Well I got my hands on this 1/6 original cast figure of Kan’u Unchou from E2046. The people at E2046 have clearly been putting a lot of effort into their ORI product line, and I was right in saying that this has to be their best attempt so far. Not that there aren’t nits to pick.

The figure looks really impressive, both from far and up close. There’s little sense of scale in my photos, but at 1/6 scale the figure looks rather huge and has a very strong presence if put on display. Although there are no metal parts — except for a single piece supporting the rear wheels — as far as I can tell, and it feels heavier than I expected. The height is about 24cm.

There is a special base that comes with preorders. There are six LED spotlights on the side that actually light up, which is cool but somewhat gimmicky. I don’t have any AAA batteries to test them out.

The LEDs are on the side

The most impressive part is probably the attention to details. The paintwork is significantly improved from my prior experiences with E2046 products. Boundaries are sharply defined and there is almost no jagged lines to ruin the illusion.

This is probably not very surprising for real collectors who are used to excellent craftsmanship from professionally-made resin figures, but the fact that E2046 is doing this on a semi-mass production basis is commendable.

There are actually two rear-view mirrors but I didn’t attach them because they kept dropping. If you are assembling the figure for long-term display, adhesive is required to keep certain parts on, which may complicate things if you ever need to repack the figure.

The size, the attention to details, and the price tag of this figure places it well out of the realms of regular collectibles. It is definitely the most well-made figure in my possession. There is no way mass produced PVCs can ever hope to rival this level of workmanship until robots gain sentience and overthrow humanity.

I like the tattoo on her chest, which is a skilfully-applied decal. However, the use of decals on the motorcycle is in my opinion somewhat excessive and tacky. I would have preferred a blank motorcycle chassis with just the characters “Ikkitousen” on it. I guess this is mostly a matter of personal taste. But then again, I have good taste.

All in all, a very good release from E2046. It’s almost too good for displaying because I can’t imagine having to clean the dust out of this thing. I guess the advantage of PVC figures is that I don’t really care about what happens to them when they are put on display. Maybe it’s about time I invest in a proper display cabinet.

E2046 is taking preorders for the next production batch. US$ 319.99 excluding shipping for preorders and US$ 351.99 after that. Preorders come with the special LED display base.

Of course, while I do count Ikkitousen (Kan’u in particular) as one my guilty pleasures, I didn’t have to cough up $320 for it. This figure was sent to me for review by E2046’s marketing department. But that said, the significant improvement from their previous releases has made me quite excited about their future releases. A decent Kallen figure of this level of quality (school uniform pls) might just find its way into my well-fortified bank account. >_<

On another note, I am convinced that a future investment in a proper macro lens and some proper lighting equipment will be in order…

I’ve blogged about E2046’s prepainted resin figures before, such as their cast of the BUBBA Bunny Haruhi and Yuki Nagato.

As part of their ORI series of products, E2046 has created an original Kan’u Unchou (from Ikkitousen) resin figurine that looks like the most thorough work in their pre-assembled product line thus far.

I’m not sure when Kan’u ever rode a motorcycle in the Ikkitousen, but she sure looks good doing it. Somehow figures look better when they come with a motorcycle.

As usual, pre-assembled and professionally-painted resin kits don’t come cheap, although E2046’s pricing is definitely cheaper than paying a hobby shop to do it for you. This particular one costs 300 USD excluding shipping, and you can get the unpainted garage kit for 100 USD. Generally, resin figures do look more impressive than mass-produced PVC ones, and E2046 has a pretty good track record so far.

Nice…uh…tattoo

More pictures available in the official gallery. (With even larger watermarks!)

I have no idea how well these things sell, given their limited nature (each one is assembled and painted manually) and pricing as compared to PVC figures, but E2046’s version of BUBBA Haruhi Bunny sold pretty well, enough to warrant remakes. It seems that E2046 has been trying quite hard to duplicate that success with an original sculpt of their own. Besides this, they also appear to be working on a sculpt of Shunya’s Asuka.

From my experience, most people who coughed up over a hundred bucks for Haruhi (like me) were fanboys of the show rather than collectors of resin figures in general. I wonder if Ikkitousen has enough fanboy appeal. Well, do take a look at the product page for yourself. Also, Miku.

Full disclosure: I’m not being paid for this post, but it was solicited. The opinions above represent my own.

Mika-tan, an employee of GSC, posted some new “product testing” pictures (what an awesome job) of this wonderful creation on her blog today. Chibi Miku stetching out her hand while holding a negi is so cute, it hurts my tooth. (Or maybe it’s just my tooth decay.) I did preorder one some time ago. Hopefully I can get it.

[ Mika-tan’s Blog ]

It’s not the kind of moé stuff that I usually review, but it’s still pretty cool. And free stuff is always good in my book (unless they are bad).

It’s somewhat NSFW so make sure no one is looking over your shoulders…

EDIT: Picture links are dead. Visit the gallery for larger versions.

E2046 is a company based in Hong Kong that deals with resin kits. Here’s an example of a resin kit from them.

The quality of E2046’s kits is pretty high. It’s not perfect, but since you have to assemble and paint the figure anyway, most flaws can be fixed or covered up. But for lazy people like me who have a whole bunch of half-done Gunpla and resin kits lying around, it’s quite useless to collect a bunch of unpainted resin pieces.

And that’s why E2046 introduced a new line of product called “Gathering” last year. Basically, they offer high-quality pre-painted versions of selected products, possibly painted by a team of underfed slaves in E2046’s headquarters basement. Haruhi bunny was one of the first few finished figures offered by the series and it received a lot of positive reviews.

E2046 then decided that they were not contented to just paint, so they started to make their own sculpts and releasing them under the “Ori” (short for “original” I presume) series. Their first creation was a 1/7 Gothic Lolita Haruhi, which doesn’t look as awesome as BUBBA’s but is still a pretty good attempt.

Dark Magician is an original design from E2046, partially inspired by this Dark Elf figure.

I had to take these pictures with my ancient Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 because I don’t have a macro lens for my DSLR. Terrible vignetting. Grrr. I suck at photography. Also, I need to get a new bulb for my desk lamp. “Cool daylight” sucks. But I digress.

The figure’s build quality is on par with what I have seen from E2046 so far, that is to say that it’s good but not the best ever. Still, you probably can’t find anything better for anywhere close to the same price, unless you do it yourself.

The box design should be familiar to anyone who has ordered items in the Gathering series before. The EMS package was labelled as fragile and the box was padded with enough bubble wraps to kill two small orcas and a baby seal. Al Gore weeps.

Besides the twenty dozen layers of bubble wraps, the interior of the box is also well-padded with soft polyfoam. The figure parts fit into the slots quite securely and there is no room for them to move about during transportation, thus minimizing the possibility of physical trauma. Although I did accidentally drop the figure onto my room’s carpeted floor just five seconds after removing it from its safe housing. Ops. At least nothing broke.

On a completely unrelated note, why do female characters in fantasy anime even bother wearing armour? It’s just slowing them down! One of life’s many mysteries.

She’s holding a staff. It looks like it can possibly be used as a spear, but probably not a very effective one. Like many other handheld accessories common to scaled figures, the staff does not like to stay in our heroine’s hand. It keeps sliding backwards, making it quite impossible to achieve the pose shown in my pictures and the box cover without the aid of some kind of adhesive. I had been previously warned of this by an E2046 staff, and it’s not a deal-breaking flaw. But it’s annoying.

For the purpose of my photos, I employed a temporary MacGyver solution: tape. As you can see, I stuck a tiny bit of it on the base so that it prevents the bottom of the staff from sliding across. This problem wouldn’t have existed if E2046 made a little groove/protrusion on the base. Hopefully they will improve on future shipments.

Speaking of the base, it’s supposed to be a mirror (I think). There’s a piece of protective film on it that you are supposed to remove in order to reveal the shiny surface below, but I decided to keep it this way.

It will probably look cooler if I remove the plastic film, but I can’t bear to think of the smudges that will surely follow. This is why I don’t think I can ever own an iPhone.

The armour is quite shiny too! Shiny! But it’s actually not that shiny under natural light.

And of course, you can choose to display the figure with or without the cloak (skirt?).

With

Without

I like the armour design (practicalities aside). All in all a very nice figure. More pictures for your visual enjoyment:

It’s a good thing that she can’t sue me for sexual harassment. You can also view the photos in my gallery.

Tempted to buy one for yourself? The next delivery is on 24 October 2007. It’s still not too late to preorder one from E2046 from their website. US$135 excluding shipping.

E2046 has added a few awesome entries to their Gathering series of pre-painted resin recasts. (In case I haven’t repeated it enough times, their Haruhi recast rocks!) It seems that the Gathering series must be selling really well because they just keep coming.

Some of the new items up for preorder include:

• BUBBA’s Yuki Nagato. Both of them.
• Saber Maid
• Rei Ayanami (by Shunya Yamashita)
• Kan’u Uchou Maid

They are also bringing back Haruhi Bunny, this time with the ears painted all black and a checker base that was used in the special red version.

Kan’u looks pretty hawt in that pose.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates. I’m busy with something right now. Real-life is tough.

One particularly awesome resin figure caught my attention…

Legs… @_@

Not since BUBBA’s Haruhi Bunny have I wanted a resin figure so badly. It’s probably a lost cause, but a man can dream. This resin figure was sculpted by YZJ from the group Cobra-kai. You can see a slightly better picture of it on his blog. ほしいぃな～～

The other figure I really like is Kaiyodo‘s Haruhi. This one will probably be available in PVC soon.

Check out the rest of the cool Haruhi figures on Akiba-blog!

P.S. Of course there’re also Yuki, loli-gothic Yuki, loli-gothic Yuki, space Yuki, space Yuki and whatever.

No further info is forthcoming but you can view a video with more shots of it here.

Anyway, HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! May you have lots of fishes.

CDJapan is having a figurine sale with some items (read: the crap) discounted up to 70%. The sale is until 28 Feb. Most of the items are shit not very popular, but there are a few that might be on your wish list, such as:

• HIMM — Mitsuki Sawatari
• Gundam SEED — Cagalli Yula Athha
• Gun X Sword — Carmen 99
• Last Exile — Grand Stream Box
• Last Exile — Alvis E. Hamilton
• Shakugan no Shana — Shana (Black Hair)
• Shakugan no Shana — Shana (Red Hair)
• Bakuretsu Tenshi — Amy
• My-HiME — Natsuki Kuga
• Da Capo II — Nanaka Shirakawa
• Fate/hollow ataraxia — Sakura Mado (Swimsuit)
• Fate/stay night — Collective Memories Trading Figures
• Peace@Pieces — Nagi (Shinigami Costume)
• Melty Blood — Pretty Collection

Take a look at the full list for yourself.

The only thing that really interests me is Mina Majikina but she’s sold out. Oh well.

So anyway, Day 2 of my grand project to build Miina! In Day 1, I sandpapered the hell out of everything. Now it’s time to apply the primer!

Day 1
Day 2

What is a primer? This is a primer!

It looks like a can of mace except that it’s not. Although I’m sure it will hurt if you spray it into someone’s eyes. Basically the primer is a coat of chemicals that make the surface of the material easier to paint. Paint sticks better to the primer coat than to plastic or metal surface. The primer also provides a uniform base colour for easier painting.

But first, you have to drill holes into all the pieces and stick unbent paper clips into them so that you can have a grip for holding the parts when you spray the primer onto them.

Here’s a cool picture of a box of paper clips because I don’t have a drill with me. Cooool. Anyway, the holes are drilled in places that will not be visible in the final completed figurine, unless you happen to like holes in your figurines’ chests. You sick bastard.

Using the paper-clip rod thingies that are now attached to the parts, you can stick all of them into a piece of styroform or something because after you spray the primer you don’t want them to touch any surfaces. It makes you look like you know what you are doing.

And finally, you spray the shite out of every piece with the primer. Shake well until you feel an endothermic reaction taking place before spraying. Shaking the primer can makes you look cool and professional so be sure to do it in front of other people, especially those belonging to the opposite gender.

It’s important to achieve an even coating because you are just begging for more sandpapering otherwise. Don’t stand facing the wind while spraying or you might get primed too. Spray in short and quick bursts. Wear a glove on your offhand that is holding the part if your paper-clip rod thingies aren’t long enough to keep it out of the field of fire.

If you don’t manage to achieve an even coating or if you have air bubbles trapped under the primer, then throw the parts away and commit seppuku for being an idiot. I am of course kidding. As you can see, I am still alive. There’s no need to panic, make sure you don’t try to fix the problem by spraying even more primer onto the areas affected because that’s like stabbing yourself a hundred times to cover up a bullet wound. Instead, wait for the primer to dry…

After the primer is dry, it’s sandpapering time again. Sandpaper is fun. It’s Japan’s national pastime. Sandpaper until everything is smooth and even again. Don’t be (too) concerned if some areas are now left without a primer coating. It’s perfectly fine (for a n00b first timer who sucks a lot). Just remember, even Bill Gates started off from sandpapering.

So anyway, that’s all for Day 2. Isn’t primer so much fun? It’s almost as awesome as sandpaper! Next week arbitrary time lapse, we will talk about paint and airbrushing! It’s not as much fun as sandpapering, but hey, we will finally get to see some colours!

I can’t exactly place my finger on any particular spot, but the figure doesn’t feel Mikuru the way Max Factory Haruhi radiates off a Haruhi aura. Maybe I am just bias. The figure retails for ï¿¥4,800.

Speaking of 1/6 1/8 Max Factory Haruhi, HobbyLink Japan has reopened preorders for it. They have also posted the exact number of units they will be getting: 20 for the February batch, 30 for the April batch and enough stock in June to fulfill the remaining orders. I think I have a good chance of getting the April if not the February batch considering I ordered relatively early.