NEW SHINKI GET!
I've been busy with finals, so I couldn't do a proper review of her when I got her. In fact, I couldn't really open her, so she ended up spending a lot of quality time with my other latest purchase:
However, with most of my finals out of the way, I can devote some time to a review of the newest member of my Shinki hare-erm, collection: Ianeira!
I'm not looking at the box, since it's pretty much the same as everyone else's box, but I will say that I like Ia's artwork. However, I will post box pictures:
Now, onto Ia herself:
Honestly, I'm a little conflicted about Ianeira's design. I can see that the designers were going for a sort of half-fish look for Ianeira, what with the cream-colored bits around her legs and forearms. However, I think that they should have had colored her hands and feet the same color to complete the look; as it stands, the cream bits look a little weird with the flesh-colored bits (Though admittidley, the cream bits look weird anyway). Also, I kind of like Ianeira's face, which I think stands out from other Shinkis' faces, making her look cute without turning her into a moe-blob. Still, though, I could never shake the feeling that her face is a little...off. I dunno, maybe it's just me.
Also, I don't know why, but her default head likes coming loose, and it never feels like it's in the socket all the way.
Speaking of heads...
Ianeira comes with the basic Shinki parts: arm spacers, alternate hands, and an alternate head. She also has a pair of flesh-colored spacers with male connector ports. These look very useful for alternate armor configurations...which is why Konami apparently doesn't use them all too often. Seriously, Ia's the only Shinki I have that has these kinds of spacers. What the hell.
But what's an Armored God Princess without, well, armor? Let's see what Ianeira's armored mode is like:
So yeah, as you can probably tell, Ianeira's armored form is a mermaid. Personally, I think this is one of the more creative armored modes (Even if I think it suffers from the issue of limited usage outside of water). I especially like the tail, which is nice and poseable. What I don't like is that the tail only comes up to Ianeira's upper thighs, which I feel ruins the mermaid look and makes Ianeira look like, well, a woman wearing a fake tail prop. It should have come up a little higher, closer to the balljoints on her legs. It also...uh...
Okay, I can't go any longer without discussing the elephant in the room, so here goes: among Ianeira's armored parts includes an alternate chest with huge boobs ("huge" meaning HUGE, larger than most other Shinkis' busts). What do I think of them?
Well, to be honest, I don't really like it. I've always felt that it was rather disproportionate for the more slender MMS body, which already has (for lack of a better word) off proportions compared to the human body. Plus, they kind of get in the way of Ianeira's arms in some poses. I think that Ia's only going to have that chest in two instances: When she's in armor (partially due to its function as a floatie, and partially because the large tail balances it out), or when I want to do pictures like this:
But enough about boobs. Where was I? Oh, right. The armored form.
In addition to the mermaid armor, Ianeira has quite a few weapons at her disposal, including a handheld gun:
...which flips open into a minimissile launcher:
A pair of sword/shoulder cannon weapons:
Several pieces that can be combined into tridents (or, as shown below, A trident):
a HUGE gun which plugs into Ia's arm:
And...a harp.
Well, I guess everyone needs something to fall back on.
Ia's armor also has two alternate modes. The first of these is shark drone mode:
Ah, animal modes, a staple for many Shinkis. I like this mode, mainly due to it being an easy way to display Ianeira's stuff without actually armoring her up. The only problem with this mode, though, has to do with Ia herself; she doesn't have any sort of alternate feet or light-armored mode to use for when the tail's not connected to her. At the very least, she should have gotten some webbed feet or something.
Aside from the shark mode, the armor (at least, a good number of the parts) can become a weapons platform. Don't really have much to say about this, it's just Ianeira's guns put together. Because apparently, Ianeira prefers overkill to just singing sea tunes creepily while draging victims to their graves. You know, like in
On Stranger Tides.
So, that's Ianeira. One of the more infamous Shinki figures, but she's pretty good if you like mermaids. And your family doesn't mind you buying big-boobed anime figures.
Also, because I can't have a Shinki photodump without Maryceles somewhere, have some bonus pictures:
Mary: IIIIIII'M RIIDIIIING MAH BAAAALLLLS~!
Master Gundam: *facepalm*
A little context for this picture: A few months ago, in my College class, I was required to bring in proof that I actually bothered to visit the on-campus library, like a photo, or maybe a reciept from the Dunkin' Donuts inside. As you can see, I picked the latter...and got carried away.