Tag Archives: Review

Kozue Sakakibara from T2 Art Girls (NSFW)

written on September 6, 2014 by Tier
Kozue Sakakibara from T2 Art Girls

Many manufacturers have made figures based on Tony’s illustrations, but today we’ll be looking at a figure from a new company that’s never made a Tony figure before. Okay, technically Dragon Toy seems to be affiliated with Daiki Kougyou and that company has been around for a very long time, but I don’t recall that Daiki Kougyou has ever made a Tony figure, either. Admittedly, that’s not all that notable in itself; after all, there are a billion figures of Tony-designed characters from a slew of manufacturers. However, despite the number of Tony figures out there, Kozue possesses a quality that transcends quantity – which is to say, perversity. Indeed, the indecency of this figure is impressive, even by contemporary anime standards, in which the bar is already set very high, or low, depending on one’s viewpoint.
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Dakimakura Review – Rinne Amamiya from Pure Girl in Love (NSFW)

written on August 31, 2014 by Tier
Rinne Amamiya dakimakura by Itsuka Miyatsuki

So I lied! Or more specifically, the plaster is still drying so the next figure is still awaiting her turn in the spotlight. In the meantime, we’ll take a quicky look at this pillowcase, which I’ve had sitting around for a while. The lady depicted here is named Rinne Amamiya and she’s an original character drawn by Itsuka Miyatsuki. Her “series” is nominally titled Koisuru Junjou Shoujo, or something like “Pure Girl in Love,” though as far as I can tell that title is a completely made-up thing concocted just for this pillowcase. The original product page even gives a very short and sparse backstory for this character, in which she tentatively offers her love to her chosen one, which is presumably the owner of this pillowcase. How adorable. As franchises like the Vocaloid series and Kantai Collection show, you really don’t need more than a pretty picture to successfully peddle anime goods.
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Alisa Ilinichina Amiella from God Eater 2 (GE2 Version)

written on August 21, 2014 by Tier
Alis Iilinichina Amiella from God Eater 2

Alisa is the most popular character from God Eater, at least amongst figure companies, and it’s not hard to see why. Since Plum released their first version of her, she’s had one more figure released by Alphamax with another in the pipeline, and Volks is apparently doing a big-ass doll of her, which looks nice. This is Plum’s second figure of her, and while it represents a noticeable improvement over their original product, it’s not without its own faults – though admittedly, some of those faults are self-imposed.
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Kamael from Lineage II

written on July 16, 2014 by Tier
Kamael figure from Lineage II

Despite its age, Lineage II has been a popular source of inspiration for figure manufacturers. Thus far, Good Smile Company, Orchid Seed, and Max Factory have made figures of its characters. That’s gratifying to see, as Lineage II has some very attractive character designs. It’s not atypical in that respect; this may be over-generalizing, but I’ve long thought that Korean MMOs – a group that also includes TERA, Aion, Blade & Soul, and Scarlet Blade Online – have some of the best character designs in video games. The Kamael is the latest such figure to be released, and it’s the third Lineage figure to be produced by Max Factory; we’ll be looking at them in reverse order.
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Tomo Asama from Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere (Zudon Miko Version)

written on June 23, 2014 by Tier
Tomo Asama from Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere

As we’ve noted before, there aren’t that many figures of characters from Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, and those that do exist are mostly from relatively minor manufacturers. Fortunately, a couple of exceptions have been recently released: Alter’s Kazuno and Tomo Asama by Kotobukiya. This happiness is tempered by the realization that those two figures may be amongst the last figures from the series to be released (Wave has a Beach Queens Kimi Aoi scheduled to drop next month, and Volks is supposedly doing figures of Kimi and Kazuno, but who knows whether those will ever materialize). A sad state of affairs, that, and it appears that figure companies are moving on to the next big thing, such as Kantai Collection, which somehow feels a bit like it’s worn out its welcome before even having arrived. The only consolation is that if Tomo is the last Horizon figure to be made by a major figure company, she is at least a very fine one indeed.
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Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers (Kaitendoh Version)

written on June 17, 2014 by Tier
Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2 Dungeon Travelers

Amongst anime hobby companies, Tamaki Kousaka’s popularity as a muse is everlasting. This isn’t always a good thing; the esteem in which she’s held by figure makers occasionally seems excessive, and a large segment of the collecting population greets each release of a new Tamaki figure with a collective rolling of the eyes. However, I pay no attention to that; I like Tamaki, and I own a bunch of her figures. It’s actually been over a year since I reviewed one; in other words, it’s been too long since we’ve looked at her. To remedy this insufficiency, we’ll look at one of her newest figures, which squeezes her into her Dungeon Travelers fighting outfit. We’ve seen this before; Kotobukiya made a figure of her in this outfit, but while that figure exemplified why, for a long time, people generally regarded Kotobukiya as a maker of mediocre figures, this one, by Kaitendoh, is quite a bit nicer.
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Dakimakura Review – Suzuka Takasaki from Kokuhaku Lovers (NSFW)

written on June 10, 2014 by Tier
Suzuka Takasaki dakimakura

There is an absolutely gigantic box in my living room. We will examine its contents in great detail in the days to come but first, we’ll take a quick look at a dakimakura cover. This pillowcase is a companion piece to this one of Kanane Kurashiki, which was sold at the same time from the same place. Both pillowcases feature art by Yoshiaki Katsurai, one of the better-known artists in the ero doujinshi industry.
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Alleyne from Queen’s Blade (Orchid Seed Version) (NSFW)

written on May 31, 2014 by Tier
Alleyne from Queen's Blade

When figure companies produce products of characters from shows with large casts, it’s typical for them to make figures of most, if not all, of the principal characters. Such a move is logical; after all, figure collectors are, well, collectors. This figure is anomalous, then, as it’s the first and only figure of a Queen’s Blade character that Orchid Seed has ever produced. It seems like an almost random decision for them to make this figure, as it doesn’t resemble much of their past catalog, but then, when a figure looks this nice, I suppose quality is the only explanation that is needed for this figure’s existence.
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Psylocke from the Uncanny X-Force (Fine Art Version)

written on May 14, 2014 by Tier
Psylocke from the Uncanny X-Force

As I’ve remarked before, even though Japanese anime culture has a number of parallels with Western pop culture, they don’t seem to intersect that often. This is particularly and peculiarly evident in manga and comics; despite their similarities (and the influence of American comics on the development of manga), I don’t know too many anime fans who read Western comics, and I’m certain that there are many comic book readers (particularly older ones) who don’t care that much for anime.

Despite this separation, fans on both sides frequently share a passion for collecting things, particularly figures. Figures of characters from Western properties often have some differences compared to anime figures; they are often sculpted in polystone, they are typically on the larger side, and they often come from specialist manufacturers unknown to collectors of anime figures. However, that is not the case with this particular figure; this figure of Psylocke comes from Kotobukiya, a company that every anime figure collector knows. Strangely, this figure is not the first, nor the second, nor even the third, but is the fourth figure of Psylocke that Kotobukiya has released in the last four years. Kotobukiya has made some attempts at integrating the two audiences, particularly with their Bishoujo series, which combines Western comic book and science fiction characters with anime-style design sensibilities, but they also make a number of statues targeted squarely at Western comic book collectors. We don’t often look at such figures here but as Psylocke is my favorite character in all of comic books, for her we will make an exception.
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Inia Sestina from Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse (Eishi Strengthening Equipment Version)

written on May 6, 2014 by Tier
Inia Sestina from Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse

Last year, we took a look at Kotobukiya’s figures of Yui Takamura and Cryska Barchenowa. A few months after those figures hit the market, Kotobukiya released a figure of Inia Sestina, which is what we’re looking at here. It appears that Inia closes out the series, which is unfortunate for fans of Tarisa Manandal, Stella Bremer, or Cui Yifei, who seem unlikely to get figures of their own, and I suppose I can also mention the male characters as well, who almost certainly will not ever get figures. It’s a mildly curious situation, as the various Muv-Luv Alternative series have always been accompanied by strong merchandising efforts, but those are just the breaks, I guess.
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