The Mikumo* line of figures are a cheaper line bringing a healthy dash of variety to the world of Vocaloid figures. Although Miku features in each one, the line isn't a deluge of teal and twin tails. There's different settings, costumes and characters, suiting the songs that each figure's based on.

*made by Hobby Stock and sculpted by Kaiyodo is what I'm finding

The line extends to six so far, and these two are the first ones released. The others look to be coming quick, with Lots of Laugh at the end of the month and Romeo & Cinderella next month.

Mikumo 1 - Love-Coloured Hospital Ward
Mikumo 2 - Get Round


Nendo-monster for scale.

If you're lucky enough to be buying these off a shelf these devilish plastic cages would let you peer in and at the details so you could get the best one on the shelf. The back of each has a shot from the video, an URL for the video itself on Nicovideo and a tiny tiny sketch. Straightaway I notice that Love-Coloured Hospital has changed in the transition, Miku's expression in particular changing for the dopier.
And there's images of the other figures coming up in the line, so you can squint at them and see which you fancy next, like you were a kid and a colourful concertina booklet was spilling out from the box of your new toy.


Twisty ties. It's almost a pleasant wash of nostalgia, unlike the slap in the face that happens when you unbox Monster High dolls.
The packaging and care in protection is thorough, sheets of plastic between limbs and sections and softer plastic sleeves on the twisty ties where they come into contact with the figures.




I'm still impressed by how complete the scene looks with the falling pills. They've been carefully positioned to look good, the amount well-balanced, whilst hiding how they're held up and without looking contrived in the placement. There's maybe two angles where pegs are visible, and those angles are dull angles for viewing the figure, so no loss there.
One pill fell out almost straightaway - the central one that pegs into mini-Miku's hair. Blu-tacked it in place for some shots here, stashed it before it bounced onto the floor any more times. It'll be a quick job to fix it up and the joint looks sturdy, substantial.




Paintwork is decent, only a little wobbly at the hem and then surprisingly fine on the pockets - even on mini-Miku.


Good texture. An especially nice contrast with the smooth and shiny pearl effects elsewhere. I'm just so bemused about the angle, considering there's text there. Not in a language I can read, but the choice is still weird to me. It wouldn't really work unless you had a really, really low viewing angle on the figure.


Another teal accent.
OK, so in places the sculpt is lacking - but in others there's a nice natural detail like the creasing of the fabric over the shoulderblades. There isn't the same lightness of touch as a bigger or pricier figure, but good all the same.


The sculpting is probably this figure's largest flaw. The face is the most obvious place where things come unstuck. Round and dopey and little else. Hands are short, somewhere between childlike and stubby and the sculpt is generally lacking crispness and finesse.

Also, seams. Nothing horrific though. The horizontal seams in the hair are about the worst of it, being hard to pass of as anything else and right there in front of you on the big honking twin tails.

Speaking of which! The pearlesence and transparency is really pretty here, and works well, stops the volume of hair looking heavy and dominating the figure. I'm not a convert to funny hair effects but this - this was nice.


How cute? Too cute. All this and Kagamines too. These three make for some perfect catblobs.


But my first reaction wasn't to drop the scissors in my squee-ing. It was 'ohhhhh :('. Still inside the plastic, I saw a pretty big paint scuff. On the front - Rin, top left. It doesn't muck up over a colour border, so once on a shelf and with your regular admiring it won't be anything like as noticeable, I tell myself.

There's some wavering with the paint but the simple shapes and lack of fiddly accessories keeps errors like that from being big disadvantages.

Seams are light, barely noticeable along the tails.


Tucked around the back is another Miku, throwing up all kinds of weird questions about those cats on the front. Are they actually zippered fur balloons being ran by teams of mini Vocaloid characters? To what end? And why roll around in the clouds?
And around the back the clouds are smoothly shaded, more so than on the front. These clouds look swollen with rain. With work on the back as nice as the front I'm wanting to get this somewhere to show off these different angles.


The figures are cheaper*, so sculpting and paint application aren't top knotch. But the themes are fun, varied and they're bringing out these neat things by going back to the songs created with Vocaloid software. Love-Coloured Hospital Ward's Miku might be kind of woozy in the face (that close up looks like it deserves a stupid caption), but there's plenty of other elements to make the figure lively and interesting. Get Round is small and made of simple shapes, but it's cheerful and with the things it has to offer I'd give as much consideration to displaying it as I would to something large and dramatic.

Oh. Of the Mikumo figures so far, I think I'm gonna be six for six and hunting them down.



*2940yen on amiami, ~£23.20 and after converting that I'm even more pleased with them