It’s not too often when my hobbies collide, particularly when it comes to gaming and anime figures.  While there have been many figures based upon video games, they’re usually Japanese domestic titles that I have not much knowledge of.  So it was a real surprise when I saw that Kotobukiya was coming out with a figure from one of my favourite games ever, Liara T’soni from Mass Effect!  It felt like forever when this figure first announced and I mistakenly chose SAL rather than EMS for the shipment, so it took another two weeks to receive since her release.  On the bright side, it gave me some extra time to finish Mass Effect 3 and enjoy some of the multiplayer portions of the game, the downside is that I stopped taking photos for awhile so when it came to taking photos of Liara, I had a bit of a hard time getting back into the groove.

For those that haven’t played Mass Effect before (and shame on you if you haven’t), Dr. Liara T’soni is an Asari, one of the alien races in the Mass Effect universe.  She’s also one of the mainstay female characters in all three games and one of Commander Shepard’s optional love interests.  The Asari is a “female” only species with an insanely long lifespan and affinity in biotics.  I say “female” due to their feminine features, but they are mono-gender so I guess you can’t really classify them as male or female.  They are able to reproduce with any gender of other species, which makes Liara a love interest candidate for either a male or female Shepard.

Liara is first encountered by Cmdr. Shepard on Therum in Mass Effect 1, stuck in a biotic field (aka the bubble), and has been a crucial part of the trilogy’s storyline particularly in Mass Effect 2′s DLC, Lair of the Shadow Broker.  Liara expresses her interest in Cmdr. Shepard rather early on in the series but I, as a player, didn’t pick her as a love interest.  I’ve always felt Liara’s character is more like a very close friend, one that you share a special bond with.  Though there’s “best bud” Garrus, I think he’s more like a brother-in-arms than a friend that Shepard confides in (emotionally).

Kotobukiya’s figure is based on Liara’s representation in Mass Effect 3, the outfit is a blend of her scientific outfit with that of armour.  Technically, the outfit is based on what she wore in the Shadow Broker DLC but it was carried over to ME3.  I really like this tactical look that Bioware went with, it definitely suits the more combat oriented theme nearing the end of the series.  It says “I’m a scientist, but I can still kick ass” – which Liara definitely can do – she’s come a long way since Shepard first met her on Therum.  She’s much less naive.

Now, you might be wondering why the figure looks so different from the actual character, there’s a simple answer in two words: Shunya Yamashita.

Kotobukiya brings you a new art collection designed by Shunya Yamashita – a well known Japanese illustrator and game designer, famous for his beautiful female characters.  Or so it says on the side of the box.  I had a little chuckle after reading this description - maybe it’s because I am already acquainted with Yamashita’s work.  This is the first time I’ve seen Kotobukiya put a description like this on their box, I assume this is because part of the intended target for this figure also includes those say … in North America.  Let’s face it, anime, figure collecting, cosplay type stuff aren’t really all that mainstream here, though it’s gained quite a lot of popularity it’s still somewhat shunned upon.  Maybe shunned isn’t the right word to use, but versus good ol’fasion football (hockey here in Canada), beer with the guys at the bar, night out at the peelers – dressing up as a Sailor Moon character at a cosplay convention just isn’t something you’d announce to the world.  You get the picture.  And for those that clicked on that link, I’m sorry – here’s something that might help ease the pain.

For those that aren’t familiar with Yamashita, he’s known for his distinct art style, mainly the character faces – they all look the same (much like Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball characters).  As with some of my more recent reviews of Christie and Lucy, you can see that their faces are very similar to Liara’s.  I’m not that much of a fan of this style, but it is signature for sure – one look and you know it’s Yamashita’s work.  As for Kotobukiya, I would say they’re fairly well known for their anime figures and plastic models and maybe more-so recently with their Bishoujo line of figures which concentrates on DC/Marvel comic characters and video game characters.  Though the quality of their figures aren’t the best, they’re not bad and I would say they’ve improved a lot especially in recent years.  Though Alter remains my favourite figure company, I have quite a few Kotobukiya figures in my collection – I’m guessing it may be due to their price and the fact that they branch out and come out with figures that isn’t Hatsune Miku or Nanoha.  LOL  Case in point, here we have Liara from Mass Effect!  I do wonder how Bioware ended up with Kotobukiya and Yamashita rather than other companies such as Alter, GSC, Max Factory, etc.

I didn’t realize that Liara came with a DLC code for Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer – though later I saw that this was announced in Bioware’s blog/store.  I actually didn’t even notice that the Bioware store was selling this figure, though it doesn’t come as a shock.  The DLC is a Premium Collectible Pack which I think really just equals to a Veteran’s Pack with some uncommons and chance for rares.  It would’ve been nice if it came with ultra rares or even promotional N7 weapons like in the Commendation Packs, but I guess that’ll piss out some gamers out there who can’t or aren’t willing to get this figure.

Back to Liara, she comes to us in the usual PVC material scaled by Kotobukiya as 1/7 like the others in the Bishoujo line.  I don’t know why Kotobukiya keeps rating these figures as 1/7 scale when they seem more like 1/8.  From head to toe, Liara is just slightly under 22cm in height, so unless Liara is around 154cm in height, the scaling is way off.  But I digress, the topic of anime figure scaling is never ending – it’s an enigma that’ll never make sense.

Up close, you can see Liara’s facial feature has become more anime-like and the face more slender.  Her eyes and eyebrows are thinner and longer, the lips colour is dark blue rather than purple.  Also, missing on Liara’s face are her freckles - but unlike most anime figures, Liara’s nose is much more pronounced, even for the Bishoujo line.  Though if Liara looked like this in the game, I wouldn’t have mind.  =)

My Liara, unfortunately, came with a light scar just above her left eye – I guess that’s Kotobukiya for you!  Though to be fair, I only noticed it through the macro lens and from certain angles – it’s not clearly visible to the eyes.

The “hair” remains fairly true to the Asari design (and Liara), though it appears a bit too smooth. The white spots, though looking nice, is no where like the game.  I’m not really sure what to call it, and I don’t recall if the game mentions anything so I’m just going to refer to her head tentacles as “hair”.  ^_^’  For Liara (the character), the hair appears more scale-like and the white patterns run all the way to the back.  You know how zebras look white with black stripes but really are black with white stripes?  I think that’s the best way to describe Liara’s hair in this case – but on the figure, the head is represented as blue hair with white spots fading upwards.  While the game Liara does appear to have the white-ish spots appear to fade towards the back of her head, it’s not as obvious as how the figure makes it out to be.  Is this inaccurate representation a bad thing?  I honestly can’t say it is – I think it would be pretty hard to put that kind of detail on a PVC figure and to paint (even when compared to Alter’s standards).  Yamashita and Kotobukiya did a pretty good job with the representation of the head given what they had to accomplish.

When Liara’s prototype was first displayed, there was a bit of criticism from the fans that the sculpt of her breasts were too large.  Since it was based upon Yamasita’s illustration, that’s not surprising.  But concerns were taken into consideration and the production figure now comes with the size reduced – though some people now complain it was reduced too much.  LOL  As I’ve said, you just can’t please some people!  I don’t really have an opinion on the sculpt of Liara’s breasts, though I think the lost the roundness of the prototype and became more perky.  Liara always seemed to have rounder breasts rather than perky breasts in the game though.  But anyway, I think the interesting part is that the zipper of her outfit is pulled down to just below her breasts, providing the illusion that her breasts are popping out.  It also gives Liara a more relaxed look in conjunction with the expression on her face.  Maybe if she dressed like this when she asked my Shepard about his feelings towards her, his answer might’ve been different.  In the game though, you see Liara dressed more conservatively and the zipper is zipped above her breasts.

Another aspect of the figure that’s different is the size of her head.  The figure seems to have a larger forehead reminiscent of Tweety bird or Tyra Banks - I can’t recall whether this was an issue for the fans too, but personally I don’t mind.  It adds to that “alien” feel of the figure, not that the blue skin or tentacle hair isn’t obvious enough.  The size doesn’t look as emphasized in person as it does in the photos though.

A minor complaint, however, is the blue paint that Kotobukiya used – it looks thick and slightly rough.  As if the painter or machine isn’t used to painting blue skin colour and didn’t know how much paint to apply.  It definitely doesn’t look as smooth as some of the more recent Kotobukiya anime figures (like from the Shining series).  The blue also has a slight glimmer to it, like they added some silver into the paint which makes her head fairly reflective if you shine a light directly at her.  Her head becomes almost metallic-like, maybe it’s armour plated too like her gloves and boots? 

A lot of times, figure sculptors are faced with the difficult task of making a 3D rendition of a 2D illustration, particularly when the illustration lack artwork of additional angles.  Though Yamashita’s illustration only shows the front, there are numerous images of Liara in all angles, as well as Bioware’s concept arts.  If that wasn’t enough, play the game – there’s a 360° model of Liara right there!  So there’s really no excuse for a bad sculpt for Liara and luckily there really isn’t.  The sculptor for Liara is Busujima Takamaki, who also sculpted Asuka (of Tekken Tag Tournament 2) for Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line, but that figure looks awful – the prototype looks like a cheap bootleg.  That said, I’m not sure how much involvement Bioware had in terms of this figure’s development, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a few say in it, especially when they’re selling this in the Bioware store as well.  Plus the fact the sculpt was changed to accommodate feedback from the fans, that’s not a very common occurrence in anime figures.

There’s not much to go on about the back of Liara’s outfit, it is undoubtedly familiar to the players (not that the rest of the figure isn’t).  Typically, this is the part where I compliment the illustrator, character designer or the sculptor – but since this is based on Bioware’s design and something we’ve seen in the game, I guess all I can say is kudos to Bioware’s design team!  Because there’s not much to say about the design, I’ll just talk about Kotobukiya’s work on the figure.  For the most part, the paint work is clean and within the lines, not perfect, but typical of current Kotobukiya standards.  The white is solid and lacks shading - dependant on lighting to cast shadows and creases in the outfit.  The white paint appears a little thick as well, as if it needed a couple of coats to cover the base colour (the typical gray from the mold).

There is a very slight sparkle effect in the white paint (like the face), if you look really closely, you can see the slight metallic feel to the white.

One thing I never really noticed about Liara’s outfit is her leg armour and the way it’s strapped around her legs.  It looks cool and sturdy – but if it was real life, it must be annoying as hell.  Ever wear a drop leg holster before?  It’s quite similar to what Liara’s wearing here - after moving around for awhile, it tends to get lose and slide around which makes it annoying and cumbersome, especially when you don’t have time to re-adjust or tighten.  Liara is usually part of my squad in Mass Effect, and we do a lot of running around…

One of the things I like about this figure is Liara’s boots and the way her bodysuit wrinkles behind her knees.  The boots have a really cold metallic look about them, almost makes me think they might feel cool if I touch them.  The amount of wrinkles behind Liara’s right leg may be a bit overkill, but it still look pretty nice nonetheless.  I wish the sculpt put in a bit more wrinkle detail where the thigh straps are though, that would’ve made the bodysuit a bit more realistic looking and add to the overall presentation.

As for Liara’s armament, she has an M5 Phalanx in her hands and a folded M3 Predator holstered.  The sculpt on these weapons are done well and reflect the actual game model.  Mass Effect enthusiasts will instantly recognize these weapons just by looking at them, just as they will recognize the big blunder on the pistol.  While, the right side indicates M5, the left side is reversed indicating 5M.  That may not be Kotobukiya’s fault, however, as that’s how Shunya Yamashita drew the illustration – it shows 5M in the source picture.  Kotobukiya could’ve stepped up to the plate and fixed this error on the figure, but they didn’t.  I’m sure fans had voiced their concern about this when they saw the painted prototype too, but unlike the breasts, this wasn’t changed.

Another small deviation is the way Liara’s hands are cupped together – Yamashita’s illustration has Liara’s left hand cupping over her right hand.  But on the figure, the hands are side by side rather than on top of each other.  I assume this was more of a manufacturing practicality choice rather than a sculpting oversight – having the one hand over the other would’ve slowed down assembly, painting and aesthetics.  If the hands were on top of each other, it may very well have become one piece instead of two in terms of the mold – that would’ve also been problematic for the gun to fit in her hands.

Last small issue which is just a pet peeve, really, is her trigger finger.  Come on Liara, the Shadow Broker ought to know better! 

Holstered to the left of her belt is the M3 Predator heavy pistol, in case you’re unfamiliar with the game and are wondering how that thing is a pistol, click here.  The majority of guns in Mass Effect folds up to a nice compact rectangle when holstered, which is pretty cool.  I’m not sure what the decision was to give Liara two heavy pistols – I would’ve assumed she would at least have an SMG and a pistol, typical of an Asari biotic / commando.  Adding to that, you only get to equip one type from each weapon class in the game, so you can’t have two kinds of pistols at the same time – but you can have a rifle and pistol.  I’m a little surprised by this and didn’t realize it until I was taking pictures of the figure - I kept thinking that was the M4 Shuriken SMG.

Now, you might also be wondering why this picture below is so different from the others and that it has a purple backlight.  I was playing around with a bunch of lighting, thinking to mix things up a bit so all the pictures look a little new and refreshing.  Problem with that is a lack of consistency – when picking the final pics to upload, I deleted all the other photos with the purple backlight leaving only this as I didn’t like how those turned out.  So now I have this one purple lit photo out of a batch of blues and greens.  The blue and green backlights are a bit more subtle, but the difference is still there.  Hey, blue, green and purple – does that sound familiar?  Granted, this was just a coincidence, it would’ve been perfect if I had used red instead.  [lulz]

An interesting design from Kotobukiya lately is the inclusion of changeable logos in the bases – at least for their Bishoujo line anyway.  Liara came with two transparent inserts, one with the N7 logo and one with the Mass Effect 3 logo.  While the N7 logo is nice, it just didn’t make sense with Liara as she isn’t an N7 Operator – though I can see how this will work with the upcoming female Shepard figure.  The other issue with these logos is that if you place them horizontally, Liara’s feet will block portions of the text, making Mass Effect 3 read Ass Fect.  So I decided to rotate the logo so it sits in between Liara’s feet – but it just doesn’t feel natural.  Maybe it’s best to leave the base transparent instead.

There’s really not much to complain about with this figure, if anything, one can argue about the face sculpt compared to the actual game Liara.  But that is really an artistic design rather than a manufacturing screw up.  Another issue might be cost, if you’re not used to collecting anime figures then the price for Liara might be a bit of a shock to you – Liara retails for 6800 JPY which is roughly just under $80 CAD – then you add another $20 for shipping.  It’s definitely an expensive hobby, but for me this purchase was much more justifiable than some of the other figures I’ve collected.  With Mass Effect being one of my favourite games and the bond created with the characters, I didn’t need to think twice about getting her.

Liara was a little hard for me to photograph for a few reasons.  For one, it’s been awhile since I’ve taken photos of a figure so I was a little rusty, then there’s the issue of setting up the shoot – I had some ideas of what I wanted to do, but I just couldn’t produce what I saw in my head.  I also couldn’t get the lighting right (and to my liking) so a lot of the photos overexposed or have too much contrast.  I wanted to get a little futuristic feel with the background but as you can see that didn’t turn out well either.  Here’s hoping my shoot with the upcoming female Shepard will be much better!  LOL

I think I put more pressure on myself for this shoot because of the connection I had with the character – that and the fact I didn’t have much time to spend on the pictures and really wanted to put the review up before I procrastinate too much.  The N7 Operation weekend (ME3 multiplayer) events didn’t help with things either – I had to skip Operation Exorcist to get some of this done.  =P

Liara is also a very slender figure, she doesn’t take much horizontal space – which also made the majority of my photos portraits.  I normally prefer landscapes, but there were just too much negative space.

Well, enough self pity and bitching, the review is up and the photos complete, even if half-assed.  At least now I can concentrate on other tasks and sleep easy – at least until the next N7 Op weekend…

Oh and one last thing, where the hell’s my Miranda figure?! 

 I think it’s been about half a year since I’ve posted a figure review, after Skyrim was released, things were just a little different around here.  But now that’s finally behind me, it’s time to get back on the saddle and write some reviews.  Particularly with all the interesting figures coming out this year, I just can’t sit back and do nothing anymore.

The first figure I’m going to review will be Kotobukiya’s Christie Monteiro, from the Tekken game series.  As you follow through this review, please keep in mind I haven’t taken figure photos for awhile and I haven’t been writing much, so I’m really rusty with it all.  Don’t expect any witty comments (not that I had much to begin with) nor pretty pictures (not that I had much of that to begin with either) – that’s right, it’s all about the figure, plain and dry.  Yup, that’s how I’m gonna roll with this one. 

If you’re here reading this, then you probably already know who Christie is and are probably wondering whether this figure is a good buy or not.  If you’re not familiar with Christie then don’t worry, you’re not alone.  I’m not that familiar with Christie myself, other than the fact that she’s one of the characters in the Tekken series (Tekken 4 and on).  While I’m familiar with the title of Tekken ever since it came out, I was never all that into the game and story.  I don’t think I’ve ever owned a Tekken game until Tekken 6, which I got for Christmas a couple of years ago – even then, I never played the game.  At least not until I got Christie’s figure, I thought I’d take a look at the game and see what this fighter was like.

Two things came to mind when I started playing Christie’s character:  First, I can say that Kotobukiya did a great job pulling this one off.  The style and look is very similar to Christie’s design from Tekken 5 and up, though this version is supposedly based on Tekken Tag Tournament 2.  Second, OMG is her fighting animation is ever annoying!  All that bouncing and prancing around made my eyes so dizzy, but I guess that’s the point given her fighting style is Capoeira.  And I thought Mai Shiranui’s bouncing boobs were distracting…

One look at the face and you know who the artist / designer is for this figure.  Christie has the undeniable signature face by Yamashita Shunya, which I typically (or starting to) find boring.  Well, maybe not boring, but it’s getting typical – they all look the same, just different bodies.  But I do have to admit I really like Christie’s face, maybe even moreso than her original realistic look.  The face here is really cute and matches her body language well.

One general complaint that people had (or have) that I’ve seen is the fact Christie’s head is pointed towards the back and looking downwards.  While I agree this hides her pretty face, but I don’t mind it much.  I think the head position matches her body language, it looks as if she’s moving forward but looking back at an attack she just dodged.  That said, there’s also a lot of eye candy from the frontal view, and looking at her face may not be the first thing your eyes would pay attention to. 

You’d think someone that is trained in the fighting arts of Capoeira would wear something a little less revealing… all that movement and prancing about, mishaps must happen.  I guess one could argue this is less constricting for her when she’s fighting, as well as a decent distraction for an opponent of the opposite sex.  Christie’s 1P outfit is definitely unique – it looks like she wrapped herself up with disco ball material but ran out.  If it sounds like a rant, it really isn’t – I can appreciate a girl’s decision in what she wears, especially if she has the body to show it off.  I think the sculptor did an amazing job on Christie’s body sculpt, it is very detailed and very… tempting.

The detail in her outfit is superbly done as well, all the little honeycomb pattern is done neatly and well textured.  Christie was sculpted by Busujimax, who also sculpted Alisa from the Tekken series too.  I was slightly interested in Alisa’s character due to the mech integration, but I’m trying to cut back on my figure spending so I picked getting Christie over Alisa.  I definitely have no regrets doing so, I think Christie has a much better body sculpt and body language.  Alisa looks somewhat stiff and that she’s about to keel over backwards from the weight of her rear thrusters.  ^_^’

Obvoiusly when you first look at Christie, you see her breasts, and it’s definitely one of the defining features of this figure.  They aren’t over the top like Alter’s new bikini Selvaria, which is a real turn-off for me.  I don’t think I can classify Christie’s breasts as being unrealistic, but I really can’t recall when’s the last time I’ve seen a real girl with such perfectly round breasts.  Then again, I dig Asian chicks, so breast size is really a non-issue for me.  /flamesuiton

Another defining feature of Christie’s sculpt is her abs, I think the pictures explain it quite well, don’t you?  She has an unrealistically skinny waist, but that’s typical of anime-ish girls.  The only gripe I have is the manufacturing quality of Kotobukiya’s work on this one; they’ve been releasing some fairly decent quality figures lately but it seems like they took a step back in terms of quality control with Christie.  The body is full of mould and seam lines – particularly around her waist – it looks like she has scars from a liposuction or c-section.  They may not be as noticeable from standard viewing distances, but they are obvious when you get up close or aren’t too focused on her breasts.  If the manufacturing process took a little more care, Christie would be an extremely superb figure.  I’m not sure if all Christie figures are like this, but I’m pretty sure they are – but if you’re on the fence whether to purchase her or not, don’t be!  She’s definitely a worthwhile purchase, given all her eye candy features, but somehow I just have a feeling she will end up in the bargain bin.  I’m not sure what it is, but it just feels like there’s not much hype over this figure and as of this writing, I think I’m the first one to come out with an English review of this figure.  Hell, I might even have the first full review of this figure?  I just haven’t come across any other reviews of Christie yet…

Getting on with defining features, Christie definitely has the assets to show it off.  Yeah, I just used that lame pun – butt come on, just look at the pictures!  You have to admit it’s warranted in this case!  While I don’t care much for the breasts, I said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m definitely an ass guy.  lol  If I had to pick one decisive feature that won me over with this figure, it’s Christie’s beautifully sculpted ass.  They could always be a little perkier, but I think Busujimax did a fantastic job with Christie’s rump – and with Christie’s design of looking backwards, it gives me more reason to display her with from this angle.  But seriously, it’s not just her ass that has all the details from this view, there’s also her belt with the strands on the rope, the jewels hanging off her straps, and the pretty cool butterfly on her back!  Speaking of the butterly, I didn’t even realise the wings were transluscent until I posted up her picture.  Small details like this make for a great overall presentation of a figure and a great conversation piece.  =)

The strands dangling from her back and side are flexible, so there’s no worry about snapping them off unless you’re intentionally tugging on them.

As with the Bishoujou line of figures, Christie has the signature semi-transluscent hair.  I was gonna do some fancy silhouette type lighting showing off her hair but got lazy in the end.  After the hundreds of frames I took trying to capture the water splashing effect (seen further below), I got fed up and decided to move on to try publishing her review as quickly as possible.  January was pretty busy in terms of figure releases and there are a bunch of figures I want to review (particularly Catherine from Max Factory) with the little time I have available lately.  Also, since I haven’t taken any figure photos since GSC’s Strength, I was really impatient and rusty with my lighting technique.  You can probably tell from the pictures that I didn’t really bother with proper white balancing and the somewhat harsh lighting.  Christie’s skin tone is really bronzed, somewhat darker than the soft shading of the prototype photos.  The overall paint work on the skin also doesn’t feel as smoothly finished as the prototype photo – the prototype appeared to have a very even air brushed gradiant.  It’s not bad, but when I received Christie in person, I was a little surprised that she was a little more bronze / orangey than I had anticipated.

That said, Christie’s back sculpt is very well done as well, and even more of a reason to display her with more of her back exposed.  Particularly the feminine arc of her back down to her ass – it’s very sexy!

On with the figure details, Christie’s pants (or stockings I should say?) are full of win.  The detail and paint work here is very well done, though the ink wash is a little crude, the intended effect is still achieved.  And all of a sudden I just realized I’ve been jumping from past tense to present tense throughout the review, and now that I’m amost done the review I’m too lazy to go back to fix things.  So I’m just gonna apologize for that and move on…  lol

As I was saying, the leggings (yes, I’m going to call them leggings from now on, seems more appropriate than pants or stockings) are very detailed.  The paint is shiny and give off that disco ball effect I mentioned earlier.  The purple lines around her outher thighs are cleanly painted with no overlap or runs.  The sculptor didn’t just do a great job on Christie’s body, but her clothing as well, it really looks as if her clothing and accessories are moving with the sway of her body.  If I had some sort of foot fetish, I might’ve gone into more detail about her feet sculpt, but I don’t so that’s that.

One small aspect of figures that I always scrutinize in my reviews is the ability of the manufactures to paint finger nails.  They are small and require attention to detail, it’s just one of those things set one manufacture above the other in terms of quality, I find.  Alter, GSC and Max Factory are usually pretty good with this, particularly Alter’s paint jobs.  Most times, medicore to lower end manufacturers will just dab a blob of paint often covering the entire tip of the finger.  I was pleasantly surprised that Christie had neatly painted finger nails, which isn’t something I usually expect from a Kotobukiya figure.  Unfortunately for my Christie, the painter forgot to paint the thumb of Christie’s left hand – she has ten fingers, learn to count!  Sheesh!  =P  The siver dry brushing also over laps a little onto the fingers, giving them a slightly glittering effect, but that’s just the macro lens talking.  Honestly, it’s not something you’d notice when you look at Christie as a whole.

An interesting design that I haven’t seen yet on any of my other figures is the clear base that comes pre-mounted to Christie.  The box included three different designs that you can place inside the clear base.  You can opt for an illustration of Christie, the Tekken Tag Tournament logo, or Tekken Project autograph by… well, I really don’t remember who and I can’t recall where I saw that info at the moment.  lol  But this setup is definitely interesting and much better than the typical disc or rectanuglar plain white base that comes with Kotobukiya figures.  My pick is probably the one with Shunya’s illustration for the base as you can see the illustration source and the Tekken logo.

And as tradition dictates, here are some slightly more artistic photos of Christie, though I’m not all that entirely impressed with them myself but life goes on…

Here are two photos that I came up with after going through hundreds (more like over a thousand) of frames to capture.  I really hate working with water as they’re so unpredictable in movement.  It was also hard to time the shutter with one hand and splashing the water with the other.  The first photo I played around with the colours in Lightroom and Photoshop, so the water drops look kinda fake, but that was kind of the intention – to make it a little surrealistic.  I had the image in my head of water splashing across Christie while she’s in motion, but the end result didn’t come out as well as I had planned.

I couldn’t decide whether I liked the colour version or the B&W version below – okay, I lied - I prefer the B&W since I’m into the low key / harsh lighting type photos.  But I noticed most people prefer colour versions, so I posted both up to please both sides of the coin.

Yay!  I made it through the entire review without ever mentioning the monstrosity that was called a Tekken movie… wait… d’oh!  >_<’

Dooooooe, Raaaaaaay, Egon! LUCY!

Yup, that’s right, the ‘Busters are back!  Well, maybe just ’Buster.  Venkman, Stantz, Spengler and Zeddemore are a thing of the past, now it’s Lucy’s time to shine!

The Ghostbusters is what I consider a legacy – they’ve been around for almost three decades and have found themselves haunting our everyday life.  Even those not old enough to remember the characters, movies, cartoon, toys, etc. have at least heard the catchy slogan and famous theme song sang by Ray Parker Jr.  While they’re not as big and popular as they once were, and Bill Murray is still traumatized by the lackluster Ghostbusters II movie, the fans are still out there and eagerly awaiting for the rumored / semi-confirmed third movie.

I grew up with the Ghostbusters; watched the movies, the cartoons, collected the toys – hell, I was such a fan that I even named myself after Venkman.  I guess that’s part of the beauty of the immigration process (US to Canada anyway), you can pick your own name / register a new name.  Hey, I was a kid and really didn’t know any better.

So when I saw that Kotobukiya was releasing a figure of Lucy, there was no doubt I was going to pick one up.  But wait a sec, who the hell’s Lucy?!  I remember the few re-iterations of Janine, but I don’t recall a Lucy.  I thought she might’ve been a new character from a new Ghostbusters series, comic, game, whatever.  But apparently she’s just a fictional character created by none other than Shunya Yamashita.  A lot of people say they know Yamashita’s work when they see one.  I honestly didn’t what they were talking about until I looked more closely at Lucy and many of the Bishoujo-line figures.  A light bulb popped up over my head – hey, all their faces look the same.  LOL  Lucy even resembles Hattori Kiriko quite a bit – there’s just a certain flare / aura about these illustrations that  screams Yamashita.

Lucy is part of Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo Statue line, so far they’ve been releasing quite a number of DC and Marvel comic characters.  I believe Lucy is actually their first figure derived from a movie, but correct me if I’m wrong.  Either way, she’s got the signature Bishoujo pouty lips thing going on – I can’t say I’m a fan of this style, but it is cute -  perhaps moreso on an illustration than a 3D figure.  Her hair is also somewhat translucent from behind, but very subtle.  Translucent hair also seems to be one of the mainstay features of Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line-up.

my makeshift slimer says hi!

If you ask me why the Ghostbusters franchise went downhill, I would attribute it to a lack of sex appeal.  Let’s face it, sex sells, and as kick-ass as Sigourney Weaver is, she wasn’t the appeal the movie needed.  Plus, that giant head from Ghostbusters II still freaks me out – it still gives me nightmares sometimes.  Now, if things had worked out differently and they had someone like Lucy in the series, I think the movie wouldn’t have been all that bad.  At least I would have some pleasant dreams of the hottie in the ripped jumpsuit rather than nightmares of Vigo’s big bald head.  >_<’  That said, I honestly would’ve been fine if they designed Lucy in a normal jumpsuit.  I just can’t imagine what kind of ghost she was dealing with to cause all this damage to her clothing.  Kotobukiya should’ve included a small container of slime, like the old Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtle toys – that would’ve been cool to take a picture of.  “Ack!  I’ve been slimed!”

One thing of interest when I received Lucy was that she came in a beige jumpsuit rather than the olive drab as depicted in her illustration and prototype.  I’m not sure why the change, maybe beige paint was cheaper?  But I don’t mind, the beige colour resembles the original Ghostbusters uniform which is rather nostalgic.  I think either colour schemes work here, particularly with the blue and pink colour accents of her accessories.  What I found disappointing was that the paint work on the jumpsuit isn’t done as nicely as the prototype.  The entire beige jumpsuit on the production Lucy is devoid of any shading, unlike the prototype which had some weathering, dirty effect.  The beige jumpsuit is just way to clean, looks like it just came out of the washer which had ripped it to shreds.

Lucy comes with a bunch of equipment, which I’ll get to later on.  The ecto goggles that comes with Lucy can be removed, if you prefer to display more of her cleavage.  I do like this design by Yamashita, Lucy is sufficiently covered yet reveals enough to get you excited.  It leaves more to the imagination – can that zipper come down any more?  The more you stare at it, the more you think the zipper is slow slipping.  Lucy’s sculptor is Gill Gill, who I think did a pretty good job translating the 2D Lucy into 3D.  She does seemed to have received a bit of a breast enlargement in 3D form though – perhaps that’s so her ecto goggles can rest on something when hanging around her neck.

As for the body sculpt, I think it’s fairly average by today’s standard.  I can’t say there’s anything spectacular, but it’s not bad either.  It has a very nice form, and I do really like Lucy’s body language.  Standing relaxed, feminine and yet somewhat seductively as if she’s saying, “Yeah, I got the job done right!”  Her body language says to me she’s confident and knows she can do the job, even though she got somewhat messed up in the process.  But hey, when you have the body to show off like this, you have the right to do just that.  Good for you, Lucy – and thanks for getting that ghost out of my attic!

While Lucy has a blue utility belt, there’s not much hanging off it.  The paint work here is also a little undermining of the rest of the figure.  The ink wash effect (black lines) is done very roughly, I’m not sure if this was on purpose or not.  I’m thinking it is done on purpose to portray a worned belt reminiscent of the Vietnam era US GI utility belts.  She definitely could’ve used a PKE meter hanging off the side of the belt – I think that would’ve finished the Ghostbuster look nicely.

And of course, to finish off the ensemble is Lucy’s jungle combat boots.  What girl doesn’t love a pair of nice boots?  Preferably the knee-high ones, but maybe that’s just me.    Nothing too much to talk about here, just that once again the paint work is really simple with no toning nor shading.  Also, considering how battle damaged her clothing is, you’d think the boots wouldn’t be so shiny and clean either.

The pink thong, however, is a really nice touch I find.  Like Lucy’s top, the thong is exposed just enough to leave your mind wondering, yet not revealing anything.  The pink colour adds a very nice accent to the blue belt and black glove and proton pack surrounding it.  While I’m not sure how comfortable it is to be busting ghosts while wearing a thong, I’m not going to complain about her choice of undergarments.

For those of you with a keen eye and like to nitpick on details, you might’ve noticed something odd about Lucy’s left leg.  Yeah, you’re not seeing things – that strap of fabric is just floating there by itself.  It should go all the way up under the belt, not sure if this was a sculpt error or manufacturing error.  Nevertheless, it’s a little annoying and it was one of the first things I noticed when I took Lucy out of her packaging.  I wasn’t the only one who noticed this, seems like the reviewer over at Plastikitty also noticed this issue.  I happened to end up on that site while looking at some pictures of Lucy, thought it was also interesting we’re using the same theme for WordPress.   ^_^’

With the ripped jumpsuit, it was the perfect opprtunity to show off some of that detailing on Lucy’s rear end.  Sadly, there’s not that much to show off.  I don’t think the sculptor did a bad job, it’s just sort of average.  I definitely wouldn’t mind if Lucy had a bit more roundness at the back to match her front.  Shooting a picture with harder lighting seems to help create a more perky effect.

As mentioned earlier, Lucy comes with a bunch of accessories and gadgets to help with her ghostbusting needs.  The ecto goggle can be removed or attached by the usual decapitation of the figure’s head.  I found it easier to take Lucy’s head off by putting my fingers around the back of her hair, which was more sturdy and runs the least risk of rubbing paint off by accident.  One thing that annoyed me about the goggles, though, was that the strap is somewhat hard, thus the goggles don’t fall and rest on Lucy’s chest properly.  There’s a slight, yet unseemly, gap between the goggle and her breasts – I kept trying to force the goggles to stay down during the shoot.  The end result, unfortunately, was that it left a green paint transfer mark on top of Lucy’s breasts.  I was able to remove this with the usual plastic eraser trick - so this is just a word of warning to those who has Lucy or is planning on getting her.  The paint seems to transfer rather easily on this figure.

What I’m most impressed about with this figure, is the proton pack – the sculptor did a very good job replicating the pack and ‘wand’.  It’s not entirely accurate, but it’s pretty damn close.  I’d be even sicker if the pack could light up, but that’s probably asking for too much.  There was a bit of glue-like residue on the back of my Lucy’s proton pack though, I didn’t notice it till after I uploaded the macro photos.  Ah well!

The ‘wand’ sits rather loosely in Lucy’s hand, so you have to play around a little to get it to sit properly.  Let gravity, her hair and the tip of her thumb do the rest.    The gold button (as seen below) sits just below her thumb, which practically holds the entire thing in place and prevents it from rotating.

I can remember the good old days when Ghostbuster toys were widely popular, like GI Joes, just about every kid had one.  Debates went on and on whether if the proton pack should be mounted with the round side up or the round sid down.  I kept telling the other kids that the round part is supposed to be on the bottom, but they didn’t listen.  They should’ve – for a guy who named himself after one of the characters – I SHOULD know!

I wonder what ever happened to my proton pack and ghost trap toys.  I gave them to my cousin when I moved – I think he sold them or gave them away.  I’m kinda sad now that I think back on it.  Those toys were pretty cool, especially the ghost trap.  Who knows, hopefully the Ghostbusters 3 movie will finally come out and be enough of a blockbuster that it’ll be a catalyst to spawn new Ghostbusters toys and other merchandise.  Maybe I can get my hands on a new ghost trap with flashing LED lights.  Wooooooooooo!!

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Lucy…

The Ghostbuster logo is printed faithfully on her right arm – yup, no ghosts allowed here!  Particularly with that ghost trap so close by her foot.  The trap is missing a few details, but for something that’s about 2cm in length, it’s not bad!  The foot pad even has a spring sculpted inside for that extra bouncy effect.  Unfortunately the pad can’t be depressed – wouldn’t it be so awesome if you could press it and the trap opens?!

Lucy’s base is the standard circular template, but at least it’s not like most Kotobukiya plain bases.  This one simulates a rough pavement with a Ghostbusters manhole cover, typical of what you see around New York city minus the Ghostbusters logo.

I thought Lucy looked a little lonely by herself, so I dug up a couple of friends to keep her company.  Wow, they’re a lot smaller than I remembered.  Pete looks like he’s at a beneficial height though – just turn around Pete! 

So to conclude this review, I’m giving Lucy 1 billion stars out of 10.  Just because I normally don’t give ratings to figures I review and that it means absolutely nothing.  Now, where did my Slimer toy go…

the mysterious ghost hunter

Girls say they love a man in uniform, well I think I can say the same about girls in uniforms too. That is one reason I added Kotobukiya’s Xecty Ein (Army version) to my collection, the other reason is the amount of detail that was placed in this figure.

Now, I’m relatively new to this anime figure collecting thing, so I’m not sure what to say about Kotobukiya as a company. I’ve read that their figures have been subpar before, but the recent figures I got from Kotobukiya appears to be finished quite well. And as I’m also unfamiliar with the Shining series, even though I did play the game before very briefly, I’m not going to get into the background of Xecty here as anything I’d say would just be paraphrasing from the Wikipedia entry. LOL

What I can tell you is that this is a very good figure with a lot of details and that was the biggest factor in my getting this Xecty (and I pre-ordered the EVE version as well). This version of Xecty is sculpted by Nakamura Hirotoshi in 1/8 scale, so she stands around 20cm tall. I can’t even begin to imagine how much time it took to shape this figure, particularly the ribbons and straps on her arms! If it were me, I’d probably would’ve gone mad and rolled everything back up into a ball and said frack it!

The colouring is quite straightforward, however, and nothing spectacular. But the paintwork is fairly good with some shading on the skin and inner clothing. The coat is somewhat flat olive drab, which is a bit of a snooze, but taking into account the careful paint work, the snoozefest is forgivable.

Xecty comes in a fairly secured package and her feet are screwed into the base from the factory. This is the first time I’ve seen this, I don’t mind it at all as the figure stands very secure and solidly, but the glossy black base is really boring.

And speaking of boring, Xecty’s facial expression rather bland too, it just doesn’t say anything and shows no emotion. Her eyes are also looking to the left, which resembles her thinking of something, but what on earth is she thinking of that would make her look so dead? The pose is not spectacular and her body is angled in a weird way, but I don’t mind this as much due to all the eye candy on her uniform. But I can’t shrug off the fact she looks so lifeless for such a good figure.

Her hair is also fairly plain at the front, the strands detail is very flat, unlike the rear. The shading is pretty smooth though, and the two antenna things on her head are pretty reflective (as you can tell by the picture below). I’m not too sure what those things are, whether they’re functional or merely decorative for Xecty.

From far away, you probably won’t notice as much from a distance (and due to her scarf), but I like the shape of her breasts underneath the uniform. They look just right and fairly proportioned, in a way, it reminds me of the SOFT version of Xecty. I get a good laugh everytime I think about the advertisement photo for that, “Oh, feel so good!” Anyway, I’ll save it for that review when I get a chance to write it up.

I like the fact that the skirt received some shading, the tan colour with the dark brown belt sets off a nice contrast between the inner and outer layers of her uniform. The fact that her belly button is showing via the opening of the uniform is pretty nice too and adds to the sex appeal.

The side of Xecty’s “skirt” on the dress uniform has some slight “frill” to the sculpt, at least an attempt at it. I think the details are a little too flat too for it to stand out and oftem your eyes will probably miss it and not even notice it was there. The amount of detail in the ribbons on her arms really overshadows these minute details.

The frilly design carries around to the back of the uniform with a little black bow. The bow is really unimpressive either and a plain flat black colour. I’m not sure why there are so many fine details on the figure while other parts seem flat and dull in comparison. Maybe the sculptor got tired after finishing up the laces on the arms? lol

Xecty sports a beige stocking with almost knee-high boots. It would’ve been nice if there were a bit more shading work or different tones of brown on the boots for that extra bit of detail, but oh well. At least the laces are well done, and the knot at the top isn’t a flat piece that’s completely attached to the boot – this adds to the visual 3D cue – if that makes any sense.

Xecty comes with a silver sword in this version, and it totally sucks. It’s all plain gray-ish silver looking with absolutely no details. At least in the proto-type photos, the sword was chrome like, very shiny and reflective. Maybe I will update the paint work on this sword myself if I have time.

One surprise that I definitely didn’t expect is that Xecty’s uniform is a cast off! You can take off her uniform’s bottom portion by separating Xecty just below her bust line. I have to say, she does look much cuter in that short skirt – and boy is that skirt short! From a slightly lower angle, you can see Xecty’s underwear, which may lead to a case of nosebleeds for some people. ^^’

But that’s not all…

… so one cast off equals a cool surprise. But a double cast-off?! No way! @_@ This was something I definitely didn’t expect on this figure. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a surprise if I had kept up to date on the previews and stuff, but I didn’t. Now I wonder if it’ll be the same for the Xecty E.V.E. version? Probably so!

The side straps have a slight lacey look to it, and some patterns on the front and back, but it’s still plain white, which I’m sure some fans will not like. Also, Xecty’s bum isn’t exactly sculpted very round, it’s rather disappointingly flat. Not the worst, but definitely could be better! That said, I prefer to keep her skirt on, as I find displaying her with the underwear looks rather strange, given that her top is still in uniform. Now if the top was a cast off or a switchable part, then perhaps.

Overall, this figure is really good and have quite a bit of detail, even though some of those details came out a little subpar while other details came out to total awesomeness. It’s definitely a nice figure to have in your collection if you’re a Shining Wind fan, but she does look a little lifeless. I think the upcoming Xecty E.V.E. version may be even better, as the facial expression on that looks a little more pleasing. But I guess I’ll find out when it’s released. Since this figure was delayed by almost two months, I think the May release of E.V.E. will be delayed as well.

I’m not sure how popular this figure is, but so far I haven’t see any reviews out for her which is cool because I’m usually one of the last to publish a figure review. It’s good to finally be one of the first (if not the).