A couple of months ago, I was reading The Lord of the Rings, and one of the things that’s always struck me about J.R.R. Tolkien is how few books he ever had published. His bibliography basically comprises The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and several short stories. His most famous work is barely over a thousand pages in aggregate, shorter than many single volumes of contemporary fantasy series, and he labored virtually his entire adult lifetime on The Silmarillion without completing it.
That’s not to say that he wasn’t an active writer, though. Tolkien wrote prodigiously; the thing is, he constantly trashed his stories and started anew, coming up with new ideas, defining and redefining characters. One of his most famous characters, Frodo Baggins, was originally Bingo Baggins, Bilbo Baggins’s son. The character is refined over decades through numerous iterations and revisions until he becomes the Frodo that everyone knows from the movies. Despite the paucity of Tolkien’s published work, it’s safe to say that his characters are some of the most beloved in all of fiction and have, thanks to the films and the books’ enduring appeal, become pop-culture icons.
There is, however, another way to develop characters and ensconce them in the hearts and minds of the masses, one that doesn’t require a lifetime of toil. Start with a female anime character with big eyes, give her some attributes that hit on a variety of fetishes held by anime fans, get an associated video or a song up on the web, and chuck some merchandise out into the market. Then, when the inevitable anime and manga and video game tie-ins come out, you’ll be able to move more merchandise and sit back and watch panting fans drop thousands of yen on your goods. Character background? Don’t need it. Personality? Make it up as you go. Just be sure that it falls within one of the common, proven-to-sell archetypes. If it does, you’re good.
Normally when I write a figure review, I write something about the character’s history, but in this case, I have absolutely no idea where the Black Rock Shooter comes from, apart from being an illustration that I think inspired a song or a video on a Japanese website. I don’t even know if that’s her name, or if she has a real name; if she doesn’t, I guess that’s one other thing a character doesn’t need to sell stuff.
Now, I’m being unfair when I suggest that all you need to do to sell figures is to pander to the usual fetishes. Well, that’s all true, but in the Black Rock Shooter’s case, she stands apart by featuring less-popular, perhaps even controversial traits. Scars certainly aren’t very high on the list of appealing attributes, and a number of people don’t particularly like scantily-clad characters (I’ll never be able to figure out what’s wrong with those sorts of people). She doesn’t have headphones or a schoolgirl outfit or a maid uniform or a fang or glasses or thighhigh socks. What she does have is a very prominent scar, a pallid complexion, and a bulimic body build, all combining to present her as the very image of unhealthiness.
As a side note, there’s a character in the game Sengoku Rance who constantly coughs up blood and is thwarted from seeking a cure by several strange creatures who believe that frailty is moe. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
The Black Rock Shooter is sculpted in 1/8 scale by Good Smile Company. She’s a bit under 20 centimeters tall to the top of her head, but she is quite a bit larger due to her hair and gun and the huge, chunky base. The base is big and heavy and is sculpted quite nicely, although I’m not sure what it’s depicting.
She comes in a really big box but she doesn’t have too many accessories. Her gun fits in her hand without any pegs or fastening points, and there’s a small black chain that you can loop around it and her arms. Good Smile Company thoughtfully provides an instruction sheet to show you how to wrap the chain, but I thoughtlessly ignored it and just draped it over her weapon. Finally, you can give her a glowing eyeball by scalping her; her bangs detach so that a separate forehead piece with the transparent blue plastic glowy effect can be fit into place.
Here’s her normal face, which isn’t nearly as interesting as the glowy eyeball.
The sculpt is pretty good; looking at the source artwork on the side of the box, it appears faithful, although the figure’s facial expression seems a tad angrier than the illustration. I like the pose a lot, she’s leaning back with one leg crossed over the other, giving her a sense of nonchalance. I’m not really a fan of flat chests, and her bikini top isn’t doing her any favors, but I always approve of skimpy costumes so I’m not going to complain.
The paintwork is similarly good. She’s got a very simple but eyecatching color scheme, with glossy black paint used on her clothing and dark, blue-tinged paint used to color her hair.
I wonder how this character got the scar. Did someone slip some roofies into her drink and extract a kidney while she was out? It looks a bit like half of a train track, with those lines going across it. Maybe they’re supposed to be from stitches? I don’t have much experience with major lacerations so I guess I wouldn’t know what such a scar is supposed to look like.
True to her name, she comes packing heat, and what a gun it is. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to shoot, but it looks very impressive. It’s mostly hollow and isn’t all that heavy. It comes with some scraped paint along its edges that I assume is supposed to highlight the desolation that this figure portrays.
I bet everyone who wanted this figure made up their minds about how they viewed it months ago. Me, I think it’s a pretty good figure. I don’t really understand the tidal wave of hype and lust that enraptured so many figure collectors for so long, but then again, I suppose my taste in figures can be a bit peculiar. This is a pretty good looking and altogether distinctive figure and I’m happy to have it, but I’m more curious as to how long this character’s appeal will last.
Fantastic pictures. Does she come with the big thick chains in the pictures?
Nice !
A friend of mine said that this comes from a (very reinterpretated) fan art of Hatsune Miku
Beautiful picture ! It’s an amazing figure ! I’am waiting for her reception ! I think that I prefer this figure whithout the blu eye effect ^^ Maybe I will expose her whithout it ^^
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Nice pictures! I love the shining star effects on her coat as a result of the lighting. Great stuff!
A perfect figure for your own photos style. You correctly exploited the dark side of it.
I haven’t ordered it because i tought her body was to skimpy. But after seeing all the review about it maybe i’ll change my mind.
Mostly for her jacket and hairs i like very much.
I’ve read Tolkien as well, i like his way to describe everything.
Fantastic shots as always Tier. ~_^
>> Lenneth
Unfortunately she does not, I got those chains at a local Michael’s store a couple months ago; the promo shots had these big heavy chains in the background so I’m shamelessly borrowing their idea XD
>> maik
That is quite the reinterpretation! I wonder if the Black Rock Shooter sings and dances? I’d like to see her dance.
>> Leonia
Thanks! I like how the glowy eye and the scar sorta give her some character which, being that I don’t know whether her designer ever established a background for her, makes her stand out a bit more.
>> softz
I got this star filter for my camera with the intention of re-doing some of my Haruhi pictures, but that didn’t work out so well (not sure if it was the equipment’s fault or my fault, but it’s most likely the latter), but I saw the star on her jacket and I thought maybe I’d get some interesting results with it here.
>> Lylibellule
I usually like my figures to be a bit more fully-formed too. Although then again, I do have MF’s Miku Hatsune here and she’s pretty skinny.
I like her jacket a lot, the second version of the figure where she’s not wearing her jacket doesn’t look as good to me because of that. I surely do support half-naked anime characters but BRS doesn’t really have the body to pull it off XD
>> Ashlotte
Thanks to you too XD
Interesting, nice effect for your shots too, love them. I had her on pre-order list originally but had to drop her due to my lack of knowledge of the character in question. The flat chest and scar didn’t help her appeal one single bit for me. I guess I am more a bishoujo collector rather than figure collector, and those traits don’t belong to a bishoujo.
Stop by for the 1/4 Kos-Mos if you are in the mood 😛
*cough*
I am basically in the same situtation as you and dont give a damn about her history or where she comes from.The selling formula for me was
Scar+Gun+scantly clad mean looking girl = instant buy
Its kinda weird to admit but her scar was the main attraction to me and im kinda unhappy that they gave it such an unnatural tone in the final product.
I wonder when mine will be shipped ^^
your extra chains look exactly like how they presented her at wonhobby 9 ^^ nice touch
i’m also not really a fan of flat chests either but man, so many other things to love about his figure so no biggie 😛
neat filter you got there. i’ve been wanting to try some cheaper special fx filters like soft focus or the star one you have… keep forgetting to buy some ^^;
>> Wolfheinrich
Thanks, and yeah, that’s one of the things I find interesting about this character, is that someone basically conjured her out of thin air and despite that lack of background and her possibly-objectionable physical appearance, she is hugely, ragingly popular. Is it her distinctiveness? Or is the Vocaloid property just that popular? I guess I wouldn’t know if they are, I’ve never actually seen any of the videos.
>> Blowfish
My algebra was pretty much the same as yours. XD I was like, “Ehh, dunno anything about the Vocaloid characters. Don’t care much about Miku. Really dislike the blonde characters. But she gots a nice gun. And some awesome booty shorts. Booty itself isn’t that sexy but she gets an A for showing it off.” I do like the scar; I know it sounds messed up but I’ll shamelessly admit that injured girls are up there on my list of fetishes. I like bandages more though. Like on that one Rei figure based off the Shunya Yamashita drawing, I was hugely disappointed that Yamato left the bandages off. That figure would’ve been fifty times better if they’d left them on plus the eye patch.
>> meronpan
I saw those chains at the store months ago and I thought, “Hey, those look like the chains that I saw on the Black Rock Shooter’s promo photos over on Amiami.” I tried to think of something a bit more original but my imagination failed me. I’m gonna try to do something a bit more complicated for MF’s Miku though.
I think the thing I actually dislike about flat chests isn’t the body shape but the personality that always seems to go with it. Almost every young-looking, flat chest character I’ve ever seen is always noisy and hyperactive and ridiculously high-maintenance and consequently annoying as hell. The big boob girls always seem to be much more fun.
My new toy budget is limited so I’m going for cheap upgrades wherever I can get them. XD If you’ve got Photoshop, you can sorta simulate a soft focus effect by doing a Gaussian blur with a radius of like 5, then fading it with an opacity of maybe 50%, and then doing an unsharp mask at like 150-200%.
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Where can I buy this. Can someone send me link because this figure is just awsome.
That is a good question; this figure was in fairly high demand and might be sold out across the planet by now. I’d recommend searching for it on eBay or Google and see if anything turns up. There’s another figure of this character due for release in a couple of months; it looks similar except she doesn’t have the jacket and swaps the gun for a sword.