Buddy by Alter
A short and sweet title. This is a figure I’ve had for a while now, since July in fact, that I keep meaning to review. Since these reviews seem to be taking me longer than before I’ve found myself prioritising newer figures instead. Well today enough is enough, so here is Buddy by Alter. If you read Wieselheads blog you’ll have already seen this Buddy before. That’s because he, crazily, offered to sell her to me.
For those unaware, which I imagine most are now aware of where Buddy originates, she’s a character from a Visual Novel by Leaf called Kimi ga Yobu, Megiddo no Oka de. Leaf are behind the popular ToHeart series of Visual Novels, as well some others with anime releases you may be aware of such as White Album and Utawarerumono. In that respect Buddy is a rather obscure character given there’s no anime or translation of her game.
Buddy was one of those figures I decided not to pre-order but later regretted after seeing many fantastic reviews of her. To me her pose was rather bland and unexciting, I still think that, but Buddys’ beautiful sculpt and character design are more than enough to make up for that. She’s got a sense of elegance that my other more exciting figures perhaps lack, which is equally as charming I find.
Buddy is actually my first Alter figure. I’ve been collecting for over 2 years now and only just set my eyes upon the quality of Alter. It’s quite astonishing seeing the perfect fine detail painting on Buddy. I mean just look at those crosses and white outlines on her sleeves – everything is crisp and sharp. My only minor complaint is I believe Buddy is meant to be 1/8 scale yet she’s being dwarfed by my other 1/8 scale figures. Maybe 1/9 would be better, or 1/10 more believable if you want her ‘real’ height.
Her pose, while not all that exciting, comes across as very overpowering. She looks ready to slice something in half at any moment and is unlikely to be pushed around. It’s clear Buddy knows her own mind here. Yet at the same time there’s a sense of loneliness emanating from her facial expression.
There are no extra accessories with Buddy, the only removable part is her scythe. Normally I like my figures to have various display options, but Buddy is so charming I’m more than happy to settle for a static figure. The scythe just simply rests in her hands, which as a result makes it feel a bit flimsy, but it’s not going to be falling from her grasp unless something gives her a knock.
Taking a closer look at her scythe, at the non-business end there’s a translucent plastic orb. This adds some flair to an otherwise dull grey weapon. At the sharp end there’s nothing all that spectacular. The shading is nice but the actual design is rather plain and the blade looks a little too thin.
I like her necklace/collar and how it’s separated from her main outfit. Outfits with big pointy collars usually look wicked as they are, but it’s certainly a treat to have a bit of skin exposed between the collar and main dress. The black and white also make her look guarded, without it she’d look too exposed and less domineering.
My favourite aspect of Buddys’ design has to be the back of her exposed shoulders. If her hair wasn’t in the way I’m sure I’d love her exposed back too. She’s got quite a slender frame too which I like.
Buddy wears some interesting shoes, they look rather impish. They’ve got a strange shape with weird bumps but for some reason I like them more than the boots some of my other figures wear. Plus the heel on these shoes is much lower than I’ve seen on other figures. Also seen here is the base Buddy comes with. It’s a translucent red with various cogs and gears. Much more interesting than sand, transparency or plain white 
.
And of course how can we forget Buddys’ beautiful face. Alter have done a fantastic job of creating a solemn yet cute facial expression. There’s not much emotion being shown here, Buddy is a very calm and charming figure.
There you have it, Buddy by Alter. I may be late to the party, heck the party finished ages ago, but I finally got a chance to own Buddy and an Alter figure. Thanks again to wieselhead for selling her to me ^^. She is a fantastic looking figure and has perfect detailing to go hand in hand. My only complaint, and probably the reason I don’t own many Alter figures, is her pose is rather bland. There’s a story there sure but it’s just not immediately attention grabbing. Cast-off – instant attention grabber, crazy poses with crazy hair – instant attention grabber, standing still looking glum not so attention worthy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not my thing. Although sometimes, with Buddy here for example, I can enjoy a more peaceful looking figure.
In terms of future figure reviews my next 2 are going to be a bit more ero. I’ve also not seen any English reviews of them yet so hopefully they’ll be interesting enough for others to see.
This review also let me test out my new macro lens – AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 40mm f2.8G – which is a reasonably priced lens for my cropped sensor D3100. The fixed focal length took a bit getting used to but now I can get really close to my figures. Capturing really close up details should now be possible, so close that the AF sometimes extends out and knocks the figure.
Check out other reviews of Buddy:
Figyura
Tailgrab
Tentacle Armada
Visual Fanfare
wieselhead
Wallpapers
Like this:
Posted on 09/10/2011, in Figures and tagged Alter, Buddy, figure, figures, Kimi ga Yobu Megiddo no Oka d. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.
Congrats on the new addition(s).
It’s never too late to review figures, it’s always fascinating seeing how each reviewer treats a specific figure. Buddy is a great scale and Alter seldom lets one down (except not making figures of characters I enjoy). Love the outfit and the twirling split ends.
I do agree on the pose, it’s rather hesitant for someone holding a scythe with both hands.
Looking forward to the forementioned reviews.
Indeed, I wish Alter would do more characters I’m interested in. Sure the Strike Witches and Samurai Girls are nice, they’re just not enticing enough to want to buy.
The twirls in her hair look great although I think I prefer the straighter hair strands. It’s not too common to see lots of individual hair strands like Buddy has here – usually they’re just a lump with spikes.
There’s certainly a lot of character to be extracted from Buddys’ pose but maybe with just a little more action going on she’d have been more exciting.
Thanks ^^ hopefully you enjoy them.
It’s sort of funny how I played some part in convincing several people to buy Buddy, but I don’t think any of them really liked the figure. She was my favorite figure that I bought last year, though if I had bought Kiriko Hattori when she was releasd, she’d be #1 and Buddy would get bumped to #2. Buddy is still one of my very favorite figures though, for most of the same reasons you laid out. She’s also taken over the role as my lighting experimentation figure; I used to use Megahouse’s Sora Kasugano for that but now that’s Buddy’s job.
It’s surprising that this is your first Alter figure, since they’ve made so many well-regarded figures … but looking at their recent lineup, it’s quite understandable since if you’re not a fan of Nanoha or Bakemonogatari or Strike Witches or K-On! or one of those similarly popular series, they don’t have quite as much to offer. I kinda liked it better when they made a lot of figures from stuff you wouldn’t expect, like Witchblade or Triggerheart Exelica or eroge that not many people have heard of.
Haha, yes it was your review that started the desire to own Buddy myself. Then seeing everyone else do reviews made me want her more. I never disliked Buddy from the start, I was really interested in her prototype. It’s just she looked rather dull compared to other figures I was interested in that I decided to pass. Domo is my lighting test subject as well as LED holder. If I used Buddy I’d be scared of accidentally breaking something due to stray pointed plastic grabbing my clothing such as her hair and dress.
Thankfully I do have other Alter figures on pre-order now, Naoe from Samurai Girls and Sora. I’m hoping they turn out as awesome as Buddy. I do like their Strike Witches line-up, but not enough to want to buy one. Although saying that Elia is rather tempting. For now I’ve decided against getting her, hopefully I won’t regret that decision. Some of their older figures from Peace@Pieces and other eroge look nice, they’re just a bit dated now.
that was a nice review and Im glad to see that you wasn’t dissapointed with Buddy.
It’s good that I could sell her to you, who can appreciate her more than I did =).
Well, I liked to shoot her, but on my shelf there was something missing when I looked at her.
Anyway, I still think that she is a nice figure, the navy blue dress and the fine white details on it look great. Also her face looks quite pretty, they did a really good job with her mouth.
She has many nice angles and her back with the detailed scapulas looks quite attractive.
It’s unfortunate you didn’t like her as much as you expected. It took a while to get round to reviewing her but I’m glad I was able to since she looks great.
Her face is beautiful to look at. That’s probably my favourite aspect of her figure. Sure the dress looks awesome, but it’s that cute melancholic facial expression I love so much about her. Good thing I had a better lens to allow me to fill the frame with her face
.
Indeed she has many nice angles to view her from. The most boring is probably from her back, which isn’t really that bad. You can still see each strand of hair which looks fantastic.
Thanks again ^^
Im trying to get my hands on her, but i cant seem to find her.
May i know where you got her?
Its been countless of times ive seen a review of her, but it doesnt bother me, she is simply divine. i love her face, hair, clothes, literally everything about her (except the base ^^)
thats why i want her that bad.
wieselhead sold her to me. You could give Mandarake a go if you’re trying to get a hold of her. I’ve seen her there a few times although she’s not there as of this comment. I’d recommend searching バディ and Buddy just to make sure you don’t miss her.
Seeing all the reviews of figures can be really tempting. Buddy especially since she seems to look more appealing each time you see a new review.
Hopefully you can get a hold of Buddy for yourself since she really is fantastic.
I don’t know the character at all but damn is she good looking. I have a slight fascination with scythes in general, but all the more better when a cute girl with a nice outfit is holding one. Alter seems to have pulled their normal high quality job here and I do remember when she came up for pre-order being tempted by her. Good shots you brought out the best of her
(and I do love that background)
I don’t know much about her character either – other than what I’ve read elsewhere. I guess that’s the risk Alter took when picking a character from relatively obscure series. Despite that she still looks great, although I think I’d like her a little more if I knew who she was. It probably would have swayed my decision to get, or not, her at pre-order as well.
Thanks ^^.
Oh, she’s definitely pretty, I played the game which she is based on and they followed the style pretty much identical. (in the game she was maybe a bit more young looking…:P)
Its from Megiddo, a game from Leaf (the same as To Heart)
I’ve only seen the CGs unfortunately. They weren’t all that exciting so hopefully the story around them is a little more interesting. It’s quite hard to convert the pencil-y drawn characters to 3D form but Alter have done a fantastic job.
It would be nice to see some Leaf games get officially released sometime. Their dungeon crawler game featuring the ToHeart 2 girls looks interesting.
I’ve already seen Buddy over at Wieselhead’s blog, but it’s nice to see some different shots of her. I can’t believe that she’s only your first Alter figure. While some of their figures don’t have great poses, I’m really impressed with their quality.
Yep it’s taken this many years to finally pick up an Alter figure. It’s a shame they either pick characters I’m not too keen on, or put them in relatively uninteresting poses, or they’re exclusive / collaborations. I’ve got at least 1 more Alter figure on pre-order and a few I’d like so hopefully I’ll start picking more up. Might be better than picking up naff swimsuit ones
.