With a sprinkling of yurilicious too! :3

I acquired Jo was simply because I love her character design and the yuri factor. Alter Revy conveyed the all round general badassness that Megumi Toyoguchi did so well with her voice in the anime.

The latest addition, Nadie, a Shizuka Itou lead role and yuri one to boot, was a delightful birthday gift from my good brothers Stripey and morit.

Their unifying theme, however, is handguns. (And by coincidence, Alter). Nadie isn’t in double gun mode like Jo or Revy even though her pose was just so John Woo but that’s appropriate too as ‘two hands’ isn’t canonical for our intrepid bounty hunter anyway.

Though I can imagine another set consisting of Meg, Seras Victoria, Gretel, I’m not too big on machine guns… partly, I think, because I had to use one during my NS days back in the ancient times. Since I’m not Rambo, Arnie or one of the above-mentioned machine gun babes, I certainly could not wield it one handed and there was also the issue of the pesky and orz-inducingly heavy base plates

For photo shoots and reviews of the dynamic Nadie figure:
Shino, super rats, valho

And see lu-k for the Jo, Revy and Nadie trio.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

This particular ball got rolling when I asked Stripey to pre-order Alter’s January 2008 release of El Cazador’s Nadie on my behalf. The Shima-Shima-Tailed One casually noted that Nadie would go well with Alter Revy whom I had acquired at the Akiba Kotobukiya shop. ‘Pity you didn’t get Alter Jo earlier,’ he said, ‘would had made a great team in a “girls with handguns” theme.’ And I knew it was The Truth. And so, off this Zaku went on another one of his mad online shopping rampages. Ah revenge (since Stripey blames me getting him started on figurine collecting) is indeed a dish best served cold. orz

Online pre-orders from the usual suspects do run the usual risks for damage during shipping. The Singaporean shops at Sunshine Plaza and China Square Central may not be able to secure sufficient stock of popular or rare items. But there’s always a risk that Ebay purchases may turn out to be low quality bootlegs.

I decided to take the risk anyway; some of my anxiety was, perhaps unreasonably, assuaged by the fact that the reseller was Japanese and based in Japan (who shipped, complete with EMS tracking number, to my address within five days). Thus I was unpleasantly surprised and even momentarily shocked by how obvious the cast lines where her arms joined her torso were. It’s not very clear in the photo but it’s really obvious to the naked eye. Did any other collectors see the same thing on their Alter Jo’s?

I also disliked how I had to stretch her left leg to fit the peg on her rather plain stand. And I wasn’t crazy about the strange angle of her neck joint – you need to remove her head and scarf to get her jacket on.

But overall, I have no doubts that this is the real deal (though this might be my strong powers of self-delusion and post-purchase justification talking) as in all other aspects, she matches up in quality with other figurines in my collection whose provenance is unquestioned. Plus you can’t see the cast lines once she puts her jacket on.

One of the reasons why I held back from buying Alter Jo during her first and second release was because I found the BakuTen / Burst Angel anime to be excruciating. But the prequel (Angel’s Adolescence) manga‘s unabashed and even humorous depiction of Jo x Meg love love just made me fall in love with the characters as I never had before. Surprise surprise, I even saw copies available at the Ngee Ann City branch of Kinokuniya the last time I returned to our glorious democratic people’s island paradise republik.

I really like this figurine. She’s got a great, cool pose – arms crossed, bad ass pistols, and how the jacket and scarf convey the dynamism of being blown the wind (the ‘billowing cape’ effect). Well, it would have been nice if she could have had the same muscular definition as this official wallpaper but, ah well, you can’t have everything.

No problems at all with her sculpt or mould-cast. Probably the biggest problem here is my lack of photography skill and a rudimentary camera. Respect to Adun, super rats and others who are dedicated to the fine art of figurine photography!

Trying here with a white background as well as variations of flash and no flash as well as a really strong light source (which simulates full daylight – it’s for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder, don’t ask). Can’t seem to get rid of the shadow. Seems that my top-down light source wasn’t strong enough.

Her painting was also immaculate. From the fine lines on her guns or the details of her gloves, boot straps, holsters, belt buckle, legging rings. Particularly liked how the paint job added to the realism of the texture of her hair, and especially for the leather of her ammo belt and jacket.

Overall, really pleased with Alter Jo. Really captures the bad ass AWESOMENESS of a great character from a thoroughly enjoyable manga but who was largely wasted in the anime and OVA.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

I confess that I initially picked up this series because a few of the wallpapers made me think: Mmmm… Lesbian Asuka x Rei clones in the wild wild west. ~~~ But alas, it was not to be. I was going to say that this Bakuretsu Tenshi (Burst Angel) OVA needed MOAR yuri but then I think it does have MOAR yuri compared to the original series (which I only vaguely remember given how I fast-forward marathoned and then sent it into recycle bin hell). Nowhere as nice as in the manga but, hey, given that low expectations are the secret of happiness, I wasn’t pissed off with this OVA – totally agree with tjhan about the costumes though.

Some nice Jo x Meg cuddling; Jo actually being affectionate towards Meg! Will wonders never cease!?

I did mentally groan when Meg got captured. The Main Office should pass some kind of statutory limit on how many times this plot device copout can be used on any one character. At least Meg recovered some of her dignity with a good clean shot.

And off they sail into the horizon. Looking forward to Meg’s oneesama upgrade, seems like it’s not just StrikerS that’s havin’ ‘em characters growin’ up.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.