Moé Moé Rabu

The working life sure is a bitch. These past few weeks I haven’t had the chance to use my camera all that much but hopefully I will soon. Anyway now that I’m back on track with a few things I finally got the chance to go through some of the photos that I took way back during my Christmas holidays. So going through the last of them, this time around, it’s Max Factory’s Kureha from Shining Wind.

Just like a lot of people, when I saw the promo pictures of Kureha, I was astonished at the surrounding beauty of this figure, and not to mention that it is being produced by Max Factory, surely it would be a given winner. Thus I ended up pre-ordering her only after some umm’ing and ahh’ing. Personally I know nothing of Shining Wind except for the fact that the Tony Taka did the artwork for it. This also reminds me that I actually saw a Tony Taka art gallery in Akihabara when I was in Japan. At the time I think the Shining Wind game was being promoted.

The problem with me and having a backlog of figures, once a figure arrives, I place it on the tower of figures that I have to go through, so they are usually not opened until it’s time to take photos. I have seen reviews done by other figure photographers/reviewers, but truly you cannot understand the beauty of a figure until you see it with your bare eyes. Not only that, a 1/7 is actually quite large, but then each company’s scaling is different.

The one major aspect of Kureha would have to be her sleeves. They are of a rather unique design, but they are also quite vibrant making her stand out quite a bit. But her entire costume I find rather unique in itself as there is a lot of straps such as the ones on her arms and legs, but also the large sash tied around her waist. Looking away from the costume, the one thing that would draw you to Kureha herself is definitely her face, but to be precise, her eyes. I own a lot of figures who have large eyes, but Kureha’s are smaller, but they match her face structure, and it gives balance to the rest of her slender body.

Accessories that come with Kureha is her bow, where the wire for it is quite frail, so be careful when attaching it. And of course, how could they not make her skirt removable, but I still prefer her wearing the full outfit. Over build and painting quality is good with only some minor flaws that you see because of mass production. Of course unless you have the eyes of an eagle, these things don’t matter that much.

Product: Kureha
Anime/Game: Shining Wind
Produced by: Max Factory
Sculptor: Syunji Hagii
Scale: 1/7 scale
Material: PVC
Release Date: October 2007
Price: ¥6,857
Available: HLJ (out of stock)

There probably isn’t much more I can say about this figure as I’m sure most people either have one, or they’ve seen plenty of reviews already. Though I did mention I was unsure whether to order this or not, I guess that I’m glad that I ordered on in the end as Kureha now stands as the most detailed of the figures that are larger than 1/8 scale in my collection. Initially I was wondering what the quality would be like as at the time, Max Factory hasn’t released many figures above 1/8 scale. A lovely figure indeed, and you should try to get one if you can, or just wait for the Kotobukiya version that will be released in a few months.

Check out other reviews of Kureha:

• Wood Guardian Kureha by mukyaa
• Kureha by HappySoda
• Kureha by Danny Choo
• Kureha ~ 呉羽 冬華 by Toys Workz
• Kureha, Gazing under the moon by 望み - What is that you desire?

Photography Notes

Funny how I said I’d get as much photography done during my holidays. Well I have managed to do some and this was done quite early in my holidays, and I only got around to going through them now, lol. Anyway, location this was is actually only a 5 minute walk from my house.It’s the local nature reserve called Windsor Downs. I used to play in here back in the days, and it was the perfect kind of place for Kureha.

Everything was taken with the 60mm macro lens and WITHOUT a tripod. At the time I was cursing myself for not bring in one, but I made do with what I could with my skills. Since it’s daylight savings over here in Australia, this was taken at around 6:30pm plus it had rained about 3 hours ago. So with some clouds out and about, but the trees acting as a filter as well, it provided perfect lighting conditions.

Postprocessing wise, applied a warming filter to get the skin tone back on Kureha as originals made her look pale. It also emphasises the bright colours of Kureha’s costume as well.