Max Factory 1/8 Shenhua

Blade and body last forever. Best weapons in the world.

Finally!! Another item on my dream list fulfilled! ^^


Plenty of thanks to Rain, the President of Swinburne Anime and Manga Society for all the trouble of getting this figurine to me. Thanks very much to him ^^

This is Max Factory's 1/8 Shenhua from Black Lagoon (intro and my review on this anime series: Part 1 and Part 2). It's one of my favorite anime series, and Shenhua is my most favorite character from it.

Being an assassin for hire from Taiwan, her name is definitely Mandarin, and I'm fairly certain it's Shenhua for 神话 (myth), for she is quite a myth in the 'interesting' world of Black Lagoon. ^^



Most of the characters in the series prefer guns as their weapon, for obvious reason. Shenhua on the other hand, prefers a twin kukri knives as her primary weapon. Apart from using them for close combat, the handles of the knives are connected via a long rope, for them to be used as flying blades. As she demonstrated in one episode, the weapon is very effective at decapitating her enemies. O_O

Shenhua also uses flying darts as her secondary weapon, which are stored on her thighs.



But for me, the real myth about Shenhua is her ability to keep any blood stain off her white jacket for so much close range slicing and dicing XD

Shenhua is a very comical character in the anime, at least I think so. She can have that fierce look on her occasionally, as seen in some of the scene shots from the anime above. But the moment she opens her mouth, everything goes the other way round for her. XD According to the introduction on Shenhua from Wikipedia, she speaks broken English, but of course it's Japanese in the actual anime (real English for the dubbed version though), but her high-pitched squeaky voice is totally hilarious.



Some of Shenhua's lines from the anime:

"English not good because I am real Taiwanese, or is it not big deal if head separated from neck?"

"You want ass split into four? Not good to make fun. #$%@!*&%$#"

"When this over I carve some meat off your ass. You &^%$%"

"Men stabbed often but usually not stabbed themselves."

"No need for extra jab, idiot man. If I not bored, why would I hang around pathetic money?"

"Boss Chang said to make example of it. Tear up or to mince, boss didn't say. Either one works."

"Cowboy, this no Florida. This Roanapur."

"You just look like the king of idiots."

My favorite line from Shenhua however, is the tagline for this review at the very beginning.

As a secondary character in the anime, Shenhua doesn't have as much screen time as Revy, or even Balalaika. But I really enjoyed watching her action, even for the few episodes when she fights against Revy.

And for the figurine, my first impression was, "What a big box she's in!" ^^ It's Height: 28.8cm x Width: 22.6cm x Depth:18.7cm.

But I believe that's considered normal to other figurine collector ^^




* Some of the photos below are taken with flash turned on.

A very beautifully sculptured Shenhua is very beautiful indeed . ^^ The long flowing hair, her pose and the design of her cheongsam are very natural-looking, not to mention the painting as well, especially the flowers on the dress. The tassels on the knives, her earrings (look just like the tassels on the knives) and the flying darts on her thighs are all that impressive as well.

You can say that Shenhua is a strictly for display figurine. Others have interchangeable equipments, face expressions, or even cast off (ahem!) ability. Shenhua has none of those features, but I'm not concerned with those gimmicks anyway.








At this point, I could hear you saying, "Not out of the box yet?" Sorry folks, ^^; I'm not thinking of doing so, yet. The box has three sides of clear plastic to display the figurine inside, so I'm happy with having her in the box right now. I have no intention of dirtying her with any fingerprints nor dust taking her out.

Maybe some other day she can come out ^^

Being the second figurine in my collection so far, the first one have to be out for a group photo right? ^^



My 1/8 Haruhi, also from Max Factory. ^^
As I said before, Shenhua's box is very big, much bigger than Haruhi's.


A photo of Haruhi for her trouble ^^


Much taller than an average MG as well.
And, ya, I haven't open Haruhi's box as well. ^^

On a separate note, 1/8 Revy in her Japanese assignment outfit will be released by Jun Planning by late March. That's good news for me, not that I'm interested in Revy's figurine, but because it seems that the figurine line for Black Lagoon has yet to finish. Hopefully the first PVC figurine of Balalaika is under planning as well. I'll definitely fall to the kapitan ^^

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Max Factory 1/8 Shenhua