Medicchu Shimakaze Review

Hello, everyone! We are back again with another Medicchu review from the Kantai Collection series. This time, we have the speed loving destroyer with her sentient turrets, Shimakaze. With her being unique to her class, Shimakaze is a destroyer unlike any other in the fleet with a undying love to go fast. But before we move too quickly, let us slow things down a little with some basic information before diving headlong into the review.

• Manufacturer: Phat Company, Good Smile Company
• Series: Kantai Collection
• Price: 2,300 Yen (before tax)
• Release Date: 05/2015
• Scale: Non-scale
• Material: PVC

Front View

Shimakaze is easily one of the tallest Medicchu figures in the series much in part to her "rabbit-ears" hairband which is approximately half her height. This addition makes Shimakaze truly stand out when put next to the other Medicchu(s) from the Kancolle series. Plus, it helps to balance her rather busy base where she has two of her Rensouhou-chan turrets.

Rear View

From the back, Shimakaze's long blonde hair covers up much of her back except for a small bit down the middle of her back. Her hair splits off into two halves halfway down revealing the quad-torpedo launcher mounted on her back.

Close-up, we notice that Phat! has decided to replicate Shimakaze's original facial expression almost identically with the exception of her eyes. While Medicchu Shimakaze's eyes are partly closed just like in her original artwork, they are given a more "manga-esque" style finish with horizontal black lines running through them. On top of that, Shimakaze's eyes are a lighter shade of blue here likely to help create a greater contrast with the entire figure. Personally, I think that was a good decision because the eyes make up a big portion of a deformed scale figure such as Medicchu(s). With sharp clean lines and a good replication of Shimakaze's expression, the facial details are spot on.

Shimakaze's sailor uniform too has been faithfully reproduced in Medicchu form from her large gold buttons to her blue mini-skirt. Moreover, the color separation is also commendable with no noticeable paint spillage. Even the yellow pin-stripe running through her scarf and sleeves are cleanly painted. 

Lower down, Shimakaze's stockings and boots too have been given similar attention to detail. Unfortunately, Shimakaze's red and white striped stockings are no present because her legs are too short. But, Phat! has included a single white stripe clearly acknowledging that aspect of her design. A gray band runs across her ankle too marking the area where her tactical boots begin. 

Another characteristic feature of Shimakaze is her hairband which are not just shaped like bunny ears but seem to defy gravity for some odd reasons. But then again, she does have sentient turrets so, the less we ask, the better. Fortunately, the sculpt for Shimakaze's hairband is done particularly well and even the black paint finish is done tastefully with lighter tones towards the center of the "ears".

With her outfit and facial expressions covered, let us move onto her ship parts. Of course when talking about Shimakaze's ship parts, we are mostly referring to her three sentient turrets. Each one of the three Rensouhou-chan(s) are positioned exactly where you would expect them to be. The largest one towards Shimakaze's left sitting atop a flotation device.

Meanwhile, the medium sized one is held in Shimakaze's right arm. Because of the matter of scale, the Rensouhou-chan held by Shimakaze does look comically large.

The third, and smallest, Rensouhou-chan is usually found holding onto the back of Shimakaze's hand. She makes an appearance here too and is significantly smaller in scale compared to the other two.

Generally speaking, every one of the Rensouhou-chan's are very well detailed. Not only that, the painting and color separation on them are also particularly noteworthy. For example, each one of the Rensouhou-chan(s) have gold/copper colored propellers.

In case you ever forget her name, it is written right there on the flotation device. Ze-ka-ma-shi.

All in all, the Medicchu Shimakaze is everything you would expect of Shimakaze but in a deformed scale. While I cannot say it is particularly cute or endearing, I have no doubt Shimakaze fans (of which there are many of) would be interested in this. Especially with the reasonable price point of 2,300 Yen, getting her is a relatively simple decision. The only problem being availability as it has been a considerable amount of time since she launched (19 months as of writing). 

Hence, if you are a fan of Shimakaze and every other figure from the Hobby Japan scale to the GSC Nendoroid is in your collection, do not hesitate to add this Medicchu Shimakaze to your collection. From the detailing to the painting, everything is faultless even at this price point. 

With that, comes a close to our review of Medicchu Shimakaze as well as our Medicchu review streak. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them in the comments section below. Next time, we will be looking at some scale figures for a change. Until then, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!