Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

The Good Smile Company version of Ohno Kanako from Genshiken was released early this month and I bought it to complete the GSC Genshiken set. This review focuses on Kanako because I forgot to bring Saki along for the outdoor shoot. Yes you read that right, I actually stepped outside the comfort of my room to improve the quality of my pictures for you!! But this being mosquito season (actually it’s the whole year round), I now bear the wounds of my foolhardiness.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about Ohno Kanako, my least favourite Genshiken girl. She’s the cosplay queen of the club and this sculpt has her doing what she does best - cosplaying. Or rather, changing into a costume. Incidentally, the costume is the formal uniform of the Vice-Chairman Kisaragi Kasumi from Kujibiki Unbalance. The earlier release Saki figurine was of her Chairman costume, so they are a good match.

Rather unique pose has Kanako in a semi-state of undress

It’s an atypical action pose.

She reminds me of a dog.

Hair’s nice, long, black and flowing. I’ve run out of superlatives.

Don’t let the dandruff fool you, she does use shampoo.

Her clothes are rather wrinkled due to her changing movement. While this seems logical, the creases are a lot too deep to be realistic. Nevertheless, shading at the trough of the creases are skillfully applied and everything looks like it has much depth. The paintwork for her clothes are only passable though. There are some flaws such as the white lines not applied cleanly. White is a colour that these figurine makers seem to have a lot of problems with. Here in Kanako’s case, the lines on her skirt are not crisp.

The golden epaulettes are a nice touch. Not too shiny yet metallic enough to pass off as shiny fabric.

If you look carefull at the, erm, edges of the white shirt, you’ll see that it’s not properly molded. There is flash and jagged edges plus it’s a bit too thick for my liking. The biggest flaw is, there’s a fingerprint on my bra! Or her bra, to be precise.

Kanako’s J-cup melons are a big big plus point to this figurine. They just look so… so enticing.

OOh. The blouse isn’t well made. OOh.

I wonder what’s underneath the blouse?

I’m really dying to know.

Ok here’s the main gimmick of the figurine.  Nothing too unusual. The torso is easily removeable and the skirt can be vanquished without effort. Note that  most PVC figurines are able to do this, except some require more force and result in permanant paint damage. This one’s pretty smooth, almost too smooth, making her upper body a bit unstable at times. There isn’t much overlap of the shirt on the skirt, and so you can see the torso seam slightly.

The skirt is very excellently shaded. The stockings as well, the paintjob on the stockings are beyond perfect, they look like real stockings. Hell, they look better than real ones.

These long brown stockings are rather rare in the figurine world.

Legs of perfection.

Shouldn’t that be uncomfortable?

Erm now it looks like her hair has formed evil claws and are reaching for her ass.

Winner.

I didn’t like this figurine at first. I took 3 days to open the box but once I started on taking the photos for it, I just started loving it more and more. It cannot beat the Saki though but it’s way above filler material now.

For a mere 4072 yen (for me that is), this is an excellent excellent buy. I don’t foresee any leaning issues in spite of the humongous chest, because the material GSC uses is noticeably sturdier than other companies’ and this also makes the figurine rather weighty.