Kyouko Sakura is the last character from Puella Magi Madoka Magica to be given the figure treatment by Good Smile Company. This 1/8 scale figure of her was sculpted by Ken Kawanishi and was released in September of 2012 at a MSRP of 7800 yen. She is posed such that it looks like she has just jumped down from a ledge while holding a partially eaten taiyaki.
While the figure is only supported with one leg, there is no problems with leaning or wobbliness. I can say this after owning and displaying the figure for nearly 10 months now.
The design of the figure matches the character design very closely from the clothing right down to the number of hairs sticking out over her hair bow.
For comparison you can take a look at the official design.
Kyouko’s face looks a bit off to me though. Perhaps it’s the shape of the eyes or the face being a bit too round, but to me she looks more like Etna from Disgaea, just without the pointy ears.
The sculpting of other parts was superb though. For instance, her arm is actually sculpted with a realistic looking armpit and the outline is shaped to show where the arm muscles are.
Colour selection was perfect. Kyouko’s outfit is a dark red, her skirt is the correct pink, and her hair is one shade lighter than her outfit.
Some of the finer details on the figure were the fold lines in her outfit, which lined up with the buttons.
I was impressed with how fine some of the paint lines were. The marking on her boots for example were very sharp. These were obviously produced by machine.
On to the back, you’ll notice that there are actually different shades of red on Kyouko’s outfit. Making it darker in areas where a shadow would be cast helps give it a bit of realism.
While Kyouko’s hair does have a lot of individual strands, I found the middle part to be too clumped together and lacking in detail.
Other parts like the skirt had a good amount of detail though. Here you can see each of the folds.
One part I really like about this figure is the legs. As with Kyouko’s arms, you can clearly make out the joints and muscles. Oftentimes I see figures with limbs that look like prosthetics, but that’s not the case here.
Something that has been a hit and miss with the other Puella Magi figures from GSC has been the soul gem. Kyouko’s lands in the middle in terms of quality. The bottom red spot looks absolutely horrid, but the rest of it is decent.
Another area with questionable quality is the taiyaki and Kyouko’s hands. While the taiyaki looks good with the filling being shown and the scales of the fish sculpted in, I think a better job could’ve been done with the hands. I know I am looking at Kyouko’s thumb in the above picture, but I would not have been able to tell it was a thumb if the rest of the hand was covered up.
One thing that was not present in the previous three Puella Magi were frills in their outfits. I had mentioned how GSC did a good job on them with the Madoka figure and it’s nice to see that they carried it over with this Kyouko figure.
As with the other figures in this series, Kyouko comes with a plain semi-transparent circular base. I would’ve expected it to be red, but it turned out to be orange, just slightly darker than Mami’s base.
Of course, like all the other figures, you can’t have a Puella Magi without her weapon. Kyouko comes with a huge spear that doubles the amount of space that she takes up.
The spear is placed by swapping one of Kyouko’s arms and hands, then sliding one half of the spear into her hands and the other half from the other side (yes, the spear comes in two connecting parts).
The end of the spear is nicely painted with no spatter or bleeding anywhere and the metal parts have a shiny metallic look to them.
There was one problem I had with getting the spear in place and that was that Kyouko’s arm and hand pieces didn’t fit properly. I normally don’t have a problem fitting in pieces of a GSC figure, but Kyouko’s arm just didn’t fit into the socket all of the way and the same applied to her hands. While the arm stayed in place, I had to shave off some plastic from the peg of one of the hands to get it to fit.
Overall I think GSC came out with a nice figure with a cool pose, especially with the spear. I have a few minor complaints, but nothing that would’ve stopped me from buying the figure if I knew about them beforehand. The only real issue is that if you want to pose Kyouko with her spear, you’re going to need a lot more space.
To see my reviews of GSC’s other Puella Magi figures, click on one of the links below.
Madoka Kaname
Homura Akemi
Mami Tomoe
Sayaka Miki