Instead of an anime figure this week, I thought I’d take some time and talk about a new drumset I got: a yellow Yamaha Hipgig, Cocktail and Jr. drumset.

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Alright, I’m not kidding anyone. I’m not even sure what a Yamaha Higpig is — it sounds more like an animal than a drumset. I just copy and pasted it from a wiki page about Tainaka Ritsu, who is this week’s anime figure.

I can’t play the drums. Not even Rockband drums. There’s just too many things going on at once and I don’t think I have that level of pre-emptive multitasking going on in my head to make my individual arms strike two different things at two different tempos while hitting a third thing using my foot on a mallet pedal at yet another interval. It seems incomprehensible to me that anyone can possibly do that, but I’m not musically inclined. Also, the drum kit above is at 1/6 scale, but for a musical miniature it’s quite detailed and I don’t think those pictures do it justice. I feel that if I owned a hamster or rat, he might be able to use these drums for some late night jam sessions.

The interesting thing about owning some of these K-ON figures is that you’re getting two models in one — an anime character and an instrument both crafted to the highest standard. If you think the drums are impressive, wait till you see Tsumugi’s Korg. It seems like it should have come with an AC Adapter and MIDI cable.

Ritsu comes with many parts and of the K-ON gals she was the most expensive. In the box you’ll find her yellow drumset, a pair of sticks, a seat with butt-indent so you know how to sit her down, and Ritsu herself. There’s a base plate, but I actually display her without it mainly because it takes up a lot of unnecessary s[ace so I'm glad it's optional. She's seated before her drumset and everything is modular and movable I can nicely squeeze her into the top shelf of my Detolf along with her friends (yes, I have all five of them).

And here's Ritsu herself:

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I don’t have too much to say about the sculpt. It looks like Ritsu in case you were worried that it might not. The wrinkles on the backside of her coat are nicely done (there are photos of that in the gallery). The pose looks silly without her drums in front of her but Rit-chan and her drum kit are meant to be displayed together. I suppose you can display the drums on their own if you just like having models of instruments adorning the shelves in your house, but if you display Rit-chan its with the drums. I found her a bit difficult to photograph. I want to snap her with the drum set but sometimes the cymbals and drums get in the way, but other times they framed her face nicely.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to purchasing the K-ON figures: Do you just get the characters you like, or, if you buy one does that mean you buy the rest of the band? I’m of the latter school of thought. I started out with a pre-order of one of the K-ON figures, Hirasawa Yui, and I was simply pleased that I would get to own a bit of Japanese plastic. The realization dawned on me soon after. There would be four more. In fact the statue for Mio was also in pre-order status and I decided then and there, if I was going to do this, as ridiculous as it sounds, I was going to go all in. That means all five and because of the rarity of anime figures and the popularity of K-ON, I’d have to be there on day one to pre-order each one. It did give me something to chase after, which was for a while fun (for me, not so much for my wallet). Later I picked up the Nendoroids, which are infinitely more fun, and a set of Mobip figures when I hunted through Akiba for something to blow wads of cash on. The moral of this story is: I own a lot of K-ON figures and they are the center piece of my collection.

So, as you can imagine, being a fan, the sculpt quality comes second to the primary point of just owning all five of them. I know there are other figures with the gals in swimsuits, lolita outfits, waitress outfits, and school festival type clothing, but honestly none of those appeal to me. The blue blazer and gray skirt — that’s iconic for K-ON. It’s boring, yes, but I wasn’t ever into the show for the titillation factor, which is what the manga seemed to sell on. On the show, the five girls worked great together as an ensemble and so do the figures. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting pictures of those figures as well.

More images of Ritsu below.