In 2017, Bandai launched a new figure model kit lineup called Petiture-rise, and the very first release was a 3-character set featuring Chika, Riko, and You from LoveLive! Sunshine!!. As you can see, it's an SD-style character model kit with a similar concept to Nendoroid figures, but in person it feels quite a bit larger. It almost seems like Bandai got inspired by Kotobukiya's recent success with their Frame Arms Girl series and various other girl character model kits.
While the set includes 3 characters, only one body is provided, so you can't build all three at the same time. You swap out 3 different heads on the same body, and 3 types of arms along with 2 types of feet and legs are included so you can mix and match various poses.
First off, the overall quality is very clean and polished — very Bandai. Assembly is super easy and everything snaps together smoothly and satisfyingly. The skin-tone molded color on the faces in particular has a nice matte-like finish that gives it better surface texture than most other figure kits. Each character comes with one default expression face plus one blank face part, and you can apply stickers for 4 different expressions per character — giving you a total of 3 (default) + 4 (expressions) × 3 characters = 15 expressions in all.
For the legs, you can choose between bare legs with bare feet, or a combination with black over-knee socks stickers and shoes. There's only one leg part per style, so keep in mind that once you stick the over-knee socks stickers on, they're hard to remove — so think carefully before you commit.
With all these different facial expressions combined with the various arm and leg options, you can pull off a lot of cute poses. That said, applying the face stickers is no easy task. Especially when placing the eyes on the blank face — getting the vertical and horizontal positioning right while keeping them symmetrical is a lot harder than you'd think. If you just slap them on without thinking, the face proportions can end up looking really off and the expression comes out all wrong. (T_T) In my case, it took about an hour and a half just to peel and reapply all 12 expression stickers, and it wasn't until around the 10th try that I finally started to get a feel for where the eyes should go. ^^;
But an even bigger issue is the sticker blending problem. If you look closely at the 12 posed photos with the sticker expressions above, you'll notice the edges of the stickers are pretty obvious, and honestly, I personally prefer the clean, sculpted default expression. The various expressions shown in the box art are painted, not stickers, so don't be fooled (^^;;) — just keep the sticker blending issue in mind as you look through the review photos.
And I do wish they had included three bodies, even if it meant a higher price. A lot of people will want all three characters as complete figures, but if you buy three kits to do that, you end up with a ridiculous amount of leftover parts (especially the heads...). Alternatively, releasing them as three separate kits — one per character — would've been nice too, though from a product planning standpoint, splitting them up that much probably would've made it harder to forecast sales and manage inventory for each character.
Of course, true to Bandai form, it comes at a very affordable price of ¥1,800 for what you get, which makes it feel much cheaper than similar concept figure products — so buying three sets isn't that big of a financial burden relatively speaking. Still, the package contents do leave a bit of an unsatisfying aftertaste.
Anyway, it's great to see an affordable model kit that you can enjoy in a similar way to SD-style character figures. The build quality and assembly feel are solid, as you'd expect from Bandai, so it should do pretty well. On top of that, these are characters from LoveLive!, which has a huge mainstream fanbase, so fan support should be strong too. If you're curious about Bandai's take on a Nendoroid-style model kit, or if you're a LoveLive! fan, this looks like a fun kit worth picking up without hesitation. :-)
Petiture-rise LoveLive! Sunshine!! Chika/Riko/You | 2017. 1 | ¥1,800
AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.
