Tsurumaru Kuninaga 1/8 Scale Touken Ranbu

I have a lot I need to thank Touken Ranbu for, but the number one and most important thing is the return of bishonen to anime. Recently titles for us girls have just been blatant clones of each other. Things like Idolsh7 and Uta no Prince have the exact same look. The beautiful boys from Touken Ranbu though stand out from the mass of mediocre designs we’ve been seeing for the last few years. So today may I present to you Tsurumaru Kuninaga.

Tsurumaru is a gorgeous man, with a great head of hair, his white hair falls nicely into his eyes. I especially love the places where pieces of his hair cross each other. Over all it’s a very cute look.

Tsuru’s amber eyes are nice, there’s a little bit of light refraction off of them that adds a tiny amount of life to them. His lashes are a long beautiful snow white hat only aid his appearance. I’ve been begging japan for years to at least try giving blondes, redheads, and the like eyebrows that weren’t a stark black and Touken Ranbu really answered that call. Can you imagine how Tsurumaru’s pale design would have come off with black eyebrows?

His lips are curved upwards in a small smile, there’s just the smallest hint of mischief in his expression. I’m not sure what the proper name is for the rope accessory around his neck (pretty sure it’s not just a choker) but regardless of my own personal accessory ignorance it does look really good. The gold paint is perfect and the ends of the choker (?) dip down towards his milky white neckline! Now remember how I said black eyebrows would stand out? That’s evidenced here by his haori. The black undershirt stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the figure.

Tsurumaru wears on his chest a mon, it’s the crane of the Mori family, this is a pretty nice historical nod here. As with the rest of the figure so far the paint is crisp and looks damn good.

To counterbalance the mon, is a little white poofball. If I’m being perfectly honest here I have no idea why samurai wore these embellishments. Just that a lot of them did. I’ll probably have googled it by the next time I review one of these guys. Anyway the mon and the poofball have a gold cord coming off of the sides, this wraps all the way around him. The tassels also hang down his chest and from the two respective counter points. The paint is still perfect and I haven’t seen any sculpting issues either.

Alright after extensively trying to google ‘Samurai poofballs” to no avail I am back on track. Tsurumaru’s sleeves are big bulky things (as is to be expected I’m sure) they have nice wrinkles up by the elbows and overall look really good.

As for his arm itself he has surprisingly thin arms for a warrior, his wrists look like they could snap with just a bit of pressure, but that’s the age old tale of character design versus practicality. The band on his wrist has one teeny tiny paint flaw of an extremely overlookable black fleck. His wrist bones are nicely defined. Regrettably most of his hand is hidden by the hilt of his sword, however the gloves are painted quite well, and his fingers are long and slender with each individual one looking marvelous.

the hilt of the sword maintains the small colour theme as Tsuru ‘s human form (kinda makes sense) with golden embellishments on an overall white handle. the little bit of black that is visible though has a tiny speck of gold paint on it. The golden tassels on the end are vey much akin to the choker that Tsurumaru wears and is in fact a very nice touch.

Tsuru’s gloves remind me of archery gloves in the overall design, two fingers covered and two and the thumb open, not sure why Nitro decided on the design, especially with the short gloves that barely cover his palm. Orange Rouge did a great job of capturing the little eccentricities of this design however.

Slipping down to his waist we see a bit more of his strange taste in clothing and I’m not really sure how to describe it. As you can see in the picture above Tsuru’s pants are multi layered. The inner part is a medium shade of grey with nice creases in it to give it the appeal of naturally worn fabric. The white is a bit of a problem though, the top of it doesn’t quite line up with his belt leaving a small gap. Going down his sides is a bit of armor, it’s got a fantastic black and gold motif going on, the paint is crisp and clean, very nice.

Each piece of armor has two tassels coming down off of it. As with the ones up above they look really good. The folds in both the grey and white fabric look really nice, I am very fond of his legs. Then this whole mess is somehow tucked into his greaves, it looks nice though a bit impractical.

Ok ok so in the realm of anime, manga, and video games characters don’t really need to worry about bunched up fabric the way that we as living breathing earthlings do, so his calves and ankles are thin showing no build up from the fabric that has to be hidden within them, but again it looks really good, and from a strictly aesthetic perspective the paint is unblemished and the sculpt looks great. Also more tiny tassels adorn his ankles.

Still being brutally honest I think tabi socks are kind of sexy. I love the way his look in particular, the black strap cuts neatly across the white of the sock and it looks good and really makes the white pop more.

Tsurumaru’s white locks look a little less good from the side, they look almost unpolished. I’ve been doing a bit of work with garage kits recently and his hair looks kind of like they stopped at the sanding stage and just decided to paint it and move on. It doesn’t look bad, but not quite what I was expecting.

I seriously love his eyes though I think a grey outline to the eyelashes would have turned out better then the black, that’s entirely personal preference and he does look stunningly good regardless.

His profile is gorgeous (and I really wanted to show off that lily white complexion again) I always appreciate it when characters have an upper lip, all too often characters suffer from pimple nose syndrome wherein there is no space between the nose and the mouth for a crazy thing like a lip. Clearly Tsurumaru does not have that problem.

I kind of wonder if the overly large white hood and the clothes that he’s practically drowning in are synonymous with a funeral garb, or if that’s just me…..yeah, your right, probably all in my head. Whelp anywho the hood looks good it has some nice creases by the shoulder and this hood actually looks like it could reasonably fit over his head.

You can see a bit of a rough seem where the hood attaches in the front, but overall every thing is wrapped up nice and neat as far as seams go.

The gold tassels look like braided rope, it’s definitely appealing. I’m also pleased to announce that they are kind of pliable so odds of accidentally snapping one off aren’t very good.

I think I mentioned up above that the gold cording went back behind him, it hangs nice and loose, it does not brush up against his back so there’s no fear of paint transfer.

Finally found a good angle to check out this hand! His fingers are slim and look evenly in proportion to one another. There is some great bone definition on the back of his hand (you can see it in spite of the glove) and the white trim on the glove looks really great too!

Now something I know I haven’t mentioned yet ( I was waiting for just the right picture) is that the white on his outfit is painted in shimmering white paint and it is gorgeous. The folds and creases are as always really nice and add a good touch of realism to his outlandish wardrobe.

His sleeves hang down long and loose, I seriously love the way the fabric falls.

The gold cord that goes around each calf looks amazing and rope actually has a different texture then any of the ones seen on the top of his wardrobe.

Tsuru has one foot kicked back a little bit adding a bit of a playful atmosphere to the pose. I adore how the greaves go down under the arch of the foot and leave the heel open. I’m going to be perfectly honest I think Tsurumaru has really sexy feet, don’t judge me.

Each sandal also has a small arch at the bottom, not enough of a gap there to be geta, so I’m not really sure what they are, but they look good so I guess it’s cool!

The back of his hair looks a lot better then the side did. Instead of that un finished look his hair has nice layers with strands curling around in every which direction. I’m especially fond of the small indents and raised portions to insinuate hair without having to carve out every individual strand.

From the back his hood looks kind of like a giant marshmallow. A giant sparklie marshmallow, they probably could have gotten away with a fewer deeper creases in the fabric to make it look more like cloth and less like a sugary treat.

The gold cording that goes around him flows out naturally and freely, Tsuru is clearly walking forward and this demonstrates that rather well. I also think the way the two pieces look like they’re tied together is a very cool touch as well.

The center back seam looks good and is not just a straight line down his back (that’s a personal pet peeve of mine) and the fabric flows back behind him. It looks so good it’s almost sick.

I kind of like how edge of his outfit is uneven, it’s purposeful, not an error on the figure, you see it’s shorter in the front then in the back, so it does this nice bell shape. All in all I think it looks fantastic.

There’s even a little crease in his sock back on the heel. What great attention to detail!

As with the otherside of his hair, I still think he looks a little under done. I will give them though that the tips on this side are at the very least a little bit sharper. Close to his ear though the seam in his hair looks a little bit messy, not detrimental, just kind of sloppy.

I do love the longer locks that are hidden away by his hood, they add a nice bit of cute messy bishonen appeal to him, not that he wasn’t already fairly bishie, but cute hair always seals the deal. I also thoroughly admire that you can see the gold choker through his whispy locks. This is the kind of detail I expect from a sculptor of Nanako’s level.

As with the mon, the gold cords connect seamlessly with the white samurai poofball that I still do not comprehend (seriously if anyone knows what those are let me know in the comments). The texturing on the poof and the cords is still great and the paint is impeccable.

His hands are great, there’s fantastic definition for the knuckles and the bones in his hand. Here we can also see his wrist bones peeking out from the bands he wears on said wrists. Paint still looking great too!

The sheath like everything else about this figure has two tassels hanging off of it. The actual historical sword did as well. This was thought to be one of the most beautiful swords ever created and the sheath here shows that off remarkably. It is gorgeous, the paint is perfect, the design is to die for. I’m lovin it.

The bottom of the sheath is significantly more simple, but still appealing. It’s well painted and the sculpt is good, and very typical of your average katana sheath.

His base is the Mori family mon again. emblazoned in gold against a black back drop. It looks amazing, some people would probably complain about the base being a boring old circle, but it is a mon and the overwhelming majority of them were circular so anti circle base activists can bite me! #CirclesHaveRightsToo #ItAintEasyBeingRound He does fit a bit snug on the foot pegs though so be careful with that.

Overall I think Tsurumaru is a pretty nice figure, he has a few minor flaws in his hair, and there’s a tiny dab of paint or two out of place, but he’s overall pretty solid.