Arin 1/8 PVC by GoodSmile Company

Arin comes from the Korean MMO (massive multi-player online) golf game Pangya, though the game itself has different incarnations all over the world. I played the US version titled Albatross18 on and off for over a year, but I never got into it too much. I did however like the characters and enjoyed playing the game when I did play. I'm sure I'll play it more in the future when the US version re-opens under Ntreev with the original title of Pangya. Anyways, on to the figure. Arin is 1/8 scale PVC made by GoodSmile Company back in 2007, so finding her might be a bit difficult these days. Luckily I stumbled across her still being in stock at Robert's Anime Corner Store, an anime store based in the US. Unfortunately it looks as if I ordered one of the last ones, as she's no longer available at the time of this review. I paid $47.68 for the figure and $7.99 for shipping, and received the figure within around 3 days of the time of ordering.








Arin comes on a green base with two pegs holding her left foot and one peg holding her right. Papel, the funky looking paper bag caddie next to her feet is attached by two pegs. Arin's dress is quite detailed as well as her hat. Her hat isn't removable but her golf club is. The golf club comes apart in two pieces to more easily put it in her hand. I really love the detail on her boots, dress and hat. Also her pantsu are true to the game, as they are polka dotted. Her flowing blue hair looks especially nice, and it feels soft, just like the bows on her boot laces. The details in her eyes could have been a little better I think, but even so they look great. Considering this figure is about 2 years old I think it's great quality all around. Even if you've never played Pangya or golf in your life you can appreciate this figure. Arin isn't my favorite character but she's the only one I've managed to get so far. This is a great PVC figure and I'm glad I was able to get one for myself. I'm working on getting Kooh but she's literally sold out all over the place, but I think I might have found somewhere to order from even though it's going to be a pain in the butt. If you do play the game Arin has some awesome outfits besides this one, it's too bad they didn't make a version of her in her gothic lolita attire. All in all this figure is excellent, a great job by GoodSmile!







Now that my Flickr account has been upgraded and I've uploaded most of my pictures you can find the rest of the pictures from this set in my photostream. There's a ton more than shown here in my review, so do check them out if you're interested. I thought I'd finish off this post with a Pangya video, so here's the promotional video for Season 3.

Nendoroid Yoko

Yesterday Nendoroid Yoko from Gurren Lagann arrived at my door. I had pre-ordered her from Hobby Search months ago and almost had to cancel her. Luckily that didn't end up happening and now she graces my shelf. She is still available at the time of posting this, if you decide you want her you can order her here. Her cost is 3,167 Yen.





Yoko comes with 5 arms, 4 legs, and 3 faces, and her scarf. She also comes with her extra long gun and some orange tinted shades. The gun can be taken apart as shown with included instructions, and it also comes with an extra strap. The shades attach to the underside of her front hairpiece. Her ponytail is also removable and articulated. I'm quite impressed with the level of detail in this Nendoroid, though it doesn't come as much of a surprise anymore. Yoko's stand is clamp style so it grips around her hips/waist. I especially like her angry face. She looks like she's about to kick the living crap out of my other nendos. She's a little top heavy like most nendos but that's easily fixed with the grip from her stand. I can't see a need for much improvement, aside from maybe her bangs being a little more flexible. They get in the way a bit, otherwise no complaints here. If you're a fan of Nendoroids or Gurren Lagann I can suggest picking this figure up.






If you haven't seen Gurren Lagann, I can highly recommend it. It has plenty of action, comedy and some drama, hell even the music is good. Of course primarily it's a mecha anime, but I can suggest this anime even to those who don't find mecha appealing. It's definitely a one of a kind epic anime. O.k, so you can tell I like it. I wanted to include the first opening but there seems to be a ton of fan made versions and I can't seem to find the original, so you'll have to look it up yourself, sorry.

March Madness?

March has been here for 5 days now, and I'm just getting back to blogging~ uguu. Well, things turned out to be a little hectic. My bank card got stolen and someone helped themselves to a few hundred dollars of my money on the first of the month. But luckily the person who took my card wasn't very smart and thus our newly arrived tax returns weren't drained completely. The bank is going to cover the money that was taken, so things will be o.k. We're also in the process of doing a bunch of much needed home improvements. And, as I'm writing this Riiana has come down with a cold and I'm trying to fend it off. Alas, all this in only a short time, but things aren't too bad I guess. So on with regular posting. This morning Nendoroid Yoko arrived at my door. I also decided to take pictures of the poster that came in the February issue of OtakuUSA that I recently got, as requested.

Here's the full shot.

And a couple shots in sections to show better detail.

Anyways I'll be doing a shoot of the Nendoroid Yoko probably tomorrow, and Riiana is working on a review of Fooly Cooly that should be up real soon. I also want to do an update of pre-orders as I have several things in waiting.

Oh yeah, and I got an e-mail from fellow Team Blue member and blogger, Otaku Dan, as well as a blog comment from fellow blogger Blowfish pointing me in the direction of a Sankaku Complex article about tattoos that just happened to feature Riiana's Tama the tiger from Hayate no Gotoku. Thanks for the heads up guys!

Sun Seto Figma

Today I'll be reviewing the Figma of Sun Seto. She comes from the manga/anime Seto no Hanayome. I got her from the usual suspect, Hobby Search for 2,261 Yen. She's readily available at the time of writing up this review. I haven't seen the entire series yet, nor the OVA, so I can't really tell you what I think about it. I do plan on finishing it up one of these days soon though. Basically, what made me decide to buy this particular figure were the optional nekomimi and mermaid tail. Alright, move on to read the review.





First off, she comes with 10 hands, 2 faces, her sword with scabbard, nekomimi and her mermaid tail. There's also a background you can download from the Figma site for her which wasn't included. Just scroll down and you'll see it. It would have been nice had they included it but I already had something else in mind before she arrived. Her hair is restricting in the back, making her unable to look at an upward angle, which is a bit of a turn off. The good part about the hair is the side bangs are flexible. Her nekomimi go between the front and main hair pieces, which loosens up the front piece a bit. I haven't tried them out on other figures, so I can't be too sure about how well they'll work with them. The mermaid tail is made of a thin but hard plastic, so it's not flexible. I would have liked it better had they made it of a softer PVC so that it could bend around for more interesting poses. In order to put her mermaid tail on, you need to take her lower legs off from the knees and then you can either slide the tail on or separate it in half and then snap it back together over her thighs. I do like this figure because it's unique for a Figma, but there's room for improvement. If I was to rate her I'd give a 7/10. If you're a fan of hers maybe knock that up a point.









Just in case you wonder about the base, you may have noticed waves being used for one in some of the pictures. This was actually from a dolphin statue that broke a while back and I kept it because I thought one day it might come in handy for something like this. Some of the pictures feature a tapestry in the background and others the cardboard backdrop from the Figma box. I had fun trying to get some interesting pictures but it was a bad day for lighting. I might try for some more pictures again with her, because she gets my creative juices flowing.




Lastly, if you can handle the moe overdose of the video, do check out the second ending song above, else you'd be wise to skip it.