Nendoroid – Tohou Project’s Hakurei Reimu & Kirisame Marisa

The Touhou Project, for those who don’t know is a Japanese games series that’s primary danmaku (弾幕 which literally translates to bullet curtain) scrolling shooter. The game is developed by a single person: ZUN of Team Shanghai Alice (上海アリス幻樂団). It’s called danmaku because the screen is often filled up with bullets that you have to dodge in between. Even though I’m not all that good with these shooter games but I do love to play them. I find these games to be much more challenging and enjoyable than a lot of today’s games where graphics is everything while the game itself offers no challenge to the player in one form or another.

Good Smile Company started to make Touhou nendoroids in 2009. The first one is Hakurei Reimu, However, it was only offered during Comiket 76 (August 14-16, 2009) as well as on a few online shop that does not ship outside of Japan. It can also be ordered on a handful of Japanese online shops that also doesn’t ship outside of Japan. Because of that, I didn’t get my hand on it. Soon more Touhou nendorids were released. In January 2010, Good Smile Company released Hakurei Reimu’s friend Kirisame Marisa as a nendoroid. And with that, I finally geared up and bought both Hakurei Reimu and Kirisame Maris off Yahoo Japan Auction. Another Touhou character that I liked, Remilia Scarlet, will be released as a nendoroid in September 2010. I’ve got my order placed with one of the online shops she’s available in and had it shipped to a package forwarding service in Japan so that I can finally get my hand on it for a more nominal price.

Okay let’s start with Hakurei Reimu. Here’s her box shot. As you can see she’s pretty old. Nendoroid series #74.

Nendoroid Hakurei Reimu by Good Smile Company. (ねんどろいど 博麗霊夢). Original sculptor Nendoron (ねんどろん). Released on August 2009 with MSRP of ¥3,000.

Here’s the cute miku in brilliant red right out of the box. Notice that her base is different from the regular nendoroid. Instead of the clear acrylic base of normal nendoroids, her base has a print of her Ying-Yang Orb on it.

She came with a few different hand and arm parts to hold the prayer rod and the charm cards in different poses.

Also came with the relaxing face. Yeah nothing beats being a shrine maiden – sipping tea and waving the prayer rod around.

Now onto her witch friend Kirisame Marisa. Maris is a much more current nendoroid series #92.

Nendoroid Kirisame Maris by Good Smile Company. (ねんどろいど 霧雨魔理沙). Original sculptor Nendoron (ねんどろん). Released on January 2010 with MSRP of ¥3,000.

Here’s Marisa right out of the box. Just like Reimu, her base is not clear either. Instead it has the eight trigram printed on it just like her Hakkero (八卦炉 Eight Trigram Reactor).

Now with her large witch hat on, and holding her broom. Our lovely little witch is as cute as ever.

Smiling face on. Unfortunately just like Reimu, she only came with two faces while typical nendoroids has three faces in the box.

Her base can actually lift her up a bit off in the air. So now we can put her Hakkero up and do the attack pose.

Even better, now with her broom underneath. Now that’s one powerful flying witch. 😈

Good frieds, Harurei Reimu and Kirisame Marisa together.

Here’s a 2D illustration of Hakurei Reimu and Kirisame Marisa.