, at this moment, my figures are literally wherever there is any free space (if you’re curious, I’ve got Rie standing on Max Factory’s 7th Dragon Psychic’s figure box right now). I don’t really organize figures by theme or anything; I really display things by how much I like them, so my shelves are all mismatched. Honestly, I can’t really say I’m digging the Misao figure much; I like the idea but the character design isn’t a style I like. As far as older woman (relatively speaking) figures go, I kinda like the one that Daiki Kougyou is doing of an Oda Non character; I’m thinking about ordering that one.
Lol, I know the feeling where shelf space is going at a premium rate. I like Shiho as well, in fact more so probably than Misao. However, I can’t shake that feeling that I’ll regret not preordering her. Also, on a side side-note. I really like that Shiho has been shown to not be completely shaven down below. I was wondering if it will be part of her paint-job or addable decals perhaps.
Interesting; I’m guessing part of the paint job, then; I’d imagine it’s easier for the manufacturer to deal with and people who prefer the more mature look (who I’d imagine would be more interested in this sort of figure) tend to not mind an unshaven look.
hi,
One question
which use lenses to photograph the figures?