KOS-MOS!!!  Yeah, I got her.  Yeah, she was insanely expensive.  But hot damn, this is how 1/4 should be done :P

Just to a bit of warning, this post is gonna end up at over 40 pics ^^;;; But hey, she’s worth it :P

Hell, I have 4 pictures of the box ^^;  It’s been awhile since I’ve taken a picture of the cardboard box my figures get shipped in, but this was a special exception ^^; And if you were wondering how big her box was, well, there are the dimensions right there.  The inner box was only maybe 1 inch smaller in all dimensions.

Simply massive box, and like the other polystone figure I’ve gotten, no windows or anything.  Just nice and simple.

Love all the little labels they put on the box ^^

I didn’t take any pics of the packing material… but it was basically just a double decker styrofoam sandwich.  Head, base, and some miscellany on the top deck, and her body and sword and rest on the bottom.  After some assembly with the nicely diagrammed instructions…

Took a lot of photos zoomed quite a bit out to give you a sense of her presence with that massive blade.  Man, it’s impressive.

Very simple, yet effective pose, though best enjoyed from the front ^^;

To give you a sense of the massive scale we’re talking about here…

That’s good ‘ol 1/8 KOS-MOS by Alter.  Looks like she gets up a little past 1/4 KOS-MOS’ knee. ^^;

Trying to fit her in the frame was quite the challenge.

Really beautiful details from head to toe, love the stockings she’s wearing ^^

The laces on the boots could’ve been a little more detailed but hell you probably won’t be viewing her from behind anyway.

Because of her scale, all the text on her outfit comes out nice and (mostly) sharp, a very nice touch.

These gold… bronze? colored side pieces above were actually among the pieces that needed to be glued on.

and man her outfit is short.  Don’t know why i didn’t notice that before ^^;

And that flap of her outfit just barely keeping her modest ^^;;  After seeing that I had to do a little investigative work…

So this hand held, overexposed pic is proof that somehow, yes, she is wearing pantsu. Just being thorough.  ^^;;;

Did KOS-MOS have this outfit in the first two games?  I must admit I never got around to the third ^^;;;;  Yes it’s pretty blasphemous considering I acquired this figure but the game was never my favorite.  KOS-MOS transcended that though :P (Xenogears, on the other hand, was pure win.)

Not to dump all my closeups at ya in a row, let’s step back a sec, shall we?

Quite a different shoot having her fill frame with the blade cropped off with my 50mm backed up against the wall ^^;

Just love how obscenely massive she is with that blade.  Very impressive, impossible to fit in any shelving I have thou ^^;

The pieces over her oppai are actually attached by magnets (actually, same story with her arms), which means you could display the twins if you’d like…

…but unfortunately that means you have some weird white boob caps on display.

Wonder if it was a licensing thing that prevented them from giving her normal oppai…

Base is more than a solid disk, yet still nice and simple, which I like.  No need to draw your attention away from  her awesome beauty.  Unfortunately I think a little more detail would’ve been appreciated on her feet and ankle dagger thing.

Still with me?  ^^;

You’ll see some of the logos/text on her is this weird splotchy ink, but that’s only at macro distance.  Looks normal to mere human eyes.

Mmmm just love the chains on her hair.  And nice colors here ^^

Haven’t done any high angle shots in a while have I?  Maybe I have.  Thought it was moderately interesting given her insane blade :P

Another look at her hair and those chains~

And rather than try to fit that entire blade in one frame, here’s the bottom half ^^;

I hope I fit the pin in all the way… ^^;;;  Would be pretty terrible to have that massive thing falling all over my surrounding figures ^^;;

Ufufu dark and mysterious kos-mos!!  errr…  well, i tried ^^;;;

Just look at innocent face :3  mmmmm

Loooove the blue eyes.  Gorgeous.

…unlike this close up photo of her head thingy.  Ah well.  ^^;; No it doesn’t look that dingy in person ^^;

Mmmm just look at her :3

Lots of these angles are really similar… but hey, it’s 1/4 KOS-MOS.  Bear with me :P

Seeing that her blade was somewhat transparent, tried lighting it up a bit…

Turned out ok I guess.  Unfortunately some of that hard light was making some harsh highlights on her outfit.

And again, for any first time readers… all these pics are 1920×1280, so click away if you’d like to oogle in high resolution.

Feel like I should update my banner with something kos-mos :3

Just love that face ^^

With size such a noticeable attribute of this figure, wouldn’t be a meronpan review without some size comparisons, now would it?  Pictured above we have nendoroid petite tsukasa, nendoroid reimu, 1/8 alter kos-mos ver. 4, 1/7 alter vivio, and 1/6 alter swimsuit kos-mos… And even 1/6 barely gets up to 1/4 KOS-MOS’ stomach ^^;;

So there she is!  Yet another reason why I’ve been cutting my acquisitions back this year ^^;

Used the splendid Tokyo Hunter for this transaction, always a great option if you’re looking for rare or limited figures.  Heck it looks like he’s even taking orders for the touhou DDs.

If this looked a bit familiar, perhaps it’s the previous Volks gk you’re thinking of… E2046 did a recast and both wolfheinrich and tier have some lovely pics up of that version.

The end all figure for KOS-MOS fans!  woohoo!

以上！

Woulda loved for this to be a review of Alter’s release, but alas gonna  have to wait a bit longer for that.  Nope, today is Volks’ take on feito-chan’s shin-sonic form.  She’s 1/7, ~8000 yen, and not bad!

Been kinda wary of Volks after getting their trio of the mugen no frontier gals. Got fate ‘cuz I liked the pose and one can’t have too many zamber form bardiches :P

Thought I’d give white a try to help her black outfit stand out.  Unfortunately I don’t really have the right light setup for that at the moment.  Ends up causing some vignette like issues.

I forget where I read it but whoever had issues with a loose left hand isn’t alone.

Once in place it’s resting on the blade so it’s fine, but when moving, beware of losing parts.

For some reason I’m partial to these mouth open yelling faces ^^;

The finish on Volks’ stuff always feels quite a bit rougher compared to Alter… but luckily fate’s outfit is fairly simple so it turned out fine.

You can see my umbrella in her oppai ^^;

Other hand.  If you view the full size you can see the roughness I’m talking about.  I guess you could call it intentional to make the armor looked aged or battle worn? ^^;

beruto

Looking for interesting shots, tried framing with her hair ^^;

I forget what the technique of placing a subject deliberately off center is called, but I like attempting it.

oppai to oshiri

Switched back to black to see how they’d compare.

Also give ya a look at riot zamber & smiling face.  Oh yes, and if you were wondering, neither hand had any looseness problems in this configuration.

Base is pretty nice.  Kinda busy but I think it looks pretty good.

Though… mine came with a buncha weird circular indentations in it! >_<  you can see ‘em pretty clearly on the full size pic.  Not sure what the heck that’s all about.

raaaa

Perhaps a properly constructed light box would eliminate the umbrella oppai ^^;

You can see my troubles get enough light on the background to blow it out…

Saw a soft box going pretty cheap and will probably get some more powerful bulbs along with it…

I always like it when they sculpt the hair flowing about

Seam in her head is where it detaches so you can swap faces.  As usual, would’ve appreciated a bit more detail in her hair here.

With some editing I was able to blow out the background in some pics ^^

Together with her alter og version

Could’ve sworn I saw a buncha people getting this one but couldn’t find any reviews up save YzGuy9394‘s figure.fm post and a brief mention in a lewt post by wolf. Lemme know if you’ve got one.

Update!  Check out Yuki-To’s figure.fm post for some lovely outdoor pics!

Over half a year later… update!  shadonia, hontou ni, and tentacle armada all have reviews up ^_^

Also, fyi if you frequent figure.fm you’ve probably noticed I cross post review pics there.  Pics are the same but they’re displayed at a much higher resolution since the articles aren’t sharing horizontal real estate with columns ^^;

Not a bad release, but not jaw dropping like when I saw alter’s version in akiba ^^;  Pose is nice and it’s cool that you can swap between whichever zamber form you want.

以上！

Dunno how many random posts covering a variety of topics I’ve done, so this one has been labeled version epsilon for no reason.  Quick Japanese vocab lesson: 色々＝＝いろいろ＝＝iroiro == various.  As a na-adjective you’d say iroirona [something] to say “various [something]“.  In casual speech this is often contracted to 色んな＝＝いろんな==ironna.

Anyhow, today it’s figures, anime, and touhou again.

Preorders &  Orders

I’m sure you’ve seen the movie version nanoha & k-on’s yui go up for preorder.  I’ll give you one guess as for what that meant for my wallet :P

Pics from hobby search. Click links above for product listings.

Actually I was taken aback by nanoha’s price but that only delayed me a minute before placing my order for the both of ‘em ^^;  Guess I’ve just kinda resigned to letting Alter bleed me dry…

From the already ordered department – not one, or two but three figures are actually in the mail now.  narika & kanu i may have mentioned before but volks fate I had totally forgotten about ^^;  Now actually I’m a bit worried about fate… mostly after seeing these pics of volks’ hayate release.

narika/kanu pics from hobby search and fate from official site. see above links for source

Granted… rein is really tiny so I’m willing to overlook the hack job there… but still it just felt like i was noticing sloppy painting on hayate in a few too many places. (also a dedicated hayate review on that blog).  Guess we’ll see how fate turned out next week…

I’ve been trying to be (slightly) more financially responsible lately, so I consolidate my shipments from hobby search now.  This ends up translating to 1 or 2 shipments a month, unlike the insane flurry of packages I used to indulge in.  So if you’re wondering why I’ve lightened up my figure posts of late, that’s partly why (the other part being touhou (could you tell? :P)).  Oh, and the months I get 2 packages… that’s because of the not-really-ideal system at hobby search where you can only combine orders if they have the same release month.  So when something is released at the very end of the month… it usually gets bumped off the original month’s shipment and made separate -_-

かなめも ~ kanamemo

I forget if I’ve actually done a formal post on it yet, but kanamemo is a manga I picked up (#27) last time I was in akiba.  Soooo many piles of it at practically every store I walked into so I had to get volume 1 to try it out.  If you haven’t tried it out yet, it’s, as far as I can tell, an all-female-cast slice of life taking place in a little newspaper delivery company.

yuri, loli, oppai… you’ll probably find a character to your liking in the varied cast. Not to mention a buncha of big name seiyuu!  Well, not big name necessarily, but seiyuu for a lotta characters I’m familiar with ^^

toyosaki aki – yui, koyoi, yoshino
mizuhara kaoru – isayama yomi
endou aya – miyuki, sheryl
horie yui – naru, ayu, makie, eri, suzu, minorin
kitamura eri – kokonoe rin, kawashima ami, sakihata rimi
kugimiya rie – shana, louise, nagi, taiga, tacos(yuuki)

Maybe I just haven’t read far enough but one difference I noticed is that the anime added a heavy dose of loli groping.  (one of the oppai gals is, for all intents and purposes, a drunk lolicon).  Really could have done without it in my opinion… I like to enjoy my slice of life comedies without feeling morally corrupt ^^;;

At any rate, it’s a pretty lite comedy so far with kawaii characters so it fits my bill for “light hearted show I don’t have to give my undivided attention to”.

東方紅魔郷 ~ eosd

Finally a 1cc on normal with the default 3 lives!!!  Not sure I actually got any better… just bombed more conservatively ^^;  On the other hand, I did set a personal score record with this run – 100,457,380 – somehow placing me at number 4 on the normal reimuB scoreboards at shrinemaiden.org.  I assume that’s just for lack of players posting there/lack of interest in doing a high score attempt on normal difficulty.

Uploaded my replay to gensokyo.org in case you’re interested (need the game to view it).  I’ll probably capture a video for  youtube later.

Finally figured out an easy way to get past those 6 faeries right before stage 6 sakuya that spray the radiating circles of bullets.  I think their aim is adjusted based on your character position, so if you position yourself in the same place every time (before they come on screen!), the pattern is exactly the same.  Given that… stay in the lower left corner before they appear on screen… then all you have to do is move slightly to the right to dodge everything.  Basically move right until you’re just to the left of the bullets that are aimed straight down (the 3 from the 3 circles above you should pretty much all line up).  Not conducive to high scoring since you’re not picking up all the point items, but perfect if you’re just trying to save lives & bombs (like me ^^;).  Though do be on the look out for a stray faerie retreating off screen.  Might be headin’ right for ya :P

Anyhow, with this accomplishment under my belt I think I’m going to focus on the eosd extra stage and a 1cc for normal 東方妖々夢 (pcb).  Is it just me or are all the game terms like cherry points and cherry max… … … nevermind. ^^;;;

Praying that my package gets out of customs tomorrow (well, technically today, just past midnight here…) so that I can pick it up on Saturday… otherwise I won’t be able to do any reviews until probably mid next week.  Not to mention I’m itching for another figure infusion :P

以上！

And that’s not to say I don’t like her ^^;

Aschen! Another character from 無限のフロンティア スーパーロボット大戦OGサーガ (Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier)… some sort of android assistant to the male lead, Haken.

Aschen’s got a split personality… alternating from serious and reserved to playful and cheerful.

Her pose is taken from one of her signature moves… a sort of awkward reverse kick ^^;

She seems kind of precariously balanced… hope Volks figures are lean resistant ^^;

Hard to tell with her arms crossed but she’s pretty well endowed :P

Mmmm so we’ll adjust the angle a bit…

boin~

There’s something about Volks’ PVC offerings that feel sort of… chunky?  I don’t really know how to describe it.

So far the two I have seem pretty well executed overall but for me they lack the Alter touch ^^;

And the hair has quite a shiny finish that may turn some off… for me it somehow kinda of matches the finish of the rest of the figure… still undecided if I like it thou ^^;

As you can see, the details seem a bit rough…

The odd base shape is due to the fact that it’s meant to be combined with kaguya & suzuka’s for a complete display.

I’m still partial to the black backgrounds, but I’ll be switching it up from time to time.

If you’re a fan of the game and are looking for figures, I’m not sure you have too many other options ^^;  And to make things worse, it isn’t exactly easy to get a hold of Volks stuff.  If you are interested in Volks stuff at all I can recommend Tokyo Hunter and Goody Japan to take care of your order.  There’s also Tenso, featured in one of danny’s previous contests, but unfortunately I haven’t completed my order with them yet (was a preorder).

I ordered Aschen through Goody Japan and it ended up being on the pricey side…

Subtotal amount :        7,875 yen
Domestic shipping :       840 yen
Our commission  :       1,181 yen
Bank transfer fee  :          300 yen
————————————-
Total amount         :     10,196 yen

Then had to pay for shipping from Japan to the US ^^;;;  Curse you Volks!  Basically added +25% to the price to use an ordering service orz.　　In retrospect, a bit over the top in terms of price, but now that I have all three… I do like having the set ^^;;  Not bad, but probably only for the most dedicated fans of the game.

For pics of the complete set… look forward to a Suzuka review in the next day or so ^^

Update: Forgot to link Tentacle Armada for another review!

以上！

Above you can see I tried out the fabric background again, curious if the new lights would help in that endeavor.  I guess it did, however my lack of ironing again rears its ugly head.

Maybe I’m just getting lazy with the black bg since in that case the lack of light just helps me ^^;

Simple increasing exposure time has a limit before things start getting washed out…

Ah well.  Need to experiment more including trying posterboard again…

Metatron review will actually be my next I think…

Followed by lulu…

Then… probably horo?

And finally aschen.

Again apologize for my lack of comments outside this blog.  My current priorities are posting, responding to comments here, then commenting on to 50+ blogs I subscribe to.  Unfortunately I’ve been having trouble allocating time for the last part orz.  To deal with my insurmountable reading backlog I think I’m gonna try a new system… sorting by most recent post and then just working my way back in time.  (currently I generally go through blogs one by one and catch up on all the posts I’ve missed before moving to the next one)

以上！

The DS game 無限のフロンティア スーパーロボット大戦OGサーガ (mugen no furontia su-pa- robotto taisen OG sa-ga {Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier} boasts a number of busty babes — Nanbu Kaguya is one that happens to be added to your party early on.  She wields the 護式・斬冠刀 (goshiki zankantou) and has one of the most useful spells (a full party heal ^^).

Saw previews for the game in Akiba last year and loved the character designs so much (not to mention KOS-MOS being a party member ^^) I snatched it up through Play-Asia as soon as it was available for order.  Somehow I’m still not finished with the game yet thou ^^;  At any rate, back to Kaguya~

As previously mentioned, my first Volks figure.  Pretty happy with the quality and looking forward to having the full set.

Got some tracing paper finally and made an uber ghetto diffuser as many tutorials/blogs (happy soda, wcloudx to name a couple) have recommended.  Here’s a single halogen light source, unfiltered…

You can definitely see the effects of the hard light on her right arm where it’s all plastic looking, so add awesome diffuser…

Well so perhaps this isn’t the best example… everything’s just a little darker since I didn’t adjust the aperture or shutter speed.  But you can see at least on her right arm the skin isn’t so shiny and such.

Add in overhead light and reflector…

Woo!  Much better.  I think it was the Japanese wiki that mentioned that her outfit is so tight it shows her navel…

You can see they stuck true to the character design ^^;

Another thing I previously mentioned was the cast-off, but unsightly hole…

-_- I wasn’t going to display her cast off but that terrible hole eliminates the possibility entirely.  Terrible!  I didn’t see any sort of peg or anything to fill the hole in although I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to fashion one… but still.

The paint on her oppai isn’t that attractive either… not very well done imo.  Megahouse seems to do better in that department :P

Ah well, at least her top piece is easy to attach/remove.

I love her sword.  In the game, these chakram things fly out of it and slice at the enemy.

Love her black/red hair coloring.

She arrives with her sword detached, but the hand is permanently attached, so it’s just a simple joint in her sleeve where you plug her hand in.

I believe the pose is from the official art (grabbed pic below from Volks site (click pic for it), though it’s the same pic as the one @ the official flash (grrr) site):

Need a 1:1 replica of the sword… ^^

You can guess why she gets all sorts of nicknames like ‘cow princess’ in the game ^^;

Her base makes up 1/3 of the complete set which will include aschen and suzuka.

You is likes black pantsu?

Didn’t fuss around with the lighting too much, so this’ll have to do. …ecchi :P

She comes with an alternate face… but… had a bad feeling trying to mess with her head so I stuck with the one she shipped with (which I prefer anyway).

And now for some long overdue shenanigans. ^^

Though I apologize if you’re tired of figmas groping/about to group other figures :P

Kagamin is hired as a body guard. Or is it the other way around?

The masked hentai returns for a drive by!

Reinforcements arrive!

KACHI! (victoly!)

Not bad, left me with a pretty good opinion of Volks. Looking forward to Fate ^^ Though because she is from Volks, and (I assume) relatively unknown, didn’t see too much love for her on the blagosphere. As usual I’m behind in my reading though, so let me know if you have a review to link.

以上！

She’s finally here!  Kaguya!  Preview mode engaged!

My first Volks figure!  If you’re not familiar with them, they’re notorious for not being available through most online stores for those outside Japan (which I find weird, ‘cuz they have a whole english site for their dollfie stuff??).  To get around that problem I ordered her through good ‘ol Tokyo Hunter.

Decided to just take the pics against my manga shelves for old times’ sake.  Learning a bit more about focal length and background blur as I prepare to make a DSLR plunge… my latest revelation… backing up and then zooming in on a subject rather than moving the camera closer will greatly increase background blur.  I think I might’ve been told about that in the past but didn’t quite wrap my head around it at the time ^^;;  Alas, though I was getting the background blur I wanted my lighting was still killing me… too hard and shots are overexposed orz.

Seems that the game Kaguya’s from (無限のフロンティア スーパーロボット大戦OGサーガ, Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier) is getting ported, so those averse to importing will get a chance to experience the oppai insanity.

Volks is also releasing Aschen (split personality robot babe) & Suzuka (unagi princess hehehe)… the bases will connect to form a single circular base (pictured half way down this post).

Read at tsukiboard that she was cast-off and to my surprise, yes, she is!

Her skin’s kind of pale, the oppai paint work wasn’t that great, and there’s a hole from where her outfit attaches so it’s not very well done… well, I’ll have full coverage of that in my full review later ^^;  Yokopai will have to do for now :P

Moving on, Kaorin (hmm doesn’t seem to be the type that would let anyone call her that ^^;;) arrived right before I left for Tokyo… but was so busy preparing I didn’t even have time for a preview.

ELTboy has his review up, mine is still a bit aways away ^^;;  Want to cover KOS-MOS, Teana, and Kaguya first ^^;

As far as my Kotobukiya expectations go, she falls on the slightly better than average side of things.  Still has a way to go before I’ll consider them as top tier material.

Kaorin’s character design definitely swayed me into a purchase, but no regrets ^^

That’s all for today, kitaishite ne~

以上！