NAME: Mercedes
SERIES: Odin Sphere
SCALE/CREATOR: 1/8, by Alter
RELEASE DATE: May 2010
At long last, the fairy princess is here! Originally slated for a February 2010 release, Mercedes was repeatedly delayed until just recently. Figure delays seem pretty common nowadays. I wonder what’s going on?
Time to take down Belial.
This figure features Mercedes as she’s prepared to take on a boss in a marsh. For this review I visited a local marsh myself, though I didn’t find any mythological critters.
DEM THIGHS
Photos don’t do this figure justice. Mercedes already had a nice character design to start with. Coupled with a dynamic pose and diorama base, she makes for an amazing figure.
Mercedes herself is not attached to her base in any way. Instead her weapon, Riblam, is attached to the tree trunk via a very thick peg. As far as I know, Mercedes cannot be detached from Riblam. (Why’d you want to split them up, anyway?) For those worried about the peg breaking, Mercedes is VERY light. The odds of the peg breaking are pretty low.
Riblam, the machine gun psypher. Sure, it looks like a crossbow. But trust me: machine gun.
As with Gwendolyn, Mercedes comes with a diorama base. You’ve got two major parts: a tree trunk and plants in dirt, and then a ‘chunk’ of water. It isn’t pictured here but the top of the water can actually be removed to reveal a tadpole underneath.
Don’t forget the froggy.
As expected of Alter, Mercedes is damn near flawless. There are some slight seams on her legs but they’re hard to notice unless you’re very close to her. Painting is perfect, shading is perfect. They even made Riblam’s handle look like wood! The figure also makes great use of transparent plastic with the water, the wings and the gem on Mercedes’ chest.
The wings in particular are interesting to look at. The inner parts are blue, the outer parts light green, and the tips/patterns black. The wings also has this glass-like texture to them.
Not as pretty as Odin Sphere’s marsh, but still nice.
And here’s a random shot of the local marsh. It was a hassle to actually get out here. It took half an hour to get to the park, and then I had to hike a mile to reach the place I wanted to shoot pictures at. I was nervous that Mercedes would be damaged in transit, but luckily she made it out unscathed.
OVERALL: 10/10
+ Alter’s best figure to date
+ Great character design, pose, base AND quality
+ Spiffy bonus surprise in the water
Mercedes sold out during the pre-order stage and is currently very difficult to find. Luckily Alter has announced a second run of Mercedes for later this year. Order her now if you haven’t yet!
- G.K. Sil Kamina
Mercedes 1/8 (Alter) review | Exelica Meteor said,
May 27, 2010 at 3:12 pm
[...] review of Mercedes at EmencyBlazer Works. AKPC_IDS += "1791,";Popularity: 12% [...]
lostty said,
May 27, 2010 at 3:23 pm
What amazing photos! The location works great with the figure!
I remember seeing this figure when it was for pre-order and now seeing someone review it, it looks so beautiful as I hoped for.
G.K. Sil Kamina said,
May 27, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Thanks! I’m lucky that the weather today was so great. Mercedes looks super spiffy when placed against a blue sky.
I was a bit worried about Mercedes since she kept getting delayed so much, but it seems it was worth the wait. She’s definitely one of the best PVCs in my collection, if not THE best.
Radiant said,
May 27, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Great photos! I especially like the result of the first one. I’m pretty excited about Mercedes too. She turned out very well. Using her crossbow as a stand is ingenious, and really makes her look like she’s flying. I’m glad that the square peg was used. It adds stability, and is harder to break. It seems they’re using a much harder PVC compound for it.
Alter is slowly catching up with GSC’s quality, and their engineering is good too. I’ve noticed that a large number of Alter figures are lighter than they used to make them.
G.K. Sil Kamina said,
May 27, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Alter seems obsessed with dynamic poses now so it’s a good thing their PVCs are relatively light. I was worried that Alter would use crappy tiny pegs for Mercedes (like they did with Gwendolyn) so it was a pleasant surprise to see that huge square peg instead.
As for GSC, I really want to consider them my favorite company but their major focus on Nendoroids, price jacking (9800 for 1/8?) and quality flubs (Canaan’s hair) has lowered my opinion of them…
wigglytype said,
May 27, 2010 at 7:23 pm
A marsh backdrop, brilliant! Truly Mercedes deserves no less. I’m really regretting not pre-ordering her sooner, Nyargh.
I’m gonna have to jazz up my review settings from now on. (I was getting bored of the front porch anyways.)
G.K. Sil Kamina said,
May 27, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Mercedes sold out pretty fast, though. I’m sure there are a bunch of people who missed out on her. Thank goodness Alter’s doing a second batch. I guess they were pleasantly surprised by how popular Mercedes was?
And don’t feel bad about your review locations. If you look at mine, you’ll see that over half of them are next to the pool at my house. Though now that I don’t live there anymore and my apartment gets horrific lighting, I’ll have to hunt down new review spots.
Shadonia » Mercedes – Alter said,
May 28, 2010 at 8:14 am
[...] – ふぃぐぷら/figupla ～Blog Ver.～ – Azure Toy Box – Bangumi – Sai – EmencyBlazer Works – Exelica [...]