Alter Haruka, Dancing Autumn

Though I’ve never seen anything about Beat Blades Haruka, this figurine caught my heartbeat in a second. What catches my eyes the most in a figurine is their quality, likeness of character, and dynamic poses. I believe Alter did a great job on all these, and made her even more beautiful than the drawings. Kotobukiya made a similar version of this figurine but looks like fail next to the Alter one. Kotobukiya offered their for a retail price of 5,800 yen and Alter for 6,800. 1,000 yen is nothing compared to the quality offered in difference. … The one by Kotobukiya looks like she’s pregnant, somewhat. Fortunately, I traded it away before I could open it.

Overall Quality: 4.6/5
I’m happy this figure came out to be 1/8 scale, actually. As much as I love large figures and dynamic poses, they rarely work well together as dynamic poses usually take up a lot of space.  Haruka’s scarf is long and takes up a big radius on my shelf. It actually has to stand alone or with something else in front of her. All the details on her are spectacular though, it seems Alter really worked hard on this. I wish there was cover art on the box though so I can see which way the weapon should of been held.

Creativity: 4.5/5
The pose wasn’t their idea but the artist’s. However, I see many adjustments were made. Some things you just can’t see on a 2D plane that Alter took liberty of in the 3D version of her. The longer torso and flowing scarf was a great addition to the sweet and warm feeling of the figure.

Paint Job: 4/5
There’s a lot of details on this figure but painting them on is another thing. Some of them are out of line and fade/overflow. My least favorite part of this paint job is the chest area, it’s very uneven like they sprayed it on last second with a very bad masking job. I love the light halo on her hair. Kotobukiya has solid colors on the entire figurine.

Sculpt: 4.8/5
I haven’t found anything wrong with the sculpt and actually like the way they made the pose.  My teacher told me once that a good figurine looks good from every angle. I also have a thing for hairs with a strand sticking out. (Saber <3)

Display: 4.2/5
Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m glad it’s not too big because the pose makes it really hard to fit it in any great way with other figurines. The overall feeling of the pose makes the display very unique, many of my friends notice this figurine first. The Orange-golden colors Alter chose reminds me of autumn, my favorite season. Polygonal white bases aren’t my thing, and tagging a big ol’ logo on it doesn’t make it much better either.

Average Score: 4.42/5
Never knew about her.
But she looks like a dancing Autumn Angel.

The lighting was absolutely… horrid. Trying out a new point-and-shoot powershot. 14.7 megapx, and 3.7 opt. zoom. The light was all the flash, at least it didn’t reflect too much so it turned all white. But it screamed plastic all over. I recommend this figurine for anyone that loves unique pieces. Too bad it’s not too popular because of its origin. I received mine from Hobbylink.

Please view more pictures of her at my flickr gallery.

Haruhi Suzumiya Figma Summer Version

It’s almost summer time again!
You know what that means, right? Conventions!
Sorry for the lack of updates for the past week or two.
I just got a new internship (YES!) and midterms (NO!).
Reallllly busy here.

So this is Max Factory’s new Figma, going to be released in April.
Retail price of 2,500 yen.

You saw this coming, right?
I’ve always been in love with Haruhi’s Ponytail look…
I also want the camera and bag for my other figmas.
Feel free to check on the preview images to enlarge them!

Has Max Factory gone lazy with posing creatively?
At least Lucky Star uniforms look more different with their summer and winter uniforms.
Oh boy.

Kaiyodo’s Fraulein Set: Haruhi Suzumiya, Mikuru Asahina, Yuki Nagato

Are you a fan of Figmas or Frauleins? Me and many others I know prefer Figmas more. Why? Frauleins or just pretty much any action figures Kaiyodo makes tend to have many joint issues. Take my new Chun-Li action figure for instance, I bought two of them. One has a nasty neck joint that would not go into the body while the other just had plain tight joints so it’s almost impossible to pose.

While those facts are true, I’m sure Kaiyodo hears a lot of complaints already. I hope they will result in these Frauleins to be much, much better. They have improve though, believe it or not. Please compare the new Frauleins to this:

Yuki also looks like a copy from the Figma Yuki but we’ll see.

My favorite of the three has to be Mikuru.

She has great expressions and she’s actually really cute.

I don’t like Haruhi’s passionate face, it looks funny…

Mikuru has three expressions~! I love all three of them, very adorable.

Please see a better version of this figurine here…..

Are you going to get any of these? I think I might end up with them anyway… At least they’re not too expensive, right? They’re 1/10 scale action figures for 2,800 yen retail.

Haruhi releases Early Feb.

Yuki releases Early Mar.

Mikuru releases Early Apr.

Good Smile Company’s Adorable Kureha Nendoroid?

ADORABLE!
My Friend said when she saw this.
I’ve never owned any figurines of Kureha but I have seen incredible figures.
My favorites are by Max Factory, Kotobukiya, then President Japan.
I’ve always wanted one of them… (Max Factory the most, of course.)
But this one, I can’t see the KAWAII in it.

Here, check out more pictures?

Most nendoroids are cute, right?
So what came out so wrong with this one?
At least this is the cheapest Kureha yet for those fans out there. :]

Own this beautiful くれは ねんどろいど in May 2009,
with the retail price of 3,500 yen.

GSC Saber Lily 1:7 Scale ~Distant Avalon~ Full Color Preview!

What a magnificent BEAUTY!
I’ve always been a Saber fan and collected many of her figurines.
This outfit is very easy to fall in love if, especially if you’ve played with the Saber Lily Figma.No doubt, I will buy this one when it releases in June 2009. Regardless of the price…. comfirmed price! 9,800 yen!
Some pictures were teasers from mikatan.

The expression of her face screams SABER. This looks and feels like her,
you can tell it’s her whether you only read the manga or only watch the anime. Determination looks very hot on Saber.

What makes a good sculpture? My instructor told me a good sculpture looks dynamic in from every angle, look great with every shadow (except total darkness, of course.). I believe this is an excellent example of that. YUM.

I hope this will be the stand we’ll actually get. It really pulls the entire look
together. Often times though, a lot of the sexy stands we see on prototypes
don’t get to our front doors quite the same…

Almost sure these pictures does not give enough justice to the actual level of details.

Even the weapons are sexy….

Teehee…

I’ll have to give up on some other figures to get this.
I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
So, are you going to get this?

Following Description by GSC.

The pure white, royal knight.

The popular fighting game "Fate/unlimited codes" has recently been released on
PS2, and from that game comes a 1/7th PVC figure of Saber's alternate form, Saber Lily!

Posed as if preforming her ultimate move "Distant Avalon", the figure has been
sculpted to recreate the scene where Saber raided Caliburn. Her other noble phantasm,
the sword "Excalibur" has also been included, and can be equipped and removed.

The sculpting work was done by Takayuki Kawahara, who has given the figure a dynamic
feeling to suit the action packed scenes from the original game. Everything from
her beautiful flowing dress to her finely detailed hair all come together to bring a
 wonderful figure that any fan is bound to fall in love with.

Specs

• Product name Saber Lily ~Distant Avalon~ (せいばー・りりぃ すべてとおきりそうきょう アヴァロン)
• Series Fate/unlimited codes
• Price 9,800 Japanese Yen
• Release Date 2009/06
• Specifications Complete painted PVC figure – 1/8 scale – approximately 230mm in height
• Sculptor Takayuki Kawahara