Given the prevalence of Tamaki Kousaka figures in the market, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t looked at a Tamaki figure here in 364 days. It seems like you can’t go a month without seeing a new Tamaki figure go up for preorder. As much as some may decry the proliferation of Tamaki figures – and I can’t say that they don’t have a point – there does seem to be a market for them, so let’s look at this one.
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Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere was one of my favorite shows from the fall 2011 anime season. It features a compelling setting, a likeable cast, a delightfully dense plot, and some of the nicest character designs in all of anime. Those designs, plus the sheer volume of characters in the show, would suggest that the series would be one that would get a lot of figures.
So one would think, anyway; however, it’s now been about a year and a half since the show debuted and only a handful of figures from the series have made their way to retail. Even more perplexing is that all of those figures come from Wave. Unsurprisingly, the great majority of those figures belong to their 1/10 scale Beach Queens line, but they did make one anomalous figure of Horizon Ariadust, which is what we’ll be looking at here.
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It’s the end of the month and that means it is time to look at some figures that I am thinking about ordering. This past month’s Wonder Festival saw many great figures make their public debuts, and though not many of them have shown up at retail websites yet, there’s still a lot of nice stuff that is now available for preorder. Let’s take a look at a few of those figures.
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Tentacle Armada is four years old today. That’s 232 figure and doll reviews, 38 dakimakura cover reviews, and one tentacle stand review. I’m pretty amazed that this site is still around, and that I’ve managed to stick to a fairly consistent posting pattern (six posts per month for the last twelve months). As I provide every 23rd of February, here is the usual anniversary wrapup post where I write about my thoughts regarding the past year and what my plans are going forward.
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Guilty Crown is often compared to shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Code Geass, but regardless of their parallels in plot structure, characterization, and themes, it seems clear that it is not their equal when it comes to merchandising power. Evangelion’s popularity needs no commentary, and Code Geass just got this pretty awesome dakimakura cover from Movic, but while Guilty Crown came in riding a wave of hype and anticipation, it now seems to be the show that everyone wants to forget. I had thought that Good Smile Company or someone would show a few Guilty Crown figures at the recent Wonder Festival, but I don’t recall seeing any – not even Figmas (quite surprising, being that the bar to get a Figma is set pretty low). On the plus side, Azone’s big-ass Inori doll is looking pretty. Also on the plus side, lead girl Inori Yuzuriha and some of her castmates were popular subjects for dakimakura cover artists, as we see here.
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The latest bunny figure from FREEing is Fate T. Harlaown, Nanoha’s adversary-turned-best-buddy. It was a little weird seeing Nanoha in the skimpy bunny costume, since her sex appeal isn’t typically played up, at least when it comes to figures. However, Fate looks right in her bunnysuit, which is actually not much less modest than what she normally wears to a fight. They look great together, though, and while Fate and Nanoha are meant to be a matched pair (or threesome, if you count Hayate), Fate offers a number of contrasts to her partner that make this figure even more appealing.
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There are scads and oodles of swimsuit figures out there, so let’s take a look at Shizuru Natsuru, one of the heroines from Key’s well-regarded visual novel Rewrite. Rewrite is notable for being an all-ages game, unlike many of their earlier visual novels. However, that isn’t stopping figure maker BEAT from interposing their own bit of raunchiness on Shizuru, as one can easily see.
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While I enjoy taking pictures of the figures that I buy, I’m a collector like everyone else in this hobby, and one of the things that I enjoy doing is finding stuff featuring characters that I like, particularly if it is created by artists whose work I admire. To that end, I’ve been searching for the right Fate pillowcase for a while. At first, it doesn’t seem like it should be that difficult an endeavor; Fate is, of course, one of the most popular anime characters out there, and she can be seen on a number of dakimakura covers. For me, though, the right Fate pillowcase depicts her in her adult form, which rules out a number of pillowcases from the start, and it also depicts her in her Shin Sonic uniform – you’d think that wouldn’t be an obstacle, but for some reason, it’s not a popular look for her, at least on dakimakura covers. I thought that the HOP-produced pillowcase by Briest would be the one, but some nasty and unexpected mosaic censoring drops it in my esteem. A few months ago, this one popped up on Evening Call’s website. Is it the right one?
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Since I have a self-mandated quota of six posts per month to reach, it’s time to look at some of the stuff due for release later this year (that also means that there will be a pillowcase review tomorrow). Although we haven’t even gotten past January, manufacturers are already unveiling their summer release schedules. It seems like a bit of a slow year thus far, but with Wonder Festival just a couple of weeks away, we’ll certainly be seeing a lot more good stuff. For now, let’s take a look at a few figures that are already available to order.
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The schoolgirl-with-weapons theme is a very popular one, so much so that it’s made its way into Hollywood films like Kill Bill and Sucker Punch. Still, it is a quintessential theme associated with pop Japanese culture, particularly anime and video games, and as such one of the most common weapons for such a schoolgirl is a traditional Japanese sword. It’s odd, then, that looking at my collection, I see I’ve only got a couple of figures of schoolgirls with swords. This one here is one of them.
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