More IDOLM@STER

Still playing iDOLM@STER.
Is really addictive. Now I understand why Miura Kentaro stopped Berserk to play it, and the people spending hours in the arcade game.
On Thursday I played more than 10 hours in the morning, and at night I forgot to sleep. When I realized it was already past seven...
Now I'm forcing myself to take long breaks from the game, hoping that my IM@S fever drops down to a much less serious state..

I regret for not preorder the limited edition. Not for the alternate jackets or the limited Weiβ Schwarz trading card (the TCG rival of Lycèe) but for the product code for downloading the school uniform.

I did a search in Yahoo! Auctions because now the people that purchased multiple copies for the store extras are selling it, but because I must use a proxy bidder (I don't have an account in Yahoo! Auctions) the final price rises a lot (item price + proxy fee + shipping from seller to proxy + shipping to proxy to me; and pay in USD, that is now weak against the Yen).

At the end I bought the limited edition of IDOLM@STER Perfect Sun via eBay from a seller located here, in Kyoto.
After the exchange rate convertions (Euro to USD to Yen) I paid 6,500 yen for it, so is not that bad after all because the retail price was about 5,000 yen.

The reversible jackets:
The game, a leaflet and the Weiβ Schwarz card:

Now I'm missing Missing Moon (pun intended), but I'll wait until I'm over with the other two.

The iDOLM@STER SP

On Saturday I bought The IDOLM@STER SP for PSP, and I have been playing almost non stop until today.
I hoped to play IDOLM@STER series of games for a long time, but until now it was an XBox exclusive, and the XBox is the only console that I don't want to buy at all.


I wanted to buy all 3 versions, but for now I only bought Wandering Star, that contains the tsundere Iori, the genki twins Ami & Mami and the shy Yukiho.
I was divided between buying first Wandering Star or Missing Moon, but at the end I prefered the rival idol Takane instead of Miki.

Those are the rival idols.
Left: Ganaha Hibiki (in Perfect Sun)
Center: Hoshii Miki (in Missing Moon)
Right: Shijou Takane (in Wandering Star)

The game is hard if, like me, you are not fluent in Japanese because is heavely text based (specially the Comunication parts) and the game doesn't stop the script (after a sentence, the game waits a few seconds and jumps to the next one, without giving time to check vocabulary or kanji meanings).
At least the girls are fully voiced, so it's easier to understand the overall plot, though what your character says isn't voiced at all, and during the conversation there are points where you have about 5 seconds to pick one of 3 responses that pop up on screen, and in most of the cases I'm unable to read all of them.

I began two new games, one with Ami/Mami in the Story Produce and one with Yukiho in Free Produce (I didn't pick Iori yet because is the hardest to manage).
The diference between Story and Free mode is that in Story your main quest is "Idol Ultimate" tournament against the rival idol and Free is the original arcade-XBox mode.
I really like the ojou-sama character Shijou Takane (Ami & Mami fittingly calls her Ohimechin), and I hope she becomes playable once I finish the game.

Hibiki and Takane are the new faces of the PSP version, but both of them were present in the pre-production stage of the game but dropped at the end, so their first appearance was in fact earlier than Miki's.

Prototype Takane.

Prototype Hibiki.

IM@S is known for being a yen sucker in download contents, and is also true in this version: 1,000 yen for a extended outfit, 500 for a regular outfit, 200 yen per accessory, and 150 yen per song for every girl... My credit cards are not accepted, so if I want the new contents I must purchase PlayStation Network Cards, but are really expensive (I think the 3,000 yen card costs 5,000 yen).

Geki Maga Negidaku

Yesterday I received an order that I put in Toranoana almost two weeks ago:

Geki Maga Negidaku is a commercially released anthology of erotic parodies of Negima. Most of the works are of mid to low quality for my tastes, and since I didn't read the original manga, I'm a bit alienated from the characters. So why I purchased it? Because one of the authors listed is Kikuta Kouji, also know as only Kikuta (in katakana) from circle King Revolver.

Since I bought all his doujinshi (at least all that I'm aware of), I was googling for more info using his name instead of his pen name or his circle name and found this.
Is odd that in this book his circle name is cited as Ningen Doubutsu Zetsumetsu Gakkai instead of the known (and easy to remember) King Revolver. I put a question on his BBS about about the matter and if he had more works published in commercial comics, but I'm not expecting a satisfactory answer because last time, when I asked him about a list of his works he said that MelonBooks database contained almost all of his works, when I own at least one of his doujinshi that doesn't appear on it.

Well, returning to the anthology, I expected him to draw Chachamaru, because is pretty much Serio with green hair, but he opted for Kaede.

Pre-ordered figures

As promised, I'll list the figures that I have on pre-order.

When I was in Spain my main figure supplier was Hobby Link Japan, but if you live in Japan Amazon.co.jp is faster and cheaper (they usually do a 20% discount in the pre-orders, and the shipping cost is free).
There are not many figure shops in Kyoto. Melonbooks, Animate and Gamers have a very restricted stock, and the only shop specialized in figures, Super Position (located also in Teramachi), is focused more to the gashapon, arcade prizes and trading figures than regular figures.
So at the end, all the figures that I buy is via Amazon.


1/7 Ciel nun version by ebCraft. 8,980 yen to be released March 25.
Sculptor is French Doll from Cerberus Project.
This figure was already on my wishlist when was released as a (sorta) castoffable resin-kit, because for an odd reason Frech Doll's face sculpts actually works on Ciel's face. Previously released Frech Doll's figures that I own are Saber, Rin and Rider, and the sculpt's weak point is always the face.

1/7 Ciel combat uniform version by ebCraft. Again 8,980 yen to be released March 25.
Is a variant of the previous one, but different enought to do a double purchase.

1/6 Ryougi Shiki by Movic. 6,825 yen to be released in April 25.
Sculpt by an unknown for me, サイトウヒール, that I don't how to romanize (Saitou Heal or Heel?). I don't really like it that much, but at least is a big scale...

The gorgeous 1/7 Saber Lily by Good Smile Company. 9800 yen, on sale May 25.
Sculpt by the always competent Kawahara Takayuki, responsible among others of Saber Alter Dress version, Illya from Fate/stay night Trading Figure Collection, Caren and Caster from Fate/hollow ataraxia Collection and Saber and Rin from FA4 Type-Moon Collection.

Figure wishlist

Nothing new to write about. Lately I'm not buying anything.

Today I spent the whole day drawing a new avatar for the Beast's Lair forums. Yesterday the board colors were changed and my previous avatar colors seemed a bit washed out.

February 12th was the roll out day of Serio from To Heart, so I wanted to do a Serio pic, but since the forums are about TYPE-MOON, I also wanted to draw her with Takeuchi Takashi's style.
Here's the result:The max size for an avatar was 100x100 pixel, so I drew her with an oekaki program. It's been a while since last time I draw something using only the mouse, but I'm quite happy with the results.

One of these days I'll write about Serio, and I'll explain why is still one of my favourite bishoujo characters.



On a different topic, lately a lot of interesting figures were announced. The ones that I want to buy are:

1/8 Aozaki Touko (Kara no Kyoukai) by Alter. To be released this summer, price undecided.
Sculpt by Takahashi Tsuyoshi from circle Ichi Go Eiga Ippai Sake.

1/8 Saber Lily (Fate/unlimited codes) by Alter. Also to be released this summer, price undecided. Sculpt by Yagyu Toshiyuki.

Nendoroid Saber Lily (Fate/unlimited codes) by Good Smile Company. Price and release date unannounced.

Nendoroid Ryougi Shiki (Kara no Kyoukai) by Good Smile Company. Price and release date unannounced.

1/8 Saber Lily (Fate/unlimited codes) by Gift. For now, they announce only the garage kit version, on sale March the 1st for 12,800 yen. Sculpt by Toda Satoshi.

Plus the stuff that I already have on preorder, that I'll list later.

Source: AkibaHOBBY and foo-bar-baz.

TYPE-MOON and I

Today I'm in a mood to write, so I'll explain how I discovered the works of TYPE-MOON.

In December of 2002 I bought at Hobby Link Japan a figure of a nice character that I knew nothing about it.
I don't buy figures of characters that I'm not familiar with, but that character was specially appealing. I'm talking about this figure:

(very old picture that I took in Spain)

Is Tsukihime DX Figure Series Ciel by Spring.

I bought it mostly because I have a slight nun fetish, and Ciel was very similar to Takagi Yumiko/Yumie, my favorite character from Hirano Kouta's manga Hellsing.

Yumiko is a meganekko nun and Yumie is her violent katana-wielding alter-ego.

When I bought Ciel I looked at the old Tsukihime website for more info about the characters, but the rest of the cast seemed to me plain looking (Arcueid and Akiha) or very stereotyped (the maids), so I forgot about it.

Several months passed until the name Tsukihime appeared in my path again. It was in Zepy's blog Canned Dogs, when announced that an anime adaptation was in the works. That piqued my curiosity again, so I "played" the game in a Game Boy Advance hacked ROM format ("played" because I clicked throught it unable to read any sentence).

Takeuchi's designs grew on me, and I became a regular of Evospace's The Moonlit World (when was still called "In Respect to Type-Moon") to get more info about it.
Evospace single-handedly created the western TYPE-MOON fan-base with his webpage, and for many years (before the games were translated) was the only reference source. I can't thank him enough to let an at that moment non-japanese reading fan like me get introduced into TYPE-MOON universe.

After that I began to buy merchandise, tons of them. At first I began with a few figures and resin-kits, but after the release of Fate/stay night, I began to buy all the stuff that I was able to get.

The following are photos that I took in Spain a couple of years ago:

Fate/stay night, first limited edition, regular edition and DVD version re-release.
Fate/hollow ataraxia, first limited edition and regular edition.
Melty Blood Act Cadenza for PS2.
Tsukihime, PLUS-DISC, Kagetsu Tohya and Tsukibako.
Melty Blood and the expansions Re-Act and Final Tuned.

Missing in the photo I also own Fate/stay night [Réalta Nua] extra edition, Melty Blood: Act Cadenza Ver. B, Fate/tiger colosseum Tokumori Box, Fate/tiger colosseum Upper Megamori Box (that I bought while staying in Japan but I already sent it to Spain), 428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya De~ and Fate/unlimited codes SP-Box.


Fate/side side materiale, Fate/side side materiale 2, Fate/side side materiale 3, Tsukihime Shiryoushuu (aka White Book), Tsukihime Hiyori, Angel Voice, Tsukihime Dokuhon (aka Blue Book), Tsukihime Tsuushin vol. 1 and Tsukihime Tsuushin vol. 3.
I will not explain the contents in detail, but those are rare (and expensive) TYPE-MOON stuff.

This is a small sample of the stuff that I own, because the collection is still growing. Once I'm back to Spain I'll take updated pictures.

A year ago I began a list with the TYPE-MOON related stuff that I own, and I update it often. It contains all the games, figures, resin kits, gashapon, trading figures and plushes, but CDs, DVDs and printed matter are still missing.
The list can be found at: http://type-moon.pbwiki.com/f/Type-Moon.xls

Doujinshi purchases

Yesterday I went to Osaka because over a month and half had passed since my last visit.

First I went to Mandarake Umeda, because last time I went was in September, in my first trip to Osaka. Is near the Umeda Station, but since that station is like a labyrinth, is really hard to find the right exit. I pick the nearest exit and once outside I going around the station until a Namco Land arcade center. From there is straight following that shopping arcade.
From all the Mandarake shops that I visited (Grand Chaos, Nakano, Shibuya and Complex), Umeda have the smallest doujinshi section. At the end I didn't buy anything there, so I went to Nipponbashi.

First I went to Melonbooks Osaka, to check if they had the new releases of Sunshine Creation (that was yesterday). They had only a few of them, but luckily Oppai Suki? Boku Wa Suki, the newest doujinshi of Kikuta from circle King Revolver, was one of them.
The main character is Rider with the wrestling suit (from the last April Fools' joke of TYPE-MOON).

After that I went to K-Books Nanba. I didn't expect anything new but I found:


Enikki Recycle 7 and 8 with the extra booklet Beat Angel by A1 from circle Initial G.
I discovered this author for his pics of To Heart that sadly are not longer available on his website (but still uses in his banners). His real name is Yoshioka Eiichi, known for being the character designer of Quiz Magical Academy games.
He maintains a picture diary that every 6 months compiles in a DVD that sells at Comiket. As a bonus he does small booklets that sells along with the DVD. He draws stuff from from several series, but among his preferences (that changes often) are To Heart, Muv-Luv, Marimite and in the past few years mostly iDOLM@STER.

Hakanai, a Kiddy Grade doujinshi from circle Irodori. This circle is very prolific and contains several authors, but the main one is SOYOSOYO.
I bought it because it contains a 6 color pages collaboration by Shirotsumekusa from circle CRAZY CLOVER CLUB.

And Doppo, an old R.O.D. doujinshi by circle King Revolver. Finally I own all the doujinshi by this author, yaaay!

Suddenly acquired goods

Today I received a letter from Archerwannabe, another TYPE-MOON fan from Finland that I met during the winter break.
During my stay in Tokyo we went together to ufotable Cafe, a small cafe located in the lower part of the studio ufotable. This studio is the responsable of the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

In this cafe they give promotional coasters, but because is a thing that you can only get there, became valuable collector items that are sold at absurdly high prices at Yahoo! Auctions.

Long story short, we managed to get the coaster available, but I had to return to Kyoto so I was unable to get the new released coaster. Archerwannabe kindly said me that he would get an extra coaster for me before returning to Finland, but he had a lot of troubles so at the end we couldn't meet before his return. I gave it up as lost, but he uber-kindly sent it to me by mail.


As a bonus he also sent me a Lycèe card of Serio!! Man, I was literally crying tears of joy when I opened the letter. Thank you, thank you very much Archerwannabe!!!

Lycèe is a trading card game that uses characters from visual novels. Is really interesting because it uses VN characters from almost all the major publishers (if my memory serves me right, I saw characters from TYPE-MOON, Leaf, Key, Nitro+, Alice Soft, Navel, 07th Expansion and a few more companies that I don't know well enough to remember).
I'm very tempted with this game because uses characters from my favorite VN makers, but I try to hold back because as an ex-Magic The Gathering player, I know how time and money consuming is the trading card games world.

EDIT: I forgot that I never took a photo of the previous coaster. Here is it:

Beginning of February loot

Today I went to buy the stuff released in the past few days.


Comp Ace March issue. I bought it because it have a TYPE-MOON calendar that sadly doesn't have any new artwork. Next month issue seems pretty uninteresting, so until they throw an interesting extra I'll refrain from buying this magazine.

MELTY BLOOD 6 by Kirishima Takeru. This volume is the end of Sion route, with the final of Walakia and the brief appearance of Riesbyfe.
I already read the next two chapters serialized in CompAce; the next part will be focused in the Tohno Mansion, with Hisui and Kohaku influenced by Tatari and the appearance of Miyako.

Kara no Kyoukai Mujun Rasen E-conte Shuu. This is the storyboard of the 5th Rakkyo movie, and is 3 times thicker than the rest of storyboards released until now because the movie is twice as long as the previous ones. The person who drew most of this e-conte is Hirao Takayuki, the director of the movie, but I prefer the drawing style of Takiguchi Teiichi, director and e-conte draftsman of the previous movie.
Let's compare a random page from both storyboards:

Left: Takiguchi Teiichi's e-conte for Garan no Dou, last scene.
Right: Hirao Takayuki's e-conte for Mujun Rasen, Touko and the rocket pencil scene.