In a previous review, I started with a figure I was planning on selling, but changed my mind again after doing the photographs. This time it's the same premise, except the outcome is that I'm still gonna sell her. Either way, it was a lot of fun taking these pictures, and also I feel like I learned a few things in the process.
The figure is Kotobukiya's 1/7 scale Bishoujo Jubilee. She's part of Koto's very popular and seemingly endless catalog of licensed bishoujo figures based on popular characters drawn by Shunya Yamashita. I'm not certain if they're still doing Marvel figures, I think they might not be for this line anymore, but in any case they did a few mutants from the Marvel universe, including Jubilee here.
As is expected for a Japanese figure, Jubilee has also gotten a bit of an upgrade to her bust. This is the kind of design that would probably cause quite the stir among prudes in the comics world nowadays, perhaps deservedly, but here in the figure hobby it's just business as usual.
It's good that her beautifully sculpted body is taking center stage, because the faces on these Bishoujo figures are often a little strange. Sometimes they have a weird cherubic quality, but this time her face just looks oddly proportioned and weirdly angular in places.
I tried a few different angles, but in most of them she just looked weird. Here's one where she came out pretty well. Zoomed in like this you can start to see where compromises are made to keep the price of these figures down. Matte chunky paint application on her choker's medallion, and what appears to be a completely unpainted seam or zipper on her jacket stand out in a bad way on close inspection. That said, I paid $65 shipped for this figure in 2015; a bargain if you ask me! The newer figures in the line are starting to look better, but prices are also creeping up to and over the $100 mark. It's true that all figures are expensive now, but it still stings to think about paying that much for one of these.
Of course it wouldn't be a review on this website if we didn't look at the feet and the base, and well I think they did a really good job with her baby blue Chucks. the detail on them is really quite good and they look cool. Her base is simple but I like it. If you're going to make a plain disk, making it colored transparent plastic with sparkles is a good choice. Take note, figure manufacturers, because this is how you do the bare minimum and have it come out nice.
Anyway, I'm not going to spend too much time obsessing over the details of this figure. It's a good figure with a nice body and some less than perfect execution in spots. I no longer read superhero comics, and haven't for years, so I'll be selling her soon to make room for new figures and help keep my budget in check.
Please enjoy the rest of these pics!
Each post I've been making some comments about how the photography went, and well this time I think it went pretty well! Last time I mentioned a timer, and now I can report that using a two second timer really helped me get much clearer images. In addition, this time I tried lighting Jubilee in a more dynamic and interesting way, instead of just directly as though she was standing under even lighting. I think the result is pretty cool, and more importantly it was fun for me. There's a million high quality perfect product gallery images of every figure in existence out there. There's no reason for me to do that. I'll be experimenting more with stuff like this in the future.
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