Animatic Figmation

Nendoroid Chiaki Minami

Persocom — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:21:36 +0000

My first Nendoroid of the year is Chiaki Minami, from the Minami-ke series, which to date spans over three full seasons and an OVA, all of which I enjoyed. I had pre-ordered her immediately after seeing her at Hobby Search, and I’m quite glad I did. She sold out before she was released so if you don’t have her and desire her in your collection, you’ll have to look elsewhere or wait until a re-release. Chiaki reminds me of why I love Nendoroids. She did cost around $50 with the EMS shipping, but I had ordered her back before SAL was an option. Luckily now you can order Nendoroids with SAL from Hobby Search and save money, which I will be doing when possible. Well then, read on for my first Nendoroid review of the year, bakayaro! (Chiaki made me say it).

Chiaki comes with 2 extra arms, her randosel (elementary school bag), a hat with attached hair puff, 3 faces in total, and of course Fujioka, her teddy bear. Her randosel attaches to her back over her shoulders and stays in place mostly because of her hair. Her little hair puff is removable and in order to put her hat on her head, you simply insert the puff that’s attached to the hat into the hole. Her faces include the plain face, an open-mouthed face, and a crying face, and all of them suit her perfectly. The only thing that could have been improved upon is the open-mouthed face could have been triangular to better reflect her common expression in the anime. Her hair bangs are semi-flexible, but they can still limit her mobility like most figures of the sort. Also, her hands do not come off the arms like some Nendoroids. Fujioka is very nicely done. He comes with his own stand, which is nothing more or less than a Nendoroid Petit stand. He also has three points of articulation, both his arms and his head are able to be moved around. His legs however, are not. One last thing worth noting is that Chiaki’s stand is actually jointed. I’m not too sure why they made it that way as I don’t see many real advantages of it, in fact it keeps her from standing up straight a bit, but at least it has grooves for her skirt to slide in and keep her in place with. I must say the inclusion of Fujioka makes this figure that much more worth having. I really don’t have any complaints about this figure, I’m proud to have her in my collection.

Sadly Chiaki is the only figure from the Minami-ke series in existence to date, as far as I know of at least. Minami-ke is a very fun slice-of-life comedy series, and if that sort of thing interests you I highly suggest it. I dare say it’s a step above many slice-of-life shows. Here’s to hoping Chiaki’s sisters get the Nendoroid treatment in the near future! Well then, this is your host, Persocom, saying ja ne!
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Last Month’s Loot

Persocom — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:55:49 +0000

Yo! It’s been a little over a week, and let me tell you, I’ve got plenty to post about in the coming weeks. I’ve kinda got addicted to another game, and for once it’s not an MMORPG, yay! It’s actually a Japanese MMO you’ve probably heard of before, called Busou Shinki Battle Rondo. Well, I heard about it a couple years ago and for some reason never looked into it much, and completely forgot about it. Thanks to Blowfish, I was reminded of it’s existence and decided to finally give it a try. I got sucked in, fast. So now that I’m addicted to Busou Shinki’s and the game they’re in, expect to see many more in the future. My interest in Figmas has been slowly dissipating, and I’m not too happy with GoodSmile Company for their ninja tactics with the K-On Figmas and Nendos. I’ve got Yui Hirasawa Figma on the way right now, but that’s most likely the only one I’ll be getting. I’m not so into it that I’ll sit there and click the refresh button to acquire a figure that gets announced a week before release and then sells out in five minutes. Well, if you’re interested in seeing just what I’ve acquired last month that didn’t get reviewed, keep reading.

First off, seeing as how I’ve seen both seasons of Queen’s Blade, and more than once each, and am now following the story of Queen’s Blade Rebellion as it unfolds, it’s only natural that I jump on this awesome deal at AmiAmi. This is my first scaled Queen’s Blade figure and I’m quite proud to say she also comes with the Huit and Vingt book. Lovely book and figure and I’ll be reviewing them soon.

6th Nendoroid in my collection get! I know, my Nendo (not including petit) collection is small, but I really do love them. Chiaki was a must get, as she’s my favorite character in the Minami-ke series. Hopefully we’ll see her sisters in Nendo form soon. I’ve got a couple Nendo’s pre-ordered as well but I’ll save that for another day.

And now we get to the Busou Shinki section. I really like these, despite their appearance. I’ll be doing a Busou Shinki post soon to talk about the game and such because I think it deserves it’s own post. It only took me two days of playing Battle Rondo before I ordered these three. I’m loving them in figure form and game form, and not in a sick way you pervs. Valona and Tsugaru for me and Tigris for my wife, yup, even she plays.

Well that’s all for this post, I’ll be reviewing all of these soon, and there’s more stuff on the way this month. Also I need to renew my domain name and stuff this month, so yeah, that means I’m not going anywhere soon. Too bad haters, I’m gonna keep going until I feel like quitting, being told this blog sucks and is pointless is pointless. I like my blog, rawr. This is Persocom, signing out.
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Vita – Knight Ver. Figma

Persocom — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:37:00 +0000

Vita comes from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (as well as A’s). Like most of the Figmas from StrikerS she’s loaded, and a bit more expensive than the usual. Another fine Figma from Max Factory. I bought her at Hobby Search for 2,895 yen or around $32, not including shipping of course. She’s still available and also now qualifies for SAL shipping (she wasn’t when I ordered her), so if you’re interested you can pick her up here. It makes me wonder if they’ll do a non-knight version of her since they had to be so specific with giving it a version name. Anyways, read on for my review.

Vita comes with a load of accessories. 10 hands, 2 of which are not jointed so that Vita can hold her weapons without their sheer weight moving her hand out of pose, 2 open hands, one pointing, 2 for holding weapons that are jointed, 2 closed fists, and lastly one holding the metal balls she hits with Graf Eisen. There are two faces and two hairpieces on with her ahoge pointing both left and right. She also has her hat which is put on differently than hats from previous Figma. This hat is inserted under the hair piece and fits more securely, the only downside to this is leaving a larger seem viewable from the side of her hairpiece. Both of her pig tails are on a ball joint, and thus can be moved about a bit. Surprisingly on the back of her clothing the large bow is also on ball joints, allowing for even more movement for realistic posing. Vita’s scale is smaller than that of a regular Figma, accurately representing her size in comparison with others from the same line. Her details and paint job are near perfection. I’m very impressed with the amount of work done into a figure of a smaller scale. Of course, a Vita action figure wouldn’t be complete with her hammer, Graf Eisen. Graf Eisen comes as two shafts, one straight and one bent so as to capture the feel of her swings. The heads of the hammer included are the original hammer form, the missile form, giant form, and destruction form. On top of it all there’s an even bigger giant form papercraft that you can download, print out and add to the giant form for even more possibilites, you can find the download here. Unfortunately I can’t show the downloadable form at the moment because I don’t have a working printer. The only thing that I do not like about this figure is that with her pig tails the way they are, her head has very limited mobility. She is only able to turn her head and look downwards, and can hardly look at eye level let alone is completely unable to look upwards. The other issue is with her dress being solid on the bottom half, her legs aren’t quite as free. The top part of her barrier jacket however is flexible, however it’s not removable. Lastly, I really love the paint job on this figure. Her boots and Graf Eisen have a nice shiny paint to them and is a nice touch. While she could have been more mobile, her detail is superb.

Personally I’m not all that pleased with the pictures I took, but they seemed enough for the review. I would have included a decent video of Vita in action but I couldn’t find a good quality one that wasn’t a MAD or AMV, or might contain spoilers. This is a great figure of Vita, and I highly recommend it to anyone who might be a fan.
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Queen’s Blade: Rurou no Senshi

Persocom — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:31:08 +0000

A few nights ago I finished watching through Queen’s Blade: Rurou no Senshi for the 3rd time. I had planned on doing this review before but after watching the second season I thought it would be best to have the first one fresh in my mind to write up a review. I’ll do another post about the second season after I re-watch it. First of all, I must start out by saying this anime is overlooked and under appreciated due to the ecchiness contained within it. In fact so much so, that it took seeing so many great figures and encouragement from fellow blogger Blowfish to push me to finally getting past the first episode. One of the main problems with the show was that the first fan subs that emerged were simply horrible, they weren’t taken seriously at all and really were not justifiable by any means. On top of that almost everywhere you go you hear nothing but negativity towards Queen’s Blade due to the fanservice content being more than usual, as well as it having aired uncensored. Most people seem to think it’s nothing but oppai and hentai. Once I picked the show back up to give it a try what I saw really impressed me.

I originally found out about Queen’s Blade quite a while before an anime had even been announced. I was searching for pictures of anime girls with scythes and came across the infernal temptress Airi. I collected pictures of her not really knowing who she was, eventually doing some research finding out she was from a series of visual combat books by Hobby Japan that actually formed a game called Queen’s Blade. Though to this day I don’t own any of the books, they are an interesting way to play a game. I will most likely pick a couple up eventually thanks to Blowfish providing an understandable guide on how to play them, which you can find here.

Alright, so here’s the plot. Queen’s Blade is a tournament held every 4 years in the capital of Gainos, in which the strongest and most beautiful warriors fight to become the queen. The angels watch over and host the tournament but the current ruling queen is the one who decides the final participants. The reason for the tournament being held is actually quite simple, to keep the country from descending into chaos due to poor leadership. The current Queen, Aldra, has won 2 consecutive years in a row. Our journey through the world of Queen’s Blade begins with someone who isn’t even interested in these tournaments: Leina. Leina is the daughter of Count Vance, who isn’t happy with living a life already planned out for her to become his heir, and craves freedom. As the story progresses you meet the many warriors who are going to participate in Queen’s Blade and get the background story on each of them. This is the part where I became impressed. The characters are very amiable, and their stories are mostly very solid, though a few of them don’t get quite as much insight into their past as they should have.

If you watch the show and by the end of the first episode you’re thinking about dropping it, I advise you to watch through the second one and reconsider. There’s quite a bit of ecchi, and the first episode has perhaps a bit of an overload of it for the average viewer, but I assure you that it never takes a turn beyond ecchi. It’s not really the hentai anime that many make it out to be. It’s got a larger dosage of fanservice in the way of uncensored body parts, a bit of suggestive yuri scenes and what not, but compare it to your average every day ecchi anime and it isn’t any worse than half the popular shows out these days. In fact, I’m not hesitant to say that this show is a notch above many shows that have been more popular lately. It has the fanservice everyone complains about but secretly wants more of, and better than that it has a worthy story set in a fantasy world, and enjoyable characters with unique personalities. I was quite happy to see that many of the stereotypes found in ecchi anime aren’t present. If you’re not a fan of anime with a story and just want ecchi, go find another show to watch.

I don’t want to spoil anything because it’s no fun telling you who wins what battles or the stories of the characters. I will tell you that the first season is only the beginning of an epic story in an epic world, and that there is much material outside of the anime for people who are interested. I’ve taken quite a liking to the Queen’s Blade Revoltech line and plan on purchasing more of them to add to my Airi soon. MegaHouse also does a great job of putting the characters in 1/8 PVC form, as fellow bloggers Blowfish and Lylibellule can show you.

Here’s the official trailer by Media Factory for anyone who hasn’t seen it. It doesn’t really do the show a lot of justice because a simple short trailer can’t tell you much about the show itself but only introduce you to the animation style. It does show the characters though, each of which are treated with respect by having substance to them.

Something else that is very notable about this show is the all-star seiyuu cast. Some of the best in the industry voice these characters and they do a wonderful job. Rie Kugimiya as Melona, Mamiko Noto as Tomoe, Aya Hirano as Nanael, Eri Kitamura as Alleyne, Yuko Goto as Menace, Hitomi Nabatame as Shizuka, and many more. I thought about listing the entire cast but that might be a bit much, if you’re interested in seeing if one of your favorite seiyuu plays a character in this, check out the QB listing at MAL.

tl;dr – don’t knock it until you try it. A show I originally planned on skipping because of horrible publicity turned out to not only be very enjoyable, but I’m now a fan of everything Queen’s Blade.
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Happy New Year! 2010

Persocom — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:56:10 +0000

Just doing a quick post to wish everyone a very safe and Happy New Year in 2010. Perhaps I’ll do a post looking back at 2009 later on. But rather than look behind right now I want to look forward, every step we take now leads us into our future, and we can only imagine what it holds for us. I want to thank everyone once again for visiting this blog, no matter what reason you have for coming here. I will do my best to improve upon everything that I do and wish that all of you do your best as well! May this be a great year for anime, manga and figures for all! I’m going to try to do different things around here in the coming months. Let’s see where this year takes us! If you’re wondering the girl pictured is Shou Toramaru from Touhou 12: Undefinable Fantastic Object, and the art is made by 9時 from pixiv, check it out for some really awesome art. Since it’s the year of the tiger I’ll most likely be featuring Shou again. I’ll get back to the real posts real soon.
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