Motorcycles

A bit off topic here.
One of the future releases of the Figma line during this year is a Vespa motorcycle.

Is a PX model, the same model that I had been using for years at my job in Spain.
But that is not the funny part. I'm working for Correos, the national postal service of Spain, and the corporate color is bright yellow. The uniforms, post boxes and vehicles are also yellow, so the Vespa looks exactly the same (except for the detachable windshield and back coffin):


The other famous yellow Vespa is the one ridden by Haruhara Haruko in FLCL, an old SS model.


I'm not a motorcycle fan, in fact I hate to drive, but after years of using it I'm somewhat hooked.
In 2005, when I really needed my own vehicle, I prefered to buy a motorcycle instead of a car (in the last 10 years I only drove a car about 50 times). I wanted to buy a Vespa and paint it yellow ala FLCL, but my brother convinced me to buy a black Honda Shadow instead.

Hoshii Miki by Max Factory and Ryougi Shiki by Azone

Lately I'm trying to stop purchasing merchandise that at first I'm not planning to buy because it's been six month since I came to Japan, and with the current exchange rate I'm spending more than I expected, but I found at Amazon.co.jp a couple of figures with a 56% discount... and I was unable to refrain myself:

1/8 Hoshii Miki Expectant New Face version by Max Factory.
This is one of the best Idolm@ster figures ever released (the best one is perhaps the limited Miura Azusa in wedding dress) but I decided to not purchase it when was released last September because Miki is not really one of my favorite characters.
The sculpt is by Tokunaga Hironuki, that I knew previously for his beautiful Asuka by Kotobukiya and Sakura from Fate/stay night Trading Figure Collection.

The shinny coat is glitter, so I must be extra careful to not detach it.

Also includes cat paws and nekomimi.
There's also available the Awakening version, with short undyed hair, but I prefer the blond version.


And 1/6 Hybrid Active Figure Ryougi Shiki by Azone.
I usually avoid articulated figures; the main charm is the poseability over the overall aspect, but I almost never move the few articulated figures that I own.

Azone is one of the most prestigious makers of ball joint dolls, and like Volks' dollfies, they have a creepy cult following. I don't dislike ball joint bodies if they have a nice face sculpt, but in most of the cases they have hideous, devilish Blythe-esque faces (I admit it, I have a childhood trauma with an Argentine ventriloquist puppet called Chirolita).
Hybrid Active Figure line are dolls but with a more figure-ish approach in their faces, that I really prefer.


The face sculpt is by the prolific Ohzaka Miki from circle Cherry Blossom. He's one of my favorite sculptors, but not always his sculpts are top notch. He is specialized mostly in Gainax characters, and the rest of the characters are hit or miss, and in the case of the characters from TYPE-MOON, sadly he's prone to miss (for example maid Saber by Good Smile Factory, unrecognizable if it were not for the haircut).
In the case of Shiki, her face is just average.

It contains an alternate, killer eyed face.

The detail of the clothes is very high, including mini zippers in the jacket.
It also came with a kimono with sleeves if you want to display her without the leather jacket (the normal one is sleeveless to fit the jacket), but I don't want to mess with the clothes.

Photogenic shot.

27 cm are imposing.

And professional photos from the maker webpage, to do justice to the doll:

Beginning of March loot

Yesterday I bought Gemaga Magazine April issue for the cover and the inner poster. The iM@S girls looks gorgeous in that dress.


It also contains a bit of information about Mahoutsukai No Yoru, the new game by TYPE-MOON.

I think some of those pictures are new, but I don't care much. The lack of Takeuchi Takashi as the main designer was a joykiller for me, so I'm rather expecting CANAAN than this.

I also purchased a 5,000 yen PlayStation Network Card. I must correct myself; the price is the amount of the card.
Is a bit hard to find stores with the PSN cards compared to the Wii point cards and the Microsoft point cards, and in the first shop that I tried they were out of stock. I think that thanks to IdolM@ster, the PSN cards purchased skyrocketed (when was released in the 360, Microsoft points sold were multipied by 4).

And today's loot:

Kalafina's debut album, Seventh Heaven, released today.

Kalafina performs the theme songs for the Kara no Kyoukai movies.

Saber Shashin-shuu, a collection of portraits of Saber. Expensive, few pictures and none by Takeuchi... but I purchased it even knowing that beforehand.
The book is hard to keep open and I don't have scanner, so I can't take pictures of it, but here is a bad picture of the bromide included:


I also wanted to buy the limited edition of the manga Idolm@ster Break! by Fujima Takuya, that it was also released today, because it contained a download code for a dress and an accesory for the games, but was already sold out in Animate, Melon Books, Gamers, Kinokuniya and even in the nearest mom and pops book shop...

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.