Thursday 30 January 2014

1/7 Trunk Girl (Native) NSFW

Wow, has it been a while since I last wrote a review, or what? My sincerest apologies to our readers for taking such a long, unannounced break. If I've learned anything, it's that life has a way of interrupting at the most inconvenient times!

That being said, I have a lot of figures to catch up on. Today we'll be looking a tone of Native's naked and creative ladies. She's lithe. She's twisty. She's Trunk Girl! Read on, O readers!

First of all, what kind of name is "Trunk Girl"? For a company that identifies as creative, their names sure are...to the point.

I picked up Trunk Girl over half a year ago at AnimeNorth, but never got around to reviewing her till now. She was one of my only buys at the convention, and a darn satisfying one at that. I had my eye on Trunk Girl since her conception (man, that sounds creepy, but it's really not), yet somehow managed to miss her pre-order deadline anyhow. Imagine my delight when she showed up right under my nose! Her unique pose and artistic presentation were too tantalizing to pass up.

Native, by far, has some of the most elegant box designs out there. They are made beautiful by their simplicity. Of course, Trunk Girl would come in a box that looks like a trunk, a mysterious, purple box with bronze-gold frames. No production pictures stain its surface. No pomp and circumstance. Just a wonderful, functional, beautiful, refined box.


(**Click to enlarge photos**)
It's a beaut!
Trunk girl's base, is, surprise, surprise, another trunk! And it's tiny! How does Trunk Girl fit in there? With skill and practice and discomfort, that's what.


But at least she's traveling posh. The faux-fur lining is a nice touch. Functionally, it prevents paint transfer. And that pseudo-leather ain't too shabby either! The trunk's outside is as lovely as its inside. It's metallic. It's got a bow. It's an attractive, polished periwinkle. I love it.

 

My one complaint? It's not sturdy. My trunk's top and bottom are actually two separate pieces, but I'm not sure if that's standard or because mine came with some damage. There's a connection at the hinges, but it's not very stable. Jostle her, and her base falls apart (so, no, he trunk doesn't actually close. I've just balanced the two pieces on top of one another). This is made worse when it's balanced on the plastic raiser. The trunk is "held" in place by two small barriers. And I use "held" in the loosest sense possible. Brush against her with the slightest force, and she slides right off.

But onto the main event! Trunk Girl might look mighty uncomfortable all crammed up in like some circus contortionist, but rest assured her pose is entirely achieveable. She has a slim, young, proportionate body, the legs of a yoga instructor, and the face of a porcelain doll.


Will you look at all that floaty hair. Why doesn't it obey gravity? Well, sirrah, it appears her sculptors did not initially plan to include her riser. She was designed to lie flat against the ground, and her hair was sculpted thusly. However, sometime between her conception and her release, the clever peeps at Native realized lying flat on the ground gave her an awkward display angle (she would have to be displayed below eye level for full effect), so they included the riser. A smart move? We certainly think so, floating tentacle hair and all.


Trunk Girl sets herself apart from other anime girls with her largish head, dollish face, and round, wide eyes. Is it a perfect face? No. As with many figures, it has better presentation angles than others. Sometimes, she can get a bulbous, fish-eyed look, especially with her open mouth and half-hidden chin.

What she does have, however, is distinction. Sometimes, looking at figures is like looking at bunch of Hollywood celebrities. They're all beautiful. In fact, they're all so beautiful they blend into a mass of beauty so intense it becomes difficult to recognize individuals. It's overwhelming and confusing. In such a case, a face that breaks the mold feels godsend. Sometimes, variety really is the spice of life.


Trunk Girl's hair is a wonderful, milk chocolate brown. Did I mention I love brunettes? I love brunettes. Native spared no tools when it came to shading her hair. The highlights and shadows are carefully applied. Better yet, like with all Native sculpts, she has wonderful, detailed lines. No bowling ball head for this battle maid, no sir.


But as much as I would love to laud Trunk Girl's yummy locks, I do have a couple of bones to pick with it. It looks like delicious chocolate, yes, but perhaps a little too much like delicious chocolate. When we get to its tips, the PVC looks clumped together, as though molten. As though she has molten chocolate hair.

Man, I'm hungry.

Moving on. Trunk Girl has her fair share of seam and roughness. I'm not sure why she has a vertical seam down the middle of her hair, or that one, extra, tacked on strand. Why, Native? Why not smooth it out? To their credit though, they did try to make it look natural. Looking close, Trunk Girl also has a few fingerprints in her hair. It looks like someone out there touched her accidentally while she was still wet (her paint, I mean, while her paint was still wet...).


Trunk Girl's body doesn't only look great from the front, but from the back as well. Nevermind that you'll probably never see her back, Native's going to give you details anyways. Look at those wonderful shoulder blades, that cute little butt, and those fancy, iridescent ribbons! Nice.


As with all Native figures, Trunk Girl is cast off. She separates at the waist, and you can pop out her boobs in exchange for more naked boobs. Yup, they're like little boob cakes. Weird, but true.

Her shoe comes off too, but I was too lazy to remove it. Her weapons too.

Trunk girl and all her parts!
Trunk Girl is a thin girl. After all, she needs to be to fit in that wee trunk of hers. Native did a great job rendering her body. She has an attractive stomach-region.

My favourite part of her, of course, are the tendons under her knee. Aw, yiss. Well-formed legs.


Is it weird that her cast-off boobs still have the outline of a bra? Kind of, yeah, but I got used to it. I like to think of it as her own, special form of kink. Stare harder at her boobs. Notice how they're gravitationally obedient, and not at all melon-like in terms of shape or size. I like that.

I once had a friend describe the perfect boob size as a "happy handful". Going by his definition, Trunk Girl's boobs are just the right size in my humble opinion. Do I like huge knockers? Sure. Do I like raison nips? Sure. But my favourite boobs are, as Goldilocks puts it, juuuuuuuuuust right.


Trunk Girl does a good job of hiding her privates. It's actually quite a bit of work to see them at all. I mean, you got to lift her out of her trunk and remove her skirt-bit and all.... Don't look at me like that. It's hard work!

Anatomy wise, Trunk Girl does not have the most detailed nethra yayeh out there. It's only a slit and a pinprick hole. I always giggle a little when I see sculptors portray women's vaginal area as smooth, fleshy sheaths free of hair or blemish (oh, how cute). But hey, it's pretty to look at, and that in itself is justification enough. Aesthetics, right? Aesthetics over all.


Native holds their own when it comes to the detail department. Not only do their figures have carefully carved proportions and tangled manes, they also host a number of painstaking details. Like the combination lock on Trunk Girl's base, beautifully rendered fingers, and, of course, fingernails. 


With the good said and done, there are also a number of disappointments in Trunk Girl.

First and foremost, what's up with her guns? Miniature guns have been perfected to a tee in the figure industry, so how did Native fuck fudge them up? Who's brilliant idea was it to have them painted white? What are they made of, some sort of ceramic? And is that top-left piece supposed to be a scope, or a white-chocolate dildo diddler portable penis adult toy? I certainly can't tell. Worse, look at those sloppy lines. Those aren't lines, my friends, those are trails of sewer water. And I disapprove greatly.

And though I don't have a picture, I can tell you neither of her guns have proper muzzle holes. They ain't firin' anything, that's for sure. So what are they, some sort of kinky, maid decoration?

Bro, do you even firearm?
Trunk Girl is also victim to some unfortunate gaps. Her torso doesn't connect cleanly with her bottom, though it's only apparent from the back, so I don't mind. Worse, her cake-boobs don't slide properly into their cake-case, and the resulting chasms are apparent from the front. If I can concentrate really hard, I can sort of imagine them to be shadows.

Besides the sloppy job on her guns, she has a few paint midhaps here and there, both in terms of paint bleed and paint transfer.


Trunk Girl is initially drawn by Nishieda, a well known artist of the hot-and-heavy hentai variety. Given the, ahem, caliber of their art, Trunk Girl is surprisingly tame in comparison.

Like all Native figures, Trunk Girl comes with a cute postcard of her original art (would anyone actually send any of Native's postcards? Anyone?). Do I wish her figure were slightly more tan? Yes, but that doesn't subtract from the fact that Trunk Girl has a lovely, peachy body with equally lovely shading.

(All right, looking at the postcard, her white guns make sense, but seriously, who uses white guns? What sort of hipster rebellion is this?)


Hey, hey, guess what I noticed? I've got no dressed maids, and two dirty ones! I don't consider myself a maid person, but I have to say, the power implications have appeal. Bring disciplinary aspects to a picture, and we're talking a whole other chess game (ho ho ho ho~).

I have three Native figures so far, Trunk Girl, Cat Lap Milk, and Collet. Hmm, a girl lying in a trunk, and two on their hands and knees. I seem to like them close to the ground, for whatever reason.


Unlike some dirty figures, which I might cover with a cloth when prudes conservative relatives come over, Trunk Girl is a specimen I have no trouble keeping on the shelf at all times. There is a certain elegance to her that makes her less lewd than artful. Although many of Native's figures have a sense of tasteful nudity, Trunk Girl is one of the most tasteful of the bunch. I'm glad she doesn't look afraid of imminent violation. An expression can do wonders, my friends.

That being said, I love my dirty, dirty girls too. Love to all the ladies.


Trunk Girl's pose becomes a natural frame for many of her photos. I always seem to notice something new about the figure when I shoot them. For Trunk Girl, I noticed exactly how difficult it is to make her look natural on anything other than her trunk or some sheets. She's not the most deploy-able figure, that's for sure.


She does, however, have some interesting points of balance. Like on her head. Trunk Girl can do an excellent semi-head stand. It's fun. Especially when there's a cat maid to torment (in my head they're totally best friends...with benefits).

Come on, Trunk Girl, give the Cat her milk.
I would dearly love to take Trunk Girl to an airport and snap some shots of her there, but alas, I don't want to expose her to the bustle.

International Trunk Guuuurrrrrrl.
Do I recommend Trunk Girl? Well, do you like naked maids with ceramic guns? She's relatively conservative for a Native figure. With her twisted pose, you have to work to see her naughty bits. But really, if I wanted to see only naughty bits, I would peruse the world wide web rather than collect figures (it's more efficient). Her face could be another point of contention. Personally, I like her wide-eyed, dolly appearance, but I can see why some people might not. Furthermore, Trunk Girl isn't the most technically astounding Native figure out there, but even on the lower end of the technical scale, she's still up there in terms of quality. Her seam and roughness issues can be disconcerting up close, but really, how many of us will be staring at her seams when there's so much more to look at?

Like all Native figures, Trunk Girl is a limited and exclusive. That doesn't stop her from popping up on Mandarake and AmiAmi once in a while though. You can usually find her between $120-$130 in the aftermarket.

The Run-Down
Box 10/10 This is the sort of box I want to see for every figure.
Base 8/10 Beautiful, but not exactly sturdy...or stable.
Pose 10/10 Adoration max.
Sculpt 7/10 Wonderful body sculpt, but loses points for seams and clumsy cake boobs.
Paint 7/10 Some roughness, some paint transfer on back, really ugly guns.
Overall8.5/10She has her technical issues, but I really enjoy her overall.

Manufacturer: Native
Price: Originally 8000 yen
Purchased from: AnimeNorth Convention

Shipping Method: ...A car. But seriously, she's SAL-able.
Box Dimensions: Approx 29 x 11.5 x 20.5 cm 
Weight: Approx 650g 

Arrivederci, peeps,
Jenn

4 comments:

  1. Hey! Welcome back ^_^
    Are you going to review any doujin/art book in the future?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Alan! We do indeed have a few doujins/artbooks lined up for the near future.

      Stay tuned,
      Jenn

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  2. So I will contribute a comment related to the figure, soory its so late.

    Native boxes are great and durable, I think window boxes have a cheapish character in comparison.

    She really reminds me of the Persona 4 anime style, maybe she has a bit of Rise, I wonder how the figure would have looke with twintails.

    There is no way for her to fit in this trunk, it's not long enough, maybe she just faked to be transported in it XD
    When they had turned her head more towards her knee and the pose of the illustration would been more accurate, I also see it as a litttle unfortunate that the hair covers her chin like this She's also a little pale.

    Overall she's not really my type but quite photogenic, I like these creative pictures with her - Trunk-class, Trunk-girl-chains, Trunk-Girl-3, Trunk-Cat-2

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    Replies
    1. Hehe, no probs. I sometimes comment on reviews that are months old. Oops.

      Now that you mention it, she DOES look like Rise! Now I can't unsee! I'll imagine her as Rise with her hair down from now on!

      She's not the best quality Native girl out there. I'm pretty disappointed with the paint job on her guns. Really shoddy stuff. I do like her unique presentation though. And her pose is so twisty! There's no way she's fitting into that tiny trunk. Unless she can shrink or something....

      Thanks, darling. You flatter me. (ノ∀`♥)

      Cheers,
      Jenn

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