Category Archives: Merchandise

Small magazine loot

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I went to a Job Interview today and since I was in Düsseldorf I thought that I might aswell pick up some Magazines.The Megami Magazine freebies arent anything out of the usual but the Dengeki Daioh had quite a cool freebie this time.Check it out after the Jump!

It seems that I picked up the 200th Volume of the Dengeki Daioh and as a goodie they added a BiriBiri X Koroko T-Shirt for free.Its the first time Ive seen a Magazine coming with a T-shirt and its a pretty sweet goodie in my opinion.You cant expect Cospa Quality from a freebie and therefore the fabric is a bit thin.I dont plan to wear Anime T-shirts regulary anyway :P

So yeah this is officially my very first Manga/Anime T-shirt!Im not too hot on spending money on expensive shirts .In my opinion T-shirts with a more decent artwork that probably only people that are into the matter will recognize are a better way to show your love instead of a huge print of your favorite girl in an embarassing pose.This Black Lagoon Shirt for example is pretty rad in my opinion and I could imagine wearing it while this Queens Blade T-shirt will make you look like a total idiot.Youre actually promoting the bad image we are facing with this and many other T-Shirts.I know that my view on this is kinda harsh but I am so seldom critical that I might as well be so today.

The BiriBiri Shirt came in a very interesting size: free. I can only guess whats that supposed to mean but id say that this means One Size fits all.Then theres this long list with Attention in big bold letters ontop but I guess those are the washing instructions.Id be grateful if someone could translate it for me though.Itd be kinda bad if it means when youre wearing this shirt youll get bald :P

I bet you wonder if I fit into this shirt right?And guess what?My Body qualifies for a Shirt of the free class! I would show you a picture of me wearing that shirt but taking a picture of yourself is quite hard.Luckily a friendly ninja who owes me one (for saving his life,the usual stuff you know) jumped by and he miraculously has the same body build as me and agreed to model for me.Why model for me?Well,hes an oldschool ninja and cant do anything beside jumping around and beeing awesome.Do you really expect him to be able to operate my camera?

Thank you mysterious Ninja!


Oh yeah and before I forget it…This stuff came with the Megami Magazines: a pencilboard depicting Saber and Rin on one side and some stupid loli meido on the other.One of the two B2 Posters features the same Fate/Stay Night Artwork as the pencil board and some other series while the other one features BiriBiri & co at the beach and a Nanoha Artwork on the other side. If youre interested in the latter one check Optics Review

Now excuse me I need to get rid of that Ninja….

Ikki Tousen: Book of Big Breasts

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I know what youre thinking…They cant be serious calling this artbook the book of big breasts!Yes,they are! Enter my quick review of SoftBanks Ikki Tousen Artbook!

Its no secret that Im a big fan of girls that can open a can of whoopass and bakunyuu anime/manga Ikki Tousen knows how to deliver those to an ecchi guy like me.I stumbled across the artbook about half a year ago on HLJ and it was immediately sold out.They finally had a restock this month and the book arrived on my doorstep together with Saber Lily ^^

The Term Artbook itself is actually a bit misleading since the book contains not so many illustrations but more background Infos on the characters,seiyuus and whatnot.It should be mentioned that theres a quite a difference in the Designs of Yuji Shiozakis Girls in the Manga the Anime and that the book features the anime design.

The Artworks and Characterfiles themselves focus around the Ikki Tousen games for the PSP and Ps2.Its kinda a shame since youll often get the feeling that an Artist drew his rendition of Yuji Shiozakis girls.Wich is very unfortunate in one particular picture where Kanu and her sidekick have biiiig mamilla.Its nevertheless the only Ikki Tousen Artbook I know of and it came with a CD (containing the soundtrack of the games),a double sided poster( the magazine cover and another artwork) and some kinda foil artwork(wich shows the girls with and without torn clothes).

Overall Im a bit letdown that the book doesnt feature as much artwork as I hoped but the package is quite good for its price.I doubt that anyone that isnt interested in Ikki Tousen will get much joy from this tough.

This Side of the Poster is kinda disturbing.Ive seen it in the Megami Magazine before though


The Covers of the games

Fun at the Beach

Chikans Galore

Characterfiles of the girls

And Characterfiles of the guys,if theyre more youre kind

The Foil Artwork

Isnt it kinda weird that Original Characters from Fillers/Games etc. always look incredibly cheap in design compared to the canon stuff?They should put a bit more effort into those characterdesigns

Drafts of the Original Characters

Theres this really long part that stretches across many pages about the CD where the characters seem to talk about something I cant read ^^;

I think Kanu is supposed to be some tourguide in this one

Of course theres a boob ranking aswell!

Covers of the Games,Anime and Manga

I believe this is an interview with the seiyuus of Ikki Tousen

Thats it for today but dont fear! Tomorrows my last day on the job! ill be a NEET from Thursday on and that means lots and lots f free time for blogging ^^

Queens Blade Nyx Visual Combat Book

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Queens Blade is probably best known for its recent Anime incaranation aswell as the figures released by Megahouse.It all started off as a Battle Book Game a few years ago though.Enter the world of the Lost Worlds Fighting System after the Jump!

The QB Books are based on the American Lost Worlds Books and follows the same rules as their english counterparts.Actually alot of the QB characters are mere copies of the Lost World Characters with a different,sexier artwork.One of the biggest advantages over other japanese games is the fact that the Rules are readily avaiable in your language!

Alternate 2P Colours are hidden under the Dust jacket

Youll need 2 QB (or Lost Worlds) books to play with one of your friends and you actually swap books with them.Yes,you cant drool over the fantastic artworks of your character while playing and have to stick to your buddies character.The only thing youll keep is the Character Card that comes with your book and provides all neccessary information for fighting the other players character.I already mentioned that most QB Characters are based on already existing Lost Worlds characters but there are still minor tweaks and this is where it gets a bit complicated : the Character Card aswell as the book are completley in Japanese.Luckily the good guys at ESGlabs provide Fantranslation of many of the QB Character Cards.I highly recommend you to to check if theres a translation for your desired character avaiable before ordering.

Nyx`s Character Card

The books itself are hardcovers with about 63 full covered pages that provide the artworks aswell as the battle statistics.Sine you swapped the book with your buddy youll see everything out of your characters perspective attacking the enemy.

Kyouka isnt too pleased with her job ^^


Pocco is helping out aswell

Depending on the attack youve chosen the other player has to turn to a certain page that provides information if the attack was successful or not.Your goal is to reduce your enemies lifepoints to Zero before he does with yours

What would QB be without Ecchi artworks?

What else is there to say?The books are well bound and printed.Theres nothing to comply about and the price of the books itself is very reasonable considering the fact that you are buying an Artbook plus a game.I recommend importing them since local retailers over here are selling them for triple the price.

I cant wait for the arrival of my brothers book and hope to fight with him soon!

Hope this was an interesting read :P

Some kinda dialogue between characters?

PS: I linked my Images to my flickr account since anonymous object mentioned that they dont show up on google reader.I hope this fixes the problem.

Small Smaller Lightnovel?

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A few days ago a few items Ive ordered from Amazon arrived at my doorstep and I was quite suprised by the size of two of the three.A rant about the German Manga Publishers,A blast to the past and the truth about Yoda await right after the Jump!

You guys (and girls) know me probably as the connoisseur of Ecchi/Comedy/Action Manga and Anime but I like to read/watch some serious thought provoking stuff aswell.A series I totally adore is the Kino no Tabi Light Novel series that has been made into an Anime aswell.Its about the traveller Kino that only stays for 3 days and 2 nights in a country.The series basically revolves around the saying “The world isnt beautiful,therefore it is” and revolves around Kinos experiences while travelling those countries.Every Episode gives another view on life,ideology or simply the perception of yourself.Its highly recommended by me!

I always wanted to pick up the Light Novels of Kino no Tabi but only realized a few weeks ago that they were actually published by TokyoPop in Germany.I placed my order with Amazon a few days ago and was quite suprised by the Size of the Light Novels that are even smaller than my smallest Tanko-bon.German manga shelfs look horrible due to the fact that the German publishers have different opinions about the optimal size of a tanko-bon.I took a picture with a VIZ Manga(Claymore) and a Dengeki manga zasshi for comparison

German Tokyopop (To Love Ru) manages to keep the same size as the US Counterparts and this applies to all TP tanke-bons.EMA (GTO and Rose Hip Rose Zero) manages to make a total mess out of your shelf by using different sizes for all their releases.Just take a look at those two manga and youll know what I mean.Most other Publishers follow the size of the GTO issues for the tanke-bons.This results in a totally random looking Shelf and i couldnt manage to make it look good so far.You probably spotted another Manga called Kirara in the picture aswell.Its my first ever purchased Manga series I bought in 2001 and once again the size of the tanke.bon varies.Its the smallest out of the whole bunch but also the widest. Schizophrenic? Yes!

I always thought that Light Novels are the size of a usual Paperback and was quite pissed when I saw that they are now the smallest books in my possesion.I cant tell if this is a Germany specific size change or if all LN are this size.To all of you that own LightNovels: Are they the same size or bigger?

The saddest part about this is that they cost more than a regular Manga even though they are smaller!

The story itself is excellent but I think that its wasted potential to keep the LN this small.Makes it harder to read and you cant really appreciate the pictures.

From small Light Novels back to the past!

The Kirara Manga I purchased back in 2001 is kinda special in my collection since they are quite a novelty for a Manga nowadays: They have Dust Covers!

The interesting thing is that the 6 Volume Series keeps the dust jackets up to Volume 5 and then disappeared.Its quite a shame since i really liked those.I wonder why they got rid of them in the first place.I cant imagine them to be that expensive.I bet you wonder what kinda Manga the back in `01 still young fella called Blowfish bought.Its a Harem/Ecchi( Suprise,Suprise XD ) Mangas series from 1992 by an author called Toshiki Yui.It seems that he was one of the first Mangaka to use computers for Manga back in the 90s.Its actually quite nostalgic to read this Manga since it has such a different style from todays Moe/Ecchi Mangas/Anime.Its a shame that youngsters nowadays won t even look with their butts at the oldschool stuff because its “ugly”. Come on! Get a grip!

ATTENTION! BOOBIES AHEAD!

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This is actually the Adult Version of the Guys Love Interest that died in the Future and returned to the past as some kinda ghost and wants to do all kinda naughty stuff with him.This results in alot “Ecchi no Baka” and red cheeks for the lead because the real girl tends to run into him when hes getting raped touched by her future self.

The only quality of Harem Leads seems to be to attract cute girls and trouble.This didnt change since 1992 ^_^

I ordered another book withe the Kino no Tabi Novels called Das große Anime Lösungsbuch (The big Anime Answer Book) and its a quite good book despite its horrible cover.Its a book that tries to teach you a passive understanding of japanese specifically designed around Anime in mind.It isnt featuring Kanji,Hiranga or Katakana and therefore only useful for understanding spoken japanese.It does feature vocabulary in romanji and grammar in a hilariously writing style though.

The great thing about this book is that it features the vocabulary thats relevant to an Anime/Manga fan and isnt the usual tourist/business japanese that wont bring you too far.It isnt an alternative to visiting a japanese course (wich i plan to visit later this year) but a good start to get a basic grip on the vocabulary and grammar.

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The book explains everything detailed enough to get a basic grasp of the grammar and vocabulary and recommends to watch some Anime after every chapter to deepen the learned vocabulary.The funny thing is that this worked exceptionally well so far for me.You actually wonder why you didnt understand this before ^^

Ive got a new insight into the japanese society through the book aswell.All those nuances of politeness (or rudeness ^^) that are offered through the language is amazing!I was amazed at the different ways to say “I” in japanese and what that reveals about the person reffering to himself/herself. A bad ass deliquent reffering to himself with Boku would be quite hilarious ^.^

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The author has some interesting stories to tell along the way aswell.In this chapter that deals with with word yo-da what equals something like might, he reveals that George Lucas is a big fan of everything japanese and that he created Yoda as a tribute to it.Ever wondered why Yoda talks this weird? He tried to impersonate the weird intonation that japanese has to the ears of us westeners in Yodas speech pattern.I guess this makes Yoda an Ero-jiji?Okay maybe not ero but definately jiji

Ill try to take some pictures of my Reina figure tommorw!

Ill finish this post with a quote:

“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’”

— Jedi Master Yoda

Dengeki G`s Festival Deluxe Vol. 13

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Ive mentioned the high prices of the Dengeki Festival issues over here a few times before and when I saw this issue open for preorder a few months ago I simply had to order it.I must admit that i didnt know wich series this issue was going to feature nor the extras thatll come with it.I really hoped for an oppai mousepad but i was “unlucky” and just got a dakimakura ^___^

When it became clear that its going to be a KoiHime Musou issue i started to watch the series and well yeah…not my cup of tea.The Character Design is horrible in my eyes and this has to be the most loliriffic series ive seen!Warriors of the male gender seem to be reduced to bandits beeing pwned by the females or old jeezers in councils.The humour of the series wasnt my type either.If i had to pick a favorite character it would have been Choun Shiryu.The game may be a whole different thing since the anime was only loosley based on the game.

This isnt going to be a rant about KoiHime Musou tough but a post about the Dengeki G! Lets get going

The Magazine itself seems to feature profiles of the mainprotagonists,cheesecakeshots,interviews and the like.Ive taken some pictures below.

Seems like Ryuubi Gentoko is a female in the game in contrast to the anime?Would make sense!

If i remember correctly all 3 vowed Sisterhood in the peachgarden

Theres a catcosplay tribe?

Looks like theres an OVA on the way!

Oooookay…o.0

Now lets get to the interesting stuff.Nobody buys the Dengeki Festival Editions because of the nice articles but the cool freebies that come with it.This Issue features a 155 x 50 cm Dakimakura,a mousepad and a set of playingcards depicting the characters.

Everythings neatly tucked in an extra box

Its your average everyday mousepad.

The set of playcards

I didnt expect them to have enough characters to fill all cards

And now to the major freebie of this issue: the Dakimakura

This is my very first Dakimakura and i must say that the quality is actually pretty nice.I compared it to my brothers Cospa Dakimakura and it feels a little bit rougher than the material Cospa uses.I thought that skincontact might feel bad due to its roughness but it proved to be false.I expected worser quality for a magazine freebie especially when you consider the price difference.I would have prefered a slightly less ecchi image but its still tolerable for my taste.If you wonder how big it is heres a comparison image with me (177cm) Ive taken as refernce

Dengeki Festival Editions are a pretty good deal if you manage to grab an issue for import (19€) and you dont have to rely on local retailers (60€).I hope that an issue with oppaimousepad pops up real soon :D

Ive recieved 2 more girls in the meantime but my Rei and Asuka Gathering figures are still somewhere over the rainbow.Im able to track them and they were supposedly delievered to a Mr.Schneider in Düsseldorf…Ive called DHL immediatley and they told me that this guy is from customs and that ill recieve mail from them soon.That was last wednesday and I still havent heard from them.They were already withheld 3 days at customs in Frankfurt and now again in Düsseldorf…I wonder why?Did anybody else experience problems like this with his Gathering figures?

The scourge of Manga collectors: Double Volumes

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I was able to avoid a problem that most manga collectors experience sooner or later: buying a volume double.This weekend I became one of those poor souls aswell…While I was around town, I came across a bookstore and took a casual look at the manga section.I spotted there a supposedley new volume of one of the mangas Im collecting.I picked it up without further thought and went to the counter to buy it.Back home it struck me when I took a closer look at it and realized that its already a volume I own.That shop usually puts a receipt in the plastic bag together with the books you purchase but of course the girl behind the counter didnt.No chance to turn the manga in  YAY!

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The Dengeki Daioh Trip!

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The last time i visited  my favorite bookstore they had the September 08 Issue of the Dengeki Daioh Magazine on Sale and i was tempted to get it.I usually wouldnt pick up something like this tough since i cant understand a word and can only guess whats going on.I found out a short time later that the Dengeki Daioh serializes alot of Series that im watching right now/Im reading translated and i decided to pick up one issue for fun.Hey after all there are still the extras i can have fun with if it turns out to be boring!

I had to take the Train to Düsseldorf to pick one up and thought why shouldnt i take some pics along the way to show a bit about the Japanese parts of Düsseldorf.

Check out the pictures and some infos after the Jump!

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Happy Soda Doujin Vol.1

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There are many talented figure photographers out there but when someone asks me wich of the countless ones is my absolute favorite theres only one answer: superrats.He has the talent to take a figure and arrange it in a way that you simply cant resist buying the figure.I dont know where hes pulling his ideas from but they always underline the figures beauty resulting in gorgeous aesthetic pictures.I am a person that prefers to hold things in his hand instead of looking at the digital counterpart and i was really pleased to hear that superrats planned to make a Doujin of some of his favorite shots.He completed his Doujin last month and offered it for a limited time,with the doujin spirit in mind,as a softcover book via LuLu.

My Thoughts and Pictures after the Jump!

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