Ero figures are all the rage these days, and Native is amongst the best at producing them. They are apparently not the best at naming them, however, and so this girl is simply known as “Slingshot Babe.” This generic moniker is perhaps not nearly as off-putting as Compact Hog, but it’s still fairly impersonal.
This figure is manufactured by Rocket Boy, one of the fairly new brands that Native markets and distributes. It’s based off of an illustration by Cle Masahiro, an artist well known for the doujinshi produced under his circle name Clesta. We’ve seen a number of popular doujin and magazine artists – Saitom, Homare, Raita, and Misaki Kurehito amongst others – have their illustrations adapted into PVC form in recent times, and that is a happy thing indeed.
Slingshot Babe is sculpted in a robust 1/6 scale and stands (or sits) around 21 or so centimeters in height. While she does get novelty packaging like most Native figures do, she does not have any accessories aside from a cushion (which serves as the base) and her phone.
Cle Masahiro’s style is eminently recognizable and the adaptation is very faithful, most notably in the upper line of her eyes, which is sharply sloped and boldly outlined.
Not that this sort of body physique is idiosyncratic but he typically draws his female characters as fully-figured (or as much as is typical in anime styling, anyway), with large breasts (assuming the character design allows for such), wide hips, and big asses. All those features are definitely present here. In addition, her back is strongly arched, which is quite sexy. It also further accentuates the size of her buttocks, which is a big plus.
He also spends a considerable amount of effort in presenting abdominal details. That affinity for stomach musculature is indeed carried into the design of the Slingshot Babe, as her midsection is obviously (under standard lighting, anyway) lean and toned. It’s a particularly attractive element of this figure.
As is easily discerned, the Slingshot Babe is thusly named for her article of clothing, which strains to preserve a modicum of modesty. She’s also wearing some very fetching latex-look gloves and thigh-high socks, and she has a thin collar strapped around her neck. These articles are emblematic of bondage or fetish wear, though her cheerful disposition is rather incongruent with a BDSM experience. Personally, I think the discordance between her outfit and her demeanor (and her phone, with its heart-accented lanyard) is quite amusing.
Being that Native is mostly an ero figure company, it’s no surprise that her slingshot swimsuit can be removed. It’s actually a very simple process; the straps detach at the little golden balls above her breasts. Both removal and replacement of her swimsuit are very easy, which is a nice surprise; I had expected the process to be very fiddly and tiresome.
Without her swimsuit, she’s not particularly more naked than she was before, but the effect is to focus more of the viewer’s attention on her gloves and socks. I do like the fetish theme of her outfit, so that’s a nice touch.
Here is the always-popular crotch close-up. Note that she does not have a sculpted anus, for those that might be interested in such a thing.
An example of the source illustration can be seen on her phone. Her smartphone is sort of small; it’s probably time for her to upgrade.
This figure is superb, as most Native figures (and figures that fall under the Native brand) are. The Slingshot Babe is big, curvaceous, and sexy. Her outfit is very provocative, both with and without the eponymous swimsuit. And of course, the technical issues regarding her quality are basically negligible. This is an excellent figure all around. I think this may be the first figure based off of Kure Masahiro’s work, but I very much hope that it is not the last.
For another review of the Slingshot Babe, check out Wieselhead. (It seems like it’s been forever since I could link to another figure review on a website.)
Native should hire you to take their photos. You make this figure look far more interesting than I previously thought it would be.
Also, love the link to wieselhead, and agreed on the dearth of link worthy review sites. Thanks for being the exception to that rule! (Keep those reviews coming! [at a pace that makes them fun and sustainable for you.])
Thanks XD Yeah, I’m glad Wieselhead is still around and that Fabienne is still doing reviews. I guess maybe I’m just gonna dump the blogroll off the sidebar, I guess it’s not something that’s all that useful (or particularly germane to 2017-ish website design). I actually have the next figure photographed already! It’s really unusual for me to have a photograph set ready to go right as a review is posted but in this case I do.
Thank you so much for this review! This figure is sooo awesome. I imagine the setting is some sort of truth-or-dare challenge. She’s a cute shy girl, wearing baggy clothes all the time. As baggy as school uniforms can get, anyway… She got dared by someone to strike a sexy pose, so as soon as she got home, she dropped her bag, tore off her uniform, and put on this kinky stuff. (She’s been fantasizing about something like this, so this at last is the chance to put these clothes to good use, lol)
On the original art, we can see the frame of the mirror in which she’s viewing herself. So the image we’re seeing is at the same time the image she’s snapping. In an instant, she’ll send it to whoever dared her and say: “Hey, didn’t expect me to do this, and look so good at it either, eh?”
I kind of had a different view, that she’s a flirty girl who put on her secret costume to take photos of herself. I think I like your interpretation better, though. While we can speculate about why she’s doing what she’s doing, I still think it’s a little odd that Native didn’t make up a name for her; Alphamax always comes up with names for their figures, even if they’re just based on some anime girl who appeared once on a magazine cover.
This was one of the 2 figurines I bought last week when I had a chance to visit Mandarake Complex at Akihabara, the second was another new one by Native, Otori Eri, which is based on a ReDrop’s drawing. Both are very fine and I’m glad I got them.
That must have been an interesting trip. I’m kind of afraid to ever go to one of the brick-and-mortar Mandarake stores since I know I’d walk out with a ton of pillowcases and a much thinner wallet.
I’m making my first trip to Japan in a few weeks! I’ve already anticipated this and have sold off some of my collection to make room/pay for my haul.
Nice! I hope you have a good time there and return with some interesting things.
oh, thx for the linking, I rarely finish a review before you ;D I have stopped worrying about the decline of figure blog activity, I can only do my turn and keep it up. Since figure photography is really a lot of fun and when I force myself a little, I also enjoy to write the text for the review.
I love Slingshot “Betty”, the figure is just so beautiful. The face is lovely and she has such a great body. I think her butt turned out marvelous. Nevertheless I guess she misunderstands the “sexy selfie” thing a little. Wearing those elaborate bondage clothes and looking that happy and smug is funny. It’s actually a bit naughty for a girl her age XD I could imagine to have a normal dressed figure of that character, it would look nice, too
I like the style of Cle Masahiro, his characters, no matter if involved in ecchi activity or not look lovely. It’s nice that they work together with some “pxiv” artists to adapt the works as figures. Rocket Boy has a good hand in choosing nice artworks that portray the female characters sexy, but also in a cute way, I really appreciate that and already bought 3 figures of that sublabel. How I wished that a few Kancolle figures would be based on pixiv artworks…
You’re welcome! Yeah, I guess I’m not gonna worry too much about it. I figure everyone’s life has gone on. I suppose I might strike off the blogroll since there’d really only be a couple of sites on there now.
This is really a lovely figure, having her on my desk with a few other figures makes me appreciate the detail of her body sculpting. I think the only change I would have liked would have been black-colored bondage clothes; I like black better than red for this sort of thing.
He has a great style, I own at least one of his doujinshi, which are kind of a pain to buy since I’m not sure if Mandarake accepts credit card payments on hentai material yet (they didn’t accept my card the last time I tried). I’m glad that at least one company is adapting his work.
I would really like for someone to make more abyssal girl figures, I would probably buy a Midway figure. They should make a spinoff game where you play as the abyssal side and you go around sinking shipgirls. I would play the hell out of that.
Too bad you only said it now that you’d prefer black clothes on her. E2046 had a pre-painted (gathering) version with a black outfit and pink/violet hair on offer: http://www.e2046.com/p/27886/ The pre-order period closed just a very few days ago. Although they keep re-releasing their GKs and even “standard” gathering products on a more or less regular basis, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen them re-release such a “specia colour” pre-painted figure.
However, as you’re already known to them as a figure review site, you might be able to secure one more slot… 😉
She does look pretty good in that color. I’d prefer black clothes but I do still like this version, and I like having the official version when possible. I do have some of their ORI stuff still in the review queue, though, like that one oddball Saber with the umbrella. I didn’t revew it since it seemed kinda weird but that was back when there was just the one Saber and her Alter persona, and I didn’t imagine that the situation would get as weird as it is now.
Oh man, she looks stellar. I finally got on the ball and made it a point this year to start preordering Native/Rocket Boy/etc. figures rather than scrambling to try to find them after one of your shoots.
Unfortunately, I may not get this one but not for lack of trying because, sadly, I ordered all of them from Anime Island which, as you’ve probably heard, imploded recently. If TOM was my go-to for mainstream figures, AI was my “other half” for the more racy fare from SkyTube, Native and their ilk. I fear it’ll cost a small fortune beyond what got lost in Anime Island’s undertow to get any of the limited stuff so far after the preorder, Slingshot Babe included.
I though I had her in my grasp, briefly, when Play Asia had them in stock but they canceled my order today, dashing my hopes for attaining this red hot slice of eye candy for a reasonable price. Hell, as far out as Sugamo Mutsuki is (May I think), even she already appears to be sold out.
Ah well, gorgeous shoot as always; these shots have got me more wound up than even the official photos (though I suppose that’s par for the course with your reviews). They’ll have to suffice as my 2D surrogate for the foreseeable future until I can make her my own one day.
Ahh, that’s unfortunate. I was not familiar with Anime Island but that’s pretty sad that they went under. I’m a little surprised that it hasn’t happened more often, as I have to imagine that the margins on figure retail (and anime merchandise sales in general) are very thin, and I would think that it’s pretty hard to compete against the likes of Amiami and Amazon. Hopefully you manage to find it somewhere if you are still interested in buying it; I’m not sure if it is still the case but for a while it wasn’t too hard to find Native figures at a number of western retail outlets.