New Diesel Shoes!

Got some new kicks today, Diesels again, finally(!), and I figured they'd look good next to my Dragon Quest Slime Rug. I love the overall color scheme of these, but then again I've always loved Diesel shoes. ^^; Comfortable as hell, too.

Upcoming Preorders of Interest

I've had a little break in the action, and foresee more breaks in the action as far as buying stuff, with school needing to come into the picture soon and everything. I do however have a few preorders coming up in the next month or so, all via Hobby Search.

First we have Figma Tsukasa, since I got Konata I wanted to get the whole set, being the completionist that I am. ^^;

Next, we have Lala, from To Love Ru, in her school uniform from Alpha Omega. I've never even heard of them until this figure came to my attention, so we'll see how their quality is. To be honest, she kinda looks like she's produced in line with quality you'd expect from Goodsmile or Alter.


Lastly, we have a Kamina shirt from Gurren Lagann, releasing with a whole bunch of other merchandise to tie in with the upcoming movie. There are jackets and sandals and pass cases and keychains and oh so much more.

Konata and Kagami Wonfes Nendroid Awesomeness

Finally unboxed both my Kona-chan and Kagamin Nendroids and Yoko today. Konata is a-dorable cosplaying as Saber, and Kagami makes a good Rin. ^^ Goodsmile, you make me extremely happy. I love the attention to detail in the face and hair of both figures, but also how they retained both Konata and Kagami's respective hairstyles, fitting them within Saber and Rin's. 超可愛いね！

Yoko, too, is very awesome. Her coloring is dead on, her boots are well-sculpted, and she comes with a 大グッレン団 logo-emblazoned display stand. Her rifle doesn't sit against her hand that well, but I'll live. Her, ahem, features are well-displayed, too. Her Yokoppais are shown off really well, and her tiny shorts leave little to the imagination. All-in-all a great pair of purchases. Eyecandy below:

Japanese Authors/Reading

Ever since getting into the Japanese language through my love of video games, way back in junior high school, I've steadily grown more and more infatuated with just about every other facet of Japanese culture. When I started to get acquainted with Japanese literature through my cousin (Whom I got into the language, as well. She loved it so much that she ended up majoring in Japanese at George Washington University) I took to it immediately. I was never really much of a non-fiction book reader, but that all changed once I started reading Japanese authors' works. One author in particular has captured my attention: Haruki Murakami. Now I know he's pretty much the ubiquitous Japanese author at this point. Lots of pretentious people throw his name out when Japan is the topic of conversation and they want to be an impresario, also people that know "famous" authors and no one else now know him, too. However, to feed the cliche more, I liked him before it was cool to like him here in the US. I'm writing this because I just finished reading A Wild Sheep Chase and I just started reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I'm also in the process of reading the first book of The Guin Saga by Kaoru Kurimoto. The Guin Saga is a (so far anyway) 122 volume series of novels that has been going since 1979 and has continued uninterrupted until today. I'll post individual novel synopses somewhat soon.

Gundam 00 Season 1 完了

Just finished watching the first season of Gundam 00. Did anyone find nearly EVERYONE dying (or almost dying/left on a cliffhanger) as depressing as I did? It's not like I didn't see it coming, I read something in Animedia or some magazine about Lockon a few months back, but geez, everyone? That's a heck of a way to set up a second season. I'm a mod Gundam fan, I love the series', I love the models, the storylines are awesome, but I have to say this is only like the third series I've finished (the other two were Wing and Turn A) and I've seen the movie versions of the first series. It reminded me of Wing a bit actually. I liked the darkly political satire that this series had, and projected "back" on our current conflicts from the year 2307. And the whole Solar Elevator thing had such a ring of plausibility to it. What did everyone like or hate about this series?