2D-ism

Cheerful Nendoroids, to get or not to get

2012-01-18T11:46:00.003-06:00

Shortly after Mikatan blog updated with photos of the finished Cheerful Lin and Len, I started regretting not getting them, especially Len. I got over it however. :P One reason I had my regrets was because the new cheerful parts can be used by other Nendos. My other reason is because Len would have been nice to pair up with Kaito since I've put in an order for him. XD Ah well, I might snag Len if he shows up cheap enough on Mandarake but it's unlikely.

On a related subject, Cheerful Luka is also proving to be a tough sell for me. I already have a Luka and this version is 500 yen more than the previous Cheerful releases even though she doesn't seem to offer that much more parts than the other Nendoroids. Biggest reason for me to get her would be her new arm parts which would give her much more posability as her old arms are definitely quite limiting. I just wish there was something more, something that would give that extra "oomph!" No, that ponytail just isn't enough... orz

It seems unlikely that Meiko would get a Cheerful treatment as she's too recent of a release. I personally think GSC should have just made her a Cheerful release from the start.

edit 1/29: Names corrected! XD

New Year, New Toys, New Problems

2012-01-16T20:43:00.003-06:00

First post of the New Year! I got a package from Mandarake which compose of following items: Busou Shinki Lacamento (resealed), Arnval Mk 2 swimsuit body, Strarf Mk 2 swimsuit body, Plastica Primary 001 Alefnim, figma KOS-MOS, and Kotobukiya RAcaseal Elenor Ver.APSY. However, there is one problem: the last item is wrong! I was supposed to get the clear version of Elenor so I've sent an email to them. Hopefully, this will get resolved somehow.

On to a different subject. Last year hasn't been the most productive year for me, blog-wise, and a definite disaster when it came to my photocomic. The comic came to a screeching halt early last year and never quite restarted so I'm currently reviewing what I need to do to ensure I get the comic going again since it would be a waste if I never do any more. I seem to be in somewhat of a "brick" phase as I made a lot of Lego-related purchase last year on on top of Kre-o and Mega Bloks purchases. It seems I may be finally running out of steam so I may put this phase of my toy collecting behind me. I do have some upcoming import purchases so that's unlikely to end anytime soon.

Those who look at my Flickr have likely figured what my next review would be. I'll be writing it next and hopefully have it up by the end of the week along with some other posts I've been wanting to make. Here's to a hopefully productive year!

Update 1/16/12: Mandarake says that the product was updated as a clear version by mistake and will give me a store credit for the purchase price. IOW, I kinda get it for free. Kinda sucks since I didn't have any interest in the normal version and wouldn't have bought it in the first place otherwise. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. :P

More Fort Bragg Dusk pics

2011-12-16T20:56:00.001-06:00

Didn't think I was only going to post a few Dusk pics and leave it at that, did ya? :P

Dusk's face change system is so much better than the normal style of having to swap out the entire head like a nendoroid. I also love her helmet-less head.

Someone had asked whether TF Prime Arcee is Shinki compatible. Unfortunately, her vehicle mode is too small so no. Kinda strange since her robot mode is as tall as Junkheap, whose vehicle mode is practically perfect for Shinki to ride on.

Figma Hatsune Miku Live Stage ver. and random pics.

2011-12-14T13:59:00.002-06:00

So one of my recent purchases was a figma Miku Live Stage ver. This was something I've wanted for a long time and glad to finally have one. Me holding out for a Live Stage ver was the reason I passed on the Cheerful version and I'm glad I did.

One of the things I like about this version is that it comes with keyboard synthesizer, di:stage, live stage papercraft, a different set of faces that are more to my liking, as well as the original Miku accessories such as the leek and microphone.

The only thing that's casting a cloud on this is this mysterious bag containing a note saying to "use this part when you reach step 11 in the soundstage instructions". The reason it's mysterious is because it's a sealed bag with nothing but the note inside! Hope I'm really not missing anything.

Since I'm on the subject of figma, I thought I'd post some random related pics.

I've had her like this since last year. :P

This was part of an idea I had for a Halloween strip but Halloween has come and gone... orz I still plan to use this however.

And a final random pic.

Bionicle/Hero Factory villains make great bad guys. :D

Busou Shinki Eukrante review and Fort Bragg Dusk

2011-12-14T00:24:00.001-06:00

Wow, almost a month since I first posted about my Fort Bragg and Eukrante purchase. It's time I posted some pics.

I tried a lightbox style backdrop for the first several pics. Got bored of it though so I went without it for the later pics. Dunno, it really didn't seem to make much difference IMO. :P Of couse, it doesn't help that I'm doing this method all sorts of wrong.

Thought I'd brush up my speech bubble skills while I was at it. :P

Full armor Eukrante. The design of her boots and the weight of her backpack make it difficult for her to stand. You need to make sure her heels are fully swung back and you can adjust the angle of her wings to change her center of gravity. Having her hold her weapons also helps.

Eukrante's armor in weapon mode. I attached the wings to counter the weapon's weight otherwise she'd fall over forwards. :P

Main annoyance #1: Not much room to get the hand around the handles. If that's not bad enough, pretty much any of Eukrante's modes that involves Eukrante holding this gun require you to attach the hand to the gun first before attaching everything else because everything else get's in the way of attaching the hand to the gun. :P

Contrast with Ianeria's gun handle which is much easier to use. Not only is there more room to fit the fingers around the handle but the handle itself is detachable.

Eukrante's armor in mecha bird mode.

Annoyance #2: Although you can have Eukrante hang from the bird, there's not enough room for her to freely hang unless you angle the bird up on the stand and even then you still have to bend her arms and/or legs for her to hang properly.

If there was a way to hang the bird, it might look better.

Annoyance #3: In fact, none of the ways that Eukrante can ride the bird really looks that great if looked at from the wrong angle. It's a big difference from Ianeria, who can pretty much lay on her fish without much of a fuss since the fish mode is long enough to support her body. Here, it just looks painful for Eukrante.

I tried a sitting position. Uh, that just looks so wrong...

Um, yeah. Let's just pretend we didn't see that... Probably just need to find an altogether different way to have Eukrante ride the bird. :P

As far as my overall thoughts on Eukrante, her armored mode is arguably one of the better looking ones among Shinki figures but compared to Ianeria, she falls short in variety of weapons and play options. I also hate that her sword/guns are so difficult to put on. Her normal face has a odd shape to her mouth area that may put off some people. I have to say I was initially disappointed, however, considering her on her own merits, she isn't too bad.

Let's move on to Fort Bragg Dusk.

Bragg with her body armor on. Frankly, I'm not a fan of this type of armoring at all as it's finicky and prone to move all around especially the wrist parts. I don't plan to use the wrist parts at all after this.

Bragg with full backpack on along with Zelnograd. I forgot to take a back pic of Bragg. orz

Artillery mode. Frankly, I'm not a fan of this mode as it's rather unstable. To me, it seems like a mode just for the sake of it.

Fortunately, the leg has other uses. If you're into the classic mecha musume style, Bragg's got you covered in this area. :D

That's about it for now. I'll take a few more Bragg pictures and give a final summary of her as post pictures of yet another Shinki at a later time.

I'll end the post with this pic.

Confessions

2011-12-09T19:18:00.000-06:00

I have some confessions to make. First off, I missed out on getting Nendoroid Elsie. Even though Mikatan blog hinted at it, I didn't expect her to get released before the end of the month and sell out at Amiami shortly after. While there are other avenues of getting her, buying her from Amiami would have been the least expensive option (especially considering there's a few other things I wanted to get from there as well). Next is that I bought too much toys this holiday season. Again. I'll be going over those purchases in the next few weeks to come but I definitely need to spend more time with my toys. Also I've been letting a FB game take too much of my time again. I would think I'd be over it by now but it ain't so easy after all. orz.

The biggest confession is that I've been spending more time reading about toys (whether through reviews or blogs) than I do playing and taking pictures of the toys I bought especially this year. It was quite a shock when I realized it so hopefully, this will cause me to pay more attention to my own toys especially since I have a few that's not even out of the box yet.

As mentioned, I went on a spending rampage this past couple of weeks. Not long after I bought the Shinki figures from Mandarake, I've bought some more import toys thanks to HLJ's BF single price shipping sale. I've also bought a few more stuff from Mandarake as well as some more brick toys including the Lego TRU truck ($25), Mega Bloks Halo Battlescape ($26 from Target), and the big Kre-O Prime ($30 from Amazon). I'll have a lot of boxes to open this holiday season... :P

Lego Store in Houston Galleria

2011-11-29T21:51:00.001-06:00

Went to the Lego Store in the Houston Galleria to buy a couple of brick separators. Decided to take some pictures while I was there. Sorry for crappy white balance.

I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the separators themselves. I so fail... orz

Cocktease

2011-11-22T11:13:00.000-06:00

Mikatan Blog is such a cocktease sometimes. Even though there's no way at this point for anyone to order any more of Cheerful Miku figma, they proceed to parade it around on the blog like it's going to change anything. Doesn't really make any sense to me but maybe someone else can explain the meaning behind it all? :P

Nendoroid Elsie

2011-11-21T13:21:00.000-06:00

Nendoroid Elsie from The World God Only Knows. Only one word to describe that smiling face: HNNNG!!
Releasing in a few days from now. I've been considering getting her for some time now and the newest Mikatan update just re-affirms that.

Elsie's accessories have a lot of cross-compatibility especially her faces. Speaking of which, 4 faces! And they're all very cute and useful. And then there's the comical arm shaking and leg running parts. Very fun stuff. GJ, Max Factory!

And some blatant advertising. Help me buy a Nendoroid Elsie. XD

Buy Nendoroid The World God Only Knows Non Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Elsie at Play-Asia.com

Speaking of advertising, if anyone knows of an affiliate program that allows me to put up specific stuff like the Amazon button above, let me know. Even better if someone can teach me an easy way to put up a Play-Asia link similar to that Amazon link because text only links suck. :P

New Shinki figures!

2011-11-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

From Mandarake. Price as follows:

Eukrante 4000
Ft Bragg Dusk 4500
EMS shipping 3600
Total: 12100 yen
Converted to $: $157 >_<

Both are opened items; Eukrante was described as scratched although initial inspection didn't reveal any outside of not so clean looking sprue cuts. Normally it'd be a couple weeks before I open them up but since they're opened items, I'll be doing a through inspection this weekend.

Madoka Magica review & comments

2011-11-03T13:37:00.002-05:00

I've been watching Madoka Magika since the weekend and finished watching it 2 days ago. After watching the last episode, I spent the rest of the day in emotional BSOD while digesting the series as a whole. The next day was wasted reading through the Madoka section on TV Tropes. (I need to ban myself from reading that site, everytime I go there I find new stuff to waste time reading.) And now that I'm done, it's time to summarize my feelings on the show. The show has become my new top favorite anime I've ever watched (previous title holder was Code Geass). It was a nice emotional roller coaster ride and I definitely expect myself to rewatch at least the last 3 episodes over again in the near future. Those last 3 were definitely the ones most "relevant to my interests" plus I had to hold back tears at least once during each episode. =.=;

Madoka is only recommended to veteran anime watchers especially those who are magical girl genre savvy. Newbies will miss half the point of the show so not recommended for them. I've already knew a few stuff going in such as Mami's fate, the dark nature of the show, and QB isn't as nice as he looks but otherwise I had a fairly clean slate to start with so enjoyed the show with no problems.

I'd like to discuss Tomoe Mami for a little bit. Mami's my 2nd favorite Madoka character (behind Homura) and I'm currently considering getting her figma. Reason I'm discussing her instead of Homura is that it's easier to pinpoint why I like Mami as opposed to Homura. She's sexy, bubbly, and her fight scenes are just so badass. I also want to repost a comment I left on Youtube regarding a scene in episode 3.

Spoiler alert!

Mami's face (which says "Huh?") right before the bite pretty much tells everything. Due to her friendship high, she totally didn't expect the Charlotte to survive Tiro Finale much less launch an attack resulting in her immediate death. That surprise froze Mami when she would have reacted under normal circumstances. It's also why I didn't like her redone face in the DVD/BD version; while it leaves a more emotional impact, it's also out of character for her.

I want to get one more thing off my chest: THE OP IS A LIE.

To end this, some related youtube videos!

http://youtu.be/F2xHKmqewao alternate version of above [spoiler!]

Spoiler-ish videos!

Transformers Tour in Spring, TX

2011-10-24T17:53:00.000-05:00

The full name is The Hub of Transformers Great American Tour. The offical details can be found by visiting Hasbro's Facebook page and going to their sweepstakes link. The Houston event happened last Saturday in Spring which is located just North of Greater Houston. Going there also gave me the perfect excuse to meet up with fellow Houston TF collectors from the TFW2005 board and we went to lunch at Rudy's BBQ afterwards. That was some good meat, btw; I'll definitely need to revisit a Rudy's someday. :D

The event was smaller than I expected. 1/2hr is more than enough time to look at everything if you arrived early. You could crunch away a couple hours if you're desperate for giveaways. They had several including a spin the wheel and a bean bag toss from which you can either win posters, pens, magnets, cyberverse toys, etc. They were also giving away the Matrix Optimus Kreons; I swear they must have a huge warehouse full of that stuff.

They also had the movie Bumblebee on display. Depending on the location, you might see Sideswipe instead.

Main attraction is inside the tent where they have displays showing off some of the classic G1 toys as well as upcoming toys based on the Transformers Prime cartoon on HUB. The Prime toys will be released sometime within the next 2 months and the classics shown are also planned releases.

Other than that, they had the briefcase prop from the movie as well as an in-scale Optimus hand on top of which you can stand in and get a picture taken of. The nearby Blockbosters, which hosts the event, also has a greenscreen area in which you can get a picture taken in front of one of the TF Prime characters.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Picture dump below.

More Lego Minifigs and Animated Bulkhead

2011-09-21T00:45:00.001-05:00

Some random pics on stuff I've recently gotten...

My series 4 additions, Hazmat Guy and Crazy Scientist.

My Lego series 5 minifigs: Lizard Man, Gladiator, and Gangster. I think I'm done with minifig collecting unless they come out with something particularly interesting to me in series 6.

Hazmat Guy finds him self surrounded by spooky guys when he responds to a biohazard distress call.

My Hero Factory Evo and Nex 2.0 combo. They're the only two Hero Factory heros I have so far and they'll remain the only ones until 4.0 comes out. Frankly, I haven't been that big on HF especially the hero figures. The villains, OTOH, aren't bad and I might get more if I can find them on clearance.

Voyager Animated Bulkhead. Got him from Target for $5 a couple weeks ago. By some extreme luck, it seems that someone found him somewhere in the back and dumped him in one of the toy clearance areas where I found him. I never got a Bulkhead since I wasn't interested enough but at $5 I couldn't resist. I'm glad I got this one because he's very cute.

RTS Lugnut scoffs at voy Bulkhead's size. Bulkhead's not amused. :P

Metal-on Halo Spartan regular and camo version. Only reason I got the camo was because, yup, it was clearanced at Target. (seeing a trend here? :P) The neck doesn't fit as snugly as it should but that can probably be fixed with some glue or nail polish otherwise the camo doesn't look bad.

Bionicle Baranus V7 review

2011-09-14T19:28:00.001-05:00

Found Baranus at the clearance aisle at Walmart a couple months ago and built it about a month ago. Pretty nice set for the price.

Package contents. I like how Lego bags up some of the parts by each major component. (Now if only Mega Bloks would do the same thing...) There were a few parts that weren't bagged however it's easy to tell which bag they belong with. 1 is the pilot, 2 is the carriage, and 3 is the beast.

Completed model with the box.

Chained beast. The chain is hooked up right to the side of its tail.

Carriage and pilot. The pilot's feet are hooked to the carriage by a couple of pegs so there's no accidental falling off the cart with this guy. :P

Pilot off the carriage. Weapons are a whip and some shooter doohicky. The figure uses single-piece limbs so no elbow and knee joints. :/

The carriage itself, Baranus. The blades at the top of Baranus can be rotated although they don't seem to serve any real purpose other than getting in the pilot's way if rotated up. :p

Here, you can see the pegs that holds the pilot's feet in place when riding Baranus. There's 3 pegs total, two pegs on each side towards the back, and one right in the middle.

The beast, whatever its name was. :P I'd say the beast by itself was worth the price. Unlike the pilot, this guy has real articulation.

That's all folks! The beast can stand up fairly well on its own. I like the set but it's a pain finding a place to put the entire thing. :P

Muramasa for $11.99

2011-09-12T21:35:00.000-05:00

Muramasa for $11.99 @ Amazon; it's a steal if you're a Wii owner and don't have a copy already.

RTS Lugnut review

2011-09-12T20:52:00.000-05:00

I got the RTS Lugnut from Ross I think. The RTS Voyagers as a whole got passed by the regular chain stores so it's nice they're showing up in Ross/Marshall's types of stores especially since it means they're cheaper to boot. :P

I just realized I don't have his back/shoulders quite transformed right in some of the pics. The back/shoulder assembly is supposed to be in a more forward position.

Lugnut's robot mode is really nice. His back doesn't quite lock into place as solidly as it should but it doesn't detract much from playing around with him. His gimmick is a spring loaded punch (for his POKE attack) which you trigger by pulling a purple tab in either of his arms. He also has a movable mouth piece and fingers which really adds character to the toy.

Probably the best thing about Lugnut's vehicle mode are the wings. Unlike other plane TFs like Highbrow which have short stubby wings, Lugnut has wings with a nice length to them, making his alt mode look like something that can actually fly. :P It's a nice and stable alt mode and the nose is not nearly as prone to opening accidentally as Animated Lugnut.

Speaking of Animated Lugnut, I do have him as well. In fact, I got him only a few months prior to getting RTS Lugnut.

This shows the correct position I was referring to earlier with regards to RTS Lugnut's shoulder & back.

I have to say I like the RTS version more than the Animated version. The colors, articulation, and overall looks in either mode all combine to blow the Animated version out of the water. I love this guy!

RTS Lugnut laughing at Ani Lugnut's fail. :D

Hongfire withdrawal

2011-09-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

Hongfire's been down this entire week and I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms. I don't know if this was a planned or unplanned outage; either way I'm not too happy about it. While I'm busy trying to deal with the loss of my favorite method of wasting time online, I'll yap about this summer.

This summer has been pretty good to me as far as me finding great steals on brick-related (IOW Lego, Mega Bloks) stuff and because of that, I've also bought more brick stuff this year than all previous years combined. Let me list the brick deals that I've gotten this summer.

Bionicle Baranus V7 $15 @ Walmart (original: $39.96)
Dragons Universe Dx Dual-Blast Dragon Hunter $7.48 @ Target (original: $29.99)
Dragons Universe Rapid Fire Dragon Fighter $4.98 @ Target (original: $19.99)
NFS Porsche 911 GT3 RS $13.74 @ Target (original: $54.99)
Kreo Starscream $7.48 @ Target (original: $29.99)
Kreo Sentinel Prime $9.98 @ Target (original: $39.99)
Hero Factory Fire Lord $9.98 @ Target (original: $19.99)
Hero Factory Von Nebula $13.00 @ Walmart (original: $19.99)
Covenant Phantom $39.99 @ Target (original: $79.99)

All of the Target stuff were from the same store which leads me to wonder what's going on with their pricing/clearance department especially considering the fact that the Kreos have only been out for a brief period while the NFS Porsche and the Phantom are brand new releases. The Phantom is frankly a bit over budget for me so I'm not sure if I'll keep it or not. I'll be doing a post on the Baranus, Dragon Fighter, and Porsche within the next couple weeks.

There were also some other deals which I'll post about later but at this rate, I might as well rename this blog "Cheap-ass Toy Box"... :P

On the anime front, I've watched Sora no Oto and Asobi ni Ikuyo (Bombshells From the Sky). Sora no Oto, I liked a lot, maybe even more than K-On! Asobi ni Ikuyo, while enjoyable, doesn't exactly move me much but that kinda goes with most harem anime in general. Haven't watched much anime lately but that might pick up depending on how I spend the next few months. Haven't bought any import toys lately although I'm considering a few purchases in the near future. The high yen has really dampened my want for imports so future purchasing plans are really uncertain at this time.

Speaking of bricks, I had recently got the Lego midi-scale Star Destroyer for half off but I found it to be too delicate and crumble too easily so I returned it. The engine parts in particular were easy to fall off if not careful and then there's that unsightly gap through the front middle of the ship. It just didn't work for me. :/

DOTM deluxe Prime and voyager Megatron review

2011-08-29T15:49:00.000-05:00

Short review of Walmart exclusive deluxe Optimus Prime and general release voyager Megatron.

Not sure how big they are supposed to be as robots but the vehicle modes for these two look almost in scale for some reason.

Robot modes.

Prime has a nice light-piping eye effect.

I'm impressed with the toy engineering for Megatron; that they made it so that the truck can turn at the connection between the truck and the cargo trailer. As a figure though, I don't really like him that much. I find his arm a bit too long and spindly and I find the shoulders kinda restrictive. Not too bad otherwise. I'm liking Prime a lot however. His size, ease of transformation, and stability in both modes, make him the perfect movie Prime toy to play around with. Some complain about his backpack and paint apps but it's not that big a deal and if you want a movie Prime to play with, this IS the one to get.

MARS Converters

2011-08-29T15:29:00.001-05:00

They suck! That is all. :P

My main problem with the one I got was that all joints were loose and the shoulder joints popped out too easily. It might not be bad if it was cheaper but I rather get something that looks and plays better even if it's not as big. Yeah, they probably should have made it a bit smaller as well. Bigger doesn't always mean better especially with toys.

I returned him, BTW.

Squirrels...

2011-08-24T14:18:00.001-05:00

Because you can never have enough pictures of squirrels. :P
These were taken back in January and February.

Lego odds and ends

2011-08-22T21:35:00.002-05:00

About a couple months ago, I started buying Lego stuff. This was prompted by my discovery of the mini-fig blind packs. They weren't cheap though at $3 a pop so I set out to see what other Lego related stuff I can find and soon enough I was buying more than I thought I would.

My series 3 set.

My series 4 set.

The entire collection. I've actually got a couple more minifigs since this pic so I'll need to update sometime.

Some more stuff. These guys were on clearance at Walmart so I snatched them up. The diving set was $2 and the jester and wizard were $1 each.

The mini X-Wing and Tie Fighter. They were $2 each so I couldn't resist grabbing a couple of them.

Size comparison. They're small and surprisingly sturdy, perfect for putting on desktop for display and spontaneous goofing off with. XD

HP Touchpad clearance

2011-08-21T18:45:00.001-05:00

Can't help make a post about this since I'm a former Palm fan and current iPod Touch junkie. HP's discontinued their recently released Touchpad so what was once a $500 item is now being clearanced out at various outlets for $100. People's been snapping these up since Saturday and the frenzy's still going on. Positive is that you've got at least an instant net browser/ereader for just $100. Minus is that it's discontinued so don't expect too many other uses for it. For people interested, here's a link to a seller on Amazon that's still offering it at clearance. (May come and go at anytime.) I'll likely make a quick review of it once I get one in my hands.

BTW, there's two flavors of Touchpads being clearanced out; the 16GB at $99.99 and the 32GB at $149.99. The above link is for the 16GB and the one below is for the 32GB variety.

Dragons Universe Clawripper Review

2011-08-03T23:41:00.001-05:00

Decided to grab Clawripper since it was on sale as well for $3-4. I feel it's mediocre at best. The photos are taken with my iPod camera which sucks seven shades of beans compared to the iPhone camera or any other decent smartphone camera. I didn't even want to bother using my real camera for this one, that's how bad it was.

Package. Unlike the cases for Bionicle or Hero Factory, the Dragon Universe eggs are nothing but huge wastes of plastic. They can serve to store accessory parts, if any, however there's no way you can store the entire figure/vehicle that it came with so its best use is as a background set piece or a lousy paperweight. :P

Front view. Clawripper is one of the larger dragons that has a firing missile gimmick in its turret. The articulation is actually worse than a smaller dragon because the larger dragons use a swivel joint for their limbs while the smaller dragons use ball joints; it was a huge disappointment for me. On the flip side, the wing actually has joints where you plug them into the body but your options for posing is pretty limited since the turret blocks upward movement. :P

Back view. Funny thing about the package is that each larger dragon advertises a different feature on the packaging like it's specific to that dragon but the truth is that it's pretty much the same across the board and that the gimmicks are much simpler than the packaging makes it out to be. Clawripper's advertised gimmick is the ability to grab guys and another dragon's gimmick is a tail attack. Both gimmicks are done by having the limbs and tail made of soft plastic so you can squeeze the claws onto a mini-fig to grip it and bend the tail to the side and let go for a (rather weak) tail bash.

Clawripper with a smaller dragon. Forgot what its name was. :P

Captain Whatshisname enters the scene! :P

The figure grabbing gimmick in action. Funny thing is when you do that, it becomes front-heavy and you have to hold the dragon in place otherwise it falls on its face because of the lack of support.

It turns out the smaller dragon has the grip gimmick too and while it can't grip the body, it can grip the head (even better)! It has the same support issues. :P

So my annoyance with Clawripper are as follows: weak gimmicks, swivel joints instead of ball joints for the limbs, can't mount a mini-fig on it like you could with a smaller dragon. Positives are it's bigger, you can tilt the turret vertically as well as horizontally, wing joints, and firing missile. I don't like it enough though so I think I'm going to return it. :P

edit 8/4 midnight: I just realized that I've been misspelling Dragons Universe all this time. :P

Dragons Universe Deluxe Dual-Blast Dragon Hunter Review

2011-07-29T23:03:00.003-05:00

I have a video mini-review up on Youtube. http://youtu.be/TaswTtqIYFc

So I bought a Deluxe Dual-Blast Dragon Hunter earlier this week. Why did I decide to get this now? The explanation is on the back of the box.

See that price tag there? Let's get a close up.

Nice... XD

So here's the contents of the box. The parts are bagged according to size rather than parts so prepare to do some searching around. At least the figures and dragon were bagged separately although not with their weapons. :P I put together the dragon before remembering to take a pic so apologies for that. :/

The assembled set. You get the ship, a dragon, and two mini-figs. It also comes with a CD which contains a very simple schmup type game which is hardly worth your time as well as a link to the Dragon Universe website which contains all sorts of goodies like design illustrations, wallpapers, and an online version of the crappy shooter. :P

Although the dragon is supposed to be the enemy, I like to have the mini-fig ride the guy. I mean, the dragon's turret has handles on it; if that's not begging for a mini-fig to ride it, I don't know what is. :P

A close up of the dragon, Iceblaze. It's a translucent blue with mixed bits of opaque white and blue mixed in. Looks much nicer in person than the box pics would suggest. The dragon alone already makes the purchase worth it.

The rear view. As I said, very nice.

The ship itself, the Alliance Condor. I've noticed others do this too but I'm using the wings to store the shields since there's no other place to store them. The wings are on ball joints and can be moved up or down. The wing turrets are on a pivot joint and have about a 90 degree range of movement. The tail feathers are also movable although it's best to leave them alone as they snap off easily.

I really love the handles. Dragon Universe may not be the first toy line to implement handles for holding an aircraft but they're definitely the first I've seen that uses them as the landing gear as well. It works very well. One more thing to note is that there are two different positions the missiles can be locked into the missile launcher. The midway position, which is shown in most of the photos, won't engage the springs yet will hold the missiles in place while pushing it all the way will. The video gives a better idea of what I mean. :P

Rear view.

Lower angle. Here, you can make out the switches just under the tail wing.

The ship without the pilot. I've moved the removable gun from the original position on the back of the seat to the side of the seat.

The reason I did that was because in the original position, the rifle looked like it's going to shoot the pilot in the back of his head. :P

The other mini-fig. This guy's a Captain Cato. Comes with rifle and shield.

And he's joined by General Marcus. The other rifle is attached to the ship and the general also has a shield. I'm sad they don't have different weapons but it's a minor nitpick.

Rear view of the mini-figs.

Lower angle shot of the ship. Here, you can see the trigger.

A close up of the switch box. The left switch has 3 positions: light & sound, light only, and off. The right switch toggles which sound effect blares out when you press the red trigger: a regular blast, a rapid-fire blast, and a blast with explosion.

If you absolutely want the handles out of the way, you can do that. The handles will fold up with a nice click.

Underside view.

Close up of the seat. The instructions show to attach the seat all the way forward but that results in the pilot slouching way too much so one notch back is the best position.

And that wraps up this mini-review. The light and sound makes the ship twice as fun as the ships without them. This is definitely worth the full price which makes the clearance price all the more sweeter. If you have any interest in this at all, GET IT. :D

edit 8/4: Shameless plug in case you don't have a Target selling these things. :P

Marvel Thing capsule toy review

2011-06-16T13:21:00.003-05:00

I found this capsule machine at an HEB with these Marvel hero themed figures. They were 75 cents and I only had enough change for one so I went for it and got a Thing. Reminds me of those roundish figures that I'm forgetting the name for. Those never quite attracted me but this one did. It's cheap and very cute.

The ball comes wrapped in plastic sleeve.

There's a hole on the bottom that goes around a nub on the body.

The body is inside the head.

The body.

Hollow on the inside.

You snap the head back around that nub on the body.

Back view.

Size comparison. The girls seem to take a liking to the little fella.

I need to get more of these.

Gecko in the house

2011-06-14T12:19:00.000-05:00

A gecko somehow managed its way into the house. We saw one yesterday as well, not sure if it's the same one. I tried getting it into a bucket but it quickly jumped back out and wouldn't let go of the curtain after that. Hopefully it gets back out on its own.

IABWSS 6.0

2011-06-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

Oooh, it's been a long time since I done this. I was playing around with Skyhammer and when I noticed I could swing his leg straight up, the first thing that hit my head was Zohan which led to this strip. For some reason, Prowl's slowly turning more and more into a joke character; it may be the influence of a certain other TF photocomic. ;) Shockwave fans please don't kill me. XD

Renge on Memorial Weekend

2011-05-30T18:24:00.003-05:00

My mother wanted me to help her learn how to take pictures and for some reason, she wanted to use a Shinki as her subject so since I already had Renge in a bag, I brought her along. While she was taking pictures, I took a few of my own.

Sudden close up.

This was at a nearby park. Surprisingly enough, there weren't that much people even though it was early Sunday afternoon.

Atte-ntion! It is Memorial Day weekend so where are the grillers at?

Actually I was relieved almost nobody was around. :P

Renge enjoying the wind.

Renge fell asleep.

The reason I didn't have Renge in any standing pose was because the wind was too strong. She kept getting blown over because of that. :/

?!

Renge notices the bug. Dunno what it's called. :p

Renge tries to get it on her hand. Unfortunately, the bug wasn't willing. :P

My lazy-ass alt-modes for Artille and Raptias' armors

2011-05-22T23:41:00.000-05:00

Busou Shinki Mk2s and Zielbellen

2011-03-27T18:06:00.003-05:00

My first loot in a very long time. Figma Miyuki Mana and Kawamura Yuu from Se.Kirara and Busou Shinki Arnval Mk2 Tempesta, Strarf Mk2 Laviena, and Zielbellen. Pics of the Shinkis after the jump.

The Shinkis. Initially, I wasn't interested in the Fencers but after certain pictures I realized Zielbellen's expressions have lots of fun potential so I had to get her. XD

There's also the fact that they look like sisters. Even though Zielbellen looks a bit taller, Tempesta seems like the natural "older sister". She also seems to have a bit of a sis-con?? :D

The bookmarks I got, yes! *double fist pump* I thought Tempesta's was too boring so I'm very happy I lucked out with my selection. :D

Zielbellen shows off her gear to Tempesta. Laviena tells her to get off the table.

Tempesta about to give Laviena a knuckle sandwich for yelling at Zielbellen. Tempesta has short temper. :D

Senpai Pomock steps in to cool things down.

Aya lets Zielbellen pet her kitty. What? :p

And that's it for the Shinkis. Just looking at the Mk2's parts is giving me a headache so I'll play with them some other time. This is why I much prefer light armors to the full sets. ^^; I'll also open the figmas at a later time. :p

On a different tangent, Target had Hero Factory Rotor for half price so I went for it. A very fun build and nice action figure. Too bad Rotor's eye holes are covered. Definitely worth it though if you can find this at discount.

I tried the 3DS...

2011-03-27T16:36:00.002-05:00

Tried the 3DS. The 3D is like those 3D stickers except 10x clearer and it moves. I've only played 5-10 minutes of Pilotwings and I'm already getting sick so it's a very good thing they have the 3D off switch. Definitely a gimmick as the 3D really doesn't add anything whatsoever to gameplay; it's one of those things where you say "cool" as you play through your new game in 3D for 15 minutes and then go back to playing it in 2D. I'll wait for the price to drop before I even consider getting this.

Zombie Cafe videos

2011-03-27T16:32:00.000-05:00

Now, for something completely different! I made a couple of videos showing how I trap and use Sumo Wrestlers in the game Zombie Cafe. Since my Touch isn't jailbroken, I can't use the 3rd party screen video capture app they have for them.

Ouen Miku to be sold outside Japan

2011-03-25T10:28:00.000-05:00

It's old news that GSC wants to open their shop for foreign collectors but this is new.

GSC has set a specific date to sell this outside Japan?? Σ(ﾟДﾟ；)
I wonder how they will work this out...

Shinki bookmark size comparison

2011-03-23T14:25:00.000-05:00

Someone requested a size comparison so I posted someone else's pic here. Actually both bookmark pics aren't mine. My shipment of Shinkis have shipped today and I'll be getting my own bookmarks with them so I can take my own pics then. The bookmark below is the secret bookmark sent with the original color Oorbellen and Zielbellen releases.

secret Zielbellen bookmark

2011-03-17T17:51:00.002-05:00

The Busou Shinki Mk2 repaints are out and it turns out that the secret bookmark being given out among the set is of Zielbellen rather than a Mk2. A bit disappointing but not too surprising. At least there's now an ecchi Zielbellen bookmark to go with the ecchi Oorbellen bookmark. :p

Shinki on a horse

2011-03-13T21:47:00.000-05:00

"Howdy."

Ianeria gifts a horse.

Have I mentioned Terradive is awesome? :)

It really sucks what happened to Japan. HLJ seems to have recovered but I'm worried about the other online stores. I think it's almost a given there will be some delays with the Mk2s. :(

IABWSS 23-25

2011-03-11T11:09:00.001-06:00

Some notes:
1) I've renumbered the strips since I'm no longer going with the separation of main and side strips. Not sure if I got the numbers right but it's already printed so there. :p

2) Some may notice I'm going with the 4-koma format here. I might go with this for a little while.

3) As explained in the 1st strip, the reason for my long lack of updates is due to my sudden infatuation with Zombie Cafe, a social networking game for iPhone. I don't normally like social networking games so this came as a shock to me. I've kinda eased back now so hopefully I'll get back to doing more strips and blog entries.

4) 1st panel of the 3rd strip is an actual screenshot taken from my iPod Touch. It took a few tries to get the iPod to load enough of that page to take the screenshot since the # of images on that page kept overwhelming the iPod's image cache. ^^;

Zombie Cafe for iPhone

2011-03-03T15:48:00.000-06:00

Ouch, it's been a month since my last update. For the past few weeks, I've been hooked on a social media type game for the iPhone called Zombie Cafe. I've never been hooked on those types of games before so this took me quite by surprise and sucked the time away from everything else I was going to do. I was eating, browsing the net, and going to the bathroom while playing this game. It was ridiculous. I've kind of got it under control now so hopefully I'll finally get around to getting some content out again.

Long story short, you use zombies to help run your cafe. You recruit zombies by infecting your customers and use them to run your cafe as well as attack rival cafes nearby. You start off with a broken-down cafe but as you get more money, you'll be able to pimp it up a bit. The main draw is the recipe system. When you raid rival cafes, you'll sometimes get recipes that aren't already in your recipe book. You can add them to your recipe book and them trade recipes with friends by cooking them up and delivering it to them. Different recipes have different benefits such as either having more servings, yielding more profit, or giving more experience points. The game's a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it's loaded with bugs and some of them can completely ruin your game if it hits, not something I'd fork over money for. However, this game is free for the iPhone so if you have time to crunch, give this game a try. :p

IABWSS 5.0

2011-02-05T16:14:00.000-06:00

When I finished this, I wanted to re-title this "Cultural Misunderstandings" but I wanted to get rid of the pt 1 loose end (what loose end?).

IABWSS 4.8

2011-02-03T18:27:00.001-06:00

Almost forgot to post this. Wouldn't do to have the posting of the strips go all out of wonk again. :/ It's not 2 weeks between posting here but it was about 2 weeks between the postings on the forums where the strips are posted first so sorry. :p

I decided to do away with the title panel. I had fun with them but I don't think they added anything to the strip.
I realized after doing the last panel that I could have used the expression labels that came with Sakuya. orz

One more thing I wonder is if I should keep posting the strips here or not. I have them posted already on TFW and BSW but not everyone goes there. I guess I'll keep posting here until someone tells me otherwise. :p

IABWSS 4.7

2011-01-29T12:27:00.000-06:00

I just realized I never did post 4.7 here even though I put it out a while ago.
If you don't get this, go read/watched Love Hina. Even then it's still kinda random.

This strip was really an excuse for me to put Graffias in a school uniform in the comic.

Nintendo 3DS coming soon!

2011-01-19T23:27:00.007-06:00

The Nintendo 3DSis on the horizon and I might get it but the biggest thing scaring me off (other than the $250 price)is the battery life of 3-5 hrs. Ouch, this definitely relegates it to playing at home rather than on the road. However the draw of experiencing the novelty of 3D gaming and movie watching without the 3D glass is tempting. I guess it might depend on if I can get a first-hand experience beforehand.

http://www.nintendo.com/3ds

Busou Shinki Artille and Renge

2011-01-16T18:11:00.000-06:00

I finally got around to opening up the rest of my Shinkis.

First up is Artille.

I definitely like Artille more than Raptias not only because Raptias has the red faces. Artille is just all around more cute and has a bit more variety when it comes to weapons. Theoretically, you should be able to kitbash some neat armor/backpack combinations due to the modular nature of their armor pieces however as someone isn't good at this kind of creativity, this potential is pretty much wasted on me and if I had a chance to do the purchase over again, I'd probably pass both by completely. I'll keep them around to see if they grow on me. I like Artille enough to keep her around but not so sure about Raptias yet. I guess we'll see.

Next is Renge. 3 words: Renge. Is. LOVE.

My personal version of Renge's "hip shaker of death" attack (that's what I'm calling it :p).

I knew I was going to like Renge but after having her in my hand, I like her a LOT. She is just so, SO cute. On top of that, she doesn't have Gabrine's ankle problems and her QC, while not without issues, is much better. Another thing is since Renge's helmet doesn't surround her lower head, she doesn't have the problem with her battle collar blocking her head movement that Gabrine has. Despite Gabrine's failures compared to Renge, I still love her.

And Renge does too! :D

Busou Shinki Raptias

2011-01-12T22:49:00.001-06:00

So my Artille and Raptias set came in and so far I've opened the sword and Raptias.

The sword unassembled.

Instruction sheet.

Completed sword. If you want to paint it, disassemble it first. I'm too lazy to paint. :p

Raptias waiting while I read her instruction sheet.

Raptias while I assemble her backpack. Is it just me or does her head look like Yukkuri? :p

Backpack complete!

The most pain in the arse part for me. This gun is a crappy design and is a huge pain to put on. It's bad enough that it's a pain to put the hand on the grip but then there's the additional pain of the wrist connector. It's enough to make me want to throw the gun against the wall.

Raptias feeding off my anger. Raptias gets some serious height due to the way her backpack connects to her stand.

I'll do some better poses when I'm in a better mood.

Next is Artille!

Dark figmas and new Shinkis

2011-01-10T12:49:00.001-06:00

Recently I got figma Dead Master and Saber Alter so here's a few pics of them.

They're both nice although they both have issues to nitpick over. Alter's visor is stuck to her windswept hair and Dead Master's eyes require you to position the head either slightly pointed down or up depending on her expression.

My Shinkis have also arrived although I've yet to open them up. I got the Artille & Raptias preorder set so here's a few pictures of how the unboxing goes.

The sealed box.

The product label w/ barcode.

Opened box. On top lies the parts for the preorder sword. It needs to be assembled and forms one sword only.

Artille is next.

And Raptias lies on the bottom.

I'll open them up later in the week. Or at least I hope.

IABWSS 4.6

2011-01-10T12:39:00.001-06:00

The writer has raised his "pew pew" level!
PCC sucks but Crankcase looks nice enough that I got one anyways. He might be the only 5 pack I ever get.

Busou Shinki Graffias and more costumes

2011-01-08T17:42:00.001-06:00

I got a shipment of new toys including some new Shinkis. So it's time I decided on what to do with the boxes. I'll be keeping most of the light armor boxes while chucking most of the bigger boxes with some exceptions to each. But before I do that, it's time I dug out my remaining old Shinki that's still in her box, Graffias. In a nutshell, she is the hot & sexy. Since I just dug her out, for now the focus is just on her basic body. I'll try her combined mode some other time.

I also got a couple more costumes for the Shinkis, a red cheongsam and a Japanese school sailor uniform. As usual, I have Merienda try them out.

The cheongsam isn't really for Merienda however.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite fit perfectly on Graffias. The dress tends to open up a bit in the middle of her back due to the way her upper body is molded (on top of that, there's her "bigger than a normal Shinki's" chest piece :p).

Naturally, I had to have Graffias try the sailor uniform as well.

Frankly, I have no idea how I got Graffias to stand with her legs like that. While arranging her legs, it felt like she could stand so I worked at it and she did it. However, I couldn't duplicate the feat afterwards. -_-;

As for the costumes themselves, the sailor uniform was okay but I was a bit disappointed with the cheongsam. On top of being a bad fit for Graffias, it's literally rough around the edges with pieces of the inside fabric slightly sticking out in places. For the most part though, it wasn't really noticeable so I'm willing to overlook it. BTW, the sailor uniform also came with white panty and socks. The panty was the real reason I wanted the sailor uniform because Merienda is currently using a naked body so up until now she's been going around butt-nekkid under that skirt. She does look somewhat more presentable now although for some reason, something's telling me she'd look even better with black or pink panties to match her Blythe dress. The Blythe dress remains by far my favorite dress for Merienda.

BTW, did I mention how much I love Graffias' high heels? *self explodes*

IABWSS 4.5

2011-01-07T17:30:00.000-06:00

I'm realizing the hardest thing about this isn't coming up with new ideas for the strip but having the fortitude to resist posting a strip ahead of its planned upload date. orz

IABWSS 4.4

2011-01-02T23:14:00.000-06:00

I wrote this strip late last month and is really more for my benefit than anything else. Kinda like self-therapy I guess. I was kinda getting ahead of myself towards the end of last year and got writer's block. So hopefully I'm now over it. Hopefully I also accomplished my secondary purpose as well. :D

Obviously this was also my chance to give a shout-out to a few of my favorite comics on TFW. Sorry to those that I left out but the list of favs is quite long so I had to pick a few out of a hat.

IABWSS 4.3

2010-12-31T22:31:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year!!

Am I the only one who doesn't love Alternator/Binaltechs? It was a long time since I played with one so when I dug Alt Tracks out of the closet to play around with him, it brought the trauma back. :p

Merry Xmas!

2010-12-24T23:56:00.000-06:00

Merry Xmas/Hanukkah/whatever holiday you enjoy and have a happy New Year's!

IABWSS 4.2

2010-12-24T02:00:00.000-06:00

IABWSS 4.1

2010-12-17T18:00:00.000-06:00

The sequel to the Thanksgiving dream strip (3.2).

IABWSS 4.0.a

2010-12-16T00:49:00.000-06:00

A few one-panel comics based on a couple photos I took. One of them was through a suggestion from a forum member.

Pomock commits grand theft chair.

The Spartans try a group hug with Partio.

Another day in the park

2010-12-12T23:47:00.001-06:00

Some outdoor shots.

IABWSS 4.0

2010-12-12T23:30:00.000-06:00

Yes, I recycled the exact same panel 3 times (4 times if you count the Ianeria close-up). Yegads, I'm lazy. -_-; I also think my humor's gone a bit on the wayside as I've resorted to toilet humor... *sigh* orz

I'm slowly making a story out of this but I don't know if I can make it entertaining at the same time.

IABWSS 3.5

2010-12-08T15:53:00.001-06:00

Not really happy with how this wound up and it's not because of that blue tint in the last panel. :p Thinking about it, it's probably because it doesn't have that visual punch that was present in the previous 2 strips. :/

More toy pics!

2010-12-06T22:21:00.002-06:00

Random toy pics.

BRS animation version.
Yes, she's missing the star. orz

A day in the park

2010-12-06T22:06:00.001-06:00

Random nature pics from the weekend.

IABWSS 3.4

2010-12-06T19:13:00.001-06:00

Needless to say, it concludes with the next strip. :p

Megurine Luka and iPod Touch

2010-12-06T19:07:00.001-06:00

Got some stuff lately. I post pics of the first few.

Nendo and figma Megurine Luka and a pink Hayabusa. Luka's figma articulation is rather hampered by her stiff skirt and lack of a hair joint. She looks nice though and she comes with a big fish which I'll post later. :D The Nendo is standard Nendo; not much as far as arm variety but it's got Tako-Luka which by itself is worth half the price of getting the set. The Hayabusa is part of series 2 minifigs. I'm only interested in this one and maybe the red one. I don't really have much of an interest in the other figures.

I also got a new 32GB iPod Touch 4 (left) to replace my old one (right), a 2nd gen 8GB. The lack of space has been an annoyance so the extra space was much needed. Another major factor was the improved performance as the 2nd gen was showing frequent hiccups with some apps under iOS4. Everything else is just gravy although it's very nice gravy. An unexpected bonus was that you can get a free version of a MobileMe account so that you can use the iPod Touch version of the "Find My iPhone" feature (only available with 4th gen Touch).

The new one is visibly thinner.

The volume buttons on the new Touch seem to use two separate button pieces instead of a single one like the old one.

For some reason, they switched the position of the power button. I prefer the old position.

At least they didn't switch the audio jack position. There would have been bloody hell murder if they did that. They've also added an actual speaker outlet on the new one meaning much louder and clearer sound.

You can just see the scratches on my old one. It's pretty banged up. It's had about 3 major falls. Don't know about the other Touches but my 2nd gen Touch is surprisingly durable.

The fact that the old one is still perfectly usable was a major reason I wasn't sure about getting a new one. Those with a 2nd gen should not upgrade to iOS4 if they can help it as it results in an even greater drop in performance compared to the iOS3 upgrade.

IABWSS 3.3

2010-11-30T00:52:00.000-06:00

Yay, my first TF-only strip! I really didn't like how Prowl turned out especially with how his wings hampered his shoulder movement so the idea for this strip was born.

IABWSS 3.2

2010-11-29T18:34:00.000-06:00

Someone suggested I do a strip based on the Thanksgiving pics so I gave it a try. With this posting, the strip is current! That's why I posted a bunch of it today. :P

IABWSS 3.1

2010-11-29T18:09:00.001-06:00

Aftermath? This strip wound up much longer than I expected.

Special Ops Jazz

2010-11-29T18:06:00.000-06:00

I have to say, Jazz turned out really nice. My nitpick with him is that his chest doesn't lock down but other than that, he's pretty damn good. I like how his speakers can be combined with his gun. Probably my favorite of the Generations car bots.

IABWSS 3 pt2

2010-11-29T18:02:00.000-06:00

I didn't like out the effects look in this one. I had the turret charge up rather than fire in the 3rd panel because the laser would have blocked out the rookie.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T17:26:00.002-06:00

I got a free turkey coupon from TXU so we decided to let my brother cook the turkey at his place for Thanksgiving lunch. He was kind enough to let me take some pictures of my Shinki there although the weird glances I get from his wife discouraged me from taking many pictures. The turkey came out really good. Juicy and not dry, probably one of the best Thanksgiving Turkeys I've ever had. Props to my bro for that. Anyways, here's some pictures of the toys and food.

First thing I thought when I saw my nephew's wooden stove set and that plastic pot was "Partio Stew!", LOL.

Apparently Pomock wanted to do the cooking this time.

Apparently they couldn't wait for the turkey.

The entire meal.

From the other angle.

Green bean casserole. I like this stuff, especially if it's really good.

The turkey.

The stuffing.

Pomock and Gabrine had a pretty good fill.

Waitaminiute. When did Gabrine get here?

For desert: Edwards Key Lime Pie. According to my brother, it was much better than Mary Calendars version which was apparently too sweet.

Gabrine trying to face off with one of my nephew's toys.

Apparently the toy wasn't impressed but loved her all the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!

IABWSS 3.0

2010-11-22T16:45:00.000-06:00

I keep forgetting I need to post my comics here...

Busou Shinki MMS Type Hellhound Gabrine

2010-11-21T20:29:00.000-06:00

Got light armor Gabrine.

My Gabrine has numerous faults including the infamous ankle problem which I fixed with the "soaking the foot" solution. Other problems include sloppy paint app, loose parts, bent connector peg, etc.

I do like Gabrine's design in general however and she looks really good with Ghost Rider.

Animated Grimmy, BB Bumblebee, and miko clothes

2010-11-16T20:13:00.003-06:00

I resisted for a long time but I finally broke down and got a TF Animated Grimlock. I have to say, I actually like him a bit better than MP Grimlock. (yeah yeah blasphemous, I know) So what do I like about A. Grimlock? I like how his backpack folds up much better than the old "head just hangs off the back" style. The way the tail hangs off the side of A. Grimlock's legs is more reminiscent of Grimlock than MP Grimlock's "tail tucked perfectly away" although I kinda like that too. Finally both his robot and alt mode exudes much more personality than the cold and straightforward MP Grimlock (especially robot mode). My only real gripe with Animated Grim is that his elbow part doesn't go all the way in like it's supposed to in robot mode (seems to be a common problem with the toy). Otherwise, I think he flat-out rocks and is a great bargain at the discounted price I got at Marshall's.

I also got Battle Blade Bumblebee but really didn't get into him. While he's taller than the first Bumblebee, he's also noticeably scrawnier in the legs and fixes a few problems with the original while introducing new ones of its own. Notable faults include fixed wrists, very hokey looking gun mode, backwards-looking axe, and loose chest parts. Ultimately, I returned him. I really don't see the point of this new mold especially with all the faults it has.

I also noticed that Ghost Rider is surprisingly tall. He even towers over Animated Grim and Highbrow. Very interesting.

In other news, I got a package today with a few goods. One of them is a short-skirt miko costume that I got for Asuka. It's from Azone's Desktop Collection.

Merienda will demo it first. Without skirt.

And with skirt. It's a bit short for her even if you add the spacers.

Here it is on Asuka. Looks much better.

With broomstick.

Back view.

The only thing I can put on Asuka with the miko dress on are the legs. I might be able to squeeze in the arms if I remove the shoulder pieces but that's about it.

The Pomock and squirrel affair

2010-11-14T00:48:00.002-06:00

I took the above apparently epic squirrel pic (according to everyone who've seen it) featuring Pomock earlier in the week. People were impressed although it didn't felt like it was that impressive to me so I'll tell what I did.

My equipment was simple: one Pomock, my Canon point and shoot, and a bag of peanuts. The squirrels in the particular park I went to are a bit friendlier than your average squirrel provided you have nuts to feed them. On top of that, I could clearly see that the squirrels were chubbier than normal meaning they're fattening themselves up for winter. I picked a park table, attracted a few squirrels by waving a peanut around, and gave a couple of the peanuts so they'd know they have a real food source. I then set up the pose for Pomock and placed a peanut in her hands. Once a squirrel got close to Pomock, I pre-focused and started shooting until the squirrel took the peanut. Note that Pomock is only a few feet from me at most because I wanted to be able to snatch her back if any squirrel tried to drag her away so with the camera zoom at maximum, I was close enough to get a fairly good picture of the squirrel when it gets near Pomock. The only special thing I did with the camera was have it on continuous shoot mode which allows me to keep taking pictures as the action unfolds. I shot roughly 10 separate sequences with Pomock (IOW, I used at least 10 peanuts + 2 to get their attention in the first place). Simple, right? Now you too can take epic squirrel pics if you live in Houston. :D The location is marked on the Flickr page for the photo so do feel free to pay the squirrels a visit and tell me how it worked out. Now for being a good little kid and reading through the above, a little gift: I've uploaded some of my photos at their original resolution on ImageVenue, click the thumbnails below to view the full-size pics.

IABWSS 2.2

2010-11-08T12:15:00.000-06:00

This completes my comic updates.

IABWSS appendix 2.1

2010-11-05T18:01:00.004-05:00

A bit late but here's the first of my two Halloween strips from TFW2005. It's pretty big.

IABWSS ep 2

2010-11-04T22:33:00.000-05:00

Some random pics

2010-11-04T19:12:00.000-05:00

I've been slack in updating the blog since I usually post new stuff on the boards first and forget the rest. I got a black wing Fubuki and a MMS 3rd small nekkid body so here's pics as well as other stuff.

Fubuki

MMS 3rd small body with Merienda head. The clothes I got off a doll I got at a dollar store.

Partio riding a Tron Legacy Light Cycle.

I don't remember posting this here. Pomock on Halo Mongoose (VISR ver).

Transformers Marvel Crossovers Ghost Rider video review

2010-10-29T00:41:00.001-05:00

First toy review. I don't really count the Drift video since it's just transformation video with no comments in the video itself.

IABWSS appendix 1.2

2010-10-28T12:39:00.000-05:00

As mentioned, the strips from here on out are on deviant.

IABWSS appendix 1.1

2010-10-27T01:14:00.003-05:00

Alternate ending:

I'll be posting my comics here as well as my usual places. My future comics will be hosted on Deviant since flick and PB don't support vertically long images.

Transformers Marvel Crossovers Ghost Rider review (kinda)

2010-10-26T00:35:00.002-05:00

Just in time for Halloween, it's Transformers Ghost Rider.

Wheel gimmick.

Flame spokes pop out when you push the chain end into the wheel.

Someone suggested the official cycle mode seems a bit too "high" so I attempted to make it lower...

Looks somewhat better. The only problem is now the robot knees drag on the floor. The design definitely could have been a bit better. I have numerous other gripes too such as shitty instructions, uneven shoulders, shoulder pads getting in the way, wonky cycle mode, the list goes on... :p But it's Ghost Rider so I'm cool with it. :P

Mega Blok Halo collection update

2010-10-24T17:24:00.002-05:00

My Halo blind pack collection. The stealth camo was found at a TRU a few weeks ago. It was my first time seeing a blind pack and was the only one they had left at the time. The rest I got recently at a Walmart. I pretty much felt for the ones I wanted. :D

In the back of that pic, you can see the Mongoose. I also have the UNSC Turret, a Grunt Chopper, Gremlin, and winter camo Rocket Hog. That's gonna be pretty much it for my collection. I'd like to keep it compact since I got other stuff coming in. I haven't built them all yet so I'll post pics once they're up.

Webcomic and fail

2010-10-17T00:03:00.003-05:00

It All Began With Shinki Stew!
1st ep?

Later that night...

End!! :p

PS: No Shinki was harmed in the making of this comic!

PPS: Security officer Maochao guarantees it! :D

So this was my first attempt at a multi-panel comic. It originally started as a one panel response to someone else's post on TFW2005 but it wound up becoming several panels and I decided to make a plunge and make my own webcomic thread. Now that I'm doing that though, I really up over my head. I might have a better camera and have clearer looking pictures than the other comics on TFW2005 but what they lack in picture quality, they more than make up in fresh and funny ideas! Not sure how I'll do it but since I've already started, I've got no choice but to go forth and make a jackass out of myself! So I'll be half learning how to use GIMP and brainstorming stuff for the comic. Good luck to me. :p

Fishing and learning to do webcomics...

2010-10-08T10:43:00.001-05:00

I'm going to open up with some fishing photos I took a couple days ago. No, I don't fish but apparently I have a figure that does. :p

As you can see, Eika's doing the fishing and Partio's eating whatever's caught. :p

An alternate angle, this time with a fish in the tub.

Ianeira also came along.

Taking shots from this angle was tricky since all this was over a bridge over a river and I couldn't lean out too much or I risk falling into the river. I also had to be careful not to drop any parts since this was a wooden bridge with gaps all over the place. If I dropped a piece, the chance I'd never see it again is almost guaranteed.

I also did my first multi-panel webcomic yesterday. I've done a couple single panel comics this past month so I guess this is a naturally progression of that. I've learned the basics of doing text bubbles so now it's onto more fancier stuff like sound effects and special effects such as laser blasts. Good luck to me. :p

Killer mermaid and crushed oppai mousepad

2010-10-06T15:10:00.001-05:00

I finally opened up Busou Shinki Ianeira.

I was surprised by how much I like her. Not only does she got a good variety of weapons to throw around, she's got various ways of putting it all together as well. And then there's the fish tail which can either be combined with Ianeira for her mermaid form or combined with her weapons to form a fish mecha that she can hitch a ride on. Overall, I was rather impressed but I can also see why she can be overlooked by others considering her rather plain colors and "obasan"-style looks. ^^;

In other news, it's been there for a least a month or two but there's a huge dent in the cleavage part of my Nico Robin oppai mousepad. It still works, more or less, but it has become somewhat of an eyesore.

I'm going to replace her sooner or later either, most likely with the Kanu mousepad. It'll be interesting to see if Kanu will suffer the same oppai fate. :p

Sony Move: NOT impressed :p

2010-09-30T23:13:00.001-05:00

I had the opportunity to try out the PS3 Move at a mall and damn I am so not impressed. At the core, all they did was copy Wii's hardware technique and other than a few minor differences, works almost the exact same way with pretty much the same weaknesses inherent in this technique. Sony has totally lost this one.

The Wii works by having a camera sensor and the motion balance sensors in the controller and the navigation lights at the TV. The Move works by having the camera at the TV but having the motion sensor and navigation light in the controller. So all the Move did was switch the position of the light and the camera. Wii owners will NOT be impressed.

The attendee at the mall said "unlike the Wii, you really have to move your body!" I went to a tennis game and employed the cheat of just moving the hand and wrist to swing the racquet and it sure worked. So much for that claim. :p Also using the Move controller to move through a menu system is a very imprecise job which can lead to quick frustration for some people. And unlike the Wii remote, there's no joypad controller already on there so you've got to go grab the default PS3 controller if you rather do things old school.

No DX Bravers for me

2010-09-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

After having studied my Ke-tai Sousakan min-pla models, I'm glad I didn't buy any of the DX toys. The mini-pla share similar characteristics with the DX toys and based on that I can tell the DX toys would be clunky and not as much fun to play around with as a figma or TF figure. What's worse, the LED faces prevent the DX Bravers from being display pieces. The only DX I'm interested in is Medic but I don't think it's worth it without a Phone Braver and those are definitely not worth it. So looks like I'm going to give up on the toy series, too bad.

We are riding, riding, riding...

2010-09-24T12:34:00.002-05:00

Lots of pictures to show off. Shinkis on their rides, BRS figma and Nendo, fun stuff. If you visit my other haunts, you've probably seen them already.

First up is Partio and Pomock on the 3-wheeler Ex:ride.

More pics below!

Next is Harmony on a Lego Technic Go-kart.

How stingy. :(

BRS figma and Nendo.

Can't we all just get along? (What do you mean "no"?)

BRS on a 1/12 Maisto. I was able to score a 1/12 Maisto 2-pack for $10 at Ross which was a good deal. I'll show the other Maisto in a future post.

I had Partio and Pomock re-arranged on the Ex:ride so that Pomock was driving instead but accidentally knocked them off the table when arranging BRS on the Maisto for the above picture. When I picked them off the floor, I found them in the pose below.

"Feeling ronery, Partio?" LOL. They're so precious, especially Partio. :)

I'll leave with a non-sequitur. A picture of a Domino's sausage and tomato pizza that I had.

Looks good? I thought so too. It's a crop of a bigger picture I took. I wanted to capture the texture so I had to crop it otherwise you lose that detail when the picture gets shrunk down to thumbnail size. Domino's is currently my favorite of the widespread pizza chains followed by Papa John then Pizza Hut. It's like Papa John's all over when they first came out; everyone was won over by the new taste. Time will tell if Domino's current recipe will withstand the test of time.

The DOOM CYCLE!!

2010-09-16T22:39:00.001-05:00

Harmony Grace on her new DOOM CYCLE!!

How Harmony got her bike...

She kick-stomped the original owner... ^^;

She is her own tank...

2010-09-11T20:16:00.001-05:00

I don't know why but PB's giving me grief today so for now I'm using Flickr instead. I've opened up Busou Shinki Zelnograd. She's nice but arms are kinda lose at the upper arm socket which makes it a bit of a pain when getting her to hold up her big gun. And does she have a big gun.

Zelnograd in a GI Joe Armored Panther tank. I got the tank because it looked like it might fit a Shinki and I was right. :D I also have another vehicle which I'll open up later and see if it fits as well.

I've also tried out my Kagura Hinata dakimakura cover. It's definitely one of the smoother covers of my dakimakura covers but I still like the Haruka daki the best as far as feel (too bad it's also the most wrinkly :p).

Here's my dakimakura ranking for comfort & feel: Haruka, Hakata, Hinata, Minato, Momoyo, Saki.
As far as how they look though: Momoyo, Haruka, Saki, Hinata, Minato, Hakata.

I also got a dakimakura cover that came as a Sofmap bonus for getting Para-Sol from them. Features girls with bare nipples, a first for my collection. The feel seems to be about the same as the Saki covers though so it's unlikely I'll actually use that cover.

Mini-Pla finished!

2010-08-23T13:41:00.001-05:00

I took my time but built all 4 of the Ke-tai Sousakan Mini-pla plastic models. If one works hard at it, you can probably build most if not all of them in a day. But I'm super slow so I took a while. :p

Here are the pics of each in their individual modes as well as the combined mode at the end. You can mix and match the sets so that 7 wears Demolition and 01 wears Grindor as well as just mixing the individual parts. However 7 only has the Grindor Chakushin face and 01 only has Demolition's since that's the setup each PB usually use in the show.

One thing that this set has help me decide is that I'm not going to get the DX toy version of them. The samples of the electronic light & sound gimmicks on Youtube hasn't really excited me and on top of that I'm aware of their annoyance factor with them ringing at random intervals throughout the day (there doesn't seem to be an off button short of taking out the batteries). And if the mini-pla versions of them are any indication, the Chakushin form of them aren't that fun to play around with either.

SMG Mana (asyu)

2010-08-17T21:57:00.004-05:00

SMG Mana (asyu) 1/12 scale from Daiki
Serious NSFW material towards the bottom half after the break.

360 view. Make your own spinning gif!

SMG nekkid. Didn't expect there to be so much detail down there.

With figma waitress Mikuru head.

With Shinki Bright Feather head.

With figma Saber head. Sorry for bad color.

Fully filled dakimakura cover

2010-07-11T00:50:00.001-05:00

I washed the Daiba Minato cover and filled it with the Sears body pillow and a 20x28" pillow bought from Target. I was originally going to use a smaller pillow but it turned out the body pillow filling can be squished higher making the top fill out more but at the cost of having the body pillow take up less space in the cover. It's hard to tell from the picture but the 2nd pillow starts from the knees down. I'm happy with the way the cover is filled out but the 2nd pillow is much stiffer than the body pillow so I'm going to switch it out for something softer.

I built the first of the MiniPla. It was easier than I thought. You can pretty much twist the pieces out by hand and then use a model knife to shave off any sprue that sticks out too much. Next will be Grinder.

I decided to keep Tsugaru for now. If I get another EX, it would be Waffebunny and she would be my last EX. I'm on the fence on getting the upcoming Shinki figures; they've gotten rather expensive.

Brief & dirty Tsugaru review

2010-07-08T14:35:00.003-05:00

I have mixed feelings on Tsugaru. I like her look but her execution leaves much to be desired. She's backheavy due to the fact that her backpack sticks out further from her back than is really needed. Her thigh armor doesn't serve much purpose other than to get in the way of either mode. The armor's alt mode is a joke; it doesn't stick together well and you have to perform figure gymnastics to get the figure onto the vehicle. Her blades and electromagnetic rifles can't be wielded by themselves; you need to find some other part to help her use them which is a huge pain in the arse. Frankly I'm a bit on the fence about keeping her and she may be the last EX armor I'm getting.

And it's here!

2010-07-07T19:00:00.008-05:00

As expected, the package arrived this morning. Here's the package contents. Slight NSFW after the jump.

Sega prize figures Sawatari Izumi and Karauchi Anna, Nendoroid Japanese Life Set A & B, Re-ment Our House's Kotatsu, MiniPla Ke-tai Sousakan 7 01 Arrives 1-4, Se.Kirara w/ Aya Morning Coffee figma, and (the main breadwinner for me) Otoboku The 2 Elders 1st run edition w/ Softbank extras.

The Softbank extras are a shitajiki of Awayuki and a bedsheet featuring Chihaya and Kaoruko.

Frankly I'm not sure of the point of a bedsheet. You have to lie on it. I can understand a bedsheet featuring a favorite mascot such as Hello Kitty or your favorite sports team but an eroge or anime character is a whole another thing all together. You don't want to lay on your favorite heroine, do you? Ultimately, I'm guessing this serves as an oversized cloth poster. :p

There's one problem with the cloth poster though. There's a black ink spot on it! Gah! WTF! I have no idea how I'm going to get rid of it considering it's already there right out of the box. At least it's not conspicuous... -_-;

Anyways, a look at the actual Otoboku box. It's clear plastic box which contains the bonus pouch which contains the game box package.

Frankly, I can't think of any use for the pouch. Can't use it outside and doesn't serve any special use as a container so it's just a waste of plastic to me IMO.

Inside the box is a booklet featuring design artwork for the game (one of my fav types of extras) and DVD case containing the game disk, instruction leaflet, a Lycee card featuring Chihaya, and a promo card to win a poster signed by the char design artists for Otoboku2 and MeguMegu (the Caramel Box game that released a month ahead of Otoboku2).

I've taken a quick look inside Izumi's box and she looks nice. I'll definitely need to take pics of the rest of the goodies once I've opened them up but first thing's first, off to play some Otoboku2. :p

Latest loot pics

2010-07-06T21:50:00.003-05:00

This is from end of June.

Re-ment Cafe Table, Re-ment Sushi Meguri, Bushou Shinki EX Tsugaru, Revoltech Layton, and G's Festival Comic vol.12.

A pic of the cafe table for size comparison.

At the table are Nendo Drossel and MMS Eika having California Rolls from the Sushi Meguri series.

I'll post pics of Tsugaru up later. I haven't even opened Layton yet. A lot of my Revoltechs won't be opened until I find myself a Revoplier unless someone's willing to donate one (or suggest a suitable alternative). :p

Momoyo dakimakura cover from G's Festival Comic vol.12. Very sexy, I like. :D

Legs

Waist

Bust

Om nom nom.

I'm expecting Otoboku 2 as well as other loot to arrive tomorrow. Once that arrives, I'll likely be doing nothing but playing Otoboku until I fully complete it. The package will also be my last major bulk purchase as I'm finally officially laid off. I still have some outstanding pre-orders but I may cancel some of them if my unemployment lasts too long.

O M G

2010-06-30T15:54:00.000-05:00

I just discovered that Sofmap just clearanced out Sora no Otoshimono DVD vol 1 1st print ed as well as both Saki DVD 2 & 7 1st print ed for under 2000 yen each. Why this is special is because they all have a dakimakura included as a bonus. Both Sora and Saki 7 are already sold out by the time I noticed this and currently only Saki 2 (1500 yen) is still available although I don't know how long that will last. The Sora DVD is a total steal and I would have so jumped on it if I had found out sooner.

Rats. orz

Finally a hugging pillow!

2010-06-26T20:24:00.002-05:00

I bought a body pillow from Sears. I tried the Haruka, Hinata, and Saki 7 dakimakura covers on it.

Like the one from Bed Bath & Beyond, the pillow is 20"x54" and costs $9.98. The inside is polyester fiberfill; the outer cover is 55% cotton and 45% polyester. It is supposedly machine washable. I went with Sears because the the closest BBB didn't have the $10 in stock the last time I went there plus it was farther away. I didn't have much problem putting the covers on although Saki 7 had a tight fit. The pillow was a tad too short for all of them including Hinata; it reaches down to about their ankles. Hinata seems to have the best feel followed by Haruka then Saki 7. They all look pretty good including Haruka which doesn't look as good in the photos due to the way the cover reflects light. Thanks to the pillow being slightly wider than the dakimakura specs, the cover are stretched firmly so wrinkles or folds don't stand out at all. I decided to use the Haruka cover as my first one to use since she seems to be the least durable and she's been washed too. After a few days with her, I can see the attraction of dakimakura covers. You have a life-sized image of a 2D girl staring right back at you and if you like the girl, you'll really want to hug the pillow and stuff. I'm also finding I'm really liking the Haruka cover. She's so cute and sexy and the cover feels much better than I thought it would. It's very smooth and more comfortable to hold than I thought (maybe even more than the Hinata cover). I think I can get to like this LOL. I'm going to search out for a proper sized dakimakura body for my 2nd pillow. It'll probably be a while though since these things aren't cheap.

One thing I've noticed is that I don't really visit other people's blog all that often mainly due to lack of time. Usually I'll visit a site to read the review of a certain figure or toy I'm interested in and then I usually won't come back for a long time if ever. I wonder if there are others that are similar to me in that fashion or if it's just me.

Otoboku 2 has confirmed master up so I'm looking forward to getting it in early July. I'm dissapointed Para-Sol got delayed to late July but I guess that'll give me time to enjoy Otoboku until Para-Sol ships. NicoNico Chyokuhan has confirmed that my copy of Se.kirara w/ Aya morning coffee figma will ship around the same time as Otoboku so I'll be getting them at the same time. Speaking of which I've yet to play Se.Kirara. ^^;

Dakimakura or "hugging pillow" covers

2010-06-20T02:00:00.004-05:00

I guess it's about time I unwrapped the 6 dakimakura covers I've got so far.

Kagura Hinata, Daiba Minato, and Nogizaka Haruka dakimakura covers. Hinata is the only stand alone dakimakura I've purchased mainly because she was almost half off at Amiami and I wanted to compare a stand-alone to the magazine bonus dakimakura covers; it's also apparently the only one that's a bit shorter compared to the others. Minato (from Dengeki G’s Festival! Vol.16), which I had initially got as a "throw away" cover, turns out to be my favorite of the 6 in both feel and image print quality and looks much better in person. Haruka (Dengeki G's Festival ANIME vol. 3) has a shiny look to the cover and also feels different as well despite being made of the same materials as the other covers (polyester?); it's also the only one without a zipper.

Kanamori Hakata, Saki DVD vol2, and Saki DVD vol7 dakimakura covers. Hakata came with Ebiten Special Box and has the same feel and shiny sheen as the Haruka cover. The Saki covers came with their respective DVDs and seem to be the lowest quality of the covers as well as the most expensive to acquire; they're also the most risque of the covers.

Rear view of Hinata, Saki DVD vol2, and Saki DVD vol7 covers. The other three are blank white on the other side.

One more shot of the first 3.

Hinata is the only cover that says 2 way tricot (85% polyester, 15% polyurethane) although the cover label claims it's 100% polyester. All the other covers only mention polyester. The Haruka and Hakata covers have rather pronounced creases which I worry if they'll go away or not after a wash. The Saki cover and Hinata covers are apparently made by the same company which makes me wonder about the apparent gap in quality between them; they're also made in Japan as opposed to the other three which are made in China. Because of how much I like the Minato cover, I'm regretting not getting the G's Festival! Comic vol9 which featured the Ryuubi cover. The Saki covers have a slightly sticky feel to them and on the vol7 cover also has a strange smell to it that's absent on the rest of the covers. Because of that, the vol7 cover has become my immediate test subject for a light run through the washing machine on light cycle w/ smidgeon of detergent with the vol2 being the 2nd subject if the vol7 doesn't come out too bad. The rest will be hung on the wall or handwashed when I find the time for it if it's going to be put onto an actual pillow. My first pillow will be one from Bed Bath & Beyond and future purchases will depend on how that one turns out.

My dakimakura ranking at this time: Minato > Hinata > Saki vol2 > Hakata > Haruka > Saki vol7.

edit: I just realized I forgot to note where the Minato and Haruka covers came from. Added in.

Unposted toys & figures from May

2010-06-06T01:14:00.004-05:00

Some stuff I got last month but didn't post.

Ignis from Tengai Makyou. 1/8 scale from Yamato. Easy castoff but she looks better with her clothes on. Looks very good and sexy. Sword is too delicate though. It broke when my hand bumped into it. Fixed with superglue.

Akihiko from Persona 3. 1/10 scale by Kotobukiya. I needed a guy figure so I chose him. Comes with 9 minute drama CD.

Saki DVD vol 7 w/ dakimakura. Box contains DVD & Dakimakura. I also have DVD vol 2 with dakimakura. I'll showcase the dakimakuras at a later time but they probably rank on the lower end of my dakimakura collection because the image it's based on is fairly low res. I personally don't mind that much but it's very obvious when compared to most other dakimakuras which are usually based on a high resolution image due to the size of dakimakuras.

Figma Subaru. I've been spoiled by the acsta Subaru as the figma looks fairly weak in comparison. It's not a bad figma but it has its weaknesses.

Nendo Drossel. Haven't really had much chance to play with her. I will say she has a much better implemented light up gimmick compared to Chogokin Drossel. I also prefer her more solid clear bands on her Belinda helmet to the Chogokin's softy bands.

Nendo Fate, Otoboku2 demo

2010-05-30T20:20:00.005-05:00

My main complaint on her is the cloak which comes off to easily and hinders movement. She comes with a lot of arm parts so you can have her wield Baldiche in all sorts of ways.

The Otoboku 2 demo came out this weekend. I played it and liked what I've seen so far. It seems a bit darker than the last game but it's still the same Otoboku atmosphere so you won't feel too down. Plus everyone is the cute especially the main ~~heroine~~ character Chihaya. To most fully enjoy the game, it's best if you've already played the first game and read the light novel "Sakura no Sono no Etoile". However if you're completely new, you won't really notice I think. I'm definitely picking this game up when it comes out.

Nico Robin mouse pad, Energer Z

2010-05-29T22:44:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit sleepy tonight so this is gonna be a short one.

First off, the Nico Robin mouse pad that I keep forgetting to put up. She feels better and priced better than the Kanu mousepad so she's my current mousepad for now. Seems my main mouse has an issue with the Kanu pad. Kinda odd since it's the only mouse that has problem with the mouse pad.

Chogokin Energer Z. It was on sale so I went and got one. I was attracted by it's similar design to Mazinger as well as the nice red paint. A nice take on the Mazinger design. From what I understand, it was a prototype design to the original Mazinger. I love the "bike as a cockpit" design. Rocket punch was weak however. Drops like a rock, very disappointing. Cape was a bit on the loose side. Articulation not quite as good as Groizer. Otherwise, a solid figure.