It may have been awhile since I’ve done an It Figures post, but anyone that’s followed the site with any regularity knows that they’re here to read posts by Lisa Marie Bowman, or maybe Arleigh, but if they’re here to read anything from pantsukudasai56, then they’re in for a long wait in between entries.  My latest entry was about a little show called Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, and keeping with that theme, I have the latest figure I’ve received who also happens to be the protagonist of that show, Misaka Mikoto.

First off, this box is big enough to hold an entire Spartan.  Is that Master Chief in there?  Ok, I really only took this pic as a sort of comparison.  My TV is a 55″ screen, so you can see just how big that box is.  Incidentally, the show that I’m watching is Yozakura Quartet.  All in all it’s a pretty average show, so there won’t be a post dedicated to it, but it’s not like it’s a terrible show.  Just one of those shows you watch if you have nothing better to do.  Anyways, that’s all I’ll ever mention of the show, and no, Master Chief is not in this box, although he would almost fit (not really)  The box winds up being 9180 square inches of space.  By far the largest box I’ve ever received from Glorious Nippon, but is this the size of the figure I’m reviewing?

No.  There’s two figures in here.  Still, two figures for a box this size is pretty impressive.  The other figure is of the Princess of the Crystal by Good Smile Company, and she in herself is almost worth a post.  But today we’re focusing just on the FREEing Misaka Mikoto (FREEing is also a subsidiary of Good Smile Company, so getting the two in one box makes a certain amount of sense)

Even though it’s not as large as you’d think coming from a shipping box that size, this is still a 1/4 scale figure, which is FREEing’s forte.  While they also do the normal 1/6 to 1/8 scale figures, they’re mostly known for doing the larger 1/4 scale figures.  For those who don’t quite get what I’m saying, it basically means that if you increased this figure’s size 4 times what it currently is, you’d have a life size figure.  For the curious, 1/1 size figures do exist, and they also cost several thousands of dollars.  Far more than even this reviewer can afford to spend on a figure, regardless of how awesome it would be to own one.

The first thing I’d like to point out about this figure is a big difference between her and most other figures.  A lot of other figure collectors would probably spot this right away, but for the uninitiated, here’s something to look at.  She doesn’t have a standard base like so many other figures.  That stool is what supports her, an unlike a lot of other figures, she’s not attached to it by pegs or screws.  She’s just sitting on it, with most of the figure weight being put directly on the stool, and a small amount being put on her foot which is touching the floor.  While this is an interesting choice, it also leads to the possibility that she will not be quite as stable as a figure that has a base that it’s pegged in to.  Still, from my experimentation, it seems that she will remain quite stable, so the chances of her falling off the base are fairly slim, unless you live in an area that experiences a lot of earthquakes.

The backside of this figure stays faithful to the bunny girl motif that Japan (and I) so dearly love.  FREEing is well known for its bunny girl figures, having done them for highly popular series like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and lesser know but still well loved series like Sora no Otoshimono, so naturally they’re not letting their customers down with this series.  This is actually their second figure from the series, with “good friend” Kuroko Shirai already having debuted in a similar outfit.  So, they’re no strangers to making sure that their figures look good from any angle.

Dear Jeebus, she had no face!  Ok, this is a fairly new thing for the 1/4 scale FREEing figures.  Usually with this line, you get what you’re given and that’s that.  But for these figures, they’ve given us the option of changing out the faces.  The face that I showed you earlier had her smiling.  That’s all well and good for most people, but for fans of the series and people that feel they know Mikoto well, that just isn’t good enough.

This face is much more suitable to her.  Anyone that has watched the series would know that if Mikoto were to find herself forced to wear a bunny girl outfit, that she would be very uncomfortable doing so.  So it’s great that FREEing had the foresight to include a second face that makes Mikoto look as though she is highly embarrassed to be seen wearing such an outfit.  Now, to each their own of course, so if you liked the previous face then by all means display her as such.  However, for people like myself who feel that Mikoto would normally show a lot more restraint in this situation, this secondary face is a great addition to the figure and I’m thrilled that FREEing gave us a choice.

One other aspect that I’d like to focus on is the stockings.  This just goes to show the attention to detail that FREEing made to this figure.  It would have been so easy for them to just paint the stockings on and call it good, but that’s not what FREEing is all about.  You can’t easily tell from this picture, but I’m here to tell you that those stockings are actual net stockings and not just painted on.  What I mean by that is, I can grab a portion of the stockings and pull them off from her legs.  Now, granted, you can’t actually removed the stockings entirely, but the fact that they are actual fabric stockings and not just molded plastic means a lot to figure fans.  These small attention to details makes a figure like this worth putting in ones collection.

All in all, a big part of FREEing’s draw is the sheer size of their figures.  Not many companies make figures larger than a 1/6 size.  But regardless, if it was a large sized figure with poorly sculpted features, it wouldn’t matter what size it was.  With the inclusion of a secondary face, FREEing tackles any problem I might have had with this figure, and makes it one that would be welcome any any serious collector’s home.  This kind of attention to detail is exactly what we all expect when we get a figure related to Good Smile Company.