I had honestly planned to mix things up for today’s Anime Saturday and do something different, but then I got this Battleship Princess from Taito and couldn’t wait to open her up. Still, it’s sort of different, because in the unending parade of KanColle figures that I’ve featured here, I’ve only looked at one other Abyssal figure, and that was the Airfield Princess by Furyu way back in May.
Enclosed boxes are still the order of the day for Taito’s prize figures. Gone, however, are the cheery colors of the Fleet Girls’ boxes as here we have a more sinister black and red deco that better suits the evil Abyssal Fleet. There’s a little more English on the package than we usually get, a nice big Kantai Collection logo on the front panel, and plenty of pictures of the figure inside. This box is also notably bigger than most of the other releases in this line and it weighs a lot more than usual. I’m excited to open her up and see what we’ve got!
Holy hell! Despite how elaborate this piece may look, it requires very little assembly. You get a piece of hose that plugs into the back of Seiki’s neck, next you tab the feet and the other end of the hose into the base. I found that it was impossible to get her right foot to tab in all the way. I may need to shave the tab a bit, but even as it is, she stands fine. It’s also worth noting that Seiki herself is scaled a bit smaller than most of Taito’s Fleet Girls, but that’s understandable given the amount of plastic used for the base. And speaking of the base… I’m going to break my usual formula and start by discussing base first and including some shots of it without the figure.
Obviously, I’m used to seeing plain plastic discs for the bases on these figures, but here we have a sculpted water environment cast in a beautiful translucent blue plastic. The monstrous left hand of the Battleship Water Demon reaches up from the waves while the tip of one of its two heads breaks water surface to the back left, along with one of its triple gun mounts to the back right.
The sculpt on the Water Demon parts is all solid. The hand looks incredible, while the battleship parts are a little more basic and convey the look of rough hammered iron. Apart from the vibrant blue water the design doesn’t offer a lot of colors to work with here, but Taito still did some nice stuff with the paint. The coloring on the head gradually becomes more toward the giant monolithic teeth and the ends of the gun barrels are red, as if running hot from being fired. The effect of these pieces mixed with the translucent water is just fantastic. Moving on to the figure itself…
Seiki stands atop the Water Demon’s hand with her long black hair fanning out around her. In design, she’s slightly less creepy than the Airfield Princess, but only slightly. There is some nice sculpted detail on her black dress, her low plunging neckline shows off her lady battleship parts, and you get her little demon horns protruding from above her chest and her forehead. I really like the sense of scale between the Water Demon’s hand and Seiki, which may be why she appears to be a little smaller than Taito’s other Fleet Girls.
The only coloring here is black and gray with some red accents for her eyes, horns, and some highlights in her hair. You do get a little mix of gloss and matte black, though. The paint is a little more heavy handed than I’m used to seeing on Taito’s work. In fact, this is one of the first times I think the pant quality was vastly superior on the sample used for the box shots. Still, what we got is not bad at all.
I’m totally blown away by this piece! This is a prize figure and to get something so elaborate in this format impresses the hell out of me. Granted, she cost me more than any of my other KanColle prize figures, but at under $30, she still feels like a great deal, and despite a little variance in scale, she displays quite nicely besides my Furyu Airfield Princess.
I would like to know, if posssible, how much did you pay for it? I hesitate to buy her at 26 dollars.
I seem to recall she was right around $26-28
These are awesome figures – especially as there aren’t many scale Abyssal figures (and the few that are out there are very pricey). The best one I have is the beautiful Furyu Wo-class. She’s absolutely stunning for a prize figure. If you don’t have her in the stash, she’s well worth seeking out.