Loot Post

Just mainly putting pics up here for now, may edit things later with a writeup. But let's be honest, everyone loves looking at the pretty pictures, right? =P The items are an E-Tank Pillow from Megaman (Official Capcom swag ftw!), Kurogane no Linebarrels One Coin figures, both sets of One Piece Chara Fortune released so far and the Kerokoma Island 2 figures I was missing from my set, including samurai Dororo & Angol Mois. ^^

Plastic Model Time: Keroro Dai Shogun!

Many, many days ago I got a magical shipment of auctions from the Far East. Three of these were plamo - or plastic models - from Keroro Gunsou (also known in weeaboo circles as Sgt Frog - presumably because weeaboos can't spell 'Gunsou' OR 'Sergeant', Sargent is a company that makes crayons ~_^). Since roughly 2007 in the Keroro universe they've been taking the series in the same direction that One Piece and countless others have gone to, albeit in Keroro it seems kinda non sequitur versus One Piece adding it as part of the actual story. And that direction is theme-story arcs like samurai and pirates.


Keroro is a quintessentially Japanese series, so anyone who didn't see through the culture - pop or non - references to this eventually happening obviously didn't watch more than one or two eps, or read more than one volume of the manga. The samurai version was a supplement short film to the third Keroro movie (I think it was the third one), and of course being Japan, soon after models and other merchandise followed. But the second "transformation" caught me by surprise. One day I was browsing Yahoo Japan Auctions and up popped Pirate Keroro! Essentially using the same gimmick as the samurai version - and both borrowing from sentai/tokusatsu shows - the pirate Keroro collection has our 5 main heroes with their own vehicles/robots that combine to form one giant robot (with the samurai versions) or one giant assault ship (with the pirate versions).


The "Keroro Shogun" versions were released one at a time, first the models of the characters themselves and then their robots. And of course - again, being Japan - they re-released all 5 character models together and then all 5 robots together, in sets. Individually, I didn't really like the Keroro Robos, but together they make the Dai Keroro Shogun, which is just awesome.


Despite being two totally different lines, one being biped robots and the other being vehicles, my second model in this shipment was the Keroro Pirate King: Super King Mode, which contained a few of the same runners as the Keroro Robo did. Essentially it's the same body as the Keroro Shogun Robo, with a few pieces interchanged and a few colors swapped to make it look more "piratey" arr.


The second model also contained what was needed to make the third model, which I didn't really notice. So now I have that model in robot and vehicle modes (even though robo-mode has a few extra parts). Despite sharing parts and the overwhelming similarities, these all look fairly different - and perhaps more importantly I like them individually for their visual styling. Eventually they will get painted, but for now unpainted pics'll have to do.

USB Keroro Gunsou Pasotomo

Suddenly the top of my computer case is very busy. First I got my USB owl that sits on his little plastic tree stump and bobs his head and blinks. Today, my Pasotomo (shortened version of pasokon, Japanese for personal computer and tomo, shortened version of tomodachi which is Japanese for friend.) Keroro Gunsou arrived! He plugs in to any USB port and reacts to sound and voice by swinging his head and his cheeks light up. He was actually bigger than I expected, I was expecting a tiny version of Gunsou-san, this iteration is as tall as my USB owl and his stump. He's adorable, though a talking version with his seiyuu from the anime would be cuter, but there's one small problem I have. I wouldn't so much mind the fact that he's overtly-sensitive to sound if the motor in his neck wasn't so loud. It sounds like a tiny locomotive of sorts, and with him being set off by the slightest noise I found that it started to grate on my nerves kinda fast. Apparently he's pretty popular, being sold out at both HLJ and Hobby Search. He retails for 1800yen.

This Week's Mighty Haul

Decent-sized haul this past week (as in last Mon-Fri, I've been meaning to write this since Friday). I ended up with two proxy service packages in the same week, which is a first for me. I've ceased proxy bidding as of this week, it is waaaaay too expensive. I don't necessarily like posting how much I spent on stuff on here because I think it's rude. Dot dot dot, but for example, I got a new Monster Hunter shirt (difficult franchise, awesome merchandising) and special Puchi Nendoroids that came with a Japanese DS game called Cross of Venus, it's a collaborative (RPG) effort between all/most of Dengeki's mangaka. No matter who you go with it's generally fairly expensive to import something "middle of the road" -- like $15-$75 -- and this case was no exception. For this $30 shirt and $60 set of 'droids it was $164 after all was said and done. That's $74 for fees and shipping in case you weren't counting. That said, I don't dislike or think that these services are a ripoff. They're performing a service that would otherwise be nearly impossible unless you have friends or family in Japan that you're willing to bother, so I think they're entitled to their fair share. I just happen to think that the fees outweight the importance of what I'm getting at this point and I need to just cool it till I make it back to Japan or make more money or hopefully both. I also think that I'm going to let my existing pre-orders run out and just be a grown up (that has impulse control) and wait until I make a respectable amount of money and have my feet on the ground before I buy anything else that isn't a life essential.

Now on to the haul. I keep slowly amassing modeling materials, and heard that Tamiya Putty was the best, so I grabbed a tube of that for 266yen when I was getting everything else from Hobby Search here. The other things that came from HS were a Nendoroid of Kyouka Midarezaki from Kyouran Kazoku Nikki (or Diary of a Crazed Family), Kanzaki Kaori from To Aru Majutsu no Index by Kotobukiya, 1/100 HG Aile Strike Gundam to begin my Gunpla modeling and two Keropla models Garuru and Musha Keroro. Then from Goody Japan came my long-awaited Mama Chapp doll (yeah I totally bought a doll, shut up ^^;). And then from Shopping Mall Japan came the aforementioned Cross of Venus omake Puchi Nendoroids and a really awesome Monster Hunter shirt. In retrospect I sorta wish I would've passed on the 'droid of Kyouka-san and gotten Kotobukiya's Index figure. I may do that this week, depending on how the wind blows (i.e. - how my auctions go). I also have 3 occasions this month where I need to buy gifts, including one that's belated that I haven't forgotten about but still need to get something for. Luckily either people don't like Kotobukiya's sculpts or To Aru Index isn't a popular series (which is honestly not the case) because both Index (released in October of last year) and Kanzaki (released in Jan or Feb of this year) were still in stock as of this writing.

As far as this blog is concerned and how cessation of purchases will affect it, only time will tell. Most of my posts are either centered around "I got this today," or dealing with Company X that screwed me on shipping, or was a delight to deal with or whatever. But I have confidence that it'll continue in some form, fansubs and RAWs are still free, right? ^^;

Still haven't built that damned train set...

Once again, the lovely Misaka-san ^^;

So I still haven't built the train set that I posted a while back. It's still sitting in the box on the floor. I was going to purchase some more track accessories yesterday when I made an order to Hobby Search, but I decided to buy some Keroro Gunsou Plamo instead. Hobby Putty, a few models (which was the whole impetus for this order) and two figures. I'm looking forward to using my compressor/airbrush setup, if it ever stops fucking raining here. See, I live in the worst state on the northern part of the east coast of the US. So naturally the days where I have zero やる気 (that's yaruki for those of you who don't read Japanese) - or ambition, "drive" - it's sunny and pushing 70 degrees outside. The days where I want to do something there's a glut of 45 degree weather with rain/snow. I love the rain, but not when I'm trying not to suffocate myself with paint fumes and painting outside for the above reason.

I have a 1/144 Gundam Rose and a primered semi-assembled 1/144 Gundam Maxter that I have to paint currently. The 1/144 Gundams that Bandai put out before are little more than toys, which is evidenced by their 500yen pricetag, but I enjoy putting them together nonetheless. And since this is my first real outing with the airbrush and compressor, I kinda don't want to go in buying a Perfect Grade and screwing it up. (as PGs are several hundred more yen than a 1/144 non-HG Gunpla kit =P) I, however wanted more of a challenge than these two and purchased a 1/100 Aile Strike Gundam kit. I also got a few Keropla (Keroro + plastic model) kits of Musha Keroro (which I have one of already, but screwed it up because I didn't have anything to spray it with and just did it by hand) and a Garuru kit. Even though I really didn't care for Gundam SEED, I like the mobile suits of this series, especially Strike and it's many, many incarnations.

I once again broke my rule of only ordering merch from series that I watch/read (Not that it is a rule, heh). I want to watch this series after ordering this Nendroid (Nendoroid? I've been spelling it Nendroid for a while now, the last syllable doesn't have the 'o' when it's romanized, shrug) because she's awesome, does that count? ^^; She's Midarezaki Kyoka from Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, aaaaand that's all I know about her so far. Oh I lied, she's got somes nekomimi, which I also dig - and a tail! Lastly, I snatched up the bewitching Kanzaki Kaori from my new favoritist anime in the whole wide world, To Aru Majutsu no Index. I lied again, Geass still takes my heart more than any other for the most part, but Index is up there. ^_^ I like how Koto's figures aren't that expensive, I was able to get Biribiri - aka Misaka Mikoto - (who has yet to return from Robert's Corner Anime Store, btw -_-;), Shiroi Kuroko and Kanzaki for what I'd normally pay for two 1/8 PVCs. I'll have plenty of pics once I get them, hopefully by Friday. That is if Hobby Search doesn't drag their feet which they seem to have been more often than not lately.

I also need to catch up on this season's anime. Fullmetal Alchemist is already up to episode 3 and there are several others that I've only seen the premiere of so far. Everything so far this season has lived up (or down) to what I expected it to be. Eden of the East looks to be the front-runner for me this season so far. I'm just saddened that after the epic Gundam of the last two seasons I'm sure we won't see a new TV series for a while. QQ