Hunting the Elusive

The full name of this figure is MegaHouse Brilliant Stage Series (Sakura Sakura) Sakura Nanako Platonic Side Miyazawa Limited Ver. About as long a name as you can get. Sculptor is Rei Azusa, retail 7300 yen, 1/8 scale. Note that the edition I got is the limited edition with the different-coloured box and also the stripes on the figure’s leotards are blue as opposed to red. Additionally, the leotards are coloured in a way which make them seem more see-through. Individual higher resolution versions of the photos can be downloaded from the Pixel Gallery.

In the game Sakura Sakura, Sakura Nanako is a gym coach (or something) and is the default and first “gettable” girl.

I’m not really sure why I got this figure. I suppose I really liked the look of it. The face of the figure does not really match the original illustrations of the character from the game, but even so, the figure looks good, despite having a fairly static pose and not much detailing.

Of course, the kneeling pose is also quite nice, not in the least because you can display the figure without a base (one is provided, but not required), and there is little chance of it leaning.

As stated before, the face does not really resemble the original illustrations, but screams moe in its own right. Note the face is moderately shadowed by choice in the photo.

The figure comes with a few other accessories like a multi-coloured hoops, a gym ball, and two juggling clubs.

Plastic at the legs is quite shiny, but I think this is by design, because it makes the figure look like it is wearing stockings.

The mini-blouse is cast-off-able, and the head is removeable for the extraction of the blouse, leaving the figure in leotards only. In the normal version, this is SFW, but the limited edition, not so much.

A final look at the hair and face. The hair is made of a rougher type of plastic, and has only moderate level of detailing. However, the colouring seems to suit the overall feel of the figure, with an grainy almost inconsistency to the colours making the hair look like strawberry meringue, to use a delicious analogy.

Photography notes:

This review shoot was done on the same day I received the figure in the mail. The style is highly experimental and inconsistent, because I was testing out figure photography with only one flash.

As you might know, previous figure reviews used two halogen lights diffused through cloth, as well as a piece of paper serving as reflector and a smaller halogen light used as a spot-light. This set up meant the background is very visible, even if out of focus. Thus I needed to properly set up the background scene (with various degrees of success).

The move to a singular external flash means I can have shutter times as low as 1/4000th of a second, and a more flexible positioning of a much brighter though shorter-duration light. This allows me to entirely black out the background to create a focus on the figure only.

Of course, using one external flash has its own learning curve. Depending on the angle and position of the flash unit, you can get varying results, some of which is noticeable here.

Second is the problem of how to overcome the typical flash look. We all know what normal flash photography looks like, with sharp shadows, over-bright regions, etc. My aim was for a “natural” or softer kind of look in my figure photos. To do this, a singular external flash is insufficient. My set up in the end used two white umbrellas, two tripods (one acting as a stand for one of the umbrellas), and a circular silver reflector fitted over the lens of the camera.

I started the session shooting the flash through a single umbrella, using it as a diffuser of sorts. As the umbrella was positioned to one side of the figure, this resulted in deep shadowing of the other side.

This technique eventually evolved as my experimentations showed I could achieve a better look by positioning another umbrella on the other side of the figure. At first, this umbrella acted like a normal reflector. Then I started aiming the flash through the first umbrella, at the second umbrella.

This resulted in a fairly consistent lighting, and the way the umbrellas were set up was reminiscent of what is known as clamshell lighting (used mostly in portraiture). The only thing is, the umbrellas were set up to create a vertical clamshell (most portrait photographers use a horizontal configuration). Additionally, the second umbrella (upon which light from the flash behind the first umbrella bounces off) was smaller. And I only used one flash.

In other, more close-up shots, I positioned the flash at an angle behind the figure, such that the light glanced off the edges of the figure. This resulted in the evening-sunlight look in some of the shots, and a stage-light look in others.

Anyway, this is but the first of my experiments with using an external flash for figure photography. Such trials are at this stage only limited by the number of figures I buy, which is not many nowadays. My preorders currently include Saber Lily, Black Rock Shooter, and Clayz’s non-scale Gretel (due to the Chocolate Shop origins). Gretel is due out late March, Saber Lily in June, and Black Rock Shooter in August, so the figure acquisitions are definitely spaced out.