I think this is the fifth straight week of DC Fridays focusing on statues. I’ve looked at a Bishoujo, a couple of Femme Fatales, a couple of DC Cover Girls, and now I’m circling back around to Koto’s Bishoujo line for one last DC statue before moving back to some DC action figures next Friday. Black Canary is one of the newer releases in Koto’s DC Bishoujos and one I’ve been anxiously awaiting…

Canary comes in a standard window box, mostly white with some lovely artwork from Shunya Yamashita. As always the packaging is collector friendly and you can get a good peek at the statue inside to see what you’re getting. The back panel has a little blurb about Dinah and teases the Raven Bishoujo, which I already looked at quite a few weeks back. I keep all of these boxes, but thirty-some statues in, that’s getting to be difficult with space being what it is. I fear the day may be coming where I have to toss the inserts and flatten out the boxes for storage. Anyway, Black Canary comes out of the box fully assembled and ready for display…

…and looking mighty fine, I might say. I’ll concede that the composition here is a strange choice. Canary stands with legs apart, her left hip tossed to the left and she appears to be stretching while she glances off to the side. Maybe she’s limbering up for a particularly potent Canary Cry? This line has never been about action poses, so actually having her shouting might have been too off point, but at the same time, I don’t think this pose says anything relative about the character. It’s not a bad pose at all, but it kind of strikes me as the art director not quite knowing what to do with her.

Of course the figure itself is beautifully executed. Canary dons a black one piece with black leather half-jacket, black choker, a pair of high heeled buccaneer boots and short black gloves. And yes… fishnets! Koto has been on a real fishnet kick in this line lately with other recent releases like Zatanna and Anna Williams from the Tekken line donning these types of stockings. They look magnificent from the front or sides, and while they do have the usual seam running up the backs, but they are still relatively tidy. It’s pretty cool the way they seem to disappear into her boots. In terms of sculpting on the costume, you get your usual assortment of rumples and wrinkles and some nice stitching lines.

The portrait is standard Bishoujo fare, in other words great stuff. Canary has her head cocked downward and she’s gazing off to the side with one eye winking. She’s got a rather distinctive, wide closed-lip smile. Her long blonde hair flows off wildly to the left. I don’t think I’ve noted this for a while, but it seems like Koto is done with the transparency effect they used to use at the edges of the hair. Canary doesn’t have it and I don’t recall seeing it done in a while.

The coloring on this piece is as simple as it gets. Her entire outfit is black, save for the silver painted zipper on the jacket and the circular medal on her choker. There’s also no use of high gloss here, so you don’t get the usual impact of the soft skin tones contrasting with the pop of the outfit. That having been said, the paint is all spot on, particularly on the face, which is razor sharp. The hair is bright, but appropriately soft.

The base is a mystery to me. It looks like it’s supposed to be rippling water, blue in the center and gradually radiating out to clear at the edges. I’d argue that it might supposed to show the soundwaves radiating through water from her Canary Cry, but she isn’t doing it. It’s not an unattractive base, but it makes little sense in this context. I think I would have preferred a simple disk.

If it sounds like I’ve been pretty critical of this statue, that shouldn’t be taken as a sign that I don’t like it. Quite the contrary. I’ve yet to be disappointed by this series and that record still stands. Black Canary is a great piece, but she lacks that certain something that makes each and every release in this line so amazing. From a technical standpoint, the paint, the sculpt… everything is spot on perfect and the costume is wonderfully designed. I think the pose and the base are the only stutter steps here, and even those are perfectly serviceable. Ah, but the great thing about this line is when you aim so high, if you miss your mark, you’re still doing pretty great. It’ll be interesting to see which DC lady Koto goes to next. Personally, I’m hoping they decide to revisit Supergirl soon.