Kaguya, Chika, and Ai【Kaguya-sama: Love is War】Furyu BiCute Bunnies Figures

 As someone who, at this age still watches romantic comedy animes and lots of them, Kaguya-sama: Love is War stands out as my favourite one so far. It's has a unique take on the genre in which the main protagonists are in love with each other but are hell bent to get the other to confess their love first. It results in hilarious over-the-top situations that had even the missus laughing out loud.

 Below are three Unboxing & Review videos of the main female protagonist and the two main supporting female characters namely Shinomiya Kaguya, Fujiwara Chika, and Hayasaka Ai.

 All the pre-painted figures above are from the Furyu BiCute Bunnies Figures line. It's a product line based on the concept of putting popular anime characters into bunny costumes. While it falls under the budget-friendly prize figure category, I have so far found the bunny figures to be of high quality, far exceeding expectations of figures sold at its price point. I hope you'll enjoy the videos I have done for the trio. Until my next post next year - 2024 is days away - I wish you love and happiness.

Psychic Sisters Tatsumaki & Fubuki | One Punch Man

 After putting together my first scale model kit in a long while, I'm now back to blogging about unboxing and review videos of my pre-painted figure collection. What we have today are the Psychic Sisters from the One Punch Man anime/manga series i.e. Fubuki (aka Blizzard of Hell) and Tatsumaki (aka Tornado of Terror) in their Banpresto Espresto Shapely pre-painted figure form.

 Below are the unboxing and review videos of Tatsumaki and Fubuki, both of which can also be accessed via my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures.

 Pre-painted figures from the One Punch Man series are pretty rare, so it was a relief to get two budget-friendly prize figures from Banpresto that was pretty good. One sister was better than the other (to see which please check out the videos above), but overall both were fairly decent. While there are much better figures of the duo, they are the more expensive scale painted figures, which would be out of reach of most beginner figure collectors.

All in all, if you are a fan of the series, then by all means go ahead and add the Psychic Sisters to your figure collection. Anyway, that's it for this short write-up as most of the content are covered in the videos embedded above. Until next time, be well and be happy!

Evangelion Unit-08a [Completed & Post-Assembly Review] - Bandai Real Grade Plastic Model Kit

 Another straight-out-of-the-box build of an EVA Unit is now complete, with the Bandai Real Grade 1/144 scale Evangelion Unit-08a finally fully-assembled with some additional work along the lines of the application of foil stickers, third party water decals, as well as selected top-coating, and panel-lining. Absolutely no re-painting was done on any of the parts seeing that the majority of the kit was covered in pink and white parts that had an excellent matte finish to them. So much so that they looked like painted parts, and not just the plain molded plastic they actually are.

 If pushed to chose what I would do differently than just a straight-out-of-the-box build, perhaps I would've re-painted the yellow parts with lacquer paint. Of all parts, those were the ones that look the most plasticky and toy-like. But in the end I did not go down that path because in the overall scheme of things, the yellow parts didn't look too bad, mostly because there wasn't that many of them.

 There is, however, one thing that's non-negotiable in a straight-out-of-the-box build. And that is to replace the subpar sticker decals with third party water decals. The former always ends up looking horrible in the final build. It's the least you could do to ensure best results for a non-painted build.

 While the Evangelion Unit-08a scale model kit had also included other standard weapons such as the palette knifes and the 209mm Assault Rifle, I decided against showing any of them here as the EVA Unit-08a is mostly associated with using a pistol (weapon not provided) as well as the sniper rifle (see photos immediately above this paragraph). At least that's what I remember seeing from the Neon Genesis Evangelion  3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time anime movie.

 Now the clear transparent base that you see the Evangelion Unit-08a attached to wasn't provided together with the kit. In fact no base displays were provided together with the kit. As such, what you see in the photos is actually a display base kit called Action Base 6 [Clear Color] that's sold separately by Bandai Spirits. It's a display base that's worth getting for use with Bandai's Real Grade Evangelion scale model kits. But because the action base wasn't made specifically for these kits, the fitting between the base's peg and the hole at the back of the EVA Unit isn't perfect. In fact, it's a bit loose. That being said, it's an acceptable compromise seeing that the base has a small footprint, which is always a good thing if you are a collector for whom display space is at a premium.

 Below is the 'Completed & Post-Assembly Review' video of the Real Grade Evangelion Unit-08a scale model kit that can also be found on my YouTube Channel i.e. FourEyedMonster Miniatures.

 As I work on more and more Gunpla, I have come to depend on a paint strategy that comprises a mixture of painting and top-coating rather than a straight-out-of-the-box-build. I didn't apply that strategy here because the majority of the model kit already looked pretty good unpainted. But in the future, especially for the Real Grade kit of the Evangelion Unit-02, it is likely that I'll apply the aforementioned strategy because EVA Unit-02 is mostly in red, and parts with in-mold red color tends to look extremely plasticky and toy-like. To avoid that, I'll have to finally paint a Real Grade Evangelion scale model kit. But that is in the future. For now, this is another project done and dusted. Let me just revel in that, and wish you dear reader, to be well and happy!

Evangelion Unit-08a [Unboxing & Pre-Assembly Review] - Bandai Real Grade Plastic Model Kit

 Due to time constraints arising from attempts to generate more content on my YouTube Channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures, this will be the last photo/text-based unboxing post I'll upload to my blog. Instead, any future 'Unboxing and Pre-Assembly' related content will be done via video only. Anyway, the following is a detailed and closeup look at the sprues and runners included in the Bandai Spirits Real Grade Evangelion Unit-08a plastic model kit.

Bandai Spirits Real Grade Evangelion Unit-08a (front view of the box art)

Bandai Spirits Real Grade Evangelion Unit-08a (first side view of the box art)

Bandai Spirits Real Grade Evangelion Unit-08a (second side view of the box art)

More side box art, this time a closeup image of the Evangelion Unit-08a

Instruction booklet (view of the back and front cover)

 Real Grade model kits are more complicated than regular ones so it's no surprise that there were so many sprues and runners included with the kit. Having the parts on these sprues/runners molded in a myriad of colors allows for a color accurate EVA Unit to be assembled from scratch without worrying about having to paint the parts. However, if the parts look too plasticky or toy-like, then they will still need to be painted so that the final build will look good.

Runner/Sprue A: Light pink parts for the heel, ankle, shin, and leg

Runner/Sprue B1: Light pink parts for the shoulder, arms, body, leg, etc.

Runner/Sprue B2: Yellow parts for the shoulder and arms

Runner/Sprue C: Black/dark gray parts for the inner frame, palette knife, etc.

Runner/Sprue D: Black/dark gray parts for the inner frame

Runner/Sprue E: White parts for armor on the arms

 Thankfully, the finish quality of parts that make up the Evangelion Unit-08a model kit is pretty decent on the whole. And because the colored parts that make up the majority of the EVA Unit's color scheme  i.e. the ones in pink and white have a nice matte finish to them, I don't intend to repaint any of the other parts as any plasticky or toy-like sections will be kept to an acceptable minimum.

Runner/Sprue F1: Dark red parts for the shoulder, back, and power plug

Runner/Sprue G1: White parts for the armor around the abdominal area, and knees

Runner/Sprue H1: Yellow parts for the knuckles

Runner/Sprue H2: Dark green parts for the feet and spine

Runner/Sprue I1: Dark brown parts for the neck, clavicle, and ammo belt for the 209mm Assault Rifle

Runner/Sprue I2: Yellow parts for the feet and knees

 While I don't intend to repaint the armor, I still plan to do some top-coating if need be if the plasticky sheen of the non-pink and non-white parts, especially the yellow sections, become too jarring to the eye. Ideally I should paint such parts, but for now I don't plan to. 

Runner/Sprue J: Multi-colored parts with dark gray/green for the 209mm Assault Rifle for the heel, ankle, shin, and leg; and light grays for the hands

Runner/Sprue K: Silver parts mainly for the umbilical power cord, and gun barrel

Runner/Sprue L: Clear red parts for the core organ, and forehead

Runner/Sprue N: Multi-colored parts with yellow for the shoulder fins and chest; and black/dark gray for the shoulder pylons, arms, chest, upper body, etc.

Runner/Sprue O: Multi-colored parts with green/reds for the shoulder patch; and light pink for the chest body armor, shoulder pylons, and knee

Runner/Sprue R2: Dark pink parts for the crotch area

 And although this scale model kit provides sticker decals and foil stickers to apply onto the EVA Unit-08a build, I plan to only use the latter and not the former. I have already bought some third-party water decals to replace the sticker decals. Those of you who have been following my Gunpla builds would know by now how I feel about these stickers. Not only do they look bad most of the time, but they also tend to peel off sometimes. Water decals are infinitely better than sticker decals. However, I will make exceptions for the foil stickers here. Since they have a chrome-like finish, the foil stickers will save me time from having to paint the parts in the metallic paint equivalent.

Runner/Sprue U: Multi-colored parts with light pink for the feet; and pink/whites/purple for the head

Runner/Sprue V: Gray parts with yellow for the sniper rifle

Runner/Sprue W1: Yellow parts for the nape, and yet more knuckles

Runner/Sprue W2: Clear green parts for the eyes

PVC wire for use as the umbilical cord

Sticker decals and foil stickers for use on the model kit

 Below is the YouTube video of the unboxing process as well as the pre-assembly review.

 So what's next? Since there isn't any painting in the works, the next upload should have photos of the completed build of the Evangelion Unit-08a with both the water decals and foil stickers applied as well as some selected top-coating on the yellow parts, which together with red ones tend to look the most plasticky and toy-like in a straight-out-of-the-box build. Well that's it for what is possibly my last 'unboxing blog post' (note: future ones should be uploaded as videos on my YouTube Channel - click on banner immediately below this paragraph to get there). See you back again soon with the completed photos of the EVA Unit-08a either next week or later. Till then, be well and be happy!