Death Smiles 2 cosplay at AOU 2009

(tags cosplay, arcade, convention, Tokyo, gothic lolita, loli, Death Smiles)

This is gothic lolita right? Even though the clothes aren't black and white.

This cosplay promotion is for Cave's Death Smiles 2. All I gotta say is thanks Geemaga. This one has better lighting than this other guy's pictures... but his has some background info: (official?) cosplayer for "Spee" (sp?), a 150 cm tall, 15 years old, idoru talent named Eri Yamaguchi. Oh, and here I am thinking that the creases in her face makes her older, like legal or something. One more from Gigazine, with some video.

As for the actual game, Death Smiles and 2, I'll buy them on the Xbox 360, but it will be my first time to play them. It's a Cave shmup, that's good enough for me.

Idolm@ster DLC sale part 4

(tags game, Xbox 360, cosplay, bishoujo, purchase, Idolmaster, shmup, Trigger Heart Exelica)

Another month, another Idolm@ster sale. Is this the last one? This time the goodies are mainly audio, although there is a slight price cut on the school swimsuit. This is the first month where there are no additions.

I'm a little late with this kind of post. Only 3 more days.

See my posts on the previous sales, part 1 and part 2 and part 3.

I have a slight dilemma this time. I have 2000 XBLA points right now, and this sale requires 3100 points. I am going to buy the two Idolm@ster Live For You XBLA cards, but those 7000 points won't be in my account in time for the sale.

Huh? Where's the dilemma? Get the 1400 point card. Done.

Going that route, I'll have to wait a little while to get next week's XBLA shmup game, Trigger Heart Exelica (トリガーハートエグゼリカ). I did bothered to get it on the Dreamcast almost one year ago, meh. I am one of the do-not-open Dreamcast game (shmup) fools. The review by racketboy makes me want to play it though.

Idolm@ster DLC sale part 3

(tags game, Xbox 360, cosplay, bishoujo, purchase, Idolm@ster)

Another month, another Idolm@ster sale. Let's just get this over with:

See my posts on the previous sales, part 1 and part 2. This time, the 19 sale items includes the Neneko accessory set, rawr. I snapped a picture of a Yumeria Neneko clock a long time ago.

Oh and this month brings the 12th new DLC set, which is a hakama graduation dress with matching "taisho era" ribbon. 1000 XBLP for it. I'll be waiting forever for these 1000 XBLP DLCs to drop in price, me thinks.

Wonder Momo dress DLC

(tags Idolmaster, cosplay, video, seiyuu, game)

I was discussing Idolm@ster DLC prices on #insertcredit and "Cortana" mentioned the "Wonder Momo" costume was worth my while. Intrigued because this person bought the Ace Combat 6 DLC Idolm@ster "Miki" plane, I looked it up. It's in the fourth catalog as the third "Extend" costume, for 1000 points.

I had no idea why this was included, but then a video url showed up. Halko Momoi (桃井はるこ) does a rendition of "Wonder Momo-i".

I couldn't stomach the audio in this video, but it was interesting and cute nontheless.

Still I was clueless, but as always the Wikipedia (en, ja) was useful in telling me that Namco released an arcade game (1987) and the corresponding PC-Engine port (1989) called Wonder Momo. Hm, a beat-em-up where she kicks high and she has to watch out for fan-service camera kozou (カメラ小僧). And your boss in Idolm@ster claims to have managed Wonder Momo in a previous life. It's a tenuous connection strictly for the old-school Namco fans, but at least they aren't forgetting their heritage.

Idolm@ster DLC sale part 2

(tags game, Xbox 360, cosplay, bishoujo, purchase, Idolm@ster)

Idolm@ster has a second DLC item sale, "Platinum Collection Celebration Part 2" (「アイドルマスター」のプラチナコレクション発売記念第２弾！！), starting from 11-28 to 12-24. See part 1. This time, 17 items are discounted. It's Mr. Driller cosplay time! Of course, we must tabulate the "savings".

As you can see, you save 2650 Xbox Live Points if you buy all of the discounted items next month. Or, rather, coming from my perspective, the sale items will cost 2450 XBLP.

I have yet to get through enough Idolm@ster to figure out if I need the first sale's items, and time is running out. Is it going to be a Idolm@ster weekend? haha.

At the same time, the eleventh catalog is maid dress (meido). But the stockings are FAIL. They should be plain white. Yet again Dengeki Online with the best pictures:

(photo from 「「アイマスカタログ」第11号のEXTENDはカラフルなメイド服！」2007-11-22)

I just noticed this pose is the same as the 8th catalog "China Dress" goods. Miki again is very kawaii.

Idolm@ster DLC sale?

(tags game, Xbox 360, cosplay, bishoujo, purchase, Idolm@ster)

Announced in last week's Famitsu in the Idolm@ster "sequel" article was the "Platinum Collection Celebration Part 1" item sale (「アイドルマスター」のプラチナコレクション発売記念第１弾！！). There are 22 items discounted at 33% or more, and the sale lasts for about a month (until 11/26). I wonder if there's going to be another sale, since it says its the first one.

So I collected the pricing info on all of the DownLoadable Content (DLC). I have a whole Google Spreadsheet with all the items, but the long and short of it is, you could be buying a PS3 with the money:

First off, I totalled the Microsoft points. That's the first column. The remaining columns are various ways to get points, such as a credit card, or a prepaid card from a retailer like Sofmap or Sega Direct. The first row is "Purchase all items". It's 43,050 points or a flabergasting 6_4575 yen. Buying points by credit card gives you the least amount of bang for your ... yen, so let's try retailers. I already bought a card from Sofmap, so I had to include them there. If you keep buying from them, then you save 3000 yen. Big woop. The surprise was Sega Direct's pricing, which helps you save up to 6000 yen. Unfortunately Sega Direct is all out of cards.

There might be additional sales later on, so let's just consider the current sale items. That's the last line row there, and the price is 5000 yen, give or take. Terrific. If you truly can't wait for any additional sales, you can get the whole thing for 59100 yen, starting in 2 days.

Are these items unlockable in the game or no? They must be additional items. Probably some of them are rare items. In any case, it is imperative to play the game before reaching for the points.