Hello and welcome back (or welcome if it's your first time) to another review of a recent figure based on Chiyo from Ane Naru Mono. This particular figure is based on a scene from volume 1 of the Ecchi manga published in the US by Yen Press as The Elder Sister-Like One. It is written and illustrated by Pochi Iida, who is also responsible for the original hentai manga that the Ecchi manga spun off of. Basically, it's about a teenage orphan who finds himself living alone after his uncle is hospitalized for some reason. He inadvertently discovers a Lovecraftian Elder God in his uncle's house and she just happens to be a sexy demon with horns, goat legs, and tentacle feelers for hair. It's a kind of meandering slice of life incest fan-service manga with great art.
Here we can see Chiyo appearing in her demon form, wearing a swimsuit, and looking at a flower with I can only characterize as a sighing admiration smile. This is a common expression in anime and manga and usually the character is like "sugoiiiiii....." or something while they admire whatever it is they're looking at. It's a cute expression and If there's one thing Dragon Toy really nailed on this figure it's her face. It's absolutely recognizable as Chiyo, with really nicely done features. I especially like the little mole by her right eye. It's really cute. Her flaming scarf, horns, and awesome goat-lady arms do a lot here to take this figure out of the realm of "boring swimsuit figure" and into its own category of cute demon figure.
note - they included another face but I was too lazy to swap and photograph it. Sorry!
There's a few angles you can display Chiyo from. Straight on is probably the best, as it allows you to get a great view of her face and also her body which is really well sculpted here. The way her breasts are being squeezed up and out to the side by her arms, and the subtle lines of her stomach are really well done and just a pleasure to look at. This is another one of those figures with not a lot of extraneous detail or accessories, so just nailing the basic anatomy is important and I think they did a great job with her here.
Looking closer at her bikini bottom you there are some nice subtle details there that strike the right balance between suggestive and just straight-up lewd. I've seen more than a few bishoujo figures which appear to have basically just painted on underwear and frankly it's a little absurd. I prefer the more subtle approach taken here. One complaint, however, is that her bikini bottom seems to be embedded in her skin or something. It's made worse by what appears to be a slight defect just to the left of her bikini bottom. I accept that figures are going to have some variation here and there from the production process but it's pretty disappointing, especially for Dragon Toy who in general put out a high quality product.
Turning her around a little you can get a nice view of her backside, and they did a great job but it's a shame there's not real way to see it under normal conditions. It's one of those details that you're happy exists but you'll never look at except when she's out of the shelf for dusting. Here you can see the nice gradient they put in her hair for her feelers. They look really great.
Another thing, while we're down here, is the ribbons/bands around her legs. I'm not sure what's going on with those, but normally it's a pink and purple fur similar to her scarf. It creates a kind of band for her goat legs not unlike a pair of thigh-high boots or stockings. I think it's weird that they did them in this way, considering it's done correctly on all other figures of her, but besides that I think they look alright.
Lastly, let's just talk about her base for a second. I hate it. Dumb pointless black disk. I really hate big plain bases like this. Its' only saving grace is that it's not too huge. I feel like if we're paying $100+ for figures like this at least put some effort into the damn base. That's all. Her hooves had metal pins in them to insert into the base so hopefully that means there's a rod pretty deep up into her legs to keep her from tilting over time.
Here you can see that she does have some wiggle room in terms of display angles, which is always appreciated. There's a lot of figures that only work on the left or right side of a display because of how they're posed, but Chiyo will fit right in wherever you want to stick her.
You can currently get Chiyo for about 13k on Amiami. To be honest, I don't think I would recommend this particular Chiyo figure at that price unless you're absolutely crazy about her. There are a lot of other Chiyo figures on the way, and at least one of them looks incredible for a similar price. By all means, if you're thirsting for any and all Chiyo figures pick this one up. I've enjoyed her on my shelf since un-boxing her, but if cash or space is limited wait for one her other figures that's on the way.
So, bottom line: I love her but of course I do! Happy collecting.
Bonus Pics!
I'm not sure I know what the optimal aperture for blurring my backdrop and keeping the majority of the figure in focus is. This is causing some inconsistency in the focus across my images. Furthermore, not using a tripod is forcing me to use a higher ISO and still slower shutter speeds, and while the lighting is okay I think I just need to buckle down and setup my tripod at least for the basic display angle shots on these figures. Longer exposures and stability should give me some better results, even if it's a bit more work.
Positive notes are that I think adding the second light really helped, as did just using a plain black backdrop. I like the idea of using my computer monitor for more varied backdrops (as above) but the reflection off of the screen looks bad at times, and the colors look pretty muted. Anyway, here are a selection of pics from my second attempt at photographing her. I think some of them are pretty nice, but again they could be better.
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