The purge has been moving slower than I had hoped, but one of the early victims was this nude resin rendition of Ryomou Shimei from Ikki Tousen.

(This post contains artistic nudity. Reader discretion is advised.)

Gallery

Review

This figure was among my earliest purchases after I started collecting and a symptom of my early affinity for Ryomou Shimei–I built up a set of three Ryomou figures long before I had that many of any other character. It was also one of the sauciest figures in my collection for a good many years. I believe the figure officially carries an 18+ rating, but voyeurs will be disappointed to note that there’s no explicit nudity to be found here, despite the fact that Ryomou is wearing little more than socks and shoes.

It’s a resin figure, one of only three non-PVC figures I have owned. At ¥12,540 after HLJ’s early bird discount, the asking price was substantial, and this was long before pricing north of the ¥10K mark was the norm. Ryomou does come with a wooden base, which is a bit of a nice touch and something you don’t see with PVC figures. Otherwise, there’s not much that would make me see resin as preferable or a premium option as compared to PVC.

The paint and sculpt quality is quite crude by current standards. I don’t know if that’s a symptom of the age of the figure, the fact that it was manufactured by Griffon, or a bit of both. She’s officially 1/7 scale, but I’d place her closer to 1/8 scale compared to other figures. One oddity with the sculpt is that Ryomou’s lower back/butt area is flat, rather than sculpted, where it meets the surface she rests on. It’s a detail that isn’t overly noticeable until you get creative with posing, but it feels a bit like a cheap shortcut and not something I would expect to see in a modern figure. For example, Alter’s cheongsam-clad Kasugano Sora has a chair with imprints to fit Sora’s butt; not the other way around.

Griffon actually did a PVC reissue of sorts for this figure back in 2012. It features several changes, including different socks, new handcuffs, and a notably softer facial expression. Judging from photos it actually looks a good bit worse than the resin version you see here, which is a pretty disappointing result when Griffon should have had a good five year’s worth of process improvements going for them.

I parted with Ryomou earlier this year as part of my space-reduction initiative. Despite the flaws, I didn’t hate the figure or really even consider it a disappointment at the time I bought it. It’s not a figure I would recommend that anyone rush out and buy, but if you really were determined to buy it, you’d be happy to note that the figure’s value has dropped a good bit since its release in 2006. For everyone else, there are better Mou-chan options out there, even from Griffon.