Bringing Home Villager No. 18, Hazel

The figure in hand is Hazel, the mage elf designed by Toridamono as the eighteenth villager in Vertex’s original Elf Village series. She was sculpted by Fortunation and painted by Kazuhiro Sumida. I bought the Antenna Shop limited edition, which comes with a worried face part, a special grass base and an A3 tapestry.

Incidentally, Toridamono is also the character designer behind Atelier Ryza. Calling Hazel the Elf Village’s answer to Ryza is not entirely off the mark.

Product Specifications

Review

The first thing worth saying is that the standard Elf Village has held for years is fully intact here. What caught my attention most was the finish on the accessories — the thin gold line running around the brim of her hat, the lantern hanging from the head of her staff, the gradient in the bristles of the broom, the gold ornaments wrapped around her legs. All of it holds up close.

There are a few ways to display her. The hat and her cat El are both optional, and she works without either. The robe and skirt can be removed and swapped as well, so she can stand clothed or undressed.

The best of the accessories is the apple resting in her palm. Gold spirals sit over a translucent casting, and when light passes through, the colour reaches all the way into the core of the fruit. It is far more than a piece of filler. The stem and leaf are separate parts, and since only the green of the leaf is opaque, the clarity of the apple reads more clearly.

Her skin is a clean, pale tone, and there is nothing to fault in the proportions. The pearl finish is the standout: change the angle and the sheen travels smoothly across her. The areolae are the puffy type, raised slightly and running into the curve of the breast without a break. The paint there is just as fine, with the edges kept soft enough that they never harden into a line.

There are a few disappointments, though. The range of swap combinations is smaller than Villager No. 14 Mama Tiana or Villager No. 15 Milkrinde. The hair ornament used to display her alongside El never engaged with the hole in her head and would not stay put. The leaf that covers her nipples leaves a lot of adhesive behind once removed, and cleaning it off is not easy. And the bare upper body has no robe of its own, while the upper body that carries the robe is clothed — the two are an either/or, so baring her chest means giving up that outer layer. Anyone planning to display her undressed should know that going in.

One last note. Elf Village has long been prone to unauthorised copies leaking out of factories, but this time, unusually, boxed unlicensed production was already circulating widely on Chinese sites before the official release. Apart from the hologram sticker on the outer box, there is nothing to separate them from the real thing; you cannot tell by looking. Buy through legitimate channels only.

Verdict

On sculpt and paint there is nothing to raise. The detail in the accessories, the pearl sheen of the skin, the translucent apple holding the light — what Elf Village does well is all here in your hands. The disappointments cluster around the swapping: the limited options, the hair ornament that will not stay, the adhesive from the leaf, and the either/or between a bare chest and the robe. The more you want to play with her, the more often you meet one of them. Pick a single arrangement and let her stand, though, and she is one of the more satisfying figures in the series.

Product Page

• Elf Village Villager No. 18 Hazel 1/6 (Vertex Official)

Where to Buy

• AmiAmi (Antenna Shop Limited Ver.)