Palm Characters Archer & Rin Tohsaka Set

Product Information/Specifications

Introduction

When I saw this Palm Scenery Characters Archer & Rin Tohsaka Set for the first time during the pre-order stage, I didn't have the desire to get it.  It didn't look very good as the Saber & Shiroh set.  I finally brought it from YesAsia after a couple of months from its release date.  The product wasn't selling too well & the store reduced its price a bit. 

Some of the pictures aren't clear & good.  If I have time, I'll redo the bad ones & repost them.

The Review

Palm Scenery Characters Archer & Rin Tohsaka in package

Like the previous set, Archer & Rin come in a larger than usual box for a Palm Scenery Character product.  They usually come in trading figure boxes.  The downside about this is that there is no display cases to store these figures.  I guess the manufacturer wanted to continue the same pattern from the previous set as they came with no display cases as well.

 
Archer & Rin out of the box

 
Accessories

Accessories that come with the figures are two clear small bases, Azoth dagger, Garadobolg, an extra set of arms for Archer, bow, & the twin swords.  Archer stands well without the base, but Rin must be attached to one.  However, they look a bit weird on the bases since one of their feet is off the base due to their legs being spread out pretty far.

Archer can move his arms up & down while Rin can't.  Their heads & wrists are moveable.

The poses here aren't too bad.  Pretty much static poses.  Luckily, you can adjust them.  With Archer, you have some options of posing him differently from static to dynamic with either of the two weapons available as his set of arms are designed for holding weapons.  However, setting the pose for Archer holding Garadobolg on his bow is really tricky.  You have to put the bottom of the handle right into his right hand & it's quite loose.  It doesn't sit in his hand properly .  Although you can adjust the position of Garadobolg that way, it was very difficult on centering it on the bow & not touching his left hand.  It took a lot of time to position it in the right pic above. 

For Rin, I find her to be a bit too thin.  It really looks weird.  That was one of the reason why I hesitated from buying this set at the start.  Also, her big head really didn't match the body proportion & this isn't really an SD figurine design.

The paint job isn't the best here.  It's quite bad on some areas due to the molding.  Let's look at the areas without the molding problems first.  The white markings on Archer's black shirt & red overcoat is a bit uneven in terms of the pattern.  There is quite a fair amount of bleeding.  Also the black straps around Archer's legs is uneven, but it's much better though.  The same can be said about the cross on Rin's shirt in terms of unevenness.  A reason behind this would be the size of the figures.  It's not easy to paint something that small with little space to work on; especially with Archer.  So, it's kind of forgivable.  On the areas with molding problems,  the bumps create some bleeding & thick paint on some areas.  Most noticeable would be Archer's boots.  As for Archer's hair, you can notice the molding problems very easily near joining areas.  Plus, white makes things quite noticeable.

The paint job on the accessories is no better on most of them  There are quite a number of bleeding & unevenness, even though they aren't very detailed.  Most of the problem is due to the small areas.  As for molding, it's not too bad.  But there are quite a number of air bubbles & unevenness in the shaping as well.

The faces of Archer & Rin

If you have seen the promotional pics of this product, you would notice two things right away.  One, the colour of Archer isn't the same as pictured by the toy company.  The colour is darker on the actual product than light skinned.  Second, Rin's face on the actual product doesn't have her smiling like the promo.  It's just a strict face.  It's totally different from what you would expecting from the product.  I felt a little cheat on it a bit.

For some reason, it looks like Archer's eyes are painted & etched.  There are some unevenness on the pupils & very little on the eye lining.  For Rin, it's most etched in.  Overall, it's done not too badly.

As for facial expressions, they somewhat match.  We have an angry looking Archer, which isn't too bad.  Even though he seems to be careless at times, this face matches his strictness.  As for Rin, it somewhat matches.  It gives off her serious side that we see that the start of the Fate/stay night story.

Overall Conclusion

The Palm Characters Archer & Rin set isn't a great set.  The figures aren't too cute & the workmanship is actually poor compared to previous Palm Character figures in many other series.  The figures seem to portray the characters ok.  This set is quite pricey than other Palm Characters.  Also, it's more expensive than the previous Palm Character Fate set.  This is many because of the extra accessories.  Currently, I have them in a display case with my Saber & Shiroh set & don't plan to put them back into their box.

On a scale of ten, I give the Palm Characters Archer & Rin set a 6.5.  The workmanship is surprisingly poor as I got use to seeing good quality work from other past Palm Character trading figures.  Also, the expectation of getting this product in your hands may differ if you were expecting something that matches any of the advertisements made on this product.  It's virtually different.  The plus side through is the amount of accessories included.  This is more than normal that Tora no Ana is use to releasing.  It would have been nice if they came with a mini display case like the other figures in the Palm Scenery Characters lineup.

At that Japanese retail price, the Palm Characters Archer & Rin set is quite pricey.  Palm Scenery Characters usually sell at the ¥500 mark & they come with a mini display case, while this one doesn't.  Finding this set is hard now even though there doesn't seem to be a high demand for them.  This is an old product.  Personally, fans of Archer or Rin may not be interested in getting this set.  I personally won't suggest this unless you find a good deal on them or are really a diehard fan.  But, beware of the bootleg version out there.

Photos were taken using Sony DSC-F828 digital still camera.

Last updated on February , 2008