Welcome to the inaugural post on Plastic-Love! I decided to make it a figure review, since I hope this will be the bulk of the original material I produce for the site. It's going to take a lot of work (and also money) but I hope I'd like to do something like this at least once a month and then have some different kinds of posts between reviews, maybe closer to what I've seen other figure blogs doing: e.g. posting a lot of previews and pre-order updates basically lifted from Japanese hobby sites. However, I won't have time to do this for every damn figure that comes out so it'll just be the stuff that looks cool to me.
This is the figure that really inspired me to start this website, so before I get into it I'll just tell a short story about that. What happened was this: Tokyo Otaku Mode offers you $0.50 in TOM points (their reward currency) for every product review you do. When I went to write the review for this figure, I was having so much fun writing it that I eventually ran out of space in the text box. I decided at that moment, that I would enjoy doing figure reviews as a hobby and a few days later I was buying a domain from google. So, without further ado, here is my review for
Portrait of Pirates One Piece Limited Edition Nami Ver. BB_SP
To start, I'll say that I don't know anything about One Piece. It's about pirates? There's like 1000 episodes or more? The main guy, Mr. One Piece is his name probably, has like a straw hat, red vest, and jorts maybe? A lot of people buy figures because of a personal attachment to the characters, but that wasn't at all the case for me. I'm aware of Nami as a character that exists, and that's about it. The main motivation for me to buy this figure was some photos that were posted by a much better photographer than me, user Giolon on My Figure Collection. As soon as I saw Giolon's photos I was sold, and that same day I cashed in the rest of my TOM points and Nami was on her way.
This isn't the typical figure in my collection. It's from a show that I have no knowledge of, and it's a character that I know nothing about really. It's also a swimsuit figure, which is kind of a boring genre of figure if you ask me. That said, there's nothing boring about this Nami figure. Everything about it is fun.
I love how the sculptor rendered Nami's face. Many figures have weird vacant expressions or moe blob faces, but not Nami. She looks like she's having fun. Her smile is big and inviting. The proportions of her face don't look weird. She's toasting with a huge mug of beer and the head of the beer is spilling over the front of her glass. It's a really dynamic pose that does a lot before you even get to the swimsuit or her body.
Speaking of which, they knocked it out of the park in that regard. Her chest is ridiculous, obviously, but as far as anime figures go it hasn't ventured into the realm of monstrous. It is barely constrained by her bikini top. Looking at her, you get the impression that she's like a coiled spring just waiting to explode. It's like something is going to happen at any moment.
They did a really good job with her waist and stomach. Again, her proportions are exaggerated for sure, but the details on her hips and stomach along with the subtle shading on her skin help ground her in some kind of reality. If a figure is barely wearing anything, the paint on the skin needs to pull a lot more visual weight and I think they've given us a lot to appreciate here. I love the little details like her bracelets, belt, and pink fingernails too. Also, they didn't need to do it, but the gradient on her bikini bottom bow is a nice touch. I feel like this is the kind of detail that would have just got a flat coat of paint on a worse figure.
Turning Nami a little to the side you can see that she offers a few different possible display angles. From this side you can get a good view of her butt while still keeping her chest in view and also her feet (if you're into that sort of thing - this is a judgement free zone). It's nice when you can view a figure from more than one angle. I find that it helps a lot when organizing displays since you have more freedom especially when shelf space is constrained by other figures and especially their bases. Speaking of display space, I should mention that Nami's kneeling pose makes her really compact and easy to display in shorter shelves or other areas where there isn't much head space. I've got her out on my desk next to my monitor, but maybe someday there'll be another figure there and I'll be happy that I can fit her on a shorter shelf or in front of a taller figure.
Back to business. I really love how from this angle you can see Nami's thumb hooked under the string of her bikini bottom. Maybe she's adjusting it. Maybe she's giving it a little snap for fun. Who knows! It's a nice touch that adds to the playful atmosphere of this figure. She's having fun, and we're having fun looking at her.
This is about as extreme as I would go in terms of display angle for Nami, but there's still a lot to see here. They've done a good job with her butt, which is something a lot of sculptors seem to struggle with. It looks great, and you can also appreciate some of the other painting details from this angle, such as the highlighting and gradients in her hair, which is another often ignored aspect of figures. Too many figures have terrible flat monochromatic hair, so it's nice to see that they gave her hair some good highlights.
Moving on, we can look at some of the details from the other side. It's not really possible to displace Nami from this side. Well you could, but she wouldn't be that interesting to look at.
Here is a closeup of that thumb under the string on her bikini bottom, one of my favorite details on this figure.
I really think maybe she chose a bikini that was a little too small here :-o
The base is mirrored, which can produce some surprising views depending on where you're standing. It's a great touch.
I'm not a foot guy but I gotta admit they did a great job here.
So, as you can see I really love this figure. It's definitely one of the top figures in my collection since getting it and it's also one that I had zero regrets about immediately upon seeing her. This figure manages to accomplish a lot without a bunch of fancy accessories or annoying assembly process. She's a one piece (hah!) swimsuit figure that is just ready to go right out of the box, and when you consider that and her price it's hard to think of other figures that are this economical in multiple senses of the word.
I think the list price was around $100 but I spent just about $60 after some TOM points and a free shipping coupon. In a future post I'll shill for TOM about since I think it's a great site if you buy too many figures but for now I'll just say they definitely enabled me to buy this Nami without much worry about her cost.
If you have the means to get her, I recommend it. She's just a delight.
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