MILKCANANIME

For the very first time, Singapore plays host to the immensely popular anime series “One Piece Run 2016”. It was definitely an eye opener for me who does not participate in any running event. I was here at the Kallang Stadium since 6.40am to familiarise myself and cover this event. Most participants were seen wearing their official One Piece orange t-shirt. I received my goodies bag and changed my shirt to blend in with the crowd.

What's inside the goodie bag, well….excluding the medal (Photo credit: One Piece Run 2016)

The medal will be awarded to the runner who completes the 5km run.

The medal is beautiful and heavy. It is made from metal and I am sure One Piece's fans will treasure this limited edition piece.

Although the sky was still dark, most participants were here, taking photographs with the Boat and cosplayers. I took this chance to explore every white booth before it got crowded later. Besides the VIP booth, there was this Merchandise shop where fans could get their beloved character t-shirt, towel, and hats. Luffy's straw hat was the most popular item among all. According to the shop owner, the straw hats often get sold out in less than 1 hour.I like the keychain and chopper's hat the most. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of those merchandises before it became a battle ground.

The price range from $5 to $35 per piece.

An announcement was made and the participants with bib number were ushered to the Track & Field. There were about 10 batches for the runners at the starting point. The energy levels were high. The first batch comprised of competitive runners. The front line dashed out when a signal was given by the emcee.

Very eager to start! It was hard to get into this position to capture this. Is was a battle between DSLR cameras and iPhone.

Two official photos from the One Piece Run 2016:

First batch of runners

Many Luffy were spotted during the run.

I had decided to join in the run and win the medal! *Walk as usual* Here are some images that I captured along my run.

There were 3 zones along the track. Fish Man Island, Dress Rosa and Punk Hazard.

Info Signage such as this was displayed at the field.

2 zones were setup. Runners had to join the queue if they wanted to take a photograph with the backdrop.

Syrena (left) is the first mermaid in Singapore.

The staff did not let me go near this area without a proper bib number.

And.. toward the FINISHING LINE......

I stand here and watched the first few participants arrive. This hot lady can run really fast!

After the run, we were treated to a stage perfomance by USAGI. You may refer to her profile here.

Please enjoy some of the images which I took during the event. This is my first official event as a media personnel. I have so many things to learn especially in photo takings! I ended up with more than 200 images in my phone storage and I have to filter the good one out.

Too MANY people were lining up for the tattoo and photo booth services.

USAGI on stage.

So many oranges.

I love this photo a lot.

Some of the activities in the event:

I tried this but it barely reached number 2

Professional tattoo service. It was so much better than the one at Blizzard Game Booth from last few months.

End result.

Lastly the cosplayers! There were few more but the weather was so hot and I was sweating profusely under the sun.

Can you recognise what character was she posing as?

Beared Luffy

I was amazed by these enthusiastic cosplayers.

Family photo.

Caught up with these cosplayers during my run.

I will be uploading some event videos soon. Watch this page for the links.

Were you in the One Piece Run 2016? If you have any interesting story to share with me, please leave it at the comment below.

On a sidetrack, there was this guy proposing to his girlfriend on that day itself on stage. I managed to capture some photos and videos. If you are interested to know the story, I am willing to share them with you.

*Swimming back to the ocean*

Written by SnoringSeal

Hello readers, how was everybody's first week of March? Some of you would have gone for the 2016 One Piece Run Singapore on Sunday. A classmate of mine ran the course with her friend, and they had managed to snap some photographs before and after the event. Unless Singapore starts to snow for real someday, the idea of running a marathon is pretty much like dust under the rug. Congratulations to those who made it one way or another. I believe that one of my fellow writers was the media representative. Do take a look at the write-up if you haven't done so already. In my mind, One Piece will always be Luffy, Luffy and Luffy. Don't pelt me with eggs please.

Of late, I sampled a couple of scanlated titles just to pass some time in-between stuff. One of which was a rather intriguing though probably not the most original concept of switching bodies. Nonetheless, I had enjoyed reading through many chapters, and I would most likely continue with the rest of the series. From manga artist Masayoshi comes Shishunki Bitter Change, a profound story of adolescence incorporated with the two protagonists switching bodies with each other early on, and how that switch continues to affect them through high school. There is quite a well-balanced offering of comedy and drama, as both characters constantly struggle with the biological, psychological and emotional differences through another person's body.

If I had switched bodies with somebody else, and for some unknown reason I couldn't return to what had been originally mine for many years and beyond, I would feel severely trapped and nothing could possibly steer those sore feelings away. Living as somebody else, no matter what the relationship with him or her is, would be such a glaring repulse both inside and outside. Even though over time the people who are implicated might shift their perspectives, one might also wonder if those thoughts and feelings were indeed out of their own accord. With adolescence being a rather sensitive portrait of an individual's life on the line, both characters attempt as much as possible to live out what each other had missed out from their original selves tactfully.

Last Thursday, a friend surprised me with a free copy of Detective Conan, which is the English translated version from Shogakukan Asia. Even though I'm not a fan of the series, my friend had insisted that I accepted it as the book was supposedly a gift for some event which never materialised. He told me that it had been taking up extra space for a pretty long time. Well, I was still grateful nonetheless. I'm not totally unfamiliar with Detective Conan, as an acquaintance had once asked me to watch two of its anime movies on the big screen. I even received some cool freebies along with the tickets. The longevity of Detective Conan is simply beyond words. Anyway, the tankoubon is like the second volume or something. Nope, I have never read the manga. But hopefully, I would be able to catch some things.

I just realised that the anime adaptation has hit over 800 episodes. I can never fully appreciate anime or manga that stretches on until you could no longer see the neck anywhere. While I understand that there is a cult following for much stuff out there, sometimes the cauldron has long lost its fire. I don't know how my acquaintance does it, but I reckon that she is still having lots of fun with the series. I mean, she has the entire collection of the manga backed up somewhere! The last time she told me, she was at Volume 79. If I recall correctly, the longest manga series that I have ended at 14 volumes. Well, that record is all set to be broken anytime soon. Nope, I'm not chasing after Detective Conan.

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪

http://www.milkcananime.com/p/blog-page.html

To All,

I got this figure secondhand from a kind seller on Carousell quite some time after her release. It was really a snatch to be able to get her at SGD$120 when her original price with EMS went up to SGD$170 (she was around 10,000yen initially then she went up to over 14,000yen after release)!

I was quite worried that she might be laden with defects, hence the price, but she came in perfectly mint condition! It was so good that I wouldn't have even guessed that she had been displayed before!

Box and Packaging 9/10

Her box is really simple yet pretty. The clear window displays Kotori in all her glamorous beauty before you actually remove her from her box. The mint green color gives her figure a refreshing feel that is neither overwhelming or underwhelming the white.

The other sides of the box doesn't show her in more views, which is a minus point. However, it does make me want to open and display her even more! Moreover, taking her out of her box also doesn't reduce her beauty!

She is securely encased in her blister, and Alter as well the seller also took the time and effort to tape up the sides of the blister to hold her in place better. Also, there is absolutely no paint transfer on the figure at all!

It's so amazing to get one in such a pristine condition after those endless months of getting figures with scuffed up painting!

Base 7/10

I won't deny that her base could have been more elaborate, and should have been better with that price. However, it does its job well enough and as far as simple white circle bases go, I think Alter has done enough for it.

Posing and Assembly 8/10

Assembly is as simple as placing her onto the base, nothing too elaborate there. However, when it comes to the pose, there's room for more discussion.

Her pose is based on an Ultra Rare card, which Alter has tried to adapt faithfully from a 2D universe to a 3D one. I wouldn't call it a 100% success as much of the glee and cuteness the card had was not transferred over to the figure itself. But really, both have their own strengths and shortcomings so it's difficult to say which one I prefer over the other!

Sculpting and Painting 9/10

Her hair sculpt was the very first thing that drew me in. Each strand is sculpted individually and have a sense of movement to it. There is no part of her hair that comes across to me as flat, be it the sculpt or the shading. Her hair also makes the figure look very glamorous to view from the back!

Her bloomers have been the center of post and rage-spamming on myfigurecollection quite some time back. Users were arguing if the bloomers needed to be there because it didn't look good and they didn't felt like it complemented the figure. Another group of users insisted that it was there to prevent panty-flashing as Kotori is not that kind of girl. A user even went on to say that Kotori should have shimapan (striped panties) instead of the bloomers, to which another user than told him that he should buy figures with longer skirts if he intended to upskirt them that way.

My take to that would be that I do like the addition of the bloomers. It was even in the official card so not adding it in would just mean Alter was not faithful to the illustration. As for the up-skirting, I would think that Kotori isn't one who would flash on purpose, so I guess the bloomers make up for the shorter skirt she has on.

And before you ask, yeah, I do think that figure companies wouldn't make such outright lewd figures for Love Live! especially on one with such a short skirt, so yes, if you'll like to see underwear on figures, you'll have to get one with a longer skirt so figure companies would be more inclined to stick to the norms and not include safety shorts, or in this case, bloomers.

I find myself liking her mismatched stockings more than expected as they give her more variation. However, they are plenty of people who like the idea, as well as dislike it. If I had to nitpick, I'll do it based on the angle of her legs which make it seem like she's going to fall.

And then I'll save the day by mentioning the beautiful sculpt of her tummy and the bellybutton, and I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Her staff, or wand, is really cute and easy to put in place. The blue gold-trimmed ribbons are flexible and should withstand damage. You'll need to move them around to get her to hold the staff. Be careful that you don't break anything then, though it should be fine! Also, the staff comes with actual glitter so take precaution against getting it into your eyes!

The bird itself is very cute too, with a matching crown that adds on even more to her cuteness factor!

Enjoyment 9/10

I do enjoy the look of this more than that of the Birthday Project so I got this one instead. There might be a day when I get the Birthday Project Kotori figure too, but that day would probably not come soon.

Standing proud and tall at 1/7 scale, my Waifu is now also part of my physical 3D laifu and I'm glad to have her by my side. So, if you're a Kotori fan and want a physical representation of your love for her or for the series, I do highly recommend getting her now before she rises in price any further.

Besides, how can you say no to the best figure out in the Love Live Alter line so far?

Buy it!

From Your Fellow Figure Collector,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

Humans just love to build things no? The popularity of your humble Lego blocks all around the world, to building block games such as the Sims, building things seem to cut across all races, age groups, gender and culture.

This Mount Rushmore in Minecraft is one of the more well known monuments players have built. Certainly no easy feat. Minecraft is perhaps the most popular building game to date. Now there is a Top 10 Minecraft monument list, but this article isn't really about that. You can google the images if you are interested.

In steps Dragonquest Builders. The Dragonquest franchise spans decades. It is older than even the Final Fantasy Series, and while it is not so big in the west, it is THE rpg in Japan. Three generations in the same family could be fans.

Already people are starting to build fantastic structures in game, even though the game was just released recently. Some of them are imitations of actual real life stuff. Others are game and anime characters.

Now as it is early days, there isn't much impressive stuff yet . It is all quite crude and rudimentary at this point as players experiment and improve. But I do hope grab some really good stuff months later and do a part two. Watch this space people.

To All,

I have been meaning to make a review for Aqua Ritmo events, but somehow it always reaches the end of the event before I find time to type up some substantial amount of information for it. For starters, to those who came across this article and would like more information about it, I wrote an article about this game previously and you can read it here. I also chanced upon a Facebook group for it!

This event is a token event where you gather tokens (Sakura petals) from playing songs and use them to play an event song later on. The number of tokens you get is based on the stamina required for the song you played. For instance, I was spamming a 30lp expert song for the entire event and that gave me 93 tokens each play.

During the event itself, there would be a 2x play for both the normal songs (which give tokens) and the event song itself. With the 2x play, you can collect twice the reward and exp for each play, but note that the number of plays for the song would only be counted as 1.

There are event Rare, Super Rare and Ultra Rare cards which would boost the amount of event points you gain from each play of the event song. The number of points you would get per Expert event song without any of those yukata event cards is 183 points if your score hits S.

The amount of points you need to get an SR from this event is 18000 points, which is 99 plays of the Expert event song. Each play requires 200 petals, so you will need 213 plays of the 30 stamina Expert normal song at least.

So yes. this was an extremely time consuming and tiring event to play.

Not to mention that the Aika SR given wasn't all that strong anyway...

At 20000 points, you would get a scouting ticket only for the Event gacha. It works like a scouting ticket in Love Live where you could get a Rare, Super Rare or Event Rare card from it. The dumb thing about this ticket is that it can also give you Normal Rares instead of only Event Rares (Normal Rares do not raise the number of Event points gained from event song).

Regarding the rankings and rewards for the event, there are 3 kinds:

Firstly, high score.

For the top three high-scorers of the event, they would each receive a separate costume for the mascot of the series in gold, silver and bronze. Or at least that's what I believe since I haven't actually seen pictures of that yet.

These were the top three scorers for the high score component. I don't even want to imagine how many URs they could possibly have because I was nowhere near that score... at all. I was just... lingering about the 300s...

There was also a daily ranking for all days of the event. These are the possible rewards if you got into the ranking.

And before you think that it's an easy feat getting ranked, let me show you the results:

These are the points gained in a single day of the event, meaning that the top 5 for the event got 557908 points and above in a day to get an SR, and 46344 points at least to get at least a scouting ticket.

And if you think that getting into top 100 rank for a specific SR is an easy task, dream on. There is a reason why they chose the more popular characters for that.

And lastly the third kind of ranking is the total score ranking. This must be the most familiar kind for all the rhythm gamers out there!

The top 10 gets a weaker event UR card, a UR card and 3 UR scouting ticket pieces (you need 5 of these to form 1 UR scouting ticket)

The 11th to 100th position gets a weaker event SR ticket, a SR scouting ticket and 2 UR scouting ticket pieces.

The 101th to 500th position gets a weaker event SR ticket and 1 UR scouting ticket piece. Whereas the last tier, 501th to 1000th gets the same reward too, but a SR of a different person.

As for the results of the rankings themselves:

It is impossible to get into the first tier if you don't invest a lot of time and money. At least, that's what I believe.

The cut off for the next tier with the SR scouting ticket is at 58323 points. This is slightly higher than expected also. I believe that much gems and time was invested here to. Kudos to everyone who got into Tier 2!

The cut-off for the third tier is at 18497-ish. Personally, I prefer Alice to the other SR they gave so I ranked in Tier 3. It was quite a struggle to get up here and I ended up around the 260+ region for this ranking.

As you can see, users who ranked here barely got the Aika SR at 18000 points. They really need to drop the bar for the next event. Seriously.

Oh and as for the weaker Alice SR card, I only realized it was so much weaker after boosting it to full level. Here is the card if anyone is interested!

The skill of the card is: For every 20 seconds, there is a 40% chance to increase the player's score by 10% for a short period of time. (20 seconds is really long when each song is around 2 minutes long only...). And the leader skill (if you use this card as your center) is to increase stamina of your team by 20% during songs.

Thank god Aria allows you to equip each girl with up to 5 cards so you have a total of 15 cards in your team, since I would love to use this card as one of them but definitely not as the main!

This is the cut-off for the last tier with rewards.

Overall, this event felt much more tedious than the previous one, which I ranked in the top 500 for as well. The rewards were way less and I felt that Aria was becoming more money-orientated and coming up with new ideas to get people to spend on getting more gems.

However, Aria is indeed one of my top few anime and I would like to give the next few events a chance as this is a fairly new game with only 3 events so far so I believe that they still need to test grounds before deciding on which is the best for both parties.

But don't get me wrong, I am indeed extremely pleased with the ranking I got!

From Your Fellow Gamer,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

"Boy's Love Reads" is a series of bite-sized yaoi and shounen ai manga reviews. This is its second instalment, and you can check out the first one here.

Ani No Chuukoku (兄の忠告) by Asada Nemui

Synopsis

Sharp-tongued and brash, Tsuzuki is your classic rough-around-the-edges young lad who also happens to dabble in call girl *cough* scam *cough* operations. With his brawn and street smarts, he feels like he can take on anything and challenge anyone – and win. That is, until his older brother, who deserted him and his mom years ago, suddenly reappears in his life with the intention to support and take care of him. But Tsuzuki is more perplexed than happy about the reunion.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

I absolutely adore the way Asada Nemui draws dudes. They’re really masculine yet elegant, rugged but still sophisticated. I could cry legit tears because her art makes me that happy. The dialogue in the story is awesome as well; tons of bickering and subtly flirtatious bantering. Like, manly bantering. You know how conversations between yaoi characters can sometimes feel like o(*>ω<*)o? This one is just plain ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Plus, did I mention their age gap is twelve years? Goodbye ovaries.

Close Your Eyes (目を閉じて) by Hidaka Shoko

Synopsis

Two childhood friends grew distant when they entered high school. Why did one suddenly decide to push away the other when they were so close before?

Rating: 3 / 5

Extremely open-ended ending which is frustrating when the plot is as angsty and good as this. It has so much potential to be made into a successful continuing series, and it almost felt like the author took the easy way out by ending it so… Openly. If it has been developed more, it would definitely warrant a higher rating. Overall, I liked the way the controversial situation was portrayed and how their attraction to each other was conveyed as vexing and complicated.

Smells Like Green Spirit (スメルズライクグリーンスピリット) by Nagai Saburou

Synopsis

With his long silky hair, slender figure and pretty face, Mishima is constantly bullied for his feminine features. He likes boys and secretly cross-dresses. As the days pass, he becomes more aware of one of his bullies – a popular, good-looking guy who gazes at him with the same deadpan expression.

Rating: 4 / 5

I thought it was going to be some generic tale, but the author dropped this huge plot twist I was not expecting. Combine that with weird facial expressions and eccentric characters, and you get this oddball of a manga. The story is nothing heavy; it’s very comedy-oriented but… weird. Good weird.

Ninii no Mori (兄の忠告) by Shoowa

Synopsis

A series of oneshots based on the lives of animal-human hybrids and curious creatures dwelling in a quaint forest called Ninii, where eating red meat is forbidden and all species live in harmony. In the first story, the fisherman’s frog boy brother meets a mysterious, soft-spoken rabbit boy who carries a pig everywhere and gazes at the sky from the treetops. The second tale is about a cat boy with star-shaped marks and his adoptive parent, a wolf-turned-human. The third is about beetles and a hopeful promise between lovers.

Rating: 2 / 5 | 4 / 5 | 4 / 5 (rating for each individual story)

Another lovely, and very different, work by the talented Shoowa. I usually don’t like this style of fantasy premise, but the mangaka makes it authentic and sweet. Due to the whimsical drawings and graceful prose, the chapters have a charming bedtime storybook atmosphere. Personally, I found the first story flat, messy and borderline boring, but the second, beautifully heart-wrenching and the third, very unconventional in its narrative and topic, while being thoroughly enjoyable and memorable.

Nobody Knows (无人明了的爱) by Shoowa

*Note: This is a collection of stories. Review is only for the first story, which then continues in the last two chapters of her other book, ‘Non Tea Room’.

Synopsis

A top secret factory, where workers operate under aliases, produces surreally beautiful artificial intelligence doll robots that are purchased for private companionship as well as prostitution businesses. Modoru takes up a job there and and is assigned to work with Susumu in the same room. Modoru finds himself slowly falling in love with his mysterious colleague who, despite his emotionless disposition, handles the dolls with remarkable gentleness and affection…

Rating: 3 / 5

That’s right, it’s a double appearance by Shoowa on this month’s list! I have to say, she really does have a knack for experimenting with plots and this story is no exception. And I’m about to drop a “major spoiler” so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Susumu is basically a robot too. And yes, that’s him in the picture. Do you need any other reason to pick this up? But in all seriousness, I think that the whole concept of whether love is possible between a machine and a human is very fascinating, and it’s kind of a bummer Shoowa didn’t delve into the philosophical aspect of it and make it as complex and dark as it could be. Still, it was interesting with a fluffy feel-good ending so even though it didn’t appeal to me that much, it’s nevertheless an above average read.

Fukouchuu no Shiawase(不幸中のしあわせ) by Enzou

Synopsis

Yaotomi is an unnaturally lucky man. Everything goes smoothly for him, all situations turn round to work in his favour and he basically wins at life. One day, his blissful world is turned upside down by a series of unfortunate mishaps and his colleague suggests trying exorcism as it might be the work of an evil spirit. After praying to a random jizo statue, Yaotomi returns home to find a stranger in his house who claims to be the God of Calamity whose purpose is to restore the balance of luck.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

On the surface, it’s a plot that seems to have lost its ingenuity through various rehashings using the gag approach. But what saved this story from being underwhelming was its good balance of humour and substance: the god has an ironic love for humans, which comes from witnessing people’s strength and ability to overcome adversities in the face of misfortune. Even though he naturally brings disaster and pain to those he possesses, he finds joy in seeing them happy instead. Which, as you can guess, causes a lot of problems and the story escalates into something more complicated and interesting.

Written by Faelan

To All,

I have been receiving questions about how I download my Japanese games, which are mostly region-locked to Japan only, or how am I easily able to update my applications when they themselves are unable to locate the download links for the apk. This is especially so for more obscure games.

For this, I make use of this application.

Good for all of you who recognized this application instantly based on the logo alone!

Now, back to the application.

As mentioned in the title, you can easily bypass your country limits to download Japan-based games on your Android phone through the use of an application called "QooApp" which provides you with apks of the games you wish to look for. There is no need for any VPNs or changes to locale!

Not only is it more convenient than hunting down the links to apk on the website, like I used to do, it also helps you to keep track of the popularity of the different games as well as what new games are out in the market so you can easily be one of the first few players of the new game!

QooApp is very much modeled after Google Play Store so it should not be a huge hindrance when attempting to maneuver through the application.

Now to demonstrate how to use this application to download a game, I chose Fate/Grand Order. This is a very popular game that I have been dying to try out but I didn't have the time to yet. Hopefully by installing it into my phone now would give me more motivation to start it.

(Stay tuned for a possible future review of Fate/Grand Order!)

Similar to on Google Play Store, you will just need to hit the download button and wait for the apk to finish downloading. Meanwhile you can read through the description and scroll through the pictures to determine if you like what you see. After all, it would be the new game you will get addicted to. Better to choose one that looks visually appealing!

Now that the download for Fate/Grand Order is completed, remember to open it for installation. I tend to just skip past the whole list of device access when it comes to download Japanese games. This just goes to show how much trust I have in them.

Not really, they just tend to give me the same controls every time I bother reading them.

Somehow, Fate/Grand Order took quite some time to install onto my device. Perhaps my device is getting a little too clad with games and it is hinting to me that adding one more is not really a good idea...?

In any case, I had a mini-study session while waiting for this installation process. I was a little too engrossed and did not realize it finished installing until quite some time later. After which I am so excited to just open the game and start on my Fate/Grand Order adventure!

This is the game I was dying to play since weeks ago!

Downloading in-game took quite some time too, but since this is typical for all games, I'll let it slide. At least I have the cute animal moving at the bottom right of the screen to entertain me this time round!

After which, I am finally greeted with this beautiful screen. It's so amazing in so many ways I can;t describe. The font, the colors, the art... I... I will be off to a Fate/Grand Order adventure tonight.

Hope this helped anyone who has been hesitating to use QooApp; or anyone else who might have troubles sourcing download links!

From Your Fellow Gamer,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

Hello readers, we are nearly midway through the month (okay, I assume that I'm the only person tracking the days here) and the little wild safari must be running high on sugar. Yeah, the one-week school vacation which doesn't really do much since many students are still required to report back for various things. I had my fair share of supplementary classes, co-curricular activities, boring excursions, blah blah blah during that painfully brief week. Honestly, I would rather not do anything and simply sleep in until the call of nature. An ex-classmate used to tell the story of how he slept throughout most of the time and would only wake up for certain biological needs. Actually, I had tried my best to sleep in a few times but the light sleeper in my blood refused to cooperate. Oh well, I could only find something else to occupy my time.

If only I were a Japanese student, life in general would definitely be a lot more bearable and sane. I attribute those sentiments to the depths of reality that are frequently evident in anime and manga. Quite unfortunately, as much as I would love to immerse myself one way or another in a Japanese school, the biological clock is no longer at its golden age of youth. In my imagination however, I have often pretended that I'm sharing classes with some of my favourite anime and manga characters. Readers who have been following my writing here should be long familiar with my unwavering appreciation for the typical Japanese student's life, even though a lot of stuff in anime and manga can be exaggerated.

I have always been rather curious about the Cooking Club in most schools. The students who are involved seem to be having lots of fun and pleasure whipping up recipes to share among friends and classmates. I would love to chop daikon like a lunatic on the loose and flood the entire Home Economics room with vegetables that are enough to feed an entire zoo. Okay, this is no longer about cooking I think. The ultimate satisfaction which comes from accomplishing the task of completing a full course is unlike any other activity. Cooking soup isn't simple at all, considering how elaborate the entire process can be. I prefer to cook rice. Fluffy white rice is a little specialty which I'm rather good at.

Speaking of rice, there is a particular way of eating it that I'm hoping to try someday. Anybody here loves having a raw egg on top of their rice? Until recently, I didn't realise that Egg Rice or Tamago Gohan is one of the popular rice dishes for breakfast. Basically, the concept is similar to that of natto with rice. Crack a raw egg over a bowl of steaming hot rice, drizzle some soy sauce and start mixing! Honestly, I wouldn't mind having Tamago Gohan every day. It looks really delicious, and makes a filling meal on its own. Hmm. Gosh, I think that I'm feeling a little hungry now. There are only biscuits and peanuts in the house.

My most favourite way of eating rice is still to toss it in a wok with mouth-watering selections of eggs, anchovies, cocktail sausages, prawns, peas, blah blah blah. Fried rice is more than just a filling meal. It is downright happiness till the very last spoonful into the mouth. Quite unfortunately, food porn in reality still pales in comparison to what we see in anime and manga. Nope, nudity is strictly prohibited in public even though that is really not the point here. No matter how delicious something is, the eating process remains largely calm and such. I mean, I would be concerned if somebody were to all of a sudden strip bare over a plate of fried rice or something.

I have been trying to catch up on what I have missed recently. Clearing backlogs can be really intimidating because there are just too many lying around. I need to clear up some space for newer titles to invade my field of vision. Meanwhile, there goes another episode of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu. I'm still thinking if I should invest in the manga. According to Wikipedia, the anime adaptation is 13 episodes long. Unless there is a second season or something, I don't think that the Yotarou arc will resume. Right now, we are still looking at Kikuhiko and Shin-san. Hmm.

Have a great week ahead, everyone!

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪

The criticism of the anime industry continues this month, with Japan considering making visas easier for foreigners who want to work as animators in Japan, since the working conditions are so bad fresh blood is not showing up. Otakus are also bemoaning the death of creativity, with so many come and go adaptations of light novels every season that no one seems to be able to come up with an original story anymore. But Gate, already into season two, is not one of them.

Gate is one of the biggest anime right now. Gate is essentially about a portal linking to the world of fantasy. Think Tolkien meets modern day and you will get the story immediately. Controversial too. Already Korea, as with all affairs concerning the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, are saying this is glorifying the troops of Japan, which is somewhat justified, but then what is even more preposterous are the other interdimensional titles where we are supposed to believe untrained civilians can fight monsters all on their own. Compared to those, Gate's story is far more believable. The army is sent to explore dangerous unknown territory, and an odd party forms to travel this new land.

One of the most popular characters is Rory Mercury. Sexy and murderous, she is an immortal (961 years old!) apostle of a god of war, and already, the online community is already doing tons of fanart and cosplay.

Several cosplayers have tried to portray her. But this chinese cosplayer Maki is the best. Her album is free to view, so I have attached the whole set! Enjoy!

As any otaku knows, selling an anime alone will not rake in the dough. The really successful franchises made it from merchandising. From drama cds to posters, figurines, and shirts, the colourful world of anime goods has it all. Or so I thought.

I REALLY did a double take when I saw the picture above. I had to do a prank check to make sure it was not a hoax, or some photoshop fake. Apparently some tombstone maker has decided that it was a good idea to carve out a Love Live tombstone! And a REALLY good one too!

His skills are not in doubt. Look at this beautiful bottle of his. And its not alone.

This guy made an entire set! I'm not a fan and even I could see how this will easily catch on. One wonders how many of the hardcore guys will really order that tombstone, no matter how morbid.

Unless you are a complete nerd, school is BORING. And you probably look like this most of the time. So trust the otaku to make it interesting.

I will start with non-anime stuff first. These guys are good.

And you thought gun culture was violent enough already.

Iron men to the rescue!

Even Optimus Prime has to wait in line for the train to pass

Feel the power of the dark side! And that ends part one. There are too many to cover in one take. Watch this space for lots more

To All,

I'm back with another update for Aria ~ Aqua Ritmo. Somehow, I'm still very engrossed in this game, and succeeded in tiering within the top 500 for the previous event and this one. I would have loved to tier in the very first event as well, but unfortunately, I haven't received notice about the game at that time yet.

Aria ~ Aqua Ritmo is one of the rhythm games that still remains rather generous to their players, though it does certainly feel like they are getting out of that stage of "attracting players" already and moving on to the next stage of providing a better interface for players to enjoy themselves in.

After the end of the event (with the event notice being the bottom right panel), there were several more mini-events that were announced. Firstly, let's start with the scouts.

In Aria, there are nine girls of which each of them has a gacha entitled specifically to them on their birthdays (top left panel) -- a feature Love Live! desperately needs. In that gacha, all the SR and UR would be solely of that girl alone. Unfortunately, you would be able to get Rs of the other 8 girls as well ;A; But in any case, don't you think that that would be such an amazing idea since you'll be able to get at least 1 guaranteed SR of your favorite girl! In fact, I think that that would possibly be the most motivational and beneficial way to get people to spend on gems to scout since what's better bait than your waifu?!

The top right panel is also regarding scouts. However, they are the consolidation of the new cards that appeared in birthday scouts of the girls before the start of this event. From the left of the very first row, the three girls are Aika, Akari and Alice. Something about that middle-school Alice's hairstyle draws me in. Perhaps it's because she doesn't really wear her hair like that in most of the anime except when she's shown going to school?

The bottom left panel is the main point of this article! The STEP-UP CAMPAIGN!

There are three separate events occurring simultaneously for this campaign.

Firstly, there is the "Login Campaign". For the first half of it, which runs from 12th March to 14th March, Harvest (the company making this game) is giving out free SR cards for the juniors (Ai, Azusa and Anya) based on the different companies they are in. Ai-chan is in Aria company, hence you will be able to use Aria-shachou as one of her cards. Azusa, on the other hand is from Himeya, hence only Hime-shachou can be equipped as one of her five cards. Lastly, Anya, being from Orange Planet means that Maa-shachou can be used as one of her cards.

Ai-chan and Aria-shachou:

Azusa and Hime-shachou:

Anya and Maa-shachou:

For the second login campaign, all players who logged in from 15th to 17th March will receive a scouting ticket every day. This is in preparation for the next event!

In case there's anyone reading this who isn't familiar with Aqua Ritmo's events, they usually release an Event card set. Each event card added into your team would help boost the amount of event points acquired from each song, and possibly even the number of tokens you acquire! Of course, Rs would boost the least while URs would boost the most.

So... if you are interested in playing Aqua Ritmo's events like I am, perhaps it'll be wise to keep your aqua stones (gems for scouting) for the new scout before the events!

Secondly, there is also a concurrent "STEP-UP"event, where all players in the system could possibly get an Aika UR if the total number of plays for all players hit a whopping 500,000. During this campaign, the stamina required to play each song would be halved! For a better visualization of this, I have included a picture!

10,000 plays: 1000 gold (for leveling cards)

50,000 plays: 1 scouting ticket

100,000 plays: 5000 friend points (which can be used to restore stamina to play more songs or to buy costumes to dress your characters up in)

150,000 plays: 1 scouting ticket

250,000 plays: 10 Aqua stones

300,000 plays: 1 scouting ticket

400,000 plays: 20 Aqua stones

450,000 plays: 1 scouting ticket

500,000 plays: 1 Aika UR card

This screencap was taken quite some time back. The last time I checked today, there were approximately 313,000 plays. With only 2.5 more days to go to the end of this campaign, I wonder if we'll really make it in time for the Aika UR...

Lastly, we also have the "Okaeri campaign" which is roughly translated into the "welcome home campaign", which just sounds so awkwardly misplaced in English, but let's ignore that for now.

The Okaeri campaign would be giving out a free UR ticket to those who missed the free UR ticket the first time round. To be eligible for this campaign, you must satisfy two categories. Firstly, you must have logged in at least once before 9th March and secondly, have not logged in for at least 20 days in a row.

Sadly, this free UR ticket doesn't seem to be available for players who have acquired the first UR ticket from the similar event released just a little while ago. However, players who are eligible for this campaign are also eligible for the Step-Up campaign, so do feel free to play more songs!

Actually, please do! I really do want to get that Aika UR >A<!

And lastly to all those who would be getting that the free UR ticket and be scouting for possibly the first UR ever on your account, all the best and may the RNG gods smile upon you!

From Your Fellow Gamer,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

Good day readers, we have long passed the halfway checkpoint of the month. If nobody is keeping track, I'm sorry for having reminded you of that dreadful fact. Hopefully, the days have been bearable. Mine hasn't been great, but at least there is a timely backup for now. As usual, some things are a little or mostly on the slow end. The brain juices struggle much to continue the steady flow in the midst of downtime. I have been alternating between several titles with hopes of speeding up the process for each. That doesn't work all the time though, but it is a sign of catching up. I'm also looking out for newer, interesting stuff to possibly stimulate the stagnant parts of my writing. Seriously, I could accumulate all those odds and ends into a memoir of sorts.

Anybody knows of a flying witch, or used to know one at some point of their lives? Recently, I got acquainted with an apprentice witch from Yokohama named Makoto. With her black cat Chito, she travelled to Aomori as part of her training. Supposedly, Makoto will stay with her relatives until coming-of-age in terms of the training duration. In a rather tranquil town like that, Makoto's identity is surprisingly pretty much exposed since there isn't any lurking danger, though she has let in that it is to be hidden from people outside the family. Actually, I would think that Makoto's way of doing things is likely the cause of any risk of further exposure. Nonetheless, the situation has been well thus far.

While her appearance is that of an ordinary high school girl, Makoto seems to let out a certain aura which is easily noticed by Chinatsu, her younger cousin. Chito also has a peculiar presence that is unlike other cats. The other cousin Kei, who is of the same age as Makoto, has Chinatsu show Makoto around the neighbourhood. Despite the initial worries and such, Chinatsu quickly warms up to Makoto upon discovering the latter's identity. Well, I would find that riding on a broom is just as awesome. That is, if nobody crashes into a tree, building or just about anything while mid-air. Yeah, I believe that Akazukin Chacha is dangerously prone to such accidents. The only difference is that Akazukin Chacha is an apprentice magician. Pardon the slight digression.

I was pleasantly surprised to know that Flying Witch is having an anime adaptation due to premiere on the 10th of April. I realised that while I was browsing around at Books Kinokuniya. The fourth tankoubon had also made its way to the checkout after a little struggle on my side. You see, I haven't been able to effectively divide my time and attention between so many books and other stuff. Well, in the first place nothing of that sort was ever really possible. I just don't wish to regret anything. Buying the manga for safekeeping will always be a right decision. Just make sure that eventually you unwrap those books and savour appreciatively.

As of now, I'm trying my best to complete the second volume and hopefully the third, before the anime commences next month. The manga has a slice-of-life feel, even though the story is progressive. I have an instant liking to Makoto and Chito. I often wish that I had a cat for a pet, yet for some unknown reason cats don't really like me much. On the other hand, dogs give me quite a bit of attention though not necessarily positive ones. It would be rather exciting to have a cat like Chito. Then again, I don't possess magic though the idea of chanting spells while stirring the cauldron sounds wickedly cool. An apprentice wizard who is also a high school student - not a bad idea eh?

Read more manga. Watch more anime.

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪

To All,

Today I would like to introduce another game!

Perhaps you would remember this particular anime from this season, called "Nijiro Days" or "Rainbow Days" in English. Quite recently, there has been a rhythm game for this anime and it features not only the main 4 guys, but also some of the main girls in the series!

There is mention of the cards of the girls though I haven't actually seen any so far... yet. Also, with this app, you can keep up to date with all the latest Nijiiro Days news since they update all related news on this app -- such as a new manga volume release date, a new anime episode airing time and date, as well as nico nico douga live broadcast date and time, etc.

Diving into the game directly, the home page brings you to a mass of game cut-scenes arranged out as photographs. At the bottom of the home screen, there are several buttons you could click and from the left, they are: My page, Karaoke, roulette, quiz, piece, album.

I would be expanding on the different tabs later, but here is a primary outline first!

My page is where you can view your player information and edit or update them.
Karaoke would give you the chance to play live songs and earn stars, diamonds and pieces.
Roulette would get you stars or pieces or diamonds, depending on your luck!
In Quiz, you use diamonds to earn yourself a round in answering questions about the characters featured and you can earn pieces. However, I don't recommend doing the quiz unless you are good in Japanese since there's a timer for answering and there is no furigana given.
Album, just like most other games, is where you can view all the cards you have.

In the Karaoke section, you can choose which songs you will like to play. I am in love with the opening theme of this anime so I have been spamming the very first song which is titled "Best Friend".

Through clearing songs, you would be able to earn pieces. I would be elaborating on the use of the pieces later, however do keep it in mind that this is an important way to earn pieces quickly! For S score on each play of each song, you will be able earn 3 pieces!

Next would be the roulette. With Tsuyopon staring at me, I think that it is finally my time to try to spin the roulette!

There are actually 2 parts to this roulette -- your reward, and the number of items you would get. In this roulette, the shown rewards are the pieces, but there are various other rewards like stars and diamonds.

For the outer reward roulette, the shown one only indicates 1 puzzle pieces, but if you are lucky, you might get up to 2 puzzle pieces in the roulette, and combined with the x3 in the inner roulette, would give you up to x6 of a particular reward!

I do feel that the diamonds is the most unworthy reward as you could only get up to 6 of them, which does not even cover the original cost of 10 diamonds required for spinning the roulette...

With regards to the use of the puzzle pieces, you use the ones you earn to unlock cards. In order to accomplish that, you need to earn enough pieces to completely uncover the card and by doing so, you will inevitably unlock it.

The larger golden puzzle piece would allow the player to unlock a card of his or her choice instantly. However, as it can only be used once, please do keep it for future use and try not to use it on the normal starter cards!

Mentioning about the other items used in this game, the diamonds would help you when you need to play songs (which can give you your much needed puzzle pieces), roll the roulette (to get stars and pieces) and to participate in the quiz (for many pieces at one go if you do well).

Stars are an important aspect in this game. As there are no scouts in this game, stars are collected to exchange for SR and SSR. Nijiiro collection frequently releases SR and SSR which you can exchange for for a fixed number of stars. The good thing about this is that there is no RNG involved, and you would definitely be able to get your favorite character!

However, it isn't easy to earn the stars and you can only buy diamonds which do not necessarily equate to acquiring stars. But... who says that getting gems for scouting in other rhythm games is easy?!

Also, for the next few articles by me, I would be posting on other games that I have been spending some time on recently, to balance out the numerous figure posts I have made lately!

For starters, I would be mentioning "Owari no Seraph (Seraph of the End) Bloody Blades" and "Assassination Classroom". If I find the time to try out "Fate/Grand Order", I would leave a review for it too!

In addition, I would also be introducing "Grand Summoners", which is the first Android/iOS game which would soon be released by Good Smile Company. Next would be "Sawatata" by Harvest, which has been one of my best time-killing games lately so I'll introduce that as well!

From Your Fellow Gamer,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

Milkcananime Character : Tako-Rin (Dumbo Octopus)

Name : Tako-Rin

Released : 18 March 2016

Platform : Goodies Stamps

Creators : Milkcananime x Chichi Romero

A sea octopus living deep on the ocean floor, Tako-rin has a unique bell-shaped body and a rather large ears that resembles that of the Dumbo elephant. She spends her days hiding among seaweed, or rolling about in the sand, camouflaging and pretending to play hide-and-seek with the few passing visitors that come by her way. She is a rather spontaneous creature, and is easily distracted - chasing that stray moving crustacean that dares venture to the depths she thrives in. Her rather excitable personality when meeting new people, leads her to have sudden mood swings causing her to change colours in excitement. She also tries to keep herself occupied, by playing dress-up or humming the latest ocean tune from 'Down under'.

Written by Max

Lately, I have taken a fancy on building nanoblocks/microblocks. These are essentially Lego pieces that comes in tiny sizes. Companies such as Kawada named its products as nanoblocks while others may named it differently. Today I shall show you guys the steps in building the microblocks for Sailormoon by Boyu. I prefer to buy nanoblocks from Kawada as it is a Japanese company and its quality is unquestionable. However, given the endless line of anime/Sanrio/Disney/others characters that you can possibly think of, Kawada will not be able to produce them all in our generation. I presume China companies like Boyu saw the gap and came out with characters such as Sailormoon which I am very pleased to buy. The box is not too shabby and the quality is rather good.

Let the unboxing begins...

The box measures 7.5cm x 7.5cm x 7.5cm. This provides ample protection to the fragile little pieces of Sailormoon.

There is a little round window on one of the sides. I believe it serves as a fancy way to showcase the colourful pieces inside. Actually I found out later that the hole is useful for me to put in the extra pieces back into the box. It says the height is only 5mm. I am half-clueless as in how tall is 5mm but I get it....it's slimmer than the latest Apple phone...okay.

Love the colours! Especially Blue and Yellow. My favourite colours.

The instruction sheet is big and colourful. It is clear and easy to follow.

Sorting out the pieces into different types.

Step one begins...

When you refer to the instruction sheet, follow the colours given but ignore the colours of the completed stack. They will "grey out" what was presumably completed. Do not be confused by that.

In about 15mins, I have built Sailormoon's torso. At this point, I have a sense of the quality of Boyu's microblocks. Apart from the beautiful colours, there is a "tactile" feel when I stack one block over another. It has a firm and a somewhat "click" feel to it. It urges one to continue building to satisfy that clicking feel...

Now her legs...

and her face...

Along the way, I had made some mistake. The advantage of Boyu microblocks is that they stack very well on top of one another and I can hardly see gaps in between. (Read about how Ninetylives wrote about the gaps in Miku nanoblocks). The disadvantage, therefore is that it poses a challenge to remove the stack if you have build incorrectly. What you can do is to purchase a box of screw drivers with small tips at just $4-5. Since the tip is so much slimmer than my fat fingers, you can easily place it in between the blocks and pry them apart. Plus, it makes you look so much professional and it gives out the message to your mum not to disturb you while you are "working" on your blocks.

Sailormoon has bluish-transparent eyes. I appreciate the manufacturer's attention to details.

Bird's eye view of her head...

Her hair is done...

Time to join the head onto the body like "Pacific Rim".

The finished microblocks of Sailormoon. Absolutely stunning! There is a yellow base for her to stand (that's thoughtful). I have accomplished building it in about 2 hours.

There are some spare pieces left at the end of it. Along the way, I realise there are 1-3 pieces missing from the pack. However I substituted with that particular piece with other colours. The quality check is not perfect but this is easily forgiven as I understand that there 190 pieces and all of them are so tiny. The error accounts for less than one percent and I can accept that. The quality (hardly any gaps), colours and feel of Boyu's microblocks makes up for the error. It was a delight for me to spend a couple of hours building it. If you haven't try building one, you should because it keeps stress away.

Written by Max

Hello readers, the first quarter of the year will come to an end (not that anybody else is actually tracking this, right?). I couldn't quite keep up with the pressing demands of what is known very simply as my life's newest nightmare. Except that it really isn't so much of a threat but mostly the intimidation which pops by on a daily basis. In any case, I should be thankful that none of those would send me to a shrink anytime soon, though the idea of talking to somebody from a different world (?) sounds incredibly tempting. Hopefully, the days have been well for you. The heat isn't helping, and the nearest store where I can get some ice-cream is pretty much a sports event. Anyway, do take extra care wherever you are, whatever you do.

Has anybody heard of or visited Midtown Mart? This new addition in Marina Square Shopping Mall is a much appreciated presence for people who love their Japanese fix. Naturally, I was one of the first customers to take in the freshness, pun absolutely intended. Midtown Mart had its opening sale during the last couple of months, just before the Lunar New Year festivities. It attracted a healthy flow of consumers, locals and foreigners alike. I was very drawn to the wide assortment of stuff, namely the confectionery, drinks, noodles, soup...the list goes on and on. But I have been getting mostly tidbits and drinks since my first visit. Those go really well with some quiet reading at my favourite spot. For starters, there is the yummy Calpis Strawberry.

Recently, I had finally put an end to a considerable part of my indecisiveness by checking out the Anime Official Guidebook of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, regardless of whether I would be able to digest every bit of its awesome essence. Yeah, it sure isn't very easy to understand something which is the core of traditional Japanese performing arts. Nonetheless, having the book around definitely beats regretting. I mean, I have been following the anime adaptation, but something is still lacking somewhat. The guidebook is indeed filled with a lot of useful information to get a complete greenhorn like me started, and the artwork is really a treat. The interviews with the cast members are a little challenging to read through for me. But I suppose that it is okay to skip around.

Speaking of which, the anime is in its eleventh episode with the appearance of a very young Konatsu, the only child of Sukeroku and Miyokichi. I have no idea just how accelerated this series is getting, but I think that there might be little or zero chance of returning to Yotarou's arc. Oh, the ending instrumental song is really nice. I didn't mention it before, but the song delivers a lot of sentiments which are reminiscent of the good old days. Even if you aren't able to fully grasp the intention, there is still something that is lingering of bittersweet vibes. Something which is surprisingly rather relatable. Then, there comes the silent wish for the anime to be longer, even for just a little while.

Anybody heading to Gardens by the Bay for the Blossom Beats Floral Display? I suppose that the event would make an ideal alternative if flying to Japan is out of the question for some of us. Well, cherry blossoms are no doubt a therapeutic sight, though many people would probably kill just to catch a glimpse. I remain indifferent with regards to flora. Besides, I can't really stand the crowd. The last thing that I want is for a herd of elephants (metaphorically speaking) to trample on me while I struggle to look at some flowers. But for those who are intending to visit, please have fun on my behalf. Apparently, there is taiko music or something.

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody. Read more manga. Watch more anime. Eat more Japanese confectionery. Drink more Calpis.

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪

To All,

It's still relatively cool in my area but these few days have been quite hot, scorching even, with random bursts of storms. It's really a difficult time to decide if I want to keep the fan on or the air-conditioner on at times.

For the tutorial this week, as well as for the next few sessions, I would like to move on from full scale figures back to smaller ones. I am convinces that most figure collectors who are starting out or are unsure or unwilling to invest in getting higher quality and much more expensive figures would prefer to collect from these smaller ones first.

These figures are much cheaper than those in my previous posts and there's still enjoyment from looking and playing with these smaller figures -- even for me, although I have been collecting for many years and can't be considered a "beginner collector" anymore!

Chibi-kyun Chara

Let's begin today's discussion with what we find around us all the time!

I'm pretty sure that anyone with even a slight interest in figures would have came across Chibi-kyun Chara (I'll call it Chibi-kyun for short) before. Actually, scratch that. I;m sure they have. And you, are probably not an exception.

So firstly, what are Chibi-kyun? Chibi-kyun are about 10cm in height (some might be a little smaller) and produced by a figure company called Banpresto. If you have read my post in this series on Prize Figures previously, you might find the name "Banpresto" familiar! Yes, they are indeed the same compnay!

Thus, it is commonly noted that Chibi-kyun is a type of Prize Figure. However, that's not to say that they aren't well made or cute! In fact, Chibi-kyun usually turn out to be extremely cute!

How do you get your hands on these amazing things called Chibi-kyun?

Well, Chibi-kyun are usually from lottery styled Ichiban Kuji, which is the more common kind available in Singapore currently. For the newer Ichiban Kuji that you may have set your sights on, they might only be available in Japan for a while, so let's examine the alternative methods to acquire them!

Similar to Prize Figures, you can get them from online retail stores, or Rakuten, or in second hand stores. Some shops in Singapore have the items shortly after the lottery ends too! They may have it as a Kuji of their own, or as individual items for sale. I think most stores in Plaza Singapura have a wide variety of Chibi-kyun available!

Moreover, the good point about Chibi-kyun is that many characters are produced in each lottery event, hence your character might be available in many poses and outfits. Also, they are usually readily available after each lottery event itself and you might be able to find your favorite character easier than if you were to search for the character's Nendoroid, Cu-Poche, or Chara-Forme!

Here's several pictures to show the different outfits the same character might have:

The bases of Chibi-kyun are usually circular with a pattern on it (I'm glad that they usually don't just leave it plain). The figure itself is fastened to the base with pegs at the foot of the figure, and an additional support rod that the back of the character's head would rest on. That's akin to double the amount of support and I'd say that Chibi-kyun do need that much since some of mine still fall despite all that support provided.

Some Chibi-kyun are also able to stand on their own (such as Latifa and Moffle from Amagi Brilliant Park) without the pegs and rods, and I generally prefer those. They are much simpler to take photographs of since I don't have to take an extra step to hide the supports.

Oh my, what would I give just for some God Eater Chibi-kyun?

Regarding the quality of Chibi-kyun, do note that it would probably be facing less quality control when you compare them to similar figures from the higher end. However, do not think that that is always the case. There are always exceptions!

The general problems faced with the quality of Chibi-kyun would be that their paint jobs are not that perfect, especially on the body -- which is understandable as Chibi-kyun have even smaller bodies that Nendoroids (Cu-Poche are even larger).

In fact, some of the Chibi-kyun I own, which are about 10cm in height, have bodies which are even smaller than that of Nendoroid Petites, which are only about 6cm tall.

Here's a few pictures for illustration purposes.

Chibi-kyun

Nendoroid Petite

Nendoroid

So, I would like to know if you'll get a Chibi-kyun after reading this article. Do you feel motivated to? If you already own one or more, which is your very first Chibi-kyun and how did you get it? Also, which is your favorite?

From Your Fellow Collector,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

Schedule:

- Nendoroid

- Cu-Poche and Chara-Forme

- One Coin Figure and Suwarase

- Color Colle, Bath Defo

- Charapuka, Instant Noodle Stopper and Ochatomo

- Exclusives

- Garage Kits; Proxy or Forwarding?

- Which figure company to order from?

- Where to pre-order figures?

- Where to get second hand figures?

- What to do if you have issues with your item or receive a damaged box?

- Storage of Figures

- Storage of Figure Boxes

- Maintenance of Figures

- Bootlegs

- Sale of your figures

Hello readers, apparently there is a public holiday this week which I'm so blissfully unaware of. Not bad, a long weekend for many people. Despite my immense dislike for crowds and such, staying home might not be a better option quite ironically. I really don't know how not to end up the fillings of an enormous human sandwich, but somehow I could still pull a secret side door and avoid the chaos if I got lucky. It really depends on the situation. With the human population increasingly blocking what is remaining of the ecosystem (or whatever that is supposed to be) over time, it wouldn't be too long before our lives mirror some post-apocalyptic dimension. Well, there isn't really a specific title which I'm thinking of. I haven't been following much on zombies and infections.

Then again, there is a new title on the shelves lately simply known as Infection. I was initially rather curious and tempted, but eventually I passed up the manga for something else more settling. Yeah, it is a little beyond comprehension as to why I would feel so repelled when I have read visually disturbing stuff over the years. I have to admit though, that it was the above image which had churned my stomach a little. There is something about stuff crawling out of faces that I can't quite handle. For the record, that is one of the least disturbing images lying around. If any reader has the disposition strong enough to sit through Infection, please go ahead without me but do let in on what the story is really about.

Moving on. Some friends have been sharing this awesome commercial of a certain fastfood restaurant which was done in the style of anime, and the idea is to entice more Japanese youth to consider a potential career with the franchise. I must say that I was really impressed by the creativity and such. There was a comment I read that wished for a full anime all about the fastfood restaurant. Well, I sure wouldn't mind watching! I mean, that short clip itself had repeated on my computer for like seven times. If I were Japanese, honestly I would waste no time in applying for a position there. Oh, and the smile thingy is just too cute! You know what? I'm watching that commercial one more time.

Fans of Wakako-zake (like me!) will be pleased to read a brand new series by its manga artist titled Takako-san, or Her name is Takako in English. I stumbled upon this pretty much by accident one day, but I didn't buy the tankoubon right away. I had felt a little guilty for being unable to catch up on Wakako-zake (I still have the fourth and fifth book unwrapped!), and when I saw a sixth volume on another occasion I had also let it pass me by for a while. Anyway, eventually I didn't want to regret for not buying anything so glaringly important, hence the addition to the paperback mountain in my bedroom. The obi reads that hearing happiness is possible if you prick up your ears.

Perhaps I could try alternating between manga during the upcoming long weekend, and hopefully that would ease a little weight off whatever that is lying around. I love books. I really do. But there are just too many vying for my wavering attention span. Well, the balance is long lopsided, so the next best solution is to simply clear the easier ones in front for the rest to make their way down.

Read more manga. Watch more anime.

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪

The month of March is coming to an end and so is the winter season anime with an exception of a few leftovers joining the season of spring. There were a number of anime that I really enjoy watching this season like KonoSuba and Boku Dake ga Inai Machi (though some might say otherwise), even if it’s different than the manga.

Once again, I select the top ten songs that I enjoy throughout the season, which I have to admit was hard to narrow down to the final 10. A few were confirmed right off the bat but the others took a while and a lie down in order to pass the screening process. So, here it is, my top ten songs this winter…

Going in alphabetical order, first is from Ajin with its opening, “Yoru wa Nemureru kai?” by flumpool. This song I really enjoy very much. It is one of the few that I immediately know was one of my top ten the moment I heard it from the first part of its movie. The emotions being put in the song and the alarms blaring in the background makes me so pumped up. I can only imagine how it would be like in a concert. And the chorus really fits the anime well. Run away, run away uso mitai da…

Next is, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi with its ending song, “Sore wa Chiisana Hikari no Youna” by Sayuri. The song starts off slow, captivating you with its vocals and swaying rhythm and when the chorus hits, it picks up pace and gets louder.

When accompanied with its colourful visuals, it helps to enhance the mood of struggle in the song. I kept replaying it the first time I heard it and it quickly rose to the top. Oh, and what do you guys think of the ending? It felt kind of rushed though. Similar to the Charlotte in a sense.

The next two songs are the opening and ending theme for Bubuki Buranki,

“Beat you Heart” by Konomi Suzuki and “ANGER/ANGER” by MYTH & ROID. I really look forward to them more than the actual episode itself (I do enjoy the episodes though). The opening with its catchy and upbeat rhythm, the chorus that can get stuck in your head. It makes you feel restless, like you just want to move around to the song.

The ending is definitely one of my favourite this season, especially with the ending visuals. I don’t know why but it just makes me like Banryu Reoko more every time I listen to it.

Her craziness is just addicting...

She just exudes style and dominance. And I like the vocals as well, ever since they were introduced in Overlord’s ending.

Durarara!!X2 Ketsu follows after with its ending, “Joker ni Yoroshiku” by PENGUIN RESEARCH. I simply adore the instrumental for this song. I can’t help but tap my fingers with the vocals especially during the chorus. This song is just awesome.

Following that is Dimension W’s opening, “Genesis” by STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION.

This song is very fun to listen to, more especially with its visuals. The music is just so addicting to move to. Tapping your fingers or moving your body just seems like the natural thing to do, just like what I usually do away from the public eye when I’m outside. I really wanted to put its ending in the top ten but I had to choose others that stand out to me more.

Next is from the Fairy Tail ZERO arc, “Ashita wo Orase” by Kavka Shishido.

The song came out of nowhere for me as I was interested in the Mavis’s backstory so I started watching Fairy Tail back (Though I’ve caught up with the manga). This song, accompanied with its visuals was quite emotional. The music also reminds me of past western music with its beat and rhythm so it kind of stuck out for me as I really like western music back then. So it was a reminder of how I was like in primary and halfway to secondary school before engrossing myself in just Japanese music and a few other languages as well.

Hai to Sensou no Grimgal follows after with its opening, “Knew day” by (K)NoW_NAME.

I really like the vocals for this song. It reminds me a bit of nano with its boyish tone (I think the singer’s a woman. Not quite sure). This song serves as a breather of sorts to the other songs. It’s not slow or fast but just right with a rhythm that’s easy to get into. The instrumental for it is actually really good. I really love the violins in the song playing in collaboration with the electric guitar and drums. It puts me in a calming mood despite it being slightly upbeat.

After that is Haruchika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru with its ending, “Kuusou Triangle” by ChouCho. I absolutely love her voice. Ever since I heard it from Mashiro-Iro Symphony’s opening, I fell in love with her voice. It’s just so sweet and mesmerizing. I actually place Haruchika on hold as I couldn’t really get into it at that time but I couldn’t help myself from playing this song on repeat. It’s just so calming with its light tone. Sidetracking a bit, the opening that she sang for Glasslip was the only good thing about the anime. Well, other than the quality of the animations that is…

And finally, from Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Or KonoSuba!, the ending that immediately had me swaying my head with its rhythm, “Chiisana Boukensha” by Aqua, Megumin and Darkness.

This slow song is very calming to listen to. It tells about an adventurer not really doing well having being injured and being treated like a fool. The song is very hopeful in a way as the adventurers have dreams of exploring the world but it’s brought back to reality, as they have to bring in the laundry. It took me quite a while to actually understand the song a bit as I could grasp some words from the vocals like “today again I’ve been treated like a fool” which was sung by Megumin, words like “fune”, “umi” and “nanatsu no umi” tells me about sailing the seven seas on a ship and finally the last verse of the song sung by Aqua tells about bringing in the laundry. The song is really nice to listen to and fun to decipher what it meant. It really is true to its title of A little Adventurer. And there’s also a second season for it so something to look forward to.

So that was my top ten songs of the season. And now, onto the recommendations…

Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm ED “a-gain” by Ray

Osomatsu-san OP 2 “Zenryoku Batankyuu!” by AOP

Boku Dake ga Inai Machi OP “Re:Re:” by Asian Kung-Fu Generation

Dagashi Kashi OP “Checkmate!?” by MICHI

Dimension W ED “Contrast” by Fo’xTails

Fairy Tail ZERO ED “Landscape” by SOLIDEMO

GATE: Jietai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri 2 OP “ GATE II: Sekai wo Koete” by Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets

Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai ED "Yume no Tsubomi” by THREE

Hai to Gensou no Grimgal ED “Harvest” by (K)NoW_NAME and ver.2 by Shihoru (Haruka Terui)

Haruchika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru OP “ Niji wo Ametara” by fhána

Kidou Senshi: Gundam Tekketsu no Orphans OP 2 “Survivor” by BLUE ENCOUNT

Koukaku no Pandora OP “hopeness” by ZAQ

Koukaku no Pandora ED “LoSe±CoNtRoL” by Nene Nanakorobi & Clarion

Luck & Logic OP “STORY” by Kensho Ono

Musaigen no Phantom OP “Naked Drive” by SCREEN mode

Norn9 Norn + Nornette OP “Kazakiri” by Nagi Yanagi

Ooya-san wa Shishunki! OP “Ooyasan wa Shishunki!” by every♥ing!

Prince of Stride: Alternative OP “Strider’s High” by OxT

Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage OP “Fast End” by Soraru and Mafumafu

Saijaku no Bahamut ED “Lime Tree” by nano.RIPE

Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen OP 2 “Ame Kakeru Hoshi” by Suara

And something extra, the opening theme of NekoPara Vol. 2, “Doki Doki kokoro Flavor” by Yui Sakakibara, whom I assume voices Azuki.

Can’t get enough of them nekos…

It was incredibly hard to pick out my top ten songs of the winter, so you could say most of my recommendations above are top ten worthy to me. Silence once again dawns on me as I have reached the end of my Winter 2015/2016 playlist. Most of the anime are ending in the following week so Spring is right around the corner. Let it begin once again…

Mata ne~

Written by Zwei

To All,

Today I would be sharing some of my favorite cards for this series, and those that I think their outfits and poses are well-defined enough to be made into awesome new figures for the series! In fact, I have not chosen some of the better ones as they have already been made into figures!

If you do follow my Games posts, I have a similar post for Love Live!

A little background about Deresute, it is actually a rhythm game filled with RNG. A little similar to the ever-popular Love Live! School Idol Festival (LLSIF) but rest assured that there are differences which would set the two apart. Actually, I have posted a previous article about this application when I first started it and you can read more about Deresute here!

So now, let's get started with the Cute idols!

Shimamura Uzuki

Who can resist figures of their girls in wedding dresses? Especially since Love Live! wedding line didn't become a thing, sadly.

The details of the folds of the material bunching around her waist would make this outfit into one of the best wedding figures out in the market, if the company taking her on manages to sculpt and paint her well!

This will turn out to be an amazing figure if the platform that she is on is made into the same figure as her base. However, I would feel that something is missing if the light-sticks of the fans below aren't a part of the figure too, which is nearly... impossible, hence this will remain as my second best possible figure.

There's something about Shimamu in a maid costume that I feel would set her apart from all the other maid figures already out in the market. Moreover, the frilly pattern and design of the fringe of her apron gives her an additional cute boost!

Maekawa Miku

Many things about this figure conveniently reminds me of all the idolized Sonoda Umi (Love Live! School Idol Festival) UR cards. Perhaps, it's the couch, perhaps it is the lighting. However, Miku has a more seductive feeling here than in Umi's cards and I feel that that is enough to set them apart.

Also, I feel that Miku's outfit is really pretty here -- in the sense that purple actually matches her more than I initially thought it would. If this is ever made into a figure, I'm looking forward to it!

Kohinata Miho

As a fan of traditional clothes, there is of course no way I could ever say no to this. The pretty background complements the details in her outfit, especially the print. Her hair ornament also matches the Spring theme perfectly and allows any viewer to immerse into the festive feels alongside Miho!

Mimura Kanako

The same thing goes for Kanako, as my love for Kimono expands to Yukata as well, even if they are the Yukata dress forms instead of the traditional Yukata. This is especially with the recent craze on the Angelic Angel outfit for the Love Live! girls.

Blue was a color that I didn't thought would suit Kanako... Sorry that I'm stuck on pink for cute idols, blue for cool and yellow or orange for passion. However, this outfit and the colors remind me of winter, which is my favorite season of the year!

Ogata Chieri

The prints on her yukata, the details on the hand fan and the way the obi is tied all ties this figure together into a cute Chieri figure which I would definitely love to spend next summer with!

The bright colors from the flowers are perfect complements for her white wedding dress, making this simple one-color outfit into one that is dynamic and simply gorgeous.

Squatting figures are quite rare nowadays, especially simple squatting figures in casual clothes instead of lewd attires. This card brings out the innocent and soft-spoken side of Chieri, silently appreciating the world around her.

Futaba Anzu

The outfit and pose Anzu has here just makes me want to draw her into a tight hug! Ah, this must be the feeling of happiness~

The gradient of the shading on Anzu's dress here is extremely pretty and if this shading style could be employed onto a figure of her, I definitely wouldn't mind purchasing it!

And that concludes this post on my top cards for the Cute idols in Deresute. Do let me know if there are any which we share the same interest in! Stay tuned for the posts on the Cool and Passion idols next!

From Your Fellow Gamer,

Reina-rin

Written by Reina-rin

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