After over a year of waiting, I finally have the Alter versions of  Hayate, Fate, and now Nanoha from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. I know Alter has other StrikerS figures, but these three were the only ones I really cared about. They were also crazy expensive when you factor in shipping so I wouldn’t be able to afford the others anyway. Like Hayate and Fate, Nanoha also comes in a huge box. I managed to fit the first two boxes under my desk, but I have no clue where I’m going to put this third one.

Nanoha was packaged very well to prevent her from being damaged. It took me about an hour to cut all the tape, get the pieces out, and remove the plastic wrapping.

This is what Nanoha looks like after unpackaging her and putting all of the pieces together. I thought I’d be used to Alter’s amazing quality after Hayate and Fate, but I have to admit I spent a few hours just oogling at this figure. I don’t think I need so explain why, you can see for yourself from the pictures below:

Like the other StrikerS figures, there’s a lot of detail put into Nanoha. Alter also seems to focus on exposing the panties quite a bit with this series. If you just look at Nanoha’s back at a lower angle, you’d be able to see her panties.

You can tell that a lot of work was put into Raising Heart from all the little pieces that make up the end of the staff. I like how they used a semi-transparent pink plastic for the energy waves (or whatever they’re called) that are coming out.

The same plastic was also used for Nanoha’s winged boots. Unlike the Hayate figure, the part of the base holding Nanoha’s feet are made out of a clear plastic instead of white. I guess the guys at Alter just thought that it would look better this way. Personally, I would’ve preferred if they kept it the same so that the figures match.

The paint job was done pretty well as you can tell from Nanoha’s barrier jacket. Once again, not surprising considering how good the other figures were.

It’s also good to see that they didn’t mess up the face. It would have been a shame for a great figure like this to have a face that just doesn’t look right.

Another look at Raising Heart. The tip is pointy so if you get this figure, make sure you don’t stare at it too closely or you might accidently poke your eye. I know I almost did ^.^’

I wonder how they were able to get so many holes drilled into such a small piece.

Nanoha’s hair isn’t as impressive as the figure of Fate, but it was still nice to see that they split the hair into strans rather than having one big lump.

Nanoha also comes with these 4 flying things that are supposed to be a part of Raising Heart. Each one has it’s own little stand to hold it up. When I was putting the first one on its stand I though I had broken one of the little engine parts when I bent it, but apparently they are all jointed and you can turn them in different directions to make it look like the whole thing is making a turn.

This is what the underside looks like. I think there was some static from the packaging because so much dust was stuck onto this piece.

This is what Nanoha looks like with all of the pieces together. It certainly takes up a lot of room, but I think she looks awesome so it’s worth it. One thing that I like about this figure over the Hayate one is that the staff doesn’t fall out of her hands. The Hayate figure had some flexibility to her hand so you just pushed the staff into her hand, but sometimes it would fall out. The back of this staff is removable so you slide it into Nanoha’s hands which are less flexible, making sure it doesn’t fall off. Overall, this was an amazing figure and definitely worth the money if you’re a Nanoha fan.

Featured on the cover of volume 114 of Megami Magazine are To Aru Kagaku no Railgun characters biribiri and my favourite, Kuroko. I quite liked the variety of pin-up posters that were included this time around. As usually, I have pics of them below:

Haruka Nogizaka is probably the dream girlfriend for many otaku, mainly because she’s an otaku herself. I still haven’t watch the second season, but I will once all of the blu-rays are out.

This was a bit surprising, a poster with Saki characters, but no Nodoka. I guess all of the posters of her from previous volumes was too much.

I can’t see Shana not being able to jump over that thing. As small as she is, she’s still really athletic.

It looks like feathers are now included as one of the censor materials, including steam, fog, rays of light, and the traditional green leaf.

Sometimes I wonder what angels actually wear. I highly doubt it’d be anything like the clothing from Sora no Otoshimono though.

Some more girls at the beach.

Like I said in a previous post, it seems like Horo is always naked in her pin-up posters. It doesn’t look like Megami Magazine is going to put clothes on her any time soon.

I get a feeling there’s going to be a big wave of ero-anime coming out in the future, and I blame it on the success of Queen’s Blade.

I’d much rather have slice-of-life harem comedies like Seitokai no Ichizon. Has anyone ever noticed that Kurimu’s name sounds like “cream” in English but with a Japanese accent?

Speaking of cream, Charlotte and Sylvia seems to have gotten it all over themselves in this poster.

I only watched the trailer for Sacred Blacksmith. Did anyone finish the series? How did it turn out?

I don’t think anyone can argue that Mio is the moe-moe queen. She looks cute no matter what age she is.

This brings up an interesting concept, mermaid maids.

I never really got into Taishou Yakyuu Musume, probably because I have no interest in baseball.

I want to watch Kiddy Girl-and, but I want to watch Kiddy Grade first.

These girls from NEEDLESS have really short skirts…

Nyankoi was one of those anime that I never really got into.

CANAAN and bunny girls seem to be a common combination.

Does anyone know what Plug is doing here? She’s lying in bed with her underwear off, and she’s holding a can containing some white stuff. I wonder what it is.

Flying lolis! lol

I still haven’t gotten the chance to watch Kowarekake no Orgol. I hear it’s either really sad or happy at the end, depending on how you look at it.

I was actually looking forward to 11eyes before it came out, but the 1st episode was such a disappointment that I decided not to watch it. The girls looked kinda cute though.

I don’t know why they included a Halloween girl when this is the November volume of Megami Magazine, but I like ^.^

I just laughed when I saw this clothing. I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t look like a cool gangster when you have girls from the most moe anime in recent memory on the back of your jacket.

It’d be nice if there was a pin-up poster for this image.

I also wouldn’t mind if each of the girls in Seitokai no Ichizon got their own posters. I’d especially like one of Mafuyu in that pose.

In case you were wondering, this is what the seiyuu for the Seitokai girls look like. It’s nice to see that Mafuyu’s seiyuu is pretty good looking too.

I wasn’t aware that they were releasing a second Higurashi live-action movie until I saw this. I guess I’ll have to find some way to get this one too.

Volume 114 came along with a pencil board. On one side is the image of Rin and Saber from volume 113, which is kinda weird since it would’ve made more sense to include it in that volume instead of this one.

On the other side is a young maid.

As usual, a large poster was also included with this volume.

On the front is the same image that was on the cover of the magazine. This is definitely going on my wall.

On the reverse side is Vivio from Nanoha StrikerS. I think it looks weird having Nanoha and Fate’s clothes spread out like that beside her.  It looks like she zapped them to dust and all that’s left of them are their clothes or something.

This was a pretty nice volume of Megami Magazine, it had a large variety of anime and some really good posters. My favourite pin-up poster is the one of Kurimu-chan, and I really liked the To Aru Kagaku no Railgun poster. Overall a good improvement over the previous volume.

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine

After getting the Hayate figure from Alter and seeing how big it was, I was expecting something about the same size for Fate, but it still amazes me how much space she takes up. This 1/7 scale figure of Fate T-Harlaown (Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS) by Alter is by far the largest figure that I own. Once again, I’m blown away by the amazing detail and shear awesomeness of Alter’s latest Nanoha StrikerS figure.

I’ve never had any problems with Alter figures having faces that don’t look right, and this is no exception.

Fate’s barrier jacket is pretty detailed as you can see. I especially like how they were able to paint her belt without having any of the paint cover up the holes. That’s pretty impressive considering how small the holes are. The only downside I could find with her clothes is that there’s a white spot on her left breast. It looks like some of the paint chipped off or something and the quality checkers at the factory missed it :(

The backside isn’t as impressive as the front, but at least they’ve managed to get Fate’s proportions right.

I was also impressed with how detailed Fate’s gloves are. The paint is completely smooth (there are no chunks anywhere), and the little grooves in the fingers are all the same depth. There are also no seamlines or anything left over from casting the pieces.

The boots, like the gloves are also very well done. I should probably have wiped off the dust before I took this picture though, it makes it look like there’s some clumps of paint.

The hair is probably one of the more noticeable things about this figure. Considering how long it is and how much space it takes up, it was made with a harder plastic so it wouldn’t deform over time. I really like how you can see lots of strands of hair rather than just a big lump like some figures. I can only imagine how hard it’d be to sculpt the hair like this.

Of course, since this is a figure of Fate in her “Shin Sonic Form” from the end of Nanoha StrikerS, you can’t forget about her awesome weapons. My favourite is the Riot Zanber, where Fate splits Bardiche into two small swords connected by this glowy yellow string. I have a couple more shots from different angles below:

If you don’t like the yellow string thing, you can also remove it and just have the swords by themselves:

Of course, you can’t forget about Bardiche’s strongest form, the Riot Blade.

This huge-ass sword is about the same height as the figure itself. Being so long, it’s impossible for the figure to hold by itself, so the sword has its own little stand to hold it up at the end. The huge sword is kind of a downer if you don’t have much space because the figure itself already takes up so much room, and the sword just adds to the problem.

The base is a plain white plastic rectangle with a description of Fate and Bardiche. Personally, I think a plain base like this is nice for a really detailed figure because it doesn’t distract you from the figure itself.

As you can probably tell, I really liked this figure. The only downsides were that spot on Fate’s barrier jacket and the fact that she takes up so much room. Besides that, I was very impressed with all the little details in sculpting and the paint job of this figure. It’s no wonder this was worth over $100, but it was worth it.