First of all, I just want to say thanks to all the people who have dropped by over the last little while. I appreciate your comments, and feel a bit guilty that I haven’t been responding more. This blog is almost a year old now, and as promised it has been a total mixed bag of content. Obviously, some of the more meta op-ed pieces have attracted the most attention, and I suppose if I had it in me I’d focus more on that… but at the end of the day, I’m just a guy who spends way too much money on anime-related stuff and enjoys the heck out of it. Writing comes second.
But anyway, in light of a long string of serious topics both here and elsewhere, I thought it was time for a bit of a celebration. I’ve finally sorted through some 400+ figure photos taken over the past few months, and want to present eight new figures I’ve bought since the beginning of the year. All of these are from anime or games that I really like, so I’ll try to give a bit of info about each in addition to my thoughts about the figure and the photo shoot. Some of the figures/images could be considered a bit NSFW, but none of them are by any means explicit. If merch blogs just aren’t your thing, then feel free to ignore, but otherwise I hope you like it!
Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica: Corticarte Apa Lagranges
Had to start with this one! My long-standing love of this franchise and character is pretty well-documented over this blog, so getting this figure was a natural (my third Corti figure). Corti is a powerful spirit known as the Crimson Annihilator when she transforms into her grown-up form, but this is the younger form she more often uses in the show when not fighting. Corti is contracted with Polyphonica’s main protagonist, Phoron, who plays music on a special keyboard to empower her supernatural abilities. As you might have guessed by her character design, Corti is a bit of a tsundere, but she still loves our hero very much.
This figure shows Corti in a running pose wearing her very attractive Victorian-style outfit. Besides the outfit itself, Corti’s beautiful long hair is obviously a key point, tied up as usual in a high ponytail with a big black bow. I think one of the things I struggled with most in taking the photos was trying to catch Corti’s “gaze”, and trying to find the right angle to capture her cute features. One of the complicating factors is that the base that comes with the figure only connects to one shoe, so it isn’t sufficient to keep her weight balanced after being on display for a while, so she started tipping to one side. That flaw aside, though, I quite like this figure — it really captures a lot of Corti’s charm.
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Toradora: Taiga Aisaka
From one tsundere to the next, Toradora’s Taiga likely needs little introduction. Known affectionately (?) as the “Palmtop Tiger” among her classmates, she packs a lot of punch into such a little frame. Circumstances put her in the path of Toradora’s main protagonist, Ryuugi, and they decide to work together to help them find success with their respective crushes. In this figure, we see Taiga clad in the dress that helped her win the “Miss Contest” at the half-way point in the Toradora story.
This figure came with three different “faces” — a happy face, a sad face, and a… “loving” face? Not really sure how to describe it. Highlights of the figure are of course her dress, her wings, and her crown. Taiga just looks really cute in her dress, and I love the way the dress gathers as she picks it up. I also like the large curls in her hair, and the pink bow. I think I really need to do another session with this figure at some point, as the outdoor lighting was a bit of a pain, and I think there’s more that could be done with the various faces.
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Saki: Nodocchi
Nodocchi is actually the online avatar of Saki’s second lead heroine Nodoka Haramura, who is literally seen as a goddess in the world of online Mahjong — the huge wings aren’t just for show! Nodocchi bears an striking resemblance to Nodoka herself, whose great flaw in real-life Mahjong is her inability to read people and deal with random/illogical elements. She’s also fairly obviously romantically-interested/involved (?) with the show’s titular heroine, Saki.
So no doubt the first thing you noticed in these pictures were her… wings! Yes, wings! Actually, honestly, the way the wings caught the sunlight and so appear to “glow” was just too cool, so I got lots of pictures with that effect. Nodocchi is holding a scepter in her right hand, and has a sort of shawl that magically floats around her. She also has a halo, and her dress has a lot of frills and little touches (ribbons, bows, and the headpiece). And yes… it’s totally crazily low-cut and totally emphasizes her… center of gravity? ^^;;;; I guess we’ll keep in mind that this is only an online avatar, and so the “real Nodoka” doesn’t actually have to worry about walking around in that.
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Toaru Majutsu no Index: Index
By all appearances, you might assume that Index is a Catholic nun. But actually, she’s something of a magical superpower — all of the world’s magical knowledge is hidden in the depths of her mind. This makes her a tempting target for all those who would stand to benefit from such forbidden knowledge, and it’s while running away from this fate that she meets our protagonist, Toma Kamijo, a “Level-Zero” whose only ability is a right hand that can cancel all magical power.
Index has two different poses: one while holding her beloved cat Sphinx, and another with her hands clasped as if in prayer. As you can see, her headdress is also removable, and she’s posed in “mid-air” as if on the way down from a big jump or fall. Her prayerful-pose has a certain appeal (and I like how the sun shone on her hands in a few of these shots giving them a glow), but I think Index is at her cutest while holding Sphinx. The downward angle of her face made it a bit tricky to catch her glance, but I like the last photo for that. This is my second Index figure; here’s hoping they’ll eventually continue the anime!
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K-On!: Mio Akiyama
Here’s another character who scarcely needs an introduction by now. Mio is the left-handed bass player of Houkago (Afternoon) Tea Time — the band shared by all the characters in this musically-themed “cute-girls-doing-cute-things” show. She’s a popular beauty who gets easily-embarrassed, and so is the target of much teasing amongst the cast. Here we see her in her stage outfit from the first season.
There are a whole ton of different Mio figures now, but this is the one I settled on. I like the sort of goth-loli-inspired costume design, and the pose is simple but nice. Obviously a highlight is the detailing on the bass, and that comes through in a number of the pictures. And of course, you can also see that she is in fact wearing her trademark blue-striped panties, which will make perfect sense if you’ve watched the show or read the manga. ^^; I particularly like the shadow shot where you basically just see Mio’s outline against the bright outside light — looks neat! You’ll also notice the two different faces: happy and, of course, embarrassed. I played around a bit with trying to catch the gaze of the embarrassed look — a bit tricky! Anyway, with the ton of other figures sure to follow, I’m not sure if this will end up being the best one by any means, but I think it’s quite nice.
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Happiness!: Jun Watarase
Jun is probably one of the most well-known characters from an otherwise not-too-well-known franchise. Happiness! was originally an eroge by Windmill (who went on to produce Shukufuku no Campanella, getting animated this summer) that later got adapted into a relatively low-budget anime by Artland. Jun is, I suspect, one of the only remaining memories in most people’s minds from that anime and the reason is rather obvious: Jun is a guy! Jun has a very flirtatious girlish personality, and loves to cross-dress in girls uniforms and tease his childhood friend Yuuma all the time. And so here we have Jun in all of his PVC figure glory as part of the “Legend Girls” line. The base of the figure gives you a big clue in case you weren’t aware…
The figure is pretty simple, but offers two “poses”: a teasing pose, and a smiling pose — both of which are, of course, teases in light of the “joke”. I’ve always liked the uniform designs in Happiness, along with game artist Ko~cha’s pastel colour scheme. And perhaps I’m not being gender-neutral, but I spared you the panty-shot this time. Suffice it to say, they don’t hide that he’s properly-equipped… ^^;;;
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Yosuga no Sora: Sora Kasagano
Continuing on the progression into eroge territory (and also into slightly more NSFW figures), here we have Sora Kasagano from Sphere’s Yosuga no Sora (and the later fandisk Haruka na Sora). Sora is the blood-related twin sister of lead protagonist Haruka. After the death of their parents, Haruka and Sora moved out of the big city to the country home of their since-deceased grandparents. Sora is rather quiet and anti-social, preferring to stay at home and getting easily exhausted in crowds; being the only close family she has left, Haruka dotes on her a fair bit. I guess I would describe her personality as a bit tsundere and a bit “spoiled brat”, though she’s been through a lot, and through the cracks you can see that she cares for her brother deeply… (As it so happens, I’m playing through this game at the moment, though haven’t reached Sora’s path yet.)
So obviously, here we see Sora in her bikini, as shown in the game. The figure itself is rather simple, which works well to bring out the charms of Sora’s naturally-cute character design emphasized by her long white/muted-blonde hair done up in “twintails”. The counterbalance is of course the towel that wraps around her fists and surrounds her. Obviously covering up her face a bit this way gives her a little bit of a more cute/shy look. And, if I may say so, does it ever work well! So cute! You can remove the towel as well, but they don’t give you any alternate poses for the hands so you sort of wonder what she’s doing (ready to box? ^^; ) You can see in the last photo that the figure also shipped with her toy black bunny (who’s also featured in the game, but whose name I forget), which helps emphasize her cuteness a little bit further. Not much to say about this photo shoot — Sora looks pretty good at any angle.
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Sakura Sakura: Nanako Sakura
Saving the best for last (though of course that’s totally subjective). I really loved the game Sakura Sakura when I played it a few months back; been meaning to write a post about it, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Nanako was my favourite character in the game by far, so I immediately set out to purchase this rather stunning PVC figure of her. As for Nanako herself, she’s actually a teacher at the school in the story, and the matron at the dorm where the cast lives. She is also the staff advisor to a few of the school’s sports clubs, including the rhythmic gymnastics club, which is what’s portrayed in this figure. From a personality perspective, Nanako is very kind, caring, and generally liked by all, but she can be a bit strict when people don’t behave as they should or respect her as a teacher/dorm leader/adult.
I took a ton of pictures of this one because I really liked how they turned out. As you can see, the figure comes some “accessories”, including a ball, hoola-hoop, and pins. These are designed to help set the scene for Nanako’s gym outfit. And as you can see, the shirt part can come off to reveal only her leotard. With her right hand she’s holding the ball, and with the left she’s adjusting the fit of her leotard on her butt. ^^; If you ask me, the figure itself looks stunning from pretty much any angle, so it wasn’t hard to photograph at all. The placement of the sun helped get some dramatic lighting. I also used a zoom lens here at with max aperture and close focus, and it really turned out quite nicely. I think this is definitely the best of the photo shoots in this set, and really love this figure. There was another version of this figure that was even less work-safe, but I ultimately decided that I didn’t want it to be a figure that I’d have to hide or cover up that much.
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So that’s it! Hopefully you found something that matched your taste, but if not I guess you should just find PVCs you like and mean something to you! Happy collecting to all!