Nekomiya Nono was released two years ago in August of 2008, and was manufactured by Kotobukiya who always seems to do their best work on larger scale figures. Nekomiya falls into that category as she is 1/6 scale, which just so happens to be my favorite scale for figures. Why? Well 1/8 sometimes seems too small, and 1/5 is just a bit too big to display in most situations. 1/6 is just right!

Nekomiya comes in pretty standard packaging, nothing fancy but the box is a nice shade of green which keeps it from being boring. There is a picture of the art the figure was based on located on the back of the box. A lot of changes were made from the art thankfully, as in the original she looked distressed and a bit upset. I don't really go for the damsel in distress look, so I am very pleased that they changed her expression and pose so that she looks far more playful. 

Nekomiya's scale is a bit deceiving. Even though she is indeed 1/6, she is a very small character so her height is closer to a 1/7 figure. However, she is about 9.36" high, which puts her "real" height at about 4'8" which is a reasonable size for an adolescent loli. If she was 1/7, that would put her at about 5'4" which seems a bit much for someone in her age group who lives in Japan, where the average height of females is only 5'2". So yes, Nekomiya is definitely 1/6 scale! 

Nekomiya is insanely adorable. That was the motivating factor behind me buying her, as I am a sucker for all things cute, and she is about as cute as you get. Her big eyes are perfectly done and just ooze adorableness, and the stylized blush adds a touch of whimsy to her face. Nekomiya has this wonderful sense of innocence, which is hard to find on a bathing suit figure. 

From the back you can see the shading on the back of her swimsuit, which gives the "fabric" a great worn look. You can really imagine her having worn the same one for years and years until it became thin and stretched out. You can also tell how long her tail is from the back. Usually catgirl figures have short-ish tails when compared to actual felines, but Nekomiya's would definitely reach to the floor if held straight down. 

Okay, I could just die from the cuteness. Seriously, she is holding her tail and it has a little tuft! Not to mention the ribbons, which I am a total sucker for as well. Painting on Nekomiya is very well done, surprisingly so for a figure from 2008. Sure, it was not so long ago, but figures have vastly improved since then. Nekomiya is well done even by today's standards. Her one flaw is with seam lines. In most places they are well hidden, but there is a long one down her tail. It is pretty hard to see unless you are up close because it runs on the underside for the most part, but you can see a bit of it underneath the ribbons in the image above.

I love the little tufts in her ears! Catgirls usually have rather plain ears, but Nekomiya's are quite intricate. The bells are a great touch, and they really look like they could jingle if you shook her. However, they are definitely made of plastic so don't actually try this! Her hair has a lot of shading, and it is rather dramatically done like in the art. The tips are a deep brown but the top of her hair is a pale, almost blonde color. This matches the art and adds a nice stylized look to the figure, so it is definitely not a negative!

There are also ribbons trailing out from the bells on her head. Nekomiya is pretty ribbon-tastic! They are made of stiff enough plastic so that they hold their shape, even after 2 years. It is nice to know when a figure will hold up well over time, as occasionally trailing parts that are made out of soft plastic will actually lose their shape and droop a bit.

I love that she has what appears to be one pigtail instead of two. It's a cute, eccentric touch that adds a lot of character to the figure. There are a several touches like that, like the ribbons on her arm, that are quite unusual but definitely fit well with what I imagine her character to be like. 

More ribbons! The ones on her arm are perfectly painted with absolutely no overlap with her skin.  They are a lovely shade of pearlescent pink that really stands out against her skin. Nekomiya has a nice variety of paint finishes: her bathing suit is mostly matte with a faint shimmer, the ribbons are pearlescent, the bells are metallic, and her socks are a reflective, shiny white. 

Just in case you were wondering, that is not a giant seam line on her shoulder. She has very angular shoulders and the light tends to hit it in a way that creates a fake seam line. She has no seams that I could see aside from the seams on her tail and some fainter ones on her leg. 

Can you say painfully adorable? 'Cause the way Nekomiya is pulling down her swimsuit is just that. The folds are very well sculpted, and combined with the painting real give the illusion of real fabric. I think a gesture like this could easily be coy or sexy on another figure, but Nekomiya just looks cute and innocent. 

The box says that she is wearing over-knee socks, so even though they look like thigh-high stockings I am going to go with the sock thing as it is just much more adorable. I wonder why she is wearing a bathing suit and socks? She is probably in the middle of changing, but with that pose it looks like she is just kind of hanging out like that. Poor Nekomiya, we took her to the beach but she couldn't go in the water with socks on! She had to hang out under the trees.

Nekomiya has a really awesome base. I usually don't care much for bases, as they tend to be plain plastic circles, and as long as they don't take up too much space I do not care one way or the other. Nekomiya's base is a little large, and is definitely wider than she is, but it is so cool looking that I don't really mind. 

Nekomiya's swimsuit has a faint shimmer in the paint, so it looks a bit wet. Maybe she is getting dressed after swimming? The folds on the back are well done, and there are just enough to create a sense of motion without detracting from the sleek look of her outfit. Skin tones on Nekomiya are a bit inconsistent, even though they are well done, and some parts of her (like her back) are a bit darker than other parts (like her arms). Usually these parts are far away from each other so that you cannot tell when just looking at her, but it is evident when going through pictures. It is not really something that bothers me as I never see her from the back, and that is really the only area that is visibly darker.

The flow of her tail is one of my favorite things about this figure. It curls all the way around her body and gives a wonderful sense of motion to a pretty static figure. Even though she is really just standing there, Nekomiya's pose is anything but boring. The little tilt of her head, her hand clutching her tail, the gentle pull on her swimsuit, her inwardly angled knees, and the flow of her tail really make this an interesting figure to look at. 

Nekomiya Nono is a fantastic figure that really stands up to the test of time. Aside from some minor issues with seamlines and skin tones, she is up to par with modern day releases. The sculpting and coloring are both fantastic, and she is by far the cutest figure in my collection. She is also still relatively easy to get, and a quick search of her name on eBay gives several results for brand-new ones in the $65 range, which is not bad considering that her retail price was 5800 yen. There are also no bootlegs of her, so you do not need to worry about getting fakes! I got mine on Mandarake for a lot less (3500 yen, or about $50 after shipping), so if you are patient you can probably get her for much cheaper than eBay prices!

Thanks as always to the awesome Stephen Donaldson for taking these pictures. They were actually done quite some time ago-- remember the mystery fourth shoot from the day we did 4? Yup, that was Nekomiya! She's a bit of a procrastinator, but how can you get mad at that face?