Comptiq September '11

Comptiq September '11 issue was released in August, and featured a very nice cover with Saber, Saber Alter and Saber Extra in swimsuits.

Over two years had passed since I bought a Comptiq issue. As I said in previous entries, I don't buy magazines issues unless it includes some juicy extra. In this case, it includes a super deformed figure of Saber from Fate/EXTRA.

The figure is part of the figure line niitengo by Toy's Works, and is clearly an attempt to emulate Good Smile Company's nendoroid puchi line.

Compared side to side with a nendoroid petit, the proportions are a bit different; niitengo's head is smaller and the body is a bit bigger.
Quality wise, the nendoroid have a much better paint job and sculpt and personally I find the nendoroid line cuter than the niitengo.

This issue was supposed to contain lots of TYPE-MOON related news because of it's 10th anniversary, but the actual contents are not really that much:

The already on sale first season of Carnival Phantasm. I expect my copy soon...

Fate/Zero TV series will begin on October.

And that's it.
The serialized manga includes:

Fate/Extra manga by Robina

HibiChika Time by Oomori Hayashi

Koha Ace by Keikenchi.

I knew this author for quite a while (his drawings are pretty unique) but this is the first time I read something by him.
In order to conmemorate the 10th anniversary of TYPE-MOON, Kohaku and Akiha leap back in time to the year 2003 and find the T-M characters of that time... In the picture, 2003 Satsuki is waiting for her route.
This is the 4th chapter and I missed the previous 3, so I hope they'll release a tankoubon of it.

EDIT: I have some pins designed by Keikenchi:

Those where extras included in some Kotobukiya's garage kits that I bought in 2003, that are among the very first TYPE-MOON items that I purchased. I'm quite an old time fan, aren't I?

1/10 Amami Haruka & Miura Azusa by Wave

1/10 Amami Haruka and Miura Azusa by Wave were released in May and July respectively, but since both are from the same figure line (Beach Queens series) and both share the same origin (THE iDOLM@STER), I'll review them together.

Haruka is sculpted by Abira, who also did Takane figure. Includes a detachable swim tube and two interchangeable faces:

Normal face.

Winking face.

The overall figure is rather nice, and I like Abira's face sculpts with iM@S characters.
There's only a major flaw in the sculpt; the pose is leaning way too much to the front making it a likely candidate to bend the PVC and be a leaning figure.

Also this pose is not very photogenic outside the strictly front angle.

Rear shot.

Azusa sculpt is by Clumsy Zero, based in an official illustration by Annin Doufu:


It includes two faces, a normal one and a smiling with the eyes shut one. Perhaps the forehead and cheeks are a bit too wide in my opinion...

Normal face

Smiling face

The pareo is made of transparent rubber and can be detached.

And true to the character, she have a really nice body.

Rear shot.

Figma Ayanami Rei Plugsuit Ver. by Max Factory

Received two months ago but unopened until today, figma Ayanami Rei Plugsuit Ver. by Max Factory.

Unlike the terrible disappointment that was figma Asuka, Rei doesn't have any fault in the sculpt, albeit as a figma is rather plain.

The accessories consist in three faces (neutral, angry and smiling), 11 hands (one of them holding Shinji's S-DAT player) and an Eva cockpit like the ones included with figma Asuka and figma Mari

Neutral face.

Unlike Mari and specially Asuka, the breast part have no problem this time.

Smiling face holding the S-DAT. Not really visible in the photo, but I received my copy with a profound scratch across her right eye.

Angry face.

And the cockpit.

And finally a rear shot. Her buttocks is not as nice as Asuka's or Mari's.

Fate/EXTRA Visual Fanbook

Slowly filling the review list. I still have 8 figures unopened and 6 artbooks/guidebooks to do... In order of purchase the next is Fate/Extra Visual Fanbook, released back in February.

Unlike the disappointment that was Fate/EXTRA Perfect Guide, this artbook contains all the stuff I wanted, specially an extensive gallery section and early design and sketches for the characters.

The first part is the gallery section, filled with pictures from promotional material (mostly telecards). Most of them are by Wada Rco, with a few by Takeuchi.

Yuri overtoned picture of Saber and Rin.

Cute Caster and Rin.

The character bios section includes not only their stats but also the in-game character cuts:

Bio page for Saber.

It includes an extensive part filled with Takeuchi's initial designs. Most of them already appeared here.

Gawain and Lu Bu designs by Takeuchi

The info for the huke designed weapons. In the picture Lancer's Gae Bolg, Gawain's Excalibur Gallatin and Berserker's God Force.

The following part are a bunch of interviews, that I didn't take pictures of it because was mostly a wall of text.

Next is a gallery made by guest artists. Unlike the official art that most of the times includes either Saber, Caster or Rin, the characters here are pretty diverse:

Saber by AkaRingo

Caster & Alice by Fruit Punch

Leo and Gawain by Sumihei

The last part part includes a couple of short manga by Wada Rco (one of them already appeared in Type-Moon Ace 5) and a short novel called "Seven's feel".

Random page from the short manga.

IDOLM@STER 2 for PS3 announced

Today THE iDOLM@STER 2 for PS3 was officially announced.

As I said when iM@S 2 was first announced, it was heavily implied that the franchise was going to do the leap to the PS3 (the PSP versions, the presence of iM@S related events and items in Playstation Home), but the surprise is that the release will be not roughly a year after the original release but in October 27th, exactly 7 months after the Xbox360 version. It seems that the sales where really that bad and Bandai Namco is leaving the sinking ship beforehand...

According to the info available and the entry from Famitsu, the four non playable girls (Ritsuko, Ami, Azusa and Iori) are still not produceable (at least not at first).

Songs, outfits, and accessories from the first 3 DLC catalogs from the Xbox version will be included in the disc, that means that the songs "Little Match Girl", "Honey Heartbeat" and "Ai Like Hamburger" will be available from the beginning, as well as the iM@S anime opening song "Ready!!". It seems that new outfits will be also available, since the pattern of the Floral type outfit used in the promo pic is new. Ah, and an extra difficulty will be selectable as well.

The anime opening song (and choreography)

The limited edition will be bundled with the first Blu-Ray of the iDOLM@STER anime, and also includes another disc with the game Gravure4You!, that allow you to take pictures of the idols in the beach. Is labeled as "Volume 1", so other volumes will also be released along other media.


The limited edition is quite expensive (19,800 yen) and is in essence the same game that I have, but most likely I'll buy it... The mind control power of IdolMaster sure is frightening.

iDOLM@STER 2 Official Guide Book

Keeping with the delayed reviews, next is THE iDOLM@STER 2 Official Guide Book, released in March.

Despite the overly nice picture in the cover, this guidebook is awful, and the worst of it is that is the "official" one. I expected a book like iDOLM@STER SP Producer's Guide, but this is lacking all the aspects of a guidebook and is mostly a very bad photobook of sorts.

The first part is centered in each of the nine playable girls:

Basic profile with the official art. The quality of the pictures included is pretty bad (especially the Master Artist 2 one in the top left) with visible compression artifact.

Probably the best part of the book are the interviews with the voice actress, along a nice photo of each. In the picture Hara Yumi (Takane).

The last part consists in some screenshots from the game, a chart of how characters call each others and a bunch of random outfits displayed (changes for each idol). The screenshots from the outfits are taken directly from the game, with awful quality and badly jagged edges.

Ritsuko gets a summarized version, with only two pages...

...but Ryuugu Komachi girls doesn't have as much luck and all three are covered in only two pages.

The outfit and accesory gallery is a complete joke, badly organized, incomplete and again with jagged edges and compression artifact.

The last part that explains the game mechanics is pretty much the same information that appears in the instruction booklet from the game, using even the same graphics.

Overall a guidebook to avoid because not only is useless as a guide but also fails as artbook, character reference and pretty much anything.

Fate/stay night volume 15

First of all, I broke my leg 3 weeks ago. I thought that the blog updates would be unaffected, but I was wrong so for now the blog updates will be fewer, shorter and about thing that are easy to take pictures of (mostly books).

So, the today is the turn of Fate/stay night volume 15 by Nishiwaki Datto.

As I said over and over, is not my favorite TYPE-MOON related manga, but is the only available with reasonable shipping costs at Hobby Link Japan, so every time I do an order there I purchase the latest volume of this manga as well.

This volumes includes the end of Caster in hands of Gilgamesh and up to the "date" between Saber and Shirou: