Golden Week- Shops Are Closed and a bit of Life Update

If you rely on Japanese websites like I do for things, you'll notice that pretty much all of them have come to a standstill for the first week of May. This has to deal with their holiday called Golden Week. But why is it that most things come to a standstill when it comes to sites like Amiami and such? It mainly has to deal with every one taking their vacation time and it's a popular time for travel (this includes overseas travel as well). So even though the celebration ends May 5th in Japan, most companies will observe the holiday time for just a bit longer.

So even though I know Golden Week is happening I keep going to sites like Amiami and then being sad because I know there's no updates. I've been having a bit of health problems and I still feel a bit sick from time to time, along with school and there's a ton of writing in both along with basically at least 4 chapters of reading. But I will have more updates; I have lots of pictures and I still have to edit all the pictures from the GSCxMax Factory panel from Sakura-con even though it's late. Also I've been watching One Piece, from the very beginning.

More updates will be soon, also I have a convention even though it's small this week about ball joint dolls, so I will probably talk about that too.

Monthly Purchase for March

Well I haven't done one of these in a long time. I just got in a huge amount of stuff from AmiAmi and I thought I would share it with you. Well it's not huge, but my box was pretty big. Inside contained a figure and some other things inside.


All the images have been taken with my iPhone, so hopefully the images look good. Also who doesn't love the cute Amico illustrations that Amiami sends people, because I know I love them.

So with my package I got a little bit of all sorts of things, and lets' just start out with the two things that kind of are different from all the rest; a CD and a game case.

I ended up getting the 24 card case for the 3DS from Hori and the Persora: The Golden Best 2 album. Oddly enough I actually found the first volume at Kinokuniya and bought it. I personally like volume 2 better because it has songs like Backside of the TV and Light the Fire Up in the Night from Persona Q. If you like P4 you should get volume one and volume two for P3. Though both have a good mix of songs, so honestly get both if you're into music collecting from video games.

 I also started to collect Gugure Kokkuri-san Bluray and poster collection. I haven't opened any of the posters yet but probably will pretty soon. If I have any duplicates I'll probably sell them online, because what am I going to do with all those posters. it's a pretty full box. The Bluray itself is pretty cool, I haven't watched any of my new Bluray's yet, but out of all of them, I think Gugure Kokkuri-san has a pretty interesting box style.

 I also bought an Otome game for the PC. It's called Taisho x Taisho Alice. This is volume one and I have ordered volume 2 as well. I haven't done anything besides looked at case itself and it seems like a genderbent version of fairytale characters. On the cover is Cinderella and Red Ridding Hood. But on the back is more fairytale characters. I'm sure this is going to be quite an interesting game, I hope to have either some sort of review or in progress shots as I go along. It should be a pretty good time as I really love Alice in Wonderland.

I also bought a few Hello Kitty x DRRR covers for my phone. I will be honest, I really only got an iPhone just for the cute covers along with the fact that I've been using the same phone for about 5 years without getting a new one. I did need one, so I bought an iPhone since the camera on it is pretty ok too. I was pleasantly surprised though, that the covers were all made in Japan. Right now I'm using the Heiwajima Shizuo one right now, but I probably will switch it to the white one or the other one in a couple of weeks. I actually have quite a few anime covers already, and will most likely be getting more in the future.

There is one thing I did get that made the majority of the box, but I just couldn't take a good picture and that's of my Sol Badguy figure. Hopefully once I open it, I can take pictures of it. But as of right now I cannot.

I do have more Blurays coming in but that's not really anything of a big deal. Hopefully during Sakuracon I should have images up of what I buy or things that I do, so look forward to that.

What I want out of 2015-Resolutions and the like

While of course I have a whole bunch of resolutions (go back to school, find a better job-both which I am currently working on). I always write a resolution for things that I like to do for the year. Goals in my fandom that I can work on. So here are my 2015 Otaku resolutions.

Stop buying so much on Amiami
This one is the hardest for me since Amiami makes it so easy to just load up your cart with preorders. To the point where it was getting pretty bad for me. Honestly even without another hobby major money sink hobby, I was spending on the average 40,000 yen a month (with shipping) on orders since after Sakuracon, and that honestly needs to stop, since I'm back in school and saving so I don't have to take out loans

I started to limit myself and look over my priorities already. I put a cap on myself that limits to no more than 20,000 yen a month which means only a few things each month can be purchased, and I have to choose wisely. So far I am doing great though, I have a few preorders for a few months, but a lot of the months are actually empty since I'm just not willy-nilly just shoving stuff into the cart.

Buy a fightstick
This is something I've been wanting for a long time but have never actually gotten around to purchasing for whatever reason.

Eightarc Ivory Fightstick

I love fighting games, but arcades aren't really a thing in the US anymore due to online play and everything. I've been playing fighters steadily since Street Fighter 2 and long for play with a balltop joystick. But man... These things are expensive. Even cheap ones will put you back a bit, but you still want something good though, or at least with parts that are good.

I'm honestly thinking about a prebuilt Qanba with Sanwa parts in them, since I like the feel of those buttons more than Seimitsu. Whenever I went to an arcade with Seimitsu parts it always felt like I had to beat down on the button in comparison to rather light taps with Sanwa.

Make sure to update with more Otaku and game content more
Though I actually did much better than I thought I would with blogging last year, I surely could do better and I will hopefully this year. I plan to update at least once a week with a substantial blog post that includes;game review, analysis or even coverage from conventions/events that I go to.

Overall I feel like I just need to blog more and make more content related to it that I and others will enjoy. I have a lot of fun blogging and telling people about stuff that goes on, and I hope it does come out in my writing.

Hope that 2015 goes great for everyone~

Monthly Purchase June-Part One

I know I will have quite a few purchases from June so they're going in parts, there should be three parts if I end up not combining them, but I tend to though. As usual the purchase is from Amiami and contains an assortment.

Yotsuba&! Figure, Little Busters Nendoroid, Steins;Gate CD single and traveling mug, Kill la Kill BD and shirt, Hozuki no Reitetsu BD

Mostly everything that I got from this package, there is a book that isn't pictured but I will go into that later.

Yotsuba Figure and Kamikita Komari Nendoroid

While I was really excited for the Yotsuba figure I was rather sad seeing how small she stands in comparison to other scale figures. But I guess at the same time I am going to be standing her between two different Danboards so it shouldn't be that much of a problem in comparison, after all Yotsuba is just a child after all, so I guess she should be small in comparison to other figures.

As for the Little Busters nendoroid, I haven't watched Little Busters yet, nor have I played the VN as well. But it is on my backlog things to do. I must say though, I actually just bought her because she looked so adorable and her expressions are completely moe I could just die.

Stiens;Gate "Hacking to the Gate" CD single, Kill la Kill BD vol. 5 and Hozuki no Reitetsu BD vol.3

I've talked about my Steins;Gate mug in detail, so I'm not going to be talking about it anymore... But if you want to know why I bought it, here is the main reason.

Along with that I also bought the Hacking to the Gate CD single from the anime, I actually like the OP theme a lot and wanted it so I ended up buying a copy, while I should have bought the "Best Vocals" album I also like the idea of starting up again a CD collection but since the US is getting rid of CDs (or at least it seems that way) it looks like my entire collection is going to be Japanese CDs and CD singles; which isn't a bad thing to me.

Kill la Kill volume 5 BD is really cool as it features Gamagoori and Sanageyama not only on the cover but each are on a respected disk, Sanageyama is on the Original CD Soundtrack Vol. 2 while Gamagoori, accompanied on his head by Mako and Guts, is the actual BD disk itself. I personally haven't listened to the CD soundtrack yet but will later this week.

The other BD is Hozuki no Reitetsu. I don't know how many of you watched the series as it was airing or are reading the manga, but Japanese supernatural stories are kind of something I have liked since I was smaller (loved Gegege no Kitaro). So watching a glorified assistant to King Enma doing his daily routine of helping out in the various hells was just a blast. Supposedly it was picked up by Sentai Filmworks but honestly it's a rather short series with only 13 episodes, so it's pretty much the standard two episodes per BD. But the interesting thing about the Hozuki BDs is that you were able to chose between A and B. A having the drama CD accompanying it while B has something they call "Jigoku Goods" featuring Hozuki's plant/goldfish hybrid plant. Volume three features a small pouch that you can use for pencils and cosmetics.

Kill la Kill "Kamui Banshou" book

This supplemental book for Kill la Kill is really interesting, not only does it contain the standard things you'd find in a supplemental book like character synopsys and episode details but also talks a deal about their process in general like the 3D in episode 3 among other things. Even if you can't read Japanese this is a good book as a point of reference for images for drawing or just in general to see how Studio Trigger does their thought process.

One thing is for sure though I do want Sushio to come out with a Kill la Kill artbook though.

Monthly Purchase from May

I do a lot of online purchases so I thought I would start posting images and what I got so that you could see my collection, and my tastes. Hopefully if you see something that you like and want a more detailed information on an item or even more pictures (within reason) I can do that too.

Madoka Magica Rebellion, Kill la Kill Vol. 4, Guts MofuMofu case, Yume Nikki phone strap/cleaner, El Psy Congroo T-shirt

The Blu-rays alone pushed my order into the very expensive range, because for some odd reason the Japanese price their anime BRs at an expensive price. I know that the money goes more to the studios but still... I understand quite well why people would import the English version because at the same price you get a lot more.

The Shizune/Isabelle nendoroid was mostly an impulse buy as I only like the effects that she does come with and I don't really care about anything else, because she doesn't even fit into my collection. I probably won't open her at all and probably sell her.

The phone case and accessories I bought because I'm finally upgrading my phone into something way better than the crap phone that I have now.

The shirt though, it was something I ordered by chance. Here is what it looks like on the front and back though.

Steins; Gate shirt from Cospa

It's a really ridiculous shirt, but I love it.  I tend to buy anime clothing every once in a while and most of the time it seems to be an over sized shirt. I kinda feel like though, Cospa should have used the Divergence Number for Steins;Gate on the shirt instead of what they did. I still enjoy it though, since it's not everyday you'll see a shirt like that.

Steins;Gate Tumbler

So I've been having a bit of a problem lately and that's with people taking my travel coffee tumbler instead of just using another one. See the tumbler I have is a limited edition tumbler from Kyoto Starbucks. And even though everyone complains about it, they always take it from the house to use; which is just beyond backwards to me.

So I'm pretty much out of a coffee mug. So I thought I should get one that no one would end up using. So I ended up browsing AmiAmi and found one that I like, also it was one of the few ones that didn't seem so lewd, since at times I would go to Starbucks/Tullys/Seattle's Best to refill it with coffee.

Steins;Gate Fuka Ryoiki no Deja Vu Tumbler

Pretty much a nice and simple tumbler that should keep a drink warm for good long time, while also not being too crazy with the reference. Steins;Gate doesn't have that much official merchandise so I thought I would get something from it as well. The only bad thing is that I wish Okabe was a bit bigger, but Kurisu and Mayuri look so cute standing back to back together.

The tumbler doesn't actually carry an excess amount; about 360ml so roughly 12oz which for some coffee drinkers that's not enough, but for me that's actually plenty.