How bad do you want it? "Hakkaya 73" goods (Yuiko Tokumi 2007-12 stuff, part 2)

(tags collectable, Comic Market, Yuiko Tokumi, illustrator, auction)

So I've been following the bidding on the complete Yuiko Tokumi goodies available at Comic Market 73 (2007-12-30, keywords: 「薄荷屋 73」) It's horridly crazy. I was about to put my bid down but now the bids have skyrocketed beyond my tolerance. The goods looks like this:

We are looking at a paper bag, a canvas-like tote bag, a pencil card, a calendar and two doujinshis. Ugh, it's that "Miku Hatsune" craze. But who knows, some of the bidders have a history of being Hakkaya fans. In fact there was one person that maintained the highest bid, even when they were outbid (I kept refreshing the page, you see). They really had to have it, huh.

Yes I gotta have that calendar since it's a tradition (I have 2006 and 2007 calendars) plus it's Bottle Fairy! (瓶詰妖精) I would die for Bottle Fairy. But! I wouldn't put up 2_0000+ yen just for a 1000 yen calendar.

There are some backups online as well as off. I do have Nipponbashi to explore, but the past two days indicate that its too early to check. I am going tomorrow as well, because I haven't picked up the Gamers "New Year's" Dejiko Telephone card in lovely wine red.

Gah, what a waste of time. :-(

Eyes on the prize: Comic Market 72 (by proxy), Den-den town romp

(tags Comic Market, doujinshi, goods, Osaka)

Comic Market 72 ended on Sunday, and I tried to anticipate the proxy selling by going to the doujin resell shops in Osaka Den Den Town just one day after. I predicted that some Osaka-based early bird otaku returning from Tokyo would sell their spoils on Monday morning and afternoon. I saw many people in the kaitori (sell-back, reuse) counters and I even saw one guy being handed multiple 1_0000 yen bills. I bet you it was for those Lucky Star framed illustrations going for 3_0000 yens. Its big money.

Since I wasn't looking for doujinshi resell but more like goods resale (telephone cards, new full set circle goods), I spent more time at Lashinbang, K-Books and even Sofmap Treasure Box. Places I skipped today like Tora no Ana and Melon Books do sell CM related stuff but its all sealed and not reused stuff.

The eyes have me. The bottom thing is a Kasimasi themed "Stick Poster" illustrated by Yukimaru Katsura (桂 遊生丸), but it is not a Comic Market item.

There were a few things I wanted from Comic Market like a Ruriiro Rinne (るり色輪廻) pencil card by Atsushi Yoshinari (吉成篤), but I settled for some doujinshi. I'll grab doujin games later. Basically I was looking for new stuff from circle Hakkaya (薄荷屋), which is the pen name of my favorite illustrator Yuiko Tokumi (篤見唯子). I didn't find a package of goodies, but I found two doujinshis, Petit Fours 4 (a collaboration) and Plus Minus (right). Finally Tokumi does some Nanoha doujinshi for the epic kawaii. The remaining doujinshi on the left is by circle Tiny Feather (illustrator Sin-go) which I'll just leave as NSFW.

For my other favorite illustrators, I didn't remember the names of the circles, let alone their names. I can't remember their kanji, either. Luckily, K-Books has some handy dandy illustrator to circle charts reference. Now I know that Barasui (ばらスィー) is Sweet Rose, Naoto Tenhiro (天広直人) is Cielo, etc.

Other than that, I just picked up some other junk that I didn't yet have. Well actually I had a Pocket Pikachu pedometer years ago but it was stolen from me, heh.

I got that deck of cards from K-Books (「K-BOOKSスペシャルトランプ」) for buying more than 3000 yens worth. Supposedly there are a lot of famous doujin and professional illustrators. There was a lot of glass case space devoted just to show off these cards, and it already sold out at the Tokyo store. I hope an Yuiko Tokumi illustration is in there. I'll open it up, but only if I have some plastic card protectors.

I'll probably go to Osaka Den-Den Town again next weekend but it will probably be stripped clean of the interesting stuff. I can't compete against those full-time otaku.