Groove recently collaborated with the Japanese visual kei band Nightmare to make a set of five dolls based upon the different band members. Pullipstyle was able to get a small number of the dolls in stock and offered me the chance to borrow a few so I could take some photos of them as there was only one not so great stock photo of all the dolls together. The stock photo really did the dolls an injustice as they are absolutely amazing in person.
Ruka  is the drummer for Nightmare, he is actually the second drummer Nightmare has had. He replaced Zannin the original drummer for Nightmare after he left the group.

Unlike the other two Nightmare dolls Yomi and Ni-ya I reviewed previously, Ruka was only available through Pullipstyle if you bought the entire Nightmare set which they have since sold out of. As of this writing both Yomi and Ni-ya are still available on Pullipstyle. I believe I was sent Ruka to review as I had been asking about him ever since the moment I knew Pullipstyle was going to get the Nightmare set.

Ruka in the box

Ruka’s stock consists of hat, eye patch, two necklaces, two bands,  gloves, shirt with ruffle, pants and sandals.

Ruka has an absolutely gorgeous face up, I love his smoky eye shadow and his intense brows. He is definitely one of the most attractive Taeyangs released to date. I’ve seen a lot of people mistakenly comment about his facial hair, it is not a goatee it is in fact a lower lip piercing though you would never really know it from the original promotional photo.

Ruka has a total of nine piercings, seven on one ear plus an eyebrow piercing and a labret or lower lip piercing.

While I applaud Groove for making such a faithful reproduction of the outfit Ruka wore, I really feel like his sandals do not work in doll scale and would have been better off if replaced with a neat set of boots like Ni-ya’s instead. The sandals really don’t fit that great ^^;

Other than the sandals the stock seems well-made though there is a lot going on with it. The jacket is especially nicely made.

While his outfit may be a bit bizarre just like the real life Ruka the Taeyang based on him can definitely work it!

In most photos of Ruka as well as photos of the band, he is either wearing an eye patch or has the one eye obscured (either covered by hair or he is shown only in profile). I believe it’s just a stylistic choice as eye patches are pretty cool looking but I wasn’t able to find much information about it.

Ruka’s such a good looking boy, he is definitely going to be the one that is hardest to part with when the time comes for the Nightmare dolls to make their return journey to PS.

Picture of Ruka without the eye patch and hat covering up that gorgeous face up. While I’m not necessarily saying that Groove should make more bands into doll form, I wish they would make more Taeyangs with face ups like they gave Ruka and the other dolls in the Nightmare set as they are all amazing.

More pictures of Ruka are available on my flickr.

Special thanks to Pullipstyle for loaning me the boys, even though Ruka is no longer available through them you can still bring his bandmates Yomi and Ni-ya home.