Review: 1/8 Yashiro Kasumi

I believe I have the power to control the weather! How do I know this? Because every time I make up my mind to photograph some reviews the weather turns to crap! Awesome power, right? *sigh*

Anyway enough of my despairing…Time to review something I received recently, but is far from a new release.

It’s funny what a difference knowing a character does for my desire to own a figure…before I played Muv-Luv, I was fascinated by Meiya because of her revealing pilot suit and generally bad-ass character design. So I went out of my way to snag myself her figure while completely ignoring the other two girls that Good Smile Company made from the series.

Sadly, after playing the game and finding Meiya to be utterly not my type of girl (she isn’t really a bad character technically, but very much not what I look for in a gal) she became less enticing to me as a piece in my collection. Instead I found myself utterly charmed by Yashiro-chan, and much to my delight she was much more readily available and not nearly as overpriced as Meiya always is!

Now trying to give a biography of Yashiro would pretty much constitute a spoiler as far as I’m concerned, so all I’m going to say is she was cute and enigmatic in the first game then became downright endearing during the second one to the point that she is easily my favorite girl in the series!

So with that vague description lets see how our lovely little bunny eared girl stacks up to Meiya quality-wise!

As far as assembly goes, there isn’t much to be done here despite the fact that GSC decided to add some instructions on how to attach Yashiro’s plush rabbit to her hand via the right holes and pegs. It did take slightly more force than I expected,  but it was a painless process.

One thing I noticed right off the bat was that she lacks Meiya’s messy painting on the small details of her suit, which was my one major gripe about that figure. This time around however all the small spots where she has green and blue have been immaculately painted! I was pretty worried about an echo of Meiya’s annoyances, so crispness of the details on Yashiro was a very nice surprise.

Aside from the detailing, the overall paint work on Yashiro is just plain excellent! GSC did a wonderful job shading her hair, and her bunny looks exquisite (well, as exquisite as a creepy giant pink rabbit with red eyes and razor teeth can be). Likewise, the gloss of her suit has a beautiful luster to it. I do wish her face was just a shade lighter as she is an extremely pale girl in the game illustrations, but it’s not so bad that it really detracts from the appeal of the paint overall.

But of course, nothing is perfect and there are a few niggling defects with her hair and the bunny in the form of paint clumps, but they’re pretty damn hard to notice without a macro lens while being few in number as well to be honest.

Alright then let’s take a look at the sculpting and pose…wow, now there’s a surprise — she has a really great ass! Honestly looking at her outfit I didn’t expect to get much service out of it, but they sculpted her butt very nicely. It’s not overly large, but rather pleasantly rounded for her petite proportions, and the strategically placed little blue doodad at the crack helps accentuate the shape even more…Nice job GSC!

The rest of the figure is very enjoyable as well. Yashiro  has a cute face, and her suit has been crafted beautifully in all the ways you could possibly hope for with all the small details and panels having been carved out across its surfaces.

GSC has even managed to conceal the few visible mold lines in her twin-tails! I also especially like how there’s an indent on the plush rabbit’s hand where Kasumi is holding it…Small little details like that are the types of things I love to see!

The pose is very “Yashiro-like” with her clutching her beloved rabbit in one hand and a clenched fist held tight to her chest. Sculptor Yusuke Mazaki also did a great job with her legs, which are slightly crossed with one foot drawn back — it really helps play up the sense of trepidation that her upper body is displaying in her own charming way!

She’s a very quiet awkward girl after all and I can entirely imagine her making a pose like this easily, so no complaints from me.

Her display base follows the same hexagonal pattern as Meiya’s, which is in keeping with the original game’s use of hexagons in its art. The base gives off a pseudo-futuristic look — not crazy complex, but hey, it sure beats the hell out of a crummy plastic disk!

Pros:

• An appropriate in-character pose
• Well-painted, especially the suit
• Detailed sculpt

Neutral:

• Some very minor paint clumping on her hair and rabbit
• Base isn’t exactly what I’d call “exciting”

Haha, I bet you thought I was really reaching to find those downsides eh! But this Yashiro honestly is a damn lovely figure in all respects as far as I’m concerned! As a Yashiro fan, I really can’t find any outright faults with this beauty. I do kind of wish they had made a figure of her in her uniform or nightgown, but that’s another topic entirely!

As for this figure,you really can’t do any better and the fact that I got her for a decent price is just the icing on the cake! Even though she’s not exactly new she is still easily one of the most well made and appealing GSC figures I’ve seen in some time!

If you want a second opinion and far more color accurate photos of Yashiro feel free to check out Tier’s previous review of her!

And now on a somewhat personal note…

So as some of you may know, I’ve done all my photography since the old MFC review days with my trusty little Panasonic DMC-LZ8. I may be a little bit too full of myself in saying this, but I do think it has served me well and produced some great photos on par or better with some of the shots I’ve seen people put out with camera’s 10x its price. But alas, despite how nifty it is, it still does have its limitations and I’ve recently found myself running head long into those restrictions more and more as my skill has increased. Thus, I recently purchased a DSLR to replace the lovable little fella to remedy this problem.

I mention it here because the acquisition of the DSLR means that this is probably the last review for which I will shoot with my trusty friend, so I felt the need to get a little sentimental for just a moment. Thankfully it will not be spending its days boxed up, but instead given to a friend whose become interested in photography (I actually shot these two pictures at that very friend’s house; and yes, they were both taken at the exact same spot minutes from each other just for comparison’s sake) and I hope it serves her as well in her endeavors to learn photography as it did for me!

As for the new one? Well I’m hoping its increased capabilities will allow me to be even more creative than I have been with reviews in the past, so I may hopefully bring you better photographic eye candy to make my sad excuse for writing more bearable to read! So with that I hope you all have enjoyed the Point & Shoot Era and I will try to make the new DSLR Era even more enjoyable! ^_^