It’s a mini review ‘cuz well… maybe it was the mediocrity of the figure or that I was tired or something but just wasn’t getting the usual motivation.

A slightly older release (…July of last year?) by Shueisha.  At the time I was focused on getting her and lala in their seifuku for a matching set.  Probably would’ve passed if it weren’t for set completion sickness.

She’s not terrible or anything, but for me she’s not really anything special either.

A kind of blank look on her face along with a sort of timid pose… details are ok I guess, but you can see how her hair isn’t particularly thrilling.  Kind of thick bangs there…  I do like her eyes though.

I think my favorite part of the figure is the skirt.

Hair seam, seams where her arms connect…usually that sort of stuff doesn’t bother me too much.  But when there’s not too much else to grab my attention, that’s when I get nitpicky ^^;

White pantsu…

I guess at least she wasn’t too pricey.  And from some angles she seems to look better… kinda like the below shot mebbe…?

Unfortunately, as you may already be aware… there’s the base issue.

Ugh the base.  It’s huuuuuge!  For dainty little sairenji!  It looks comical being so big.  orz

Ah well.  So as not to end on a sour note, here’s a group shot of my seifuku figures:

There’s at least one missing… can you guess who?  Sorry no prize :P

Lovelyduckie covered her back in september, also lamenting the huge base.

Haven’t seen any other haruna releases that blew me away so at least I’ve completed my set as best I could for the time being.

In summary, a pretty mediocre release for my tastes, especially when you take a look at that base.

以上！

mmm sorry if the pantsu shot caught ya off guard :P  The out of character pic is from gelbooru. (out of character because she looks shy/embarrassed, not because she’s showing her pantsu :P)

If you’re unfamiliar with ToLoveる, Lala is introduced in the first chapter/epsiode when she teleports nekkid into Rito’s (the male lead) bathtub.  With him in it, of course.  aaand that pretty much sets the stage for the rest of the series.

Lala arrived early last December so… wow, almost half a year late with this one ^^;

When I was ordering I was mostly a sairenji fan, so I wanted the Megahouse version to match (seifuku).

Still stand by that decision, but GSC’s version is still very tempting.

Alpha Omega means Alter + Megahouse == good stuff, and I wasn’t disappointed.

As usual the close up shots reveal my imperfect dusting job.

Well, actually it looks okay above I guess.  But in the other pics with different lighting, it was terrible ^^;

No peeping :P

Lala no oppai.

Base is boring as usual, but I can hardly expect anything better nowadays ^^;  Either it’s drop dead gorgeous, plain, or retarded like haruna’s ^^;

At first, rooting for rito and sairenji I wasn’t such a fan of lala getting in the way…

Definitely grew on me over the last few volumes though.

Was satisfied with how the pics turned out this time.  Perhaps could’ve used a bit more light and definitely needed a diffuser for my secondary light, but if you can ignore that… ^^;;  Taking Blowfish‘s advice to take ron~‘s advice to take lu-k‘s advice on achieving black backgrounds, I increased the distance of the figure to background by a lot.

Pink pantsu

I would say I’ve never been a fan of the lumpy kinda hair… reminds me of the recent Alter Louise release.  From the front it looks fine, but from the top/behind it leaves a bit to be desired.

Made a wallpaper… though I have a feeling I’m prolly the only one who  uses ‘em :P  Think this is my favorite pic of the bunch.

From our recent wallpaper discussion looks like most of y’all don’t appreciate text, but I figure I gotta brand my stuff sometimes :P Plus it’s in the corner and easily removed with your favorite editor.

We’ll finish up with an obligatory group shot.

Verdict?  A solid Alpha Omega release.  Can’t go wrong if you’re a fan of the character.  If not… I still think she’s pretty good, but not terribly exciting or jaw dropping.  After all she’s just posing in seifuku like countless other anime characters ^^;

James had a much more timely review… I’m sure he’s not the only other to do so.  Let me know if I overlooked yours ^^ oo and looks like James also added a review of the shueisha lala & sairenji xmas outfit releases just now ^^

以上！

Update: Forgot to mention!  blaaaa had a problem with her support foot!  One of the two pegs in her foot snapped… noticed when it wasn’t completely flush.   orz  She was still standing, but because of the break, leaning back ever so slightly and her foot came off the base a little.  Decided to super glue it down to avoid further damage caused by the imbalance.  Disappointed to have to deal with that sort of problem in a recent release… I wonder if manufacturers forgot to consider the base when taking anti-leaning precautions… ;_;

Wish I had more background choices… but in the meantime I guess it simplifies things when I’m trying to decide how to shoot ^^;  Woulda been really hard to see anything on black, so white was a no brainer (well, barring any sort of stylistic shoot ^^;)

For once there’s actually something intersting about the packaging pics.

Can you spot it?

Or rather… what’s missing?  orz

No blade arm!  Gaaaaaaaaack.  Currently awaiting Hobby Search to get a hold of their contact or what not to figure out what can be done.  Alas, I had fully intended to display her with that blade, but guess I have to wait ;_;

At least everything else seemed intact.

Yum.

Though… though I haven’t even gotten far enough into ToLoveる (neither anime nor manga) to see her… she was just one of those characters that demanded a purchase ^^;

Great pantsu pose :P

Just love how graceful she looks.

otto, pantsu shot again ^^;

And a nice cold expression to top things off.

Key points of the figure for me…

Speaking of pantsu…

You can see the results of bad white balance in my now blue background ^^;;  Ah well, sorry but I don’t put too much effort to perfect the low angle shots ^^;

White pantsu.  Futsuu. :P

Figure manufacturers sure are loving on the one legged poses… or maybe it’s just the figures I”m buying ^^;  I’m scared of the fast approaching summer…

Speaking of figures on one leg… discovered my lala had a broken peg in her foot ;_;  Decided to just super glue her to the base rather than risk her being unbalanced and be prone to leaning.

The alpha omega release was gonna be my only yami until my ordered was canceled on me.  Unable to find a store to order from, got this one out of desperation.

In the end I was able to get an order secured… couldn’t bring myself to cancel this one ^^;;

Mmm… everything is kind of simple… yet elegant and well executed.

Really wish I had that extra hand orz

Also absolutely love the way her hair flows around her.

Nicely adds to the dynamism of her pose ^^

Took a group shot… and totally forgot to add in sairenji ^^;;;;

I guess that shows where she ranks in my ToLoveる figure lineup ^^;  Too bad since I liked her a lot in the first couple volumes of manga I read…  But compared to other releases, she just doesn’t have as much oomph.

Great release, very solid in many aspects.  And with the blade arm she even gets that bonus appeal to peeps unfamiliar with her character by just looking badass :P (now if only I had mine orz)

Before closing out, thought I’d post a pic of my super ghetto review setup.

It’s amazing what you can do with the boxes figures are shipped in ^^;

Made up of…

1. Homemade diffuser from cardboard box and tracing paper
2. Reading lamp for overhead light
3. Halogen desk lamp for main light
4. Tons of boxes that my figures were shipped in to serve as a makeshift work surface and get my lamps to the right height, etc.
5. Some poster board for a background and reflector. (Alternately some black satin for the bg.  The satin is approximately 1mx2m and really expands the working area.  )

Now you know why my pics look as good/bad as they do ^^;  Shooting with a Canon Powershot S2 IS and a cheap $30 tripod.  I was hoping to get some full spectrum flourescent lights, but if I did I’d probably have to replace both lights else deal with white balance issues? You may have noticed in lotsa my pics that the bg isn’t quite white… I believe I need better light to fix that… or a gray bg that looks that way to begin with ^^;

Most of this is inspired by super rats lighting tutorial.

Always glad to hear any tips/suggestions anyone may have!  Also been wondering for awhile now where/how foobarbaz gets the bgs he uses… so much more interesting than just plain colors, yet not too over the top so as to distract you from the figure.

Well, that’s it!  As usual, to aid those left unsatiated by my review, here you are:

• foobarbaz – like gekisou haruhi, another rare 5 star rating!
• Exelica Meteor – can’t go wrong with James’ reviews ^^
• Animatic Figmation – haha looks like we’re on the same reviewing schedule ^^;
• Vision of Vixion – hot off the press!

以上！

Quick Japanese tidbit: This post is titled ‘mokkai’ which is I believe is slang for ‘mou ikkai’ (if not directly derived, they do happen to have the same meaning ^^;).  Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, ‘mou ichido’ (once more, again)?  ‘ichido’ and ‘ikkai’ have roughly the same meaning, ‘one time’, so yeap, ‘mou ikkai’ also means ‘once more’ or ‘one more time’.  Yotsuba-chan uses this phrase in volume 3, right before the fireworks display when Jumbo is mad Asagi wasn’t coming along.

…errr sorry ’bout that, got carried away ^^;

Word of warning about the above pic… It may be my terrible luck with figmas… but I ended up breaking one of Saber’s hands posing her with graf eisen ;_;  It fits perfectly in her hands but is so heavy, I think I wasn’t supporting it enough and *snap* orz  Luckily the break off left a easily grippable part of the joint so I was able to remove the broken piece and can still use other hands (unlike my fate).

After my Fate incident, I kinda expected things like this to keep happening to my figmas and it wasn’t too much of a downer.  You is having figma woes?  I know optic is ^^;;

Anyhow, my Japanese class final is tomorrow so I really need to get back to studying.

p.s. As you may have noticed from other reviews, the base is absurdly large! whyyyyyy ^^;;

以上！