So here's Riize, few things I immediately notice. No pic of a zoid (The Taskers had a Lightning Saix on their cards and Naomi had a Gun Sniper I think) and the box dimensions seem different. Not bad points by any stretch of the imagination, just what I noticed.
It's been a while since I got a SRDX, the last ones I got were the Taskers (Naomi came after them but she was released prior so for the sake of this point doesn't count) and what I disliked most was having to tear apart the card to get at the treasure within. So I was rather pleased to find that Yujin had finally picked up on that some people rather like the packaging.
There are a few tape seals, two on each of the longer edges with one on the shorter ones. Gently slice them open and the card backing simply slides out for easy, non-destructive access. This I like.
Immediately upon taking the card backing out though, something I'd suspected was confirmed in that Yujin had increased the number of plastic packaging bits too though this is something of a good thing.
Taking off the main outer plastic shell reveals another two pieces of plastic, the plastic backing and a third bit which makes sure everything is nicely in place.
Removing the bit which holds things in place, the pieces are fairly easy to pull out and in no time at all I had Riize standing in front of me.
The stand which comes with many a Yujin SRDX figurine is thankfully more obscured here (from the front at least) compared to some other figurines but this kinda goes out the window when you realise it's a bit redundant.
Riize has a convinient hole in her foot which allows you to directly attach her to the base and with this you can bypass the stand (which in some cases doesn't do anything at all >_>) completely.
Stand free! That's how figurines should be really. I am slightly concerned though as Riize seems to be made of a softer material (she flexes rather easily at a touch though retakes her shape from small forces) and what with having seen many pictures of figurines warping into a "leaning" pose I'm inclined to hope it won't happen with her. Oh and the packaging and unused bits?
Unused bits go back into packaging and the packaging looks none worse for having been opened. Multiple times now as many people would've noticed the blue base isn't inside in any of the pics and that's because by the time the camera had charged up I'd already taken Riize out xp
So... why exactly am I disappointed? In a nutshell, the quality of the figurine is lower than previous releases and what was expected. Many of the seams and parts fitting are rather rough along with many of the surfaces being extremely uneven which catch the light in a rather unsightly way as can be seen from some of the previous pictures. Several aspects of the sculpting simply just look odd, a key offender being her general tummy area.
Whether you can see what I'm talking about or not, there's a rather unsightly "bump" from partway up her torso down to her hips and it's even more noticable from the front where it looks like a rather bizarre.... thing under her clothes. Similarly there are quite a few oddities here and there which really look odd (her posterior and shoulder/shoulderblade area swell out quite a bit, her shoulders being somewhat bulbous with the line going across them being almost ridgelike when there's not much other sign of muscle or anything).
The figurine suffers from a slight lean as it is which compounds my fear of it warping, the soft material really not easing my suspicions.
Notice how Riize's head is in the middle of the picture (vertically) whilst the base is off to the right. There's also the early mentioned problem of her rather vacant gaze which doesn't really suggest Riize at all, some people have suggested that it's someone cosplaying as her or something equally silly.
It's not that it's a bad figurine, it simply let's itself down in many aspects and isn't anywhere near as good as it could've been. The pink leggings really not helping as it doesn't go well with the blue as well as that the leggings were purple in the anime. Oddly, Riize is also smaller than the average figurine. By quite a bit.
Not only is there the height difference, Riize's body is simply smaller overall. Any thinner and she'd be scrawny O_o
From a high angle, the height difference is even more pronounced.
As it is, I still favour the Taskers over Riize. Overly ample chests aside, their build and final product quality is simply that much higher (and I've always said since the beginning, crazy chest aside, the Taskers are actually very good figurines). A sane chest doesn't mean that much when other proportions are somewhat off and the build has oddities here and there.
So get Riize if you want her by all means. I simply don't think it's par for the course and could've been done so much better. Hence, I am disappointed.
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