Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Because she had a powerful magnet in her head. This allows a little metal plate embedded inside her feather cap (+10 to agility??) to be attracted to her cute head, and make the hat stay on firmly.

This figure is great because you can be all innocent and show it to your friend, then secretly swipe his hard disk with the little beauty, causing all his homework to be zapped to infinity and beyond. Besides that, the sculpt, painting and design is a good A- standard. Not the best, but good enough. Kotobukiya is the maker, and is charging 5500 yen. Do realise Seena is still available in the market easily so that means people don’t like her. Poor thing got released in December 2007 and I’ve gotten her for the longest time yet didn’t bother to post up the pictures.

Almost.

Last month, we reviewed the beautiful Kallen (from the anime Code Geass) figurine from Alpha and Omega, the new brand formed by the amalgamation of popular figurine manufacturers Megahouse and Alter. Kallen comes in a pair with CC, the beautiful and mysterious pizza-loving girl and this month, we shall be looking at this figurine.

Any anime fan who hasn’t heard of Code Geass probably has been put in stasis/cold sleep for the past 2 years. The mega-hit anime, produced by Sunrise Inc.(Gundam anyone?), famously put together 3 major elements from recent hit series fans have shown they so dearly love – Giant overpowered mecha (Gundam Seed), convoluted thought battles (Death Note) and pretty boys and girls (just about every other show). It is not wonder even the most cynical of anime fans have been won over and are stark raving mad about the goodness of the show.

Tsuruya-san is an anomaly of an anime character. She barely even appears for 5 minutes in the entire series, plays little part in the story as of yet but arguably has a fan popularity rivaling that of the 3 main SOS-Dan girls (that is, Haruhi herself, Yuki and Mikuru). She’s so popular she has her own Internet meme, the Nyoron comic strips, and with people imitating her unique speech-patterns. HOW?

Saber, the female protagonist of the wildly-popular visual novel-turned-anime Fate Stay/ Night, is possibly the most figurised character of the past 3 years. There are literally dozens (a quick check turns up more than 30)of different versions of the armoured King of Knights. While most of these have her in trademark blue and silver armour, some opt for alternative costumes such as casual clothing, bikinis and maid costumes. Though it seems like the average otaku doesn’t get bored of her, manufacturers are still busying themselves coming up with new ways to sell figures of Saber.