Nendoroid Noumi Kudryavka Winter Uniform review

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first review I’ve written for my new blog!

So, which would be the perfect figure for me to make my first review on NoumiKudryavka.net?
Of course, it would be a figure of Kud! Specifically, her Winter Uniform Nendoroid, which I have wanted to get even before I knew who Noumi Kudryavka was~

Okay, let’s get started!

~It has taken me some time to come up with a satisfactory way of structuring my reviews, but I think I’m happy with the way I made this one, so I guess I’ll be using the same basic structure for all my future reviews of Nendoroids and other posable figures. As for scale figures, I’ll come up with a slightly different method when I do the first one~

First of all, let’s take a look at the box! It comes in a lovely checkered pink with a yellow inside background, and it’s a standard size Nendoroid box, meaning it measures around 21cm x 18cm x 8cm (that’s 8.3in x 7.1in x 3.1in). As usual, the front has a huge window, so one can see Kud and quite a lot of her accessories while still in the box.

As I don’t know Japanese, I can’t really tell what it says on the edges of the box… however, the first two characters (top left corner of the box) say わふ – wafu~ so I’ll guess it’s probably a character description of Kud. I’m really curious about what it might say now… xD

Kud Winter Uniform is Nendoroid #158. Some quick facts about it:

• It was released on 2011/06/02 as a standard released (available in regular shops),
• It had a retail price of 3619 yen,
• Unlike most Nendoroids, both Winter Kud and Summer Kud aren’t made by Good Smile Company, but by a partner company called Gift (ギフト),
• A quick search reveals she isn’t considered a rare Nendoroid yet (probably because she’s been released only a year ago), and as such can still be obtained rather easily. As of today, there are four Kuds for sale on Mandarake, all for 3000 yen each.

Okay, back to her box. 能美クドリャフカ 冬服 Ver. – Kudryavka Noumi Huyuhuku Ver., in this case Huyuhuku meaning Winter Uniform… I’ve always thought that ‘Winter’ was ‘fuyu’ (冬) and uniform was ‘fuku’ (服), so maybe it can be written both ways?

The back side of the box shows the different faces and posability options Kud has! I will of course be talking about them all, but here’s a quick rundown: she comes with a regular/happy face, a ‘Wafu!’ face and of course an embarrassed/surprised face, which can be used together with her dog ears and tail! Also, Kud comes with Belka, one of her dogs. Strelka, her other dog, is included with Kud Summer Uniform Nendoroid~

Now that we’ve taken a look at her box, let’s inspect all the accessories! There’s quite a lot of them, I wish all Nendoroids came with this much stuff! Right, on the top row we have her two extra faces, her two cloaks (I’ll explain why we have two in a moment), one extra skirt, and of course Belka and the frisbee Kud uses to play with the dogs. On the bottom row, we have a bit of Kud’s hair (I’ll also explain why in a bit!), the hand that holds the frisbee, several extra arms, one extra bow, the dog tail and ears, and of course Kud’s unmistakable cloth hat, with its huge button!

Let’s look at the accessories with more detail:

First of all, we have the accessory that, together with the ‘Wafu!’ face and the cloak, just define Kud and totally set her apart from everyone else! It is of course her cloth hat, and its Nendoroid extra-oversized rendition is extremely cute! Just like the real one, it has the big button and the two blue ribbons in the back, and it fits on Kud’s head perfectly, as long as you don’t push it too much into her head – there’s only one position for the hat, so if you force it wrongly, you can damage Kud’s hair.

In this photo you can see the two dog ears as well; these can be fitted to the inside of the hat, and there’s no way to confuse left with right, since the mounting holes are different from each other.

Now for the two faces! I’ll have to confess, even before I put them on Kud, I was already laughing – these have to be two of the best Nendoroid faces ever! Even though I’m a bit sad there isn’t another face that shows Kud’s gorgeous eyes, these two more than make up for it! I absolutely love the tiny fangs on the embarrassed face!

More tiny accessories, and an advice from me. While I was doing this review, I took lots of pictures of Kud without her cloak. And, since I’m an idiot, in about half of them, I forgot the replacement bow, so Kud was left with a hole in her chest. So don’t forget, that’s what that bow is for! If you remove her cloak, you have to use it, otherwise you’ll be an idiot like me.

Do you see why there are two cloaks? One of them has a lot more shoulder room, so that you can pose Kud with her arms in the air, like she’s throwing the frisbee or doing the ‘Wafu!’ pose with one fist in the air.
Both cloaks fit snuggly around Kud’s neck and shoulders, and as long as you’re careful when installing the head, her hair shouldn’t scratch the cloak.

I could see that Belka was getting bored of always being in the same position, so I had to hurry up with the accessories photos~  Here you can see Belka, the frisbee and Kud’s extra skirt. This skirt comes with a hole, which is where you install her cute dog tail! Apologies for not taking a pic of the hole, but you get it; it’s on the other side of the skirt… ^^;

And that’s pretty much it, as far as the accessories go~ Now, let’s get on with the review, since Kud really wants to show up!

But first, a look at the stand. It’s the more common Nendoroid stand, with the arm and peg that goes into a hole in the back of the Nendoroid. This stand is quite a lot better than the old one (like the K-On! girls had), which was basically two little hooks that attached to the Nendoroid’s skirt or legs, and because of that restricted the posability quite a lot.

The only slight problem with this type of stand is that it requires a sizable hole in either the back or the hair of the Nendoroid, and that can be unsightly if you plan to display it without the stand. But actually Gift (or Good Smile Company xD) came up with a simple solution for that, one that is in use in a couple other Nendoroids:

Remember that little piece of Kud’s hair? It has a little peg in it, and it fits perfectly on the hole meant for the stand!
-(Notice Kud’s expression in this photo, she really wanted to turn around and see what I was doing back there with her hair xD)-

After you fit it, the stand hole disappears, and so you can display or take pics of Kud from the back without having the ugly hole there!
-(I had to hold Kud’s hand for a moment here, or else she would fall over. I wish there were more Nendoroids that could stand by themselves! xD)-

And finally, here’s our Exotic Mascot, Noumi Kudryavka! >3<

Proper introductions happened at this point: I welcomed her into my small room, told her who I was and how happy I was about finally having her! I also apologised for keeping her in the box for two days after she arrived (I seriously didn’t have time to open her! >< ).
Kud said that she was really happy to meet me, and wondered if she would find any friends around here, and if the other girls would accept her! I, of course, told her not to worry, since everyone around here is really friendly (maybe I should just keep her away from Kyuubey >.> ), and she would certainly find new friends right away! I think I’ll put her next to the K-On! girls~

She’s certainly one of the most photogenic Nendoroids I have! Some Nendos are really good looking, but when it’s time to take a picture, they always look a bit… ‘stiff’. But not Kud! She’s just so pretty~

Of course I couldn’t let the change of getting a derpy picture go away, so here’s a ‘Wafu!’ moment! She looks exactly like Kud from the game, right down to her slight blush and the X3 mouth!

Time for a close up with the ‘Wafu!’ face! You can see that even the small details look really good, especially considering she’s quite tiny. The uniform with the tiny buttons and pockets, her skirt, her knee socks with the little lace and her shoes are all excellent, and only if you zoom in with a magnifying glass will you see some minuscule paint defects. But that’s to be expected, no? It certainly didn’t damage my expectations for Kud!

Another close up, this time focusing on Kud’s hair clip, which is a bat. Those that have played the game know the significance of the bat, so I won’t spoil it here. The only thing missing are the bat’s eyes (the real one has two small white eyes), but I think it’s fine the way it is; painting such minute details by hand would lead to eventual paint defects or mistakes, so it’s best like this. If you’re -really- dexterous, you can try painting them yourself – I think I’ll pass on that. ^^;

At this point in the review, Kud told me she was starting to feel a little cold (it was almost 8pm, and my room’s window was open), so I offered to help her put her cloak on…

Just look at her content expression! If anything, Kud looks even better with her cloak! It looks -right- on her, you know? It’s not one of those accessories that look odd or out of place on a character. Notice that, when Kud poses with her arms down, you can use this regular cloak, which flows over her shoulders. If you want to pose Kud with her arms up, you have to switch to the alternative cloak~

After I gave Kud her hat, it was time for some frisbee throwing! Belka didn’t look very interested in it, maybe she was still getting used to this foreign place that is my desk?

As you can see, Kud has a special right hand for holding the frisbee, with a neat slot between her thumb and index fingers.

Close up of Belka and the frisbee! Ah, you should note that Belka has a joint in her neck, so you can rotate the head side to side and up and down, slightly. This is useful for varying Belka’s poses a little!

By now, Kud kept playing with Belka, but I still wanted to snap a few more pics of her, especially with the dog tail and ears and the surprised face. So… I approached from behind and just bonked Kud on the head.

And this was the result! Kud looks absolutely adorable when she gets surprised like this! Like I mentioned earlier, the dog ears have different mounting points (one has an angled end and the other is rounded), so it’s impossible to mix them up! As for the fluffy dog tail, you have to switch the skirt for the one with the hole in it (I swear I didn’t look at Kud’s pantsu while doing that).

Another close up, this time totally worth it! Look at her face! And her tiny fangs! By the way, how the heck did they manage to paint such tiny details without mistakes? Maybe the fangs are ‘printed’ in the same way as the eyes, eyebrows and blush?

I just wish Kud came with at least one bent leg! That would be awesome for some poses, like throwing the frisbee or running! But at least her legs are quite posable like this, and like all Nendoroids can be rotated, so you can achieve some natural poses like I did in the previous photos!

At this point, I was wondering how would Kud look like with the dog tail and ears, but without being surprised? So, I comforted her, telling her someone had dropped something from one of the upper shelves (it’s true, didn’t you notice it?). Once again, she was happy, and…

This is how she looks like! Will she ever stop looking extremely adorable?

As you can see, the cloak in this pose is again the one without the shoulder part, so Kud can lift her arms quite a bit more! She looks like she wants a hug, should I?…

Okay, by now it was getting late, and Kud told me she was getting tired. It had been, of course, quite an eventful late afternoon! So, I showed her where she would be staying from now on, and introduced her briefly to the K-On! girls! Yui and Ritsu were a bit loud as usual, with the prospect of a new roommate, but I know they will get along just fine!

Time for goodbye! Kud was really happy for having so many pictures taken of her, and said that she would love to do it again soon! I too want to take lots more pictures of her, since there were a few poses I didn’t ask her to do this time!

So… the conclusion!
You can probably guess what I’m going to say, right? But I’ll say it anyway: this is my favourite Nendoroid, and I can’t recommend it enough. Like I said, I’ve been wanting it even before I knew who Kud was, just because it looked extremely cute! But now, I know who Kud is, and I know how she is, and I know her story… and that just transforms a good Nendoroid into a perfect Nendoroid, for me. There’s just something about her, everything just flows really well with her poses, they look natural; and the combination of her expressions, the arm poses, and the accessories like the cloak and the hat just completes the package.

Personally, this is my favourite Nendoroid ever. It just looks -exactly- like Kud!

But wait!! There’s something else! What if you want a Kud Nendoroid for yourself, but you’re undecided between this one, the Winter Uniform – and the Summer Uniform?

Well, I don’t have the Summer Uniform one (yet!), but I can say one thing: get both! You know why? Because Gift/Good Smile Company/whoever has made them like that. These two Nendoroids are meant to complete each other: they have the two different school uniforms Kud wears. One of them comes with Belka, the other one has Strelka. The Winter one comes with the happy face and the surprised face, the Summer one comes with the gentle smile face and a different happy face (and another ‘Wafu!’ face for some reason. xD  One can never have too many ‘Wafu!’ faces!)
However, the Summer Uniform Nendoroid was an exclusive edition, and as such is quite a bit more expensive than the Winter Uniform. For that reason, and if you really just want one Kud Nendoroid (shame on you)… get the Winter Uniform one! Just because it comes with the surprised face and the dog tail and ears!

And that’s it! I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed reading this far; I apologise if I sounded a bit boring sometimes! I just wanted to create a different review than the usual! Something tells me Kud will appear in a lot of my future reviews… stay tuned to find out! And thank you for reading!~