Saturday Morning Rant: Over-Sexualized Figurines

For those who watched the winter anime season this year, I had Misaki Tobisawa from AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue as my favourite girl from the show. So when I saw on AmiAmi that they were bringing out a figurine of her, I was excited.

Then I saw what it was:


What the fuck is this? When the hell did Misaki ever wear anything remotely this skimpy? Yes, there is a scene in the series where she and everyone else are naked in a bathhouse, that’s a normal ecchi anime scene. But at no point did she ever wear a bikini that was that stringy to the point that I’m shocked her nipples aren’t poking out.

For reference, this is the kind of swimwear she wears in the anime:



Now granted, is she wearing conservative swimwear? Maybe not, but they’re not fucking strings that are barely covering her up! I don’t know where they’re getting this idea from, I’m also aware that the series originated in a hentai visual novel, but I don’t even think she wore something like that in the 18+ visual novel either!

So this brings up a problem that I’m starting to see over and over again when it comes to figurines, something I’ve started enjoying to collect: A lot of figurines are being way too overly sexualized.

Now I know, I know…I just said something’s being too overly sexualized. Yes. Me. The guy who constantly defends sexual content in gaming and anime. But keep in mind that the stuff I defend gives you options, you don’t have to go the super sexy route. In Dead or Alive, you don’t have to use the skimpy swimsuit outfits, you can have them in the original attire, or even outfits that cover up even more skin. In this particular case with Misaki’s figurine, it’s the only one I can buy of her and it literally just got put up for pre-orders a month after the anime ended. Why are they not releasing a figure of her in the swimsuit she wears in the anime, hell why not in her Flying Circus outfit.

Pissing me off even more, they have a figure for Asuka:


Now I will grant the fact that it’s two different companies making the figurines, so while WAVE chose this normal model for Asuka, Kaitendo decided Misaki had to look like a slutty sex object, which she’s not. And that’s the clear problem with some of these figures.

I have zero issue with a character from a show like say Queen’s Blade or Highschool DxD having a figure wearing as little as Misaki does in her figure. Why is that? Because that’s the fucking source material! The girls in that show are constantly having their clothes covering little skin, half-ripped off, or straight up on the floor. In the AOKANA anime, Misaki is naked only once if I remember correctly in the bathhouse along with everyone else, including Asuka. Why is it that Misaki gets picked to be the one out of the cast who looks like the series whore, which she absolutely is not, in fact she’s easily the strongest female character on the show.

There’s nothing wrong with figurines that feature scantily clad female characters, hell I have a figure of Angela from Princess Waltz where the front of her skirt is missing so it’s just the back, leaving open access to her black see-through panties. But it works with her because it fits with the source material, she still looks badass as she does in the visual novel, but because of the nature of the setting, sometimes panties are getting shown off. But in the case of Misaki and a ton of other characters, they’re being given the slut role for their first figurine just to please the fanboys who are into that sort of thing before giving them an accurate representation. And it’s very possible this is the only figurine that will ever be made of Misaki, as a lot of people really didn’t talk much about the show while it was on. And as a huge fan of Misaki, the possibility that I may never own a figure of one of my most favourite female anime characters royally pisses me off.

Get your shit together, guys! I have no problem with you having a sexy figurine, but save that for the second figure! Why this isn’t the first figurine of Misaki, I’ll never understand…


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