Preorder Outlook XLIII

Welcome to the >10,000 yen edition of the preorder outlook, in which almost every figure here sports a five-digit price tag, even though none of them are particularly large or overly elaborate. Indeed, quite a few of these would’ve cost perhaps 7,500 yen a few years ago – but then, the USD-JPY exchange rate was far worse, so I suppose it works out to about the same cost. It doesn’t quite feel that way, though. Regardless, if I’m disinclined to pay those prices, there’s nothing to do but to quit the hobby, and since I’m not about to do that, let’s take a look at some of the figures that have caught my eye in the last month.
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Mu-12 from BlazBlue: Alter Memory

Mu-12 from BlazBlue Alter Memory

Arc Systems Works has been pushing the BlazBlue franchise hard in recent times. Notably, the fifth and most recent console iteration of the game – BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Extend – is due for release in the North American market in just a few days. In addition, its ofttimes incomprehensible plot has been extended by a dizzying array of multimedia: spinoff games – including, rather incongruously for a fighting game series, some visual novels – manga, light novels, and a poorly-received anime series. Concomitant with this expansion is the sort of product push that the better-known Guilty Gear series never received, comprising a variety of wall scrolls, stickers, hugging pillowcase covers, and of course, figures such as this one. This isn’t even the first Mu-12 figure to hit the market – that distinction goes to FREEing’s version from well over a year back – but being that the last time Alter made a figure of an Arc System Works character turned out quite well, the redundancy is not at all unwelcome.
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Hell Seducer from the Shungo Yazawa Original Figure Series (NSFW)

Hell Seducer from the Shungo Yazawa Original Figure Series

I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only reviewer to cover this figure. However, despite its obscurity, I’ve known about this figure for quite a long time. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it a holy grail figure; I’d even been thinking about looking for the garage kit and trying to assemble it myself, as I never expected it to become available in a prepainted format. Much to my surprise and delight, it has, though courtesy of a manufacturer that I have no personal familiarity with and whose back catalog does not at all inspire confidence. But then again, when you’re working with a leering skeleton feeling up a naked, chained-up girl, how can you really go wrong?
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Preorder Outlook XLII

It’s time to look at some figures that are available order. It feels like it’s been a slow year for figures but quite a few nice ones have gone up for order in just the last week or so. Strangely, there aren’t any Alphamax or Skytube figures on this list, but there are still quite a few quite a few lewd figures that have caught my interest.
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Mikan Yuuki from To Love-Ru Darkness (School Swimsuit Version)

Mikan Yuuki from To Love-Ru Darkness

The plan was to do a porno figure review but the gods of lighting and set design are fickle. Instead, with the To Love-Ru series getting quite a bit of love from figure makers this year, we’ll take a look at Alter’s Mikan Yuuki. This is the second figure of Mikan that they’ve released; I didn’t get the first, as I generally prefer figures that are standing upright, or at least kneeling. Considering its origins, it is perhaps not as lewd as one might expect, but there’s something to be said for a relatively innocuous figure of a cute anime girl.
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Satellizer el Bridget from Freezing Vibration (Y-Shirt Version) (NSFW)

Satellizer el Bridget from Freezing Vibration

We go from the regrettably miniature to the sublimely large today. The sheer size of FREEing’s 1/4 scale figures constitutes a large portion of their cachet, with their sculpts typically towering over a foot in height, or in this case, length. Their appeal is not based on size alone, however; these products almost always depict sexy anime girls in showy or compromising positions. Satellizer is obviously no exception.
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Ines from Busou Shinki (Image Model Version)

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It’s time for another review of a figure made by a company I am not at all familiar with. Technically this figure – of Ines from Konami’s Busou Shinki series – isn’t the first Ques Q figure, I’ve bought; I have their Neptune buried somewhere in my closet, I think, and I don’t remember anything about it other than being amused that whoever packed the box put the figure in backwards. I’m a little surprised that doesn’t happen more often. Despite not knowing much about the manufacturer or their track record, it wasn’t too difficult a decision to order this figure, for reasons that should be apparent in the image above. However, this figure did come with a very high price tag, and I felt some trepidation as to whether I would feel that my purchase was worthwhile. Is this figure satisfactory? Well, yes and no – always an annoying thing when one is a collector, to find something that is almost but not quite everything you were hoping for.
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Preorder Outlook XLI

It’s been a couple of months since the last preorder outlook post, so let’s take a look at some of the figures I’m thinking about buying. There’s no Alter figure on this list, which has become a depressingly regular occurrence of late. There’s quite a few porno figures, which has happily become a much more common thing in the last couple of years. Sometimes I have to wonder whether this is really all that healthy for the hobby or anime in general but well, social norms change rapidly. On to the preorders.
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Chris Yukine from Senki Zesshou Symphogear G (Bunny Style Version)

Chris Yukine from Senki Zesshou Symphgear

And we’re back to our irregularly-scheduled program of figure reviews. Today we’ll be looking at Chris Yukine, one of the lead characters from Senki Zesshou Symphogear. For some reason or another, the series hasn’t gotten a lot of figures, despite apparently having been popular enough to receive a two-season anime adaptation. In fact, a quick survey suggests this is the only one scaled-size PVC figure from the show. This is also the first figure I’ve bought that is made by Aquamarine, a company that seems to be under Good Smile Company’s corporate aegis, and it’s always interesting to see whether a figure from a new company can measure up. That is, unless the figure is terrible, but happily, this figure of Chris is anything but.
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Year Six Retrospective

Azone's Inori Yuzuriha 50cm doll

As usual on February 23, today we celebrate the anniversary of this website – Tentacle Armada is six years old today. It’s sort of an anticlimactic anniversary, as I have been far from diligent in keeping this website updated. Oh well. On the other hand, just the fact that this site has been around that long is a decent feat, I think.

Usually I try to include some sort of thematic photo up at the top of this post but I couldn’t really think of any auspicious way to denote a six year anniversary, so instead there’s an unrelated picture of Inori wrapped up in tentacles.
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