Manga Review: Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~

Title: Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~
Author: Akahori Satoru, Katsura Yukimaru
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Gender Bender, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This manga revolves around a guy who gets turned into a girl after dying in an accident caused by an alien from another planet. After turning into a girl the main character becomes more and more romantically involved with two girls, one a childhood friend and the other being the girl he admired as a guy. Basically it’s a love triangle powered by yuri with an alien part of the plot. It certainly had plenty of good things about it but there are some ideas here and there that I just found odd like the reason why the crush couldn’t bring herself to like the main character as a guy. Some of the jokes were actually pretty funny at times but that didn’t happen often enough for me to give it an “A” rating there. It’s filled with a lot yuri fluff so yuri fans will love this but there are times where the characters act annoyingly stupid but that’s to be expected with love triangles.

Manga Review: Birthday

Title: Birthday
Author: Tanabe Yellow
Release: Oneshot
Status: Finished
Genre: Comedy
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is a oneshot that the author of Kekkaishi came up with and it features a young boy with a set of rather eccentric parents. The parents come up with a rather interesting gift to give the boy for his birthday and they think it will help him achieve his childhood dreams of being a superhero. My reaction? One “word” – LOL. Tanabe Yellow has a rather creative imagination and I would have loved to see a series with the same plot. The mangaka also seems to have some knowledge concerning cakes considering how elaborate the cakes that show up in his works have been. Hopefully the guy does a comedy series after he’s done with Kekkaishi.

Manga Review: Wings of Vendemiare

Title: Wings of Vendemiare
Author: Mohiro Kitoh
Release: Oneshots
Status: Finished
Genre: Seinen, Fantasy
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: These are a series of oneshots featuring an artificial being made of wood made to look like an angel who in most cases are named Vendemiare. At times these stories can be a bit disturbing given the nature of the plot of some of the chapters but in all of them there’s some sort of moral he’s trying to tell through them. A few of these give a hopeful message despite the usually tragic circumstances that befall the Vendemiares. It’s not the best of the guy’s works and one of the chapters do show how unsuited the author’s style is unsuitable for fight scenes but it’s still a decent read.

Manga Review: Owari to Hajimari no Miles

Title: Owari to Hajimari no Miles
Author: Mohiro Kitoh
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural
Art: B
Originality: S+
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of a girl who purifies objects spiritual bodies of objects in the human world that float up to the land of the people in the sky and her partner, the highly lecherous avatar of what seems to be the World War II Japanese Battleship, “Yamato”… Yeah, it really does sound like something someone would come up with when they’re high and yet it’s a very interesting manga with great characters, an amazing concept and surprisingly enough a laugh out loud level of humor. Mohiro Kitoh may be one of my favourite mangaka but humor is the last thing I’d expect him to excel at – this is the guy who did Bokurano AND Naru Taru for pete’s sake. Sure, the jokes are a bit dark but I’m a guy with a twisted sense of humor and the jokes really do get to me. I’ve only read the eleven scanlated chapters out already which for some reason cannot be read properly by ACDSee but this manga has some of Mohiro Kitoh’s most endearing and amusing characters. There’s still a chance for this turn into an incredible mindscrew story but the guy could also turn this into a spectacularly moving story that doesn’t end up scarring his readers which is something I’d like to see because his track record speaks for itself.

Review: Figma Emiya Shirou

Now it’s time for me to review my newest figma which is the 7th one in my collection and the first male one too. As usual, I bought it at Hobbysearch for 2533 yen which is roughly B$40 and comes in the regular sized box.

Front View

Side View

Top View

Other Side

Rear View

Type-moon Holo Stamp

Berserker's Blade was placed behind Shirou

This Figma comes with:

• 1 Saber’s Dream Background
• 4 pairs of hands (Fist, Holding, Spread out and Reaching types)
• 1 Kanshou Sword
• 1 Bakuya Sword
• 1 Serious Face
• 1 Enraged Face
• 1 Archer’s Arm
• 1 Berserker’s Sword
• 1 Figma Stand
• 2 Instruction Leaflets

How to replace Shirou's arm

How to insert the Figma stand into Shirou's back. Unusually elaborate mechanism.

All eight hands

Usually figmas come with at least 5 pairs of hands but for some reason they decided not to give Shirou another set. This isn’t really too much of a drawback but it does make me wonder why they didn’t fill up the last pair. Also, the holding hands can easily fit my 1/144 Gundams’ weapons along with the other accessories I have for my figmas and Revoltech Saber.

The two faces of Shirou

This figma looks pretty good and I can’t really find much fault in its design. Wished they gave a relaxed face instead of the serious one they gave though. The enraged expression looks great but the serious face doesn’t look right in battle poses and feels out of place in funny poses.

Archer's arm

The weapons that Shirou comes with are quite remarkable. The designers did an amazing job with Kanshou and Bakuya blades. Unfortunately I was unable to get a good close up pictures of either because of how macro works in automatic cameras but just take my word for it when I say that they were made spectacularly. Berserker’s sword comes stored in its own plastic packaging separate from the other stuff due to its size. It’s not as well made since you can see seams where the different parts of the sword are connected.

Kanshou & Bakuya. Magnificent!

Berserker's Sword. It's even bigger than Shirou.

I would have liked a UBW background but maybe they're saving it for you-know-who

Battle Ready

Very nice pose here

Sword's Peg

Arm's Slot

Ghostly Arm

Shirou’s got the most stable footing out of all the figmas I have so you don’t really need the figma stand except for when he’s holding onto heavy stuff. The need for heating the back slot is also quite cumbersome so chances are I won’t ever be relying on the simple peg figma stands to hold him up (Thank god for di:stages). Articulation is decent but there is limited range for moving the arms upwards and I can’t bend either arms towards to other one fully to make a grabbing the shoulder pose which really should be in there too considering the circumstances behind Archer’s arm. The way the joints are designed make this figma optimized for battle poses so it’s not easy to make him pose for any other purpose.

Heavenly Feel Conditions!

Snug Fit

BFG! It's seriously a BFG!

Impossible to balance without a stand

The most interesting thing about this figma is the extra arm they gave to reenact Shirou performing Nine Lives Blade Works from the Heavenly Feel scenario. I didn’t realize that figma arms can pop out like Revoltechs but given my other figmas there’s no motivation for me to try that out them. The arm can also be attached to the figma stand pegs so you can have a severed arm “hanging” in the air. The left shoulder is made in such a way that when you attach Archer’s arm on, the shirt section there wraps around arm in such a way that it hides the gap between the body and the arm. This is the only arm that can hold Berserker’s sword by the way since there’s a hole made to fit the peg on the sword on the palm of this arm. Additionally, the red cloth on the arm can be rotated around for posing.

Trace...

...On!

Excalibur!

Bardiche Zanbato mode!

Bardiche...

Scythe Form!

Leek!

Leek Ver. 2

Akimbo!

Nerai Utsu!

Best pic yet!

A Truly GAR pose!

That’s it for my review on Figma Emiya Shirou and here’s hoping that I’ll be able to get that new MG GN-X that’s coming out soon and that Max Factory will come up with Archer’s or Gilgamesh’s Figmas.