Animaticfigmation

Animatic Figmation Has Moved

2009-03-25T23:11:00.004-06:00

This will be my last post on blogger. Animatic Figmation has moved to it's own domain under it's own host. We're using the Wordpress platform now. I'll be making the rounds to everyone's blogs when I get a chance in case you miss this post. Please update your blogrolls, the new site address is http://animaticfigmation.com The new site is up and working, and we feel that it is good enough to start redirecting our traffic there. There will still be more added here and there, though everything should be working just fine while the additions are made. If you find that something isn't working right, please let us know so we can fix it ASAP. We hope you all like the new site! See you on the other side!

Fuko Ibuki 1/8 PVC by Kotobukiya

2009-03-24T23:53:00.010-06:00

Fuko Ibuki is a character from the anime/visual novel Clannad. I ordered this 1/8 PVC by Kotobukiya from Robert's Anime Corner Store for $35.08. She is still in stock at the time of this post, if you're interested in buying her you can find her here. Fuko was and still is one of my favorite characters from Clannad. When she arrived I was worried she might be damaged, because of the condition her box was in. Luckily she was unharmed after all that, although her box wasn't as fortunate. Read on for a full review and lots of pictures.

Fuko comes with 3 faces, her wooden star(fish), two dog ears and a tail. Her stand is pretty simplistic just featuring the Clannad logo, and she's held on it by two pegs in her left foot and one in her right. The dog ears attach to her head by magnets, which I find quite nice for keeping them in place yet making them easy to remove. Speaking of removal, it took me a matter of seconds upon holding her in my hands before I realized her skirt is removable. This is only my second figure from Kotobukiya, but it seems that their figures have something in common with each other so far. The body can be easily taken apart and put back together. No worries about damaging the figure to remove the skirt. Not sure if Kotobukiya does this with all of their figures but I will assume so until I own one that doesn't. At least her shiny purple pantyhose makes for a more interesting pantsu shot than the typical plain white. The dog tail slips in a slot in the bottom of her shirt, as you can see in one of the pictures below. I think I prefer the original face the most, probably only because it shows her eyes fully, and I also prefer to pose her with the ears and tail, and yes with her skirt on. I do enjoy her other faces though, extra choices are always welcome. Given that this isn't a high quality figure it's still quite nice, especially if you're a fan of Fuko like I am. This is my first Clannad figure and I've grown quite attached to the anime, so I don't think it'll be my last. More pictures of Fuko can be found on my Flickr photostream.

Just in case there's someone out there reading this who hasn't seen Clannad, here's an odd little video of Fuko in action. The first and second season both come highly recommended, though I would advise you steer clear of the movie version until you've watched them both, unlike I did.

MM (えむえむ) 1/8 PVC by Max Factory

2009-03-23T10:36:00.011-06:00

Today I'll be reviewing MM ( えむえむ) 1/8 PVC by Max Factory. That's her official name, but I prefer to call her Emu Emu (which is how you pronounce えむえむ), though I'll be simplifying her name to MM for this review. She comes from the manga/anime Kemeko Deluxe! She was released in June of 2008, and meant to go along with the Nendoroid Plus: Kemeko. I found her at Robert's Anime Corner Store for $67.48 though it looks like she's out of stock now. I really wanted to get the Nendo Kemeko to go with because they combine, but I haven't been able to find her anywhere yet. I'm going to keep looking though.

MM is well made, but she seems quite awkward by herself. She really is meant to go along with the Nendoroid Plus Kemeko, and it's pretty obvious when you look at how she's held up by her base. She doesn't really look bad but the base and metal rod in her foot has her looking odd. She's held up on one foot by a metal rod that goes in the base and up her foot. She comes with an extra metal rod that is meant for holding Kemeko in place. MM's legs both come off and she can be attached to an extra head piece of Kemeko that's included along with her. The Kemeko head really can't be used on the base without the Nendoroid present, but I took some pictures of MM coming out of the Kemeko head anyways. If you've seen the anime or read the manga the whole concept of MM coming out of Kemeko's mouth would make sense, as Kemeko is a sort of mecha that MM practically lives inside. The sculpting on MM is great, Max Factory did a wonderful job making her. Hopefully I'll be able to find Kemeko but if not she still looks good alone.

If you haven't seen Kemeko Deluxe! you might be interested in Riiana's review of the anime.

Site News, Recent Gets & Box Damage

2009-03-21T09:39:00.008-06:00

First off I'd like everyone to know that despite a long delay, Animatic Figmation the actual site is well under way. It's up and running right now but I need to do some work on it because of the theme I'm using. I might have one or two more posts here before I completely migrate over to the new site. So everyone prepare for the move. I know I said I was doing it soon a while back but so many little things have delayed me. I'm very eager to finish the final steps before the move. I'm going to be spending the weekend testing things out and messing with it, and hopefully early next week I'll have it all ready to go. I'll do one last post here before the big move and go to everyone's blogs to let them know since I doubt half of the people on my blogroll will even see the post.

On another note, yesterday I received my first package from OtakuFuel. I wanted to try them at least once. I had ordered Clannad DVD Box Set Season 1 Complete Collection, Pixy Hiyori 1/8 PVC and a Gurren Lagann mug. Well, I got Pixy and the mug, but they said Clannad was on backorder, but I still got the free shipping from spending enough, since they kept the money for Clannad. Hopefully it doesn't take too long for the backorder to go through, but I guess these things happen. I can't really form an overall opinion of OtakuFuel until I see how they handle that. The only thing I can say I really don't like is their shipping method, Fed Ex. The package arrived early morning on the 19th, and sat in the Fed Ex warehouse or whatever until the 20th. Around 10 AM the Fed Ex truck drove two houses past our house, stopped for a few seconds and then did a U-turn without even looking at our place. Then they drove up the road behind us and did the same thing, drove back past our place and went down the opposite road, did a 360 in front of the mailboxes and took off. They were obviously lost, and lost with my package. I did manage to get my package yesterday though, about 5 hours after they got lost. I was pretty upset that they didn't even look at our house number. Fed Ex is not my favorite shipment method that's for sure. Anyways, I got a free gift with my purchase since it was over $20... nope, not a Nendoroid Petit like I've seen many people get, I got Naruto Bubblegum! Oh well, I'm not complaining, I'm just jealous of the people that got better stuff. I don't even read/watch/associate myself with anything Naruto related so whatever. It's free so there's nothing I can complain about. I really do like the packaging that OtakuFuel used though, Pixy was in her box, inside a box, inside the main box, surrounded by air bags and peanuts, and the mug was inside plastic, inside it's own box next to the Pixy box inside the main box. Phew, that was a long sentence. Technically the order was in Riiana's name because I still haven't received my replacement card after my little incident. The bank screwed up and didn't get my address right so I had to cancel the replacement and send for another one. I think since she's a bit ecchi, Pixy Hiyori will be the first figure review of the new site!

Well, I was about to end my post when a new shipment arrived from Robert's Anime Corner Store. I've got to say this time I have something to complain about. The mailman delivered my package and it was all dented in despite the Fragile warnings all over the box. For the first time ever I can say I'm disappointed in the way my packages arrived (ok, aside from my very first figure get). I got Emu Emu 1/8 PVC by Max Factory, and Fuko Ibuki 1/8 PVC by Kotobukiya. Both figure boxes are damaged, and Fuko's to the point where I don't have to open her package because it's already opened for me. Since I'm unhappy with this I'm going to take pictures of the boxes before I even open them.

Styrofoam is evil. It was even on the inside of Fuko's box as you can see from the pictures. Well, I know I shouldn't make a fuss over boxes unless the figures inside were damaged, but it's quite annoying anyways. I'm one of those people who likes to keep my boxes and keep them in decent condition in case I need to store my figures or move them. Emu Emu's box wasn't damaged too badly, but Fuko's practically fell apart. The only thing holding the box tab on was a piece of tape. Isn't it wonderful how responsible mail carriers can be sometimes (sarcasm intended)? Alright then I won't complain further, the figures are in good condition and that's all that really counts in the end I suppose. They're happy to be free from the tyranny of bad mail carriers, just look at how happy they look to be in my home!

There, now I can end this longer than expected post. Reviews will be coming soon!

Arin 1/8 PVC by GoodSmile Company

2009-03-19T15:27:00.007-06:00

Arin comes from the Korean MMO (massive multi-player online) golf game Pangya, though the game itself has different incarnations all over the world. I played the US version titled Albatross18 on and off for over a year, but I never got into it too much. I did however like the characters and enjoyed playing the game when I did play. I'm sure I'll play it more in the future when the US version re-opens under Ntreev with the original title of Pangya. Anyways, on to the figure. Arin is 1/8 scale PVC made by GoodSmile Company back in 2007, so finding her might be a bit difficult these days. Luckily I stumbled across her still being in stock at Robert's Anime Corner Store, an anime store based in the US. Unfortunately it looks as if I ordered one of the last ones, as she's no longer available at the time of this review. I paid $47.68 for the figure and $7.99 for shipping, and received the figure within around 3 days of the time of ordering.

Arin comes on a green base with two pegs holding her left foot and one peg holding her right. Papel, the funky looking paper bag caddie next to her feet is attached by two pegs. Arin's dress is quite detailed as well as her hat. Her hat isn't removable but her golf club is. The golf club comes apart in two pieces to more easily put it in her hand. I really love the detail on her boots, dress and hat. Also her pantsu are true to the game, as they are polka dotted. Her flowing blue hair looks especially nice, and it feels soft, just like the bows on her boot laces. The details in her eyes could have been a little better I think, but even so they look great. Considering this figure is about 2 years old I think it's great quality all around. Even if you've never played Pangya or golf in your life you can appreciate this figure. Arin isn't my favorite character but she's the only one I've managed to get so far. This is a great PVC figure and I'm glad I was able to get one for myself. I'm working on getting Kooh but she's literally sold out all over the place, but I think I might have found somewhere to order from even though it's going to be a pain in the butt. If you do play the game Arin has some awesome outfits besides this one, it's too bad they didn't make a version of her in her gothic lolita attire. All in all this figure is excellent, a great job by GoodSmile!

Now that my Flickr account has been upgraded and I've uploaded most of my pictures you can find the rest of the pictures from this set in my photostream. There's a ton more than shown here in my review, so do check them out if you're interested. I thought I'd finish off this post with a Pangya video, so here's the promotional video for Season 3.

FLCL Review

2009-03-17T17:46:00.008-06:00

If there was ever an anime that was funny, nonsensical and twisted, I would have to say "FLCL" would fit this description perfect! Not sure exactly how I want to really describe it, so I will use the plot summary from ANN:

Plot Summary: Naota is a normal Japanese 6th grade boy (although a little cynical), but when his older brother leaves for America to play baseball, his brother leaves his homeless 17 year old girlfriend Mamimi behind. Mamimi is sending mixed signals and advances to Naota, and he doesn't know what to do about her. But to make matters worse, Naota's world is totally turned upside down when he is run over by a woman on a Vespa. During their first encounter, she hits him over the head with her guitar, which then causes a horn to grow out of his forehead. She calls herself "Haruko" and her presence changes Naota's life to even further insanity.

When I watched this anime, it wasn't bad, but I felt like my brain was going a little dumb. It's probably worth a second watch to better understand it. There was just something about the non-sense of this anime that kept me watching. Maybe it is because Haruko reminds me of a character in another anime I have watched, but Haruko is just an awesome character. You would have to watch it to know what I mean.

Naota is a very strange character in himself. He would be a normal boy but thanks to Haruko hitting him in the head and running him over his life just isn't the same. This is definitely an anime to watch for yourself and form your own opinion.

I think my favorite part about the anime was the whole nonsensical quality of it's entirety.
For some reason this anime made me think of how somebody on drugs would feel if they had watched this while tripping out on any random drug out there. Alot of this anime left me not knowing whether I wanted to laugh my butt off, or go WTF??? It was that strange.

I don't know for sure if I ever caught what FLCL was really supposed to stand for, but we can leave that up to you to decide, and if you do figure out for sure, feel free to let me know. All in all I think Haruko is probably my most favorite character. And this anime was definitely worth watching despite its crazy qualities. I think that made it all the more worth watching.

Oh yeah... must say one more thing... EYEBROWS?? ... Watch to find out...

Flickr Upgrade and Updating

2009-03-16T21:58:00.004-06:00

Not too big of news, but I figured it might be worth writing about. Today I finally upgraded my Flickr account to Pro. No more limits to keep me from uploading all the pictures that do and don't make it onto my reviews. I'm not entirely caught up yet but I've been busy getting the account up-to-date on my photo shoots. Now that I'm not limited I can put up my PVC figure pictures, Nendoroid pictures and even non-figure pictures all up in separate sets and collections. Sorry if you're on my Flickr contact list and have a huge flood of updates, I fell quite behind. So yeah, nothing huge but I'll be doing a lot more with my Flickr now. If you have a Flickr account and would like to add me feel free, I like checking out other people's pictures as well.

Picture of Flandre Scarlet taken from Gelbooru.

Getting Back To Things

2009-03-14T13:40:00.013-06:00

I'd love to say that I've had no excuse to fall this far behind, that I was just being too lazy to go to everyone's blogs and comment and too lazy to write up a review. The truth is though, I've been sick in bed. My wife, my son and I all got sick and we've been feeling miserable for over a week now. I think I'm starting to recover, though I still don't feel great. This town has been hit hard with a couple different viruses and we all happened to catch one. I've managed to at least sort of keep up with anime in between sleeping times, and sort of keep up with what's going on in the world around me. I apologize to everyone for not having been to your blogs lately, but I promise I'll be paying them all visits soon.

Riiana still has an unfinished FLCL review that will be released soon, and I just got a new figure in the mail this morning unexpectedly. Well, I didn't expect it to get here until Monday at least. Here's a sneak preview, I'll be getting pictures and doing a review asap.

I thought since I've been away so much lately, I'd let you know what my current pre-order list is looking like. You might notice that my figure collection is extending into more PVC and not so much Figma. I still love my Figmas but there's just so many tempting PVC figures coming out this year that I really don't want to pass on. For this month I'm still waiting on:

Yami aka Golden Darkness 1/8 PVC by GoodSmile Company

Haruhi Suzumiya Extravaganza Ver. 1/8 PVC by Max Factory

For April I've pre-ordered:

Le Blanc de la Valliere Louise Francoise Gothic Punk Ver. 1/8 PVC by Alter

Hoshimura Makina Figma by Max Factory

Hiiragi Kagami Figma OVA Ver. by Max Factory

So far I have 2 orders for May, though I'd like to squeeze in another PVC if possible:

Maru & Moro 1/8 PVC by Art Storm/Lilics

Yuki Nagato Extravaganza Ver. 1/8 PVC by Max Factory

Aside from those I have only 2 other pre-orders:

Mid-July - Petit Nendoroid Nagato the Ero-Gamer ver. by GoodSmile Company

August (in time for my birthday?) - Black Rock Shooter 1/8 PVC by GoodSmile Company

Yup, quite a bit of PVC up in there and there's likely to be more announced that I won't want to pass up. I guess I'm losing control a bit, but so long as I can afford these without having to cancel anything I think I'll be happy. There's definitely going to be some Figmas that I must get but many of them aren't available for pre-order yet. Also, I have another figure on the way within the next week here, along with some other stuff. I've been trying to go back and obtain some older figures lately. Well then, lets hope I keep feeling better and get over this soon. I'll do my best to keep up with blogging.

Picture of Tsukasa in a gas mask taken from Gelbooru.

Nendoroid Yoko

2009-03-07T15:50:00.008-07:00

Yesterday Nendoroid Yoko from Gurren Lagann arrived at my door. I had pre-ordered her from Hobby Search months ago and almost had to cancel her. Luckily that didn't end up happening and now she graces my shelf. She is still available at the time of posting this, if you decide you want her you can order her here. Her cost is 3,167 Yen.

Yoko comes with 5 arms, 4 legs, and 3 faces, and her scarf. She also comes with her extra long gun and some orange tinted shades. The gun can be taken apart as shown with included instructions, and it also comes with an extra strap. The shades attach to the underside of her front hairpiece. Her ponytail is also removable and articulated. I'm quite impressed with the level of detail in this Nendoroid, though it doesn't come as much of a surprise anymore. Yoko's stand is clamp style so it grips around her hips/waist. I especially like her angry face. She looks like she's about to kick the living crap out of my other nendos. She's a little top heavy like most nendos but that's easily fixed with the grip from her stand. I can't see a need for much improvement, aside from maybe her bangs being a little more flexible. They get in the way a bit, otherwise no complaints here. If you're a fan of Nendoroids or Gurren Lagann I can suggest picking this figure up.

If you haven't seen Gurren Lagann, I can highly recommend it. It has plenty of action, comedy and some drama, hell even the music is good. Of course primarily it's a mecha anime, but I can suggest this anime even to those who don't find mecha appealing. It's definitely a one of a kind epic anime. O.k, so you can tell I like it. I wanted to include the first opening but there seems to be a ton of fan made versions and I can't seem to find the original, so you'll have to look it up yourself, sorry.

March Madness?

2009-03-05T16:46:00.008-07:00

March has been here for 5 days now, and I'm just getting back to blogging~ uguu. Well, things turned out to be a little hectic. My bank card got stolen and someone helped themselves to a few hundred dollars of my money on the first of the month. But luckily the person who took my card wasn't very smart and thus our newly arrived tax returns weren't drained completely. The bank is going to cover the money that was taken, so things will be o.k. We're also in the process of doing a bunch of much needed home improvements. And, as I'm writing this Riiana has come down with a cold and I'm trying to fend it off. Alas, all this in only a short time, but things aren't too bad I guess. So on with regular posting. This morning Nendoroid Yoko arrived at my door. I also decided to take pictures of the poster that came in the February issue of OtakuUSA that I recently got, as requested.

Here's the full shot.

And a couple shots in sections to show better detail.

Anyways I'll be doing a shoot of the Nendoroid Yoko probably tomorrow, and Riiana is working on a review of Fooly Cooly that should be up real soon. I also want to do an update of pre-orders as I have several things in waiting.

Oh yeah, and I got an e-mail from fellow Team Blue member and blogger, Otaku Dan, as well as a blog comment from fellow blogger Blowfish pointing me in the direction of a Sankaku Complex article about tattoos that just happened to feature Riiana's Tama the tiger from Hayate no Gotoku. Thanks for the heads up guys!

End of February Haul

2009-02-28T21:12:00.003-07:00

I originally planned on posting this earlier, but things have been busy lately. Had some problems that needed taken care of and never got around to this. I picked up 5 volumes of xxxHolic manga last week from Barnes and Noble, and decided to finally get myself a membership since I plan to buy a lot more from there. Now, I'm up to date on the English xxxHolic releases so far. Been eying up quite a few manga series lately.

Also a couple days ago my Riiana picked up an issue of OtakuUSA for me, it's pretty decent. It has a fold out Gurren Lagann poster in it. Also picked up Chocobo Tales and My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS. I know I'm already using iKnow for learning Japanese but I figure every little thing I can do to strengthen my knowledge will be useful. I'm waiting on Nendoroid Yoko to arrive by early next week as well. I apologize for such a short post after a long wait but there will be plenty more soon.

Sun Seto Figma

2009-02-18T16:46:00.010-07:00

Today I'll be reviewing the Figma of Sun Seto. She comes from the manga/anime Seto no Hanayome. I got her from the usual suspect, Hobby Search for 2,261 Yen. She's readily available at the time of writing up this review. I haven't seen the entire series yet, nor the OVA, so I can't really tell you what I think about it. I do plan on finishing it up one of these days soon though. Basically, what made me decide to buy this particular figure were the optional nekomimi and mermaid tail. Alright, move on to read the review.

First off, she comes with 10 hands, 2 faces, her sword with scabbard, nekomimi and her mermaid tail. There's also a background you can download from the Figma site for her which wasn't included. Just scroll down and you'll see it. It would have been nice had they included it but I already had something else in mind before she arrived. Her hair is restricting in the back, making her unable to look at an upward angle, which is a bit of a turn off. The good part about the hair is the side bangs are flexible. Her nekomimi go between the front and main hair pieces, which loosens up the front piece a bit. I haven't tried them out on other figures, so I can't be too sure about how well they'll work with them. The mermaid tail is made of a thin but hard plastic, so it's not flexible. I would have liked it better had they made it of a softer PVC so that it could bend around for more interesting poses. In order to put her mermaid tail on, you need to take her lower legs off from the knees and then you can either slide the tail on or separate it in half and then snap it back together over her thighs. I do like this figure because it's unique for a Figma, but there's room for improvement. If I was to rate her I'd give a 7/10. If you're a fan of hers maybe knock that up a point.

Just in case you wonder about the base, you may have noticed waves being used for one in some of the pictures. This was actually from a dolphin statue that broke a while back and I kept it because I thought one day it might come in handy for something like this. Some of the pictures feature a tapestry in the background and others the cardboard backdrop from the Figma box. I had fun trying to get some interesting pictures but it was a bad day for lighting. I might try for some more pictures again with her, because she gets my creative juices flowing.

Lastly, if you can handle the moe overdose of the video, do check out the second ending song above, else you'd be wise to skip it.

Ryomou Shimei Figma

2009-02-16T22:17:00.007-07:00

Ryomou Shimei is one of the main characters of the manga/anime series Ikkitousen. This particular version is from Ikkitousen: Great Guardians. I picked her up from Hobby Search for 2,261 Yen, and she's still available right now if you're interested. I never got into the anime much at first because of the overly excessive fan service, but lately I've decided to start watching, and it's not that bad after all. So far, Ryomou is my favorite character, for various reasons.

First off, Ryomou comes with 3 different faces, 10 hands, and a pair of handcuffs. The handcuffs are a pretty cool accessory but they are pretty thin and stretchy so I'd be careful with them. The hands switch out smoothly with no hassle at all, and no worry of breaking them. I especially like her gripping hands, the ones that look like they're for choking. Almost her entire french maid dress is soft PVC, which is pretty nice if you ask me. Her oppai are even squishy because the dress is merely raised in that area. I guess the only complaint with her would be she doesn't have the battle damage option for her clothes like Kanu does, if that's really something to complain about. I don't mind it a bit actually, because her dress looks great the way it is, with no ugly lines in it. Her maid cap comes off with her front hair piece, and you'll notice she even has a small ahoge in the back of her hair. So, if you're an Ikkitousen fan, like bad-ass women who know how to fight, or you just have a maid fetish, you might consider picking up this Figma.

Well then, I couldn't resist having Ryomou and Kanu Unchou fight it out, so I decided to take a few more pictures with the two of them. Of course, you can see Figma Kanu's review as well if you haven't already. But, since this is Mou-chan's review, I couldn't let her lose the battle.

Fewture Models Chii by Art Storm|Lilics

2009-02-15T10:09:00.012-07:00

Alright, first up from the newly owned figures is the Fewture Models Chii by Art Storm/Lilics. I had been interested in this figure since seeing fellow Team Blue member Lovelyduckie's review on her, and finally acquired her. If you're even the least bit interested I suggest you check out her review because it's great. Chii is from the manga/anime Chobits, whom I'm pretty sure everyone out there has at least heard of. I hold it responsible as the gateway show to my otakudom. Anyways I got this figure used for $35 USD from a figure sale Dancing Queen was having, originally I had thought about buying her but the asking price was a bit high, especially after I got curious about the figure more and re-read Lovelyduckie's review, and found her still selling at Robert's Anime Corner Store for about $40. Dancing Queen gladly lowered the price for me, making me unable to resist the buy. So once again thanks to both of my fellow Team Blue members, without them I wouldn't own this lovely figure. This was one impulse buy I'm glad I made.

I decided to try and show all the details in the figure since I rather like the attention to them in this figure. You probably notice a few places where paint has come off, this isn't a brand new figure after all, and with a pose like this you can expect such a thing to happen over time. You'll see the base is quite huge though not too big for the figure, and there's some paint that's been transferred onto it. Well, the very fabric I used for the background here is what I'm using for my base until I find something more suited. She might be pre-owned and an old figure but I'd like to keep her from further damage. I think the base is probably the only real thing I would have complained about had I bought this figure when she first came out. It's just asking to scrape paint off her really. Even though she's not in perfect condition I have no complaints. She was made back in 2006 and I can happily say she's a welcome addition to my collection. I really couldn't ask for a better looking Chii figure, although I would be ecstatic if Max Factory made a Figma of her (honestly don't see it ever happening but I can daydream right?). I really love the outfit, even if it's up a little too high in the back. She's also quite large, being 1/5 scale or 10 inches long. It's nice to have a figure that's not standing once in a while as well. It's a good figure for a low price, and if you like Chobits I really couldn't recommend a better PVC yet. There are a few other Chobits figures I plan on getting when possible though, so we'll see. Once again thanks to Dancing Queen for selling this to me.

Chobits was the first anime that I bought the entire series on DVD, even though I originally downloaded and watched it. I enjoy both the subbed and dubbed versions pretty much equally, which doesn't happen all that often. If I had never seen Chobits I wouldn't be the person I am today most likely. Before it, there was Miyazaki films and things like Sailor Moon. Of course, since then I've become addicted to all things Japanese, and I probably watch about as much anime as the average American watches normal TV.

Friday the 13th Loot

2009-02-13T16:34:00.004-07:00

Well, it's still only the 13th over here. So how many people are superstitious? Do you believe any of those things? Usually people think of Friday the 13th as an unlucky day, and for Haruhi fans I guess it was just that. Seeing as how Kadokawa trolled the world about the Haruhi-chan youtube show. I did get woke up unusually early by a phone call from my cousin's baby this morning.. that was weird. But all-in-all it was a good day because I got 2 packages at the same time, one via EMS and one from the mail box. The first package to arrive was from Hobby Search, I picked up Figma Sun Seto from Seto no Hanayome and Ryomou Shimei from Ikkitousen, as well as a Clannad pouch with Nagisa's silhouette on it. I'm using the pouch for my Nintendo DS although it's big enough to carry slightly larger things.

A few minutes after that package came in we went and checked the mailbox and found Chi waiting for us. I bought Chi used from fellow TeamBlue member DancingQueen a few weeks ago when she was selling some of her unwanted figures, couldn't resist picking this one up as I'd seen a nice review of her a while back on Lovelyduckie's blog. I'm proud to be the new owner of this Chi, finally I have an actual PVC of her, and a 1/5th at that? Well, anyways I just wanted to do a little update since I'm not sure which one I'll be reviewing first, but I'll do a post for each one of them soon.

No, these three pictures aren't meant to be good, I was just trying out the night shot mode of the camera for fun. Real pictures will follow in the reviews.

Music: Mami Kawada

2009-02-12T19:25:00.009-07:00

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Mami Kawada. Perhaps because I just finished watching Shakugan no Shana II recently in anticipation of the coming new season, or because I've gotten sucked into To Aru Majutsu no Index. Either way, I love her music style. Ever since I first heard her song in Hayate no Gotoku I've loved her music. I didn't know who she was at first though, because I had her confused with Kotoko. The reason being they often do songs in the same anime. They also make music for eroge together as part of I've Sound. It's really a shame that there aren't an abundance of pictures of miss Kawada to share with you, but I managed to get a few from last.fm, as well as these single album covers. Check out some of her PV's from anime OP and ED songs that I like. I can also highly recommend all the anime mentioned here. Enjoy!

PSI - Missing, the first opening song to To Aru Majutsu no Index.

Masterpiece, the second opening song from To Aru Majutsu no Index.

Hishoku no sora, from Shakugan no Shana.

Joint, opening from Shakugan no Shana II.

Get My Way!, second ending from Hayate no Gotoku.

Mami Kawada's official site is here: http://mami-kawada.jp/

Blog Upgrade/Moving In Progress

2009-02-09T10:16:00.004-07:00

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I'm finally getting the process of moving my blog to wordpress and getting my own domain name under way. I'm pretty new to the whole process so it's taking me a while to make up my mind about things and get everything set up the way I want it. When everything is done I'll be sure to post the link and inform everyone on my blogroll that doesn't see my post that I've moved. It might take a while, so for now I'll keep posting here, just a quick post here to check in and let everyone know what's going on. The new domain will be http://animaticfigmation.com but I wouldn't bother going there for a while yet. Yes, it may seem I'm jumping on the bandwagon, and maybe I am in a way, but you've gotta admit it looks better than http://persocom-san.blogspot.com If anyone has advice for me about wordpress or anything else regarding this matter I'd be glad to hear it, this is my first blog and the first time I've owned a domain name and all that. I'm still waiting on a couple packages, and now I know why I choose EMS whenever possible. Maybe I'll get luck when I check the mail today...

Picture of Saber from Gelbooru, yes that's Saber.

Nanoha StrikerS Figma Group Shoot

2009-02-05T21:21:00.011-07:00

Since I recently finished collecting the Figma trio from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS I decided to do a group shoot. The girls each have their own review: Nanoha Takamachi, Hayate Yagami and Fate T. Harlaown. So because they already have their own reviews I won't be doing much but just posting more pictures of them.

I can't really pick a favorite figure-wise, but my favorite girl from the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series would be Fate. I still like Nanoha and Hayate quite a bit though. Always liked Nanoha's kick butt and make friends attitude, and Hayate's willpower and pure strength. It's a shame Hayate didn't get more air time really.

You'll notice I took the skirt parts of their barrier jackets off for a good number of these pictures. Nanoha's slides off sideways, Hayate's requires you seperate her torso, and Fate's does also but requires much more work getting it off, and even more safely getting it back on. I wouldn't really suggest messing with Fate's, I was quite afraid I'd end up breaking something, so don't complain to me if you do. Again I used the custom bases that I've been talking about in most of my Figma posts lately, in the few I used bases for at least. You know I didn't realize until now that I didn't bother with any head swapping pictures this time around. I kind of had a hard time with this shoot, between the camera and I'm running out of backgrounds to use and I couldn't find anything that suited them. Going to be fixing that problem soon. I would have done it outdoors but it was too windy and I didn't want to risk losing pieces. These three girls have a load of accessories when combined.

Not a lot to be said here besides they look good together and if you're a fan these are pretty nice figures. I wouldn't mind seeing more from the StikerS crew as Figma, especially Vita and Signum, but Teana and Subaru would be pretty cool too. I doubt we'll be seeing them anytime soon considering the length of time between Nanoha, Fate and Hayate's releases. Of course, we may never see them either, but it doesn't hurt to hope a little. Well, I should be getting a couple things in the mail soon, also have an anniversary coming up later this month. I'll be talking about that soon enough. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Now I feel like playing Magical Battle Arena.

Get Set, Ready! Japanese Study Time!

2009-02-03T21:15:00.007-07:00

I've been wanting to learn Japanese for a while, but it's really hard to stay serious about studying something when you're doing it on your own. At least, in my case, I tend to procrastinate too often, and thus things end up piling up and not getting done. Things that I should enjoy doing get thrown to the side with pitiful excuses as to why I haven't gotten much done with it. Well, that's not the case with my Japanese studying anymore! I've got four books, numerous bookmarks, joined a couple communities and the interest all there. Heck, I even have an online friend who randomly quizzes me once in a while. But even with all that, I've been slacking hardcore. I pick up a book and read a bit, I've gotten a few phrases, a handful of words and a decent amount of Hiragana stored up in my mind, but I just haven't had the one thing I needed most, constant motivation. Also, much to my dismay, in my city there is nowhere to take Japanese classes or college courses. I've already looked into it, thinking that perhaps what I really needed was to be taught as a student with an actual teacher. Thanks to DannyChoo talking about iKnow on his site, I found what I was missing: interactive studying that goes at my pace. I think I've done more studying today alone than in my entire "studying" previously. Of course, this isn't going to do it all for me, there will be more steps to take in the future, like actually speaking and having conversations with people. All in time. Anyways a brief introduction to iKnow. The site is pretty simple to understand. You register and create an account for free, pick your native language and the language you wish to learn. Once you're set up you can tweak your profile or get to learning right away. You chose courses you want to take, or lists you want to study, and do them at your own pace, or at the recommended pace. I'm still new to it, so I'm still learning the features, but I had to share with everyone even though you may have seen it on DannyChoo.

iKnow is quite the useful site, after hearing about it I made an account right away and tried it out. I'm hooked! I'm going to do this on a daily basis as long as I'm around a computer and able to. No more procrastination. With iKnow being so easy to use and keeping track of my steps for me, I can use that as my core method of learning. But this doesn't mean all my other bookmarked sites and fellow bloggers who give out lessons are going to be ignored, the more knowledge the better! I thought books were the way to go but that's more Riiana's style. She seems to get more out of the books, but for me interactivity online works a lot better. Of course the books aren't going to get dusty though, they'll just be secondary sources of learning. I only know one language besides English and I'm not great at it, French. Four years of French in High School but never had anywhere to seriously apply that knowledge and although I remember a lot, I also forgot a lot. I've found my knowledge of French useful in a few places online at least, but Japanese is what I'm truly passionate about. So random rambling aside, if you're interested in this and join, or if you're already on there, feel free to add me as a friend! My name on iKnow is persocomsan, also Riiana's name on there is nanakonata. Not much else to say here except try it for yourself! Another time I'll share some other useful sites that I have bookmarked for myself, for those of you who want to learn or are currently studying Japanese. Maybe I'll see some of you on iKnow soon?

Misaki Nakahara Figure

2009-01-30T16:49:00.009-07:00

Dame ningen, Welcome to the N.H.K!

I finally got one of my most-wanted figures. I just posted earlier this month about 3 figures on my must-get list. One got pre-ordered, one I still need to figure out how to acquire, but this one I managed to find by accident, or is it coincidence? Anyways, I was looking around Ebay for something non-figure related and just decided to type in Misaki for the hell of it. I've looked for this figure many places and many times before with no luck, but this time I found someone selling it. I needn't say I payed much more than the figure is worth, so this could be considered a purely blind figure purchase simply for my own pride and joy and not looking towards value or even quality. Misaki Nakahara from Welcome to the N.H.K. This is the only known figure from this series, and it's a limited edition figure that came with Volume 04 of the original Japanese manga. The original price for the figure/manga in 2005 was 1,800 Yen. I'm not sure just how limited she is but I know it took me a while to manage to find her, and I'm proud to finally have her in my possession.

Considering she was released in 2005, before I even became a figure collector, I can't really compare her to other figures from those days. I bought the Welcome to the N.H.K. book a while back and watched the anime series and it's one of my personal top 10 anime. Back to my purchase though. I bought from a seller in Japan, and I received my order via EMS (I'm impatient enough to spend a bit more for shipping), unopened and packaged nicely. I was a bit surprised at the size of the figure, as she's a bit smaller than I expected, but I don't mind at all. The manga came in the box and has a nice cover (which I used for my background shots). Her cast off feature does show like most of those type, with a crack that is obvious, and I think especially so since the figure is older it's more noticeable. It doesn't bother me in this particular case. Misaki comes with 2 arms for when she's in cast off mode, an umbrella (in two parts), an extra hair piece with nekomimi, a postcard and the manga. As a N.H.K. fan I'm quite happy with my purchase, even though I'm a total baka and spent more than I should have. This is probably the last figure post you'll be seeing this month, but I do have one more impulse buy that should have been here by now.

A size comparison to Nendoroid/Figma so you can get an idea of how big she is.

If you haven't seen the anime, read the manga or the light novel, I can highly recommend you take the time to check one or all of them out. Perhaps it's not everyone's cup of sugar but I fell in love with all versions of this story. The original author of the book is Tatsuhiko Takimoto. I'll throw in the videos to the opening and ending songs just for good measure.

Yuki Nagato - My First Figma

2009-01-26T21:41:00.011-07:00

Continuing on from the previous post, today I'm semi-reviewing another one of my first figures. This time around it's my first Figma, and this marks my first PVC figure and also the figure that I personally regard as my first true figure as well. It was on a cloudy day last year that she arrived in my mailbox, and today was a cloudy day too. Yuki Nagato, from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was the figure that started my obsession with figure collecting. Ink-Eyes couldn't compare with the excitement I had when I got my first Figma. Joints didn't bother me, in fact the articulation of Figma is what drew me in the most. I was all too paranoid about the joints, the hand pieces and everything about it at first though. I was afraid to break her, this wasn't like the action figures I collected as a child. I recall, back then I didn't know many stores and I pretty much bought from the US ones because I was afraid of overseas shipping and delivery times, so she was bought from Kid Nemo. I've stopped buying from Kid Nemo after some dissapointments with orders not working out, but back then I loved them.

Yuki came with 2 faces, both pretty much the same, 2 hair pieces, one with and one without glasses, 2 sets of shoes, the indoor and outdoor ones, 10 hands, a chair, and one opened and one closed book, along with the normal Figma stand and bag. I didn't manage to get one of the special ones with a scarf, but oh well. I didn't think I'd get into figures as much as I did when I got her, but I found out soon after I had her in my possession that she looked pretty lonely all by herself. It was then that I decided to order Haruhi as well. Well, Riiana also wanted the Haruhi Figma since I got the Yuki one for me. There weren't very many Figma to choose from at that point in time, so I had to stick with what was available that wasn't limited edition. When I first got Yuki I didn't have a blog yet, and I also only took a few crappy quality pictures of her just for fun. I didn't realize that soon I'd be blogging, and soon after that I'd be reviewing figures on a regular basis. Didn't take long before I learned how to take somewhat decent pictures of figures, I just hadn't done it before, so it took a few photo shoots to learn the basics. Thus why until now, you've never seen an actual review of her. I know there are already probably hundreds of reviews of this figure out there, but this is a special figure to me, so I'm doing this for myself, as well as to share with those of you who bother to read this wall of text.

Again, the custom base cover is not made by me. You'll be seeing more of these in the future and I suppose I have to credit each time just in case you didn't see the last one. I got the cover for this Figma base from this post over at DannyChoo. One of these days I might see about using the template of those bases to make some for the Figma that don't have any made for them yet.

Of course, the moment the Evil Witch Version Yuki Nagato was announced I knew I had to have her. Even though I already had a Yuki, the accessories convinced me to buy. Although she is a simple figure, she holds a special place in my heart as my "first" figure, first Figma and the one that started my obsession with collecting. I plan on reviewing one more figure that never saw a real review, Haruhi Suzumiya. Whether or not I do it in the next post or later on in the future I'm not sure of. I still plan to do a Ryoko Asakura vs. Yuki Nagato post also one of these days. Well, I hope I didn't bore you too much, but I thought it'd be nice to give my Yuki the attention she deserved when I got her but didn't receive.

Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni - My First (Resin) Figure

2009-01-25T16:19:00.006-07:00

Based on an original illustration by Wayne Reynolds for a Magic: The Gathering card, Ink-Eyes Servant of the Oni - Limited Edition Resin Statue made by First4Figures was to be my first figure ever. A far stretch perhaps from the world of figure collecting which I immerse myself into today, this was an ode to my previous hobby during it's dying days. I've been into anime for a lot longer than I've been into figure collecting, but before I started buying figures I had other hobbies. Anyways, this post wasn't meant to talk about my past hobbies, but rather about this failure of a first figure. I'll save talking about MTG and how I feel about it now for another day. Today we're going to focus on Ink-Eyes, and why she, yes, she, is still hard for me to claim as my first figure.

I had never owned a figure of any sort prior to buying Ink-Eyes. I'm not even sure what made me decide to buy her. Perhaps the cheap price, the gimmick of being limited edition with only 5,000 copies in the world, or the fact that I thought the artwork on the card was cool and having a statue of that artwork would be something I could boast about to my old MTG buddies. Well, no boasting ever happened, and for the longest time, until today mind you, she's been collecting dust on a high shelf where no one ever really notices her existence. I ordered her from CoolStuffInc.com for a measly $7.99, I couldn't believe how cheap she was because suggested retail price was $59.99. Boy, was I a sucker. The shipping and handling charge was around $10 and shipped via UPS. Is it just me or is UPS notorious for mishandling packages? Well, I've never had anything shipping via UPS since then. I was excited to get the package, and I opened it with the glee of a child opening a Christmas present. But, to my horror the figure arrived broken. Yes, during shipping, even inside Styrofoam, in a box within a box covered with more Styrofoam, her arm had been severed at the elbow. She came in pieces of course, which I didn't expect either. I had to insert her tail, sword, and other accessories. In the process of putting the sword in her hand, the sword from it's heaviness snapped, getting stuck inside. I messed with her a bit trying to get the piece that broke off inside out, before finally giving up. I was left disappointed. I learned a valuable lesson that day though... if a figure has an option to spend a few more dollars on insurance don't hesitate to do so. I thought about maybe buying another one and just trashing this one, but I was too bummed out about it to even bother. I almost vowed to stop attempting to collect figures in general. This is one of the reasons I never posted about her, I don't like to post negative things. I bought her months before I started blogging. Just today I finally broke out the super glue and fixed her broken arm, and attempted a temporary fix for the sword.

What saved me from giving up on figure collecting was the discovery of DannyChoo.com. Around the time that I bought Ink-Eyes I had taken up a large interest in Japan and Japanese culture and lifestyle, along with a reborn interest in anime. Ink-Eyes was to be the death of that part of my life where Magic: The Gathering reigned over all else. A new me was being built. Of course, during my lurking days at DannyChoo's site, I came across the one thing that would spawn a new hobby, which in turn led me to begin blogging: Figma. More on that in my next post.

Perhaps, as an ode to her being my first figure, maybe some day I'll buy the other 4 MTG figures that were part of a set, but for now my eyes are set on better looking, higher quality figures from anime and manga that I love.

actual Ink-Eyes card from wizards.com

wallpaper from kragstad.com (click for full size)

Next time I'll grace you with what I consider to by my true first figure.

By the way everyone, Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year! I decided to bring the Year of the Rat to a close with a figure related to such. Bring on the Year of the Ox!

Hayate Yagami Figma

2009-01-23T19:11:00.007-07:00

Introducing the Figma version of Hayate Yagami, from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, the third in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series. With this, the current Nanoha StrikerS Figma collection is complete, so soon I'll be doing a post with the other two girls, Nanoha Takamachi and Fate T. Harlaown along with Hayate. I bought her from Hobby Search for 2,533 Yen, not including shipping of course, as I combined her with another figure. She's still available at the time of writing this review, so if you think she's a figure you'd enjoy don't miss out!

Hayate Yagami comes with 2 faces, 2 hair pieces (one normal and one with a slot for her hat to fit on and keep it in place), her hat, 2 versions of the Book of Darkness (one open, one closed), and 10 different hands. Also, you can't forget her intelligent weapon the Schwertkruez, which the top and bottom come off so as to slide into her hands for holding. I admit it's a bit of work to get it into her hands but I'm sure after a while it'll be easier to do. Also, last but not least she comes with a set of 6 wings (all attached to eachother) which are made of a see through black and clear plastic. WARNING: Hayate's wings are VERY fragile. Trust me... I broke them within mere minutes of opening her box, and I'm usually very careful with my Figmas, I just happened to be distracted for a moment and that's all I needed. You can't notice it though because I did a good super glue fix up. It's not really a huge deal, but I did get a bit upset at first. The wings also come with a peg in them that's removable so you can either have her wings on her back without the stand, or put the wings on the stand itself along with her. Her coat bottom (the skirt part) is removable as you'll see in some of the pictures, and quite easily so, you just have to seperate her body, which I don't really like doing because I'm afraid the joints will become loose that way. I think that's about all I have to say the review part of this post.

If you're wondering about the base of her stand, that's a custom cover, not made by me. I printed it off at the local print shop (note to self: buy a new printer), and I got it from here. There's a bunch of other ones for Figmas available on that link so check it out if you are interested. Also, I'd like to mention fellow blogger Acesan has a great Figma Hayate Yagami review over at his site, so do check it out if you're thinking about getting this figure.

Nendoroid Kyouka Midarezaki

2009-01-22T10:08:00.011-07:00

Kyouka Midarezaki the autocratic, spastic yet loving "wife/mother" hails from the anime/novels/manga Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, or The Diary of a Crazed Family. She's now available in Nendoroid form. I bought her from Hobby Search for 3,167 Yen. She's still in stock now, so if she appeals to you after this review you can still purchase her there. Of course, another Kyouka figure has just been announced and I'm already eyeing that one up, see information about that over at wcloudx(kumo)'s blog. I already have a couple figures pre-ordered for May so it might be pushing it to get that one, but I'm very tempted, even though I'm very pleased with this one.

Kyouka comes with her "daughter" Gekka, the jellyfish. Gekka plays a pretty important part in the series and I think it's pretty awesome that they added her with this Nendo. Two of Gekka's arms(?) move on a ball joint, which is a nice added feature. Kyouka's ears are removable, but I chose to leave them on because they're part of what makes her unique, plus they leave holes behind. She has 3 heads, the crying face, angry face and normal face, as well as 2 extra arms. The quality is top notch, I didn't see a blotch of paint or a scratch anywhere. I took my pictures outside and a couple times she got knocked over by the wind and didn't take a beating, so she's pretty durable. Oh yeah, her tail is removable as well. I think her faces fit her personality very well, and I can't really decide which one I like best. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go separate her from Miku, she's stirring up some trouble.

Here's a little video of the OP of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki to give you an idea of her personality. Perhaps Riiana or I will do a review on the anime soon. The song is by MOSAIC.WAV who I plan on doing a post about one of these days also.

Kemeko Deluxe!

2009-01-21T13:52:00.013-07:00

So, we recently finished watching "Kemeko Deluxe" And I have to say I found it hilarious to watch! You NEVER know what Kemeko will do next. The protagonist, a high school boy named Sanpeita Kobayashi, has a freak meeting with a chibi mecha named Kemeko, who claims to be his wife. Inside the sadistic Kemeko is a beautiful girl named M.M. whom seems vaguely familiar to him. His first love placed a glowing object in his mouth before dissapearing 10 years ago and M.M. looks a lot like her. Kemeko keeps trying to protect the boy from the Mishima company that is after Sanpeita, thus making further complications for him as well. Also his childhood friend Izumi Makihara secretly wants to get closer to him. M.M. refuses to reveal much about herself even though she claims Sanpeita as her husband, and spends most of her time cooped up inside Kemeko.

There is definitely something (hilariously perverse, perhaps?) about Kemeko that kept me watching this anime. I think that the Kemeko character made things more fun for this anime. She's cute, scary and fun and just a little annoying sometimes, she just makes you want to love her all the more. All the characters add more comedic touch, like the blue haired rich pervert girl Misaki Hayakawa, and the warrior girl Ryoko Kurosaki who lends us a classic moment such as this:

All in all this was definitely an anime worth checking out. I have to admit, when I first started watching I thought it was going to turn out really dumb, I am glad that I was wrong!
Now, I shared my opinion, check it out and see for yourself what made it so enjoyable!

Here's the opening and ending songs which give you a better idea of just how crazy this show really is.

Pictures from the usual suspects: Gelbooru and Pixiv

Maru and Moro 1/8 PVC from xxxHolic by Lilics

2009-01-21T07:50:00.005-07:00

So, I was just checking out what was new at Hobby Search, and I stumbled across newly available for pre-order Maru & Moro from xxxHolic, that I had previously mentioned a couple posts back in Figure Seeking in 2009. Due out in May for the price of 6,153 Yen. Now you can see better pictures, I thought I'd share the pictures from Hobby Search with you all, since this is going on my pre-order list. As I mentioned before I'm not fond of Lilics, they certainly don't get rave reviews for figure making, but as this is my first purchase I can't really say anything negative other than based on what I've heard/seen. This will be my first purchase of a Lilics PVC figure, so I'll be taking the gamble and finding out myself. I can only hope they end up looking like the prototypes. I totally agree with lovelyduckie though, in her comments on the last post about this figure she mentioned wanting a Yuko figure (from xxxHolic) more than anything, Yuko is highly desirable, and it's rather annoying that they haven't released a figure of her yet. Maybe this figure here is a sign of more xxxHolic figures to come? One can only hope and wait. /end xxxHolic fanboy rant, you can pre-order the figure here.

First Package of The Year

2009-01-20T23:17:00.004-07:00

It's been a busy yet productive day. This morning two figures arrived at my door, but I haven't had a chance to get pictures of them yet. Luckily I got enough done today that there isn't much to do tomorrow, so I'll likely get some pictures and post one of these girls up tomorrow. I'm going to guess a lot of people got Hayate Yagami Figma where as less people are getting Kyouka Midarezaki Nendoroid. Well, I was happy to get them anyways. I decided I better put at least one picture of them outside of the boxes so I don't come off as teasing you with just box pictures. Something I thought was pretty cool was now that Hayate has arrived it marks my success in getting all the figures in my old post Wonfes Figma Wish Listing. Nice!

Rawr! Look forward to our reviews soon!

Hyakko

2009-01-17T09:21:00.008-07:00

We have finally finished watching "Hyakko" and I have to say I rather enjoyed it. Hyakko is about a group of high school girls that come to this school that is so huge, it is almost impossible not to get lost if you are a newcomer. It is while they are lost that most of them bump into each other. Some really funny incidents do occur once they finally find there way around. I know that some of you disliked the anime because of its slow start, but I can guarantee it does pick up and gets really funny. To better understand the anime itself you really need to get to know the characters themselves.

Plot Summary from ANN: On the first day of high school at Kamizono Academy, four girls meet each other while lost on the huge campus, and form a friendship. This story follows the daily school life of the four girls and their eclectic classmates.

This is Ayumi Nonomura, Shy, so much that it inhibits her from talking to other people. She is the opening character to the series. It gives you the impression that she is the main character, but isn't really. The series starts and ends with her. One thing noteable about her is that she is very polite.

This is Tatsuki Iidzuka, I think she would be considered the "tsundere" of the group, she lives in a modest-looking home complete with a maid. Her father is corporate president for a major electronics company in Japan. She is very classy and tends to use honorific speech even towards her closest friends. She is also easily annoyed by Torako's shenanigan's. She is also often dragged along with her friends even if she doesn't want to be, whether by force or other actions.

This is Torako Kageyama Who is one of the main characters, she is the one that I like to call the "feisty" one of the group, one thing that makes her stand out so well is that she is extremely outgoing. She is very daring, such as jumping out windows, and punching her homeroom teacher.

This is Suzume Saotome, probably my most favorite character because she is most like me, she is Torako's best friend. One of the most noteable things about her is her love for food, and what happens to her twin-buns when somebody hands her food (it's just too cute)... she is very athletic, and yet she is so adorable.

This is Nene Andō, the bisexual of the group, and also class president, I found her to be very funny in the things she did, she seems to be such a pervert. She loves to chase Torako and Ayumi around, and is known for frequent sexual harrassment. She is always trying to take on things, such as activities, that are more than she can really handle. She also has a brother who is very much like her in the way he is. Overall she is quite a funny character.

This is Kitsune Kageyama, Torako's older brother, and yet bares no resemblance to her. He is quite typically known as the 'Sadist' of this anime, and the most noteable thing about him that you will probably notice is that he wears a safety pin in his ear like an earring. Another noteable thing about him is how he has loved to bully Torako since she was little.

This is Ushio Makunouchi, known as the deliquent of the bunch, but firmly denies it, She is somewhat quiet unless irritated, and known to be a bit "tone deaf" as you will notice in one karaoke scene. One thing that you might notice is that she loves cats. She refuses to wear her school uniform, the blazer and tie at least. I guess she would be considered a bit of a punk.

This is Inori Tsubomiya, She looks like the stereotypical ghost-girl seen in some Japanese horrors, but in reality is actually very pretty when her hair is away from her face, I think what makes her stand out so much in the beginning is that she is friendless, and very quiet, and with her hair over her face, even her smile looks somewhat scary and evil. Not to mention her laugh.

This anime would definitely be classified as "Slice of life/comedy". There are many more characters in Hyakko, you just have to watch and see them all. Follow them along their journeys around the academy, and throughout the many antics of each character. There is an outlying story behind the story that you won't realize until you watch the entire series, and this is the part that makes it so good. There is never really a plot, But it is an enjoyable story. If I had to compare it to another anime, I think I would go with "Lucky Star". Hyakko doesn't seem to be getting much love from critics, but I myself found it very enjoyable. It is one that is being overlooked, despite being a good show.

Images from Gelbooru and Pixiv.

Figure Seeking in 2009

2009-01-14T23:07:00.010-07:00

It's already been nearly a week since I've posted here, and I apologize for the lack of posting. I didn't disappear to an MMORPG or get run over by a reindeer, not just yet at least (not that I'm planning to in the first place). Anyways, we're getting a bit behind on the posting and have a nice long backlog of posts to do. I've just been notified that Kyouka Miderizaki Nendoroid and Figma Hayate Yagami are being prepared for shipping. They'll be the first arrivals of 2009. Yes, this year is starting off slow. That's mostly because of Christmas, after all we have a son, and Christmas is for him more than us. I've been taken back down nostalgia lane playing old NES games with him. My first gaming system has become his first gaming system, only his is one of those newer ones with tons of games on it. There's only one figure so far this year that I don't know any information about that I absolutely must obtain.

For those who don't know who these two girls are, they're Moro and Maru from xxxHolic, which I've been reading the manga of for a while now. Speaking of that I need to pick up the last few books yet. It's the first nice looking figure I've seen from the series that wasn't a gashapon. The only information I've managed to find so far is that it's made by Art Storm Co., Ltd as part of the Lilics Series, who were responsible for a rather bad Chi (from Chobits) figure, which right off the start makes me a bit worried. But, from the looks of this figure I can't see anything to complain about yet. The more recent figures look much improved over her though. If anyone who reads this happens to find out more about this figure before I do, I'd greatly appreciate it if you let me know.

Here's another figure that I want, but this one may just be the untouchable figure of 2009. More untouchable than Figma Saber Lily, it's Liquidstone's Flandre Scarlet kit. In case you don't know who she is, she's a character from a series of bullet-hell games known as the Touhou Project. She's my favorite character, and when I saw a random picture from a festival sometime last year of her, I searched all over trying to find out more about this figure. Well, I found out who she's made by and I found the product page, but, she's not for sale just anywhere. Of course, I found more and more pictures and got excited for this to be announced somewhere. This figure is not what it looks like. She's an event only figure, nearly impossible to obtain outside of Japan without having to pay (from the way it looks) between $150-350, only available through online auctions in Japan, at least to someone like me. My chances of getting her are very, very slim. Also, she comes in a box in little pieces that you have to assemble. No painting is required, but you have to wet-transfer her eyes onto her faces. It's basically like a Figma you have to put together, but it's not. Well, enough talking about her. Click here if you want to see her product page with more pictures.

Last but definitely not least, Misaki Nakahara from Welcome to the N.H.K. This is an old figure, and another hard to find one. You can see her product page on Hobby Link Japan. I wish I had been reading the manga back in 2005. I've read the novel and watched the anime, but this is the only figure I've ever heard of related to them. It came with the fourth volume of the Welcome to the N.H.K. manga, and at a very decent price I think. I'm willing to drop some money on this figure though, so long as it's in near-mint condition. I've been searching for her for months, but I haven't found anywhere I could get her from, auction or otherwise. This is my figure goal for this year. Again, if you have any information regarding this figure's availability anywhere, or you yourself would be willing to sell her to me through some safe method, please let me know.

Megurine Luka Gallery

2009-01-08T22:17:00.011-07:00

I hadn't intended on doing this until later in the month, because normally I'd include videos with a post like this, but fan arts of Megurine Luka have been spreading like wildfire throughout image boards everywhere. Since the anime review Riiana had intended on posting had to be postponed for today, I've decided to share pictures of Luka with you instead. I wanted to try something different with image heavy posts this time, so I shrunk them down to thumbnails. Please let me know if you prefer this way for galleries like this, or would rather they were large to start with. Just click on the thumbnails to get the full resolution picture. For those who might think Megurine is invading upon Miku's spotlight, don't think for a second I've lost interest because of this new arrival. I've just taken a liking to Luka. I'm more excited to see what kind of videos/songs people make with her when she comes out at the end of the month than anything, though I'm quite impressed with the quality and amount of fan art she has already. Well, enough talk, this is a gallery after all.

Images collected from Gelbooru and Pixiv

CV03: Megurine Luka - Unveiled

2009-01-06T09:15:00.015-07:00

Megurine Luka has been unveiled as CV03. You may have heard her singing Amazing Grace not too long ago. When I heard that I wasn't too sure about how I felt towards the then unknown next Vocaloid. But just recently the song in the video above was released and I found myself more impressed. Luka is made to sing Japanese and English, and if you ask me her English is clear as could be. Her voice comes from seiyuu Asakawa Yuu, the voice of Rider from Fate/Stay Night and Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh, among many other characters. Check out her profile on ANN. Megurine Luka will be released later this month, as her scheduled release date is January 30th. Luka is apparently to be aged at 20 years old, making her the oldest of the Vocaloid2 characters. So, expect your favorite video sites to be flooded with new videos come February. I'm sure I'll be sharing some with you as well, as I look forward to hearing what people can create with her voice. I'm not going to go deep in depth on this post, but I just had to share this with everyone who might not have heard (though I haven't checked my normal daily sites yet to see if they've been overloaded with news about her). So, who thinks they'll make a Figma/Nendoroid of her by the end of 2009? I'd buy a Figma for sure.

There are already a nice flood of pictures of her on Piapro and Pixiv. Expect a decent gallery of Luka later this month! Hopefully you don't all get completely sick of my Vocaloid related posts, but don't worry there will be plenty of other kinds! I was going to post something else until I stumbled across the news of her first thing this morning.

Images from Gelbooru.

Shana Flame Hair Ver. Figma

2009-01-02T18:12:00.014-07:00

Shana, the Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter, or Flame Haze, has arrived in fiery Figma form. She hails from the anime Shakugan no Shana, though this particular figure is from Shakugan no Shana II. I bought her from Hobby Search, as usual, and she cost 2,261 Yen, sans shipping cost. She is still in stock at the time of writing this.

Shana comes with a total of 2 faces, 12 hands, 1 melon pan, and one katana (her Nietono no Shana). Alastor, her pendant, is attached to the bow of her school uniform. This I don't especially care for, because I think it would have done better as an actual pendant, but it's probably better this way because it's not as easy to lose or break. Her katana is thin, so when handling it one needs to take extra care so as to not break it. The stand that comes with Shana is a bit different than most of them, because her hair is longer. It comes with an extra piece (as shown in the last picture) that attached to it, and goes into her back so the stand sits sideways. This restricts her movement a bit, but not too much. The most unique thing I find about Shana is her hair. It has two pieces that move in and out to create a flaring out or wind blowing effect (see below for example pictures).

This has nothing to do with the review, but I bought cheap transportation and decided to test it out with Shana. It's the first vehicle I've been able to find that a Figma fits in pretty decently, so I thought I'd throw in a bonus picture or two. I'll be buying a few more of these for a future shoot.

Nendoroid Miku Hatsune

2009-01-01T18:17:00.010-07:00

What better way to start the new year than reviewing my very first Nendoroid. I ordered her from Hobby Search and she cost me about 2,715 Yen, not including shipping. She's already sold out... again, but you might be able to find her elsewhere. Miku Hatsune is probably the most popular of all nendoroids, so you've almost certainly read several reviews and even more likely seen pictures and/or videos all over the internet by now. I don't think she needs an introduction, but if you don't know about her, check out the Vocaloid wikipedia page. I'm a latecomer to the Nendoroid fanfare, but now that my first is here, there's likely going to be more coming soon. In fact, I have another one pre-ordered for this month, and another in February.

Miku Hatsune in Nendoroid form is absolutely adorable. I guess I don't really need to tell you that though. She comes with 2 extra heads, 1 extra hair piece, a bent arm and a leg with a bent knee, her trusty leek, and a hand to hold it in that works on either arm. She also comes with a stand that she sort of sits on. Her headset covers up her ears and is required to remove in order to take the hair off. Her skirt is removable and her pantsu have a cute ribbon on them. Miku's twin tails are also removable, and in fact they fall out if you mess with them too much. Her head is heavy and her body is light, but her twin tails balance her out pretty well so you don't necessarily have to use her stand, I just prefer to use it for added stability. Well, other than that I can't say much about her. If you're into Miku, Nendoroids or cute figures this is a sure-fire addition to your collection. I might have gotten Nendoroid fever.

Sayonara 2008

2008-12-31T15:07:00.006-07:00

Well, it's 2009 already in most of the world, but I'm still stuck in the past. I got lucky and these two figures arrived this morning, just in time to be my last arrivals for the year. This ends my first year as a figure collector, and I'm ending the year happy. Figma Shana and Nendoroid Miku Hatsune have made themselves snug and warm in my cold living chambers. Maybe Shana can warm the place up a bit. Nendoroid Miku marks my very first Nendo! I have one coming in January and another in February. Well, I'm not really going to be doing anything special to bring in the new year as far as I know, maybe watch anime or something. I don't drink or "party", been over that stage for a while now. I am NOT going to add up my figure expenses or whatever for the year, I don't even want to know so I definitely don't feel like sharing it with others. Anyways, I really don't like making new years' resolutions, but I think instead I'll just list a few goals that I should be able to accomplish. So here goes.

My goals for 2009.

To stop procrastinating and actually TRY to learn Japanese, by learn I mean to read, write and speak it fluently. I don't have to master the language, but I want to do the best I can instead of slacking off. I need to buckle down and study seriously.

To get myself in better physical shape. That means more frequent exercise, but not too much, too fast because I'm way out of shape.

To shed some of my hikkikomori ways. You might wonder how one can be a hikkikomori and be married and have a son, but believe me it is possible. I've lived here for over a year now and I haven't been around much, or met many people. More outings, more often. I might not seem to have a problem, but that's only because I don't talk about it much.

To cosplay for the first time, and go to my first convention. Yes, I, as an anime fan, have failed to attend even the smallest gathering, largely in part to the above factor. Why would a hikkikomori go somewhere where there's lots of people? Anyways, I'm going to make it a goal to drag my butt to Nan Desu Kan in September, I'll be posting more about that one of these days. I also have a few different ideas for cosplaying now.

To spend my online time more efficiently. Get more done in less time, and spend less time vegging out in front of games. I've already been doing this but I want to do it more. That means no more MMORPGs or at least, a hell of a lot less. Really this isn't a problem right now, but if I find another game who knows how much time it will eat up, and/or money. This goal also means being a better blogger.

Alrighty, that's probably enough on the goals. We might be moving the blog to Wordpress sometime in 2009. We've been messing with it for a while now, and we've been considering the move. The only thing holding us back right now is money, because we'd like to have a host. For now, we'll be sticking with blogger until the time is right. We have a nice list of future posts to work on, so January looks like it'll be pretty busy here on Animaticfigmation. So to all our readers, have a safe and happy new year! May 2009 bring us closer to ourselves and make the world a better place.

Non figure images from Gelbooru.

Happy Birthday Rin & Len!

2008-12-27T09:41:00.007-07:00

Well, I might be a day late in some timezones, but for me it's only the morning of the 27th. December 27th marks Rin & Len Kagamine's first birthday. I figured I should do a birthday post for the Kagamine twins since I did one for Miku. So I present you a small gallery of pictures and a few videos. Happy Birthday Rin & Len! If you haven't seen them before you might be interested in my Figma Rin & Len posts, or perhaps the Figma Vocaloid2 group post. There's also the Crazy Kagamine Video, and Vocaloid - Kagamine Twins post for more pictures and videos.

Click pictures for higher resolution. Images taken from Gelbooru

Christmas Week

2008-12-26T13:57:00.012-07:00

Christmas is already over and we were too busy with family and the normal Christmas festivities to really do a post, so here is a little bit of what we did this week. First off, we all went to the train depot and took a short ride on a train a few days before Christmas. They had Santa Claus in a train and hot cocoa and cookies for everyone. I got some pictures of the trains and stuff around there.

Any idea why this might be written on a train car? Found it amusing.

We received a package from a friend of ours in the mail a day before Christmas Eve. Yummy Japanese snacks! Neither of us have had the pleasure of any kind of Pocky besides chocolate, strawberry and Almond Crush until we got this. She also sent us a Japan Rail Pass from her last trip to Japan, and some face wash and honey lip gloss for Riiana. I thought I'd take some pictures of the snacks since most of these are impossible to find around here. We're trying to savor them instead of munching out right away.

Do not buy pre-made Gingerbread House kits from stores. We learned our lesson this year, and next year we're definitely going to make the whole thing from scratch. The pieces looked fine on the front and back but in the middle they were all broken. So for your pleasure: Gingerbread House Fail.

And here's our little Christmas tree before the little guy opened up his presents. Perhaps in a later post we'll show you what we got. Most everything was for our son though. We went back to the train depot again for Christmas dinner, it was quite crowded and Santa was a bit creepy this time. He was good with the kids but he triple-eyed up Riiana before asking if she was good this year... was very awkward. His face kinda looked plastic too, but he was real. So, overall we had a good Christmas. Our son got a NES thing so I've been playing some old school Nintendo games with him, bringing back the 8-bit nostalgia. Sorry we didn't do a post on Christmas day but we were busy spending family time.

The Re-Introduction of Riiana Doon

2008-12-23T06:43:00.011-07:00

みなさんこんいちは! I am Riiana Doon. I am the waifu of Persocom-san. I'm an animal loving otaku who likes a wide variety of anime and manga. I enjoy collecting figures whether action figures or PVC. I also like to play visual novels. I'm very much into gothic lolita fashion, and I very much want an Alter Saber Dollfie. My dream is to one day move to Japan, or at least go there for an extended period of time. I look forward to writing mostly non-figure related posts as that is my Persocom's specialty. I will be covering a wide variety of topics including cosplay, anime reviews, voice actors/actresses, and Jpop music, and maybe a game here and there.

I am really happy to be blogging along with my Persocom-san. I hope you find our posts interesting, we will try to keep them coming regularly. Right now we're preparing for Christmas, but afterwords we'll be posting more frequently. You can see all of my old posts on here as they have been combined in this blog.

Here are links to some of my old posts that will help you get to know me a little better. You'll also find some pictures of me there.

Tama Tiger Tattoo
Very first attempt at Cosplay
My 27th Birthday
What's In My Bag?

Images taken from Gelbooru, and me.

When Blogs Collide

2008-12-20T17:18:00.006-07:00

As you may or may not have noticed, this blog has grown a bit. My wife, Riiana Doon, has decided to combine her blog into mine, instead of us having two separate blogs. She will be posting now alongside me. All the links from Animeholic, her old blog, are in the process of being moved here, we'll be going under some construction for a while so things might seem strange for a few days. We are hoping to have a fresh new look and get things organized by the new year. Expect more content, more frequently. Riiana will be doing a post soon to introduce herself to those of my readers who might not know her, and you can now find the past contents of her blog here. Hope you enjoy the changes and we look forward to blogging together in 2009!

images from: gelbooru

Snow Daze

2008-12-17T18:16:00.009-07:00

So a few days ago it started snowing, and it finally stuck around instead of melting. I thought I'd get some pictures, unfortunately the mountains were covered in cloud when I went out to get pictures of them, so none this time. It snowed for a couple days, still have some left over but a lot of it melted today. The temperature has been just below zero for the last couple nights, during the day the it's more bearable. That would be just fine normally, but the 2nd day of snow, our gas furnace died. It didn't just go out, we had a furnace guy come over and estimate the cost, and he said we're better off getting a brand new one. We still haven't gotten it fixed/replaced yet, so we had to have our son stay over at grandma's at night until everything is taken care of. We set up space heaters and have been using the stove to keep warm for now... Were hoping to get it fixed today but it didn't happen. It's really just bad timing, as we've already done our Christmas shopping. But, worse things have happened. I really didn't even want to blog about our little crisis at all, and rather just post nice pictures of snow up. We're making due though, and hopefully tomorrow everything will be back to normal. Luckily it got warmer today and tomorrow is going to be even warmer, so things won't be so bad. I would have more pictures but I haven't been in the right mindset to get much more than this. Hopefully after the heater gets fixed we get some more snow though, it usually doesn't stay very long around here, and I really want to make a snowman with my son this winter. This wasn't enough to make a snowman, we tried. The snow doesn't pack all that well either.

One of these days I'll get some pictures of the mountains, they look great after a good snow, especially Pikes Peak. I'm still not used to living near mountains though, since we've only been out here for just over a year. I planned to take more figures outside for pictures, but my camera decided to not function properly when I got to the second figure, and then my son had friends come over and play in the yard so I figured I'll just hold off pictures until another day. I really don't care for snow too much, but it's not as common as where I used to live so I'm starting to like it more. Summer here was just thunderstorm after thunderstorm, at least snowstorms are pretty. This area misses a lot of snowfall because the majority of it gets dumped in the mountains. Where I come from, winter is a lot more harsh than here. We'll be lucky if there's any snow for Christmas at all really. I guess that's all I have to post for now. I thought about doing a series of "A week in.." or "A Day in.." posts but I'm not sure it'd be very interesting here.

Ryoko Asakura Figma

2008-12-13T20:43:00.009-07:00

Ryoko Asakura is a character from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and this lovely Figma arrived about a week ago now. I just hadn't gotten around to taking pictures and reviewing, but she's been gracing my shelves (as you may have noticed in my last post). I got her from Hobby Search as usual, and she cost 2,261 Yen, not including shipping. She's still in stock as of the time I'm posting this, so if you like you can buy her here.

I'm pleased to say that I found no flaws in this figure. She came with 11 hands, 2 faces, one head of Taniguchi (a male character from the same series), and one knife. The knife itself could have been done better, only because the blade is a bit too flexible. I'm sure there's a good reason for that though. Ryoko took a little longer than most of my packages, US Customs held her for three days. Something told me a girl with a simple knife like this would get held longer in customs, they probably had to check her for real weapons *roll eyes* Since I don't have any male figures from the Haruhi series, I just decided to use his head in ways that were befitting of a knife wielding psycho woman.

I like how aside from the two knife wielding hands there's another extra hand included to hold the knife blade itself. This is no doubt to recreate the fight scene between Ryoko and Yuki Nagato. I was going to attempt that myself but I figured I should wait until I get Kyon too. Yeah, I'll probably end up getting him but not for a while yet. Sorry, no Taniguchi in one piece pictures from me. Anyways, Ryoko is another Figma that I suggest fans of Haruhi, blue hair girls, or crazy women with knives pick up. Until next time!

And here's a little accompanying video.

It's So Empty: Shelf Life

2008-12-11T17:48:00.008-07:00

Today I was going to post up a photo shoot of my Ryoko Asakura Figma, but something else came up. I've been wanting a new place to put my figures other than on my very wobbly computer shelf. I've only been collecting figures since June I believe. The picture below is the now nearly empty and lonely shelf I had the figures on before.

All my Figma were on the middle shelf that Tabitha is sitting on. It seemed pretty cramped and crowded so it was time to figure out how to compensate for my growing collection, since I got pre-orders lined up all the way to April so far, I'm obviously going to need more space. Plus, as I said, that computer shelf is very wobbly. I have a son, and well, he likes to jump around and make the whole house shake when he's playing indoors (this is a trailer house we're talking about here), so must secure figures from falling to their death. Speaking of my son, he helped a little with the shelves.

The shelves aren't very pretty, nor are my walls. This is a project for another day. I planned to paint the living room walls either castle-like or perhaps just buy new paneling all together. The shelves will get touched up when I get around to it as well. You can see Yoko is hanging from the Christmas lights, waiting to snipe anyone who comes through the front door unwelcome. Also Chi is hanging out on the tree, since she has no base, and can't stand on her own. I really wish I had a better Chi figure, will be getting a PVC one in the future. I'd be extremely happy if by some crazy stroke of luck they made her into a Figma. Just looking at my shelves makes me realize how small my collection really is. I thought I was going overboard but I have tons of space for figures now. I'm willing to bet I'll be running out of space by this time next year though (if I continue the way I'm going).

The diamond shaped shelf here is the future home of my nendoroid collection, Miku from the Mixing Box is guarding it for now. Then you can see my old shelf above the Chobits wall scroll holding pictures random knick knacks and part of my manga collection. If you're wondering what that other little thing on the wall is next to the Chi wall scroll, it's cardboard cover to a fat pack from a Magic: The Gathering (collectible card game) set. I liked the artwork so it got a spot on the wall, this tends to happen, since this is a rent-to-own deal I don't need to worry about tape/nails etc in the walls.

And last of all, all my current figure boxes (minus Miku Mixing Box and a figure who shall remain nameless for now). Also, after getting annoyed by hunting for pieces of Figmas to swap in and out when they were in their original boxes.. a shoe box filled with Figma bags and spare crappy Revoltech stand parts.

Miyuki Takara Figma

2008-12-07T11:11:00.009-07:00

I got this Figma a few days ago but I didn't have any batteries for my camera. I pre-ordered her from Hobby Search a while back. She costs 2,261 Yen. The only reason it took this long for her to arrive is that she came with another Figma, I've been bundling each month's orders together lately to save a little on shipping costs. Finally the Lucky Star Figma collection is complete (unless they make more later on of course). Now that I have them all, I will be doing a group shoot of all four of the girls later on this month for sure. Why not just do them here? Well, I think having the whole group calls for a whole photo shoot, I enjoy doing them separately from the normal reviews. Konata did manage to sneak in a shot again though. If you're curious as to the other Figma that came with her, well you'll just have to wait and see.

Miyuki comes with 10 hands, 2 faces, a book and removable back hair piece. There is a hole in her back and in her head (that the hair piece can cover up) for the stand. I prefer using the head for the stand so she's not looking downward. Now, this Figma is a little less flexible than others, in the head at least. She can't move her head left and right very easily, likely due to the bulkiness of her hair. Also there were some minor flaws in the paint this time around mostly in the front hair piece and one of the hands had some loose plastic attached. I'm not really complaining though, just stating the facts. It seems that even though she was released this late, she is of the same quality as the rest of the Lucky Star Figmas. Not quite top notch, but most fans won't care. I'm happy to have her and I've gotten over the little flaws even if I've come to expect slightly higher quality work lately.

Something that I think is great about this figure is that she's taller than the rest of the Lucky Star group, and accurately so. Her figure is also dead-on accurate. Also, she comes with some kind of white stand thing, which I honestly don't know what it's for, but I'm sure someone else will or has reviewed her and revealed what it's for. The backdrop included is three panels long, and you see it in some of the pictures. It's from the one of the opening scenes to the anime. Last but not least her pantyhose/tights aren't just cut off at the pantsu, they're also coloring them, as you can see in the final picture. It is notable considering the majority of figures simply have plain white pantsu. Yes, more than some of you would like to know I'm sure, but come on now, we all look.

One thing I'd like to see with Figmas that have glasses is for the glasses to be removable. The glasses on all the Figma that have them so far are attached to the front hair piece. Now I'll leave you with the classic opening to Lucky Star!

Daisuki!!

2008-12-04T12:55:00.010-07:00

I'm going to post about something out of the usual this time. I'd like to talk a little about a j-drama that was broadcast between January and March of this year, that I started to watch on veoh. Well, I watched about 6 episodes there but I couldn't find them subbed after that, so for the longest time I couldn't complete the 10 episode series, until I decided to look elsewhere again recently for a torrent or anywhere I could stream it, and I managed to find one.

Daisuki!! which means "I Love You!!" in Japanese, is a drama tv series spanning ten 45 minute long episodes. It's about a 23 year old girl named Yuzu, who happens to be mentally disabled, having the mind of an 8 year old girl. She falls in love with a man named Sosuke, whom is also disabled. Little does her family know, but she is pregnant with his baby, and 5 months along at that. When Sosuke becomes the victim of a fatal accident, she is forced to tell her family about the pregnancy. Miyoko, her mother, is against her having the baby, but Yuzu is intent on keeping it and raising it as a responsible mother, despite her disability. She goes on to have her little baby girl, naming her Himawari, and the drama follows the lives of Yuzu and her family as Himawari gets older and goes to school. Yuzu is played by Nose Karina, who goes by the shorter name of Karina, who is an actress and model. Karina does a great job at playing the role of Yuzu, so much so that I'm interested in what other roles she's played. Maybe I'll post some pictures of her unrelated to this series, but for now I'd like to focus on Daisuki!! Another person who plays in this series that I recognized from the movie NANA (based on the anime of the same name) is Hiraoka Yuta. He plays Yuzu's brother.

Perhaps you're not interested in drama, or j-drama, but I wanted to share this with everyone. I found it a very touching and heart-warming tv series that I enjoyed watching with my wife. As a father and a family man myself I can highly recommend it to anyone who may visit my blog. It might just be a hidden gem for you as well.

If you'd like to watch this series it's available to watch here, although broken into parts. If anyone knows a better place to watch it I'd love to know. If you do watch, I hope you enjoy! Remember this is a drama, so if you're not into drama you might want to stay away from this.

All screenshots were taken by me.

Vocaloid2 Figma Group Shoot

2008-12-01T09:50:00.015-07:00

Now that I've done my reviews for Rin Kagamine, Len Kagamine and Miku Hatsune Figmas (whose individual reviews can be found by clicking the links), I can get all three of them together for group pictures. At first I thought about doing a "figma theater" type of post along the lines of what DannyChoo does sometimes, but I didn't really have a story in mind, nor was the lighting very good. Oh yeah, you probably notice the new color scheme, I was trying for something more seasonal and this is how it turned out. Hope it's not too much on the eyes.

These three are an awesome addition to my Figma collection. I don't regret buying them in the least. They complete the Vocaloid2 Figma series so far, at least until the third (and yet unreleased or named) Vocaloid2 character is released, that is if they make a Figma of it. I would really like to see Meiko and Kaito made into Figmas.

Forgive me for not really talking about the pictures in the post, but I already reviewed all three figures so there's not much more to be said. I had fun messing with them and swapping heads a bit as you can see. I thought about doing a story to go with them but I procrastinated too much and just decided to ramble a bit instead.

Poor Len. Don't pick on girls when they're swapping clothes or you might become a victim too.

I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading my blog and for the new readers/viewers who have recently came here. I don't really celebrate my hit counter because it's rather innacurate, I already know a large number of hits are just me checking my page. Does anyone here know of a superior stat counter/hit counter that is free to use? Again I keep thinking about switching over to wordpress with my blog, perhaps I'll make a test blog over there and see how I like it. Also, if you aren't on my blogroll and would like to be, just let me know I'd be glad to add anyone that isn't there already. Some of you are there twice and I'll be fixing that soon, I got the Team Blue banners up-to-date as far as I know. I got more figure reviews on the way and I'll be sure to do more Figma group shots like this as well, expect a Lucky Star and Haruhi one this month. I also plan to review my first 3 figures that I only posted a couple pictures of but never did actual reviews.

Len Kagamine Figma

2008-11-28T10:55:00.010-07:00

As I said the other day, both the Kagamine twins showed up together from Hobby Search, Len was 2,261 Yen. Well here's my review on Len Kagamine. After this review I will be doing a Vocaloid Figma "Theater" style post which I hope to do the shooting for today. So you'll see plenty of the twins together and Miku too. It looks like November is truly a Vocaloid month for me. For those of you who may be tired of seeing nothing but Vocaloid things I assure you there will be more diversity next month, I'm currently awaiting arrival of two more Figma ^^ Well then on to the pictures and review!

This marks the first male figure I've bought, and my first male Figma. I'm happy to start out with a Vocaloid because I'm a fan. Len's quality is again just as his twin sister Rin, near perfection in comparison to previous figmas. Len comes in total with: 2 faces, 11 hands, one keytar, one keytar strap and of course the default Figma stand. The detail, the paint job, the easily removable and re-attachable hands, and the coolest part of all, the keytar. I really love it, one of the coolest figma accessories I've seen. The keytar comes with a strap which feels like thin plastic or rubber and does stretch a little bit. I noticed the keytar wasn't quite flat as if it possibly deformed a tiny bit during shipping from heat, or maybe during the creation process. I really don't know if this was a manufacturing defect or just supposed to be that way, but it doesn't bother me in the least because it doesn't really have any negative affect on the figure or it's looks. Well, nothing to rant about on this figure otherwise. Another fine Figma from Max Factory. Now I'll be quiet and let the pictures do the talking.