Lately I’ve been old-schooling it up a notch with Final Fantasy 9 for the PSX (or One for those of you who stumbled onto the PS scene late…). Very fun stuff. I haven’t played an old-school RPG in quite some time, so this was actually refreshing – in a nostalgic kind of way.  In fact I feel a bit strange referring to FF9 as being oldschool, but … it’s been a decade and considering our current video gaming technology, by that definition would be considered “old” by most. “Old” as it is, I’d forgotten how quirky and fun FF9 can be, and I really enjoy the distinguished artwork – though funny enough, my friend Adam from work seems to HATE it, and claims that apparently lots of people didn’t really like FF9.

Well. I still really like it, ESPECIALLY because the graphic style stands out, hinting at a charm derived from earlier FF incarnations. I also noticed that there’s this “being true to yourself” theme going on in the game, which I never noticed before, but I’m much more acutely aware of it this time around. I work at a steady and easy, full-time job that I like, but unfortunately have no passion whatsoever for and most likely never will develop any. I’ve been doing some soul-searching around the intrawebs, lurking here and there for information on freelancing, pursuing your true self, and whatnot, and it’s something I believe I may eventually devote my entire time getting into – just not right now for several personal reasons. Though I shouldn’t let these ‘reasons’ hold me back forever – but anyways, enough about that tangent…

As far as my FF9 goodies go aside from the game itself include these cute little plushies and an artbook, which is kind of…Meh. The artbook I believe is a North American edition. I remember getting the Garnet/Dagger from my first anime convention that I ever attended back in 2000; do you guys remember Aka-Kon?! Well intentioned…but I heard it fizzled out after its 2nd year because of some financial issue (more like someone running off with the money and onto some vacation).  Then I got Zidane a few years later at Anime Evolution, though I don’t recall when exactly; all those years of attending AE have kind of blurred one into another. Which just leaves Vivi – anyone have a Vivi plushie they would like to sell to me??

Hmmm this picture is missing something...

Going back to FF9, I’ve finally gotten into the 3rd disc, though I’ve gotten obsessive over the Hot and Cold Chocobo game. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve gotten Choco to an insane level (something like 66 now) that I can consistently score time bonuses without much problem. I am determined to get that 10,000 pt Robe of Lords (cue crazed look in eyes…)!  Eventually I’ll get back to the main story. I hope.

I am DETERMINED to finish this game. So many games left unfinished…

Current gaming aside, I’ve got a backlog of phat lewt to get to:

Goodies Galores!

A whole pile of goodies I got this past month.

My DVD buys and gets for the last month...

Surprisingly, I bought quite a few DVDs. I’ve been going out to this…warehouse I guess you could say, that carries TONS of anime DVDs and manga. Their prices are usually fair, sometimes slightly less than retail. I usually visit this place when my friend from work asks if I want to come along. I always without fail buy something there – I cannot seem to leave without picking up something! You can tell I visited the place a few times this last month…aside from these visits, I don’t usually buy anime DVDs. Though I have noticed that DVD prices are considerably cheaper than what they used to be like a decade ago, I guess what with the rise of Blurays. Oh, and I did NOT buy the Queens Blade one, I got that one for free from my friend at work – yes, lets go with that explanation shall we? But in all seriousness, I’ve watched through about half this series, and all fan-servicing aside, it is actually a pretty decent storyline. I also watched Summer Wars, though I saw that in a theatre – very awesome movie. I don’t wanna say anything more lest I spoil something, other than that I highly recommend getting this DVD / Bluray if you’re looking for some new anime movie to watch.

Hyperdimension Neptunia

I blame my friend from work for this again. I didn’t intend on buying this game, but then he went and bought it, and then he HAD to come and show it to me in person. Damnit. The artbook was just too nice looking to pass up on, so I caved.

Some sneaky peekys at the artbook

More sneaky peekys at the artbook

See?! Cannot resist lure of cutesy girls…

My new games for the month

A few games to add to the ol’ backlog. Actually I only bought Time Hollow. I got Star Ocean from friend from work (yes, he’s a really nice guy for letting me have all these things, heh) because apparently he had two copies, and this one is missing an English manual…doesn’t bother me too much and can’t complain about a free game anyways! Persona 3 I got as an early birthday present from my fiance… Thanks lovies! <3 It also came with a mysterious baseball cap – looks discreet enough to wear out, though I’m not a hat person.

My latest Miku addition to my Vocaloid family

Slowly building a Miku Army of figures…

At long last - Neko mimi Shana!

Yaaaay! I finally located a Neko-mimi Shana nendo on Mandarake. I prefer to buy things from here rather than on Yahoo! Japan Auctions as you do not have to deal with a middleman deputy service to purchase things. Though I have heard that they no longer offer SAL shipping anymore, which is sadness.

The OTHER Hirasawa...

Ah, the typical younger sister taking care of the older sister character.

Seena by Kotobukiya

Picked her up from another collector via Tsuki-board.net.

Though I was rather dismayed to find that the box was crushed in shipping due to poor choice of packing box – the person used a flimsy cardboard material rather than using a real shipping box. Oh well…she looked like she really did try to pack it nicely, after I requested it. This is why I save some of my packing boxes from places I order anime goodies from, so that I can ensure that the stuff I ship out makes it there as intended.

FINALLY.

This one took a LONG time to get! I remembered seeing her when she first went up for preorder, and boy was she ever delayed a few times! I’m just really happy to finally get her – now to figure out where to set her up, hmmm…

*BAKOOM* You're dead.

Wow, this Black Rock Shooter plushie is turning out to be WAY more detailed than I thought. And fun. Potential goodie review coming up?!

Secret Figure!

I also just recently got something else in the mail. Can you guess what it is? I plan to review this one sometime in the future, so keep an eye out if you want to find out…

I also figured that I would take this opportunity to address what’s been going on with my blog. So what has been going on? Well, as you can see, not really a whole lot. In fact, painfully so.

What happened?

I think the simplest way to explain it is that I got lazy about making the next posting. And by the time I thought I should post, it was already a few days. Which then turned into weeks. Then Months. Before I knew it, a new year had already come and gone, and I still hadn’t even processed the pictures I had been planning on posting on PAX10. I felt like the only thing I was only allowed to post next were those pictures, and for some reason I just didn’t feel very motivated, and even though I wanted to post about other things, I felt “stuck” on the idea of posting those images, which I was long past motivated to do so. I know that sounds weird but that’s just how it was with me.

So! What I’m going to do, is to get past that idea and just move on. I’ll get to it when I feel like it. I know that there is a point where if you make certain promises on your blog that you should follow through, but then again you shouldn’t just do something at the cost of your motivation to do so. So I’m going to keep that in my mind – to try to not promise things so I don’t feel trapped having to deliver specific things, or that if I do end up promising things, to have the material already good to go so that it doesn’t turn into an empty promise!

Other factors that contributed to my unwillingness to create a post, is because I didn’t set a schedule for doing so. I felt kind of like I should’ve been posting every other day or something, but I didn’t really give myself a very good guideline to follow….so I wavered. So I’m going to set a schedule for posting – let’s make it every Tuesday. I’ll just start off with a goal to make a main post for every Tuesday, and if I happen to make any other small posting aside from that, then great – so long as I stick to making it on Tuesdays. No particular reason – just so long as I have a process that I can follow.

Another crucial factor that depletes my motivation towards posting, lies in the actual development of the blog itself. It doesn’t feel like “home”, a place I can call my own, because I never spent a whole lot of time into the customization of the theme itself. I have this vision of some theme that would tout a personal mascot completely designed by me, something that I would be totally proud to call my “home”, but…for now, I think I will have to set aside that perfectionism, and just start with something, rather than leaving the theme almost bare. I’m still using a free theme practically straight out of the box! This is a problem I struggle with in all ideas that I have in my head – I imagine it probably is a problem for many people actually, to just get a project started and keep improving from there. I think too much about all the details, and how to get it all done at once, in the perfect way, that I become debilitated, paralyzed – not actioning on things.

Looking at all these reasons for why I don’t post more regularly, I can identify one common theme – the fact that I have some assumption in my head about certain things that I can’t seem to shake off, and in fact detracts from my ability to actually nurture my blog properly. There’s a saying that goes something like this:

“It is CRAZY to expect things to change if you continue to do the same things.”

I need things to change, so the only way I can do that is if I throw all these notions, assumptions, fixed ideas surrounding my blog out the window and just actually act on things in a more intuitive, instinctive manner. Ultimately, I am likely to make mistakes or move in directions that I might regret later, but I can always keep improving from there, and strive onwards in a refined spiral of continuous improvement.

I also want to make it my goal to connect with other bloggers with like-minds. I know that I can’t do that if I only have my efforts stuck in only maintaining my blog. Blogging by yourself gets to be pretty lonely too… So, I am going to make more of an effort to visit other blogs, make comments, and possibly participate in … *gasp* social media!

Phew! I apologize for the lack of images, and wall of text. I just wanted to get this out there, and start moving in a direction in a pursuit of happiness. After all, I started this blog to do that just that – purely for my own enjoyment. A great big thanks if you managed to read all this – I really do appreciate it!

Now to move onto tackling to-dos for my blog (amongst a great list of other things in my life)! I won’t make any promises as to what I’m going to do, but I think it’ll be more fun this way by ambushing any drastic changes I make via posts. I am going to stick to my schedule for now, and continue to crank out at least a posting every Tuesday, though please forgive me if you don’t happen to see any substantial changes through the coming weeks…

Last you heard from me, I mentioned I was off to PAX… and it was a blast! But I was too lazy to update about it here…

Gomen! I want to be able to say I’ve been busy, but that would be a lie. Aside from being super busy at work when I got back from the convention, I didn’t really have any reason for not being able to blog about it, I was just plain and simple being lazy about it. Then it started getting to the point where I had put it off so long, that I was worried about having left the update for so long which ended up with me continuing to procrastinate over it. A vicious cycle that just kept getting worse and worse, I know. I’m very good at pushing that voice that tells me to do things into the back of my head, until it gets to the point where I can no longer ignore it.

I guess also I want to be able to post about my experience, and do it justice somehow?

So! About PAX…

I’m not going to go into great detail about each day, since… well that was a month ago, so I can’t quite recall it anymore, plus I was pretty lazy about taking any pictures. We did haul back lotsa free swag, including t-shirts, posters, buttons, coupons, cards, etc… and some other swag I bought including Volume 2 & 3 of APPLE, VENT 001, a PAX10 shirt, the 11.5 year Anniversary Penny-Arcade book, the 6th PA book, and Atelier Iris for PS2. We also met this guy who just randomly joined our late night session of board gaming, who turned out to be from Vancouver as well, and he had a wife who was also into gaming. Which was really awesome because we don’t really have any gamer friends (at least ones who are more serious about gaming, outside of casual games), and them being a gamer couple was a bonus! We exchanged contacts, and have since met up once for a board gaming session, and it was really fun…looking forward to future gaming sessions!

What else… Oh yeah! While we hung out mostly in the exhibitors hall for most of the time there, we did manage to get into some panels. The best panel (at least IMO) that we were able to attend was the “Create a Strip” panel, where you got to watch the PA guys go at it and make an actual strip. It was really awe-inspiring to watch Mike draw and put the strip together all within the length of the panel which was only scheduled to be an hour long. Not to say that Jerry didn’t do any work, though for most of the panel of course he was entertaining, while Mike worked his magic. He even finished well before the panel was up, and had plenty of time afterward to doodle a really neat looking collage of all the PA characters they’ve created since it’s founding.

Well I was hoping to make this a more substantial posting, but it looks like it’s time for bed… So I will try – scratch that, I WILL post tomorrow more details on PAX with what few pictures I did manage to snap at the event.

Off to our yearly gamer trek to Seattle!

It’s that time of the year again! So we’ll (my hubby and I) will be taking off sometime tomorrow afternoon to Seattle to attend the Penny Arcade eXpo! Unfortunately I will be trying to juggle some work I brought home with me to make up for the time I’m taking off…though I imagine I won’t spend much time on work during the convention. I’m aiming to tackle some of it tomorrow morning, and most likely try to finish most of it on Monday, but we’ll see…

Funny kind of back story…

So when I first met my hubby I invited him to go but, he didn’t want to go, mostly because he thought it was some sorta nerdosh sci-fi convention… but then later (like months later almost like weeks before the convention date) I explained to him it was a gamer convention that was founded by the very guys who created the Penny Arcade web comic… “OOooooooohhh… so that’s what it’s about…” Before he met me, he had never even heard of Penny Arcade (I know what you’re thinking, I was totally like, OMGWTFBBQ?!). Despite that it seemed like he lived under a rock what with his lack of knowledge surrounding PA guys, with the hubby being a total gamer himself, it was a shoo-in from that point on to convince him to attend last-minute. That was his very first convention (at that kind of size at least), and he was hooked from that experience onwards.  It was also actually my first time attending PAX as well, which was back in 2008. I had always wanted to go in earlier years but never could because Anime Evolution tended to coincide with PAX’s dates.

Fortunately for us at the time, they still had badges available for sale…whereas this year they’ve completely sold out, well before the convention has started. When we attended in 2008, we only were able to get in on Sunday, so we really regretted not having been there for the full 3 days. Last year in 2009, when we spent the entire 3 days there, we had a blast! Tons of free phat lewt, games galore, fun goodies, and late night tabletop gaming sessions. Hubby was on a gaming high for weeks after that, heh.

It’s kinda funny, now hubby is WAY super psyched, more so than I am about this convention every year since his first visit. He is also now obsessed with Penny Arcade and is more on top of their web comics than I am.

It’s really interesting how people can influence each other in ways that we could never have imagined before…

Anyways! Will be back this Sunday night, and hopefully I can get a post up covering what we experienced! Mata ato de…*waves*

Insanekitten's work desk... at home.

Ahhh noooes I are getting lazies! Gomen. Speaking of lazy, I need to clean my desk… hmmm. I have tons of space between the monitor and keyboard, so I tend to plunk down random figures there. I kinda like it like that but looking at this photo makes me think it’s a tad messy. Ah well…

So here we go with a couple part posts! My very first one!

I’ve recently acquired a few K-On! figmas, including an extra Mugi-chan which I somehow completely botched up on ordering another one of. Doh! What was worse, was that I already HAD Mugi-chan figma sitting on one of my shelves, but stupidly enough I had put her away in a closeted shelf, so of course assumed I didn’t have her. I also track all my purchases in a spreadsheet but I somehow missed seeing the row with the information for Mugi-chan figma. So I went out and ordered another one thinking I forgot to order one before. Oh well. Maybe I can go the way of Radiant and revamp my whole blog, and put a ton of effort into advertising it, and offer a giveaway with the extra Mugi??… *”borrowed” idea for future…*

Anyways.

I’m thinking I might take these guys down to my workplace, since they are a bit more sturdier than Nendoroids, and I’m a bit concerned about some of my Nendoroids falling down at work – Particularily Ritsu, she has a habit of falling down on account of her heavy head and itty-bitty-zero-support drum seat she insists on sitting on. Maybe that’s why she’s got a big fat bruise on her head…

I love having Nendoroids at work, but because they can be kind of unsteady on account of their super cute fat heads, they tend to take a bit of a scuffing from all the falls they take.

I also have Asuka Gothic Loli figure here, but I’m thinking I may take her home as well… I will probably go more with durable action figures to display here since I’m a bit concerned about people (or ‘mundanes’) picking up or touching the figures, and just plain not handling them right. I bought this one from Radiant, and I am very pleased with the acquisition as she was one of the first figures  I ever wanted before I seriously got into figure collecting. She’s not like anything fantastic, and she does come from an older era of figure production…  I guess it was sort of like a long time fantasy that I was able to finally fulfill?…She does complement the new Rei Gothic Loli version really well.

Do any of you guys display your collection at work?

I do it mostly for myself, because I like having something nice to look at when I want to distract myself or take a break from work. Action figures will also be great since I will be able to pose them from time to time, giving me something different to look at (aside from switching up angles or sides) without the hassle of transporting figures to and from work/home.

The sorts of reactions I’ve gotten about my figures at work have been mixed, ranging from positive to negative. A few people have shown a liking to them, even though they had no idea what they were about – I thought that was great, that these figures could still invoke some sort of positive response, without the person even understanding the context/purpose of the figure, or even the premise of anime figures in general. Their “likeableness” transcended those factors.

Then I had one guy say that they were stupid and that it was pointless spending money on them when you could be getting a real girl (most of my figures are of girls), though he did think they looked sexy (at least the Asuka figure, he called the Nendoroids toys); he just failed to understand why anyone would want to spend money on something like an anime figure. Another guy thought they were pointless to buy simply because he had only an interest in the shows themselves, watching the series and enjoying the story. This reason I was more forgiving towards, since he has a very impressive anime DVD collection, so there was a kind of kinship there when it came down to a passion towards collecting. He just had a different passion and that’s cool. In fact its really cool by me because I get to borrow practically any anime I can think of from him, and apparently I’m one of the very few people in the company he’s confided about his anime collection to ’cause apparently he thinks people will look down upon him if they knew. Ah it’s sad when people still feel like they have to hide their interests outta shame. Though I suppose that is very much inline with being a “true otaku”?…

I suppose if I wasn’t collecting figures, I could very well have amassed anime DVD’s instead. He did however suggest giving up buying figures and just content myself in looking at pictures, which I just couldn’t relate to. I might’ve been able to do that BEFORE I got into buying figures, but I just can’t do that now. You figure collectors know what I’m talking about!

Bringing in the K-On figmas to work means I will have to bring a case with the girls’ extra parts in it, it’ll be too much of a hassle bringing in all the boxes and finding a place for them! Speaking of cases, stay tuned for my upcoming posting on storage and cases!…

And stay tuned for when I do bring in the K-On! girlies to work…dum dum duuuum!

moe moe kyun!

Can you guess what I got in the mail? X3

I was super psyched to receive my moe moe Kyun version of Mio (by FREEing)! Ordered her along with the new Shunya Yamashita artbook “One Voice” from Hobby Search through their 50% off shipping campaign; more on the artbook later…

I was too impatient to even take a shot of her inside her box, that’s how much I was anticipating this figure!

Her face looks alright, there’s nothing spectacular about her face, but it is appropriately expressed with the right amount of distress.

I had no idea what to expect for a base, most figures usually come with something pretty plain or bland. Your typical generic anime figure base. But this one came with a refreshing if albeit tacky, retro looking hearts shaped base. Out of context it would probably seem very silly looking, but I think it suits this Mio real well, even if it is a bit over the top. Kudos for making the base look interesting outside of the usual stuff. The buckles are really neatly painted, though I think the shoes could’ve used a glossier looking paint as they look too similar in colour to the socks.

I really like the sculpting job on her hands, they look natural in making the shape of a heart, and the details on her nails is a pretty touch. The shading done on the white parts of her outfit – apron, headband, thigh socks’ frills… have a very soft shading to them like they are barely there and really accentuates the folds nicely.

*gasp* Shima pantsu! Though the paint job on her underwear stripes seem rather sloppily done. Oh well, they are mostly hidden from view. I was aiming to capture her heart shaped hands in the sunlight in this photo. I like the flow and energy of her hair, especially in this picture.

Slightly better shot of her hands. You might be able to notice the quality of her hair, which isn’t 100% smooth, but it is pretty damn near close. There seems to be slight imperfections in the tips particularly in the little sharp gaps. But this is to be expected of mass production…

Typical frilly maid outfit. I’m not usually into maids, but I couldn’t pass up on this version of Mio! I think though that they could’ve done a better job on the trimmings, they look kind of haphazard on the shirt and apron. Plus the lace is painted black underneath the lace trim on the skirt. I do appreciate the dynamic skirt position though, it makes it look like Mio was captured in mid movement, so her skirt and apron are flared up slightly.

Kinda naughty but I really like this shot, with the sun just peeking under her skirt. Looks kind of Marilyn Monroe-ish here!

Overall a fairly simple and clean sculpt, along with a well balanced, dynamic pose that doesn’t look too awkward  from views of all angles. Though I will admit that her mouth looks weird, and it only looks normal from a frontal view of her. Her mouth was sculpted in such a way that the inner part of her mouth doesn’t actually concave into the figure. So a side view make it look like she has a big fat tongue in her mouth.

Love the hair splayed out like that.

A bit too overexposed here, but I really like how pieces of her hair looks here.

One major discrepancy that I noticed on my figure was that the apron strap on her right arm doesn’t meet up with the apron! There is a noticeable gap, which you can sort of see in this picture, so that’s one of the downfalls of this particular figure. I wonder if this is a common problem amongst others with this particular figure? Well overall I still enjoy this figure a great deal, though I may be biased…

Wrapping things up here with the box art.Really like the black heart shaped lace trimming.

Back of the box. Both sides of the box have the same artwork and windows. Some people may complain that the box is devoid of any actual images of the figure, but I kind of like it… I think it’s the only figure in my collection that doesn’t have an image of the figure. The figure should show for itself anyways; that’s what windows are for.

Choice of colors is nicely done and not overwhelming, with good use of decorative elements and whitespace. Windows all around allow for generous peeks at the contents. Also very nice touch with the magical girl action background inside the box. <3

Erm, I guess heels make a big difference?

Everything in this picture is what is included in the set. I didn’t notice until I set the Pinkys on their stands that Sawako’s school uniform outfit is significantly shorter than her regular dress outfit. Standing them side by side makes them almost look like two different people.

I blame the heels. (Though they are nice heels…)

I really like how Sawako’s skirt is unaltered, and not sporting the usual shorter alterations many schoolgirls apply to their skirts. Actually most of the girls in Sawako’s school have shorter skirts in the anime… except for her.  It really emphasizes Sawako’s innocence and total obliviousness to Japan’s trends and fashions, making her somewhat traditional and old fashioned.

Is that you Sawako??...

Sawako with a different hairstyle! (haha, in reference to the episode where Sawako’s friends try to imagine her with different hair styles because she wanted ‘fuwa fuwa’ hair. The different hair really makes her look like a different character…and I tried to pick items that Sawako would more than likely wear.

A cute summery outfit!

So cute! I think this looks more like what Sawako would wear, she tends to wear skirts and light airy clothing, so I think this outfit really suits her tastes in clothing.

On a related note, I recently finished watching Kimi ni Todoke! I’ve had it downloaded for a couple months now, watching bits and pieces here and there whenever I get up off my lazy bum to exercise on my elliptical. Just recently I was watching past episode 7, and I just blew right through the series. I think I finished episode 7 right to the end in a matter of 3 days. When I get into a series, I will marathon the crap outta it. I will usually skip Openings, Endings, and usually the Preview (unless they’re more entertaining than narrating); this helps me cut down on the time required to watch through the series as all those “extras” can add up to about 5 minutes per episode! This is why I prefer to download either ALL of the series, or MANY episodes before taking on the task of watching it. I can’t really stand to watch one episode and wait another week for the next one, if the story is too interesting for me.

Admittedly I wasn’t so into Kimi ni Todoke at first as I felt the story was a little bit slow, but reflecting back on it, it was a pretty good pace to set up the story and introduce Sawako and her social situation in life. But going back to the current conflict! At this point in the story, Sawako has finally made some good friends, Yano and (name here?!), and is slowly experiencing and coming to terms with more complex feelings she is developing towards Kazehaya. Just when you think things are peaceful and things are going smoothly… queue conflict: Kurumi-chan. Kurumi has sort of a stalker-ish obsession with Kazehaya, a one-sided love that has been going on since middle school, so naturally she sees Sawako as a threat to her goal of obtaining a relationship with her beloved Kazehaya.  It was really funny watching Kurumi-chan and Sawako interact with each other because Kurumi obviously has an agenda and seems to have experience manipulating people subtly, coming off as a beautiful, popular, cheerful person , whereas Sawako is a very pure, honest, and upfront girl who is unfortunately also naive and inexperienced. In turn, Sawako manages to unintentionally thwart Kurumi’s political agenda through her misunderstandings of Kurumi’s actual intentions.

I became really interested in the story after Kurumi was introduced to the story because I wanted to see Kurumi and Sawako develop in their rivalry. While there was some development, it felt like Kurumi’s role in the story just kind of faltered after the truth about her and her true nature is revealed to Sawako. I was kind of disappointed that Kurumi didn’t play much of a role after that, though considering the manga is still going, I suppose the anime only covered a certain percentage of the manga’s storyline, and there may be more going on with Kurumi in the manga version?

The ending overall was pretty good, it was sweet and not super happy but also not super sad at the same time. I may just consider picking up reading Kimi ni Todoke…hmm. I wonder if another anime season may pop up?

Part of my haul for July's releases

Anyhoo!

Mugi-chan!

First up is the lovely Tsumugi Kotobuki figma, the keyboardist from Houkago Tea Time! Mugi-chan is the 3rd K-On figma girl I’ve gotten so far. I got in late on the orders, so I ended up having to order the re-released ones of all the girls. 2 of the band members down, 3 more to go! (Ui doesn’t count as a band member…)

Back o da box.

I’m thinking I may take these girls to my workplace. Right now I have two Nendoroids and a scaled figure over there, though I’ll post more about that later! It would be neat to have some action figures at work so I can set them up in different poses once in a while.

Franchesca the machine gun totin' catgirl!

Next up, is Francesca Lucchini Nendoroid from Strike Witches. I seriously have no idea what this series is about, aside from the character designs. So far based on what I’ve seen of the characters, there seems to be a military theme going on with young girls of whom also sport animal ears and tails. These girls seem to be soldiers of some sort, what with all the arsenal of weapons you see them carrying around, and the weird booster thingies on their legs. I should look into watching this series to see how accurate my guess was?

Side o' the box.

I LIKE the cuteness factor when it comes down to the animal ears and tails on the girls…but I’m not sure what is up with the weapons, the mecha parts, and the fact that many of them wear only panties with a shirt? *a bit weirded out* Maybe one of these days I will give the series a chance …if I’m bored enough. I couldn’t resist this figure because of her neko-mimi factor! It’s one of my weaknesses when it comes to anime figures… I am worried though that once I own her long enough I’ll maybe get it into my head to get ALL the other Strike Witches figures, and that will also include the pricy limited edition X-Box release. NoooOOOoOoooooes! My poor wallet! T__T I don’t even own an X-Box!

The sweet Ioryogi-san! Er wait, sweet sounds wrong...

Last but not least, my most anticipated item in this order: Ioryogi plushie from Kobato! He’s so cute and squishy! I also have a weakness for cute plushies…

More like vicious...

Overall he is a fair likeness of his anime/manga counterparts, though I do wish he had movable limbs (the way Lulu’s moogle plush is designed). I also would’ve prefered his “quiet” or “calm” face more, because it’s just so deceptively cute, for a character like Ioryogi who in actually acts like this plush’s expression most of the time. You can just imagine the fireballs spewing from his mouth! Poor Kobato, never catchin’ a break from Ioryogi, who really sincerely cares for her. Since I finished the anime series, I’m looking forward to seeing how CLAMP will end it in the manga…

Closeup of the tag.

Here’s the tag just for kicks. I don’t know why, but I had difficulty getting a clear focused shot of the tag. Darn my camera and its non-manual ways! It’s too user-friendly!

Oh! Now that I’m looking more closely at the tag I can see that they used this picture’s expression on Ioryogi-san…So that’s why the plush looks like that! Though it doesn’t look the same because the real plush version looks more angry then stupidly drunk like in the picture. Maybe if I were to add little cheek blush? Hmmm.

My precious' new home!

Also received my case for my Intuos 3 tablet from Amazon at the same time, so now I can safely protect my baby. Yeesssss my Preciouuusssss *pets her Intuos lovingly*…

Though I’m sorry I don’t use you enough… T__T

Hmm…most of my postings so far seem are about loot. Heh. I’ll try to post about other things, like reviews and what-not. I’ve been a bit lazy lately to take pictures, plus I just recently created an account on MyFigureCollection.net, and I’m slowly adding more and more things on there. It really helps to put my collection into perspective, I didn’t really quite realize how much stuff I had, until I had all the numbers to crunch it all down for me! Granted, most of my collection consists of trading figures and gashapons from my earlier years of collecting stuff before I got into anime figures. My completed models are also made up of a large chunk of Pinky Street figures, of which are actually fairly cheap in comparison to scaled anime figures. Regular sets prices range from 600 yen ~1600 yen. I had always wanted to find some way to track everything I collected, and now I have a way of doing that with my anime merchandise!

Well, time for bed… Until next time! Mata ato de…

Though I didn’t actually receive the package until SATURDAY. It seems the mailman forgot to leave the pickup slip when they attempted to deliver this package. I was expecting this package, and as it was shipped via EMS, I was anticipating its every move as I tracked it, and on Friday I found out that it was in “Retention” at a zip code matching mine. I knew it had to be at the post office! The nearest post office to my home is a hop, skip, and a jump away. Seriously only takes me about 2 minutes to walk there. So I text messaged my hubby asking him to check the mail as soon as he got home (as he arrives home before I do) , and to meet me at the post office so that I could pick it up without delay, as the post office was on my way home, with the bus stop right across the street from it.

He later responds to me that there was no slip to be found. My heart fell and my excitement died. “What? No slip? Are you sure?” He’s sure he’s sure.

So I go straight home and check the mailbox for myself; of course there’s nothing to be found. Disappointment sets in as I moodily slip inside my home. I attempt to check the tracking again later that evening, and found the same results, the last scan revealing the package was in “Retention”.

The next day I drop by my local post office to try my luck and check to see if there was such a package. “Hmmm….yup, looks like there’s a package here. Weird how you didn’t get a slip.” Damn that mailman! So I sign for the package, went grocery shopping, then came to pick up the package and whisk it away home to relish the goodies from Good Smile Company’s Winter WonderFest 2010 lineup.

Big fat juicy box full of GSC goodness... Mmmmmmm!

Front view

You’ll note from the first image that I have a few duplicates. Yes, you guessed it. I go by the very same principles that Konata lives by when it comes to buying merchandise: One copy for display/play, one copy for promotion, and one copy as a backup. Can’t go wrong with that system!

Isometric front view

Yeah right. I wish I had that luxury of buying even a backup copy… No actually one of the K-On sets and Snow Mikus actually belongs to my friend at work (the one I help buy things for since he doesn’t want to use his own credit card….). The two K-On sets, two figmas, and one Snow Miku belong to me, though I am hoping to sell the extra K-On set and figma to help offset the cost of all this.

Isometric back view

I hadn’t actually planned on buying Snow Miku, as I already own the regular Miku version, so I didn’t see the point of a repainted version. But then my friend insisted on getting it for himself. The more I looked her over, thought about it, and listened to my friend go on about how nice he thought she looked, the more I wanted it, until I caved awhile later and added her to the already bulging order. I look at her now and don’t regret having ordered her. In fact I think if I hadn’t, then I would’ve regretted NOT getting her. Yay me! She has a very sweet ice blue theme, which is my favourite colour, so of course I find this repaint very attractive.  Even better are the painted clear parts, which include her hair and her negi accessory. The paint job transitions beautifully revealing a hint of the clear part at the tips of Miku’s hair, and the snowflake prints really add to the overall theme. The clear negi was also a nice touch. Overall, very pleased with this repainted version.

Front view

I’m not actually into figmas, though I do already own Shana, Kagami Miku, and Yuki, though the last two were impulse store buys. I also decided that I wanted the K-On girls, and aside from my pending Black Rock Shooter figma, I think that’s all I will get as far as figmas go (unless a really awesome deal comes up).

Isometric front view

At least that’s what I say for NOW… I’m thinking other favourite characters are going to pop up and again I won’t be able to resist.

Isometric back view

Ui doesn’t seem to sport anything unique, though I haven’t opened her so I’m not sure what to expect aside from what the outside of the box shows. I bought an extra copy thinking I would be able to sell her easily… I guess I will have to see about that? I’m starting to think Miku would’ve been a better deal as she is quite popular, though I’m not sure what I was thinking when I made this order at the time.

Front view

Ah, the cherry on top! This is what I was REALLY looking forward to. The K-On! Mio and Ritsu Live Stage Set, which features the characters as they were in the school festival live concert that the four of them performed (Azusa had not yet joined the group at this point).

Isometric front view

I bought an extra copy since I figured there would be some demand for this set, and I might be able to trade it for another special release or sell it to offset the cost of my growing hobby.

Isometric back view

Anyone interested in buying or trading?

Contents inside...

This is a pretty hefty Nendoroid set, as it comes complete with the two girls, extra head each, full set of accompanying instruments, a mic and stand, extra varying poses of limbs, and an entire stage to fit both girls.

More of this so called contents inside....

Parts for the stage were hidden in the back behind the plastic casing. All of it looked daunting at first…I took a few moments to look over the instructions, of which have two sides. I looked at the figma di:stage part first, and I don’t read Japanese too well, so I got very confused when I was looking at this side about how I was supposed to use these parts to put together a stage. I flipped it over, and was like, “Oh. This is the side I wanted.”

Sheet of text bubbles

Even comes with speech bubbles to create nifty fun scenes with Nendoroids (or figmas it seems). There were other parts in the set I didn’t actually open up yet, but I believe they are parts for posing figmas, and stands to hold these speech bubbles. Nice!

Live jamming session!

Shortly after opening everything up and assembling things together, I got this! Looks really great and the stage looks polished, for something that is based on the di:stage design.

Closeup of the festival getupped cuties

I love this set, I really do. I love this set so much I made Radiant indulge and buy himself one. I’m such an enabler… I blame my work friend.

What holds them up?...

Just to show you what the stage looks like. So you can actually take your Nendoroids or figmas and stick them into this stage to pose them, without having to resort to their stand bases. Nice! Mio almost looks like she’s standing on her own. I haven’t tried posing a figma on the stage yet, but it looks like it might accommodate the height of a figma.

*kusokusokuso* -- *buruburuburu*

Playing around with their alternate faces… Oh Mio, you big scaredy cat, you. I really like Ritsu’s evil cattish grin as she whispers scary nothings into Mio’s shivering ear.

Miku makes her debut stage appearance!

Yaaay! Miku! We love you! WOOOOT!

Wait, is she singing into two mics?...

A great big thanks goes to an extremely helpful and kind forum member from the Pinky Street forums,  Rui-Rui, who helped make this order a reality for me (along with the recent Summer WonderFest GSC items). Rui-Rui made the entire order on my behalf and even shipped this package before I had even made my payment out to him. He even undervalued the package as I asked him to so it would make it to me safely past Custom’s evil clutches! Such awesomeness could not be described with mere words. Thanks for all your help Rui, I really appreciate it, and I will always be indebted to you.

BTW, for those of you who are curious, I believe Canada Custom’s limit is $200.00 CDN, no matter whether it’s a gift or not, so if you’re importing from Japan (I’m not sure about other places), then keep this value in mind when doing so to avoid hassle and cost from Customs. This package was marked in Japanese Yen JUST below what would’ve been calculated out to be $200.00 CDN according to today’s dollar values. I’ve had only trouble with packages that valued over $200 CDN, so I think it’s the magic number.

I tested out the stand and …

Tadahh! Mio now stands!

It is a bit precarious but for a stand that’s fairly discrete and was super cheap, it does a pretty good job IMO. It’s all I really need to get Mio to stand up just for display anyways, and it’s not like I really need her to withstand earthquakes.

Side profile view of doll stand

Better view of the stand. It comes with varying lengths of ‘arms’ so I can adjust if I need to. Though I would have to partially disassemble and reassemble so  I don’t think I will really be doing that much, if at all. I’m keeping the spare parts just in case.

Nyaaah~!

So I’m trying out a new set up here with my photoshoots. It consists of two light sources, one of which I’ve created a diffuser (cardboard box + white tissue paper) for, and a matte aluminum pan as a reflector. The pan does not have an even bottom so it reflects light sort of haphazardly. So I’m looking for something better to use, though in the mean time the pan is better than nothing. The matte finish produces a softer reflection of light. I’m not too fond of the yellow lights, which are produced by my Ikea lights.  I believe I can compensate for yellowness with white balance settings on my camera… If I can figure it out (edit: I finally found out where to adjust for Tungsten lighting).

*Poof* Uhm, where did these props come from suddenly?!

I’m still kind of learning my way through my camera cause I don’t believe in manuals (does anybody really?). I was having trouble getting rid of the yellow glare in pictures of windowed boxed figures in previous pictures (Azunyan Nendoroid ). Seems to look better when I use flash on pictures of windowed boxed figures. Well…it’s a learning process, and there is only so much I can do with a simple point and shoot type.

Hold it?... L-like this?

The blue puffball was a part of my cats’ toy that Deimos managed to rip right off when I was playing with him last week. It’s a fun toy, it makes both my cats go into angry mode. 1 down, 2 more puffballs to go.

N-Nyaaa...?

And of course the mousy is another one of my cats toys that they kind of “broke”. The bell on the end of the tail doesn’t ring the way it used to. I don’t know how they managed to break the bell…

Finally get to play!

This was the first time I’ve posed her with her bass since I received her back in about February? I was just mostly too lazy to rearrange.

Lookin' good with her trusty bass

This photoshoot certainly revealed something… I don’t think I’d have the patience for dressing up dolls. It’s kind of fun, but it was frustrating getting her tie back on! I suppose tweezers would’ve been a good idea.

Rock out!

Not to mention some of her jointed parts will periodically pop out as I’m trying to pose her, especially her elbows and feet.

Look ma, no pick!

There were no hands included that held a pick, only hands that were in pick holding position. Close enough I guess. Or…do bassists not use picks?

Mio intently bassin' it out!

So while I don’t think I’d wanna take up doll collecting anytime soon, I definitely would like to get more clothing for Mio. Can anyone recommend any good places to buy some? Either officially or through other people who make dolly clothing?

Closeup of Mio's beloved lefty

Limitations to my point and shoot model only allow me to take flashless shots ONLY with a tripod. This camera is devoid of many manual settings that would cause most photography enthusiasts to probably cringe at. I’m more or less a beginner/novice so I’m okay with it for now. You can just make out a blurry clip holding up my background in corner…

It's a bass, NOT A GUITAR. Get it right.

Overall, it’s still a solid portable camera. Will treasure it always as it was a lovely x-mas gift from my shnugglebums.

Shima pantsu? Hai. Sou desu.

Obligatory pantsu shot. Ever since watching that episode of K-On, I always check to see what kind any Mio figure is wearing. Yes I know, I’m pervy.

Throwing up the Devil's horns for good measure!

OK, well they’re not exactly Devil’s horns, but close enough.

I also opened up my Kobato Pinky:

The details on this are quite elaborate  and is gorgeous, for a Pinky Street figure. This seems more like a well built scene for a PVC figure rather than your typical Pinky Street releases. I believe this is probably one of the first detailed Pinky bases released, though don’t quote me on that…

Ugh slightly blurry, my bad.

I love the details on her Kimono, very cute usagi print, and the usagi-chan on her obi is a very nice touch.

At first when I was putting this all together, I thought that the black base was a bit redundant seeing as the characters mount onto the detailed base part. But when I put the black base on, it really adds that finishing touch to the whole thing. Don’t underestimate the power of small details! Speaking of which, Ioryogi is just way too cute! I think they portray his gluttony quite well in this scene.

The hat unfortunately does not appear to come off. I haven’t tried switching out her head yet, though I’ve heard that it is kind of difficult? I’ll check later on when I get home… I’m not sure what the black hat is supposed to be? Does anybody know?

Another Kobato Pinky coming out as a regular release in August… definitely going to pick her up!