Welcome to my review! Today I will be talking about a figure of Kanzaki H Aria encyclopedia/25451 from Hidan no Aria (Aria the Scarlet Ammo) encyclopedia/25449 ! This figure item/83717 is made by FuRyu encyclopedia/7699 .
I will start off with telling some more about her background.
Background
Hidan no Aria (Aria the Scarlet Ammo) started off as a light-novel series which was later adapted into a manga and anime. The story is about an high school that trains Butei; people that are allowed to wield weapons and catch criminals. This figure is from Aria, one of the main characters of the series. She looks very cute and young, but is actually highly-ranked Butei.
The reason why and how I got her
Someone on a local forum had her for sale. The cute posing and her cheap price made me buy her!
Original art
I am pretty sure the above artwork (mirrored) was the inspiration for this figure. On the figure the legs are posed differently, but the rest is spot-on.
The Box
The figure's box is a pretty standard prize-figure box. It shows both figures from the set, which means the box is the same also for the matching Mine Riko item/83718 figure.
The box itself shows big pictures of the figures and there is only one small front window. I like the artwork on the front.
First Look
Aria has a lot of blisters around her and is well protected!
The Figure
This figure comes with an instruction sheet. This is quite common for scaled figures, but rarely seen with prize figures. The print on it is quite dark, so the pictures are a bit hard to see. It does explain the placements of the rods on her base pretty well.
The base set-up is quite interesting looking by itself. When the right foot is is put on the pegs, the hair and the left leg land in the clear rods perfectly.
My first impression was with quite mixed feelings... I love how the posing is so detailed, also with the movement of the hair. This posing is not something you would expect from a prize figure! On the other hand, I could already see from a distance that the posing takes away a lot of other things from this figure...a bit of painting and sculpting errors are already to be seen from a distance...
Looking at all the details!
Starting off with Aria's face. The amount of details and the quality are to be expected from a prize figure. It's all very simple, but looking good enough. The decals are nicely put on and show a lot of colors. The mouth however, I think looks a bit too simple.
Aria's hair is a bit blotchy at some points, but looking good overall. Something I dislike a bit is how her front bangs and her twintails have a darker color than the hair on her head.
The top of her head shows some nice detailing, the seperation in her hair looks very good.
The movement in her twintails is very nice too! But from up close...
...you can see quite some mistakes. Starting off with this part. In the picture it may be a bit hard to see, but here is a "lick" of darker paint (shading?) on the lighter colored hair. On the rest of Aria's hair this color paint is not to be seen.
There are also some small chips out of the PVC, which I think were caused when the figure was removed from the mold. (Keep in mind that small mistakes like this are specific to my copy of the figure and can be different or not appear at all on other copies.)
View spoilerWarning! Bad out-of-focus picture!
On loose parts of her hair are small, darker spots also to be found. These all seem to be painting errors of the color shading mentioned earlier.
Aria's school uniform shirt was sculpted very well. There is really nice movement and the seamlines are minimal View spoilerquite some of the prize figures in my collection have very bad seamlines which is where I compare this figure with. The paint however is at some points blotchy, has leftovers or is simply painted outside of the destined places. On other parts, such as her ribbons, the paint is almost perfect.
Aria's school emblem detail is also present and is a nicely put on decal.
A small, unfortunate mistake is this piece of her arm. It looks like some of the PVC fell off and then quickly was glued back in by a factory worker. o.O
The detailing on both of the guns is so-so. Neatly painted, but very simple. The sculpting shows some details but they can only be appreciated from up-close because of the colors of the paint.
Both of Aria's hand are sculpted very nicely. I was pleasantly surprised with them! Especially the posing of the fingers was done very well.
Her skirt has some amazing movement going on, it has definitely been sculpted well! Aria's shirt lifts up a bit, making her belly a bit visible. She also has a belly button sculpted.
Something that is a downside (and was luckily told to me beforehand by the seller) was a big black dot on the back of her skirt. This seems like a pretty big mistake and I wouldn't have expected it to go through Quality Control like this (unfortunately I couldn't remove it, not even with Magic Eraser-methods).
Aria's holsters have been sculpted pretty nicely. The bands keeping the holsters to her legs however show some sculpting and painting errors.
Her legs are looking pretty good when it comes to posing. There is a seamline to be seen on both legs, but they are quite forgiveable looking at this figure's price and the overall amount of seamlines we see on other prize figures.
Aria wears Japanese school-uniform style shoes. Very simple, but painted and detailed well.
Summary or tl;dr
Positive
- Amazing posing
- Nice movement in the hair
Neutral
- Good sculpting, but also quite some mistakes.
- Good painting at some parts, but also a lot of letdowns.
Negative
- There are some parts that are badly painted or sculpted on this figure that should really never have gotten past QC, even looking at this being a (cheap) prize figure...
The Scores
Sculpting 7/10
I really wish I could give it a higher score, since some parts are sculpted very well (such as her hands and her skirt), but there are just too many mistakes...
Painting 6/10
For the painting, overall all the right colors are in the right places, but there are so much small mistakes that it is on the edge of not being acceptable anymore.
Posing 9/10
I really have to give this figure credit for the posing. It is a very intricate and detailed posing, making the figure also fit very well when displayed inbetween scaled figures.
Base 7/10
The base itself is not good lucking, but the extra parts give it a lot of support, making it a good base for this figure.
Packaging 7/10
Very simple and pretty standard for prize figures, but gives the figure a lot of protection!
Enjoyment 7/10
I wish my enjoyment would be higher, but she has just a bit too many mistakes for me. I still really love her posing and her placement in my collection, I don't think I will let go of this figure soon.
Conclusion
This figure has a lot of ups and downs, good points and bad points come quickly after each other, but if you look at her price and/or are a fan of Aria, this can be a pretty good figure to consider owning. Something also really nice is that (if looked at from a distance) her vibrant posing making her also look good when displayed inbetween scaled figures. (Personally I display her inbetween some older/lower quality scaleds and she looks pretty good there.)
Availability
This figure pops up quite a lot at especially Mandarake, but can also be found at other second hand stores. The price you can expect to pay is inbetween 800-1400 yen. Sometimes she is also sold for around 1800-2200 yen together with Mine Riko item/83718 .
And to finish it!
Here is how she stands in my collection!
For those who read all this way, thank you! My next review will be about another figure you can see in the above picture, Suzushiro Mikono! item/103862
I hope you enjoyed this review, you could also check my other reviews when interested! Here are a few of my recent ones:
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All pictures in high resolution and some extra pictures not used in the review will be uploaded here later today: profile/Maakie/...
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