The following review contains photos that may be considered NSFW…

I was really debating with myself whether to get this figure or not. Suzuka was my least favourite of the three main female characters from the game Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier. In the end I gave in, mainly because Suzuka was the third figure in a 3-piece set. I hate an incomplete collection so I decided to get her just so she can stand with Aschen and Kaguya. I wasn’t all that interested in this figure from the pictures, but my attitude changed when I actually got the figure.

Suzuka may not have the upper body physique of Aschen and Kaguya, but she knows she’s got the lower body physique to compensate and she shows it off proudly. Her tribe is known for their summoning rituals, thus this disco dancing Princess summons a giant robot called Jyaki-GUN-Oh to fight for her. She controls the robot via her dancing (with two fans), though I can’t recall if there was mention of strings attached or not. While the insults between Suzuka and Aschen were hilarious, her character didn’t appeal to me all that much. Her voice and look actually scares me a little, truth be told, but there is no denying I think her figure was the best made out of the three.

The more I looked at this figure, the more I started to like the pose and sculpt. It felt more dynamic and natural than Aschen and Kaguya and the paint application appears to be of a better quality. For the most part, the figure is clean unlike Kaguya which had many small imperfections and dirt marks. The paint on Suzuka is also solid and not overly thick like that on Aschen which was also very glossy.

Suzuka’s head, like Aschen and Kaguya, is tilted and angled in a weird position which makes photographing her face a little difficult. It’ll also force you to think a bit to determine how you’ll want to display her. The face is pretty close to the original art work, although the cheeks seem a little bit chubbier. The figure also has some basic details in the hair, similar to Aschen and Kaguya. Her horn is attached to the face and feels pretty solid, there shouldn’t be any worry that it’ll break off.

Suzuka’s fans is also true to the artwork, although I wouldn’t have mind if they put some more details in the fan (such as the fold marks). The clear pink plastic, representing flames, is pretty cool though – it even has some shading details to it. You’ll want to be careful with handling the fans as the flames may break off pretty easily.

Close up of Suzuka’s billboard chest – you can probably use it as a landing strip! Detail in this area is minimal, but you may not notice it right away due to the other details surrounding her chest area. With the bells in her hair, her pose, the flame from the fan, and the detail in her torso, your eyes will have much to feast upon.

Suzuka’s abs is similar to Sora Kasugano’s, with slightly more detail. And surprisingly, it’s got good shading to the paint application too. This combo of detail and paint work just doesn’t seem like the typical Volks figures that I have reviewed earlier. What’s also interesting is the design of Suzuka’s belt, which is very similar to Kaguya’s rope thing on her sleeves.

The skirt design is great – it’s quite alluring with her hips and legs partially exposed. I guess this design is practical too, since she sways her hips quite a bit when she dances, the open areas should allow her to move with more finess.

The finger nails are painted decently as well; I hate it when painters are careless and put a blob of paint on the entire finger rather than keeping the paint on the nails.

The footwear is a little crude, but it does the job. It doesn’t look very comfortable to wear – I don’t know how she can dance in those things! ^_^

There’s not much to see of Suzuka from behind, her hair covers her back and her skirt covers the rest. You can get a small glimpse of her theighs from between her hair though. The side view from the right is a little more exciting than the left as her face and body is angled towards the right. From the left, it’s pretty much the same as looking from behind, just hair and clothing, not much visual candy.

Suzuka comes with two faces, same as Aschen and Kaguya. And like those two, I think I prefer the alternate face. I think the alternate faces add more personality and makes the character look like it’s having fun. The alternate face is true to the original artwork as well, Suzuka does the little tongue thing when she performs her (special attack) disco dance. Removing her hair is a little more straight forward than Aschen and Kaguya. The front bangs come off and then the sides. You’ll have to pull the face off the hair before you can remove the “head” from the body.

The glossy coating on the tongue is nicely done, makes it look moist! The shading in the hair is nice too and not just a flat purple colour.

Like Kaguya, I was pretty surprised to find out that Suzuka has a cast off part – her skirt. I really didn’t pay much attention to this figure prior to the purchase so I wasn’t aware this was one of the features. Personally, I prefer Suzuka with her skirt on, with it off, it looks empty and boring. The underwear flat black and lack any details. Not only that, her torso isn’t aligned properly to her hips – which is a little surprising considering how well and advanced these figures have become now-a-days.

If you look at the enlarged pics, you can notice some blue paint transfer from her skirt around her waist. Booooo Volks, booooo! I haven’t tried cleaning it off yet, but it doesn’t look like an easy job.

More blue paint transfers on the back of the waist, and here you can see the mis-alignment of the upper and lower bodies more clearly. Suzuka appears to be plagued by the same “flat bottom” as with many other anime figures. I thought Volks did a decent job with Kaguya and Aschen, not sure why they gave Suzuka such a flat ass when it was suppose to be one of her defining features (in the game).

The legs are long and plain as well, lacks shading and detail. Suzuka doesn’t have the muscle detail as seen on Sora (by MegaHouse) and some other more detailed figures. The cast-off skirt seems more like a marketing gimmick than anything else. Clearly, Volks must have intended collectors to keep the skirt on… lol

If you’re going to display the three figures together with their bases combined, then get ready to find some room! The base is pretty huge already for one figure, when combined it forms a large circle with spikes protruding outwards. In my previous review of Aschen and Kaguya, I mentioned the base was horrible and the figures were positioned awkwardly. Little did I realize I actually flipped Aschen and Suzuka’s positions, thus everything looked like a mess. The below picture shows the incorrect positioning – I was too lazy to get them back out of the box to do a re-shoot. I probably won’t take them out again until I find a good location to put these figures.

I have no regrets getting her to complete the set even though I’m not a fan of the character. In fact, Suzuka came out to be a pretty good figure and is probably my favourite in terms of quality out of the three. But unless you’re like me who hates an incomplete set or a fan of the character, you can skip this figure and wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. I’m not sure how exclusive these figures are from Volks, but they were a limited release. Luckily, these don’t seem all that popular so there are still a bunch floating around for sale on the Internet and prices aren’t at a premium

I haven’t seen all that many reviews of Suzuka – actually, I’ve only seen the one from Wawawa Wasuremono. Guess there aren’t that many Suzuka Hime fans out there.

Interestingly, Suzuka was the figure that spurred my creativity for more dynamic shots. I started to look at them as models that I have worked with rather than still life macros. It all started when I (accidentally) took a low-key exposure shot in B&W, it actually turned out pretty good! Subsequently, I began to try to do more artistic lighting and angles with the new figures. I’ll admit, it’s quite fun (until you run into a creativity-block).

More photos can be seen in the main gallery.

And the shot that started it all…

note: following contents may be NSFW

I was really surprised when I saw that there was a Kaguya Nanbu figure available – I mean, what were the chances someone would make an actual figure of a character from a not-so-popular video game? Well, to be fair, it’s not all that popular here in North America – I’m not sure how popular this game is in Japan. While Super Robot Wars is pretty popular, I’m not so sure about this spin-off. Even so, I really liked the game on my DS – it had a bunch of interesting characters with a lot of witty conversation dialogues to keep me giggling like a little school girl.

Kaguya is the princess of the Nanbu clan from the world of Kagura Amahara and a master of the Jinraku Tengen style of kenjutsu. Yeah, I know, she doesn’t look like either! I swear, I think I saw her before at a local bar involving a pole and a disco ball. ^_^’ Due to the size of her breasts and the colour of her clothing she was called a werecow by a couple of the characters a number of times (as there were also werefoxes, werecats, etc. in the game).

The funny thing with Kaguya is that she always acts as if she isn’t aware of her body shape, which is good as she retains a level of modesty and that’s one of reasons I find she’s so likeable (and memorable). That said, I’m really glad there’s a figure of her with a good sculpt. I think the facial expression and pose matches her game persona perfectly. At 1/7 scale, Kaguya stands about 28cm tall (feet to raised hand) and is sculpted by Chorosuke (A-Brand). The only disappointment I have with this figure is the poor attention to paint application and many dirty marks on the white part of her dress.

Taking a slightly closer look, you can see the colours are painted well, but the application is a little rough (see the top of her bangs). It seems like the figure wasn’t polished or cleaned off prior to the painting, which is a downer as I really like this figure. But at least the imperfection isn’t as obvious when viewed at a little distance. In the below shot you can’t see the huge sword she’s holding, so with the rope around her raised arms it makes her look a little like a bondage figure. Kinky. ^_^’

I find her eyes are done well and the blue really stands out. Her facial expression also matches her game artwork, which is always a good thing. The skin tone on this figure is slightly warm, so she doesn’t look cold with all the white on her body. Sora Kasugano, with her pale skin tone, produced a feeling of coldness which may be a little uncomfortable when you look at it sometimes. The paint work on her skin is probably also the cleanest paint application on this figure and it’s pretty smooth too.

The closer shots of her body reveals the imperfections more – I don’t know why, but something about the wrinkles in the dress just looks off. It’s rough and certain parts seems like it’s chipped off unexpectedly. Parts of the protruding wrinkles also look a little dirty, as if it was scraped up against a dirty table, floor or whatever. After the photo shoot, I used a Staedtler Mars Eraser to try and clean some of the dirty marks off – and it seemed to work a little. But still, this shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. The white does have some dark shading to it though, so it’s not just a complete white blob of paint.

The legs are decent, I like how the stocking looks tight which pushes some of her thigh muscle out. The shading on the boots look a little heavy handed ink-washing, but the intended effect is produced when viewing the figure from a distance. I guess Volks intended this figure not to be viewed up close! You can also see part of the insanely large base, which is smaller than Aschen and Suzuka’s base, if that’s any consolation.

I just have to say though, I do like the look of Kaguya when viewing from the side. You get a better view of her figure and her BIG sword. The high slit on the sides of her dress is pretty revealing, but it also blocks enough to make you ponder. I think that adds to her sex appeal, wielding a big fancy sword is just a bonus!

If I recall correctly, there was one part of the game where Kaguya meets a clone of herself, I think she then asked something along the lines of “Do I really look like that?”, finally realizing just how ample her bust size is (and how she dresses). In the below shot, you can see a slight scratch mark on her body, close to her back. I noticed a few of these markings on her body – Volks didn’t do a really good QC/QA job on this figure. I’m uncertain about the others though.

Due to the angle of her sword and the way her hair is bundled together, it doesn’t block much of the view from behind. The black and red hair is interesting, it looks good although if you really think about it, it’s a little puzzling. When playing the game on a 2D platform, you don’t really take notice of the hair design. You can also see a bit of wrinkles on the back of her stockings as well as a bit of her assets peeking from below her extremely short dress.

Taking a closer look, you can see that her hair is actually two pieces, this seam mark is pretty harsh, and it’s apparent in all other photos of this Kaguya figure that I’ve seen. Not sure why Volks didn’t go for a more subtle approach, it definitely could’ve been done. The hair is very long with the only attachment point being the top of her head. This makes the hair fairly loose and it does wiggle about if you poke and prod at it. If you shake the figure hard enough, the hair feels like it might snap right off. But being a display figure, I don’t think you have to worry too much as long as you’re careful during transportation. The ass is nicely sculpted with some roundness to it, which you can see in the below shot.

One thing I usually take note of is the paint work on the fingernails. You can usually tell a quality figure company from a lower one from the care and attention they pay to painting the nails. On many figures, it’s just usually a blob of paint which may cover the whole finger, but the quality companies actually take the time to put paint where they’re suppose to. So I was rather surprised to see the nails on Kaguya, they were painted decently, not completely accurate, but I would say above average. This was a surprise considering the poor attention to detail / care to other parts of the figure. For some reason, however, the colour of her nail polish reminds me of a stripper. =P

The sword is painted well too, with some nice details on the handle. The sword is pretty light, yet solid, it doesn’t put much pressure on the figure. The sword and hand comes detached from the packaging. The hand snaps into the arm fairly easy and is just the right fit – I don’t think there’ll be any worries of it coming loose.

Not sure what it is, but for some reason the profile shot from the right seems more revealing, even though she doesn’t have a slit in her skirt from this side. Actually, I just realized that now while looking at the pictures – talk about a slow response. LOL I’m guessing it’s the way her arm is raised and her body’s stretched towards the left. You can see a little bit of red paint on her boot, which is transferred from the hair. There were a couple of these marks on her body (albeit small), but I was able to wipe them off after a few attempts.

Now here’s the weird thing, on the right side of her skirt, there’s a weird circular mould mark. I’ve seen this on many other pics of Kaguya, so I know it’s not just mine. Also, you can see the dirty marks on the wrinkles of her dress, which is fairly annoying especially when her dress is white. Wish Volks’ assembly line took more care with these things.

Kaguya comes with two faces, a normal smiling face and another “embarrassed” face from the game art. I took a picture with the face off in case anyone’s wondering how to remove it. It wasn’t very obvious due to how tight the pieces fit together and the way her head and hair wiggles when you touch it. Basically the front bangs comes off first, then her face. The back of her head (hair portion) doesn’t come off so don’t try to force that off. Due to the position of her long hair and head piece, you should be careful when pulling the bangs and face off. I recommend wiggling them off rather then trying to force pulling them off as you might hit her pony tail or head piece and break a piece off.

I actually kind of like her with this alternate face on, she looks pretty cute. But there’s another reason why this embarrassed face is suitable for this figure. You can find out why, here (nsfw). I have to say, this was the biggest surprise for me when I got this figure – I had no idea she was a cast-off when I got her. The breast sculpt is done well, I think, but the oddity is the way her chest piece is attached. When it’s removed, it leaves a visible hole in between her rib cage – it would’ve been nice if the figure came with stub or something to cover that hole. Oh well, I doubt I’ll be displaying her with the top off anyway.

Overall, this is a decent figure with some minor quality control issues. The thing that bothers me about these minor issues is that the finish doesn’t look like the one in the promo pics, where the colours looked smooth and rich. Even so, I think it’s one of my favourites due to the character background, uniqueness and the overall sex appeal. I would definitely be interested if another company makes an attempt at Kaguya Nanbu, and when I say another company, I mean Alter. =P But that will never happen (well, most likely never), so I guess I’ll just have to cherish this one that much more.

As usual, here are some more pics with the rest (along with the NSFW pics) in the gallery.

It was some time mid last year when a friend gave me a Nintendo DS game called Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontiers. Yup, what a mouthful! Super Robot Taisen is also commonly known as Super Robot Wars – but this game is actually a spin-off of the SRW: Original Generation series. The game is published by Atlus in North America, which means you cherish it as if it were your first born child (Atlus games are known to go out of print fairly quickly)! lol While I have heard of Super Robot Wars before, I never looked into it or knew what it was about. I had a slight idea that it contained characters or robots/mechs from different series (such as Gundam and Macross). But knowledge of that didn’t matter much as Endless Frontier was a spin-off with a mix-match of characters and a different story line.

Aschen Brödel is an android which closely resembles Lamia Loveless from SRW although I’m not entirely sure what the relationship is between the two. Aschen’s designation is W07, a battle android using primarily hand-to-hand attacks. Her personality is quiet, reserved and rather sarcastic (in a mean way) most of the time. She is usually throwing insults back and forth with other characters such as Suzuka, Kaguya and Xiaomu, which is rather entertaining. But the oddest part about her character is when her core temperature rises, her programming kicks into Code: DTD (Dust-To-Dust) mode, which transforms her into a hyper-active android that sometimes borderlines crazy. When in DTD mode, parts of Aschen’s clothing and armor “burns off” to alleviate overheating, which conveniently exposes much more of her “skin”.

Initially, I didn’t even know this figure existed and I had long finished the game (although it had a lasting impression on me – good game). The idea of looking for an SRW figure was out of my mind. I didn’t even think anyone would create characters from this almost unknown (in NA anyway) game. But after I received my Sheryl Nome figures, I started browsing around eBay and chanced upon Aschen’s figure for sale. I thought to myself, “Hey! I know her!” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to buy her as the pictures I saw didn’t indicate the quality of the figure. I was new to the scene, so I didn’t know Volks as a company nor their reputation. Plus, if I got Aschen, I knew I would just have to get Kaguya and Suzuka as well.

I then started browsing around the Internet for more information on this figure and saw Tier’s review of Aschen. Well, no thanks to his review and photos, I’m three more figures poorer in the wallet. After I made the purchase, I also chanced upon another review at Wawawa Wasuremono. These reviews have been around for awhile, so chances are you have seen them already. But if you haven’t, check them out!

Volks adaptation is sculpted by Misaki Serika, which captures Aschen in DTD mode with her signature “Aschen Kick” pose. What surprised me when I first got the figure was how bendy her leg was sculpted! I honestly don’t recall her leg bending so much during her kick in the game, but I guess in an odd way this adds to the sex appeal of the figure. Her head and body is tilted in a strange way, which might make displaying her a little difficult, especially with the HUGE display base which I’ll talk about later. Her head is is also tilted a little downwards, so I had to take the photo from a lower angle to get her face.

With Aschen’s arms crossed, she covers up most of her chest area, which is a bit of shame because she actually has a nice cleavage with her top exposed during DTD mode. But all’s not lost! At least you have the right breast peeking out between her arms with a bit of nipple detail. Daring.

The paint job was done fairly well, but as you may have already noticed, it is very glossy. The paint application also appears thick and certain areas borderlines on overly thick. When paint is too thick, the surface will look a little bumpy, which I think is most evident when you look at her hair. The paint application is fairly clean on this figure, which I found to be opposite from the Kaguya figure (which I’ll be reviewing after this) by Volks. I do like how they’ve painted her lips, however, which looks like real lipstick. Also, in the above image, you may have also noticed Aschen’s face isn’t sitting flush with her hair, this is due to the fact her face is removable and I didn’t snap it on properly prior to taking the photo. Gave the face a good push afterwards and her receding hairline was gone.

Aschen comes with two swappable faces, one with eyes opened and the other with her eyes closed (more cheerful, which reflects her DTD mode). I wish it came with a more serious face though (and with her hair down), a face that reflected Aschen’s more reserved personality – I think she looks prettier in that mode. Her face can be changed by first removing her head, then the side ear pieces, the hair and then the two front bangs. I recommend removing the hair on the back first before the two front bangs as they might be stuck in her head pretty tightly. With the rear of the hair out of the way, you’ll have more grip on the bangs to pull upwards – the material is rather soft, so you wouldn’t want to break it in half!

Here’s a closer shot of the hair and ear piece (it acts as a hair/head band while in her normal mode), which is flipped upwards because she’s in DTD mode. You can see the bumpier texture in the hair and head piece due to the thick paint application, but at least there’s no overlap! The lines are painted confidently with no deviation. The skin is clean, though it lacks shading (like on Sora). The top part of Aschen’s body is fairly exposed in DTD mode, if only her arms weren’t blocking most of it! ^_^’ Her neck fits into the collar piece tightly and you can’t see any seam lines, which is a good thing. In fact, I barely noticed any seam lines on Aschen at all, especially the legs and waist where you’ll often find the lines on other figures.

As stated, Aschen has a nice cleavage, but from this angle it looks like she’s missing her right breast. The over-exposure of the shot doesn’t help either! Her weird pose sort of distorts the position of her breasts, stare at them long enough and they’ll start looking displaced. From the top, her battle gauntlets look like a samurai helmet if you ask me. It lacks finer details, but it doesn’t look bad when looking at the figure as a whole and farther away. In fact, I rather like the below shot (round round goodness) !

Aschen’s upper arms are equipped with some sort of revolver weaponry – it’s been awhile since I’ve finished the game so I can’t recall if it was actually a weapon or if it just stored ammo (or just decorative). In this shot, you can see a slight paint overlap between her skin and the black tip of the armpiece, this was one of the only very few paint errors I found on her. Her boots are done well with clean lines, it also has a little more detail compared to her gauntlets.

One issue that might become a problem later down the road may be leaning. The entire figure stands on one leg, locked in by one small peg at the base. The standing leg feels quite solid though, it is heavy and it feels like there’s some sort of heavy rod inside supporting the figure. I’m not sure how well she’ll hold up over time, but I haven’t seen any reports yet of this figure leaning. Even though her leg looks and feels sturdy, she is still standing on her toes. It may help if you keep her further away from sources of heat (such as display lamps), just in case.

From behind, her hair is one massive piece, but contains some details that help make her hair look more dynamic. There’s also some slight shading in her hair, so it’s not just one huge glob of green paint. The color is fairly bright though, so staring at it long enough my make your eyes sore. Since Aschen’s hair is removable, her right foot doesn’t attach to the hair.

Since her hair is flowing, it doesn’t obstruct the rear of her suit or her ass. In fact, due to her pose, you get a fairly ecchi view without much effort. While rear right cheek looks alright, as it’s being pushed up by her leg, the left side looks a little flat. There’s still a roundness to it, but it would’ve been hotter if it was just a bit rounder. Normally her legs would be covered in her green spandex like uniform, but DTD strikes again! It’s a wonderful fighting mode. =P

Can’t help but blush a little when taking the next shot. What’s interesting is the pelvic area sculpt has some muscle detail and there’s some wrinkles in the suit due to the way it clings to the body, which also hints at a vaginal imprint. Usually on other figures, this area of the body would be flat or smooth to hide certain details. So should this figure be considered an ero figure? Probably not, but it might be close. lol

As previously stated, Aschen comes with two faces, one with eyes opened and the other with a smiley closed eyes. I think I actually prefer her with the happy eyes closed face. It suits her DTD personality and compliments the pose – it also matches the original illustration much more closely as well. Doesn’t she look much more fun? I think I’ll be displaying Aschen with this face on (most of the time).

The last detail about this figure is the display base – it’s friggin’ HUGE! I’m not sure how it’ll fit in my display, hell, I don’t even know how it’ll fit anywhere! This is especially true if you get the other two figures in this set (Kaguya and Suzuka) – although it may have been a cool idea that someone at Volks thought of, but it’s horrible when it comes to practicality. The three figures’ base forms into a large circle and they all stand facing different directions. It looks crowded and like a blob of mess, your eyes won’t know what to focus on. And what if I didn’t get all three figures? I’d be left with an ugly 1/3 circle to contend with. If you have the talent, I strongly recommend designing your own base.

Update: After I posted the images, I just realized I did something really stupid. I mixed-up the positions of Aschen and Suzuka, no wonder it looks like a mess! Even my one year old could’ve figured this out! I’ll get updated pics up soon…

I currently don’t have any “artistic” photos of Aschen like I did with Sora as I only started taking fancier photos after working with Suzuka. Since I went back to take some photos of the insane display base with the three figures combined, I decided to attempt a few more shots with Aschen. Her pose is definitely unique, but I just couldn’t draw any inspiration from her while taking the photos. Here are some of the images with the rest in the gallery.