Kenichi's Masters (mistresses?)

Not long ago before I had decided I would join my friends going to G-Anime, I had explained to them that a big part of the convention experience was "finding stuff." You know, an exhibitor was bringing something to sell, or people showing off bragging rights. Sadly, that aspect of con-going has been lost amidst the advent of e-commerce where anything you could possibly want, not matter how rare, can be had if you are willing to pay the price.

G-Anime's only real failure, in my view, was the dealer's room where everyone was there for one reason: to unload unwanted stock. Time was when I remember going to cons where dealers were there to ring up business by showing off just a taste of what they offered in their stores. You got something at a discount and also get their business card so that one day you could look them up for more. Everyone wins.
For a con centered around anime, there was a surprisingly little amount of anime for sale. The Anime Stop crew brought lots of clearance manga and a selection of figures, but no DVDs. One store selling me some French translated manga... turned out to have very little manga in their brick-and-mortar location when I checked them out the following weekend.

Anyway back to life, I had come down a manga high from reading several volumes of Kenichi Ultimate Disciple. It's about a kid who rises up against local bullies after he joins a strange dojo populated by an eccentric cast of martial arts masters... and also happens to be the home of the cute school-mate he met.

Too bad I downloaded only part of it before it got licensed by Funimation (due out in the next few months as 13-episode DVD sets).

But being that I was under the influence of a manga high, I also decided to order the rest of the manga series from Kurokawa by way of Archambault.ca (a large retail chain in Quebec serving up French media). Saves me my provincial taxes anyway. And of course, when I stumbled on these figures at HLJ.com in the clearance section...
Turns out they ship as a set anyway (when the box arrived, the two were shrink-wrapped together, which thankfully means with minimal packing, the figures survived the half-planet transit.As you can see, even the packaging is meant to fit together. The figures stand on a display base that snaps together forming the ying-yang sign that Kenichi is fond of wearing on his colar throughout the series.Miu and Shigure come several option parts and accessories like weapons. Miu is the simpler of the two - the figure comes with optional arms so she can be displayed without her jacket on. Curiously, her optional arms are in the same pose as when she's wearing the jacket. Opportunity lost, if you ask me. And Shigure has a shorter "skirt" (no, she's not naked under there) but frustratingly, does not come with any hints (photos on the box or otherwise) on how she's meant to hold the optional weapons. That is, besides the baton and sword, she also comes with a set of nunchuku, a blade on a chain, a wakizashi, etc... none of which seem to fit properly in her pose. Hmm...