Customa-P CFP-04 Rozen Maiden Suigintou Figurine

Product Information/Specifications

Introduction

Ever since I saw the Rozen Maiden anime show, I had a strange itch of getting a doll like those doll characters.  Of course, things like those are very expensive & go way off my budget.  I manage to find a much cheaper substitute when YesAsia was holding a clearance sale.  I got this Customa-P Suigintou figurine at a good price.  Although it has ball-joints, it's not the kind of doll I wanted since it's PVC & doesn't use cloth or wig materials.   I decided to get this because, like many, Suigintou is one of my favourite characters in the series due to her design.

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

The Review

Customa-P Suigintou Figurine in box

This is the same standard box that VOLKS uses for its Customa-P series.  Although I'm not familiar with the lineup, I think its basically a cheaper lineup of their doll products from what I read up.  All parts are made of PVC & don't use any of the fancy doll parts such as cloth & wigs.  So, it's one of those cheaper alternatives for people like me wanting to get something like a doll but can't afford one.

Suigintou out of the box

Suigintou comes with an extra face that has a real doll like face.  When I took Suigintou out from the plastic wrapping protection, I was looking for the base.  Turns out that there isn't one.  As a result, problems taking pictures of Sugintou for this review & displaying her.

Suigintou from different sides

Because of the lack of base, it was very hard to keep Suigintou from falling.  Because of her thin legs & the use of ball joints, it took some time to get her upright.  Plus, some of the ball joints were built in different ways that I didn't expect.  I'll explain more about it later.  Although I managed to get her to stand for a long period of time that looked like permanent, she started to fall very often which lead to a lot of frustrations. 

Suigintou is all PVC& luckily it's good hard rubber-like PVC.  After numerous of times of falling over, she's still intact like how she was when she came out of the box.  Although I'm pretty upset of the lack of a base or stand to hold her upright, I'm glad that the materials used isn't cheap or fragile.  Because it's hard PVC, you can't really pose Suigintou in a lot of ways that you may want.

Volks is well known in making pricey ball joint dolls.  The company doesn't make a lot of PVC figures.  Anyways, the ball joints are pretty tough on this figurine & are quite impressive.  Suigintou is moveable on her ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, & torso.  The ball joints are visible in a lot of areas, but looks good on this figurine as it balances out.  The ball joints are tight to prevent any poses from falling out of position.  But, it feels smooth when you move them.  The only problem I had with the joints is how her right foot comes out a bit easily.  The connecting joint from the ball is long & thin which looks like it can break easily. Luckily, the foot is easily to attach as it comes off.  However, the knees were a problem.

The ball joints on the knees is a surprise to me.  Suigintou's right leg moves vertically while her left leg moves horizontally.  This is a bit strange to me.  The right leg can only move back when the left leg moves towards the body.  I tried to route Suigintou's left leg to move vertically, but I wasn't able to as it seems the ball joint is stuck to that position.  Although you can route the whole leg & feet, it's not going to look good due to the shape of the leg.  The only reason I could think of for this strange ball joint construction is to make Suigintou stable while standing.  When you play around with her to make her stand, you will feel the reason.

In terms of articulations, it's quite limited.  Although there are a lot of ball jointed areas, the bottom part of Suigintou's body is limited.  The reason is due to her hard dress.  Although the dress is fluttered open with some space, it's not enough.  Plus, the positioning of the knee joints & difficultly of making her stand up only allows you to pose her arms instead.

The molding of Suigintou isn't too great.  But there are some areas like the roses & ribbons are molded nicely in appearance.  Volks went as far as trying to create crease mark on her dress.  Although the white parts looks nice, the purple isn't.  Check out the back side. 

Those dents on the back of Suigintou's dress are suppose to be crease marks.  At first, I thought the figurine was smashed & dented in due to me having her fall many times.  When I looked at the packaging box, I found out that it's suppose to be like that.  There is one part in the front on Suigintou's left that's like that too, but small.  Although it does somewhat create a dress feel than a flat plate, it looks very weird. It still looks like shhets of metal used for her dress.  Either way, the appearance is kind of stiff.  Beware that the edges are quite sharp for some reason.

Continuing on with the mold, Suigintou does suffer heavily on it.  There are quite a lot of small bumps on her dress.  Good thing there isn't air bubble though. Although you can scrape out the bumps, touchup work will be a pain; especially trying to find the right paint colour of her dress.  Even her hair looks rough, but only when you look up close.

The colour is actually a dark purple, not a bright dark blue as the pics suggest.  The paint used seems to be full gloss as the colours shine nicely.  It really makes Suigintou stand out.  The white parts have a little touch of blue in it to create a nice shadow toning effect & balances out the entire dress.

For the paint job, there isn't really much to say about it on the body.  The only parts that are painted is the silver cross on the hem of Suigintou's dress.  It's okay, but not very solid as you can see some unfinished parts near the edges.

Suigintou's original & real doll faces

As mentioned before Suigintou comes with an extra face with a real doll-like appearance.  The faces are actually the same & carry that her evil character of her's.  It's the eyes that are different.

For the original face, it does have some that anime show's design in it.  The entire face is etched, not painted.  The eyes are etched nicely, but her left eye is missing some white a bit.  But this is probably only my figurine since this is a mass produced product.

For the real doll face, it's the same as the original one but with the eyes replaced.  The eyes are the same ones that you see with old fashioned dolls.  The outside of the eye such as the eye lining is etched like the anime one.  The eyes doesn't close or move.  It's fix into that position.  Because of the shadowing from Suigintou's hair, the eye colour is the same as her right one.   The left eye isn't dark as shown in the pic.  Although it's kind of creepy, that face was the reason why I went & brought this figurine. This is the face that I plan to keep.

Replacing the face was a bit challenging at first.  The whole head has to be removed that the faces are connected to the neck.  I started out by removing the front & back sides of the head before I found this out.  I was very concerned on pulling the face out since ball joints & I aren't on friendly terms.  After removing the head, the neck is exposed & the joint used to connect the face is a long thin stick.  There is a difference in how you place the face at the front part of the joint has a tab sticking out.  Putting the face in was more challenge with the concerns of breaking the thin joint & the amount of force to get the face in.  After putting the face in, the joint between the face & neck got loose.  Don't know if it's because I didn't put the face in properly or it becomes like that after the first replacement.

Overall Conclusion

The Customa-P CFP-04 Rozen Maiden Suigintou Figurine gave me different views & impressions of it.  I knew that I wasn't getting an actual doll when I ordered it.  But when I got it in my hands & played with it, it made me think otherwise.  It's actually nothing more than a large scale action figurine with doll eyes.  I have her displayed in my shelf above my bed.  Initially, I thought it wasn't a good idea to put her there.  If something hits my wall or an earthquake occurs when I sleeping, Suigintou may fall on my face.  Luckily she doesn't land on my face, but I have to replace her for something else soon.

The Customa-P CFP-04 Rozen Maiden Suigintou Figurine receives 7.5/10.  The figurine is more of an action figurine than a doll.  My way of thinking of it was wrong from the start actually.  Suigintou has that character in her & is nicely portrayed.   The ball joints are tight & holds the positions you want well.  The paint colour is nice & really makes Suigintou shine.  However, the molding isn't great as small bumps can be found in many places of the dress. Plus, there is no base or stand to hold Suiginitou up & she falls pretty easily due to her thin legs.  The lack of accessories is another minus as well.  Although you get an extra head, some extra pair of hands would have been nice.

Looking for the Customa-P CFP-04 Rozen Maiden Suigintou Figurine will be hard to find.  The figurine is old & Volks is well known in making very limited numbers of their products.  You may have to pay lot to get this, even if its already high price tag.  However, I wouldn't suggest getting this unless you are very good in balancing things or willing to make a stand.

 
Give me your Mystic Rozen!

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

Last updated on May 13, 2008