It’s almost always a treat to photograph a Max Factory figure, except when they get tossed in the bargain bin shortly after I pay full price for them. Resentment aside, they very rarely disappoint, and it’s particularly appealing when they produce a figure of a character who hasn’t received many figures prior. Such is the case with Mea Kurosaki, and that circumstance is a bit strange considering how popular To Love-Ru is and how attractive and well-known its female cast is. Nonetheless, it’s great to see her getting a figure, particularly when it looks as nice as this one does.
Mea Kurosaki makes her debut in To Love-Ru Darkness, the third anime season of the To Love-Ru property. She appears to start off as an antagonist, and as I’ve only watched the first few episodes I’m not certain about much of her personality or character, but I assume that she eventually comes around to the good side and, like every other girl in the show, attempts to acquire Rito’s sperm for her own use. She seems to share an origin and background with Konjiki no Yami and I’m guessing that she has either a little sister or polar-opposite sort of relationship with her. Judging from the first two or three episodes she appears to have an outwardly friendly and cheerful demeanor wrapped around a more malevolent core, but given the tone and theme of the manga and anime I don’t doubt that her personality is subverted for sexual purposes.
This figure is manufactured by Max Factory and was released earlier this year. Mea is the second figure in this series, joining castmate Momo Deviluke, whose figure came out in late 2013. She’s sculpted in an impressively-sized 1/6 scale and stands about 24.5 centimeters in height. She comes with no accessories or castoff options; she’s ready for display straight away after fixing her to her base.
There are many appealing aspects to this figure, and her face seems like as good as place as any to start. She’s flashing quite a mischievous expression, eyes gazing up at the viewer with her tongue sticking out. She looks both naughty and innocent all at once with no hint of shame or shyness. Her coy look is accentuated by her coquettish pose, with one leg bent inwards, shoulders shrugged, and her head slightly tilted and dipped downwards.
Mea has an interesting haircut; her locks are cut short except for an absurdly long braid that runs all the way down her backs and legs and could probably go back up again. It’s wrapped around her body in a blatantly sexual manner, running directly between her legs and then flaring out to the side in a way that could only happen in an anime figure. She’s also got a very cute miniature ahoge poking up from her head, and there’s a second braid with a little flower ornament that makes her look younger still.
Like Momo, Mea is clad only in underwear. Unlike Momo, she isn’t wearing a bridal veil so this figure may have a little less appeal to those who have a thing for erotic and revealing wedding outfits, but Momo’s clothing – such as it is – is still very appealing. She’s not showing more skin than the average swimsuit figure – actually, she’s showing a lot less, with the garter belt and thighhighs covering up much more flesh – but anime figures clad in lingerie are regrettably rare and so Mea’s outfit is particularly attractive.
Mea’s lingerie is reasonably skimpy but not overly so, comprising a frilly brassiere, low-rise panties, a transparent garter belt, and opaque stockings. The sky blue color is fairly neutral, not generating the sort of excitement that black or red or even pink might. Her outfit is uniformly blue which can make it a little difficult to notice small details, but there are a number of nice touches, such as the bows above the garter straps and the pattern around the tops of her stockings.
One other detail that won’t be obvious due to her typical viewing angle is the way she’s adjusting her panties. You’ll never notice it looking at her from the front but it’s neat to know that she’s doing that.
An amusing touch is the pearl necklace around her neck. I can’t imagine that its inclusion was an accident and while it’s not easy to notice, its connotation is unmistakeable.
One last detail to look at is the way her arm is mashing her left breast. Mea isn’t particularly busty or anything – and now that I think of it, it’s interesting how it seems the most popular To Love-Ru girls are the ones with smaller racks –
As expected, Max Factory’s Mea Kurosaki is a lovely figure. She’s very attractive with her sly expression and suggestive pose, and of course her skimpy attire also enhances her sexiness. There’s little to complain about and a helluva lot to like, other than that I could’ve saved some money by waiting to order her. But then, there’s always the risk of the figure selling out and needing to find the figure on the secondary market, which usually isn’t a lot of fun for me, so I can’t complain too much. I’ll be reviewing Momo sometime in the future and I expect that she’ll be just as nice, and hopefully Max Factory will continue further with the series.
She looks lovely, but I didn’t buy her, largely due to space. I have her partner series Momo, and don’t even really have room for her. It doesn’t help that she was an underdeveloped character compared to Momo, too.
I really like how Momo is so up for it, while the rest all have their clueless or tsun sides. Momo’s grand harem plans are welcome in anime usually full of idiocy.
I was a little surprised to see these two get figures first. Well, maybe less so with Momo since she figures prominently into TLR Darkness, at least the first couple of episodes, but I kinda thought that Yui, Lala, and Haruna were the main girls in the previous seasons.
I really liked Momo’s character as well; it was pretty funny to see her throw herself so completely into developing the Harem Plan. She’s probably going to be the main reason that I finish watching the show, since I have the feeling the show’s plot is a sideshow to Rito tripping and faceplanting into crotches, and sad to say I can only take so much of that.
Mea is such a bitch ! I don’t like to use such rude vocabulary when talking about a girl.
Mea though, well I really dislike her role in TLRD, she has a totally rotten personality.
The figure nevertheless looks great, I really mean it. Lets just forget her character and she’s a lovely naughty girl ;D I really like the playful pose and the character design is lovely, her face in particular; great blue eyes and striking red hair.
The sculptor did a good job in creating the figures petite teenage body, when watching the first two seasons I didn’t mind the younger characters, in the third season though, I got somehow irritated about that fact. A few girls fortunately were at least older and slightly more developed in appearance. Mea has a beautiful belly and an attattractive upper backside.
What I like about her clothes are the seperately sculpted straps of bra and garters, it gives them a convincing look.
I like these TLRD related figures by MF, not really happy about the choice of characters to be honest. Assuming that MF won’t stop after Momo and Mea, an adation of bride Haruna or Yui would be an instant buy. It’s hilarious, in a bad way, how this show pushed the first seasons heroines, Lala and Haruna far away.
Keeping a harem show running probably demands such sacrifices, good that Yui is still there as more prominent character.
Ahahaha, that’s not a nice thing to say XD But yeah, I didn’t care too much for her character from the first few episodes that I watched. I didn’t care too much for the other Deviluke sister, either … uhh, what was her name, Nana or something? She didn’t seem as interesting as Momo or as cute as Lala.
Max Factory did a really nice job with this figure. I’m not sure why it was so expensive initially, since she’s not wearing much of an outfit or anything, but aside from that I’m very happy with the way she turned out. I suppose I might be less happy if finish watching through the show and decide that I don’t like her.
I did think it was strange that Yui and Haruna do not seem to have prominent roles in TLR Darkness. Hopefully they get some figures of their own; the Orchid Seed figure of Yui was alright but I’m sure Max Factory can do much better.
I actually had a crush on Nana as she appeared in Season 2, you know ;D. But I honestly like everyone who is voiced by Kanae Itou.
Too bad she had not really a thing to do in TLRD 🙁 No idea why it became Momo’s show, actually. Darkness disapointed me a little, on the other hand I had a few good laughs and the extreme fanservice that often caught me off guard was hilarious and shocking at the same time. Still surprising Rito had no sex so far hahaha
Maybe you will like Mea, she will probably become a fine hentai villain someday XD If you ever finish the anime, you should watch the 6 OVA’s sice most are really fun, as far as I remember.
Orchid Seeds Yui really wasn’t worth the years of production time ^^ Max Factory could do something far better, it would be not nice if the two, Momo and Mea is the end of the line.
Yeah, the whole innuendo thing is one of the reasons I stopped watching the show. It’s pretty annoying to have all the buildup and no payoff. It’s funny the first few times, I guess, but being that there are dozens of anime series that follow the same pattern, it just gets tiresome after a while.
Perhaps I will XD Though I usually like the good girls in hentai shows rather than the villains.
I still have that Yui figure somewhere around here. I guess I don’t really feel too compelled to review it. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it.
Hi,
I would like to know what lens do you use for a bokeh on your figures. She doesn’t appear on Mea Kurosaki. But it appears with Sena Kashiwazaki for example. Her top body is clear, net. But below (legs) is blur. Do you use a macro lens 100mm ? Which lens ?
I have a method to create tentacles. Using fimo to create a mold and fill with silicon. You put a wire jewelry at middle.
I use a few different lenses. For Sena I used a 35mm f/1.4 lens for most of the shots, I think. I also use 60mm and 100mm macro lenses; I find myself using the 60 a whole lot these days.
Thx for response. I have written an email because I have a request about photography. I say you that here because I know you don’t look your emails.
Saw you posted the first photo on MFC one day before. You haven’t posted anything there for a while. I saw that on their front page and I was like “Oh that’s a great photo” and then clicked into the page and “Oh it’s from Tier of course it’s good”
I like Tolove-Ru characters but haven’t collected too many figures of them. I did not get the recent Mea or Momo from MF, or Mikan from Alter, though I do agree they are all great figures. They’ve done many figures of the younger girls in swimsuit or lingerie, which is great but just not that attractive to me. I hope they could come up with more figures of the big boobs like Lala or Yui or even Tearju the big version Yami. To me these characters are much better choice for lingerie figures. In the past one year or so my taste has switched to sexy mature females completely, probably because there are too many Super Sonico type of figures around.
MF made excellent detail in these simple swimsuit/underwear type of figures. Should be even more enjoyable if collected a full set. I don’t know if they will continue making more Tolove lingerie figures based on that Venus artbook but probably Mea will be the end of the series. The other ones look great too but characters may not be as popular. Plus there’s no news about more in this series from any recent hobby exhibitions.
Haha, yeah, I hadn’t uploaded a picture there in a while (around two years, I think). There were a few reasons I uploaded that shot; I like the photo and Mea hadn’t gotten many pictures. Mainly, though, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a funk with respect to pictures for the last few months, and I haven’t taken too many pictures recently that I’ve really liked. I thought that uploading a picture might be a way to get me more enthusiastic about photography.
Yeah, I’d like them to do figures of the more adult-looking characters, too; though Mikan in her underwear would be nice. I generally prefer older-looking characters but I guess it’s still not a big huge deal to me (though watching that Twintail anime the other day, I was really hoping that Tail Blue really would get a bigger chest, since her body doesn’t really do justice to her outfit).
Oh you watch the Twintail show as well on a regular basis ^^
I enjoy this more than I want to admit. Yeah the blue one is really flat, not her fault, but the suits design doesn’t help and I laughed when yellows butt grew a lot. I wish Thouars would wear a suit like the others.
There’s a lot of anime airing this season that I like. The Twintail show is fun, and I like Cross Ange and Rage of Bahamut a lot, too (I’m kinda surprised how much I like Bahamut since it looks really weird). Amagi Brilliant Park is nice, too. I haven’t watched the Fate/stay night thing yet and I’m not sure if I will. Yellow Tail’s ass expansion was definitely pretty funny XD And a bit unexpected, since the backside is not often a point of emphasis in anime.
At first Cross Ange felt a bit bad, well an anime that shows and erected dick in the opening is suspicious XD (They changed it recently)
It’s still rather crude, but the last few episodes it got a lot better and I enjoy watching it..
Thanks for reminding me of Rage of Bahamut at first I thought it was as misleading as Nanatsu no Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins) which Is actually not about the hot demon girls 🙁 But Bahamut seems to have the demons ^^ and is quite praised.
In the episode after Erina (yellow) acted all flustered and weird, I did not understand what was wrong with her *lol*
Cross Ange started out awesome XD I’m hoping the Blu-rays show the opening, uhh, search with a little more detail. And hopefully future episodes have more lesbian rape. That may sound distasteful but then again, shows like Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya have lesbian rape so it’s all good.
Yeah, I was confused when I heard that there’s a show titled The Seven Deadly Sins. I’m assuming the Hobby Japan girls are still going to get an anime, but I guess it might have a slightly different title.
Whoa, this figure bargain-binned? Strange, considering Momo’s price only seems to be rising. Maybe good for me though, as I don’t like Mea enough to have bought her full price but I might pick her up down the line for cheaper (at least, once I’m not broke anymore).
One part of the reason I don’t like her as much is that she isn’t pulling off the wedding lingerie as well as Momo is, and the other part because her character is less appealing overall (she’s kind of a seductress later on once she stops being evil, but so is Momo and she’s a lot funnier). Still though, seeing her like this, she is pretty nice. She’s more detailed than you’d expect, I kind of like the contrast her red hair gives to the rest of the figure and well, she looks pretty attractive. Wish MF made other characters though, like Yui or Mikan (you can never have enough Mikans). Or hell, make a Tear.
As for the show’s change in course and characters from the original to Darkness, there’s actually a pretty dark reason behind that. Sweet little Haruna, y’see, was based on the author’s wife (and she actually held some rights to her). Sadly for him, though, she turned out to be a lying, cheating gold-digger who was neglecting their daughter. When that was found out, she tried to wring as much money out of him as possible, using custody of their daughter as keypoint in court proceedings (especially since the law favors women in terms of custody) and once she got all she wanted, she skipped town. The first series was canceled because that mess happened. So yeah, no wonder Darkness basically shoved Haruna aside and started focusing on entirely different characters altogether (the more popular side-characters, basically, like Momo, Yami, Mikan and Yui).
But hey, I like Darkness better anyway (considering how it takes refuge in audacity in so many aspects, and it actually has a proper story) so I’m not exactly minding the change in course myself.
Yeah, it’s still in the bargain bin at Amiami, I believe. The discount isn’t huge but it brings her price in line with about what one would expect for a relatively simple 1/7 scale figure.
The wedding underwear is definitely awesome, and it’s missed here. I did like Momo’s character quite a bit more (from what little I saw of the show) and I like her figure better, too. I need to figure out how I want to photograph her.
Ahahaha … I thought there might be a reason why Haruna faded out of the series but that is definitely not an explanation I would have ever imagined. That’s really unfortunate that he had to go through that, though I don’t like Haruna’s design nearly as much as the other characters so perhaps it wasn’t entirely a bad thing for viewers and readers, I guess.
Ordered…T~T
Whaaat? why no tentacle! or even pervert obama T~T
No offense to you but when I’ve written about how I don’t like how people expect the tentacle stand or the Obama doll, this is exactly the sort of comment I had in mind.
Oops sorry didn’t mean to offend
No worries XD
Love your photos of Mea. Check out my photos of Momo at http://poorx.com/2014/11/22/go-figure-momo-deviluke-from-to-love-ru/.
She looks great! Thanks for the review and the link. I can excuse the color of her outfit since she looks so nice but yeah, the sea green wouldn’t have been the color I would’ve picked, the more traditional white would’ve been better.
Mine just came in! Haven’t opened it yet but I think that panty tug is already my favorite thing about this figure.
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For those out there who sells their figure. Do you usually get your money back considering they are relatively new even though it’s been opened? How much more can you sell it for it it’s not been opened?
It depends on demand, I think. Some figures hit the bargain bin quickly and stay in stock, while others get a pretty big markup. If you’re thinking about selling figures I’d check Mandarake’s prices, since they are probably the largest source of second-hand figures and will thus be what you’re competing against.