Show & Tell: Mecha Nurse Nana and Triggerheart Exelica

12:00 PM on 06.18.2010   |   Call Niero

For today's Show & Tell we are taking a look at not one but two awesome figures! Why, you ask? Well, they both have purple hair, crazy mech parts, and I ordered them 2 days apart. So they kind of match! Plus, they live on a shelf together. They're BFFs!

This is the part where I am supposed to tell you all about their origin and backstory, but honestly my knowledge on them is pretty limited. Nana is from an illustration drawn by an awesome Japanese guy, and Exelica is from a game where you shoot things in space. I think. So let's skip this part and get right into the good stuff, so hit the jump to check out these two awesome figures!

We have 2 figures to cover today, so we're gonna do them one at a time. First up is the lovely Mecha Nurse Nana, produced by Orchid Seed! I know some of their recent work is iffy, but Nana is a slightly older figure released in mid-2009. I found Nana on Mandarake for only 6000 yen and snatched her up, as you almost never see her up for sale. She took quite a while to get to me, as she took 2 weeks to get to the US and then customs held her for a while, but she was worth the wait! 

There is a kind of funny story behind how I got Nana, or rather about how someone else tried to get her! I commented that I found her for sale finally on Myfigurecollection,  and someone else said that they could never find her. I said you could find her for cheap on Mandarake, and they responded that they had missed one for 6000 yen. They put her in their cart but she was sold out by the time they finished checking out. Well.... it turns out I am the one that snagged her! I can't believe that I was about 30 seconds away from missing this amazing figure!

Nana comes in a lot of pieces, and there are no instructions on how to put her together. I understand not putting them in for simple figures, but Nana had joints! Thankfully I managed to work it out, but it wasn't easy. First you have to put on the backpack, then the joints, then her weird light ring, then all the pieces of the wings, then the gun and her scalpels. She is a cast-off figure, but no way in hell I am ever taking all her parts off! So sorry, guys, no nipples today!

Nana fits so many weird figure cliches it's kind of hilarious. She's a nurse in a swimsuit with huge mechanical parts, has crazy colored hair and twintails, a huge weapon, and cat ears. Not to mention that she is cast-off so she counts as an ero figure. Oh, and she has thigh-high boots on. What more could you possibly ask for? Although she is an all-around awesome figure, the mecha cat ears might be my favorite thing about her. They are just so adorable! 

Nana has scalpels in her underwear/swimsuit bottom! Smutty? Yes! But it's a kind of adorable touch. I mean, she has nowhere else to keep them. Her outfit is surprisingly well done, which is not something I expect for clothing that is meant to be removed. No awkward seamlines, as it opens kind of like a real outfit when you undo the front flap. 

With her needle gun, Nana really reminds me of the Injection Fairy from Yu-Gi-Oh. I love how they filled it with "liquid" so it looks like medicine is sloshing around in there. One of the best things about Nana is how happy she looks to be your nurse. She has that almost demonic "oh this won't hurt a bit" look, but admit it, if your nurse looked like Nana you'd probably be okay with the crazy needle gun. 

Before we move on to Exelica, here is a shot of Nana from the back so you can see how intricate her wings are. The whole backpack ensemble is comprised of 11 parts, including the joints. She also has a clear rod under the backpack holding everything up, but it is hidden by her leg from the front which is nice at it does not detract from her awesomeness.

And now we move onto figure number 2! There is actually a really cute story behind how I acquired Exelica. She had been on my wishlist for a long time, and when she popped up on Mandarake for 2000 yen less than her retail price, I knew I had to have her. Sadly, I had no money! While I was telling my parents about this, my dad offered to get her for me! We have a tradition in my family that when one of the kids finishes a year of school, they get a "graduation" present. I had just finished my junior year of college when I found Exelica, so my parents said she could be my graduation present! Have I ever told you guys about how awesome my parents are? Probably, but let us recap! My dad buys me super expensive figures because he thinks they look awesome, and my mom.... well, she collects figures! I'm not even joking. She got Goddess Elwing for Mother's Day and requested Gwendolyn for her birthday. She also has awesome taste in figures. 

Sometimes I really hate customs. They held Nana for about a week, but Exelica is a whole 'nother story. She got into the US on May 25th, and got to me on Tuesday. This Tuesday. Yeah, that's over 3 weeks. I get that she came from Japan and has to be checked, but for the love of all things that are holy, there is nothing contraband in my plastic figure. Please deliver her to me in a timely fashion. 

Unlike Nana, Exelica actually comes with instructions! And you really, really need them. I would have no clue how to put her together without them. For example, the pieces around her legs are actually 4 separate pieces that you have to take apart, put around her leg, and then put back together in a complicated fashion. The wings on her back come in several pieces, as does her base! Exelica's plastic hell was 3 layers, and each one had about 3-10 parts in it. 

Exelica is a BIG figure. She is only 1/8 scale, but with all the extra parts she is a good 14" high and very, very wide. Part of this massive width is her two gunships. This one alone is larger than most 1/8 scale figures! The gunships are made of light plastic and have metal support rods, so there is literally no chance of them leaning or warping. 

Exelica is a simply superb figure. I expect very high quality from Alter, but Exelica is just jaw-dropping. The intricacy of her outfit is fantastic, and the details are astounding. The paint and sculpt are perfect. Exelica has been one of my favorite figures since I first took her out of the box. 

Exelica has one teeny tiny problem -- she is not screwed into the base! There are no pegs or poles supporting her, she just sits down on a little depression. As a result she is a bit wobbly, so when moving her it is best to take her out of the base and them re-position her. There are a ton of fragile pieces surrounding her, and it would be pretty easy to snap one if she fell off. 

From the back you can really see how intricate Exelica is, as well as how freaking massive her base is. In terms of the space she takes up, Exelica is definitely my biggest figure! However, she is also one of my best, so I do not mind her huge footprint. If anything, her size just makes her more impressive. 

I could probably talk about these two figures all day long, but then you would probably get bored! So here is a shot of them displayed. They are both very large, and they take up a whole detolf shelf! Exelica doesn't even fit in by herself the way she was meant to be displayed, as the gunships take up too much room. I had to put the tall one on her base instead of next to her! Big Sal is in there with them because he has that space-y feel to him. The girls also needed some company! 

I really need to take pics of mine and Stephen's collection one day -- we currently have 3 detolfs filled and an entire bookcase! Funnily enough, every shelf in the detolfs is color-themed except for this one! The bookcase is done thematically, but the colors look so nice together in the glass. However, Exelica and Nana are really deserving of their own detolf shelf! Also, if you don't think these two belong together, here is a true story for you. My mom thought they were from the same series because they look so similar! 

So how do I feel about these figures? Well... I kind of love them. And by kind of I mean I like them so much that every time I walk past the shelf they are on and see them there, I get this big goofy grin on my face. Both are pretty hard to find, but hey, I got them both for under retail 2 days apart! Never give up on your figure dreams!

Thanks to Stephen for taking these pictures, even though he was disappointed with the location. Hey, where else could we take 2 mecha space girls? He wanted to do it on the hood of a car so it would look all black and glossy, but my car has a slanted hood so that would have ended in plastic murder! MECHA PARTS EVERYWHERE. Anyways, check out the gallery for a veritable ton of extra pictures. You know you want to, because these figures were not crafted from PVC, but from PURE AWESOME.