The Longer I Wait…

…the more stuff I get to show off at once. Flimsy excuses for laziness notwithstanding, I have indeed accrued a sizable quantity of new items from various orders since the start of the new year, and I thought I’d take this chance to catalog them all before I start forgetting what is or is not “new,” per se.

Listed in no particular order:

• Akiyama Mio figure by Alter
• Fujibayashi Ryou prize figure by FuRyu
• Alicia Melchiott and Isasa Gunther prize figures by Sega
• Asahina Mikuru Waitress Version gashapon
• Miles Edgeworth Ace Attorney Investigations for DS
• Half-Minute Hero for PSP
• Dead Space for Xbox 360
• PSP 1000 with soft case
• 10 miscellaneous PSP games
• Omamori Himari Intro CD Oshichauzo!
• Omamori Himari Ending CD BEAM my BEAM
• Umineko no Naku Koro ni Characted CD 1
• Omamori Himari manga volume 2
• Neon Genesis Evangelion Perfect Collection
• Animelo 2009 booklet
• Autographed sketch by Summer Wars director Hosoda Mamoru

Not too shabby, if it’s not too presumptuous to say so.

S.A.D. is here again

Yes, I am full well aware of how pathetic it is for a blogger to post about a holiday when his post regarding that same holiday the previous year has not even made it to the second page of posts yet.  I’ve seen several other blogs that have long celebratory posts for their one-year anniversaries, and yet here I am, well past that point in my own blog, with so very little done. It’s something of a downer, to say the least, but such is in keeping with the spirit of this cynical holiday-offshoot.  For today marks both Valentine’s Day and Singles Awareness Day, the acronym for which rather appropriately spells the word “sad,” in case the joke wasn’t clear enough. But we the loyal fans of anime, even–no, especially those among us who, like me, are single, need not fret. In Japan, social traditions dictate that girls give Valentine’s chocolate to guys, be it “giri-choko” to coworkers, “tomo-choko” to friends, or “honmei-choko” as expressions of love. Romance is a popular theme in anime, and Valentine’s Day-themed episodes, often complete with chocolates and confessions, abound. I do not mean to portray this in a negative light; I usually enjoy the use of the holiday in the series I watch, and the whole chocolates-giving thing can be used to great effect. Exempli gratia, a quick search for “Valentine” on Konachan yielded this, among others:

But I’m sure many of you who might be reading this already know most of I’ve said so far, not to mention the fact that where I live, Valentine’s Day ended as I was typing this up. As for my own goings-on of late, I’ve been accumulating some most excellent loot, but I cannot yet post in detail about it a friend has my camera for a school project. Also, I will be attending both Anime Boston and PAX East this year, though unfortunately I could only get a Sunday pass for the latter.

But that should be enough for the moment. As always, thanks for reading.

Yesasia.com Makes My Head Hurt

First of all, it’s not Martin Luther King Jr. Day quite yet, so I did technically beat my absurdly generous deadline for a new post. Hold the applause, please.

Anyway, today’s topic is essentially just me jabbering on about a less than ideal experience I recently had with, you guessed it, yesasia.com. I say “less than ideal” on purpose, rather than something like “terrible” or “Shear angry! Shear smash!” because I do not consider it to be entirely to their express discredit.  In retrospect, what happened to me, though unfortunate, was not so egregious as to call gross incompetence or foul play, and for the most part their company dealt with their fault and my concerns quite well. I think I’m not so much outraged as I am still fuming over not getting the outcome I was hoping for.

Image from Safebooru

Happy New Year!

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu, everybody! It also happens to be my sister’s birthday today, so I’m celebrating that too (it’s still midday on the 31st here, actually, but posting this a little early couldn’t hurt, right?). I hope everyone had a great 2009, and I wish you the best for 2010!

Picture from Safebooru.

Happy Holidays

I’d like to start by wishing you all the happiest of holidays, whichever ones you should choose to celebrate. Not to play favorites, but seeing as today is Christmas Day, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas as well. My family finished unwrapping our gifts early this morning, and we just finished up a lunch of delectable glazed Christmas ham. Such may seem obligatory on blogs such as mine, but I’ve just got to show you my loot for this year.  And so, without further ado…

Thanksgiving Occurs

When I finished typing up my previous post, I was quite excited to see what sorts of events, purchases, or other goings-on I’d be able to blog about in the near future.  Eventually I came to realize that nothing much was really happening.  Well, perhaps “nothing” isn’t the right word: life went on as it typically does, and, yes, I had a few more interesting days to break the routine here and there, but there was nothing that gave me that feeling of “Hey, I should blog about this,” or what have you.  Maybe I’m setting the bar for blog-worthiness too high.  Maybe I’m just lazy.  Probably both.  Regardless, Thanksgiving seemed as good an excuse as any, so I figured I might as well run my mouth a bit.  Oh, and the image (source) doesn’t really reflect anything other than A) the sense of listlessness that I’ve been feeling of late and B) the fact that I really like it.

September Loot

My “best” efforts to save money for larger purchases I plan to make are not proving quite as effective as I had envisioned.  Pity.

The plus in this dismal failure of my self-control is that I’ve made some new acquisitions.

The combination of trying not to buy any figures and being hopelessly unable to resist buying figures led to my purchasing several figmas, as they are traditionally less expensive than the PVC statue variety.  I got the Hatsune Miku figma from a sale at Lovelyduckie’s blog.  I was very fortunate in finding it, as I got an excellent deal AND free shipping on this only slightly used figure, which is in perfect condition.  I’m completely satisfied with the purchase, and I’d definitely recommend buying from her if you see something you want.

Kotobukiya’s Clannad Figures

First of all, to anyone who may have actually checked back from time to time, I do apologize for this last bout of inactivity.  Long story short, my life caught up to me for a while, and after that, updating the site simply fell out of my routine without my realizing it.  This does not mean, however, that I have been inactive in the pursuit of my oh-so-excellent otaku passions, and I have quite a few tales to tell from these last…er, seven months or so.  For the moment, though, I’d like to focus on a recent arrival.

Lo and behold…

…Kotobukiya’s Ibuki Fuuko from Clannad!  I am a big fan of the visual novel company Key, and Clannad is certainly no exception.  The language barrier has thus far prevented me from playing the actual game, but I have seen both of the anime series, and they easily rank among my top favorites.  That being said, my acquisition of this particular character is quite significant to me, for you see…

Some New Goodies

First of all, allow me to apologize for the long delay.  School’s been kinda tough, and during my free time I’ve been, well, really lazy.  You know how it is: you start the daythinking you’re going to get all sorts of whatever done, and before you know it you’ve spent the whole day stitting around watching Maho Shojo Lyrical Nanoha, and those new figures and such and your camera are just so far away from your comfortable chair.  There’s an upside, though: I get to showcase some cool new stuff all at once.  Let’s start with this:

The Lala Satalin Deviluke figure, by Good Smile Company.  Stunning.

Arisugawa Arisu Figure

My first order from HLJ arrived today: Solid Works’s figure of Arisugawa Arisu, from Kagihime Monogatari Eikyu Arisu Rondo.  As I was typing this, I looked up the figure on HLJ to see if I could get some relevant info to mention, only to discover that it is now on sale (at time of posting).  For 60% off of what I paid.  Thanks, HLJ. I was having such a hard time getting at the lint in my wallet with all that money in the way.