It’s DC Friday again, and also the start of a four day weekend for me. I can’t think of a better way to kick it off than by opening up a brand new Bishoujo statue from Kotobukiya. And oh, look! I happen to have Cassie Sandsmark, aka Wonder Girl, ready to join her fellow Teen Titans Bishoujos!

There isn’t much new for me to say about the presentation here. Wonder Girl comes in a mostly white window box with some of that lovely artwork by Shunya Yamashita. The statue itself comes encased between two clear plastic trays and the package is totally collector friendly. While Cassie comes attached to her base, there is a little bit of assembly required, as her golden lasso must be pegged into both sides of each of her fists. If you own the first Bishoujo Wonder Woman, you know how this works. Although, I’ll confess I had a little trouble getting mine to tab in and I eventually had to shave a little of the tabs to make them fit.

With that out of the way, here she is all set up and looking fantastic. Wonder Girl assumes a wide stance with her chest puffed out and her hands clutching the coils of her golden lasso, which snakes around behind her. All I can say is I really dig the composition here, she’s heroic and flirty, and just an all around perfect fusion of the character and the spirit of the Bishoujo line.

As mentioned, this is Cassandra Sandsmark as Wonder Girl, decked out in the modern costume and boy did Koto go all out on what could have been a fairly pedestrian outfit. The cut off t-shirt features a raised eagle emblem sculpted onto the front of it as well as sculpted borders around the neckline and sleeveless shoulders. The jeans feature a sculpted belt with a “WW” emblem belt buckle, sculpted star patches on the thighs, and flared cuffs mostly concealing her high-heeled boots. Details include little rumples in the shirt and jeans, stitch marks, belt loops, and studs on the pockets.

The coloring here also goes a long way to make this figure pop. The blue on the jeans features some gradations making them look faded in some area and contrasts beautifully with the bright red star patches and the silver luster of the belt buckle and studs. Likewise the sumptuous gold leaf paint compliments the bright red of her shirt perfectly. And as always the skin tone is warm and smooth.

The portrait is classic Bishoujo bliss. Cassie features a broad smirk as her sandy hair dances wildly around her, exposing some metallic red star earrings. Her eyes, eyebrows, and lips are all perfectly painted.

The base is worthy of a lot of praise, not only for its creativity of design, but also for its economy of shelf space. I’ve got over three dozen of these Bishoujos, and some of the larger disc bases can contribute to some pretty bad shelf congestion. Here, you just get three metallic red stars, which take up only as much room as they need to present the figure.

If you can’t tell, I’m totally in love with this statue! With Koto’s Bishoujo line beginning to double dip on some characters like Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn, it’s nice to see that they’re still willing to mine the roster for previously unreleased characters as well. Wonder Girl was a great choice for the line, and I’m actually more than a bit surprised they didn’t get around to her sooner. Indeed, I still wouldn’t mind seeing Donna Troy get the treatment. I picked up this lady for about $40 shipped, which in these days of Bishoujo prices creeping ever upward, is a damn good deal for such a high quality work of art.

It’s another DC Friday and as anxious as I am to dig into Wave 2 of DC Icons, I’m not yet ready to get back just yet. Instead, let’s check out the latest successful attempt by Kotobukiya at hoovering more money right out of my wallet. It’s Raven’s turn to get the Bishoujo treatment!

Not much new to say about the packaging. It’s stylish, shows off the statue inside quite well, and it’s decked out with some beautiful artwork by Shunya Yamashita. The box is collector friendly and the statue comes out all ready to go, you just have to unwrap it. This is the most recent release in the DC Comics Bishoujo line, but I still need to go back and pick up Black Canary. Also, the back of the box teases the next DC release and it’s Harley Quinn v.2 in her New 52 outfit. I’m gonna be down with that.

Raven is absolutely gorgeous! She’s levitating above the display surface with her voluminous cape serving as the base. The last time I remember Koto doing this was way back with Scarlet Witch. I loved the effect then and I still really dig it now. Raven’s left leg is straight with her toe not quite touching the ground and her right leg is cocked up at the knee. Her hands are up with her fingers at the ready to start with the spell-slinging. This is an inspired piece of composition that perfectly captures the spirit of the character.

Raven’s outfit is comprised almost of the same glossy blue plastic, from her cloak to her dress to her gloves, and straight down to her thigh-high boots. The cape itself almost has a life of its own, as it cascades off her shoulders in a serpentine fashion and collects on the ground. It doesn’t offer a hell of a lot of variety in terms of colors, but it still looks lovely and the metallic gold belt and cloak clasps help to break things up a bit and add a bit of pop. The cloak itself is fairly chunky, it has to be to hold her up, but her torso is sculpted so that you can readily see the contours of her body under her costume, right down to her belly button, suggesting that the dress is pretty thin. Raven shows a little bit of skin, mostly in the thighs and under the arms, and I like that the thigh cuts in the boots are part of the sculpt. And, of course, the cloak shifts conveniently to one side to offer a decent glimpse of tushie fan service. Just don’t let Trigon catch you looking! As always the skin tones are soft and lifelike.

This piece also features one of the more concealed portraits of the Bishoujo line. In the past, even with masked characters like Spider-Woman or Batwoman, we were given alternate unmasked portraits. Granted, here, you can see the entire face, but it’s guarded by the overhanging hood and the front of the cloak between the golden clasps with a little bit of visible hair framing her cheeks. Now don’t get me wrong, this is a splendid portrait. Raven sports a particularly mischievous smirk on her perfectly painted lips and the green paint used for her eyes is positively haunting. I would have loved to see an alternate portrait with the hood pulled back and the hair flowing free, but what’s here is still plenty good. Seriously, Koto usually loves to go crazy on the hair sculpts. This one must have frustrated the hell out of them.

While using the cape as a base is an inspired idea and works beautifully, it does in this case limit the range of the “sweet spots” for display. Some of my favorite statues have diverse charms depending on what angle they’re viewed from and the Bishoujo line has been really good about composing pieces that excel in that area. Here, they went with a very specific idea and the result is that Raven is best viewed offset to the left a bit and with her eyes staring straight out at the beholder. Still, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a weakness of the piece, because honestly, a statue that looks this good has very little to apologize about.

Raven is yet another beautiful addition to my Bishoshelves and she looks especially striking displayed beside fellow Teen Titan, Starfire. I’ll note here that I haven’t been pre-ordering my Bishoujos as often these days, because they haven’t been selling out that quickly and every now and again I can find them a little cheaper through Amazon or other sources. Raven, on the other hand, well I had a feeling about her, and so I did reserve one through my usual plastic crack dealer. That means she set me back the full $65, which is a price I’m still perfectly comfortable paying for Koto’s beautiful craftsmanship. What isn’t so comfortable is the growing congestion of my Bishoujo shelves. At the rate things are going, this collection is going to have to start spilling over into the neighboring display case, which will start putting the squeeze on my ArtFX+ and DC Cover Girls Statues.