Posted: 04.05.2025
2025 Q1 Report
Unannounced hiatus ends.
Gacha, Hololive, & Godzilla. The unholy trinity.
Still not done with this. But, progress!
welcome back
After much deliberation (with myself) and lengthy conversations (also with myself), I’ve decided to change my processes.
No longer will I tire myself with monthly collection update blog posts, but instead move to a quarterly style where I show (generally) what I’ve picked up, highlight a few of the best plastic bodies, and rant about other stuff. I hope you enjoy this lengthier and less frequent format. Thanks for reading and helping me stay sane.
A very large assortment of preorder items that all came through these last few months. Nendoroid, figma, scales, model kit parts, clothing: we got it all! Some of these preorders date back to last summer; happy to finally have them all home.
One of the stars of this haul: Snail Shell’s Bunny Girl Aileen! Snail Shell has been knocking it out of the park lately (see: Lustia) and this bun is no different.
Aileen even has this very strangely designed “motorcycle,” the Cyclone Bunny! So impractical of a design. Cute, tho, I’ll give her that.
A glimpse at my current mixed Hoyoverse display. Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail; everything but ZZZ, tbh. New additions here are the Myehtos Tingyun 1/10 scale figure (far left) and the Revoltech Herta 1/8 scale figure (center).
First figure I’ve ever picked up from Myethos. In fact, I’d never heard of them before seeing this Tingyun go up for preorder last year. This figure is nice! It’s a bit dainty, a little soft feeling, well sculpted & painted; a very good value for the money! (MSRP: 199 CNY / <$30 USD)
If we’re gonna get articulated HSR figures, I couldn’t ask for a better choice than a doll of Herta. Yes! You, too, can now own a small replica of one of Herta’s cute and sassy robo-clones. 1/8 scale is kinda meh but i’ll take what I can get when it comes to Honkai games.
Keeping the gacha figure trend (and the 1/8 trend) rolling, we can move on to:
Arknight’s Amiya!
My second figure from Apex’s gacha-heavy 1/8 scale line. I picked up their Tuna figure in late 2023 and even wrote a review on her last year. Haven’t written a review since. I do have a new one cooking for this Amiya figure, though. I’ve taken the photos. Written the outline. Made the bones. Probably see it in in the near future. Hopefully.
I don’t still log in every day, I am absolutely captivated by Arknight’s operator designs. I love the art style used in this game and am especially drawn towards lead protagonist, known bunny girl, 5-star-caster Amiya. Love her ears; dig the outfit. She may not be S-rank (in my heart) material like my girlies Indigo or Sora, but I’d probably give Amiya the bronze medal in the favorite character category.
Look how cute she is! My “larger than 1/12” collection is slowly growing. We’re getting closer and closer to having a life size figure of Tokino Sora in my living room reaching that 1/6 scale breakpoint.
One day I’ll finish the story in this game. There comes a point where playing too many gacha slop becomes too much and it’s hard to keep up with every game. This happened to me. Arknights is like a twice a month kinda game. I’m here for the story in short bursts at my own pace.
Another shipment that showed up this year. Well, actually 3 shipments, they all just happened to show up on the same day back in February. Two new figma (Hololive’s Shirogane Noel & Nikke’s Alice), another Nendoroid (Hololive’s Oozora Subaru), and a copy of Oshi no Ko volume 9 in English!
I normally don’t include manga in these blog posts but I took this photo over a month ago and the book is in said photo, so, yeah. Love that series. It’s a shame that while I don’t know what happens, I know the ending of Oshi no Ko has not been well received. I’ll continue to not spoil myself and will experience the ending myself in time.
Until then, let’s focus on some plastic!
Shirogane Noel. A figma I’ve wanted since it was released but one I refuse to pay full price for. I like Noel, I just don’t love her. But I love Gen. 3, Fantasy, so once I found her for a good price ($30 USD via Crunchyroll), I couldn’t resist adding her to the collection. With Noel in my possession, I know have all of Hololive Gen. 3 in my collection. Baller!
While we’re on the topic of Hololive figma, who’s more fitting to include than Takanashi Kiara! I will not miss out on any of the Holo Myth figma as they roll out. Myth is my favorite generation and I have a strong affinity towards every member.
Our eternal phoenix has been cranking out some really good shit lately. Late last year, Kiara dropped one hell of a banger, accompanied by a free live concert that is frickin fire. I implore you to check out that concert. I’ve watched it like a dozen times since it came out. Some of the song choices in there are absolutely peak.
As for this little plastic version of her: yeah, it’s fantastic. Limited hip-articulation aside (girl, that skirt is ridiculous), Kiara is a great figma. I especially love how they handled her elbows. Some kind of floating-double-balljoint design. Awesome. None of that figma Gura/La+ elbow bullshit.
As you may have noticed, we’re not going in any particular order or anything here. I’m just kinda bouncing between the last 3 months. It’s cool, don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.
Anyway, a Christmas gift: a 1/48 scale model kit of the Kyushu J7W1 Shinden!
You may recognize this WWII IJN prototype fighter from the amazing, award-winning, thought-provoking, spectacular, and emotional film: Godzilla Minus One. I love that movie. It’s a top-tier Zilla flick (I’ve watched all of them in the past year, trust me here). Watch it if you haven’t, it’s well worth it.
This kit is currently sitting in the ole backlog, waiting to be built. Once I’m done with my current project (going on 3 months…), Buster Doll Knight, I plan on moving forward with the Shinden. I’m unsure what exactly I want to do when it comes to paint and deco. My brain says keep it close to stock and make it look like the plane in G:M1. My heart tells me to cover it with a Love Live itasha or something. Choices, choices.
We ain’t ready to decide on this one yet, tho. I still need to finish this damn BD kit.
I’ve made great progress on her! The Buster Doll Knight, that is, as seen above, in this photo. All I need to do is finish her wings. I’ve redone them so many times, now. I’m just procrastinating.
I’m very pleased with how the paint job has been coming along so far. Mixing both gloss and matte finishes has been a fun experiment for me and I think the weathering is coming out pretty good!
Again, all that’s left is to finish those damned wings. I keep messing them up. They’re currently stripped (again) and waiting to be primed (again). I hope to dedicate my next off weekend to this.
Enough about projects that take too long and leave me stressed, back to new toys:
Yes, this is in fact the best picture I have of Muse Dash’s Marija Nendoroid. She lives on my desk. A totem of inspiration. The muse to my Muse Dash. Makes me play better.
And she is one figure that I’ve been very impatient for.
Muse Dash, a game I very much love and have a pretty good grasp on, has historically had limited merch when it comes to figures. And multiply that by 10 if we’re talking about articulated figures as… you’re looking at it. This is the one. Praying that Good Smile will continue to flesh out the MD roster in Nendo fashion. I mean, there’s only 2 other characters; it’s not that big of an ask. Regardless, I am very content with Marija. She’s the only character I use (Little Devil, IYKYK), besides a seldom Joker Buro. I’d give away half my collection to keep this figure. No cap.
The last, but certainly not least figure to mention is the NIKKE Alice figma. I say certainly because dude, this is like figure of the year material. Yeah it’s only March but damn, this’ll be hard to top.
Ask me about NIKKE, go ahead. Any question. I’ll have the same response: “No frickin clue.” As in, I know nothing about this game other than the existence of T&A. I even played the game! For like a month, maybe. And it was like 2 years ago. I don’t remember much of anything.
What I do remember, tho, is to preorder figures that are super cute and look like they’ll be hard to find at retail. My assumptions were correct with Alice. Not only has her price skyrocketed since release, I’ve seen her pre order bonus faceplate alone go for $60+ USD on secondary markets! Y’all crazy.
If the dumb looking unicycle looks familiar, you are one smart cookie. If it doesn’t, scroll up.
That’s a wrap on new pick ups for the last few months.
But hey! Don’t take your finger off of that scroll wheel!
Keep moving down this page if you’re interested in other fun things that have been going on lately.
other stuff, not toys:
“Atomic Purple” PlayStation Portal & Custom Dualsense Controllers
While I may have been slackin on getting that Buster Doll kit done, it’s not like I haven’t been without fun fixations to keep me occupied. Lately, said fixation has been with customizing my Portal and my two PS5 Dualsense controllers.
Yeah, so: I finished this! An attempt at making a custom “atomic purple” PlayStation Portal.
A replacement clear plastic shell, some purple dye for synthetic fibers, purple buttons, some new shrouds, and some time in the airbrush booth walk into a bar.
While the color of the shell didn’t change as much as I was hoping (it’s a a bit too desaturated compared to the idea in my head), I’m still very happy with this end result. I have a Portal that is one of a kind, no doubt. This project took only 2 days of free time to complete, most of which was waiting for paints and clear coats to dry.
I shared this on Reddit a few weeks ago and it got a lot of positive response! That felt pretty great. I’m considering making a Projects page for this. I took a bunch of work in progress photos in case I wanted to make said page, just gotta see how the magic powers of motivation treat me in the future.
After finishing the Portal, I figured: why stop there? I went through the effort of making the most extra controller I could conceive of. And by extra, I mean combining color shifting parts, metal thumbsticks, and a translucent green shell. It’s a far cry from the “Starlight Blue” this controller once was. It took me a few days to get used to those metal (aluminum) sticks, but now they feel normal and natural. I use this little dude more than the Portal so it’s totes rad to have a custom controller that gets a lot of love and attention.
I’ve been spending a lot of my free time playing through the first Atelier Ryza game with huge support from this green machine. I gotta crush through those games quickly; I want to play Atelier Yumia real bad but I refuse to buy it until I’ve beaten the Atelier games I already own and haven’t beaten yet. Which is 5 whole games… good thing I thoroughly enjoy this genre.
And then once I was done with the green one, I moved on to this white and pink controller!
This is a cute little number I slapped together for my dear friend (the same friend who bought me that Shinden model kit in the above section). She’s been sinking deeper and deeper into the Monster Hunter hole and these colors match her aesthetic and PC setup very well. Slaying monsters in style now. 15 minute job. Looks super cute. Huge success!
back to collectible wares:
IRL Bronya Shit-Kickers
Honkai Impact 3rd’s idea of merchandise is out there, man. There is so much official clothing. And while I have a hard time seeing myself in most of their clothes, I can really get behind their shoe designs.
Take these Herrscher of Truth Bronya sneakers for example. They’re loud, they’re different, and they’re (surprisingly) quite comfortable! These official HI3 shoes are better quality than I was expecting; I may track down a pair of the equally cool Fervent Tempo sneakers.
Rosu Merch
Rosuuri is like my favorite artist. She did one of them Makeship campaigns to make a plush of one of her characters, Mika the Chesire Cat (mot to be confused with her main original character, White Rabbit Rosu). At the end of the crowd funding campaign, 289 of these lil dudes popped into existence, and I own 1 of them. Neat!
Additionally, February is birthday month and this year’s goods come in the form of cloth and card. T-shirts, a hoodie, and a hand-signed postcard. The 2nd Rosu signature in the collection. Double neat!
I posted these photos on Bluesky last month and Granny herself reblogged them! Wow! I’m the best!
Digital
They’re not action figures, they’re dolls!
You’re damn right they’re dolls. Tactical Dolls, to be exact. Yes, let’s talk about Girls’ Frontline 2.
This game has been pretty great since (global) release back in December. I’m enjoying the heck out of it and quite good at the game! Been made Deputy Platoon Leader under the command of the best Commander this side of the Mississippi. I’m crushing the Gunsmoke scoreboard (within said platoon). We’re even running an AGS season on GFL2. All to say: this one’s legit. If you play this game or start playing: send me a friend request. Borrow my absolutely cracked Qiongjiu and become a Buff Bunny.
I smoked Gunsmoke this time around. Huge thanks to Koko. Wouldn’t have been possible without their insane Klukai.
My player profile. Use that UID if you want to to borrow my units. I have quite the insane Qiongjiu, and decent Shark & Wa.
Qiongjiu is by far my best built doll. Yeah, yeah, the combat effectiveness number doesn’t mean much but look at that! 14K! 14 and a half, really. Crazy.
The game has gone out of its way to give me more and more copies of QJ, copies of Golden Melody, high level affinity items… and heck yeah I gave her the ring!
Paired with a well built Shark, Ksenia, and Cheeta at the ready, my Qiongjiu really hits hard. I’m pulling 10-12K Sardis Gold a day during Gunsmoke for support usage. Thank you, fellow commanders.
I’d love to get her up to 3500 ATK; I’m fishin for new attachments daily. The grind is especially rough in this game when it comes to attachment farming.
Klukai (HK 416) has finally hit global servers.
My review of her: she’s too good. Klukai hits too hard. Her ultimate is ready too often. The corrosion debuffs are fantastic. Her range is unbeatable.
Klukai makes the game too easy. I’m sure I’ll regret saying this in a few months as the meta shifts and powercreep starts.
Stats-wise, my Klukai build isn’t looking too bad, but it’s nothing special yet. I’ve finished her helix, she’s v3, level 5 affection, has her signature weapon, but you know what she doesn’t have?
Good attachments. Relic farming in this game seriously blows. Just bad. The scrapping mechanic especially. Maybe in a few weeks of farming will I get better parts. Until then, this is what I’m working with.
Borrowed Koko’s v6 Klukai and ignored mine for Gunsmoke.
This is what I’m working with. A pretty decent spread of power and many different combos to be made. Synergy!
Everyone from QJ down to Krolik is built and ready, with the exception of Papasha. She’s the current work in progress doll. Sabrina is next. The rest can continue to rot at the bottom of the roster.
And when it comes to everybody’s favorite Honkai (Honkai: Star Rail, that is): Therta! That’s right ya boobs, The Herta is home and sitting pretty with a kinda-OK build. I played through a few hours of the Amphoreus quest, and am now on HSR hiatus. I’m burnt out. I got my girly and don’t even use her. That’s a bummer, but I’ll come back around eventually.
Star Rail is on the backburner right now so I can cook harder in ZZZ.
Zenless Zone Zero on the other hand? Nah, I’m crushin this shit.
I haven’t pulled for a new character since Yanagi in v1.3 and have been stockpiling these primos like crazy. I’m up to about 500 wishes in straight gems right now. I’m all in or bust on the (eventual) upcoming idol faction. I will have all 3 and their signature weapons.
In the meantime: I’ve been investing in the characters I already own and damn, are they good.
Nagi slaps so hard. Paired with Burnice, the pair is unstoppable. I lowkey wish I had Miyabi to run alongside Nagi, but the Angels of Delusion makes me forget those woes. Nagi, Ellen, Nicole, VL, S11, even Anby: investing hard into 2-3 team comps has worked very well for me. ZZZ has the best balancing of any Hoyoverse game in service. Game has been out for what, 8 months? We’re still in the pre-powercreep era. Just like with GFL2, I’m sure I’ll be singing a different tune in a few months.
That’s it!
OK, yeah, it’s been like over 4 months since I’ve posted anything substantial on this website. It’s been a rough few months. Motivation has been hard to come by. I have no further explanations nor excuses.
I have actually been somewhat active on social media, however. Shocker! Blueksy, specifically.
We were doing well for a good bit, posting almost every day; I’ve slowed down since, once or twice a week now, but hey! It’s more social media engagement than I’ve had in a long while. I’m still ignoring Instagram, however. That platform brings me no joy. I ain’t deletin it yet, tho.
There are a few projects in progress and even more in the pipeline, most or all of which I’d like to upload here eventually. Of course, the BD Knight kit (which is like 95% done! I swear!) will be the next project page I whip up. But also: the bones and pieces for 2 custom figures are here and waiting in my desk drawers, the model kit backlog is stretching to well over a dozen kits, there’s 1 unfinished diorama (going on a year now) and 1 that I just started working on that should be my Greatest Thing Ever Made once finished - all of these things are to be completed this year. I really just need to start finishing things. Speaking of: this blog post has ended. See you later!