12 September 2010

figma Black Rock Shooter

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Got figma Black Rock Shooter since the night before it is officially released. Been procrastinating on posting about it until now.

Despite having procrastinated on reviewing it, I really like this figma ever since I got it on the first night. Taking pictures literally took me hours to do doing the poses until I am satisfied. Let's get straight into it!

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figma Black Rock Shooter is officially released on 25th July. I luckily got mine the night before boxes of them arrived at local stores.

About Black Rock Shooter (BRS), she is an original character designed by artist huke of which the illustration was first posted on pixiv. ryo of doujin group Supercell composed a song sung by Hatsune Miku program about this character as he expressed great interest towards the character. Apparently the illustration of Black Rock Shooter symbolises the low point of huke at the time he drew it. ryo materialises the character and the world she's in via the song and lyrics he composed, and the music video he created has become a great hit in the NicoNico video site, and eventually on YouTube as well.

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It's nice mentioning that the box uses a new tab and slit, which makes unpackaging a lot easier without ripping any parts of the box for those who want the boxes clean and undamaged from opening.

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For 2800 Yen, this figma is quite rich with accessories. The huge and symbolic Rock Cannon, Black Blade, 2 chains, 4 extra pairs of hands, 2 alternate faces (one with mouth open, and one with eyes closed), an extra front hair piece with the blue flare, as well as two sets of stand and a grip unit to hold the Rock Cannon.

A standard figma bag is included as well (not shown in photo).

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Front. Black Rock Shooter can stand on her own without the aid of a stand when positioned well

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Rear. The two joints for tails of the coat and the hole for the stand can be seen below the white star.

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First off the Rock Cannon. The Rock Cannon is even taller than Black Rock Shooter herself.

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Sitting on Rock Cannon. To be honest I really didn't expect the whole thing can stand on their own without a stand. Impressive.

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Moving the twin tails backwards to imitate wind blowing

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Equipped with Rock Cannon

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Aiming with Rock Cannon

Posing with Rock Cannon in the air is not easy, even with the aid of a stand, because you have to fiddle with two things at once and make sure hand won't fall off from the arm. Inserting the hand back in is also a real pain as well as there are a lot things on the Rock Cannon getting in the way... -_-

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Closer shot

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A pose to replicate the original illustration that huke has drawn.

That will be one way to use the chains. Some people ask on forums about what those chains are for. Well, they are for tying things up. What you want to tie up kinda depends on your imagination (or fetish, if you want to put it that way...)

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Let's have something more of a dynamic pose here. Man this took me forever to pose right - it's really difficult to put the hand back in the arm as the Rock Cannon really gets in the way.

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Blocking Fate's Zamber Blade

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Clash of the Big Weapons

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Dual wield charging

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Since we have the Black Blade here, we will go to that weapon next.

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Next comes with the Black Blade

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Another pose with Black Blade

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A showdown with Signum.

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Bit of an omake: Hatsune Miku with Black Rock Shooter side by side. Please do note that despite the similarities, the two are not the same character, nor is one based on the other.

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A 50-minute OVA DVD comes along as a bonus. The reception of the OVA is kinda mixed, but hey I am not complaining when I get this with no additional cost.

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Phew. I am tired after hours of posing and taking pictures. Thanks for the hard work, Black Rock Shooter. You deserve a good rest too!


This figma Black Rock Shooter is overall a pretty good release. A really good quality action figure and plenty of accessories to play around with. Haven't really heard of much defects or problems other than the potentially fragile joint between the chest and stomach (just beneath the bikini top) as there are reports of breakages out there, but it's not a widespread problem it seems.

The only real problem I have is holding and posing with the Rock Cannon. It's not easy to put the gripping hand onto the Rock Cannon's handle, and putting the hand back into the arm is even harder! I've spent a lot of time trying to put it back on when trying to pose it and fell off again and again, which can become kinda frustrating. I probably won't try doing another pose with her holding the big thing again for the said reason ._.

But really, this is a really nice figma. The paint job is in general fabulous - I can't really find complains on that aspect, and even though the open mouth expression seems kinda unlike BRS's character (IMHO), I really, really like her closed eyes expression. There is a calm touch and elegance to her with it. Makes me wanna fall for her (*Come on man, gotta snap back onto reality* @_@)

Not trying to be a fanboy out of it, but this is really worth getting! Great playability, lots of accessories, great price. Highly recommended!

More reviews can be found from:
  • Member 小櫻 from Our Toys Land forum

  • Hacchaka {Japanese site)

  • Asuka

  • Zh3us

  • Optismistic Penguin

  • Shewsbury

  • Open The Toy

  • Vixion

  • 10 comments:

    1. I gave up on posing her with the rock cannon for obvious reasons :(

      and didn't you say you got two of them on twitter? DUAL-ROCK CANNON! xD

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    2. I have to confess that I cannot stand the BRS line of characters. I just don't get them at all! Figmas, I can kinda understand a little more but figures are just "wut?" to me. By design, they lack detail and expression so it's always perplexed me as to why so many people rave about them so much. In the end, I just put it down to the "danny Choo" effect.

      Oh, and don't even get me started on the OVA... I haven't wanted to scream at the screen to return the minutes lost to it since Kurokami!!!

      ReplyDelete
    3. Figma BRS is awesome.... would be cool to grab 2 units....

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    4. @ AstrayP03 (Zhe):
      The Rock Cannon can be quite a pain to pose indeed. I am not going to have her holding it in the near future.

      And yep I do have 2 figma BRS, with one being a spare. I actually am not a fan of dual-wielding of same weapons (or dual-wielding in general), and dual Rock Cannon?! One is frustrating to pose with and you want to double that?! XD

      @ gundamjehutykai:
      I know you are quite against the bandwagon stuff, but do they really get on your nerves that much?

      What you've said has good points though. People rave too much about things, and a lot are under the influence by Danny Choo. Even I do a bit from time to time, but it's not a huge harm as long as we are not 'blind' to the marketing stuff. The figma has been popular for its look in the first place, so I won't drag that with the "Danny Choo effect", but figures maybe so. Some of his readers / followers have been following him perhaps a bit too blindly.

      As for the OVA, I have very little to expect out of it (what can you really expect out of something that is originally just a music video based on an illustration and an original character design?), so I don't feel much about it other than that it is fairly mediocre. Perhaps not worth rewatching, but oh well it's not the worst series I've watched for sure.

      But really, unless every other guy you see is trying to force something down your throat (which I hope is not happening), there doesn't need to be so much angst about it, right? ^^;

      @ David John Shewsbury:
      BRS is a very good release. I do have two (one for spare), but I am not so big into dual-wielding.

      Added link of your review to mine!

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    5. Pretty cool poses ^^. Can she hold up the gun up in the air without support? Man, the gun is bigger than BRS xD, pretty crazy how she can just hold it up in the OVA.

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    6. @Q: while you are correct about there not being a need to rage too much unless people are shoving it down yout throat, sadly that is pretty much what is happening right now. I've seen so many "reviews" of BRS that it almost feels like cult brainwashing. The fact that there will be even more figures in the near future, including a Gold Saw shooter figure (who was seen for a whole 20 seconds in the OVA and not much besides) just left me in despair. Some of us may not be blind to the marketing ploy but it seems a lot of people are and the noise they make is very loud indeed. I guess that's more where my disdain is pointed towards.
      Come to think of it, BRS figma isn't getting anywhere near as much coverage as the figures... Just the few "comical" pics here and there.

      Still, there is one thing to be said, and that is that I quite dig the Dead Master by Kiking. I also liked his take on "the world is mine" Hatsune Miku. The fact that he is able to make me like them shows that he is modeller of very high calibur but even he can't get me to like the moeblob merchandising machine that is K-ON!

      And the OVA isn't even mediocre. It's just very BAD! It may not be the worst show I have ever seen, but it's down there somewhere!

      ReplyDelete
    7. @ AS:
      Glad you like the pictures. Some of the poses took me a very long time to do orz. The Rock Cannon is too big for BRS to hold, even if the arm joint can hold it up the whole thing would be imbalanced because of weight distribution.

      Girls with large weapons are badass. No explanation needed for how they can even hold them in the first place ^^;

      @ gundamjehutykai:
      I remember complaining to a close friend about how people have 'changed' in the blogosphere, even those I tend to exchange words a lot. He simply told me that this is the Internet, so just ignore things for the time being. Sometimes they don't last long and things will go back to what it used to be. I think this will be the case for the BRS hype. They may seem provocative for you now, but they will go away soon or later.

      Not all stuff are bad. As you said Kiking has crafted very good garage kit figures of Dead Master and World is Mine Miku. Focus on the good stuff and leave the stuff you don't like aside - they will go away eventually. They will!

      ReplyDelete
    8. We can only hope Q, we can only hope.
      Sadly, the laws of the internet state that something is never forgotten, simply replaced...

      Maybe I should just switch off from the internet for a while (as if that is going to happen!)

      ReplyDelete
    9. Nothing wrong with loving this Figma even if you're not a big BRS fan. It's a great Figma and well worth the price. You did a great review ^^ I especially like the battle pictures. I need to get my BRS Figma review done soon as I've had her for a bit now, but I'm too slow these days @_@

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    10. @ gundamjehutykai:
      It's true that rather than disappearing things are being replaced rather than be forgotten. Well even if it's forgotten they are still archived in the Internet. That's the way it is.

      Distract yourself from these things from the time being. I am sure there are better stuff to keep yourself occupied from these cult brainwashing stuff!

      @ Persocom:
      It's a simple attitude to just buy and enjoy what you like and not care about anything else, and there's nothing really wrong about it. Some people may think differently / disagree for various reasons, but as long as you love it that's great!

      Glad you like the photos~ Looking forward to your review!

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