It seems my habit of purchasing figures of any kind was in some kind of drought for the past few months. To be fair though, I have rarely purchased any figures outside of Kara no Kyoukai and Shakugan no Shana so it’s not that surprising I guess. This time however, I’ve decided to step out and get figures from Fate/ZERO, plus a whole bunch of other Kara no Kyoukai merchandise from Type-Moon’s 10th anniversary prize items all from Banpresto’s Ichiban Kuji line.
Pictures can be enlarged by right-clicking “View Image”
The moment I saw the Ichiban Kuji’s chibi figures of all seven servants from Fate/ZERO (Prize G), I was hugely tempted to get them and did in fact follow through with it pretty quickly. Part of the reason why is that I realized I could also use them as servant pieces for the replica chessboard set (the one that Gilgamesh plays with) for a possibly original Fate/ZERO board game I’ve thought up of (and will probably post about once it’s released in December) since you can’t play actual chess on it due to it only having 7×7 squares; which also means the chibi figures are also put to good use other than being on display.
I’ve said this in another post but will say it again here. I really don’t like taking my chances on lottery prize items if it’s in a set and will turn to Yahoo Japan Auctions if I want to obtain a complete one in one go. Since I wanted to get all seven servants from Fate/ZERO, I knew that would be the place to go to as there will always be sellers there that offer the entire seven for sale (at inflated prices of course but they weren’t too bad IMO). Probably one of the most annoying thing though about setting up these chibi figures were trying to attach the swords for the characters that had them. It took some time for me to attach the two spears on Lancer’s hands since it was hard to find an area on the spears that would allow his hands to hold them and have a good grip, so that they wouldn’t fall if I held up the figurine, likewise for Gilgamesh and Berserker. Saber on the other hand was very easy to set up since she was holding her sword with two hands, all I had to do was slide it in across them and the sword grip display was done.
Moving onto another set of figurines. This time, it’s the complete set of chibi figurines of the popular girls from the Type-Moon world (also Prize G for Ichiban Kuji’s line of prizes for Type-Moon’s 10th anniversary celebration).
I’m actually only going to keep Ryogi Shiki and probably sell off the rest as I’m not interested in the other girls, hence why I’ve left all of their wrapping packages unopened as the photo above shows. At the time I went to hunt the chibi figure of Shiki on Yahoo Japan Auctions, there were only sellers selling the complete set and none were offering her separately so I just chose to take what was available. In case anyone wanted to know, the other five girls from this prize category are Rin and Saber from Fate/Stay Night, Arcueid from Tsukihime, Aozaki Aoko from Tsukihime & Mahou Tsukai no Yoru and Sajyou Ayaka from Fate/Prototype (who was a secret figure).
The size of these chibi figures seems to be about as big as a regular nendoroid surprisingly.
Next up is prize E from the 10th anniversary prize line, premium art poster, which I only sought after one of Shiki again (to add more to my Kara no Kyoukai collection). There were also four other posters in this prize category and the sizes are in B1.
And another prize item of Kara no Kyoukai! Premium art glass cups (Prize F). There was also three others available in this category (Arcuied, Aozaki Aoko and Saber).
Final item for this loot is a phone strap of Aozaki Aoko (Prize D). There is also one of Saber too. Like the other five chibi girl figures from Prize G range, I’m also gonna be selling this off since it came with the art glass cup of Shiki I got off Yahoo Japan Auctions and I’m not particularly interested in keeping this one.
I’m not sure whether there are other otaku hobby stores outside of Japan that run Banpresto’s Ichiban Kuji lottery prize games but here in Australia, there was one that ran these games for the prizes shown in this post (which were from Fate/ZERO’s line and Type-Moon’s 10th Anniversary Line). The name of the store is Kogeki! Studios, which is a promotional group of Japanese culture. Their website is currently under construction but they do have a facebook page and twitter for people to get in contact with. I was rather surprised about this since I thought these anime lottery prize games were only exclusively done in Japan but it appears Aussie otakus can take part as well thanks to Kogeki. I suppose their official connection with the Bushiroad company maybe have something to do with this. The good news about this is that possibly more future Ichiban Kuji lottery prize games may be available to Australian otakus, particularly ones that live in Melbourne as their shop front is located in the Melbourne CBD area.
There is a big markup of buying these lottery tickets to play of course. If I remember correctly, one ticket cost about $25-$30AUD while in Japan, the price would be about 600-800 yen per ticket ($8-$10AUD). Despite this, it seems this game was hugely popular at Manifest (Melbourne Anime Festival) and many otakus splurged on it. Some even spent as much as about $100AUD to win the specific prizes they wanted. Kogeki! probably turned a huge profit thanks to those prices. Me personally, I’d still use Yahoo Japan Auctions or Mandarake to acquire the specific prizes I want than take my chances with the game Kogeki! runs as it is much cheaper overall, unless it is impossible to find and doesn’t appear on either of those two sources and I am desperate for it. However like I said, it is nice that these lottery prize games are becoming more accessible here in Australia thanks to them and that we get first hand experience on these games rather than always relying on proxies or second hand markets to obtain the prizes without the fun of playing it.
Walk Of Darkness 