Jason Mraz meets Caramelldansen

(tags music, anime, purchase)

Okay, not quite but what if?!

Today I got the 600 yen single of that Caramelldansen song, repurposed for Japanese market as ウッーウッーウマウマ(゜∀゜) I haven't yet overloaded on this animeme, but I just might. If I send the postcard with the barcode on it, I can get a DVD. It's probably just a Youtube copy. According to the CD booklet history page, this uma uma + caramelldansen thing was born around Summer 2006 after someone thought to increase the speed of the song by 1.2 on the videos. (「BGMとしてCaramelldansenを1.2倍の速度で再生した動画が出現、これが「ウッーウッーウマウマ(゜∀゜)」がうまれた瞬間である」)

I didn't know about the new Jason Mraz album CD "We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.", so it was oh damn gotta buy it (Tower Records!) when I saw it. He's going to be touring Japan during the summer. The closest stop is Osaka. The sticker showed a promotion to get free tickets. I thought I would get 6 tries because it showed "X 6" (times 6). Turns out the promotion is named "X6". Aww, just give me more tries.

I haven't yet ripped the Kotoko single for Kamen no Maid Gai or that "@Lantis Non Stop Dance Remix" vol.2 only because Gracenote CDDB doesn't have the track info. I hate typing it up myself.

It's okay to buy, PAL? Grand Theft Auto IV

(tags game, Xbox 360, Grand Theft Auto, shmup, purchase, failure)

Today I ran out of stockpiled food so I headed out. I walked all the way to Kobe Mosaic/Harborland and now my feet and calves hurt. I intended to break in these new shoes but perhaps this was a little extreme.

So I wasn't expecting Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360 to be at the store, but there it was for 6000 yen. 20 plus copies. Yea Sofmap. Yea Kobe Sofmap. They almost never have foreign games at this location. Well, ok, they have Postal, sitting there looking unwanted.

Except it had the PAL designation! I wasn't sure that I could use a PAL game on my NTSC-J system, since PAL always meant PAL-only, or so I thought. So I left without it. Rather, I am committed to playing Vice City and San Andreas before this, ok ok ok ok. Acutally, there was Dark Sector for 4000 yen and also Raiden Fighters for 4000 yen but I passed on them as well.

Now researching this topic with the power of Internet search, I find Play Asia claims this "Asia" version is NTSC-J and PAL. Huh. I hope my legs are out of commission, at least long enough to not go back to the store during this vacation. Must resist.

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.

Other shiny; Are you going to compete?

(tags purchase, Den Den Town, telephone card, Rubik's Cube)

After World Hobby Fair, I made my way to the Toys 'R Us in Namba Parks, which is a new (to me) upscale mall between Nanba and Den Den Town. In fact, I didn't think TRU belonged there until I stepped inside. Unlike regular TRU stores, this one is called TRU Select and it had a mahogany color theme and pricey store displays. This was not the kind of TRU where you leave you kids unattended. Still the store sells the same things, and if ever I need to replace my Rubik's Cubes, I have my walk-in fallback.

I skipped the rest of Namba Parks but I strolled through Yamada Denki. If I didn't know better I would think I was in a big Yodobashi Camera.

I made my way to Den Den Town but to make a long story short, I only bought two things. The Comic Market Winter (73) fallout is over. There was a Noboru Kannatsuki telephone card set that caught my eye but one of the designs is already one of the background images I own, so it wasn't worth the 3500 yen. I didn't find a Xbox 360 joystick for sale anywhere. There were no other collectable telephone cards I needed "right now" but some Pitaten ones caught my fancy. I ended up getting volume 4 of Comic Yell manga magazine, which is kenzen I think but romance stories aimed at guys.

The other thing I got was the Gameboy Advance version of Yoshi's Adventure, I think. It's Super Mario Advance 3, right? Well I already have this game on Super Famicom, previously being swayed by the hype of "ultimate 2D run-and-jump adventure". (How about finishing Super Mario Bros. 2 JP there, goldfish?) I am lazy though because my SF is not hooked up and I've been giving my GB Micro some lovin' so... Well I went cheapskate and bought just the naked cartridge for 800 yen, even though it's now priced to move at 2000 yen at various shops. Ugh I feel guilty.

Finally while riding the train home, a guy tapped my idle Rubik's Cube sitting in my bag (WTF are you reaching for my bag, a$$'()e?!?!?), to start a clipped conversation with me. "So are you going to compete?" he smiled. This gentleman is the type of man to wear a suit on a Sunday evening. I'm thinking university professor. He was pretty knowledgable about "thinking about the next move" and "contestants are mostly young people", though I didn't know if he cubed himself. I embarassingly answered that I am slow and I would only consider attending a contest if I can get my average time to around 30 seconds. Oh well, starting conversations is great but maybe cubing on the train like an obsessed madman is giving off the wrong impression? I love it when people stare at my cube, but I hate it when I can't solve it before they look away, ha. Hey I'm only playing it in place of video gaming. Call it an 80's regression.

Rather than regret not buying something, regret it after you buy it

(tags purchase, failure, game, Xbox 360, shmup)

Well, after writing that long whiny post about not buying stuff two days ago, I, in fact, stayed at home. I should proclaim stuff like that to Get Things Done. "I'm not going to Maui". :-)

I was playing and credit feeding Shikigami no Shiro 3 for the easy-peasy Achievement Points. And I caught up on my j1m0ne blog reading habit and caught this gem among all the other excellent posts:

23. "Rather than regret not buying something, regret it after you buy it"
(買わないで後悔するより、買ってから後悔しろ。)
-Does that not sound like the thoughts of many of us otaku after unwrapping figures that look retarded?

Yes it does. Indeed. Improving my personal finances against my otaku lifestyle is definately impedence mismatch.

Shh... My wallet doesn't know what this here credit card has been doing. Especially online. Especially auctions. :-)

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.

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.

Relax, desuu... Rozen Maiden "Suiseiseki" figure by Miki Ousaka

(tags figure, Rozen Maiden, kawaii, purchase)

Rozen Maiden is still charming. Here's "Suiseiseki". Oh great, an unplanned purchase but the look on "Suiseiseki"'s face is killer kawaii.

You would never guess that she's the high-tension tsundere. She looks so relaxed.

According to the official page, this PVC full-painted pre-built figure is non-scale. The pics on the Senaka Otaroad blog show how the different scales between figures destroy the sense of balance. Also more pics at Akibablog, Moeyo (1, 2) and the high-quality photo-review from FooBarBaz.

This figure was originally sculpted by Miki Ousaka (チェリーブロッサムの桜坂美紀) who is famous for making bishoujo figure kits to sell at those biannual Wonder Festival figure conventions. She also made a lot of commercial figures for animes such as Nadia and To Heart 2 (according to GA news). I want her Hina-Ichigo figure, so cute! Woops, according to the news page, Ousaka attended the World Hobby Fair in Kobe (my backyard!?!) last Sunday 10/28. Well there is no danger from me buying a kit, since I can't build it, but there goes a picture taking opportunity lost. Too bad. :-(

Anyway, along side this new figure was a Hina-Ichigo figure but it was kinda low-quality around the face area so I let it slide. Besides, other figures in the same series was discounted a while back, so perhaps I can get it cheaper later.

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.

Too many games, not enough discipline

(tags Xbox 360, purchase)

Okay, so in the last 10 days I bought 6 Xbox 360 games, not to mention the Xbox Live Gold Subscription and a 3500 point card. I'm diggin' the Xbox. I should finish out Crackdown though. I haven't even tried the Agency PeaceKeeper vehicles. Too bad I don't know anybody who wants to do the co-op missions, but I'm too selfish with my time to go online.

I want to start on Idolm@ster, but if you took a look at my Achievements you can see that I tried to get into Gears of War. So far I like it, but this one checkpoint is kicking my ass so I put that disc away. And yesterday night I collected some info about Idolm@ster that I will post soon, heh heh.

Oh and I put in a bid for Dead or Alive 4 for about 1700 yen from an online nobody. Let's see if I win it.

(edit: pay content was PeaceKeeper)

Dead or Alive 4 hunt, Hisashiburi Osaka, Kureha digitized

(tags Osaka, purchase, character goods, telephone card, game, Xbox 360, anime, seiyuu, PlayStation 2, Kasimasi, Ikaruga)

Last post was a real bummer. How to get back to my dreamland? Goods!

On Saturday I headed to Tennouji and Nipponbashi Den Den Town for some Xbox 360 game scoping and telephone card hunting. I haven't been there since middle September because I spent 5_0000+ yen on an Xbox 360 last month, so the change of season makes the area look different. I didn't know how the Osaka tower looked at night, but it was so so. Anyways, the obligatory goods picture:

My goal was to get Dead or Alive 4 for less than 2200 yen, with original cover. The Platinum Collection covers irritate me and the DoA4 Platinum Collection edition comes out on 11/1 so maybe there are old copies lingering somewhere. Unfortunately I only scoped a 2900 yen one at A-Too, that crazy price used game shop that also carries a good selection of foreign console games. I let it pass (I got that telephone card there as a consolation prize). I could have snatched up a foreign edition BioShock with embossed case, but I don't need it yet at 7000 yen. One interesting find at another shop: a Panzer Dragoon (?) Xbox 1 console going for a little less than 3_0000 yen. No box?!? Oh please.

My buy threshold was 2000 yen for other games. I found Gears of War english-only edition for 1880 yen and Bullet Witch original cover for the same. At the northern Super Potato (?) I could have picked up Trusty Bell and Ridge Racer 6 for about 1900 yen each, but I figured enough was enough. BTW, at the same store, the Dead or Alive 4 arcade stick for the Xbox 360 was selling 12800 yen used! Why? Why!? It reminded me that I don't want to play Ikaruga on the Xbox controller. I'm not so hot on a joystick, though.

A semi-serious goal was to get the various Street Fighter on PS2 re-releases. The highest priority is on the Street Fighter Alpha collection. I had some fun times playing Guy on SF Alpha 1, but he wasn't the same on Alpha 2. Anyways, this game disc never got "Collection"-ed so its still 4500 yen new. Then again why should I bother since I already have the Windows PC port. I notice that there are no used copies of these SF games (!?!), but plenty of SNK fighters to be had.

Explaining the other items: various TCs abound. j1mOne's recommendation of Tiaraway's music made get the Seiyuu Gran-prix TC. I don't know the name of this anime, but a neko-mimi maid, right. The recent anime Kimikiss reminds me of the artwork from that old True Love Story - Summer Days and yet PS2 game, which was great illustrations by itself. Could they be related? Something to research. I wonder if I got that Kasimasi TC already, but it's a scratched reference. Oh yeah, I had fun watching Zettai Shonen (絶対少年) so I couldn't pass up this Quo card.

And still I have Kureha fever so I bought that Shining Wind Fun Disc from Sofmap Saurus Treasure Box. It was a special preorder item, which explains the 1200 yen used price. I bought it for the wallpapers, and I am a bit disappointed that Kureha doesn't smile in any of them. :-/ I found a Kureha telephone card at K-Books where she was smiling... only 8000 yen :-( Still, official artwork on my desktop background rotation, FTW. Pretty much I'm into Shining Wind based on the Tony artwork only. I know nothing about the game.

The cover for the drama CD Vol 1 is nice, rawr. :-) It surprised me that my class A seiyuu Yui Horie (堀江由衣) voices Kureha. The drama CD could be a buy.

On the way home, there was more security guards at the JR Osaka entrances, something like 10 to 15 guys in blue uniforms patrolling. "Osaka Kanjyosen" Halloween Train?

I am definately not going to Nipponbashi next weekend. I decided to get Ace Combat 6, and before that I need to start Idolm@ster. So I'm not going to repeat the Dead or Alive 4 hunt for a couple of weeks. :-)

Scratched card "collecting": Kureha, Dijiko, Xbox Live

(tags game, purchase, illustrator, Xbox 360, figure, telephone card)

First off, the Sega Direct shipment of the "Kureha" figure and Capcom Classics Collection for PSP came in, but the emphasis is on the card. I always hate it when the card is not securely embedded in its plastic sleeve. It could be possibly be scratched. Ugh.

I went out on Sunday night. My resolve to not get the premium Crackdown map pack was slipping. Besides, I needed to pick up this month's Gamers 30 point-exchange telephone card. Can I complain about the recent Dijiko? Why does she have red eyes now? Before she was totally hawt with green eyes. I remember in a recent Akiba picture, two seperate billboards had green eyes and red eyes. Anyway I fail my Japanese Internet searching skills, so I probably missed the whole discussion.

So I picked up the Xbox Live 3500 Microsoft Point card, which is 4980 yen (priced to move). It came in a "blister packaging", which is that hard to open thing that doesn't seem to catch on in Japan. I made the mistake of scratching off the back with some scissors. No not the cutting edge, but the other side. Still, it deeply scraped off the plastic, and I could not completely read the 25-letter subscription code. Uh, dumbass! Well, there were 5 incomplete letters, and I could see the bottom halves. If I was going to try all of the possible combinations, it would take 384 attempts or something like 5 hours.

So today during work I called up the Microsoft support. The support guy first verified that I was my gamertag, and then asked for some visual proof of the card. After sending an email with support request number and two 2.5 MB digi-cam files, I got a callback where the same support guy read off another 25-letter subscription code. "...taiga no T, suuji no Kyuu, arufabetto no Q, arufabetto no C, bikutori no V..." I verified it now and I am now 3500 points into this Microsoft digital thing.

Now to buy that Crackdown 800 point and finish off the achievements!

Prices going up: Japan Post Bank and Telephone Cards

(tags telephone card, purchase)

Telephone cards are on the way out. Tosho (図書) cards will eventually replace them because they are redeemable in many places and the cellphone supplants the line pay phone. Still as a collectable many places make them, such as magazine art offers or Comic Market goodies.

When the Japan postal system privatized on the first of October this year, many services became inconvenient or more expensive. For example, some rural offices will close. The Japan Post was not just in the business of material delivery but it also was a bank.

There lies my irritation. One of the bank services was the Small Fixed-Rate Money Order (定額小為替), which in 400, 500, and 1000 denominations, was the de facto standard for magazine goodies. Previously the cost for a money order slip was 10 yen, but now its 100 yen. So my usual monthly order of telephone cards consisting of Megami Magazine (メガミマガジン), Animedia (アニメディア), Animage (アニマージェ), etc increases by about the cost of another telephone card. Buying those money orders used to be as easy as breathing, but now it makes me think twice. Moving money around shouldn't be so expensive, but I suppose moving money around safely isn't easy.

Chief ga shinda! The Xbox 360 plunge

(tags Xbox 360, FPS, game, purchase)

It's already 1 in the morning on a work day Friday so I better make this quick. Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition. Halo 3 Limited Edition game. Wireless game adapter for PC. I've taken the plunge. ;-)

It was heavy. 7 Kilograms. Personal photo unboxing, who cares about that. I can't wait to play!

I plugged it in with no problems, audio passes through one of those source selector boxes I have for my consoles. Turn it on, VGA cable is good to go, I have the 1280x1024 selected. Halo 3 runs, Heroic because I'm a bad-ass. OMG its in Japanese with English subtitles. I skipped the intro by mistake, looking for the voice language selection. There is none. I make another profile to view the intro again.

I don't care what people say about Halo 3 being graphically mediocre. It looks incredible to me. Then again this is my first current-gen console. I need that "progress bar" on my computer, very nice. Jungle fever, everything is brighter and colorful. Gosh darn it, gotta unlearn "green thumb" and stop hitting X to reload. I keep losing that fancy bubble shield with that. Sweet, a Covenant Carbine. Ok an hour to get through the first level. Did the Arbiter die then just reappear at the end? I have unlocked my first achievement uh huh.

I played some Lost Planet single player demo. W00t, no problems and just as fun as I expected. Then plugged in my Halo 2 for Xbox 1 disc. It runs without a problem. I suppose this console is preloaded with a lot of goodies. 10.4 GB free. Gotta delete some crud.

I am very satisified right now with the Xbox 360, with only 2 hours into it. Wee! Now how do I charge this controller and "turn off" my console?

Tomorrow I might connect this console to the Internet, if I get too frustrated with Halo 3. And what the hey, let's play in Japanese voices. They don't sound that bad.

XBox 360 I can't wait

(tags game, Xbox 360, purchase, FPS)

I have been going to Sofmap every day. Well, make that Tuesday and today (Wednesday). I was hoping that the Xbox 360 Halo Edition would be "street-broken" but no. All that launch party and blog hubbub over in the States and even New Zeland, but we don't get it until tomorrow, ho hum. I am trying not to read the user reviews of the campaign, since that's the main reason why I'm getting it.

Two weekends ago I considered the Xbox 360 a done deal so I bought the Lost Planet game. Only 2980 yen new, its a typical Sofmap bargain bin. I had to go to the Osaka Tennoji store though, which is not well trafficked, because my Kobe store actually sold out. Whoa. And I picked up the Trusty Bell faceplate, which would probably look like crap on a Halo Edition Xbox 360. Heck, all my faceplates will look like crap.

Finally yesterday after conferring with my Xbox friend over audio possibilites, I decided to get the video cable just in case. I went with the VGA cable which has a mini-DIN converter with it. Yes I will be again playing with 2.0 headphones on my 5:4 1280x1024 LCD monitor.

I'm kinda worried about the 20 GB thing again. Now I hear that the Halo 3 will save videos of your campaign automatically. How much space will that take?

Tomorrow I should have the Xbox in hand. W00t. My homework is not done though: sell off some unused stuff for store credit, xbox 1 compatible games, etc.

Pink and lavender left-overs: PlayStation Portable "slim"

(tags PlayStation Portable, ECsite, purchase)

Today was the general release of the PlayStation Portable PSP-2000, the one I like to call "slim". Though I wanted to get one, I didn't bother. To tell you the truth, money is tight, because its Xbox 360 time! All colors except rose pink and lavender purple were sold out at my favorite shop. The tuner was also available.

Let's get this schedule straight: Xbox 360 hardware

(tags Xbox 360, hardware, purchase)

Over the last week, for some unknown reason, my motivation to get an Xbox 360 has jumped from "eventually" to "want to play it now". Maybe its because I can name 5 games I want to play on it consistently (unlike a Wii or a PS3), or maybe its because of Halo 3 fever. No its not because of BioShock fever, though I wanna play that eventually. It troubles me though that I haven't remembered the release dates of the newer Xbox models, Halo and Elite edition.

At first, I used Yodobashi Camera again to check the release dates, but Wikipedia has more information.

Xbox 360 Halo Special Edition : 2007-09-27 Thursday (open price but 44800 yen at Yodobashi Camera) 20GB HDD, essentially a regular ("Premium") system but with Halo colors and HDMI output.

Xbox 360 Elite Edition: 2007-10-11 Thursday (47800 yen) 120GB HDD and of course HDMI output.

One thing that is not certain is when Microsoft will hardware refresh it. I don't want my Xbox to fail and I don't want to deal with shipping it back for service. According to Engadget, 65 nm CPU have been in production since 2007-08-01, so I hope that it will be in the September refresh.

I think I'll get the Xbox 360 Halo Special Edition, though 20 GB (14 GB usable) doesn't seem like much storage.

You just wanna appreciate the figures: "Haruhi" and "Yuki" Limited edition "White"

(tags figure, sexy, anime, purchase)

Its been a couple of months in the making, but my "Mikuru" doesn't have to go it alone any more:

Yes! I recently won the auction for third figure in this series,"Yuki Nagato [Bunny Girl]" (～涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱～ＰＶＣ製塗装済完成品 『1/6長門有希 バニーガール』), Chara-Ani limited edition White (no stockings, rawr). I did try to get it officially through Chara-Ani a couple of months back, but I was robbed. This time I used Yahoo Auction Japan, and it was only 8000 yen + shipping. The price is only slightly higher than retail, only because there is now a better Haruhi Bunny Suit series (FREEing(フリーイング)「涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 涼宮ハルヒ バニーVer.」 "Mikuru", "Haruhi", "Tsuruya-san", "Kyon's Sister"). Ah, such is life.

Since this was an auction buy, I kinda doubted that this was a unopened box. Granted the tape looked new and everything was in place with protective plastic, but the figure itself seemed dirty with some lint. I spent some time trying to clean it off, with little success. Some of the lint is on the bunny ears (right side in photo), and on the front side of the bunny suit. Since its white it irritatingly stands out. Also "Yuki" cannot stand by itself so I placed the support arm. Still I am very satisfied with the face, very kawaii. You can change the hands, but I think the combination of glasses and star wand is moe.

I'm not into Haruhi herself, but I kept my eye out for the second figure, "Haruhi Suzumiya [Bunny Girl]" (～涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱～ＰＶＣ製塗装済完成品 『1/6涼宮ハルヒ バニーガール』), Chara-Ani limited edition White (no stockings, rawr). I got this one used at Mandarake Osaka for about 7000 yen, which isn't a bad price for what appears to be another unopened box. Face is very clean, with some niggling scratches on the hair in the back. The rest of the figure is cleaner than "Yuki", so is it a manufacturing defect or auction deception? In any case, the pose is made for the guitar. There's also a mic hand set, but that just doesn't make any sense.

So now they're out of the box, let's pose them. Okay an obligatory story:

Yuki: "Mikuru-chan, you haven't seen my guitar around have you?"
Mikuru: "I think Haruhi has it."

Haruhi: "Let's play something interesting!" (starts to swing arm in giant windmills)
Yuki: "Are you sure you know how to play?"
Haruhi: "Sure!" (bad riff sound)
Mikuru: "Do I have to watch you practice?"

Haruhi: "Let's get a band going together in time for the culture festival." (bad riff sound and wild swinging continues)
Mikuru: "Ganbatte ne" (slowly inches away)
Yuki: "Hm, how good are at timed air guitar?" (ponders)

The "Mikuru" figure is the obvious win since she is so kawaii. "Yuki" isn't bad, but really does she belong in a bunny suit? And "Haruhi" is just fronting again, but I am surprisingly satisfied with it. The long legs are very non-Japanese, though. I placed these figures on top of my refrigerator, so I see them when I walk in. I want to put them next to the computer but there is no space.

I want to keep these figures out on display, but I've got so many others that I should work on. So perhaps in a month these "ladies" will hit the boxes again.

A Rie Kugimiya Holiday: assorted CD releases

(tags CD, anime, soundtrack, purchase)

While I'm waiting for "j1m0ne's blog" to actually review this week's anime audio releases, here I am with just the CD covers:

Since this the end of the month close to "paycheck day", there had to be some new releases. And today did not disappoint. This is not all of it, of course. In no particular order: Moetan (もえたん) opening song with Yukari Tamura (田村ゆかり) and others, Potemayo (ぽてまよ) opening song by Mosaic.WAV.

I decided to get Bokura No (ぼくらの) opening song "Uninstall" by Chiaki Ishikawa (石川智晶) because it sounds so cool even though it was released a month ago. I am not watching this anime, though.

Continuing with today's releases, we have Hayate no Gotoku! (ハヤテのごとく!) character CDs featuring Shizuka Ito and my seiyuu of the day, Rie Kugimiya (釘宮理恵). The pink slip is a "stamp rally". If I buy all 6 character CDs at the same Animate shop, I get a paper CD case that holds all the CDs together. Big woop.

Rounding it out is DS game of the moment, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan (どきどき魔女神判) Original Soundtrack CD. Actually there's supposed to be an Animate tokuten, but they'll release it on Thursday. The white slip above the CD is the claim slip for it.

And yes, Ichiko is back with the Zero no Tsukaima Futsuki no Kishi (ゼロの使い魔 双月の騎士) opening song. It came with this square poster, very nice. And finally the special CD for Zero no Tsukaima radio program was released, boasting a mixed format of 30 minutes CD Audio and 540 minutes (!) MP3 audio on the CD data area.

Almost 10 hours (!) of the Kugimiya sound. I'm going moe just thinking about it.

Lack of desire

(tags telephone card, anime, purchase, EC site)

None of the telephone cards in the new Animate "Summer AV Matsuri Fair" (2007年 アニメイト 夏のAVまつり) interest me, so I won't go crazy like I did last time.

Fear GameStop: How to sell a pre-order

(tags purchase, U.S., game)

Game stores in the States seemed to have resolved into "GameStop". Well, that is my limited sampling.

The GameStop people are the friendly, push-more-sales-but-not-in-your-face lot. I bought the Robotech: Battlecry without label or manual and the counter guy said, "It's a good game." I should have asked him what was good about it, but I was in a typical Japanese "shut-up-and-ring-me-up" mode. I went to another GameStop and the guy greeted me courteously on the way out. Whoa. Then again he said, "Thanks for coming, sir." Ugh, I am a sir.

I was at another GameStop and I was overhearing a conversation between GameStop Counter-Guy (GSCG) and a loving mom of an Xbox 360 man-child (said child was not present). The woman was first asking about getting a game, then mentioned her son's games.

GSCG: He's got Gears of War? There's no other better game out there right now. Does he like realistic shooting games? How about Call of Duty?

Through the conversation, GSCG proceeded to thumbs-down the Sonic the Hedgehog Xbox iteration and recommend other games. I think they were talking for around ten minutes, while I was trying to find something interesting to buy. At the end GSCG moved the conversation to Halo 3. First I think the woman said, "I won't forget to pre-order." meaning she wasn't planning on pre-ordering. Then more buttering from GSCG. Then I heard the woman say, "What's Legendary?" and though the details were lost on me, she finally said, "Go ahead and put Legendary on pre-order." This was on top of the purchases she was planning on getting! In short, GSCG added the $20 pre-order for this plus $100 game with the omake helmet! 10 minutes of shmoozing will get you another sale?

This GSCG has technique to be feared. Do not send your moms to GameStop. On second thought, if you like games, go ahead.

Stuff your suitcase with video game spoils

(tags game, travel, U.S., anime, purchase)

When I visited the States for a week, the only game related things on my mind were to give a Nintendo DS to my sister and find a StarCraft game. I succeeded in both, but there were bonus missions:

I bought the StarCraft for regular price at a military base store. It was the regular (wide) box "Battle Chest" set. It turns out there was another type of box set that I confirmed at Walmart, with the same contents I think but its not big enough to hold the fold out "tech-progress" poster. Then I managed to go to a rarely travelled GameStop and I found the blowout sale an #insertcredit member told me about: SC: BC for $9.99. I bought another copy. So I have two legit CD-keys now. I can play guilt free.

There's a US/Canada region PlayStation 2 in the picture, right? I wasn't planning on getting a PS2 but I couldn't stop the madness. My sister uttered the fatal words: "You don't pay sales tax at the base." $129.00 without CA San Diego tax rate 7.75%? Uh, its not heavy so let's do it. Along side that I saw Jak X: Combat Racing for only $20.00 so... Right beside it was the Xbox version of Unreal Championship 2: Liandri Conflict for only $20.00 so... And I went to the GameStops (3 or 4 different ones, multiple times), and found some cheap US/C region only games like Robotech, so...

(Did you know airline check-in baggage limits are falling from 70 lbs to 50 lbs (22kgs)? If you buy games mostly and not books, you should be in no danger, right?)

edit: moved the "How to sell a pre-order" part to a seperate post

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.

Still no Card Captor Sakura movie collection

(tags DVD region 2, anime, Card Captor Sakura, purchase, failure)

I still haven't found the newly released Card Captor Sakura movie collection (「カードキャプターさくら THE MOVIE COLLECTION」) at a price I want. I have been waiting for Animate to have the goods but unfortunately they don't have it in stock and there's no omake. Sofmap doesn't have it and pre-orders were sold out. I went to Gamers Kobe, and they had one copy at full price. I have enough points at Gamers so I held out, but the day after it was gone. Even Joshin didn't have a copy.

I want to go to Nipponbashi today to search for it, but I'm stuck blogging. Oh wait, I can stop now.

Canvassing after school

(tags CD, purchase, anime)

My main target today was the Card Captor Sakura movie DVD collection, but it wasn't out. Tomorrow will be the big spend.

I was able to buy Kotoko's latest single "Hayate no Gotoku" for the anime Hayate no Gotoku. Today is also the infamous day for the release of the Lucky Star CD single. I haven't watched a single ep, and the music just turns me off.

My new blog habit is j1m0ne's blog. There's a review of all the anime and anime-like jpop released today. This person knows music, or at knows the music and anime I like.

Finally I went to Sofmap just to check. I was able to nab Gurumin (PSP) for 1500 yen. I also scooped up Halko Momoi's CD effort in Lovely Idol called "Variety CD 3 Mai Nonomiya: Lovely de cute nanodaa!". The CD came out in March, but I picked this one up because it's Halko Momoi. It said it came with a poster but the new guy at the counter first forgot to check, then couldn't find it. He called the posse, and I had 3 guys try to find it. One of the older guys came up and said, this is embarassing but well we couldn't find, but the new guy interrupted him because he found it. I noticed it was scratched up as if they used it, but I'm sure this poster's easy to part with.

Believing in the PSP: games, movies, advice

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, movie, purchase)

My favorite game device for the moment is the PSP. I've got that DJ Max Portable 2 making me make a scene in the trains and cafes. Yesterday I bought that Tatsujin no Taiko Portable (太鼓の達人ぽーたぶる) used (but this is because I want to make sure I know about it before it comes to the DS). I'm going to head out today to buy the current Famitsu PlayStation Portable magazine (with Final Fantasy Tactics screen wiper but I don't care).

And last night I settled in bed with the UMD version of the movie (2000) Crouching Dragon, Hidden Dragon. I got this UMD and Spirit UMD used at yesterday's Nipponbashi canvassing. Unfortunately I kept confusing this movie with Hero. Yeah, I wanna watch that movie again but I can't find my DVD of it. I did, while searching my room, coincidently find the promotional postcards for the Japanese release of Crouching Dragon, Hidden Dragon, shown below:

Also yesterday evening, some visiting dude wanting to get a PlayStation Portable from the used console case at Sofmap Saurus was having problems being understood by the staff. I was peering at the case myself and he asked me some questions in English. I made sure that he knew about the "cracking" that could be done, and pointed at the firmware version numbers that Sofmap writes for buyer convenience. "Get a PSP with firmware 3.0.3 or lower". He seemed to be in a hurry though, so maybe I should have answered his original question: "Does this come with 1GB Memory Stick?"

I still haven't downgraded my silver PSP, though. I'm sure to get to it when things cool down, ha.

Not this week: Snow Portable

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, gal game, purchase)

I also decided to get the Snow Portable game (thanks Famitsu) today. Unfortunately it was delayed till 2007/05/31. I commented at PSPFanboy:

"Snow Portable seems to be delayed to 2007/05/31 according to the shop I visited. The original PC game was delayed by 3 years... so delays are the norm(?)."

Purchase quest: Final Fantasy 12 Revenant Wings Sky Pirates Edition

(tags game, hardware, Final Fantasy, DualScreen, purchase)

I took half a day off to buy the Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings "Sky Pirates" edition (ファイナルファンタジーXII レヴァナント・ウイング スカイパイレーツエディション), which is just the game and yet another DS Lite with some custom imprint.

I woke up at around 4:30 AM, but didn't get moving until 6:15. I was first in line at the Sofmap Kobe at 7:15. There was a sign saying line up here, but it was still vague because there are two escalators. No one else showed up from 7:30 to 8:45, so I read the last week's Famitsu magazine. (What a good issue: Final Fantasy 1 for PSP guide, Toki wo Kakeru Shojo review, editorial student Takamare! Takamaru comic and other various infos).

Luckily a Sofmap guy showed up at around 8:45 and took my name and Sofmap member number. He said I didn't have to wait in "line" no more, ha ha. And the store opened at 10:00 instead of the normal 11:00 so I did some other things like take pictures of Kobe in the morning. The weather was spectacular.

I got back to the store, and was first at the register. The game wasn't exactly flying off the shelves, no lines, no crazy FF peeps. I noticed the register gal took my copy from a stack of 5 with Post-Its of customer names. Could it be 5 other people showed up early? If they did I didn't see them.

It got me kinda of thinking, Is this game any good? It got 9, 8, 7, 9 from Famitsu (yeash I invoke the Famitsu scores). And its says it's RTS for beginners so I'm there.

Let's stop the blog and play!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the official homepage is hosting time-limited downloads of backgrounds. I already missed the first two days' sets, aww.