Kotobukiya – Sera-chan

January 19, 2010

Posted in: Figures - Japanese

Finally, another figure review!  I bought this figure from my visit to Hong Kong.

Here up is a figure designed by Shunya Yamashita and sculpted by Reflect.  Both are amazing artists and I can’t decide which style I like more, Shunya’s or Reflect’s.  Nonetheless, their designs are all about the eyes.  While Reflect has a sexy look, Shunya has a mixture of sexy and cute in his illustrations.

From Shunya’s original design, Sera-chan looks more of a cute clumsy school girl.  However, from Reflect’s designs, Sera-chan looks much sexier.  In addition, this is the first figure that was produced from Shunya’s designs.  And now, you would be able to find a pool of figures released in the market sculpted from his illustrations.

I have always kept a low radar on this figure because of the horrendous promotional pictures.  I wasn’t fond on her face in the pictures.  These were the exact same problems I had with Kotobukiya’s promotional pictures of Mirei-san.  At least the final production figure looked A LOT better compared to some companies that couldn’t live up to their promotional pictures.  cough*Yamato*cough

However, from looking at others’ photoshoots of the actual figure, it grew on me.

The best feature of this figure is obviously the face.  I love the glossy lips.  So sexy.  Come to think about it, how many figures do I own actually have lips?  I count about 6.

Noticeable seam lines

I like the wooden look for the base.  Noticed how the pegs are off.  No matter what I do, I couldn’t get the feet aligned to their respective pegs.

I don’t like the shading of her hair.  It looks like American shading, particularly McFarlane line of figures.   Another flaw that I don’t find attractive is the hair sculpt from behind.  It looks like a mushroom haircut -_-

Being the first Shunya illustrated figure released, it is still among one of the better figures in the market that captures his illustrations.  Well to be exact, Reflect’s representation of Shunya’s illustration of Sera-chan.   It does have production flaw from visible seam lines and poor painting, but the overwhelmness of the great body sculpt and facial representation takes your eyes off these defects.