Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Funny how there’s so many coincidences in life. Here I am typing up a long post about the genius of Range Murata (to be published much later), and his new trading figure set is up for preorder.

The characters are designed by him, though I’m not sure if exclusively as figurines or did they exist as art before. They seem vaguely familiar but his style is so unique. There are five figures in the set with no secrets or variants. Produced by Vice, who also did all the other Murata-designed trading figures like the Robot sets. Each figurine is approximately 10 cm tall.

Murata’s designs can be categorised into a few major types. There’s the ultra-futuristic, the animal-eared loli, fantasy uniformed and the cool black types. I could always show his art work but I’ll save it for the post on the designer himself.

All of his types are represented in this set and unlike the Robot series, all the above are designed by him. I’m not in favour of legcutting, especially since the figurine on the far right is my favourite out of the five. I do not particularly like his animal lolis. But the ultra-futuristic and cool black types are great.