About the character: Reika Shimohira is a character from the Gantz manga. Depending on your point of view, she comes on the scene either early or late in the story, first showing up in the Gantz room in chapter 134 of the manga. She is brought to the Gantz room after being killed by a gunman who went on a rampage through Shinjuku. In her life before Gantz, she was a popular idol, enough so that other people in the Gantz room recognize her instantly. For an idol, she proves to be a surprisingly skilled fighter, participating in many missions and earning many Gantz "points".
All right, Gantz is getting a little antsy, so let's have a look at Reika!
Packaging----------8/10
The front of the box features a large shot of Reika and some biographical information.
One side of the box features essentially the same shot as the front.
The other side of the box features a shot of Reika's weapon. More on the Z-Gun itself later.
After missions, the Gantz sphere will display each player's point total for the mission. It looks like Reika has earned no points on this particular mission. Gantz often refers to her as Kurono's #1 fan (in reference to the fact she takes a liking to protagonist Kei Kurono), and the last line is no doubt some sort of taunt from Gantz, but I'm not great at reading Japanese to begin with, and Gantz will often write characters backwards as well...
As is the norm, Taito tapes over the tab in the box. This makes it necessary to cut carefully around the tab, as to not rip it to shreds when unboxing the figure.
Most Taito figures do not use a blister, and Reika is no exception. At least this time, Taito puts a little piece of cardboard in there to keep the figure from bouncing around too much.
The box measures 16 by 16 by 16 cm, and figure and box weigh in a little over 300 grams.
Base----------9/10
Since the base is a key element of this figure, let's take a look at it first.
The base is inspired by the Gantz sphere. The Gantz sphere performs a number of tasks; it dispenses gear for the players, displays information about the missions, and it houses a strange cyborg-like man. You can see that Reika attaches to the top of the sphere via two pegs in her feet, and the two pegs are different sizes so there's no question about how to get her positioned.
Reika will stand just fine without the base, but the Gantz sphere is the most well-known symbol from the series, so I don't know why anyone would choose to do so.
Reika is surprisingly stable once attached to the sphere. The only real downside to the base is that it is quite large, measuring about 5 inches (13 cm) in diameter.
Posing----------9/10
Reika's pose is really dynamic. It looks like she's quickly turning around, Z-gun in hand and ready for action!
Let's have a look at her.
The way her hair is splaying out and the fact that her shirttail is whipping around makes for a highly dynamic pose, so there are no complaints here!
Sculpting----------9.5/10*
Painting----------8.5/10*
*-these ratings take into account that this is an inexpensive prize figure and represent ratings relative to other prize figures.
Taito can be all over the place in terms of quality. They've released some really impressive prize figures like Elizabeth item/145147, and some real disasters like their Shimakaze item/199562. Thus, I was quite frankly stunned by how nice Reika turned out in terms of her overall quality. She has very few significant flaws and many interesting features.
The figure certainly looks like Reika. Even though the players in the Gantz game are constantly facing death and dangerous situations, she looks pretty happy!
It is certainly true that her chin looks a little bit odd, but more in that in a second...
Hiroya Oku gives all of his characters this type of chin. Here, you see that Reika's appearance is consistent with her appearance in the manga.
I would be lying if I denied that Reika's shapely body was a big part of the appeal of this figure. In addition, there are some nice little details here. Unlike some of their prize figures, Taito gives her skin plenty of shading, and you can see a suggestion of her rib cage even though she is certainly not all skin and bones.
Her bikini shows off a little bit of underboob, but at the same time it's not four sizes too small. Also, I like how she has just a little bit of definition on her abs.
The Gantz logo on her bikini top is a nice little touch, although since it's black on black, it would be easy to miss.
I like how there are no obvious gaps where her bikini top meets her body. Even on non-prize figures, that's sometimes a problem area...
If you like thighs, this Reika does not disappoint in that area.
A closer shot of dem thighs.
We haven't seen too many flaws so far, but there a couple visible in the shot below. She has a little bit of a mold line running up her leg, and a little tiny chunk is missing from her bikini bottom.
Reika's hair is somewhere between black and dark brown. That is not paint in her hair. Rather, she had some kind of fuzz on her. Reika was held in place by a piece of cardboard and it looks like some little tiny pieces of it must have come off during transit. It cleaned up with a wet paper towel.
If you want to be picky, her bangs are more of a jet black, and the rest of her hair is a very dark brown. Taking macro photos under bright light sort of magnifies the effect, but I have her sitting on my desk as I write this, and you can see the color difference under normal lighting once you know it's there...
On the other hand, I really like the way Taito sculpted Reika's long hair. It's not clumpy and the way it's splaying out behind her lends a real sense of dynamism to the figure!
The way her shirt is slipping off of her shoulder is quite sexy IMO.
Taito also did a nice job with Reika's shirt. The little creases and the way the shirttail is whipping around are nice details.
Her bikini bottom is obviously pretty snug fitting. I like how the waistband is pressing into her flesh, but it doesn't just disappear in there. Also, the material used on her bikini bottom looks a lot like a spandex-y material; it looks more like stretchy fabric than plastic, which is a nice feature!
Not bad. Not bad at all.
The trim, the creases in the fabric, and the attachment points around top of her bikini bottom are all nice touches as well.
The blue accents on her shoes are quite distinctive. The painting is pretty good, too.
It looks like these are the shoes she would normally wear with her Gantz suit. The little nodules contain a substance which power up the suit and protect the user from attacks, but if those are damaged, then any special abilities granted by the equipment would be lost.
Now, we see Reika's weapon, the Z-Gun. The Z-Gun is one of the more powerful weapons available to those in the Gantz game. It uses powerful gravitation to flatten its target, and unlike many other weapons available to the players, there is no time delay when using this weapon.
Hiroya Oku likes to give his mecha designs lots of cables and other intricate details. I like how the cables have plugs sculpted into their ends where they meet the gun's body.
Note the level of detail on the grip and the trigger. That's a pretty cool detail on a cheap prize figure!
A top view of the Z-Gun. That's not discoloration on the gun barrel, it's just reflection from the lighting setup...
The business end of the Z-Gun. The painting on the rings of the "barrel" are not quite uniform, but overall the paint work on the gun is not too shabby.
Note how few flaws we've seen so far, but there are a couple lurking. In the shot below, there's a flaw on the inside of her thigh.
There's a little bit of a seam running up her arm. The white material of her shirt makes it a little less obvious, though. As a plus, I like how Taito sculpted those little pads on the gloves which protect her knuckles. If you ever need to pound in a rogue alien's face with nothing more than your fists, that's a feature you want...
Of course, YMMV with prize figures, but those are about the worst flaws I could find, and thus I would say Reika's finish is significantly better than average compared to other prize figures. You're getting a lot of figure for a low price!
Scale Comparison
Reika with Good Smile's Tessa Testarossa item/6419. The Z-Gun certainly has some superficial similarities with Tessa's P-90 (although it's more powerful by about 1000 times!), and you can see Tessa and Reika are similar in scale. I estimate that if Reika were standing, she'd be about 7 1/2 inches (19 cm) in height. Assuming she's in the ballpark of 5' (150 cm), that would make her right about 1/8 scale. In her kneeling pose, Reika is about 4 1/2 inches (11.5 cm) tall, and on top of the Gantz sphere, she'll be about 7 inches (17.75 cm) in height.
Reika with Good Smile's Triela item/13765 and Henrietta item/39 from Gunslinger Girl. Modulo the extreme violence and sometimes outrageous levels of fanservice, Gantz and Gunslinger Girl have more similarities than you might think.
Both Triela and Henrietta are at the petite end of 1/8 scale, and you can see how Reika will compare once posed on top of the Gantz sphere.
Like Reika, Haruka item/98896, Miki item/98895, and Yayoi item/118116 are all idols, and they are 1/7 scale for comparison purposes. I suspect that none of the Idolmaster girls would last too long on any Gantz mission, so let's hope they never end up in that position...
Overall verdict and enjoyment----------9.5/10
Arguments for: Reika is really rocking that black bikini, dynamic pose, cool weapon, distinctive base, and her quality is really, really good for a prize figure.
Arguments against: Mildly substandard packaging, and the Gantz sphere will take up quite a bit of space. Also, given that Gantz isn't everyone's cup of tea and the fact that Reika doesn't make an appearance until volume 12 of the manga, I guess she could be classified as an obscure character.
If you are a Gantz fan, or if you just like the cool weapon+bikini concept, I'd strongly recommend tracking down this figure.
Availability (as of this writing)
Not quite common, but not too hard to find.
She shouldn't be too hard to find, and a quick check of Amazon revealed some for sale there (at non-ripoff prices!). I paid 1800 yen for an A/B one preowned, and even if you go the Amazon route, you won't go over $30 or so. At that price, why not get two?
THANKS FOR READING!
If you liked this review, here are some of my other reviews you might also find interesting:
Taito Elizabeth (Persona 4 Arena) blog/12593
Taito Sonico "Space Police" blog/11260
Good Smile 1/8 Triela (Gunslinger Girl) blog/9286
Skytube 1/7 Inia Sestina (Muv-Luv Total Eclipse) blog/11639
Sega Prize Yoko Littner (Gurren Lagann) blog/11286
Gift 1/4 Sena Kashiwazaki (Haganai) blog/15917
Toranoana 1/8 "Maid En Bikini" (Tony Taka) blog/13510
Kotobukiya 1/7 Yayoi Takatsuki (Idolm@ster) blog/10814
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