Saturday, September 29, 2012

Binbogami ga! Season 2!


The first season is over, but our story doesn't end!
Season 2 is unconfirmed - but I have a feeling it might actually become reality.
Come on, Bobby! Don't let the man hold you down.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Boku wa tomodachi ga sukunai Second Season coming: Haganai!


Love is in the Spring, airing this Winter, after Fall - beginning 2013. 
A new story featuring a romantic tale of two lovers never meant to be.
BL at it's finest.







Saturday, September 22, 2012

Anohana on Blu-ray is a very beautiful box


Anohana Box
(raised contrast)

The anohana box set is very nice. Very few retailers show the other side of the box and instead show the ugly green side. Personally, I prefer this as the front.

The box set itself is quite large compared to a regular blu-ray.

Is 'Anohana: the flower we saw that day' worth watching? Well, that depends.
As long as you are Ok with the fact that Menma is _______ !
*Spoiler alert* Hachikuji is ______ too!
Now I's mad.






Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Kusugawa Sasara Samurai ver. Daiki Kougyo





This figure is ridiculously huge. Quality is good. The figure is castoff-able. Did I mention she was pretty huge? 
 
this is roughly the actual size
right click and view image

This is from an omake PC game based off the To Heart 2 series called manaka de ikuno. The game was redone for the PSP and titled dungeon travelers. The original MSRP is about 150$ which is a little pricey but you can find it for around 100$ if you are patient. There are 3 color variations, I recommend you get the red. This is the original color here, and I like that too.


Thursday, August 30, 2012

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Mashiroiro Symphony Miu Amaha Volks figure


Mashiroiro Symphony is an Eroge made by Palette. The game was released a few years ago at the end of 2009 and a remake was recently done for the PSP which featured a new character, as most PSP remakes do. The anime aired at the end of 2011 and you can watch it right now on crunchyroll and anime network. 

Volks released garage kits of all 4 of the main characters - however, they can only be bought at special events and are long out of print. Sadly, this one here is a recast. I did not see myself buying non-official merchandise but as this figure is not for sale I'm not going to fuss too much over it. The quality is extremely high. The craftsmanship of the original Volks is in a class by itself and this recast and paint job clearly show the dedication to detail and beauty of the sculpt. 

Personally, my favorites are Airi and Sakuno... I want those so badly - but I will take Miu if that's what's available Coincidentally, the voice actress for Miu is the same one as Manaka from To heart 2.

If you have not watched the anime you should definitely give it a go if you don't mind a romance. It is actually decent compared to most of the other game to anime releases.

close-up resolution
right-click and view image to zoom in

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Binbogami ga! review!

If you are not watching Binbogami you are missing out!

This is a really great comedy. Everything is fast paced, lot's of content, decent amount of fan service and plenty of stupid jokes. The manga was originally run in Jump Square and the anime was oddly enough done by Sunrise (Gundam). When i watch this I have to wonder why did the show Beelzebub fail so badly? Probably because they were trying to make the show bigger than it should have been.

The manga tends to run 50 pages per chapter - which is quite a decent amount. That means each anime episode has plenty of content to cover one chapter at a time. 

There are plenty of jokes and gags in this show. Alot of parodies are done which I do enjoy but I find they do not really pull you into the story. Of course, I understand all the connections to the parodies but sometimes they feel out of place. For instance, the character may turn around and put on a costume from a different show yet it has no relevance to the current situation. It could be done better - but at least it is something fun to think about.

Here is Nadeshiko in the anime Opening
Try to find her in each week's episode




One thing about this show, the dialog seems to be alot of gal girl talk filled with angst and jealousy. If you took kirino and kuroneko and put them together this is probably what you would get. arienai, shi! 
Ichiko, the main character's voice actress happens to be the same as kuroneko's and the similar expressions between the two characters is fun to listen for.


hopefully, the show will continue to do well as I look forward to it each week. Interestingly, you can watch this on your funimation app, though it is limited to only the first two episodes. Below is a chart which basically sums up all you will ever need to know.









Sunday, July 29, 2012

Shaga Ayame Ben-to figure by Sega ベン・トー

Shaga Ayame

Here we have one of those sega prize figures featuring characters from the Ben- To series. This is actaully a 2 character set but I only bought her. The mock-up of Yarizuri was really bad so I did not order her, but the release was actually not bad so you may want to think about getting them both.

here is the box




If you noticed her face looks strange that is because her glasses are scuffed and have paint rub. I'm sure you can see the paint chips and holes and other blemishes. Well, you can't really complain about 10$ and the figure is much better quality then Sega's last year prize box products. I don't know why they always give the figures funny poses though.

I really like the Ben- To series. I wish funimation would hurry up and release the show on blu-ray. Later this fall Sega plans to release the twins as sega prize figures, as well. I definitely have to pick them up.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Uesugi Kenshin: Queen of Figma!

Uesugi Kenshin

"Why is she wearing that funny hat?" is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this character. 

I did not see the appeal of dressing up characters from history in removable armor and inserting them into a video game. There are currently 11 games in the Rance series. the tenth game, sengoku rance, is probably the most famous. The latest game, Rance quest, just came out last year. Not only is this series eroge, but it is also an RPG strategy sim which makes it unique and more attractive. Not that I've played it, I just happen to know about older turn-based sim games.

The packaging is well done. The figure was literally wrapped in plastic to prevent scuffing. 

History Trivia: Uesugi Kenshin was a real person in history who forced Nobunaga to retreat. Because Uesugi never married it is romanticized that he was a woman pretending to be a man, hence we get this character in sengoku rance who is female. 

By far, one of my most favorite figures.


A few small issues are there is no angry face and the sheath falls out of her one hand designed to hold it. That aside, the figure is beautiful and magnificently detailed. 

On a scale of one to ten, this figure ranks- Amazing! Uesugi puts the madoka figma to shame. There are so many figmas I cant remember them all but this one should definitely be in my top three. At the moment I cannot think of anyone that is better, therefore:

Hence forth, I dub thee, "Uesugi Kenshin, Queen of Figma!" 

Here are a few other figma I got in over the holidays, I did not buy them all at once.
Some of the online retailers were having a nendoroid clearance so I picked up quite a bit of those too.

Friday, April 13, 2012

kotobukiya kuroneko summer memories is so small


For quite a while I had been waiting for this figure release. When I saw the production model I thought it was a definite buy. I did not order kirino, though I almost did.

here is what the box looks like.


This figure is 1/8th scale and is very small. I usually don't pay attention to figure scale but I was not expecting such a little box. I prefer the sizes to be uniform, but I guess different sculptors have different goals. This figure is literally the same height as a nendoroid. Here is my kuroneko family:


close up of the faces some


EDIT: other pictures





Saturday, April 7, 2012

Sniper Karin is such a nice figure


Such a beautiful figure; the face is perfect. Karin is my favorite To Heart 2 character, after Tamaki, of course. Such a shame, she is always given the role of the fool. The OVA did not bring out most of her charm. Well, I guess the OVAs are generally bad except Sasara's and Kusakabe's.


This is what the top of the box looks like. I'll need to take some more pictures with all of them together. I have a large shipment of figmas and nendoroids coming in. At the end of June some big name items are coming and that really excites me. This is actually the first figure that I bought that was sold and shipped by amazon. That is a wonderful thing. Kotobukiya can get very expensive. If they can by bulk and pass on the savings, I'm all for that. Normally when I buy figures off amazon it is from a 3rd party seller.


Also, got a Lynette Bishop. I'm not really a strike witches fan. I saw one episode and it just didn't interest me. Girls flying around in their underwear with puppy dog tails, been there, done that.The toys are fun though.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Anime is better with a friend!


That's why I keep a spare watermelon around while watching Heaven's Lost Property because you  never know when it will come in handy. The first season of Soro no Otoshimono is not that great. The problem is it wants to be a little bit of everything. The seriousness of the show tends to clash with the humor instead of mesh with it.


The packaging is quite nice and the funimation release is decent. I just purchased the regular version since the price was unbelievably generous at just under 30$ for a blu-ray.


This is what the box looks like inside.

I honestly was waiting to purchase the second season since I prefer that one much more. Yet, the blu-ray version was canceled and now it is only available on DVD. The big issue in the current anime market is how to stop reverse importation into Japan. You can buy a whole season of anime here for under 50$ where as in Japan it would cost over 300$. Another thing that they do is not offer any exclusive content on the North American releases. Basically the blu-ray has not extras that customarily come with the Japanese versions.

I ordered the Sentai Films version of ichiban ushiro no daimaoh called Demon King Daimao and found out all the blu-ray extras were missing. I was furious, lol. I am a calm and passive person, I had not been angered in many years and I found it humorous I was so upset by this. The anime industry has been omitting DVD extras for years, I don't know why I assumed that they cared enough to preserve the original blu-ray content in whole on this obscure and niche title. I don't have an all encompassing solution to the problem but I just wished that people who work in the anime industry cared as much as we do. Anime is a business, but that doesn't mean it cannot be a friendly business.

If we look at hatsune miku, which has become a worldwide success, we can see the results of what happens when a rights owner is more open to freedom with their copyrighted works. Similarly touhou is also a huge success. Of course, pirating needs to be dealt with but I think there are more positive options such as providing new ways for users to obtain content.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Why is Silfa so big?


Normally, I don't pay much attention to figure scale unless they are quite small but why is Silfa so big?