Who doesn’t love chocolate? And elections?
Well, the main love interest in Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate – Love, Election & Chocolate in English, and often abbreviated Koichoco – doesn’t like chocolate, and being that I live in a so-called swing state, I’m keeping my telephone ringer turned off until November. And apparently nobody loves Satsuki, or at least nobody cares much for this figure, because it’s languished in the bargain bin of just about every online retailer on the planet. Being the fool that I am, I bought it for full price when it came out, not expecting that it’d be shunned by everyone. However, with the anime scheduled for broadcast in just over a month, I figure now’s a good time to take a look at Satsuki and the Koichoco world.
Satsuki is manufactered by MegaHouse in 1/8 scale, standing about 21 centimeters tall. She was the first figure in MegaHouse’s High Priestess line, and I assumed that this series would comprise characters of dignified and mature bearing. Then I saw that they’re making a figure of Sena Kashiwazaki – the crass, emotionally-insecure quasi-pedophile of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai – in this line, so I guess my assumption is wrong.
Satsuki is not a particularly complex figure, but she does have a removable face. As usual, MegaHouse provides no instructions but disassembling her head is fairly straightforward. She also comes with a base shaped like a Hershey bar.
Since nobody bought this figure, and with the anime hitting televisions and torrent sites very soon, I think that this is a good opportunity to talk a bit about the eroge that Satsuki comes from. Satsuki does indeed come from a porno game – or an adult visual novel, for those inclined to be pedantic – developed by Sprite. I’d link the game’s website but it seems that Sprite has walled it off from overseas visitors. That strikes me as being a bit fascist in temperament but then again, if my industry were being assailed by insane, agenda-driven foreigners, I suppose I’d circle the wagons too.
The game is a romantic drama set in the elite Takafuji Academy, a rather large and upscale high school in Japan. The game’s protagonist, Yuuki Ojima, is a member of the Food Research Club, whose members basically do nothing but hang out together and eat junk food. One day, Satsuki Shinonome – a candidate for the upcoming student council presidency – releases a policy manifesto outlining her plans to impose austerity upon student organizations – namely, by wiping them out. Their idyllic, gluttonous tranquility threatened, the Food Research Club members thrust forth their own presidential candidate – Yuuki – to thwart Satsuki’s plan and preserve their existence.
Yuuki Ojima (on the left) is the protagonist – a fairly average, all-around nice guy, amateur stalker, and an expert baker of the Ojima Roll. Everyone calls him “Oshima,” which he hates.
Chisato Sumiyoshi is the main love interest of the game, a synthesis of tsundere and childhood friend personality types. Outwardly brash and confident, she becomes extremely insecure whenever any other female makes moves on Yuuki.
Mifuyu Kiba is a close friend of both Chisato and Yuuki. Of frail health and a gentle disposition, she is one of the more mature and even-keeled characters in the game and often provides encouragement and level-headed counsel to both of her friends.
Michiru Morishita is a mysterious young girl who shows up in the Food Research Club room one day. She’s taciturn and seemingly borderline autistic, but she seems to have an odd type of attachment to Yuuki. She’s also one of the few people who doesn’t mispronounce Yuuki’s last name.
Isara Aomi is a polite, hard-working, impoverished, peripatetic young girl who is a year younger than most of the game’s cast. She is on Takafuji Academy’s financial aid program – which causes some friction with her peers – and works at a fast food joint after school. She is a sweet and earnest young girl who quickly becomes friends with the Food Research Club members.
Nozomi Edakawa (call me Non-chan!) is the energetic mad scientist of the Food Research Club. She is hyperactive and somewhat prone to injecting English terms into her speech.
Oboro Yumeshima is the vice president of the Food Research Club and is the only other male member. He’s also blatantly gay for Yuuki. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get a story route.
Hazuki Shinonome is a 23-year old teacher at Takafuji Academy and serves as the faculty advisor for the Food Research Club. She’s an easygoing, friendly young woman who enjoys drinking beer and eating snacks. Unlike her younger sister, she’s a bit immature, a bit irresponsible and is quite informal – she is “Hazuki” to Chisato, “Ha-chan” to Nozomi, and “Shino-nee” to another member of the Food Research Club. Yuuki stiffly refers to her as “Hazuki-sensei.”
Satsuki Shinonome oversees the finance department and is the frontrunner for the student council presidency. She is calm, collected, and of regal comportment, unlike her older sister. Seems to enjoy paizuri.
I played through a bit of the game, which doesn’t deviate much from the conventional mechanics of its genre. I thought it started off a bit slowly, but it picks up after moving from the initial introductory stuff to the business of campaigning and lobbying. Unfortunately, you’re locked into going through Chisato’s route on the first playthrough, and I wasn’t too enthusiastic about her character since I wanted to mack on Satsuki and the game wouldn’t let me. Though after playing for a while, I thought Isara was the most appealing character. Also unfortunately, you spend a lot of your time with the other Food Research Club members and I didn’t think that they were as interesting as some of the other oddball characters in the school.
Curiously, the Wikipedia article lists different voice actors for the original PC game and the upcoming anime adaptation, which is a bit strange since I thought the game’s voice actors were perfect.
Back to the figure. Satsuki is wearing the standard Takafuji Academy girl’s uniform, a cropped jacket, a white blouse that appears to be struggling to contain her majesty, and a turquoise dress cut dangerously high. While not a particularly sexualized outfit, it’s obviously designed in such a way to provide that sort of appeal, at least on a nuanced level. Particularly with Satsuki, as she has the largest listed breast size of the game’s student body and is second only to her sister, overall. Satsuki’s substantial chest is highlighted by her dress, as are her legs, and also her narrow waist and broad hips. She may not be meant to look sexy but there is certainly an erotic element to her overall look.
Satsuki comes with two faces, one smiling and one frowning. Both expressions are appealing, but I think that her frown is more enigmatic, and I like that expression on her a bit more. She could just be expressing aggravation, or displeasure, or that might even just be her normal look, since she doesn’t seem to smile that often. She could also be expressing disquiet or anxiety, and that’s how I viewed her at first – from some angles, her sideways glance looks rather like she’s afraid of something.
Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate is known in large part for its distinctive artwork by Yuu Akinashi, and while it would be very difficult to transpose its soft, watercolor-like look to a PVC figure, at least Satsuki remains faithful to her original design. Particularly in the design of her face, which retain the same small pupils and sharp, narrow eyebrows of her artwork.
Her pose and demeanor are open to a number of differing interpretations. With her happy face on, she’s striding confidently, effecting an aura of competence and certitude. Or perhaps she’s smiling breezily, girlishly brushing her hair back. With her sad face, perhaps she’s standing fearfully, afraid of something lurking in the shadows. Or maybe she’s nervously playing with her hair ornament while Yuuki’s political machine rolls right over her and her aspirations.
I think that maybe MegaHouse released Satsuki too early; they might’ve been better off waiting for the anime to drop. Koichoco was quite a popular eroge, but it’s still sort of a niche title, like most eroge, and I’m sure Satsuki would’ve sold tons better after the anime hits TVs.
Satsuki doesn’t look like the sort of figure I’d normally buy but I’m still quite happy to own it, even after paying full price. Satsuki is sexy without looking slutty. Her school outfit is easily discernible as such, but is still distinctive. On the surface, she’s nothing special, but a moment of contemplation reveals a lot of subtleties to her look that I find to be very appealing. Add to that an attractive personality – at least, as far as I can tell without having gone through her game route – and this is a figure that I like a lot.
If you want a Satsuki of your very own, HLJ has her for just 3,060 yen. Cheap!
I love the alleyway pictures for this review. I don’t know how you did it but it looks damn good. I also like this figure. She gives off an air of sexuality without being overly sexual. I like her smiling face a lot more than her straight lipped face. To me it looks like the figure is a little light on detail, but that is probably to be expected from a 1/8 scale figure.
I feel I may have to look for the CGs of the game she is based off of.since I like what I am seeing with the character designs.
Due to the president’s scale he appears to be a pedo in these pictures. I think you could have also used the small tentacle stand in the alleyway. It would have fit perfectly, I think.
The tunnel pictures are made using a cardboard box (really). I didn’t have high hopes for the setup but it worked out better than I thought it would. I wish I’d taken more shots since I like them a lot more than the other ones.
The game seems to be renowned for its artwork, which is very high quality. The artist has a very attractive style; I wonder how well it will carry over to the anime (I don’t have great expectations, myself – plus the game doesn’t have the greatest story to start with, and the history of eroge to anime adaptations is a depressing one).
Yeah, the little tentacle dude would’ve been a good inclusion. I don’t actually remember where I put it; I think it’s somewhere on the floor here. I don’t think I’ve used the Prince of Tentacles since that one Mikuru shoot, come to think of it. That was a fun one to do, as I remember it.
I understand the Obama pictures now. You have got us so accustomed to Sex Master Obama, that I forgot he may want another person running for office with him, especially one who is familiar with running for office (based off your comments about the game).
If that was indeed the source of the Obama pictures…Good show, my good man, good show.
Indeed! Yeah, I actually meant to include an explicit note about them both running for the presidency. It’s cute to think of Satsuki as his running mate. Speaking of which, I still need to find the president an appropriately-sized running mate … I had thought about getting Azone’s Erio Touwa and I guess she’s still the leading candidate, but I also like Azone’s frowny-face Sena Kashiwazaki. Admittedly, I don’t know if either of them is really appropriate sized since they’re probably about as tall as he is.
Beautiful figure. I love her proportions, colors, and design. If only she was more detailed.
Yeah, I think that her simplicity probably deterred a lot of people from buying her. She actually has some interesting details that aren’t that noticeable (like her boot laces; I kept scraping my hand against them while rotating her and I was afraid I’d tear them off) but on the whole, a figure of a schoolgirl standing straight up probably isn’t going to get anyone’s blood pumping and testicles quaking. Fortunately, Daiki Kougyou Imari is scheduled for release next month.
The school girl look by itself just doesn’t really interest me.
Speaking of Daiki Kougyou, what do you think of Unico coming up in October? I don’t care for Imari, but Unico is just too adorable and lewd to pass up. I’m worried tho since people keep saying the manufacturer is a disaster.
I don’t really dig it a whole lot, but that’s entirely because of the unicorn horn coming out of her head. I like everything else about it but I’m not big on horns, or animal ears, or animal tails, most of the time. Though I do make exceptions quite often.
That is a curious thing for people to say and I wonder how they justify it. I’ve got nine Daiki Kougyou figures and I think they are pretty good. Their black miko Kanu Unchou figure can stand up to anything Alter’s ever made. And as a trivia note, Diskvision Eve is by far the most popular review on this site.
Well that helps to quell my worries. I think the criticism most often leveled is how some of DK’s recent figures have ended up in the bargain bin.
The horn on Unico bugged me as well, but I love the rest of the figure. I loved it enough to check out the source manga to see if the gaping hole around the horn can be justified. And I was convinced by the source material.
I’d recommend a read if you haven’t already. E-mail me for a link if you can’t find it.
It is a bit curious how quickly their figures have dropped in price. If I weren’t already preordering their figures, though, I’d count that as a good thing. Odd how nobody brings up how a lot of Good Smile Company’s most famous figures – like Black Rock Shooter and Triumphant Excalibur Saber – saw their price tags crater literally weeks after they hit stores (I remember animation BRS was like 2,500 yen at Amazon and Saber was around 3,600 at Amiami).
I’ll take a look around for it; thanks for the heads-up. She’s definitely still quite cute; I do like her shy facial expression a lot.
Raise your hands for the shunned but pretty figures 😀
So there is not much love for Satsuki, aside from yours. Well I made this experience with other figures of mine a few times, but who cares its good to own a figure not everybody has.
Well, I’ve heard about the game, but I never noticed that it was the figures origin.
I would agree with you, that she’s a quite attractive figure, even though she’s not very revealing in terms of clothes. Most of the sex appeal comes from the overall charisma of the figure, the clothes for example appear somewhat elegant, I like how her dress accentuates her bosom and the boots are pretty. The face looks very well done with the design of the eyes and the shape of her mouth. The second face expression was also new to me, but the serious one suits her the best.
I will probably keep ignoring the figure, but your review of her was nice and I appreciate your effort of giving her a stage to shine. The tunnel setup for this figure looks nice, I would like to try this someday, how did you prevent it from falling together?
Yeah, I like getting figures that not a lot of other people have, particularly since that means I can do anything I want with regard to a review. Well, I guess that’s not as big a problem now since it doesn’t seem like there are as many figure review sites as there used to be, but I remember back when I got Saber Lily and I was like, “Ahhhh everyone’s gonna review this figure so I need to do something special.”
The tunnel is held up by a stack of DVDs, ero manga, and a can of sliced pears. Keeping it standing upright was definitely tricky, since I was shooting pretty close to it. I took some pictures of the setup so I might write up a post describing how it was shot.
I saw her in a bargain bin and was tempted, because she’s pretty, but I’m trying really hard to avoid figures that don’t meet my standard collection criteria, as I have splurged a bit too much. Exchange rates have also been unkind more recently. But mostly I just don’t want any non-mimi or weaponless girls.
Your shoot makes her look even prettier than the product photography I have seen, and some info about her source is always interesting. Your blog is excellent as always — I need to go back over a few recent entries, as my life has been consumed by Tera, as MMOs are a vile cracklike existence.
Also, EroObama is always awesome.
Vile indeed! I actually did give Tera a shot the other month, during one of the beta weekends, but I couldn’t get into it. I think I’m still burned out on MMOs from playing Warcraft nearly nonstop for over two years. Though I’ll admit I do miss Warcraft arena quite a bit.
wow is still a great game even now I’m not playing it, especially the early ages of it. BTW your pics make me want to buy this figure made from a game that I never heard of, fantastic~
A photograph is very beautiful!
It became helpful very much.
Thanks for the kind words!
Man Obama gets all the girls 🙂
He does! And the ones that he can’t get, he takes.
She’s pretty great–I wouldn’t turn her down in the bargain bin. No harm in wishing she was castoffable, right? Them some impressive…tracks of land under that blouse.
Impressive indeed! No harm, though I think it would be impossible to implement in an attractive way, since her dress would be quite bulky. What I wish is that they provided separate torso parts, one dressed and one not. That would allow the best of both worlds.
Is her stand/platform thing suppose to resemble a chocolate bar?
And btw Tier, where’d you get the game, you gotta link that you could share?
Yeah, it looks like a Hershey bar. I didn’t think about it at first but then I remembered the game was about chocolate (well, very tangentially).
I do not actually remember; I think I just used Google. I’m not going to post download links on this site, though.
Agree with Aaron above: The alleyway pictures look great! That looks lika an interesting photoshoot actually. You used lights comming from the side alley?
Colours are great btw!
Yeah, there’s some lights placed back there on each side to try to give the picture sort of an ominous feel. I’ll have to play with this idea some more; I’m pretty happy with it but I think there are a couple of things I could’ve done to improve how it looks.
Ah, this poor girl. She hit the bargain bin just about everywhere. The only I really liked was the chocolate bare base. Her design is pleasant and simple but doesn’t excite me enough to justify getting her.
MH’s High Priestess line seems to be iffy at best at the moment. Some of the sculpts (like Satsuki) are okay…others are just downright bad. It’s almost starting to feel like HP is a dumping ground for their less impressive female sculpts. But maybe it’s just me?
Yeah, poor Satsuki; it’s like Sankt Kaiser Vivio, nobody wants her. Hopefully she’ll be an appealing character in the upcoming anime … though I don’t have high hopes, school romance eroge to anime adaptations do not have an inspiring track record.
I’m not sure what the line is supposed to be about, either; Satsuki looks good (though pretty plain) and Yukiko looks good (though also pretty plain). Sena looks … not too good, and there’s a Rewrite character that I didn’t even know was part of the lineup. Looking through their product list on Hobby Search, I see they have a ton of figures made under the “Excellent Model” label, which I never paid attention to, and I wonder if this High Priestess label is something that should also be ignored.
LOL it is Barack Obama!!! lol best moment today