New official figure shots of Animate Japan exclusive Sagittarius boy Kinose Azusa
I’ll leave the old prototype pics (from 7 Feb 2011) in the post for comparison. The new shots look like they have refined some details on the figure (notice the hair) and brighter colours (More pinkish skin tone, etc). However, I think the colours are probably due to the photography and lighting.
Title: Starry Sky Kinose Azusa Complete figure Starry☆Sky 木ノ瀬梓 完成品フィギュア
Price: 7,140 Yen (w/tax)
Available: Summer 2011
Link: http://www.animate-onlineshop.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=1057871
The figure is 1/8 scaled, measuring 195mm, comes with a base. Sculpted by 齊藤 史樹. Manufactured by Alter/Altair
Big in Japan may carry it, so you might give them a try or find your fav middleman/proxy buyer.
CdJapan takes orders too.
Front view. The details on the figure are quite beautiful. As expected from Alter/Altair.
His face is sculpted quite nicely. Lovely details on the uniform.
Side and back view
I’m tempted but I’ll try to hold back. Buying the first one probably will lead to having to resist the collector temptation to buy all 13 boys if they ever get released. OTL;; Sucks to have to pay so much for one figure… yeah, don’t forget the proxy fees. But still… I can’t wait to see the figures of all 13 boys in the future.
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Will it gives (in the future) the other starry sky figures too?
@Nabi: I believe so cos I think it’ll sell well :)
Available for preorder at a singapore online store! http://www.toycoin.com.sg/product_info.php?products_id=598
Might be cheaper than ordering it from a overseas proxy…
They seem quite trustworthy.. I think ^^;
@yuuki: Actually I did some calculation. The Japanese proxy is cheaper. But if you don’t have a credit card, then this shop would be awesome for locals.
@ponytale ah me too i can’t wait to see the other characters into figures.*v*
(ah i want to give you a heads up about two online places. Animebooks and Otakunoanime. They suck.’_’
I ordered from them late January and my money has been processed early February and i have yet to hear anything back from these two places on a order.:(
one of there sites is under construction and the other i am having problems sending emails to because it comes back to me.
So upsetting and sad about the service. The only stores i usually order from are Hobbylink,hobbysearch, and the famous amiami. I’ve had great services from these stores. I even ordered things from hobbysearch and amiami end of last month and early this month and received my things within two weeks. Why can’t American anime stores be the same?Really disappointing. )
@sigma: Oh dear… please remember to do research, especially for web stores you’re not familiar with. I usually google for “store name” + “scam” and/or “bootleg” etc and see if I can find any dirt on a web store ^^;; it sounds mean but it works. Doing that turned up a number of bad store reviews on animebooks and otakunoanime. :-\ I hope you can get the orders sorted out. It sucks to run into such troubles.
Well, that’s great to hear, now I only have to talk to my middleman to see if he can pull that one out too XD
Thanks.
@Oru: Good luck :D
When people say “you should have an expert photograph your product”, they don’t mean it just to be snobs, aha. This was definitely the case. Oh Alter, you really never disappoint.
And speaking of disappointment, have you seen the new Kotobukya’s one coins for Yugi Oh? That chibi style can really make ANYTHING adorable ~
You bought him on Animate right?
Do you have to pay asap for reservations? *only has money to pay Kazuma’s reservation*
@Oru: Totally. He looks much more beautiful in those new shots :)
I was tempted by the Yugioh one coins too but my dollars are stretched too thin. I didn’t watch the series, so they’re not my priority and I decided not to buy them.
Yep, Animate only charge when they ship :) No cancellations allowed after order is sent. They’re more “inflexible” too cos you can’t combine or change your order or quantity, etc after that but since they’re the main seller source, there’s no fear of missing orders.
Oooh, the new pictures actually convinced me to buy him.
His face looks MUCH better : | Lightning can be tricky sometimes, I suppose.
@Oru: Yeah me too… the new pics made me hit BUY! OTL;;
Yep, his colour looks so much better with studio lighting! Previously it was too yellowish and “sickish” *_* No wonder animate took the old pictures down just one day after they posted it up on their webstore.
Ooo~ New pics. GOSH. he’s so pretty that it makes me want to get him but so much $$$ T.T I already poor as it is. >___<
I think I'll have to hold off. Gonna wait for my favorite boys to get released first! Miyaji first <3 Then I want Homare~ Then Tsubasa….Yoh, Suzuya and Shiki. T.T omg, i'd be nice to have all 13 boys~ That'd would be one awesome collection. ^^; THOUGH, first, I'd like to see Miyaji, Homare and Tsubasa <3~
@momo: Yeah, these new pics convinced me to order I guess. He is only available in August so you have 4 months more to save! :D Looking forward to seein the rest of the boys too.
The details are looking great! I can’t wait to receive this. Such long wait~ *cries*
@sigma: That means we have a longer time to save for him :3 In the meantime, I’m looking forward to them releasing the other boys!
It’s great that Alter is thinking of us girls isn’t it. :D (though not so great to our wallets…) For MBT, they charge 500 yen for their handling fees as well as Paypal fees, so in this case, BiginJapan might be cheaper (they just put him up today it seems.) I did have one successful transaction with them and another on its way. They’re very quick with communication, great with packaging, and shipped very quick. Also, they included a little goodies in my last order, and when I emailed them to thank them, they promised to send me another with my next order. Although it was not much, I thought it was nice of them that they remember and even mentioning about it when they sent me the shipping confirmation for the second order. Very good customer service. ^^
That’s great! Mine as well. How much did you pay for him? I had to pay 24300 yen for him to be shipped via EMS. My most expensive figure yet. >.<;;
@mai: yeah :D thanks to them our wallets will become thinner OTL. Icic… I’m so tempted (T-T) Most of the time Japanese service is the best!
I paid 25,225 Yen (EMS) for Hei. I was quoted a lot more than that at some places. He is also my most expensive figure to date *_*
@Luvi: Lol, you were great. XD From what I see, you’ve made him try really hard, I don’t think he expected that either. ;)
@Ponytale: Oh yes! They definitely would. Rumor has it that they’ll be starting the Durarara boys next, so I’m guessing that unless he does well, they might not make the others. Hopefully that’s not the case though. Whenever you decide to order, here is a good place (7800 yen): http://mioboutique.blogspot.com/2011/02/kinose-azusa-starry-sky-animate-online.html
And the good thing is you don’t have to pay until the item gets released. :)
Congrats in getting Hei! ^^ One thing I’ve been wondering, what makes them more expensive than the usual full scale PVC? Though his face is indeed very beautiful, just like how I remember him to be. I’m also looking forward to getting him. He’ll be my first RAH. :D
@mai: OMG~ I’ll be tempted if it’s DRRR!! too DX Thanks for sharing that link! Definitely way cheaper than most proxies. It makes it even more tempting now *_* Have you ordered from them before? YEP YEP Hei is on his way to me now! I’ll probably get him by this week! XD First RAH will always be special and it’s great that it’s Hei for you X3
Well I probably wouldn’t be able to stop completely, but I’ll try my best to stick to buying only the ones I really like after April. +A+
@mai:
Ahahaha thanks! I used to be a troll in the past so I kinda have an idea how to interact with them. XD Kinda lost touch though.
@Luvi: Yeah… it’s April for me too ^^;;; so many preorders due at that time.
Yep, front view is the most awkward one… but you can easily turn him slightly to the side ( it looks great if in the corner of a shelf ) and voilá ~
The ones I’d love to have… Bah, Tohzuki, Nanami and Shiranui, bah. It’d be even more great if Shiranui came in a little chair, y/n?
Though honestly I’d also buy Tsubasa (such a cutie pie) and dear mister Iku.
Five out of thirteen… Not too shabby, it could be worse : D
I’ll wait a bit to resevre Azusa though… It’d be better for my wallet if HobbyLinkJapan sold him off too… Fingers crosses they’ll extend the limited “retailer” post.
@Oru: I wish that all are still in stock when released, so that we can buy the ones we like the most :-\ cos we can’t cancel orders if we order from Animate or through proxy. If I can afford it, I also want all of them :P
I also hope they extend their retailer list too… but so far Animate exclusives usually stay exclusive =_=;; It was the same case as in Hakuouki and Togainu military white PVCs.
Wow, 13…But that would make an amazing collection! It is really scary when thinking about how much they would cost in total, not to mention if they all end up being exclusives…I don’t think I’ll try getting Saitou any time soon. His price increases way too much, and I can’t seem to convince myself for paying twice his retail when I could have got him for much less. Instead, I decided to try my luck for Hei. (Were you able to preorder him alright? ^^ ) Your post convinced me that I needed him for my collection. Hopefully he’ll be worth the expensive price though, he looks awesome in the pictures.
Btw, I’m sorry you had to deal with that rude commenter. Some people can have so much time on their hands. I’m envious. And Luvi’s responses were :3 Great job!
@mai: They’ll look beautiful when displayed together :D But I’ll also wait a while first before hitting that buy button ~$$$~ OTL;; Yes! I managed to get Hei! XD (few hundred bucks poorer now) I think he should be worth the money cos besides his beautiful face-sculpt, they’re rather generous with the accessories too. Really looking forward to receiving him! :3 So glad you bought him too!
Lol~ yeah I decided to ignore him when I realised he was purposely trying to kick up a fuss. Yep, :3 Luvi was awesome!
Hahaha that’s true. That’s that saying “Keep the Battlefront Clean, Please don’t Feed the Trolls”.
Maaaan. I miss my trolololing days. XD
I’m. Kinda glad I didn’t fall in to temptation and buy all those figma I wanted to get initially. orz Maybe I should just stop collecting altogether and save up all the money. XD;
@Luvi: Sigh, if only I can stay away from collecting altogether too… =_= it will take a whole lot of determination.
XD; Oh I’m only bothering with him because he’s obviously a troll and I haven’t really met such a polite troll in awhile. I’ll stop if you want me to though. o:
Ah, yeah. Nendoroid are definitely more valuable. I remember seeing a bunch of the earlier figma going for less than retail price on Y!j. But nobody really bids on them. D8
@Luvi: lol~ polite troll XD Yeah, he is obviously trying to kick up a fuss with the name-calling and personal attack but I don’t see a need for us to argue with someone like that. Passers-by who happen to read the comments can see for themselves. If we ignore him, then the trolling will end eventually :3 You already said it very clearly tho. BL is just a fantasy and a simple matter of our own preferences.
Yeah… seems that only the limited edition figmas are valuable. Figma releases of popular series like Lucky Star, Haruhi etc are dirt cheap =_=;; so I don’t want to preorder any figma girls now unless if I really love them a lot. I used to just hit the buy button as long as I like the design ^^;; but now I’ll think longer and harder before doing that. Too many selections already, no space and money. DX
lol I was thinking of heading down to Ikea for the exact same reason some time this month or next month. XD
I’ll probably be selling the girls first. Then to the ones which I have doubles/triples of. (Excluding Kaito) I don’t know, I’m actually considering switching over to focus on collecting statues and the more expensive ones instead of Nendoroid or figma. x_x
@Luvi: Yeah $$$ flew away but it sure feels good to see all the boxes/cartons stacked at a corner finally being unboxed and organised :D Anyway, no point getting into an argument with that visitor. I was thinking of ignoring them but your replies were awesome :D Actually one of his comments was filtered into the spam folder and he thought I trashed it and he talked rather rudely after that. I had no idea what he was talking about me nixing comments until I checked the spam folder =_=;; Well, if I wanted to do that I would have trashed all his previous name-calling comments already.
Anyway, I’m considering selling some of the early figma girls (Lucky Star for example) but they’re not in demand OTL. Statues definitely look awesome :D and I’m getting more and more tempted by them… oh no! *_* In terms of demand, nendoroids are more valuable than figma it seems.
Hinted….and ordered. Heck yeah!
I don’t know if anyone else has seen them, but Myfigurecollection.net has prototypes up for 4 Starry Sky chibi figs. That should be cool. I can’t wait to see them colored.
@Nagara9: XD That’s great!
I just popped by and saw them! Why are they sitting on hamburgers XDD Looks cute and promising!
omg i saw this on neko magic and i’m so brought *cries* i was doing so good i didn’t order anything this year so far…and now …THIS *dies* i fear for the worse….but wow hes sculpted so good! >o<
I also saw the new chibi coins figures from nitro coming soon!! omg there so cute!! *my wallets screams;;;*
@sigma: Good girl! :D Save your $ for the best! I’m also trying to cut down on the spending but this year looks bad as well ^^;; But some are must-haves. I’m really excited about the upcoming one-coins :D
There seems to be a lot of male characters in that series. Part of me want Alter to do them all, but then there’s the money issue *signs*
I think it’s more like they didn’t keep the correct number of orders since they only told me about it the day Saitou was released that they don’t have enough. >.< As for the other one, I was lucky to be online at the time and received their cancellation notice the moment they sent it to me so I managed to make another order before it got sold out. ^^;;
@mai: If you count the main characters, there are 13 of them ^^;; so that’s gonna cost over $1k if we wanna get them all. It’s scary how fast these things add up ~$$$~
Hopefully you can still get Saitou later on D:
Maybe. But I’m probably not going to try my chances with this one. orz Which might be a good thing, since I’m running out of storage space for figures. x_x Heck, I’m even considering selling a couple of my Nendoroid. orz
@Luvi: Gaa… Tell me about running out of storage ^^;; I spent a few hundred bucks at Ikea buying new cabinets to store all the goods and figures just before Lunar new year to get things organised. And the recent wonderfest revealed quite a number of figmas that I’m tempted to get, esp. the Bakemonogatari ones. Darn.
Which ones you thinking of letting go? I think you may regret tho :-\
One thing about BiginJapan: make sure to check your email in case they cancel your order without any prior notice. It happened to me twice. Once was the Saitou Hajime figure due to them not having enough stock (even though I preordered early). Another was for the limited edition of the ToHeart PSP with the 2 nendoroids. This one partly was my fault for not reading their rules about choosing SAL unregistered for shipping, but I thought they should have at least contacted me to see if I want to change the shipping method before canceling my preorder altogether. >.<;; Otherwise, they're pretty good, quick communication, great packaging and quick shipping.
Oh, it’s been a long time since I last visited. Thank you for the heads up! ^^ Another boy I need to have for my collection, even though I have no idea who he is. >.<
@mai: He is from Starry Sky series. It’s not BL but there are fan-service couples ^^
Icic… that sucks. I think for exclusives, they probably order from Animate when a customer places an order but didn’t manage to do so before Animate closed preorder. Did you manage to get both cancelled orders from elsewhere?
lol I was pretty tempted when they revealed the sculpt. But then I noticed the lips. OTL It kinda doesn’t seem like Alter quality for some reason. :<
@Luvi: You have more experience with Alter figs… Hmm… maybe the final product would look better? :D
This is the worst, another Animate exclusive! My heart cries and my wallet dances happily (it knows I won’t be able to afford him now, and he’ll be on the end of a queue that starts with Okita) XDD First the Hakuouki guys, now the Starry Sky boys, it’s too much! I still wonder if Altair gonna make ALL SS guys, it seems too much for a line… anyway, if he won’t be for sale at AmiAmi (like it was with Natsume) in the end I won’t buy him so early.
@planck-chan: It’s possible they’ll make all the boys. MegaHouse is making almost all the characters in One Piece… but then again, that’s because it is incredibly popular among fans of both genders… whatever it is, I hope they make all the boys. I want my fav boy made :P
Natsume was supposed to be AmiAmi exclusive too but in the end he was up for release in additional selected stores… maybe his sales wasn’t going as fast as they wanted.
why did they release azusa first :'(
its such a beauty though…hope to see the one voiced by kamiya and suzuken to be released next!
@chibi: They announced him mid last year… maybe they wanted to release him in December but didn’t make it in time? They also did his iphone app first too. I wonder if they’ll release them in sequence… if so, Miyaji (Kamiyan) will be a long wait OTL. I think Tsubasa (Suzuken) figure will be so cute too X3
Uhmm… the face. I’m not liking the face, sadly. It looks somewhat too wide (the features, niot the structure itself).
OH WELL. Not a fan of him either but I’ll be getting him.. if God gives me enough money by then. You know, it’s the whole sign of: “Hey hey, see, we bought this on so make the rest of the boys!”.
And if they don’t make them… well, at least I got something to keep my inner female side alive.
@Oru: I agree. I also think he doesn’t look as good if you look at his face from the front straight on but at most angles he looks fantastic.
Yep yep… buying him will send them a clear sign. I wonder how many Starry Sky fans are also figure collectors? Response to the Hakuouki figures are pretty good. All of them sold out before their shipment dates.
Wow! This looks soooo good. I really like how it was done. Sadly, I’m not a Azusa fan~~ Hehe I’m a Miyaji fan so I hope they make him ^^ Then I’d totally want to get it.
@momo: I want Miyaji too XDD I think Kinose’s figure is very encouraging. If they can sculpt him so nicely, I’m looking forward to the other boys too. Cos their designs are really pretty and will probably look awesome as figures.
I have so been waiting for this. I hope my guy will get him for me. I’m not a big fan of Kinose, but I’ve got my fingers crossed for a Kanata, or a Kazuki. That would totally make my day. Very nice looking statue.
@Nagara9: That’ll be nice! Give your guy a big hint lol~
Kinose is not my fav boy too but they did a good job for his figure :D Maybe we should all get him so as to send them a clear sign that “Yes, we want you to make all the boys.” ^^;;
Btw, all 3 Hakuouki Animate Exclusive figures have sold out as of yesterday before their shipment dates. I wonder if the Starry Star boys would have the same demand. They probably do? Natsume wasn’t as popular I guess cos although he was supposed to be Animate exclusive, they put him for sale at selected international stores in the end.