Could this be a production version of Ciel Phantomhive from Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)? Here we see Sebastian Michaelis, the demon butler, with a serving cloth and a tea set. So it would appear that Ciel comes with additional parts for Sebastian! I would definitely want to get this.

This and the other photos in this post were from Mikatan’s post about some minor event where some GSC merchandise were out on display. There also appeared to be production versions of the female EVA pilots as well as these two:

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GSC had already released a RQ Miku in the past but it looks like they’re taking their Goodsmile Racing campaign to the next level.

Recently, they released a redesign of Miku exclusively for the Goodsmile Racing franchise. Here, she’s sporting thinner twintails and a unique racesuit. It appears to be pit crew uniform since she’s also holding that fuel lug used at the pits. She still sports her trademark headphones although redesigned to fit the theme and the color scheme. Her eye color also appears to be different. Nevertheless, it’s definitely a design that I’m liking a lot.

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Finally got to pick them up from the store! I’m still reeling from the sad news that my spot, along with several others, for preordering Nendoroid Ritsu got nixed due to inventory reductions. Nevertheless, I will still try to find a way to get that particular Nendoroid to complete the K-On Nendoroid set!

But let’s focus on these two for now.

A lot of K-On fans are either going gaga over Mio or Azusa, the two black-haired musicians of the band. It’s all about this whole moe thing. I couldn’t care less, actually. I found them cute. I bought them. Mio’s basically the person they throw into the fray when it comes to trying out new costumes and singing in front of the large school crowd. That’s why she comes with that calling-for-help-while-in-tears face. Yui, on the other hand, is the often oblivious, comedic character who exhibits spurts of genius. She’s helpless without her friends or her younger sister.

Here they are, finally at the office desk and ready to be opened. Still grieving over the loss of my Nendoroid Ritsu. Continue Reading

While I’m still working on a preorder update format for this blog, I’ll start with a Daily Toy Finds entry instead. This is to showcase some of the toys that I find noteworthy for every day. So some of these you might not find interesting at all but these would be items I would acquire if money was not an issue.

First up…

Mikatan’s blog was updated recently with this bit of good news for Touhou fans out there. It’s a Touhou Project puchi Nendoroid set. There aren’t much details shown yet aside from a single base and that huge crate. Not as familiar with Touhou as some major fans that I know. But having seen the trend of Touhou Nendoroid releases, this is most likely to be another exclusive, limited-edition release, just like every other Touhou-releated release from Goodsmile and Max Factory. Continue Reading

After much delay at the post office, I finally got my Tako Luka charms. I got all three. Honestly, I’m tempted to just remove the attachments on top and at the bottom and just have them as Tako Luka heads. >_<

They are actually to scale with the puchi Nendoroid Megurine Luka as against the full sized Nendoroid Megurine Luka and its Tako Luka add-on. The drool face for Tako Luka cracks me up all the time.

I can still use these on my phone but I think it would be better to shoot pictures of their adventures in the next couple of days. Look out for those photos on my blog. These Tako Lukas “appear to be addicted to coffee” so stay tuned for their shenanigans!

This week, I was able to watch the live action version of Wangan Midnight. Akio and Shima in that film were portrayed by two Kamen Rider actors. The dead Akio’s sister Erika/Eriko was portrayed by a female who also starred in a Kamen Rider film. And one of her friends is the girl working with Hidari in Kamen Rider W.

But the best part of this week was being able to watch the first episode of Kidou Senshi Gundam Unicorn. I won’t feature a lot of screencaps. Just one: the pilot of Kshatriya, Marida.

The Feddies would do well to fear the potential of spacenoids. Khsatriya is quite deadly on the battlefield, and reminded me of how Quebeley and Quin Mantha were like in battle.

The animation was awesome. The musical score was so good that I had goosebumps listening to it. The story stays true to the Universal Century timeline and the fight scenes are absolute eyecandy! Yes, there are cliches but those are classic aspects of any Gundam series. The episode itself, however, leaves a painful cliffhanger and now we have to wait till fall to see the Reincarnation of Char enter the battlefield.

Much thanks to my friend Coffeebugg for handing me a copy of the first ep. I’ve watched it thrice already and it has yet to grow old on me.

As I had mentioned yesterday, there’s a bigger-than-usual box that arrived over the weekend and Chil enjoyed opening each little box inside. The Vocaloid Puchi Nendoroid set was my first puchi box-of-12 ever and I was quite happy with what I got out of the box. I’m telling you guys off the bat, I managed to get every single design that was released. I’m not sure if that was not the case with everyone else. I did get a double but that’s because there are ten designs plus the jointed Hachune so definitely, there’d be a double. I was hoping the double would be a Saihate Miku but what I got was awesome, nonetheless.

Always been quite fond of this turquoise/green-haired Vocaloid. My only wish was that I was able to acquire the full-sized RQ Miku, the WonFes Hachune and the puchi RQ Miku. I have the regular Nendoroid, the figurine and the figma. Interesting thing about this is that it doesn’t use figma-sized joints for the hair (because the full-sized Nendo used Nendoroid joints for the twintails). Instead, they used a ball joint design for it which was also used for another Vocaloid in the set.

Kaito was actually my first full-sized male Nendoroid. Odd thing about that release was that nobody was talking about Kaito AT ALL. Now, whenever I see someone posting Kaito pics on figure.fm, the replies I see are those of regret for not having preordered him or that they’re having trouble hunting him down.

I liked the full-sized Nendoroid release of Lin and Ren Kagamine, mainly because of the blank faces which reminded me of the blank Qees. But I never really liked them enough to buy both of them. Now, at hindsight, I’m regretting that a bit. But still, not enough to try hunting them down and paying at a premium. The puchi version of Lin will have to do for now.

Such cute characters. Just a bit annoyed with their bent-over pose. Unless you have reflectors or white paper positioned underneath or in front of them, their pose casts shadows on their faces.

One of the newer Vocaloids and one that I liked from the get-go. Megurine Luka is absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait to get the two full-sized Nendoroid versions of her!

Vocaloid Meiko was the first Japanese female voice release for the Vocaloid program alongside Kaito. Aside from the fact that she came out as far back as 2004, there is nothing else that I know of Meiko. Miku was quite popular from the get-go so the first Vocaloid character I was exposed to was Miku and only found out about Meiko down the line.

From the Vocaloid Wiki:

Meiko Sakine is one of the Vocaloid derivatives officially recognized by Crypton Future Media, the publisher of the Character Vocal Series for VOCALOID2. The other derivatives bearing this distinction is Miku Hachune, Haku Yowane, Neru Akita, and Tako Luka.

Sakine means Blooming Sound and can also be read as Preceding Sound since Meiko came out before Miku did. Notice that while the regular Meiko does not have a headset, Sakine Meiko sports one that is a bit smaller than what Miku and the rest have.

This version of Miku is from a video of the song Saihate by Kobayashi Onyx where the song speaks about dealing with the loss of someone special thus the mourning clothes that Miku us wearing in this figure. In the set, she’s my favorite puchi as well as my present favorite iteration of Miku.

Akita Neru is derived from the phrase ???????which means going to bed. This character was born out of the time Miku users were degraded by a TV show in Japan and the flaming that happened in 2ch. Afterwards, to make the issue die down, writings and replies included phrases like the one mentioned above, thus establishing a base for the personification of the character.

Yowane Haku is a play on the words to say negative thoughts. Basically, Haku is used to mark badly-done Miku Hatsune songs. Poor thing. No wonder she’s got that facial expression.

Hachune Miku is basically a mispronunciation of Miku’s name to show childishness and foolishness. This particular puchi is quite interesting because of the fact that she is the first puchi Nendoroid to have joints. You’ll find one in every Vocaloid Puchi Nendoroid box.

*phew*

That was quite a mouthful. So those are all the puchi Nendoroids I acquired in a single box. Quite happy that I got everything in the set. And I did mention that I got doubles, right?

Chil gets to keep the double. ^_^

Vocaloid information was taken from the Vocaloid Wiki.

"I'm getting a neckpains from addressing the butler at this height."

"This needs to be resolved."

"Master is so considerate."

"Sebastian..."

"...so does this work?"

How considerate of Drossel Ojou-sama. I think Sebastian was expecting something more down the lines of giving him a stepladder or platform.

I’m going to start seriously moderating my purchases this year so there might be less toy features this time around compared to last year although there should be a healthy influx of toys on a monthly basis until middle of this year. I actually do not have anything on pre-order past June.

Why?

Well, one of my decisions coming into this year was to seriously set aside money for some bigger things that I plan to purchase hopefully by next year. Although I really enjoy toys, pre-ordering and buying the kind that I collect has kind of  put a choke hold on my plans to save. So this year, there’s a significant restraint on my part in acquiring toys and will only be buying those that I simply cannot let pass.

A bunch of Nendoroids have just arrived for pick-up but at this rate, I’ll be getting them around February already.

How about you? Any changes you resolved to make at the start of the year that you’ve been able to start on already?

In other news, I’m still following Kamen Rider W and Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and I must say it’s been quite some time since I last enjoyed plots like these. Kamen Rider W’s latest episode features an interesting twist to what could have been a very formidable opponent. In Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, it is discovered that Takeru (ShinkenRed), all this time, had been a kagemusha (shadow/decoy) of the true 18th Shiba clan head who is a princess named Kaoru. The plots continue to develop and they’re nearing to a close, I believe. There will be a new Kamen Rider introduced within the Kamen Rider W series while the upcoming sentai series (Goseiger) will be doing a cameo in the upcoming Shinkenger vs Go-onger movie.

Here are some things I’m wondering about for the upcoming episodes of KR W and Shinkenger:

• Will the female ShinkenRed remain as head of the Shinkengers permanently?
• Will Takeru fall into Gedou? Will he be reinstated as ShinkenRed? Will he become a black Shinkenger?
• If Takeru goes back to being ShinkenRed, what will happen to Kaoru?
• Where did the new Kamen Rider get his GaiaMemory and its Driver?
• How will the police  affiliation angle affect Shoutaro’s work as a detective/KR W?
• Who will be the new owner of the Nazca GaiaMemory?
• How will Clay Doll react to the death of Nazca?

Only time will tell and I’m really excited for the upcoming episodes of both series.

PS. Still no news on the replacement parts for my figma Cute so she’s still cooped up in that box. Frustrating, really. Goodsmile Company’s OBQ checks (Out-of-the-Box Quality checks) seem to have gone down inversely proportional to the amount of revenue they are now making from the whole viral campaign that GSC fans/buyers have done over the past couple of years. I guess this is to be expected from a company expanding sales abroad but I still expected something better given that they’re a Japanese company and have always been known for the OBQ of their merchandise.

I am writing this update as of today, Jan. 25, upon receipt of an e-mail from Amiami.com that they will provide the replacement parts within this week or next week. Amiami.com definitely knows customer service.

So my friends and I got a unified shipment from Amiami.com of a mix of figma and Nendoroid merchandise. Two of us ordered a figma Cute, two of them ordered a Nendoroid Raspberyl and all three of us ordered a Nendoroid Drossel.

figma Cute is the most expensive figma I have ever purchased so you can just imagine my excitement when it finally arrived…

Only to be disappointed by a missing part.

These photos were supposedly for an initial opening photo post but turned out to be a rant post thanks to bad packaging people in Goodsmile Company.

Colors and parts are quite visible through the protective plastic and just by the initial photos inside the box alone, you could already see that the right wrist part for figma Cute was missing.

Taking it out of the box for closer inspection, the fact that something’s missing is quite apparent. It would have been fine if I had lost the part myself but this is fresh out of the box and something was already missing! Clearly, whoever packed up my figma Cute, forgot to include that extra piece in the wrist. This is really disappointing considering that this isn’t the first time I encountered a defective item from Goodsmile Company/Max Factory. Is GSC/Max Factory earning so much now that they’re beginning to compromise the quality of their merchandise for the sake of getting more sales?

And this isn’t the only one that has problems. One of the Nendoroid Raspberyls in the package was missing a base. How the hell do you miss something like that when you’re packing Nendoroids?

For an item this expensive, I demand no less than an actual replacement. Special edition items are supposed to be even less likely to have defects considering the lot is not as large as the regular releases so to find something like these being rolled out of GSC’s/Max Factory’s warehouse is very disappointing.

I knew Saber Lily had a ponytail and I knew it had that extra piece underneath but I didn’t realize till just recently that it’s actually moveable. >_<

Well, they’re not EXACTLY twin tails. It is going to be sooo annoying when someone replies to this post saying “oh you’re wrong, it’s a single pony tail with two pieces“. Try that and you’ll get one “f_ck you” reply from me.

Back to the pony tail. The neat thing about this is the effect that it makes. It adds volume to Saber Lily’s hair because it appears that there’s more hair moving when you create a dynamic pose with this Nendoroid which is really neat. I’ve done dynamic posts with Nendoroid Yoko but when you watch TTGL, her pony tail swishes as a long single piece thus the same goes for her Nendoroid iteration. For Saber Lily however, the second piece underneath makes her ponytail fan out wide which looks awesome.

So for those Nendoroid Saber Lily owners who don’t know know about this yet, try it out, do dynamic poses and shoot pictures. Share them and I’ll add them to this thread. ^_^

Was shooting Nendoroids for most of the week so I decided to close the week with a photo of a figurine instead. This is a photo of my 1/8 scale Kyouka Midarezaki. Hopefully, I’m improving on the color front. I had a penchant for using lomo or old photo effects on most of my photos in the past (although I still use them to this day) but now, I’ve started working on improving my post-processing by working on the white balance and contrast of my photos. A lot of my friends who take photography as a liiiiittle bit more than just a hobby, they tend to use Lightroom more often but I’ve always liked using Photoshop. Continue Reading