Sunday, April 15, 2007

I promised an update, and an update is whatcha got. First on the block is an awesome エヴァンゲレオン ラメン bowl, that, when you get to the bottom it says: "Visual Confirmation of the Bottom Obtained. Meal Complete." Then we have a Gintama Yunomi cup and Tsukimi (moon viewing) Sake set. And barely visible to the left a D. Gray Man tall, slender glass. Man, I love anime tableware, I love anything that takes something practical and makes it fun (even though I never use them, lol). Anyway, enjoy!

食ううううう作戦完了!

銀魂 totally rocks, and is perfect for marketing apparently.


You can barely see the image on the D. Gray Man glass, and also white on sakura color for the Gintama set is also not readily visible -_-; but I assure you they're both awesome! (Closeups to come when I get a better digicam, soon, sooooooon....)

Friday, April 13, 2007

I have a ton of crap I have to post yet, I haven't really felt like posting lately, I know hardly anyone reads this at this stage and everytime I take pictures I'm reminded that I need to buy a new digital camera very, very badly. Here are a few from a few weeks back when I got a set of toy boozes, called みんなでカンパイ!Notice Captain Afro on the ripoff of KFC, it took me forever to realize that it could be interpreted as a racist thing, black guy, fried chicken mascot, huh? Huh? I especially love the Lucha Libre beer Corona ripoff, with the masked wrestler logo (my crappy digicam doesn't do details that well -_-;). I got more swag from Animaxis this week, including Light and L dolls from Death Note that are just awesome, 灼眼のシャナ メロンパン pillow, a huge エヴァンゲレオンラメン bowl, a D. Gray Man etched glass, er, glass, and 銀魂ゆのみ&月見セット。I love how it's Shonen Jump, but they sell sake sets, a glass that looks like it's for a fuzzy navel and the existing D. Gray Man glass that I have that looks like it's for a highball. Even though I love Gintama and D. Gray Man a lot more than Eva (which I also love, to be fair), the ramen bowl has to be the coolest thing I've gotten in a long time. I honestly thought that I'd never see one for sale, as I saw them someplace else and they were sold out for a long time even then. So I can only assume that they made another production run of these, or that there was a box of them sitting somewhere that Animaxis forgot about em =P. I'll post piccys of these soon, but I'm tired now, so another day for sure.


Lotsa toy booze, some pizza, snacks, etc. From the picture they're not terribly impressive, but up close they're really neat.

Megafry Chicken, with Captain Afro mascot.

All assembled, with the Luchadore beer ^^;

Megafry and Lucha Libre cerveza, deconstructed.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Wow, so I haven't posted in over a month. I've gotten a few things, wanted a few things, etc, etc. I got a solar powered Maneki Neko, or beckoning cat, that is a symbol of fortune and good luck in the East, especially Japan. Next up, we have Winoa, which is Japanese wine chocolate (yes, wine inside of chocolate, which is actually alcoholic. Just 0.8%, but still, alcoholic chocolate, holy hell, Japan, I adore you. I also got a box of 10 Dragon Quest Items: Missing Metal Equipment, of which I did not receive the entire set, but I alrady had 2 of em in all fairness (before I figured out that buying a box, if you want all of the set, is usually cheaper in the long run than buying individuals over a spread out period of time. Yes I know this is obvious, but that was before I was obsessed with getting entire sets of stuff, still pissed about my Princess Moonbrook, hmph, fuck you SquEnix) so only 1 double in the whole box has to be a personal best for stingy Square Enix Toys. And finally this update I got a box of Keroro Chara Cell Vol. 4, which are kinda Shokugan, kinda something like you'd find in a Gashapon machine. They're of superior quality to your average Gashapon machine, but they're the right size, and they come in a cool container shaped like Keroro, Tamama or Giroro's heads making different faces. I didn't get the secret figure, but I ended up with all 12 normal ones, so w00t. I won't list all of my wants this week, suffice it to say I have weeks where I want very little, and there are weeks like these where I could prolly spend a quarter of my yearly salary in a day, hehe. I'll post up some aaaaaawesome Shakugan no Shana and Haruhi Suzumiya PVC figures that I'm in love with.

- Shakugan no Shana - 1/8 Shana Red Ver. 2 PVC Figure
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Shakugan no Shana - 1/6 Shana Moe Art Ver. PVC
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Shakugan no Shana - 1/8 Shana Toranoana Ver. PVC
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Fate / Hollow Ataraxia - 1/8 Saber in Maid dress PVC Figure

The ever-popular "Beckoning Cat", or Maneki Neko, I just had to get the gold one. When the sun hits him his paw moves and his head bows, makes me feel empowered by the Sun Goddess 天照大神様 ^_^;

Wine chocolate? Hell yes! (and yes it does have an alcohol content, it's like 0.8%, but it IS alcoholic ~_^)

From the Dragon Quest series (there's definitely some series of this before it, I've ebayed it before and yikes is it expensive, like @_@ expensive) here is the "Missing Metal Equipment"

I didn't get the secret figure =/

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

It's been a little while since I've posted, so let's see what's new this week! I got some good pictures of my now set up pachinko machine, Back to the Future style! I took some screen shots as best as I could with a camera in front of a screen that gives off glare, so let's hope you get to adequately see the splendor that is BttF with anime stylings. Also today I got some Dragon Quest swag, really cool figures that are based on Toriyama-sensei's character designs (Akira Toriyama created not only the Dragon Ball universe and characters and perfected spiky anime hero hair, but also did all of the character designs for Enix's Dragon Quest series, and for then arch-rival Square's Chrono Trigger series.) and magnets that are "dot-graphics", that is to say they look like the 8-bit sprites in the first DQ game. Unfortunately I did not get Dragonlord, I'm kinda pissed ~^. Usually when I order boxes of stuff I get a whole set, and both of these products were made by Square-Enix Toys, and I didn't get a whole set of 7 in the box of TWELVE of the DQ figures, either. My collection lacks the Princess of Moonbrook from DQII, and I want her! Anyway for now enjoy the pics!

absent from photo: Dragonlord, damned packaging company -_-;.

has a 1-up 'shroom on the other side

There's a button you can press for an explanation of features, which shows various scenes from the actual "game", here we have BttFIII with Marty lassoing numbers, haha.

the machine in its entirety, finally a place to put more of my UFO Catcher swag at the top! there's リセットさん from 動物の森 as well as Monkey D. Luffy with a pirate hat on (so incredibly hard to find, I spent 2 months finding him when I gave up and accidentally found him browsing on ebay one day) and a pillow of リーくん's head.

all art should be 8-bit

Here's the attract mode for the machine, complete with a polygon model of the DeLorean driving down the street. The monitor looks pretty high-def in person.

The flash didn't go off on this one so it's kinda hard to see, but there's Marty playing Johnny B Goode at the enchantment under the sea dance, lol.

Dude, why isn't the little Dragon Quest 1 guy carrying the cool gold shield?!

Flying car chase that wasn't in any of the movies.

Here's anime Doc at the clock tower scene.

If you're wondering about the girl in the bunny ears, DQIII let you pick the classes of your characters and you could pick a jester/fuckoff class which apparently looked like a casino drink wench.... or something.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

And the piece de resistance this week goes to Shadow of the Colossus (or ワンダと巨像) One Coin figures by Kotobukiya. These are so awesome, especially the first colossus, which includes a little tiny figure of the main character, poised with sword in hand, climbing the back of the colossus, in position to stab him in the neck/back of the head. I only had 2 complaints, the figure of the main character on the horse is a little less what I'd expect him to look like up close -- nice detail on Aguro, though. Also, the secret figure is kinda lame too, I mean the way she's done up is cool, but I think they should've used the awesome sea serpent colossus or something as the secret.




The finished product of my bakery masterpiece:

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Well today I had a snow day from work, heh, so I took the liberty of putting the Megami Tensei figures together that I had gotten yesterday. I must say, they're exactly what I expected out of a Kotobukiya product (and also I have part of another collection ^^;). There's Belphegor, Susanoo (one of my faves, brother of Amaterasu ^^, and wields the legendary sword -- Kusanagi -- pulled from the tail of an eight-headed serpent named Yamata no Orochi after getting him drunk on eight bowls of sake, one for each head, and then decapitating him, heh heh), Shiva, Poltergeist, Gabriel, Hathor and finally the secret figure, Mara, which looks like some weird Chluthu-looking thing riding a chariot. See pics below. In other news, MY BACK TO THE FUTURE PACHINKO MACHINE ARRIVED TODAY!!!!! I have yet to open it, but watching the FedEx dude bring it up in the snow was a sight to behold (hey, I was getting my $80-worth out of shipping no matter what). I took a pic of the massive box it came in, I was hoping for a crate. -_-;

Dreaming of demons =P
Pachi-Pachi
Check out the toilet monster, and it looks like Shiva's about to take out Susanoo's leg with his trident ~_^
Well due to the eternally lazy postman I had to take a 45 min trip to the post office and get today's haul. Today we have the aforementioned Keroro Gunsou "Robo Mascot", which I have yet to throw batteries into, but I figured I'd take a picture since he's so effin cute! I got a whole box of Megami Tensei volume 5 figures, of which I got the secret figure, and I'll sell off the rest of the box full of remaining doubles. More pictures of that to come too, including the secret figure which is friggin weird. And finally, Wanda to Kyouzou diorama figures, which I have yet to open, but I snapped a picture of the box, which I would've bought by itself just for the 'awesome' factor. ^^; Anyway, enjoy the visuals:

Yes, that is a toilet with the one demon. *cough*
Coolest box ever. btw - One Coin Figure means they're ¥500 a piece, one 500 yen coin, lol.
So cute. So very very cute. And awesome. He should be alive and be my best friend.

Also, today I want:

- Dragon Quest Dot Monsters Magnets, so cool in a totally rad 80's/8-bit way. ^^

- The mole guy リセットさん from Animal Crossing rocks.

- Also so good, Dragon Quest Figures in the style of Toriyama-sensei's art for the series! Now all we need are come Chrono Trigger figures, dammit!

- These are pretty good looking too, One Piece Styling 3 figures, I particularly like Luffy, Chopper and Robin looks kinda awesome too.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

More random pic posts of my room:

Hm, let's see, what do we have here, an L tea cup and saucer from Death Note, 2 銀魂 yunomi tea cups, a D. Gray Man glass and mug, a little Allen Walker stamp, a really awesome Illumicube that hooks up to your ipod and lights like a disco floor to the music, a Parappa mug that my cousin brought me back from Japan in 1998, a Hijikata donburi bowl, a Shinku music box from Rozen Maiden and last but definitely not least a ケロロ軍曹 season plate from last year, this one happens to be autumn.
My ワン・ピース Going Merry pirate flag, so cool!
My pachinko machine with an Inuyasha 祭 doll in front of it. The machine itself is themed as ゲゲゲの鬼太郎
More pachinko, this time the top, with Domo-kun, Kiba from Naruto and Kenpachi and Byakuya from Bleach.
A tapestry, prolly a furoshiki from a penpal of mine in Japan, also 2 months of the Naruto 2007 Shueisha calendar, both taken from the manga.
Some Jump issues, a Trigun bust, an awesome teapot I got in Squirrel Hill back in like 2001 that is from -- you guessed it -- Japan, part of a Naruto figure and really pretty cans/bottles of tea that were too great to throw out.
Rumble Roses Figumate figures, Konami makes a whole line of Figumate stuff, you can also see various Keroro things behind them, I need to rearrange them so the Gunsou is in the front, because to not display him prominently would be a crime! ^^;
Packaging from apple and muscat gumis, Pocky boxes, Calbee ホット&スパイシー potato chips, part of my Gintama calendar, though you can barely see the panels hanging up, another tapestry sent by a Japanese friend, a big metal windchime thing that I made out of cut up Japanese drink cans (and their cans are made from steel, no crushing em on your head!), and the largest part of the picture is the Death Note 2006 calendar that I turned into posters with some clever cleaving.
Finally, a ton of manga, mostly Death Note, Claymore, D Gray Man, Zombie Powder (the first manga by the mangaka that did Bleach), Busou Renkin, Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and HunterXHunter volumes. On top we have a ridiculously cool clock my host fam gave me back in 1996 when I was in Kagoshima on Kyushu, a Turn A Gundam bank whose green LED eyes light up when you put money into it, Kotori no Dayori, a solar powered bird whose beak moves and makes various chirping and crowing sounds when the sun hits her, an SD Godzilla rubix cube (also gotten while I was in Japan in '96), and a whoooooole bunch of Shokugan food toys like the Kongari no Pan-ya san precisely glued into place so they look awesome.
Here's 2 of the こんがりパン屋さん that I got , all put together. I figured I'd share just how awesomely real they look.


Saturday, February 10, 2007

Today I got a box of 10 Kongari Pan-ya san, a bakery mini food shokugan from Megahouse. Amazingly, the collection has 10 sets and with 10 boxes I got one of each, even though I wasn't sure what I'd get (that's what ebay is for ^^;). I'll be putting these together in the next few days, but for now enjoy some 'before' pics:


Wednesday, February 07, 2007

After a long hiatus (even though I'm sure no one read this because I never really advertised it to anyone) I've returned and plan on updating this thing regularly now. Anyway, the items du jour have not arrived yet, so I'll be adding some random backlog till they arrive. Dealing directly with Japan to get Japanese items really sucks sometimes, because while it's usually cheaper to buy stuff directly from Japan (i.e. - people don't try and insult your intelligence about the value of something like has frequently happened when I deal with HK sellers on ebay that claim that something that weighs 6 ounces costs $27 to ship) because the business usually sells at close to the retail price in yen, I've found that Japanese businesses -- whether run by foreigners or Japanese -- always take a long time to "process" stuff. Also EMS is very expensive, but I have no complaints when I get something faster than I'd get it if it was shipped inside the US. At any rate, let's get to this week's haul:

Acquired:
- This week's big acquisition is a biggie, a BACK TO THE FUTURE PACHINKO MACHINE! I was bored and browsing ebay for cheap pachinko machines the other night, and quite a few had really low bids on them, including this one, it started at a dollar believe it or not. Alas, I ended up paying like $125 for it, and then the shipping for this monster is $80, but I just got rid of my Wii, so....

- A really awesome Keroro Mascot Robo that talks and has expressions, and apparently "learns" from you and says things based on the seasons and holidays and such, so cool!

- Megami Tensei figures, this is from collection #5, it has Shiva, Gabriel, Poltergeist, Luthol, Belfuigol, and Susano and I hope I get the secret one, I ordered a whole box =P.

- Shadow of the Colossus Trading Figure, these look terrific, mini vignettes from Shadow of the Colossus, or Wanda to Kyouzo depending on where you're from.

- Mini Collection Bakery in Brown shokugan set, awesome realistic bakery foodstuffs from the disgustingly talented people at Megahouse.

- Street Fighter II Soundrop
keychains, so good. Yoga Flame!

- Maneki Neko Gold Version, from the Hidamari no Tami series Tomy makes. His head bows and he beckons you with his paw when sunlight hits him!

- Winoa, it's Japanese-made chocolate with wine in it, sounds absolutely wonderful!

- Bourbon Chotos - Hokkaido Milk. Looked good when I was browsing around J-List, so I figured why not?

Random Stuff From The Backlog:

- Here's a buncha Animal Crossing figures I got a while back

- Some Microman figures from smalljoes.com, the Acroyear with the parasol, Setsuna, is great, her color scheme rocks.

- World Tank Museum, assorted volume numbers, I think they're from 4, 6 and 9.

Packin it into the massive Wishlist:

- omg 超かわいい!, want

- I'm totally getting one of these Aquapicts ASAP, I'm hopeless when it comes to the Japanese way of design. I especially like the way that the 'Deep Sea Mode' looks. Silicon jellyfish, so good.

- This looks way cool too, it's a digital ant farm that changes with the seasons.

- This looks rather interesting as well, it recreates an Aurora Borealis in your living room.

- This is a Moeart version of a Shakugan no Shana figure I already have, and it's just as shiny and happy looking as the one I have, if not more. Unfortunately they're effing expensive and hard to come by.

- J-List is the man, they always, always, always have stuff I want, in this case it's a Japanese SDF Light Armored Vehicle from Tomica and also a fantastic Fate/Stay Night figure/outfit set. Yeah I know, I'm girly sometimes, eat me, lol.






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