In the last couple of years, society in the United States has been riven by cultural and philosophical divides, with little hope of either compromise or reconciliation. But perhaps all sides can agree on one thing: there is nothing so quintessentially American as a school shooting, and on that note, we take a look at this figure, which depicts a heavily-armed high school girl ready to get down with some extracurricular warfare.
This figure is based off of a picture created by Fukai Ryousuke as part of an original series called ARMS NOTE. Joshi Kousei – simply “high school girl,” I think, as this character has not been given the courtesy of a proper name – was the first figure to be released in this series, but Magic Mould has plans for at least one more, and Max Factory also has a line of Figma toys representing this series.
Joshi Kousei is sculpted in 1/7 scale, measuring a shade over 23 centimeters tall. Being that I am now old, crotchety, and in possession of several hundred figures, I don’t particularly like it when a figure is difficult to set up, and Ms. High Schooler was indeed an appalling pain in the ass to assemble. To that end, there are also some parts missing from my figure thanks to both my clumsiness while attempting to put her together and the looseness of her torso section. She should have two grenades hanging from her backpack as well as knives attached to her lower leg shields, but they went skittering off when her body abruptly clattered in half while I was trying to figure out how to mount those knives, and I have yet to figure out where they flew off to. Too bad for me, but I wasn’t enjoying the process of getting her built so I do not regret the incompleteness of my figure.
I’m not sure if Magic Mould is a new company or if it’s just an imprint of Good Smile Company but that is who is credited with manufacturing this figure, at least judging by the box. They apparently have done only one other figure, which is from a series called “Heavily Armed High School Girls,” which suggests that this particular theme is one that they have a specific affinity for.
Ms. Bionic is dressed up in a fairly standard high school getup – a blazer and a pleated skirt, though I suppose the latter item’s abbreviated length might not conform to regulations. She’s also carrying a smartphone, which I suppose is still a weird thing for me; back when I was last in high school (a frightful twenty-two years ago now), bringing a device with the capabilities of a mobile device to class would have been unthinkable (my high school didn’t even let us wear hats). The handset, as best as I can tell, fits in between cheek and hand like sandwich filling, which lends no confidence as to the likelihood of it not falling away and becoming lost – a recurring issue with this figure.
She’s also got a peculiarly-shaped backpack, which looks like maybe it’s shaped to hold a large thermos. As mentioned there ought to be two grenades dangling off of it but I’ve only got the one now.
And she also has these interesting devices strapped to her legs, which I suppose is what lends her her moniker.
And of course, no heavily-armed high school girl would be caught dead without her gun. In this case, it appears to be some sort of bullpup assault weapon with a silencer, which are the terms I’m using since they drive certain gun nuts insane. I’m pretty sure that this gun is entirely fictional in design but I certainly could be wrong on that.
When this figure first went up for sale, I liked the design but I was hesitant to order it because of its massive price tag (close to 18,000 yen, as I recall, which was an exorbitant amount back in 2018 for a figure of this size but isn’t all that abnormal these days). However, this figure does have a feature which was not revealed by any of the publicity photographs – namely, that her skirt is removable. Why they chose not to highlight this quality, I have no idea. One would think that they would want to sell figures and that this sort of thing would only help them to do just that.
At any rate, with her skirt removed Ms. High Schooler looks even more silly, but who’s going to tell her that when she’s packing this kind of heat? Her panties are a curious green color and what’s even more interesting is that half of it is hooked into the cleft of her buttocks, clearly indicating that the designer put some careful thought into what sort of visual appeal he or she wanted this figure to convey.
Overall, I like this figure, but the massive price tag and the fitment issues are a bit off-putting. Nonetheless, she is very cute, particularly with the skirt removed.
And a note about the lack of posts in the last few months. I feel badly about the lack of content and I’m grateful to the people who inquired about my status but truth be told, there isn’t really an interesting reason for my long absence; rather, it’s almost entirely due to a combination of me playing World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, Azur Lane, and Epic Seven, often simultaneously. All of these games have a variety of daily maintenance tasks which really appeals to me, as someone who values both incremental progress as well as regimented routine (I’ve often said that if I had total control over my life, I would want every day to be just like the day before).
I was about to plead that I haven’t bought as many figures as I usually do, but looking at my receipts I’ve bought around thirty thus far this year, which seems like a lot, especially since I have been feeling that I’m not as into many of the figures that have gone up for preorder in recent times. Strangely, the ones that I think I am most interested in are FREEing’s bunnygirls, which is odd since I generally don’t like animal ears (real or fake) on anime girls, and they are all sort of generic-looking. Nonetheless, I want to buy a bunch.
I’ve recently been collecting polystone statues at a more enthusiastic clip, but I haven’t been photographing them since I don’t think they’re of as much interest to this site’s audience and given their large size, it’s a humongous nuisance to take pictures of them because my shooting space isn’t large enough for them. What I’m thinking I might do is to just take a few shots of them as I receive them and combine them into an aggregated post.
At any rate, I’ve actually had three photo sets ready to go (this being one of them) for the last couple of months, so hopefully reviews will resume on a somewhat typical schedule. Although it seems unseemly to write comment replies months after they were posted, I’m going to try to get all my replies done, as well.
Hi Tier, it’s great to see you back! Glad to hear that your silence wasn’t due to some severe issue.
I like the asymmetric panties, too. This isn’t the first time that promo pictures didn’t exploit a figure’s full potential. For example, there’s a 1/5 “Bikini Malfunction” Sonico figure by Orchid Seed about to be released. There are no pictures yet confirming a topless option, and an Orchid Seed Sonico with no cast-off feature at all would be extremely disappointing. I probably wouldn’t have ordered her anyway, but with no official confirmation, this was an easy pass for me, and their loss.
Before you start replying to all the comments, I’d like to ask if there’s some way to read more than only the five most “Recent Comments” in the right sidebar. Some time ago you recommended to use /comments/feed, but that doesn’t seem to work anymore…
Thanks! Yeah … I’m just lazy. Really, really lazy.
I had to look up that figure; sometimes I feel like I’m so out of the loop with figures. That’s really strange of Orchid Seed, since they have had no compunction against nudity, and Nitroplus certainly has no problem with people lewding their characters. I have to admit, that while I’m still a big huge fan of plastic anime girl tits, I die a little bit inside when I am setting up a figure for photographing and it takes me like an hour just to get it ready.
Uhh, that is a good question; I honestly don’t know but I will look into getting something set up. It is strange that that feed does not work but the top-level site feed does.
woooo! welcome back! i was getting worried there for a bit!
Thanks!
Happy to see you’re back posting again!
Thanks to you too XD
My wife is caught in a never ending stream of daily’s with several video games, so your explanation on your vanishishment brought a smile to my face. That being said, I’m glad to hear it wasn’t pancreatic cancer or some such 🙂
I recall seeing Bionic’s pictures some time ago and liking everything except her fancy shoes. Due to lack of space and financial responsibility (aforementioned wife) a small detail like that is usually all it takes to pass on a figure. Though despite not owning her, it still makes me very happy to see the detail and attention given to her panties and their placement.
Haha, yeah, that would be most unfortunate but it’s really just about laziness. World of Warcraft was probably the biggest thing to blame but my fondness for the game goes through hot and cold periods and it’s definitely very, very cold now.
Yeah, I thought the armored footwear looked a little odd with the way parts of it were all sticking out. I didn’t really mind that I never figured out how to get the knives attached. I’m looking to the next figure in this series but I’m a little scared about how much she’s going to cost.
yay you’re back! I’ve been waiting a long time lol. I enjoy your posts.
This is a lovely figure I can’t wait to see other posts soon.
Thanks very much! Yeah, I feel badly about not posting anything. I’ve actually got four sets of photos ready for publishing, which is probably the largest amount of posts in reserve I’ve ever had. I’m going to have to spend the next couple of days answering all of the comments, too.
Glad you’re posting again and are okay! I enjoyed the photo set – it’s an intriguing figure. One speculates on the “story” involved (she is shooting things up… she gets a call on her phone. Or is talking to the media or authorities… or perhaps she’s hunting zombies in the school. Or is a teenage assassin…) Amused at the trolling of gun nuts (“no – it’s an assault RIFLE [or carbine[ with a SUPPRESSOR” they would shriek.. or “actually it might be a semi-automatic rifle…”) Heh.
Thanks! From the product page, it seems like she was calling her friends to go do after-school karaoke. I’m not sure how the gun fits into her activities. Haha, yeah, I’ve found that some gun people are really particular with terminology, which I think is hilarious. (I guess it doesn’t matter so much now in the state that I live in, since all of these things are about to become illegal.)
Finally!!!
Yay I’m back! Still massively backlogged on answering comments, though …
OMfuckingG that intro, how I laughed. Well, atleast americans don’t have knife crimes like in London…or grenade attacks like in Malmo, Sweden. Atleast school shootings are way more rare then those other things I wrote, that happen weekly, from what I hear.
Rest in peace, Elliot Rodger…you could have learned a thing or two from girls like this, but instead, you played WoW all the time — sorry, I had to.
“has been riven by cultural”…is that driven or riven?
The undies might be a production mistake just on this item that you got? I get that feeling since that torso part doesn’t fit quite well and fell apart, as you wrote. Or you might be right, it’s just a quirk.
It is indeed riven, as in split apart. And quite hard to see how it ever gets put back together again, to be honest. I think the asymmetric underpants is indeed a design feature, from what I’ve seen from other people’s photos. I don’t know if the poor fit between upper and lower torso parts is intentional, though; it was very loose. Most other figures do a pretty decent job of keeping detachable parts in place so I was surprised at how poor the fit was. Then again, I don’t know how many figures the people at Magic Mould have created before this one.
Aenglish is not my first tongue, so I’m sorry. All I found was this lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riven
Well you can always move to a localist community… a commune…an anime one at that lol…with 3d printers to make your own figurines and save some money.
What does it say on the silencer? Dumb Weapon Inbu… something.
The writing on the silencer is “Dumas Weapon Industries”. It uses a stylized font, so it’s a bit difficult to decipher from a distance.
This is all I could find lol
http://dumasar.net/pages/industries/
Ah XD Yeah, riven means to split in English. It’s funny that you mention 3D printers, I actually bought one about a year and a half ago to make figures and photographic props; I haven’t yet printed any figures nor have any of the props I printed been seen in any of my photos …