Figure Unboxing and Review: Shiba Miyuki (Penguin Parade)

By TReina - Sunday, February 21, 2016 - No Comments

To All,

"Onii-sama, welcome home."

When you hear the word 'Onii-sama', what is the first thought that comes to your mind? For me, it's Shiba Miyuki! And today, we would be reviewing one of her scale figures -- her 1/8 scale from Penguin Parade.

"Onii-sama, it seems like a scale figure has been modeled after me. How do I look?"

Box 7/10

Miyuki's box comes in a calm and cool blue, the logical color for her personality. The snowflakes as a pattern for her box further accentuates her calmness.

Miyuki's name (in Kanji only) along with a view of her figure is printed on the front. That printed view of her figure is actually my favorite angle to view her from! There is also a huge window which allows you to see the figure in her entire glory all while she's still encased in her little plastic prison.

The back of her box doesn't actually offer the figure from many other angles but the side of the box however, does.

From this picture of her alone, I can already see how detailed her translucent cape piece would be! It looks as if Miyuki just spun around on the spot!

Base 6/10

I always tell myself to be glad when figures don't simply come with a simple circular or triangular (sorry, Griffon) base, but I can't bring myself to be completely hyped up with this base when I think of all the other possibilities the base could have been (like the school hallway perhaps).

But nitpicking aside, I'm sufficiently pleased with this piece as one to hold the figure in place properly and stably. The base is neither too simple to disregard nor too elaborate to draw attention away from the figure itself. The snowflake-like patterns also help to tie her base to the patterns on the cape of the figure as well as to the box.

All in all, it does keep close with the theme Penguin Parade seems to suggest at.

Posing and Assembly 7/10

I do enjoy her pose. It's like a silent peaceful moment taken out of one of the anime episodes, where she spins around (dances?) to look at you. However, I do wish to have a slightly more dynamic pose. like when she's battling, and hopefully someday I'll be able to get one. But for a slightly more slice-of-life figure, I'm glad enough for this piece.

It's incredibly easy to put together as well!

Painting and Sculpting 5/10

This is where I face the most problems with this figure, and we'll start with the cape and her hair accessories, since I like those parts.

The details in her cape are gorgeous. Personally, I like how the creases in her cape make the material seem so lightweight and complimentary to her pose.

Her blue hair clip is another aspect about this figure that I really adore. The patterns on it are beautifully sculpted and remain faithful to her original illustration. I'm glad that an aspect I like about Miyuki's design is kept!

However, I am not pleased with the yellow hair clips. Although I do see the effort Penguin Parade made with the gloss finish (to make them look more like hair clips), there are several locations where the yellow paint spilled over to her hair. The paint lines on the edges of her clips are not clean, and that's definitely not what I expect from a figure with a price tag of 9000 yen. Putting such yellow clips under the blue ones just make the quality control for the yellow ones paler in comparison.

Another part where I find fault with is her face on this figure. I was expecting something that was shown on the promotional photos but alas, there were a few angles where her face would seem weird, and for me, this is one of them.

Shading is also another aspect which I didn't like. It seems as if Penguin Parade was simply slapping on shades without the concept of blending. First, let's take a look at the shading on her white one piece.

It doesn't actually look that stark in photographs but there's a sky-bluish shades all over her dress. You might catch a glimpse of it around the creases at the thighs of this figure. The photograph really did tone it down enough to seem acceptable but the blue shades are still visible. Fortunately I won't be displaying her directly from the front (in this angle) so I guess I can close one eye to this.

Next, we'll examine the shading at her hair.

From the photograph, the difference between the black and saturated navy shades are so visible! Really, it feels like Penguin Parade first colored her hair in black, then realized they needed to add the blue on because the highlight color for her hair was blue instead.

The saving grace for her hair is that the blue highlights are at least at appropriate regions (where the light will fall on). Though, I do which that they could have tried to blend the black and blue divide a little better so it'll seem more like a waterfall of hues coming together instead of two colors fighting for attention on her head.

There should be no excuses for Penguin Parade to be unable to do gradients since they did such a lovely one for her cape, where it goes from green (under the blazer) to the blue at the ends.

Enjoyment 8/10

I'm still able to enjoy displaying her (I really love her cape!) albeit not to the fullest, but I'm not certain if I would purchase this particular figure of her again if I had the choice.

I probably would though.