Tag Archives: bodysuit

Kiriko Hattori from Enka Oudou Dai Shogun

written on January 31, 2011 by Tier
Yamato Kiriko Hattori from Dai Shogun Figure Review

Here is a riddle: gather together a major figure manufacturer, a world-famous anime artist, and a graphics studio whose portfolio includes contributions to Metal Gear Solid 4, Tales of Vesperia, and Valkyria Chronicles, and what do you get? The answer is absolutely nothing other than a pair of boobie mousepads and a figure. Enka Oudou Dai Shogun was touted as a multimedia event, but I haven’t seen any of its media apart from a couple of illustrations in Shunya Yamashita’s One Voice artbook. It looks like nothing more will come of it and presumably it will thus be consigned to the dustbin of memory, just like Shuraki. Anyone remember Shuraki? There were some good figures from that series. Fortunately, Kiriko is a fine figure as well.
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Asuka Langley Shikinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Test Plugsuit Version)

written on December 26, 2010 by Tier
Alter Asuka Langley Shikinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion Figure Review

Alter released their second Rei Ayanami figure back in 2008. Collectors waited for an Asuka counterpart but none was forthcoming. That was strange because when you have Rei, you have to have Asuka too. They need each other, like Mario and Luigi, peanut butter and jelly, Asians and rice, schoolgirls and tentacles. Time passed and Alter’s Rei faded from memory until they finally got around to making a movie version of Asuka. And yet, it doesn’t really feel like a counterpart to me. She’s stylistically dissimilar from Rei – she’s got a perch of stone and twisted metal rather than just a flat black plate to recline on, and from observing her, it’s easy to discern how Alter’s production quality has improved since Rei’s release.
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Kasumi Yashiro from Muv-Luv Alternative

written on September 25, 2010 by Tier
Good Smile Company Kasumi Yashiro from Muv-Luv Alternative Figure Review

I’m not really big on collecting full sets of characters just for the sake of doing so. Oh sure, every now and then I see a set of figures that I like, but most of the time, I don’t feel much compulsion to get all the figures in a series if they aren’t each individually appealing. I’ve got three of Alter’s Ikkitousen figures but I’m missing Chouun, I’m missing one of Volks’s Super Robot Girls (uhh, the one with the horn sprouting from her forehead, I forget her name), and I’m missing Rei and Misato out of Kotobukiya’s 1/6 scale Eva girl lineup. I’ve had two of the three Muv-Luv figures that Good Smile Company produced for a while now, and as lolis aren’t really my thing, I wasn’t planning on buying Kasumi. However, BBTS had her on sale for thirty bucks and as I was planning on getting something else there, I decided to toss her in my cart. For thirty bones, I don’t mind getting a figure if she’s wearing a tight, shiny bodysuit. By the way, you’ll be seeing that something else that I bought in my next figure review, I think.
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Sankt Kaiser Vivio from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

written on August 1, 2010 by Tier

Alter Vivio from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Review

Let’s get back to more interesting things. I’ve skipped all of Alter’s preceding Nanoha figures other than the original Fate Testarossa, but I couldn’t pass up Vivio. I wonder how popular Vivio is; almost all of the Nanoha girls had reviews up on the web right away, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of the odd-eyed girl. It is time to remedy that.
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Meiya Mitsurugi from Muv-Luv Alternative (Volks X-brand Version) (NSFW)

written on July 24, 2010 by Tier

Volks Meiya Mitsurugi from Muv-Luv Alternative Figure Review

Twain once said that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. If he’d lived long enough to collect pervy girly figures, he’d have explicitly included scale sizes in that list, too.
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Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Motorcycle Version 1)

written on May 31, 2010 by Tier

E2046/Vispo Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion Figure Review

Continuing with the Evangelion kick, let’s take a look at Asuka as a motorcycle racer. There is a peculiar dearth of Asuka figures out there, although Alter and Kotobukiya each recently unveiled figures of her in her recent motion picture form. When I try to think of a definitive Asuka figure, my mind draws a blank, and so it doesn’t bother me when I see any of the Eva girls dolled up in a manner incongruent with their anime presentation. Heck, they’ve been used to pitch canned coffee and instructional typing software, among other things, making them perhaps the most protean anime characters around.
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Mari Illustrious Makinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion

written on May 23, 2010 by Tier

Kotobukiya Mari Illustrious Makinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion Figure Review

The longevity and impact of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise is nearly without peer in anime, and a large part of its lasting popularity is due to its iconic characters, particularly Rei and Asuka. And what’s not to like about them? Both are young, sexy girls who are curiously well-developed for their age and wear tight bodysuits when going into battle. One is a taciturn, robotic introvert and the other is an assertive, mercurial hotshot with the temperament of nitroglycerin.

None of Gainax’s other properties have come close to the endurance of their foremost creation, and so they’ve taken the obvious course of action and remade the series, sticking in a new girl in the process. In this hobby, it’s the closest thing to having your own money printer.
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Rogue from the Uncanny X-Men

written on September 14, 2009 by Tier


Kotobukiya Marvel Bishoujo Rogue from the X-Men Review

Once when I was a kid living in Seoul, my uncle took my brother and I to a comic book shop near downtown, just a bit west of Gate 1 to Yongsan base. I doubt it’s still there, and I have no idea how my uncle even knew about this shop in that pre-Google Maps era. I was bewildered that such a shop even existed; I didn’t think that Koreans had much interest in American comics (despite being ethnically half-Korean myself, I’ve always identified with being American and I had no interest in Korean culture at that time). I remember the store had a barter system, and my brother traded off some of his books for new ones. I had no comic books of my own so I asked my uncle to buy the comics I wanted for me. One of the books I got was Uncanny X-Men #218, which had some of the female X-Men battling the Juggernaut. I didn’t know much about the X-Men, but one character in particular caught my eye – she wore a tight black bodysuit and a loose green tank top and had an awesome 80s haircut with a white skunk stripe through it. In the issue, she threw a punch at the Juggernaut, took one in return that launched her into orbit, and then she came back for more. It was a great book, and Rogue became one of my first childhood cartoon character crushes.

What? Stop looking at me like that. I know you had cartoon character crushes when you were a kid, too.
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Sumika Kagami from Muv-Luv Alternative

written on September 1, 2009 by Tier


Good Smile Company Sumika Kagami from Muv-Luv Alternative Review

I hadn’t planned on getting any more of Good Smile Company’s Muv-Luv figures after Meiya Mitsurugi, but I can’t deny that Sumika really is cute. Furthermore, my Rogue preorder at BBTS was scheduled to ship at the end of August, and as fate would have it, that same store had Sumika on sale for a relatively cheap price. How could I not take advantage of such a serendipitous occurrence? It is like the planets have aligned, the cards have turned up just so, fates have intersected at a confluence of capitalism and happiness. It was meant to be, and so I tossed her in my shopping cart, added her to my order with Rogue, and now she is here.
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Black Widow from Marvel Comics

written on July 26, 2009 by Tier


Kotobukiya Black Widow from Marvel Comics Review

Curiously, the pop culture comics industries of Japan and the United States do not intersect all that often. Sometimes an American property like Star Wars gets a manga adaptation, and Witchblade has the very rare honor of becoming a full-blown franchise with an anime series and all the ancillary accoutrements – soundtracks, figures, its own manga spinoff, and so on. On this side of the ocean, the two big comics companies toy with Japanese visual style – Marvel occassionally churns out titles in their Mangaverse line, and DC has its Ame-Comi series, a catalogue of mediocre toys done in pseudo-anime style. Usually its up to smaller publishing studios like Udon, Devil’s Due, the long-defunct Dreamwave, and very minor imprints like Alias (who I think are also gone) to create comics in anime style.

So imagine my surprise when I learn that not only will a major Japanese toy manufacturer be making 1/8 scale figures of Marvel characters, but that Shunya Yamashita is going to be the one to do the source designs. This has to be the best thing that’s ever happened in the history of humankind, right? Well …
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