Review: Amakuni 1/8 Shimakaze

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It has become evident from the past couple Wonder Festival events that Kantai Collection (aka KanColle) is the new darling of the figure industry. The moe anthromorphization of naval battleships as cute girls makes for good merchandising and the property owners behind KanColle have done well to spread the love around by letting quite a few different manufacturers take a crack at rendering the various ship-girls in plastic. Amakuni is on the forefront of that effort and they wisely decided to start with arguably the most popular girl in Shimakaze.
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Review: Amakuni 1/8 Dark General

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It’s time to take a look at Amakuni’s 1/8 scale Dark General from Shingeki no Bahamut (aka Rage of Bahamut).

This review started as a review for the Dark General’s sister-in-origin, Dark Angel Olivia from Kotobukiya, who arrived not too long ago. Although Olivia is a gorgeous figure when viewed in person, I found her very difficult to work with from behind the camera as her wings block the angles where I want to put my light and the glossy finish on her eyes provide horrible reflections from most any position. I quickly grew frustrated, punted on the Olivia photo shoot, and switched over to the Dark General here hoping for some redemption. Fortunately, she proved to be quite photogenic.
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Review: Amakuni 1/8 Leviathan *NSFW*

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The Seven Deadly Sins is the latest Hobby Japan original content production and follows the same basic ecchi harem blueprint laid out by prior HJ projects Queen’s Blade and Hyakka Ryouran. We have seven demon girls that collectively represent the seven deadly sins: Asmodeus (Lust), Beelzebub (Gluttony), Belphegor (Sloth), Leviathan (Envy), Lucifer (Pride), Mammon (Greed), and Satan (Wrath). Esteemed Nitroplus artist Niθ has reprised his role from Hyakka Ryouran by once again providing character designs for the new HJ franchise. An anime production was announced in October, but the first products to bear the standard for the 7-Sins project will be a line of scale bishoujo figures, starting with Amakuni’s Leviathan, which is the subject of today’s review.

(This post contains artistic nudity. Reader discretion is advised.)
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Preorder Roundup: 2013.02 Edition

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Periodically, I like to take a look at new figures that are available for pre-order. This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather a selection of new releases that I personally find interesting or notable.

Another exciting WonFes has come and gone, which means it’s probably a good time to take a look at the backlog of figures from my preorder short list.

(Actually, I’m not timing these posts around WonFes. That’s just how long it takes the backlog to reach critical mass.)
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Preorder Roundup: 2012.03 Edition

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Periodically, I like to take a look at new figures that are available for pre-order. This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather a selection of new releases that I personally find interesting or notable.

It’s been over five months since my last preorder write-up, so there’s a lot of ground to cover. Let’s get started.
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Review: Alter 1/8 Yagyu Jubei ~Hobby Japan Swimsuit Ver.~

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When Alter announced a Hobby Japan-exclusive version of Hyakka Ryoran heroine Yagyu Jubei clad in revealing swim attire, it didn’t take long for me to decide that Jubei was a character worth at least two figures. Acquiring this version of Jubei was made complicated by the details accompanying the release announcement. Beyond the simple fact that Hobby Japan won’t ship outside Japan, Jubei was also to be limited to 1,500 pieces distributed via lottery. It seems that the old “first-come, first-served” adage need not apply here. The lottery clause effectively eliminated the option of ordering the figure through a proxy service because there was no guarantee that they could fill the order.

I had noticed in the past that the US-based ToysLogic seemed to carry Hobby Japan exclusives from time to time. I contacted them regarding the new Jubei to see if they would be accepting orders. A few days later, I got a response that they would indeed be accepting orders for the HJ exclusive. I was concerned as to how they would get around the lottery problem, but I didn’t press the issue and decided to place my order through them. A box from ToysLogic arrived at my doorstep seven months later.
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