Hoping to clear my figure photography backlog, here’s another one. Having carried two figures when I did the Aika photo shoot, this is the 2nd figure. I present to you, Miyamura Miyako from ef ~a fairy tale of the two~.

Miyako is one of the two main female characters from the recent ero-game released by minori, ef ~a fairy tale of the two~. I have yet to play the game, but with character design by Nanao Naru and director being Shinkai Makoto it’s got to be good. But being a fan of Nanao Naru’s works is probably what got me to buy this figure. The resemblance to Nemu from Da Capo is there and Nemu is one of my favourite Da Capo characters.

Looking at Miyako, you get a sense that she is energetic and playful with her pose. Standing on one leg and with her arms up, this seems rather…. unnatural. So I can’t really tell if she is leaping or not. But as you can see she is standing on one leg, which may cause concern about leaning. But fear not as Miyako’s leg is made of reinforced PVC. I think at this point, figure producers consider if a figure will lean or not. Well, some of the more reputatable producers do.

The one major downpoint about this figure is her face, or more specifically her eyes. The first thing I usually look at when looking at figures on my shelf are their faces. Their faces is one of the most imporant aspects of a figure and this one just fails. Miyako’s eyes are just too large and take up the most proportion of her face. Her mouth is probably a little too big as well, but you don’t pay that much notice because of the eyes. If the eyes weren’t as wide and a bit more oval shaped then I think it would look close to what you see in a CG (which can be seen near the end of this post).

One of the features I like most about Miyako is her uniform. The waviness of her skirt to the crease lines do make her look great, but what I really like is the design of the uniform. Unlike the usual sailor-type uniform, it’s opting for a one piece dress with a small type jacket to cover the shoulders (sorry, don’t know the actual names) and with the brass buttons on the front. It may look a bit conservative, but I find it rather sleek and formal.

Product: Miyamura Miyako
Produced by: Kotobukiya
Sculptor: MEJA
Scale: 1/8
Material: PVC
Release Date: November 2006
Price: ¥4200
Available: HLJ (in stock at time of posting)

The build quality is average with some minor flaws, like the ruffled edge at the back of the uniform (the white piece) and Miyako’s left leg where you can see that it obviously didn’t have a straight fit allowing you to see the joint lines. The paintwork on it is great but I can’t see how you could do a bad job on a black uniform.

However as stated before the face is Miyako’s biggest flaw. Though her hair is slightly questionable as it look flat, but that’s probably just how her hair style goes. Below is what Miyako looks like from the game CG.

Frankily this figure wasn’t what I’d expect it to be. However I am unsure if I like this figure or not as usually I tend to like all the figures I buy, but this is different. If this figure looked exactly like that from the CG above, I would absolutely adore her. Having bought this on a whim, heck I really didn’t even look at the promo pictures properly, I am rather regretful in buying this. Mind you this is a rare thing to happen to me as I rarely regret the things I buy. I probably bought this in a hope to have something that resembles Nemu, but this is no Nemu, she is Miyako.

At the start of this figure post, I had nearly nothing to say, or more like I wasn’t sure what to say. Of course Miyako isn’t a bad figure, but being a Nano Naru fan would I recommend others to buy this?? No. But will I display her in my cabinet?? That I still stand unsure of at this point.

Photography Notes:

Yes it has been quite a while since the last figure photography post. Miyako’s photo shoot was taken on the same day as Aika. The street I was parked at was right under the Sydney Harbour bridge. Spotting an alleyway near where I parked I found this rather awesome location for a photo shoot.

Originally the effect i wanted was similar to that of the CG, an sunset giving off an orange glow. However seeing that it was about 2 hours till sunset, I couldn’t be bothered to wait so I went ahead with it anyway. Keep note that there may be some colour differences in the photos as this was the first time I was messing around with shadow and highlighting in Photoshop. This is also the last figure photography without using the UV filter I bought.