Tag Archives: Figures

Miku Hatsune from Vocaloid (Racing 2011 Version)

Miku Hatsune Racing 2011 figure by Good Smile Company

Another day, another Vocaloid figure. The Vocaloid phenomenon offers a little something for everyone. To amateur musicmakers, it is an empowering tool, giving them the ability to add vocals to their instrumental tracks. For artists, it is a source of inspiration for their illustrations. For companies, it’s a reliably fat cash cow – slap a Vocaloid image on a product or insert one of the characters into a video game and watch the units fly off the shelves. A few companies have taken this commercial exploitation to another level; Sega, for example, loves throwing her into games that she has no business being in. And Good Smile Company too, who have made so many products featuring her likeness that she might as well be their mascot. At least in the case of their auto racing team, it seems that this is literally true, as this figure represents.
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Preorder Outlook XXVI

There’s a certain theme going on here; a certain singular joyfulness, if you will.
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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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Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2 (Black Underwear Version)

Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2 Figure Review

Given the prevalence of Tamaki Kousaka figures in the market, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t looked at a Tamaki figure here in 364 days. It seems like you can’t go a month without seeing a new Tamaki figure go up for preorder. As much as some may decry the proliferation of Tamaki figures – and I can’t say that they don’t have a point – there does seem to be a market for them, so let’s look at this one.
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Horizon Ariadust from Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere (Wave Version)

Horizon Ariadust Figure Review

Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere was one of my favorite shows from the fall 2011 anime season. It features a compelling setting, a likeable cast, a delightfully dense plot, and some of the nicest character designs in all of anime. Those designs, plus the sheer volume of characters in the show, would suggest that the series would be one that would get a lot of figures.

So one would think, anyway; however, it’s now been about a year and a half since the show debuted and only a handful of figures from the series have made their way to retail. Even more perplexing is that all of those figures come from Wave. Unsurprisingly, the great majority of those figures belong to their 1/10 scale Beach Queens line, but they did make one anomalous figure of Horizon Ariadust, which is what we’ll be looking at here.
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Preorder Outlook XXV

It’s the end of the month and that means it is time to look at some figures that I am thinking about ordering. This past month’s Wonder Festival saw many great figures make their public debuts, and though not many of them have shown up at retail websites yet, there’s still a lot of nice stuff that is now available for preorder. Let’s take a look at a few of those figures.
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Fate T. Harlaown from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (Bunny Version)

Fate T. Harlaown Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha StrikerS Figure Review

The latest bunny figure from FREEing is Fate T. Harlaown, Nanoha’s adversary-turned-best-buddy. It was a little weird seeing Nanoha in the skimpy bunny costume, since her sex appeal isn’t typically played up, at least when it comes to figures. However, Fate looks right in her bunnysuit, which is actually not much less modest than what she normally wears to a fight. They look great together, though, and while Fate and Nanoha are meant to be a matched pair (or threesome, if you count Hayate), Fate offers a number of contrasts to her partner that make this figure even more appealing.
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Shizuru Nakatsu from Rewrite (NSFW)

Shizuru Nakatsu from Rewrite Figure Review

There are scads and oodles of swimsuit figures out there, so let’s take a look at Shizuru Natsuru, one of the heroines from Key’s well-regarded visual novel Rewrite. Rewrite is notable for being an all-ages game, unlike many of their earlier visual novels. However, that isn’t stopping figure maker BEAT from interposing their own bit of raunchiness on Shizuru, as one can easily see.
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Preorder Outlook XXIV

Since I have a self-mandated quota of six posts per month to reach, it’s time to look at some of the stuff due for release later this year (that also means that there will be a pillowcase review tomorrow). Although we haven’t even gotten past January, manufacturers are already unveiling their summer release schedules. It seems like a bit of a slow year thus far, but with Wonder Festival just a couple of weeks away, we’ll certainly be seeing a lot more good stuff. For now, let’s take a look at a few figures that are already available to order.
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Samurai Katanako from 7th Dragon 2020

Katanako from 7th Dragon 2020 Figure Review

The schoolgirl-with-weapons theme is a very popular one, so much so that it’s made its way into Hollywood films like Kill Bill and Sucker Punch. Still, it is a quintessential theme associated with pop Japanese culture, particularly anime and video games, and as such one of the most common weapons for such a schoolgirl is a traditional Japanese sword. It’s odd, then, that looking at my collection, I see I’ve only got a couple of figures of schoolgirls with swords. This one here is one of them.
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