If you want a figure of Nanoha Takamachi wearing a bikini, your cup runneth over as there are no fewer than four such figures that have been recently released or are currently up for order. If you dig big breasts, Alphamax has you covered. If you prefer a winning smile paired with a flattened butt, there’s Alter’s version, which is going to be re-released just a few months after its debut. If you’re partial to the loli incarnation of the White Devil Magician Girl, there’s a couple to pick from: a Ques Q figure of questionable provenance and this one here. There’s a little something for everyone. Unless you don’t like Nanoha, anyway.
This version of Nanoha is manufactured by Gift, a company that has carved out two niches in the figure marketplace. Uniquely-styled figures of the Fate/stay night characters comprise one such niche, and the other is simply composed of big figures, usually wearing swimsuits. Nanoha obviously falls into the latter category; besides being squeezed into the requisite bikini, she’s nominally sculpted in 1/4 scale. However, being that she’s only about 28 centimeters tall to the top of her head (including her offset from the base, which is about a centimeter in height), that claim’s veracity is dubious, even after taking her loli body build into account.
That said, she’s still a pretty big figure; certainly bigger than most loli-type Nanoha figures. I was rather disappointed with the diminutiveness of Good Smile Company’s actsta Nanoha, and the other loli Nanoha I own – Alter’s school uniform version – isn’t very large either, despite being 1/7 scale. The size of this figure was one of the main reasons I got it, and though I wouldn’t have minded if she were even larger, I’m not too displeased by her dimensions.
Nor am I displeased by the way that she looks. Nanoha is typically presented as a cheerful and gregarious child – versus Fate, who often seems pensive and solemn – and Gift’s figure keeps troth with the white devil’s customarily sunny temperament. She has big expressive eyes and a big happy smile plastered on her face. Her expression perfectly conveys Nanoha’s friendly disposition as well as a sense of childlike innocence and enthusiasm.
Nanoha’s styling is fairly typical of a loli-type character – which is to say, she has a rather oversized head and eyes. Her stubby nose and puffy cheeks also emphasize her youthfulness. Her eyes are set rather far back into her head, which looks a bit strange when viewed from the side.
Despite being fairly large, Nanoha’s sculpt is not particularly intricate. For example, her hair is completely smooth, looking sort of like a big candy apple or something. Or maybe an insect carapace. Also, kneepit lovers won’t find much here to satisfy their fetish.
The seams where her head connects to her neck seem more prominent on this figure than on any other figure I can remember. Maybe it’s because Nanoha’s hair is tied up. One would not normally see them if the figure were displayed facing the viewer, of course, but still, those seams are the sort of thing one cannot help noticing after one first glimpses them.
Nanoha is wearing a rather racy swimsuit given her age. In particular, her bikini struggles to cover her up as it molds itself to her buttocks. While the top of her head might be lacking detail, her rear wants for nothing in that respect, and it’s clear that the sculptor lavished particular attention on this area. That effort is admirable. Fate is typically noted for the transcendent nature of her backside but loli or not, Nanoha makes a pretty good case for the sublimity of her own ass.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the front part of her swimsuit is not too detailed, at least in terms of lewdness. Maybe it’d be crass to think that she should be showing some cameltoe. I don’t think that such thoughts are crass but I guess they could be.
It’s interesting – and perhaps commendable – how Nanoha seems to get more or less erotic depending on the angle that you view her. From the front, she simply looks like a sweet and playful little girl. From the rear, the brevity of her bikini becomes her most conspicuous aspect. And from the side, the strong arch of her back and the rearwards thrust of her buttocks accentuate her sexuality, which would be disturbing except Nanoha is an anime character and anyone with any familiarity with anime has probably already come to terms with the sexualization of minors in this medium. Plus, Nanoha originally comes from a porn game so it is not like her depiction here is not in keeping with the series’ traditions.
Nanoha gets one accessory, a personalized pink inner tube. It looks quite realistic, so much so that one thinks one needs to be careful not to pop it when one grasps it. Of course, it is actually made of rigid transparent plastic.
I quite like this figure of Nanoha. Lolis are not typically my thing (though I don’t necessarily dislike them), but Nanoha has several things going for her, chief amongst them her spectacular (nine-year old) ass. Her obvious effervescence is also enjoyable to behold, and I also like the large size of this figure. Not that any figure makers read this website but if Gift – or anyone else – wanted to make some 1/4 scale figures of Fate and Nanoha in their barrier jackets, they’d have one customer right here.
Details aren’t impressive for a huge figure, but i assume they are trying to stay true to the anime (where the character appear rather simple as well) while original illustrations tend to have more detail.
Yeah, I would agree with that; all of the loli Nanohas I own err on the side of simplicity, even though they’re made by different manufacturers. The other curious thing I’ve noticed about figures of MGLN characters is that the faces often seem slightly off. Even Alter’s figures seem off sometimes; I’ve been looking at pictures of the recently-released Fate T. Harlaown figure and her face looks a bit strange to me, but I shall see for sure when she gets here.
wow she is pretty huge, I like loli nanoha better but seems better not in swimsuit ^^
She is! Yeah, I think she should be nude XD Which I’ve actually seen already. She looks pretty great. More seriously, I’m interested in FREEing’s Fortress Nanoha; I’ve got high hopes for that figure, particularly since we haven’t seen a figure of grown-up Nanoha in her barrier jacket in a while.
YAY TENTACLES.
About all I have to say, as I don’t care for loli renditions (much much much prefered StrikerS). And you just went for a plain white set without any interesting backgrounds for me to comment on ;.; I do, however, approve of the tentacle stand under any and all circumstances.
In this case, she had such a happy look and pose that the tentacles ended up looking like they didn’t bother her much at all.
Yay! The funny thing is, I completely forgot to use the tentacles until an hour after I posted the review. Then I was like “Awwww crap, I shoulda used the tentacle stand, someone’s gonna mention it.” Then I was like, “Man, it’s only 3AM, I’ve got enough to get some pictures.” So I got those pictures shot and processed in about half an hour. I ought to set deadlines for myself more often; I’d get a lot more accomplished.
Yep, plain white! I had an initial idea, which completely failed (a note to myself: don’t use gloss paint on background props). I figured I’d shoot it on white instead as a technical exercise, since I’ve not really been pleased with the way my shots on white have turned out since I started using flashes. I’m still not tremendously pleased, I think; there are some shots which show a lack of contrast and peculiar color shifting, but I think there’s less of that here than there have been on earlier shots.
I did a shot on pure white recently, but overexposed it a stop to reeeeally nuke out the background (since I do not use flashes, and my lamps can leave odd patches where two light fields meet).
http://myfigurecollection.net/picture/510666&ref=user%3AAsako
Even related to this! But I still suck at lighting. It is clearly the most fundamental basis of photography, and I’ve not learned a damn thing about it in the past year.
That doesn’t look too bad; exposure on the figure looks pretty good and the background can be cleaned up in about half a minute in Photoshop – not really the ideal way to do it, perhaps, but if you don’t have optimal equipment or shooting conditions, sometimes Photoshop is the best way to fix things (in this case, select the Dodge tool, set it to Highlights and an exposure setting of maybe 5 to 10%, and paint over the background).
The Alphamax version is on my “to buy” list–one way or another. I was going to drop the hammer on the Alter version, but that flat butt annoys me (as it did a lot of people). Very nice pictures–I especially like the one where she’s standing next to the Alter version, because it gives an excellent idea of scale. That’s actually something lacking in a lot of figure review sites I visit, as well as my own (guilty as charged): I rarely get a sense of size from measurements alone. Simply stating the scale (1/6, 1/7, etc.) doesn’t always help either–I’ve found that different figure publishers have different ideas of certain scales.
Yeah, it bugs me to no end how figure manufacturers fudge their scale sizes. If a figure’s scale seems really wonky or if a figure is unusually-sized, I like to throw in a comparison picture to emphasize that.
It’s funny how that flat butt can bother people even though you’ll never notice it. On some level, it bothers me too, even though I like the figure a lot. I’ve also had to repair a number of figures that I’ve damaged, and while you’d never be able to notice the breakage without being told exactly what was broken, just remembering the damage drives me nuts.
Just like my Gwendolyn. My wife accidentally broke her foot peg off in her foot, and I wasn’t able to get it out. So instead, I tried using Gorilla Glue (NOT A GOOD IDEA) which didn’t bond anything, it just turned into a sticky white bubbling mass. So I picked most of it off and used REAL super glue to affix her to the base. That actually worked, but now, if you look at her foot from the back (which will never happen under normal display conditions) you see some leftover white stuff.
Bugs the hell out of me, even though it’s not really an issue.
Ouch. Yeah, that sort of thing really blows; I’ve broken bits off of figures as well, most notably to Uesugi Kenshin, my favorite figure of all time (well, technically second favorite figure now). I’ve been able to repair the damage but it’s noticeable if you know exactly what and where to look for, and it still bugs me. I have not ever used Gorilla Glue, but in my figure repair and crafts-building experience, the only glue that seems to be worth a damn is Loctite super glue; I’ve tried using Elmer’s glue, rubber cement, Zap-a-Gap, and other adhesives, but the cyanoacrylate stuff seems to be the only glue that always works for me.
Ahaha she’s so cute, what lovely loli Nanoha, I really like the big head and the hairstyle.
I unfortunately passed on her and gave my to order to the loli Nanoha from Ques q. Anyway now I’ve canceled my Ques q Nanoha, which I was very fond of her before, but the last review of a figure from that company gave the creeps in more than one way 🙁
In the I ordered the adult bikini Nanoha from Alphamax
Her size seems to be impressive, even though she’s short as a loli. The body sculpt appears nice, but not overly detailed, like on the back of her head. It seens that Gift paid most attention in giving detail to her butt ^^ *lol*
I guess a sculpted cameltoe would have been too much loli service. My liking to anime lolis changed a little in the last few years, I can mainly see them as cute creatures. Well, unless as they aren’t portrayed as older looking lolis in a blatant sexy way :p
Mhh, it would have been cool if the swim ring would be inflatable.
Sorry to hear that your initial idea for the shooting didn’t really worked,
this figure might be something for going outdoors as well.
I should take Neptune out of her box one of these days. Unfortunately for her, I used her review idea for Samus, who was probably better-suited for it, anyway.
Her size is definitely impressive, particularly since many figures of the first Nanoha series characters are rather short – such as the two actsta figures I’ve got of Fate and Nanoha. Those were quite the waste of money.
The sculptor definitely lavished some extra love on her backside. Maybe it’s a bit of an unrefined thing to do, but the Nanoha characters have had a history of having fine rears, so it seems to be properly aligned with the franchise’s hallmarks.
UUUUUUUUGH, WHAT A CUTE NANOHA! Though if I ever had a daughter there’s no way I’d let her step outside in a swimsuit like that. It’s pretty cute but just look at how much of her ass crack’s hanging out! Go back inside and put on a one piece this instant, missy.
Here we are once again with a company making a large figure but not putting a lot of detail into the sculpt. You’d figure it’d be easier to sculpt things like muscles, knee pits and hair on something this big, but it’s surprising how few companies do so. I think Volks is the only one that goes all out in detail in their 1/4 scaled products. Their 1/4 KOS-MOS and Bayonetta are prime examples of that. Nanoha’s still very nice despite her simplicity. She just looks so…happy. Why, if you looked at her without knowing who she was, you’d have no idea about her White Devil/Clobber Them Until They’re Your Friends shenanigans.
I should’ve taken more rear-view pictures of her, I think; when I was editing the pictures, I noticed that most of them were of her head down to mid-thigh, but her butt is probably the most meticulously-sculpted part of this figure (her face and hair certainly are not).
Yeah, I wish more companies would take advantage of the larger scale sizes. I’ve got several of Volks’s 1/4 scale figures and they are absolutely amazing. I’ve been hoping that Alter would take a shot at doing something in 1/4 scale but I guess they’re not interested; I don’t recall if they’ve even done anything in 1/5 scale since their Rei and Asuka figures from some years back.
Even despite the dearth of detail, I’m interested in seeing what Gift’s Fate Testarossa figure looks like. Hopefully her butt looks just as good as her counterpart’s, since that’s really her calling card.
shes pretty nice, though kidn abland, too. i dont own any figures of that size so i dunno whats the norm for 1/4 figures xD but the sudden tnetacle stand caught me by surprise, good goign there sir.
I think Nanoha has a great ass, but the rest of the figure doesn’t do it for me. I do like the happy face she has though. I really don’t have much to say, but if I had to choose I would pick the Alter Summer Nanoha you reviewed a couple months ago.
Still…nice ass on this figure. I could look at it all day.
Yeah, to be honest, I think my reaction is similar to yours. I like the figure – quite a bit, even, though that’s almost entirely because of its size and her fine ass – but I wouldn’t have any regrets if I had passed on it. Swimsuit figures are always pretty tough for me to both write about and photograph; they just don’t really move me as much as many other figures do, unless they have some unusual feature, or unless they are of an unusual character, like the next figure that I plan to review.
looks like they’ve invested more of their time on the backside than the front, just like the alphamax azusa. Still, she’s big and gorgeous for her age. She’ll be feasted with weird stares if I ever add her to my collection. Fate will eventually join her sooner or later.
Indeed! A good place to focus on when one is sculpting a nine-year old. Hopefully they’ll show Fate soon, and hopefully Fate’s rear will be just as nice; I mean, it has to be, since Fate’s backside is partly what she is so famous for.
Always LOVE your reviews!! I come here as much as I can. I looked at this review before and now that I’ve pre-ordered the new Fate I came back again to take another look at these pics.
As you probably already have seen, Fate is really really nice and adorable. Like you, I’m usually not into loli figures but the Fate one won me over…it’s just too cute with just the right amount of sex appeal! I hope you get her and do a review on her too with some great pics! Thanks again!
Uhh, man, I overlooked this comment, but I guess answering it half a year late is better than never. Thanks very much for the kind words, and indeed Fate has been reviewed.