Throughout the year, I had to cancel some items in order to cut down my expenses. Here is the list of items that didn’t make into my precious collection.

1. Saber Lily 1/7 by Alter
2. Inaba Yui 1/7 by Good Smile Company
3. Nendoroid Petit: Angel Beats by Good Smile Company
4. Asuka Langley Plug Suit  Test Type Version 1/8 by Alter
5. Black Rock Shooter -Animation Version- 1/8 by Good Smile Company
6. Mina Tepes 1/6 by Kotobukiya

Image via Safebooru

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 store is actually based in Hongkong (assuming there is an actual/physical store) and what’s even more awesome is that I didn’t get charged by custom for GST/PST ^^. If the website looks sketchy and you don’t trust them with your credit card, look at the bottom right of the home page, you should see VeriSign secure site, thus, you can rest assure that the company is legit.

Speaking of price, $10 is really cheap for a customized item if you compare it to other online retailers, for example, Zazzle.com. if you know a great place to customize item similar to Arts Cow, please share ^^. I am looking for a site to customize a PSP case.

The back of the case is black and you slide in your netbook. The size should fit 10/11 inch netbook perfectly as you can see the picture below.

For something worth $10, the quality of paint is more than amazing. More closeup pictures below.

Image via AnimePaper.

This nendoroid has an interesting base and stand. The stand is similar to what is used in figma and I guess that’s what makes it slightly more expensive than other nendoroids.

This nendoroid includes three types of face and one of them is the tantrum face. It made chuckle a bit when I saw this and her eyes remind of the face of Saber Lion nendoroid.

In addition, the packaging also includes her sword Excalibur, Caliburn and “Invisible Air” version so there are quite a few parts to play around with.

Another face that comes with the packaging is a smiley face as seen above.

Above is the angry face that also comes with the packaging.

Not only that you will get Excalibur and Caliburn, you will also get her Scabbard (Noble Phantasm : Avalon).

From what I  can see that the price seems to be justified with the amount parts you got and not mention the figma-stand alike so you can have her doing a lot of poses. She is available for pre-order from Hobby Search, HLJ, Play-asia, Toylet, Jlist.

I preordered Saber -Triumphant Excalibur- back in January when it’s just started for 8,867 yen ,however, since HobbySearch is having a sale right now, the price actually goes down by 934 yen which is pretty nice so I pre-ordered another one and canceled my previous pre-order ^^.

The first thing about this figure that captivated my eyes was her pose and as you may have noticed, this is her pose as she is about to release Excalibur (エクスカリバ) : Sword of Promised Victory (約束された勝利の剣) which is one of her Noble Phantasm.

She was given 2 swords in this figure released. Her other sword represents her invisible sword since the sword is clear (you can see through it) and it represents her sorcery: Invisible Air (インビジブル・エア) : Barrier of the Wind King (風王結界).

I like how her battle dress/armor was sculptured as if a gust of wind blows her

I approved her face ^^

The base is quite nice but I feel that the Fate Stay / Night logo is unnecessary. It looks great with all that burn marks even without the logo.

It’s currently on sale on Hobby Search for 7,993 yen so pre-order it while you can ^^.

My other preorder is Asakura Nemu 1/8 by Circus. I never have a figure by Circus. Does anyone know their quality ? From the photos, she looks great and her face is pretty close to what the original is. Not to mention, she is my favourite character from Da Capo (pffttt Kotori ;p) . It was an instant buy for me since I saw her at Wonfes 2010. She is just one of those figures that I MUST get.

For me, dynamic pose of a figure easily captivates my eyes. Her pose may not be as good as Saber -Triumphant Excalibur-, however, as a school girl, her pose looks perfect.

Ohhhhh, she is castoff able. Too bad she only wears a plain bra/pantsu ^^:;.

Looking her back, her body seems too slim/thin or is it just my imagination ?

She is currently also on sale at Hobby Search for 7,480 yen. The price tag may seem little bit expensive but I rarely see any D.C. figures so I think it’s well worth it.

Does anyone have these figures pre-ordered ? I am really excited about this Asakura Nemu figure.