Valentine’s Day is here and what better way to celebrate than with Catherine, the blonde beauty from the game with the same name, Catherine!  This will be what I’m going to call a hybrid review, a mix between reviewing the game by Atlus and the subsequent figure released by Max Factory.  Be warned this review may contain mature themes and will definitely contain plot spoilers.  If you haven’t played the game and/or don’t want to read the plot spoilers, I’ll try to give spoiler warnings but it may be best if you just look at the pictures if you don’t want to ruin the gaming experience for yourself.

Catherine, the game, was published about a year ago in Japan by Atlus on the Playstation 3 and XBOX 360.  Atlus, in recent years, have been coming out with some really unique genres that I find refreshing to the gaming scene, particularly Demon’s Souls.  Just thinking about that game still depresses the hell out of me, not that I mean it in a bad way, it’s just that they created such a great atmosphere of despair in the game that I’m still haunted by it.  Atlus is also known for their low production runs, so good luck finding stock at your local game store should they run out.  When Demon’s Souls was released, it instantly became a cult hit and flew off the shelves – I had to resort evilBay to get my copy of the collector’s edition.  So when Catherine was announced, I placed my pre-order at the local Gamestop for the collector’s edition early.  The collector’s edition is dubbed the “Love is Over” edition, which comes with the game, t-shirt, pillow case (something Tier @ Tentacle Armada can appreciate), boxers, artbook and soundtrack – all packaged in a simulated pizza box.  I say simulated because the box didn’t really look like a pizza box, it was compact and thick, not squarish and flat like a real pizza box (as shown in the promotional photos below).

I’ve wanted to do a review of this game since it was released last summer (for North America) but have been procrasting.  Maybe not really a full review per se, but to express some thoughts on it.  I was really intrigued with the use of animation in this game, though it’s nothing new, it has been awhile since I’ve seen one.  Also what captivated me was the plotline and the options that you could take to achieve the various endings.  Before I started, I was really confident that I’d play the good boyfriend and stay true to the one I “love” – but the game definitely threw a bunch of curve balls that had me questioning my decisions.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, the player plays the protagonist named Vincent who comes to a crossroad in his life.  He is in love with his long time girlfriend Katherine, who has been pushing for marriage, but Vincent isn’t sure if he’s ready yet.  Along the way, Vincent comes across a beautiful and carefree girl named Catherine who all of a sudden captivates Vincent’s mind and has him second guessing his decision to get married.

*spoiler alert*  One of the things I found why I had a hard time staying “faithful” was because of Katherine and her background.  All we were told by the game’s story was that Vincent and Katherine had been dating for five years, though they went to school together years prior.  So going in to the game, I had the logical thought of being the truthful, dedicated boyfriend and that Katherine was the girl for me.  As the story progressed, I realized that I had absolutely no attachment to Katherine at all.  It’s as if you just awoke from a coma and have amnesia then being told who your girlfriend or wife is.  You can’t remember anything you’ve done in the past, the good times, the bad times, etc.  You’re told a story, and it’s up to you whether to believe it or not.  That was the case here, and I’m not sure whether if this was done intentionally or not by the game designers, but as a player, I was actually experiencing and learning what Katherine was like during the progression of the game.  There were many moments where I despised her pushy and bitchy attitude towards me, not knowing what her true motives were.  Did she really love me?  If I had experienced the five years of relationship with her, my decisions between her and Catherine would’ve been a lot less convoluted.  Being the player, I was actually experiencing the personalities and actions of both girls for the first time and at the same time.  So if it was truly the game’s intention to do this so I would be motivated to pick Catherine over Katherine, then it definitely succeeded in creating havoc to my thought process.  It really wasn’t until the end of the game (if you picked Katherine) that you see some of their pictures from the past and learn a bit about their relationship.  *end spoiler*

So after going through a roller coaster ride with Katherine’s personality, the mysterious Catherine shows up with her flirty yet easy going attitude.  Given the game’s premise, I knew Catherine was a bad apple from the beginning.  But as the game progressed, I found she began to display a different side to her that was contradictory to her outward appearance.  When Vincent first met Catherine, she basically said all the things he wanted to hear, and she was extremely seductive.  Not only that, she was a really aggressive girl – and assertive – she knew what she wanted and nothing could stand in her way.  I have to admit, I liked that about Catherine.  But just what was it she really wanted?  I wanted to believe in the words she says, but a girl like this, you just couldn’t be certain!

So when Max Factory announced this endearing character, it was a no brainer for me to pre-order.  Actually, I didn’t even pay attention to her development until a friend of mine showed me a link to her prototype.  Well, he probably did it in jest to mock my figure hobby, but whatever, I wasn’t going to pass up a great figure from Max Factory, especially when I quite liked her character in the game.

Catherine comes to us in PVC form, sculpted by Shining Wizard in 1/7 scale.  From head to the bottom of the pedestal is roughly 23cm, while if you actually measure her from the tip of her toe to her head, she’s about 33cm.  So the entire presentation is probably correct in scale at 1/7, but if you consider the scale of the figure alone, Catherine is probably like 1/5 scale.  That’s considering if Catherine is the typical Asian girl height of 160-ish cm?  Either way, she is a decent size, yet she doesn’t take all that much precious real estate to display.

This is pretty much the standard viewing angle for Catherine, I find she looks the best from this ~45 degrees angle.  She also look’s pretty good from behind at ~135 degrees.  Catherine has a beautifully sculpted face, though if you get up close to it and look at her straight on, she looks a little odd.  That’s probably due to how far and high her eyes are, but from a distance, her tilted head and expression looks great.  Her body language is both seductive and cute and taken directly from one of the game illustrations as well as a similar scene in the game.

If I recall correctly, it was around this scene where she pulls off thise pose.  It was one of the mornings where Vincent woke up with her beside him in bed.  She was getting dressed and pulled up her stocking as depicted by the Max Factory figure.  I tried to find the screenshot but couldn’t find it and since I don’t have a video capture card, I had to make do with what I could find.  The game screen shots are all taken from random Google searches…

 Acting weird?  Yeah, I probably would have the same reaction as Vincent if I woke up in the morning with a naked girl like Catherine beside me.  Vincent pulled off a great “Oh shit!” face here, Queen Bitch Katherine will have his balls if she ever found out.

*spoiler alert*  It was after the first night that my perception of Catherine’s character started to change; though she was flirty and aggressive (and dressed like a prostitue/stripper),  one of the first things she said to Vincent was that she hoped he didn’t get the wrong idea about her.  She claimed she wasn’t the type that would sleep with a man on the first date, but she really liked Vincent (yeah, we’ve all heard that one before).  But her voice actually sounded sincere, she even went as far as asking if Vincent had a girlfriend and that he better not cheat on her.  I’m no rocket scientist, but if you’re going to sleep with someone, maybe you should confirm their relationship status before hopping into bed him/her?  Either way, this caused me to start to wonder if Catherine’s character was really all that sinister and if she really had ulterior motives?  But she ran off in a rush the next morning claiming she was late for a dentist appointment.  Hmmmm?! *end spoiler*

I’m kinda jealous of you too… Vince, my man!  But whereas you have Catherine in 2D form, we have her in 3D.  Shining Wizard did a great job replicating Catherine’s outfit, even though the outfit itself is rather simple, the sculpt has a ton of wrinkles and smooth shading.  The paint work on Catherine’s outfit is also very well done, no dirt spots or black specks on top of the white, clean black lines within the dress’s vertical patterns and a beautiful pearl effect in the skirt and stocking.  The red ribbon is also very well scuplted, with gradual shading in between the wrinkles.

 While Catherine has a petite body figure, I think the sculpt could have benefited from slightly larger breasts.  Compared to the game, the Max Factory version seems a little widespread and lacking in cleavage.  I’m not usually a breast person and don’t care for huge cannon balls on anime figures, but I wouldn’t have mind if they added a little bit more on top in this case.

As I’ve said earlier, the stocking is done quite well, the pearl effect has an almost transluscent feel to it.  The wrinkles just before the hand looks realistic from normal viewing distances, and depending on the angle you’re looking at Catherine, it looks as if she’s really pulling them up her leg.  But when you look closer and from the front, you’ll see that the stocking is already on her leg and her hands are just floating in mid air.  I’m not sure how hard it would’ve been to sculpt the stocking lifting up into her hand?  Maybe not hard for the sculptor, but it probably would have been a manufacturing nightmare and I’m rather glad Max Factory played it safe instead of ruining the figure with her hands intertwined in her stocking material.  The little heart shaped patterns found on Catherine’s outfit and stocking made it on the figure as well, nice small details like this definitely helps with the overall presentation.

Given Catherine’s compromising position, it’s not hard to view her from a more hentai angle.  Guys with upskirt fetishes will be pleased with this figure, no doubt.  I usually don’t like figures that are on their ass with their legs up (spread) in the air with no purpose.  I think it’s a silly way to satisfy an upskirt fetish, but there have been a number of pretty good figures in the past that I passed on due to this fact.  Catherine is a little different though, like Spica, she’s leaning back putting her clothing on – she has a purpose for sitting in this position.  The way she’s pulling up her stocking portrays her naughty and seductive nature, with her head looking back as if she’s checking to see if Vincent is paying attention to her.

I’m not too sure what the decision was to put Catherine on a pedestal covered in white fabric.  It’s not bad, but it feels a little out of place to me, as I’m pretty sure she was sitting on the bed in the game during this scene.  That said, I do like the fact they made the pedestal look like it’s covered by a white cloth, almost wedding like, which matches Catherine’s pearl white outfit.  The pedestal is fairly solid, but still light – it won’t save her if you knock her over.  Two pegs on the pedestal sticks into her bottom, it is a solid fit so she definitely won’t be falling off the pedestal by herself.  At least you won’t have to worry about this figure having leaning problems!

 Catherine’s back is pretty plain, but I wouldn’t flat out call it boring.  There are a lot of subtle features in the sculpt and careful paint work.  If any of you had ever tried blending white paint and shading it, you know how much of a bitch it is – I’ve always dreaded painting white when I used to work on miniatures (Warhammer FB/40K).  Speaking of paint shades, notice the back of her hair?  The yellow fades down and doesn’t cut off in a solid line, which is usually the case in cheaper figure manufacturers.

Speaking of hair, this is probably the part that has most collectors complaining.  Unfortunately, the production model’s hair colour is off from what was initially shown and from the original artwork.  The Max Factory paint isn’t as yellow, when you look at it in person it actually has a slight olive/greenish hue to it.  I’m not sure why that is, but when I took the pictures and compensated for the white balance, her hair came out looking yellow and fairly close to the prototype images.  The yellow is still a little too saturated compared to the original artwork, but at least it’s yellow.  I can only assume the yellow that Max Factory used was calibrated from a computer that has the white point set to native, perhaps, and not 6500K (or whatever standard they use)?  I’m only referring to 6500K as an example as that’s what I normally calibrate my photos to so they look “right” when printed out and seen under natural light.

The curls are done very well though and somewhat soft so the chances of them breaking off is very minimal, unless you have a sadistic side and like pulling things apart.  ^_^’

Speaking of sadistic natures, I think the game developers must’ve had a bit of that when coming up with the gameplay and viewing angles.  If there was one thing I despise about the game, it was the crazy blocks I had to climb every single night.  You see, when you go to sleep in the game, you turn into a sheep.  Yup, a sheep!  Well, you look like you to yourself, but everyone else looks like sheep (and that’s how they saw you).  Then you’re forced to climb to the top of the grid by pulling and pushing blocks, creating paths where there was none before.  But did I forget to mention that the blocks beneath you is constantly falling off?  So you can’t stay in one spot too long, you climb or you die.  That’s not all, there are other sheeps climbing for their survival, and they will push you down or block your path if you’re not careful.  It’s sheep eat sheep!  There are also exploding blocks, fractured blocks, immovable blocks, spring blocks, etc.  If you fall to your death in your dream, you die in real life – that sucks hard!

See this screen below?  Yeah, get used to it – there were so many moments where I felt like doing a /ragequit as I’d get so near the top and I accidently hit the drop button and fall off, or the camera angle blocks my view of what’s behind a block.  Given the fact that you can climb the front and back of the blocks in 3D fashion, I don’t know why the camera angle only limits to the front, you could only rotate it roughly 45 degrees either side, not being able to completely see what’s behind.  The amount of times I died accidentally is unforgivable, particularly when I was so close to the top and the nightmare was chasing me.

That’s right, did I forget to mention the nightmares?  At the very top of each level set, you’re faced with a monster that comes climbing up behind you, trying to drag you down to the abyss.  While I really hated a lot of these creatures, some are rather funny (like the ass monster) – all of these are metaphors of what Vincent experienced during the day.  For example, the bloody bride that looks like Katherine – which symbolized Vincent’s fear of committment and marriage to her.  Then there was the freaky baby, which is rather easy to guess what it symbolized.  The ass monster was rather amusing though, which symbolized Catherine and her nympho nature in Vincent’s mind.

*spoiler alert* Vincent had a rough time with trying to get Catherine off his mind and I, as a player, found her hard to resist as well.  There was a charm about her that I couldn’t explain.  She’s wild and flirty, but the things say appear sincere and I felt as if she really did care about my character.  Things weren’t going all that well with Katherine, she was getting bitchy and demanding.  Plus, there was the hint that she may be pregnant with someone else – yeah, that’s right – she may have cheated on Vincent with his best friend!  Of course, the way everything presented by the game was misleading and confusing – there were even talks about Catherine or Katherine being a witch that was killing all the guys in their sleep.  I even thought Erika (the waitress) might’ve been the witch at one point in the game.  I liked how the game kept planting suspicions in your head, it kept you guessing and hard to just follow your heart or your logic.  Everything was a shade of gray – I just wasn’t sure who I could trust 100% nor if the decisions I made were correct.  *end spoiler*

Catherine was created to be a sex object, there’s no doubt about it.  She was inserted into Vincent’s life to create havoc, and I’m glad Max Factory decided to pick up on this and make a figure.  At first, I wasn’t really all that impressed with this figure, it looked really simple to me.  But you know what they say, less is more!  The more I looked at the figure while taking photos for this review, the more I liked her – there was a simplistic elegance to her design but also containing enough eye candy.  Earlier I mentioned the satisfaction for those with upskirt fetishes, but there’s actually more!  I guess you can also say Catherine can satisfy those with feet and legs fetishes as well – Shining Wizard did a great job with the sculpt of Catherine’s feet and particularly her beautiful long legs.  If this is sounding repetitive, it is, I really can’t find much wrong with this figure.  I started liking her so much that I even contemplated getting another one to keep new in the box.  Nuts.

I think the human hands and feet are the hardest parts to draw properly let alone sculpt, so I’m rather impressed with what was presented here.  Of course, up close doesn’t look like much, but when you look at the figure as a whole, they’re not bad.  On top of that, Max Factory did a decent job with painting the toe nails and finger nails yet again.  No blob of a mess here that covers the entire toe/finger.

The muscle and bone structure sculpt around the knees are probably my favourite detail on this figure.  I know it’s a bit of an odd detail to have focused on, but I found it really showed off Catherine’s legs.  The area around the knees look realistic enough and with a little bit of lighting, the details pop out even more so.  Before I forget, the “sexy sofa” that you see Catherine sitting on is courtesy of Alpha Max’s Spica figure.  While I was taking Catherine’s photos, I thought to myself, it’d be nice if she had an actual seat or bed – wait, I did have one of those!  Yay!

The bottom pic is also probably one of my favourites out of this batch, it pretty much describes all the details I’ve mentioned about Catherine’s sculpt in one simple picture.  Gawd those legs!!! <3

*spoiler alert*  So just who was Catherine anyway?  Sometimes she appeared innocent, yet other times she appeared like a psycho that stalked Vincent.  Was she really there to help him, did she really like him?  Well, as many of you probably already guessed, she was not just your typical girl next door.  She was more or less the figment of Vincent’s imagination.  She existed, but only through Vincent’s mind – none of his friends could see her.  At the end of the game, she admitted to not being human.  She was in fact a Succubus dispatched by Mutton (the bar keeper) to come seduce Vincent, to test if he’s worthy of love (and life).  She did in fact had feelings for Vincent and mostly what she had said were true (she tried to help Vincent along and man up with what he really wanted in life).  Depending on your gameplay decisions, her ending will differ between bad, good or true.  Bad ending is she dumps Vincent, naturally, while the good and ending has her marrying him and both of them go to live in the Underworld.  The true ending is the same as the good ending, with the exception that Vincent takes over the Underworld as King. So if shacking up with a sex demon is your thing, Catherine was the way to go – in this case, I probably wouldn’t have mind.  lol  *end spoiler*

A funny thing I realized when I was processing Catherine’s photos, I decided to play with the blue filter and yikes!  Her eyes look sinister and demonic with the filters on – maybe there’s something to it?  LOL  It’s funny how her eyes glowed like that; definitely an interesting side effect.  The figure matched her video game persona and will probably end up on my favourites list this year.

Catherine can probably be a model for Victoria’s Secret - the pink background work wonders with this figure, just like Elsa (nsfw).

All in all, I found Catherine rather fun to take photos of, she’s just so photogenic.  At first it was really boring when I was taking the standard black background pictures, but once I got to the latter photos where I played more with the lights, my fondness for this figure grew.  I’m really hoping Max Factory will release a Katherine figure but for some reason I’m not holding my breath.  I wanted to do Catherine’s review when she was first released in January, but I had selected her to be part of a combined shipment which unfortunately the other figure got delayed to this month.  So I had to wait till the end of January to get Catherine – but here she is, and the review, I made it just in time for Valentine’s Day.  I’m gonna wait and see if she ends up in the bargain bin – if so, I’ll probably pick up another one as backup.  ^_^’

I’m surprised there aren’t more reviews of Catherine yet as she’s been out for about half a month already, but Lestter on MFC has a really pretty picture of Catherine that he took, definitely check it out!

02.15.12 Edit: Forgot to mention, for some odd reason whenever I look at this figure, I’m reminded of Jay Chou’s song “Her Eyelashes”.  The MV is a little dated, but still a pretty good song.  lol

So it’s been quite some time since I’ve updated this section with news or reviews; truth be told, since I got back from vacation I found it really hard to find time to work on the photos and to write the reviews. Work is full of projects and my attention is split between the baby, car and figure collecting. But I’m trying to get back in to the groove now and have started to work on figure reviews again – with that, I present to you the newest figure in my collection, Seena Kanon!

I wasn’t expecting to write about Seena, as I was working on the review for Hattori Kiriko as well as some other figures. But I’ve been procrastinating so much that there have been a bunch of reviews on these other figures already. I was also planning on putting out my Momohime review, but reviews for her have been popping up like daisies lately. So I thought I’d work on Seena’s review first as I haven’t seen any reviews of her yet.

When I first saw this version of Seena, I knew it was an instant winner and pre-ordered her without a second thought. My only gripe is that she’s the first of a set of four(or five- I forget) swimsuit figures that will be released by Max Factory in the near future. And if you’ve been following my reviews you’d know how I hate having incomplete sets. But if Seena is any indication of the quality that this line of figures will be, than I don’t think I’ll mind at all!

I think Seena is the best of all the swimsuit figures in this recent line-up by Max Factory, her pose and facial expression are really cute and she radiates a very carefree attitude. Just looking at her can (and will) make you smile, if she doesn’t, then you’re probably dead inside or a robot.

Seena is captured in 1/7 scale and sculpted by Nanko – I honestly didn’t pay much attention to her scale when I pre-ordered her, so when I received her I was a bit surprised by her size. From head to toe, she’s roughly 24cm tall, so in real life she’ll be around 168cm. I’m not sure how tall she’s supposed to be, but that seems like an average height for a girl – finally a figure company that can do basic math!

I’m not usually into swimsuit figures as I find them rather boring with not much to show. Seena has a very simplistic pose, but one that I find very interesting. She seems to have been captured in the midst of a light stroll at the beach and looking over with a gentle smile. Simple yet captivating! It’s hard to stop looking at her nor find any excuses to say she’s a boring swimsuit figure. Kudos to the sculptor – but oddly enough the sculpts of the rest of the line-up seems a little dull in comparison.

Seena sports a youthful short hair, sculpted as if wind is blowing through it. I’ve been staring at the Orchid Seed Seena for so long that I almost forgot she originally had short hair. Plus she is normally seen with a hat on so it’s a little refreshing to see her hair like this. The hair sculpt is also a little more detailed when compared to the other Seena figures I’ve seen – there appears to be more layers/depth here than the others.

Seena’s bikini is very simplistic, but effective once again with its sculpt and colour scheme. The red and black combination works very well and there’s a little heart logo over the left breast. I’m not familiar with the series, so I can’t say if that logo is associated with Seena in anyway or if it is just a design the artists put there. I like the subtle details in Seena’s bikini, as you can see in the pictures, from the little wrinkles to the edges where the straps connect.

Max Factory also did a great job in hiding seam lines, look at the pictures carefully, can you see the seam line where she separates? I know I can’t! Seena atually separates just below her bustline (like many other figures) in order to take off her skirt. Take into account these are shot using a macro lens, which usually picks up the smallest of imperfections! I’m also glad her breasts aren’t abnormally large but proportionally shaped.

Seena has a great body sculpt with many fine details that are missed on a lot of other figures – you can easily see the contours of her body without having to play around with lighting much. I like the way her torso is sculpted, especially with her stretching slightly backwards showing off her abs.

Seena also have a nice set of legs to go with her body, when I was viewing her pictures on my camera’s LCD, the almost looked real to me. Her legs are unusually long, but that’s the norm with anime figures, not that I’m complaining! One very minor critism would be her toes, without nail polish it looks a little bland. But then again, painters usually mess up on painting nail polish so I guess I should be greatful.

The base is nothing fancy, but at least Max Factory made the base look like sand. Not just a boring white square or circle base *coughtakeahintaltercough*. Subtle details like this really adds to the display value of these figures.

One of the defining features of a bikini figure will have to be the body and ass. Why wear a bikini if you’re not going to show off your assests? It’s common knowledge that anime figures usually receive a less than impression sculpt on their rear end – usually they’re as flat as… well, let’s just say flat! I think most of the figures now are steering away from that stigma, and Seena is no exception. I wouldn’t say her rear end sculpt is extremely perky, but it’s proportional to her body and just round enough that you can say “lookin’ good, Seena!”.

The skirt, as I’ve mentioned earlier, is a cast-off. Separate her just under her bustline and her skirt flips right off the top. I love the design of her skirt though, it’s flowing slightly upwards as if by motivated by wind with the left side opening exposing her leg / hip. It’s rather sexy, if you ask me, exposing just enough to make you think. So even if the skirt is a cast-off, I’ll be displaying her with the skirt on.

If Seena is going to lose any points, it may be the bikini bottom at fault. The paint work on the black line isn’t as smooth flowing as her bikini top, and the sculpt that empasizes the bikini “digging in” to her skin appears a bit like a seam line. But it’s probably the macro photo talking, as you won’t notice this much when looking at Seena in preson.

Speaking of seam lines, I really don’t see any on Seena nor mould lines on her body. I’m not sure about the mould of this figure, but it seems like one piece from her torso down to her feet. She is rather light for her size too, and you’ll know why when you pick her up. Her body appears to be mostly hollow, at least that’s what it sounds like when you tap on her body. It’s like tapping on a plastic tube… *tappa tappa tappa*!

Speaking of a lack of mould and seam lines, this figure is also one of the cleanest figures I have in my collection out of the box! The paint work is clean with minimal overlapping (mainly due to her only having a bikini on), but the figure also lacks paint contamination. There are no black spots on this figure nor scratch marks. Of course, there are some tiny paint transfer from her cast-off skirt, but that’s expected. Maybe I finally got lucky and received a “clean” figure, but I don’t think other collectors will see much deviation from this.

It seems like Max Factory has a pretty good standard when it comes to the assembly line, in fact, my Miku VN02 and Yoko Rittona also seems pretty clean.

Overall, I’m looking forward to the rest of the swimsuit line-up from Max Factory for these Shining Wind figures. Although if I’m only to get one, that one would be Seena. People normally say “save the best for last”, but in this case it looks like Max Factory dished out the best first. Her size is also fairly generous at 1/7 scale – can’t go wrong with this “boring” bikini figure!

Now I’m usually pretty stiff when it comes to a creative background, so this time I thought I’d try something different. You know, to actually use a background! XD I guess I have Tier to thank for the little motivational push. But it’s not just Tier – I browse around pictures on MFC and the amount creativity the community has never ceases to amaze me. =)

So here are some lame attempt at Seena photos with a beach background, hence the warmer filter setting in the photos. C&C welcomed!

Here’s another figure that I had purchased back in December 2009 but didn’t have time to do a review till now. I’m so back logged, it’s not funny – the evil companies keep coming out with new and great figures that I can’t catch up! But it’s my goal to review all the figures I have in my collection; oh yes, so it is written, so it shall be done…

I was introduced to this figure when I was browsing around HLJ and saw that she was up for pre-order. Actually I was introduced to Yoko’s character this way. I was (and still am) new to collecting anime figures and I’ve been out of touch with any anime series since Love Hina. So that’s been almost a decade that I’ve been out of the loop!

I usually start with some character background, but since I don’t know anything about Yoko (for shame), I’ll just write my filler on something else – her name. Her name really confuses me as I’ve seen it as Yoko Rittona, Yoko Ritona and also known as Yoko Littner. I’m guessing one is the Japanese version while the other is the English variant. But usually Japanesse goes by lastname first, so is her family name Yoko or is it Rittona? Ack! @_@ But since most people call her Yoko, I’ll just go by that for the rest of the review.

HLJ advertised that this was a sexy figure and a must have – well, I guess I can partially agree with that. She sure is sexy, that is until you look at her face. This is the number one complaint about this figure, is that her face look really really weird (i.e. like a man). At first I just brushed it off, I thought of it as mass hysteria and people were just jumping on the bandwagon as usual. But when I received the figure and had a good look at it in person, her face does look a little strange from certain angles. But I don’t mind as much and still think she looks pretty (enough). I don’t even think people will look at her face anyway!

All was cool until I started taking photos of Yoko, however. I’m serious when I say this, I had chills run down my spine when I was taking photos of her face from straight on. It looked like she wass giving me the evil eye, and that grin of hers just creeped me out. Her face seemed devilish under the lighting and she was just taunting me. And the fact that I was taking these photos alone in the basement in the middle of the night didn’t help things either. I had to take a break and go upstairs to recompose myself before heading back down to continue on.

After getting past the odd facial structure, we come to the good parts – parts where I would focus for the remainder of the night. Yoko is sculpted by Hagii Shunji in 1/6 scale, she’s a rather large yet solid figure. She stands about 28cm head to toe, a really decent size to show off her “real version” body. This figure is the sculptor’s take on what Yoko would look like if she was a real person. It’s definitely an interesting attempt compared to all the anime-like Yoko figures in the past, and since release, I think it sold fairly well. But I’m only saying that from what I see in community comments and the number of reviews out on her already.

The breasts aren’t overly huge and seems fairly proportional to the rest of her body. You can see some detail of her rib cage as the body leans towards the right. Her waist is slightly wasp like, but not too much, which makes her look a little “buff”. I mean, she should be, if she’s carrying that anti-armour rifle around all the time, right?

The details in her pants gives off a bit of “camel toe” impression, maybe that was done by the sculptor to help emphasize some ecchiness? Her legs are pretty thick and they feel very solid, especially the right leg. It definitely feels heavier than the left leg since it’s the only thing supporting the entier figure up. It seems to be doing a good job as I haven’t seen or heard any reports of Yoko leaning so far – she’s been released for almost half a year. Her strong legs reminds me of Xena: Warrior Princess for some odd reason. It just popped into my head as I was writing this.

The pink stockings look really nice and adds a lot of sex appeal to Yoko. The way it’s painted is almost pink-pearl like and it has a semi-transparent feel to it. Sculpt of the wrinkles around her thigh and knees look great too – there are so many nice details about this Yoko, too bad the face is kind of scary looking straight on. Yoko retains her large anime-like boots, particularly the zippers, even though this is supposed to be a “real image version”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen boots in real life with zippers as large as these. They look kind of cool though.

I love Yoko’s pose, and the sculpt of her chest area, particularly the left side of her body. You can’t say you’re mouth doesn’t water when you see it…

The pink sling adds a feminine touch to Yoko’s character, and the way the sling runs between her fingers is a representative of that too. It’s like she’s saying she’s a girl, but she’s still tough! I found that her gloves are a little too glossy though, I think it would’ve provided a better contrast if it was matte. Her pants, sling, boots and stockings are already glossy enough.

From what I’ve read, her weapon is supposed to be an anti-tank / anti-armour rifle. It does look intimidating, but it looks more like a regular sniper rifle to me – bit of a half breed between a .50-cal Barrett and a PSG-1. The rifle definitely could’ve used more “oomph”, I think it’s too thin looking – maybe it’s an anorexic rifle? =P I’m not sure what the specifications are for this rifle as I’ve never watched Gurren Lagann, but it seems like her scope has different modes of views. Looks like it has three rotating modes, normal, night vision, IR/heat? I’m just guessing out of my ass here… lol

Yoko comes with an alternate hair attachment with sunglasses, just remove her original bangs and put on the new one with the shades and you’re golden! Just becareful not to drop Yoko from shock as you take her bangs off – you know, that scary face and all. Really, I’m just poking fun – I think her face is alright, but maybe the problem is that it’s sculpted a little too long. I do like her with the shades on though, it adds some personality to her looks. I just wish the glasses were designed a little more fashionable – it looks like a run-of-the-mill shop/safety glasses. =( That said, I do prefer Yoko with the glasses on and I’ll be displaying her this way.

As I’ve said, Yoko’s been out for about half a year already, so there are a number of reviews out for her, I feel so left behind. LOL Of course there’s Tier’s review and Rico’s review. I also saw one at howdoyoufigure.net and a random Google search took me to Spicy Otaku. I’m sure there are more, but I guess I don’t get around much.

All in all, I really like this Yoko and she’s a really great figure. But just remember – don’t look directly into her eyes!

For those that aren’t in the know, Love Hina started out as a manga series (by Ken Akamatsu) and later developed into an anime series. Narusegawa is the main female protaganist in the series and at the time I thought she was pretty hot, albeit a little sadistic in the way she’s always kicking Keitaro’s ass. I can’t say it wasn’t entertaining, however. Hell, I even dated a girl (for a short while – thank God) that was a little like that. The way Narusegawa beats on Keitaro is a little reminiscent of The Girl from My Sassy Girl. Man, I love that movie! Good job, Hollywood, on butchering the beautiful plot line in your Americanized 2008 rendition.

I can’t remember what the catalyst was that triggered my search for this figure. I mean, it’s been quite some time since I’ve heard the words “Love Hina” and it was practically purged from my memory. I think I probably saw it as one of the random posts on MFC, but when I saw the name Narusegawa Naru, my mind said, “Oooooooh yeah!”.

I was surprised that there aren’t many Narusegawa figures around, given how popular this series was. When I searched for Narusegawa figures, this one by Max Factory was one of the best I saw (if not the best). I was also surprised to find some still floating around the net at the release price, especially since this figure was initially released in 2005 and has long since stopped production.

This figure of Naru is based on the Love Hina: Spring Special OAV, where she wore the leafy bikini. I really don’t recall the pink tank top and uber short jeans though. Whether if it was originally there or not, I find the top and cast-off jeans a nice touch.

The most noticeable difference of this figure compared to the character art is the fiery red hair. I’m not too sure what prompted this design when Naru’s hair is brown, but I can’t entirely say I mind. The hair looks pretty good on Naru and matches the blue and green colour of her outfit. The hair is also partly translucent, which I found great to take pictures of (shown at the end of this review). There are also very subtle glitter in part of her hair, which I didn’t even notice until I looked at the macro photos on the computer.

I can’t say the face is exactly like the original artwork, but it’s rather close -maybe it’s the colour of her hair? But you can look at this figure and know it’s Naru and at the very least the facial expression captures her personality.

The paint application is done quite well with subtle shading throughout the entire figure. The skin tone is smooth and the leaf bikini is solidly painted with a slight texture to it. While the texture and shading on the leaf bikini does make it look leafy, my beef with it is the glossy coating which makes it too reflective thus plastic looking. A matte coating would’ve yielded better results. The same goes for the jeans, clean paint job, but too glossy for a “fabric”. One thing that Max Factory did very well, however, are the nails. With exception to the pinky toe, all the pink “nail polish” are actually painted on the nail fully. No partials coverage nor overlap on to the toes and fingers! If you’ve read any of my other reviews you’d know messy nail paint work is one of my pet peeves about these collectible figures.

The cast off-able jeans is split into two pieces, front and back. It fits fairly well and isn’t so loose that it’ll just fall apart, but it does have a significant gap on both sides which is quite obvious. The pink shirt is also removable, which is less obvious but it’s quite loose. A minor tap on the shirt and it can fall out of her hand. Naru comes with a plug-in piece (the tips of her fingers) that sticks into her hand should you wish to display her without the pink shirt. The paint and material is quite different from the rest of her hand (and body), so it looks odd when you look at it. But it’s a small piece in a more obscure part of the figure so admirers may not even notice it unless you point it out to them.

As I’ve said earlier, this take on Naru has her with fiery orange hair. It’s really not as bright as seen in the pictures, but due to the slightly translucent material and the lighting, it brightens her hair up quite a bit. There is a bit of shading detail in her hair, which is always welcomed, the top part of her hair is more solid while the ends become lighter and more translucent. The hair is also well sculpted with clean, long flowing lines.

With the jeans off, Naru’s leafy bikini bottom is revealed. You get two leaf ties/ribbons to plug in to the sides of her waist to get complete the bikini look as per the original artwork. What I really like Max Factor did was sculpting the bikini as separate pieces then attaching it to the figure. It’s not all part of one mold, which often causes paint overlap and mold marks. This also adds to the realism of the outfit, but that’s a double-edged sword, as the body contains very slight gaps. It doesn’t look like the bikini (especially the bottom) is pressing into the skin, rather it has cut out chunks of her body tissue and embedded itself into her body. Well, pictures are worth a thousand words so have a look below and you should see what I’m talking about.

I rather like this pose of Naru’s, it shows her cheerful personality but best of all is the way she’s swinging her hips out. It makes for creative rear shots – especially with more dynamic lighting. I think the rear could’ve been sculpted with a little bit more roundness, but at least it’s not flat like many other figures are known for.

One last thing about this figure that I want to point out is that from top to bottom, you can see a slight seam line from the mold, it’s not easily noticed, but it’s there. Also on my figure, on her right hip is a round mold mark that wasn’t cleaned / smoothed out. I’m not sure if it’s like this on other figures or not Looks like the mark on the right leg is from the mold, I took a look around and saw that the Naru at How a Girl Figures has the same mark too. But if you have the jeans on you won’t see it – you can see the small circular mark in the below images.

This figure was fun to take pictures of, the pose is inspiring and it got the hamster wheel turning in my head. So without further ado, here are the fun shots!

And my two favourite shots, I can’t decide which I like more – probably the B&W version.