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K-ON! Mugi-chan by Azone

anonymous_object — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:56:19 +0000

The never-ending stream of cute Azone dolls continues, this time with Kotobuki Tsumugi, or Mugi-chan as she is more commonly known, from the popular series K-ON!. And, of course, I have acquired this cute new Azone doll and am able to present to you the following review. Let’s start with some pictures ^^

You can rest assured that Azone did an excellent job recreating Mugi’s wavy golden locks. Not only that, but her cute, “daikon” eyebrows are present as well ^^;

Continuing the trend of including the girls musical instruments (except for Ritsu), Mugi comes with her electronic keyboard which is supported by its own collapsible stand for easy storage.

She looks incredibly cute standing behind her keyboard. It’s a bit hard to capture in a photograph but I think this one does a decent job ^^

Mugi-chan on keyboard ^^

Mugi-chan does come with her summer vest (not pictured here) as it did with Yui and Mio. I decided to just leave her in her default school blazer. But what I want to know is when Azone is going to give us Mugi’s school live outfit? They’ve already created them for Yui, Mio, and Ritsu. I hope that Mugi’s outfit will also become available.

Mugi’s lovely golden blond hair ^^. Azone did a nice job with the curly waves that she is depicted with in the anime. Overall, Azone has done a great job converting beloved anime Mugi into doll Mugi. The hair, the eyebrows, and the innocent cuteness is all here. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to like her, but now I’m glad I kept her on pre-order. She’s a really cute doll :D

The keyboard that is included with Mugi is intricately detailed with various knobs, sliders, buttons, and a display screen. Sadly, it does not produce real music xD

And now, a special treat! So far, I’ve collected 4 of the 5 keion girls and wanted to display them each in a special outfit. Here’s what I have so far!

Alice Mio, Little Devil Yui, Ritsu in Lace, and Mugi in a black, ribbon-ed one piece. What do you think? Which outfit do you like the most? Sadly, I did not have enough matching shoes to go around so Mio and Mugi had to wear their school loafers >_<

K-ON! rabu!

And with that, I will conclude this post. Stay tuned for the Azone Azusa doll that is scheduled to be released in late July. I might have one more review waiting for you :)

I has a Dollfie :3

anonymous_object — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:44:35 +0000

Yes, that’s right. A Dollfie. I have finally given in to the moe-pressure and purchased my first Dollfie Dream. And who else but Hirasawa Yui for my first girl? ^^

Wanted to share a few quick preview pics since she just arrived today. A full review will come later!

Huuuuuuge box. DDs are big girls!

Yui came without clothes on ^^; And a nice ribbon for the new owner to release her.

Finally got her all dressed! Her hair was a bit of a challenge. Quite messy out of the box ^^; Will need to fix it up more later. But isn’t she cute? :3

And a pics with DD Yui + Azone Yui. You can really appreciate the DD scale seeing the comparison!

Thanks for viewing. I’m going to go back to playing with my new Yui. See ya! :D

K-ON! Ritsu and Mio by Azone

anonymous_object — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:03:22 +0000

More K-ON! dolls! Following the unbelievably cute Hirasawa Yui, Azone has released the next two dolls in the K-ON! series, Ritsu and Mio! I and just so happened to acquire said new dolls ^^. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Feisty drummer girl Ritsu makes her appearance!

Azone pulled an evil move and made Ritsu a Wonder Festival exclusive item. Well, not exclusive to the event itself, but she was only sold online at Azonet and TBS ishop. Had to use a deputy service to order her and ended up costing quite a bit more than Yui. Not cool, Azone!

Well, aside from that nonsense, Ritsu is great! She comes with her school uniform like Yui but her’s is slightly different. Keeping with her slightly tomboyish style, Ritsu has her jacket open and shirt untucked. In fact, Azone didn’t even include buttons on her jacket so it’s always open xD And her skirt is really short ^^;

Sadly, no drums were included with Ritsu but they did give me some drumsticks ^^; She also came with an alternative outfit which you will see a bit further down.

Huge forehead! xD Nah, I’m just kidding. I love ya, Ritsu ;)

Karate chop!

Really liked this photo, but I was so occupied with posing her that I didn’t notice that her hairband was falling off until I was editing the images. Doh! >_<

And Mio! She’s much cuter in person that the pre-production photos made her look. I like her a lot :3

Like Yui and Ritsu, Mio comes with her school uniform. However! We also get her bass guitar ^^

Shiny bass ^^

Mio rocking out!

Mio looks genuinely good holding her bass :D

Like Yui’s Gita, Mio’s bass is nicely detailed with real strings and all.

Oh yeah, she comes with neko mimi :3

Lovely long, black hair.

And accurate pantsu too!

At the same time Azone released Ritsu, they also released some accessories for the K-ON! girls. One of the items had Yui’s guitar case.

Yes, it’s a real case. It has a zipper and you can place Gita in it. The photo above actually shows the bag while Yui’s guitar is inside :)

The other item in the bag set was Yui’s school bag.

Now on to the really good stuff :D Remember how I said Ritsu did not come with her drum set? A bit of a disappointment but understandable considering how large and detailed it would have to be. Instead, Azone gave us an full, extra outfit for Ritsu. Her school festival live outfit ^^.

While Ritsu’s live outfit was included in her package, Mio’s and Yui’s live outfits were separate accessories. I decided to buy them ^^. They’re fairly well made with a soft, polyester material. They have fuzzy linings and each comes with a removable sash.

Ritsu’s yellow outfit.

Mio’s purple outfit.

And Yui’s pink outfit ^^

Matching sandals included ;)

My Azone K-ON! collection is now 3/5 complete. Only Mugi and Azusa remain. Unless they decide to release Ui or some of the other secondary characters ^^; I’m not entirely sure if I will be completing the rest of the set. As much as I like these dolls, I definitely like Yui the most and Mugi and Azusa probably won’t change that. Plus, they’re a bit expensive and I’ve been trying to save for other things. Well, I currently have Mugi on pre-order. I might just decide to keep it that way ^^; Hope you liked the piccies. Until next time!

Yui gets a new outfit

anonymous_object — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:41:10 +0000

I have already dressed Kagami in a different outfit, so now it’s Yui’s turn! Decided to go with some a little more naughty for Yui ^^;
Say hello to little devil Yui ^^

Yui guarding the gates of hell?

“Stop! None shall pass without the express written consent of Hirasawa Yui, little devil version!”

“I’m serious, I won’t let you by!”

“Why would you want to travel to hell anyway? It’s really hot here!”

“Ok, you’ve forced me to take action!” *Stab!*

The boots are quite nice ^^b

Ok, enough nonsense xD. Yui’s outfit came from three individual pieces: The dress (top, skirt, cuffs), the knee high leather boots, and the silver trident. Each was sold separately but were obviously meant to go together ^^.

Complete with cute bat wings :D

Yui’s outfit by Azone was purchased at Hobby Search. The total price for all three pieces was about 4700 yen. A bit pricey but the outcome is amazing! You can find the items here: Dress, boots, and trident.

Introducing Yui Hirasawa by Azone International!

anonymous_object — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:57:36 +0000

After discovering the irresistible Hiiragi Kagami by Mama Chapp, it was inevitable that more dolls would follow. Today, Hirasawa Yui joins the family ^^.

Specifically, Hirasawa Yui from the popular anime series K-ON!. I don’t think I really need to explain what K-ON! is, right? Well, I always liked Yui’s super energetic, albeit air-headed personality and when I heard Azone would be making a doll version of her, I couldn’t resist ^^

Yui even came with her favorite guitar/friend, Giita!

Yui comes dressed in her full school uniform with blazer, shirt, blue ribbon, and pleated skirt. One thing she did not come with is her distinctive yellow hairpins. Well, Azone included a piece of paper along with a strip of double-sided tape that was supposed to be used to cut out thin strips of yellow paper to serve as hairpins These hairpins would then have to be wrapped around a lock of hair. The problem, however, was that the tape really didn’t stick well and Azone only included a small amount of yellow paper that could be cut into hairpins. After 30+ minutes of trying to wrap the tiny yellow pieces of paper into hairpins, I got frustrated and just made my own out of some yellow sticker labels (of which I had a near endless supply of).

So the hairpins you see above are actually my own creation and looking at them more closely in these photos, I might have made them a bit too thick but it was a chore to get them on so I will probably leave them ^^; Anyway, I blame the hairpin fiasco on poor design by Azone. Of course, my hands aren’t very adept at working with such small, fragile things… Anyway, was not happy with the hairpins but it is the only major complaint I have with the set ;)

Only problem with Giita was that the switch you see on the top came broken. At least I think it did ^^; As soon as I took the guitar out of the package, I saw it floating around on the bottom of the container so maybe I broke it off trying it get it out :o

Nya~
Yui had a bit of difficulty with this sitting position. Her legs only bend so far forward which makes sitting her flat with her legs out a challenge. Had to prop her up just a bit ^^;

Super close look at Giita. Not quite perfect but nicely detailed nonetheless. What I really like is how the guitar’s strings are real! Yeah, I figured they would be pieces of plastic or paint or something, but they are actually strings that and it almost makes you want to strum them xD

The other side of Giita. No, I did not attempt to tune it ;)

So, what if it’s summer and Yui is getting a bit hot with her blue school blazer? Well, you can take off her jacket, of course!

Or, if it’s more to your style, Yui can don her school sweater (or is it a vest? I don’t know these things…).

Even more clothing extras! The final accessory is Yui’s Honeymoon (ハネムーン) T-shirt. Why “honeymoon”? I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember this specific shirt from the anime, but Yui wore a lot of strange shirts so I probably just missed it >_<. I think there were also some other special editions of Yui from Amazon and another store that had a different shirt in place of this one. Amazon had one that said “Paradise” but looked pretty similar otherwise. Ordering from Amazon would have been more expensive so I just got the regular version with the Honeymoon shirt ^^.

How can anyone resist this cuteness? Seriously? Now you see why I had to get Yui. She’s just too cute :D

And finally, a comparison shot with Mama Chapp Kagami. You can probably pick out differences by the photo but I’ll summarize what I found:

Kagami definitely uses a Obitsu type body whereas Yui uses… I have no idea. It doesn’t match any of the types I saw on Obitsu’s site so maybe it’s custom? Still a doll noob…
Update: Yui’s body is the Pure Neemo Flection.
Anyway, the end result seems to be that Kagami is more flexible and easier to pose. For example, Kagami’s legs and knees are able to rotate farther and her arms and hands have more movement range. Overall, Kagami is more flexible. The advantage Yui’s slightly less flexible body has is that it looks better ^^; The joints aren’t so obvious and her body is just shaped more naturally. Yui has a much harder time standing without external support. Different shoes may help this though.

A side note is that Yui’s body also seems more accurately proportioned. Although they are both dolls, Yui looks more realistic to me. Yui’s head in particular is naturally shaped and proportioned whereas Kagami has more of a anime-ish look. Yui is also slightly taller. Both are good, just different ^^

Lastly, and Yui wins here hands down, is the clothing. Yui’s school uniform is very high quality and fits nice and snug whereas Kagami’s school uniform looks overly large and stiff in comparison. I really, really like the 3 (partial) outfits that come with Yui. Definitely a huge plus for me!

So, the final verdict? I love Yui!

Yui can be found Hobby Search and Amiami although Hobby Search is currently out of stock. Both are priced around 13,200 yen. While not cheap, it’s not that much more than some higher priced PVC figures. Definitely worth it for me ^^

Parting shot of Yui rocking out with Giita!