Nendoroid Shigure Kai-II Review

Hello everyone ^^ welcome back to Tiro Finale! As promised, after our earlier unboxing & preview post we're here to bring you a more in depth look at the lovely Nendoroid Shigure Kai-II. Kudos to snwlprd for his excellent photography work.

• Manufacturer: Good Smile Company
• Series: Kantai Collection -Kancolle-
• Price: 4,815 Yen (Before tax)
• Release Date: November 2016 
• Scale: Non-scale, Nendoroid
• Material: Painted ABS & PVC

First up is Shigure in her default pose and configuration. From the front, her loose, open stance giving an impression of youthful eagerness while still remaining cutely feminine.

Looking from the rear, we get to see Shigure's long hair braided and draped over her left shoulder. Mad props to GoodSmile on the paintwork they have done on her hair with the excellent toning and finish really highlighting their finer details and make them instantly standout, especially at a distance.

Taking a closer look at the front, we can see every little deatail of Shigure's features lovingly recreated in Nendoroid form, from her ruffled bangs to her lucky ahoge, neatly braided hair, hairpiece and signature Kai-II "dog-flaps". These fine details combine with her demure expression to give her quite a demure, lovely look.

As with GoodSmile's usually high quality standards, a lot of work has been put into even the tiny details of the figure, such as in the case of Shigure's headpiece, with the difference in texture between the bright, glossy finish of the orb and the more muted metallic feather bits making it more distinct and eye-catching. Similar techniques are used to great effect throughout the figure.

Next we take a look at her main body. Her outfit is of a seifuku-like design common to the first 5 sister-ships of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyers, with Shigure in particular receiving a long bright-red ribbon-tie upon receiving her Kai-II upgrade. The strong contrast in both color and texture throughout the uniform help the colors to really pop and the uniform to really stand-out, even with all her equipment as you will get to see later.

Now we'll take a look at Shigure all geared up with her iconic twin guncannons, an unusually large setup for destroyers (or even heavy cruisers). Her setup and expression here may even remind you of her 1/8 scale figure which we previously reviewed. 

Zooming in here we get to see the second of her 3 face-plates, this one her showing a tense, determined expression.

Taking a closer look at her armaments we can find some wonderfully detailed and consistently strong paintwork. The smaller 12.2cm turret at the side and each barrel of every gun in the figure are also freely rotatable, adding some additional flexibility to the figure.

Her impressive setup up-front does come at a cost however. The large guns have a complex and awkward connection system, with both guns connected to the main adapter via oddly un-articulated stick-joints, with the adapter itself needing to weave through stand's connector before joining in at the port on Shigure's belt. Oh, and all that while making sure Shigure maintains a firm grip on the guns' handles... at such a small size, making sure all of these fit properly together takes more than a little patience and finicking without parts coming off as you try to snap all those joints together. The sheer obtuseness of this setup would be my primary complaint of the figure. If you want to avoid some inevitable frustrations, do remember to temporarily remove the head while doing this to make the process a lot easier.

Onto her other armaments, down here we get to see a pair of quadruple 61-inch torpedo launchers attached to Shigure's upper thighs. They are both nicely detailed and at such a miniature size they do look pretty cute XD

The uniform really does standout even amidst all the gear.

And now we get to see some really cool stuff, with all of her equipment and effect parts installed, Nendoroid Shigure Kai-II can put on quite the impressive display.

Each and every weapon system on Shigure comes with its own special effects part.

The torpedo effects parts can be neatly connected onto the stand itself. Speaking of which, the clear blue stand shown underneath her would be the additional pre-order bonus when buying directly from the GoodSmile online store. I found it to be a rather nice complement have when doing combat setups.

The articulation of the 12.7cm turret and its barrels can be seen here.

So cool <3 Really digging the dynamic  possibilities in posing this figure (that is, once I'd actually managed to put it together ^^'').

Now we get to look at another one of Nendoroid Shigure's many configurations. Here, we get to see her in the process of making chocolate in a cute pink apron. It is based on Kancolle's official in-game art used during Valentines day.

The apron itself (with it's own fixed necktie) is an additional part that be equipped by temporarily removing the figure's head and replacing the default collar and necktie.

Behind we can see an accompanying large, pink apron on the back. On retrospect I realized I flubbed by using the guns' connector to attach it in place instead of a small, clear pin that I overlooked.

Looking closer on the front we get to see Shigure's third face-plate, this one with a bashful, complaining look. Perhaps she's chastising her teitoku for barging in before the chocolate's ready?

Last but not least, we now get to see Shigure in her swimsuit, a cute two-piece reminiscent of her regular uniform plus a nice white coat to top it off. It is based on the in-game mid-summer art used in Kancolle.

Her beach getup from the back. Here we see the clear connector to her belt.

Her swimsuit is actually an entirely different body apart from her uniformed version, though this one is in a fixed configuration so no optional posing with this one.

One of her two additional accessories would be this cute little lunch box, ripe for use in picnics with other Nendoroids!

The other accessory would be a transparent pink swim ring neatly attached via a thin line into a small port located where her armpit would be.

Quite the little ball of sunshine isn't she <3

Nearing the end of my review, I can honestly say I came away very impressed by this package. More than just the usual high-quality work we can come to expect from Good Smile, the sheer amount of parts included with these figures further emphasizes the strengths of the Nendoroid line of products with their affordable, cutely deformed figures and plenty of options for posing. People into posing figures will have a field day with this one (with some annoyances). All of this comes in at 4,815 yen, a little higher than usual, but a still an excellent value proposition considering the sheer amount of stuff you'd be getting.

And that wraps up my second figure and first Nendoroid review, thanks for reading and hope you liked it. Here's to hoping more in the future when she is joined by more of her friends ^^ See you next time!