Volks Akagi Shigeru non-scale

This is Akagi Shigeru non-scale by Volks. There are very few Akagi figures. I believe there are only two. None of the two is pre-painted. Interestingly, this is my very first male garage kit that I am going to work on.

If you don’t know anything about Akagi series, I will briefly explain. It is a gambling series involving Mahjong. Akagi is basically a gambler but he isn’t quite an ordinary one. For many gamblers, they play generally to score big. Not many gamble for fun when a very large amount of money is involved.
For Akagi though, money is the least of his concern. He isn’t gambling for fun, either. He gambles to feel alive.

It’s a niche series but one I’ve quite enjoyed. I’ve wanted this kit for some time since 2019 and have found out that Volks had one. However, it was out of stock.

Volks is a large DIY figure company. A very good thing about them is that they do not abandon their old products. If they feel there are enough interests on certain products that are out of print, they will manufacture them again at some point.

This Akagi garage kit came back on sale for just 3 days from 2020 September 19 to 22 during an event. It was pure luck that I found this out while checking out their product page.

Well, long story short, the kit is in my hands.

The package has only about 8 parts, and the parts are very high quality resin. No air bubbles and fingers are very crisp. This kit requires minimal sanding.

This is not the first time I’ve dealt with Volks resin kits, and they’ve always had top quality resin parts.

The painting is fairly straight forward. I mean, there aren’t even many parts, and the parts aren’t complicated for any potential headaches.

And I’ve chosen his shirt color to be dark gray. This is actually what he wears in the anime. He has never worn a pink shirt if my memories are correct.

And here you go.

There are a few issues. One is that the eye decal is really brittle. Thank God that it has a fair, allowing for one failure. An eye decal piece literally disintegrated when I was trying to apply it.

Another issue is the cigarette he is holding. When I was airbrushing, the compressed air broke it off. I managed to glue it back but that shows how fragile a resin part can be if it’s thin and small enough.
It’s lucky enough that I was able to find the piece, given how small it is.

It does need some finishing touches, like the belt buckle and some more painting at where his shirt meets his paints. Well, I will do those later.

Finally, his hair is gray basecoat + white.

Here is a more polished finish. His belt buckle has been painted and the white gradient on his lower shirt has been painted. It looks better but there are some under-painted spots.

However, I am going to stop here. In my experience with garage kits, pursuing perfection has usually resulted in disasters.

So, this is it. It looks good enough from a distance.