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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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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Cognizant of the fact that well-known titles move more merchandise, most figure companies make figures of characters from licensed properties. However, Max Factory took a rather unusual approach with their figures of the se.Kirara characters; rather than seek out an existing franchise, they developed the title themselves, making them (to my knowledge) the only figure maker to also be an eroge producer. Another unusual thing about their strategy is that Max Factory released the game for free; unfortunately, while it was originally downloadable from the Nico Nico website, it seems to no longer be available. However, even if we can’t enjoy the game, we can at least admire the figures. The first to be released was Aya Kagura, who I actually have – somewhere around here – but we’ll be taking a look at the blue-headed Izumi Shizuno first.
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We looked at Ai Saeki a few weeks ago; now it is time to look at Reiko Date Wingfield, the half-British, half-Japanese director of the tennis club.
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If there are any certainties in the anime figure industry, it’s that manufacturers will continue chucking out Tamaki Kousakas and Kanu Unchous with great zeal and aplomb, no matter how many pairs of eyes may roll at seeing them in the Amiami preorder list. The weariness that many collectors take no pains to conceal when it comes to Kanu – and the redheaded lady from To Heart – is understandable, but it’s not a sentiment that I share. My very first scale-size figure was one of Kanu Unchou, and I’m still fond of it, even though it’s a terrible figure by current standards (and probably prior standards, as well). And though there are a truckload of Kanus to choose from, we haven’t looked at one here since Alter’s figure. The one we’ll look at today comes from Daiki Kougyou, a company that isn’t shy at all about making Kanu figures.
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Not too long ago, Alphamax was a niche manufacturer in the figure hobby, a purveyor of really expensive polystone statues of characters nobody had ever heard of and that nobody ever bought. But in the last few years, anime figure collecting has really taken off and it is only sensible of Alphamax to want a bigger piece of that action – thus, they’ve repositioned themselves in the market as a mainstream manufacturer of PVC figures, particularly of popular characters wearing swimsuits. Now, they’re staking out another niche – namely, hentai figures – and so having looked at a Tony Taka dakimakura cover last week, we’ll look at Alphamax’s figure of Tony Taka’s Ai Saeki today.
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The series Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai is an unqualified merchandising success, with scads and scads of licensed stuff hitting the hobby stores this past year. Unsurprisingly, figure makers have jumped right in, with numerous figures of Sena and Yozora either already released or in the works (unfortunately, fans of the other characters are left with much slimmer pickings). Most of those figures are coming from makers like Alphamax, Wave, and Kotobukiya, who are good manufacturers, but I would say that Good Smile Company’s products are generally more consistently high quality. So here comes Good Smile Company; they’ll show all the other makers how to make figures of the Haganai characters … right?
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We took a look at Yukino a few days ago; today, we’ll take a look at her vivacious castmate Misaki Haruhino.
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Who doesn’t love chocolate? And elections?
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Curiously, I have no scale-size Nanoha figures in my collection. I have six Fates, but no Nanoha. This imbalance must be amended – Fate is a lonely girl and she needs a friend. Somebody who will stand by her and give her a big hug. Somebody who will liberate her from a life of thralldom and unrequited love. Somebody who will occasionally Divine Buster her ass when she needs it.
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