I've mentioned before (like in the review of the Legendary Comic Book Heroes Witchblade figure) that Witchblade holds a special place in my heart, despite not being on my current buy list (I'm getting the trades, though) - my first comic, and all that. As a consequence, I've been more ready to dip into tie-in media than I might with other comics I read - of course, it helps that Witchblade invariably stars a kick-ass heroine - so over the past few months I've bought the Witchblade: Takeru manga trade paperback - the Western, coloured version - and the DVDs of the Witchblade anime TV show, which this PVC statue is from. I haven't watched all the DVDs I've bought yet - TV shows are so damned cheap these days, I'm up to here in boxed sets I haven't yet found the time for - but I've seen enough episodes to develop an affection for it, with its hyperkinetic action and corporate intrigue and domestic comedy and, yes, all the gorgeous women wandering around with not much on. God bless the Japanese, they're a bit crazy, but you wouldn't get what they do from anywhere else (I mean, the American version of Iron Chef? Lame, no matter how cute Cat Cora is). I even liked it enough to pay a fairly sizeable sum for this statue. What we have here is the show's heroine, Masane, while the Witchblade is active - unlike the American version, the 'blade doesn't just armour her, it remoulds her into a new being, profoundly affecting her psychologically, as well as completely altering her physical appearance. Believe it or not, that's all witchblade you see there, even what looks like naked flesh - when the 'blade switches off, Masane is still fully clothed underneath. Strange but true. The anime takes the original Witchblade notion that the 'blade feeds off combat, requiring the bearer to consciously restrain its combative impulses, and turns the dial up to 11 - when Masane, an amiable, harmless kind of woman, breaks out the witchblade, she turns into a bloodthirsty psychopath whose lust for battle makes her literally orgasmic whenever she's fighting. Appropriately, Witchblade-Masane is looking all kinds of sexy, showing off her shapely butt in a coquettish come-get-me pose, while displaying the full length of the 'blade to visually mix sex with violence. As a three dimensional realisation of an animated form, the statue is pretty much flawless - what you see on the screen is what you see in the statue. Masane's body (or whatever it is - like I said, even the bits that look like bare skin are actually witchblade-stuff) is rounded, soft, fully-developed, especially around the chest and hips. The edges of the armour actually press into her skin, heightening the illusion of softness (as well as giving the whole thing a more fetishistic edge), and the grey surfaces are shaded both in the crevices, and around smooth joints like the elbows and knees, making the whole thing look even more curvaceous. Her hair, spikily animated in style, is metallic red, and the witchblade's silver and dark red segments are likewise spot on. The gauntlet on her right hand contains a clear red gem., and the blade edges on her boots are painted to match the primary blade extending from her arm. If there's a flaw in the whole thing, and it's a minor one, it's that I don't think the facial markings come quite high enough up onto her cheeks - it looks like the sculpt of the hair caused the paint to be lowered, so as not to have its tips covered up. It's a big statue, about 7.5" to the top of her head, but when you consider how bent over she is - over 5" of that height is her legs alone - there's quite a lot of her, and she dominates any regular-sized 6" scale action figures who might be nearby her on the shelf. She comes with a choice of two blades, one extended a full 7", the other retracted, mimicking the way the 'blade on the show sits underneath the gauntlet and extends dramatrically when it's used. Because PVC isn't a perfectly solid material, the makers of the statue have provided supports to keep her from sagging over time - she'll stand just fine using the pegs in the soles of her feet (as she is in the photo here), but for long-term display, there are loops to go over the backs of her heels, to keep the feet from bending forward, and a tall strut that plugs into the base beneath her torso and takes her weight by way of a curved support beneath her left breast. I honestly don't know how susceptible PVC is to long-term stress deformation - some, obviously, but whether it's months or years I haven't a clue - but with this statue being enormously top-heavy, these extra supports are a prudent move, and will no doubt help keep Masane looking her best in the long run. They're removable, so if you want to display her standing alone for a particular reason - to take photos, or whatever - you can take them off, and replace them when you put the statue back on its shelf. Overall, this is not a cheap product - at today's prices, you could get five action figures, or twenty comics, for what I paid for her - so you'd want to be a fan of the Witchblade anime before you'd think about buying her. But if you are willing to look at her in spite of the price tag, she's pretty much perfect.