Click for Hobby Search source

Recently spotted the “provocative” version of Tamaki up for preorder at hobby search.  Didn’t even know this version was in the works (not terribly different from the temptation version, but still ^^;)…  She may end up being my first Tamaki.

Besides the palette swap, her expression is different, and she comes with some chain belt accessory thingy.

Click for Hobby Search source

Sexay expression, new accessory and a pillow base… not to mention 1/6 yet priced under 8,000 yen…  These are all strong arguments   Guess I’d be willing to try out 4-Leaves again…

Speaking on Tama-nee, why is it so hard for figure designers to get her face right?  She has quite a few releases (searching for ‘kousaka tamaki’ turns up over 25 results), yet I haven’t quite found a release that really hit home with me.  Here’s how she should look:

Above is the first CG you get of her in her seifuku… Here’s her devious expression:

Maybe it’s just my warped memory, but somehow none of the figures have seemed to really nail her.

Anyhow, provocative version is now on the wishlist… which is what I was originally gonna post on, so let’s get to that.

Been using tsukiboard to manage my wishlist, which now sits at 90!  Luckily it’s not all that ambitious… tsukiboard added the ability to rank wishlist figures based on desirability – 0 to 5 hearts.  I’ve decided to use those as follows:

• 5 hearts – will buy as soon as it goes up for preorder
• 4 hearts – will probably buy
• 3 hearts – maybe… still considering
• 2 hearts – like these and if I had some spare cash, wouldn’t mind getting them, but they’re low priority.  Generally characters I know and would like figures of but haven’t found a must buy version of yet.  Alternately, characters I’m not familiar with but the figures looks pretty damn good.
• 1 heart – probably won’t buy, but if I could, would definitely “complete” my collection (i.e. has things like alternate color versions of figures I already have, figures of characters I already have enough of (at the moment ^^;), figures that are way too rare/expensive, etc.)
• 0 hearts – needs to be categorized.

With that in mind, out of my 90, only 10% are seriously up for consideration… I’ve got 3 must buys, 1 probably, and 5 maybe’s.

The rest of the Alter’s StrikerS releases (Nanoha, Fate & Shamal) make up my 5 heart selections…

fate-chaaaaaan~ ^^

My one 4 heart selection is GSC’s 1/4 swimsuit Nanoha.

She prolly woulda been at 3 hearts or lower but KOS-MOS sparked the swimsuit figure fire   I am waiting a bit on her still though… 10+k yen is quite a hit and reservations are closed at hobby search.  HLJ still has orders open but at the elevated (msrp?) price of 11429 yen. -_-  Even if the opportunity does pass, there’s still the 1/4 fate swimsuit possibility…

At 3 hearts I’ve got tama-nee as talked about above… and two that have been getting a lot of attention… BRS & World is Mine Miku.

BRS definitely looks amazing, no arguments there.  Something just isn’t screaming “GET” for me though… and quite frankly I’m happy to leave it at that to save myself a truck load of money ^^;;  On the other hand, I have a terrible feeling I’m gonna regret not getting her, so I’ve left her relatively high on my list.  HLJ won’t be opening orders until June so I guess I still have time to decide.

World is Mine Miku is probably more like a 3.5 or 4… I should re-rank my list…

Click for Akiba Hobby source

A great take on miku (why can’t someone take this kind of artistic liberty with kagamin and make a figure?!), and I seem to have a thing for pillow bases   I’ll probably end up getting hime-sama or BRS but both is unlikely at this point since I’m trying to save some money ^^;

The rest of the extravaganza is also at 3 stars… again it’s my set completion sickness.  I am overflowing with haruhi figures… and yet this insane part of my brain is nagging me to pick up mikuru and nagato (already caved and ordered haruhi).

Click for GSC source

Again… love the f igures… that’s not what’s holding me back.  It’s just hard spending another 15+k yen on haruhi figures when there’s so much other series that need some love.

Click for GSC source

I think I’ll hold strong, but only time will tell ^^;

After that, not too much that’s been in limbo for me… narika was a must buy so she’s already preordered.  Have I missed out on any upcoming releases?  Just hasn’t seemed like much has grabbed my attention lately.

I’ve got some Alter goodies in the mail, and chibi exelica should be shipping soon too!  My review queue is at 27 but they’ll probably get bumped for the new goodies unless I happen to slip a review in before they arrive ^^;

How’s you wishlist looking?  Tough decisions?  Cut and dry?  Changes you’d make to my list?

以上！

Sword (a nodachi, no less (!)), long hair, oppai, half a pair of jeans?  Yes, please.

I don’t know if it’s a good sign or bad that I’m regularly taking over 100 pics per review…

Usually that translates to about 20-30 pics I actually use… but this time it was for a mere 16 pics ^^;

Kanzaki had just enough to persuade me to make another Kotobukiya purchase.  Or perhaps a better way to say it is that I love kaorin so much from the anime that I settled for this one ^^;

She could use a bit more detail in practically every area but basically what I expect out of koto, so I knew what I was getting into.  I do admit the base is way above average though.

I think one of the more disappointing aspects is her jeans (…jean?  ^^;;) don’t look very good.  Too shiny, not very rugged feeling…

I think it was in episode 16 where kaorin was right about to go bathe when she turns and her hair swings around as a single unit… looked really awkward ^^;;

Luckily in figures it’s supposed to stay static ^^;  Decided to take a ton of images from this angle to feed into an  hdr program, played around with the tone mapping to see if anything interesting would come of it…

Can’t really say these images look “good” but I think they’re at least “interesting”? ^^;

I like the pose and expression she has…

Though I wouldn’t complain if the face had been truer to the anime or if they had chosen a slightly more menacing expression…

I think her sword isn’t quite straight ‘cuz I didn’t line it up properly -_- (the hilt is separate)

Speaking of episode 16, I had a strange snap back to reality when kaorin was dressing herself – it seemed pretty rediculous putting on such an outlandish outfit with such a serious expression ^^;;

Hmm this shot below didn’t quite turn out as I wanted… doesn’t feel like any part of the pic is focused enough -_-

Despite not being an upper tier figure I enjoyed doing the shoot… my interest in photography grows each day, as does my desire to buy a new camera.

If only the rest of the figure looked as good as the base ^^;

Below alllllmost turned out to be a shot I liked.  Unfortunately the focal point is on such a mundane area it’s hard to appreciate the dof effect -_-  Needed more detail on the saya (scabbard).

Really wish this was a 1/7 or 1/6 by Alter (like everything else ) but considering that it’s kotobukiya, not bad!

Out of all the Kotobukiya to aru figures, kaorin is my favorite, though I really woulda liked to have pretty much the whole cast.  Alas, can’t justify purchasing the rest so that project will have to wait.

More reviews await you!

• ELTWorld – he’s got a nice gray background and really got her hair color displayed vividly.  Hope he doesn’t mind my pingback spam ^^;
• Toyz Workz – very sexay black background ^^

Wish kaori got more screen time… guess this pvc will have to do

以上！

First off, 宇宙をかける少女 (sora wo kakeru shoujo, sora kake girl)!

As with most series, started out knowing practically nothing… got interested in the series after seeing the promo clip @ wonhobby 9 & noticing figures popping up already.  Guess the figures aren’t so surprising when you see the show’s sponsor list…

^^;  There’s also some other ad placements you’ll probably notice…

Personally I think it’s great.  Go GSC! ^_^

獅子堂 秋葉 (shishidou akiha) is, as far as I can tell, the main character, who you meet soon after the first episode starts.

At first I thought the voice sounded familiar (moshikashite, hirano aya?!)… but after checking some sites… turns out it’s MAKO?  Guess I might’ve been able to recognize her from School Rumble (ichijou karen) but nope ^^;

You also meet レオパルド (reoparudo, Leopard), an eccentric robot thing voiced by Lelouch Lamperouge err Fukuyama Jyun ^^;  Unfortunately I can’t separate the voice from Lulu so it warps my perception of the Leopard character ^^;

Looks like these so called QT-arms (Quantum Technology Advanced Reinforced Maneuvering Shroud), centaur themed ship/mechs will play a decent role in the show…

Then there’s that weird pistol thing that I haven’t understood at all yet…

All in all, so far it’s got a good set of things to keep me interested.

• Weird hilarious computer/robot thing
• Transforming mechs
• tsuntsun character (one of akiha’s sisters)
• main character that seems well poised for a rise to power (of some sort ^^;)

Didn’t blow my socks off, but I’m eagerly watching to see where it’s all going ^^

Also trying to figure out why itsuki’s eyes are so weird…

Is that supposed to be future makeup or something?  To me it just looks like she stayed up all night ^^;;

movin on…

とらドラ! (toradora!)

I think I’ve been enjoying it a lot ^^  Think I’m basically caught up now at episode 23?  Keeping up with my no spoiler promise, all I’ll say is that ami-chan is the most level headed character… something I didn’t expect at all.

Kitamura’s character got a lotta attention for a bit, but alas it seems like lately he’s reverted to a secondary plot device (and occasional slap stick gag ^^;)

Really like the characters so it’s been a real treat… can’t wait to see how the show wraps up!

とある魔術の禁書目録 (to aru majyutsu no index)

Ok, I admit, the main reason I made it a priority to catch up on this series was to see what the hell this was about…

…that was a weird episode ^^;  (15, if you’re wondering)

Biribiri, index, kaorin, aisa (mami-chan! ^^), misaka, last order, kuroko…. gaaa, it’s a pleasure whenever any of them is on the screen, so I’m glad I got caught up on this one too.

Been enough action for me, would have no problems if they just turned the show into a galge at this point

ストライクウィッチーズ (Strike Witches)

Mio’s voice seems kinda forced… When she’s doing her manly commander voice it just sounds like bad voice acting to me ^^;;;  Other than that… this show is insane.  It seems like it should be in that super fan-service category of shows like sekirei or such, but on the other hand it’s already had some touching moments in the first couple episodes.

Hahaha err no not the above.  Since I’m only throught the first two episodes, I haven’t gotten to see much of the other girls yet, still trying to figure out the pantsu thing.

I hear Francesca is the loliest of the group? ^^;;;

Feels very similar to sky girls, except i think the Sonic Divers were much cooler.  The Striker Units make the girls look rediculous ^^;;

I thought I heard that the plot was surprisingly good for a show whose premise seemed to be fan service.  Luckily I fully approve of all fan service based shows, so regardless I think we have a winner

みなみけ　おかえり　(minamike okaeri)

If I remember this was getting a lotta flak like season 2?

I will say the art/animation kinda sucks in a lotta scenes but honestly, that’s not at all why I’m watching.  Basically I’m just looking for the comics with voices added, so I’ve been enjoying this season a lot ^^

My big problem with season 2 was that I couldn’t get into the fuyuki character.  Every scene with him was just ruined for me ‘cuz I was so bored/annoyed.  With him out of the way in season 3, it’s just pure goodness straight from the comics.  I figure, if I want the nice art, I’ll just grab a volume off my shelf.

hosaka and the other minami family… (natsuki cracks me up in particular)… they’ve been getting enough screen time to keep me happy and satisfied through 9 episodes so far.

Lastly,

涼宮ハルヒちゃんの憂鬱 (The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan)

A perfect show for any watch list because each episode is less than 5 minutes long ^^;

From what I can tell, a very faithful transition from manga to anime ^^  They even chose a lot of my favorite comics (some of which I translated earlier) as the subject matter for the episodes ^^

Highly recommended to anyone who enjoyed the slice of (weird) life aspect of haruhi ^^

So that’s what I’ve been watchin’… you?

Unfortunately when I’m done with this I still have the following on my list…

• ef – tale of melodies
• itazura na kiss
• kanokon
• nabari no ou
• penguin musume heart
• rosario + vampire (2nd season)
• true tears
• zero no tsukaima (3rd season)
• jigoku shoujo (3rd season)
• ikkitousen (dd & gg)
• candy boy
• asu no yoichi
• kyouran kazoku nikki
• kurogane no linebarrels
• shikabane hime
• yozakura quartet
• mahou tsukai ni taisetsu na koto
• ga-rei zero
• kurokami
• macademi wasshoi!
• minamike okaeri
• tetsuwan birdy decode 2

… … … wish me luck ^^;

以上！

Seems my background needs some ironing too -_-  Ah well, donmai donmai

I think this is one of the best box pics I”ve ever taken lol ^^;;;

Yoko is the last nendoroid I had on preorder.  Maybe if I get a raise or something I’ll start ordering again ^^; (though zange-chan is kawaisugi~ orz)

After seeing yoko in the above pose in this post on mika-tan’s blog I had to order her ^^

Enterbrain yoko I’ve had sitting in my detolf since july or something, so pics of her are long overdue ^^;

At the time she was the yoko figure I liked the best, despite her shiny, sparesly detailed hair.  Wish I had waited for Alter’s upcoming awesomeness but this version has its own charms.

She stands tall at 26cm and really the only thing that bothers me is the hair.

Actually one thing that got in the way of yoko’s review was her gun…

Can you see how the stock is a little off?

When trying to pull it off to fit the gun in her hand… ended up snapping the whole thing off orz.  Had a helluva time supergluing it back because it had to be done with the gun in her hand.  To top it off the superglue I was using seemed to eat away the plastic or something so there’s that crap at the joint -_-;;;  Luckily she’s holding her rifle behind her body so it’s not something you notice right away ^^;

Nice work on her boots I thought.  Most figures lack shoe detail

Aaaaa writing a post while catching up on Toradora was not a good idea…

What was I going to talk about? hmmm… Well, no pantsu shots to speak of so oppai shots this time

hmmm mebbe make a wallpaper out of this one… dang that shiny hair though -_-

I need some chalk to write on the blackboard…

Kagamin helps yoko with some homework.

I kinda like the yoko head on nagato body ^^

miyoko & yomiku

^^

Lotsa figures still in the queue… some more old releases I’d like to get around to…

bleh, been getting harder and harder to figure out what to do next ^^; Limit gunz also awaits, of course…

Anyhow, yoko nendoroid is great. Kawaii and the usual nendoroid quality. Enterbrain yoko was nice at the time but given the choice now, I’d hold off for Alter’s release (unless I was a super yoko fan ^^;). ‘course I’m not sure if stores even have the enterbrain verison in stock anymore since it’s almost been a year ^^;

以上！

We’ve got the view from Sunshine 60, a more few random shots from all over and finally narita-san, a template in narita.

Probably said all this before in my previous post, but it was a really superb view of the city. ^^

Was kinda eerie ‘cuz there were so few people (unlike every other square inch of the city )

View’s probably much better at night, especially since you don’t have to worry about the sun affecting lighting.

The ikebukuro station I had arrived at.

Crazy how the city just goes on and on and on…

Alrightythen, moving on.  Tokyo Tower!

Alas, that’s it.  Next!  ^^;

Going to asakusa, didn’t quite get off at the best station… was quite a walk ^^;

Spotted a first kitchen on the way over.  Alas, I missed out on their double cheese bacon egg burger yet again orz.  Next time!

Instead had a tsukimi~udon.  Curry rice for my co-worker.

You’ll never go thirsty in Japan as long as you have 100~150 yen on hand ^^

Finally arrived in Asakusa after 10-20 minutes ^^;

And finally got a semi-decent picture of the pagoda there.  errr… well lighting wise… and emphasis on semi…

Didn’t really take too many pics of asakusa since i’d been there a few times already, but if you missed ‘em, the rest are in this post.

On to Narita!

That’s an uagi restaurant you can find on the way to narita-san the big temple there.   If you like unagi… you’ll be very happy… not because that particular restaurant was so great, but because it’s one of many!!  Every other building was an unagi restaurant!  (for the record, it was delicious)

Hot dog? … … HOT DOG.

For good luck, just get a coin on the turtle rock’s back.

Was again blessed with beautiful weather.

The temple grounds were huge!  There was even a calligraphy museum and gardens.

Wish I had some time to spend at the calligraphy museum (love that stuff ^^) but alas, had to make sure to get to the airport in time.

Gardens were nice, but I have a feeling it’s a lot better with everything full bloom.

Some shutter speed shenanigans.  1/80s above.  1/1250s below.

Wish I didn’t have that huge shadow -_-;;  1/2000s below.

‘cuz of the lighting didn’t really turn out so great, but still a neat effect ^^

And we end it all with this:

Think my previous sakura shots were a lot better, but I’ll allow it… it’s the last photo I took on my trip ^^

If you’re curious where narita-san is… unfortunately I have no idea.  My coworker drove me there and then to the airport ^^;  If I had to guess, I’d say it’s prolly relatively close to a train station ^^;

以上！

Quick shots without my usual setup... m(_ _)m

Limit Gunz’s arrival marks the end of my Kid Nemo saga.  They were the first store I ordered from so I didn’t really know what to expect… after getting a few orders in I figured that everything was fine.  Fast foward almost a year later… out of 28 figures preordered, 10 were canceled… over 28% -_-  In each case, I had to e-mail asking about order status… they never notified me when they were unable to fill my order.

For in stock items (if you can even figure that out) they were ok and seemed to deliver.  But please beware when preordering from them.  They have serious issues filling preorders.  Gweh.  At any rate, glad to have that off my chest.  All Kid Nemo orders now closed, no more worrying about receiving my orders! ^^

In today’s preview… we have that unsightly mass underneath Limit Gunz’ box… 一体何でしょう？！(What is it?!)

じゃ～ん！　(tada~)

Err sorry about the lousy pic… was just free handing with flash -_-  Lessee how about…

Mmm a little better… meh, you can get a much better look in my loot post if ya want (without pillow).  Anyhow, a dakimakura pillow!  Now I just need a cushion for the erika cushion cover ^^

Now that I think about it, I might’ve saved some money had I taken Len-Vesper’s advice on some online stores for pillows… Was preoccupied placing my replacement order for limit gunz at the time though (yes, my final open order was for limit gunz, who was canceled on me.  In stock @ hobby search, had her a little over a week after placing the order.)  Hobby search just gotta buncha dakimakura pillows in stock if you’re looking for one… but lemme tell  ya EMS shipping ain’t the best deal for ‘em ^^;;;;  I’d go for something local if ya can find ‘em (or at least a store that offers SAL).

Anyhow couple more limit gunz pics before wrapping up…

New bg

Airi’s new neightbor.  Actually ended up swapping Limit Gunz and Airi since the gun was encroaching on Nyx ^^;

Couldn’t stand the hard shadows and limitations working with the flash so I stacked up some books to get at least one long exposure shot off ^^;

Not sure where I’m gonna put her in the review queue, but most likely sooner than later.

orz why is it this late already?  Well, I gotta get some sleep.

以上！

祈 (inori) sensei from tsuyokiss

Are you ready?  Be prepared for H, M, Y, R, and W characters, finishing up with the only solo consonant in the language!  Brace yourself, this is going to be a long lesson… lots of things to explain!  It may be best to cover a little at a time rather than trying to absorb everything all at once ^^; If you’re behind, here you can find all the previous lessons.

Now that I’ve overloaded you (not overloaded? excellent!), time to talk about all the characters that aren’t quite what you’d expect.

は (ha)

You probably noticed that I strangely listed this as having either an H or W sound.  The reason is that for whatever… reason, it is pronounced as ‘wa’ when used as a particle in a sentence.  A little aside, you can think of particles as grammatical glue that hold the words of the sentence together.  Some have translations, but others don’t… は is one of the more difficult ones to translate.  Anyhow, I think it’s easiest if we have some examples.

はやて (hayate) is a name, so we stay with the h sound.

Click for gelbooru source

はんぶん (hanbun) is a noun meaning half, so again, h.

はな (hana) means flower, still h!

おれ　は ばか　だ。 (ore wa baka da) – in this example, は isn’t part of a name, noun, adjective or anything.  It simply is part of the sentence, falling between おれ (ore, an informal (and hence potentially rude) way of saying ‘I’) and ばか (baka).  You guessed it, it’s a particle in this case, denoting the subject of the sentence.　だ (da) is the verb to be, so ばかだ (baka da) means, {something} is stupid.  To specify what is stupid, we choose a subject, おれ (ore) and place the subject particle は after it.  As such, this sentence translates to ‘I am stupid.’

If you wanted to say ‘This class is stupid’ you simply replace ‘I’ with ‘this class’.  ‘this class’ is このくらす (kono kurasu), so the sentence becomes, このくらす　は ばか　だ。

Perhaps you’re thinking of asuka and her well known, あんた　ばか？　(‘anta baka’?)  Just thought I’d mention that in informal speech, lots of parts of the sentence can be dropped, in this case, は and だ.  This is fairly complex and I imagine I’ve already overcomplicated things, so I’ll just leave you two things: 1.) anta is an informal way to say, ‘you’ and thus can be rude.  2.) the full sentence would technically be あんた　は ばか　だ。　(anta wa baka da)

While we’re at it, let’s talk about simple sentence struture:

Forming Simple Sentences

In English grammar, you often have a subject and a verb:

I am an otaku.  ‘I’ is the subject and ‘am’ is the verb.

You are an otaku.

Nanoha is flying.

Yami eats taiyaki.

With that in mind, let’s look at the same sentences translated to Japanese:

わたし は おたく です。 (watashi wa otaku desu.) watashi = I, desu = am

あなた は おたく です。 (anata wa otaku desu.) anata = you, desu = are

なのは は とんでいます。 (nanoha wa tonde imasu.) tonde imasu = flying

やみ は たいやき　を　たべます。 (yami wa taiyaki wo tabemasu.) tabemasu = eats

Note how in each case, the subject is followed by は (wa).  As you can see, the basic sentence structure is:

X は A。

Using the verb ‘to be’ (です (desu, polite form) or だ (da, regular form）), we have:

X は Y ですor だ。(X is/am/are Y.)

Basically, when は is being used in a sentence like above, this is when it’s pronounced ‘wa’.  Otherwise, it has an H sound, ‘ha’.

And with that, I’ve probably made the most convoluted lesson for understanding when は is pronounced ‘wa’  ^^;;; On the bright side, you can make simple sentences now!  Just pick a subject and a verb and string them together as above.

Signum　の　ぱんつ は くろい です。 (signum no pantsu wa kuroi desu – ‘Signum’s pantsu are black.’)

ふぃぎゅあ は たかい です。 (figyua wa takai desu – ‘Figures are expensive.’)

Back to hiragana!!

ふ　(fu)

This character is generally prounouced with an F sound even though it’s in the H row.  However, there is no F row, which makes this character the only one with an F sound.  In another lesson we’ll talk about how you can combine characters to get other F sounds… but don’t worry about that for now ^^;

A ふふふ moment from あかねいろ　に　そまる　さか (end of ep 6)

Depending on regional accent, certain words, or whatever random things I don’t quite understand, you may hear this character pronounced ‘hu’.  As your exposure and knowledge of Japanese increases you’ll probably get a better feel for when/why the pronunciation differs from time to time… but for beginners it’s fine to just think of it as ‘fu’.

へ (he)

Time for another particle lesson!  Just kidding, no not gonna burden you with that this time.  は was enough as is ^^;;  But just know that へ can also be used as a particle, and when it is, it’s pronounced the exact same as え (‘e’).  …well, and let’s just throw an example out there for fun:

わたし　は　がっこう　へ　いきます。 (watashi wa gakkou e ikimasu. – ‘I go to school.’)

Another note about romanization… sometimes I romanize へ as ‘he’ even though it’s a situation where it’s pronounced as ‘e’ – the reason being that it helps me remember that it’s the particle へ rather than the character え.  For these lessons I’ll try to stick to romanization that matches the pronunciation though, like above.

や　ゆ　よ (ya yu yo)

There’s nothing really weird about these characters… except that there’s only 3 of them!  That’s no mistake, there’s no yi or ye characters, so 2 less to memorize ^^

ら　り　る　れ　ろ (ra ri ru re ro)

Nothing weird about these characters either, but something to know is that there’s no L row in Japanese either.  What’s that have to do with the R characters?  Often times these characters are used to approximate L sounds and I think in some accents the R characters sounds a little more like L.  Like ‘fu’ though, you can’t really go wrong just thinking of these characters as having a pure R sound.

るーこ・きれいなそら。。。るーるる　るーるる　るーるーるー

わ　を (wa o)

Two things – again, missing characters!  Firstly, no need to memorize wi wu or we… those characters don’t exist!

Secondly, を is another pronunciation anomaly.  Luckily it’s really simple, just pronounce it as the character お (‘o’).  Sometimes it’s romanized as ‘wo’, but I’ve only rarely ever heard the ‘w’ actually pronounced (think once in a song…).  を is also a particle, but again we’ll leave that alone, especially since it has no bearing on the pronunciation.  を is always pronounced お.

There was actually an example above that used this character:

やみ は たいやき　を たべます。 (yami wa taiyaki o tabemasu.) tabemasu = eats, so this is ‘yami eats taiyaki’

ん (n)

The final character!  This is the only character in the Japanese syllabary that doesn’t have a vowel attached to it.  Also, it can have an M sound if it comes before B, P, or other M sounds.

TADA!  You know all hiragana… well, almost   We’ll cover those troublesome compound characters next week ^^;;

Time for some vocab!

1. め
2. はは
3. やめて
4. ふふふ
5. ゆうやけ
6. ほんとう
7. まな
8. ひめ
9. むかつく
10. わわわわすれもの
11. もむ
12. へんたい
13. らき☆すた
14. よゆう
15. みみ
16. りみ
17. みる
18. れい
19. もちろん

Don’t let Yoshimi distract you

1. め – ‘me’ means ‘eye’ (or ‘eyes’, since you don’t have separate plurals).  In the danny choo community, that gives this word yet another meaning…
   
2. はは – ‘haha’ is one of the ways to say ‘mother’. (another is おかあさん, oksaasan). Haha is the humble way of saying it. Why would you need a humble version? Well, in Japanese, it is polite to humble yourself when talking to others, especially people you just met, business acquaintances, etc. In these situations, you humble your self (and family) by using the humble term, ‘haha’ to talk about your own mother.
   
   Hmm perhaps the above pic wasn’t the best example since it’s pretty much nanoha-まま (mama) the whole time ^^;;
3. やめて – ‘yamete’ – a regular/non-polite command form of the verb stop.  i.e. yamete == “stop!”  A more polite form would be やめてください (yamete kudasai).  You’ll hear this in cases like, 「じょうだんやめてください。」 (Please stop joking around!) Other situations like… wellll… you know… *ahem* moving on…
4. ふふふ – ‘fufufu’ – covered above ^^  If you were wondering how to write out that devious laugh, this is it. fufufufu
5. ゆうやけ -’yuuyake’ – sunset.
   

   ゆうやけ in ep 9 of shigofumi, love that episode ^^

6. ほんとう – ‘hontou’ – really. Often combined with に to make an adverb. In renai stuff you might’ve come across the following cutesy conversation:
   「ほんとうに？」 (really?)
   「うん。」 (yeah)
   「ほんとうにほんとうにほんとう？」 (really, truly?)
   「うん。」 (yeah)
   「ほんとうにほんとうにほんとうにほんとう？」 (really, surely, truly??)
   「ああ。ずっとそばにいるさ。」 (aa.  zutto soba ni iru sa) (yeah, i’ll always be by your side)
   hahaha alright, enuf cheese out of me
7. まな – ‘mana’. As in magic power Actually it can be a name, like in sola – いしづき　まな (ishizuki mana).
   

   まな in one of the OVA

8. ひめ – ‘hime’ – you know this one, right? Princess!
   

   Henriettaひめ

   Best to end with さま ^^hime-samaaaaa!  (technically henrietta was a queen at that point in the show, wasn’t she? ^^;)

9. むかつく – ‘mukatsuku’ – characters will often mutter this when feeling annoyed + offended + angry… it means to feel irritated, offended or angry ^^  Kagamin uses this a lot to describe her feelings towards konata ^^;
10. わわわわすれもの – ‘wawawawasuremono’ – ^_^ If you’re not familiar with the phrase, the first part, ‘wawawa’ is just a stylistic repetition of the first syllable. wasuremono means ‘forgotten things’.
11. もむ – ‘momu’ – to rub, massage… though in otaku circles more often heard in the context of oppai – there meaning more like to squeeze, grope, fondle ^^;
    

    From boy meets girl? Not familiar with it ^^; At any rate click for gelbooru ...

12. へんたい – ‘hentai’ … … now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
    

    The sekirei author is probably へんたい ^^; Click for gelbooru

13. らき☆すた – did the star give it away? ^^; ‘raki ☆ suta’ – Lucky Star. If you’re wondering how to type the star, simply type  ほし (err this assumes you can type hiragana), then press space once to get a kanji (will probably be 星, which means, ‘star’ ^^), then press space again to get the list of all possible kanji. There should be a star in the list ^_^
    

    Scene from Lucky Star OVA

14. よゆう – ‘yoyuu’ – Dan says this a lot ^^ Literally it means, ‘surplus’, ‘excess’, ‘margin’, ‘flexibility’… in context, said as a taunt, it’s short hand for, “pffft, you’re not even worth my time.” i.e. So powerful that he has excess strength/awesomeness/etc to slack off and and still beat you.
    

    Surprisingly there was a pic of dan on gelbooru ^^; Click for source. Alas, he's definitely not in a 'よゆう’ moment

15. みみ – ‘mimi’ – ear/ears. Now you can read, ’ねこみみ’ – nekomimi! ^^
    

    Click for gelbooru

    Need to get back and caught up with negima, but I remember there was like a couple volumes it seemed where all the students were wearing nekomimi for the school festival or something. …I have a feeling that pic I found is from a doujin? ^^;

16. りみ – ‘rimi’ – another name, in this case, that of an Okinawan singer, なつかわ　りみ (natsukawa rimi). She has a lovely voice, and here she is performing shima uta, one of my favorite songs ^^
    
17. みる – ‘miru’ – the verb to see!
18. れい – ‘rei’ – tons of meanings, this is where kanji can actually help you (the following all read, ‘rei’). 令 – command, order. 例 – example/said/aforementioned. 礼 – thanking, expression of gratitude, 零 – zero. 霊 – soul, spirit. Any don’t forget as a name, need I remind you of あやなみ　れい? ^^
    

    click for gelbooru

19. もちろん – ‘mochiron’ means ‘of course’. As in, 「フィギュアかいたいの？」　(figyua kaitai no?, do you want to buy figures?) 「もちろん！」 (of course!)

That’s it!  Better late that never.  Alas, these lessons will end up being most useful for those who slack off and wait until I’m finished ^^;; On the otherhand, if you’re learning independently, these ramblings might help test your knowledge and augment it with random trivia ^^

Until next time!

以上！

My personal Lost property Riot Force 6 gains another member ^^ Teana fans, rejoice! Review should be sfw, though the requisite pantsu shot may not ^^;

Of all the currently released Alter Nanoha gals, I think Teana’s pose is my favorite. Kneeling poses are pretty rare in my collection, and the guns add to the dynamism.

Was having a bit of white balance trouble so forgive me if any of these pics look a bit off ^^;  Things were also a bit more grainy than I’d like in a lotta cases -_-

If you haven’t gotten to StrikerS yet, Teana and Subaru are the two major additions to the gang. I was really put off by the guns and roller blades (subaru) at first but they grew on me by the end of the season.

The base is standard fare. Description of the character’s rank, device and such. Great if you’re looking for a matching set, but a big let down if you’re expecting a super display piece once they’ve gotten everyone released.

As previously mentioned, you can switch between her plain Cross Mirage and dagger blade modes by removing her whole arm. I’ve been enjoying the blades for now ^^

Ever since I translated a Signum preview where the author was ranting about the fine folds in the clothing, I’ve been fixated on such details.

Definitely being desensitized by anime… wasn’t until doing this shoot that I realized, well damn, that’s a short skirt ^^;

I guess the + on her hair ribbons is for her gun’s “cross” theme?

Not sure if my camera wasn’t level or her gun is actually pointed at that angle ^^;

It’s too bad Teana wasn’t more of a close combat fighter. It woulda been pretty awesome to do some Equilibrium style gun-kata stuff

Some shots from behind…

Aaand let’s get her out of that jacket.

Swapped out her daggers while I was at it.

Looks like I didn’t quite have her arms set… where were you looking?

There was a little mess up in the paint on her bangs over her left eye. Luckily I barely notice such things so it’s only during photo shoots that I mind ^^;

Warning: pantsu incoming. Black.

“ban” is the sound effect for a gun shot in Japanese. Guess “bangu” wouldn’t have worked very well ^^;

Think once I tire of the dagger blades I’ll display Teana in this mode ^^

Tried to take a group shot but was getting tired and couldn’t get the lighting I needed in place. Ideally would’ve raised Signum up more too… Left a lot to be desired -_- Guess I have a couple more alter nanoha releases to try again…

My figma/nendoroid creative juice has been running dry of late. Miku here to express my disdain.

If you’re already collecting the Alter Nanoha girls, guess you don’t really need any encouragement to pick up Teana ^^;; For general Alter fans, I think she has some appeal in her pose and guns but it still might be hard to pay the Alter premium without some familiarity with the character.

Released with KOS-MOS at the end of January, here’s a couple other Teana reviews in case ya missed ‘em:

• ELTWorld
• Happy Soda

Next up is… Subaru in June?  Do we really have to wait that long for the next StrikerS release? orz

以上！

I’m planning on messing with the layout and am curious what sort of horizontal real estate I should work with…

Alrighty, on with the show!

50+ pics… don’t want to have to do 10 more posts for my trip, so doing big chunks ^^; Probably just one more after this…

Just a couple more akiba pics Miku bike above was awesome ^^

Here’s animate, where I got the wallscrolls, nanoha/fate stay/night charms and other goodies:

I always seem to take this next shot ^^;

If you’re ever looking for onoden… thar she blows!

Sunday in Akiba just wasn’t the same without the chuuoudoori closed for pedestrian traffic ;_; At least the maids were still out.

I wish there was a district in my city where huge CHAOS;HEAD ads were being displayed

Always crowded in the afternoons.

Summore shots of the itasha at wonhobby 9.

More akiba crowds.

I think there was some sort of Valentine’s Day promotion where somehow you would get a ticket then play jyan-ken-pon against miku for a prize.

Alas, I didn’t get a chance to play ^^;

Alrighty, on to harajuku!

You familiar with this free hugs thing? I’m guessing this is related to the wiki article I just linked.

Make sure to stop by on Sunday ‘cuz I think (?) that’s the only time everyone’s just hanging out like this ~

This gal was getting her picture taken by another harajuku girl…

Sundays can be quite crowded ^^;

… excellent. ^^;

You is likes chicken mayo crepe?

If you need gothic lolita outfits, I’m sure you’ll find something in harajuku…

I was a big shopper I prolly woulda been in heaven.

Stopped at a yakiniku for dinner, got a nice view of the chaos. Alas, the window was great for the view but not so much for photography.

Was trying to get a decent photo off of this crazy audi building, spotted while walking over to shibuya. Maxed out my camera’s iso, and stepped to f/2.7 but still had to use a 1/13s shutter speed orz Next time I hope I have my tripod and a better camera ^^;

…on to Yokohama! Takes about 30 min or so by local train and only costs like… 600-700 yen. Not sure if it’s really worth a day trip (unless you have specific plans) but I was gonna meet some coworkers for dinner so I decided to wander around the city.

I did this read this post Danny did recently, but all I could remember that it was near the water… so to the water I walked! Took a while, but eventually I found a park on the water.

Totally randomly, the above pic is where I spotted punynari doing his nanoha review! Alas, I was shy and didn’t introduce myself, but a quick search for “nanoha yokohama” a couple days later revealed the identity of this random person doing a figure review. If I wasn’t so shy I probably woulda ran up and screamed, “omg, I flew across the world, decided to spend 1 day in yokohama, and here I find a fellow collector doing an outdoor figure review!!” ^^;;

A huge bridge was visible from where we were, alas my camera doesn’t exactly have fancy telephoto capabilities ^^;

Not really looking at much in this picture but I kind of like it for some reason ^^;;

Neat looking… hotel?

Too bad all the ugly looking cones were out -_-

Figure photography has made me a nut. I’ll take a picture of anything.

A fancy looking (well, just for the fact that it was on the water)… restaurant was it?

Saw the ferris wheel and remembered Danny’s article… maybe an onsen was near!

…had no idea where I was and pressed on.

In Yokohama you only need half a car.

Decided to head towards Yokohama’s chinatown and hopped on the subway. These are probably the fanciest chairs in a subway station I’ve ever seen.

Arrived with little trouble. Too bad it was cloudy.

If I had felt confident that I could successfully ask them to just, “take me for a ride wherever” I might’ve done it ^^;

This is probably what akiba feels like to non-otaku… just a thousand stores all selling the same stuff… meh

So much tasty looking food, but unfortunately I wasn’t very hungry orz

Fancy looking... street sign?

Fancy looking... temple? Shrine?

石獅?

Walking back along the water through some park… they have this statue. “Little girl with red shoes on.” It was even marked on the map I got at the station. Famous… I guess?

Better look at the water front/park.

Bird.

Think danny posted on this a while back… something about it being some famous huge brick warehouse…? Seemed like there were some stores in it, but I was busy getting to my next destination.

…not here, but those building looked neat with those skyways…

…not here either but it was a very prominent building ^^;

Here! The shinyokohama ramen museum ^^; Another big orz, it was getting late and as previously mentioned, I was meeting coworkers for dinner… so I didn’t get to try any of the ramen restaurants ;_; The actual museum is really small (like 3 rooms worth ^^;;) but the basement is filled with different ramen restaurants, I believe each representing a different style of ramen from a particular region of Japan.

And that’s about it! Got lost getting to the office, but eventually found my coworkers and we hit up an izakaya. I love eating at izakaya.

Tiny bit more pics from Narita (had no idea there was anything to see there… thought it was just an airport town ^^;) and Tokyo, then it’s 100% back to the “usual” ^^;

以上！

The DS game 無限のフロンティア スーパーロボット大戦OGサーガ (mugen no furontia su-pa- robotto taisen OG sa-ga {Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier} boasts a number of busty babes — Nanbu Kaguya is one that happens to be added to your party early on.  She wields the 護式・斬冠刀 (goshiki zankantou) and has one of the most useful spells (a full party heal ^^).

Saw previews for the game in Akiba last year and loved the character designs so much (not to mention KOS-MOS being a party member ^^) I snatched it up through Play-Asia as soon as it was available for order.  Somehow I’m still not finished with the game yet thou ^^;  At any rate, back to Kaguya~

As previously mentioned, my first Volks figure.  Pretty happy with the quality and looking forward to having the full set.

Got some tracing paper finally and made an uber ghetto diffuser as many tutorials/blogs (happy soda, wcloudx to name a couple) have recommended.  Here’s a single halogen light source, unfiltered…

You can definitely see the effects of the hard light on her right arm where it’s all plastic looking, so add awesome diffuser…

Well so perhaps this isn’t the best example… everything’s just a little darker since I didn’t adjust the aperture or shutter speed.  But you can see at least on her right arm the skin isn’t so shiny and such.

Add in overhead light and reflector…

Woo!  Much better.  I think it was the Japanese wiki that mentioned that her outfit is so tight it shows her navel…

You can see they stuck true to the character design ^^;

Another thing I previously mentioned was the cast-off, but unsightly hole…

-_- I wasn’t going to display her cast off but that terrible hole eliminates the possibility entirely.  Terrible!  I didn’t see any sort of peg or anything to fill the hole in although I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to fashion one… but still.

The paint on her oppai isn’t that attractive either… not very well done imo.  Megahouse seems to do better in that department

Ah well, at least her top piece is easy to attach/remove.

I love her sword.  In the game, these chakram things fly out of it and slice at the enemy.

Love her black/red hair coloring.

She arrives with her sword detached, but the hand is permanently attached, so it’s just a simple joint in her sleeve where you plug her hand in.

I believe the pose is from the official art (grabbed pic below from Volks site (click pic for it), though it’s the same pic as the one @ the official flash (grrr) site):

Need a 1:1 replica of the sword… ^^

You can guess why she gets all sorts of nicknames like ‘cow princess’ in the game ^^;

Her base makes up 1/3 of the complete set which will include aschen and suzuka.

You is likes black pantsu?

Didn’t fuss around with the lighting too much, so this’ll have to do. …ecchi

She comes with an alternate face… but… had a bad feeling trying to mess with her head so I stuck with the one she shipped with (which I prefer anyway).

And now for some long overdue shenanigans. ^^

Though I apologize if you’re tired of figmas groping/about to group other figures

Kagamin is hired as a body guard. Or is it the other way around?

The masked hentai returns for a drive by!

Reinforcements arrive!

KACHI! (victoly!)

Not bad, left me with a pretty good opinion of Volks. Looking forward to Fate ^^ Though because she is from Volks, and (I assume) relatively unknown, didn’t see too much love for her on the blagosphere. As usual I’m behind in my reading though, so let me know if you have a review to link.

以上！