Re:Zero: Halloween Rem

After being delayed for over 8 months, Halloween Rem was finally released in late-May. I take a look at this figure from Phat! and offer some of my thoughts.

As mentioned in my previous post on PSO2es: Gene (Stella Memories Ver.), I also got Halloween Rem within my latest shipment. I pre-ordered her back in the start of 2020 as a little “self pat on the back” for passing the three month review/probation period at my current job.

Rem is from the series Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu, and is also my favourite character from the series. This rendition of Rem was sculpted by Teruyuki-sensei, painted by Noa-sensei (blog post), and manufactured by Phat! Company. She was originally slated to be released in October 2020, but due to some unforeseen issues, she was subsequently delayed a few times until May 2021.

This is how she looks in the box:

Taking her out of the box, we’ll see the protective packaging protecting her during shipment. Her witch hat comes detached from the rest of the figure. The tail piece is attached to the figure itself, and the base is detached.

Interestingly, looking closely at the base, the left foot support piece seems to be moved: it looks as if the moved it from the left to the right a bit more when looking at it from the front. Although I speculate really hard at this point, it might have contributed to the overall delay of the figure if that was originally placed on the wrong spot. Nonetheless, from afar, you can’t really notice it, but with the right lighting, this small detail is definitely visible and can seem a little off.

Although the hat is detached, you should display Rem with the hat attached. More on that in a little bit.

With everything out, we have Halloween Rem! She dawns a black-coloured hat with a piece of purple ribbon surrounding it and tied in a bow shape with yellow stars decorating it. Around her neck is a cape coloured black on the outside and orange on the inside, held together by a pumpkin-like accessory. Rem’s usual maid outfit is trimmed back without the usual maid dress, leaving the top part of her legs exposed. The typical white laces holding her outfit together are replaced with the same Halloween-orange accent seen throughout. She sports thigh high knee socks, and her usual shoes are replaced with black boots, with orange accents on the inside.

Photos are worth a thousand words as usual, so here’s Rem as a whole:

Starting off from the top, we have Rem’s large witch hat. Sculpting-wise, I thought it was okay. The base of the hat is quite simple: there’s not a lot of texture. The bow has some darker shades near the folds, so it does give it more realism, which I enjoy looking at. With the right lighting, it looks pretty good. The underside is orange, and there are two circles that sort of look like folds in an actual hat, so that’s cool.

This next shot had me a little bit disappointed. As we move down towards Rem’s body, we’ll first notice her cape, and the little pumpkin accessory. If you take a closer look at it, the black outlines around the pumpkin’s eyes, nose, and mouth are not completely done. There’s parts of it that seem to have faded or not gone on properly. On the cape transition between black and orange, there are parts where there seems to be a bit of paint transfer, where there’s black on the orange parts. The most noticeable imperfection are the orange laces at in the front. Here, I thought the paint job wasn’t done well in comparison to the prototype image. It’s quite noticeable from a foot’s distance, so it kind of distracts from the overall figure. That being said, sculpting-wise, it looks fine. The laces are visibly not touching her white undershirt, and the purple bow under the pumpkin is a bow with gaps in the bow portion.

For comparison, below is a prototype photo that you can see on Good Smile Company’s website. The laces are cleanly done with no orange bleeding out.

The prototype image from GSC’s website.

Moving along and down towards Rem’s legs, they are fairly simplistic, with a few nice touches. On the back of her knees, we have the muscle slightly shaded. With lighting, you’ll definitely see it, and that’s a nice realism touch that I like to look for these days. Her boots, near the base, also have creases. The white outline around the top of the boot also adds a nice bit of contrast.

As we go back up the rear, we’ll see that most of it is just her cloak. There’s a bunch of crease marks everywhere, and with lighting, you’ll be able to see Rem’s tail is also attached to the back. There was also a small little blemish at the back as well.

I mentioned above that you’ll want to display Rem with her witch hat on. This is because there is a hole on the top of her head for you to attach it. I was sort of expecting some sort of strong magnets to hold the hat in place on her head, similar to how ALTER did it with Nishikino Maki or Koizumi Hayano from the Love Live! school idol festival figures. It’s a little unfortunate that you cannot display her without the hat or cloak.

Fortunately, you can still take photos at certain angles without exposing that hole, so here are some:

And at the top, this is how that hole looks like. You’ll definitely see that, so only take off the hat when you want to take photos. 🙂

The hole on top of Rem’s head, where the hat goes.

And just like that, it’s Rem:

A close up of Rem’s upper half. She has her little fang as well.

Overall, I was slightly disappointed with this version of Rem. The frontal focal point of this figure is detracted by the subpar paint job by the orange laces. Having wedding version Rem and Ram in my collection, which were also manufactured by Phat!, I was expecting the same sort of quality control, but I guess that didn’t happen this time around. Obviously, one cannot and should not expect complete perfection, but perhaps I just got the lemon in the batch, so I’ll just say it was unfortunate for me. From a distance, it’s harder to notice, but having seen the paint issues already, it’s hard not to think about them. With the witch hat on and from a distance, she still looks really nice, and it is Rem, so I can live with it. 🙂

With all that said about Phat!, there are other Phat! figures that I’m keeping an eye on, like PA-15 from Girls Frontline. The prototype photos of her look pretty nice, so I am considering putting in a pre-order for her. Hopefully QC will be better next time.

At some point, maybe I’ll also take photos of the wedding version twins, too, but we’ll see.

Anyways, that’s all I got this time around. Until next time!
~Lui

Injabie3
Injabie3

Just some guy on the Internet that writes code for fun and for a living, and also collects anime figures.

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