Anime statuettes
 

Mao Shingyouji:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...ni90125/MS.jpg

Hazuki Mizuhara:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...ni90125/HM.jpg

I picked up Mao at Comic-Con while hunting for Lauren's booth; as it turned out, they weren't too far from one another. Hazuki arrived here yesterday, courtesy of the wonderful people at eBay. Both were photographed a little over an hour ago at a local construction site.

At the moment these two are the only statuettes I have, along with a Sailor Saturn figure I picked up several months ago. Given my borderline psychotic need to collect stuff, I have a feeling these are going to start piling up. ;D

Nice! :D

It's not anime, but I have this bad boy;

http://www.estarland.com/images/prod...8359/49188.jpg
Cloud in Kingdom Hearts from :)

Not my picture, I'd take one but my digi-cam needs some cleaning x.x

Nice one. Looks rather familiar, too; if I'm not mistaken, that character was used as someone's avatar here at one time. :)

Ack! 8D

Anyhoo, those two look awesome there. :bloogrin:

Very nice statues, guys. I had my eyes on some statues of the summons from the Final Fantasy series but they would have been too expensive to get. Oh well, I'll have statues of Ifrit, Leviathan, Tonberry, Odin, and Bahamut someday.

The Platinum dragon? There's one available?

I'm not familiar with that term, Cass. If it's from FF10 or over then I have no clue since I never played those. The ones I seen were based off of FFVIII and FFIX's interpretations of Bahamut. This one to be exact.

Ah, okay, the Bahamut I'm talking about has nothing to do with FF whatsoever; the "Bahamut the Platinum dragon" I'm referring to is from Dungeons and Dragons.

actually it kind of does have something to do with FF; many of the monster's names (in the final fantasy series) come from the monstrous manual (of D&D fame).

Then FF has something to do with D&D, not the other way around. ;)

yaaaaaay cloud is awsome! i wish i had one

The newest arrival:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1.../Belldandy.jpg

This is Belldandy, from the Ah! My Goddess manga. She cost me less than $10.00 (before shipping, anyway), which is remarkable considering how hiqh quality she is. Unlike the previous statuettes Belldandy is permanently attached to her baseplate. She's about 8 inches tall. :)

WOW. :D

I may not be the biggest fan of Anime, but I still know great art when I see it. These are awesome, I especially like this last one. Her skirt twirling out and her hair blowing in the wind... Very cool! Nice catch, Cass! :)

*Three cheers for eBay!* :clap: :clap: :clap:

Got my eyes on several more, too. Alas, this is not a cheap hobby; Ms. Belldandy didn't cost too much, true, but the ones I really want to get ahold of are going to sting. Some of them I just can't pass up, such as this group that I bought last year:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...i90125/SML.jpg

No need for introductions in this case, I presume. These were based on the live action Sailor Moon series, not the anime. The three that are standing are 4 inches tall, which seems to be the standard height for the smaller figures. I would love to find a Tuxedo Mask figure to go with them but it seems that nobody ever made one. Male figures in general seem pretty scarce. Anime versions are available for all nine of the Sailor Scouts, too. Stay tuned for more. ;)

No offense, but the live-action Sailor Moon was freaky.

LOL

try $1200 for a Springfield M1A

or $800 for an FN FAL

heck...even a lowly Norinco Hunter will run you $500

:(

nice statuettes, BTW, Ah! My Goddess was a good series IIRC

I hear you, Partymember. Collecting arms and armour of any kind is very costly. That's why I really cut down on my collecting of medieval arms and returned to my childhood love of collecting Transformers.
Congrats on getting that figure for so cheap, Cass! Statuettes can be expensive little suckers. That Ah! My Goddess figure looks like a wonderful piece of art. I hope you manage to snag those Sailor Moon figures at a bargain. :D

oh cool, medieval weaponry was boss.

gotta love those Mongolian recurve bows...deadly beasts

That she is. I just discovered a little while ago that Belldandy has also been made into a Sim and can be downloaded from the MTS2 site. I haven't downloaded her, but I'm thinking about it. :bloogrin:

The original five Sailor Scouts are a fairly inexpensive set but the other four are rare on eBay and are much higher in price. Again, I'm thinking about both sets, assuming that the second set becomes available again sometime.

Miss Lita Kino:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Lita.jpg

Don't let the photograph fool you; from her knees to the beads in her hair she's barely 2.5 inches tall. Wonderful things can come in small packages. :)

I'm not an anime fan, but I have been a fan of the Bleach manga for 4 years, and while my boyfriend was at a convention he picked up A HUGE Ichigo statuette for me. It was beautiful and very detailed. About 30cm high

http://benippon.com/shop/i/FIG-Bleach-EM-Ichigo.jpg

Ooh, I like this one too, she's real cute. :berry: What's that pink thing she's holding?

Looks like a packed lunch to me. But that is one cute statue. Great buy, Cass!:D

Thanks, guys. According to the description on eBay, she is in fact holding a packed lunch, which I'm assuming is meatloaf and cherry pie. :)

When I was little and they aired Sailor Moon on tv (in Sweden), I remember that Makoto (that's what Sailor Jupiter's name was here, and I assume in Japan too) brought an obentou (lunch box) in a pink cloth and it contained mostly rice and octopus shaped weenies

Correct on both counts; as I recall, however, her favorite foods were meatloaf and cherry pie.

Octopus shaped weenies? Yeah, I think I'll have a salad tonight. 8D

cherry pie. damn now i got "Warrant" playing in my head 8D

I do not know much of Salor Moon, but meatloaf and cherry pie sounds very American while Octopus sounds more Japanese.

Could it have been in translations that they converted her favorite to Meatloaf to get american fans, since many americans would dislike hearing octopus.

Monty :-/

That'd be my guess. They did the same thing with some, but not all, of the other characters.

That's what's called "localization". It's a very important part of the translation process that anime's and other foreign shows go through.
If you stuck with a very pure translation you will end up with dialogue that suffers from poor grammar. Another purpose that it serves is changing cultural references and the like to things that are more familiar to the viewers that the translation is for to avoid alienating the intended audience.
Interesting stuff, huh? 8D

I can understand taking creative liberties with translation, because Japanese sounds very odd and stilted translated to English when you are super anal about being faithful, but renaming characters still annoys me. You can see just by looking at it that it's clearly an anime, so who decided kids will be scarred for life if they become aware of the existence of Japan?

Altering cultural references isn't too bad, I suppose, if it helps the target audience relate to the characters, but really, changing their names? That just seems wrong, somehow. Granted, I refer to the Sailor Scouts by their American names, but that's because I'm used to them. It wasn't until fairly recently that I found out that those aren't their real names; Lita's real name is Makoto.

This one's real name is Sakura Matou:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...125/Sakura.jpg

Sakura stands just over 11.5 inches (29 cm) tall, which was quite a surprise, albeit a pleasant one; when I found her on eBay I thought she was around 8 or 9 inches in height. I think she's the finest of my larger statuettes; very well made and very attractive. A real gem. Really makes me smile. :)

nice!

Another great find, Cass! I like her stance, she looks very content. Perhaps because she's been shopping? :wink:

I just noticed... She appears to be wearing the same shoes and socks as your Sims teen Frankie. :frankiesmile:

I really like the detail of the plastic bag. It also just struck me at how difficult it must be to make figures like that. The process to give them the appearance of movement while maintaining the figures balance must be tricky feat.

Could be; it works for me, too. I'm one of the only people I know who finds shopping for groceries to be a pleasant experience, at least when I do it after midnight and there aren't hordes of people trying to crash into me. I swear, I'm the only person in Stop & Shop who actually watches where he's going. Aside from that, I find being surrounded by food and wandering the isles to be quite relaxing. :)

Not so much in the updated picture I think, but close. Just a coincidence.

I think the process begins with a single handmade figure that is later replicated in plastic by machinery. I'd hate to try sculpting one myself; back in grammar school it took me a lot of effort to turn a lump of clay into a passable mug. Anime figures are well beyond my skill level; I give the artist a lot of credit.

She's lovely! What a great find. You have a terrific collection of anime statuettes.

Ami Mizuno... Sailor Mercury:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...i90125/Ami.jpg

What a find. What an amazing find. :)

Actually I found her awhile back but completely forgot to post a pic. Oops. :cheesegrin: Anyway, the photo doesn't completely do her justice; in person she's about 8 inches tall and very well-detailed. And very beautiful I might add, but I'm pretty sure you can see that. :frankiesmile:

I love eBay. ;D

ecellent workmanship, there Cass. Whoever does these things must be extremely skilled! I can't imagine scultping this, and i'm considered "artistic"...or something

beautiful statuette