Bishoujo. Hm... that's another term I can add to the woefully-shallow pool of Japanese phrases at my command (alas, I'm not a real-life Doug Ramsey like Red Lamp is). According to Marvel, it means “pretty girl” and that’s certainly an apt description for the line of statuettes the House of Ideas is putting out with Kotobukiya.
The heroines of the Marvel Universe have been getting their due, lately, haven’t they? There was that GIRLS COMICS project recently and, now, here’s an entire line of pricey figures rendering Phoenix, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Rogue, Scarlet Witch and both Black Widows with some Eastern flair. And, by pricey, I mean that each of these figures rings up for more $55 a pop.
I’m not much of a collector, mainly out of practically. Maybe not even so much a concern of money as personal incompetency since I’m pretty sure I’d break one of these beautiful creations fairly quickly were I to have it in my possession. And I don’t reckon Phoenix would look too “bishoujo” after she’d been patched together with super glue and scotch tape by my clumsy figures. You know, when I was talking about alternate realities recently, Catmanexe brought up the very reasonably conjecture that I am, in actuality, the evil version of a Pinchuk Prime who’s somewhere out there in the multiverse. Furthering that line of thought, I can only imagine some horrible, upside-down mirror dimension where I’m the one - - not Kotobukiya or Randy Bowen - - who’s putting out these sculptures. Envision such crude and tactless constructions in your mind, take a moment to shudder, and then voice your appreciation that we live in a sane world where these beautiful figures are the ones actually on shelves.
Once you’ve properly recovered from such morbid thought experiments, have a look at these figures below. We’ve also got some production designs, which you can actually compare to the figures and get a sense of the work and thought that went into making these.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this April - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.