LULU

 

Final Fantasy X was the first in many ways and the last in others: it was the very first Final Fantasy to have voices and facial expressions and it was also the last to be a tradictional turn based RPG as well as the last one from the team behind the original first 10 Final Fantasy games. The next six games had some really spectacular entrys as well as others not soo shiny, but non had the voice of Hironobu Sakaguchi imprinted on them and this game was the last to echo that voice since not even X-2 had it.

Final Fantasy X was also the very last game of SquareSoft...and back then they didnt produce theyr own figures soo it was Kotobukiya that had the rigths of theyr characters and while they release lots of action figures based on VIII and X (i still dont know why IX had no merchadise) for me the cherry of the cake was theyr ArtFX statues. In 2001 they were extremelly classy and spectacular looking with Tidus and Yuna being everywhere and having limited articulations, Rikku and Auron being very rare to spot and finally Lulu and Kimahri being imposible to find and really expensive!!

And against all odds and after 23 years of search, i was able to find Lulu. She have a little bit of battle damage but i got the feeling this was going my last chance to get her and she is in 95% perfect condition. She is on 1/6 scale soo she is huge and fits perfectly in size with Hot Toys, Sideshow, Tunshi, Medicom, ThreeZero figures and she can stand on her own perfectly. I mean with that dress she is super stable, like a mountain.

Just like the others in the collection, this sculpt is completelly faithfull to the Tetsuya Nomura art design soo the details really pop up. The sculpt on her face is trully beautifull, specially on her pouty lips. It dosnt matter wath angle she is look at, the lips and nose looks pretty perfect and natural always and even her eyes are sculpted (or only one eye??? I have no idea of the eye behind her hair is actually sculpted or not).

The hair lack deffinition but this is mostly because of the material, vynil dosnt hold up extremelly intrincate designs, specially on the hair tough i do love her braids and how soft they are. Sadly, this softish material also makes it delicate since she is misisng 3 of the 4 hair ornaments.

Sadly her jewelry around her neck and earing are sculpted on top of her bdy instead of being separate pieces and this give it a pretty plain look despite how perfectly sculpted they are. Her skin is very smooth as well as her long dress texture that looks really spectacular from the back given how long is the back tail tough her corse ir sich in details and wrinkles, the part that atract more the attention are the belts.

While all belts are a whole piece, they are sculpted in layers and have different levels that wrap around each other while still keeping the flow of the dress and her exposed leg is not part of it, thats section is a hole and under it her legs are completelly sculpted, posed in a very femenine way and using black stiletos as well as black translucent stockings. All this is hidden by the dress and her feet actually touch the ground soo she is not flaoting with her dress, her legs have the perfect size and are anatomically correct (and yes, she is not using underwear).

Her Moogle plush tough is a totaly independent piece and fits nicelly around her arm ins a very natural way. The sculpt is clean and good looking for a weapon tough he is missing also the pom on his head, one of the most delicate part of his design and in vynil, one of the weakest as well.

Lulu´s skin color is very pale and makes her look like a very unatural doll tough thats fits her perfectly (unlike the very pink and healty skin color of Yuna) and the color of her hands and legs matches perfectly the color of her chest and face (most of the time this is very rare even in modern figures) with only very little shade on her chest to give it EVEN MORE volume.

The black of her eye lashes, white in here eye, brown in her pupil, her mole, the purple lipstick, every detail is perfectly painted as well as the metalic red and blue of her jewelry. The leaf details on her dress and sleeves is kinda sloppy tough and invades some black segments tough theres different tones of grey in here to make it stand out more.

Again, the belts also stand out with the many tones of black, greys blues and reds perfectly deffined as well as the metalic bits. The deffinition is impresive!!

This is an trully femenine and sexy design that gets sexyer the more you look: the goth makeup, the elegant dress, the exposed leg, the stockings and stiletos, the bosom and corse, its been soo long since Final Fantasy had a design lik this and i doubt we see it again. Nomura was really good at character designing and managed to make look cool even the most ridiculous dieas (a dress made of belts).

Maybe i see this ArtFX statues with pink colored glases, the vynil material feels kinda cheap and some of the paint is kinda sloppy, but this statues have such a huge presence on the shelves thanks to the big size and how close they look to the original artwork design, i sure wish Final Fantasy XVI had vynil statues like this instead of those useles Bring Arts crap. But also its soo easy to love this characters. Now i only need Kimahri Ronso but judging by how long it took me to get Auron and Lulu i dont know if i should give up or not.