Charlotte Hazellink is yet another prepainted, preassembled kit from E2046 by way of Volks. One of these days I’m going to try building and painting models on my own. However, that day is not today.
Charlotte comes from the h-game-turned-anime Princess Lover!. I have no familiarity with the game other than having viewed the CGs, but I have watched the first few episodes of the TV show, which would be eminently forgettable if it weren’t so memorably terrible. The first couple of episodes are unoffensive, perhaps even enjoyable, but after the anime settles in and introduces the standard, formulaic harem elements, it gleefully proceeds to stick a horny, callused digit right up the rectum of plausibility. And twists. Relentlessly. I guess I shouldn’t divulge the story here on the off-chance that this figure impels anyone to watch the show; just imagine the most ludicrous plot elements possible and know that this anime blows the roof off of them Usain Bolt-style.
But we’re reviewing a figure here, not a television show. While I have nothing good to say about the show’s plot, I do like the first three female characters that we meet. Charlotte Hazellink – or Hazelrink, I’m not sure how it is supposed to be romanized – is the first candidate to become eligible for the protagonist’s harem, and she is an actual princess, presumably from a European country. I’m not sure why she’s studying in Japan. Upbeat and effervescent, she is playful, silly, a bit ditzy, and rather fun to watch – early on, anyway.
The television show’s character designs differ a bit from the game’s, and this figure is based on the latter. E2046 thoughtfully gives you the option of dressing her in an elaborate gown or leaving her in her unmentionables. Guess which way I’m displaying her?
I should mention that I did a pretty poor job putting her dress on. I’ve had some problems with paint scraping off onto the skin of prepainted E2046 figures when playing around with removable clothing, so I loosely draped the gown parts on Charlotte. It’s not too difficult to fix paint transfer – a Q-tip dampened with rubbing alcohol can take the paint right off – but it’s still an annoyance.
The gown comes in several pieces – front and back halves, a couple of upper sleeves, one part which goes over her right shoulder, and one more part that attaches to the left side of her waist and sits atop her skirt.
And off come the clothes again. Charlotte is billed as 1/6 scale, but she’s really closer to 1/7 scale. My handy tape measure puts her right at 21 centimeters tall. Actually, that might be closer to 1/8 scale.
I like the sculpt a lot; she’s got a saucy tilt to her waist and her left leg is turned inwards. I suppose I don’t really need to state the obvious but she’s also got some enormous breasts. Believe it or not, but her bust is actually larger in some of the official art for the television show.
Paint is pretty good; I like her muted white and gray color scheme. Her skin is a bit shiny; in some of these photos, she’s got a reflective spot on the left side of her nose. I don’t see it on her under normal room lighting conditions, so I’m going to regard that as a side effect of photography lighting. Overall though, E2046 did a very nice job with the paint.
E2046 also gave Charlotte an additional set of arms, one grasping this scepter thingy. It’s pretty spiffy but since I’m strapped for space – both vertically and in shelf area – I’m going to use her normal arm, cocked alongside her head.
While I can’t really praise the source material, I do think that this is a really cool figure. The quality is there and Charlotte is sexy, and that’s what I like to see in a figure.
I also ordered Sylvia, and she is presently languishing somewhere between here and New York. The USPS’s tracking system sucks so hard.
She is so sexy ! Nice picture 🙂
I have long hesitated to pre-order … Charlotte and finally, I have not taken.
Your photos make me regret it but I currently have other priorities.
It is really successful. E2046 still has a good job despite the little problems that you explain(Sorry for my bad english 🙁 )
Nice review 😉
Shes looking good!
Now that you criticized the show so much I knda feel the need to watch it.^^
I definately need to buy a Gathering figure again when The PVC Market gets a bit less crowded.
>> Leonia
She is! Thanks XD
>> Lylibellule
I waffled for a while too, but I decided to buy this figure (and Sylvia) after I watched the first couple episodes of the show. Little did I know that the show was going to joyfully jump off a cliff and head straight down into mediocrity.
Your English is fine! I lived for ten years outside of the United States and I wish that I’d taken the time to learn another language, but I can only speak and read English.
>> Blowfish
Haha, I was hoping that my review would get someone to watch the show just to see if it’s really that bad! I actually haven’t watched the really bad parts yet, I think I stopped around episode 5 or 6 where I could tell that it was going off the tracks; I’ve read a couple of anime blogs that follow the show though and it definitely becomes a trainwreck. (I forgot to mention in the review that the main character’s harem unofficially includes a male character, and that breasts and panty shots are censored. I mean, what the hell? This show comes from an h-game, and they’re going to censor panty shots?)
You should! You should buy that massive, epic-scale KOS-MOS that they’re putting out. That figure is going to be legendary.
That Kos-Mos figure will be the stuff of legends indeed.
The square hair-bit looks nice from behind, but it looks like someone broke her hair from the top/front, which is a bit off-putting.
The gown is pretty nice, but I was going to comment that it was quite bulky and ill-fitting at the front, which you’ve explained 😉
I also think the details on her undergarments don’t seem detailed and precise enough. Like the yellow ruffles in her undergarment, and the straps?
I am reassured that my English is readable. 😉
I look forward to seeing your photo of Sylvia.
>> Guy
This might be a case where part of a character design that works in 2D doesn’t translate as well to 3D.
I haven’t seen the unpainted kit, but I think her underwear is cast as part of her body. I haven’t yet painted a model kit but it looks like a real pain to paint parts like that. I’m kinda surprised that E2046 can keep their prices down to near-PVC levels.
Not a big fan of Charlotte. I’m more of a Sylvie guy.
The scepter pose looks really cheesy tho, and it looks like someone messed up with painting the corset. Were they trying to go with a see-through effect? The contrast between it and the skin colour is too great IMO. They were probably better off painting it in the same colour as the rest of her underwear!
@Tier: the reason E2046 is able to keep prices low is because they are using parts which are recasted from an original kit (basically, a bootleg). The quality of the material isn’t as high and the parts are not as good quality which keeps the price of the unpainted kit down. As for the paintjob, they probably pay a fixed fee to some factory to get people to paint it. Again, it keeps the costs down by doing it in bulk instead of individual commission jobs.
Yeah, I know they make recasts. I’m assuming that labor is the largest part of the cost, since you need certain artistic skills to be able to paint and assemble a figure model. I’m also guessing that the cost for the resin material is more or less negligible for both the original and recast kits.
@Tier: fraid not. Resin comes in varying quality and is one of the more expensive materials to work with, way more than PVC. the 10k pricetags on wonfest kits aren’t mostly for the hard work the maker put into it…
Having worked on both original and E2046 kits, I can say that the E resin is workable but a far cry from the stuff used in original kits. They are not the worst by a long shot tho, but both the mold and the resin quality end up making far more work than is needed for the kit.
I’ve tried their prepainted gathering service once and the paintjob was pretty decent, but it’s hard to judge how good the painters are from a single sample. Dunno how they work out the costs for the batches either.
She could only be better if her under things were castoffable,as I have already seen. Impressive!
Indeed! Hopefully she’ll get some screen time if they make more OVAs, the two with Sylvie are quality viewing.