BALANCE Busters: Kotobukiya’s Natsume Rin (FIGURE OVERVIEW)
“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”
written by Jon Paik (@igfxbalance)
What "Adolescence" do you have? This will remind that you have to recollect "Adolescence". The irreplaceable one existed there.
If you have played the Little Busters! visual novel as I have, then you will remember these words as the weirdest phrased English sentences that is shown in the opening sequence of the game. Despite its odd construction, it does give a mysterious feel. Though I'm certain there's a bigger question that's screaming over the mystery, "What the hell does it mean?"
Balance here again to present to you Rin Natsume from Little Busters! Do you remember that friend that gave me the nendoroid petite I briefly wrote about last week? Well, this time I got a scale figure from that same friend! The only difference is that I bought it from my friend instead (needed money and was planning on moving so I figured I would help and get a reward as a result).
This figure from Kotobukiya was actually trying to replicate a drawing that's found in the Little Busters! Perfect Visual Book and I do have to say that they've captured it pretty well! It's a pretty odd pose to tackle so I do have to give Kotobukiya kudos for attempting to sculpt it. When I had first received it, I thought it was of top quality and sculpted to almost near perfection. Years has passed since I first received this from my friend and now I can see a few things that bother me now that never phased me then.
Even after all these years, I do have to say that the figure still just looks so cute! The figure also includes another face plate and some cat ears. If you look at the cat ears, you'll notice that they have no external pegs to plug into the head. This is the one thing that I thought was really creative of Kotobukiya. They've actually added magnetic strips inside the head and within the cat ears. Even now I'm still impressed with the creativity of being able to add on cat ears to the figure. If only they could have made changing the face plate as innovative (to which I'll explain in a bit).
The details are fairly accurate and they do a good job on rendering Rin's infamous angry cat expression. Even Rin's neutral expression was sculpted fairly well to recreate the drawing found in the book. Most importantly, I like how the hair flows. I think this could possibly be one of the most difficult things to accomplish with figures. Hair is not easy to draw (let alone sculpt a 3D version of it).
If there are any complaints, two would be very minor while one would be something that I hope they never do again.
Honestly, there's probably a reason why there are certain poses that only look good on paper. As a photographer, there are certain angles that really brings out a person's good side. You want to be able to capture the face most importantly. Due to Rin's odd posture, it's hard to take a picture in any other angle without making her look weird. Secondly, I never noticed until I was taking pictures and looking at her anatomy, but she looks like she has an extremely long belly. It doesn't seem bad until you realize that she's bent a little forward. Can you imagine what it'd look like if she were standing up straight?
I do realize, however, that these two are just very minor things that don't really matter and don't bother that much. The only thing that drives me insane is swapping the face plates. IT'S DAMN DIFFICULT.
If you take a look at the picture above, you'll see that there's a long peg from Rin's bangs. Because of this, there's a lot of effort required in order to remove the hair and swap out the face. Every time I try, I worry that I will break the figure. I did find it neat that the sideburns were additional parts though. It seemed to add a bit more depth once you figured that out. Unfortunately it represents another part of frustration for me as I didn't know the sideburns also came off. You can probably imagine my reaction when they fell off after finally being successful at the removal of the bangs. At least putting it back on is a breeze. If only it wasn't such a horrifying experience every time you try to change the face.
Nevertheless, she's still very cute. It may be my obvious bias speaking out to me, but I love the figure very much. While I may not be a cat person, I find her angry expression with cat ears to be very cute as well. There's a lot of nostalgic sentiment every time I see her figure. I'm certain everyone else can relate when they see a figure of their favorite character.
That's all for today and thank you again for reading my article!
Jon "BALANCE" Paik is a toy enthusiast with a passion for blogging, make sure to check out his own personal blog, The Little Busterz, for more BALANCE related posts! Keep up with Toy Box for more posts from Jon in the near future.
