Moé Moé Rabu

Arriving along with the Shana figure posted earlier, I now have Souseiseki, the one of the twins from Rozen Maiden. But just for the sake of it, I also included her other twin sister “desu”… I mean Suiseiseki. Souseiseki, the holder of the Golden Sheers, and Suiseiseki, holder of the Golden Watering Can. When the two combine, they form the Gardening Twins.

Just like the 2nd Shana, I really didn’t want to buy this figure. But due to the fact that I already had Suiseiseki, I bought it simply to compliment her as you can’t have one without the other. But to my dismay, Souseiseki ended up being a figure I don’t actually like. Being rather cheap at a measly ¥2700, you can’t really expect something of high quality.

As you can see, Souseiseki is in a rather simple pose, which mirrors that of Suiseiseki. Though I’m not really a fan of her clothes. Originally when i first watched Rozen Maiden, I thought Souseiseki was a boy, but came to realise that all the dolls are girls. So to me, Souseiseki is the odd one out compared to the other Alice contenders.

Brandishing her pair of Golden Sheers, though you have to make her hold the sheers, but do be weary, the sheers are actually two pieces. It probably would have been better if they were stuck together at the pivot point, but at ¥2700, you can’t expect that. Also the sheers are probably the most detailed part of Souseiseki.

The hat is an accessory which is removable as is the shawl. Like majority of figures, just remove the head. But upon removing the shawl, you start to see how bad this figure actually is. Typical Yujin with the plug-in arms, which of course, don’t fit in snuggly and are rather loose. The same with the head but what really is a disappointment is the neck. Just seems like Souseiseki has a pencil for a neck. But upon removing the hat and shawl, it’s not very interesting, visually.

Her head is also unproportional to her her body. Whilst her body is small and thin, the head is large with the face looking rather wide. The paintwork isn’t spectacular either. It’s rough in some spots, whilst in other spots, the blending from light to dark is just bad. Construction isn’t that great either as you can see mold lines particularly on the pants and legs. What more Souseiseki is on a rather bland blue base, with only one plug to attach her to, it doesn’t do a very good job. So with one leg on her toes, she won’t stand independently.

Product: Souseiseki
Produced by: Yujin
Scale: non-scale SRDX
Material: PVC
Release Date: November 2006
Price: ¥2700
Available: HLJ (in stock at time of posting)

Suiseiseki on the other hand is slightly made better. Her pose gives a graceful feel to it, and honestly looks better than her other half. her head isn’t too big either, but it does make me wonder how she can handle all that hair. With such a large volume of hair, the red coloured base is not enough to support her. So what they have done is make her hair extend down with her right side supporting her.

Unlike Souseiseki, Suiseiseki’s Watering Can is actually attached to her hand. But the paintwork there was not done very well as a bit of silver runs onto her hands. As you may notice, there is a blue mark on her dress. That is my fault as I had the two in a box when I was moving around. Speaking of dress, it is also removable. But I decided not to do so as it is rather annoying to put her back together, as like most Yujin figures, nothing fits in tightly.

Product: Suiseiseki
Produced by: Yujin
Scale: non-scale SRDX
Material: PVC
Release Date: December 2005
Price: ¥2700 (original price)
Available: Due to being released late last year, it is currently out of stock. Only place you will find this is auctions, but be warned, I have seen auctions of this figure reach the 5 number mark (in Yen of course).

Overall the Rozen Maiden line by Yujin so far doesn’t impress me. So far the only good one is the Suiseiseki one, and she was the first to be released. Personally I won’t be buying anymore Rozen Maiden figures. Even though I still want a Shinku, most figures can’t seem to capture the essence of Shinku very well. But with something so cheap I guess it’s a worthy buy, assuming you never look at it close up. But if you are the type that likes to carry and inspect your figures now and then, then best stay clear of the Yujin range.

Photography Notes:

The original idea I had for this photo shoot was to use a rose garden. Although this was a rather large problem. Firstly no one in my street had a living garden. They did last year but due to water restrictions, even house has pretty much a dead garden. Thus the next idea was to visit a botanic garden. There is one in Sydney, but obviously there will be too many people, plus its a fair distance. Hence I went to another botanic garden slightly closer to home, but also a fun drive upto the mountains. But yet again, majority of the garden was dead, THANK YOU AUSTRALIAN SUMMER!!

Thus I was stumped at what to do. Fortunately there are parts of my garden that are still alive, but there just isn’t anything flowery. Below is a photo of the setting.

The idea came to me yesterday in the afternoon, but the first batch failed, due to my awesomely shaky hands. Thus I tried again in the morning.