Timeless Grey

This is odd. This should have been posted by monday according to the date I set but it seems that I confused the date format used by blogger. Accursed Americanised system, why can't they just use the format that the rest of the world uses?! I bet they still haven't worked out integrating the metric system completely there.

I picked up my brand new Fate Testarossa Harlaown on the same day I watched Transformers 2 movie. This particular Figma has been sold out ever since I started ordering stuff online so it’s a pretty hard to get item online. Since this is the re-release version, there should still be some left in stock on some hobby site so grab them while you can. Keep in mind because of all the extra parts it costs a bit more than normal and the bigger box will mean more for shipping, 1240 yen through EMS in my case.

Now onto the Figma itself. It stands just at the same height as my Hatsune Miku Figma. It comes with the most extensive inventory out of all my figmas and also my revoltech Saber Alter. It also comes with a small manual that tells the owner about how to insert the staff heads onto the staff and also how to hook up the stand to fate while wearing her cape. The entire Figma set comes with:

1 Smiling face
1 Fierce face
1 Normal hairpiece
1 Dynamic hairpiece
1 Long staff
1 Short staff
1 Staff Mode Bardiche head
1 Scythe Mode Bardiche head
1 Zanbato Mode Bardiche head
1 White cape
1 Figma stand
10 Hands
1 Huge backdrop
1 Manual

This figma’s articulation is somewhat limited as you can’t move the feet downwards like other figma and when you put the cape on, you can’t move the arms up too high otherwise the cape looks odd. The joints for the wrist are surprisingly tight and actually sort of snap into the hole. With my Kagamiku, the wrists don’t snap into the slot and are actually quite loose while my Miku’s hands don’t really snap into place but it does need a bit of a thrust to put in. Also I noticed that Fate has a waist joint so I can make her torso face to the side. I also just realized that they put a joint for the ass in figmas when I tried to move both legs at once. It’s a little weird and also very impressive at how detailed they’re making these things. It’d be a lot more of both if they put in more details on the underwear. Yeah I know, I should probably be worried that I consider this kind of stuff as normal now but I’m at the level where I won’t freak out even when seeing a ghost(I say that for good reasons). I’d be a little bothered if the guy next to me started vomiting blood though. In any case, NO PANTY SHOTS FOR YOU!

First time I tried removing the head

How the cape attaches to the stand

Dynamic Hairpiece

Normal Hairpiece

Bardiche Zanbato and Scythe modes

Bardiche Staff Mode

She's not being held up by a figma stand here. Impressive balance

As you can see the details for this figma are just amazing and personally I think it’s a bit of improvement over the anime series. It might have to be due to the fact that the budget had to be spread over 26 episodes but Fate in the StrikerS series looked about 5 years older than she really was. The figma has her looking closer to her actual age in StrikerS, 19. On the other hand it may have just been her personality because Nanoha and Hayate looked their ages in the anime and in their figmas. I think it may also be because her figma earns her an S rank Zettai Ryouiki rating. Especially when I put here in that “tsundere” pose. I actually had to take 20+ pictures because I wasn’t satisfied with how the pictures turned out. I settled with two almost perfect shots of her. Those who are not familiar with the Nanoha series, Fate could not possibly be a tsundere since she’s always got that motherly vibe to her in StrikerS, which is one of the reasons why seems older than she really is in the anime.

Looks very much like a Jedi when she has a beam saber

Leeks can be dangerous

As it turns out this is probably the most impressive figma I’ve ever seen. It will probably be my favorite in terms of quality but Kagamiku’s photoshoot value is still much higher thanks to her ‘ugh’ face. It doesn’t just have all these extra parts but each part is amazingly detailed. You can even see the slight indentation separating the thigh from the knee socks on the legs instead of just letting the paint do the separation. The only thing that I find to be lacking from this figma is that the fringe looks wrong on the dynamic hairpiece and that it’s missing the twin swords that form up Bardiche’s big Zanbato form. It would have been nice to have twin swords like that for pictures but that would have needed a bigger box and would have cost more. All in all, I do not hesitate to say that it was money well spent. With such a high quality item on the line, I was right to pre-order it as soon as I heard about the re-release even if it would have cost less if I just waited and batched it together with another order.

That’s it for now. Anticipate my next figma review sometime next month where I’ll be commenting upon the Konata Winter Uniform Version figma that’s being re-released that month and possibly something else if a friend of mine is willing to let me keep it overnight to review it. Kagami won’t feel lonely with Konata around and I’ll get to have a lot more fun with these photoshoots once I get her. I do lament upon the fact that I really wanted her Haruhi cosplay version though, accursed limited edition label…