I’m a bit surprised that Ga-rei Zero hasn’t received more love than it has. It’s got sassy sword-swinging schoolgirls in short skirts, strong lesbian undertones, solid animation, gore in plenty and an impressive body count to accompany the violence. It’s exactly what I’m looking for in an anime series.
Actually, I guess maybe it isn’t that surprising that Ga-rei Zero hasn’t received more love than it has.
Kagura Tsuchimiya is one of the two main characters of Ga-rei, the manga from which the anime is derived. Ga-rei Zero is actually a prequel to the manga, and so Kagura is ostensibly its central heroine. The core theme of the show is her growth from a pacifistic neophyte combatant to a hardened, battle-tested warrior. Or an ersatz approximation of something resembling such.
Her development isn’t entirely convincing, but we shall have to take it for what it is. In my view, she is not nearly as interesting a character as Yomi, and it’s curious that despite being an intrinsic participant in the show’s principal storyline, she doesn’t really serve much purpose other than to consistently display a freezing of the nerves when decisive action is called for.
This figure is brought to us courtesy of MegaHouse. She’s sculpted in 1/8 scale and at around 18 centimeters in height, she’s on the low end of that scale. A very annoying aspect of this figure – and one that is becoming increasingly common – is that she was only sold at Digitamin, a Japanese hobby retailer. This meant that I had to go through a proxy and as usual I went with M-World Service.
Unlike the other MegaHouse figures I own, Kagura’s design is very simple and doesn’t require much in the way of assembly. Her only removable parts are her sword, which separates into two parts so that it can be placed in her hand, and her base. Her sword is all wrapped up, but it’s presumably Michael 12 or 13.
Her base is a black rectangle and is meant to mate up with Yomi’s. It’s about 5.125†by 3.3â€, which puts it close to the golden ratio. Kagura’s base gets half of the show’s tagline as well as its logo.
Kagura is depicted in a playful pose taken from the show’s opening sequence, and it fits her youthful personality well. She displays her school spirit by wearing a standard sailor blouse and a miniskirt which, contrary to what one might think, makes it annoyingly difficult to get a good pantyshot photograph.
The paintwork is pretty good; it’s not fantastically impressive, but it looks alright. The sculpt is similarly decent; again, it’s not going to drop jaws, and it probably won’t even compel people to buy this figure, but it is an accurate and appealing representation of Kagura. Her hair could have been a bit more detailed, I suppose; the back of her head looks a bit like a brown helmet.
I usually buy figures because I like the character designs rather than because I like the characters themselves, but Kagura and Yomi are exceptions to my convention. I enjoyed Ga-rei Zero and I knew I was going to buy these figures as soon as I saw them. This rendition of Kagura isn’t the most technically astonishing figure around – Kagura looks like a fairly generic schoolgirl – but I like it a lot anyway. Given the hoops that anyone outside of Japan will have to jump through to pick them up, I would imagine that the only people who are going to import Kagura and Yomi are going to be fans of the show and for those people, MegaHouse’s figures are solid renditions.
You might get the feeling that you’ve seen Kagura somewhere before, and you’d be right. She has a strong resemblance to Yurie from Kamichu! and Ryoko from Zegapain. Same brown hair, some haircut. She’s got Yurie’s eyes and Ryoko’s skirt. She even took her socks.
Next review up will of course be Yomi; I couldn’t buy one without buying the other, could I?
Well, i have to say i didn’t really know that figure, neither the anime where she come from. I discover it here. It’s probably because it was a limited edition in Japan. (it’s really troublesome that kind of things)
It’s true that she’s simple looking, but her face is full of teenage joy and i like it.
Haha…. the dark side is out this time 😉
The photo taken on the same angle as the illustration is great.
I think how the Anime started probably put some people off myself included…But I stuck it out and I actually enjoyed it a great deal. Cant stand the manga though…
Cute figure though I’m more looking forward to Yomi. :p
I’m the opposite of Ashlotte. I really quite like the manga, but didn’t think too much of the anime simply because, while it was a decent show on it’s own, it did a terrible job as a prequel as it didn’t work into the manga. The characters in the end of the anime seemed worlds apart from their manga counterparts.
I also prefer the manga character designs. The anime characters really do look a little too generic.
Eh, this figure’s face is less than stellar, to put it mildly, her eyes and mouth seem to push her hait out of balance, and with her hair also being inequal on both sides…
Sometimes it looks good, to have less symmetry, but they took it too far, and the face ends up looking quite odd.
I only made it to the fifth episode of the series.
I totally loved ga-rei zero, one of my favor series in fact. was really surprised at the end of ep2, wanting to know more I kept on watching and another epic anime it turned out to be. was sad how it ended and started to read manga, but I couldn’t stand it either and thought the story was not on par with the anime(anime is very solid standing alone if you were to disregard the pre-quel fact)..I mean wtf, yomi turned into a monster?? comon, let her rest in peace for crying out loud..
yomi is my favor char from that anime and kagura I didn’t really care for much. this also applies to the figure set, yomi’s sculpting just looks so much better than kagura’s, probably because they are from two different sculptors. personally I think they should’ve used the same sculptor for both so one doesn’t look inferior compare to the other.
anyways yomi will always be on my top wishlist until I get her! though they are a pair don’t think I’ll bother to get kagura..
>> Lylibellule
She has a pretty simple character design, but I think her pose does a good job of expressing her happy personality. I thought a white background and lots of light was more appropriate for her cheerfulness, too XD
>> Ashlotte
I loved the beginning, I got really hyped up for the show after watching the first couple of episodes. It surely did take an unconventional (and uncompromising) approach to introducing the central characters, though.
>> gundamjehutykai
I should read the manga sometime; I think I read that it got picked up for localization in the States, so maybe I’ll give it a whirl whenever it hits the bookstores. Then again, the only manga I read (Battle Vixens, Battle Club, and Black Lagoon) all have female characters in the lead ass-kicker roles, and I’ve got a feeling that I’m not going to like the dude character.
>> Guy
I suppose I wouldn’t disagree with that.
>> lee
I love Yomi too, she’s one of my favorite anime characters. I think I’m seeing a pattern here as to how one feels about the anime or manga if one read or watched the other version first.
She is really nice, but maybe a little simple. But it’s really a dynamic figure with a lovely face ^^ Nice shooting ^^
Thanks! Yeah, she’s not a fancy figure, but she looks pretty nice. I saw that Yamato is putting out a figure of Kagura in an action pose; it’s looking good, too.
Dude I always wondered how come that youre using so many german words in your review?
Havent watched Garei Zero since it got trashed by everyone.But hey on te other hand I love QB and it gets trashed by everyone XD
Shes indeed a bit simple and wouldnt buy her without knowing anything about her
I dunno, they just sort of come to me when I write. I still want to use the word “zeitgeist” one of these days. Hmm, maybe I’ll write an end-of-year wrap up post, that’d be a good time to use it.
Yeah, I got the sense that Ga-rei Zero wasn’t the most popular show around. I thought it was great though XD Although it’s not going to be as great as Seikon no Qwaser is; Seikon no Qwaser is absolutely, undoubtedly the Greatest Anime of All Time.