Uzuki Shimamura (Smile and Treat version)

9 hours ago, Bellatrix said:

I'd kill for that dress ahahah I like it so much! Those shoes are absolutely stunning!

 

Edit: I noticed that she is still available on Volks website - anyone in for a split? 😄

I was thinking on buying her but I don't want her outfit, PM me if you are interested 😉

12 hours ago, Bellatrix said:

I noticed that she is still available on Volks website

It looks like Uzuki is joining Ami, Sakura, and Freya as unwanted dolls.

Makes me sad, my Uzuki V1 has such a sweet face, and so does Ami. 

Uzuki arrived today. Her face-up is really cute, it gives her a very sweet and innocent look. 

Haven’t taken a good look at her Smile & Treat outfit, but her school uniform is definitely improved over the original. The original had the pattern silkscreened on the material, and on the new one the material itself is patterned. The vest is a much darker blue, and material in the shirt feels nicer. 

The jacket material is nicer too.

I’d love to see a reissue of Mio Honda’s uniform with similar improvements. 

 

Seriously tempted to get Uzuki after I get my bonus at work.  Does Rin have an outfit that goes with Uzuki's Smile and Treat one?   It'd be cute to have them match.  

4 hours ago, Galvatim said:

Does Rin have an outfit that goes with Uzuki's Smile and Treat one?   It'd be cute to have them match.

They haven’t released a Smile and Treat outfit for Rin. 

My Uzuki V2 arrived a few days ago, and she is very cute. 

Her wig and school uniform are much nicer than Uzuki V1’s. 

Uzuki & Rin go to different schools, so the uniform is very different, but dressing both in their respective school outfit is a cute way to match them. 

There are also the New Generations and My First Star sets, and AFAIK Volks still stocks them. New Generations comes with accessories that let you customize the outfit for Rin, Uzuki, & Mio. With My First Star the fabric in the outfit design is specific to each idol type i.e. Cute, Cool, and Passion, so Volks sells three outfits. Uzuki wears cute, Rin wears cool, and Mio is Passion.

I highly recommend Uzuki, she’s got such a sweet cheerful face, and looking at her is always uplifting. Mio is the same, and I love having all three of them. 

Man, I've wanted ShibuRin's school uniform for a long time.  For that matter, I've been meaning to watch Idolmaster Cinderella Girls for a while, too.  

Now I just hope Uzuki stays in stock until I get that bonus.  

1 hour ago, Galvatim said:

I've wanted ShibuRin's school uniform for a long time.

The aftermarket price for that uniform has always been nuts. 

I posted about the improvements to Uzuki’s uniform a few days ago, but I want to reiterate that it’s a huge quality jump. The only thing not significantly improved are the socks, and V1s socks were already nice; they’re the best Volks socks I have for doing the loose socks look. If you can swing it and it’s still up, the uniform is worth the money IMO. 

The Volks W-182 wig in “natural” (black) makes a great Rin wig too. 

23 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

The aftermarket price for that uniform has always been nuts. 

I posted about the improvements to Uzuki’s uniform a few days ago, but I want to reiterate that it’s a huge quality jump. The only thing not significantly improved are the socks, and V1s socks were already nice; they’re the best Volks socks I have for doing the loose socks look. If you can swing it and it’s still up, the uniform is worth the money IMO. 

The Volks W-182 wig in “natural” (black) makes a great Rin wig too. 

Uzuki's uniform was in stock last night, so I ordered it.  Looks like it's still up now, but I'm not going to risk waiting until early next week, the way Volks outfits sell.  

I'm considering From-Sen's Rin uniform, as an alternative to Volks'.  No loafers, but I have loafers up the wazoo at this point.  

While I do love how Rin looks with the wig I currently have on her, it'd be nice to have something more accurate to the original character design.  

19 minutes ago, Galvatim said:

While I do love how Rin looks with the wig I currently have on her, it'd be nice to have something more accurate to the original character design.

The W-182 is really close. I’ll post some photos as soon as I can so you can see if you like it. It may not be until this weekend though  

The wig you have on Rin is a good look for her, but I wasn’t sure if you were using it because you wanted to restyle her or you just didn’t have her full set wig, which is why I mentioned the W-182. 

BTW, Cinderella girls is good, but the large cast makes it a bit less approachable than original iM@S. That said, the anime uses a good approach to the problem and the characters overall are really likable. Trying to pick a favorite from the main cast is tough, but some of the supporting characters like Mika & Kaede really shine. 

On 3/18/2021 at 11:27 AM, Galvatim said:

 While I do love how Rin looks with the wig I currently have on her, it'd be nice to have something more accurate to the original character design.  

Here are some photos of Rin in her default wig.

 

 

Here is the Volks W-182 wig. This wig curls at the ends, whereas Rin's default is straight. The bangs part on the opposite side from her default. It also has a bit more body, but I had a coolcats cap with the lace edge under it. That may have given it a bit more bulk.

 

 

If anybody's interested, Uzuki's still available to buy at the main volks site as of writing this, also without a low-stock warning, which I guess means there are more than three of them:

Volks store linkety-link

If finances werent what they are, and rena looming over with that machete, I might even consider it -- despite not really liking the main trio of characters in the Cinderella girls anime (Best girl - Ranko).

Other hopefuls available: Mercury, Yuriko Nanao (low stock), Ranka (low stock) and Freya.

 

8 hours ago, finnleo said:

despite not really liking the main trio of characters in the Cinderella girls anime (Best girl - Ranko).

Ranko wins in the moe category every time. Uzuki, Rin, and Mio had an overly dramatic story arc in the anime, which seems to have pissed off a lot of fans of the games. Mio’s character in particular got pretty rough treatment for the sake of adding drama. 

Man, you guys are making me impatient.  I won't be able to deposit my bonus (and order Uzuki) until tomorrow.   

That wig looks pretty good on Rin, I'll be picking up one of those, too.  

1 hour ago, Galvatim said:

That wig looks pretty good on Rin, I'll be picking up one of those, too.

The photos of Rin’s wigs above suffer for the tools I used to cut out the green screen. I need to clean the ends up a bit in those images.

This is the W-182 style on Iori, and I liked it on her so much it ended up getting her a W-182 in her chocolate brown color. It’s a lovely wig, and this blond one is destined for Usagi. 
 

 

I feel like this discussion was done before, but I'll bite ... again

6 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Ranko wins in the moe category every time.

I should technically roast Ranko for being the at the time trendy chuunibyo character, to the point of her being voiced by Maaya Uchida even (Rikka Takanashi anyone)? She might seem like a comical moeblob on the surface, but the whole self esteem thing coupled with the resulting identity crisis are things that I most like about her story, and that she more or less sorts herself out .. also on her bonus round when stepping up to the challenge of going into the major leagues with the Love Laika stand in gives her points besides cutesy (I still want that outfit ... damnit)

7 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

the anime, which seems to have pissed off a lot of fans of the games.

Having some more playtime in platinum stars, I can see that being a thing, since the games have one perticular crucial flaw compared to reality, which is that you have your main idol group, and you can change the composition of it, and its main lead at any moment without any kind of penalty or backlash.

The second anime series (Yes, second, because Xenoglossia is a thing) to cover the main girls I think the only internal character problem was Miki getting annoyed about not getting into Ryugu komachi (or whatever Iori's group was called), and thats about it.

The cinderella girls anime actually takes a bit more effort for character interaction, which incidently gives Ranko an advantage since she's the only solo talent covered, so now Rin as a talented stoic ayanamiesque flatpan who's only problem is that she's good at what she does, which by itself might be quite likeable ends up being the non-emotional bulldozer she is in the anime, hurling over the bubbly girl next door, and the token tomboy -- I mean when New Generations was proposed in the anime i was going, "You know Rin only works as a solo talent, dont you...?" - So yes, a intentional drama inspiring choise right there, but... well what can you do.

also there's the thing about being forced to take a look at the rest of the cast, which might be more of a thing in Cinderella girls than the main series, so suddenly you are looking at other compelling stories, that take away from your own favorite ... even Kirari of all people throws a curveball at you.

So yea.. I can see the anime not being liked.

But still I had a peculiar initial "no" reaction to Rin in the anime despite everything ... but im weird.

11 minutes ago, finnleo said:

The second anime series (Yes, second, because Xenoglossia is a thing) to cover the main girls I think the only internal character problem was Miki getting annoyed about not getting into Ryugu komachi (or whatever Iori's group was called), and thats about it.

Chihaya, and Haruka both had internal crisis at the end of the second half, but other than that it was largely a fluffy slice-of-life show with the other girls. 
 

15 minutes ago, finnleo said:

So yea.. I can see the anime not being liked.

That was honestly a more insightful analysis of the anime than I can give. 

The character I ended up liking more than I expected was Miku Maekawa. At first I found her very annoying, but she grew on me partly because I thought pairing her up with Riina made for an interesting relationship dynamic given their  respective personalities, and I also really liked her stunt getting Nana Abe to stand up to wicked stepmother’s grand design. 

28 minutes ago, finnleo said:

also on her bonus round when stepping up to the challenge of going into the major leagues with the Love Laika stand in gives her points besides cutesy (I still want that outfit ... damnit)

Yeah that part really makes me want Minami to go with Ranko and Anya. 

I ordered Uzuki!  Got a DDdy body for my DDH-16 head on the way, too.  

47 minutes ago, Galvatim said:

I ordered Uzuki!  Got a DDdy body for my DDH-16 head on the way, too.  

Congrats on both.

Mine took a month to ship, so hopefully you won't have to wait that long.

On 2/10/2021 at 3:34 PM, BeyondTime said:

It looks like Uzuki is joining Ami, Sakura, and Freya as unwanted dolls.

Makes me sad, my Uzuki V1 has such a sweet face, and so does Ami. 

Uzuki Shimamura will try her best!

I can't believe she's not more popular. I freaked out when someone on one of the FB groups said she was available again and snatched her up. Very excited to get her home and play with her pretty dress! 

Closeup of Uzuki V2's face. Her new wig is a Volks W-170D. I knew when I bought her I wanted her to be different from V1 Uzuki, so this is her hairstyle going forward.

Her blush is a bit redder in person, but I didn't want to push the saturation up that high.

@BeyondTime Maybe it's the wig you've got on her, but I'm getting Yui Hirasawa vibes.   

I'm looking forward to getting my Uzuki later this week, I'll try to remember to compare her with Yui.  

31 minutes ago, Galvatim said:

@BeyondTime Maybe it's the wig you've got on her, but I'm getting Yui Hirasawa vibes.   

I'm looking forward to getting my Uzuki later this week, I'll try to remember to compare her with Yui.  

I can kind of see that, so I just compared mine and the sculpts are really different around the jaw and eyes. 

Uzuki arrived and I love her even more than I thought I would! She's got the sweetest expression. Definitely not a character I have any knowledge of, attachment to, or one I'd normally care about, but's she's completely perfect.

On 3/28/2021 at 3:55 PM, BeyondTime said:

Closeup of Uzuki V2's face. Her new wig is a Volks W-170D. I knew when I bought her I wanted her to be different from V1 Uzuki, so this is her hairstyle going forward.

Her blush is a bit redder in person, but I didn't want to push the saturation up that high.

 

it's amazing just how seamlessly she blurs the lines between fantasy and reality!!

personally, that is precisely the sort of ideal i look long and hard for in Anime characters. Congrats!!!

Edited March 30, 2021 by Tasuke