Arshes Nei is the first figure from Orchid Seed to make it to the top of my review pile. She appears to be a seasoned warrior of an exotic heritage, but can she hold her own against 2011 standouts like Dizzy and Rin? Find out below.
(This post has been tagged NSFW. Reader discretion is advised.)
Gallery
Review
I first spotted Arshes as an unpainted sample at the 2010 summer Wonder Festival. In sizing her up, you can’t help but notice that Arshes has a bit more meat on her bones than your typical bishoujo figure material. Her wide hips, thick thighs, and obviously ample bosom might suggest that Arshes’ seifuku-wearing days are behind her, but I suspect her curvy physique is more a product of the artist’s particular style than an indication of her age. Either way, I find her body type to be a refreshing change of pace in a market dominated by waifish school girls.
I don’t have any previous familiarity with Bastard!!, but from what I gather it’s a relatively obscure dark fantasy series from the early 90’s. As such, it’s surprising to see the series get a new figure design now, although I have noticed that Orchid Seed tends to pick up more characters from fringe titles than a lot of the other manufacturers do.
This is my first review of an Orchid Seed figure, so naturally I had some interest in seeing how they would stack up against long-time favorites like Alter and Good Smile Company. It’s worth noting that I already owned their Red Stone Lancer figure, but I managed to break the Lancer’s spear in the process of getting her unboxed and have yet to repair her, so she’s still pending a review.
Sculpt and paint detail are good, but not quite top tier. My main complaint here is that the satin matte finish combined with Arshes’ dark skin tone seems to show faint scuffs and scratches more readily than I’m used to seeing. If you look closely at the midriff you will see evidence of this in my shots. I can pretend it’s just some scar Arshes sustained in battle, but I rather suspect Orchid Seed did not intend for the mark to be there. -_-
As with many Orchid Seed figures, Arshes features a cast-off that allows one to remove the most significant impediments preventing the viewer from beholding Arshes in her raw glory. I’m frequently leery of such features as I feel they often require too many design compromises, but I have to admit that Orchid Seed shows their experience here. When not in use, the cast-off remains largely invisible, as it should. The body and clothing seams are well hidden and all connection points fit nice and tight.
All in all, I think Arshes is a good pickup. She’s not the most amazing figure I’ve ever seen, but she doesn’t have any significant flaws and she neatly fills a couple gaps in my collection.
Highs
- Arshes’ womanly figure
- Dark-skinned exoticism
- Fantasy-themed apparel
- Solid sculpt and paint detail
- Low-key cast-off implementation
- 1/6 scale
Lows
- Skin tone paint seems to show every little scratch
- Short pegs barely hold the figure onto the base
- Belt doesn’t come off easily when switching to cast-off mode
Other Reviews
As usual, I’m not the first to review this figure. Check out these other reviews for an alternate take:
Miscellany
All Things NSFW
Coming into this review, I was a little apprehensive of broaching the subject of nudes and “mature” content on the blog. I want to keep the site mostly safe for work, but I also want to review figures like this one from time to time and I think readers expect a full review.
After mulling my options, I opted for the minimal annoyance approach of applying the widely used and (hopefully) understood “NSFW” tag to both the post title and WP tags. I also toyed with the idea of censoring just the thumbnails, posting the cast-off pics somewhere else (e.g., Tsuki-board), and/or simply avoiding the question altogether by not posting any cast-off pics at all.
I’m open to feedback on this subject and I would like to hear some other opinions on what you’d like to see here.
Financial Data
- Purchased from: AmiAmi
- Order date: 5-May-2011
- Ship date: 9-Aug-2011
- Receive date: 25-Aug-2011
- Base price (JPY): ¥7,480
- Shipping cost (JPY): ¥1,280 (SAL Small Packet Unregistered)
- Total cost (JPY): ¥8,760
- Foreign transaction fee (USD): $0.00
- Total cost (USD): $113.83
Technical Data
- Package dimensions (width): 260 mm
- Package dimensions (height): 288 mm
- Package dimensions (depth): 155 mm
- Shipping weight (figure + base + accessories): 446 g
- Shipping weight (packaging): 401 g
- Shipping weight (shipping box): 342 g
- Shipping weight (total): 1,189 g
Figyura (フィギュラ) 
This was a good review and I liked the pictures of this figure.
I usually prefer a more petite bodyframe, but this Arshes figure has it’s own charm :).
In fact she looks very well done and the dark skincolor is another interesting part.
Her skincolor looks very good in combination with her cream colored dress.
So far I only own one figure from Orchid Seed, but they seem to be very good in making a low profile cast-off option, without using bulky looking clothes.
I was a bit insecure about my first nsfw review, too.
But when writing a review about a figure I want to cover the nude aspects of the figure as well. I don’t mind to see “nsfw” reviews here, when the figure has a cast-off option I actually want to see that, otherwise it would be an incomplete review in my opinion.
I don’t know that I have one preferred body type, but I think Arshes is more on the high side of the hips/thighs/bust range that I like to see.
Her dark skin is definitely appealing. I’m surprised it’s something we don’t see more often, though. It seems like other than some Nadia figures and a handful of the Lineage dark elves, there really aren’t very many figures of dark skinned girls out there.
I was worried prior to receiving Arshes that the cast-off implementation might ruin the figure, but it’s pretty well done for the reason you state. The material is thin and flexible, so it fits snug and doesn’t look too bulky on the figure. Unfortunately, I found the belt to be a royal pain in the butt to get on and off, but otherwise I was impressed with Orchid Seed’s cast-off design.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree that reviewing a figure with a cast-off without mentioning it would be an incomplete review and that visitors with some knowledge of the figure will probably expect to see some nudity.
These Amazon-like women sure have guts, entering battle in minimalistic gear. While not a regular fan of Orchid Seed’s work, Arshes Nei is a great looking figure. I think she looks her absolute best in her “fully clothed” outfit with the slighly swaying cloak. She still manages to maintain that mysterious and exotic feel even when fully bare and that’s not something you see with most figures featuring a cast-off.
As the figure is from a fantasy world, a very fitting and colorful backdrop was used in this review. #10 captures this very well.
Armor class goes up as coverage goes down, right? Right?! 😆
Yes, Arshes comes across as very self-assured from most angles, even in the buff. I’ll be displaying her fully clothed, with cloak–which seems to be the “standard” mode for this figure, if there is such a thing–but I have to admit that I was rather pleased with how the cast-off shots turned out.
Thanks for the comment on the background. I typically choose more based on trying to match up complementary colors than anything, but this background also has a sort of “forest canopy” feel, which I felt was appropriate for an elf–which is blatant stereotyping on my part, but there you have it. 🙄
This dark skinned elf is really playing hard to get. You dont find much figures like her.
funny how we had to wait that long for her release since it was shown back in 2010!
My only concern is that it kinda looks plain, not much colors, well the skin is already the focal point but other then that mhmm, the sword is alright, paint as you mention is not top notch but heck still looks good.
I was surprised when I looked back and discovered that the unpainted sample for Arshes appeared first at the summer Wonder Festival rather than the winter session. So yeah, she had a fairly long time to market. I wonder if she wasn’t a lower priority release for Orchid Seed compared to, say, their Soniko figures.
It’s true that there’s not a lot of color in her outfit. Pretty much everything is cream colored and the only real contrast is in the accessories like the belt and gloves. I don’t see it as a major weakness, but I have a feeling that Orchid Seed went with a simple design for the body pieces so that they could use a flexible material for the cast-off feature.
Figures with a darker skin tone are quite rare, which is a shame since I tend to prefer them. I like Arshes here and thought about getting her myself. It’s just a shame I know nothing about Bastard!! so there’s no real attachment to the character besides ‘she looks good’ for me.
Her body sculpt looks great and the cast-off doesn’t appear to have negatively impacted on her. I really like figures with capes too, so it’s cool to see Arshes has one. The bigger body build is also quite nice and is a welcome change once in a while to the standard wispy looking figures we see (or that I own xD).
Her skin does look a little too plasticy and as you’ve said the scuffs are easy to see which doesn’t help. Her head is also quite small compared to her body I think.
Nice review and photos. Thanks for sharing her with us :D. Also did you manage to get your Red Stone Lancer fixed?
Honestly, I didn’t know anything about Bastard!! or Arshes, either, so my motivations for picking her up falls under the “looks good” category. Her dark skin and stocky build are the most obvious points of attraction, but I also dig fantasy themes and Arshes has that going for her as well.
I can’t say that I really noticed before, but now that you point it out, I do see that Arshes’ head seems small in relation to her body. 😕 I think her turtleneck-like top also makes her neck look small, which might affect the way the head looks to us, too.
Unfortunately, the Lancer’s lance is still busted. I handed it over to my dad to let him take a stab at fixing it, as he is much better at such things than I am, but he hasn’t had time to work on it yet.