So, the final three Vampire Savior gashapon series 3A figures.
Zabel is a petite zombie punk chick with a guitar that's as tall as her. She's made of about 7 or 8 pieces total, and they all fit together at well-hidden points. She's a good example of the real artistry of the set, as she doesn't use the typical top-heavy body sculpt that seems to pervade chick action figures as a whole.
Her accessorization is probably the most interesting point. First, her guitar is as well made as any other action figure guitar I've ever seen - Oz, Floyd, Otto, Wolfinica. Every fret is painted, it's assembled mid-neck perfectly, and it has orange detailing that fades into yellow beautifully. She also has a spiked dog collar that fits loosely onto her neck. Finally, she has a teensy cigarette. Now, the cigarette was an item of mystery for me, but eventually my 183 IQ matched up that the hole in Zabel's face served a purpose. It only took me 15 years to figure out the same thing about my very own face-hole. The cigarette came on a large black frame with no label, which it had to be snipped off from using a razor. It was only upon very careful inspection that I realized that the tiny speck inside the black frame was painted like a cigarette - not even the accompanying picture had a cigarette pictured in it.
So, the cigarette goes into the hole. The hole is a bit out of place, lying a touch above her mouth, but it's not that evident. The cigarette can be shoved in with a bit of force, but don't play with it. People who smoke should have cigarettes shoved into them in every available hole anyhow, and when they run out of holes, the little cancer nails should be shoved into every non-hole. My hatred of being subjected to cigarette smoke has reached an truly demonic level of sociopathy towards smokers. And people in capri pants. Or who talk loudly on cellphones in Japanese restaurants. Or people with... mouths. I don't love people. No accessory has ever had more of a chance of getting lost forever. If this falls, it will become one with the rug and your infinite sadness.
The figure is in scale with the rest of the line so far, and it's a great sculpt. Orange hair spiked backwards, matte purple clothing and matte white skin that's dusted blue. Like any quality figure, the clothing details are sculpted on, and not just painted on. It's a contrapposto pose, (he says, reflecting upon his 4 years of art history education), and with the weight of the guitar pegged into her hand, she has a black disc base that she can be plugged into for much-needed standing support.
Overall, it's a fun, cute display piece that's among the top 3 in the set, which is pretty stellar so far. Unfortunately, we have to head into the last 2 figures, which aren't so neat.
Next comes Victor, as in Frankenstein. Except, like, as a musclebound chick. Generally, the simpler the assembly and the larger the parts, the less neat the figures are, and the assembly here is quite simple.
This is, more or less, a filler figure in the set. It's smaller than the other figures and out of scale, and it's only remotely female. The pieces are few and the assembly is as slick as ever, but the pose does a good job of almost completely obscuring the face. It lacks a lot of the delicacy and the pleasant subtlety of the other figures - few fabric details, bizarre pose, and overall kinda blocky and oddly proportioned. It's far from my usual aesthetic preferences - but it may fall well within yours, should you collect monsters or transexuals.
The paint details also have a lot less attention - the yellow in the hair and on some tattooed details is really slopped on, and there's a dab of white on the nose that won't go away. The skin highlights are only on the torso, and the exposed arm is a different color. Neat, though, is the unusual base, which is a segment of checkerboarded floor, covered with metal nuts and bolts, as well as a translucent blue crystal. It makes up a scene, which kind of makes up for the lack of detail in the figure itself.
For my money, the best female Frankenstein monster (you know, in the vast array that we have to choose from. Lord almighty, when will the companies realize that they're just warming shelves?) is Frankensteela. I like Frankenstinian things. It's a tale of a tragic quest for humanity and invention, madness and bolt-headedness. This is tragic in some very different ways.
AND finally, Bishamon, the obligatory frustrating samurai. AND because this is a Japanese figure, I can tell that it's a female, as she's wearing tiny white panties. Amazing. It's like clockwork. You could set a nuclear timer by the Japanese proclivity towards tiny white panties. It ensures that carbon atoms will always have the proper number of electrons. They're not gonna go all boron on you for no reason... because of tiny white panties.
[terror!
horror! boron!]
I have the same complaints as with the last figure - rough painting, awkward shape. The assembly on this one was the most difficult, as she has a bunch of small armor panels that really don't want to be attached to her. Adding to the difficulty is a torso piece with no clear up or down. It's six-pack of abs without direction or purpose, and legs that are too large to fit in the prescribed holes with any kind of sensible force. Now, take all of that and combine it with the fact that this is the only semi-articulated figure of the line, having ball-jointed shoulders and hips. Mostly, moving the arms and legs will pop off the aforementioned panels or the arms themselves.
God, it's like seeing [insert muscular hunk-o'-man of your preference] in a thong. It's really unsettling.
You know you're not into for a pleasant ride when the figure's sword is sculpted into his / her hand (a la Samurai Spawn's Lotus). Once again, a black disc base helps the figure stand. And... bah. It's lame. It's grody. It's the polar opposite of cool. Totally boron, man. Boron, the lamest of all of the elements. Even yttrium beats the snot out of it daily, and it's a freakin' LANTHANIDE metal. JEEZ, boron, get some balls.
In the end, I'm not sure if this review was more a criticism of the figure or of boron (the pathetic element, as I like to call it), and I hope that more articles end in this fashion. Not enough is said about boron.
In conclusion, the set is well worth purchasing for four of the six figures. For those of us who don't mind a little non-articulation and can appreciate that Warholian leap to fine art of pop-culture sculpture, they're a whole new world of quality collecting. As an accredited doctor of Nerdology, I prescribe you gashapon. Call me in the morning if symptoms persist.
Click HERE for part one of the Vampire Saviour 3 Gashapon Review! Again! Cause it was that good!
...and buy them (and things like them) here!
