VENGEANCE IS MINE

“My hatred, my resentment…Shall I make you see how it feels?” so sayeth that corrupted Holy Maiden Jeanne d’Arc (Alter). This Jeanne d’Arc is the manifestation of Gilles de Rais’ vengeful hatred toward the people of France for burning Jeanne at the stake and who would return from the grave to become a draconic witch and avenge herself upon France.

Jeanne here is armed with the sword of St Catherine and the battle pennant ‘La Grondement Du Haine’ (The Roar of Hatred). This cursed flag has the ability of absorbing all physical, mental and spiritual damage thrown at her and then transferring it into a devastating attack which is then directed back at an opponent in an all consuming flame that harkens her own demise at the stake.

This character is part of the role-playing game Fate/Grand Order franchise which borrows characters from history who are engaged in what is known as the Holy Grail Wars. I’m no gamer so if you want to know more check out pages like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate/Grand_Order

In 2019 Bandai with their Petitrits series of kits, have re-imagined the likes of Jeanne as a chibi character. Chibi here is the Japanese pursuit of infusing characters mainly from the universe of manga (visual novels) and anime with a cuteness that emphasizes small bodies with oversized heads. Usually about 10cm in height this phenomenon became very popular from 2006 when Good Smile Company released their range of Nendoroid figures. Bandai here have presented the builder with a kit that requires no painting, no gluing in its assembly and stickers to slap on. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?

Ending the last paragraph with a question mark suggests an ominous phase to this Jeanne kit build. Assembly was a reasonably easy exercise but…the main issues I had was, as the limbs can be posed in various positions, they were quite fiddly to assemble. The eye stickers adhered ok onto the relatively flat surface of the face as opposed to the flames that were meant to wrap around and adhere to the rerebrace of her armour. The billowing battle pennant is also cursed just like the real thing as its grey background was composed of four individual stickers which were extremely difficult to work into place. I would have painted the grey but in keeping with the spirit of the build I persevered with what was included in the box.

The result is a different OOB build where the fun element outweighs the mentioned build frustrations. For those whose curiosity is piqued I’ve also included an image of what ‘real’ Avenger/Jeanne d’Arc (Alter) looks like. Adorable isn’t she?

P.S. I can’t wait to get my hands on other Petitrit kits like Saber/Altria Pendragon (AKA King Arthur) who wields “the sword of promised victory.”

Thanks Paul!

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