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About the character: Galko-chan is the titular character from the Oshiete! Galko-chan (a.k.a. Please Tell Me! Galko-chan) anime and manga. Galko is not her given name, but like virtually all of the characters in that series, she is referred to by a nickname and she is so nicknamed because of her kogal fashion sense.

Galko is quite friendly and kind with a hint of naivete. As a result, she has a tendency to unknowingly say and do rather suggestive things, some of which raise eyebrows among her classmates. For example, she is always dead on her feet in the morning and she will sometimes show up to class wearing mens' shirts. Because of her gal-nature, her classmates will sometimes jump to conclusions about her evening activities when in fact her sleepiness is attributable to the fact that she stayed up all night watching TV and she prefers to wear mens' shirts because she has wide shoulders and mens' shirts simply fit her better.

Packaging----------8/10

The Galko-Chan manga was printed in color and the purplish blue and pink color scheme is in keeping with the dominant colors of the manga.

The side panels of the box feature large shots of the figure.

The back panel features a number of shots of Galko.

The railing for the base/stairs is packed inside a little sub-blister, which is a wise precaution since that part appears quite delicate. One small complaint is that Galko-classes are easy to miss and could easily go flying away when the blister is opened. Therefore, some caution is needed there.

Galko does not actually wear glasses; rather these big square red frames belong to her friend Otako encyclopedia/98137. Galko does wear these glasses in a scene from volume 2 of the manga where Galko and Otako are discussing whether or not glasses are a hindrance while kissing. They almost find out...

I've chosen to display my Galko without the glasses, so that's how she will appear for the rest of this review. If you are curious, the glasses do not have lenses. The glasses go in place fairly easily by simply slipping the earpieces under her bangs, so no disassembling of the figure is necessary on that front.

Overall, the packaging is fine, but if you're planning on ordering this figure you might keep in mind that this is a large figure, and the nontraditional base adds more weight to the package. The box measures 40 by 15 by 15 cm and figure+box weighs just over 900 grams.

Posing----------8.5/10

Galko's pose is in character. She's known to stop what she's doing and talk to just about anyone she meets, so you could imagine she's just started a conversation while walking up the stairs.

Let's have a look at her.

Really, the only complaint about the pose is that there is a fairly limited range of angles from which the figure is meant to be viewed, but I guess that makes a certain sense since that staircase would be facing a wall.

It should however be noted that Galko does look a little awkward when viewed from above; given the size of the figure this probably won't be an issue, but if you'd planned on displaying Galko on a low shelf, this might be something to bear in mind...

Sculpting----------9.5/10
Painting----------9/10

Generally, Max Factory tends to put out a high quality product and this figure is no exception. Galko has a number of really neat features, but there is one possible major issue on the painting front.

Max Factory did a great job with Galko's face. In particular, I hadn't paid too much attention to her blue-then-green eyes when looking at the promo shots of this figure, but they are so pretty in person! To the uninitiated, Galko's heavy pink eye shadow might seem excessive, but she is a gal after all and it does match up with her anime appearance. I also really like her fangs, and this is a subject of discussion in volume 2 of the manga. Specifically, Galko and her friends discuss how westerners would use orthodontics to correct a fanglike tooth that was not perfectly aligned with one's other teeth. Lucky for us, Galko didn't resort to such measures as her fangs are quite cute :). You might also notice that her cheek and jawbones look a little wide, but that's the way the characters look in the manga.

Galko's hair is incredibly detailed! In the manga, author/illustrator Kenya Suzuki always draws her hair with lots of texture, so I was pleased to see this feature realized in the figure.

This brings us to probably the biggest source of controversy with this figure, the color of Galko's hair. In the manga, Galko has bluish-purple hair (see item/419372 for example), while the anime depicts her with a more kogal-typical orangish blonde hair color, as seen in picture/1564430. Max Factory might have gotten a little carried away here, as her hair is definitely more orange than blonde. I thought at first the bright lighting used in these photos magnified the orangeness of her hair, but as I write this, I can see Galko under normal lighting and her hair still looks very very orange.

Setting that aside, I really like the way Galko looks in the shot below. A good number of jokes in the series revolve around Galko's busty physique, and the tight sweater certainly does nothing to downplay that element of her character design. The way she's twisting her torso, it makes sense that the material in the sweater would be bunching up like this, and so that's a nice detail.

While the sweater is part of Galko's winter uniform, she is also known to wear it in the summer as well, as she has a red bra of which she's quite fond and it tends to show through the plain white shirt that is worn with the summer uniform...

A gal pays plenty of attention to her fingernails, and Max Factory did the same. The crease in her palm is another nice small detail.

As you might expect, Galko's bag is outfitted with a number of charms. This bag is almost hammerspace-like in that it invariably contains almost anything that any of her friends might need.

Someone at Max Factory worked really hard on this bag! The slight rumpling of the material, the trim, the zipper, and the little feet make it look very realistic!

The scrunchie on her wrist is a cute affectation. I also like that her nails are clearly differentiated from the rest of her fingers!

When I was taking these shots, this was about the time where I started hunting for defects in the figure's finish, and about the worst offenders I could find where these two small pieces of excess material on Galko's sweater.

The red, white, and blue checked pattern on the skirt is quite elaborate. Further, I was pleased to see the pattern stay consistent within the various folds and creases of the skirt; that's an effect that can be difficult to do well.

Galko is of course a pretty buxom girl (or a buxom pretty girl), and her thighs are correspondingly ample.

Surprisingly, despite Galko's short skirt, it keeps her fairly covered up and you don't get an obvious pantsu flash unless you view her from substantially below normal eye level.

Pantsu check behind the spoiler tag. You could skip this if you want...

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Max Factory went pretty all-out on this front, as Galko's panties have a pretty high level of detail. Then again, Galko and her friends talk about underwear quite a lot so anything less would have been a disappointment, I guess...

One thing I found a little bit weird about the sculpt is the way her calf is sort of bunching up behind her knee.

It would be very easy to sort of ignore the shoes on a figure like this, but as you can see they are quite detailed. The trim is a nice feature, and I like how there is a seam where the material would come together. Also, the shoes are very shiny!

Base----------9/10

Max Factory gets credit for not just going with a boring disk here. As you can see two metal pegs hold Galko in place, and as we saw the railing is a separate piece which could be kept in the box, but I think the stairs would look kind of unnatural without the railing.

Galko is a large figure, and the two metal pegs keep her relatively stable, but I did notice just a little bit of wobble when I was moving her around to take these photos. Part of that could be explained by the fact that neither of her heels are actually making contact with the ground.

Scale Comparison

Galko's canonical height is not established to my knowledge, but it is clear that she is quite tall (she is almost a head taller than some of her classmates) and she notes during the anime that she often has a hard time keeping eye contact during conversation because of her height. My eyes tell me that she's around 5'6" (168 cm) tall, and this figure is about 11 inches (28 cm) in height, so the listed 1/6 scale seems spot-on. Factoring in the stairs, the figure spans 13 inches (33 cm) at its tallest point.

Galko and Meiko Shiraki have similar body types (in particular they're both quite tall and busty) but are totally different in terms of their personalities. item/396573 is also 1/6 scale.

Galko with another character who seems to have some gal-like traits, Kotobukiya's Shii Arisugawa item/559. Shii is 1/7 scale for comparison.

These two would probably end up being good friends. In fact, Pochaco is a lot like Galko's classmate Nikuko encyclopedia/103480. Pochaco item/183891 is also 1/6 scale.

Galko and another figure with a similarly elaborate stair base, Kotobukiya's Gothic Lolita Asuka item/302. Asuka is 1/7 scale for comparison.

Galko with another figure with a creative base, Kotobukiya's Sasara Kusugawa item/333165. Sasara is also 1/6 scale.

These two look kind of cute together, but I was trying to emphasize how Galko's hair does look more like Yayoi's reddish-brown color than the orangish-blonde color it is seen to be in the anime. Yayoi item/118116 is 1/7 scale.

If Rei Tachibana item/529 got transplanted into the Galko-Chan world, I wonder what her nickname would be. I suppose it would have to be Meganekko, but that doesn't seem very creative...

Overall verdict and enjoyment----------9/10

Arguments for: Many. Epic hair, large scale, cool base, and Max Factory does a great job with many small details (like her blue-green eyes and her bag).

Arguments against: Probably the biggest offender here is her very orange hair which is not entirely faithful to its appearance in the manga nor the anime, the large scale plus the base means the figure will occupy quite a bit of space.

Galko-Chan is one of my favorite anime/manga series of the last couple of years, and so I was pretty stoked when a couple of different Galko figures got announced. I had a hard time making up my mind between this figure and item/422430 but I ultimately went for the Max Factory offering simply because I thought it was a better representation of the character. Possible hair color discrepancies aside, I am glad I picked up this figure as it is quite impressive-looking on the shelf.

Availability (as of this writing)

Easy to find both new and pre-owned.

As I write this, Galko looks to still be available new at all the big stores, and a number of these have popped up preowned at AmiAmi in the last week or so. If you go the new route, you'll pay about 13000 yen for your own Galko-Chan, and preowned will save you about 2000-4000 yen.

THANKS FOR READING!

If you liked this review, here are some of my other reviews you might also find interesting:

Skytube 1/6 Meiko Shiraki (Prison School) blog/31999
Vertex 1/6 Super Pochaco "Cowgirl" blog/30419
Kotobukiya 1/6 Sasara Kusugawa "Fighter" (To Heart 2-Dungeon Travelers) blog/30654
Kotobukiya 1/7 Asuka Langley Soryu "Gothic Lolita" (Evangelion) blog/16539
Kotobukiya 1/7 Yayoi Takatsuki (iDOLM@STER) blog/10814
Sega Tomoyo Daidouji (Cardcaptor Sakura) blog/19864
Gift 1/4 Sena Kaskiwazaki (Haganai) blog/15917
Max Factory 1/7 Yui Yuigahama (My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU) blog/30060

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