BORINGNATION

Extended title: The SCP-173 Anime Figure that Haunts My Dreams

Hello everyone, this is not an April fools post. This is no laughing matter in fact. Because for years now, I have been TERRORIZED by this stupid anime figure.

So the backstory on this. Like, first of all, how did this happen??

In case you haven't heard of it before, SCP, or The SCP Foundation, is a mass collaborative writing project on the internet. Imagine cryptids are real, but some of them are objects or people, and there are a ton of them, and a secret society is keeping them from you and documenting them internally. Each one gets a detailed scientific report, covering how they're fed, how to keep them from affecting regular people, etc, as if to be given to other workers and researchers in the foundation. That's basically the idea, and the creatures are the titular SCPs. SCP itself stands for 'Secure, Contain, Protect'. It's possible, though unverified, that SCP might be the largest collaborative writing project in history.

^ SCP Project Logo

This concept originated on 4chan's x board in June 2007. The first SCP posted was SCP-173, who is also the subject of this cancelled anime figure... undoubtedly the most popular one, with behavior similar to the weeping angels in Dr. Who, being that you must keep it in your line of sight so that it can't attack, and be careful with blinking. Though my personal favorite is Lily's Proposal (very short read if you're interested). I LOVE SCP, bro. It's so cool, I love anything mysterious like that...

For a picture to go along with this original story, the creator used "Untitled 2004" by Japanese artist Izumi Katō, a sculpture which could be interpreted as a frightening creature. Although he wasn't fond of them using his work without license, Katō allowed the use of the photo explicitly for noncommercial uses (aka not anime figures).

^ Click to go to his website, image sourced from there

Ahh!! It's scary, right?! Lol

So in 2013, people from both the Japanese and English communities tried to contact him, asking if they could use the artwork this way. He didn't reply for a while, until September 2014, when he (is described as having 'reluctantly') allowed noncommercial usage, then clarified that if someone did try to use it commercially, he'd sue. The English community continued using the image with a warning until 2022, until deciding that they had to try to undo some of the damage of the perception of the original art piece. Kind of a death of the author situation. A new image wasn't used, leaving it to the reader's imagination, though the community has made many popular alternative designs, one of which is used for its encyclopedia entry here on MFC.

SCP is very popular in Japan! It gets all sorts of merchandise, doujin events, mangas about it, etc. There are even popular Japanese-original SCPs!
And that of course this popularity would include an anime figure, somehow, some way!

So when whitelisting happened on this website, I used to occasionally look for figures by newly-whitelisted companies to add, whether that be stuff that was announced but not updated, stuff that's been missed by others, yknow, just random stuff. I really like looking at event photo reports, so I was doing that as usual when I came across and added this.

In the ancient year of 2021, at Wonder Festival, in Shanghai, a bunch of new figures were shown off/announced/displayed, and this was one by the company Solarain...

This figure of SCP-173, from the SCP project, was announced. It's, well... let's just examine it!

It's an anime girl, in a holding cell of sorts. She's got twintails and hairclips(?), and two hair ornaments meant to represent the eyes of the sculpture. She's wearing a dress that's backless and sideless I suppose, showing some kind of bra that kinda looks like a bikini top. There's a safety pin and a type of note attached, laying on her back. She's leaning against the wall and lifting the dress with one hand, uh she's wearing thighhighs anddd there's a puddle of a mysterious liquid on the ground under her, along with a skull, a ribcage(?) and a chain around her ankle.

So like, to address the elephant in the room, in the original SCP-173 article, the substance the SCP produces is explicitly mentioned to be substances OTHER than pee. So if this is meant to be urine, IHML. Anyway, let's check the original artwork for hints here... oh wait... WE CAN'T.

We kinda can. The issue is that the artist doesn't seem to have posted the full original illustration anywhere, or if they have, I just cannot find it. The closest we have is this picture of the announcement placard, where a faint black and white picture of it is used as background decor.

Let's increase contrast...

Ok, great, I have no idea. Ok so let's check on the illustrator. The person credited is DM Dai Miao, and after thoroughly examining all their social medias, I found no trace of this artwork. The sculptor is credited as 'N', which is unsearchable...

After hours, HOURS of searching for this figure and more info, I was unable to find anything else to add, not even a new picture. (I was on page 17 of google, bro, I took this seriously.) Aside from the information on the entry, there's really just nothing else. It's kinda depressing, but... it seems, likely due to all the copyright issues, that this figure was quietly cancelled, and though I can't be certain, I suspect that the artist took down any artwork of it posted online, whether it was on their pixiv at one point or something, I'm not sure. Making it even more mysterious... if this ever did release, I'd buy it, no doubt.

With all that being said, I don't really have a good way to end this article. If anyone else can find more info or more pictures, seriously, by all means... T_T

But what I'm really stuck on is the fact that this happened at all, lol. It's so unexpected and just... crazy!! I really want more SCP figures! What do you think? Would you buy?