Well, I’m back with another figure review today. I’ve been somewhat lazy recently and as a result I have a lot of figures to review in the coming weeks; especially since I have like another five coming either next week or the week after. Yes, the buying never ends my friend, it never ends….. This time we’re taking a look at the 1/8 Scale School Swimsuit ver. of Kudryavka Noumi by Griffon!

First off, let’s just say that I kind of jumped the gun on this figure… Being the somewhat inexperienced collector I am, I’m not exactly well versed on all of the different figure companies and their respective reputations. I love Kud (she prob ranks second to Haruka out of all the Little Buster girls) and I really liked how the figure looked, so before I even consulted MyFigureCollection I went ahead and pre-ordered her.

Well. that was a mistake since I ended up finding out that people are generally not too happy with the quality of Griffon figures. Now, I could have cancelled my pre-order but I decided to give Griffon a chance on this figure since I really liked the look of her.

Pre-orders for this Kud went up in late April of this year and closed around a month later in May. She retailed for 8200 yen (around $82 USD) and was shipped out to buyers in late July. I bought mine on AmiAmi in mid-July for 6710 yen (around $67 USD).

Alright, let’s take a look inside shall we.

At first glance she seems perfectly fine right?

Well, everything looks fine so far, wait… wait…. what’s… THAT?

Fantastic, a stain on a new figure! Now I’m not exactly sure how she got an orangey stain on her face; rather than it being a result of a poor paint job it looks like one of the employees accidentally smacked Kud in the face with a piece of pizza or something.

Needless to say, this definitely did not leave a good impression being a first time Griffon buyer. I had never had a problem with stains or anything of the sort, so I did a quick google search and found out that a Mr. Clean magic eraser would do the trick from this article.

If anyone wants to offer any other suggestions for cleaning stains, feel free to leave them in the comments. Hopefully I won’t encounter something like this again, but it’s always good to be prepared and have options!

After a bit of scrubbing most of it had disappeared thankfully. Still, that’s something that shouldn’t have slipped by before she was packaged.

Since we’re already on the topic of downsides of the figure, one of the first things you may notice (and should already know if you read the figure specs) about her is her height.

I really don’t understand how they can call this a 1/8 scale figure when she stands at around 14.5 centimeters tall. Yes, Kud is short, but she’s not THAT short. She’s basically the height of a figma as you can see, except she’s more than twice the price and has less customization options. Alter’s scale figure of her stands around 23 cm tall and it too is classified as a 1/8 scale figure.

Moving on, let’s take a better look at Kud since you’ve mainly seen her previously pizza stained face.

I’ll be honest, when you match a school swimsuit with stockings you have me sold. Dare I say Kud looks even more adorable than usual.

Not really a fan of the stand. I prefer the clear plastic ones that draw less attention away from the figure itself. The plaque on the stand is more of something you’d see with a trophy.

Aside from the pizza stain, I think her face actually turned out pretty nicely. Not as cute as a her Nendoroid in my opinion, but still, I thought it captured her cuteness. I was worried about this the most since one of the main problems with Griffon seems to be the face.

Here’s how she looks from the back. Is it just me, or does the sculpt of her hair look somewhat stiff and chunky to you? I think they should have worked in some thinner strands to make the hair flow better.

And here we reach strike three for Griffon; the paint job. “You’re outta here!!” I gave them a chance, but it didn’t really turn out so well. In the end, it would have been best to listen to the users on MyFigureCollection.

As you can see the paint job is sort of rough on the trim of the cape and up around the top of her socks where the ribbon is.

It’s not too noticeable from a distance, however I’m used to having the paint job almost flawless; like the paint job on my Strike Witches scale figures by Alter.

So far I’ve just been showing you guys pictures of how Kud comes packaged. One of the positive things about this figure is that she does have a few customization options. Firstly, as you could probably tell from the very first picture in this post, her hat does come off; it just loosely sits on top of her head.

Secondly, you can take her cape off as well by removing her head. The bonus here is that you now have your very own tako Kud!!! Enjoy!! (If you couldn’t tell, yes, I’m being sarcastic)

Take of her cape and hat and you get a completely different look. She definitely looks more loli here, and hence, much cuter in my opinion. Nope, I’m not a lolicon, I just think lolis look really cute. That is all.

To Buy or Not to Buy? That is the Question

Here’s my usual spiel yet again; buying figures always depends on how much you like the character. That aside, I would highly suggest straying away from buying this figure unless she becomes much cheaper. My first experience with Griffon left me pretty disappointed and as a result I probably won’t be ordering anything by them in the future; unless I see a positive review on the figure after it has been shipped. The lesson I learnt here: never buy a figure made by a company you don’t know well before checking MyFigureCollection.

I’m sorry Kud, but there were too many disadvantages to this particular figure. First off there was the stain (which I hope only happened to me and not anyone else), then there is the height issue since it is around 7-8 cm shorter than standard 1/8 scale figures, and finally the paint job wasn’t great. The figure is definitely not worth the price of 6710 yen (around $67 USD) on AmiAmi. I’d say a more reasonable price would be something around the $30 USD mark.

I’ll leave some links below if you still want to buy her after reading this review, but there is a reason why all the shops still have her in stock; it’s not a great figure.

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