Pinky St: Fruits Basket Tohru Honda

Product Information/Specifications

Introduction

When I heard that this Pinky: St: Fruits Basket Tohru Honda figurine was on available through mail order in Japan only, I figured that I should get it on eBay & make some preparations on feeding my wallet.  And it was true, I paid a lot for it when it started coming on online auctions.  But I got a fair deal considering what I saw from other people at the time.  I'm not a fan of Fruits Basket since I haven't seen it before, but I got it because it's one of those special Pinkys.

The Pinky St: Fruits Basket Tohru Honda figurine could only be obtained by sending in a coupon from a Japanese manga magazine.  It wasn't a lottery, so pretty much anyone that sent in the coupon can get it.  However, it's only an one time deal with no plans of re-releasing it again in the future.

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

Tohru Honda Pinky in package

This Tohru Pinky is quite unique.  Aside from having a lot of accessories, those accessories are something new to the Pinky world.  You get a pair of hair ribbons, an extra upper body, a base, Kyo Soma in his cat form, Yuki Soma in his rat form, & Tohru as a rice ball.  Personally, I think this is a nice assortment of accessories.

Tohru Pinky from different sides

Looking at the Tohru Pinky carefully, it's basically remolds of past Pinkys.  I recognize the leg & upper body parts.  The only differences are the colours & designs.  However, it's quite effective.  The head is new by the way.  And because of the head, Tohru really needs her base to stand.  I tried making her stand without the base, but failed.  It's quite heavy.  Speaking of the base, here's what it looks like:

It's quite a nice base as it fits the Fruits Basket theme.  A bit plain, but very nice.  Back to the body parts, here's what Tohru looks like with different hair ribbons & upper body.

I really like those extra parts.  The upper body really brings some charm to Tohru.  It's really cute.  The light blue hair ribbons are really cute as well.  But replacing the ribbons are a bit of a challenge.  You have to take out her hair as well.  The ribbons have a hole near the top.  You have to put those hair parts through it & put it to her head.  Putting the hair parts through the ribbon is tricky as the peg on the hair is pretty soft.  Now for the accessories.

 
OH SO CUTE!

Most of the accessories goes on Tohru's head.  Yuki & the riceball sit on head by using a peg system.  On top of Tohru's head is a hole for you to put those two accessories.  The hole is created between where the front & back hair parts are connected.  So, it's basically a groove created on each side of the parts.  Think of two "C" connecting together to form a "O".  Putting Yuki & the riceball isn't hard, but the hole they sit on is pretty big.  They can sway a little as they are loosely connected.

For Kyo, he doesn't have any pegs since Tohru's arms don't have holes.  Instead, Kyo has a groove under his body that is shapely molded to sit on Tohru's arms smoothly.  However, it was a bit difficult to get them into place.  Even when Kyo is placed somewhat properly, he still sways around & can fall off easily.

For you Pinky customizers out there, here's what you can do with use from Tohru's wardrobe.  As mentioned, the extra upper body part has no holes.  So, you basically can't put anything on there except Kyo.  You need to drill them if you want those hands to hold something.  However, because of its position, I can't think of any Pinky accessories out on the market at the time Tohru was released to put on them.  Another thing are Yuki & the rice ball.  Because they are designed to go on the head, you need all of Tohru's hair parts.  Unless you are willing to drill some holes on some heads, this is the only approach of using Yuki & the rice ball.

Enough fun, let's talk about the workmanship.

I'm very pleased on how the paint job is done on this Pinky.  The blue panel lines on Tohru's shirts are excellent.  Very even with no signs of bleeding.  Very impressive!  The molding is a bit bad as you can see on Tohru's right arm.  However, I realized that I was lucky on getting a bad one.  The molding job on the accessories is well done as I couldn't find any faults.

The painting job on Yuki, the rice ball, & Kyo is pretty good.  The black mark on the right of the rice ball is actually paint that I accidentally scratched off.  I had some troubles getting it out of the package.  Now I know how good the paint quality is.  But that can be fixed up easily.

That's a cute facial expression that Tohru has & I like it.  It's soft & well painted.  No bleeds & sharply done.

Overall Conclusion

The Tohru Honda Pinky is pretty much a excellent Pinky to collect.  The workmanship is the best out of all the Pinky's I've seen so far & lots of accessories to play with at the time of this review.  If you are into customizing Pinkys, you may need to do some extra work on those parts if you want them on other Pinkys.  Currently, I've got Tohru displayed in a display case & haven't put her back in her package for a long time.

The Pinky St: Fruits Basket Tohru Honda receives a grade of 9.5/10.  This truly is a collector's item.  Lots of accessories, excellent paint job, & extremely cute.  The downside about it is how you put the hair ribbons.  It can be tough if you got pigtails that are too thin or thick to fit through the holes.  You can probably grade it a bit lower if you are a Pinky customizer as the parts require some work.

If you are a Fruits Basket or Pinky fan, this is definitely a Pinky that you must have in your collection.  Because it was limited to a certain number of coupons sent in, this baby will be a bit pricey.  Currently, I've seen it sell between US$50 -$60 since it was just released.  Over time, the price has gone down.  The reason for it is the quantity number of this Pinky.  Although it was limited, there is actually a lot of them in the market.

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

Last updated on May 21, 2008