written by Jon Paik (@igfxbalance)

There’s a charm to possessing a physical piece of art that no digital representation can ever compare to. Often times it is that realization that becomes the prelude to one’s desire to begin collecting figures. Hello everyone, my name is Balance! I am a small blogger from The Little Busterz and I was offered an opportunity to talk about toys here on Lifted Geek! Okay sure, we’re actually talking about figures but hey, they’re still technically toys! Allow me to tell you how I got started into this hobby.

Amongst my small group of friends, we had a guy known as Wizzy. In the IRC channel we would all hang out at, Wizzy would always post links to figures he thought looked nice and ones he was considering purchasing. This was normal and would happen almost on a daily basis. As a result, I was given exposure to what it’d be like to purchase a figure and where some good websites would be.

In 2012, I decided to travel to Texas to visit my friend and attend A-Kon at Dallas. It was a spur of the moment decision between my friend and I. Surprisingly in a short amount of time, we managed to plan everything out very well. It was until I arrived at Texas that my friend gave me something I didn’t expect to receive: a nendoroid petite of Kudravka Noumi from Little Busters! My friend knew how much I loved Little Busters and found it only appropriate to gift me the item. I suppose that’s what triggered my hobby. The story doesn’t end there, however.

During A-Kon, I was separated from my friend to do a bit of looking around in the exhibit section of the convention. Normally I don’t buy much and I just like to look at all the things I can’t get (I hope I’m not the only one who does this!), however something caught my eyes that would change my life forever.

While the name of the stand escapes me at the moment, there stood Senjougahara in her casual clothing. A cosplayer? No. It was a PVC statue standing at 17cm tall. For the first time in my life, a figure captured my attention at its fullest. There’s an aura that surrounds a character like Senjougahara that feels inescapable.

Initially I was able to pull my attention away from her and walk away. However I stopped, contemplating whether or not it was worth to spend 30 dollars on this figure. In a matter of less than a minute, I quickly turned around, asked for the statue, paid the 30 dollars and Senjougahara was in my hands. That, my friends, was how I got my first (scale) figure.

Now that you know how I got started, what better figure to begin talking about than the one I just mentioned above? Let’s get started!