Review: Figma 123 Ika Musume
I’d been longing for an Ika Figma ever since I watched the very first episode of her anime back in 2010 and thankfully Max Factory decided to grant my wish. I haven’t actually reviewed a Figma for over a year now so while I might be a tad rusty at this, I thought it’d be nice to kick things off again with this little cutie. So, let’s take a look at how Max Factory have captured everyone’s favourite anthropomorphic squid in Figma form!
Ika Musume hails from the comedy manga series Shinryaku! Ika Musume (侵略!イカ娘 The invader comes from the bottom of the sea!) also known as Squid Girl in English. The manga received an anime adaptation back in late 2010 with a second season following in 2011 due to it’s popularity. Ika is exactly what her names translate to, a squid girl complete with tentacles in place of hair as well as a few squid-like abilities such as glowing in the dark and producing ink from her mouth. She’s fond of shrimp and has a few quirky speech mannerisms such as ending the majority of her sentences with “geso” (squid tentacles). She also claims she will die if anyone attempts to take her hat off.. so please don’t.
Overall the show is great if you’re looking for some lighthearted laughs from an incredibly moe squid (and really, who isn’t looking for that?) but don’t expect much more. I’ll leave you with a video of the opening for the first season which is probably rather cruel of me considering every time I hear that song it’s stuck in my head for hours afterwards.
The Figma itself was released back in late April this year as a standard release with a retail price of around ¥3333 although we got her for considerably less at ¥2600 with AmiAmi’s discount. She stands at around 120 mm tall which puts her on the shorter end of the Figma line but seems accurate enough as she’s a small character. As is typical with Figma action figures, Ika comes with a variety of additional parts and accessories.
Max Factory’s take on Ika Musume is very accurate and they have executed her design in a way that makes her head full of tentacles and long PVC dress less restrictive to posing than they initially seem to be.
One thing that pains me about this Ika Figma is the way she’s supposed to hold onto her accessories, namely the plates of food she comes with. Unique plate holding hands are included to make this easier but it took me more than several tries to get the plates to sit in her hands without them falling right back out again. However, the beer mug is a little more forgiving and is easy to simply slide onto one of her tentacles.
Ika includes three different face plates which include her opened mouth “invasion time” face from my first photo, a cheerful face and the upset, scared looking face pictured in the photo above. When it comes to Figma, there is usally one or sometimes even two faceplates I don’t like and never use but I adore all three that come with Ika.. I have a hard time deciding what to display her with! I’ve decided to stick with the cheerful face for now because I can’t help but smile a bit at a cheerful looking Ika.
Max Factory have fortunately continued their habit of including joints on longer hair as it not only allows for more dynamic posing options but makes it a hell of a lot easier to get a Figma stand plugged in the back on the figure. Ika herself is lucky enough to have 4 hair (well, tentacle) joints, which the innermost tentacles being able to be posed in a way which lets them be brought around to her front to hold things like the beer mug.
Ika comes included with not one or two but three front hair attachments, the longer tentacle one, a shorter one which I’ll talk about and an extra long wired one that looks a bit strange above but it’s a lot of fun to play with!
The wired tentacles are not only fun but keep their shape well and can hold a surprising amount of weight without sagging although Ika’s neck joint starts to collapse after a period of time. And yes, it was hard to keep that shot clean.
Ika comes with yet another hair display option, if I remember correctly this look comes from the final episode of the first season. It’s a cute option but yeah, I’ll take the tentacles, thanks.
Her dress is made from soft PVC material so it doesn’t restrict posing as much as I thought it would. I despise the impact that hard PVC dresses and skirts have on Figma posing and love Max Factory for doing this, it was a very pleasant surprise and I hope they continue to make all skirts like this in the future. However, the poor girl can’t sit down due to the length of of it.
The plates of food Ika comes with so she can waitress for you too include some shrimp fried rice, a mug of beer and some squid ink pasta. I regret writing this review while I’m hungry now as it’s a meal I’d quite enjoy! The beer can even be taken out of the mug if you’d like to use it empty instead.
Ika Musume’s box is pretty standard fare and as with most Figma, a di:stage cutout is included for you to use.. does anyone ever actually use those?
Above is Ika pictured with all her accessories which include Ika Musume herself, 2 alternate head pieces with both long and short tentacles, 3 alternate front hair pieces, 3 different face plates, 5 sets of hands, 2 plates of food, a mug of beer and a standard Figma stand.
Overall, she’s a great Figma and I think Max Factory have done a great job with her apart from the issues I have with her ability (well, lack of) to hold onto her plates properly. If you’re a fan of the show, squids or Figma in general and you’re interested then I say go grab her while you can! Ika has sold out at AmiAmi at the time of writing but she’s still in stock over at Hobby Search.
There, I made it all the way through without a single squid pun or de geso, pretty proud of myself right now. Not particularly proud of the dodgy white balance that’s going on up there up but I’ll cut myself some slack as I get back into the swing of things. As for now, I’ll finish up with some headswaps then go back to spending all my free time on TERA. Thanks for reading and see you soon!
17 comments on “Review: Figma 123 Ika Musume”
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The floor looks great! I really like the background and these tables and chairs you’ve used.
This figma is so adorable and her tinyness makes her even cuter, I don’t play much with Figmas but Ika Musume would be something I would consider to buy. Her faces are damn cute and the tentacles look like a lot of fun.
Picture 3 is my favorite *kawaii*
Wieselhead recently posted..Tamaki Kousaka by Max Factory
Thanks! The floor is part of a 1/12 furniture set I found on AmiAmi.. it’s got some really cool stuff it in that should come in handy for Figma reviews.
I think she’s adorable too and I think it’d be fine to just buy her for displays reasons even if you weren’t going to play with her.
Thanks, that photo was a pain in the arse to take.. she kept falling backwards and dropping her plates. Ended up sticking blu-tack under her feet after that, lol
Wait, those hands were for holding the plates? I thought they were just her “menacing” pose hands, and I had previously tried to use the splayed hands to hold the plates…I think I might suck at Figma just a bit.
hamstercorp recently posted..Let’s Arts and Crafts!
Maybe they’re both? I dunno, I could be the one in the wrong! I just used the ones they used on her promo shots on the back of her box, lol. The hand holding the fried rice isn’t so bad and the plate slots in nicely but the other hand.. eh, I couldn’t get the plate in properly and ended up balancing it between in fingers.
[...] figure has pretty much the same underlying basics, but she also seems to be pretty popular and at least a few places that probably get far more page views than I do have already posted on [...]
Wow. Ika’s tentacle hair really can put up the weight given. And poor Mami. *giggles*
Ika in Sayaka’s outfit and vice is very suitable. But Saber… looks very… uhh… odd.
bd77 recently posted..V Rangers
Yeah, it’s her neck joint that gives out under too weight weight too.. not the tentacle itself! Pretty cool.
Haha, it looks pretty wrong, huh? I had a bit of a giggle over Ika’s head on Saber’s suited body so I decided to keep the photo, lol.
Good to see that everyone and their dog have an Ika Musume figma, she’s pretty great.
Oh so you use the back tentacles to hold stuff, didn’t think of it. Figmas need more of those little instruction pictures.. unless she came with some and I completely missed it.
I need to get me some of them 1/12th hardwood floor, looks nice.
exilehero recently posted..Pre-order list: the mid year edition!
I would have thought a lot of people would have gotten the nendo over the figma since the nendo looks like mini-ika from the anime. I thought about briefly but yeah.. not a huge nendo fan.
I wanted to replicate the beer holding pose in the official shots and tried using the front tentacles at first but quickly realized that wouldn’t work!
The floors are from this set: http://www.amiami.com/top/detail/detail?scode=GDS-8194
The furniture is pretty neat too!
Ika Musume sure is popular with everyone getting one and posting about it. Makes me feel really sorry for mine that is still stuck in her box.
I’m quite surprised with how much weight those tentacles hold, really happy they seem to be able to handle another figma with no problems.
Miette-chan recently posted..Pre-order list: the mid year edition!
How could you leave you there?!
Haha, yeah.. there are so many fun poses you could do with them. I tend to mostly pose her looking cute though, lol.
I think the tentacles are the coolest part of the Ika figma. The fact that you can make them wrap around anything offers an endless number of poses and situations you can create.
Nopy recently posted..Homura Akemi by GSC
Yeah, they’re heaps of fun to mess around with. She can get up to all kinds of mischief!
yup her hands… so hard to hold the plates, your little house bg is nice too
Ugh, they’re so frustrating! And thank you, it’s a cute little set.. I can’t wait for the chance to use it again.
Hi, I like a lot your reviews, and I have a question: do you have tips for cleaning figma figures? My collection always gets dusty……
Thanks Roy! To dust them, I use a cheap makeup blush brush with very fine bristles (so it won’t scratch) that I picked up from a chemist. I use the same brush on all my figures, works wonderfully!