HELLOOOO EVERYONE!!!
Ah…yea…Its been awhile hasn’t it…Probably forgot I even do reviews on this site! Well this will be the first of what should be 6 reviews I’ve been working on.
Meh well I won’t bore you with the details I’ll just say that all the delays were a product of some good and not-so-good reasons…So with that, let’s get back on the horse, shall we?
I do currently have more then half a dozen reviews written (although lacking photography), but I’ve decided to start this posting spree of a sorts with Rinko here…Why you say? Well…many reasons, but the most important would have to be because Rinko is effing awesome!!!
I’m sure at least a few of you have heard of LovePlus and some of the crazy fanaticism it seems to invoke in people, and well…honestly I gotta tell you I can understand why people become like that after spending some time with the game and manga.
I can’t really tell you about any of the other girls because I’ve never had any interest in them, but Rinko herself is probably one of the most finely crafted characters I’ve seen in recent memory. Konami managed to blend so very many different aspects together so well that I can’t really compare her to any other character. Shes sullen, withdrawn and will just as soon insult or flat-out ignore you as look at you, but theirs a certain vulnerability to her that makes you not want to leave her alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-xv8nvK_yo&feature=related
The best example I can draw is her insults and general attitude toward the player cahracter. In less skilled hands these traits would make her come off as just a typical tsundere (or a straight up bitch in the worst cases…), but they’ve managed to make you feel like when she lashes out at you she’s just doing it out of frustration with life and her inability to express herself as she wants not malice. Like shes cursing the world itself and her situation with you just being a convenient target at the time. Basically she’s a giant pain in the ass…But a glorious one that’s well worth the effort when you can spy a crack in her tough act. An unguarded smile here…a small tear their…It all adds up to quite the rewarding experience!
Beyond her personality they also layered on lots of small ticks about her to flesh out a vibrant character. She refers to herself charmingly in the third person…Always has a pair of earphones playing punk music…Reads Salinger (Seriously when was the last time you saw an anime character do that? The Laughing Man in GiTS?)Loves cats…An unholy terror at the arcade and has a tendency to kick people with little to no warning…Well you get the point. Theirs a lot here to say the least.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UD8q8xWt0&feature=related
And to accompany this, she has a wonderful character design with her slim build, sharp features, and captivating eyes. She can look feminine and intellectual while sitting alone reading her books in the library or show off some tomboyish charm as she beats up chumps at the arcade, even occasionally delivering a swift kick with her sneakers if the time calls…just the total package.
Yea so have I finished creeping yall out yet? I don’t think I’ll go as far as some have, but if you suddenly start seeing me posting pictures of my shrines and celebrating fictional characters birthdays feel free to start an intervention eh? >_>
Anyways, being the figure collector I am, after I discovered her, of course I had to have one of her…Sadly way back when I got this figure the only fully clothed one of her is a damned exclusive that as usual can only be found heavily marked up. Even after all this time there are only a few figures of her to be had sadly…You’d think with how popular the game is one of the mainstream companies would have made some figures of the girl… *sigh*
So I settled with this Wave figure instead. While I would have loved one with clothes I will settle for half-naked as well I suppose. :p
Now lets get to the nakedness!!! Er no wait I mean the review…
Last time I did a review of a Wave figure the end judgement basically amounted to the feeling that she was a nice, but slightly overpriced prize figure. I wonder what Wave has in-store for me this time…
Well, she’s certainly small like a prize figure, really small in-fact! I wonder if she’s smaller then that Kuroneko prize fig I got not too long ago…Hah, she’s the exact same size excluding her extended arms.
Oh well, size isn’t everything, so let’s check out the quality Wave has on display here!
Well since she’s a swimsuit figure the first thing you’re obviously going to focus on is her body sculpt and…well, there’s no other way to describe it but fantastic.
Her lean body has been captured perfectly here in mid stretch! Every little detail you’d want from her collar bone to the sinewy stretching of muscles on her armpits theirs something to ogle everywhere! They really nailed her anatomy with the subtle hint of her ribs down to details on the back of her knees…yum.
Speaking of backsides they gave her a fabulous one! Since she’s stretching upwards it sort of flattens out, but this also pulls up her gluts above her minimal bikini bottom…That paired with all sorts of lovely muscular detailing in her back make her just as enjoyable to look at from the back as the front.
Sadly its not all a love fest as she has a rather prominent mold line running down either side of her body and then there’s the swimsuit…While I love that it digs into her nicely in some areas, Â it just artificially cuts into her body in a rather unsightly way in other spots, especially her top, which seems to have not fitted into her skin properly and has a noticeably ugly gap between the material and her skin.
Her head made out far better though. She has a fantastic hair sculpt and both of her included faces are extremely cute being utterly accurate to the original character design. My only gripe is the obnoxious ball joint that Wave has used…It makes it a hassle to change her faces as you have to change her entire head basically and it doesn’t exactly pop off very easy. The fact that the joint offers extremely limited movement just begs the question why would you even bother with such a silly added complexity…
Just like how her body sculpt is yummy they really nailed the skin tones here…She has some nice subtle red shading on all of her joints, which lends her a great deal of delicious realism. Sadly there are a few paint errors on her body like near her ribs on the front and a bit on her right arm. Her swimsuit fared far worse, not only being rather substandard by itself, but also spilling over onto her skin in more then a few places ruining the visual treat of her nice body…
Its a shame LovePlus isn’t an eroge because I think she would have fared far better as a nude figure because the main problems I have with the figure are caused by the damn bathing suit! Bah, in any case the pose is quite interesting…While part of me wishes they had gone with something more like what this GK did based on this official art that shows Rinko’s more melancholy side this pose isn’t entirely OOC either. Mostly thanks to the two different faces I could very much see her stretching with a innocent smile before giving a more reserved glum look when she realizes that you’re watching her so its all good.
Lastly there’s the “base”. Pretty much its the same one that comes with all of these Beach Queens figures and it reeks of the same lazyness Griffon is afflicted with…
Pros:
- Gorgeous lean body is given all the sculpting love it deserves
- Extremely accurate head sculpts with some very cute faces
- Mostly great painting on her body really accentuates the sculpt
Cons:
- The bathing suit damn near ruins the entire figure because of poor painting and sculpting
- Same ol’ same ol’ Beach Queens base
Well honestly, this turned out a lot like Mari did…She has potential for sure, but the quality just simply is not there. The sculpt on the body and her face are a cut above, but the paint errors plus the problems with her bathing suit just undermines all that sadly.
As it stands, yet again Wave has made another overpriced trading figure that costs three times more than it should, and with only a small uptick in quality, it’s hard to recommend this figure to anyone but a hardcore Rinko fan. But if you are a fan like me then the spot on face really is the best part of this figure by a long shot….ahhh so lovely I could stare at it all day…Definitely my new desk figure. :p
But yea, you could pay a bit more and get yourself a nice 1/8th or pay less and get an only slightly lower quality prize figure that’s as big or bigger then these 1/10ths…So I have to ask why would anyone bother with anything Wave makes other than for the lack options that I had in this case. I guess what I’m saying is unless your desperate and don’t think the character will ever be made by another company I can’t help but recommend to steer clear of them…It’s a shame too, because the  pose and faces they really have impressed me thus far…True shame.
Of course the old addage applies of putting your money where your mouth is, so because of these last two reviews, I’m going to cancel my order for Ika Musume no matter how sad that makes me because I really can’t justify the purchase after reading all I’ve wrote. I’ll be sure to keep an eye on them as a company to look for any improvements in quality, which I sincerely hope will happen sooner rather then later…
14 replies on “Review: 1/10 Beach Queens Kobayakawa Rinko”
Hi there, keep it coming.
I liked the way you described her character, showed me my lack of english skills when it comes to describing persons in a more elaborate way haha
I like Rinko’s proportions, she’s petite and attractive, she’s also a short haired girl with an enchanting face.
The bikini could look a little better, it is kind of rough in the sculpting department, the few Beach Queen figures I owned weren’t unclean like that. You’ve made nice pictures of her, the soft bright lighting is awesome; IMG_2646 and IMG_2641 would be my favs.
Haha I think you do a fine job with your descriptions.
Yea it would be great if Wave could up their quality but after all this time doesn’t seem to be happening sadly…
Mmm I like how those ones turned out too. I’ve just been trying to get back into the swing of things since I’m so out of practice at this point. >_<
Ah Rinko the first Love Plus girl I became interested in. You know I was all ready to import Love Plus on the 3DS to finally give it a go but alas, the 3DS is region locked. In the end my knowledge of Rinko comes from the manga Rinko Days from SEO Kouji. At least from that I can agree with your description of Rinko.
Lately I been getting impressed with Wave figures, they are not that bad at all. Something that always caught my attention with this Rinko is her pose, it really shows off her petite body.
He takes a few liberties with things but the Manga is mostly accurate to the start of her storyline before the confession and the game becomes more free form and open.
Yea I’d love to have the 3ds version…Even with improving the graphics via an emulator the DS games still look like ass.
Meh I dunno about that most of them still seem to have the same problem of poor QC to me. Lots of rough paint work and what have you…Still have waiting to see the overall quality of the line increase before I’d ever consider buying one unless it was on sale.
That wavy rainbow pattern drape is making me trip balls haha. It matches her swimsuit very well though.
I recently got a Beach Queen’s and I was pretty surprised with it. I expected crap but the sculpting and shading was pretty damn good. Then again mine has a very simple swimsuit so there’s less to screw up.
I’m surprised just how fleshed out Rinko’s personality is. Never payed too much attention to the Love+ games but they seem to have pretty meaningful story. I wonder if there other girls are that developed too.
Haha yea…I played with the F settings a bit trying to figure out what would work best with it…Still not sure if I like it more blurred out or more defined lines.
Ah which one did you get? Ika’s has less errors because its a one piece school swimsuit for sure.
Yea Konami is actually pretty good at creating interesting characters for their dating games (Both the ones for boys and girls.) which is probably their series have maintained so much popularity over the years. I guess its because they aim for more of a “Sim” experience then traditional eroge they need to have really compelling characters.
I gotta day say: you may say the figure has a whole load of problems, but when the photos are so enticing dazzling like that (HOLY FUCK RAINBOWS), it’s really hard to follow your advice =P. If anything, I’m looking toward to BQ Sabertits even more now.
Really, it boils down to price as you said. If I read this a year ago, I would’ve agreed with you 100% — for 3800 yen retail for a 1/10th scale figure, this amount of errors really is too much to justify the price. But now when people are asking for over 10k yen for a 1/8th scale, the price/quality ratio no longer seems quite as bad — at least until Wave decides to bump up the prices for BQ figures. Right now prize figures seem to be the best for your buck, but I can’t dip that low in terms of quality — I know there are BQ sculpts out there that are derpy as hell, but the sculpts of most BQ figures are still a cut above (most) prize figures.
lol rainbows…Meh well I hope she’s well made really do.
Meh thats amount is still rare and will never happen with a swimsuit figure. It just doesn’t feel like you get much of anything for the price I guess.
Yay for slender girls!
Man, apart from the rainbow stripes on her swimmers it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that she’s just a tiny little 1/10 girl. I’m still being tempted by that cute little Saber Alter with the iceblock in her mouth but I worry about the quality.. it’s hard to not want her even more after reading this though. Love the photos – especially the vibrancy in your first shot.
Yea I get tempted by them from time to time myself but I always remember how subpar 90% of them turn out. >_< Heh there was a lot of experimenting with the photos this time mostly trying to get myself back into practice for Princess. :p
Argh, I had written out a big comment before but must have forgotten to submit. Anyways, Beach Queens in general are better quality than I had expected but especially after seeing your review, I might pass, at least for awhile. The body sculpt looks decent on Rinko, its just the overpaint thats killing it. Nice trippy backgrounds!
True they aren’t outright HORRIBLE, but for a tiny little swimsuit figure at that price point…Yea I expect slightly more I guess.
nice is colorful shots there. Is the rainbow colors at the back really real fabric? I guess having some water droplet will be cool for her or maybe in a bathroom setup. LOL
Yea its actually the seat cushion from my chair lol…I was looking for a different setup then the pool or the beach and went with that.
I probably should have used some water but I was more interested in experimenting with different depth and lighting kinda forgot about it… >_<