Doki Doki Tama-tan: get a writer

(tags manga, Koge-Donbo, kawaii, failure)

Doki Doki! Tama Tan (どきどき！たまタン) was a doujin-level affair (doujinshi and telephone card and figure) last year, but this year it was revamped for the commercial arena. 

It's running in Nakayoshi, which I think is a main stream manga magazine aimed for kids. Gone is the blog angle, Tama-tan is now a ordinary school student who luckily... aw crap this story is totally weak.

It just doesn't make sense. 

More info available from Koge-Donbo's blog posts.

• 「だめですた」
  
• 「あさって」

Rozen Maiden is back again

(tags manga, magazine, Rozen Maiden)

I eagerly picked up a copy of Weekly Young Jump today, because Peach Pit's Rozen Maiden restarted.

The first part of the 34 page section was totally different (eg no dolls) so I thought it was the wrong issue. Even the main character's name was different. But this is all about the series reset, that is to say, Birz Comics dropped this hot product for some reason and WYJ is here to front it again.

What if?!? :-)

The next episode will be featured in about a month's time. It's not a stellar start, but I am interested in what happens next.

Great artwork, crap story: Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora

(tags manga, anime, 2007, failure)

I finally got around to reading Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (京四郎と永遠の空), the manga. The first two volumes were somewhat interesting, but the story fell apart in the third. The artist Kaishaku (介錯) draws faces really well. I love the long flowing hair, long skirts, and meido. The color illustrations rock as well.

Still, what a waste of time. I want some kinda of logic in my stories, please.

The only reason I gave the manga some time is because I store my Xbox 360 discs in this nice Kaishaku-illustrated CD case. Or maybe it's by the anime staff. I bought it for the rawr factor, intending to watch the anime later on. Somehow, the manga was more convenient to start.

Anyway, I'm totally unmotivated to watch the anime. :-p

Couldn't find a Comic Blade: Aria, Fairial Garden

(tags manga, magazine, Japan, Fairial Garden, failure)

I forgot to get the latest Monthly Comic Blade issue (2008-04), which has the latest episode of Fairial Garden. Woops. I checked today (after its been on the stands for two weeks) but it seems to be sold out at all the shops. Why?

(Monthly Comic Blade 2008-04)

According to a user review at Amazon and of course the front cover, it's the last episode for Aria. I don't follow Aria, but any manga that gets a third season anime TV series must be a cash cow.

I'm going to go to the less trafficked stores during the weekend. I hope there'll be a copy for me.

Books Lashinbang Kobe Sannomiya opens

(tags failure, telephone card, ecsite, doujin, Kobe, anime, manga, character goods, 200803, Shining Wind, Estrian Odyessy, CD)

On Saturday I woke up early but played the FFTA. Then I remembered Books Lashinbang Kobe was opening today. I need to put these things on my calendar. And I need to review my calendar every day. :-/

Anyways I got there 5 minutes before, and the line was somewhat okay, probably about 100 people in front of me. I was able to get in around 10:30 AM. I headed straight for the telephone card (TC) cases which were in the back. It goes without saying that it was packed. I couldn't see over the other people lining up there. I didn't see anything I really wanted, and I started to peruse the rest of the store, bouncing off fellow otaku. Still I didn't want to exit just yet so I headed back to the TC cases again. I then decided to get the two TCs pictured here.

The bottom right TC is that PlayStation 2 game Shining Wind related illustration with beautiful, lovely Kureha in a miko dress. WIN. I've seen it before at Books Lashinbang Osaka and K-Books Osaka and the price is the same over there. Might as well commemorate the shop opening with something special.

The second TC at the middle left is a DS game Etrian Odyssey II (世界樹の迷宮II 諸王の聖杯) which was an exclusive to Akihabara-based game store Messe Sanoh. The game itself was release just two weeks back, and according to the description, it's a "classic RPG" with manual mapping (whoa). Emulate the grid paper on yer DS. I don't care about the game, but I love the illustrations and wallpaper. The illustration theme is receiving a belated Valentine chocolate from the (tsundere?) blond hair gunner (job class) chick. What a cute "Jack Frost" badge. I don't even think she has a name. I scoped this same card at the Telecard Paradise Osaka store for like 4500 yen, so maybe its a deal. Also, the game comes with a soundtrack with that Insert Credit sound artist favorite Yuzo Koshiro (古代 祐三) and others. The cover illustration is again the blond hair gunner. Nice nice maybe I'll get the game nice nice. No.

I also bought some cheep manga: Kyoushiro to Towa no Sora volume 1, and CDs: the Loco Roco single and Angela Aki's "Kiss Me Goodbye" single for Final Fantasy XII. I have the over-sexy Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora CD case holding my Xbox 360 discs, but I never explored the story until now. Also this is the first time I've seen a store selling Quo Card plastic sleeves. Quo cards are a different size than TCs so you can't reuse the TC plastic sleeves for them.

It's too bad I decided to get the stuff late, because I was only able to get the exclusive clear file pictured above. If I was perhaps 10 minutes earlier, I could have got the exclusive TC (with slightly more horndog illustration, rawr). Doh. I really wanted something related to Kobe because heck I live here. The illustrator is 憂姫はぐれ先生（サークル：WIRE FRAME）. I suppose this link is NSFW, but it's not up now.

There seems to be some other specials, centering on telephone cards. Goodie. Take for example this one, a Card Captor Sakura TC set "celebrating" the re-release of the manga a year or two ago. I did check the price. Each card is 3_5000 yen +. A little steep, don'cha think?!?

I went to the store again this Monday evening and there's a healthy crowd of people there looking and buying. I was hoping that the Kobe-only exclusive card was available, because net auctions rip hard. No luck.

Here begins another store relationship. This location does seem to have a lot of interesting things and good selection, for now. I do hope they expand their TC selections. I want more stuff with daishi (台紙, lit. card backing) and more all ages stuff like Di Gi Charat. I am not interesting in the eroge TCs even though they are rawr.

Second floor is for otaku too: Books Lashinbang Sannomiya

(tags ecsite, doujin, Kobe, anime, manga, goods)

Passing through Animate, I got my copy of Comic Blade and I'm going to read Fairial Garden as soon as I log off. Oh wait how do I segue into the main theme of this blog post. Uh:

My stroll from Animate on the third floor of the adjacent building goes through the second story of Sun Center Plaza. Of course I'm heading for Melon Books on the way to my bus stop. But the new store right next door caught my eye. Books Lashinbang will be opening a Sannomiya branch. I was so enthusiastic that I took pictures with my own camera. Melon Books in Sannomiya is strictly retail and new doujin stuff, and Books Lashinbang is pre-owned reselling of character goods, doujin and stuff, in other words, used sales, so I don't think they'll be stepping on each other's toes.

image originally from Center Plaza 2nd floor

Lashinbang is more interesting to me. I always go to the Osaka branch to check out the "premium" telephone cards. I hope they carry some here. Oh yeah they will. The only place to buy collectable telephone cards is at a store beneath Animate on the second floor, but they have some skanky ones. 840 yen for a card? Where has it been? :-)

Frankly I need to sell off some doujinshi that I just don't need. I didn't have a good place to do it in Kobe, but now with Lashinbang I don't have to haul it all to Osaka. Guess who's going to be there on opening day? (2008-03-01 Saturday) :^)

edit: added map. I like maps and editting with Paint.NET.

Buy confident: Fairial Garden

(tags manga, character goods, Fairial Garden, magazine)

Fairial Garden (FG) has got a hold on me. I've been looking for FG stuff on the net. I even prepped a RSS feed on the search words at Yahoo Auction JP (keyword: 「フェアリアル ガーデン」), which currently returns nothing. Only a few weeks back did I spot this in Den Den Town:

It's Comic Blade (bishoujo) and Comic Blade Avarus (boys life) magazine's informal tribute to Comic Market 73 (Winter 2007). It comes with a flimsy cloth bag and I paid too much for the set. :-/ FG's Claire graces the cover in a Santa outfit. Unfortunately Sakurano's illustrations only gets the cover and one page.

I assume this is supposed to be a blending of FG and a neko theme. Notice there are only cat ears, not the regular ears. Four ears looks strange?

I really wanted to read the next episode of this story. But I didn't know what episode was available in the current Comic Blade. I contemplated buying a back issue at one local used book store, but they didn't have it. So I took a chance and bought the 2008-02 (January) monthly issue.

Yokatta. Lucky for me it is the next episode, so there are no story breaks. Here I am cutting up the thick magazine so I save the manga that I want to keep.

I also clipped some seperate color illustrations and ads. The right most clipping shows a pink-themed illustration, nice. The original illustration is a green background on the manga. The middle clipping shows a raffle telephone card for 20 winners. Argh, want.

BTW, the issue held the last manga episode of Akazukin. I don't follow it, though. I did try to get into the DVDs because of the POP illustrations. With this issue, I just clipped the color parts. Talk about levelled up armor, the antithesis of kawaii. Heh.

Comic Blade is a monthly magazine that distributes every 30th. So next time I go out I'm gonna pick it up and clip it.

Screech, screech: recent seiyuu cd buys

(tags seiyuu, anime, music, CD, failure, manga)

I've always had a stack of CDs I haven't ripped, and I can't figure out how to motivate myself to get through them all. Mostly they consist of anime/manga drama CDs and character song CDs. But if it's purely music, rippin' is totally effortless.

I watched (田村ゆかり) Yukari Tamura's recent live concert DVD at a shop. It is really annoying to see her look down at her feet every few seconds. Anyway, I happened to find a song I liked from her. I couldn't figure out the name of the song though. So (therefore?) I got her "best album" Sincerly Dears, but still a sucker for completeness so it's the DVD + CD version. This is not a recent release, however. After listening to the CD, the only song I liked was "douwa meikyuu" (「童話迷宮」, lit. fairy tale maze), the song from the anime Akazukin (おとぎ銃士 赤ずきん), which I already had. I like her deeper "grown woman" voice than her "Nanoha" voice, when singing. Another example is "kagayaki no kisetsu" (「輝きの季節」, lit. bright season) and "fukashoku-na ai" (「不可触な愛」, lit. untouchable love). Perhaps I need to give the new songs a chance, because my other 5 star songs from her are "Nanoha" like.

The blind-sided release this time around was (高橋美佳子) Mikako Takahashi's Sweet CD, pictured middle. I like for her parts in Honey and Clover and probably other animes I can't remember. And I thought she was totally hot in one of those H&C interviews. Unfortunately, apart from the up tempo rhythm and the zettai ryoiki front cover, I don't like this CD. :-/ It must be her wavering, quick to clip voice. According to Wikipedia, this is her self produced album, taking about three years to create. On a related note, ever since her character in Hayate no Gotoku was associated with a hamster, I've had a hard time seperating her voice from that image. :-)

I wasn't expecting more than a couple of good songs from (堀江由衣) Yui Horie's latest CD release (pictured right), but at the last count I've five-starred 6 out of 14 songs, with the rest at four stars. It must be the upbeat rhythm and the way she hits those high notes, which sounds so pure. "zutto" (「ずっと」, lit. always) and "lovely everyday" (「ラブリエビリデイ」) stick in my mind. Instead of buying it at Gamers (for a poster and point card exchange) I bought it at Animate (the one pictured below) because B5 paper holder takes up less space (above pictured bottom right).

I also recently bought (茅原美里) Minori Chihara's Message 01 DVD + CD. I couldn't stomach finishing this DVD. She sounds like an dumbass! :-/ Some of her answers to an interview are truly WTF. The above picture is her shop tour at the major Animates. Okay, I'm going to fast forward to the part where she's street singing in Akihabara, according to houkoholic. Oh yeah, it starts at 37:05, all 20 seconds of it, and at 38:42, for a little more than a minute . She sounded so good with her solo rendition of "hare hare yukai" (「ハレ晴レユカイ」, lit. sunny sunny happiness), but the other songs I have of her just don't deserve more than 4 stars.

edit: added Chihara picture

A fairy weekend: Fairial Garden, Bottle Fairy

(tags manga, kawaii, moe, Fairial Garden, anime, Bottle Fairy)

On Friday evening returning home, I spotted this kawaii manga called Fairial Garden by Minene Sakurano (桜野みねね). I wasn't expecting it at all. The images at the back sold me even though I couldn't tachiyomi. I even bought it at a place where I never buy manga. Strangely impulsive, this one.

When I got home I read it from cover to cover. On Saturday I read it again cover to cover. And Sunday morning I read it again one more time. I must really like the drawing style here. It reminds me of A Little Snow Fairy Sugar but with more moeness. I would like to call it kenzen but one of the male sub characters has a cosplay fetish, and Sakurano does not disappoint (muhaha) "Dance with the one you came with" I suppose. Otaroad Senaka Blog post 桜野みねねさん作 フェアリアルガーデン1巻発売 「妖精の女の子とドキドキ共同生活！？」 covers this release as well with some reviews and images. When Otaroad covers a manga you know its for the otaku set.

Okay, the story kinda bites, though. The fairy, Claire, can't talk a lot except for a few emotionally loaded phrases like okaeri, iya, and arigatou, having just been born. She can transform into three different size (no explanation). Noa, who brought home the flower which sprouted Claire, has some grief and coping issues with losing a rare pet to his parents' scientific whims. So the story is about how he returns to being an emotional and trusting person, I suppose. However, the character development shines, because I am rooting for him to get back to feeling again. The whole sequence about teaching Claire to say "arigatou" was endearing. I can't wait until the next volume comes out, in what 6 months? :-(

I don't recall who manga artist Minene Sakurano is, but the ever convenient Wikipedia mentions she was responsible for long running manga and anime まもって守護月天! (Guardian Angel Getten). Not that I know of it, huh. Wait a minute. After reading the description of GAG, I see that this FG has many similar elements such as "strange girl", "lost mother", and "science parent". Maybe I should look into GAG as well? Then again I'm thinking that Sakurano may not be good at storytelling.

And the other fairy thing this weekend was my purchase of the U.S. English version of Bottle Fairy (瓶詰妖精) the DVD series. Puki puki payo. I'm now reviewing this series in voiced English, which is pretty decent. I forgot the entire content and even the names of the fairies but I love watching it again this time. I acutally LOL, jeez. I want to remember the Japanese holidays through memory association with Bottle Fairy, but despite the absurdity of the plot, it just does not stick in my mind.

Evil revisited: my second binder for Stick Posters

(tags stick poster, poster, anime, gal-ge, zettai ryouiki)

As I said, I was cleaning my bomb shelter and I unearthed my Stick Poster Collection binder (pictured left). I celebrated by buying a second binder. :-/ I forgot who did the cover for the right binder, but its one of those Leaf/AquaPlus illustrators, right? Zettai ryouiki FTW, rawr.

The second binder was marked down to 2000 yen. Basically I bought it for the inserts, because they DON'T fsckin' SELL refill inserts (at the shop). Where do I get refills?

Remember that Stick Posters (スティックポスター) are an AquaPlus invention that measure 182 mm by 515 mm (B3 paper size divided in half). On the same page, lots of interesting illustrations come out for the format. Personally I hope Stick Posters die a fast death, but it seem Mobile Suit Gundam will appear 2007-12-20, which will float this troublesome collectable a little bit more. Hm, do those Gundam heads go for paper? I thought they go for model kits and video game demos.

I will slowly posting pictures of my stick posters collection, so keep the label "stick poster" at the ready. Too bad my hand is not steady and my digi-cam is Sony quality.

My time is limited

(tags anime, manga)

Well I was going to relax with an anime episode of Zero no Tsukaima and the new manga Kodomo no Jikan book 4 (with DVD, which I pre-ordered back in 2007-07-01), but all this exciting game news and posting just got in the way. No time to watch and read now, gotta sleep!

A questionable pre-order: Kodomo no Jikan manga 4

(tags manga, pre-order, loli, DVD)

I was going to pre-order Kodomo no Jikan volume 4 at Animate Kobe but they didn't have pre-order slips. So I went to Melon Books Kobe on a whim and a pre-order slip was there. I was first pre-order because it says the slip had the number "1" on it... so obviously this is not in demand.

(picture thanks: アキバブログ)

What is Kodomo no Jikan? I was intringued by a fellow #ic post about the failure of the translation of this manga to the U.S. market, poorly renamed as Nymphet. It is pretty much a "loli" manga but still just barely all-ages.

I started reading it to see if it was really bad and also because I like the drawing style. Well it is very crude in some places. How does Rin, the mischievous girl get such a potty mouth and sexualized clothing and mannerisms? From the TV? From friends (but her friends are wholesome)? From her guardian-parent (but he's a good guy)? I suppose that's part of the fantasy, but it doesn't make sense. In any case, I like the story because the male teacher, Aoki-sensei, is compassionate for the welfare and education of his students. He is not a pedophile and he is not taking advantage of the situation. Unfortunately he's the butt of many jokes because Rin is wily and crafty.

I pretty much gobbled up volumes 1, 2, 3 in a two week period. Now that I know 4 is coming out I want to see the relationship between Aoki-sensei and Rin resolve into respected teacher-devoted student instead of this disheveled, wet-behind-the-ears teacher being played by this all-talk Lolita. Except the whole point of the work (including the bonus DVD which has almost naughty scenes unfit for Japanese TV?!?!) is to be as loli as possible.

Hahaha, um. Yeah.

Back from USA (I could forgo Japan?!?)

(tags travel, purchase, anime, manga, food)

I'm back from the USA, and despite my "letting go" stance I couldn't quite escape the anime and games purchasing. More about that later (pictures please).

I was surprised at how most of the anime I wanted was now freely purchasable at stores like Suncoast and Fry's Electronics (in spite of the translation and licensing time delay). I was also surprised at how big the manga section was getting. Even one of my favorite all time manga stories, Kiseiju (寄生獣), is finally being translated into English as Parasyte. Perhaps I could deal with the time-lag (Japan to U.S.) now.

The things I miss about the States are pretty simplistic: Mexican food (with lard), Filipino snacks, (pop) country music. I got enough tastes of my favorite foods to last me until the next time I go. In fact, I ordered food without intending to eat them all or take them home, which is strange for this plate-finisher here. For (pop) country music, I bought one of those celebrity gossip magazines going home. No mention of Trisha Yearwood, but I saw her on Wheel of Fortune on the TV while I was there, go figure.

When I got back home, my desktop PC was frozen and inoperative. I suspect the Japan summer will be spent replacing parts due to heat failure. I already have to take out one hard disk with "SMART status: BAD". I got some stuff that will make me use the computer more, ha ha.

Finally, I lived without reading feeds or Famitsu for a week. I dread clicking those 100+ post feeds, ugh it's like work. The Leah Dizon PR machine finally attacks Famitsu for cover page damage and now I know she's photoshopped. Still I may purchase her second foray into J-pop. Heck even my J-lang sensei said she sounded pretty good for the first single.