It Came from the Toy Chest: This flower wasn't 1 gil...

December 9, 1997: 

It was an overcast night, I had no homework... It was almost two weeks since I got a new TV... My first TV with kickass faux wood paneling had died when I reached Cosmo Canyon. I tore through Nibelheim and Rocket Town very easily. The past few days at the Temple of the Ancients were driving me insane. Damn that clock puzzle!! I ended up photocopying a FFVII Walkthrough from a Gamepro Magazine at the school library... (Internet wasn't as popular back in the day... also Dial-Up is a bitch!) So, I Finally beat the Temple of the Ancients and that Dickweed Cloud handed over the Black Materia to Sephiroth*
*=Not Really Sephiroth but Jenova disguised as Sephiroth. Remember, the Real Villain of FFVII is Jenova, not Sephiroth.

My younger brother had Martial Arts Class today, so I recorded today's playthrough for him to watch the day after (when I'd be at Martial Arts Class...) SO I Finally reached the City of the Ancients... My heart was racing... Locker room talk about the game kinda hinted the inevitable... Remember that I got the game about a month after it came out. I was a bit nervous... I managed to reach the City's innermost temple... There I saw a save point... Usually these mean trouble is nearby if found in a dungeon. This is kind of a town, so there should be no trouble... I thought.


My eyes watered up, I got goosebumps, I felt my rage fill up, heating up my body. My breathing became irregular as I was snorting, then the Dialogue hit me hard...

Cloud:. "Shut up. The cycle of nature and your stupid plan don't mean a thing.
Aerith is gone. Aerith will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry...... or get
angry...... What about us...... what are WE supposed to do? What about my pain?
My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!"
Sephiroth: "What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me you have feelings too?"
Cloud: "Of course! Who do you think I am!?"
Sephiroth: "Ha, ha, ha...... Stop acting as if you were sad. There's no need to
act as though you're angry either. Because, Cloud. You are..."

The same feelings that Cloud was going through were similar to mine... Empathy with a fictional character? No way! I then went to beat the living crap out of JENOVA Life and reached the end of Disc 1. I had to stop there because we had to pick up my brother from Martial Arts Class. I asked the Sensei if I could hit the sandbag for a little while. He gave me the OK and I released all the pent up anger I had at Sephiroth into that sand bag. My brother says that my face seemed darker and full of hate. (In retrospection he's only seen me that way twice. The more recent time was during a high risk situation.) I'm normally a laid back kind of guy, except when I'm posting my rants where I ham it up a little bit, mostly for fun. Not that day... SF Fans would say I tapped into the Satsui no Hadou. All I ended up was bloody knuckles and a dead Aeris... which is the reason why I'm ranting today...

I FINALLY got myself an Aerith Gainsborough figure from Play Arts... IN HER FFVII ATTIRE!! Crisis Core Aerith is cheaper, but I wanted standard VII and that's what I got... Although, a CC Cloud would be nice.
Let's check her out:

Articulation:

Scale comparison with other figures.

Just by looking at her, you already are thinking: She has a lot of limitations due to her dress. You'd be correct. Her Pink Dress is a huge hindrance to posing her. She's More limited than Yuffie, but to be fair, you are NOT going to have Aerith doing Wild Kung Fu poses. To make matters worse, the Flower Girl flashes her white cotton panties... (How do I know they are cotton? Don't Ask...)
So that limits her ALREADY Limited Articulation
3.0

Paint and Sculpt:

Sculptwise she is amazing. She looks like Aerith should look.
The only issue I have is paint related: her right eye is a bit derpy.
3.5

Accessories:
Like Yuffie and the AC: Vincent and Sephiroth, she comes with a stand. She has 2 Extra hands for prayer and she has the Guard Stick (2 Green Materia slotted in the weapon.)
4.5

Overall:
Aerith gets a 3.67 Her derpy Right Eye and her limited articulation hurt her a bit. Part of me wishes she had come with the Flower Basket from the Intro Cinematic

She's not a bad figure, but it kinda sucks that you can't do much with her other than having her standing around... she can't freaking do anything else because she'd show panties... Unless the crazy theory that Aerith being a "Flower Girl" was a cover for her being a "Flower Girl"... I mean Aerith was a Prostitute, a Hooker, a Call Girl, a Lady of the Night, a Practitioner of the Oldest Profession in the World... has some truth to it...

Aerith: (thoughts) Oh, Holy! Please save the planet from Meteor
I hope my panties aren't showing, otherwise I'd die of embarrassment!
Cloud: (thoughts) MUST... KILL... CETRA ...GIRL...
Ooh! Panties!
(out loud) Ugh! What are you making me do!? 

Sephiroth: Ooh! A girl! I should penetrate her
with my long and hard sword to please Mother!
Cloud: (thoughts) I think I should Stop Sephiroth
but for some Reason I can't move!

Sephiroth: Wah wah wah-wawah! Planet Wah wa-wa-wah! reuniuon
wa-wah! wa-wa-wah! Puppet
Yuffie: So they can't see that we're here during cutscenes, but only when
using the super blocky normal gameplay models of us?
Vincent: yeah...
Yuffie: So, we could totally cast LIFE2 on Aerith?
Vincent:....
Yuffie: Or give her a Phoenix Down... We have like 99 of those!
Vincent:....

 The saddest part is that all of these figures look GREAT together and I'm running out of FFVII Characters with the VII Look to collect but that will never be enough to complete the Main Party:
There is NO CID AT ALL, Cait Sith's top half only comes with the FFVII (not the AC) version of Red XIII. Then the ONLY Barret that we have is the AC Version, who looks VERY different from his VII counterpart.

Soon I'll be able to add Bewbs! to this display...
Guess who has 5 FFVII based Play Arts figures and found
another FFVII Play Arts figure at a Reasonable price?

Looks like getting Reno and President Rufus would be my final stop... (and that would have me without a Complete Set of TURKS, not to mention that I'd need the entire Board of Directors for Rufus...) That's without going into the SINGLE Remnant available because we never got Loz or Yazoo.) Resisting the temptation of visiting Emo Teen and School pals...