DC’s Huntress is getting a lot of attention this year. She’s got her own thing going with Power Girl in World’s Finest. She finally got a figure released in the DCUC style, DC Collectibles has shown off her forthcoming entry in the Cover Girls of the DC Universe line, and of course Koto immortalized her in PVC in their Bishoujo line. It’s that last one that we’re here to look at today. It’s been over a month since I last featured a statue here on FFZ, so let’s go…
If you know the Bishoujo statues, then the style of packaging here should come as no surprise. Huntress comes in a satisfyingly large white box with plenty of the original artwork by Shunya Yamashita. There’s a window on the front panel with smaller windows on the top and side panel to let some light in. Of course, the statue comes wrapped in plastic and nestled between two plastic trays, so you won’t get the full effect of this piece unless you open her up and unwrap her.
The back of the box has a little copy about Huntress herself and a photo of the actual statue from front and back. Oh, look, Harley is also available. That’s one that is still missing from my collection. I’ll have to fix that sooner or later. The statue comes already attached to her base, all you need to do is put her staff in her hands. You carefully pull it apart and feed it through her hands and re-attach. Now we’re ready to check her out.
Oh, myyyy. Huntress is one sexy statue and rather than beat around the bush, I’ll just go ahead and say I think she’s some of this line’s best work to date. The coloring, the sculpt, it’s all so amazing! I don’t know where to begin, so let’s just start with the pose. Huntress is doing her best imitation of The Captain Morgan Stance, with one foot propped up on her base. Her butt is thrust out to the back and she’s clutching the staff with both hands. Gulp! Her right hand crosses under her chest to help prop up her ample ta-ta’s and her head looks slightly down with a rather sly grin. And now, I’m going to take a moment to spritz a little cool water on my face. What can I say? Huntress does it for me.
While this is certainly not an action pose, Koto managed to convey a wonderful amount of kineticism in the cape and hair. Sure, a lot of Bishoujo statues have windblown hair, but here the garment and hair work together to create a great level of energy in this piece. Also the way she’s holding her staff makes her look like she’s either about to receive an attack, or perhaps she’s just bested some thugs and is pausing to admire her handiwork. Either way, the pose here is just an amazing blend of posturing an action.
I really dig the portrait here. Sure, it’s fairly typical bishoujo fare, but the hair is truly well done, particularly the way her bangs hang down over her mask. As always the paint apps on the face are perfect.
The detailing and coloring on her costume is also superb. The glossy black and metallic purple look fantastic against her pale matte skin tones and there’s just a little bit of white to make the figure pop. The costume includes sculpted pouches around her hips and thighs, belts and buckles on her boots, and knee armor. Even the treads on her boots are sculpted even though you can’t really see them other than from the side. I love when the sculptors put that kind of attention into those minor little details! If you want me to level one gripe against this piece, it’s that the absence of her trusty crossbow feels rather conspicuous, but the pose with the staff is so well balanced, there’s really no place for it, unless they sculpted it hanging on her hip.
Huntress’ base is a simple black disc with a nicely sculpted gargoyle. There’s not much more to say. The gargoyle offers a little bit of environmental context and I’m glad the base is not clear. It’s also designed to match well with Bishoujo Batgirl’s gargoyle base. My only complaint here is that Koto really seems to be making these stands a bit too large. Huntress really eats up a lot of shelf space for a 1:7 scale statue.
When Huntress was first released earlier this year, my local comic shop sold out of her before I could make the trip up. As a result, I had this statue in my Amazon Wish List for a couple of months before finally seeing that she dropped below $50 and pulling the trigger. In retrospect, the fact that I waited so long seems crazy, because she truly is so damn amazing. It was a little tough to muscle her in, as my statue shelves are getting a little congested, but I was happy to rearrange things a bit so she can stand beside Power Girl as companion pieces.
FigureFan Zero 
I have no idea who she is, but…well…that’s a nice plastic butt.
LOL! She’s the daughter of Batman and Catwoman from Earth-Two. Of course that is depending on which continuity you follow.
Mmm, I should have more interest in the DC universe… Very interesting characters…
I have this statue and I mostly love it and agree with you, but something about the position of her outstretched arm reads Wrong on the anatomy standpoint from certain angles (I think the fourth picture down here shows what I’m talking about; it’s something to do with the position of the elbow relative to the lower arm), and that’s always bugged me lol. I can forgive it though, because everything else in it is SO nice and it pairs so well with Batgirl to frame any other collectibles you have on the shelf between them (now all I need is a Black Canary figure to go between them to complete my “Birds of Prey” display! Not a joke I might add, the Black Canary figures from this line are FANTASTIC, with excellent sculpts and fabulous posing, I ACHE for them, but alas, poor wallet, I knew ye well…)
I also feel like, as someone who owns this one, I should give fair warning for anybody picking her up on secondary market: THAT STAFF IS SO FREAKING FRAGILE!
Only buy this figure if you KNOW it’s never been removed from the box, pretty much, or at least, if you can SEE the staff separated to know that the original peg system is still intact to pop it together, trust me. This is because the staff’s construction – particularly being so thin and in multiple pieces, but really, the peg system combined with that – makes it VERY break-prone. I mean, like, VERY.
We’ve knocked her over a whopping twice (I was dumb enough to sit her on the edge on top of a low shelf in a high-traffic area, what can I say?) and BOTH times the staff broke – and the first time it fell, it snapped the peg INSIDE it, too (so that it not only broke off from the side it had been on, but got STUCK inside the other half!) so we couldn’t just pop it back in, and had to literally GLUE it back…which becomes increasingly hard to do if it breaks more than once, too (which it absolutely will if you knock it over EVER again in your entire life), and it is just…it’s really hard to fix and it’s THE most fragile part of this thing.
Literally, the entire statue was fine being knocked over and falling maybe three feet onto a tile floor, TWICE (well, okay, she separated from the base one of those times but that was a LOT easier to fix)…except that darn staff, which broke apart immediately,and I do mean immediately, and in a way that made it much harder to fit back together.
The only upside of how the staff is made, is that it’s 100% reposition-able in her hand – honestly it’s pretty easy to fudge the positioning to hide repairs if you really needed to, or in our case, to just give up the ghost and let it be a “shorter” staff, and move it down a little.
(So uh, plus side: if you’re the type who can make replacement pieces or is excellent at repairing fiddly bits like that, or you don’t mind her staff being “shorter”, you could probably pick up a damaged version of the figure for pretty cheap with most of her intact? Pft)
Anyway, I still enjoy this figure (weird elbow position aside),and I got it for a really nice price point even a few years after its release (I paid no more for it than it I did for the first Wonder Woman statue from the same line, which I got NEW for $65 and which now seems to frequently hit $200+ on the secondary market, so I’m calling this a steal); but the fragility of the staff has been truly frustrating, and I do feel collectors looking to pick her up should be WELL aware of that, and not only be very careful to buy provably undamaged versions only (or to ask for discount otherwise), but also treat her VERY carefully and NOT position her where she’s liable to easily knocked over AT ALL, ever. She’s perfectly stable on her own, but that cape likes to be snagged, and you do NOT want her falling.