~Ruka 「Ar Tonelico II」 瑠珂~

I totally loved Ar Tonelico when I got it, the game mechanics were interesting, the characters were sweet, and the soundtrack was totally awesome. Sadly, no figures were made of the characters (or if there was, I missed them and now I have to hunt them down!) in Ar Tonelico so when Ruka was announced, I pretty much had to get her since I guess I’ll be loving Ar Tonelico II as well ^^;

Had some misgivings about this figure though when I first saw Hobby Search’s shots of the actual product. Admittedly though, viewing her face in full is the domain for the brave. It just feels rather flat and wide, thus resulting in a kinda weird look. She’s looks perfectly fine from an angle though, which is probably why the prototype shots were that of an angle shot as well I suppose ^^;

Other than the face, I’m guessing the amount of rods as well as the high visibility of them might deter some collectors as well. But that’s the price you have to pay for a pose like that I guess. The metal rod sticks into her waist, and the plastic rod goes into her left foot.

Her face viewed from this angle is totally fine. Looks great even ^^ Eyes are super glossy though, readily reflecting stuff off them easily.

While this figure does suffer somewhat from a scrappy paint job at some parts, aspects such as the sculpt and detail are sweet though, and not just limited to the head region.

Other than the colors used for her clothes, I really like the design of it as well. The sculpt comes through nicely as well with the folds and motion. The see-through back is especially to kill for xD

Awesome tummy is what I’d like to point out, why it isn’t the focal point is something mysterious though… ^^;

For me at least, the clothes really maketh the figure and thus the support rods don’t seem too bad for me all in all.

Gets pretty simple once you hit the legs, though her footwear is pretty interesting to say the least.

While I did say it gets simple from the legs, it’s still not too bad though since there’s at least a ribbon at the thighs ^^ I think with the way the rods are positioned, it’s probably just as well the legs don’t draw that much attention. Without the rods though, the pose of Ruka’s legs probably wouldn’t be possible and I for one do enjoy the way this figure is posed =)

Didn’t bother to try too hard to obscure the rods, since to do so would probably lead to overkill in my case ^^; Nothing around the house that would be suitable for use as well, so hopefully the support doesn’t detract too much away from the figure =) Do enjoy.

As you can probably tell, I find myself favoring a slightly reverse view of her. Her back looks great and somehow even if she’s just wearing a rather thin tube top like clothing, she doesn’t feel very exposed to me. All in all a figure I’m happy with (though rather pricey), now here’s hoping NIS America decides to publish the game for the U/C crowd so I don’t have to resort to getting the JP version ^^b

Manufacturer: Max Factory
Scale: 1/8 Scale
Release: April 2008
Price: 6857 Yen
Availability: Last I saw, In Stock @ HLJ, but at time of writing, HLJ is having some downtime, I’ll fix this if I remember ^^;

~ by shino on April 29, 2008.