Today we’ll take a look at another figure by FREEing. That’s three figures in a row; their overall level of quality might be equivocal but no one can cast aspersions on their profligacy. This character is Konoe Tsuruma and she is the lead heroine of yet another incest anime. She’s all wrapped up and showing everything off, so let’s oblige her and take a look.
Konoe comes from an anime titled Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!, or Nakaimo – My Sister is Among Them! In truth, I know next to nothing about this show; indeed, I’d never even heard of it before I saw this figure. Thus I’ve never watched any of it and even if I were aware of it, I would have probably still skipped it because I take a dim view of any anime with the word “imouto” in its title. That said, reading a little bit about it, it doesn’t sound completely terrible, and I was surprised to see that the animation director of Sogna’s well-known Viper series of games also served as a chief animation director on this show (if you have not heard of this series, Google for “Viper RSR” and prepare to be enlightened). On the other hand, I’m guessing that this show is full of scenes where the male lead accidentally gropes a girl’s breasts, trips and lands face-first in some girl’s crotch, or gets molested by some girl only to have another girl walk in and screech about what a pervert he is. (On the other other hand, I recently tried to watch the first episode of Magical Warfare and after struggling through that, maybe crotch faceplants aren’t such a bad thing.)
As said, this figure is made by FREEing. It’s listed as 1/8 scale but it’s quite small; I’d guess that if she were standing up, she wouldn’t be much larger than a Beach Queens figure. Not that I’ve ever seen a Beach Queens figure in person or anything. She’s a bit under 10 centimeters tall and she basically comes ready for display right out of the box. A little white plastic base is provided with a transparent strut that she can recline on; she doesn’t need it, strictly speaking, but it keeps her stable as her feet are normally supposed to be off the ground.
Konoe sports a placid, doe-like expression; normally this sort of look might denote sadness, but Konoe looks more inquisitive than melancholy. It’s a very cute expression that conveys a strong sense of innocent friendliness. It’s quite a bit different from the expression she wore in the original drawing from which the figures in this lineup draw inspiration; there, Konoe looks completely blank.
There is, of course, nothing innocent about her outfit, which reveals almost everything. The naked ribbon is a longtime staple of anime-style art, but there haven’t been many figures which have featured this look. Now, though, aside from Konoe and her fellow castmates, there’s also an upcoming figure of some Railgun girl that highlights this ensemble. It’s not quite an embarrassment of riches, but it’s nice to see more figures incorporate this type of costume.
In illustration, the ribbon is usually applied artlessly but here, there’s an obvious symmetry in how it is wrapped around Konoe. Indeed, it looks less like an improvised costume and more like something that was purpose-made; it’s hard to tell if the ribbon is even a single contiguous strip.
Despite that, her outfit still looks great. It’s a very revealing outfit, of course, and that makes for a lovely contrast with her evident equanimity. Konoe has a rather slender body which makes her look younger than she’s supposed to be, but she still does justice to this costume’s showiness.
Which is to say, she has a nice rack.
And a nice rear. Her outfit looks less like a ribbon and more like lingerie on her hips, where it forms a thong that runs between her legs.
You’ll never be able to see it under normal viewing conditions, though, since her hair blooms outwards in a rather improbable manner. I do not think hair actually falls like this.
There’s not really a whole lot more to this figure than her expression and her ribbon. While I would have liked her to be larger, I’m still pleased with this figure. She’s quite cute, and I like how she evokes a sense of eroticism without really looking too lewd, at least in terms of the mood she conveys. Her casual pose nicely complements her nonchalant attitude as well. She’s an appealing figure that I enjoy looking at, and that’s really the main criterion that I care about.
Good stuff, good stuff. I been following this site for so long to read your figure reviews. Love them all.
Thanks!
Compared to your recently figures Tier, i think this figure is a bit bland, and i’m not interested in it at all. It’s because 3 factors especially, 1. eyes, 2. hair, 3. combination of the two. The eyes are not really good in my eyes, probably because of the color. The hair, especially the upper side, it looks like a helmet made from plastic, and the front side looks unnatural. But, those 2 reasons can be… well ignored except the combination of color the hair and the eyes, my eyes hurt seeing that. Aside from what i said, this figure looks good from the neck-down.
That’s a reasonable assessment. Personally, I like her eye color, though.
The second paragraph was funny, the ecchi scenes in harem anime are always following such strict patterns, kinda repititive. Where is the often praised japanese creativity?
The … imouto… anime I watched had a horrible sister, the honor student, teen model, otaku Kirino always made me furious, I hated this show with too many annoying bit.. female characters X<
Ah one of the ribbon girls, I like the petite one with the glasses quite a bit, also curly hair is sweet. The figure of Konoe looks good, I really like her green eyes and how she is pulling a face. The tranquility that her pose expressive pose emits is quite nice (〜￣▽￣)〜
While her clothes doesn't seem too challenging to manufacture, the figure seems to be relatively clean for FREEing standards, when it comes to small scale figures. Also her pose looks nicely articulated.
The pictures with the warm light, accentuate her sensual atmosphere, really pretty.
It seems that once they find a workable, marketable formula, many studios stick closely to it. Ahahaha, I stayed the hell away from that show. I heard enough things about Kirino that had I watched it, I probably would’ve been googling for some snuff doujinshi featuring her. Though then … there’s a certain, uhh, mecha anime with somewhat relevant themes that I suppose I have to finish up one of these days.
I’ve got Ikusu here, too, and she looks about as good (or mediocre, depending on your point of view). I don’t know if I’m going to get any of the other figures in this series, but I’m happy to have the two of them. FREEing is rolling out a ton of figures and hopefully they get their hit rate up a bit.
While hardly a snuff piece, you might find this to be a appropriate. Or not, we all have our tastes. http://www.fakku.net/doujinshi/there-is-no-way-my-little-sister-could-be-raped-at-an-offline-meeting-english
Ahahaha, thanks for that. I guess I don’t really pay a lot of attention to the community but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone actually liking that particular character.
Always happy to share 🙂
If you like ribbon “clothing” on your figures, you should definitely get the Ringo figure from the Air Gear series. Made by Yamato, I believe. I have it, and it’s wonderful!
Looks like this: http://img.tarad.com/shop/g/gameclubretro/img-lib/spd_20080421161536_b.jpg
Yeah, I do have that figure; it’s a great figure, one of my favorite figures, though mine has a busted peg in the base that makes the figure lean forward. I recall it caused quite a furor thanks to a certain site but I still like it a lot.
I’ve always been tempted to display her with the bag over head, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. What an odd display option, though I’ve never read the manga and only watch a few episodes of the anime so perhaps it ties in somehow.
I think I read that particular manga chapter a while back; from what I recall, she changes into that costume in a public restroom and is so embarrassed that she puts a sack on her head. Or something like that.
It’s a little weird how so little of Oh! Great’s work has been made into figures; I kinda thought there’d be at least a few figures of the Tenjo Tenge characters.
Cute figure!
Sympathize with you on Magical warfare. (On the other hand, Witchcraft Works was a nice surprise, completely subverting a lot of the genre tropes over its first few episodes…)
Yeah, the first episode had no hook at all. I heard that the show might be getting better but I don’t really feel too compelled to continue with it. I don’t think I’ve heard a single thing about Witchcraft Works but maybe I’ll give it a look, particularly since straying from convention is such a rare thing in anime these days.
There’s something really bothering me about the face on this figure, especially the mouth. I guess I just dislike these pouty mouths that look like someone put a dot on a bump. Maybe it looks better in person. Hair looks strange too, and overall the figure is only okay in general in my opinion. Love the outfit though, and I agree there should be more of these ribbon-only figures. If only to break up the monotony of the umpteenth swimsuit version. Come on, figure makers, get creative!
As for the show, I did watch the first episode at least, and, well, it was horrible. For the most part it was the usual tripe – including lots of censorship, cheap animation and a cast of tired stereotypes, like it was rolled out of a factory. The premise (guy inherits a fortune – girls go after him – but noes, one is actually his half-sister, so he has to be careful who he picks!) gave it issues too. For one, you could solve the entire conflict of the show with a freaking DNA-test in five minutes (that’s some idiotic writing right there) and two, it makes every girl come off as a golddigger. Nice. Yeah, you’re not missing anything on this one. Might as well stick with the figures and like them for what they are.
I’m still watching Magical Warfare, by the way. Not because it got better, god no. Instead, I’m watching it because it is so insanely stupid, badly written, cliché’d, and some other mean words. Hell, one of the main girls is utterly useless and her special powers only make her boobs grow. Progress! It really is one of the best sources of unintentional comedy in years, hah. Which is also kind of an achievement, I guess?
It looks pretty good in person, I think, though the figure is so small that the details of her mouth aren’t all that obvious. Small size will certainly hide many problems, though.
Haha, that sounds pretty typical. I guess this show isn’t one that I’ll be looking at, then. I’ve got the Blu-ray sets for Horizon II and Steins;gate here and I’m guessing both of those are superior shows. (Though on the other hand, as awful as these sorts of shows typically sound – and usually are – I have to admit that I do like them from time to time. I liked Infinite Stratos and Samurai Girls more than I thought I would, at least, particularly considering that I gave up on both of those shows the first time I watched each.)
I did see that particular superpower; I really don’t know what that was about. Your description reminds me very much of Guilty Crown, though Guilty Crown had a lofty sense of ambition that I’m guessing Magical Warfare isn’t trying to reach (though then, watching that first episode, I was kinda wondering if they were trying to do something like Fate/stay night, minus the bad history. But then, for all of its pretensions and popularity, the Fate/stay night anime was really awful, too.). It’s a little depressing how there are so many anime series whose only redeeming quality is guessing when and where they’ll go off the rails.
Harem/boob shows are kind of a guilty pleasure for me too, but I do expect them to have some semblence of quality. So I gravitate towards stuff like Haganai, To Love-Ru, Asobi ni Iku Yo, the first season of Samurai Girls and Mayo Chiki, while I’m avoiding this show or stuff like ImoCho. It’s the difference between actually pretty good/enjoyably bad and outright horrible. Too bad the harems this season all fall in the latter category. Oh, and Steins;Gate is really good. I recommend it.
This show does resemble Guilty Crown in some ways, yeah, though it still doesn’t go off the rails as much as that show does (the only recent one I remember crashing that hard is Samurai Flamenco). And I knew this show was going to be terrible right away, at least. Still, considering the size of the anime market nowadays, I don’t think it’s that odd that there’s plenty of stinkers every season. Every industry churns out soulless garbage by the bucketload, but as long there’s good shows among the garbage I’m all too willing to just ignore them. Or make fun of them, I suppose.
True indeed. It’s unfortunate how often the bad shows repeat the same mistakes as earlier bad shows – though perhaps that’s just my own biases speaking. Certainly there must be a market for this sort of thing, and I cannot say that I understand that at all, but everyone has their own thing.
I have to admit that my enthusiasm for re-watching Guilty Crown is really low, even though I do kinda want to subject myself to it once more. I’ve forgotten most of the specific aspects that made it so bad and I feel like I should remember those things.
This, to me is one of the holy trinity of ecchi tropes. As with the “naked apron” and “sexy maid” fetishes [I suppose the former is just an unclad version of the latter but so go off-the-cuff crackpot theories], this too would be mind [and pants]-blowing to witness in real life.
Although less so than for most mediums, figures do demand a wee bit of suspension of disbelief. I don’t know if it’s a trick of the eye or if it’s actually the case but the bit of ribbon binding her breast seems painted on (i.e. “form-fitting”) rather than appearing stretched across as one would expect a normal ribbon to do. Just by chance it seems as if every shot of that part of her had rendered that in shadow so I’m not entirely convinced that’s the case but it snaps me back to reality every time I think I notice it. I guess I’d have to admit that the idea of a painted-on ribbon is still pretty steamy.
As I recall there were several other ribbon-bound girls in this series. Are you going to complete the set?
I think my favorite ecchi tropes involve tentacles and chains but this is pretty good, too. (Though as I understand the term, maybe those things are beyond the scope of what is considered “ecchi.”) Curious that we don’t see it more often in figure form; it seems like a lot of the official artwork that is published in those anime illustration magazines feature characters tied up in ribbons.
It certainly does look like it’s adhering close to her chest, and the ribbons don’t seem like they pinch in to her skin like they ought to. The figure is pretty small so it’s not that easy to notice in real life, and I guess the ribbons aren’t all that tight in the original picture, either. That said, I’m kinda impressed FREEing did these figures at all; I don’t remember them doing many fanservice-heavy 1/8 scale figures until fairly recently.
I did get the black-haired girl … uhh, I can’t remember her name off the top of my head … Ikusu or something, I think? I’m not sure if I’m going to get the other ones, though. I kinda thought about getting the kneeling one with her tongue sticking out, but then the product description said something about her being a tsundere and I lost interest at that point.
Actually this series is thankfully different from the tired trite patterns of other harem. Not saying it’s excellent; it’s still got tropes it can’t shake away from, but the massive improvement is the protagonist, Shougo, is not yet another of those lame losers. Shougo is a pretty honourable chap and not “cursed” with slapstick accidents (*cough cough To-love-ru cough cough*).
But don’t watch it for the sake of “imouto”. This series should be watched for the mystery and detective aspects as they attempt to unravel the true identity of the sister and the political circumstances of the adults in the background. Just don’t expect a Death Note, naturally.
A positive note on this anime! It is good that somebody likes it, and it’s promising that the main character is a good guy. Hopefully he has a bit of personality, too; I can’t remember a thing about Ichika, Muneakira, or the To Love-Ru guy (uhh, Rito or something? I forget), apart from their shared penchant for groping girly parts. I don’t really have a big thing for incest so if I were to watch it, I guess I’d watch it for Ikusu, who I am told is something like a ninja or somesuch.
I won’s say Shougo has a strong personality; more like a goody two-shoes, with little fluctuation in emotion. Very focused and disciplined about his direction and principles; almost too mature for a boy his age. But i’d take sensibility over the typical absurdity any day.
Ikusu is actually the major down point of the show, in my assessment. Blatantly getting naked with unbelievable “justifications”. Her value is her contributions to solving the mystery, although the whole nature of how she assumes that role is dodgy.
Ah, I see. Well, that’s okay, too, I guess. As bland as the protagonist of Walkure Romanze was, I liked him and thought he was a good guy, even though he didn’t do a whole ton. It seems that the line between me liking a harem anime and despising it is quite blurry.
Ha! Pointless fanservice is a big plus in my view. Maybe I should give this show a watch after all.
Erotic without appearing lewd, took the words right out of my mouth and I’m inclined to agree .(unless Obama-san makes a guest appearance here). Would love the ribbons to be wrapped tighter around her, but I guess this is ok as it is ^^ Are you getting the other girls as well?