As everybody knows Amiami is now accepting orders from international customers. I order most of my stuff from Hobby Search and HLJ, and seeing as how Amiami’s prices are quite a bit lower than either of those two stores, I was curious as to how good they are. I planned to order MegaHouse’s Aldra since she was on sale, but seeing as how they had one Kotonoha figure left, I tossed her in the shopping cart as well.
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Fashionably late, as virtually all Alter releases are, Yagyu Jubei is the latest release from what is perhaps the premier manufacturer of scale figures. She comes from the property Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Girls, and I’m not entirely certain what that’s supposed to be; the website lists a few upcoming books, but I’m guessing it’s mainly a franchise built to peddle character goods. The original character designs appear to be done by NiΘ, who has also done character designs for Nitro+ H-games like Demonbane and Zoku: Satsuriku no Jango, both of which have also gotten the figure treatment from Alter.
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This figure came out a couple of months ago, but I ordered her from an American retailer (Otaku Fuel, if anybody is curious) so I received her only a few days ago. I also got a second Kotone Ousaka, which was a bit surprising. To my knowledge, Kotone was sold exclusively on Native’s website in Japan, but she’s gotten a regular release among retailers here in the States. I wonder why that is?
Anyway, I wrote Kotone’s review weeks ago so enough about her, let’s take a look at Nana here.
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Once when I was a kid living in Seoul, my uncle took my brother and I to a comic book shop near downtown, just a bit west of Gate 1 to Yongsan base. I doubt it’s still there, and I have no idea how my uncle even knew about this shop in that pre-Google Maps era. I was bewildered that such a shop even existed; I didn’t think that Koreans had much interest in American comics (despite being ethnically half-Korean myself, I’ve always identified with being American and I had no interest in Korean culture at that time). I remember the store had a barter system, and my brother traded off some of his books for new ones. I had no comic books of my own so I asked my uncle to buy the comics I wanted for me. One of the books I got was Uncanny X-Men #218, which had some of the female X-Men battling the Juggernaut. I didn’t know much about the X-Men, but one character in particular caught my eye – she wore a tight black bodysuit and a loose green tank top and had an awesome 80s haircut with a white skunk stripe through it. In the issue, she threw a punch at the Juggernaut, took one in return that launched her into orbit, and then she came back for more. It was a great book, and Rogue became one of my first childhood cartoon character crushes.
What? Stop looking at me like that. I know you had cartoon character crushes when you were a kid, too.
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I hadn’t planned on buying Sheryl Nome, but after seeing early reviews of her, I decided that she passed the eyeball test and that I should acquire her. To my consternation, she was sold out everywhere I looked. HLJ and Hobby Search briefly restocked her the day that she was released; she sold out hours later literally as I was removing my credit card from my wallet (one would think that I’d have my number memorized by now). As I resigned myself to the reality that she wouldn’t be entering my inventory, I took a look at BeNippon, a retailer that I hadn’t ordered from before, much less heard of. Hope was rekindled as they listed her as in stock with one unit left, and I quickly paid up and now she’s here.
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Alter’s Narika is a figure that I’ve been anticipating since she was announced. I really like Alicesoft’s character designs and given Alter’s history of producing superb figures, I had high expectations for Narika. As usual, Alter does not disappoint, as they’ve made another amazing figure.
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Up to this point I’ve passed over the figures from Queen’s Blade, but when I saw the promo pictures for Mirim, I knew she was going on my buy list. With a profession given as “Ultra-Vibration Valkyrie,” how could I resist her? Add in a cute outfit and a chainsaw sword and I was sold.
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I hadn’t planned on getting any more of Good Smile Company’s Muv-Luv figures after Meiya Mitsurugi, but I can’t deny that Sumika really is cute. Furthermore, my Rogue preorder at BBTS was scheduled to ship at the end of August, and as fate would have it, that same store had Sumika on sale for a relatively cheap price. How could I not take advantage of such a serendipitous occurrence? It is like the planets have aligned, the cards have turned up just so, fates have intersected at a confluence of capitalism and happiness. It was meant to be, and so I tossed her in my shopping cart, added her to my order with Rogue, and now she is here.
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With no figures in the mail, I turn to my existing collection for photography practice. Let’s take a look at Nadie, one of the heroines of El Cazador de la Bruja. Nadie is a fairly old figure and she’s been on my shelf for a while; I had to clean some spiderwebs off of her before I took pictures. Yucko.
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Now this is a figure that I never thought I would own. The dark elf female was originally produced back in 2007 and sold in limited quantities in Japan. Those on this side of the pond had to contrive alternate means to acquire her, which usually entails exorbitant expenses. As my means were quite limited back then, I had to pass on her, much to my chagrin. My regret was compounded by the reality that in this hobby, if you miss out, you seldom get a second chance.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that she would be sold this summer not by Japanese retailers like Hobby Search or HLJ, but by Entertainment Earth and Big Bad Toy Store, each an American toy retailer that principally offers American products. I got my preorder in with the quickness and the dark elf arrived last week. There are lots of reviews of her already – this figure being two years old – but here are my thoughts.
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