Well That Figures: Project Diva Hatsune Miku

Last Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend asked me if I wanted him to buy me something from the dealer’s room of the local convention, rather than the traditional gifts.  Being an otaku, of course I said yes.  It was fun walking the dealer’s room looking for the perfect gift, while he nervously accompanied me.  After drooling over a $175 Sephiroth figure, I moved along until I found Project Diva Miku.

How could I resist that face?

What really made me choose this particular figure though, is her pose.  For a standing pose it shows a lot of movement and energy, which is perfect for a performer.

More detailed shots really help emphasize her twisting pose, with wrinkles in her shirt, and the movement of her skirt and tie.

Miku is also wonderfully detailed, right down to her painted fingernails.

As you can see from this close up shot, the paint is a little messy, but I’m personally willing to forgive that since it’s only slightly messy on very small details that are very difficult to paint neatly.

There’s even detail on her headset, and the lace on her collar is all nice and neat.

Miku’s hair is pretty standard anime hair…I don’t think it’s especially dynamic, but it serves its purpose and even doubles as extra stability for the figure as a whole.  If it wasn’t for her hair, I wouldn’t be sure that Miku would stand up without leaning.

All in all, this is an excellent figure with a highly detailed sculpt, and good paint.  She’s well worth what my boyfriend paid for her.

It’s just a shame I saw Miku before I spotted the $200 Zero Kiryuu (Vampire Knight) bedsheet. I could be sleeping on Zero now! (No…not really.  I’m kidding.)

Well That Just Figures: Disgaea Priestess

My last figure post has been the most popular on the blog so far, with almost 50 views, compared to my usual 5 to 8 views per day.

So today I’m going to do a comparitive post of two figures from different lines that are the same character, which should be recognizable by any of my regular readers by now: the Disgaea priestess.  Who, by the way, is one of my favorite units in all the Disgaea games.

The figure on the left is from the Disgaea Palm figures series, and the one on the right is from the Coin Character Series (I think, not quite sure on that >_<;).  The Palm series looks more true to the original character designs in Disgaea while the Coin Characters have longer proportions and are far more energetic, as well as insanely detailed for being such small figures.

As with the warrior figure, I love the face.  She’s just so cute!  However, looking at this particular figure closer, I do wish the paint had been done better.  It’s pretty sloppy in a few places, such as her shackles, which you can see in this shot.

The sculpt of her dress is pretty decent, and she has a good hair sculpt too.

You can see some of the messy painting on her leg here, some of the leg paint is also on her dress.  Also I had not noticed she has butt cheeks before I took this picture, hehe.

Now on to some pictures of the Coin Character figure.

As you can see from this initial shot, the detailing and paint are beautifully done.  Plus, her shackles move!  You can see the seam on her left hand.  I especially like the wrinkles in the draping of her dress.

You can see some messiness in the paint on her leg.  The bottom of her dress however, looks quite lovely.

I’m especially impressed that this figure has actual feet.  It’d be easy for the manufacturer to simply have the bottom of the dress be her base, but the feet are a little added bonus, I think.  Her toes are even delineated, but you can’t really see that in this picture.

Another detail I found impressive is her back (and her rear, but I couldn’t get a good picture of that).  As you can see in this shot, her back is sculpted.  You can also see some of the seams, but for the most part, they’re all hidden pretty well.

Now a fun picture!  My cat decided to disrupt my little photoshoot, so I went ahead and took his picture along with my little Priestess.

He really looks huge next to her, doesn’t he?

I also have an announcement:  I’m going to hold my very first contest with this post!  As you hopefully have seen with my pictures, the Coin Character Priestess is quite a lovely little figure, with lots of great details.  I have managed to buy three of these somehow.  The original which is in my pictures, I bought via livejournal sale.  The second I bought at a convention, where I got the rest of my collection, and the third came with a Disgaea/Rhapsody bundle via the Rosenqueen website.  I gave one extra to my brother, which means I have another extra looking for a new home.  That’s where you guys come in!  If you’d like a chance to own this figure, just leave me a comment in this post saying so.  After a couple weeks, I’ll randomly pick an entry and send them the Priestess.  Simple right?

Next post should either be a review of the RalGrad manga or the Samurai 7 anime, I haven’t decided quite yet.

The figures in this review were provided by me.

First figure review…please be gentle

I still have the poll to the side about figures, mostly because I haven’t figured what’d be a good new poll subject.  If you have any ideas, let me know.  I might just use it.

The winner of the poll is Disgaea, so I will be posting pictures of the Disgaea figures I own first along with my own thoughts on their quality.  Unfortunately, I’m probably going to end up sounding like a moron, because I never bothered to keep most of the boxes and quick google research has netted me nothing so far.  I have learned from this, and will be paying more attention to the manufacturers of my figures, at least.  I like to give all credit where it is due.

With that out of the way, the only real question was what figure to start with?

Before that, I’d better clear something up.  I might have misled unintentionally.  You might think “figure” and imagine something…well…bigger than what I’m referring to.  What I’m referring to are mostly gashapons, or capsule figures that are pretty small.  Most of them don’t really get bigger than about 5 inches or so.  It’s also very difficult for me to take pictures of the details in such small figures with my current camera, but I have come into a little money lately, and will be looking into one that’s better than my current camera.

I was going to start with one of my favorite Disgaea characters: the Priestess.  I have parts of a set of figures that are quite small, but amazingly detailed.  I have since found that the only way to get the Laharl is to buy the entire set, which I will sometime end up doing. (and selling/giving away the ones I already had)  However, when I tried to photograph some of the details, the pictures simply ended up fuzzy.  Here’s the only “good” picture from that bunch.

Needless to say, I’m going to have to save this little beauty for another post with that better camera.

I wanted to make a post, however, so I decided to try taking pictures of one of my figures from the Palm Characters series.  These are pretty distinctive as they come with a box to keep the figure in that are stackable.

The box is pretty handy for keeping the figure clean and easy to display.  Plus the stackability could help if you have space issues.

Even with this figure, you can see that my images are grainy.  Anyway, here’s the little Warrior from Disgaea.  There’s good detailing in her headband and the buckle on her chest.  As you can see, she came with an axe.

Here’s a side view.  You can see the seam on her arm pretty clearly, but the paint still looks good.  These figures have proportions that are pretty faithful to the game sprites.

Now a back view.  The detailing in her belt and belt pouches is excellent.

You can’t miss that giant head seam.  This figure also has some limited poseability – the arms and head move, although there won’t be much variation available.  This figure is able to hold weapons so if you buy any of the other figures in the series, you can always swap her to your favorite weapon.

The box is handy, but can be something of a pain.  The quality of boxes varies greatly.  Some stay shut nice and tight, and some hardly shut at all.  I also find that the character’s little circular base doesn’t always fit it’s assigned spot in the box base either.

However, these figures are true to game designs, and since I’m partial to the designs of Disgaea characters, I’m willing to overlook bases and boxes for the figures themselves.  I’ll leave you with an attempted close up of the warrior’s face.  She’s just so cute.

The figure in this review was provided by the author.