Although I like Kanu Uncho, I wouldn’t call her one of my favorite anime characters, particularly given her questionable characterization in the last two seasons of Ikki Tousen. Nonetheless, I own more figures of Kanu than any other character, and Alter’s version is number six in my collection. I’ve had it sitting in its box for a couple of months now, and today seems like an auspicious day to write about her since I want to watch basketball and I think I can bang out this review real quickly.
I’ve talked about Kanu’s background at length in prior reviews and at this point, I’m guessing that people who like her already know who she is, and people who despise her don’t really want to ever see her again, much less read anything about her. Instead, I’d like to talk about a recent activity I’ve enjoyed. I reactivated my World of Warcraft accounts a couple of months ago and have taken my characters – all stuck at level 70 – into Alterac Valley to crush all of the undergeared, underleveled players who just want to gain experience points. It’s a lot of fun to take my warlock in there, since I have Seed of Corruption and almost nobody else does. Since the games generally devolve into meatgrinder stalemates, I can cast Seed of Corruption for great effect and fun. It’s a bit like clubbing baby seals. Hmm, that’s not a very classy thing to say. It’s a bit like lobbing handgrenades onto the court during a wheelchair basketball game. Wait, that might even be worse.
Originally sold in 2008, this version of Kanu quickly sold out and became one of the more difficult Alter figures to find. I don’t remember seeing Kanu at any of my favorite American retailers and while I sorely wanted this figure, I wasn’t willing to pay an exorbitant auction markup for her. Fortunately, Alter reissued both Kanu and Chouun Shiryu in April when they released Kakouen Myousai and Ryomou Shimei.
Kanu is sculpted in 1/8 scale and stands about 20.5 centimeters tall. Like most Alter figures, she doesn’t require much assembly; her Seiryutou just needs to be put together and slid into her hands to get her ready for display. Kanu’s skirt can be removed, which is a bit unusual as there aren’t many Alter figures that have a castoff option.
Even though she’s standing straight up with both feet on the ground, there’s still a strong sense of movement on display here, with Kanu’s skirt flared out just enough to give a tantalizing view of her underwear and with her hair swirling in a very impressive arc. Unlike some figures with long, sweeping hair, Kanu’s tresses are quite rigid and hold their position well.
Alter’s version of Kanu deviates from her anime and manga depictions by centering her bangs on her forehead, rather than having them cover up her left eye. There’s some sort of defect around her right eye and I’m not sure what it is; it’s pretty hard to notice under normal conditions though, since that eye is heavily shadowed by her hair.
There’s also a prominent seam line running up her left leg. It’s especially noticeable higher up on her thigh, which is a bit unfortunate since that’s one of the centers of attention of this figure.
Besides those two flaws, though, this figure looks very nice. Like most Alter figures, the paintwork is superb, as is the sculpt in general. Kanu’s baggy socks have a hint of texture to give them a coarser look than her school uniform and her top is creased and baggy where it ought to be and tight where it should be. Particularly nice is the chrome paint on the blade of her polearm, which gives her weapon an authentic metallic appearance, unlike a lot of other Kanu figures out there.
Here’s the detailing under her skirt.
And one more shot.
I remember thinking this was one of the best Kanu Unchou figures I’d ever seen when it was first released. Since then, other figures have superseded it in my esteem – particularly Daiki Kougyou’s miko versions – but this is still a fine rendition of Seito High’s most prominent enforcer. The castoff option – atypical for Alter but most appropriate for an Ikki Tousen figure – is a nice touch, and overall, this is a great figure and one of the best versions of Kanu in her school uniform.
While I agree that Seed of Corruption is a blast in AV, I’ve personally had enough World of WarCraft to last me a few lifetimes. I quite a bit over a year ago and have luckily kicked the habit; I don’t really have any interest at all in playing again. I think I’m done with MMO games for the most part, possibly looking into Old Republic, but I’d image that if it’s done well, it will consume even more of my life than WoW has, so I best avoid it.
I like this figure, though. nice shots as always, and Alter always seems to produce quality figures.
I can certainly understand that, I quit completely cold turkey right when Wrath of the Lich King was released. I haven’t done any of the new content since reactivating, and being that a couple of my 70s are getting close to gaining a level, I doubt that I’ll keep my accounts active more than a month or two more. I don’t think I’m too interested in any upcoming MMOs other than maybe TERA (more for the character models than anything else); I usually have to cool off for a couple of years after quitting an MMO for good. Star Wars is looking nice but I would much, much rather play KOTOR 3 than an MMO, particularly an EA-operated MMO.
I picked up the game a few weeks before Wrath, after being completely burnt out on BC content. I really do miss vanilla. Wrath looked great to start, and was fun for a few months, but after power-leveling a character to 70 in two weeks a week before Wrath (thus beginning the race to 80 in quest greens/blues) and powering up to 80 (managed to secure a server first in my crappy gear), then doing the raiding thing for awhile. Well, I’m sure you could understand how all of that will turn you off new content fast. And I’m fairly certain I’m done with it for good now.
I agree 100%. I was pissed when I heard it was going to be an MMO versus KOTOR 3. Though it looks nice, I doubt it will have the staying power WoW has, and I’d take a great single player game over a multiplayer game any day of the week.
I didn’t do much classic stuff (got in on a few MC runs and did BWL once), but I was enjoying grinding in Silithus when TBC dropped. I really wasn’t looking forward to TBC, but I wound up enjoying it a lot. Towards the end though, I was raiding three days a week, doing Karazhan weekly for badges, playing ten arena games, and doing a ton of battleground PVP. I didn’t have a job then so I had enough time to do all of this, but even so I couldn’t keep up that pace. I got a job about a month after WotLK but I’d quit already by then. I don’t think I could do the raid and PVP grind ever again.
Yeah, I’m sorta expecting this Star Wars game to flop. It’s funny how licensed games seem to do poorly as MMOs. You’ve got Lord of the Rings (the most beloved fantasy series of all time), Star Trek and Star Wars (the two most beloved sci-fi series of all time), and the Matrix (well-regarded for the first movie, at least), and none of them were particularly successful or notable.
I was a jobless bum while I played the game, and I still am; granted I’m at university now, but still. If I had any interest to play, I’m sure I could find the time. But I like to do things in excess.
Whenever I sit down to play a game, especially if it’s an RPG, I’ll devote a couple days to it. Sit down and play for 10-16 hours, sleep, then repeat the process until I beat the game or need to divert time elsewhere. During the week I had for spring break, I did this with Persona 4. Am about 80 hours in, school picked up again, and even though I’m out for the summer, I still haven’t gone back to finish it.
WoW was even worse; at the height of my addiction, I’d literally get up and play until it was time to go to bed. Granted I’d have breaks to eat, stretch, and whatever else I needed to do, but I didn’t do much other than that.
I took breaks over the four years I played, ranging from a week to six months, but I always came back and fell into the same routine. The worst stretch was from I picked it up in 05 until a few months after BC. I quit for a bit after BC raiding with a 5 day a week guild became a bore. Pre-nerf Gruul and then Mags were just such a pain in the ass. Especially the night spent screwing with Mag trash when the guild was horrendously undergeared.
I kept my tendencies come WotLK (such as my rush for a server first), but the game was just missing the spark that it had. I was definitely still addicted to the game, but once I decided I was ready to quit, it wasn’t hard at all.
I can see some bits of sexy in this figure. Normally Ikki Tousen characters do not appeal to me at all. I guess I’m not one for the physically strong women. They can be physically strong, but they just can’t look it. And Ikki Tousen seems to give off this butch sorta feel with it’s character designs. Like each and every one of them would crush me between their thighs, in a bad way.
Kanu’s hair is probably the most interesting part of this figure, swooping around her legs like that. Though I wonder, does it just drag behind her when she walks slowly?
The pantsu need more detail. The cameltoe is nice, but could be deeper lol j/k. Definitely the hair, that’s the best part.
Oh yeah and *coughboobstoobigcough*.
Hi
thats probably my favorite Kanu figure.
ok, so far I own no figure of her but if I would ever bought one it would be this.
The pose is well done,her body looks very nice, I really like the belly and her rear =D
I like red fighting gloves,too
Your pictures are very good
The first picture is my fav
Shirt comes off and you didn’t include a picture? For SHAME. LOL
I saw a figure in an unmarked box last night at the local comic shop for $20 (down for $55!). I asked if I could see it first, and I’m glad I did: turned out to be a garage kit, which I have NO interest in acquiring. Gonna save my pennies for that Alphamax Mai Shiranui statue instead.
I never got into MMO’s, although I recently bought Monster Hunter 3 and I’m sort of getting into it. Clearly a “grind for loot” game. Want this new sword? Go slay this boss like five times so that you get all his good drops, then kill ten of these monsters to get THEIR drops. Then we’ll talk. It’s infuriating, but strangely addictive.
>> Shashin
I’ve got this weird attention deficit order problem when it comes to video games that aren’t MMOs. When I play a console game, I feel the urge to do something else after playing for maybe half an hour. Oddly, I haven’t had this problem when I play Warcraft, Alpha Centauri, or Sengoku Rance. Not sure why that is.
I was sort of a strange hardcore casual player when I played Warcraft. I hated the idea of joining a raid guild but I wound up getting one character to rank 10 before they converted honor points to straight currency and I wound up raiding consistently with a casual guild despite not actually being a member of that guild. I did join a raid guild for several months and it drove me nuts. I remember one time we were trying to break into 25-man raiding and I wound up getting blessings of wisdom, kings, and something else (sanctuary, I think). I played an enhancement shaman so I asked for salv, which the paladins ignored. If I remember correctly, threat reduction hadn’t been implemented for either shamans or paladins, so I wound up riding right at the threat cap (since the tanks weren’t very good). Later that night, one of the prot paladins put up a post saying that he would no longer listen to anybody who asked for specific blessings and that he would dole them out as he saw fit. I later started a bit of drama by cross-posting that to the Ars Technica board and wound up quitting that guild very quickly after that. Fortunately the next guild I raided with was both much more competent and had no problem giving out single blessings, so I always had kings, salv, and a 10-minute might.
Quitting for me was a lot easier than I thought it’d be, too. I just stopped playing one day and realized that I didn’t really miss it. The harder thing was finding something else to do in my spare time, so I started this blog a couple months after I left the game.
>> Aka
Ha, you’ve said that you weigh like 110 pounds! I bet Noumi Kudryavka could break you between her thighs! Especially in her Stretchy Stretchy Panties version. I see that the initial edition of that figure includes additional “Kiddie Underwear.” You remember how Chag said something about how this hobby could at times seem really creepy? I think that Noumi figure might possibly constitute some evidence of that.
I think you’re right about that though, Ikki Tousen has a ton of characters and while I like a lot of their designs, there are also a lot I don’t really care for. Particularly a lot of the less important characters like Chouhi, Kyoucho, Ukitsu, and a bunch of others with weird names that all sound the same.
Her hair is supposed to be shorter in the anime so we never really get to see it dragging on the ground. Maybe it has a mind of its own like Millia in Guilty Gear X. (That’s another character who deserves her own figure.)
>> Fabienne
Thanks XD I like the gloves, too, and the baggy socks and the cut-off blouse; Kanu wears a regular school uniform but those things let people know that she’s special among her classmates.
>> Halbred
I did not! Actually, the shirt doesn’t come off; she separates just above her breasts but the shirt stays affixed to her torso. You wound up with one piece containing her head, shoulders, and shirt and another piece with the bottom part of her breasts, lower torso, and legs. The top part of her breasts seems to not be defined so neither piece is too interesting to look at.
I’m thinking with Hobby Search running a half-off on shipping promotion, my decision on Alphamax Mai gets a bit easier.
That’s pretty much how I like to play MMOs. I really, really like grinding. One of my favorite activities in Warcraft was taking my high-level characters through Stratholme (a mid-level dungeon) to try to get the Baron’s horse. If I have to show up at a certain time for a raid and wait around while people get set up or if I have to pray to jeebus that my arbitrarily-selected teammates in a battleground aren’t completely braindead, I get tired of playing an MMO pretty quickly.
I never really got in to WoW myself. Played for a month before BC came out and it was dull. Then I came back on a new character for 2 months just before LK. It was fun playing the PvP matches, AB in particular, at low levels. But once I got to 70 everyone and their dog uses the same strategy. All rouges back attack, all warriors charge etc so it just got boring.
I played Guild Wars instead since it offers a lot more variety, and it’s free to play. I’m looking forward to GW2, although it looks completely different to the original.
Oh there’s a Kanu figure review here. To me there’s so many versions of Kanu out there that I’m indifferent to Alters’ version.
True, I do weigh a pittance. But if I had to pick from the two, I’d rather Noumi try and break me than Kanu succeed.
That Noumi figure with the stretchy pantsu is almost cute in some ways. But her face, whatever that expression is ruins it. And those childrens pantsu are terrible, take them away. Anyway, I think Chag is right, perhaps I should reconsider a bunch of my purchases with the view that perhaps they’re creepy.
I suppose at least Ikki Tousen figures aren’t creepy, so you’re safe. But my Neko Peke? Apparently she’s creepy.
You just gave me quite a few bad memories. I played a paladin for about two years before I realized that the other classes were actually fun. It took fucking forever for Blizzard to make single blessings last longer than 5 minutes.
I remember I would raid a bit with one of the better Alliance guilds on the server pre-BC. Not AQ40 or Naxx, but I was often invited to their non-progression raids when they were clearing AQ20, MC, or BWL. They’d take 2-3 other paladins that were in the guild, and I constantly had people whispering me asking for single blessings. At the end a DPS warrior who I’d blessed with salv all night, despite it not being my assignment, thanked me and apologized that all their paladins were so bad.
I wanted to make an impression on the guild overall, so I never let a single blessing slip. Luckily I was only ghetto blessing 2-3 people and whatever my great assignment was I kept up as much as possible. I’d spam the ghetto blessing on whoever needed it every 2-3 minutes, and hit the entire raid up whenever someone died. It was pretty much hell and I kept the same tendencies throughout my WarCraft stay. Even when I was playing another class I was always anal about keeping whatever blessing I was on up, but it was definitely the worst as a paladin.
>> BioToxic
Yeah, Warcraft definitely doesn’t have all that much diversity. I liked playing my paladin in PVP since I was relatively self-sufficient, and my arena partner and I did okay (took a ret paladin and sub rogue team to close to 1900 during season 3 without really knowing what we were doing). Besides that, though, it was basically just a lot of grinding and towards the end, a lot of raiding. I remember there was a point where I never, ever wanted to go back into Karazhan, Tempest Keep, or Hyjal.
I think I tried out the Guild Wars beta very briefly, but I might’ve been in burnout mode from having played City of Heroes right before that. I forget. I didn’t play it very much, though I recall it was very pretty at the time.
>> Aka
It’s too bad that none of these stretchy panty figures appeal to me, since I like the concept (of course). Noumi’s face is pretty messed up so I don’t like it much, and I’d like the one with the cat ears better if she didn’t have cat ears.
Some people think she’s creepy. I dunno if she’s creepy. The Mothra larva that I’ve got preordered, that might be creepy. I dunno. We’ll see.
>> Shashin
I still remember the cleanse list on Decursive and spending whole boss fights just spamming the cleanse key. Fortunately for me, I didn’t start playing until the game was a couple years old so I never got to experience keeping paladins out of combat just to do battle resurrections, and since I usually raided with my pally strictly as a guest I just got put on spot healing duty most of the time (which was good for me, since I was always ret spec’ed at the time).
It was funny that the raid guild that I joined had awful paladins. Their best paladin was insistent on spec’ing ret and this was during that long-ass time when ret was sorta marginal as far as raid utility and DPS went. In contrast, the guild I raided with had excellent paladins. No problems getting Pally Power configured. No problems dropping 10 minute blessings on me, the DPS warrior, ret paladin, and boomkin. Okay, the ret paladin used a somewhat suboptimal rotation, but his DPS was still pretty decent.
I was Holy most of the time, or what I guess would be referred to as a Shockadin build at 60 (though I came to the build under my own guidance without using EJ or something at the time.) Something like 33/0/18 if I remember correctly. I was Ret for a bit, and of course leveling to 60. I did level to 70 as Holy, and 80 as Ret.
I didn’t like using Pally Power, to be honest. I did at 70 and for a very short amount of time at 80, but I never used it at 60. I never felt that it was necessary if you knew what buffs you were assigned for what classes. Even if you had to toss out single buffs, it wasn’t astoundingly hard to use some common sense. Not that Pally Power was a bad mod, but I just never depended on it like some people do; I vaguely recall people getting screamed at for not using Pally Power.
I used Decursive religiously at 60, but after the patch went in that nerfed it, I ended up doing most of my decursing by hand picking targets. My UI was already covered with raid boxes, I may as well make use of them. Mods can help a lot with the game, but I always liked to keep as much dependence as possible because I felt that giving too much control the mods left no reason for actually playing the game. That was as a healer, anyway, where I never looked at a damn thing on an encounter but raid boxes, necessary mods, and to make sure I wasn’t standing in some fire.
So I was a healer at 60 and 70, and I enjoyed it as I hadn’t experienced raiding as any other class. I was pretty damn good at it too, not that healing as a paladin was ever hard, even before they killed downranking.
I leveled my paladin to 80 and quit about a week after I hit it. I raided on my rogue, raided with my guild, transferred servers because it was a terrible server, never really fit in with the new guild, leveled the paladin, got carried through Naxx once or twice, and quit.
I got to screw around in Naxx as Ret a bit, which was fun, but made me feel pathetic. I was topping charts as a rogue in my old guild, and doing top three in the new guild when I wasn’t put on bitch duty (such as dual aesthetic poison for three drakes.) I went from that to pulling about 600 DPS on bosses in Naxx. Granted I had never really raided much as Ret, but I had a rotation down, I just didn’t have any Ret gear. I literally raided in a few greens and my holy gear from 70 and a Hammer of the Naaru.
My first paladin has almost always been ret, but I leveled my second paladin with a holy build like that. I used Seal of Righteousness (which sorta sucked during classic, if I remember right) and got that character a Blackfury, since I wanted to try out SoR with a fast two-handed weapon. It didn’t work out that great. I wound up two-boxing my two level 60 human paladins in Silithus for a while until TBC was released, and then I switched to playing a shaman.
I leveled a third paladin (a draenei this time) to 49 but then I quit the game. When I reactivated my account a couple months ago, I started off a blood elf paladin and got to level 70, so I have three level 70 and one level 49 paladins on Doomhammer. I don’t know if that’s kinda crazy or not.
Most of the mods I liked were interface enhancements, like Pitbull and Bartender, or PVP-centric ones like a cooldown timer display. The main gameplay mods I used were DBM (required by the guild I raided with), a totem timer display, and Grid (particularly useful to see who kept dying early). I much prefer to play as a DPS class, but I wound up having to heal through BT and Sunwell since chain heal was so useful in those zones. I never really got to raid as a ret paladin, and by the time they got strengthened I’d relegated my paladin to being a PVP character.
Not going to lie, I laughed at you using SoR with Blackfury. Not only do I recall SoR being vastly inferior to SoC, but the fact that you spent quite a bit of money on Blackfury (well, not that bad if you had the guild to support you, but still a bit of a waste.) I know itemization was really bad at 60 and my memory if failing me, but I’m sure there were better options at the time.
Now the Halberd of Smiting on the other hand…THAT was a sexy Ret weapon; I still remember how happy I was when I got mine. I was rather new to 60 at the time, but had found a guild that I fit really well with. So I had this shiny new weapon, but the rest of my gear was so terrible. I remember having Lightforge helm/shoulders, and the cloak from the Magistrate (I think that was his title?) in Stratholme. Don’t remember the rest of my gear, but it was at the same level. And here I have this amazing polearm.
After I acquired it, I dueled a rogue buddy of mine that was in MC level gear with over 2k health! I proceeded to one shot him. Was seriously the craziest instance of burst I had ever personally witnessed at the time, short of having fun with Reckoning. Don’t remember the numbers, but it was a white crit with SoC proc crit, Halberd of Smiting proc on the high damage end(not sure it could crit) with another SoC proc crit.
It’s definitely a little crazy. Granted they’ve made leveling so much easier than it was in vanilla, but I imagine that paladin solo leveling will always be the slowest class to level and the second most painful, warrior being the most painful, of course. If you leveled them up one at a time solo, then it’s batshit insane, but if you had some help it’s still a bit crazy but not as bad.
RAF has to be one of the greatest things ever when it comes to leveling. I dualboxed a warrior up before it, using my pally as a healbot. It went by pretty quick, but no where near as quick as having two RAF characters on follow while a mage carries them through Stratholme 5 times an hour.
I’ll admit, my UI was always terrible and messy. I got by with as much of the standard UI as I could, and my game never suffered, but I certainly wasn’t getting any compliments on the attractiveness of it.
One of the problems with the stretchy pantsu figures that I only just thought of this very moment and now annoys me. What happens when they get old? I know old elastics (rubbers, rubber bands) dry out or whatever and crumble or break. Will I have to add something to the pantsu to keep their elasticity? And if so, what in gods name is it so that Himari’s pantsu don’t disintegrate!
I like the cat ears and tail, but I’ve got a bit of a fetish. She does have a splendid bum though I think, does that not make up for the ears?
Who thinks Kanu’s creepy? Those people are wrong. Having huge collections of tiny beautiful women whose proportions in no way resemble anything from reality and cost a small fortune is not creepy! Real dolls are creepy!
>> Shashin
Yeah, it wasn’t a great idea but I was curious as to how it would work out. I didn’t do much with it though since my second paladin was mostly a healbot for my first paladin (who got The Unstoppable Force shortly after hitting 60, and then got a GM claymore later when they changed up the honor system before TBC was released). I had a lot of gold at the time since I was doing nothing but grinding, and I made a lot of cash selling arcane crystals in the AH.
Haha, that’s hilarious. That reminds me a bit of this one time I was doing arena with a friend, who was playing a rogue. We skipped season 1 and started season 2 trying to do a holy paladin/combat rogue team, but that worked out poorly since I had no absolutely no healing gear (I was using a spell damage sword, druid leather shoulders, and tier 2 gloves, among other things) nor any instincts for playing a healer in PVP. I switched over to ret and we still didn’t do very well, since I still didn’t have gear as I was playing a shaman as my main. In fact, one of the trinkets I was using was the Hand of Justice, since I didn’t have anything better. This one fight, though, it was down to me versus a hunter and I was losing pretty badly; I think I was down to under a thousand hit points. Then I hit my crusader strike button and scored a HoJ proc which proc’ed seal of command, which took off maybe a third of the hunter’s life and killed him. I still wonder if that hunter and his partner were all like “WTF??” after that match.
>> Aka
I wonder the same thing. How stretchy is this thing? Is it real cloth? How far can it stretch before it tears? I imagine it has to be really thin to look realistic, so I’d think that it’s prone to tearing. Fortunately I have you to tell me whether these fears are unfounded or not.
She does! Unfortunately it does not, for me. It’s kinda like making chili. I like making chili and I throw in tomato sauce and onion and beans (screw you, Texas); they make the chili taste better. However, if I toss in a bottle of chocolate syrup, that’s going to ruin it, no matter how good everything else is. So I’ll keep the chili and the chocolate syrup separate.
That reminds me, I need to do a post covering my dolls one of these days. Maybe I’ll do a doujinshi and dolls post soon.
I don’t like the amount of time I wasted on WoW, but I have some fond memories looking back on it. Most of them were during vanilla or the early BC days, though. I have some fond memories of later BC/WotLK, but not nearly as many. Partly due to my server for the first half of BC. I played on an oceanic that was a recommended server before the oceanic tab, so a lot of Americans rolled there. By mid BC, almost all the US guilds were dead and then the first PvE -> PvP transfer was allowed. One of the oceanic servers had a 1:8 A:H ratio, so Alliance from oceanic PvE servers were able to transfer for free. That pretty much killed the Alliance side of the server. I eventually left the server behind, but I really do miss it when it was at the height of awesomeness.
I never really did more than my 10 for points with some friends, but I have some good arena stories. Did a couple rounds with my mage friend during season 1. At the time rogues destroyed due to lack of resilience. It was even worse for mages, they’d get absolutely destroyed. We joined one game and it was Pally/Mage versus Rogue/Rogue. I got focused down in a matter of seconds. Both rogues still had >80% health, and my friend was pretty close to full. It was a very tense few minutes, but he was able to kill them both.
Oh Tier, I am quickly becoming your biggest fanboy. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard at a review before, but damn… grenades + wheelchair basketball? Where do you GET these ideas?
I really do like how the great the figure looks from all angles. Her fluttering skirt reminds me of GSC’s Dead Master, who will surely join the ranks of “epic ass” with that hidden surprise in the form of ultra-low capri pants underneath. I also didn’t notice the contortion of her flesh around the waist — a very nice touch of detail that makes hard plastic appear soft to the touch.
Anyhow, getting the the point of about “creepiness” — how often do guys shown your collections to people who do not have a pre-existing interest in figures? Because chances are to them, the question is no long about being creepy or not creepy, but rather creepy vs. “potentially criminal”. Kiddy undearwear on the Noumi figure… My face is frozen between the states of terror and laughter right now. Never Change.
It’s not real cloth, they’re rubber. They’re pretty stretchy and I was worried at first they would snap when I was trying to remove them from Himari, but they’re pretty durable I guess for the odd removal. But I do feel a bit hesitant to play with them very often. So I’ll just leave them on her in an attractive manner and leave it at that.
Chocolate syrup in chili is proabably a bad idea, I can see that. But what about vanilla ice cream, adding chocolate syrup to vanilla ice cream makes it so much more superior! Vanilla ice cream is alright by itself, but it’s nothing too special, adding chocolate syrup though, oh my, how delectable it becomes.
So long as you’re not reviewing real dolls, I can accept it. I want to buy some Dollfies… But they’re so damn expensive!
@Chag, I’ve shown pictures and discussed with people. Even Razor Cock, they loved it. They loved how unique my hobby was compared to theirs. Some people weren’t interested, but no one thought creepy, so far anyway. Or hasn’t voiced it or shyed away from me.
But I’d never show them Noumi and the like.
>> Shashin
I don’t think I regret the time I played Warcraft, but I definitely think I could’ve done more productive things. On the other hand, being unemployed and not having very much money at the time, there wasn’t else I was interested in doing, not to mention I was pretty depressed from difficulties with finding a job. It’s hard for me to do anything productive when I feel crappy; I usually zone out and browse the web for porn.
I have good memories as well, and I think that’s one reason why I decided to leave; I felt that starting the gear grind over again comprised an abandonment of those memories. Also, my gear was decent at the time; I felt that that would be the high point of my Warcraft experience. When I started playing, I joined a guild with three real-life friends, and other than my very brief stint with the aforementioned fail guild, I stuck with it all the way through. Who’d have thought that a guy in a four-player guild would wind up with full visible tier 6?
I think my buddy and I played well over a thousand arena matches, and I can’t think of a single fight where we ran our main team and had one player come back to kill both opponents. We were most active during season 3, and I guess by that time a lot of the strategies had been set (that is, run mace warrior/resto druid and hump a pillar).
>> Chag
These are things I want to do sometime before I die! Sadly I doubt I’ll ever have the opportunity to put this plan into action. A man can dream, though. And imagine the clatter of wheelchairs tipping over and banging into each other and stuff.
Yeah, I like the details there, which I actually didn’t really pay much attention to until I was looking at this figure today while watching television. Normally I don’t look at schoolgirl figures with that critical an eye since, well, they’re schoolgirl figures, but Kanu has a really strong, heroic stance which looks really nice (compared to most of my other Kanu figures, which tend to just be slutty).
My old college roommate has seen my figures, though I didn’t have nearly so many at the time (being rather poor and all). So has my family, and they’ve never really said anything about it. My friends aren’t big figure collectors though they all have a couple, and they actively encourage me to buy more and I usually bounce purchase and photography ideas off of them. I never did get a reaction from my old roommate’s parents when they saw the 1/6 scale bondage diorama I once built, though.
>> Aka
Ah, I suppose that is reassuring then. I doubt I’d play with them much, either … I’ve got a bunch of dolls here and I don’t really play around with them much, even though I have a bunch of clothing options for them.
See, that’s exactly right, chocolate syrup on the right thing works great. That’s sorta where my analogy breaks down; I dislike animal ears on all anime girls, so it’d be more like adding something that I dislike under all circumstances (I’m trying to think of such a foodstuff right now but my brain is failing me). I guess to modify that analogy to fit this example, chocolate syrup would be like, adding tentacles … tentacles plus schoolgirl, tentacles plus warrior girl, tentacles plus nun, mmmmmmm …
You know, I was thinking a week or two ago, I liked Danny Choo’s site better when he covered Real Dolls. I think I’ve got all the dolls I want right now, though. I wonder how many I have … I must have at least a dozen, I think, not even counting the Master Chief and the president.
Yeah, you make a good point. I probably would have found some other way to waste the time instead of doing something productive. Still, it’s pretty scary to think of how much time I’ve spent with just one game.
I always missed the end game raids when they were relevant. Never did a 40 man Naxx clear at 60 nor did I do AQ40 then. With BC I was in the best gear for a few weeks before life events temporarily turned me into a casual player, so I was never able to actually progress through SSC/TK/BT/SW. Mainly because by the time I got back to playing hardcore the server was just about dead, with one or two Alliance guilds in BT/SW; guilds were filled with people I either didn’t like or didn’t know, so there’s no way they’d be willing to gear up a paladin in low level raid gear.
WotLK was a bit different. I progressed with my guild through Naxx and 10 man Sartharion. I honestly don’t remember if I transferred before or after a 25 man 3 drake kill, but I know that whatever guild I was in it was a guild first. Then I got carried through 25 man Sartharion and I quit a few weeks before Ulduar hit.
I liked screwing around with arena every now and then, but I was never really one for PvP. Was okay at it, but short of AV or a solid AB/WSG farm group, I just didn’t enjoy it.
What about animal ears on real girls (with photoshopped/airbrushed faces)? Example.
I don’t really follow Mr Choo’s site much, he’s in my RSS feeds, and on my twitter but it mostly filter him out unless something catches my attention.
>> Shashin
I always try to avoid looking at my MMO playtime stats. It tends to depress me. On the other hand, I probably spend less time playing video games than the average American spends watching television.
I’ve never been a progression guy either, mainly because I was almost never interested in joining a progression guild. I joined the fail guild mainly because I was on good terms with the guildmaster; unfortunately, most of the other people in the guild were wildly incompatible with what I was looking for in a raid group. I actually got better raiding opportunities later on after rejoining my real-life friends guild, since I wasn’t wasting time wiping to Gruul or Void Reaver (yeah, the raid guild I joined spent a night wiping on Void Reaver … it was really pathetic).
I really loathed the idea of PVP at first but I’ve come to like it, although I still only play on blue servers and avoid MMOs that include nonconsensual PVP as part of the gameplay. It’s pretty much all I’ve been doing in Warcraft; I am very, very tempted to create a third account activated up to TBC so that I can transfer my paladin to it and play in Alterac Valley without having to worry about leveling to 71. It’s a ton of fun running around in season 3/4 equipment dropping people in two or three hits.
>> Aka
Hmm, nope, I am still disliking animal ears. Though that girl is really cute. I’d like to see a picture of her without the ears (though the eyes are sexy, I dig red eyes).
I used to follow it a lot more, back when it was a good complement to Heisei Democracy. I guess it’s evolved away from what I care about, which is mainly figures and anime shows. I’m not a big Dollfie or cosplay guy.
She’s been photoshopped up considerably, the original picture doesn’t look much like that one anymore.
I remember Heisei Democracy… what happened to him? He had a sale a while back didn’t he, selling off a lot of figures? He move on from the hobby?
Ah, yes, I am seeing the Photoshopping. Still very cute. Though I like the red eyes better still, she ought to get some colored contacts.
I think that was a different dude; Shingo had stopped posting back in like 2008, I think. If I recall correctly, he had burned out after running into some money problems; he’d been spending a lot due to feeling some pressure to continue providing content. I’ve definitely had that feeling myself, and I wonder if I’d spend so much money on figures if I didn’t run a website. It’s one of the reasons I don’t really do many “monthly loot” sort of posts, since I think I’d feel pressure to out-do myself and everyone else and that’s not healthy.
He also got into World of Warcraft. You probably know how that goes; I remember my real-life friends disappeared for years when Warcraft came out. I was still in school at the time and knew there was no way I wanted to play that game while I needed to study, so I didn’t start playing till a few weeks after I graduated. I think he’s still working for JAST, but I don’t know if he collects figures or anything anymore.
I find her nose looks to big now after seeing the photoshopped picture for so long. Additionally the wrinkles under her eyes, her lips, her eyebrows, the contrast… they’re all wrong in the original now as far as I see it. Adding to it, the to of her head seems far too plain without the ears and I suddenly find myself questioning why she’s in a field. Topping it off though, Elena B’s breasts are far too large to be Horos. While they’re not featured in the picture, the rest of the set they are, and they’re wrong. So the photoshopping allows me to disconnect Elena B from Horo.
Oh, I didn’t realize it was a different person posting that, I hadn’t followed Heisei Democracy so closely I guess. The site seems inaccessible now giving a bad_httpd_conf error.
I think the answer for me is a simple no. I wouldn’t spend as much if I didn’t have my website. I think part of that reason is due to the fact none of my friends are interested in this hobby. That isn’t to say they don’t show interest in the hobby, just they don’t collect themselves. I’ve managed to convince one or two friends to buy one or two, not through coercion or anything but just my interest in it has sparked a small amount of interest for them as well. But they’re not really interested in discussing the figures much beyond “Oh I like that one.” or “She’s cute.” So if it were just them involved, it’s likely I wouldn’t feel so compelled to share new items with everyone, and would have collected much slower.
The website gives me an outlet to discuss with like-minded people about my hobby as well as receive encouragement to collect more, pressure I suppose. There are times when I feel pressured to buy some things for content, but I’m more pressured by a past experience than anything else. In the past I wanted Alpha x Omega’s Golden Darkness figure, a combination between liking her character design and an in-joke with a friend about me owning his daughter. I didn’t pre-order her thinking there was no need and then she sold out everywhere I knew of at the time. I was pretty peeved and pre-ordered GSC’s Golden Darkness instead. Though I continued to scower eBay for Alpha x Omega’s just incase and sure enough I found her and bought her. Happy ending right? Well sorta, now I had 2 of the same character, and the lesson my mind seemed to have learned was, pre-order pre-order pre-order. If you want it, jumpat it immediately. So the pressure now is, if I think a figure is going to be good, jump at it, don’t wait. Because if I wait, I’m going to be paying an arm and a leg on eBay for it… I think that was a bad lesson to have learned. I end up talking myself into figures I don’t think I actually want just because they’ll cost me too much later on if in the end I actually do like them enough.
I’ve had friends disappear into WoW, I’ve also had friends drop out of college/university because of it. Wonder why it holds so much power over people? I never found it that addictive.
Yeah, I thought it looked kinda strange for her to be sitting in a grassy field out in what looks to be the middle of nowhere. The picture could’ve also used some flash to light up her face some.
I guess HD is gone for good. A real shame, since it was still a pretty good resource to keep track of resin kit makers and some of the more obscure aspects of the hobby.
I think I’d be buying less, but not that much more less. I’ve had a few figures that I bought almost entirely because I had an idea as to how I wanted to photograph them, but generally I buy figures because I think they look good. The odd thing is, I have this strange, inexplicable aversion to things that are wildly popular. Like nendoroids. Or the Black Rock Shooter characters (though that’s partially tempered by the fact that I like guns, swords, and hot pants). I was going to skip GSC’s Saber Lily for a long time mainly due to the hype she was getting, and I would have passed on her if she hadn’t gotten delayed so much that I had time to re-evaluate my position. I think I’ve actually saved a bit of cash because of that; I’ve missed out on a few figure’s like Alter’s Fate Harlaown and I’m skipping a few figures like MF’s upcoming futuristic Miku and GSC’s Saber, but I don’t mind.
One other lesson I’ve learned from writing a figure blog … stay the hell away from Yahoo Japan Auctions. Your checking account will give profuse thanks.
I played Warcraft for two years so I can’t deny that it’s addictive, but I can’t actually explain why it’s so. It’s not really a very complicated game, and I never really made the sort of lasting friendships that a lot of people attribute their continued play to. On the other hand, it wasn’t really hard for me to walk away from it, and I’m pretty sure I’ll drop my accounts in a couple of weeks since my characters are getting close to level 71.
I’ve managed to stay away from the Yahoo Japan Auctions, I’m not fond of middleman services. They’re useful, but expensive. So I’m not willing to use them on just anything. That means no Yahoo Japan Auctions for me.
I wish I didn’t like popular things, often I don’t necessarily, but popular anime figures seem to be of a similar taste to my own so there’s a lot of cross over.
Ok it’s official, you really should be approaching the manufacturers on some of these shoots to ensure you earn commission. This was the first decent shoot (and review) I’ve seen for this figure and I now have it on order.
Very nice shoot.
Ha, I wish! I’d settle for just some recognition on Japanese websites. Though I surely would not turn down money or free figures if offered.
Thanks and I’m glad I was able to help out XD
Just a quick question – how did you remove her skirt for this shoot? I only ask because I am trying to remove some of the clear plastic wrapping which goes up under the shirt and it would make it a hell of a lot easier if she separates.
The skirt seems solid and the figure does not appear as though it was intended to separate, so short of cutting it off I’m curious how you removed it.
They’ve hidden her separation point very well, it’s just above her breasts. If you grab her shoulders and start wiggling her upper torso, it’ll start coming loose.