Tag Archives: Kotobukiya

Asuka Langley Shikinami from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Kotobukiya White Plugsuit Version)

Asuka Langley Shikinami figure

Looking at my pile of unreviewed Asuka figures – and it’s a sizeable pile – I wondered how long it’s been since the last time I’ve written a review of one of her figures. I couldn’t imagine it’s been that long; I have so many of them. Perusing the archives, I find that the last Asuka review I’ve done was written … thirteen years ago. I’m more than a little amazed and aghast that it’s been that long but I suppose there’s no time like now to rectify that. Accordingly, we’ll take a look at this figure of Asuka, which shows her as she appeared in the final Evangelion film. After so many figures depicting her in her iconic red plugsuit, the white suit is still a little jarring to me, but it can’t be denied that she fills it out just as well.
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Mordred from Fate/Apocrypha (Saber of Red Version)

Mordred from Fate/Apocrypha

I’ve written a lot about my newfound fondness for mobile games – specifically, gacha games. Besides Epic Seven, which is my main game, I’m enjoying Counter Side, though I know little about its game mechanics – a rather liberating circumstance, in actuality – and I gave Genshin Impact a try, though I’m not sure it’s the game for me. I still play Azur Lane every now and then, and there’s a few newer games – like Girl Cafe Gun and Nier: Reincarnation – and a few older games – like Arknights and Langrisser – that I’m curious about. However, there’s one gacha game that I have zero interest in playing and that’s Fate/Grand Order. From what I can tell, it’s not a newbie-friendly game. Nor is it a particularly modern game, and I’ve heard its gameplay systems are not one of its strengths (that said, I did enjoy the old PSP RPG Fate/Extra, a game whose combat was basically a randomized rock-paper-scissors system). On top of that, its summoning system lacks a pity mechanic, and I’ve heard of unfortunate players who’ve sunk over a thousand dollars chasing a particular character and came away with nothing. It’s difficult not to think that those funds would be better spent elsewhere – on Fate figures, doujinshi, and dakimakura covers, for example.

While I have no emotional connection to the Fate franchise aside from a residual curiosity as to whether I might actually like some of its series (this has not yet been the case with the anime adaptations that I’ve watched), I do very much like the character designs. That brings us to this figure; this is Mordred, the son of King Arthur, or Artoria or Altria as she is known in the Fate universe. I’m not entirely familiar with how gender works in the franchise – I assume it has something to do with servants not being human – but that’s not what we’re here for, anyway.
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Cammy from Street Fighter Alpha (Bishoujo Alpha Costume Version)

Cammy from Street Fighter Alpha

Today we’ll take a look at another leotard-wearing girl with an appearance in a fighting game – Cammy, quite possibly the reigning queen of them all. This figure is not new, having been released in March of 2018, but it’s a relatively recent pickup for me; I bought it during Kotobukiyua’s Memorial Day sale last year, partly due to a a moment of lockdown-induced ennui, but also because I’m a big fan of Cammy. I own a bunch of her figures, including her previous Bishoujo figure. I also have PCS’s Shadaloo Cammy and I’m expecting to receive PCS’s super-sized 1/3 scale Cammy soon. I don’t expect to review either statue, since they’re way too big for me to comfortably photograph and I don’t think there’s much interest here for statues meant for Western audiences; therefore, we’ll have to be content with looking at this figure.
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Scarlett from G.I. Joe (Bishoujo Version)

Scarlett from G.I. Joe

Unsurprisingly, virtually all of my preorders from the last two months have been delayed, and so I’ve only received one figure order in that time (a virtual cookie goes to whoever guesses which figure that might be). Therefore, we’ll take a look at Kotobukiya’s Scarlett, which came out last summer. I actually took these pictures shortly after receiving it, as this was a figure that I had been excited about since I saw Shunya Yamashita’s concept art the year prior. Growing up, G.I. Joe was one of my favorite cartoons – no surprise, as I spent much of my childhood on an Army base – and Scarlett was my favorite character. To say that I was eagerly anticipating this figure would be an understatement.
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Velvet Crowe from Tales of Berseria

Velvet Crowe from Tales of Berseria

Despite being a longtime fan of JRPGs, I didn’t play a Tales game until Tales of Vesperia was released on the Xbox 360. I enjoyed it a great deal, and I was happy that its later release on the PlayStation coincided with a plethora of figures from Alter. That satisfaction subsequently evaporated when they never released a figure of Judith, undeniably the best character in the game. Nonetheless, I’ve since bought a few of their figures, including Milla Maxwell, who looks very nice, and Alicia, whose low-key role in Tales of Zestiria kindled its own form of discontent. I’ve also obviously bought this figure, which is from Kotobukiya, curiously, rather than Alter.
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Fuyuka Yukishiro from Sword & Wizards: The Emperor of Sword & Seven Lady Knights

Fuyuka Yukishiro from Sword & Wizards

Having no idea what Sword & Wizards: The Emperor of Sword & Seven Lady Knights might be, I naturally turned to Google and was discouraged to learn that it’s a series featuring a male student at a wizard school who is markedly weaker than his female classmates in magical talent but compensates for this deficiency with his expertise in some other important ability. Utterly groundbreaking; I can’t imagine that we’ve encountered this premise before. Sarcasm aside, the covers, at least, show quite a bit of ass, which would be promising if not for the fact that it’s a text-heavy light novel series instead of an anime or a manga. Perhaps an adaptation will be forthcoming. But in the meantime, we can admire one particular character – Fuyuka, whose backside we’re looking at here.
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Innocent Fairy Freesia from Tony’s Heroine Collection

Freesia from Tony's Heroine Collection

The third panty fairy in Kotobukiya’s lineup is Freesia. She is evidently the youngest of the trio and thus it is appropriate that she was the last to be released – just a couple of months ago, in fact, so this review isn’t too late. Certainly not as late as Annabel’s, anyway.
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Fairy Garden Annabel from Tony’s Heroine Collection

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A few years back, Kotobukiya released Daisy, which became one of my favorite figures. Since then, they’ve released two more panty-clad fairy girl figures, also derived from Tony Taka artwork. They are generally referred to as sisters, though they don’t actually look much alike; Freesia, the shorter, younger-looking sister was released just over a month ago, while Annabel, the tallest of the trio, was released last year. We’ll look at Freesia shortly but today, it’s Annabel’s turn.
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Sumika Kagami from Muv-Luv Alternative (Kotobukiya Version)

Sumika Kagami from Muv-Luv Alternative

For the first review of the year we’ll be going back eleven months with this figure of Sumika Kagami, one of the central heroines of the popular eroge Muv-Luv Alternative. She’s the third figure from this series to be produced by Kotobukiya, following lead girl Meiya Mitsurugi and a peculiar figure of Kasumi Yashiro in a skimpy bunnysuit. It’s possible that Sumika will be the last figure that Kotobukiya produces from the core science-fiction series, as it looks like they’ve moved on to the Carnelian-illustrated spinoff Schwarzesmarken, though who knows; they’re still producing model kits of the mecha from the game, so perhaps they’ll revisit Alternative someday. If not, at least Sumika is quite a nice figure to end the mainline run with.
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Cammy from Street Fighter (Bishoujo Version)

Cammy from Street Fighter

People who’ve visited this site before may know that I’m a big fan of fighting game girls. There are less of them that I’d like, particularly of the characters from Street Fighter. Like many gamers, Street Fighter II was my introduction to fighting games, and though I did not play as Cammy very often, I appreciate her design, particularly in all its immodesty. Therefore, when Kotobukiya rolled out this figure of Cammy, it was a no-brainer to buy it, no? Well, not quite, which is a little odd, because their Bishoujo series synthesizes Shunya Yamashita’s artwork, characters and series popular amongst international audiences (including characters from Star Wars and DC and Marvel comics), and low prices. Should be a no-brainer, but I had to think a bit before buying Cammy, and while I’m happy with this figure in the end, it’s an equivocal level of happiness.
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