Top 10 of 2008: #5 Takara CY Girl ICE

#5 on my list is Takara’s CG/CY Girl Ice…

(When anyone else thinks of that name are they inflicted with an echo of Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby–in their head??)

Description of Toy/Toyline: Takara’s line of Cool Girl figures. Back in the old days Takara used to make these figures (in much greater quantity) and they were available on the western market as well. Now they’re primarily (if not totally) made and geared to the Japanese/ east Asian market with smaller production runs and more specialized licensing. And wow, are they priced accordingly…So if you’re not local its uber pricey. :( It’s a pity.

So why did Cy Girl Ice (all of them) end up on my list?
Hmm.. this take a bit of thought. Initially, I thought that the figures were just over priced barbies. When I got one in my hands though…I knew I was wrong. And I can admit that. No, really. I can! ;)

• The mitigating factor was how well she can move & pose. The 2.0 body that Takara used was really pretty damned good. The only one I can really compare it with articulation wise is the Volks Excellent Base body series. The 2.0 is nice because it is a meatier, heftier body.

• Also, although her default face paint is rather bland and below par, she does have IMO a very nice headsculpt. Crooked eyes aside.

Those are the reasons why Ice ends up on my list.

Plus, without Ice as a base figure I wouldn’t have been able to make any of the following characters:

Paloma

Viv

Tori

Downsides to this item:

• I could overlook her basic flaws because I could “fix them”. Things that would matter if I was a MIB/NRFB kind of person. Good thing I’m not, eh?
• By far the most disappointing thing was that her costume (should I call it a uniform??) the neck band often stained the vinyl of her head/neck area. Now part of this may be that I got my figures off the secondary market, that hellish place called feEbay. The figures were already at least 5+ years old when I got them and I suppose that maybe in the beginning they might not have been stained. I don’t know.
• Speaking of costumes…The 2.0 (medium chest that the ICE body sports) in general won’t fit a majority of barbie clothes. If they have some stretch to them it’s more likely, but its more like a 1-in-6 chance of the clothing fitting well. These girls have big (though not quite thunder) thighs.
• Ice, as a default figure isn’t all that fantastic to look at IMO. (No offense to all those folks out there who think she’s hotter than the beam of a plasma cutter). The barbie pink lipstick, the flyaway hair, and the eyes that seem to be staring out into space don’t do it for me. But…I’m a customizer, so those are only small points.
• Spare hands are difficult to find, and she came with “gloved” hands. Which means that generally speaking, if I want to put a pair of normal, gloveless hands on her, I need to use hands from 1.5 figures. And those…well, they’re almost “man hands” (ever see that Seinfeld episode where he goes on the date with the woman with “man hands”? I think these girls must suffer that a lot!) So I have to rate them as a point against.
• Feet. Did we mention feet? All the CY girl figures come with “boot” feet. If you want something resembling normal feet (bare) you need to pick up spare PB feet or else pony up the money for a Reload Action pair of girl feet. Or you can find soem spare foot pegs and use the bratz feet.

Anyway, despite the issues listed above I’m happy to have gotten a few of them in my hands.

It’s nice to have some variety in my figure collection. (I tend to lean very heavily towards the Volks dollfie bodies so anything that is at least comparable in articulation has got to catch my eye). And the 2.0 figure is worth the $$.