I love local marketplaces. A good portion of the stuff I've found over the years is from random spots across Canada, because the right place and right time, you can end up getting an absolute bargain. Such is the case for a lot I recently picked up - advertised as 30 figures for $100 CAD ($75 USD or so) I saw a couple of interesting things in the lot photos, though didn't really have a sense of what was in there or how complete/broken things would be.
Turns out it was pretty good, plus was the only actual fun thing that happened on Fathers Day... the rest of the day was bad.... real bad.
So, nothing fancy here - just a stroll down memory lane as I take a look at some pieces from the recent past. These aren't all of the pieces - some were pretty bad and not really what I'd personally select from the set to keep/distribute, and some were just... awful.
Starting off, we have this 1/8 cold cast resin of Chun Li from SF3 produced by Epoch. Sadly damaged pinky but otherwise intact - even more lucky is that I actually already own this one so it's a easy choice for a re gift. Not sure why they went for a basically white skin tone, but it's not the sun as my other one purchased over a decade ago was the same. Both sculpting and paint work has improved over the years on both resin and PVC pieces, but back in 2002-ish, this was the best you could get.
One of the earlier Marvel Bishoujo from Kotobukiya, Scarlet Witch was released around the same time as Rogue and Black Widow. A bit warped on the cape/base either due to shoddy QC or age (probably QC TBH) but ultimately in good shape. Released in 2009, she's a bit smaller than modern Bishoujo, but of course has that classic Shunya Yamashita look, who is of course the sculptor of the line even to this day.. Production values were better than average for back in the day, but that's possibly due to the fact she's got more paint than our next Bishoujo piece..
The Bishoujo line has entries into the video game world, which is evidenced by several pieces of my collection. One of the first, if not THE first entry into the line was Christie Monteiro from Tekken Tag Tournament (well, she's not introduced in that game, but her entry is from the game). Probably one of the earliest in the Bishoujo line to feature any sort of musculature on blatant display (the Cammy and R. Mika pieces would come years later), the sculpting is pretty good but you can see the the mould lines on the fleshy parts, probably because they didn't paint it - it looks to be base plastic colour with a clear coat. Also interesting was the fact that the flower on her left wrist is upside down as compared to the reference photo - you're probably thinking this is a bootleg, but I couldn't find evidence of such a thing, and I've seen photos on eBay of this piece, in box, with the same problem.
Ahh yes.. Queen's Blade. A staple in any Man of Culture's (or Woman) 2000s stash of stuff. For the time period, these Megahouse releases were probably some of the consistently better PVC scale statues, though admittedly earlier one were somewhat rougher. Pictured are Leina and Nowa, with Leina being the P2 Colour variant that was released much later on in the line (though I also remember there being one with the original colours and weapon as well but in the same style as this one). Sadly both are incomplete, but they'll do. Funny thing is most of the statues looked kind of weird in M-Mode because of the way the things were made. You'd have like random pieces of outfit sculpted in the hands which would still be around, or in the case of Nowa, a skirt that didn't cast off because she goes commando, but she who walks around blatantly flaunting it Echidna, actually has a removable bottom. The cast off parts fit onto bodies with some decent musculature, certainly more than you'd get on the Revoltech stuff.
Another staple of mine in the 2000s were the Top Cow comics, starting with the Witchblade and Darkness series, and then really getting into the various characters they put out, including the awesome crossover where the 13 Artefacts came together to effectively wage a Holy War. Witchblade was actually popular enough that it spawned a Japanese Manga and Anime series, the latter of which had some fantastic character designs.
What we have here are a 7 inch. coldcast resin statue of Witchblade wielder Sara Pezzini, and an action figure of the first Magdalena (the second one was way cooler and she actually had the Spear of Destiny).
The label "action figure" is technically true, but she's old school and really can't pose much except for her arms - the hips are kind of welded in place due to the straps that go around the thigh. Comes with a neat base, though.
This is one that I'd seen many times, but had no idea what it was. So, I knew it was from a series title G-Taste, which is an adult oriented anime series featuring fetishes and sex, but never any graphical depictions of anything. The character is named Hiroki Yagami, and from what I can tell she's one of several main characters of the series. It's not one I watched or collected, though I know there are a variety of sizes of character goods. These resin statues were pretty expensive back in the day, so I'm guessing there must have been an audience willing to pay out the money.
Anyone remember the Ame Comi line? Trying their hand at the Bishoujo market, DC Direct sculpted a line of heroines in an "anime" style.. which clearly aren't that good. I never got any of these, as the looks alone just weren't what I was looking for. Pictured here is Wonder Woman, and I believe this one was one of the convention exclusive variants. There was even a comic series based on the characters, something that I also didn't get into.
Before Shunya Yamashita basically made a living being the goto Kotobukiya Bishoujo artist, she did original designs, which got turned into statues by Kotobukiya under the Art of Shunya Yamashita line. They were all pretty generic and random, just selected based off of curb appeal. This character is named Shouko-San, and she has all the standard Yamashita features, which are basically facial shape, eyes, and empahsis on curves. From a QC perspective, not too bad, but there's a really obvious seam on the top of the head, though the seamlines on the body aren't as bad as on Chrisitie.
Finally, we have a few entries from the Monsieur Bome lineup. In the early 2000s, Kaiyodo produced a line of full featured 1/8 scale PVC statues, some were licensed characters, some were original creations. They were all targeted at the value shopper, and were like $30 back in the day. They didn't have the most dynamic of poses, and were designed such that they would fit within a clamshell, which also saved on packaging costs. I think the sculptor got up to 26 releases and then just... disappeared.
That about wraps it up here!
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