When you get down to it, figure collectors are really just grown-ass men and ladies who buy lots of toys. And of course, one of the best things about having toys is playing make-believe with them. In that spirit, we’re going to pretend that Inori doesn’t come from one of the most wrongfully overhyped shows of the past few years. We’re going to pretend that Inori isn’t a terrible character from an even worse series because Inori, you are so pretty and you don’t deserve all the things that were done to you. You deserved a much better show. You don’t deserve to be the concubine of the Shührer or the wet nurse of a different character. You deserved better writers and a better director. And well, while this figure isn’t bad, per se, you definitely deserved a bigger figure.
Inori is, of course, from the anime Guilty Crown. Broadcast in fall of 2011, it attracted considerable attention because of the high profile of its creative staff: Production I.G. handled the animation duties, well-known artist redjuice provided the character designs, and doujin J-pop band Supercell performed the opening and ending themes. However, the show started terrible and got worse and worse. For all the talent amassed for this show, little of it is apparent; redjuice’s signature style is hardly recognizable – except, perhaps, in the female cast’s lack of clothing – and Supercell’s first opening theme is one of the most execrable songs I’ve heard since Final Fantasy VIII’s Eyes on Me (to be fair, the second opening theme – an uptempo rock song rather than a slow Engrish-laced ballad – is far better). A whole heap of criticisms can be laid on Production I.G. and there’s not enough space or time to list them here (plus I’ve long intended to write a review of Guilty Crown, and perhaps reviewing this figure will spur me along in moving towards that goal). I’ll just say that Guilty Crown is a show so unbelievably bad that you have to experience it for yourself to understand how awful it is.
It doesn’t help that the show’s production staff evidently had no idea on how to make appealing characters. Inori is a victim of this inadequacy, which is baffling because everything about her is engineered to make her appealing. She is less a character than a Dollfie Dream, an artifical composite of unrealistic traits synthesized in a single entity. Ethereal, seraphic, she represents an ideal, a being intended to inspire not just love, but worship – however, the effect ultimately fails to convince because everything about her is so damned contrived. Let us count the ways: first, we learn right away that she is a well-known singer, which follows the pattern established by numerous anime (and anime-oriented) characters, such as the various heroines of Macross and the popular Vocaloid characters. (This trope also shows up elsewhere; notably, William Gibson’s novel Idoru features an artificial intelligence who takes on the persona of a female singer.) However, Inori’s singing ability is entirely irrelevant; to my recollection, she performs as a singer only once in the series (she also does some chanting later on, which I guess could technically be called singing, and we do hear some clips of her songs through Shu’s headphones and as an insert in certain scenes). She’s depicted as a lethal combatant, expert in close-quarters combat and skilled with both firearms and knives. We never quite learn where she learned to sling guns, but anime fans – particularly males – like cute girls who can kick ass, so it’s important that she can sling guns. Male anime fans – at least, those who aren’t feminist in outlook – also like damsels in distress, and Inori fulfills that role as well. Indeed, when she needs to act like a rape victim, she screams and writhes like a rape victim. When she has to comfort the male character, she does that, too (admittedly, it’s difficult to tell whether the show’s creators want us to be sympathetic to Shu; by this point, the audience so loathes him that at least some of that sentiment transfers to Inori). She’s a composite of so many tropes that in trying to make us love her, she becomes so offensively artificial that it is difficult for us to do so.
So that’s the burden that this figure carries on its slim shoulders. Perhaps it is best to simply pretend that all that baggage doesn’t exist. And of course, anyone who didn’t watch Guilty Crown will not be aware of any of this. However, even if one ignores or doesn’t know of Inori’s background, I think that one can conclude that this figure embodies significant missed opportunities.
This figure is manufactured by Good Smile Company in 1/8 scale. However, that is a lie as she stands 17 centimeters tall, including the standoff under her right foot. She’s much closer to 1/10 scale, which is disappointing. She comes with just one accessory, a sort of translucent white plastic strip that drapes behind her body. It’s removable and I think it’s distracting, so I didn’t use it for most of my photographs.
Inori was sculpted by Sakurako Iwanaga, the same person who sculpted Lacia, who was also designed by redjuice. It is interesting to compare the two. I felt that Lacia’s sculpt could be improved by giving her lips; Inori has a well-defined lower lip, which I think makes her face more attractive than Lacia’s. Also, Lacia’s stare is sort of empty, as if you can’t really guess what she’s looking at. Inori’s eyes are directed upwards, and as it looks like she’s leaping upwards, the direction of her gaze perfectly complements her body language.
I did not see this similarity at first, but while editing these images, I was struck by how much Inori’s facial expression resembles Dizzy’s. They have a similar eye-shape, the same slightly-parted mouth, and the same neutral, unreadable expression. That is appropriate for Inori, since we never really get a good read on her emotional state.
Inori is frozen in a graceful pose, eyes lifted skyward and arms set slightly to the side, as if to slow her descent. Her pose gives her an angelic quality, almost as if she could herself fly (and well, she comes pretty close in the anime – just another one of the odd things that happens to her). The tilt of her hips is particularly sexy, emphasizing her femininity and directing attention to her beautiful, slender legs.
One of my favorite aspects of Inori’s design is her costume. She’s dressed like a prostitute, wearing a skimpy red leotard with an enormous hole cut out of its front, revealing the cleavage of her small breasts and plunging almost all the way to her crotch. Numerous streaks of cloth – resembling flower petals, or maybe tentacles – project behind her, enhancing the dynamic nature of her pose. Glossy thigh-highs sheathe her legs, accentuating their litheness. It’s a fantastic costume. I wish more female anime characters dressed like this.
Her hair is nicely-sculpted, with none of the helmet hair so commonly seen in figures. The curves of her sidelocks mimic the curves of her body, and the movement of her twintails follows the position of her arms, providing a sort of unified harmony in her design.
So those are the good things. Inori’s problems are, unfortunately, also quite apparent, even without a close examination. Perhaps the most obvious problem is the sculpt of her abdomen. Her stomach and upper torso are not particularly detailed, which is unfortunate since they are so prominently displayed. Compare the sculpt of her stomach to a figure like Naoe Kanetsugu and Inori just can’t compare.
Similarly, if you’re looking for muscular and skeletal definition in her back, you’re going to be disappointed. Nice butt, though.
Also, Inori has kind of a pallid, greyish skin tone that doesn’t look too attractive. It’s a shame since her color scheme is so vibrant otherwise.
She doesn’t really have the most attractive profile, either. I think the shape of her nose and the area between her nose and mouth contributes to an odd look that makes her appear somewhat bird-like (mildly ironic, since her overall appearance is also rather bird-like, but with a more positive connotation).
But really, my big beef with this figure is that it is small. Anyone who has been reading this site for a while knows that I prefer larger figures and that I’m always disappointed when a figure turns out to be smaller than expected. I did know that Inori was going to be small – her height was listed in her figure’s product description – but still, it’s discouraging to see how small she is.
I feared that she wasn’t going to be much larger than her Figma, but thankfully, she’s fairly larger. Man, though, Inori’s Figma definitely isn’t one of the more beautiful ones out there. I don’t want to say her face looks like she ran a hundred yard dash in a ninety yard gym, but man …
A less fair and more esoteric complaint is that her transparent blue base tints her legs when she’s being photographed, which is sort of annoying. (Though easily removed, so I can’t complain too much.)
This is a difficult figure for me to evaluate. I really like the character’s design but I don’t like the character or the series that she comes from. The figure has so many things that I like but its small size is impossible for me to get over. I hate to say that this figure is a disappointment but I do think that, like Guilty Crown itself, it is not nearly as good as it could or should be. For me, just making the figure larger would have been enough. However, the lack of definition in her body is also detrimental to the overall attractiveness of the figure, and I would not be surprised if figure collectors passed this figure over for that reason. I guess I’d say that I like it, but I regret that it falls short of what I was hoping for, particularly since what I was hoping for would have simply required Good Smile Company to know how to operate a calculator.
So Inori gets kicked around again. It’s okay, Inori – I still love you, even if neither your anime studio nor Good Smile Company nor Max Factory do. (Will Azone love her? … Will the tentacle stand love her? Hmm …)
I’m with ya on wishing we had more inventive outfits for girls in anime goddamn uniforms…Her clothes really remind me of something Hyung Tae Kim would design ya know and thats a wonderful thing. http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/1047508/1girl-black_hair-blade_-_soul-boots-breasts-cleava *psst figure makers get that man a deal*
Sigh but yea like you said its really hard to separate the hate for everything she’s about aside from her design…I actually tried to talk Luth out of buying her himself because of how shit the show was, but lucky for him he never watched it haha…
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of as well. It’s funny; I hate to stereotype (partly because stereotypes are usually dumb, and also because I share the ethnicities involved), but I’ve kinda thought that many Korean artists tend to be more inventive in style than Japanese artists. (I’ll admit that my idea of “inventive” generally denotes a certain skimpiness in clothing.) I can only imagine what something like Sword Art Online might’ve looked like had they based it off of a Korean-style MMO.
Mentioning HTK reminds me that I ought to review that one E2046 Saber figure … I guess she’s about the closest one’s gonna get to a Hyung Tae Kim figure. I’m gonna have to clean her off and figure out how to shoot her.
Haha, yeah … the only character I actually liked from Guilty Crown was that one-eyed Major. He was the only guy with any flair amongst the cast. I totally understand getting a figure solely because it looks cool, but looking at the Inori figure, Nendoroid, and Figma, she really drew the short end of the stick.
I was tempted to get her from the prototypes, but then I watched the series (or, what turned out to be the first half of the series; I didn’t realise it went > 12 eps) and disliked it so much that I didn’t want to give anybody my money for her.
She is still gorgeous; I can forgive the lack of definition, and the size doesn’t bother me, but her origins are so unpleasant that I don’t think I could own her. Maybe if I see one really cheap in the used market in the future. But I certainly won’t go out of my way in any capacity.
The monotone background you used is nice, and gravel to represent rubble from the series, I guess? It works for her, especially given how vividly she’s coloured. I dig it.
Aww, you missed the fun part! Well, as fun as watching people wreck their cars on an icy hill, I guess (like here!). I should write that review; I have the sense that a lot of people did not stick with Guilty Crown. I’m still not sure why I did.
Yeah, since the show is the typical urban dystopia sort of deal, I figured I’d go with the rubble-and-concrete set. I had some other ideas for adding a bit more atmosphere but they didn’t work at all, unfortunately.
Never watched GC, but I dislike this figure nonetheless. I’m not a big fan of long-winded rants, so I’ll just say it felt uninspired and awkward. Her face also really bugs me.
Guilty Crown was really bad after the intro it went all the way downhill. I don’t even want to remember it or the main characters. But I actually liked wheelchair girl Ayase and her loli friend Tsugumi.
At least now I know why I felt that biased towards this figure, seems like one of GSC’s “Guys, we need merchandise fast!” figures. While she still looks really pretty and her outfit is totally fancy, there are certain underwhelming things about this figure, her neck appears very long and strangely tilted neck.
Her stomach is so under detailed, Wave does a better job with their Beach Queens.
And their figures are actually the same scale XD A 1/8 scaled figure really should be taller than that, in the show she didn’t appear like a dwarf to me.
I would like to see a nice figure of Tsugumi, but I guess that train has departed 🙁
Mhh since she’s smaller than Inori GSC would have made her 15 cm *omg* XD
But nevertheless in your pictures Inori proves to cut a good figure under the right light conditions, these are some really nice pictures of her, good job there 🙂
Man, I didn’t like any of the female characters …. except maybe Shu’s mom. Man Shu had a hot mom. I’m impressed she was able to squeeze into that tight bodysuit. Though I guess … ehh, well, I shouldn’t spoil the show. Anyway, I thought Ayase was a stuckup passive-aggressive moron (in other words, a typical tsundere), though she got better towards the end, after she got her roller skates. The only thing I remember about Tsugumi is her screaming at Shu, “This is all your fault!” when they kept ragging on him beforehand. If I were Shu, I would’ve told them to go fuck themselves, too. Apart from that, she didn’t seem to be much more than a waggling bit of ass.
Tsugumi would definitely be a midget if they made her XD I wonder if any other figure companies will make Guilty Crown figures? I mean, aside from Wave, since they make figures of everything. I can’t imagine that GSC has an exclusive license to make them in their combat uniforms (though if they do, I guess maybe that might explain why the Azone doll is wearing a dress rather than her stripper suit).
Yeah his mom was a hot one XD
Well, it was Shu’s fault, all the time.
You seem to have disliked the show quite more than I did.
I wonder how you wee able to finish it, since I dropped it halfways cause I got so angry. I watched the remaining episodes later, as I expected a turn to the better at the end. *Lol* I wonder why they messed this up so much.
It was visually appealing and had good music, but the rest sucked.
I actually thought Shu was justified in backing out. It’s not like he joined the Undertakers/Funeral Parlor out of his own free will; they pretty much shanghai’ed him into their little terrorist group once he got his void power. They pretty much treated him like dirt while he was with them; if there’s a guy on your team that you completely depend on, I think you ought to treat him with a little more respect. Personally, I think maybe my biggest fault with Shu was that he didn’t snap and slice up his “colleagues” himself.
hahaha, still hating that show after for so many months? I think her only redeeming feature is her butt and cleavage and that’s it. And looking at different angles, she may looked weird. But all of us will certainly agree about her size, she’s too damn small. And if our first GC scale will have a mixed review, how’s our chances that they would make the others, especially Ayase in a sitting pose? And the figma did not helped much either.
I’d argue that Inori doesn’t have, nor could ever have, cleavage in a strict sense. LOL
YES. Yes I am. I don’t watch a ton of anime, and I definitely don’t watch a lot of trainwreck anime. I’ll watch “bad” anime like Seikon no Qwaser (I didn’t think it was that bad, which is ironic because Qwaser’s creator was a major contributor to Guilty Crown) and Infinite Stratos (I actually liked the second half of the show), but if I think a show is going to be this awful, I’ll usually drop it. For some reason, I didn’t drop Guilty Crown; maybe if I had seen Code Geass, I would have, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for the way Guilty Crown went off the rails.
I wonder what GSC’s future plans will be. Given the way they seem to favor redjuice and Supercell (via their Miku figures), I would expect them to continue making Guilty Crown figures. I definitely would expect them to make Figmas, though I wonder if they’ll make one of Shu …. nobody seems to like Shu at all.
Shu needs to top off Yagami Light or Lelouch in order to be liked. And he is deep in the sewers with his character development.
The area between the nose and the upper lip is called the “Philtrum.” In wet-nosed mammals (the ancestral condition), the philtrum supposedly keeps the areas around the nostrils moist through capillary action. In non-wet-nosed mammals, like haplorhini primates (all primates that aren’t lemurs or lorises), the philtrum is completely vestigal.
The More You Know!
Got nothing to say about Inori except to say that I can’t stand small-scale figures, either. I think I’ve said before that I abandoned 1/8th scale girls because they just aren’t cost-effective. That is, you can usually get a 1/7th scale figure for a similar price (and sometimes cheaper!).
Aww man, everyone’s hating on Inori XD Don’t worry Inori, I still love you, even if you should’ve been in a series like Seikon no Qwaser, where your talents could’ve been put to far more productive use.
Ahh, thank you very much for that. Running this site is fantastic; this is not even the first time I have gotten an anatomy lesson! Always did wonder what that area above the lip is called; I always just called it the mustache area for men, but that certainly doesn’t work for poor Inori.
yeap the first thing i noted when i received the box is she’s incredibly small; a figure with such dynamic animation ought have to sized up to capitalise on its fluidity. Pity. She’s still larger than the 1/10 Wave figures though.
I agree. I can only imagine how great this figure would look if it were 1/4 scale. Assuming that the appropriate touches were placed on her midsection. Being that I am still quite fond of Inori’s design, I’m going to hope another company decides to make a figure of her (or if they don’t, that the Azone doll looks good).
I thought that her pose and flow looked really good and did even consider her being added to my small shelf of figures, but her size told me no. I think she has a nice design with the red/orange/black body suit and pink hair with the red eyes.
I still thinks she looks good, but as you said, it is a shame that they didn’t appear to spend any time on her stomach. That is probably the biggest focal point of the figure and they really dropped the ball.
Maybe GSC just wanted a shallow sculpt to match with the shallow character and show premise.
It looks like making small figures is one of the sculptor’s characteristics; looking at her portfolio, there are a number of figures there that I know are smaller than they are listed as. Hmm, I see she did the Love Is War Miku, which I haven’t yet taken out of its box. And I see she’s doing the second Mahou Shoujo figure for Native; I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Ha, that would certainly be appropriate; everything about Guilty Crown must be a letdown, it seems. Hopefully the Azone doll isn’t too bad.
I tried really *really* hard to like the figure when the first images showed up but, in the end, I couldn’t do it… Something about the face really put me off and, judging from the feedback I’ve had from some corners, I’m lucky that I spotted it earlier than most!!
As for the show, I think I’ve said it here before, but I didn’t think that the first half was *that* bad but it completely fell apart almost exactly around the halfway mark before falling to new levels of depravity at an absurd speed near the end. I hadn’t seen a show crash and burn so hard since Code Geass! R2 was a horrid horrid stain on my damages psyche…
But at least Guilty Crown had some rocking music! that was possibly its one sole grace.
I still do like the figure, but it’s not nearly as good as it could have been. Should have been, one could fairly say, since Good Smile Company is held to a higher standard. I’m hoping another maker will do a figure of Inori in her combat suit. Alter would be nice but somehow, they haven’t recently showed off much that I’m interested in.
I think I preferred the second half of the show because the entertainment value of watching the plot go off the rails was much higher than the more conventional plotline in the first half. In particular, I couldn’t stand almost all of the Funeral Parlor/Undertakers membership, but most of them are conveniently shuffled out of the way in the second half (or they become more appealing, in Ayase’s case). I don’t recall much of the music, but the first opening theme so colors my opinion that I can’t really get past it. The second opening theme was decent, though. For me, the only appealing elements of Guilty Crown were the female character designs.
It’s almost a rule of the universe, if something sucks, you can be confident that the music will at least not be a write-off! Check out Final Fantasy XIII!! The game was horrid but the music was great. Good thing too as it helped the numbness of the game itself!
But the only character designs I liked from Guilty Crown were Inori, Haru and Ayase. The rest can go into a ditch and die. Especially Arisa. My god, she needed some massive bitchslaps…
I will have to take your word for it, since I have yet to play FF13 (I have yet to play FF12, too, even though I have it around here somewhere). A friend of mine said something to the effect that the game plays itself, which didn’t sound too exciting.
Yeah, Arisa turned out to be a big bag of WTF, perhaps moreso than a lot of the other characters. I think that little event she encountered towards the end was meant to be dramatic, but I burst out laughing when it happened.
When I first saw this figure, I thought she looked rather pretty (even though I already knew the show back then was bad). Now though…eh, she is falling short in so many areas. She’s incredibly tiny, her base sucks, her face is a bit off and it’s dissapointing how her back is so undetailed – it looks like a prize figure at some parts. And considering this one’s price, that’s a big fail. GSC sure seems to be screwing the pooch lately.
Well, I will never get her anyway. I despised Guilty Crown and I don’t want to be remembered of it every time I’d see the figure. I mean really, I’ve seen a lot of anime and plenty of bad ones at that, but no show has managed to make me rage and rant as much as that show did. I still wonder what the hell went wrong, what were they thinking?! I wasn’t even hyped for it (I never pay much attention to that), I just wanted a stupid action show, and it failed at being even that. Every character (except Major Segai, who I was rooting for) was detestable (we’ve got a protagonist that goes full Hitler-mode, ffs) and I was cheering every time something horrible happened to them. Inori herself felt like nothing more than an empty doll, where the creators just plastered on a personality of the day for the sake of the plot. Combine that with a story that was utterly stupid and with plotholes you could drive a truck through and you’ve got a show that will have me rage for years to come. This isn’t just one of the worst anime I’ve seen, it’s one of the worst pieces of fiction I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing, period!
…but I digress, or otherwise I’ll be ranting here for hours. I could write an entire thesis detailing how much it sucks…I need a freaking drink.
Yep, that are all accurate and fair assessments of the figure. If Inori’s character design didn’t appeal to me so much, this is a figure I wouldn’t have bought. (That reminds me a bit of the Vocaloid Lily figure that Phat Company made a year or two ago. I bought it hoping it would be good, then I found out it was tiny, the base was hideous, and the sculpt was much worse than the promo photos let on.)
It’s kinda depressing to see what Alter, Max Factory, and GSC are up to these days. Alter’s recent figures haven’t been too great (and I’m not too interested in the male figures they are making, though from a standpoint of fairness, I do support their production) and Max Factory has, of course, been more of a Figma maker in the last three or four years. And GSC has been doing Nendoroids, which I despise, and their figures seem more inconsistent than they ought to be. It is a strange situation when I seem to be buying more Alphamax figures than anything else these days.
I’ve never seen an anime fail so powerfully in so many ways as Guilty Crown. I can’t even imagine how one could intentionally write something as dumb as it turned out to be. Even Seikon no Qwaser wasn’t as incoherent (Guilty Crown really could’ve used some of that tit-sucking gimmick; if nothing else, it’d give it one bizarre element that would deflect attention away from the plot’s disintegration). Major Segai was also the one character that I liked (well, I guess I liked Shu’s mom, too). But then they screwed him up in the end, too. I remember there was a sequence towards the end of the show where he holds up the heroes at gunpoint … except one of the heroes has a gun himself! In fact, while Segai just has a pistol, the good guy has a big-ass rifle! Why doesn’t he just shoot him?
Christ, I just remembered the Segway of Liberation. I’m not looking forward to re-watching this show to get that review done.
Yeah, none of the big three seem to be doing too well lately, as most of their big, hyped figures have been kind of letdowns. Maybe the next Wonfes will bring something better. Koto on the other hand seems to be rather going strong. Funny, that.
Haha, oh no, the Segway, I nearly banned that out of my mind. I mean really, who’s idea was it to let the ‘hero’ ride into the final battle on a freaking Segway? That has and never will be anything other than ridiculous. Oh well, at least that made me laugh instead of rage.
And yeah, they screwed up Segai too. I was, probably for some insanely optimistic reason, hoping that there was actually something to his constant planning and trolling. That there was going to be some kind of masterstroke, a truly good plan that was going to screw everyone over. A little bit of redemption for this horrible show…but no. No, he just has a fetish for all the pretty lights that come with using the powers. That’s it. Wat. Ugh…oh forget it.
Yeah, I’m hoping so; it’d be nice to see something new. I have no real problem with Samurai Girls or Strike Witches figures, but they’re kinda old hat at this point. I’m sure there is no force in the universe that can stop GSC from rolling out more Mikus, though. Kotobukiya does seem to be doing pretty well; pilot suit Yui looks great, Kuroyukihime looks pretty good, and I guess their Bishoujo series must be getting good sales. Strange how some of their figures sell out so quickly, though, like that bunny suit Charlotte Dunois.
I remember I was behind schedule on watching Guilty Crown and I read an anime blog about an episode I hadn’t seen (by that point, I wasn’t really concerned with spoilers) and it made mention of a Segway. I thought it was just some sort of silly joke on the part of the blogger until I saw the episode. It’s such a dumb concept and yet it fits the Guilty Crown universe so perfectly that I’m conflicted as to whether I think it was a good idea.
Yeah, I thought Segai was going to be smarter than that, given the way they showed him playing chess. Speaking of the void powers, I’m trying to remember what happened to that one other guy with the void power abilities. Did they even do anything with him? I recall he had a brief battle with Shu and then he pretty much disappeared.
Yeah, Koto figures do seem to be selling out fast; that pilot suit Yui was gone quick too, as I recall (though I managed to pre-order it). I wonder if there’s some policy change to prevent loads of bargain bin figures or something. Oh well, at least they have a US branch anyway.
That other guy was Yuu, the leader of that stupid ancient conspiracy thing (Daath) that came right outta nowhere in the last few eps. He pretty much served no purpose to the plot (besides resurrecting Gai, I think, because they needed some contrived reason why that was possible) and all he did was spout out some vague nonsense before he got defeated. He’s like some guy lost in the wrong anime. Yeah, what a great character he was.
Once Alter makes Perrine and Lynette from Strike Witches they can be done. Those are the ones I really want.
I am guessing they’re going to make them all. Quite an ambitious project, it seems, though not without precedent, as they made all those StrikerS figures. Except Ginga. Poor Ginga.
>> Dvalinn
Ah yes, that was his name. That is a most appropriate way to put it; I remember wondering who the hell that guy was and why he was even there. You know, I said a few days ago that I wasn’t looking forward to rewatching this show to do a review of it, but now that I’m thinking about it again, maybe it could be wildly entertaining, watching it again with the benefit of knowing how badly it turned out.
I actually sort of missed out on Yui – I waffled a while and then I saw she was sold out at Hobby Search and Amiami about a week or two ago. I agonized for a while, but then she went up for preorder again and I put in an order. Then I saw she’s $80 at BBTS, which is probably about 50% cheaper than what I’m going to be paying when it’s all said and done. Oh well.
Guilty Crown does seem like premium riff-fodder, like the Manos: Hands of Fate of anime. I remember back when the show was still running that one of the main things keeping me watching was to see how bad things would turn out in the end, and to come together on a blog and have extended rants about everything that made our minds boggle about the amount of bad writing in this show. Thus rewatching it while getting all snarky about it (with friends or something) might make the whole show a lot more bearable (though not less bad).
And yeah, I had the same thing with Yui. After I placed my pre-order, a local store announced that were importing the US version that was significantly cheaper. Dammit. While the figure itself will still cost less, with shipping costs taken into the total it will come out more expensive after all. Maybe I should be more patient…on the other hand, said local store doesn’t get everything, so it’s always a gamble.
You know, now that you mention that, I’m kinda wondering that instead of a conventional review of Guilty Crown, maybe I should just re-watch the show and keep a running MST3K style of commentary (somewhat difficult to do since I’ve never actually seen MST3K, but I have an idea of what it’s like). I’ve had this strange idea to do a figure review in an entirely stream-of-consciousness style, but maybe it’d work better for an anime review.
I really didn’t expect Yui to be cheap since their previous Yui figure didn’t seem to get a discount in the United States, unlike Cryska and Inia, who were (and I think still are) really cheap. Their bunny suit Charlotte Dunois also seems to be really cheap; I think from now on, I might hold off ordering Kotobukiya’s stuff from HS/Amiami until I see their US pricing.
>> Aaron
I am quite surprised that they haven’t shown off a Lucchini figure yet; I kinda thought she was one of the fan favorites, given all the fetishes she hits on. I wonder if we’ll see a prototype of her at Wonder Festival in a couple of months.
Based off of the picture posted on mfc, it looks like Perrine is next (after Erica and Hannah and Rocket Booster Sanya) followed by Lynette and finally Lucchini. I also think it is strange based off of Lucchini’s popularity, but maybe they wanted people to stay interested in the line until they released her.
Either way, I will end up owning most of the Alter witches. Erica in on order as are the re-releases of Trudy and Eila and I have Minna coming to me. I did opt for the Volks Hannah because of the sexier rear.
I got this figure pretty much for the costume from the moment she was shown off. Luckily I managed to not watch the show at all, the other half kept raging on about how bad it was and I didn’t want to regret my purchase decision. Looking at all the news and reviews, good decision. Some parts bug me a little like the ‘bird-face’ from the side and the lack of definition but the execution of the costume made it all worth it. All the flowing bits, the gradients, the petals, it’s easy to see where GSC put their priorities and I’m pretty happy with that.
I would say that you have made a good choice and that you are missing out; Guilty Crown is something that needs to be seen to be believed (unless you’ve watched Code Geass, I guess, since they seem to be compared so often). The costume really makes the figure and Inori’s design, I think; I didn’t care too much for Inori’s appearance when she wears a school uniform or casual clothes (and I’m hoping the Azone doll has her in her normal outfit).
“…to be the concubine of the Shührer…”. God that made my day 😀
I don’t know how is it with other collectors, but I buy figures solely based on the design and certain criteria, and in Inori’s case I’m just glad to be one who doesn’t judge a figure from the series s/he is from.
While her clothing is kind of umm….impractical (oh the logic), I do love the vibrance of the choice of colors on this figure. A good change from my usual monochrome choice. With that said, such a shame she was used in a one hell of a show. And Shuu’s indecisiveness really lost me way back.
Just from reading posts from other people, it seems that people have all sorts of motivations and restrictions regarding buying stuff; I’ve heard a lot of people say that they don’t buy figures of characters that they aren’t familiar with, or that they won’t more than one figure of a particular character (I followed this rule myself for a long time), and so on. It’s pretty interesting to see the variety of philosophies. Me, I pretty much follow the same rule that you do, though if I do happen to be familiar with a character, that can sway my opinion even if a figure isn’t too visually appealing.
Yeah, she’s a beautifully-designed character stuck in an awful, awful show. What a waste. Same with Ayase. And Tsugumi I guess, who has her fans, though I can barely remember her.