Alpha Max: Spica (sexy sofa ver.)

 Sometimes the hardest thing about writing these reviews for me is the starting point.  I can have a great figure in my hands and not know what to say.  Unfortunately for me Spica happens to be one of these rare figures that is great in all accounts but I have no idea what to talk about.  That said, this review will be probably be quick and painless (well, painful for me)…  

Note: The following review contains 18+ material  

Spica is one of the figures in my collection which I have no prior knowledge of, I’m only aware that she’s a character from the eroge Sumaga.  I’m not even remotely familiar with the game, Google actually didn’t yield me any informative this time either!  Nuts!  From some of the images I’ve seen and the few previous figure releases she seems to be a witch of some sort?  If anyone knows, feel free to let me know!  

I first saw this figure in one of the advertised images from a hobby site, the pose and feel of Spica immediately caught my attention.  I can’t explain it, but there’s definitely something sexy about Spica’s pose and the way she’s captured in mid-dressing.  I’m not sure who sculpted her, but he/she/they did an excellent job.  Spica is manufactured by Alpha Max in cold cast, which makes her my third cold cast figure.  The last cold cast figure I purchased though was a number of years ago, and I had totally forgot about her (Tifa from FFVII).  Having Spica in my hands reminded me just how finely detailed and smooth it is compared to PVC.  Honestly, I can’t find that many flaws with this figure, if any!  Thank goodness for that, since she cost a pretty penny.  Though she’s in 1/6 scale, Spica is on 15cm from head to toe due to the way her body’s bent and her legs curved.  If you stretch her out, she’d probably be around 20-25cm.  But looking at her, she appears larger than what the numbers indicate on paper.  

Spica also weighs quite a bit too, which was another surprise to me – I’m so used to PVC figures now that Spica feels like a rock to me.  Well, that’s not quite right, since rocks are usually more robust – Spica will probably shatter if I drop her.  So being cold cast, there are pros and cons and honestly I think I’m more in favour of PVC as I’m so accident prone.  

Spica comes in a rather large pink box surrounded with styrofoam.  It seems fairly secure for transportation and I received her without any damages.  The frailest part of Spica is probably the tips of her hair and the sleeves of her shirt.  The styrofoam opens in typical clamshell design, and the top part of the foam box keeps the pieces secure in their grooves.  Pardon the shoddy box pictures, it was more of an after thought.  =P  

I’m amazed at how well the paint work is on Spica, she looks just like the promo pictures that were floating around the Net.  Just about everything that came in the box are finely painted, smooth, clean and well shaded.  There are no mold marks, seam lines or overlap in paint work – I’m guessing that’s the benefit of cold cast figures and the excellent painters under Alpha Max’s employ.  

The little strand of hair sticking out of her hair is detachable and comes as a separate piece in the box.  It inserts into a little hole on the top of her head, the fitment is a little loose though and it’ll swing around if you tilt Spica from side to side.  It’s also very fragile as it’s so small and thin, it’s no PVC so there’s no flexibility – be very careful of this piece!  

I think the expression on Spica’s face is well done, but it changes slightly depending on the angle you look at her.  From certain angles she look a little sad and her eyes look teary.  Then from other angles, she looks sleepy as if she just woke up, hence the teary eyes.  When I look at her, it reminds me of Monday mornings – it’s really depressing!  

Her purple jeans are very well shaded, the purple and black scheme kind of reminds me of Canaan’s cape.  The subtle detail of her foot sticking out is a very nice touch, it adds to the feeling of the mid-action capture.  Plus the little foot sticking out is pretty cute – the sculpt on the foot is well done as well and realistic looking.  I can’t seem to stop saying “well done” throughout this review, any more well done and Spica will be burnt!  She’s hot enough already, she doesn’t need any more heat…  

The toe nails are painted perfectly, which is one thing I look for in a quality figure.  You can tell a lot by looking at how the nails are painted on these anime figures, it shows if they’ve paid attention to this figure and worked on it with care rather than a mass production product that is being dished out for simple money grab.  I really hate it when the nails are painted as a blob of paint that’s either not accurate or covering the whole finger / toe.  

The paint work on the button and zipper of her jeans are quite simple compared to the rest of the figure, but at least it’s neatly down without messy overlapping.  

Spica’s underwear looks more like a bikini if you ask me,  but that’s probably due to the ribbons on the sides.  The pink stripe surround the underwear is cleanly painted as well and no overlap onto the skin.  It’s creates a nice contrast between the skin tone and her underwear – in a way it acts as a transition between her upper and lower body.  

And here we have the nosebleed section, sculpted with slight wrinkles in the “fabric” and contours to Spica’s body.  You can see the slight impression of her vaginal area which is highly suggestive.  I very much prefer something like this on a figure rather than full blown nudity – it is more stimulating as it makes you think and wonder at the possibilities but never revealing anything.  

The shirt hangs loosely over Spica’s shoulders, well, that’s what is represented anyway.  The actual shirt on the figure fits together like a clamshell quite securely.  You’ll have to remove her head first, which is stabilized by a magnet, then you can take apart her shirt.  The entire figure fits together securely and there’s no fear of Spica falling apart, minus the little strand of hair on the top of her head.  

The shirt is nicely shaded to accent the highlights and shadows, the gradient is very smooth as well and it all blends in together nicely.  From the side view, you can actually see a bit of her right nipple peeping out from below the shirt.  I think I would’ve preferred if the shirt is more “closed” and covers up the nipples completely – I think it was like that in the original illustration and prototype.  

With the shirt off, Spica looks a little cold, but maybe that’s due to the white background of these shots.  The gap between her body and her hair / cushion looks a little odd too, but I later realised I can adjust her seating position a bit better so the gap isn’t as obvious.  I find the way her body is curved ever so slightly is quite sensual.  

I think the sculptor did a really excellent job sculpting Spica’s breasts.  They’re round and firm looking, and they appear to be falling a bit to the sides due to gravity without the support of a bra.  They’re also not inappropriately large, yet not flat like a runway – just right!  The nipples are also little perky and the paint used isn’t unusually bright nor dark.  I still can’t get over just how bright pink Rika’s nipples were.  

One tiny oddity that I noticed is the lack of navel detail in Spica’s sculpt.  There’s just a very slight groove and that’s it, no belly button to be seen anywhere!  I’m not too sure why that is given the excellent details on the rest of this figure.  But it’s not all that bad as this is one area where you won’t take as much notice due to her pose.  

One other bummer - yes, that’s right I used a pun – is the lack of detail on Spica’s bum.  It’s quite flat and smooth, but that might be due to the way her hips are stretching to get the pants on.  But come on, a little more definition wouldn’t hurt, even if you don’t see this area all that often like her belly button.  

You can flip Spica over so she’s in a doggy position, but this figure just isn’t meant to be posed this way, having her balancing her body via her head looks a little silly.  

And so, we finally come to the part of the review everyone’s been waiting for – the review of Spica’s SEXY SOFA!  That’s right, here’s the sexy sofa that’s all the rage and hype since this figure was announced.  It wouldn’t be called a “sexy sofa version” if it wasn’t a sexy sofa!  Just look at it, so smooth and curvy in all the right places!  It even comes with a passion fruit coloured pillow for Spica – she’s one lucky girl!  

The paint detail on the sexy sofa is no less than the work done on Spica, subtle shades and highlights to accent the edges and wrinkles.  The light yellow works very well with the dark brown woodd base and the orange-ish pillow, it helps bring life the borine white shirt that Spica wears.  I mean, without this sexy sofa, Spica is nothing!  NOTHING!  

In all seriousness, this is an excellent figure, and is definitely going on my list of “must-haves”.  So far I haven’t seen any other reviews of this Spica and her sexy sofa, I may be the first – even foobarbaz.jp didn’t have a review of Spica, which was a surprise to me.  Or maybe they did and I simply missed it?  I don’t know why this girl is so elusive to search for, maybe it’s also due to the nutty price one have to pay to get her?  When I did a Google search, I did manage to come across the following photo, I’m not sure if it’s a fan art of this figure or if it’s the original illustration that inspired the figure.  Either way, it’s pretty close in resemblence. 

I decided to try and take a shot of the figure to match the illustration for fun – I should’ve angled my shot a bit more, but I was going by memory at the time.  =P 

Some more pics of sexy sofa and its friend, Spica…