She took awhile to track down, but I finally found the 1/4 scale FREEing Ryoko Asakura bunny figure for a decent price. Thanks to MooMooCow on Dannychoo.com, who made the decision to part with this beautiful figure and sell her to me for the great price of $125. Up until this point, I’d been scouting out eBay and other sites, but without much success. The lowest going price for a brand new figure had a minimum price tag of $150 plus shipping, with some listings going well into the $200 range. I like the Ryoko bunny, but I don’t like it that much.
First impression of the figure is that it’s almost as just as nice as the original product shots made it out to be. Once I got her out of the box, a couple of things immediately struck me. Her bunny suit isn’t as shiny as some of the product shots led me to believe. I’m not sure if that is normal or if it’s just this particular figure, but it was also not as glossy as the other bunnies I own. Second, she doesn’t actually lay flat on the table. There’s a slight bit of curve to the lower body, so the feet are slightly off the ground. I’ll chalk this up to just manufacturing and it really isn’t too big of a deal. Third, her head is not removable. With the other bunnies, the heads come off and are interchangeable. It seems that FREEing wanted Ryoko’s head to stay where it was. For the other figures in the series, this meant you could do some interesting head swaps. Haruhi with Mikuru-sized oppai, anyone?
The last thing that really got me about this figure was the sheer size. Since I already own two other bunnies, I was prepared to set aside some space to display the new one, but I had grossly underestimated the amount of space she’d take up. Since Ryoko is in a stretched out pose, she measures about 13in long from tip to tip. This meant I need to do some rearranging to actually fit her in the display case. Even with the adjustments, the trio look pretty nice when lit up…
Once I got the display situated, it was time to take some photos. I hadn’t used the lighting setup in quite awhile, so it took me a little extra time to get things situated again and ready for use. I’d also never tried to shoot a figure of this size, so it was somewhat difficult trying to position the lighting and reflectors in such a way that they didn’t show up in the shots. I really should use a bigger table to do this stuff…
I’ve always been a fan of Ryoko’s design – She presents an air of tranquility
Reverse shot of the bunny tail
Painted nails!
The FREEing bunny series used to pose an interesting dilemma for me. They’re some of the larger scale figures currently available, and I always told myself I’d never get one (or more accurately, be caught dead with one). Somehow, I’d managed to get both Haruhi and Emiri at the same time for good prices, when I really only wanted Ryoko. Strange how that works. Anyone out there considering getting any of the bunnies?
More photos available at the photo album:
How Do You Figure? 
I pre-ordered Asakura bunny last year, my order was never filled…. T_T
That’s too bad. 😦 Maybe you can find somewhere else that can fill the order? They’re getting kinda pricey these days though…
I love this figure. We were at Otakon this year and I was specifically looking for this figure. The dealer’s room was not that impressive and alas I never found Ryoko =(
I ended up picking up a Kallen cold cast and resin though and I will continue to search for this figure. Oddly enough, in my search for this fig I have found Haruhi, Tsuruya and Mikuru for a realtively low price (About $95 each) and I am probably going to get them. lol
Do you have any suggestions as to where I can get my hands on an Asakura Ryoko?
Thanks
I happened to get really lucky with this one and got it from someone on Dannychoo.com. She seems to be very hard to find these days… not even any on eBay! Maybe if you can somehow navigate the Yahoo! Japan auctions?
Very cool! I don’t want to admit how much I’ve spent on these 1/4 figures, but I have Haruhi, Ryoko, and Mikuru. So do the sad math. Worth every penny though. These are truly amazing works of art. The Emiri figure is on my want-list. Seems to be more available than the Ryoko at least. Hopefully high sales and lower petroleum prices will encourage more of these large figures.
For those who were looking at cons… I have yet to see any of the 1/4-scale series at cons, except on display at Comicon in 2008. Some US dealers were taking orders for them last fall but it looked to me like many orders went unfilled. So maybe there just aren’t many left to bring to cons. Not sure. Mine were all imports. Ends up being much faster that way and it’s a hedge against AAA or Diamond arbitrarily canceling domestic preorders. These 1/4 are very pricey on the shipping however. That’s one downside of the size.
Curious about the display case you use. It looks like one called “Detolf” that Ikea sells. Is that the one you have, and if it is, how has it worked out for you? Does it fit many figures?
How DO people display their figures anyway? I don’t really know anyone else personally who has any serious collecting habit.
A lot of people actually use the Detolf shelves fom IKEA (seems to be one of the most favored cases up on dannychoo.com/figure.fm) though there’s all matters of lighting them up. I’ve done quite a few posts on my displays, I’d recommend that you check them out! You should also check out the Otacool section figure.fm (http;//www.figure.fm/otacool) to get some ideas of what other people are doing. 🙂
I’d also recently acquired Mikuru, though I think at this point I consider my collection complete. Yuki, Tsuruya, and Kyon’s sister don’t quite tickle my fancy. I did manage to see a Mikuru bunny at a con earlier this year, though she was going for a bit of a premium.