Tomopop Review: CM's Corporation's Arale Norimaki

4:00 PM on 12.19.2011   |   Brian Szabelski

CM's Corporation is a Japanese figure company that we've posted about many times before, but frankly, we haven't had a chance yet to review many of their figures. Part of that, perhaps, had to do with the figures that they were releasing not being in franchises we were going crazy over at the time, and part of that was because some of them were, like Holo, really expensive.

Sometimes, though, you get just the right mix, like with their Arale Norimaki figure. Everyone's favorite little android from Dr. Slump (who had a cameo appearance or two in Dragonball as well) has been made into a poseable figure and I've gotten my hands on her. Can she possibly compete with figmas or Revoltechs, or is she another Full Puni waiting to happen? Read on to find out!

Figure Name: Dr. Slump Arale-chan Mecha Collection: Arale Norimaki
Figure Maker: CM's Corporation
Retail Value: ¥3,800
Available at: HobbyLink Japan

Well, here's the box to start things off! Arale, as you can see, featured prominently on the box, and the front features a window that shows off Arale and her different faces. Very simple, but effective.

The back of the box has several pictures of Arale, as well as the instructions for assembling the bases and switching out her faces. Notably, it's for putting together the Nchaa Cannon pose you'll see later, but these instructions can be applied elsewhere.

As you can see, she comes with a lot, so let's get going!

Arale is a rather small figure, about Nendoroid-sized if not slightly larger. Considering she's supposed to be an android of a little girl, it fits. I've kind of described her as being a mixture of a Revoltech/figma and a Nendoroid, as she kind of has the features of both.

The outward sculpt is fantastic; there's not a lot of detail to pore over here, but her hair is nicely sculpted, her aviator's helmet is detailed perfectly and looks amazing, and the scale of her limbs is 100 percent correct when matched up with Akira Toriyama's illustrations.

Oh, and she does stand well enough on her own if you pose her right, which is a very nice thing to note.

That smile ... so adorable! CM's have sculpted Arale in such a manner that she looks like she was yanked out of my TV screen ... or in other words, she looks just as she does in Arika Toriyama's illustrations. The glasses did rub a bit on the face, but the marks are removable and you don't really notice them when she's put together because her glasses hide them. I think it's attributable to just moving around a bit in the box during shipping and some rubbing going on there. If I have to knock them for anything, it's that.

Likewise, her outfit is as it should appear. There's the tiniest bits of paint bleed on the buckle but it's nothing too drastic. Again, props to CM's for getting this dead-on.

Now, sadly, I do have to bring up one glaring issue, and that's the seam on her head from where it comes apart so you can switch faces. On my figure, it doesn't quite line up as it should and the result is what you see above on the left side. It's better on the right side of Arale slightly, but it is a bit disappointing to see this. Speaking of her head ...

I'll give CM's credit where it's due: the actual process of changing her head is not that bad. Everything does slide into place and the earphones on her aviator's helmet — which hold everything in place — come off smoothly. It's a different method than described on the box because I didn't yank her head off her body, but it works just as well once you get it going. Ignore the fact that I didn't remove her head first because I had trouble getting the peg to separate from the body and was worried about it breaking.

Her head and shoulders have these pseudo-Revoltech joints on them that don't lock in place like those do (actually, maybe they're pseudo-figma joints?), but the rest of her joints are really just simple ones held together by pins or ball and socket joints. That's actually a big advantage, because they don't have that "Will it break if I press too hard?" feel I often sense with figmas and Revoltechs.

Since Arale is poseable ... you know what that means, right? Time for the Tomopop Box Pose Challenge! First up, a basic number:

Yep, here she is, saying hi. You can see her right hand has been replaced with a hand that's bent at the wrist. The sculpting on the hand is fine, and each hand style comes as a complete set, so there's also a left hand that's mirrored but otherwise identical.

I'll give it a passing grade on his pose, with the only problem being her helmet and hair combine to kind of limit how high you can get her shoulder. Rather, it did limit me when I tried; perhaps you'll have a better experience. Still, it's pretty close.

Before you ask ... yes, that is poo. It's name is Unchi-kun, thank you very much, and he's a character from Dr. Slump. Again, the pose here is pretty much like it is on the box, so another pass. In her right hand, though, you can see a stick (which is good for poking Unchi-kun). Yes, it's an accessory, as is the set of fists that let you put the stick in her hand like she's holding it.

Here's Arale's excited face! Again, it's like they managed to take Toriyama's style and recreate it perfectly in figure form. I'm very impressed.

This is the best pose, though. Arale skipping along, huge grin on her face. I mean, just look at it ... how can you possibly hate this figure? Again, the helmet keeps the shoulders down a bit lower than where they should be, but it's otherwise spot on. Pass #3.

Additionally, you can see that for this pose, she requires her base. The base does have to be assembled, but it feels pretty sturdy and is made from clear plastic PVC. About the only problem is that it's so rigid it can be hard to get into place the first time you do it. However, once it's in there, it's snug as a bug and Arale is not going to fall over.

Do I really need words to tell you how good Arale's big grinning face looks? Just look at that picture and you tell me.

Finally, though, we move on to the biggest pose of them all ...

The Nchaa Cannon, Arale's secret weapon! She is an innocent-looking android, after all, so she has to have one for totally comedic effect. The cannon's blast and the "Nchaa!" sound effect sit atop their own stand that lines up pretty well with Arale. Yes, they included the sound effect as an accessory; just the attention to detail of including something like this really shows you how much CM's Corporation thought about this figure.

As you can also tell, that "Nchaa!" in the background is super-reflective.

Here's Arale's Nchaa Cannon firing face. Again, looks like Toriyama's drawings. Getting her in the pose itself was not a problem (though this face is larger than the others, so you can't move her head around as much). So that's 4 for 4 on the Box Pose Challenge.

So is she worth it? The answer is ... well, it depends on if you're a fan or Arale, Dr. Slump and/or Akira Toriyama. Those are the people that will get the most out of this figure. For me, personally, that's a yes, but overall, I think it's a very impressive figure from CM's Corporation, though one that does have some of the flaws of both a Nendoroid and a Revoltech figure. I think given all she comes with, her price isn't unreasonable, the sculpt is damn near perfect in relation to Toriyama's original character design (though some of the figure mechanics could have been better) and she's just a fun figure to have around.

Better yet, Arale is a new friend for Yotsuba to play with and keep her out or trouble ...

... Oh hell no.

[Thanks to HobbyLink Japan for providing this review sample!]