Rana Linchen from Freezing (Sexy Version) (NSFW)

Freezing is one of the worst anime series I’ve watched to completion but that hasn’t stopped it from inexplicably getting a second season (titled, with all appropriate subtlety, Freezing Vibration). Nor has that stopped it from receiving a number of figures, which is more understandable given the pleasing looks of much of the show’s (and manga’s) principal cast. FREEing has made the majority of them, including lead girl Satellizer el Bridget. Today we’ll look at her co-star and romantic rival, the happy Tibetan homewrecker Rana Linchen.

Rana shows up about midway through Freezing’s first season, and it’s no coincidence that the show begins to improve from that point. She’s a lively, spirited girl with a curious speech quirk – she commonly ends statements with “de arimasu” – and who cheerfully admits to having no shame; all attributes that differentiate her from the reserved and taciturn Satellizer. Upon setting foot on the West Genetics campus, she immediately declares that male protagonist Kazuya Aoi is the man of her dreams and works to pry him away from Satellizer.

I liked Rana a lot, and her introduction improved my opinion of the show somewhat. While the first half of Freezing was about as dreadful as any show as I’d ever seen, the second half was better, particularly since it started taking itself less seriously. Hopefully this upcoming second season focuses more on its core competencies – violence, big tits, and exploding clothes – and less on the central romantic relationship. I’m expecting it to disappoint, though.

FREEing labels this figure the “sexy” version, which is a bit presumptive as sexiness is a concept with individual interpretations. The figures in FREEing’s “sexy” Freezing lineup all share similar traits: they depict the characters in a state of undress, they feature removable clothing, they are posed in a lounging position and they are all sculpted in 1/4 scale. Rana is an exceptionally large figure, measuring about 40 centimeters in length and about 16 centimeters in maximum height; even though she’s lying down, she’s not much shorter than many 1/8 scale figures.

FREEing’s idea of sexiness is obvious; they equate sexiness with a lack of clothing. Like Satellizer (and Ingrid Bernstein), Rana wears a dress shirt, her underwear, and a pair of socks.

Before we look at the sexy stuff, though, I will first point out this peculiar problem. I opened up my figure and found that it had these black spots on its right knee. I’m not sure what they are and they aren’t coming off. For a figure that costs as much as Rana did, I find this lack of quality control to be very annoying.

Now on to the happier bits. Rana comes from Tibet and is sometimes labeled a country bumpkin by her classmates. However, despite being a foreigner, Rana wears what appears to be a traditional Japanese sarashi and fundoshi over her breasts and hips (not that a chest wrap and loincloth are unique to Japanese culture). Her sarashi is obviously made of plastic and isn’t all that realistic, but Rana’s size means that one could easily improvise a more convincing chest wrap from some fabric (maybe a gauze roll or something).

Rana’s dress shirt is easily removable – maybe too easily, being that the right sleeve tends to not stay in place. Unfortunately, Rana needs her shirt to stay balanced by herself; otherwise, she tips over easily. FREEing does provide a little plastic brace to slide under her butt to keep her from wobbling.

And of course, her top is removable. Rana has a respectable chest but she falls short of being able to compete with Satellizer’s magnitude, a reality that Satella (in an alternate world) occasionally brings up when trying to thwart Rana’s game.

Rana’s loincloth is obviously not removable.

Rana’s expression is fairly placid; I think I would’ve preferred something a little happier, since Rana is often depicted as being very exuberant and strong-willed. She does look pretty, though. Her tattoo is nicely done and adds a bit of uniqueness to her design, being that very few anime girls have tattoos. (Personally, I have a strong dislike of tattoos but I think Rana’s looks pretty cool.)

Being a Pandora, Rana’s stigmata marks are readily visible on her back.

Rana’s thigh-high socks are made of real fabric and are thus she can displayed with or without them. Given the unsightly markings on my figure’s knee, I’m going to keep them on Rana’s legs, since they do a decent job of concealing the defect. They look pretty nice, though they seem to be a bit mismatched; lacy thighhighs would seem to go better with lingerie rather than a tribal loincloth and a white dress shirt.

As mentioned earlier, the sleeves of her dress detach to facilitate the removal of her shirt, but one could also just let her wear the sleeveless shirt like a vest. This keeps her from wobbling without requiring the little stand, and Rana has enough style to pull off the popped-collar look.

Aside from the manufacturing issue, I like this figure quite a bit. Obviously I’d like it more if the figure were in better condition, but while I was wroth when I removed the figure from the box, I suppose I’d now say that I’m somewhat peeved. It helps that the issue is easily hidden, I guess. It also helps that I like Rana a lot; her presence gives Satellizer someone to bounce off of and interact with. I’d have preferred it had Rana been standing up, since she takes up a ton of space, but regardless, her massive size and stated sexiness are both very appealing.

There is another review of Rana available at Neathgrim.