It’s been a while since my last post and even longer since my last figure post, but this August has and will continue to be a busy month for me. With that said, my presence online will be significantly diminished, but you can expect one or two more posts before the end of the month.

Today lets take a look at Xiao Mei, a 1/7 scale figure by Max Factory. I don’t know much about her other than she’s a Chinese cat-girl from the game Shining Hearts. Sadly, I can’t find her name written in Chinese anywhere so I don’t know which “xiao” and which “mei” her name is comprised of. I think it’s safe to just refer to her as “Mei” though.

As with all of the Shining Hearts figures released so far, Mei was also based off of an illustration by Tony Taka.

Max Factory did a good job, with the help of sculptor Nanako, bringing Mei into the 3rd dimension. A couple of differences I could find between the illustration and the figure are the placement of her feet (right in front of left instead of left in front of right), and her face is turned more towards the front. One difference that I did like was that Max Factory decided to put Mei’s legs closer together, which I think looks more feminine.

The original illustration only show Mei from the front, so Max Factory had to assume what she looks like from all other sides. I think they did an excellent job, as you can see below.

Mei is one of the few figures I’ve seen that manages to maintain a high level of sexiness and cuteness at the same time. Her clothing helps accentuate her slim wait, perfectly-sized bust, and curvy hips. At the same time, her “nyan” pose combined with cat ears and a tail give her a sweet and innocent look. I applaud Tony for creating this combination of clothes, and I applaud Nanako for being able to sculpt a goddess-like body.

I couldn’t ask for a better overall design or sculpt for this figure, but what really determines the quality of a figure are all of the small details.

Starting from the top of the figure are Mei’s cat ears. Her ears change in colour from black to  grey as you move towards the tip. What really impressed me here was how the interface between the two colours isn’t a smooth line, but a jagged edge, just like a real cat.

The inside of Mei’s ears have some fur, something I would’ve forgotten if I were making a figure. There is some black paint on the edges of Mei’s ears that got on the inside, but it’s not visible unless you stare inside her ears.

Mei’s hair buns (I forgot the actual name for them) are nicely shaped with no clumps, but there is a small seam line that runs across the center of both of them.

Something new to me are eyes with light reflection painted in. I’m assuming this was done to make Mei’s eyes look more fluid, and I think it works.

The pink ribbon over Mei’s glove is cute, but there is a small amount of pink paint that got onto the glove.

Thankfully, the pink trim and the designs around it on the shirt were painted very precisely.

I think this picture speaks for itself, nice sculpt.

One of the more subtle details about this figure are the folds in the clothing. Not only do they match the illustration, they are both painted and sculpted in. Figures with folds that have no change in the shading around it look bland unless you shine a light on it from just the right angle. Painting shadows into Mei’s clothes really helps make them stand out and ensures they always look right.

More shading can be seen on Mei’s backside. I also like how they’ve sculpted her shoulder blades showing through her shirt.

A white bow on the side draws attention to Mei’s hips.

For those wondering about the tail, it fits snugly into a slot in the back. The slot itself is rather big so you don’t have to worry about the tail falling off.

I’ve mentioned how much I liked the overall sculpt, but here’s a look at the finer details. I see a lot of figures with horrible looking fingers and I’m glad this is not one of them. Any figure with fingers that actually have joints is fine by me.

This is more for the guys. Yes, she does have a nicely shaped bottom and wears white panties.

On the other hand, I am rather enamored with Mei’s legs, which was a major reason for purchasing her. They are long, smooth, and simply beautiful.

If you don’t like bare legs, Mei also has one leg with white stockings, quite the fashionista.

Mei’s shoes have the same design that was on her shirt. Again, the precision of the paint job here was fantastic.

The base is a simple solid white with the Shining Hearts title on it. Since Mei stands relatively straight, there was no need for a large base so Max Factory only made it slightly larger than 9cm across. This is now the smallest figure base in my collection and really helps when trying to conserve space.

Overall, Xiao Mei is a stunning figure. I absolutely love her character design and the sculpt. The paint job has some minor mishaps, like the pink ribbon over the glove, but is excellent otherwise. I will probably never sell this figure, especially considering how well she looks next to Taiga.

Related posts:

1. Hinagiku Katsura Nendoroid by Max Factory

I have about a dozen figures lined up for review, but today I’m going to skip the queue and cover the most recent addition to my collection, a 1/8 scale Maxima Enfield from the JRPG Shining Hearts. I don’t know anything about Maxima or even the Shining Hearts game, but when Kotobukiya released the promo shots of this figure, I thought it looked awesome and I had to get it.

The figure is based off of an illustration by famed artist, Tony Taka (T2). For those of you who don’t know who Tony is, he did the illustrations and character designs for the Shining series of games, as well as for titles such as Sora no Iro Mizu no Iro, Tony’s Heroine Series, and Fault! All of his characters are female, and I think the most identifiable aspect of his work is the way he draws eyes.

Kotobukiya managed to recreate Tony’s illustration in figure form almost perfectly. The dress, sword, and even the card all match what was in the original illustration.

There is no illustration of Maxima’s back side, but I think Kotobukiya also did a great job here. Some figures look great from the front and have a horrible back, but Maxima looks great from every angle.

Now I did say earlier that Kotobukiya did an almost perfect job, so here’s the most obvious area where they fell short. On my particular figure, there are two smudges right around the area that probably (at least for guys) draws the most attention, highlighted by the top two arrows in the picture. From the size and shape, I’m assuming that one of the painters at the factory handled my Maxima when there was still wet paint on his fingers and it slipped through the quality checkers.

The second problem I had was with the design on the front of Maxima’s dress. From the illustration, the groove should extend down around the white design, not go through it. Unlike the paint smudges, this defect seems to be present in all of the figures and not just mine.

There’s nothing I can do about the placement of the design/groove, but I did try to fix one of the smudges. I tried using 600 grit sandpaper to remove the brown paint under Maxima’s boob, but I actually did not find any black paint underneath the brown paint. The only cause I can think of that would make the brown paint go all the way through is that the black paint was also wet when this piece was handled. That would also explain why there’s a black smudge on the white design.

Now I’m thinking of getting some black paint to paint over the brown, so if anyone knows what kind I should get, I’d be happy to hear. Enough with the defects though, back to the figure.

Tony illustrates characters with eyes that have a more circular iris (as opposed to a super-elongated oval) with a black outline. The eyelashes are relatively thin with a feathery appearance and extend across the top of the eye and down the outside corner, but never appear on the bottom of the eye. Kotobukiya managed to keep Tony’s drawing style intact here.

The ribbon around Maxima’s neck has some rough edges, but they aren’t noticeable from a normal viewing distance. I’ve seen better ribbons on other figures (i.e. Liu Meifeng by GSC), but realistically speaking, no one’s going to be sticking this figure in their face to examine the ribbon.

One of the things that make Maxima look great from behind is how her back is exposed. The large bow and the white lines on her collar piece draws your attention to the area, and her smooth white skin in contract with the white clothing, coupled with the excellent sculpt just make you want to stare.

While this has more to do with the character design rather than the figure, I love how it teases you with a peek at Maxima’s zettai ryouki and covers her panties with a semi-transparent underskirt.

Of course, if you really want to see everything underneath the skirt, Maxima comes apart at the waist. I don’t think it’s possible to tell what kind of panties Maxima is wearing (other than that they’re white) from the original illustration, so I’m guessing Kotobukiya took some creative liberties here. Personally, I think the design looks like an arrow pointed at a certain place, something for the guys I guess.

The high-heel boots are about as smooth as they can get, but while they look nice, I’m a bit disappointed with the white pieces under them. I know they’re used to keep the figure stable and prevent it from leaning, but I would have preferred for there to be a gap between the heel and the toe of the boots.

The base is nothing special, but the small size is great for someone like me who’s running out of shelf space for figures.

Maxima comes with two accessories, though I consider them essential to the character and have had them on throughout this photo shoot. The first is a card which she holds between her index and middle finger of her left hand. It is extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY detailed. I have never seen anything with such fine printing on it before. Unfortunately, even with my new camera, I can’t zoom in enough to show all the details so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The card fits perfectly between Maxima’s fingers, there is nothing else holding it, which just goes to show the precision with which Kotobukiya made the thickness of the card and the gap between the fingers. You can also see from this picture that her hands are very nicely sculpted, with clear joints in every finger.

The other accessory is her katana. The hilt has a smooth and well-defined design, however, if you look at the original illustration, there should be a green glow coming from it. It would have been cool to have the sword glow, but to do that in a figure, you would need lights or use transparent plastic. I think having pieces of green transparent plastic on the hilt of the sword would have just made it look tacky, so I applaud Kotobukiya for making the right choice and sticking with black and silver.

The hand guard also has a star design on it.

The blade of the katana is finely sculpted with no rough edges whatsoever; it’s flawless.

That covers just about every part of this figure. One last gripe I have is that the hair ribbon that next to Maxima’s ponytail doesn’t extend outwards like in the promo shots, instead just goes straight down. It’s not really a flaw though, and moving it closer to the body made the box significantly smaller.

If it weren’t for the smudges and the placement of the groove on the front side, I think Maxima would have been perfect. She is definitely one of the coolest looking figures I have now and the quality is above and beyond any of the other Kotobukiya figures in my collection.

Related posts:

1. Nagi Sanzenin Swimsuit Ver. by Kotobukiya
2. Hinagiku Katsura Swimsuit Ver. by Kotobukiya
3. Luka Megurine Nendoroid by GSC

Collet is from the figure maker Native and was sculpted by Chieri. She was based on an illustration by famed ecchi artist Tony Taka and comes in a festive bright red box. The box looks like an elaborate Christmas gift, but lacks any windows unlike other figure boxes; you’ll see why in a few moments.

The original owner got this figure from France so there’s a sticker from the importer on the bottom of the box. My French is a bit rusty, but from what I can tell, it warns that this isn’t a toy for children and that it is meant for adults aged 14 and up. I lol’ed when I saw this because in Canada there’s no way something like this would be sold to anyone below 18.

This is what you find when you open up the box. Except for a bit of dust, the figure was in good condition, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a fellow figure collector though. The figure comes with a little postcard-sized illustration that was done by Tony Taka. You can see the full image below.

As you can see, the figure makers decided to add in some presents and a santa hat to make it more Christmasy. I can’t say I was much of a Tony Taka fan at first since all of his characters seemed so simplistic, but his art style has started to grow on me.

The main reason why I bought this figure wasn’t for Collet though, it was for something much simpler (and less ecchi). Ever since the first pics of Collet came out I’ve always wanted the little cat girl figure that came along with it. The cat girl doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Tony’s illustration so it looks to be another extra that Native decided to include with the figure. Luckily for me, the original owner didn’t seem to interested in the cat girl as she was still sealed in her original packaging when I opened up the box so that means I got her brand new ^.^

I love how she’s wearing a pair of headphones, and she comes with a fish, a cup of tea, and a cushion to sit on. She’s about the size of a petit nendoroid and also allows for a bit of movement. Her head can be moved from side-to-side and up and down, her arms can be moved up and down, and her tail can be turned 360 degrees. I found the paint job on her to be comparable with that of petit nendoroids, and there aren’t any big defects when it comes to the sculpted and molding. The only complaint I have is that the bell on her collar is a bit off-centre. Sadly, that thing seems to be permanently attached to her so it’ll break if I try to move it. Since I only got Collet to get this figure, that makes this cat girl the most expensive mini-figure in my collection at $130 (shipping included, which wasn’t cheap since the box was so big). Anyways, I’m sure some of you are anxious to see the shots of Collet so here they are:

After seeing her though, Collet actually looks pretty good, perhaps good enough to keep. The snowmen on the bottom of her boots are cute.

Obvisouly, with a figure as ecchi as Collet, there’s gotta be a full cast-off feature. I was a bit lost as to how to remove her santa outfit, but luckily for me there were instructions that came with the figure. Collet’s outfit is made out of a really soft plastic so you don’t have to worry about accidently breaking it. The white parts are also made out of a fuzzy material, which is much nicer than hard plastic. Also nice was how the base has white fabric on the surface. First of all, you don’t have to worry about scratching Collet’s knees, and secondly, it feels nice. As for Collet’s “parts”, I can’t say I have much to compare them to, but from pics of other figures I’ve seen, Collet is certainly one of the more detailed ones out there. While most full cast-off figures seem to have a non-existant crotch, Collet actually has details sculpted in down there. Her oppai also look good, though maybe a bit big.

My favourite part about Collet is how nicely sculpted her back is. From this angle, you can see how well Chieri has sculpted in Collets spine and just barely made her shoulder blades visible. I also like how you can see Collet’s hourglass figure from this angle.

I also love the details put into her garterbelt. It’s a little dirty, but that’s most likely from being on display before.

Of course, the best part of any anime-style girl is her face. The figure doesn’t match the illustration exactly, but I think Native did a good enough job that it is barely noticeable. Collet still manages to keep her “oh no” look while being cute at the same time. It would’ve been nice if her bangs were a bit thinner and less clumpy, but that seems to be a hard thing to do with figures.

In the end, I was glad I made this purchase. I finally managed to get that cat girl mini-figure, and I got Collet as a bonus. I’m a little weary about having Collet in my room though. Since she’s so large (1/6 scale) and wears bright red clothing, she draws a lot of attention and it’s hard to hide her amongst my other figures. While all of my other figures are at least covering their indecent parts, Collet’s oppai are fully exposed even when fully cast-on and you can see what’s under her panties at certain angles. Still, Collet is a fantastic figure and I’m having doubts about whether to sell her (without the cat girl) as I had originally planned.

Related posts:

1. Hiyori Pixy by GSC (NSFW)

Today I thought I’d share some of my favourite illustrations from the first volume of the  E☆2 (Etsu) Girls Girls Girls! collection. I’ve actually had this artbook for nearly a year now, but never got around to posting about it until now. Like volumes 2 and 3, there are also special categories in volume 1, but these ones are more generic. The first section starts out with gravure illustrations, and after that are a series of smaller categories such as maids, twins, and glasses. These pages were really hard to scan without actually tearing the book apart, which is why you’ll notice one side is a little blurry in all of the pictures. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the cover illustration was done by none other than Tony Taka, who I’m sure many people have already heard of.

This picture above is another illustration from Tony Taka (http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/i/taka_tony/). The thing I like about his illustrations is that they’re always smooth and usually simple. His characters also have relatively soft-looking eyes.

This goth illustration was done by Hiro Suzuhira (http://heart-work.info/). I like the girl’s outfit, but I think her ear looks a bit weird.

This cute little girl was drawn by Akane Ikegami (http://akanemakesrevolution.blog121.fc2.com/). Sometimes I find that eyes drawn this way look a bit weird, but I think it looks perfect here. I also liked how some of the cherry blossom petals were blurred to make it feel like its windy.

On to the maid section, here we have an illustration by Kiba Satoshi (http://www.din.or.jp/~kiba/). I thought the mini-tie was a nice addition to the regular maid outfit, and she looks cool holding a sword.

This maid was illustrated by Kaya Kuramoto (http://home.att.ne.jp/yellow/kuramoto/). Girls with guns are cool, but does anyone else think that it’d be really hard to reach for the gun in that position? The gun also seems a bit too big for the holster. Anyways, I liked how Kaya drew the maid’s face, she’s like a ghost or something you’d expect to see in a horror anime/game.

Here’s the last maid, I promise. Its illustrated by Momoko Sapporo (http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~momoko/). It wasn’t so much the art that I liked, but the girl just seems like she has a really spunky personality which you don’t normally associate with maids.

These two twins were illustrated by KEG (http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/keg/). I liked the old-fashioned feel of this illustration, and the only problem I could find with it is that the lower twin’s right elbow seems a litle too sharp.

Masato@Takashina (http://ts-web.dojin.com/hjo/) did this illustration. I thought it was interesting how the colours are almost like water-colours, but the patterns on the girl’s clothing is too detailed for that.

This one reminded me of Aoi Nishimata’s work, but the top of the page says it was illustrated by Okira. I couldn’t find any information on this artist, so if anyone knows who he is or if he has a website, feel free to share.

What I liked about this illustration by Mikeou (http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~cai16580/) is how he somehow managed to merge a maid outfit with a school uniform. At first I just thought it was an apron, but part of it is underneath the school uniform.

Anyone who follows anime/manga/game style art should be able to recognize this art style. This illustration was done by Tinkle (http://www.tinkerbell.vc/), famous for their beautifully detailed art that usuallly have cute girls wearing really frilly dresses.

This goth-loli girl was illustrated by Miyama-Zero (http://miyama0.dragon.gr.jp/). While the dresses in his art aren’t as frilly as in Tinkle’s, I still think it’s done really nicely.

I thought this girl looked really cool, she’s illustrated by A=g (http://easyplan01.blog10.fc2.com/). She looks like an angel you would see in some fantasy game, complete with a halo, crosses, and a staff for her weapon :)

The sunset in this illustration by Yuunagi Futaba (http://ps-hutaba.net/) was brilliant, I love how the colours blend together here. I also thought it was funny seeing an abandoned catgirl (instead of a cat) in a box.

Here’s an illustration by Miyama-Zero again. After looking at this second picture, it seems like Miyama-Zero draws his characters with rather large heads.

I know the yellowish colour in this illustration by Yuuri Nishiwaki (http://yuuri.happy.nu/) was intentional to show that there’s a window and setting sun, but I think this would’ve been better without it.

The last image I’d like to share is this one by Yukiwo (http://yukiwo.com/). I just adore this girl’s little top-hat, and she looks like a doll in that dress. I guess the cemetary is supposed to give it a dark feel, but it just doesn’t feel very dark to me.

There are a total of 75 full-page colour illustrations and a lot of monochrome illustrations at the back. Most of them are done by different artists so you get a lot of different art styles in here. While it’s a bit troublesome for someone who doesn’t know Japanese (like me) to try to look up the names of these artists, it’s definitely a good place to discover new art by people you might not have heard of.

Related posts:

1. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 3
2. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 2
3. Train Station Girls

Along with E2′s (Etsu’s) Girls Girls Girls! volume 2 illustration collection, I also bought the volume 3 illustration collection. This volume focuses on the cover girls of all the E2 Magazines from volumes 1-16, the poster girls from volumes 1-15, and the pick-up girls from volumes 1-7.

On the inside cover is another illustration of the same waitress girl on the front cover, but with different coloured clothing and background. The illustration was done by artist Tony Taka, who seems to have quite a few of his works published in E2 Magazine. If anyone out there think this girl looks familiar, it’s because Tony Taka did the character designs for ”Sora no Iro Mizu no Iro”, which you might have seen. You can see the similarities in the screenshot below (especially in the eyes and face):

The book also features other artists that regularly appear in E2 Magazine. Here is an illustration done by Aoi Nishimata, who worked on the character designs for SHUFFLE!, Tick Tack!, and Really? Really! I guess that’s why all of her works remind me of Kaede, Asa, Nerine, Sia, and Primula ^.^

This illustration was done by Misakura Nankotsu. I like the school uniforms that the girls are wearing, it reminds me of School Rumble. In case you can’t read the text behind them, it says “Kumanozawa Foolish Sisters”.

Carnelian’s work seems to always have very large oppai, if you don’t believe me just look up “Kao no Nai Tsuki” (“Moonlight Lady”) or “Yami to Boshi to Hon no Tabibito”, note that both are NSFW.

Another illustration by Tony Taka. What I like about his works are the soft faces that his characters have.

Can anyone who reads kanji tell me the name of this artist:

Tinkle’s work is also very well-known, and you can probably tell why from the illustration below. All the detail put into all the frilly clothing really makes their art stand out. There was also another one of their works on the adjacent page, but with bare oppai showing, I thought it best not to post it here.

A girl in a white dress with a pink umbrella taking a stroll through the woods. Sounds like a picture-perfect scene, and Aoi Kimizuka portrayed it very well here.

I really like this illustration done my Kantoku. He also does quite a few illustrations of popular anime characters.

Another work my Tinkle. Notice the frilly clothing.

Somehow pink hair and green eyes seem to fit perfectly when drawn anime/manga style, but look so weird in real life.

This fox-girl was done by Hiro Suzuhira, who also worked on the character designs for SHUFFLE! alongside Aoi Nishimata. It looks like Suzuhira provides a little  more fanservice with a bit of panty flashing :)

Here’s another work by Hira Suzuhira that I just loved. The detail in this illustration is amazing, especially the little flowers on the girl’s fingernails.

Once again I can’t read the name of this artist, but I like the art style.

Here’s another piece by Misakura Nankotsu, this time there’s no school uniforms. I wonder how often you’d find a girl lying on the floor in her underwear and smiling at you.

This girl reminds me of Nunnaly from Code Geass, drawn by Aoi Kimizuka:

More of Tony’s work. I think he likes tall, slim girls with brown hair.

This one looks really nice, but a bit scary at the same time.

Cute nekomimi girl by Teinkuru.

And at the last section of the book are the E2 pick-up girls:

Back cover:

Like the second volume of the Girls Girls Girls! illustration collection, this one was definitely worth the buy. The book contains 103 pages with over 70 illustrations, some of which span two pages. I’m really looking forward to the 4th volume now ^.^

Related posts:

1. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 2
2. Train Station Girls