Nendoroid Review: Yoko Littner/Rittona

This will be a review, of sorts, of my first anime/manga figure that is not a trading figure (Ganshapon). This will also be my first Nendoroid figure review, naturally. Yoko Littner(or “Rittona”) from Gurren Lagann, which I covered here last post.

Yoko's box

Meh, so the post kinda got deleted, and I’m now writing it again.

So I took pictures of the figure both using normal flash, and by using the “Close object” settings, which made the shots look as if they were taken during the night. It seems to have a shift towards red, which may have been made worse by my monitor settings. Anyway, I used a “Cool lighting, Cyan 2” filter in PhotoImpact 8 to negate it, tell me which you prefer:

Yoko, red

Yoko, not as red. Cool Lighting filter employed.

At the Flickr set, you can see both versions of most pictures, with “Cool” at the end of those with the filter applied.

So you can see how the untarnished box looks above, as the first picture in this post, but seeing as this is a nendoroid, I had to see how to tear it apart…

Yoko is naked and broken up?

I only noticed later that I could remove the hands from the arms.

You can see in the comparison pictures above that the hair has visible seam-lines, the sides of the arms have seam lines you can see as well. The side of the legs have seam lines you have to squint to see. Sadly, the hair-lines, especially of the ponytail are quite noticeable, including a short section that actually looks botched.

Yoko, holding her gun, lookind badass

Getting the figure to hold the gun was kind of a pain in the ass (PITA). Heck, most changes to the figure were kind of a PITA, as you’d move the arms to hold the gun, and then the waist wouldn’t be aligned with the pants, and then the arms would fall off, or the gun would fall off… this figures are poseable, it’s true, but they’re not really action figures. They’re easily customizable, but that also means that the parts come off easily when you try to make the figure assume a pose.

Wearing her gun... sorta..

Getting Yoko to wear her gun wasn’t as productive, as getting the gun in an angle rather than straight across proved problematic. Had a hard time to get the strap the right way across her chest, couldn’t really change it myself due to the leash not being long enough. I suspect you need her lying down to figure it out, someone else to help, or glue ;-)

Adorable shot of Yoko, holding her gun.

But it’s worth it, you can get them in adorable positions, and while this picture isn’t fully focused, it’s one of my favourite shots.

Cute Yoko, bent leg

 

The stand...

Ahhh, the stand… it wasn’t until I saw another nendoroid online that I figured how to make the stand work right. Well, I figured it before but I was afraid; sometimes I fear opening bottles or such, because I know I need to exert more strength, but I fear that I’ll exert too much strength and break something.
The Nendoroid is top-heavy, as you all know, so I had to lean it, very carefully, and it was no fun. I now managed to get both arms on, and then couldn’t lift them beyond a certain point, as they got “stuck”, now as it’s a hot day, it works again.
The figure almost doesn’t touch the base now, as it is held at the waist in a pincer-like manner, but you need to lean her slightly back so she won’t tilt forward. I guess I can also open it and have her lean back on it in case I need a specific pose.

Summary:
Ok, let’s talk about this figure in summary.
Painting is pretty good, I am troubled by the hair, how the edges of each part have a slightly darker hue, whereas the good colour is further from the edges. Some may like it as “shading”, but it doesn’t look good enough for that. 4.5/5
Sculpting: Pretty good. For those who don’t know, the big line in the middle of her hair is not an error, as you need to remove her hair in order to switch her faces. I don’t like the seam lines in her hair, the ones in her arms I can live with. But the hair is really noticeable, so 3.9/5. I also love her skull hair-pin.
Accessories: Each nendoroid is really all about the accessories, right? Yoko comes with three distinct faces, awesome sun-glasses, a rifle that is nice but problematic if you want her to wear it on her back. Alternate hands are good for “cute” or “Gun-holding” poses. Bent legs might work for the gun, but hard to make it work due to the top-heavy nature. 3/5, but I think it’s more that it’s unexciting rather than not good.
Nendoroids are made by Good Smile Company.

You can see the rest of the pictures here, on Flickr.