Moé Moé Rabu

Arriving along with the Louise figure that came in last week, finally had a chance to do some outside photos as the skies cleared up.

Back when the Da Capo 2 PC game was released, I remember playing it literally for 4 days straight and managed to finish half the game. I can say it was the best 4 days I had during my last semester of uni. Though of course the first arc I finished was none other than Shirakawa Nanaka and when I saw the Kotobukiya promo pictures they released, I knew I had to get one.

Nanaka, who has a striking resemblance to Kotori, is a smart, kind, sweet kind of girl who loves to sing and is also the school idol. Though there are differences between her and Kotori and that is she a bit more energetic and a bit more mischievous. But they do share the same power. Though you’re thinking that they’re the same and they are no different. Not really. Nanaka has a different sense of character compared to Kotori as Nanaka is more outgoing, whilst Kotori tends to be a bit more reserved. But none the less, I love both of them.

Produced by: Kotobukiya
Sculpted by: JUN (E.V)
Scale: 1/8
Material: PVC
Release Date: October 2006
Price: ¥4200
Available: HLJ (in stock at time of posting)

Her pose is one of the best features abut Nanaka. Hand on hip, with her hip sticking out gives her a sense of sexyness but also cuteness (can you have the two at the same time?). Her skirt being blow up by a breeze with her hair flowing like she doesn’t care if you had a peek.

The expression on Nanaka’s face is also really cute and matches well with her pose. Winking and sticking her tongue out in a teasingly manner is more than enough to win my heart.

But of course, what kind of photo shoot would it be without the “skirt-less” shots?

Nanaka is a vibrant character and this figure shows that as the colouring gives her a bright aura around her. A simple schoolgirl type figure, but it does leave a good impression on you. The yellow ribbons on her hair and the yellow boot laces add to the contrast, which suits Nanaka well and I find her more adorable in pigtails rather than her hair let down.

She also comes with a translucent purple base. Mine unfortunately is slightly scratched up and I don’t know why. But that doesn’t matter as Nanaka can stand up firmly by herself. Lately I have found Kotobukiya’s quality to have gone down slightly. For a simple figure, my expectations were for it to be well constructed. My expectations were not disappointed. As of now I can purely say that is my most favourite figure in my entire collection. I have a lot of figures, this being the 54th one I think, though the Mabinogi Nao could rival this. Definitely a 10 out of 10 rating. But that may also be due to me being such a Da Capo fanboy, or more specifically a Kotori and Nanaka fanboy. And to show you what I mean, check out the picture below.

This is a wallscroll I bought from the S·O·F·T booth when I attended Comiket 69 last year. The items sold at the store were promotional items for Da Capo 2 and when I saw what they had, I couldn’t refuse in buying the wallscroll and other items. They had a special package but unfortunately the last one was sold to the 3rd person in front of me. What rotten luck huh?

The next Da Capo 2 figure to come from Kotobukiya is Asakura Yume. I look forward to receiving that figure in the mail.

Note: The pictures were taken at my local university. Thank god it was Sunday and no one was around, hahaha. I aimed for a pathway type background with trees. The spot I original went to proved to be really dark due to the amount of shade, but luckily only a few metres away was the pathway leading up to the administration buildings. But I do realise now that my depth of field isn’t very large and obtaining a clear background is clearly not easy with the standard lens. With the aperture set to F4.5 as that as far as it would go even in manual settings, probably due to the limiting of the ISO setting. So this may mean I have to get a lens with a wider depth of field, like a wide angle lens to obtain clearer background images. Oh how photography is an expensive hobby.

I also had an idea on using a very large tree that I know of locally, but upon inspecting the location, it was actually rather difficult to take a photo. But as mentioned before, getting a clear background was not going to happened so I skipped the idea. To get an idea of what tree I am talking about, check the picture below. If it worked I think it would’ve been a nice touch with the whole sakura tree theme that the Da Capo series is well known for.