Fate/Stay Night the anime was, to me, a bunch of cool ideas ruined by a bumbling dumb hero protagonist and desperately contrived harem cliches. But I’m grateful that the franchise exists and achieved some popularity, because it brought us this Saber figure.
Most of my purchasing decisions are based on how much I like the character, but this one was purely due to its aesthetic magnificence. The first time I saw promotional shots of this figure, I was taken aback by the incredible detail of her outfit, and that face. This Saber Lily is based on a garage kit by Toda Satoshi. It was made into a PVC figure by Gift, who thankfully fixed up the janky muppet face of the original, and is now being distributed by Good Smile Company.
She stands 7.5″ tall, which I feel is too short for the advertised 1/8 scale, but it doesn’t bother me all that much. The paint work, aside from a few minor splotches, is pretty great overall. And I shouldn’t have to say much about the sculpt. I can understand if you don’t like the overall design or the color scheme, but if you do not like this sculpt, I will personally find you and gouge out your eyes.
Where can I even begin? She easily has one of the all-time best faces on a PVC figurine. Look, I buy figures of cute girls. They’re all gonna have fine faces. But this one is fiiiiiine. The improvement from the original kit to this is astonishing. It’s just about the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen that doesn’t belong to a real human. You could levy the criticism that it doesn’t look like Saber’s actual design, to which I’d counter “fahck ya mahther ya fahckin queeah.” Then look at all that detail on her armor, not to mention how well-sculpted her many layers of clothing are. It’s a shame that her armor wasn’t given a little more shading, but I bet it’ll only become a problem under very bright lights.
Initially I thought her mirrored base came without any kind of protective covering. A helpful reader on Tomopop told me it did have one. Sure enough, it’s an extremely thin, difficult to spot piece of plastic that isn’t terribly easy to remove. I’m glad it’s there, though, as it was quite badly scratched up when I unboxed the figure.
If you’re a figure manufacturer, choosing Saber as your subject isn’t exactly a daring move. So if you don’t go for the high-concept piece, your execution better be pretty good. Yeah, I think Gift passes the test. Is it 100% perfect? No, and I neither expect nor demand that from my figures. But really, when viewing these photos, will you be fretting over the minor imperfections? Or will you be blinded by its excellence? I think by far it will be the latter.
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