Figure makers used to regularly look towards eroge and ero anime, but these days, that appears to be a diminishing trend. Fortunately, Daiki Kougyou is here to remind us that hardcore hentai properties deserve figures, too.
Imari Kurumi is the principal love interest and victim in Bible Black. The game – available in English from JAST USA – features art from well-known illustrator Sei Shoujo, whose recent work Starless is getting an anime adaptation next month. The anime version of Bible Black was, at the time of its release, one of the edgiest ero shows around, but its shock value has waned over time and some of its most memorable scenes – like the one where Miss Takashiro gets inflated by water – aren’t nearly as disturbing as they once were. Even so, its high production values, engaging plot, appealing character designs, and graphic sex scenes have made it one of the best-known H-anime series out there.
Imari subsequently starred in Bible Black: New Testament (or Shin Bible Black in Japan), where she is all grown up and has become a policewoman. This figure, though, presents Imari as she appeared in the original anime, when she was a high school girl. She’s sculpted in 1/6 scale and is about 15 centimeters tall. She comes with a small black plastic base, an alternate face, and a couple of neat accessories which we’ll look at shortly.
One of my favorite things about Bible Black – aside from the aforementioned sex scenes – were the school uniforms, which I thought were amongst the most attractive in anime. I’ve since come to favor the uniforms in Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere, but at any rate, Imari is obviously not wearing her school outfit. Rather, she’s wearing a charming black leather bondage outfit, comprising sleeves, a curiously-cut top, panties, stockings and shoes. Daiki Kougyou is also making red and silver-clad variants of Imari which lack the stockings; for this sort of figure, I much prefer the classic black bondage look and I like the stockings, so this is my favorite version of the three.
Imari is squatting down in a blatantly sexualized pose. It’s sort of an odd pose that doesn’t really convey what Imari might be feeling; even though she’s displaying her body, she looks rather discomfited.
Imari doesn’t wear this exact outfit in the anime; there is a part where she gets bondaged up while being molested but she’s nude throughout most of the sequence. Rather, this ensemble comes from a scene in the H-game. There’s also an illustration which features a similar bondage theme to this one.
Imari’s face is quite pretty, though her eyes are very wideset, perhaps too much so. The rule of thumb I’ve heard in character design is that the eyes ought to be spaced one eye-width apart but Imari’s seem to be closer to two widths apart.
She’s also got a rather prominent and stubby nose, though it is less apparent at a normal viewing distance.
Imari also comes with an additional face that sports a rather anguished look. Replacing her face is a straightforward affair: one pulls off her head, pulls away her bangs, and pops her face off from the back of her head.
Presumably she is meant to appear in a state of ecstasy but in this case, ecstasy and dire constipation don’t appear to be too far apart.
I prefer her ordinary face; it loses some of the comic value of her more distressed appearance but I think she’s quite a bit cuter with her eyes open.
I like how Imari is tilting her head; it gives an impression of resignation and submission that is thematically congruent with this figure’s overall appearance.
I also really like her side ponytail; I think Imari was the first anime character I saw that has a side ponytail.
Besides the alternate face, she also comes with an accessory, a pink dildo of sorts. It rests on the base and is designed in such a way to appear that she is lowering herself on it. Its girth is impressive; it looks to be about as wide as her wrist.
Up close, Imari’s leather panties don’t appear too dissimilar from Dizzy’s, though Imari’s has a zipper in front.
And Imari’s bikini has a thong back while it doesn’t appear that Dizzy can pull her panties up over her tail.
Imari’s bottom also has an additional wrinkle: a detachable front. The crotch part pulls right off and can be replaced with this front panel instead, which is unzipped.
They reveal an impressive amount of detail in the sculpt; surely this is one of the most explicit figures made by a mainstream figure maker. Speaking of explicitness, Daiki Kougyou censored Imari’s breasts on the box graphics – no surprise since no options are provided for covering them up – but her bare tits and nipples are on bold display in the box’s front window.
Also, in case anyone is going to ask: the front panel of her bottom fits into grooves molded into her groin and is attached by plugging it into holes in her body; one cannot elect to display her with the panel omitted unless one wants her to look disfigured.
Additional highlights of this figure include these sleeves that sheathe her arms; they feature wrinkles that give them an added sense of realism.
Instead of hooker boots or other provocative footwear, she wears these somewhat staid – but still awesome – stiletto-heeled pumps.
And here’s another view of the dildo. The other two versions of this figure come with different accessories: the silver version seems to come with a disembodied penis, while the red version comes with what appears to be a urine stream. I wish I could say that this sort of accessory is unprecedented in this hobby, but it’s already been done; Kaiyodo’s Revoltech action figure of Alice from Queen’s Gate came with a plastic puddle of piss.
Man, we’ve come a long way as to what is acceptable in figures, haven’t we? I remember when I started collecting figures, the ideas of bare nipples was nearly unthinkable. Just a few short years later, we have stuff like this. What a world we live in.
As one might guess, I’m very happy with this figure. I don’t think she’s absolutely perfect, but Imari looks great and I’m glad that Daiki Kougyou made her. Her outfit looks fantastic and her accessory adds quite a bit of pizazz to a figure that is already rather eye-catching. Hopefully Daiki Kougyou will continue making figures of the Bible Black characters; Yukiko would be nice, and Aki Ichikawa deserves a figure, too.
I ought to review Kaori Saeki one of these days.
I was browsing through some pictures on Myfigurecollection earlier, and I was really disappointed that the bottom part leaves the scars it does. I was really hoping that this figure would have a realistically sculpted anus, but I guess that was too much to ask for with all the effort they put into the other parts. Such a missed opportunity. 🙁
Yeah, that would’ve been a nice feature. I actually prefer it this way, though; I think Imari’s thong is very pretty, and it’d probably make her panties very bulky if they made them removable.
I feel that her “serious face” (her face expression in the first photo) seems a bit odd. It just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t match the way her body is positioned. However, the “orgasmic face”(her face expression in the ninth photo) is great, it really suits the bodily expression in my opinion.
Ha, everyone’s got a beef with this figure, I guess. Yeah, her open-eyed face doesn’t seem to match up with her body position. I kinda like that though, since it implies a lack of free will on her part. Not that I enjoy seeing women denigrated (I do not, but Imari is obviously a fictional character), but it seems appropriate given the context of her appearance as well as her involvement in Bible Black’s storyline.
Without a doubt one of the finer hentai characters to be sculpted in recent years. I especially like both her facial expressions with the first one shown here as preference. While I also agree on your secondary face statement, isn’t reaching climax always bordering said constipation in one way or the other. Not too fond of the golden aspect of kinky sex I would’ve have skipped the red version but considered both the silver and black variants, with the latter being the favorite of choice.
It’s great seeing Daiki Kougyou catching up to bigger companies in terms of quality, notably with figures like Imari. I can’t quite put my finger on it but Daiki’s figures seem more raw, for lack of a better term, compared to say the likes of Native. One could argue that the pink dildo would favor such reasoning but looking at Daiki’s creations from the past year and recently many of them share a grittier appearance which I find more fitting for figures of a more explicit nature.
Yeah, I think that for a figure like this, a very animated face is going to be the norm. In a bit of a coincidence, there’s this figure from Okayama Figure Engineering that also has a similar sort of evocative face that came out right about the same time as Imari did. Three different people have linked me photos of that figure, which makes me think that my reputation precedes me these days.
Daiki Kougyou’s stuff is wildly inconsistent; I think a large number of their products are figures that were originally resin kits, so they tend to make stuff from a ton of sculptors (versus Alter, GSC, and such, where they seem to have a lot of in-house sculptors). I actually got a couple more Daiki figures boxed up that I really want to review soon – and of course, there’s always gangsta lean Saber, staring down at me from her perch on the shelf, as if to say, “You’re never gonna review me.” I remember Daiki Kougyou was one of the first figure makers I ever saw that sold a figure with explicit genitalia (Seyada Tara was the figure – I remember seeing it on Heisei Democracy but I can’t seem to find his review, and the pictures are down on HD anyway); they haven’t ever been too shy about doing explicit figures, though I guess they weren’t able to get gangsta lean Saber out uncensored. A real shame, that. (Also a shame that they weren’t interested in Cobra Kai’s Fate T. Harlaown; I’d love to see the community reaction to that figure.)
Some time has elapsed since having seen the anime adaptation of BB but beyond the horrible albeit extremely hilarious dubbing when looking back a few scenes stood out for me. Imari’s anal extravaganza in which she is captured, drugged and (anally) taken by many of her class mates all the while her true virginity is being protected so that Kitami may work her magic later was one such scene.
I only bring this up in defense of my commenting yesterday, as the red prop to me appeared as though she was dispelling some, how should I put this.. deposits which were left in an abundance. I had also taken note of the Revoltech Alice before and can clearly see what was being done there though the Imari prop seemed to be something entirely different in my opinion.
I do have a very active imagination (ask me about Trunk Girl sometime) though and could be dead wrong 🙂
Yeah, that was a classic scene; probably one of the best ones in the series and in my view, in all of anime. Imari had some great sodomy scenes, though I think Sumire from Hitoriga the Animation could compete with her.
Though I’m reminded of the curious short animation she got in one of the Bible Black Only episodes, where she had normal sex with some random dude in a storage closet or something. Shouldn’t that have scotched the whole ritual right from the start?
I judge no fetishes; the peeing thing is not really something that interests me but it is all good to me if somebody else likes it. I figure anime is all about fetishes, anyway; if it weren’t, we wouldn’t have all these incest shows getting on television.
I haven’t seen Bible Black since it came out, so don’t really remember anything about it, but she appears quite a well made figure. I like the accessory, too. Certainly appropriate for a figure that looks like this. I also think the second face suits it better.
It’s nice to see Obama with his hoes. Glad to see you including him in more shoots (especially of explicit figures like these). What is the backdrop you’ve used here? Some roughly painted card, or what? I think you may have used something like this before, I seem to vaguely recall the rusty look. I imagine the wooden flooring is just a table or something.
It’s a small wood panel blotted with some red and black paint. It’s actually the same backdrop I used with Cat and Chair, Nurse Miyu, and the maid Super Sonico figure. I really like how it looks; I think it’s got an interesting-looking texture, even though it’s really just layers of paint. Yeah, the wood’s just a cheap 2×2 wood panel that I got from a hardware store; I think I either brushed some wood stain on it or painted it brown (or both).
not really a figure I would consider to buy for myself for obvious reasons…*cough*, but damn her body sculpting looks great on front and backside, I like the belly and the scapula’s a lot.
The very scanty latex dress of her looks good, it also seems very well done.
A side ponytail is a nice hairstyle for a pretty girl, the wide set eyes and the bigger nose give her a more Caucasian look, like the friendly girl who gave cookies and milk to Peter Parker in the Spider Man 3(?) movie 😉
I actually thought the Dildo could be plugged into somewhere XD
Ok, just my dirty mind again, sorry.
If Kanu will have a similiar quality, Im really looking forward to my first Daiki Kougyou figure.
Aww, who knows, maybe your family will like Imari XD You might never know until you show her to them!
Yeah, I really like her side ponytail. She’s the character who really got me to like that sort of hairstyle (though if you asked me who my favorite Bible Black character is, I would probably say Yukiko, though Imari and Aki are up there).
I think Kanu will be very nice; the sculptor has done a number of good figures and Daiki Kougyou has done some fantastic figures in the past. I’d put their black miko Kanu Unchou figure against anything Alter or GSC have ever made. (Admittedly, they’ve also had some really bad stuff, and some stuff that just makes you scratch your head. Like Daiki Gel, for instance. Man I wish I had bought some of that when I could have.)
10 years since I was first exposed to Bible Black. It was my first real taste of hentai too. And the figure just brings all that rushing back. Maybe I should dig the game out of my drive and give it another go. And did Reika Kitami ever get a decent figure? I remember that one where her face was kinda eh. She’s wearing the black lingerie under her white nurses coat.
A good show to start with! My first exposure to hentai was seeing the cover to La Blue Girl in a mail order movie catalog. I didn’t know it at the time but that was a defining moment right there.
I don’t know that Kitami ever got a decent figure; heck, I didn’t know she got a figure at all till I looked her up and found that Miyabiya made one a number of years ago. I don’t expect this to happen but it’d be nice if Daiki kept going with the Bible Black figures, and Kitami ought to be a logical inclusion in the line.
A fan of Bible Black from way back. Though it’s themes were perhaps on the darkish side, at least it was a bit more ‘real’ than some of the originally controvesial ero anime. (Like Urotsukidoji…) I wonder if the second series was ever completed, or if it just faded away…
As always; you are an excellent photographer. The scale between Imari and your ‘extra’ may be a bit off, but he always make the figures look that much better when you add him in.
Perhaps it makes them look that much more alive and real?
Bible Black: New Testament got six episodes, though the possibility of another series was left open. I’m not sure if they’ll ever get back to making more episodes, though as I recall, Discipline got a new prequel OVA a couple of years ago; maybe Bible Black will get revisited sometime in the future. It’d be pretty cool to see more Bible Black with some of the more modern sensibilities that current eroge and H-anime have.
Thanks a lot XD Yeah, unfortunately the president is a bit large compared to most anime figures. Imari is 1/6 scale but looking at her, her body size actually seems a bit smaller than Alter’s swimsuit Nanoha figure, which is supposed to be 1/7 scale (and Imari has somewhat more realistic body proportions, at least in the size of her head, which makes her look even smaller). Though yeah, I think the size disparity gives the president a bit more of an authoritative look.
She’s a fantastic figure. Both faces look nice, but for the second one to make sense, the dildo should be insertable… So I prefer the first face.
I’m relatively new to figure collecting, so I’m probably not the ultimate authority to comment on quality. But apart from the distance between her eyes, this figure has no flaws. Okay, maybe the boob/chest joints below her armpits could have been rendered a bit more realistic, but otherwise the sculpt is great. Her squatting position really brings out the best in her buttocks. There is no end to them, unbelievable.
Finally, there is a detail in the paint job which I admit I’m even not able to see with my naked eye: Her areolae are adorned with tiny white spots which I assume are supposed to depict her Montgomery’s Glands. Who would have expected such a level of care to detail? I’m truly impressed.
Yeah, the closed-eyed face would seem to look more appropriate if the dildo were inside of her already. Though one could also imagine that she’s lifting herself off of it, I think. It’s great how this figure has so many interpretations to different people.
She’s a great figure indeed. It’s funny that you mention her nipples since I took a photo of them and while editing the set, I was like, “Ehh … nobody’s gonna care about this” and decided not to use the shot. How wrong I was! So I’ll include it here instead:
Thanks for the close-up. Rumour has it that while Dr. Montgomery was busy examining and describing those glands in 1837, his wife had her entire body examined by someone else… 😉
You are welcome! And thank you for the medical history lesson XD Kinky, kinky indeed.
Tier! You’re playing favorites lol! Do Saeki next………pardon the pun hehehe
Saeki’s been sitting on top of the Detolf for months now, I probably ought to review her. I did damage her – I tore the sleeve off her uniform while trying to figure out how to get it off – but I guess anyone interested in seeing Saeki probably doesn’t care about her uniform. I’ll have to make some time to photograph her in the future.
Ahhh bible black, one of the classic hentai’s out there, but I haven’t watched it though but I am somewhat familiar with it. The diminishing ero figs can be caused by resurgence of mass figure making, but even so they are some guys who are still willing to make one. Love the detail on the crotch area. The anatomy is somewhat close. And the expressions (and the dildo) are great as well. But for some reason, she is somewhat doing her bowel movement or in a orgasmic moment. You choose, hehe.
A classic series indeed, it’s one of the few hentai shows that almost everyone knows what it’s about.
Yeah, her closed-eyed face is open to multiple interpretations XD I like to think of her as being in rapture, but there do seem to be a lot of people who might prefer the alternate explanation, judging from what I’ve seen in some recent hentai shows.
That is a damn fine body sculpt. Wish I could say the same about the face. Her eyes really are too far apart. And it doesn’t help that the closed eye face reminds me a LOT of the extra face that came with the Billy Herrington figma. You know, THAT figma.
I never did get around to watching Bible Black. A shame considering what a classic it supposedly is. I agree with you about the school uniforms as well. Very very appealing, and certainly one of the best seifuku designs to grace any anime.
Yeah, the eyes ought to be closer together. The issue is less noticeable looking down on the figure, which is how I’m looking at it now since it’s on my desk and she’s squatting down,
I guess the extra face is appropriate then, given Billy’s occupation XD I did think about getting that Figma back in the day, when I was thinking of getting into Figmas, but it was a bit too expensive and I never really got a lot of Figmas (they’re all still piled up on the shelf, along with my two GSC actsta toys).
Bible Black is a pretty good show – though to be honest, I’ve never actually seen it in its entirety either. I just skipped around to the good stuff.
Ah, Bible Black…
I remember seeing that more than 10 years ago. I probably found it on LW or something like that. I remember bits and pieces, but not the anal rape scenes. I only really remember Imari growing a penis at some point which I am not interested in.
I think this figure looks well sculpted, and the ecstasy expression doesn’t remind me of constipation. I wish the “toy” would sit a little closer though.
Nice review.
How could you forget the anal rape scenes :O They were some of the best parts of the show! Though yeah, Imari growing a penis is not my thing, either. She brandishes her new organ most energetically in the sequel series, too (spoiler warning, if anyone cares for spoilers regarding a hentai show: for people who don’t care for futanari, the ending of New Testament is favorable to her).
brcing back old memries I think bible black was the first hentai anime I ever watched back then the face don’t looks suit her ^^ but the body proportion looks great a fine ero figures, and mr president must be very happy
He must be! He deserves some chill time.
Hmm, I dunno, something about Imari doesn’t look right. Doesn’t quite look like her anime art.
I prefer Saeki’s character though and wished there was a more seductive figure of her. I thought about getting that Daiki Saeki figure to compliment my Rika figure, but I wasn’t sure about the quality. Plus, I didn’t think that Saeki look much like her anime version either. I still think Saeki is one of the hottest anime girls I’ve seen. LOL
So far I think Rika Shiraki by Miyabiya is still the best version of a Bible Black figure.
Yeah, her appearance seems a bit different. I think that’s okay, though; quite often, I think it’d be a good thing if sculptors deviated from characters’ original appearances. Like with those GSC Madoka figures, for instance.
Wow, I didn’t expect this from Daiki. I was interested in their Samurai Sasara awhile ago but the seam lines and medicore cast off put me off. The body sculpt and wrinkle details in this Imari look awesome though, will need to keep an eye on their offerings in the future. The eyes definitely look too far apart on Imari but that one shot of Saeki you had looked like she had pretty good eye spacing.
She’s a really nice figure. I’ve heard of some people trying to rank Daiki Kougyou’s stuff, in the same way that people consider Alter to be among the best and the former Taki company to be among the worst but I don’t think they fit into any neat classification system. Some of their stuff – quite a bit of it – is excellent, even superlative; some of it is not very good.
@ Tier
Just picked up Imari from a more expensive hlj(due to stupidity on my part) and all you say about her is that and more. Beautifully sculpted, slutty in an innocent kind of way coupled with the art style of the original game and you got a pornocupia of visual stimuli!
But being the OCD type, your input on how far apart her eyes are got the gears in my heads (pardon the pun)turning. Some of the previous observations in your reviews such as Jubei Yagyu’s uber long legs and the eye distance on Imari, is just an optical illusion.
In Jubei’s part, her elevator shoes makes the legs look longer than it really is, coupled with her short skirt. In Imari’s case, you are indeed right on the money by a single millimeter, the distance that is. It’s just that her not so moe eyes makes them look too far apart and all that kind off jazz.
Now , I’m in a bind, hunting for either Chie or the maido from Ciel,either one btw of Native’s pvc goddesses. That or Mko if I get lucky………
Good luck with your search! I’ve seen M-ko pop up on Mandarake from time to time, though always for way more money than I’m willing to spend. I really wish I’d bought her when she was like $180ish; I remember that seemed like a tremendous amount of money to spend on a figure back then. Now, that’s not too far off from what that Goddess Madoka figure is going to run.
YES YES Please do Kaori Saeki
The red version is coming, not peeing.