Another one of the finest figures of 2008 is now part of my growing collection: Alice from Queen’s Gate (a spin-off series from Queen’s Blade). Even before her release in August 2008, a lot of people were crazy about her. And it wasn’t different after she was released, with a flood of reviews that can be found everywhere in the Internet… Well, just for my bragging rights, here’s another review even though it comes a bit late.
And before you proceed… Pan-2 warning!
Original Design: Niθ
Sculptor: Akatsuki, Tc (Painting)
Source: Queen’s Gate (Visual Combat Book) [sample]
Scale: 1/8 (Aprox. 14,5 cm)
Material: PVC
Release Date: August/2008
Production: AlphaXOmega [link]
Translated from her profile page in the Queen’s Gate official site [link]:
Alice is a treasure hunter who works under contract across the world.
She travels to the ruins by airship and while packing her favorite sweets, she sends her underlings ahead. It’s her basic style to calmly enter after there’s no more danger or traps prepared for intruders. Very bright, she’s a knowledgeable PhD in ancient civilizations. She uses a pair of handguns. Also, because Alice is able to use the many OOPARTS (Out Of Place Artifacts) she brought from a lot of ruins, no one can defy her. Her mother, also an adventurer, has gone missing while looking for the legendary treasure “Queen’s Gate”. Alice found the treasure and when she opened it, a battle across the space-time started…!!
Well, that’s her background story. The Queen’s Gate is probably how characters from different series can battle each other. Alice was designed by Niθ (Nishii) from Nitro+. Other characters are: Ink Nijihara from MOETAN (Methodology Of English, The Academic Necessity), Iroha from Samurai Spirits, Shiranui Mai from Garou Densetsu and, the most recently announced, Dizzy from Guilty Gear.
The box isn’t much different from the other Queen’s Blade figures from MegaHouse. As always, no castoff instructions… Fortunately, the castoff procedure isn’t hard for Alice.
Her pistols and holsters came wrapped in plastic and secured with tape. There were also some wires around her legs to hold the figure in place.
In the photo above, her “accessories”.
Alice may look like a little girl in the illustrations, but she’s actually tall as a figure compared to the others from the Queen’s Blade line from MegaHouse! Even though she’s leaning forward with her legs apart, she’s almost as tall as Ymir. If she could stand straight I have no doubt she would be the tallest of all my 1/8 scale figures. That was not a complaint, but just an observation…
The holsters in her back look like a pair of wings. Very cute, eh? It seems she can also use her tail as a whip… Don’t know how it’s attached there or how she removes it… Whatever!
Pan-2 shots are unavoidable thanks to her pose… Not that I should really be worried about that, should I?
After tons of reviews on this figure I had no doubt I had to acquire her. I already knew the AlphaXOmega’s production quality from the figure of Shizuka. Alice rises the bar even further, with the detailed sculpt and flawless painting. For more photos (including castoff), check the reviews from AkibaHobby [link] and foo-bar-baz [link].
I got my Alice from PowerAnime [link] for a reasonable price (at the time). Now it’s hard to find her available in a shop without being (insanely) overpriced. A repaint version (Akatsuki Ver.) was released at MegaHobby EXPO 2009 WINTER [link][2]. A grown-up version of Alice (Boost Ver.) was also released by HobbyJAPAN [link][2] on December 2008. Don’t hesitate to get one if you find her for a good price!
Cya!
Tags: Alice, AlphaXOmega, ALTER, Figure Review, Figures, MegaHouse, Niθ, PowerAnime, Queen's Gate, Review
