While I enjoy taking pictures of the figures that I buy, I’m a collector like everyone else in this hobby, and one of the things that I enjoy doing is finding stuff featuring characters that I like, particularly if it is created by artists whose work I admire. To that end, I’ve been searching for the right Fate pillowcase for a while. At first, it doesn’t seem like it should be that difficult an endeavor; Fate is, of course, one of the most popular anime characters out there, and she can be seen on a number of dakimakura covers. For me, though, the right Fate pillowcase depicts her in her adult form, which rules out a number of pillowcases from the start, and it also depicts her in her Shin Sonic uniform – you’d think that wouldn’t be an obstacle, but for some reason, it’s not a popular look for her, at least on dakimakura covers. I thought that the HOP-produced pillowcase by Briest would be the one, but some nasty and unexpected mosaic censoring drops it in my esteem. A few months ago, this one popped up on Evening Call’s website. Is it the right one?
I’m a big fan of Evening Call’s pillowcases; when I started collecting pillowcases, I mostly got official ones from Cospa, but when I started buying Evening Call’s pillowcases, I learned that doujin dakimakura covers are far superior in quality. And artwork as well, most of the time – this particular pillowcase is drawn by an artist named pen, who also did the art for Evening Call’s Rin Tohsaka pillowcase, one of my favorite dakimakura covers in my collection. He – or she, I’m not sure of the artist’s gender – has a very distinctive and easily-identifiable style. With big, expressive eyes, emotive mouths, and curvy body proportions, his art tends to make its subjects look both young and older at the same time. Besides this pillowcase, pen also drew a dakimakura cover featuring Nanoha, which shows her in the same swimsuit that she’s depicted wearing in Alter’s Summer Holiday figure.
This pillowcase is 160 centimeters by 50 centimeters in dimension, like many doujin dakimakura covers. Unlike many doujin dakimakura covers, this pillowcase is available to order without requiring a proxy service; Evening Call is happy to directly accept orders from international customers. It’s a bit tricky to sign up, since their website isn’t really built to cater to non-Japanese speakers, but once you’ve got an account established, you can order stuff directly and pay by Paypal. This is actually the first pillowcase I’ve ordered from them and the process went very smoothly.
The front side of this pillowcase shows Fate wearing her office lady uniform, or at least an abbreviated version of it. She has a very shy look on this side, with maybe a tiny pout on her lips, which is really cute. There are many artists who specialize in drawing Fate (and the other Nanoha characters) whose work I admire, but this is maybe the cutest grown-up Fate I’ve seen.
Her pantyhose has this strategic cutout in it since, well, you know, it’s a dakimakura cover … it’s pretty much part and parcel of the hobby, at least when it comes to doujin-produced goods.
The reverse side shows Fate in her Shin Sonic uniform. If I remember right, she doesn’t actually wear it that much; I think she only wore it in the last couple of episodes on Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, actually. And though it’s one of her most iconic looks, it’s not too popular amongst figure makers, either. Then again, neither are her other uniforms – her office lady outfit has no figures at all, as far as I know, and her normal barrier jacket – seen on one of her figmas – has just a few action figures, I think (and a Dollfie Dream, I believe). If one were to guess at the premise of the Nanoha series purely by looking at the available figures, one would probably think that it’s about hanging out at the beach.
Fate also looks very cute on this side. She’s wearing her hair in twintails on this side, which I like a lot. Oddly, you don’t seem to see twintails worn by older characters, particularly ones with larger bust sizes; it seems to be a lot more common amongst younger characters, especially flat-chested ones. I’m not sure why that is; nineteen-year old Fate looks great with twintails. Though she also looks great with a ponytail, which I think she wears in Force.
And again, explicitness is provided on this side, as her panties are thoughtfully pushed to the side.
Overall, this is a really great pillowcase. Is it the absolute, right Fate pillowcase that I’ve been searching for? Well, probably not, since I think the right Fate pillowcase would have a rear view image. Fate is noted for the quality of her backside – indeed, it seems to be something of a meme on certain sites – so I think the perfect Fate pillowcase would acknowledge that. Still, I’d say this is about 99% of the way there, and it’s one of my favorite dakimakura covers in my collection.
I say this a lot, but I am not a fan of Fate. Even though I know nothing of the anime, I like Nanoha a lot more.
When it come to this pillowcase, I may give Fate a little more credit. I actually really like how she looks this time. I especially like the front side in the office outfit. The back side doesn’t do it nearly as much for me and I would have preferred a rear view of the office uniform. Usually a rear view gives a little more explicitness, which is always a bonus, but it was well done in this case.
I can say I love this artist’s style though. This and the Rin case are absolutely great.
Yeah, I really like his (or her) style; oddly, I don’t really know much more about the artist. Usually artists have at least a Pixiv account, but pen seems to not even have that, much less of a website (I kinda wonder if pen is Chinese, that might provide some explanation).
I know we have discussed this previously, but pen really is a fantastic artist. The one thing their work is lacking is the ambition to experiment a bit. I think pen has done some of my favorite front/front side covers, and they’ve more or less perfected the art. But in all the covers they’ve done, the images/style have been roughly the same, just with different characters. I’m definitely the type who prefers a front and backside on my dakimakura covers (or possibly even two backsides), so that’s the one thing that really saddens me about pen’s work. I absolutely love their style, and they have some of the most beautiful dakimakura covers I’ve seen… but I’d really like some more variety.
I was going to say something else, but it completely went out of my brain after typing that last bit up. >_> I’m really happy I purchased this case, either way.
Yeah, I agree with that; I’ve noticed that pen typically does one mostly-clothed side with the character smiling, and one side with more nudity with no smile. I would really like to see him (or her) do a front and back view pillowcase, like TID usually does. That said, I’m also really happy I got this pillowcase as well; in fact, I’m kinda wondering if I shouldn’t get Nanoha as well. I didn’t get it when initial orders went up since I’ve already got two Nanoha pillowcases and she’s not even my favorite character in the series, but I really do like pen’s art.
This is probably my favorite of the pillows you’ve shown so far. Absolutely love this face. Her face, especially her eyes, are gorgeous!
The rest of her is fine too. MIGHTY fine. Also there needs to be more office lady Fate stuff. That’s my favorite incarnation of her, and it bugs me that it gets no love whatsoever. :/
*absolutely love this CASE, I mean. I’m being a bad typer today.
You can love her face twice! 😀
In all seriousness, if you were interested in purchasing this particular case, it’s actually up for a secondary pre-order at Evening Call. As Tier mentioned, the initial set up can be a bit difficult if you don’t speak Japanese, but it isn’t too hard to figure out with the help of a translator. If you have any interest in collecting dakimakura covers yourself, Evening Call is a fantastic place to start.
Yeah, I really love the way pen draws eyes (and faces, and everything, really). They are really expressive, and I think his (or her) style works really well on dakimakura covers, where the emotive styling catches the eye really well.
I kinda wonder why office lady Fate (and her default barrier jacket uniform) don’t get too much love from figure makers; I would kinda think that at least one might’ve made an attempt at modeling either, given that StrikerS seems to have been a pretty popular and successful show. (Her Shin Sonic outfit also seems to be underrepresented; I can’t even count how many swimsuit figures she’s gotten, but I don’t recall if she’s gotten more than two figures of her in the Shin Sonic uniform.)
Ah, such splendid nipples, while I may not be a Fate fan I can certainly appreciate another very nice dakimakura. Unfortunately the high cost of figures has kept me at a distance from purchasing other hobby items such as these, though with the help of my girlfriends detective work I’ve found a site that makes reasonably priced pillow cases provided you upload the pics. Surprisingly suitable high def pictures are almost impossible to find, I was hoping that you might have some suggestions.
Yeah, the pillowcases are definitely expensive. Though the improving USD/JPY rate helps lot; it’s great that stuff is now 15% or so cheaper than it was just a few months ago. Regarding illustrations, I have no idea; I guess I’d check the image repositories like Danbooru or yande.re first.
Thank you for your suggestions, I was able to find some great pictures on yande.re some of which are definitely going to be candidates for my pillowcase making experiment. I’m already getting pretty fired up!
Her face on the front side is fantastic. I think the Nanoha character designs can look extremely generic at times but pen really made this one stand out. It’s definitely all about the lips. Anime designs don’t often pay much attention (lip service?) to the lips, but when done right it really adds a lot to the look of the character.
Yeah, I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the official artwork and designs of the Nanoha characters; they tend to have these strangely rectangular eyes which I don’t like a whole lot. Much of my fondness for the Nanoha characters and Fate especially comes from their appearances from various doujinshi and works of fanart, in which they are drawn in ways that are much more appealing to me.
It seems like I’m the only one who has not had any success ordering from Evening Call. Even my proxy order seems to have failed somehow, and I don’t think I’ll get a refund. Its been enough of a negative experience to keep me limited to official goods.
Aside from that I’m a fan of Pen’s faces; they’re quite expressive and a joy to look at. Shame I can’t own any, but at least I can look at the pictures on this site 🙂
Ah, that sucks … that is surprising that even ordering through a proxy service did not work. Perhaps you could work through Paypal to get a refund? It seems like they tend to take the buyer’s side of things.
hmm… Nope, doesn’t quite click with me. Not sure why either. Artwork is fine, Adult Fate is awesome and anything with true sonic form is great (the costume has also proven to be very popular with GK circles!) but I can’t quite get behind this one…
ugh, this is going to bug me for a while now…
I approve of adult Fate, in my opinion she doesn’t work as loli not to the extent Nanoha does.
She always was so gloomy and masochistc as a kid, I blame her mean mother for that.
Well, but unlike Nanoha, I like her as adult in the anime a lot, she’s so sweet. Maybe Nanoha took her male part in the relationship too serious and lost her moe during the years, what a shame 🙁
*Lol* why have I ordered her Alpha Max figure again, maybe I can get rid of it somehow.
The pillowcase is wonderful, what a talented artist, he made this illustration so nice and detailed, it’s just beautiful, everything about it. The cutout area isn’t that bold like other pillowcases.
How does a loli in a tight leotard who regularly gets whipped bloody not work? :O Okay, maybe that answers itself. Still, one of the reasons I like Fate so much is because she has such an unpleasant history; I think it makes her more interesting than Nanoha, who basically got powered up by finding a rat. Not that I dislike Nanoha; her happy childhood makes the two of them more appealing by providing more contrast, I think.
WooT! Procrastinating on my paper to look at naked girls! It’s a lose-win situation, I know. But it sure is worth it!
I totally agree with you Tier, her pout lips makes her extremely cute! Not to mention her lips down below make her super sexy 😀
For her back, I like her innocent/surprised expression. Absolutely desirable! And I prefer twintails over ponytail. So much cuter with the twins. :3
I know this isn’t the place to talk about Kimi Aoi from Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere but since I’m already posting I thought I would killed two birds with one stone.
For Kimi Aoi, I simply love that one of the sides have her spreading her pussy! 😛 Yes, I have some eccentric tastes. 😀
You should do your work! It is important. (Of course, I say this, being employed in a job where I frequently start my work week after lunch on Friday …)
I like both twintails and ponytails – actually, I guess I would say I usually like ponytails more than twintails, most of the time, but with grown-up Fate, something about the twintails just looks right.
That Korean guy that married his Fate pillow is either gonna LOVE this, cuz he can finally see his wife naked, or HATE it, cuz other guys r gonna sleep with his naked wife LOL.
But great review, I might actually watch the anime and/or buy the pillow now. Keep up the good work!
Indeed! I do not know much about that guy, though I’ve heard about him, and while I will not belittle or judge him for marrying his pillowcase, it does kinda suck that every time I or anyone else sees a Fate Testarossa dakimakura cover, the first thing we think about is that guy.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually seen much of the anime. I saw the first movie and thought it was pretty terrible, actually. I saw the first couple of episodes of StrikerS and didn’t really get into it. In truth, pretty much all of my interest in the Nanoha characters comes from hentai doujinshi.
And dude, where do u get these?!?!? I’ve been reading your reviews for the past year or so and been wondering that the whole time, I usually only see pillows that r relatively SFW, none of those uncensored ones. I really wanna get those NSFW ones!
This specific cover, and quite a few others that Tier has done reviews for, are from Evening Call. Which Tier linked in the review, but here’s the link again:
http://eveningcall.net/Products.aspx
Yea, I found that link after I read the descriptions more clearly. I regret asking that question. But thanks for your reply!
No worries. It’s definitely a bit different than ordering from AmiAmi/Hobby Search, and definitely requires more effort. It’s absolutely worth it, however; Evening Call always puts out a fantastic product.
Yeah, Amiami and Hobby Search usually sell official pillowcases, which are usually not explicit (though some of them get pretty dang close). I’ve noticed that Amiami in particular is selling more and more explicit pillowcases; I was really surprised when I saw them selling Lilith’s stuff, since their titles are pretty well-known for being hardcore.
Nice get as always, I am a big fan of adult Fate, that matured woman look is irresistible! The younger Fate does have her own charm though. Finding the right dakimakura can be a daunting task for sure, ex: there hasn’t been a Saber Lily dakimakura that looks good to me, not a single one. I am not always a fan of dojin art, cause some of them just looks weird but this looks pretty good imo.
Yeah, it’s sort of strange that Saber Lily doesn’t get more pillowcases, given her popularity. Saber Bride, too; I’m hoping for a good Saber Bride pillowcase, and a good Saber Bride figure. Hopefully in 1/7 scale by GSC, to go with their other Saber figures (except bike Saber, I guess, who is the odd Saber out).
I must admit that I don’t know anything about the variations of Saber; I’ve always just referred to them all as Saber. But I think my personal favorite is the one done by ZION a few years back: http://sadpanda.us/images/1068400-NC4YT9S.jpg
There are a handful of them Saber Lily out there, but they just don’t quite reach that standard I am looking for. Speaking of Saber Brides thought, I think this one is pretty good though http://www.dakemakura.com/image/zentai/812-2.jpg