Yeah, more PVC incoming; It’s getting a bit cramped in my display cabinet, as it wasn’t really made for displaying 1/8 scale figures anyway, but there is still a little bit of room, so here are some figures I’ve had sitting on my wishlist for quite a few months. And in best tradition, some of them are a bit “borderline acceptable”. Or all of them, depending on your stance. Ah, and my apologies for the license stamps on the images. I forgot to keep processed copies without the stamps for the weblog… Meh.

The first two are Nendoroids, once more some Hirasawa Yui from K-On! (’cause there is no such thing as enough Yui! But this one is going to be modified for a special purpose.), and Akaza Akari from Yuru Yuri, and then two figures from Strike Witches – needless to say my two favorites – Perrine Clostermann and Francesca Lucchini, both made by Alter. Here are the boxes:

1.) The Nendoroids

Now as I said, Yui is supposed to become more special, as I had an idea to get myself a bobblehead for my car based on her quite long ago. Thing is, bobbleheads seem to be something pretty US American, so there simply are none based on Anime characters, despite Nendoroids having the perfect dimensions for it. Thus, I’d need to build my own:

My first attempt was to just drive some nails into Yuis’ feet and legs, but while that works for a static application, it’s nowhere near stable enough for putting her in an actual car, so I’m probably going to switch to screws. The legs can be twisted a bit so she won’t bend over due to inertia, but the thing is that the legs are partially hollow, reducing the amount of material the screw can safely sit in. I’ll need to get longer ones that go all the way up and into the hip joints as well to stand a chance of this being stable enough. Otherwise some hole/bump in the road or some violent breaking maneuver might send her flying off the baseplate.

The bobbleheads’ neck itself will be solved by replacing the plastic joint with either a tension spring or a pressure spring with optional stiffening material. I have briefly tested this already with another roid and it works well enough. All I need is a solid enough mount.

Further progress will be reported on this blog, but I can’t say when, as that depends on the intensity of my typically pretty severe laziness.

Now, Akari:

Strangely, I got the limited preorder version with the additional parquet-style baseplate, as you can see on the photos. I’m not sure whether this was just luck, or whether it wasn’t limited after all. Maybe they just had some in stock still, although that’d be weird, given the age of the figure. The “Akariiin!~” plate is also included, but I forgot to take a picture of it. Ehm, probably better that way anyhow.

2.) The Alter 1/8 scale figures

Alter’s known to produce some high quality stuff, and I got to see that for myself with the [K-On! complete set], and hell, that’s some pretty decent stuff! So how about the Strike Witches? While the series is basically just about cute girls fighting aliens (or whatever the “Neroi” really are) with magically empowered guns and rocket launchers while presenting the curious viewer a distinct lack of apparel, the series’ military advisers seem to have ensured a certain amount of details regarding the Witches’ array of weaponry. Not to the extent of Girls und Panzer maybe, but still. Let’s look at the cool and well-mannered Tsundere character first, this is Perrine Clostermann:

Not exceptional it seems, besides a pretty spacious setup for a 1/8 figure. Surely not bad either though. Let’s zoom in a bit:

The Bren gun doesn’t boast too much detail, but it looks good enough. Same goes for her propeller striker units (there is a “in motion disc version” of the rotors as well, but I put the still ones on). The nicest part is probably her face, featuring metal wire frame glasses, which do look pretty good, surely better than some thicker and more flimsy plastic would. The downside is, that there is no actual glass, just the frame. Also, her front bangs could’ve been done a bit better!

Now, let’s look at the Strike Witches’ resident Loli character, Francesca Lucchini:

Now, believe it or not, the most important part for me about her was the gun, an American Browning M1919A6 MG. Now I’m not really that much of a WW2 infantry weapons nerd, but I got the impression that Alter got that piece done really well, so let’s take a closer look:

Now that’s really Alter-level quality right there. It’s a bit of a shame that the ammo box isn’t opened up a bit wider so we can catch a better glimpse of the belt-feed, but it’s still awesome. The shoulder belt looks like she’s truly in motion as well, and while it’s not easy to put the weapon in her hands properly, it looks perfect when done right.

And now, since this series is totally not about panty shots and won’t have the girls flash them at you like several times per minute or anything….

In my defense: It’s pretty hard to take any kind of picture of hers while not having her flash her panties at least at some angle. But there you go, serving the classic “blue white stripes”pantsu fetish that seems to exist amongst certain viewers in Japan. Not that I’m complaining or anything.

And now, there is barely any room left to put any more scale figures… Hmmm…