Tomopop Review: Sega's 1/6 prize figure Miku Hatsune

3:00 PM on 05.12.2010   |   Call Niero

Miku was running late again. It was generally accepted that she was never on time, but 35 minutes into the shoot and no model was simply unacceptable. The photographer was pacing back and forth across the room muttering to himself. When the door finally burst open and Miku ran into the studio, he was less than pleased. "Oh for the love of god Miku what did you do now?" The photographer hissed, throwing the case he was holding onto the ground. "Blue? BLUE? Your hair is supposed to be teal. We can't shoot like this." Miku tilted her head to the side, a huge smile plastered across her face. "Ummm I guess I just felt like changing it. It's super easy you know, just a little alteration in the coding. I kind of like it this color."

"No. No, we are not shooting this. It's ridiculous to expect me to work this way! CHANGE IT BACK." Miku's face shifted in an instant, the vacant stare and gaping smile replaced by something almost...sinister. "I don't think I will. You know what I think? I think I'm the only person who can do this job. I do believe there are other photographers....unless I am mistaken and you are the only one left?" He shook his head frantically, suddenly scared. He had been told that Miku was dumb as a rock and took instructions like a trained pony. This was not the same Miku at all. "Last time I checked, I was the only Miku Hatsune. Now if you'd like to go out and build another one, be my guest. I'll just wait here until you finish."

"N-no, that won't be necessary. The color is lovely, Miku. Just lovely." He raised the camera to his face, trying to control the trembling in his hands. "Now smile for the camera....."

By now everyone knows Miku Hatsune, so I am going to skip the introduction. There have been many versions of Miku, but most of them have stuck to either 1/8 or 1/7 scale--Sega decided to take a big risk and make a 1/6 version of Miku that was also a prize figure. She cost me all of $34 with EMS shipping from Play-Asia, a pretty nifty price for a figure this big. The question on everyone's mind was how high quality she would be. While no one is expecting Alter-level craftsmanship from this figure, it is also a lot to throw down on a prize figure as they usually cost about 1400 yen.

I had actually unboxed her a few days before we took the shots for this review. What, you expect me to keep her all boxed up for days? Madness, figures must live free! I sadly have to start out on a bit of a sour note, because as I was taking her apart to put back in the box for this shot something awful happened....

Her foot broke! While the right foot is attached with 2 pegs the left is only attached with one, so there is a lot of stress on it. This is exacerbated by the fact that her foot is lifted up, pretty much applying all of the weight from that side onto the tip of her foot. Thankfully there is a separate support for her hair or she would be a major leaner. As it is I simply glued her back together and am going to put a small wedge under her heel so that her leg is better supported, but watch out when you try to take her out of the base! I very much recommend putting her on it and leaving her be.

Now that the sad part is out of the way, on to the review! All of these photos were actually shot before I glued her back together and she stayed up just fine for the hour or so that it took to take them all. Notice that her other foot doens't even fit all the way on the pegs--be prepared to do a bit of fixing up for this lady!

The main question is if she is worth the bit of extra work. Well as you can see, she is really quite lovely! Her sculpt in particular is superb--while they skimped a bit on paint quality, the sculpt is up to par with non-prize figures. I also like the change to her hair color. While the teal is nice, the shade of blue they picked for this figure is definitely more up my alley. It is, however, a totally different color than the box shots. Her actual coloring is a lot brighter which again, I prefer over the original shots.

One place Sega did not skimp on in terms of quality is her face. It is ridiculously adorable, and a bit more lively than the expressions we have seen on previous Miku figures. The eye decals are perfectly applied, as are the cute little blush marks under them. Her mouth is actually sculpted and painted, not just a slapped on decal. And she has...a nose! You cannot really tell from the front, but from the side it is actually almost regularly sized. A lot of Japanese figures tend to forget that women do indeed have noses. 

You can see that the paint on other areas is not perfect, like at the top of her sleeve, but it is certainly not unbearably messy. Up close it is a bit noticeable, but when viewing her on a shelf the paint looks perfect.

Miku's pose is great from the back. She is more simplistic looking because of the lack of a tie, but with her hand to her ear like that it looks like she is grroving out. You can tell that even from this far away, which is still pretty close, the paint looks pretty damn nice. There is a light gloss on all of her clothing, but nothing is overly glossy so it balances very well.

Group shots make for awesome size comparisons. When I first ordered Miku I did not believe that she was really going to be 1/6 scale. A few companies tend to exaggerate the scale of their figures to stir up interest and also to bump up profits a bit. But as you can tell from this shot, she is indeed 1/6! Next to her is the 1/7 Max Factory Miku and then the 1/8 Good Smile Company CM Ver. Miku. Sega's Miku does have a very different hair color, and her twintails really balance the chunkiness of the MF version and the hollowness of the GSC version quite well. Not too fat, not too thin, just the way twintails should be!

Though the quality is obviously higher in the MF and GSC versions, I have a confession to make. I vastly prefer the sculpt of Sega's Miku. Why? Because of the motion conveyed in her pose. Her clothing looks like it is flowing with her movement, especially at the edges of her skirt and the tie. The other Mikus are rather flat in this area, and their clothing is almost stiff. Sega's Miku has a great sense of organic motion.

Here is a closeup of the stand that holds her hair. It is really not that visible from the front and serves its purpose relatively well. However, her right twintail does not fit entirely in to the slot meant to support it and tends to fly out completely when you move her around. Then again her hair is not really that heavy, it just needs a bit of a lift because it is not fully attached to her head. 

As I said previously, paint on Miku is far from perfect. Thankfully the biggest flaw is tucked out of site. They apparently forgot to paint part of her shirt, near the back where it meets her collar. There's a weird gap of pale gray going on there, but it is in a rather hidden location. Something like this on the front of her shirt would have been devastating, but in the back like this it's a flaw I can live with. 

On the other hand, her headphones and the panel on her sleeve are very well done. The paint on the top of the sleeve is a bit sloppy as previously noted, but considering that companies like Alter and Good Smile Company have made similar errors on figures in the past it does not really bother me. I love that her nails are not only sculpted but also painted--while Miku almost always has painted nails, I thought they might skip a detail like this on a prize figure. They really went all out with Miku, and she has all of the standard Miku-esque features one would expect. 

Miku's hair is sparsely sculpted in terms of detail, but that seems to be the tradition with Miku figures. The shading is actually quite nice though. A bit heavy-handed at time, but there is enough contrast to keep her twintails from being giant blobs. There is also a lot of motion in her hair, you can tell that she is dancing about on stage--something I felt was lacking in previous takes on Miku. 

Oh noes Miku upskirt! Once again Miku is wearing simple white panties--must they always ignore that she wears super cute blue striped pantsu? Sadly the underside of her skirt got the short end of the stick when it came to painting, it's pretty sloppy. Then again the only time you ever see it is when trying to get a peek at her pantsu, so maybe it's Sega's way of saying "hey her eyes are up here!" 

Since Miku is a performer, and we just happened to be in a music studio, Stephen and I decided to do something new and play around with lighting and color a bit. As a result there are a bit more end-of-review artsy shots this time, but I just couldn't resist putting them in. 

All of that was accomplished with a tripod, a flashlight, some sheets of paper and a little red light shaped like a frog I found on my mom's keychain. So if you can't afford a fancy lighting setup, or even a cheap one, don't worry. You can do some spiffy stuff with items laying around the house! I also got to be in charge of lighting (aka I got to hold paper in front of the flashlight and spotlight it on Miku) which was definitely a change of pace for me. My job is usually to stand around and say things like "don't forget to take detail shots of the ruffles!" or "hey did you get that pic of her butt?"

Back to talking about the figure! So how do I think Miku stacks up against other figures? Pretty well when all is said and done. Sure, her quality is less than perfect, but for $34 shipped I was actually expecting much worse. Miku definitely exceeded my expectations, especially with the amount of work put into her sculpt. If you can manage to find her floating around for sale (she was sold out everywhere I looked!) I do indeed recommend picking her up to add to your collection. 

And on a final note, thanks as always to Stephen Donaldson for being my photographer for this shoot and also a special thanks goes out to my dad for letting us invade his music studio with figures for a few hours. You're the best, Dad! No for real my dad is the best, he loves anime and makes music and plays video games. I know, you all wish he was your dad too. 

Ahem...don't forget to check out all the extra pics in the gallery--it's especially worth it this time as I could not include all the fancy pics in the review!