I was thrilled to learn that FREEing planned to follow up their version of Kenshin with my favorite Sengoku Rance girl. I got my preorder in right away and counted down the days until her April release date. Of course, figure manufacturers delight in my disappointment, and so Senhime got punted back one month and then another. In a happy bit of serendipity, the delay threw her right into Amiami’s 15% discount sale, and given that she was relatively pricey, I guess I don’t mind.
Senhime is manufactured by FREEing in 1/5 scale. This is my first figure from the manufacturer and looking over their lineup, it looks like they do a lot of larger-scaled figures, which I surely approve of. They’re probably best known for their 1/4 scale figures of characters from Lucky Star and Haruhi Suzumiya, and having seen those elsewhere, I was reasonably confident that Senhime would look pretty good.
Senhime’s size is apparent despite her kneeling posture. Measuring about 20 centimeters tall to the top of her head, she’s already level with many 1/8 scale figures. She’s 35 centimeters tall overall, necessitating a shelf or space with an extra bit of clearance.
I own a lot of figures, but I think Senhime is the first I’ve bought that doesn’t come with a base. She doesn’t need one, of course, but many manufacturers toss one in even if the character is kneeling or sitting down. I usually don’t bother with it for such figures so I don’t mind this omission.
Paint is a mixed affair. There are visible dots and specks on her clothing, but her hair is an attractive shade of violet and the golden accents on her armor look nice. The biggest problem is her clothing. Some of my favorite figures feature realistic clothing but in this case, Senhime’s dress looks very much like a chunk of painted plastic. The yellow parts of her dress are reminiscent of a child’s plastic raincoat. I’m not certain whether the brown parts of her pauldrons are supposed to be wood but if they are, they look about as wooden as Lego blocks from the forestmen set.
As befits her h-game origins, Senhime’s clothing can be removed. It’s sort of a cumbersome process, with her dress detaching in three parts. I also found it a bit difficult to get her arms locked in all the way.
There’s a very peculiar aspect of her design, and that’s the detachment point at her waist. I’m not really certain why she can be separated like that; there are a lot of figures that need to be bisected to remove a skirt, but Senhime’s not wearing a skirt. The lower part of her dress wraps around her hips rather than fitting over them in one unbroken piece, and you can’t even reattach her torso without removing that piece. As far as I can tell, all this does is add an ugly join line above her underwear.
Speaking of join lines, they are readily apparent on her clothing and normally, I’d deal with them by not putting clothing on the figure. However, Senhime’s design makes that problematic; when stripped down, her head looks disproportionately large and her neck looks peculiarly long. I surmise that her neck is that long to give some clearance for her hair while she’s dressed, but personally, I think they should’ve shortened both her hair and neck. And shrunk down her head. It’s a shame since she’s got a pretty nice body otherwise.
Oh, and before anyone asks, I made certain to push her head in all the way. This is as far down as it goes.
Her dress suffers as far as sculpting quality goes, its plastic appearance exacerbated by the lack of texture or extensive wrinkling. I like her feet, though; actually, her legs look fine, her stockings featuring some subtle shading and the requisite wrinkles.
While Senhime has a number of technical flaws, aesthetically, I like her a lot. She radiates a sense of nonchalant competence and serene confidence, matching her personality. The flare of her violet tresses adds a bit of drama to the figure and gives those collectors with a purple hair fetish – myself included – something to fixate on. The length of her spear is very impressive, and her repose effects the sense that she knows how to use it.
Overall, I’d say this is a decent figure though admittedly, there’s a sizeable tilt in my assessment due to Senhime’s status as my favorite character in Sengoku Rance. I am going to be favorably disposed towards anything bearing her likeness regardless of its flaws, and FREEing’s figure is certainly not without flaws. If they’d done a better job on her body proportions, this would be one of my favorite figures of this year. As they did not, much of my fondness for this figure is due to my fondness for the character. I suppose that’s not an entirely negative thing, as I often know very little about the characters whose figures I collect. I’d say that I’m reasonably satisfied with Senhime, though I’d hoped for better.
This isn’t the only Senhime figure I’ve recently received, and with Alter’s brunette Senhime due to ship in a week or so, I am henceforth declaring the start of Senhime Week. Yeah, I probably won’t be receiving the third Senhime until after a week’s time, but that’s fine; I’m American, I don’t know how to count. Heck, we use a temperature scale that sets its most significant points at -459, 32, and 212, so fudging the duration of a week comes naturally to me.
One thing I forgot to mention: I’ve been told that the thing above her bust somewhat resembles a turd. I hadn’t even noticed the thing prior to that being pointed out to me, but having been so informed, I find it difficult to avoid looking at it now. Odd how that happens.
That part of the downside to castoff figures.
The compromises that have to be made in order to have the cast off means that often both modes are less then ideal.
She looks pretty good to me. She has a serious face. However, after stripping her, she becomes kinda out of proportion (you mentioned earlier).
I was tempted to purchase her initially but I believe she would suffer the same fate as my Alleyne (of QB), after stripping, she will have longer neck.
Is the line above her panties very bad? Even if you push it in closely to make them intact? From what I see in the last few photos, it looks pretty okay. So, I’m kinda curious here. So, are you going to her clothes on? I would to maintain the right proportion. How ’bout you? 🙂
Beautiful figure. I love the pose they used since it would not require a stand. I prefer not to have stands on figures/figma/and nendos if I can help it.
The joint point above her panties does not look that bad, but the head does look a bit large without her clothes on. If they made the neck slightly thicker and sorter that might have helped? I am not entirely sure. It is a gorgeous figure either way. I really enjoy FREEing’s larger figure collection ^^
That’s a bit disappointing, but I love Senhime too, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy the figure as much as you do. It really is a shame her neck is so long and the line at her waste is so noticeable; her figure otherwise is excellent, and I would definitely leave her disrobed.
judging from the pictures the long neck doesn’t look that bad from the front but from the side it really looks a bit strange.
to me her head size seems to be ok
nevertheless her body looks very pretty
I love these long fingerless gloves 😀
Fingerless gloves reminds me of The Lonely Island – Boombox.
I haven’t been a fan of any of the FREEing figures since the Lucky Star character, most noteably Asakura Ryoko (she’s the best of the bunch), who mysteriously moved to my country. The thing I’ve found with larger and larger figures, though personal experience limits me to 1/6th scale, but the larger they are the less detail they have. Or at least, the perceived detail seem to be less. If you scale them down to 1/8th they’d probably seem detailed enough but at their large scale there should be more detail and textures. So I’ve pretty much avoid 1/6th figures though have a few, and have entirely avoided anything larger.
As for cast-off… I honestly would have thought at 1/5th scale the proportions would be better suited to both modes. My recent Asakura Nemu (Not related to Ryoko) figure suffers greatly from being anorexic when stripped of her clothing.
>> TheGeek
Yeah, I wish that they had optimized one mode or the other (I would’ve preferred the castoff mode). It doesn’t help that I’ve got her kneeling her next to another Senhime figure, who looks absolutely, undeniably fantastic.
>> softz
I’m letting her keep her clothes, since she looks okay when she’s dressed. Mostly, anyway … I think her legs look sorta small if you stare at her for more than a few seconds. The join line at her waist isn’t enormously bad, but it was kinda hard for me to push her torso in all the way. I might be able to get a better fit if I heat up the pieces with a hair dryer, but mine is busted and I haven’t gotten a new one yet.
>> Kairu90
Yeah, I think that would’ve been a very good improvement. At least, it would’ve made her head size less obvious, and I think that would have gone a long way in making her look good in castoff mode.
>> Shashin
That’s what I had hoped to do, but I suppose I will leave her clothed for now. I do, however, have a Senhime figure in the review queue that’s not wearing too much so that does provide some compensation (and is also a reason I’m kinda harsh on this figure; FREEing’s version doesn’t come off nearly as well, kneeling next to this other one on my desk).
>> Fabienne
I do too XD I didn’t know a thing about Sengoku Rance when I first saw a picture of her but I knew right away that I loved her character design. I also really like her thighhighs with the two-toed tabi design … it gives a bit of a modern spin on a traditional type of footwear.
>> Aka
I had to Google that; that shows how aware I am of modern pop culture (though I do remember the Lazy Sunday rap song! I didn’t know the names of the SNL actors and writers involved, though).
A great mystery indeed! Doubtless her father’s job was of great importance (must … resist … igloo joke … bah, I failed). I dunno if I’ve noticed that trend myself, but the reduced detail is definitely more obvious on larger figures … like on Kotobukiya’s Mari figure, the scratchy black lines on her plugsuit were very noticeable even to me, and I don’t do comprehensive close-up checks of figures. On the other hand, 1/4 scale Kenshin is beautifully detailed; even the joints and tendons of her toes were lovingly sculpted (as they should have been, for what she cost!). I’m curious to learn if FREEing’s done any other castoff-able figures and where their quality rates, generally speaking.
Yeah, that’s what I had thought too; I would think that the manufacturer has a bit more flexibility as far as making the clothing a bit thinner so it doesn’t look quite so bulky on the figure.
Don’t like it much. The paint job is very flecky, and when her clothes are off, she just looks strange. Least of all her nipples, which are pointed toward the sky.
The castoff breaks are also painfully obvious. My first (and currently, only) castoff figure is Kokoro from DoAX2. It’s an absolute pain to get her skirt off, so I don’t often change her outfit. I just don’t like the paint scratches that unfortunately unavoidable with her (who would?). I suspect that’s a common problem among cast-off figures.
I’m glad you still like her despite the flaws. It stinks to look forward to something and be disappointed. I wish you hadn’t pointed out the turd thing above her chest. Now the image is burned into my eyes. @_@
>> Halbred
Haha, yeah, her breasts have some sort of antigravity thing going on there. Maybe she’s got some helium implants or something. I removed Kokoro’s outfit right away and never put it back on her. In fact, I don’t think I actually took any pictures of her with her skirt and blouse top.
I’ve had decent luck avoiding paint transfer with most of my PVC figures, but all of my E2046 figures that have a castoff option suffer from serious paint scraping problems when I try to remove or replace a figure’s clothing (even if I follow their directions to place a plastic barrier between the figure and the clothing part). For me, the inconvenience of replacing the clothes and remembering where I put the parts are the biggest problems with castoff figures. And, as in this case, the problems with body proportions and unsightly seams.
>> here-and-faraway
I can’t hate on Senhime, she is my #1 Sengoku Rance girl. I always give her all the best stuff and H her up right away to boost her levels. I always give her as many troops as she can command, too.
Ha, so it worked on you too! I wonder what that thing is supposed to be. You know, I’ve had Senhime as the header image girl on this website for almost a year, and I hadn’t even noticed it until VF pointed it out a few months back. Maybe it’s time for me to make a new header picture, because I think anyone who reads this will look at that every time they come back to this site.
@The Geek
Not if they do it right like this company did with their previous Kenshin…
Ah anyway Tier you already know how much I dislike this character so all I can say is…”Hah-hah”. :p
Ah but no kinda sad how they can go from a masterpiece to something like this…meh.
I do like her body sculpt though honestly. Nice body lines and her breasts are too huge…Don’t really see the problem with them being a bit on the perky side considering she’s arching her back….In fact why the hell are there so many shots of her clothed?!? Whats going on around here…Just shot in a way that focuses on the midsection above the seam lines and below the head! T_T
“breasts are too huge”
*AREN’T*
Damnit Tier wheres my edit function at already…I was promised a Pony a long time ago and it was called Edit if I remember right……Wheres my Pony Tier? Where…
Yeah, I suppose the main reason I’m hard on this one is that Volks’s Senhime is about fifty times better. If there were such a thing as a quantitative assessment of a figure’s quality, anyway.
I’m keeping her clothed! She’s sort of a pain to get dressed so once I got her clothes put back on, that was it as far as shooting the pervy pics. I guess I’ll have to have her clothes off again when I do the comparison shots, though.
So many promises … I think I promised Aka a camera or something, too. I’m sure I’ve made more promises. So many to keep track of, so many to forget. (I tried some months back to update this theme’s comment page to WordPress’s current specification and failed utterly. Maybe I ought to just ditch this theme and find one that’s a bit newer.)
Note to self: I must acquire a Nanoha figure and do a photoshoot where she is subjugated by the Mothra larva and turned into its love slave. In fact, I should do this for a week. I must begin plans for Nanoha Slave Week. Which figure, hmm …
Oooh, FREEing do cast-off figures too. There’s a high chance that the nendo Reina they are planning to release will be cast-off then.
Senhime didn’t look that appealing at first. But her cast-off looks really nice – if you can overlook the joins and large head (her neck doesn’t look that long to me).
It’s kind of a mix between good and bad with this figure. Nice cast-off body, big head; vs naff looking clothes, better proportions.
That brown thing on her clothing above her chest still look like a piece of poo to me. lol I guess it’s suppose to be a piece of wood to hold her dress or shoulder armor together?
It’s a shame about the flaws, but I guess that’s the downside about cast-off figures. But perhaps the flaws in the clothing are there because FREEing is telling you that she’s meant to be displayed with her clothes off?! =D
She looks like a decent figure, though I’m sort of glad I ended up not pre-ordering her.
>> BioToxic
Yeah, that’s what I’d call it; there’s some things I like and some things I don’t like, and since Senhime is one of my favorite characters, the things I dislike weigh a bit more than they might if this were a character I didn’t know anything about. I put her back up on a shelf and I guess she looks aight from a normal viewing distance, where her head and leg proportions aren’t as obvious.
>> VF
I’m still wondering what it is. I’m guessing it’s a piece of wood, since I can’t imagine that she’d have scooped up some spoor off of the ground and stuck it to her blouse. And while I have absolutely no interest in coprophilia, I have to admit that a part of me – a very, very tiny part of me – would find that kinda kinky. Just a little bit.
Perhaps so! Maybe I ought to cast off her clothes and see if this figure grows on me. It’s happened before, and it just doesn’t seem right for me to bash a near-naked Senhime figure. It’d be like, me writing something nice about the Lakers or something. Yeah, I think maybe I’ll try that.
Really nice photos. I love the ambient lighting you used.
I don’t have this figure, but I do own Kenshin by FREEing, so I know what you mean by the plastic look on her clothing. The skirt on Kenshin’s armour looks (and feels) like a frisbee, and her armour is probably one of the hardest thing to take off. But she didn’t have those aesthetic problems that you mentioned in her b-day suit. Not that I remember since the last time I saw her b-day suit was exactly 1 year ago.
They definitely could’ve done better by using thinner and more malleable plastic on her clothes like other cast-off figures, but it’s a catch 22 because those kinda plastic tend to break easily.
Thanks! I’m still fiddling around with lights … I still need some more experience lighting up flowers.
Yeah, I remember Kenshin looked really nice in cast-off mode. I hadn’t played Sengoku Rance yet when she was released but if I were more familiar with her character, I think I’d have picked up that figure, since Kenshin is my second favorite girl from the game and I always give her second dibs on equipment and items.
I guess it’s a tough compromise, trying to keep the clothing from looking too bulky. I’ve never torn a piece of plastic clothing, but I’d probably be furious if I did since I wouldn’t be able to repair that kind of damage.
I’m not biased since I’ve never played that game, but for what it’s worth, I think the dressed version looks absolutely wonderful 🙂 From the screenshots, it doesn’t look too plasticy or anything to me.
Although, if it makes you feel any better, I personally think that the thing over her chest looks more like a dog bone than a turd, but yeah… Not the figure’s strong point!
But overall, I certainly gives it a thumbs up.
Maybe I ragged on her too hard. I don’t regret buying her at all, so I should probably be happier with her.
It could be that too; it’s strange how something in such a visible position can be so mysterious. I’ll have to look for some articles on feudal Japanese armor design, maybe that will shed some light on what this thing is supposed to be.
Senhime is my favorite character in Sengoku Rance after Uesegi Kenshin, because she had high status, and eventhough her job class is foot soldier, she does damage almost like warrior job class.
This figure also had gorgeous look.
I found her to be very useful and powerful, though I haven’t played the game much and I’ve never gotten the secret character commanders or most of the commanders in the eastern and western provinces. I also think she’s the hottest girl in the game, and that probably is the most important factor in my esteem for her.
I have to admit, I never was fond of Senhime. It’s all well and good her having guard all, but you had to abandon her auto-regen for enhanced initial guard to actually utilise it.
The character I would most like to see from Sengoku Rance is probably Hibachi. Apart from a Volks resin cast, there don’t seem to be any more figures of her being listed in the usual places.
Just a warning though – would be very cautious if they release a figure of Sakamoto Ryouma – even Rance didn’t know what to do with her until her curse was lifted.
Good models of Mouri’s daughters would be interesting as well though and maybe Noir – I don’t care if she is part spider, that girl was almost better than Rance.
I haven’t played the game on the harder difficulty settings but I guess I never saw the need to get enhanced initial guard, since she usually moves fast enough for me to have her defend the team right at the start of the fight. My biggest problem towards the end of the game is having enough offense to take out the demon army’s Time Killer commander before he advances time.
Yeah, I’ve love a figure of Hibachi. I’ve never actually seen that kit up for sale on YJA, even though I check for Volks stuff every couple of weeks. And I’d love a figure of Ryouma too, I always make it a point to go after Takuga to get her (and there’s only one choice to me when the time comes to cure her curse).
I wouldn’t mind a figure of Himiko either, even though she wasn’t much more than an NPC commander.
Some great news, as far as I’m concerned, is that E2046 have announced a Hibachi figure.
There’s only one promotional image at the moment but it looks pretty good. I’ll wait and see just how good it turns out to be.
My spam filter really hates you for some reason. Actually, I guess it doesn’t like it when a bare URL gets placed on its own line; I get a ton of spam that is nothing but a bunch of URLs. I edited your comment so that the link goes to the product page now.
That’s really cool news; I’ve wanted that figure for a while and it seems really rare, even among Volks’s lineup, which is sorta esoteric and poorly-documented to start with.
Ah, but I’m really likeable… oh hang on that’s a blatant lie
Is it a Volks figure then? What’s the deal with E2046 (have never ordered from them), as they seem to get PVC kits in before anyone else (at a premium) and get resin casts of other company’s models as well? I presume they’re legitimate, so do they get samples from the manufacturers in advance or something?
Seems a funny arrangement – or maybe I’m not understanding it correctly.
Yeah, it’s a Volks figure. Most of E2046’s figures are recasts; that is, they take the parts from the original model kit, make their own molds, and use them to mass manufacture their own kits. They definitely don’t get kits before anyone else, sorta by definition, since they have to buy the original model kit first. And nah, they’re not legitimate, what they do is the exact definition of bootlegging – they just do a much better job than most bootlegs you see on eBay. The exception is the products in their ORI series, which are original sculpts (though they often base them on existing characters).