Fate/complete material IV - Extra material

Now is the turn to review an artbook that I received almost 8 months ago, Fate/complete material IV Extra material., mostly because in a few days I'll receive the latest volume, Fate/complete material V Hollow material..

This artbook also includes Fate/side side materiale complete, a compilation of the previous 3 side side materiale books plus an extra 4 volume exclusive to this compilation. Since this entry is quite heavy on images, I'll review it in the next one.

Extra material is mostly a gallery of Fate related games not included in the previous books (Fate/unlimited codes, Fate/tiger colosseum and Fate/Extra) plus a bit of Fate/Zero. The only new material are the characters designs for an scrapped project for an online game, Fate/Apocrypha.

The first part covers Fate/unlimited codes; illustration for each character, their endings and face portraits.

Luviagelita Edelfelt entry. Her picture in the selection screen and her opening and ending images.

Saber Alter face portraits and her pre-battle image.

The last section covers promotional art and illustrations that appeared in merchandising.

Next is the turn of Fate/tiger colosseum, including the characters and new endings that appeared in the sequel, Fate/tiger colosseum Upper.

Rin entry. To the left her endings in the regular game (up) and in Upper (down)

Again including promotional art at the end, like this two pictures that appeared as telephone cards.

Fate/Extra section is really short, covering only a brief profile of each character:

Main character(s) and Saber

Leo & Gawain and Pieceman & Saver

Fate/Zero is also quite short, covering mostly the illustrations from the novels and the drama cd's.

The character profiles directly from the novels.

Illustration from the novel (upper right), Return to Zero cd cover (upper left) and the image from the drama cd's holder box.

And as I said, the only new content is Fate/Apocrypha, a project to do an online game using original servants that was finally canceled.
Most of the servants were designed and/or drawn by different guest artists, and it have almost nothing to do with TYPE-MOON universe...

Karna (Lancer class) is the only one out of the fully developed characters that was designed by Nasu (and drawn by pako, character designer in some entries of the Shining Force Saga and most recently in Un-Go)

The trap Astolfo (class Rider) designed by Hoshizora Meteo and drawn by Konoe Ototsugu from circle Closet Child.

And Joan of Arc, the only character from Apocrypha designed by Nasu AND drawn by Takeuchi, that was supposed to be the special administrator of the Grail War under the class Ruler. Since it was supposed to be a NPC, her entry is not as long as the others.

I'll try to review Fate/side side materiale complete tomorrow.

IDOLM@STER Blu-ray & Gravure For You! Vol. 4

And keeping with iDOLM@STER Blu-rays, last week I received iDOLM@STER Blu-ray & Gravure For You! Vol. 4 for PS3.

The episodes included are 9, 10 and 11, including the usual features (creditless endings and the extended episode previews from the website), and the extra commentary track is by Nakamura Eriko (Haruka), Shimoda Asami (Ami-Mami), Imai Asami (Chihaya) and Numakura Manami (Hibiki).

The usual postcards with the endings pictures

There's also a bonus dvd included; an one hour long recreation of GeroGero Kitchen (the variety show from episode 4) in live-action. The participants are Nakamura Eriko (Haruka), Imai Asami (Chihaya), Hara Yumi (Takane), Numakura Manami (Hibiki) and Sakaguchi Daisuke (the voice actor of the frog puppet) dressed as a frog and acting as the host and judge.

Like in the anime, the girls are paired in two teams named after frogs.

Hara and Numakura cooking. Unlike the anime counterparts, none of the girls is particularly skilled at cooking.

One of the dishes of the tree frog team is this jokingly named "Chicken breast meat with Aoi Tori sauce". The breast part is a jab to Chihaya running joke of being flat-chested, and "Aoi Tori" (blue bird) is Chihaya's main song (and note that in Japanese, both blue and green can be called blue).

The bonus booklet is the Model Sheet Collection Volume 2. Unlike the previous one, this one is more focused in background and location settings than in characters.

765 office

There's a few character setting for some specific clothes, like Azusa's wedding dress

And for Gravure For You! Vol. 4, the setting this time is in a rose petals shower photo sesion with the "Angel Swimsuit" and in the beach (again) with the "Flora Aloha Girl" costume.

As usual random shoots:

Comic Market 81 stuff

Finally I received all the stuff I purchased from the last Comic Market, held in December. It takes me about 2 months to gather all the stuff I want from each Comike because I use several sources, and as a last resort Yahoo! Auctions. For example, this specific loot was received in 5 separated shipments from 5 different sources.

Pretty much the same as usual, doujinshi by the authors I follow and TYPE-MOON goods:

-Mahoutsukai no Hako set from TYPE-MOON
-Fate Zero set by circle Crazy Clover Club
-Circle King Revolver works
-Enikki Recycle 17 and the omake booklet by circle Initial G
-Konton Lady Studio Soushuuhen Tora by circle Konton Lady Studio
-Yayoi Ganbaru! by circle Chotto Dake Aru Yo.
-Milk Catchers 1 by circle Kuroyuki
-Namae no Nai Sakuya by circle Nuruma-ya
-Flag Crash and Omake no Carisa Hon by circle Lv. X+

And in detail:

This year Mahoutsukai no Hako set consist in two phone cleaners, a mug, a metal bookmark, 2 mini-posters and 4 plastic coasters. In the same shipment I also received Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season, that I covered in my previous entry.

Fate Zero set by Shirotsumekusa of circle Crazy Clover Club consist in T-MOON COMPLEX "ZERO" (short gag comics featuring characters from Fate/Zero), C81 Omake Hon (a small bonus booklet that contains a calendar and a few pin-up illustrations) and clear file bag. I like that he lately returned to gag comics instead of his dragged for too long T-Moon Complex X.

The latest doujinshi by Kikuta Kouji from circle King Revolver: Taisa ni Seieki o Makishirasu Hon (featuring Selvaria from Valkyria Chronicles dressed with the bikini from the upcoming Alter figure), Shouken No Bo (featuring the old school Dragon Quest warrior) and Soushuuhen to Horizon, a compilation of his previously released omake books plus a new story featuring the busty Aoi Kimi from Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon.

Enikki Recycle 17, the picture blog compilation of A1 (Initial-G) covering the first half of 2011 plus the omake booklet Criminal Girl featuring iDOLM@STER's Takane.

Konton Lady Studio Soushuuhen Tora by circle Konton Lady Studio. This actually is a C80 release but I was unable to secure a copy until now.
Is a compilation of IDOLM@STER gags drawn and written by DIT, all of them quite funny, and was sold as a pair with Soushuuhen Ryuu, that I covered in my C80 post.

Keeping my collection of Takemura Sessyu's IDOLM@STER doujinshi (4 thus far including this one) , in this one Yayoi Ganbaru! is the turn of Mami, Ami and Yayoi.

Milk Catchers 1 by Kakyouin Chiroru from circle Kuroyuki, starring HeartCatch Precure! characters Yuri and Itsuki paired with the returning kimo-ota from Milk Masters. I bought it only because I own all his previous works from the same series, because I hardly know anything of Precure besides the first season...

Namae no Nai Sakuya, the third non-hentai work of Tsukiwani from circle Nuruma-ya, starring a young Sakuya when she first entered to work in the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

Sakuya first day as a maid.

Is rare for me to say this, but now I prefer his non ero works because is much better than his usual ero-works that uses exactly the same formula each time.

And finally, Flag Crash and Omake no Carisa Hon by Yuzuki N' of circle Lv. X+. Flag Crash features the yandere Gasai Yuno from Mirai Nikki, and the bonus booklet features Carisa from Valkyria Chronicles 3. To tell the truth, I was only interested in the omake book, so for me Flag Crash was the bonus.

Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season & Fate Prototype

Released in the past Comic Market 81, here's Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season review.

The contents are:

• Box to contain all 3 seasons and the bonus attachments
  
• Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code PC game
• Carnival Phantasm 3rd Season (both Blu-ray and dvd versions)
• Fate Prototype Blu-ray
  
• Prototype material artbook
  
• C81 exclusive hand towel
  

3rd Season consist again in four episodes, but unlike the previous seasons only "Loli reversion" part of episode 10 was based in the original TAKE-MOON, the rest are new material

Like the other 2 seasons, both Blu-ray and dvd discs are included, no subtitles and the special audio commentary this time is made by Mahoutsukai No Hako characters Hibiki, Chikagi and Keitai-san.

The last part of the last episode acts as an epilogue, and gathers almost all the Type-Moon cast at Ahnenerbe.

My favourite characters from Tsukihime, Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/stay night and hollow ataraxia sharing the same table.

Mahoutsukai No Hako characters at last making an appearance. It's kind of weird that only appeared here, considering they work at Ahnenerbe.

The special bonus if you purchased it at TYPE-MOON both at Comike was a large hand towel (one of those used in Japan during summer to wipe the sweat) with the ending illustration.

Since is very long (20 cm x 225 cm) I was unable to fit it in one picture.

The anime this time was bundled with Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code for PC:


Actress Again Current Code was the improved arcade version of Actress Again for PS2, tweaking a few movements and including "new" characters, and this is the improved-improved version for PC

The only "completely new" character is Powered Ciel, a playable version of Executioner Ciel (that was a non-playable mid boss in Re-Act) and Archetype:Earth now uses her own sprites instead of reuse the ones from the regular Arcueid so can be considered "new". Some stages, like the one in the pic, are also new.

Characters exclusives from the PS2 version are playable as well, like school uniform Akiha and Ryougi Shiki.

The box can hold all 3 seasons, Melty Blood AACC and all the books (Catalogue, CP Dokuhon and Prototype material)

And the last bonus included is a twelve minutes Blu-ray featuring Fate Prototype, a short clip based in the original draft that Nasu wrote in his high school years that was the base of Fate/stay night.

The main character Sajyou Ayaka summoning a male Saber.

Since the main character was female and most (if not all) of the servants were male in the original draft, Takeuchi suggested to change the gender of the main characters to fit in a H visual novel, so Ayaka became Shirou and King Arthur became the female Arturia.

Prototype material includes the script of the anime and a basic bio for each character with rough sketches by Takeuchi.

The main heroine Sajyou Ayaka, a below average magus with low self-esteem. It was retconned to have blue eyes intead of black (as appeared in Character material) so it gives her a not-so-gloomy look.

Saber true identity is King Arthur. Chilvalrous yet more carefree than female Saber, was first summoned in the previous war by Ayaka's sister Manaka, but betrayed her in order to save Ayaka.

Reiroukan Misaya, Lancer master and prototype Rin. Her personality is a mix between Rin and Luviagelita, and uses black dogs as familiars.

Like the final version Lancer, prototype Lancer true identity is Cu Chulainn, and pretty much have the same personality.

Archer true identity is Gilgamesh. This Gil is not as much as prepotent as the final version, and have traits of Emiya Archer in his personality. He wants Ayaka as his woman.

Rider identity is Perseus. His master was terminally ill and used all the command seals to make Rider fully human and during the story he acts as a normal student going at the same school as Ayaka and at the same time acts as a master disguised with a mask.

Sajyou Manaka is the sister of Ayaka, and have a similar role to Illya (a seemingly inocent young girl that is in fact much older and ruthless). Summoned Saber 8 years ago and reached the Grail, but after seing the corruption of both the Grail and Manaka, Saber killed her. Resurected like Kotomine by the Grail, now is the master of Beast (similar to Avenger) and a yandere towards Saber.