Product:  Otaku Bar Noir Girls Product Type:  Cosmetic Manufacturer:  ADV Films Suggested Retail Price (SRP):  £3 Purchased from:  MCM London Expo Rarity:  Very Rare Reviewer:  Tom (Webmaster)

If you are a collector of anime merchandise wanting to find odd little curios, then you are no doubt aware that you will have to visit Tokyo in order to acquire them.  The new and second-hand items which anime shops there stock contain items such as watches, stationary, bath salts, slippers and much more.  Occasionally though you will come across the odd curio released in the West and this is soap bar is such an item.  
 

Part of a range of four, this soap bar contains a figure of a character from the series Noir within it.  The more you use the soap the more of the figure is unveiled, until eventually you are left with a lone figure.  The packaging the soap comes in states that the glycerin bar provides 'a more powerful anime clean'.  The inclusion of directions 'lather, rinse, repeat' suggest that the product is tongue-in-cheek and in response to the anime convention cliché that con-goers do not wash, which isn't true at all.  Well ok, 95% true. 

Although this novel product initially looks quite cool, the novelty soon disappears when you start using it.  Despite costing £3 the soap is not high quality and leaves the skin dry.  To compensate you will either have to use a hand cream or a better bar of soap after washing.  On the plus side the size of it is bigger then a standard bar of soap and should last you three times as long, so long as you don't mind having dry hands. 

But once the soap is used up you will at least get to keep a lovely Noir figure?  Well unfortunately not, as the figure is of poor quality even when compared to other 'cheap'    

gashapon.  Parts of it had line markings and an unexplained hole in the head.  It is only a single hole, so it can't be adapted for use as a mobile phone charm unfortunately.  When you add the fact that the figure doesn't stand up at all, then you realise it is pretty much useless.

So the soap isn't great and neither is the figure.  You can buy a better bar of soap more cheaply, plus there are much better figures out of a similar size to the one the Otaku Bar contains.  On the other hand most collectors wouldn't dream of ever actually using the soap, instead keeping the product unopened for display/collection purposes only.  Personally I dislike keeping things in boxes, as it suggests one is only keeping the item so its value may increase and it can be sold on.  For the Otaku Bar though I would recommend never using it, since the figure looks better in the soap and you will avoid having dry hands for a month. 

Extras:

Well the figure technically counts as an extra, but as I said above it isn't very good.  Other then that the Otaku Bar does come wrapped in cellophane, which will protect if you do intend never to use it. 

Ratings

Feature:   Extras:
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