MegaHouse: Ranka Lee (Nyan-Nyan version)

By
VF
– February 6, 2010

Delicious, come, come
Pretty girl
Nyan-Nyan, girl-girl
Hello, girl
Gorgeous, Delicious, Deculture…

Ranka Lee (Nyan-Nyan)

If you’ve ever watched Macross: Frontier, you would be quite familiar with the above song. It is the song for the Nyan-Nyan restaurant commercial and sung by Ranka the first time she met Alto. This figure by MegaHouse captures the cheerful spirit of Ranka in a Chinese dress serving up dumplings Nyan-Nyan style.

My first ever anime figure was from MegaHouse and at the time I wasn’t aware of their standing in the figures market. After collecting a few more figures and browsing around on the Net, I’ve come to learn that MegaHouse is one of the better quality manufacturers around. I’m really liking figures produced by MegaHouse, the paint work is usually smooth and clean; you won’t find their paint work overly thick and blotchy. The figures are also usually smooth and lack defects and seam marks from molds.

你好!

This figure is no exception and have all the quality work I’ve come to expect from MegaHouse. The pose is great on this figure, it’s like a stop-action photo. I love it when the figure is sculpted as if in mid-action, I feel it breathes life to the figure – many figures out there are sculpted as if they’re just posing which gets boring sometimes.

close-up - where's the nose?

Taking a closer look at Ranka’s face, one can see she lacks a fair amount of facial features even though she still retains her cuteness. I guess that’s one thing with anime characters, give them giant eyes, no nose, no facial features and they’d still look cute. Looking at the figure, you know it’s a portrayal of Ranka, but I think her face is a bit off compared to the anime. This face seems a bit wider and rounder than Ranka’s anime face. The hair is also leaning towards the turquoise rather than the green seen in the series. But still, the sculpt is clean and the paint work superb!

A closer view of the apron will detail the excellent shading work of the paint work. Rather than going the cheap route and painting it a flat color, MegaHouse decided to emphasize the highlights and shadows, kudos to them. There’s a minor black paint speck just to the right of the tip of the dumpling which I didn’t notice until after I started looking at the pictures on the computer. However, I went back to the figure and it wiped off pretty easily, guess it was just a speck of dust! As I was saying, clean paint work from MegaHouse. ;-)

nyan-nayn apron

side shots - love that dress ^^'

Definitely lovin’ the pose – or maybe it’s the uber short dress? Either way the view from the sides are hot! The legs are beautifully sculpted and the skin tone flawlessly painted. Although there’s not much to look at from the side, sometimes the bare minimum will do just as nicely. The rear, with the apron on, covers most of the dress and Ranka’s rear. But once again, the paint work saves the day with highlights and shading – I wish Banpresto had paid this much attention to detail in the previous Ichiban Kuji Ranka. It’s hard to say which I prefer, with or without the apron. If you’re opting for a more sexy Ranka, it’ll be without the apron. But since I don’t like to keep loose parts laying about (cause I know I’m going to lose stuff), I’ll be keeping the apron on Ranka.

rear shot

cast-off apron

Though I’m going to be keeping the apron on, Ranka looks GREAT without it. The tight, shiny red dress really shows off her body, which is usually neglected throughout the series and other figures of her. The paint on the dress is reflective, kind of like how silk reflects, I find that very cool and it suits this figure. The reflectiveness makes the wrinkles in the dress stand out, especially in more dynamic lighting (see below). I know I’m going to sound like a broken record, but check out the quality of the paint application on that dress – it’s so smooth!

woooo shiny!

From the rear, part of Ranka’s back is exposed, which really adds to the sexiness of the dress. The sculpt also details the spinal column, but lack the shoulder blades like on Sora Kasugano’s figure. I think that figure really spoiled me in terms of body details. With the apron off, we get a better view of Ranka’s butt. It looks good, round and firm, but at the same time I get a weird vibe from it. Sometimes I feel like I’m staring at two pears or an upside down heart, I can’t explain. Though in a different dress, Ranka still retains her signature orange hair ribbon. The hair color is much better than the Banpresto Ichiban Kuji Ranka, which was too lime-green like. This Ranka’s hair is more turquoise, which still isn’t accurate to the original illustration that’s more green in color. The new Banpresto Ranka that’s to be released in March appears to have a more color matched hair from the prototype pics. I hope that’ll be the case as I’m really looking forward to that figure.

rear without apron

Nyan-Nyan Ranka comes with a steam basket and three dumplings inside. When I saw the ads, I didn’t pay too much attention to this accessory, but once I saw it in person, I was amazed how well this was done. The steamer and dumplings look quite realistic, albeit a miniature! Seeing the dumplings also reminded me of the scene when Alto, Sheryl and Ranka were trapped in the emergency shelter in Macross Frontier, I couldn’t help let out a good chuckle. For those who aren’t familiar with that scene, the shelter hatch was locked so they couldn’t escape. It became very hot so the characters started to take off some layers of clothing. Sheryl accused Alto of gawking at her breasts just as Ranka whipped out a lunch box with two big dumplings (yes, very suggestive). lol

mmm...yummy!

Is this Ranka a must get? I will have to say yes, especially if you’re a Ranka fan. The overall quality in design and paint application is superb! An alternate version with a blue dress was released as a Hobby Japan mail order, if I had known that was available, I might’ve tried to track one down. Ranka looks great in either the red or blue dress, you can’t go wrong with either. But since the blue version is a limited exclusive, I can see the price sky rocketing for that. If you find one for cheap, snatch it up quick!

Here are a few more pics, the rest can be seen in the gallery.