Thursday, August 27, 2009

Comiket 76 coverage - Day 2

The second day was still very female oriented, but with some stuff like Touhou and Umineko that is popular among males as well.
Like the previous day, I woke up at 4 AM to take the first Yurikamome train and started the queue at 5:50.

The guy in front of me was wearing a Yuyuko hat. A lot of people was wearing Touhou related products...

First of all, I went to the corridor with the circles doing Capcom games stuff. I have a weak spot for old school Capcom games, specially their 2D fighting games.

potsu (circle Shouyu) works. I bought all the doujinshi that she had available; the older releases Ai Wa Makai Wo Sukue, Kurayami Bijin, Makai Tou No Meikyuu, Aoiki, Kairo Kouri, the new release With Floss Silk and a Morrigan mobile phone cleaner.

Random page in With Floss Silk.

I discovered her works when by chance I visited her blog, and I liked her style a lot (specially the colored ones). She is focused in Vampire/Darkstalkers series, specially Morrigan and Jedah. I wanted to visit her booth also in Comiket 75, but I was unable because Shiki bath towel was sold out when I arrived in the first day and I did again the queue in the second day.

Tetsu from circle Kimuchi works: Cho Rakugaki 2009 Haru released in the past Comic 1 and the new release Cho Rakugaki 2009 Natsu.

Random page in Cho Rakuragi 2009 Natsu.

Another author that I discovered by chance when I visited his blog. He is focused in Capcom games with special predilection with Ingrid, but he also draws from several series like Touhou, Culdcept or even TYPE-MOON. His drawing are truly gorgeous, but sadly his doujinshi are just a compilation of drawings from his blog... Again, I wanted to visit his booth in Comiket 75 but I was unable to do it.

My next stop was in the East halls 1-2-3 zone. It was so massively crowded with Touhou fans that the people in the horizontal and vertical corridors were making turns in order to move... After 15 minutes of struggle I managed to arrive at Black Sheep Symphony booth. There I greeted EvoSpace that was alone at that moment and I bought:

A shooting doujin game with TYPE-MOON characters, Type-A.

Then I went all the way to the commercial booths and I stood in the queue of Rondo Robe, that I skipped in the previous day because it was very crowded. After about an hour, I managed to buy the only thing that I wanted:

A casual Saber clear file and a telephone card.

After that I wanted to talk again with EvoSpace, but I was scared to return to the Hell on Earth that was the doujin game circles (sorry Evo, I really wanted to talk with you again!) so I headed to the hostal to recuperate.

In the train, I managed to take a few pics of the giant 1/1 Gundam that is displayed in Odaiba:
Not so great photo, but I'm not a Gundam fan anyways.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Comiket 76 coverage - Day 1

The first day of Comic Market day is traditionally directed towards females, but is also crowded of males taking advantage of this day to make their purchases in the commercial booths.

I arrived at the Big Sight with the first Yurikamome train to be in the first batch of people entering at 10.

At 10:10, once I arrived inside I went directly to the TYPE-MOON booth queue. This time the queue was pretty short in comparision to the queue in C75; I waited about 15 minutes and acording of what I collected later, never went over 1 hour of wait.

In detail:

Summer Holiday Set: A bag, a plastic sheet to put on the floor in picnics and similar (with the same pic of the shitajiki) , a notebook, a folding fan (again, the same pic of the shitajiki) a shitajiki...

...and a Japanese style curtain with Shiki.

Mahou Tsukai No Yoru Set: A shirt, a B2 poster and a plastic case to hold them all.

Mahou Tsukai No Hako Set: A box, 2 micro posters, 4 coasters, 4 tea bags, 2 phone straps and 2 sets of stickers.

After that I went Bushiroad booth. I spent on the line about 2 hours, and I really repented of not doing this line in the first place. There I purchased:

CANAAN Set and Kara No Kyoukai Boukyaku Rokuon Gengashuu. CANAAN Set consisted in a t-shirt and a box of Weiß Schwarz cards, the CANAAN Extra Pack:

I'm missing 3 of the normal cards (that I'm willing to trade for the holographic ones)

Kara no Kyoukai Boukyaku Rokuon Gengashuu
, the key illustrations book for the 6th Kara No Kyoukai movie.


For every 3,000 yen spent, you got 2 random Weiß Schwarz promo cards, I got this:



And finally I went to HobiRecords booth to purchase Fate/Zero Drama CD 3:


Extremely moe loli-Rin and loli-Sakura in the back cover.

Comiket 76 coverage - Day 0

Sorry for the lack of updates. Unpackaging my stuff is taking way more time than I expected and I'm slowly getting used to my "normal" life.

I'll begin with my Comic Market 76 coverage with a day 0, the day I left Kyoto and arrived to Tokyo.

The first thing I did once in Tokyo is visit TYPE-MOON headquarters located in Asakusabashi (a district near Akihabara).
Is not a well known fact, but the official name as a company is not "TYPE-MOON" but "Notes". For example, in the Kara No Kyoukai movies they appear as Notes in the credits.

Notes logo in the Kara No Kyoukai DVDs

And the building is this:

Notes is located in the non-labeled windows.

Is a bit anticlimactic, but after my visits to Gainax Studios in Koganei (Tokyo) and Leaf/Aquaplus main HQ in Yodogawa (Osaka), I somewhat expected something like this.

After that, I went to Akihabara. Since it was the previous day to the Comiket, it was crowed with people from all over Japan that comes to Tokyo for the Comic Market and takes the opportunity to visit Akihabara.

In K-Books I bought:

Emiya #0 was released in the Comiket 66 and sold in the Rondo Robe booth (Geneon Entertainment). The CD contains 13 songs from the Fate anime, including the remix of EMIYA that gives the name to the album.

It also contains a T-shirt (in the pic appears the rear side, in the front it only says "Unlimited Blade Works").

Die Lorelei was released also by Rondo Robe in the Comiket 67. The CD contains 4 songs; Die Lorelei (Illya's theme song), Elfe, Fever (Taiga's theme song) and the instrumental version of Memory (Saber's theme song).

It also contains 2 stickers and a handkerchief.

And at the end I fell to the dark side and bought Weiß Schwarz trading cards.
I bought a THE IDOLM@STER Trial Deck and 2 packs of Fate/stay night Booster Pack:


Weiß Schwarz, unlike Lycèe, uses mostly official art for the cards and that was a big plus for me. The rules are pretty easy, and is also easy to make an effective deck without much effort.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Goodbye, Japan

Tomorrow morning I leave Japan.

This past few days were really tiring, waking up everyday at 4 AM to be in time to begin the queue for the Comiket at about 6 AM, and then wait under the sun until 10 AM when they open the doors...


I can't make an extensive post because right now I'm in a bunk, in a shared dormitory in an Asakusa hostal, but here's a quick photo of part of my Comic Market 76 loot (the stuff that I'll bring in the plane as a handbag).

I'm specially happy with the Serio shikishi drawn for me by Kikuta from circle King Revolver!

Once in Spain I'll do a proper coverage.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Newtype and Comptiq September '09 Issues

Today I cancelled my Japanese bank account and the mobile phone. Now I only need to return the router and the keys of my room on Thursday morning and I'll be ready to leave Kyoto. So today I did my last purchase here: Newtype September '09 Issue and Comptiq September '09 Issue.


Newtype September '09 Issue is not really interesting for me except for a brief reportage about Sadamoto Yoshiyuki.


But the reason of my purchase is the extra, TYPE-MOON EXTRA:


It includes several pictures and info about the upcoming TYPE-MOON works:

Kara No Kyoukai 7th movie, Satsujin Kousatsu (Go), that premiered on August 8 and I'm unable to see while I'm in Tokyo because of lack of time T_T

The new portraits of Takeuchi and Nasu. Rorschach-Nasu seems very manly now.

The info was filtered days ago; Fate/stay night will have a movie based in Unlimited Blade Works route and will be released on January 23. The animation studio in charge will be Studio DEEN, and the staff will be the same than the TV series. I hope that the man-faced Saber from the pic is not the final design for the movie...

CANAAN. The anime will be only 13 episodes, but 3 movies are announced.

Back cover.

Comptiq September '09 Issue is focused in MELTY BLOOD Actress Again.

The new additions for the PS2 port: Ryougi Shiki, Akiha in school uniform, Neko-Arc Chaos, two new tag teams (Kohaku & Mech-Hisui and Mech-Hisui & Neko-Arc) and the "Boss Rush Mode".

More Kara No Kyoukai. I think the pic with Shiki, Lio and Mikiya spoils way too much the ending...

More CANAAN.

Info about Mahou Tsukai no Hako, TYPE-MOON's website for mobile phones. My phone model was incompatible with the service, and now that I leave I don't have any chance to visit it.
And a little insert that I suppose is an Animate shop extra. Drawn by Aotsuki Takao, one of the lesser known members from TYPE-MOON, displays Hibino Hibiki and Katsuragi Chikagi from Mahou Tsukai no Hako with the message "Summer is not over yet!", that due my imminent return to Spain I find it kinda ironic...