Unboxing Rikka Takarada 1/7 Swimsuit Version Scale Figure by Good Smile Company

This time around I’m unboxing this figure of Takarada Rikka by Aquamarine. Actually, make that Good Smile Company. A bit of a background, the release of this figure was almost canceled because Aquamarine declared bankruptcy soon after this opened for preorders. Thankfully, with Aquamarine being a company under Good Smile Company, the latter came to the rescue by taking over the manufacturing process for Rikka, Akane Shinjou, Pansy and many other figures that Aquamarine could no longer deliver. Two years later and after a lot of uncertainty, Good Smile Company delivers both the Akane and Rikka swimsuit figures.

Let’s get started.

The Box

The box is standard. It has a very large window so you can see the figure in full view. I like the mech aesthetics on the box.

As usual, the back of the box has several portraits of the figure along with the usual company information. Some people are pretty finicky about having authenticity stickers but this doesn’t have one. A lot of figures being released lately don’t have the shiny stickers anymore.

The sides of the box show shots of the figure.

The front window extends to the top of the box.

Let’s Get Unboxing

Pretty standard blister packaging along with the manual. Here you can see the main figure along with the alternate arm part and hair part. So you’re looking at 4 distinct pieces.

One thing I noticed in the MFC listing is that she is supposedly 20 cm tall. My first thought was Rikka must be quite short. But the wiki says her height is 155 cm. which is typical of a 15-year-old Japanese girl. But if the figure only measures 20 cm in height, that means Rikka should be 140 cm tall. So I did an actual measurement and the figure actually measures 22 centimeters. So, she is in fact a proper 1/7 scale.

The standard look has her hair is down and the scrunchie is on her wrist. The alternate look has her hair in a ponytail and no scrunchie on her wrist. Don’t use the ponytail hair part with the arm with the scrunchie.

The manufacturer could have easily gotten away without including the alternate hand part but they did it anyway. They could have just gone with a hand part without the scrunchie and no one would have complained. So it’s nice to appreciate these little things.

Now that she’s out of her plastic cage, we’re treated to a pretty face and the glorious thighs that propelled Rikka into anime stardom status. Overall, it is a simple figure with a simple pose. The face looks great. Her eyes have that sparkle to them and the eyelashes are well done. Her curves are definitely top-tier.

The paint job on her skin is just divine. It’s amazing how figure manufacturers can turn simple PVC plastic into realistic-looking porcelain-smooth skin. The paint on the hair is also looking excellent. Overall, the paint job is just perfect.

The armbands are just weird. They aren’t really needed on this figure but they added it so they can hide the connection point for the alternate arm part.

Below it’s pretty obvious that the arms can be removed. It’s not really a big deal though considering this side is not exposed when displaying the figure. But I do wish the connection point was a bit more hidden.

The armbands are non-existent when Rikka wore this swimsuit in the anime.

The face looks great. There are hardly any flaws on this figure. I am personally not a fan of the beach ball’s design but that’s more of a preference. I think the Gridman design on the ball is just a distraction. Also, the beach ball is not a good fit on the hands. It is very loose and it fell and bounced on the floor several times while I was moving the figure around taking pictures. Thankfully, it did not get damaged. As I’m typing this, I just noticed that the ball fell down again and is just there inside the display cabinet. In the photo below, you can actually see how loose the grip on the ball is. Her fingers are not even touching the ball.

And because this is a swimsuit figure, we have to take the time to appreciate shapely butts. I don’t know how this kind of swimsuit works but from the looks of it, the black bikini is used to cover perhaps the more risque black and white string bikini.

After some digging, I actually found an image of her dakimakura that reveals what’s actually underneath.

Now we have her with the ponytail hair part. If you’re familiar with replacing the hair parts and faceplates on Nendoroids, it’s the same for this figure of Rikka. Just pull off the front part of the hair so you can remove the back hair part and replace it.

This view just sums up how good this figure looks like even when viewed from behind — back, waist, hips, buttocks, thighs. I prefer to display her with the ponytail as it you can better see her shoulders and back.

And from the front, it’s the flat and toned abs with an almost non-existent belly button. On that note, I do wish the belly button was more pronounced.

Getting rid of that beach ball provides an ample view of her swimsuit top. Her top has the colors reversed wherein the black is inside the bra. So despite wearing a swimsuit, she is still showing her conservative side. In fact, I think her pose shows her meek personality whereas Akane’s swimsuit figure has her flaunting her assets.

The transparent base is kind of a letdown. I would have expected an imitation sand base just like Good Smile Company’s other swimsuit figures. Also, there’s a tiny scratch on there. The saving grace here is that Akane’s swimsuit figure comes with a shared base where you can prop them both on the same base which will also save you a lot of display space.

This kind of shared base is something I wished the Saekano lingerie version swimsuit figures had.

And below you can see Rikka and Akane on their shared base.

Overall Rating

So how do I rate this figure of Rikka Takarda by Aquamarine Good Smile Company? Good but not that great.

Neko

I started the NekoFigs blog in January 2021, 5 years after I’ve started collecting anime figures. It all started with one humble prize figure of Saber Lily which was bought on a whim. Now, I face the big problem of how to deal with over 200 empty boxes.