Hello all,
Today we will review the snow Miku 2018 Nendoroid; crane priestess version. Each year Goodsmile company releases a special Miku figure: ''snow Miku'' This years theme was ''Animals of Winter Hokkaido''. Fans of the merchandise are encouraged to submit their designs and after piapro made a selection of 6 designs, the community is allowed to vote for their favorite design. The community decided that this was the winning design.
The box
The design of the box is great! The box is transparent and allows a little sneak peek through the box. Also, the snowflakes all over the box are really lovely, I love how they made the snowflake pattern on the box. The paper wrap around the box gives an idea of possible poses. Usually, the snow Miku boxes are really nice to look at, at this snow Miku Nendoroid they didn't disappoint.
The box's contents
This Nendoroid comes with a variety of accessories. the bottom blister comes with four extra hands, two extra legs, a shrine, two stands and a stand for Mikus partner in crime the bunny. In the top blister there is the actual Nendoroid, three extra arms with two extra hands, a sitting bottom, two extra pieces of snow, two extra faceplates, a hood, her partner in crime; a bunny named Yukine , a little table, a broom, a little crane bird, a fan and a suzu. Yukine holds a gohei, which is usually used in Japan in Shinto ceremonies to bless places or objects. They are also used to cleanse a place or object of negative energy. A suzu is used in the same Shinto ceremonies so signal the gods. A fan is also regularly used in these ceremonies.
Her little sidekick Yukine is really cute, they made his ears fitting the theme adding little red points towards his ears. Further, the tips of his feet were made black and they added some kind of ribbon on his tail. The thing what bothers me about him, that it is impossible to pose with him like it was possible in the previous versions of the snow Miku.
The snow Miku herself is pretty cute and pretty. The theme is implemented in her twintails and outfit. Her outfits arms symbolize the wings of the crane bird. I like the color of her hair, however, I have mixed feelings about her twintails as they are quite different than usual and makes it hard to pose her with this design of hair. The robes in her hair are really nice and detailed, however, I'm a bit concerned they might break because they are quite thin. I'm not getting the ornament in her hair. A music note with some sort of suzu with 2 tassels. In my opinion, they could better have left out. Sometimes less is more. As for her outfit, it's quite nice and thought trough. But the white part of her outfit is made of flexible PVC (which allows her to make the sitting pose) and I'm worried that over the years this flexible PVC may become more prone to breakage as the plasticizer vaporizes. Another thing bothering me with this Nendoroid is the number of errors in the paint appliance. three out of five arms did have uneven painting and in some parts, the lines on the outfit didn't match. Which gave the overall Nendoroid a feeling of could have done better. As for her sitting pose; it was hard to pose her due to the length of her twintails. (I almost had to place her hair at 45 degrees which really looked off)
Just some playing around with her; possible poses
Overall thoughts; I like this Nendoroid however with such heavy price tag I expect superb quality. With the price of 6000 yen each unit (which doesn't include shipping nor taxes), I found the quality a bit of a letdown. I spotted too many errors in the paint appliance to justify the price tag. Furthermore, I am worried about the flexible PVC where most of her outfit is made of; will it last if the Nendoroid gets older and the plasticizer vaporizes? Or will it snap within the matter of a year?
I hope you all liked to read this review as much as I did writing it.