We’ll resume our look at Daiki Kougyou’s Walkure Romanze girls with Akane Ryuuzouji. Oddly enough, Akane was not a principal character in the original visual novel, but her good looks and agreeable personality have made her a fan favorite. Another strange thing is that in the anime and the original game, she’s incorrigibly infatuated with Celia Cumani Aintree, to the point that she’s nonfunctional when proximate to her. Nonetheless, she has become popular enough to receive elevation to main character status in the fandiscs Walkure Romanze More & More and Re:tell, where she develops her relationship with main hero Takahiro Mizuno and, in the time-honored tradition of visual novel characters, has sex with him. So does her mom, actually.
Walkure Romanze takes place in an unnamed but presumably European city, and so Akane stands out once more due to her distinctly Japanese trappings, name, and demeanor. She’s depicted as a friendly, cheerful, and mostly level-headed girl – sort of an ideal Japanese woman. The exception is when she sees Celia, whose presence causes her to swoon. After watching the anime, I’m not sure whether Celia or Akane is my favorite character in the series; I liked both of them a lot and they have a lot of similarities in terms of their personality (Walkure Romanze is a little unusual in that the typical harem archetypes – tsundere, little sister, childhood friend, and so on – aren’t as conspicuous). Personally, I wouldn’t have minded if the series were about a relationship between Akane and Celia; they certainly came closest to establishing a physical relationship with each other.
This figure is manufactured by Daiki Kougyou in 1/6 scale and stands about 26.5 centimeters in height. Like virtually every Daiki Kougyou figure, she comes with a plain black disc base.
Also like all the figures in this product line, Akane is wearing a two-piece bikini along with arm and thigh-high armor plating. And like the preceding figures, the bikini doesn’t really look that great; it is thick and oversized – unavoidable consequences of it having to be removable – and thus fits quite poorly on Akane’s body. It’s best to dispense with it.
Akane’s got a fairly neutral look on her face. Her expression isn’t that evocative, though I suppose it looks pleasant. Looking more closely, I can’t help but think that her nose and mouth are placed a little too low on her face.
Being that this figure wasn’t sculpted by Toshirou, Akane has a slim body build compared to Daiki Kougyou’s Celia, Bertille, and Ayako, whom are all much more thickly built. Those figures are also a little taller than Akane, even though they are all nominally 1/6 scale (though the size disparity isn’t nearly as obvious as with Daiki’s Mio figure, which is unfortunately much smaller than all of the aforementioned figures). Another obvious difference is Akane’s skin tone, which is a more natural flesh color, whereas Celia and Bertille’s skin is more of a yellow hue, as is typical of a lot of other Daiki Kougyou figures.
Akane’s armor is represented very nicely here. Her armor is Japanese-themed and is thus quite a bit more colorful than the metallic finishes used on the other Walkure Romanze figures. The combination of black, purple, and red colors is quite attractive.
A curious thing is that Daiki Kougyou, SkyTube, and A+ have all made a bunch of figures of the Walkure Romanze girls in much the same fashion, with armor on the arms and legs and removable swimsuits. They look very similar, so much so that one might not actually realize that there are three different figures that comprise variations of the same theme. The Daiki Kougyou figure seems to be a little bit thicker than the two other versions, and seems to have more realistic-looking breasts.
Akane’s hair dominates the rear view and obscures much of her buttocks, but it’s easy to tell with a close look that her ass is peculiarly compact. That’s a little bit of a letdown after Celia and Bertille had very large backsides.
Overall, I think this is a fine figure – perhaps not in the same class as Celia or Bertille, but quite good in its own right. It’s a figure that looks better from a normal viewing distance, and from such a distance it’s less easy to tell that she’s slightly mismatched in terms of size with her more stoutly-built antecedents. But the theme – plate armor and a sexy nude torso – is as attractive as it always is, and I’m a big fan of Akane as a character.
One final interesting note is that while Akane may not have been a main character in the original series, she’s quite popular amongst figure makers. One upcoming figure of her has her in a very lewd position while taking a disembodied penis in her mouth. What a strange hobby this can be.
I personally preferred the Skytube version. While it is stated 1/5.5 scale, it isn’t too much different with the 1/6 daiki and A Plus version.
This is my (crappy) photo of my A Plus and Skytube version.
https://static.myfigurecollection.net/image/mechgouki1531637336.jpeg
Skytube version is better looking imho. But her legs do not fit into the base exactly, making it necessary to stretch her legs. Plus her knee flaps are very fragile, and I damaged mine unfortunately. 🙁
I dare say all 3 versions of Akane, the most fragile part is possible the flaps on her knee sides.
Yeah, I noticed that SkyTube’s 1/5.5 scale (what an odd scale value) seemed to line up well with the older Daiki Kougyou figures size-wise. I was hoping that the Daiki version would be similar but she’s a little smaller than I’d prefer. Looking at your picture, I think I like the pose on the A+ version the best.
The knee armor seems to be a weak point for all of these figures; I kept knocking off the part on my Celia figure and I think Bertille has the same issue, though I was more careful to avoid hitting that area. It’s unfortunate that the SkyTube figure has the same issue, but not too shocking, I guess.
Is that Maya Kamiwazumi back there? I need to get around to photographing mine at some point.
Yep, that’s Maya. Noticed how I propped her with paper so that she stands completely straight? Lol.
Maya is a good figure, but the problem is unlike the advertised prototype and box cover, she leans to her right. And issue which I noticed existed for all figures, after checking the En3rds reviews. (Now defunct.)
Back on topic, the A Plus version is not too bad. But as with all A Plus brand figures, expect the face to look a bit DERP. Posing and quality wise, I got no complains.
I still think Skytube version looks the best, despite the issues I described.
Will you be getting the Skytube version?
I didn’t notice that but that is disconcerting since she’s one of the figures in my review queue XD I guess I can get over it if she doesn’t fall over, but I’ve had a couple of figures snap their pegs after a few years of leaning.
I would like the SkyTube version but I don’t think it’s a high priority for me. I’m probably going to get the Orca Toys version as well as the Native (or Frog, I guess) figure, unless it doesn’t look very good or if it’s in 1/8 scale or something.
sculptural figure.
the proportions are pretty good
They are!
Tier, any intentions to get the Skytube version?
I’m not sure; I think I’m looking more towards getting the upcoming Q-Six and the Native ones (which I guess is actually manufactured by FROG, or something like that). I guess I might pick up the SkyTube version at some point but it’s not a high priority for me.
(Incidentally, I think your original comment got flagged by the spam checking plugin since it had a hyperlink in it; I have to manually approve comments with URLs and it takes me a little while since I can obviously only check this website when I’m not at work. I think I combined both of your comments up above into one comment.)
This by far is the weakest in Daiki’s Valkyrie Romanze set. The other being Mio with that seam line on her pudenda. Yup, you are correct with the flat nose of hers, if the sculptor only fixed that then this would be another home run! The Skytube version got her face sculpt right. My only complaint with the ST version is the somewhat subdued color of her Japanese armor and the pale tinge of her skin.
Daiky almost got “everything” right except for that nose…………arrgh!
I haven’t looked at Mio yet but I think she’s my least favorite of the group since she’s so much smaller than the others. You’re casting another vote for the SkyTube version though and now I’m wondering if maybe I ought to take another look at picking it up.
As much as I love both molds, Moon got Akane’s face right. The Daiki version was done by a rookie. The nose bro, what a flat ugly nose job……..Color wise, Daiki version is indeed superior.
The size comparison is a bit dissapointing, Akane also has charming curves, but her size make her appear as different scale so it’s a bit unfortunate that the Walkure Romanze don’t fit together next to eachother.
Nevertheless, I like this figure of Akane, her face has this enchanting smile and the big ribbon is so cute. I also admire her soft curves with those comfortable looking thighs. The smaller butt also is nicely rounded, I don’t mind it being more compact on Akane ^^.
The armor looks really appealing on her, the red bits are a very pretty eyecatcher.
Yeah, it’s too bad. Mio is especially problematic since she’s a full head shorter (or even more) than all of the other figures. I guess her sculptor didn’t pay much attention to how large the Toshirou-sculpted figures are.
I do like this figure otherwise, though maybe it’s not the best version of Akane out there. At the least, the Native figure looks really, really promising.