Every now and then, you will see a whole bunch of figure makers schedule figures of the same character or from the same series all at about the same time. This happened with Ignis a few years back, when Alter, Orchid Seed, and Max Factory dropped their figures within a few months of each other, and with Haruka Takamori, when Alter, Volks, and Kotobukiya all released figures that looked very similar to each other, all at about the same time. And now it’s happened with Sonico, although Orchid Seed’s Sonico looks very much different than Yamato’s Sonico. Both of Yamato’s Sonicos, actually.
Super Sonico is the current mascot of eroge maker Nitroplus. They are responsible for well-known games like Demonbane, Phantom of Inferno, and Jingai Makyo, and a number of their characters have received figure adaptations. This particular version of Sonico comes from Orchid Seed and is sculpted in 1/7 scale, standing – or kneeling – about 16.5 centimeters tall. She comes with an unexceptional plastic base, a guitar and stand, and a pair of extra legs.
Orchid Seed tags this Sonico as the “bondage version.” Sonico’s clothing is reminiscent of bondage fashion, though she’s lacking shackles or chains or any sort of restraints, so it’s not a particularly accurate descriptor. She’s certainly clad in fetishwear, however, with her collar and vinyl hotpants and bustier.
Sonico shows an adorable expression that conveys anxiety and embarrassment. It’s a very cute look that, when paired with her kneeling pose, gives off a feeling of vulnerability.
Orchid Seed’s quality is often inconsistent, but I’ve noticed their larger figures tend to fare better than their smaller ones. Happily, Sonico’s quality is quite good, with few of the obvious manufacturing flaws that were so obvious on many of their earlier figures. Her sculpt is quite attractive, particularly her stomach, which is very nicely formed, and also her breasts, which will appeal to everyone who likes them big.
Sonico’s sculpt does have a couple of peculiarities, however. Foremost is the short length of her legs; their stumpy appearance put me off enough that I did not intend to order this figure. In person … well, they’re still stumpy. However, their abbreviated length is less obvious from the front, which is her most typical viewing angle. From the side, they are more noticeable, and from the rear, they are very conspicuous, as her legs are angled forward. The other oddity is the large size of her head; she’s got a very big mane of hair, and while it’s not something I take much notice of, I can see how it would bother people. I can overlook that one, though, since it’s a rare anime-style character who doesn’t have a large head.
In keeping with current moe fads, Sonico wears some big headphones and has a guitar. Admittedly, Sonico rocked the phones well before K-On! became such a commercial success, but one must wonder whether her recent rise in popularity owes something to the girl band anime. I have no idea what kind of guitar it’s supposed to be; some sort of Gibson, maybe. It is very nicely detailed, and even has her name on the headstock. In fact, it’s kinda hard to tell that it’s just a small-scale replica in photographs, at least at first glance. A guitar stand is also provided. Sonico’s axe is an interesting accessory, though it doesn’t serve much of a purpose and I tossed it back in the box so that I don’t lose it.
Orchid Seed’s figures unabashedly lean towards the adult side of things, and Sonico is no exception, as most of her clothing can be removed. It’s simple enough to do and an instruction sheet is included with some handy diagrams to show how it is done. Her tube top and jacket are removable but her pants technically are not; instead, an additional pair of legs can be swapped in for the ones with the attached shorts. She’s wearing a pair of thong panties – as much a trademark of hers as the phones – under her shorts, which looks very pretty. Her stockings are made of real fishnet material, which looks pretty good, particularly as it doesn’t distract the eye as is sometimes the case with small figures wearing fabric clothing.
Her garter belt is painted on and doesn’t look quite as good, particularly since her left garter strap is misaligned above and below the band of her underwear. It’s not too noticeable from a distance, though. There’s also a peculiar reddish band on her stomach over her garter belt; presumably they were a bit heavy-handed with the shading there.
But despite that odd sunburn above her belt and some unusually stumpy legs, I like Orchid Seed’s Sonico a lot. She has an appealing expression, some cute clothes, and a fine rack. She’s well-made, particularly for an Orchid Seed figure. And she has a fine rack. You can’t ask for much more than that.
For another review and more pictures, check out Wieselhead.
Oh thats what you’ve meant with really soon, I hope I haven’t pushed you with my comment 😀
It was a very nice review with great pictures, your close up shots of her face are great.
I should practise this a bit more, maybe in my next shooting Im able to capture it better.
I became quite Soniko addicted after my research for the review of this figure, well and Orchid Seeds figure impressed me quite a bit with the sex appeal they’ve put into the figure.
I like her body proportions a lot and the different castoff options are really well done.
I also love the face of this figure it looks so pretty ^- ^ The only thing that bothers me a bit are the very faint blushmarks under many light conditions they aren’t visible enough
The level detail at the guitar is pretty sick ;p . On Flickr I saw a picture where someone had a belt attached on the guitar to hang it around Soniko here very cool 🙂
I would have liked it more when the outlines would have been white instead of nicotine yellow.
In general I keep a new figure on my desk for a few days until a new figure arrives and takes the place of the previous one, but I like this Soniko figure so much that I don’t want to put her on a shelf for the time being 😀
thx for linking
Nah, I had these pictures sitting on my hard disk for like a week. I’m just pretty lazy about postprocessing and writing. You’d think that writing reviews would get easier the more you do it, but I find it’s getting harder.
Sonico is definitely a very cute and fun character. You should get the dakimakura XD She can even hug you back!
That’s a pretty cool mod, I was surprised at how realistic the guitar is. It’s really impressive how much detail figure manufacturers can put into something so small.
Oh then Im glad ^^, sometimes writing the text for a review can become quite difficult when there’s a small writer’s block.
Hahaha I know this dakimakura, but I think I’ll pass for once, even though Im still a bit tempted. But I’ve ordered her game SoniComi 😀
The figure looks great. Love the guitar as well. I seem to always overlook a lot of figures because I don’t really know too much about them. Thanks for introducing me to a lot of them that I wouldn’t have really given a second look otherwise.
I seem to get a lot of figures that not many people buy. But I don’t always shy away from the mainstream; for instance, I am still planning to do Fate Testarossa Week here. I just have to make the time to photograph all of them; there are a lot of Fates in my collection that need their pictures taken.
Think your red band over the garter belt is a QC problem – mine doesn’t have it.
I still think her forehead is unnaturally big and stand by my assertion that she is a bit of a conehead!
Hrmm … well, that’s mildly annoying. Not a big deal, I suppose, I’m usually looking about an inch above her waistband, anyway. I guess I’ll look around for other people’s pictures and see if anybody else’s copy has the same issue as mine.
She’s definitely well-endowed in more ways than one.
Hmm, interesting. I’ve been eyeing OrchidSeed’s new recoloured Ziska; http://www.amiami.jp/shop/?set=english&vgForm=ProductInfo&sku=FIG-MOE-3285&template=default/product/e_display.html for a while, but the fact it has an exposed nipple bothers me, as I don’t really want any actual ero figures. The pose alone is fine, but actual visible ero, not so cool in my collection. Probably suit yours just fine, though. =p
This shoot shows me OrchidSeed can do nice work, though the legs really are quite stubby, which I find off-putting. I prefer my figures to be high quality all-round, which is why I stick to the top-tier companies. Overall sculpt quality on this looks great, but to screw up the proportions like that strikes me as rather poor form. I’m also not a fan of such large breasts, but I know many are and why figures like this appeal to you. ^^;
Interesting staging you used for her, too. Is that actual rusty metal or just a rusty sort of paint? I imagine it’s not real oxidisation, given the scale, but the effect of whatever background you have there is certainly quite interesting.
She’s be great in any collection! Plastic nipples never hurt a soul.
It’s just some cheap wood I got from a crafts store. Too cheap; it started curling up very badly while I was painting it. I probably should’ve paid a few more dollars for thicker pieces. Or reinforced the reverse side, which is what I had to do after the paint had dried and the pieces had already curled. The paint is just some mixed red and black paint that I brushed on in haphazard fashion; I was mainly trying to get an interesting texture and an appealing color.
Ahh, I’ve been in a cruise for a week and you have posted with two figure’s review. Your collection must grow up so fast XD
About Matabei figure I think is a good choice, Alter has changed her personality from the anime, now she looks so much better. I have ordered Penguin Parade’s Kanetsugu Naoe, the girl with the long purple pigtails, after seeing their Jyubei Yagyu version, which I think is the best version of all Yagyu’s figures released recently (anyway I still prefer Alter’s one).
This Orchid Seed’s Sonico looks fine, it’s good to see that curves in the waist (sometimes I get tired of all that more than thin bodies). I wouldn’t care that much on her big head, I mean, I don’t think is so big, or at least in your photos (I never seen her in reality).
Very good job in your photos, specially in Matabei’s ones.
It is growing faster than my space can keep up. I’ve had to box up a few figures and I’m going to have to more shelf culling pretty soon.
I like the Penguin Parade Naoe figure a lot, I wasn’t going to order it but looking at it again, I might change my mind. The main reason I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it is that I assume Alter will make one someday, but then again, they’ve skipped over characters before (like Velvet from Odin Sphere and Subaru from Beat Blades Haruka), and it wouldn’t surprise me if they stopped making Hyakka Ryouran figures and started making Madoka figures instead.
She looks tasty :9
The details are nice, her stocking looks nice, all in all I would like to own her.
But only the “SFW” version.
Also that “bra” thing there… I have the feeling it could break easly in my hands. I’m bad in such things. I already broke the thing at Ignis (Yamato). It’s still okay, but…
And I have no money for her.
Driving license and other stuff are expensive…
I’ve got so many figures scattered around here that I’m constantly terrified of breaking them. In fact, I recently got a somewhat expensive figure that I was really happy to track down … and then I wound up breaking off part of her hair. I still need to finish up trying to repair it.
That’s a, uh…fine rack. The arms look a little bizarre with the top off, as if they’re holding now-invisible strings. But I’m not going to complain too much. As you said, she has a fine rack.
Not at all… looks like she’s about to tweak her own nipples 🙂
That’s how I interpreted it as well XD The gesture matches up pretty well with her expression.
Was on the fence with her but I feel I should get her now after seeing her up close… I really like the expression on her face here. ^_^ gotta prioritize getting the expansion slots for my display case after July XD
She’s definitely a cutie, I think she’s a good pickup. Though I have the other Sonico in the review queue, still in her box … I haven’t even looked at her so I’m not sure which one I like better yet.
I second the amazing rack 😉 A sure addition to my collection. Her head is a little big but I won’t spend much time looking at that anyway. Tier,I have to say your photos are again outstanding. Now which one will be my new “Droid” wallpaper….
Thanks XD Man, I need to get a smartphone already. Or at least a phone with a camera in it. My Cro-Magnon phone looks pretty lame compared to all the stuff my friends can do with their Droid phones.
After looking at the figure for a while, I start to get the feeling that Sonico is undergoing some sort of rapid growth, which would explain why her top and the shorts seem to be failing at containing her body. This may also explain the stumpy look of her legs — unlike the rest of her body, the fishnet and boots are restricting her growth below the waist, binding her legs tightly like a pair of honey-flavoured hams. Mmmmmm hams.
Thanks for telling me about the rim lights on IRC, btw! I’m not sure how well it would work with regular lights, but I’m inclined to give it a try on my next shoot. Some experimentation certainly wouldn’t hurt~
I can certainly buy that theory, especially seeing as how machine translators constantly render her name as “Su Bomber Child.” I’m not sure where that comes from.
Experimentation is good! Someone once said that an interesting failure is better than a boring success. I think that depends on the extent of the failure – there’s failure and then there’s fail – but one does not get anywhere without trying out new things.
I think my favorite part about this figure has to be the fishnets, having them be real makes it so much more sexy and novel. The Freeing Haruhi Bunny girls had real fishnets too and I hope that manufacturers continue using them. The one thing that kills it is the stumpy legs but to be honest, it could look so much worse if she was standing; then you have no angle left to hide it.
I really like how her stockings turned out; I had some misgivings since it’s pretty easy to botch up woven clothing at a small scale like this but they add a lot to the figure … they really emphasize just how uncomfortable or nervous she looks XD
Hmm I look at Sonico (04.jpg) and it looks like she trying to lure you in then *bang* Boobie missiles to the face. No, just me? She’s certainly got a hint mischief in that seductive expression of hers at least.
The fish net stockings being fabric is neat, not too distracting. It’s a shame her legs look so short from the side, from the front she looks absolutely fine to me. Then the guitar actually having strings is also a nice touch.
She’s overall a pretty nice, sexy looking figure. Cast-off is always a plus in my book and her ‘bondage’ outfit is great to look at. Can you display her with only the Jacket on or is it attached with the lacey bra thing (more like a strip of leather)?
I’m pretty sure you can display her with her jacket on and bustier off, though I did not think to try to do that. They are separate pieces so there’s nothing to get in the way.
This one does have weird proportions. It’s not noticeable in your head-on shots, but from the side she looks weird. Overall I think I like Yamato’s Sonico figures better. Gotta say, though, that Orchid Seed ass is still top-notch!
I’m not sure which one I like better yet, since I haven’t seen the Yamato figure up close … I should take the Yamato one out of the box already. Everyone’s already done a review of it so I guess I might as well do one too.
Sonico is amazing