After much delay, I have finally gotten in to do a Yagami Hayate figma review. This figma is one of the ones that I liked less, and I'll show you in a moment why that is. For those of you who don't know who Hayate is or related it to some boy who always dresses up like a trap at the whims of his master, this isn't it. This is Yagami Hayate from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, not Aya**** Hayate. If you haven't watched StrikerS, you should, now go buy the DVDs.

The right side of the box. Following tradition, I'll first show photos of the packaging of the figma. Why the packaging? Well, the packaging of a figma is almost as important as the figma itself (like how a girl's skin is as important as her heart), since it protects the actual content, and is useful for repacking whenever you move. The amount of work put into a packaging also reflects the quality of the figma within. There's no way a cheap chinese imitation manufacturer would put much effort into creating boxes of copied goods, and what you will usually notice is that the coloured part of the artwork on such boxes will not be well aligned with the outlines and letters that are coloured black on the box. This is an important feature to recognize, since it may well be the very first mark of a counterfeit.

The back of the box. The brand figma comes from a cooperation between Max Factory and Good Smile Company. Two of the best figure manufacturers I know of. The other one being Alter. As expected of the best, no effort is spared in making the product niche. Like all other figma boxes, the box is covered with beautiful poses of Hayate and the various ways in which you can use it. It is amazing how much information you can cram on to a box and still make it look good. If there is one thing to be said about designers involved with creating figmas, its that they are in no way half-assed.

The left side of the box. The mark of quality on anime action figures.

The view from the bottom of the box.

The top of the box.

When you open the box, a flap on the right will remind you how to change her face, as well as a reminder that you should not force anything on a figma. If you had to, there is probably a better way to do it (it doesn't say exactly that, but thats the general idea). A graphic similar to the one here is present on ALL of the figma boxes. The difference is, the drawing is always based on the figure contained inside, and not a generic figma drawing on how to change the figma's face. Another sign that attention to detail is present in the products of these companies.

Alright, now lets get into the meat.

You may have noticed in the picture that Hayate's face is slightly out.

Her face came off (talk about face/off). I'm guessing it was because the box was thrown onto the plane and the shock removed the face. Luckily however, the plastic framing around her allowed her to save face (heh). Hayate, like figma Nanoha and Fate, comes in a larger-than-normal box. I'll now refer to them as the Square Boxes. figmas only come in either a Square Box or a Rectangle Box.

Behind the plastic packaging inside the box lies a big piece of cardboard similar to that found in Nanoha and Fate's boxes. Its a picture of the figma against a cool background. Unfortunately I haven't found a use for these backgrounds yet, but we'll see if we can do something fun with it later on.

Hayate comes with her cross, a hat, a hair for wearing the hat, 8 other hands, an open and closed Book of Darkness, and a serious face. Oh, and she also comes with big wings, which unfortunately, due to small errors in design, tends to making her attach to the arm a bit harder than most other figmas.

The box comes with instructions on how to fix the wing behind her. The wing comes attached with that small connector that you can use to keep her wings on with whenever you don't want a stand. The hair for her hat has a small notch too that allows her hat to stay on her head. Though I think they could've made it so that it stayed on just as well without.

The wing holder is very thick in the center. This makes it difficult for her to stay on the arm while moving her because the arm's male connector is not long enough. So whenever you want to do something to Hayate on a stand, you have to hold her down by the chest and her back to keep her from coming off the stand arm.

Finally, here's Hayate in her full battle form + wings. She's reading her Book of Darkness and planning to cast a spell.

It takes quite a bit of effort to keep Hayate from coming off the arm.

Hayate and her colleagues. Fate's sword is as big as ever. In fact, its so big that it forced the figma's arms to move over the length of a few days until it dropped to the floor.

Here's my chance to get some pot shots of my favorite character.

Nanoha looks happy today. Actually she's probably been like this since I took Fate out of the box.

Hayate has yet to learn to hold her book. I found it funny that the hand meant for holding the book was not attached to the figma out of the box. I had to look for it in the collection of hands that came with the figma. Even with that, the hand for the book doesn't hold the book so well. I thought there would have been some sort of connector to hold the book (and hand) in place.

More pictures of the StrikerS commanders.

We need some figmas of them in their office uniforms. Then we can make a diorama bed and throw them all on it with their skirts off. I hope Max reads my blog ^^;

There. Figma Collection for Nanoha Strikers. I am inclined to believe there will be more figmas from this series later on.

written by astrobunny \\