SQ Tomoe Mami Revisited

The SQ Tomoe Mami was the first ever article and figure review I did on Tiro Finale. Since then, 13 months have passed and I'm proud to say that Tiro Finale now has 280+ articles written till date. Looking back at my original review, I was not particularly happy with the photo taking then. Since then, I had grown tremendously and decided that I owe it to both myself and you, the readers, to revisit Banpresto's SQ Tomoe Mami.

So, here we are then. This isn't the first time I've revisited one of my earlier reviewed figures and it's unlikely to be the last time either. Unlike last time though, I'm not going to add much towards the "review" of the figure as much of what I wanted to convey had already been done in the initial review.

For this episode, it's all about documenting Mami in a better light. And when I mean light, I mean it literally.

As I've learned along the way, much of it comes down to lighting when it comes to presenting a figure. The toughest part, always being the background. It's easy enough to capture the foreground (e.g. subject) in high detail but, getting the background to play nice can always be a tricky matter of exposure.

Of course, I won't go into the nitty gritty details and end up boring you. On top of that, it is still very much a learning process for me. No way am I up to par with the professional photographers who do this for the likes of Good Smile Company, Banpresto, Kotobukiya, Alter, etc.

Fooling around with lighting

I do this as a hobby and while I wouldn't shy to bring it to the next level if the opportunity presents itself, I'd always remain realistic and know where I stand.

Always striving to do better but not with unrealistic goal sets. That's my approach to figure photography and everything else in life. 

Try too hard and it ends burning you out along the way and becoming a chore. Not put in enough effort and you fall into a lull where you never improve and things start to become boring. It's all about striking that balance!

Mami's smile is so lovely!

Enough about that, you didn't come here to get life advice from a hobby blog. So, how's the figure? Surely nothing would've changed over the one year of ownership right?

Well, not exactly. In fact, the colors have started to fade a little and scuff marks had started to become more apparent. The latter, a fault on my part, for having left Mami in the box for too long without a plastic seal. Contact between cardboard and the figure can sometimes have rather detrimental effects.

Gotta love that flowing skirt!

The details on the rifle are really lovely too!

If you are planning to get the SQ Tomoe Mami figure, take note that Banpresto actually did re-issue this series of Madoka Magica figures during the time of the Rebellion movie's release.

The only major difference being, the change in the base used from a circular to a hexagonal base with a different motif design. This new design allows for the various characters to be "linked up" together via the interlocking shape.

As for the figure itself, it's hard to say if anything has changed just by looking at the promotional pictures. I am aware Sayaka's figure has a change in her hairpin design to reflect the story's changes but, cosmetically all the other characters remain the same.

Perhaps, the best way for me to really know is by getting an the new release and comparing them side by side. I've seen such a side-by-side comparison done by a Japanese website once before and I wouldn't mind doing the same as well.

Well, that's all for today. It's been really fun to be able to do justice to this early release Mami figure and perhaps one of the must have figure for every Mami fan. Once again, thanks so much for reading and I hope you have a wonderful new week ahead!