Tag Archives: Alter

Honolulu from Azur Lane (Light Armed Version)

Honolulu from Azur Lane

So after a protracted delay, we’ll take a look at another figure from Azur Lane. Today’s figure is USS Honolulu, the sister – both in terms of ship class and in-game portrayal – of USS St. Louis. Honolulu is, unfortunately, one of the less powerful shipgirls in Azur Lane, being of blue rarity, or the second-most common type of unit. However, in spite of her gameplay irrelevance, she’s one of the more popular characters in terms of artwork – and figures, with at least three existing. This one depicts her in her standard outfit, which is my favorite look for her.
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Baltimore from Azur Lane (Light Armed Version)

Baltimore from Azur Lane

Eighty-one years ago on this date, USS Baltimore was launched from her building yard in Massachusetts, and thus it’s an appopriate day to take a look at this figure of Baltimore from Azur Lane. Since her introduction she’s become one of the more popular Eagle Union characters, with five additional skins beyond her base design and at least four more figures in the pipeline. She’s one of my favorite characters, certainly amongst my top five – St. Louis, Enterprise, New Jersey, and Reno being the others, though the newly-introduced USS Kearsarge might make an argument to displace someone. That someone won’t be Baltimore, though; I’ve loved this character since she came out, and I’m ecstatic she’s getting so many figures.
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St. Louis from Azur Lane (Light Armed Version)

St. Louis from Azur Lane

Azur Lane has grown from relatively modest beginnings as a thematic competitor to Kantai Collection to a multimedia powerhouse in its own right. Its array of conspicuously – and shamelessly – sexy characters no doubt plays an outsized role in its success and apparently, no character’s fan art has a higher proportion of lewds than USS St. Louis. Few Azur Lane characters also have as many skins as St. Louis, and it appears that most of them are going to be receiving figures in the future. However, being that this is the first figure of St. Louis, it’s only apropos that it features her in her default outfit.
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Miyamoto Musashi from Fate/Grand Order (Alter Berserker Version)

Miyamoto Musashi figure

Alright, time to get back on track with figure reviews. Today we’ll take a look at Miyamoto Musashi, Type Moon’s genderbent interpretation of the famous Japanese swordsman and philosopher. This particular version presents her as a Berserker, and evidently depicts her Stage 2 appearance. Doubtless this means something to Fate Grand Order players but being that I’m not inclined to ever touch the game, I’m content to stay willfully ignorant as to the context of these descriptors.
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Scathach from Fate/Grand Order (Roomwear Mode Version)

Scathach from Fate/Grand Order

Fads come and go. Over ten years of collecting girly anime figures, I’ve seen series like K-On!, Black Rock Shooter, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and Ikkitousen have their day before fading off into memory. However, there is one series that has never seen its star dim and that, of course, is Fate/stay night, and all its myriad slash-random word spinoffs. The coterie of sexualized heroines have always found an appreciative audience, regardless of the ludicrous interpretations of their historical backgrounds. A Saber figure was one of the earliest figures that I owned, there is a veritable (and assuredly metaphorical) boatload of Fate-series figures in my review queue right now, and their ranks will only grow in the years to come. I have little doubt that should the universe someday collapse back into an infinitesimal singularity, the last atom to go will be the injection molded tip of Saber’s ahoge.
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Black Heart from Hyperdimension Neptunia

Black Heart from Hyperdimension Game Neptunia

We’ll take a short respite from reviewing hentai figures and instead look at this figure of Black Heart – not the demonic villain from the Marvel Comics universe, but the Sony-themed goddess from the Hyperdimension Neptune video game franchise. Compile Heart and parent company Idea Factory have made a number of anime-themed RPGs, most of which have languished in obscurity, but they hit it big with the Neptune series, which has since spawned numerous games, a mediocre television anime, but surprisingly few figures, meaning that any time we get to look at a figure from this series is a special moment.
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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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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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Yagyu Gisen from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls

Yagyu Gisen figure by Alter

Many, many companies make figures of the characters from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls, but nobody does it better than Alter. It has been a while since we’ve gotten a new figure of a core character, though; in fact, it’s been over a year since they released Naoe Kanetsugu. Charles d’Artagnan is still MIA, with not even a hint of a prototype sculpt, but presumably she’ll be along at some point in the future. In the meantime, today we will take a look at Gisen, the erotic seductress whose fiery passion and icy resolve conceal a variety of secrets.
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Naoe Kanetsugu from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls (Swimsuit Version)

Naoe Kanetsugu, the Warrior of Love from Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls

Back to the bikini figures, and today we’ll be looking at the self-described Warrior of Love, Naoe Kanetsugu.
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