Frauline and Figma Figurines

I recently purchased my first Frauline Revoltech figurine - Suzumiya Haruhi (Bunny ver.) from Amazon.jp. I saw it was being sold at less than half the price when I made a differnent unrelated purchase, so I included it in my cart.

As far as anime poseable figurines go, this would be my 4th. I bought my first one, a Revoltech Saber, in the Philippines, followed by a Kamen Rider Kabuto, and then a Figma Suzumiya Haruhi, and now, this one. Since I have a Haruhi from both Figma and Frauline, I finally have a chance to compare the 2 popular toy lines. I didn't buy the toys just so that I could compare them, mind you. I did buy them simply because they were attractive. :)

First off is Frauline, which is a subset of the Revoltech series of toys from Kaiyodo. My first encounter with Frauline toys was back in the Philippines. At that time, only Rei Ayanami, Asuka Langley, and Tousaka Rin were available. The Rei Ayanami figurine wow'ed me since the first time I saw her - the design and craftmanship of the joints looked nice, did not seem bulky or awkward, and highlighted the natural feminine curves of the figurine. At that time, the Frauline toys were for me the pinnacle of anime figurines. Unfortunately, I never bought any Frauline back then due to the price tag, and also because I was watching Fate/Stay Night at the time, and was eyeing to have Saber instead.

I think i first encountered Figma toys here in Japan. Figma is a toy line from Good Smile Company. Like Frauline, Figma figures are praised for their poseability, unobtrusive joints, replaceable face and hands (to suit your posing needs), and most important of all, good sculpting (i.e. the figurine looks true to the anime character). Truthfully, it's not easy to tell the difference in quality between the two toy lines just by comparing boxed figurines. What eventually prompted me to buy the Figma Suzumiya Haruhi instead of a Frauline figurine is my experience with the Revoltech series - mainly, with my Revoltech Saber. I never did mention it, but Saber looks good... but was hard to pose. The Revoltech joint system "snaps to grid" - which is good but annoying at times when you need to fine-tune a pose. And then there are the non-revoltech joints that are often loose, so it can't maintain certain poses. That said, I opted to try out Figma.

Now, Figma did not disappoint. The joints are stiff, and do not have discrete movements, so fine-tuning is easy. Moreover, Figma figurines (or at least, the Haruhi figurine) came with a transparent stand and adjustable arm to hold your figurine in place. All in all, Figma figurines are top notch toys.

Now, with my recent Frauline purchase, I noticed that the joints do not (no longer?) snap-to-grid, although some revolving parts are sadly still quite loose. Also, the stand/grip it came with wasn't adjustable - in fact, the pole that holds the grip is too tall, so I decided to cut half-an-inch off, only to discover that the top was actually a tailored socket -- so off it went to the garbage bin.

Anyway, on the plus side, I did notice that the parts are easier to swap around as compared with Figma's. But more importantly, the Frauline figurine is more elegant - that is, the build is more full-bodied and feminine. Aside from the sculpting, I think this is also due to the unique design of the shoulder and stomach/lower-back joints that allow for more realistic contours and shapes when they are moved. And despite all its flaws, this last bit of good design actually makes me love the Frauline series.