Urushihara, Ponkotsu Works, Ashito pieces on the horizon
Aside from the regular stream of Kanu Unchou, Tamaki Kousaka, and Super Sonico figures regularly streaming their way on to retail figure sites, a couple of figures have recently appeared recreating the efforts of some of the preeminent ero artists of the day.
Lifted from the cover of June 2009's
Comic TENMA, pubic hair fundamentalist Satoshi Urushihara will have original character
Hida Namie rendered in plastic by CM's Corporation for a scheduled debut in April, at a suggested retail price of
¥8,800. She is castoffable, unsurprisingly, though no indication yet if she includes Urushihara's trademark underneath her knickers.
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| Comic TENMA's June 2009 cover, courtesy of animebooks.com |
I can't say this is a candidate for my pre-order dollars--the facial features on the figure screams "HEY GUISE WHAT'S GOING ON," with her mouth in much more of a smile, and her eyes open much wider, while the original illustration's more sensual ovaloid shape and eyes closer to the same height and width. Also disappointing is the choice of finish on Namie's hair and clothing--Urushihara gets a lot out of high-gloss finishes that communicate silk and satin, and it seems like all of that is lost on the figure except for her stockings.
A marginally better effort has been produced by Q-six in an enormous 1/5.5 scale rendition of the cover girl of Ponkotsu Works' ecchi tankoubon
Kanojo Biyori (localized in North America by Project-H under the title
An Ideal Day to Fall in Love), scheduled for release in late April at a MSRP of
¥16,800.
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| Image courtesy of nekomagic.com |
While I like this effort and this figure much more than the effort with Urushihara's work, I still find this figure to be skippable, and not just because of the astronomical cost of entry. While I'm sure that the artist's stylistic eccentricities are difficult to capture, surely there could have been a better effort put into this girl. The drowsy, dreamy expression of the original illustration gives way to a guileless, simple smile on the figure. The razored lightness of the original girl's hair has been replaced by something that may have just been extracted from the ocean. The gravity-susceptible bosom has been replaced by two weightless spheres. Finally, the stripes of her pantsu are far too thin and numerous--only seven are evident on the original illo, compared to no less than eleven on the figure's.
Finally, a piece not yet scheduled for release but eagerly awaited, there is finally a colorized version of Oyari Ashito's King Arthur from
Eiyuu*Senki by Gift out in the wild, documented here by
Akiba Hobby.
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| Image courtesy of artonelico.isisview.org |
This, this effort here is a good deal more like it--Arthur's costume looks fantastic, I love the tousle of her hair, and her face has Ashito's unmistakable look down very well, perhaps just a shade too narrow or perhaps her mouth just a bit too wide, but it's not not enough to quibble over. She looks to be 1/8 scale, but no date or pricing information is available yet.
