Saturday, January 30, 2010

THE IDOLM@STER SPECIAL LIVE Update

Today was the second batch of IdolM@ster live concerts, this time with Yukiho as the main character.

Each live concert is sightly different, this time the songs were "Shiny Smile" and "THE IDOLM@STER", and in the 4th and 7th live Haruka and Yukiho danced one of the songs as a duo.

This time I used the in-game camera to take pictures. Is a bit laggy and the background screen appears in black, but is way cleaner than a regular photo.

Haruka appeal!

Usually there are a bunch of Home Haruka's, this time I was alone.

Yukiho sang most of the times.

Yukiho appeal!

Haruka and Yukiho as a duo unit.



Tomorrow at 20:00, 22:00 and 24:00 (GMT+9) is the turn of Chihaya!

EDIT: Just a few pics from Sunday concerts (today I took the photos in 16:9 format).

Chihaya!

Today's song were "Colorful Days" and "THE IDOLM@STER" plus "Shiny Smile" in a encore in the 8th live performed by Yukiho and Haruka.

For today's last song Yukiho and Chihaya performed as a duo.


Friday, January 29, 2010

"THE IDOLM@STER SPECIAL LIVE" at PS Home

Today an special IdolM@ster event was held in the Japanese version of PlayStation Home, "THE IDOLM@STER SPECIAL LIVE".
Is a 3D "live" concert starring Haruka, Yukiho and Chihaya. PS Home already did something similar with Miku back in July to promote Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA-, and this time is to promote the budget edition of Idolmaster SP (but some people say it's a hint for a upcoming PS3 version of Im@s...).

A promotional video was uploaded in NicoNico, that shows what to do to cheer the idols:


The first concert was held at 20:00 (GTM+9). Extremely crappy pictures taken from the tv below:

Me using the infamous Home Haruka dress in front of the scenario.

Haruka appears!

Haruka only sang "Colorful Days" and "THE IDOLM@STER"

The people didn't cheer much, so she not did any appeal.

At first the live seemed pretty disappointing, but I waited for the 2nd live ( at 24:00) and 3rd (02:00) one. Since the people was getting the hook of what to do, the concerts became way more interesting. In the last one, the second song was performed by Yukiho, that was supposed to appear tomorrow!

Yukiho did several appeal poses.


The people was cheering like crazy in order to trigger the appeals and the special signs.

At the end, it was really funny, but really depend of the teamwork of the people in the concert hall with you.

There are several scheduled concerts, so there is still time to see it.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

1/8 Kokutou Azaka by Movic

1/8 Kokutou Azaka by Movic is the first figure ever of Azaka from Kara No Kyoukai. Compared with Fate/stay night figures, Kara No Kyoukai figures are really scarce.

The sculpt is by Nishimura Naoki (aka Pilot). Despite being distributed by Movic, the maker is actually Kotobukiya, so quality is guaranteed.

Close up of the face. She resembles the original art nicely, unlike some other works from the same sculptor...

The dynamic pose, the sculpt and the paint job are good, but it feels a bit simple when compared with recent figures.

As an "extra" you can put a flame in her fist, but it looks lame so I display her without it.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Canaan Nendoroid and Figma

Nendoroid Canaan by Good Smile Company and Figma Canaan by Max Factory.

The anime CANAAN was not as good as I expected, but perhaps expected way too much from it.
It had an incredible animation and excellent character design, but the pace and the interesting setting drops a lot after the first few episodes and doesn't recovers until the last few episodes. They wasted 6 or 7 episodes in a 13 episodes series, leaving lots of things unexplained and finish it with a reset button ending (well, almost, since there are missing things).

Well returning to the figures, Nendoroid Canaan includes 3 faces, a bagpack, a Beretta and a sugar stick, as well as several arms and two pairs of legs.

Standard pose, with the serious face.

Synesthetic eyes face and the extra legs to do the pose from the upcoming 1/8 Canaan figure by Good Smile Company

Happy face, bagpack and sugar stick.


Figma Canaan
comes with the same 3 faces, the Beretta and one of the left hands carrying a sugar stick. For a figma, the accesories are somewhat scarce...

Happy face and sugar stick.

The neck is facing a bit towards the front and gives Canaan a hunchbacked aspect. Some of the figma that I own also have the same particularity in the sculpt (Shirou and Drossel, for example) but is more noticeable in Canaan because of her slender body.

Synesthetic eyes face and a lousy attempt to do the 1/8 Canaan figure pose.

An extra part to do a "firing effect" is included, but only looks good in photos.

The serious face. The gun can slide a bit to "reload".

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

TYPE-MOON Ace 4

Released on December 24th, I finally received TYPE-MOON Ace Vol. 4.

Less than 3 months have passed since TYPE-MOON Ace Vol. 3 came out, that is pretty quickly if you compare it with the gap between Vol.2 and Vol.3 (10 months) and the gap between Vol.1 and Vol.2 (6 months).

Again, there is no new info, and is just a TYPE-MOON showcase...

Fate/Extra, the PSP game that will be released on March. It seems just another attempt to milk Fate/stay night, so I don't have much anticipation.

Mahou Tsukai No Yoru is still scheduled for this year.

Fate movie, in cinemas the 23th of this month.

Some of the pictures selected in the Pixiv contest. I participated with this picture, but it wasn't selected T_T

In the manga section:

A couple of one shots of Arcuetyp by ACPI.

All Around TYPE-MOON manga by Bsuke. He released a tankoubon just recently.

There are omake chapters from the mangas Fate/stay night, MELTY BLOOD, Fate/kaleid liner and CANAAN as well.

The extra dvd is a bunch of promotional videos, but the main dish is the omake theatre Ahnenerbe ni Youkozo! - Fate/wondering journey-.
Is an almost 30 minutes video hosted by the Mahoutsukai no Hako cast + Illya & Taiga explaining Fate/stay night franchise until now.

It's pretty funny, but the best of all is that for the first time we can hear the voices of Mahoutsukai no Hako characters; Chikagi is voiced by Sendai Eri, Hibiki is voiced by Honda Yoko and Keitai-san seiyuu is Kishio Daisuke.

Eyecatch.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Melty Blood Actress Again Koushiki Complete Guide

Melty Blood Actress Again Koushiki Complete Guide is the last guidebook for Melty Blood. It was released in September but I received it a couple of days ago. HobbyLink Japan had it on back-ordered status all this time...


I pretty much purchased every single guidebook for this series until now, even if most of the time the contents are almost identical...

All the Melty Blood Guidebooks that I have.

The previously released one was for the arcade version and didn't even included the bio for Dust of Osiris, but is included in this guidebook:

Of course includes all the info for the PS2 port extra characters:

Princess Arcueid (Archetype-Earth) moveset. Too bad that is just a buffed Arcueid and only uses the dress and the long hair at the beggining of the round and in the victory pose.

Ryougi Shiki and school uniform Akiha story script.

G Akiha in Boss Rush mode. Her moveset was really improved, now is not an Apocalypse clone anymore.

To tell the truth, I didn't played the PS2 version of Melty Blood Actress Again that much, and I really feel that Melty Blood series is now somewhat burnout... Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code, right now in arcade location test phase, most likely will be the last installment in the series (and most likely ported to PC).