Made in Abyss

The upper fifth of the Abyss

I was really looking forward to Made in Abyss after seeing the PV for the show, and not just because it had the word "メイド" in the title. I wasn't overly fond of the character designs, but the exploration theme of the story was extremely appealing to me.

The ongoing manga for Made in Abyss is authored by Akihito Tsukushi, and started it's run in 2012. I did not pick up the title earlier because I believed it was aimed at a younger audience due to the character design. Despite its look, the story gets pretty intense and unrelentingly grim at parts, so is definitely not for kids.

If the anime hadn't come out, it's possible I might have missed out on a great story for a rather superficial reason. It think this has taught me not to make hasty decisions about manga solely based on a single criteria.

I'm not sure when the last time an anime of this genre was produced, but the first thing that pops to mind is Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, which dates back to 1990.

The first three episodes cover the first volume of the manga, and do a good job of setting up the background for the adventure that is about to unfold. The Abyss is a colossal pit in the middle of an island that reaches over 20,000m into the earth. The town of Orth (Ōsu) has been built around the Abyss, supported by an economy based on recovering and selling artifacts from the Abyss.

During an expedition into the Abyss, our heroine Riko finds the robot Reg. Instead of turning him over to the authorities, she asks Reg to pretend to be human so he can be accepted into the orphanage school in which she lives.

It is not clear if all cave raiders are orphans, but Riko's orphanage is essentially a training center for cave raiders. We learn that it is a profession fraught with danger, ranging from predatory beasts to foreign agents, and the ever looming "Curse of the Abyss" that can prevent you from ever returning to the surface world.

The Curse of the Abyss reminds me of an element
from Jeff Long's novel The Descent, in which
humans who spend an extended amount of time in
the sub-planet start to undergo changes in
physical appearance.

One day, belongings of the legendary Lyza the Annihilator are recovered from the Abyss. Lyza is Riko's mother, and a cryptic message saying "I’ll be waiting at the bottom of the Abyss" is found among the documents.

Riko takes the words as being personally directed to her, and accompanied by Reg, decides to go find her mother in the depths of the Abyss. I have high hopes for the series.

One other reason that I am interested this show, is that back in the day, I started writing an adventure for the BRP system based on exploration of a giant vent in the ground that was surrounded by a city that owed it's prosperity to the goods obtained from deep under the earth.

I didn't do more than flesh out the first couple of levels, but if I ever wanted to revisit that particular idea, I can pretty much adapt Tsukushi's material for the game.

Kemono Friends

Kemono Friends is a show that is underrated in the US, but has exploded in popularity in Japan. Many people dropped the show after the first episode because of what they considered to be bad 3DCG and poor voice acting, but I did not notice these things at all (maybe watching so many Touhou MMD videos has caused me to automatically filter out various technical deficiencies to focus mainly on the actual story and characters).

At みみどしま, Kastel seems to think that the Kemono Friends phenomenon is due to the story having a "lack of content" — that is to say there is not a lot of overt exposition so the story becomes kind of open-source, resulting in the formation of a community that generated a lot of fan-wank which catapulted the show to popularity.

I'm not sure if I buy this theory, since I liked the show immediately, and did not look to see what was happening in the fandom until rather late. I'd like to think that the popularity was due to the simple and genuine nature of the show as described at ANIME NOW! and the message of kindness and acceptance described at METAculture GURASHII.

In fact, the story reminds me a lot of Planetarian, except the naive Kaban-chan starts out with the kindness that only develops over time in the hardened and jaded Kuzuya. I only hope that Kemono Friends will not end on the melancholy note that Planetarian concluded with.

Currently, there is a set of prize figures from FuRyu available for the show that I really want, but they are rather difficult to come by.

With the prices of these Chobirume Petit figures ranging from US$60 to over US$100 for a complete set, I'll probably wait until the July re-release to buy the figures.

±0

Just saw the first episode of the Saki live action adaptation, and thought it was okay. The production value is decent, and the actresses are all cute, but the mahjong is literally watching real-life mahjong.

Which is to say that the actresses' motions are unable to achieve the fluidity and sureness that is possible with animation. However, when Saki actually manifests her mahjong powers, the special effects are pretty good.

Another problem is that the way the actresses announce their winning hands is often stilted, and not as practiced and natural as that of the voice actresses in the anime.

I think that the selection for the music used during the scenes where the girls play mahjong should have been different. A piece with slower, more measured tempo would have probably worked better with the pace of the scenes.

Kiyosumi High School

Kazekoshi Girls' High School

Tsuruga Academy

Ryuumonbuchi High School

So far the story remains largely similar to the anime. Kyoutarou was written out of the live action version, but I guess that's only expected, since no real human could be allowed to be the sole male member of this Saki cast without suffering some sort of cosmic retribution.

As far as petit style figures from Saki go, the only ones I own (and am aware of) came with the limited special edition Saki Portable PSP Game.

The figures are on the tall side, and even though Yuuki looks to be somewhat shorter than Saki and Nodoka, the difference is not as noticeable as in the original artwork.

We should expect to see Saki and Nodoka in these meido-fuku in episode 3 of the live action series.

I'll close with a demotivational poster that speaks to how fair and equitable the universe is.

もってけ！チアリーダー 服

I've been trying to create a set of Lucky Star Nendoroid Petits in cheer outfits, but I'm still missing three girls, so Haruhi, Mikuru, and Sonico had to fill in for the three in the photo below.

The figures are just simple head swaps of petits from the Nendoroid Petit Lucky Star Season 1, Season 2, and Lucky Star x Street Fighter sets. For whatever reason though, Good Smile never bothered to make representations of Patricia Martin, Misao Kusakabe, or Ayano Minegishi.

I initially was thinking about substituting the heads of figures from other product lines, but the only available figures that I could find were either too big or too small [not to mention the problem of just finding a figure of Ayano].

I guess I have no choice but to do some sculpting to create the heads that I need...

Also, in case anybody was wondering, Mikuru is a composite of the following figures:

見ないと呪うぞ！

Fear Kubrick (フィア・キューブリック) is a character from the series C³ (Cube x Cursed x Curious). She is the personification of a fictional torture instrument of the Inquisition known as "Fear-in-Cube".

I don't think the anime was particularly popular, but it was not horrible. I liked it enough that Fear became the first Niitengo figure that I owned.

Fear is just a tiny bit shorter than Miku, and I kind of wish that she was even shorter, but that's just my scale OCD acting up.

She is a bit atypical for a Niitengo figure in that she is roughly the height of one of the more current figures (Maho), but has proportions of an early Niitengo figure (Mio). The difference in height between Mio and Fear is perfect for representing her loliness, but it is not particularly apparent that she is supposed to be a loli character when posed next to other 65mm figures.

Strike Witches

Strike Witches was the creation of Shimada Fumikane (or is it Humikane?) who is probably the most well known artist associated with the mecha musume genre, and probably the military mo-e genre as well.

In roughly the same time period that Strike Witches came out, Wings of War: The Dawn of World War II was released. This tabletop game re-implemented the rules system popularized by Wings of War: Famous Aces for use with WWII era aircraft.

Combining Strike Witches and Wings of War seemed like such a logical step, that two doujin games were made in response. One being Wings of Witches (KASU ver.), and the other Wings of Witches (CUTE ver.).

I played a bit of Wings of War, and liked the system enough to consider making maneuver decks for use with 1/72 scale fighters and 65mm Strike Witches, but almost immediately gave up on the idea as being too time consuming. It was also a problem that there were no 65mm Strike Witch figures.

The first problem was addressed by Adorable Rocket, who introduced me to a homebrew version of the FlightPath system for use with petites. The D&D version of the original rules are available free from WizK!ds Games.

The second problem has yet to be adequately resolved. In fact, the only figure I own who wears a striker unit is not even an actual Strike Witch, but rather Konata Izumi cosplaying as Yoshika Miyafuji.

Like most Niitengo figures, the head and body are smaller than that of Nendoroid Petits (particularly early ones like Miku).

The only other SD Strike Witch figures that I could find that were close to being 65mm are Mame figures made by Liquid Stone.

The Mame figures stand about 70mm tall, and have proportions similar to early Niitengo figures. The most glaring difference between Mame figures and Nendoroid Petits is the length of their legs.

I purchased the figures individually, and am missing Eila (who seems to be rather difficult to find outside of the set). I believe there is also a secret figure, which is a witch Neuroi (the only figure in the set to be wearing striker units).

X-11 Witch-like Neuroi

In order to make an actual Strike Witch, I swapped Konata's head for Miyafuji's. Unfortunately there is no way to support the figure, since the socket for the stand was in Konata's hair.

完璧

Some other figures which I am interested in getting:

SD Sanya & Eila Set (Phat Company) which was a Chara-Ani and Comptiq exclusive. I'm not sure how big these figure are compared to other petites.

Nendoroid Petit (or at least that's what some vendors claim - looks more like Niitengo to me) version of Mio Sakamoto (12 yr ver.) that came with Strike Witches Zero 1937 Fuso Sea Incident Limited Edition (Kadokawa Comics Ace).

Good Smile (or Toy's Works) needs to make a complete set of petite witches in striker units!