Well, this is one girl that needs no introduction – and if she does then you must be living in a cave like me.
Seriously, I think the first time I was exposed to Miku (and Vocaloid) was when I was browsing around FooBarBaz.jp and saw the review of the “World is Mine” figure. I didn’t realize how popular Miku is until I looked up Vocaloid in Google. 
Like the Ikki Tousen series, I guess companies just can’t get enough of Vocaloid and the amount they are milking off this license is getting up there. But as long as there are still fans out there, Miku will keep coming.
This figure is the very first Miku I got in my collection and it’s alright. I really wasn’t expecting much since this was released by Sega. How could it compare to the big boys like Alter, GSC, Max Factory, etc.? So I have to say I was surprised at how fairly well this figure is presented – when you look at it as a whole, that is.
This version of Miku is a re-release by Sega since the first version sold so well. This figure is dubbed version 1.5 with the main difference being the paint job. The paint on this Miku has a gloss coating which creates a pearl-like effect. I don’t have the previous version to compare, but from the photos I’ve seen online, you can definitely see a difference. Well, even from my images alone, you should be able to see her pearl-like shine, especially in her hair.
I was fairly surprised by the prep work on this figure, overall it’s clean and lacked defects. There are just some slight mold marks and seam lines particularly in the hair, the rest of the body is fairly free of these lines unless you really look for them.
There are some overlapping paint throughout the figure, which isn’t a surprise considering the manufacture and the amount of small details. The paint looks rather flat, by that, I mean there are no shading involved, just solid colours applied throughout which relies on the sculpt and lighting to provide highlights and shadows.
One other small issue that bugs me about this figure is the position of her microphone, I think it’s sitting too low. To me, it would look alot better if it is sitting higher.
Miku’s 01 tattoo on her arm looks like tempo printing rather than an actual paint application. The skin also looks very plasticky with all the reflections from the lighting.
The digital display/control interface on her arm also look like it’s a tempo print. And here, you can see one of my pet peeves – the paint work on her fingernails. Looks like the painter just dabbed a blob of paint all over the finger, which is a little odd considering how relatively well the rest of the figure is painted (within the lines).
The edge of her shirt is a little messy – seems like the lower you look on the figure, the worse the paint work becomes. LOL
There are some slight details on Miku’s boots, but since the paint is just a flat out gloss black, they are very hard to see.
Miku’s long twin tails have some weight to them, the figure actually comes with two plastic pegs which supports the hair from the base. I didn’t feel it was necessary so I omitted it – at least for the photo shoot.
The base is kind of nice that it’s shaped like piano keys rather than a white rectangular base. I think it combines with the base of Kagamine Rin.
Overall, I’d have to say this is a pretty simple figure, but presented decently. I’m not sure who the sculptor is, but the pose is fairly close to the artwork. I would say this is probably a figure I would put on a desk at home or at work as a general display piece, it doesn’t have a “collector’s” feel to it. Also looking at the figure, I can’t say I feel very inspired by it either – now that I think about it, I’m not sure what made me decide to buy it, especially when the Max Factory Miku was on the verge of release (which I’ll be reviewing later on too).
I didn’t take that many photos of this Miku either, as I just didn’t have any inspiration while taking her photos. The pearl effect of the paint did fool around with my light metering a bit and some of the shots came out overexposed. So I played with the photos a little bit in post processing and decided to go for a pearly-blur effect. Boy did her hair light up like a Christmas tree!
With that said, here are just a few more shots to wrap up this small review. ^^
Wow, everyone uses the same pose for Miku. It’d be nice to see Miku in a dancing pose or something instead. It seems like a nice figure for something that I presume didn’t cost too much, though.
A lot of times I’ll preorder figures with an idea already in mind for how I want to shoot it, but sometimes I’ll get a figure and just stare at it and have no idea how I want to present it (even if it’s a figure I like a lot … like E2046′s KOS-MOS, I like the figure a lot but I had no clue how I wanted to shoot it so I defaulted to black).
Yeah, tell me about it. It’s not enough that they’re milking Vocaloid to death, but they’re using the same illustration to make the sculpts. LOL I’m glad the new Miku figures coming out are branching out and have some different designs (such as the Max Factory and Love is War versions).
The problem with this figure is I wasn’t thinking at all when I bought it. Damn impulse buys…