I also had another review back in November I was working on, it was for a Gokai Green. I had almost everything ready, even a ton of photos. But upon writing up the articulation and trying to pose him, his leg fell off, or more accurately, broke off.
So instead I have decided to review Kotobukiya's Cu-Poche Rikka Takanashi, just to shake things up from the usual figuarts.
Packaging
I'm going to gush here a bit, even with a dinged up corner on mine, from a visual standpoint alone, this is some of the best packaging I have ever seen. The entire box is covered in all sorts of poses and is overall eye catching with it's vibrant color scheme and magic runes. It looks fantastic on a shelf, and with all those photos of the toy covering the box, it can make for a great store display. No matter how you position the box you'll always know exactly what the item is while also showing it off. From a collectors stand point is just as good, because if you're cramped for space but like keeping the boxes, you'll have at least two ways to display it, either from the left/right sides, or the top/bottom. Plus you can pair it with the figure to accentuate the display further, by having the figure in one pose and having the box displaying another.
In the end I know the a box is just that, cardboard and ink, and really should not at all ever have that much of an impact on the figure itself, so long as it does the minimal job of holding an inner tray and offering some protection. But I would be remiss if I didn't say this was like a bit of salt on chocolate for how nice it looks, as well as being visually informative to the product. I also have to say I'm very appreciative that the sculptor is listed in bold on the front.
One last thing I'll mention about the outer box, despite being a Japanese product and lacking any translations for the accessories and such, the warnings and recommended age is multilingual. There's even a comicshop locator logo on the back.
Not a toy, yeah sure.
Kinda surreal honestly. This isn't like Blufin where they use stickers like on the Sailor Senshi, or have unique packaging like with Power Rangers. This was done explicitly with the thought that Western comic shops would likely import this from the get go. I know it's not uncommon for comic or book stores to import Japanese products, and this is made by Kotobukiya who is probably used to the idea thanks to their DC and Marvel stuff, but it's still interesting to me that they would make the default packaging like this.
Opening from the bottom we get something a bit on the odd side, it's a folded Zip baggy, which we'll get back too later.
The Instructions are inside too, but, like always, you really shouldn't need them.
Finally we have a clam-shell held together by four square buttons, everything just sort of lays in the bottom tray, but it's all pretty secure thanks to some clear plastic overlaying the smaller accessories. Even the larger items come wrapped in plastic. The additional faces are in plastic bags, and the opened parasol is simply wrapped in it.
Although the hands (and one umbrella crook) are not terribly secure, and will likely fall out since they're in the bottom of the shell.
Thankfully they are all in one bag, which holds the hands in tightly and conveniently separates each accessory.
Rikka herself is also wrapped in plastic along with the skirt having an additional piece of plastic. They really wanted to make sure the paint did not scrape onto anything.
Figure Sculpt
Now we get to the real meat, the figure itself. As always we'll start from the top and work down. The literal highpoint on Rikka is her Ahoge, which is relatively simple, being a hook that's thin near the bottom, thickens, and thin again. The rest of her hair has very nice detail put into it, creating sort of a layered look. Adding to this is the occasional sprig of hair that either sticks out, is just a bit thicker, or curves upwards to make everything feel a bit more natural. The only 'blank' area is the line where the two hair pieces meet, not unlike what you see on the Sailor Moon figuarts.
The front portion contains the ahoge and the back portion has Rikka's...side pigtail? The inside of the frontal hair piece are also sculpted to hold onto the eye patch, which I'll be showing later.
Moving lower we have Rikka's eye patch, which as expected isn't anything spectacular, mostly being a white square, but it does have some little details to it. The middle is raised from the outer portion, and on the middle top and bottom have strips to give the appearance of the strap being threaded through. Of course, the straps are moulded to fit all of Rikka's faces and it works very well.
As for Rikka's default face, it captures the anime ascetic perfectly. While I do not wish to keep making comparisons, it is similar to the Sailor senshi figures is terms of getting it right. At certain angles you may not notice the nose and at others it can just have a slight shine, it's something that works along with the paint to help execute that particular art style in 3D to great effect. Other than that there isn't much else to say about the default face, most of the details come from the paint. Although surprisingly that tiny smile is sculpted in.
Continuing to the torso we have a lot more going on. The dress shirt collar, creases in the bow, the collar on the blazer, all there. A nice touch is that the right side of the blazer sticks out just a tiny bit more than the left, at least near the top and bottom, making it actually look buttoned. Speaking of, the buttons themselves are also sculpted, as are the pockets where the white is. There is also great attention to proper winkle locations. There is some under each breast and continues under each arm. One next to the middle button, and near the pockets where the jacket flares out over the skirt, that particular detail also continues on around the back. Each sleeve also has the added detail of having the shirt sleeves appear separate from the jacket.
The skirt- which is a separate piece, has a sculpted on Cross with chain, and sculpting in the white lines. The line sculpt doesn't really add anything, I think it was mostly done just to give indication on where the white paint apps should go, but it's there. There is also some other very minor sculpted lines running down the skirt, but they're few and far between and I can't say it does a whole lot on it's on. I guess in some respect it does help give it a pleated look, but is minor. In contrast, the hemline looks phenomenal in it's detailing.
Legs are basically tube shaped so there isn't much to say. Surprisingly there is a very, very shallow indentation at the top of the stockings. It is not visually noticeable.
Rikka's Shoes arguably have the most amount of detail in a single area. The tongue, vamp/upper, the straps, the freaking soles which also have little(folded in non-functioning) wheels near the heel. There is detail all over the shoes, they look like a pair of sneakers.
Articulation
Cu-poche's big draw is their articulation, something that sets them apart from others like Nedoroid, which relies heavily on part swapping and limits you to just those poses. I can safely say they've certainly done a good job.
Starting from the top we have Rikka's ahoge hair, which is on a ball joint. Getting it to move for the first time was a bit worrisome since it's so thin, but grabbing as close to the base a possible and wiggling it loose worked great. It now freely moves with no issues, but does sometimes pop off if you fiddle with it.
We then have, of all things, another hair piece, the tied hair on the side is on a hinged ball joint, which really surprised me as I didn't expect much more than a cut joint. It's also easily removable if you want to rotate the joint and change the angle of the articulation.
Next we have the head, which despite it's large size does not hinder Rikka all that much, especially when looking up.
The head can also be removed and the neck adjusted just like the side hair. Side to side movement is not as great as up and down, the shoulders of course get in the way of Rikka's melon head, but it's there if you want it and it does work well enough.
Moving on, we have the arms. Shoulders and elbows are both hinged ball joints, the shoulder are pretty much unhindered, up and down and all around. Elbows can get one good bend upwards and some very slight downwards, and some left to right, the moulding of the upper arm prevents the joints turning too much, not that you need it to since the upper portions provide all the inward and outward movement you need.
Wrists are all simple pegs, just 360 rotation and nothing more, same for the waist, both work fine and the waist isn't even hindered by the skirt in the least.
Legs are hinged/ball and can be a bit troublesome if you need them to go forward but are positioned to go outward and vice versa. Luckily, Rikka can detach at the waist and then remove the skirt, allowing you to adjust the joints easily.
And I know someone is wondering this, no you cannot reattach Rikka without the Skirt. Well you can, but you'll have a big gap.
Finally we come to the last bit of articulation, the knees and feet. The Knees work pretty much the same way the elbows do, but with a bit more rotation in the joints. The feet are largely unhindered in theory, but the biggest problem is getting the damn joints to face the way to want so you can bend it. Now the feet do have some ankle tilt, so you don't always have to rely on the knees hinging, but that ankle only goes so far. In fact the knees can suffer from this too, only going so far, and it's probably the largest detriment to the figure itself. All the other areas usually have some sort of somewhat easy work around and were, at worst, mild annoyances at times. But otherwise worked and flowed the way you wanted. The knees and feet really don't really do that, and can be be annoying if not downright frustrating. Take notice of the picture near the beginning of the articulation section. Notice how Rikka's left leg is mostly straight? That's because it just was not working with me. You manage to get one thing the way you want, it ends up messing with another, then you have to fix that and hope that it doesn't rotate something else.
AGH! Freaking joint and lower leg.
But...but, it is something that can be dealt with. Despite the leg joints sometimes being a great annoyance when you do fancy poses, at least everything here functions, feels nice, and is solid. Isn't that right first Don?
Paint apps
Go ahead and get this out of the way now, everything is matte finish unless otherwise noted. I'm also going to try and be quick about this bit because I already have photos, and if you're reading this you can probably see the obvious.
Once again, starting from the top and going down. Rikka's hair is done up in purple and there is some shading in between all the sculpted lines and under areas of the hair. It's very subtle and it- along with the sculpt, can actually play tricks on your eyes. Sometimes the shading is very prominent, sometimes it's not, and at different angles it appears there is painted shading elsewhere, even in areas where there is none. Other than that is the bow, which is completely yellow.
The pale skintone is consistent across all areas, although the joints are slightly shiny and a tad brighter than the rest.
Although not noticeable unless under a bright light, her eyebrows are a very dark purple rather than black.
Rikka's left eye has four different shades of Blue, although the second from the bottom is barely noticeable. The sclera also has a bit of grey near the top for shading, and this is actuate to the show. The right eye is three different shades of yellow and has a brown outline rather than the black line the right eye has.
Her School jacket is roughly the same purple as her hair, just a shade darker. Buttons are a metallic gold and remarkably clean despite their size, color me impressed.
Now pretty much everything up until this point has been remarkably clean, nothing out of line or anything of that sort. But every figure has it's blemishes and Rikka is no different. The left shirt sleeve has a bit of purple from the jacket, and the right jacket sleeve has a bit of white from the shirt. Rikka's skirt is for the most part fine, however there are areas in which the white and red mix, creating some pink bleeding, but it's nothing sloppy like 2014 Godzilla. Rikka's left leg has a tiny grey dot from her stocking, her left leg also has a thin grey line just above where the stocking should end. With that, everything else in clean, even the shoes, which is really saying something since the shoes use the most variety of colors in such a condensed area.
Accessories
Haaaaaaaands. Always with the hands. Fists, trigger, splayed, and grip, you get a pair of each type plus a right hand for Rikka's signature "piisu sain" with extended thumb. Paint is consistent across all of them and the sculpt is just as great and adorably stubby, although I can't help but think the left trigger hand has slightly longer fingers than the right.
Regardless, you can get a great range of poses with them. They also feel remarkably sturdy, probably due to the wrist articulation being a simple cut joints and the result of that is hands with very thick pegs.
For Rikka's heads we have one shouting/angry face and one scared face. The sculpt is the same as the standard with the exception of the mouth on each. Most of the detailing comes from the paint, specifically the eyebrows which are actually the only difference. That's not necessarily a bad thing mind you. I feel the eyebrows and the sculpted mouth are well enough to convey emotion in combination with the hands. Other than that though there isn't much else to say, the paint looks great and is consistent. Same four blues for the left eye, same three yellows for the right, purple eyebrows, all that's there.
As for changing the head it's not too different than faces on a figuarts or figma. Just remove the front portion of the hair, remove the back portion of the hair, tilt the head far back, and it will easily pop off the neck joint. Or go in any order you want really.
Take note of the grooves inside the front hair piece to help hold the eyepatch.
After that you just pop the face onto the neck and reassemble.
Next we have the folded variant of the parasol, Schwarzschild. Very nicely sculpted. A nice attention to detail is the wrinkles in the canopy portion all face the same direction, which eventually leads into raised areas, giving the appearance of it being folded like a real umbrella. Not only that, but they all match up with the Tips(the silver bits) The pink top portions also match with the purple portions, and are not perfectly round, giving a very scrunched look. In terms of paint, it's very clean and I really like the metallic silver used, seems to be the same Bandai uses. They even painted the ferrule.
If there is one thing I dislike is that you can't remove the tube and have it look collapsed, and I don't know why they didn't do that. The crook handle along with the tip cup is removable as one piece, so why not make used of that and have a removable pole so you can plug the crook in it's place? It's small yes, but it feels like an obviously missed opportunity.
And this might bother some, but technically the lower pink section should be closer to the middle if it's to be show accurate. I understand this is meant to be squished because of the chibi style, but I can see it bothering some.
Moving on to the open parasol we come to the one major weak point to this product. Okay, get the good out first. The paint job is nice and clean, matches it's folded counterpart perfectly, and has some great sculpting for the decorative pink areas. There are even eight ribs inside and out which matches up with the eight tips seen on the folded Schwarzschild, although the ribs are left purple.
Now the issues: First, the hole the tube plugs into is tiny and barely holds the damn thing. Not helping matters is that the pole given is oddly shaped at the end, it's slanted and seems to have a notch taking out of one side. Was this just mine or across the board?
Second, the parasol is heavy as shit, even if you get the pole plugged in the damn thing is so heavy Rikka can't even hold it up without using both hands. This is honestly the biggest issue and it's a damn shame.
That's about the extent you can do with it in one hand.
For lax posing it's mostly fine, and you can use both hands to at least allow Rikka to use it as a shield of sorts. You can get poses with it, but there is still a very good chance of it falling to pieces because of the weight/pole issues.
Finally we've come to the last part of the accessories, the Mauser. Honestly not a lot to say, it's a Mauser C96 with an extended box magazine as seen in the show. The sculpt is nice, surprisingly detailed given the product it's associated with. In fact it's so good I can speculate that it's probably based on the M1932 or M712 Schnellfeuer version, due to the safety and "stamping" featured on the sides. The top of the gun has grooves for the (non-functional) adjustable sights, even an indentation in the hammer. The Broom handle also has grooves, just to make it look even more accurate. The trigger is present, although it's always down due to the mould.
As for paint it's very clean, although they only have two colors to worry about. I feel the grip screw cover (the raised center area of the grip) should've been painted with the same gold used on the buttons.
For what it's worth, the brown handle has just a tiny bit of a gloss near the top, so I think it may have been a separate piece that was glued on. The color for the main portion is rather unique, it isn't flat, but calling it metallic might be overselling it's shine. If I was to compare it to anything it would be cast iron, something that sparkles but is still a bit rough looking. Actually, if you have a ToyBiz Punisher that came with an AR rifle, it's very similar to that only more black than grey.
I should add that Rikka's Mauser in show often has an emblem on both sides of the magazine well.
The Cu-poche version does not feature this. Although to be fair, they're pretty inconsistent with it in things like promotional images and such.
You may also notice the grip changes between being diamond patterned and ribbed, and that the magazine isn't always present.
Additional/Bonus
Now here's a section I've never done before, and to give an explanation this is for anything that's either something like a first release bonus item or something I don't count as an accessory that comes with the base figure. I classify an accessory as something the figure uses in character, like a gun or a sword, bow, alternate expressions or hands. I do not classify anything or everything on the figure that's removable to be an accessory under the condition that it is something that's already/commonly attached to said character e.g: Batman's utility belt and cape or Rikka's eye-patch. In cases where the figure might have multiple or alternative versions of an accessory(this is common for most Showa Kamen Rider's and their mufflers) we will look at the most bare basic or pre-attached version on the figure, and the others under accessories.
Stands, limited/exclusive and/or oddball items and the like will go here.
So, remember that zip baggy from earlier? Well there is a bit more to it than that. The baggy has a Cu-Poche logo on it, and there is even a little blank area to write something like a character name. It's a nice touch if you prefer having quick access to the accessories and such, but I prefer using the box.
As you may have gathered from the pictures, Rikka also has a stand. In fact all Cu-poche have stands, which are clear plastic with a sheet of metal inside. I've not really had to bring it up until now, but those round silver bits under Rikka's feet are magnets, and they're actually quite strong. Although I have noticed they're a bit weaker now than they were a month or two ago.
They attach well and I've never had her fall over when standing relatively straight. You do get an articulated arm which can plug into any of the 10 holes on the stand.(5 on both ends) and it's Okay, but I really would not expect this thing to hold the figure up in a kick/jump/flying pose or whatever for any extended period of time. The arm is best used to help keep the figure a bit more balanced in wide stances and not much more. There is an exposed screw on the arm, but seeing as this is clear plastic and thus more fragile, I wouldn't mess with tightening it too much.
Final approach
It's over, oh thank Shingan. *ahem* Right. To summarize, for the most part Rikka is worth her asking price. There is nothing majorly wrong with the figure, despite how mishandled the open parasol is. That being said, it's a good thing it came out well, because it's not like you have an alternative. Aside from a Statue (also made by Kotobukiya) and a few PVC gameprize figures, you don't really have a lot of options for Rikka, certainly no others for an articulated mass retail release anyway. Not to mention this is also the only affordable chibi style Rikka you can get.
As for me, I love having this, am thankful for it and believe it's worth owning for any Chuunibyou fan. It does satisfy a great desire to own a representation of a character I love, if albeit in an adorable chibi form. But I'm always open to a more traditional figure style if we ever get one, or even more Cu-Poche. Already got a Deko out, so maybe a Yuuta, Kumin, Nibutani?
But until we hear about those, I'll be looking forward to Kotobukiya's in scale kimonos coming out later this year. Already have a few ideas for that.
For my next review, well, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I have quite a few options, MMPR Blue and Yellow. Gokai Green. Sailor Jupiter. First appearance Ichigo. Black RX. Certainly don't have a shortage of figuarts to review.
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