Bleach - Byakuya Kuchiki - 1/6 (Tsume) MyFigureCollection.net

Byakuya Kuchiki is a character from the manga/anime Bleach. He is captain of the 6th division and is the adopted older brother of the main character Rukia Kuchiki. Known for his great ability and talent as a soul reaper, he is the most famous of the soul reaper captains. He is rather quiet and outwardly calm and rather cold, but he is actually quite passionate and has numerously expressed how important people, like his sister Rukia, are to him.

For fans like me, we have been waiting a long time for a big Byakuya figure/statue. Enter Tsume.

Byakuya Kuchiki is the second in the series of Bleach statues being made by the french company, Kenpachi being the first one. He was released in December of 2012 and was priced at 249 €.

Packaging: Well then, lets start with the box first. When he arrived in the mail I knew the box was going to be large but still I was surprised by it's size and weight. The outer shipping box was of Tsume's own design and included Byakuya's name printed on it. Unfortunately though, it's currently in storage and I wasn't able to include it in today's review.

Lets move on to the actual figures box.
As you can see below, Tsume went all out with this lovely big box. It has a simple yet elegant design and features some lovely photos of the statue. The Bleach logo and the trim at the top of the box also has a shiny gloss which was a lovely addition. The top layer of the box lifts off to reveal an inner box.

Inside the box you will find a black ribbon wrapped around a large portion of styrofoam. Untying the ribbon and pulling the pieces apart you will find your Byakuya statue carefully packaged inside.

Some assembly will be required at this point. The head, sword, and scarf are all separate from the main figure and you will have to assemble it. I received mine in the winter and I was told by Tsume that I had to wait 24 hours after receiving the statue before I put it together in order to allow it to warm up and acclimatise to my home. Over all, he was fairly easy to assemble, although I really had to push hard to snap his head all the way in, and I was really afraid of breaking it. And because of his fragile nature (As all resin statues are), I didn't take it apart again for this review, as I didn't want to take the chance of breaking him. So unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the separate pieces.

Sculpting/ Painting/ Posing :Lets move on to the figure itself. First some photos:

Tsume is still a fairly new company and while there are a few imperfections they did a pretty good job with him. The pose is simple but still rather elegant (which Byakuya is). The statue's pose is based on official artwork, which can be seen at the beginning of this article. They changed up a few things, but over all it resembles the art pretty well. It basically depicts Byakuya reaching out and casting the spell Byakurai (as appeared in chapter 165 where he is fighting Ichigo) which showcases his advanced skills with kido. He is a formidable opponent even with his sword still sheathed!

When I first saw photos of this figure I was overwhelmed with the notion that his legs and torso were to long in comparison to his head (and when he arrived my parents thought the same thing too) but a lot of official Bleach art accents the long legged look on it's male characters, Byakuya included, and this statue matches the art perfectly proportion wise. So even if I think it looks a bit odd, it matches the art and was sculpted with the correct proportions.

Some close ups of his face:

This is one of those statues that look better at some angles and not so much at others, especially with regards to his face. From the side and the angle the figure is meant to be displayed at, it looks pretty good and resembles the character a lot. If you look at it straight on or from the other side you may notice some oddities (at least I did). To me, his face seemed just a bit to triangular, with the angle of his chin to his jaw being to sharp and his chin to pointy. But that's just my personal opinion.

The eyes are decals and a bit shiny looking when the light hits it the right way, but they match the character's likeness well. The short angled eyebrows are pretty accurate as well and are painted on.

There's not much shading/painting in regards to defining his mouth though and with certain lighting, it can look a bit odd as well.

His hair is a bit chunky looking from the back and some of the strands could have been done a bit better, but since the statue is made from the more fragile resin rather then the usual PVC, I don't know if that could have been done any better. There was also some cases of customers receiving their figures with broken parts, the hair being the biggest cause, so it was probably a good thing that his hair strands were as they were, otherwise more would probably have broken in transit. A simple line of white paint was also added to show where his hair is parted.

His long scarf floats on a breeze, along with his hair and captains coat. Some reviews mentioned that his hair seemed to be going one way while his coat and scarf went the other, but if you look at it from the top you can see that it generally all goes the same way. Different wind currents and the differences in weight of the different material (hair, scarf, and coat) could lead to a slight difference in direction. The end of his scarf turns and flows the other way then his hair, but perhaps it's just the light fabric floating on another current of wind. Either way, I'm not personally bothered by how it looks.

You get a lovely sense of motion when viewed from the lower back. His scarf looks very light and floaty from this angle as well.

A close up of the 6 on his back. This is also a decal I believe. You can also see the strands of his hair more here too. See what I mean about the strands looking thick?

Now lets look at his coat a bit more. I took some photos from below so you could all see the lovely blue lining of his coat. The coat is also quite thick. If this was PVC they could have made it a lot thinner, but with how fragile resin is, they probably couldn't have made it any thinner without it breaking.

His feet are also more visible here as well, so lets talk about them a bit.

The sandals are really well sculpted in my opinion, especially the backs of them. From this angle you can also catch a glimpse of the pegs that fit into the stand. Again I didn't pull him apart and take photos of them, but from what I remember when I put him together, was that they were metal and very sturdy.

Here's a shot from the front. The painting's not perfect, and there were a few spots where the white paint of his socks went over onto the sandals, but they are still pretty well done. Nothing really fancy in terms of shading, but they look alright.

Lets move back up the figure to his face and chest.

Here's a close up shot of the side of his face and his scarf. There's not to much shading in the scarf, but the folds are sculpted well so the lighting around the figure usually gives it enough shadows and highlights to make it look alright. They also did a really good job sculpting his black uniform, although I wish they would have added more fabric folds to the his waist area where the fabric is tucked into his white obi. I think more folds would a have made his front look a bit more realistic.

Here's a close up of his waist and sword (Senbonzakura). Not a lot of shading here either, but the bow is painted cleanly and there's no white paint running into the black. The sword is fairly detailed and has some lovely gold accents. However when I was assembling it, I found that I wasn't able to push it down all the way, and some of the gold paint rubbed onto the black. It's not to noticeable (And you can't see it at all in my photos), but be aware that there could be some paint transfer.

Farther down, we can finally see his hand. While the other is outstretched this one is just hanging at his side. With the wrinkles in his coat, it almost looks like he's grasping the fabric a bit. You can also see the decals on the end of his captain coat.

While I noticed a lack of shading on other parts, the white captain coat is very well done in terms of shading and sculpting.

Here we can see the inside of his sleeve, some more coat folds, and his outstretched hand.

I took a close up of his hand to show the painting on his glove. Some other people have mentioned that the painting was a bit sloppy in this area, and looking at the above photo you can see a few spots where the light paint touched his hand. I actually didn't notice this on the figure until after I had taken these photos and was editing them. So, while it isn't that noticeable to me, some people were irritated to see things like that, especially when this was such a pricey figure.

Base: The base for this statue is very simple but works well in keeping the figure stable. It is very heavy however and is rather a pain (for someone weak like me) to move it very easily. So he doesn't get moved around that much. His name is featured in a painted on plaque on the front. Which does finish it off nicely. The underside features some anti slide/scratch pads as well.

Tsume has done some wonderful things with the bases for some of it's other statues, so I was a little sad that this one was so plain looking, but I guess it would have been more expensive had they done something fancier. I may just have to make some fake cherry blossoms and scatter them over and around his feet myself to make it fancier. ^^

Other: Well this is the best place to mention the little numbered plaque/name plate he comes with. This statue was limited to 400 pieces and I was graced with number 226. The plaque is metal and engraved with Byakuya's name as well as Tsume's fancy logo. The numbers are just printed on however and are not engraved.

Enjoyment: Over all I was pleased with this figure. While it does have it's flaws in places, I was very happy to add it to my Byakuya collection. And if you're a fan of him (or of Bleach in general) he really is a must have for your collection.

Here finally is a height comparison photo with Megahouse's 1/8 Ichigo and Toynami's Byakuya:

And finally a quick shot I took of Byakuya a few days after he arrived:

Well thank you for taking the time to look over my review. I dearly hope there aren't to many spelling issues (since no matter what I do I still suck at it)and I hope my awful photography didn't scare you away. So anyways thanks again for reading!