Saber's side armor has a metalic finish and those bolts on the side add a steel-like material to the her armor even though it's made from PVC. Painting is well-done such that it produces this kind of result.

Very nice sculpture on Saber's boots which is something that it would have been done if it's not from Good Smile Company (GSC). They do put a lot of effort on every part of this Saber -Triumphant Excalibur-

An amazing scaled figure should always come with an amazing base. I think having a good base, it adds some extra points on a particular figure's attractiveness. It seems to be the case with this Saber -Triumphant Excalibur-. Most figure manufacturers underestimate the importance of having a good base. It's not just only for support but it also adds values to the figure itself.

Saber's Invisible Air (インビジブル・エア, one of her Noble Phantasam) is also included within this figure package and wind effects are added and circles the invisible sword. Characters are also engraved on the sword itself. It trully amazes me on how much time the sculpture spent to achieve this kind of attention to detail.

Another shot on her back.

Oopsies, no pantsu everyone ^^ and kneepits shot for a fellow blogger, LightningSabre

Another marvelous attention to detail on painting to give look and feel of steel-armor surface for her gloves.

Golden colour decoration on Saber's dress beneath her armour.

Detailed engraving on Excalibur similar to the one on her invisible sword.

Now, this is little bit different than the original one. Based on my quick search on google, the crescents are supposed to attached/touched to the bottom border (golden yellow colour). Does anyone think so too ? Additionally, was the splotchiness intentional ? I just don't the reason why it's necessary.

I did a quick check on Saber in the anime series (Episode 24) and took this screenshot. As you may already notice that, the two crescents touch the bottom part. Hmmm, not cool >.<

Neck armour is well-painted with blue but it's not the case with her armour as seen below.

Question for fellow owner of Saber -Triumphant Excalibur-, does the paint on her armor look like mine ? Her armor (blue part) was not painted properly. It could be that it's just a matter of a manufacturer defect in my case.

Not a big fan of how the figure is attached to the base. I doubt that it will last for a while and I guess I will give it a year before it bends ^^;;

Close-up shot on Excalibur. Nice sculpture and paint on the sword.

Thoughts

Very very happy with how this figure turned out based pictures on my preorder post back on February 2010. It has everything that I am looking for in a figure: paint, sculpture, base, dynamic pose and how close it is to the original. I would have given 10/10 if it’s not for minor paint issue on her front armour, a minor difference  between the figure and the original on the crescents, metal support between figure and base and splotchyness . I guess watching Fate/Stay Night series more than 50 times definitely helps when I do a figure photo shoot review ^^;;. While writing this review, I had a hard time rating this figure. I was back and forth between 9 and 9.5 but decided to go with 9.5 since it fulfills all the requirements in what I look in a scaled figure.

Rating: 9.5/10

Additional Tidbits

The lucky figure to be the first photo shoot of 2010 is Asakaru Nemu from Da Capo anime/eroge by Circus and it’s distributed by Good Smile Company (GSC).

I had never owned a figure by Circus before so I have no idea about its quality but I was willing to take the risk since I just love Da Capo series especially the first season and Nemu is my favourite character in the series. Yes, it’s not Kotori Shirakawa who I bet has gazillion fans out there.

From my previous about this figure preorder, the base was going to be a clear plastic but couldn’t really count on those preview photos since more often than not they are unreliable. Lets take a look at her base. It has pink/sakura colour which is perfect with the whole theme/story plot of Da Capo ie the magic Sakura tree. “D.C. ～ダ・カーポ～” print with couple sakura leaves is a nice touch on her base. In case you are not aware off, a great base is really important for me since I believe it just adds more awesomeness that can turn a mediocre figure to a great one which looks good for displaying purpose. So far, the base gets +1 in my book.

Now ,lets divert our attention to the top view. You can see some very minor imperfection in term of sculpture on her head (not sure if you can see it from the picture above but if not, click on the picture to bring you to my flickr page), .

I am not a huge fan of open mouth figure but I think she is much more appealing when she just lightly smiles instead of opening her mouth. DC characters design is generally nice and two thumbs up for the sculptor on here.

I am impressed by details on her shoes and not just paint but the sculpture itself. Look at those curves on her socks.

Her name would not be Asakura Nemu with her trademark cat bell on her neck.

Another minor imperfect paint around her school uniform buttons at front. Note that there is lightly blue shade on it which  adds a nice touch instead of plain white.

Obviously, we cannot forget Nemu’s bows on her head. They just look lovely on her ^^.

I flipped her skirt just to see what colour of pantsu she is wearing ^_~.

Another great details on her cute bag with a drawing of her cat, Utamaru, which always appears randomly in the series.

In addition to Utamaru, there is also Mysterious-san, the black cat. Not a great paint job on its eyes.

Another +1 on her skirt which was nicely sculptured and it’s cast-off able.

Now, her side is probably the most annoying this about this figure due to being castoff able. I am not against castoff-able but in this case, I am not a fan how it looks like. Not to mention, it’s hard to take off her uniform. I think she is a much better off without the castoff-able.

Another bow on her back around waist area which mimics like one in anime/eroge.

Nice little decoration on her bra.

Her body is detachable just around her waist since you need it to cast off her uniform and skirt.

As I mentioned previously in my preorder post, her body looks little bit too thin for me.

Overall impression, I am really satisfied with the quality of this figure and I believe that she is so under rated out there. I haven’t seen many figure collectors owning her. Despite minor imperfect paint and sculpture here and there, she is totally worth it. I would recommend her not only to Da Capo fans but also non D.C. fans out there. She is worthy enough to be part of your figure collection ^^.

Additional tidbits

Rating: 8/10

This is my first photo shoot since…… a while ago  I guess ^^;;. Fall/Winter is coming and the weather is getting chillier everyday so I thought I would have an outdoor photo shoot for the last time. My last outdoor photo shoot was at Niagara Falls where I went there with my parents and I would love to go there for another photo shoot session. For Octavia, I chose Casaloma castle as my setting since a castle fits her image/clothing perfectly.

Fellow readers probably can tell that I am little bit rusty since I haven’t done any photo shoots for the last 4-5 months. Outdoor photo shoot would be great to get things going again.

One thing that I love about this figure is that she can stand without using her base so she is perfect for outdoor photo shoot because having her base would be weird in outdoor environment.

For this session, I only use her unsheathed sword because I just like her pose more ^^. Anime girls with a sword are the best thing ever ^^

If I can be nit-picking with this figure, her paint job is mediocre and there are quite imperfection on her clothing especially on her shoulder. More over, don’t even get me started on her face as she looks different than the one in the anime. Since it’s Kotobukiya, I didn’t expect much from this figure. I bought because it’s Octavia and I just love anime girls with swords.

You can see the castle as her background and it suits her perfectly. This one would be even better if it’s closer but I like the black-white version of this one.

Details

Manufacturer: Kotobukiya
Scale: 1/8
Series: Tears to Tiara
Release Date: Nov 2008
Retail Price: 6800 yen

Thanks for reading and I hope you guys enjoy the photos. Sorry some pictures are little bit dark ^^;;.

After my previous double date Asa-senpai at harbour front couple weeks ago, Sakura had demanded me to take her out for a date and as a sign of jealousy, she wouldn’t let me to take her pictures until I do so. Not only that, since she is competing with Asa-senpai, she also wanted me to take her for a trip to Niagara Falls. She had never been there apparently ^^;; and t0 my surprise, she didn’t mind tagging along with my family who happened to be going to Niagara Falls as well. When we arrived at Niagara Falls, she told that she would keep her promise and let me take some pictures of her while enjoying the scenery of Niagara Falls . She was very excited since it’s her first time her and told me to hurry up and take some pictures of her. She was demanding, wasn’t she ?   but she kept her promise and let me took some pictures of her.

She likes Niagara Falls so much that she wanted to have her pictures taken using Niagara Falls as the background.

This figure was released back on February 2007 so it’s quite an old figure considering the amount of figures being released every year. I barely remember when I bought this figure, although, I do think it was last year when I just started collecting figures. One thing that I am not sure of is the scale. It states that it’s 1/6 but the figure itself is more like 1/8 than 1/6 because 1/6 figures that I have are much bigger than this one. If there is a life size Sakura, she must be a pretty tiny girl ^^.

After along walk along the falls, Sakura and I went to a nearby park. She was little bit wet from the water falls but I was not really worried because her uniform is fully waterproof ^^ , although, I was hoping it’s not if you guys know what I meant ^^.

This is one of my favorite picture of her among others. The flowers background and some leafs beside her seemed to fit her image nicely

This would be my favorite picture of her. The angle is just perfect and the flowers match with her eyes colour and hair colour.

Browse through all pictures using the slideshow below ^^

Review

I am not sure if it is because I have been getting too many figures from Alter or GSC but I started noticing the different quality in particular, the paint job. I may be biased but other manufactures seemed not to be not as good as  Alter or GSC, the attention to details are great and beyond expectation.. As for this figure, the paint job is pretty good but I don’t like her eyes and face for some reasons. I don’t think her face looks closed enough to Sakura in the anime/eroge version (I am justbeing nitpicked here). As a typical Griffon’s figure, this figure comes with a clear based and her name + series engraved on top it. I didn’t bother to bring it because it’s pretty much a hindrance during outdoor photo shoot. She is a 2-part figures as you can separate her top and her bottom part. Other than her eyes + hair, her uniform is nicely painted and her socks adds a moe factor(I think) to her.

During the photoshoot ( not exactly a photo session but it’s more like I took pictures as I walked ), I was kinda in hurry especially the ones with Falls’ background because the wind was quite strong so I was really worried that the wind might blow my figure away >.> . The funny thing is that my mom was more worried about the figure that I was lol ^^;; and she told me to hurry up and took some photos. Even though I took a lot of photos with the Falls’ background, unfortunately, only some of them turned at least decent because the rest is too bright. One thing that I found really annoying about outdoor photoshoot is the fact when the result on the screen of your camera and on your computer is totally different. I couldn’t measure if the result is too bright or too dark (damn sun) on the screen.

Manufacturer : Griffon Enterprise Inc.

Scale : 1/6

Series : Fate/Hollow Ataraxia

Character : Matou Sakura

Released Date : February 2007

Camera : Nikon D40 with stock 18-55mm lens

Price : Couldn’t remember where I got her and for how much -_-;; 5,600 Yen at HLJ

Location : Niagara Falls

Previous photo shoot: here (my old photoshoot back in February 2008)

Image via Gelbooru

Last but not least, Happy Mothers Day

It was a long weekend in Toronto since we had a Good Friday so it’s a day off for majority of people. Not only that, it happened to be having nice and sunny weather in Toronto. It’s little bit windy though but there is no need for multi layers of clothing.

Asa-senpai and I decided to go for a date and we went to a well-known spot for tourism called Harbour Front. Asa-senpai was quite a klutz in the morning because she forgot that there is no school due to public holiday. Too lazy to change, she went on a date with a school uniform. Seeing Asa-senpai in a school uniform, I couldn’t complain, could I ? ^^.

Even when she is on a date, she will never forget to bring her little doll on her bag.

“Such a nice weather today, isn’ it?” She said.

“Lets go over there to the park” as she dragged me to go with her to the nearest park.

“Naughty wind…… you saw it, didn’t you ?” she asked. I was speechless and tried to find some excuses but no luck. At the same time, I thanked the wind for this rare chance ^^.

I was lost in my thought and said to myself how great it would be to see Asa-senpai in bikini.

“Look at the seagulls”

“I am so excited. This is my first time seeing a CN Tower. It’s so high” She said as she was admiring the CN Tower. Too bad I was not as excited as she was since I saw it too many times and I always thought, it’s just a tower ^^;;

I can never doubt alter’s quality. The frilly skirt looks amazing and not to mention the little doll on her school bag. As someone who loves the series, her uniform definitely looks like the one in the anime. A perfect match, I would say and her face is definitely pretty close to the real Asa so I think Alter has done a really good job on this figure (or any other figures).

For any shuffle fans or Asa-senpai fans, I highly recommend this figure. She is definitely worth buying ^^

Manufacturer : Alter

Scale : 1/8

Series : Shuffle! Memories

Character : Shigure Asa

Released Date : November 2008

Camera : Nikon D40 with stock 18-55mm lens

Price : 6,460 Yen at Hobby Search

Location : Harbour Front