The Lucky Star x Macross Frontier set…oh how I’ve WAITED for you! I NEVER ever thought I would look forward to (or pay so much) for anything from Banpresto. When I saw the images of these items I immediately wanted to buy them, but I had a long debate with myself if the quality of the final product would match the price point I would have to pay. Especially since I’m a figure collector located in the U.S.  without personal connections to anyone in Japan. Originally I was only going to get the large figures of the main cast, and the small figures of the supporting cast. BUT bad luck turned into good luck, my pre-order for those items fell through and then I found the WHOLE set on eBay for what I was going to pay for just the figures. In this haul I’m going to take pictures of the plushes, jets, and mini figures. What about the main figures?! I’m going to do a review of each of the large prize figures individually.

First off let me admit to one thing I have NOT YET seen Macross Frontier. I plan on watching it for sure, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. I feel like I’m going to end up liking the series a lot, but even if I don’t…my passion for Lucky Star is enough to allow me to love and appreciate these figures. However a sad development occurred, Banpresto sent me a defective figure. Usually such a situation is easy to fix…that is if it occurs with another manufacturer, and ESPECIALLY if it’s not limited.

First up are these adorable mini-figures, but you can already tell from this group shot who my defective item is. I’m actually a BIG FAN of Banpresto’s chibi figures. I have their Code Geass set as well as their Gurren Lagann set. They don’t match up to nendoroids in terms of quality and pose options, but they’re considerably cheaper. As much as I love nendoroids, I’d prefer to have 4 of these chibi figures than one nendoroid. The character completionist in me approves. ESPECIALLY when they focus on characters that don’t get many figures (which I feel is the case for all 3 of the sets I own of theirs).

I won’t pretend I know the Macross Frontier characters everyone is cosplaying as, from keeping an eye on figure releases I can name who the entire (large prize figure) main cast are dressed as. But these mini gals I have no idea if they’re dressed as specific characters that are waitresses, or are generic waitresses at a restaurant from the series. My favorite of the bunch is this Konata, so damn cute. I really just cannot resist that face, particularly that face on a cosplay that would probably be considered the most undesirable of the bunch.  Patricia comes in 2^nd, I love her assertive happy pose.

So Hiyori here causes me pain, not only was this item missing the stick that goes in the stand to support the figure. BUT ALSO her hands/arms are spread too far apart to hold her dish in a cute way. I have a few options if I can’t work something out with the seller:

option #1 – THE CHEAPEST – Use the trick I’ve seen on blogs where you warm up a leaning figure with a hair dryer, move it into place, and run it under cold water. And then…just display her without the use of the stand and hope she stays standing tall.

Option #2 – MEDIUM COST - Hunt her down individually either via eBay or a proxy in Japan. BUT I’m really not willing to spend more than $15 on this plus reasonable shipping.

Option #3 – Potential to be the cheapest (RISK) - Re-Buy the entire (MINI) set and sell off the rest of the figures individually on eBay. This has the potential to be my cheapest way to find another one. That is if the auctions go decently, but it’s a real risk. After all these are mostly supporting characters that may not return much $$ (a whole set will probably be $70 after shipping for me to buy). I’d have 5 figures I could sell. I’d have to sell each for about $10 for this to be a consideration.

The jets are nice, I wouldn’t pay a lot for them individually, but since it’s cheapest to buy the set as a whole I appreciate that I have them. I’m going to display each one at the base of their FREEing Figure counterpart for now. Normally I wouldn’t display jets but…it’s Lucky Star, and that changes everything for me. If there were One Piece jets I’d display those too, but I can’t think of many other series where if they had characters on jets I’d display them. I prefer characters to machinery in my figures.

PLUSHES! Once upon a time I craved plushes, I used to try and collect all the Sailor Moon ones in elementary school. But plushes end up taking up a lot of space in an awkward way that makes it hard to display them all. So I put the Sailor Moon ones I had into storage in the basement and didn’t buy any more. HOWEVER I like these ones and am happy to have them. The Lucky Star cat makes a perfect plush for me (I’d buy a bigger one if I could) and I don’t mind the Akira one. I’ll be proudly displaying them. Also I’m linking images of their tag here and here in case bootlegs are ever made you can compare. Although I have no idea if bootleg plushes are common? If GIFT did Lucky Star plushes they way they’re doing Vocaloid ones, I would be sure to buy.

EVEN THOUGH having Hiyori being defective is sad I don’t regret this set one bit. My main purpose was to get the prize figures, followed by the mini figures, followed by the plushes, and last the jets. I could only find the main prize figures at about $75 a piece, so it was cheaper to buy the whole set at $245.

This haul contains:

Fate unlimited code – 1/7 Saber Lily Distant Avalon PVC Figure
Gurren Lagann – 1/8 Nia PVC Figure
Gurren Lagann – 1/8 Viral PVC Figure
Lucky Star – 1/4 Kagami Gym Clothes Ver PVC Figure
Lucky Star – EX Figure Vol. 2 (Set of 2)
Lucky Star – Konata Summer Uniform Ver Figma Figure
Lucky Star – Mini Display Figure Vol. 2 (Set of 4)
One Piece – Figure Collection Vol. 3 (Set of 3)
One Piece – Hungry Chopper Mauve T-Shirt (Size M)
One Piece – Wanted pictures figures Set of 10
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – EX Figure (Set of 2)

I got all this a day before our Turkey Day tradition over in the U.S. and I didn’t get to open the haul until the day after my family left. I’m going to try and get better with taking pictures of figures again. I got myself into a bit of a frustrated rut over my lighting situation. It seems all the background poster paper I find is not as pure white as I’d like, or its size is too small. Perhaps I’ll ask for a real light tent as my Christmas present because I really can’t seem to find what I need for the one I made. Me being unable to jump this hurdle is the reason why my blog went from being almost nothing but figures to more manga/anime reviews and overall haul posts. At the very least meronpan was right that my ISO setting was way too high, learning that was very helpful in taking these pictures.

I’m happy with my Nia/Yoko set. They’re not as high quality as my other Tengen Toppa figures but I love owning them all the same! I have a great love for prize figures for some reason, if there are prize figures of a series I love they usually make the cut for me to buy them regardless of how many figures I own from that series. This prize figure is probably the cheapest way to own Nia with long hair and in her normal outfit. I dislike figures of Nia with her hair cut because I love how awesome her hair looks long.

 My 1/4th FREEing Konata was getting lonely, I’m really happy to have Kagami too now. I expect Tsukasa and Miyuki to join Konata quicker then Kagami did. I’m very excited for the outfits FREEing announced for these figures. I think I’ll have everyone in a different outfit. I’m currently thinking Konata (gym clothes), Kagami (shrine maiden), Tsukasa (school uniform), and Miyuki (cheerleading outfit). But all this depends on the price of the outfits, if they’re trying to take my wallet to the cleaners over the outfits I’ll keep everyone in their gym uniforms.

I love this pair, but they’re a smaller scale then my Konata/Kagami prize figures that are in this pose…that one has me scratching my head. But I still think they all look great together despite the difference in heights. I ended up taking pictures of my cheaper items first because I’m less likely to do a review of them over the other figures in this haul. But these prize figures are certainly worth the time and money to purchase (in my opinion) so they should pop up in at least a few pictures. Lately I’ve usually been very pleased with the quality and price of these figures.

The last of these One Piece trading figures came in, I don’t plan on collecting anymore One Piece trading figures after these. At the time I purchased this I stupidly thought I was getting prize figures, but it all worked out because I think they look great next to my figures of their ships. Plus as I mentioned before their quality is significantly better in comparison to the Styling One Piece Trading Figure series. These figures were released in celebration of the 10 year anniversary.

I guess this section of the room has become a bit of a One Piece shrine. My collection is becoming more and more saturated by One Piece these days because I made major cutbacks in how much I spend on figures…and One Piece figures almost always make the cut for me. My main Megahouse One Piece figures are on the other side of the room.

What else have I been doing these days?
~Reading Twilight (on the 3rd book of 4)
~Started Dexter (just finished season 1 )

In other news I’ve started reading those Twilight books, I may write a review blurb of them for the blog. I like them a lot and am curious about how it will all end, but if I were 15 at the time of reading these I would probably LOVE THEM as opposed to just liking them. I think this is one situation where my age inhibits my enjoyment of the story a bit. I’d bet money on the main character remaining a human for the rest of her days, but I make that speculation based on the age group and gender this series is aimed at. I would be pleasantly surprised if this series took a darker twist than that and transformed this heroine into a monster of the night. After this, I think I’ll start the books the Trueblood series is based on, those probably will fit my age group a bit better and I’m counting on them having a darker edge to them.

Started watching Dexter, I love it, I love tales of revenge and I’m fascinated by serial murderer tales. I’ll talk about this show more in my next post on my favorite TV Shows.

Top Left – Kagami and Tsukasa (Wave)
Bottom Left – Gin (Megahouse)
Top Right – Ace and Luffy (Banpresto)
Bottom Right – Sheryl Nome (Megahouse)
Shirts Left to Right – Nami, Saber Lily, and Zoro
Leftmost – Lucky Star Tea Cup
Rightmost – Saber Lily/Dark Saber Mug

Well actually this was my only haul in the past 2 months (I was a bit delayed in doing my last haul post). See? It shows I really am cutting back in comparison to before. Because this haul is actually older I already have all these figures up on display, drank coffee from my Saber mug each weekend, and have worn each of these shirts quite a few times. I love wearing these shirts around the house, they’re comfortable and they have my favorite anime characters on them! Although I don’t wear them out in public, not because I’m embarassed but because I don’t like wearing baggy things outside the house. I have a couple more One Piece shirts coming but after that I need to stop buying them unless something really special comes along. My anime shirt drawer is already almost full.

I have to say that the Luffy and Ace BanPresto figures are impressive! I really like them! Prize figures are really starting to earn their $20 each price tag these days! They’re smaller then the Megahouse figures but the use of coloring and details is great. I’d almost say I prefer the Banpresto Ace to the Megahouse one, I say “almost” because I’ve never seen the Megahouse Ace in real life. I didn’t take pictures myself but rankai has images of the set here (images taken by GA Graphic). I think the Grandline Men BanPresto line is the most affordable way to get decent figures of the One Piece characters, and they’re a great substitute if you’re unable to collect the Megahouse line!

I rarely buy figures that have clothes that cast-off, the few I owned gave me nothing but headaches to try and dress. This Sheryl Nome is CONSIDERABLY easier then trying to put the clothes on my old Sanzo or my Shuraki. I was really pleased. Plus…she just has a certain presence, I really fell hard for her after I saw the review of her at HowaGirlFigures. I was lucky that Toyslogic still had them up for order at the time of her review. They actually still have some in stock (at the time of writing this post) if there are people having issues tracking her down. 

I gotta love Gin! So far I love all the GEM figures that Megahouse are releasing! Yay for more male figures! GEM is one of the few sets I’ve decided to stay a collectionist to. Although the first time they do a character I’m not that fond of I’ll skip him. I have to admit one thing though, I was not THAT impressed with Kagami and Tsukasa (Wave) . I think Wave did a much better job on their Shrine Maiden version then this one. I might drop the Lucky Star Wave line after this. 

Although I compensated…I may have purchased less figures but I bought way more manga! Although what I spent on the manga was still less then what I used to spend on figures, especially since I got a few series used for a good price. I didn’t take pictures of the manga but these are the series I purchased/pre-ordered the last 2 months.

Mushishi 1-10
Pluto 3-7
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles 1-20
Immortal Rain 1-8
Dragonhead 1-10
Hellsing 4-7
Dance Till Tomorrow 1-7
Honey and Clover 3-9
Tail of the Moon 10-15
Land of the Blinfolded 1-9
Monster 5 – 15
Black Lagoon 8
Berserk 14 – 22
Bride of the Water God 3 and 4
High School Debut 8
King of Thorn 1-6
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 9

Seems like everything on that list is either a shoujo series or a horror series, probably an odd combination of genres. So far I’ve read what I have of Berserk, Pluto, and Kurosagi. I’m currently working my way through Tsubasa. Not all the volumes from the other series have arrived yet, so I’m waiting for them to arrive before I tackle the other series. Anyone reading or have read these series? What do you think?