Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Fate/unlimited codes PORTABLE

Well, today I crossed the line: I pre-ordered 2 copies of Fate/unlimited codes PORTABLE in 2 differents shops just for the extras.

Fate/unlimited codes, was released in arcades in June '08 and in the PS2 in December '08.
The PSP version will be released on June 18, and for now the only anounced differences with the PS2 version is plain clothes for Rider, a new "Reflect Dash" counter move and a simplified command system input (a Godsent for me, since I still have an old PSP-1000 that makes all the fighting games barely playable).

For now, this is the only interesting "extra" in the PSP version...


A few weeks ago, several shops anounced their own "limited editions":

Capcom announced the "Extended Edition" for 6,240 yen.

The only extra is a 32 pages artbook containing the promotional pics for the game.


Amazon announced the "Deluxe Edition" for 9,240 yen.

The extras are a set of pins, a colection of cards with each character moveset and a cheap-looking mousepad.


And Sofmap announced the "Collectors Edition" for 8,980 yen.

The extras are a wallet, a clear card set, a case and a 140X50 cm tapestry of Saber.
2 days ago the design was revealed to be this:

Photo from AkibaBlog.


But today, searching in WonderGOO, I saw that they don't have a "limited edition", but as they did with the release of Fate/unlimited codes for PS2, their shop exclusive is another tapestry:



A few days ago I ordered Capcom's Extended Edition and I was planning to purchase the Sofmap tapestry via Yahoo! Auctions, but today I also pre-ordered the WonderGOO version... Orz

Since I'll end with two copies, if someone wants to purchase an unopened Fate/unlimited codes Portable leave a comment!!! I accept PayPal and I can send anywhere in the world. If nobody is interested, I'll sell the copy to a 2nd hand shop...

Saturday, April 18, 2009

D-Frag! Volume 1

This morning I received a box from Amazon. It contained D-Frag! vol. 1 by Haruno Tomoya.


Haruno
did several doujinshi based in TYPE-MOON works under his circle name Harutomo, and collaborated in TYPE-MOON Ace vol. 1, in Fate/tiger colosseum Upper, did the Kara no Kyoukai 4-koma for the 5th movie, and was the person who drew the mangas of Akiba in the anime Kannagi.

Since Haruno is one of the TYPE-MOON's merry friends, Takeuchi did a small illustration and a comment for the obi, and that's the reason of my purchase.


I saw in several places the title romanized as Day Flag!, but the intended meaning is D-Fragments.

The story is about the typical hoodlum, Kazama, who gets involved with the wierd girls of the "Game Production Club". But things gets even more complicated with the appearance of Takao and her "Real Game Production Club"... I'm pretty bad at summarize stuff in Japanese...

The "Game Production Club" girls. From left to right: Oosawa Minami, Karasuyama Chitose, Mizukami Sakura and Shibasaki Roka.

Takao, Kazama and Roka are the main characters, at least in this first volume.


I also purchased a wifi adaptor to use with XLink to play with the PSP online, but for now I was unable to make it work.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Random Japan

On Friday I began with the classes, so the blog wouldn't be updated very often until I get the dynamics of the classes again.
As expected, I ended in the level 3 group. The main focus of this level is speech skills and vocabulary, and we will have a vocabulary test of about 20 new words daily... in the level 2 we had test every 3 days so is quite an increase.

Anyways, since I don't have anything new to write about, I'll upload a few random pictures that I took during the past 7 months:

Iga region of Mie prefecture, a very rural place.

Shop selling tanuki statues, also in Iga.

The Glico man in Ebisubashi bridge, Osaka.

Osaka Castle.

Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, in Kyoto.

The Kyoto Tower.

Maruyama Park, Kyoto.

Togetsukyou bridge in Arashiyama, Kyoto.

Another pic in Arashiyama.

Nara Park, with wild deers freely roaming around.

Toudaiji Temple in Nara.

Inside is the Daibutsu, a 15 meters tall statue of Buddha.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Purchases in Den Den Town

Pretty busy week.
Last Friday I had the placement test, on Saturday I went to Hiroshima (photos of the trip in a future post... or not) and today I went to view cherry blossom in the most famous spot in Kyoto, the Philosoher's walk.


On Thursday I went to Osaka with a fellow exchange student from the university. It was his first time in Osaka, so I showed him the otaku shops of Nipponbashi area.
While talking with him, he remarked that I indistinctively use "Nipponbashi", "Den Den Town" and "OtaRoad" to refer to pretty much the same area, but nitpicking the matter, that's not true.

"Nipponbashi" is the name of the bridge that crosses the Doutombori. Going south, down Sakai-Suji street, you find "Den Den Town" (electric town) from Nipponbashi 3-chome through 6-chome. There's a few otaku shops there (Gundam's, VOLKS Showroom, the two shops of K-Books, Animate, the main branch shops of Super Position...) and the rest are electronic shops and videogames shops like Super Potato Osaka.
"Ota Road" is the parallel street at the west side of DenDen, and is almost totally focused to hobby related stores: Melonbooks, Kotobukiya Shop, Gamers, Toranoana... and a few maid cafes.

First we went to Mandarake Grand Chaos, located in America-mura (NW from Nipponbashi).
I went to the buy-back counter to sell some doujinshi that I brought from Spain. Sometimes I buy from Yahoo! Auctions doujinshi lots, and among the stuff there are things that I had already bought. I sold 7 doujinshi (one from King Revolver, one from Crazy Clover Club and the rest from Shoujo Hyouhon, one of them containing a Takeuchi collaboration), Tsukihime Shiryoushuu (most known as White Book) and Maikaze's Touhou anime. I earned 9,800 yen, most of it coming from Touhou dvd (6,000 yen) and Tsukihime White Book (2,500 yen).

I purchased a Fate/stay night shitajiki (for 105 yen) and Ok Zwei, a Mai-HiME doujinshi from circle Twinzito that contains a collaboration by Kikuta from circle King Revolver. I think that now I'm not missing anything from him, but everytime I say this, an obscure and hard to find collaboration appears...


After that we went to OtaRoad, stopping at several shops. In Toranoana I bought:

Milk Hunters 5 by circle KuroYuki. Milk Hunters is a series of doujinshi based in the first and second seasons of Pretty Cure, where Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari are abused by a fat and ugly otaku...
I have the Milk Hunters 1-4 compilation, but the 5 and 6 seems very hard to find.

In Melonbooks building, after a brief checking on the 1st floor, we went to the second floor, that usually avoid because is the girls section, but to my surprise now a Lashinbang shop was opened there! I didn't check it all because we were short of time, but in my next trip to Osaka I want to buy a couple of goods there. I purchased Kara no Kyoukai Gengashuu Kessaku Sen 1 for 10,000 yen.

It was very expensive for a 2nd hand book, but since it was a C74 exclusive is very hard to find (only 1,000 were made). Nodaways, I was expecting to pay that much for it in Yahoo! Auctions, so it was a good purchase since I'm avoiding proxy bidder fees.
It contains key animations from the first 3 Kara no Kyoukai movies, but unlike the regular books (that I pictured in the C75 loot entry), this book is in full color.


Our last stop was K-Books. I bought:

Street Fighter Artworks Ha. Released a few days ago to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Street Fighter series. Contents wise, is similar to the previous Eternal Challenge (that commemorated the 15th anniversary), but with the new illustrations of the past five years.
Unlike previous books, is sorted by artist and not by games.

Akiman, one of the legends from Capcom's earlier period. Sadly, he left in 2003.

Bengus, now known as CRMK. The guy who defined the main Street Fighter II cast and created from scratch the Darkstalkers/Vampire cast. Until he left in 2006, he was my favourite artist at Capcom.

Nishimura Kinu. When Bengus left, she became my favourite.

Shinkiro. Formerly an SNK employee, I didn't got used yet to seeing his works with Capcom label.

Edayan. Sometimes I find some of his drawings a bit ugly, specially the girl's noses, but most of the time his works are great.

Ikeno. I don't like his "realistic style", but is the main one in SFIV... I prefer his cartoonish style better (like the pics in the photo).


Bonus photo. Capcom Main HQ, located in Osaka. Was my first stop in my first trip to Osaka.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

THE iDOLM@STER SP Producer's Guide

Today is April Fools' but I'm not going to do any joke, because is not a tradition in the Spanish speaking countries (our "prank day" is December 28).

Yesterday I bought THE iDOLM@STER SP Producer's Guide (Enterbrain, 1995 yen).

Since this is my first iM@S guidebook, I can't compare with the previously released ones, but I feel that the contents are a bit lacking...

The first part consist in character profiles, with a nice pic of each girl.

Lovely Takane.

After the description of the game mechanics, the book is divided into each idol.

"Idol upbringing" and "Tension management" sections are only a brief advice for each.

And each girl have a complete list of the Communication events. It doesn't give the correct answers but an explanation of the event. Includes if the event gives an e-mail or not.

For each girl is included a photo with every costume, and includes an accesory list:


At the end there's a couple of interviews, one with iM@S staff and the other with the voice actresses Imai Asami (Chihaya), Nakamura Eriko (Haruka), Shimoda Asami (Ami-Mami), Numakura Manami (Hibiki), Hara Yumi (Takane) and Hasegawa Akiko (Miki).