Peter's Japan blog

After having had a very bad day at work yesterday, got home today to a nice surprise! (well it wasn't a surprise, cause I knew it was coming ;p). Two packages had arrived: one big package which contained the 1/5 scale Yoko by Gift and the Lucky Star DVD box 1 & 2 (limited edition), and the other smaller package had a asian Mahjong set in it. It's Japanese made, but it has some extra tiles for other asian variants. I actually can't use it yet because I don't have 3 other people to play with but I just had to have one ^^; I (try to) play the Japanese variation and I still suck at it with an occasional nice hand when playing on my DS or SNES emu. Mahjong rules and scoring is very complex, and I'm still learning. (Bought a book on rules and strategy but that still needs to arrive).

The Gift Yoko figure is absolutely gorgeous. 1/5 scale seems quite large but she's crouching which means the height of the figure is just like a 1/7 scale figure, but the body is as if it's 1/5 scale. But she's really huge compared to the nendoroid figures ;p.

And there's my Lucky Star DVD box, which I still hadn't bought. It's a must if you like this stuff ^^. For the moment just dvd 1 & 2 (on the picture, the dvd's are already inside the box). These are limited edition so they come with some extra goodies. Three CDs with the ED song single and the first two charactor song singles (Konata and Kagami).

As part of a contest on Danny Choo's website to post THE picture of your otaku room, I'm writing this post with extra photos to go with it. (my room isn't as otaku as many others, but it's just fun to have everybody participate!)
The following picture is the one that I posted in the member news on the site. (click for original pic) It's a 3-piece as my stuff is located in several places in my room and I can't take a 360 degree picture, and even if I could, it wouldn't be practical.

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In the past 7 days, I got 2 new packages with stuff from Japan. The first one was last week which were 3 new figures. Two figmas and one nendoroid. The figma's being: Hiiragi Kagami (from Lucky Star) and Tsuraya-san (from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu), and the nendoroid is Shana (from Shakugan no Shana). Below are some pictures, but a real photoshoot is to follow later.

The second package came today, this time more music related. The latest single from Ayumi Hamasaki: the Days/GREEN [CD+DVD] version with the poster! And the other thing is Perfume's first photobook which was surprisingly thick.
The single comes in the same package as she did with the previous single. CD+DVD versions used to be put in double CD cases, but now she seems to put these in a cardboard very high box, which actually contain 2 normal CD cases above each other. And the poster is just gorgeous!! ;D
The photobook of Perfume is just great, many many pictures, which seem to be taken in China/Hong Kong. After the photos there are a few pages with an interview with the girls about the past, present and future and ended with some behind the scenes pictures. When I was going through the photos I had the idea that Kashiyuka had less pictures than the rest! So... I counted them ^^; A-chan is in the most pictures: 56, then Nocchi with 53 and Kashiyuka is in 52 of them. So there IS a difference and Kashiyuka has the least, albeit they're all very close together.

And now for a few pictures:

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Here's the result from my photo shoot form last Sunday. It features my 2 latest nendoroids (Nagato Yuki and Pastel Ink) and another nendoroid which I hadn't photographed yet (Asahina Mikuru) and the ones I already had (Suzumiya Haruhi and Hatsune Miku). I shot these pictures with my new camera, a Canon EOS 450D (my first DSLR, you can read more about that in a previous post). I always try to funny stuff and make a little bit of story out of my photo shoots with figures. And as nendoroid are very good for that because they are somewhat poseable and have several extra parts and faces to use. But of course, figmas are even better for that, but I haven't got any of those.

Here's a group pic before we begin:

(The next page has a lot of pictures but they are all quite small, they link to bigger pics though)

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Just received my newest two nendoroids in the mail today.

Nagato Yuki and Pastel Ink. Both extremely cute!

I guess I'll have to do another photoshoot very soon, as I haven't done one with my previous nendoroid yet either (being Asahina Mikuru). So next time will be a big photoshoot with my 5 nendoroids ^^ (which may be with my new camera I'm going to buy)

One of the biggest figure making companies in Japan, Goodsmile has just launched their english website to reach a more international audience. Goodsmile Company releases their own figures and those of Max Factory. They are also the creators of the very cute nendoroid figures and the poseable figmas.
You can find this new website at: eng.goodsmile.info. The Japanese version will be released later on.

The website runs on the newest version of a platform written by Danny Choo (& team), who is a big figure enthusiast and already has his own website which is dedicated to figures, mecha, anime, idols, japanese society & SEO. He is also known as the Tokyo Trooper who goes around Tokyo walking and dancing in his Star Wars Storm Trooper outfit. The RSS feed of his website has been on my blog here for some time now and you can find him at www.dannychoo.com.

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