Alter’s Narika is a figure that I’ve been anticipating since she was announced. I really like Alicesoft’s character designs and given Alter’s history of producing superb figures, I had high expectations for Narika. As usual, Alter does not disappoint, as they’ve made another amazing figure.
I have two other figures from Beat Blades Haruka, Alter’s Haruka and Volks’s Subaru by way of E2046, but Narika is easily the best figure of the three. I did not play through Narika’s story path, but I’m guessing that she’s wearing some sort of power-up outfit rather than her usual ninja uniform, which is colored a bit differently.
To be honest, if you asked me which of the three ninja heroines is my least favorite, I’d say that Narika is, as I’m not a big huge fan of the tsundere temperament. That’d be like asking which is the worst out of People’s Instinctive Travels, The Low End Theory, or Midnight Marauders, however. I mean, when you’re dealing with three awesome things, does it really matter which is one’s least favorite?
I had to use an auto-translator to play Beat Blades Haruka and so I did not gain a meaningful comprehension of the game’s story, but from what I gather, Narika is the hyperactive, rather shrill, aloof type who nonetheless pines away for the protagonist. I guess that’s the definition of the tsundere archetype? Doubtless other people who read this will know better than I do.
Anyway, let’s talk about the figure. She’s in 1/8 scale and has a square white base that is very similar to Haruka’s. She mounts to it via a single oversized peg which I hope is strong enough to militate against leaning. She comes with two detachable parts, her ribbon which attaches to her back, and her weapon, which attaches to the ribbon.
Speaking of the weapon, I have no idea what it’s supposed to be. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of oversized staff or a massive hand cannon or something else. Normally she wields a four-pointed shuriken as her weapon of choice but whatever this thing is, it looks awesome. It’s emblazoned with a series of acronyms, numbers, and very small text which accentuate its futuristic, technological flair.
She’s depicted in an action pose, one leg raised with ribbons swirling about her. It’s an awesome pose and Alter did an excellent job of conveying a strong sense of dynamism here.
The sculpting is absolutely marvelous. There are tons of cool details like her tabi socks, the mechanical parts of her costume, and that weapon. Paint is also very good. Well, actually, I’m going to beef about one thing; the pink paint on her pigtails is quite faint, almost white-ish. The contrast that they provide with her bangs is rather conspicuous. It’s not a big deal to me though.
I’m not sure if you count what she’s wearing as pants, but if you do, Narika is the third figure I own who wears trousers. As everyone can see, her pants are split wide open, revealing her rather minimal underpants. I think it looks cool as hell but it might be a bit risque for some.
She took a while to get out into the market, but Narika was definitely worth the wait. She’s another awesome Alter figure and I really hope that they complete the trio by making Subaru.
Hi…just came by your blog and I see that you have some really nice figure reviews. 🙂
This is also a great review of Alter’s Narika figure with great photos. I am not familiar with the game but the character designs are great and once I picked up Haruka, I had to get Narika too. Hoping as well that Alter releases Subaru to complete the trio.
I just saw a picture on Kodomut’s blog. And her camel-toe is rather subtle, but it’s there. If it were just panties, I’m not sure I’d call it risque.
As for her weapon, probably some sword-shuriken, like an oversized boomerang?
BTW, how does one make an auto-translator program work with such games?
>> ELTboy
Thanks for dropping by! The game is a pretty straightforward relationship sim with some RPG-style combat elements and some, uhh, moderately extreme content. It’s good stuff. I should have mentioned in the review that a Beat Blades Haruka ero anime got released in Japan just a couple weeks ago.
>> Guy
Looking at the weapon some more, I’m still not sure what it is. It has two pistol-style grips but no barrel, so maybe it is some kind of really big melee weapon.
You need two programs to get the auto-translator to work: ATLAS and AGTH. AGTH will grab text from the game and display it in its own window, and then ATLAS grabs text from AGTH, translates it into Engrish, and displays it in its own window. Here’s a pretty good tutorial for getting both programs set up. The h-game forum on Hongfire is also a useful resource.
The translation quality isn’t fantastic; it’s about equal to Babelfish or Google Translate, but at least you can get an idea of what’s going on. Also, if I remember correctly, this method only translate game dialogue; it doesn’t translate menu options.
Wooow!! awesome!! she look very nice, definetly a figure i must have! jajajajja
i love her small pantsu jajajaja dont you?
Nice review!
atte.
Marcucho
Yeah, they’re one of the coolest aspects of her character design, I think. Definitely lets you know what sort of source material she comes from, too.
Very good Narika. I am waiting for her as well. Looks like I should finish Narika’s story huh. Well the OVA is already out so you would get a taste of her story now. But for the record, I can give you her little background story, Narika was raised to be a Sennin in the modern era and was meant to be Takamaru’s partner, she was told of this secret and Takamaru wasn’t. Haruka was not accounted in history for because she time traveled with the Noroi clan. So when Haruka showed up all of a sudden and took Narika’s place, she was a tad jealous of Haruka. She is a tsundere like you already know, but even so, she decided to stick with the tradition and prepared herself to be Takamaru’s partner (Sennin), thus you see why she trashed Takamaru’s attempt to get a girlfriend at the beginning of the game. I will finish the rest when I work on her story.
Just beautiful ! Congratulation for these amazing picture ! Narika is so nice !
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>> Wolfheinrich
Ah, cool, thanks. I should get back to the game sometime; I played through most of it but my characters aren’t strong enough to take on the last boss. Also, my character seems to be engaged to Haruka. I like Haruka but I was hitting pretty hard on Subaru and hoped to end up with her.
>> Leonia
Thanks! You know, I was going to go with a different backdrop for Narika. She’s an urban ninja and most of the game seems to take place in a city, so I was going to build a dark city alley diorama. I’ve been sick (and lazy) most of this last week so I didn’t get around to doing it, and in retrospect, I think the flower background is much more attractive.
Thanks Tier, and well, it’s good to know just in case 🙂
I like your style of photograph. Excel work! Congratulations!
Thanks! I ought to use flowers more often; they’re cheap, look pretty good and most importantly for me, they’re easy to set up.
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Third Review I read of her today and I could slap myself for not noticing before.
Pretty awesome figure with a nice pose,outfit and uh myseterious big weapon.
I approve 😛
She sold out really, really fast. I wonder if Alter just had a small production run or if more people bought her than I expected?
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Trying to locate an available Narika – sold out everywhere! Looks like a small production run as well as everyone getting one as there are a lot of reviews of this figure floating around. lol
Hope Alter produces some more! It sucks when you miss out on good stuff. =p
Yeah, I guess Alter must’ve just done a really small production run or something. I took a look at all the usual figure stores and I didn’t see any in stock. There’s a preowned one up at Benippon for an astronomical price and there’s a few up on Yahoo Japan. That might be your best option if you really, really want one; I had to go that route to get Exelica since nobody in the United States had one for sale.
Ok, starting to get really disturbed by some of the Alter figures now since I saw the new model of Yuri Lowell from whateverthehellhe’sin (damned if I know).
Made the classic mistake of: Oh she’s got quite a sweet face… bit flat chested though… OH MY GOD IT’S MEANT TO BE A GUY!
They really need to emphasise that a whole lot better with the faces… think I better stick to figurines with a Double D cup or higher in future
I recall watching a video for the recently-announced iDOLM@STER 2 and I was wondering if any of the girls were actually dudes. These days, you can’t ever be too careful. I did know that Yuri was a dude since I played through Tales of Vesperia (great RPG) and since he’s on Alter’s Altair imprint, which is the label they provide for male figures. However, I was completely fooled by this one other dude … uhh, Hideyoshi something, he’s some skinny kid wearing blue jeans. I thought it was a cool figure and moderately hot, and then I learned the dude’s a dude who just happens to look like a girl. I was all like “Oh hell no.” I ought to follow your advice, it’s the safest way to do things.