Kokoro is the new girl on the block in the long-running Dead or Alive franchise, and she comes to us courtesy of Kotobukiya’s Venus on the Beach series. She is sculpted in the manly 1/6 scale that a lot of Kotobukiya figures seem to come in.
I like the Dead or Alive games but I wasn’t stricken with lust when I saw Kotobukiya’s lineup. Their DOA figures had problems, mainly with the heads. I don’t know why but nobody seems to be able to do a decent job with the DOA characters’ faces, and the hair looked off too. Here is Ayane, for example; she just doesn’t look right.
Kokoro, however, looks pretty good. I don’t really care for her much in Dead or Alive 4 and I never partner with her in DOA Xtreme 2 but Kotobukiya’s rendition is very appealing. She comes dressed in a skirt and sleeveless top ensemble, and that went off immediately. Curiously, her skirt has a fragment of white panty attached which hides her swimsuit bottom; it reminded me a bit of when I had my senior photo taken back in high school. I got this scrap of shirt with a fake necktie attached that draped over me, and then I put a graduation gown over that to make it look like I had dressed up, even though I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans.
I don’t know what swimsuit this is in the game but it looks pretty good. Detailing is intricate, particularly on the top, where the beads are painted different colors, and the lighter regions of her suit have a nice iridescent effect. She comes with a parasol that can fold open and closed like a real umbrella. Her base comes with some fake water and some examples of sea life. I don’t see any big huge flaws in her manufacture; the seam line running along her jaw is actually where you get to pop her head off if you want to change her clothes.
I bought Kokoro mainly to qualify for free shipping on an order I put in at OtakuFuel but the more I think about it, the more I like her. She’s got a very pretty face with an expression that seems to change depending on what angle you look at her from, a nice sculpt, and some really big breasts. I don’t remember them being this large in Dead or Alive 4 but I suppose this might be a Kotobukiya inaccuracy that works out very well in the end.
