In the last couple of years, society in the United States has been riven by cultural and philosophical divides, with little hope of either compromise or reconciliation. But perhaps all sides can agree on one thing: there is nothing so quintessentially American as a school shooting, and on that note, we take a look at this figure, which depicts a heavily-armed high school girl ready to get down with some extracurricular warfare.
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And it’s time for another preorder outlook. This list is shorter than I thought it would be, being that it’s been three months since the last post, but I really don’t mind considering that my bank account needs a break given the number of figures on my preorder list that are being released this month and next. I’m planning on photographing Olga Discordia in the next few days, just as soon as I can figure out where to put her, and I’d like to get some America-themed figures reviewed (perhaps Iowa and Ms. Marvel, amongst others) next weekend, being that it’s the Fourth of July holiday here in the United States. For now though, here’s a quick run-through of some of the figures I’ve got my eye on.
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The series Gantz is experiencing a somewhat unexpected revival, not with respect to its original manga or anime adaptation but rather at the hands of figure and statue companies. Union Creative released two figures of Reika Shimohira a couple of years ago – one dressed in a black bodysuit and the other wearing a much more abbreviated version of that outfit – and FREEing is due to release their 1/4 scale version of Reika in a bunnysuit soon. In addition, the Japanese statue company Prime 1 Studio will be producing two versions of Reika, one called the Black Version and the other called the White Version, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who glances at each statue. And then we have this figure here, which came out late last year, if I recall correctly. This figure is the counterpart to Union Creative’s Reika, as she and Anzu seem fated to be paired together forever.
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SkyTube figures are always a lot of fun to review, so let’s take a look at one of the newest characters in the lineup. This girl is Satsuki Amamiya and she comes from the artwork of Misaki Kurehito, whose portfolio has provided SkyTube with numerous muses for adaptation into three dimensions. As is frequently the norm with SkyTube’s products, this figure integrates an attractive and sexy character with an impressive level of technical excellence and an outrageously lewd presentation which, in this case, has Satsuki apparently sucking down a glob of semen. It’s an interesting design choice, to be sure, and one that might be difficult to explain to most audiences.
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It’s been a while since the last post, and it’s been a great deal of time since the last preorder post, so it’s a good time to take a look at some of the figures I am considering preordering. It’s a long list and the unifying theme here is eye-watering prices, as figure and statue prices continue to rise unabated. Having recently resolved to upgrade my car within the next few years, this trend is sort of a problem but being that I don’t spend much money on other things, I guess I can deal with it.
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Chronic illness and laziness have delayed this post for weeks longer than I had planned, but better late than never; here is the traditional list of my five favorite figures of the previous year. It was a great year for figures, I think, aside from rising costs and the continuing trend of manufacturers selling their products outside of the normal web stores, thus driving up the price of their figures even more. Such is the price we pay to be collectors. At least the figures have usually been worth it.
I should note that I’m only including PVC figures in this list; usually this list includes everything I’ve bought, but given that I’m a big proponent of larger figures, it’s not really fair to compare a two-foot tall, $700 statue to a typical 1/7 scale, $120 PVC figure. If I were to include statues, Aspen and the gigantic 1/3 scale Kitana that I got a few months ago would be on this list, probably at the top. A 1/3 scale statue really needs to be seen to be believed.
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Between some unexpectedly time-consuming work obligations and a two-week encounter with bronchitis, this month has been a total bust as far as personal productivity is concerned. That said, I try to do at least one post per month, and luckily I’ve had these photos of Alphamax’s Renge stashed away for a few months, waiting for a length of time where I couldn’t do a normal post. Normally I’d have my five favorite figures post ready to go on this day but that’ll have to wait a couple more days, particularly since I am not sure which figures out to take the fourth and fifth spots (the top three have been locked up since summer). In the meantime, we’ll take a quick look at an older figure that I still quite like.
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November has been a spectacularly unproductive month for me, for a variety of reasons, most of which stem from the fact that I am unrepentantly lazy. Regardless, it’s been a couple of months since the last preorder post so here is a list of figures that I am thinking of ordering. Unlike most of these lists, where I don’t actually order most of the figures I write about, I’m actually thinking of ordering almost everything on this list; the only one that might not be purchased is Asmodeus.
Reviews will resume very shortly, as I have a stack of figures that have arrived recently. First up will probably the one half-naked Gantz girl and I’ve also got a figure of a half-naked loli (and another girl who could pass for a loli) waiting next.
Also, I have quite a few 1/4 scale figures from FREEing – mostly bunnygirls from To Love-Ru and Muv-Luv, but also their Elizabeth Mably and Angela Balzac figures – and a few Western statues that I had planned to review but now am not sure if I will. I have the feeling that people are not that interested in them and I’m curious to know whether anyone would be saddened if did not review them. Throughout the lifetime of this site I’ve taken the stance that I plan to review every figure that I buy, but being that they seem not that popular, I wonder if that uncompromising principle may be outmoded.
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It’s a big month for figure releases but I’m still waiting for my Hobby Search box to arrive, so today we’ll look at an older figure: SkyTube’s Ai Saeki. This figure came out in Feburary of this year and it is, oddly enough, the third figure of Ai Saeki that Alphamax has produced; meanwhile, it appears that the twintailed tsundere Mio Sugiyama and the petite teacher Rika Hayama will get no love from figure makers. Indeed, Alphamax has a second version of this figure in the works, where Ai is wearing a black veil and underwear. I imagine this figure and the upcoming version will otherwise be the same.
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We’ll resume our look at Daiki Kougyou’s Walkure Romanze girls with Akane Ryuuzouji. Oddly enough, Akane was not a principal character in the original visual novel, but her good looks and agreeable personality have made her a fan favorite. Another strange thing is that in the anime and the original game, she’s incorrigibly infatuated with Celia Cumani Aintree, to the point that she’s nonfunctional when proximate to her. Nonetheless, she has become popular enough to receive elevation to main character status in the fandiscs Walkure Romanze More & More and Re:tell, where she develops her relationship with main hero Takahiro Mizuno and, in the time-honored tradition of visual novel characters, has sex with him. So does her mom, actually.
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