When I look at Alter’s lineup, there aren’t any figures that I’d consider bad. Oh sure, they’ve got quite a few figures that I don’t particularly care for, but they are supreme with respect to quality, and you can see it in every figure they make. On the flip side, consider Taki Corporation; they don’t have a single figure that I like and their works are distinguished only by their misshapenness. Then take a maker like Kotobukiya; they’ve been around forever and they put out pretty good figures. I can’t think of any that stand out, though; there are a number of Alter figures that I knew I was going to buy as soon as I saw them, but I can’t think of any Kotobukiya figures that I can make the same claim for.
Daiki Kougyou, however, is a different sort. While Alter is consistently superb and Kotobukiya is always solid and Taki is reliably bad, Daiki Kougyou’s figures are all over the place. They’ve crafted masterpieces like the miko version of Kanu Unchou, which can easily go toe to toe with anything Alter’s ever chucked out. And then you have figures like this, where you scratch your head and wonder what they were thinking. Further, while Alter, Taki, and Kotobukiya all tend to adhere closely to the original character designs, Daiki Kougyou often eschews convention and offers its own spin on existing characters. For example, many of their figures are sculpted by Toshirou, whose style has its own inimitable idiosyncrasies, and they have an upcoming figure of Ikkitousen’s Ryomou Shimei as re-imagined by Shunya Yamashita, who of course has an easily-identifiable and distinctive flair. They’ve also made a figure of Sei which is unusual in that they didn’t bother giving her a left arm, and her face looks a little bit like Dr. Julian Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
So when I look at this figure of Haruhi, it’s a bit surprising to me that it comes from Daiki Kougyou. It looks more akin to something that Max Factory or Good Smile Company would make, since it’s a very faithful representation of the character. It’s also an amazing figure, and while I think miko Kanu is the best figure that Daiki Kougyou’s ever made, Haruhi is right up there as well.
Haruhi Suzumiya is, of course, the titular character of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Normally I’d assume everybody who might read this review has watched the show and knows what it’s about, but I’d be incorrect on that score, since I haven’t finished watching the first season myself. On the unlikely chance that anyone reading this doesn’t know who Haruhi is, she is the effervescent, incorrigible leader of the SOS Brigade and the enigmatic epicenter of all the events in the show. All the events that I’ve watched thus far, anyway.
Sculpted in 1/8 scale, she actually looks a bit larger than that. It might be because her head is so large relative to her body, but just eyeballing her, I’d guess that she’s on the upper end of 1/8 scale or the lower end of 1/7 scale.
Haruhi comes with a rather unusual base. She plugs into a huge musical note, an eighth note I guess. The plug protrudes right from her rump so there’s no easy other way to display her. The note is made of plastic and is a bit flimsy, although it’s sturdy enough that it won’t bend unless you’re really putting some force against it (it’d probably break before bending, anyway). The note then goes into the second part of the base, a plain round plastic disc.
The other loose part in the box is Haruhi’s guitar. You push the neck into her left hand; the body balances against her leg and torso. She doesn’t really get a firm grip on it, so I’d recommend not jarring her too much. The guitar has real strings, which is good and bad; it gives it a more realistic appearance but it’s also an annoyance because the strings keep sliding out of the nut. The guitar does look quite awesome; it’s got twenty frets and the tuners, pickups, bridge, and volume knobs all have a chrome-look paint job.
Incidentally, I’m not sure what sort of guitar this is supposed to be. I also wonder why we never see pointy guitars like Ibanezes or Jacksons in anime. Personally, I like guitar designs with a Strat body and a pointy stock.
Haruhi herself looks absolutely incredible. Her face does an excellent job of capturing her lively personality, and the pose is both playful and hot. Her stockings are made of fishnet material rather than being printed on, and the effect is marvelous; there’s some natural shading around the back of her knees and towards her ankles where the material sort of bunches up which looks great. If you’ve got a pantyhose fetish, this is the figure you want.
In terms of overall quality, the sculpt is second to none. Her legs are long and well-proportioned and her ass is dead sexy. Her face lines up perfectly with her arm (I know you all remember Alter’s Hikaru, who was sighting down her gat with the wrong eye), and she’s got a guitar pick clenched between thumb and middle finger, which is a very nice touch. Similarly, the paint job is superb; she’s got a pretty simple color scheme here, but everything looks fine, from the muted tones of her guitar to her signature bright yellow hair ribbon. Daiki Kougyou also really nailed the color of her eyes as well.
I picked up Haruhi from HLJ’s sale and I’m wondering why I didn’t buy her earlier. As you can probably tell, I really like this figure; it’s cute, sexy, unique, an outstanding rendition of Haruhi and a remarkable figure in general.
Another review is up on foo-bar-baz. His pictures are quite brighter than mine. I don’t recall coming across any other reviews of this Haruhi.
I now have a greater appreciation of non-posable figures – you can’t play with them as easy but damn if they don’t look really good. It got me thinking, I have a small collection of figures and a new camera, maybe I should try and photograph the figures and share the photos with you?
Figmas and Revoltechs are hard to find in Australia, but we do have a lot of PVC figure statues. Also I like Yuki Nagato better as a character, because every time I have a dream about Haruhi she’s trying to kill me.
Funnily enough…
Yeah, this is one of the definitive haruhi sculpts for me, being the only one which could compare to the near Legendary BUBBA bunny Haruhi.
I actually considered getting the original GK all those years ago, but held back because 1) I already had bunny haruhi and 2) the sculpt strongly suggested that it would only be viewable from a small range of angles, Looks like you found that out…
The guitar strings and fishnets are a nice addition which they didn’t need to do. Esp the guitar strings. If you think they’re annoying now, imagine what they are like when you have to put them on yourself!! *suddenly remembers*
I was quite surprised when I saw that this was getting the PVC treatment, given that it was several years after the GK came out but it’s definitely one of the best haruhi figures one can buy outside of the GK lot (and it beats a fair few of them too!)
I just wonder how many people got it given how long it was since Season 1. endless eight probably won’t help sales of haruhi merchandise now either…
Well, it’s a nice bunny Haruhi, but the definitive Haruhi with Guitar is the one where she’s dressed in punk-rock outfit, you know the one.
>> Jacob Martin
You should! It’s still surprising to me how much fun photography is. I’ve still got Dragon Ages and Halo ODST and Tekken 6 (among others) sitting on the video game pile untouched because I spend a lot more time shooting pictures and learning more about shooting pictures.
I do like Yuki too, and it’s a bit of a shame that there’s no Yuki counterpart to this particular Haruhi. I have this thing for the quiet girls. I think a figure of bunny Yuki sitting in a chair while reading a book with a “Why the hell are you bothering me?” face would be pretty cute.
>> gundamjehutykai
It doesn’t seem like too many people bought it, Tsuki-board shows about 50 people listed as owning the black and white versions, versus, uhh, 240 for the Max Factory one. That’s too bad, since this figure probably has the most mainstream appeal of any figure Daiki Kougyou’s ever made.
Yeah, the front view is by far the best. I do like the way she looks from other angles just because her legs are sculpted so well. The sculptor ought to get a gold medal for doing such a fantastic job on them.
>> Guy
I passed on that one at the time, but if I could find it at a decent price, I might pick it up. I actually like this Haruhi figure better; the MF one has her face locked in this clownish scream, which I find to be a bit scary.
I hesitated to buy her. She is dynamic, and her base is really original. But I don’t really like Bunny costume (I had Freeing version because of her 1/4 scale). Your beautiful are nice as always. Thank for this news review, I was happy to see picture about this figure ^^
I had remembrance of that figure but i didn’t really got interested.
It’s true that Daiki Kougyou trend to give his own vision of the character in their figures instead of stay true to the character design.
But in here, i found that Haruhi is a success. Her face is respectful of her temper.
I didn’t know that her stockings was in a true material just like those of Freeing. A good point.
The “Show” effect can be felt on your shots. Good job. 😉
>> Leonia
Yeah, I’m not a big bunny suit fan either. Actually, it’s mainly the ears I don’t like; I don’t like animal ears on girls. I made an exception for Haruhi though, since the pose is so cool.
>> Lylibellule
Thanks XD I wish I had more lights and maybe a star filter for my camera to make the background a bit more exciting.
Well said on the figure makers. I totally agree with you though I still have lots to learn.
This Haruhi is very nice. But, I’ve gotta agree with Guy. I prefer the punk-rock chick version better.
Also, I like your lighting effects very much. Maybe you can start a tutorial on those too. 😉
I kinda wish I hadn’t passed on that one; I took a look over at eBay and it’s selling for well over a hundred bucks now. Plus I’m not quite as fond of the Yuki and Mikuru figures in that line so I wouldn’t be too tempted to complete the set. (Now if Mikuru were rocking a bass instead of a tambourine, that’d be a different story.)
The lighting effects are so ghetto that I’m embarrassed to show them, but here is a picture of what the setup looked like. Basically it’s just two lamps, one shining from above with some construction paper wrapped around it to block some of the light from reaching the background, and a second light off to the left shining towards Haruhi’s right side. The little column of lights is an LED light strip, a leftover from when I put some lights in my Detolf display case. In the picture, I have it suspended in the air via some string and the power cable; after taking a few pictures, I decided this wasn’t going to be very practical since the string and wire were going to be visible on low-angle shots and I didn’t want to have to Photoshop them out of all those pictures, so I positioned it vertically and taped it to the top of my desk. One big reason why the shots are so dark and why I’m using such a thin depth of field for my pictures here (besides the dramatic effect) is to obscure all of this ghetto-ness.
Tier, you are cool! real cool!
Thanks for creative ideas.
Darn, I only know binary 1s and 0s. *LOL*
Thanks! That’s pretty much all I did in college, too. There weren’t too many opportunities to exercise creativity there (other than in my processor design class) so I enjoy trying to come up with ideas to make my pictures a bit more interesting.
That Mikuru is really nice, but I am not too keen on that Nagato either.
woah, that’s a nice looking haruhi suzumiya bunny figure I’ve seen, and this is the cutest one! but I might ask, is this figurine authentic or not? doesn’t her fishnet stockings have frills on the back? as illustrated on the box I saw.
It is! It’s odd how this figure sorta seems to have slipped under the radar, since it’s one of my favorite renditions of Haruhi. Yeah, it’s real, I got it from HLJ. The funny thing is, I never noticed that the stockings don’t have that seam, but a couple people noticed it and mentioned that on the figure’s MFC page. This figure was originally a model kit (by Cobra Kai, I think), so I’m assuming that the prototype figure had the seams, and that’s what they used for the publicity photos. I also checked foo-bar-baz’s review and his doesn’t have the seams, either. Curious that they left them out.
Hey Tier, was just wondering if you have this figure 😮
http://www.alter-web.jp/figure/09/03_1/
Nah, I don’t have that one; I don’t have any figures of Yuki, actually, which is a bit of a shame since she’s my favorite character from the show. If you’re looking for a review of it, though, I could swear that super rats has that one; I’d do a search on HappySoda for it.
Ya I have her in my collection, she’s definitely worth it 😛
Too bad I didn’t manage to get the limited edition :< Oh well, both of them are unique in different ways XD
Even to this day, would you still recomend to buy it?
Umm … well, maybe, if you like this sort of thing or you’re a Haruhi fan. Otherwise I think you can skip it.