SonicVer2 : The Randomized Otaku

Surabaya Toys, Games, and Comic Fair 2009 loots

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:44:58 PST

Loots, again…

After having fun with my friends in Sunday, and continuing my projects today, i decided to get my blog running again. I did plan to fill this blog with at least 1 post per day, but too bad yesterday, i was too busy playing around and i didn’t get any time to make it. So yeah… Here it is… Continuing last post about STGCF '09, i brought you my loots from that event: Nendoroid Riannon and Nendoroid Nankyoku Sakura.

Nendoroid Riannon and Nendoroid Nankyoku Sakura.

Bought this from Wajuwa with fair price: each for IDR 400k (about USD 37). So they took me total: IDR 800k (about USD 74). Pretty nice buy, i didn’t have to take out too much money because they’re nendoroids. As i said before, there were not much good PVC around, if there were some, i already had them in my collection.

Nendoroid Riannon, my girl likes her.

Riannon isn’t my favorite character from the anime, Tears to Tiara. Bought her because my girl like it. At first i was against it, but after giving a second thought, i bought her. She’s cute anyway!

Riannon in 3 version: cute, action, funny.

Pretty much normal parts for nendoroids: Hat and the accessories, wand, Riannon herself with 3 faces: smile, action, and dizzy face, 2 pairs of arms, 3 pairs of hands, the base, and a magic circle. Talk about base, i guess nendoroid did get improved on this part. My Haruhi base was broken and can’t support Haruhi anymore. Yuki Base can’t even support her normally. But the latest nendoroid got better base.

Riannon is cute!

And here’s Riannon! Pretty cute eh? Yeah, damn cute. Oh BTW, did you notice at the Christmas special post? Riannon and Sakura Nankyoku were already there. Yes… I did these photograph a week before Christmas, but i was just too late to post this, that’s all.

Riannon magic!!

Dunno why, but i never really like to use my nendoroids for their action pose. I always like them in their cute version or funny version. It’s nendoroid we’re talking about, so they have to be cute! I usually use the weirdest face for each nendoroids display.

Riannon is funny!!

Now this is funny! I like this face, and currently displaying her like this. The weirder the face, the easier to make a good story out of it. Nendoroids like Sakura Nankyoku, Shana, Louise, and some other i forgot to mention has a good set of face.

And we move on to the next part: Sakura Nankyoku.

Sakura Nankyoku.

I never knew who’s Sakura Nankyoku or what anime she come from. I just bought her because I’ve seen a lot of Sakura Nankyoku photo. I like her funny faces, ahoge, and her “weird” equipment. That’s why i bought her! She’s funny, and nendoroid supposed to be funny!

Weird equipments, but funny.

She came with 3 faces: smiling face, a (o^o) face, and an angry face, 2 pairs of arms, a base, a pick, and a helmet. The helmet and the pick themselves are already a weird set of nendoroid equipments. To put on her helmet, you have to take off her ahoge, pretty funny. XD

You can make good story with her.

With Sakura Nankyoku’s faces and cuteness, i can make some good story. Sakura’s (o^o) face and her angry face made Christmas special’s story chapter 1 a good one. Other than that, i also have more story below, except i didn’t take my time to make a 4koma out of it.

Shana came and bullying Louise and Riannon.

Sakura saw it!

And she tries to stop Shana from bullying them. XD

My nendoroid army! Fear them!!!

Well yeah, that’s all my loots post. Lately I kept buying nendoroids from toys events around, since no more good PVC around. Then, i tried to gather and count them all, and i got 10 nendoroids at total. Nice? I don’t know… Optic as a figma fanboy got himself 42 figma, me? I’m not a nendoroid fanboy, but it’s fun to collect them, so 10 a nice number for me. XD

So yeah, that’s it for today! I’ll be back for more, so see you at the next post!

Surabaya Toys, Games, and Comic Fair 2009

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:37:14 PST

STGCF ‘09.

Since Christmas Specials is over, it’s time to get back into normal otaku post. This time, i brought you an event coverage. This is Surabaya Toys, Games, and Comic Fair 2009. It was held in BG Junction, the same place i won a photo competition. Total running days of this event is 9 days, starts from December 5th and ended in December 13th.

This kind of events are getting worse.

I’m starting to get the feeling that events like this in Surabaya are starting to lose its popularity. These kind of events are no longer a good place for us otakus to do treasure hunting. In the first event ever, i could stand around watching these place in 3 hours. But now, I left this place less than 1 hour after i was arrived. I heard from Wajuwa’s owner that this event was some kind of backup event (plan B).

Plan B event.

I won’t ramble about how much American toys took away Japanese PVC figures place in the event. I’m here to focus on how they did an epic fail on plan A. As i said above, this event is somewhat a backup plan. The first plan was to held an event in PTC, just like Toy Magz Fair 2008. PTC is a good place for event like this, it has a lot of people coming, and PTC is one of the best shopping mall in Surabaya. They already planned to held the event there in September – October, but i heard they failed to negotiate with PTC management and that means they failed to get the place.

BG Junction is another alternative to held this event, it’s cheap, but this place is lame and low on people. It’s a worse alternative, but i guess they think that “this is better than nothing”. While they failed on getting good place, they still managed to get this event running, i guess that’s better than nothing.

Epic fail? maybe.

Back there, i still thought that the PTC event would still be held a week after this event. So i decided to went cautious and proceed carefully with the treasure hunting. After i met Wajuwa’s owner, i asked him about that PTC event. I was shocked after hearing his answer. He said that the event is cancelled and he explained the reason to me. Yes… it’s about the place. They didn’t get it so it was cancelled and this event was their backup plan.

The whole Shuraki for IDR 3.5 millions, around USD 300.

I think these figures on the photo above are the best treasure i could found. Five Shuraki, damn great! The problem is, you have to buy the whole set. The store owner didn’t sell it individually. Price? It’s IDR 3,5millions, maybe around USD 300. If you were there, will you get them all with that price?

Talk about treasure hunting, I remembered the first time i went on an event like this, i was very excited and could came everyday. It’s Surabaya Toys Festival 2007, i already had my SLR but this blog wasn’t here alive, so i didn’t have any coverage for the event. I came 3 days straight but only bought 1 item, i haven’t start seriously collecting stuff back there.

The next event was still from Surabaya Toys Festival, the 2008 version. The real hunting began there. I got 2 figures from that event. And continuing Toy Magz Fair 2008, with 4 figures as the loots. That’s one pretty crazy and i think that event was the event with best Japanese PVC figures around.

There were still more events held soon after STF ‘08, but they were pretty much disappointing events. And starting from that time, i never bought anything but figures from Wajuwa. Other following events were just total BS just like this event.

Wajuwa’s stand, filled with Japanese PVC as always.

Well, no matter what kind of event being held, Wajuwa never let me down. They always come with a lot of figures, a gold mine for us figures hunter. See photo above? There were a lot of nice figures (but i already had all the figures i like). I saw: Kannagi, Fauna, Gift Saber, Akashiya Moka, Haruhi Gekisou, Mikuru Gekisou, Unity Yuno, Alter P3 Mitsuru, Alter P3 Elizabeth, and some other old items. Nice, but i already had all the stuffs i want.

Wajuwa’s nendoroid collection.

At the side of the stand, Wajuwa had 9 nendoroids on display. He asked me which one you already have? And i said Kureha… Soon after that he opened the case and showed me all the nendoroid he had. I was interested in Kagamiku, Miku, Riannon, and Nankyoku Sakura. It was hard picking which one to bought between 4 of them. In the end i bought 2, expect the loot coverage in the next post.

Game club gathering.

This event had the word “Games” in it, so there were some games competition and gathering for Surabaya’s games club: Dugem (Dunia Game –Game’s World-). Tekken 6 was the popular game back there, so they focused mainly on playing Tekken 6 in PS3. There were also people playing unknown Wii games.

Well that’s it for this event coverage. Expect the haul at the next post. See you!!

Christmas Special part 3 ~ 2009

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:38:15 PST

Christmas Special part 3, last part.

Hi and welcome back! It’s the third part and the last part of Christmas Special 2009 from sonicver2. Before we start, i have to inform you that this part doesn’t have 4koma. Too bad i have a limited time for the photo session, so yeah… other than 2 4komas, these photos are all i have left. So here it is, Christmas with the nendoroids!

Nendoroid’s Christmas!

I did this photo session yesterday, the noon before Christmas eve. Made the snow from PA’s foam. Those foams came with your PA package, so i took those foams out, make it into small pieces, and use it as the snow. Pretty nice result, except i didn’t have a better preparation for the photo session.

So who’s the cutest? I still like Kureha the most.

So how’s your Christmas? As i wrote this article, Christmas day is starting to reach its end (it’s almost 10PM), so yeah i can safely say that Christmas day almost over. In the Christmas eve, i went to church at 6PM, over at 8, and went to cafe with my family just to hang out for a while, got back at home at 11PM. Today, i woke up at 9AM, go to church (again) at 10AM, and over at 12AM. After that, i went to my girls place and go on dating until 9PM. And after got back at home, i started to write this.

Haruhi stuck on the tree.

I myself think that my Christmas is pretty normal, so how’s yours? I saw Adun was enjoying his Christmas with his Erika, pretty nice! While Anony was enjoying his Christmas with Kagami. Or Optic’s Christmas with his Botan? Or even providing us with Santa girls like phossil did? It seems everyone had their own partner to enjoy Christmas :D. Well no matter, i guess we would do anything to make ourselves enjoy this day.

Shamisen is also stuck on the tree.

No matter what are you doing, this day is always be one of the great day every year. So here i am again want to say: Merry Christmas!!

Anyway, the next 4 photos are done by my girl. She said these 4 photos are the continuation of my 4koma ch. 2. Enjoy!

Mikuru and Ryouko are posing in front of the Christmas tree.

They saw Riannon stuck on the tree.

I don’t know what happens here. XP

And all of the sudden Riannon and Shamisen fell down on the ground with Mikuru and Ryouko watching them.

Well that’s it for this Christmas Special! Thanks fo tuning in! Expect for another normal otaku life post. See you!~

Christmas Special part 2 ~ 2009

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:52:00 PST

Hanekawa Tsubasa bringing you a delicious and HAWT Christmas greetings. XD

December 25th, the Christmas day itself, and here i am, back and bringing you the 2nd part of Christmas special. Did you enjoy your Christmas eve? Do you still continue enjoying it today, in the Christmas day itself? Well, no matters! As i am here bringing you the 2nd chapter of the Chrismas special 4koma, featuring: Yuki, Riannon, and Louise. Enjoy!

Christmas Special 4koma ch. 2: Magic for Candies.

Again, don't forget to check out the full size of the 4koma for clearer view. Poor Riannon, she's stuck on the tree because Yuki's magic screwed up XD, but at least Louise got her candy she wanted. So yeah... that's it for part 2. And once again: Merry Christmas!

So that's it... see you at the next post!

Christmas Special part 1 ~ 2009

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:51:35 PST

Railgun's girls in santa costume, darn nice!

Tonight, night of December 24th, people of the world including us are enjoying Christmas eve. So what're you people doing on this Christmas eve? Enjoying the eve with your partner, family, or alone? As for me, I'm a Catholic so i went to church together with my family. But all that things are no matter for now. To celebrate this Christmas, I present to you: a Christmas special!!

I went on a Christmas photo session with my nendoroids, and also made some stories with them. This Christmas special will have more than 1 part, so enjoy the first part, and check out the next part soon! Anyway, for this Christmas Special part 1, i give you a 4koma featuring Nankyoku Sakura, Shana, and Kureha.

Christmas Special 4koma ch. 1: Gift Box Hunting.

Check out the full picture if you want a clearer view. Anyway, that's it for now. A short post for the first part. And not to forget: Merry Christmas!!! Hope you all enjoy your holiday and this Christmas eve!

So that's it... see you at the next post!

Fate Shin Sonic Haul

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:50:36 PST

A huge PA box, long time no see.

This huge box arrived around 1-2 weeks ago. As expected, i didn’t have any time to open the box, and photograph the haul, so… i left this box untouched for almost 2 weeks. You should already know what’s inside: it’s huge, it’s new, and the content is mentioned on the title. It’s Fate Shin Sonic version.

Fate T. Harlaown Shin Sonic Form.

Fate T. Harlaown with her Shin Sonic Form, the lightning wizard, at least that what’s written on the box. This figure was pretty much announced very long ago, suffered a number of delayed release, and finally released at the end of November. Pretty long wait for an “ultimate item” like this. FYI, Mio and Nanohaa Exceed mode were also affected by the delays.

Yet another masterpiece from Alter.

You’ve seen a lot of Fate’s prototype on the web before the release. It’s not a surprise what kind of look she’ll get and what kind of accessories she’ll have in the box. The size too isn’t really surprising since you already knew how big Fate gonna be. I did expect that this box will be as big as Hayate.

3 layers, each with cover.

Her hair is i think the thing that took out most space. Her right twintails isn’t permanently attached to her head. The twintail is separated and you have to attach yourself, i guess it’s about the size, the box will get bigger if the hair pre-attached. This box is pretty extreme with the plastic protection. There are 3 layers covering the parts: the first layer is Fate and her hair, the 2nd layer is her weaponry, and the third layer is the base.

All about Riot Zanber parts.

I did remember seeing Fate’s prototype grabbing her twin sword Riot Zanber. But i didn’t know that this Fate came with that huge ~~shit ass~~ ultimate combined Riot Zanber. It’s damn HUGE, and i mean it! IT’S HUGE DUDE! The biggest weaponry I’ve ever seen in figures world. Anyway, Fate came with a lot of parts: 1 big Riot Zanber (combined) and the sword hilt, twin Riot Zanber blades and the cables, her hair, her alternate left hand, 2 metal pegs, her white base, and a set of transparent sword base.

A front look of Fate with twin Riot Zanber.

Anyway, Fate does look good on this form. She’s somewhat minimum on cothes and maximum on skin exposure (alright Fate in her bikini from GSC is better on skin exposure, but hey… it’s better than her normal uniform). Her hair is swaying all over the place, it’s cool. And her battle expression is better than ever!

A back look of Fate with her Riot Zanber.

It’s another look of Fate from behind, giving you another feeling of this figure. FYI, that yellow connecting cable wasn’t made of rubber / elastic material. It was made of a hard plastic, so i guess you have to be careful in dealing with this cable.

Looks can kill.

She really gives a very nice action packed facial expression. And the cool part is, her mouth is covered with her front side hairs. For a photographer, it could be a nice challenge to get the best part of Fate. Banzai Alter for bringing Fate alive!!!

Twin sword Riot Zanber, side view.

If you have problem with spaces, then you should skip this figure. But if you’re a huge fan of Alter or Fate, then this figure is a must get. So how would you provide space for this figure? That’s for you to figure it out. But if you’re low on space, i guess you’ll have to stick with this twin sword Riot Zanber. Why? See below…

Combined Riot Zanber. Ultimate.

The DAMN HUGE ultimate combined version of Riot Zanber is GIANT! It’s larger than her normal Zanber form. It’s larger than her body, larger than any figure weapons I’ve ever seen, and ultimately… larger than my figure parts repository box XP. It’s hard dealing with this blade in MANY WAYS.

Huge = problems.

I said about hard dealing with the blade above in many ways. Yes… There are a lot of factor why this blade could pose you problems:

It’s huge and long, and you need to put the sword base in front, so… space problems for display.
You can’t keep it in normal box or your everyday box, you should proceed with caution if you’re trying to keep it.
Photographic problems. That blade could cover her face from certain angles, and left only small angles to get her face,

Problems? Yes… well, it’s huge so it’s a problem. But it’s damn huge so it’s cool! XD

Can you display Fate with her huge ~~shit ass~~ blade?

See how big it is? I wonder how many people could display Fate with her blade. Since i myself will put her on my subwoofer, replacing Hayate’s place. So there will be no space for the long blade and its base.

The Nanoha series weaponry.

For reference, here’s a photo of all the Nanoha series figures’ weaponry i have in my collection. From top: Alter Fate’s combined Riot Zanber, Alter Fate’s twin Riot Zanber, Alter loli Fate's Bardiche Zanber, figma Fate’s Bardiche Zanber, Alter Hayate’s Schwertkreuz, and GSC Nanoha’s Raging Heart. Hayate’s Schwertkreuz has the same size as Fate’s twin Riot Zanber, pretty surprising, I always thought before that her twin Riot Zanber were pretty small.

Anyway, that’s it for Fate Shin Sonic haul. I guess I’ll be back for another post tomorrow, so… Be sure to check it out! See you at the next post!

Saki

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:21:54 PST

Saki

Around a month ago, I watched the popular moe anime mahjong: Saki. This anime could attract a pretty great popularity and a great number of watcher with just a few episodes after it first aired. This popularity is one of the reason why I watched this anime, but the main reason I put this anime in my watch list is mahjong!

Miyanaga Saki, rinshan kaihou, and plus minus zero.

Saki's story revolves around a 1st year high school girl who is a genius mahjong player. She entered Kiyosumi high school and dragged by her friend, Kyoutaro, to Kiyosumi mahjong club. In that club she played against the other members and managed to surprise one of the member who's also a middle school mahjong champion, Nodoka, with her plus minus zero point.

Scary (or cute) opponents were waiting in the tournament.

It's a pretty interesting story at the first part of the anime, where Saki and Nodoka became friend with mahjong. But the next part story is pretty much typical, the girls enters tournaments, fight with some opponents who have ridiculous skill. I’d say ridiculous, because they were trying to win crazy hand like Rinshan Kaihou, Haitei Raoyue, Chankan (i know it’s simple, but the chances are so slim), Kokushi Musou, stealth attack, bad wait, etc. If you know how to play, then you’ll know this hand will only appears once every 5-10 full games (4 winds with 4 rounds for each wind).

Ryuumonbuchi Touka x Kunihiro Hajime.

Although this anime main theme is mahjong, you don't really have to worry about your mahjong knowledge, because this anime will provide you with more than mahjong. There will be a lot of moe characters with their own unique moe traits and more than 1 yuri pairing, since there are so many girls in this anime.

If you think Fukuji Mihoko is more than enough to get you in the series, then proceed!

Nevertheless, enjoyment level for this anime is still depending on your mahjong knowledge. Let's say there are 4 types of mahjong knowledge:

Level 0: Nothing.
Level 1: Know how to play just for winning (Ron, Tsumo, Pon, Chi, and Kan).
Level 2: Know certain Yaku and yakuman.
Level 3: Know scoring rule and mahjong terminology.

You don't have to play a mahjong game, you just have to know the rules and some terms. Pretty helpful if you knew it before you watch this anime.

Who needs mahjong knowledge if this anime has these girls.

At level 0, you’re only in for those moe girls and some yuri scenes. At level 1, you can follow the battle to a basic point. At the level 2, you'll know what were the characters trying to get for their winning, but you don't know how big they scored. And at level 3, you'll get full enjoyment from this anime. I did watch this anime when i was at level 1, so yeah... I didn't know what they were getting and how big they were winning.

Touka’s yuri harem.

However, I did learn to play mahjong around 2 weeks after finished watching Saki, it's pretty late, I know, but better late than never! I do realize that I was starting to understand what were the characters trying to say back there.

Working as a maid in maid mahjong cafe is included in tournament preparation.

Anyway, this anime can be divided into 3 parts. The first part is about how Saki joined the mahjong club and preparing to enter the prefectural tournament. At the first part, you’ll see that Saki started to realize that playing mahjong is fun, decided to enter the tournament with going to national as their final goal, and she also started to realize her feeling with Nodoka. There were not much character shown in this part. It’s pretty fun, but the real fun has yet to begin.

Touka and family.

The 2nd part of the anime is the longest part: Team Prefectural Tournament. In your old anime series, a tournament could took at least 10 episodes. I think Saki too took a lot of episodes just for this team tournament, but the episodes distribution is ridiculously unbalanced. First match ended in 1 episode, no 2nd match, no semifinal, they just directly went up to the final in just 1 episode. But the final sure took a lot of time. Each team member took at least 2 episodes. And the last battle took more than that (forgot to count). This anime used that chance to introduce players' background story and their special skills.

The last team member of finalist teams.

The 2nd part really took a lot of time, but it won’t quickly bore you to death, unlike those old anime. Saki as the main character did have a hard time against the opponent but she managed to show a comeback in the middle of the crisis.

Two of these girls managed to win 2nd and 3rd place in individual tournament.

And the 3rd part, the last part, is pretty short. It’s about individual tournament. It’s short, and that’s it. Most of the characters here were old character Saki met in team tournament, except Nanpo Kazue. But yeah, this tournament ended in 2-3 episodes.

Triple yakuman, you got served.

Saki herself as a mahjong player can be considered as a lucky and skilled player (if we played for real), because she can win her hand by picking Rinshan Kaihou as much as she likes. But that’s anime for you! Ridiculous and nonsense things happens! Amae Koromo has another crazy luck just like Saki has, except for her, she kept winning by Haitei. If you’re in and ready to accept all of these nonsense, then you’re ready for Saki. There are still a lot of crazy skill i didn’t mention here were going on in this anime.

I’m sooooo gonna do you Hisa!!!! XD

Anyway, my favorite character from this anime is Takei Hisa. I mentioned this before.

Bonus: Tsuruga team cosplaying Houkago Teatime, instant epic win!

So yeah… that’s it for Saki. Next post? Just wait and see… So, see you at the next post!

Takei Hisa x Fukuji Mihoko (Saki)

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:26:46 PST

Fukuji Mihoko x Takei Hisa

Just recently watched Saki (actually, it’s a month ago), and i guess i need to post about how i love Takei Hisa x Fukuji Mihoko pairing. Anyway, you people must know what kind of anime Saki is. Yes… it’s a moe mahjong anime with a lot of extreme mahjong battle and extreme moe girls inside.

My favorite character: Takei Hisa.

My favorite character from this anime is Takei Hisa, Kiyosumi’s mahjong club president. She has an interesting personality and great self-confidence. She knew what she’s doing and she knew what to do. There’s a lot of moe girls with different kind of moe points, like Amae Koromo with her loli point, Nodoka with her big breast and yuri point, Saki with her amazing skill and kind of clumsy girl, Touka with her tsundere point, etc. But hey… they weren’t as interesting as Takei Hisa.

Fukuji Mihoko with her Heterochromia.

On the other hand, Fukuji Mihoko isn’t really my favorite. She’s great and cute, but not that interesting. But seeing Takei Hisa and Fukuji Mihoko together made me think: “Wow this is a perfect pairing!” and i do need to see more scene of their pairing.

Lovely indeed.

No particular reason why i like this pairing. It’s just, i love to see them together. After all I AM a yuri fans. So yeah… I’ll stop ranting here and enjoy the gallery of Takei Hisa x Fukuji Mihoko pairing.

So who’s the aggressive one?

Is it an unrequited love?

Club president x Captain.

Mihoko is the one in love. XD

A fan book? I’d love to see that.

Nice art.

Love is in the air.

They look cute, don’t they?

Quite shocking for Mihoko.

They do look happy.

I’ve read this before. Well… not really read because it’s in Japanese, i can’t read it. :P

Enjoying their time together in cinema.

Takei Hisa cosplaying as Kazekoshi student. Cute!

That would look pretty erotic from Mihoko’s viewpoint.

Takei Hisa is getting more aggresive!

A kiss in the eye! Lovely indeed.

HEY!!! SHE’S DOING IT!!! XDXDXDXD

Do we all know where’s this going into? XD

A romantic kiss!

DAMN NICE!!!

I’d love to have a dakimakura cover with this picture on it. XDXD

Well that’s all i can give for now folks! Be sure to check out for the next post. Gotta go continuing my project now. See you at the next post!

I'm (somewhat) back

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:54:51 PST

Senjougahara Hitagi - unrelated pic.

Yeah, I'm pretty much back, specially for Christmas. For about 2 months, I left my blog vacuum because of my school projects. Anyway, i don't know if i can say I'm fully back. The school projects i mentioned, is way far from over. Here's the detail about the projects...

I got 5 projects on my hand right now. If you want to know what kind of hell I'm in right now, check this out:

Client sever programming: with Oracle as server and a self built desktop application (using Delphi 7, yeah... laugh as hard as you want XP) as the client.
ASP.NET: rebuilding MoeDIA using ASP.NET engine.
Enterprise Java: rebuilding MoeDIA again (minus the transaction part) using Java Server Faces framework.
Software Engineering Project: building a web-based office messenger using PHP engine.
Practical work in my college: building an online web-based class selection input system using PHP engine.

You see, these 5 projects started in July 2009 and all of them should be done in just 6 month, so yeah... right now, I have only 1 month or even less than that to get all my projects done. So far, here's my progress:

Client sever programming: 80%
ASP.NET: 2%
Enterprise Java: 1%
Software Engineering Project: 70%
Practical work in my college: 90%

Judging by the number, you can say that my progress so far is pretty bad. And i have to change these numbers to 100% before the 2nd week of January. But as this post said: "I'm back", then that means I'll fill this blog with some posts specially for this Christmas.

Christmas will come in less than 1 week, and for this Christmas holiday, more interesting things will pop up here. So yeah, be sure to check it out! See you at the next post!

WTF!? Apparently Haruhi is featured in an advertisement

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:29:49 PDT

“Hey Kyon, I’m using esia now!”

Sorry for the Indonesian language in the caption, but this is made by anonymous Indonesian otaku who found something that made him (and me) goes WTF!!! Anyway, the caption said: “Hey Kyon, I’m using esia now!”. FYI, esia is a name of a mobile phone service provider in Indonesia. In the screenshot above, Kyon’s sister said that she’s using esia as her provider.

The WTF banner!

There’s a particural reason why the anonymous Indonesian otaku made an edit on that screenshot. Apparently, he found something WTF in front of esia’s office in Bandung. An advertisement banner. Just proceed below if you want to see it clearly.

"Haruhi wants you to use esia"

Just show your esia provided mobile phone and you’ll get discounts in certain outlets. But that’s not the point! See the WTF part!!! It’s HARUHI FOR GOD SAKE!!! It’s Haruhi MaxFac figure photo with a mobile phone in front with the vectored hand illustration. That’s why in the screenshot above, Kyon’s sister using esia: BECAUSE HARUHI WANTS YOU TO USE ESIA!!!

I am sooooo ~~not~~ gonna change to esia! XD

Anyway, here’s the source: http://gedebuk.com/haruhi

A pretty much random post, but that’s all… See you!

Tayutama –Kiss on My Deity-

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:15:33 PST

Tayutama –Kiss on My Diety-

Another chance for anime review: Tayutama –Kiss on My Diety-. I picked this anime in my watch list because of the cute girls in the preview. Yeah, Mashiro, Mifuyu, Ameri, and Yumina got my attention at my first look even though i knew this anime will be a somewhat harem anime or anime that based on a visual novel.

Anyway, just before you proceed, be sure to know that this post is –as always- FILLED WITH SPOILERS, so if you know the risk and want to proceed, please do so.

Tayutama got a pretty simple story.

The story revolves around young lucky ~~bastard~~ boy with a power of a priest, an exorcist to be exact, Mito Yuuri. One day something bad happened and all the bad spirits –called Tayutai- were released from their seal, including a goddess who sealed them all in the past. So just as you expected, the goddess asked Yuuri for his help to fight the bad tayutai and create a coexistence between humans and tayutai.

Story of Tayutama is pretty simple and straightforward. You can also easily predict what happen next. So yeah, i guess you’ll be enjoying a lot of cute girls without deep stories.

Low on fanservices, too bad…

For an anime with a lot of cute girls, this anime is still low on fanservices, although some scene has references to ecchi stuffs or something to that effects. At first, i was expecting some ecchi stuffs or a lot of fanservices, but no… all i got is some magical battles and romances. Nevertheless, this anime is filled with 4 (or 5?) cute, sexy, and beautiful girls. I’ll be going into details for all of those 4-5 beauties.

Mito Mashiro, the cute goddess who can turn into loli after spending her magical power.

Mito Mashiro, the main heroine of this anime. She’s the goddess that dreamt of the coexistence between human and tayutai. It was a pretty impossible goal to achieve at first time, but she never gave up, and work all the way to defeat 3 most powerful tayutai. Yuuri named her Mito Mashiro after she’s released from the seal. In the past life, she was called Kikurami Kaminohime.

Mito Mashiro is a very beautiful and sexy girl. And she got that dog ears to add her cuteness. A plus point for inumimi girl lovers. She’s kind but at the other side she’s also strict, especially with the training she gave to help Yuuri improves his exorcism power.

Anyway, Mashiro’s appearances are affected by her power. If she activated her power, her hair will turn white-purple. Her hair color became brown if she’s in her normal state. Not only that, if she used up her magical power, she can turn into a little girl (read: LOLI). After regenerating for awhile, she could became adult again.

Just as expected, this anime main heroine is Mashiro and the VN route used in this anime is Mashiro’s route, with coexistence ending and she got married with Yuuri at the end, a very sad marriage. While it’s a good ending for everyone, i guess this kind of ending is pretty ordinary and lame.

Kawai Ameri, another name for jealousy.

Kawai Ameri, a childhood friend of Yuuri. She has a feeling of love towards Yuuri, too bad she kept her feeling sealed in her heart and never tells Yuuri about that. Kawai Ameri is a usual type of jealous childhood friend character. She loved Yuuri from the beginning, but she never told him. After Mashiro came and make Yuuri her husband in an instant, she started to realize her feeling and jealousy grew inside her heart.

Ameri is a good girl, but i started to hate her since she got that jealousy, and just as predicted, she also easily controlled by the enemy and became the source of power for the enemy. I never knew how she’s doing in the VN, but i know her role here in the anime is nothing more than jealous selfish girl.

Kisaragi Mifuyu, a total beauty with exceptional physical strength for a normal human.

Kisaragi Mifuyu, the student council president of Flawless school. She’s a normal human with exceptional physical strength. She got involved with Yuuri while they were up against the first and weakest tayutai out of 3 most powerful Tayutai: Nue. A pretty ojou-sama typed girl minus the spoiled personality.

Overall, she’s a great girl, and she’s also my favorite character from this anime. Too bad, her role in this anime is pretty much minor. I know she loved Yuuri, but since the anime used Mashiro’s route, her love feeling never really revealed explicitly. Her main role in the anime is became Nue’s friend, and that’s a pretty good start of coexistence Mashiro wanted.

Nue, loli demon with sense of humor.

I don’t know if Nue count as a “route character” in the anime, but it worth telling in this post. Nue is a tayutai, the first and the weakest out of all 3 powerful tayutai. She has that tentacle jelly monster with lighting power in her first appearance, but after that she was beaten by Yuuri, Mashiro, and Mifuyu. The reason she attacked was simple: she wanted to steal and try girls’ underwears. XD

Nue is also a great character with funny personality, she brings out the humor from this anime. As the tayutai who opposed coexistence at the first time, she unexpectedly became Mifuyu’s best friend.

Takanashi Yumina, your loli younger sister.

Takanashi Yumina, a loli character, stepsister of Yuuri, and Mifuyu’s friend. She’s a cute and kind girl, but she has the problem of “relied on her brother too much”. She got an interesting character development in the anime. She was able to overcome her weakness because of Ho-oh incident and ultimately, she was appointed by Mifuyu as the next Flawless student council president.

Yumina is a pretty strong hearted character.

As i said above, Yumina was heavily involved with Hooh incident. At a certain day, a bird fell into her room, and sit on Yumina’s head. That bird was one of 2 twin birds Hooh, which also one of the 3 powerful Tayutai Yuuri had to fight. The bird stayed on Yumina’s head to get some rest and regenerate its magical power. Yumina panicked, and if she’s in panic state, the bird’s also became panic. That’s why Yuuri had to accompany her in the school using his female form.

The battle was pretty much straightforward. And it ended well, Ho and Oh were together again, and both used Yumina’s head for their love nest. Yumina knew Yuuri will be troubled if she kept relying on Yuuri. So she decided to overcome her weakness by trying to handle Hooh by herself. She’s a pretty strong character for her ages.

Ameri and her childish attitude and jealousy.

Unlike Yumina, Ameri is older but she acts childish. Her jealousy made her easily controlled by the strongest Tayutai: Ryuu (dragon). Ryuu used Ameri’s jealousy to control her and made her fight against Yuuri and Mashiro. It’s a pretty predictable outcome… really… In the end, she gave up on Yuuri and let Mashiro have him after a long talk.

Confusing ending (for me).

The ending is pretty much weird and to forced. It’s pretty predictable that Ameri and the dragon were easily defeated, but Mashiro’s weakening power was another matter. In the middle of the story, there were some hints about Mashiro’s weakening power, her hand started to fade. In the end, i figured that Yuuri himself was the cause, but that’s just my guess, don’t know the real reason though. Is it just me, or the ending seems to forced? I mean, yeah i know Mashiro’s power is weakening, but was it because of Yuuri’s power or was it because she used too much power? The reason is still mystery to me…

Bonus: Nue and loli Mashiro in topless bikini.

Overall, i gave Tayutama a 7 out of 10. Nice girls especially Mifuyu, nice arts, great characters, and shallow story. That pretty much describes Tayutama in my eyes.

And that’s all for today’s review. I’m gonna be back for another review. And before closing, got a bonus for you: Nue and loli Mashiro in topless bikini, enjoy! XD

So yeah… that’s all for now, and see you at the next post!

Games replay value and post end game stuffs

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:00:03 PDT

Who loves girl playing games?

After beating Valkyria Chronicles, I’ve been thinking about games replay value, since Valkyria Chronicles has that new game plus which bring out our spirit to replay this game again even after you beat the game. This post is discussing mostly about why we gamers want to replay a game, even after you beat it and other games are waiting. Anyway, the games we’ll discuss here are games with genre like RPG or adventure. Games with genre like fighting or Dynasty Warriors styled gameplay aren’t too relevant in this topic, so let’s just assume all the games here are RPG or Adventure.

First let’s find the reasons what kind of replay values games can give:

New Game Plus: you can restart a new game with new features that you can’t access in the first playthrough, some games give you chance to bring your level, items, skills, etc in the new playthrough.
Post end game: after you beat the story, you’ll enter a free roaming mode or something like that, this session gives you chance to find secrets and completing subquests.
100% completion: self explanatory, gamers want to get 100% completion of the game. Depending on the game, 100% completion can be achieved in post end game session, new game plus, or even the first playthrough. This reason is about how gamers want to replay because they missed something in their first playthrough even though they can get a hundred percent in their first game.
Alternate ending: yeah, beating a game the 2nd time to get another view on the ending.
Just plain nostalgia: easy to say, just for nostalgia, no other special reason.

I guess I’ll be ranting about each of them with more details. So just let’s move on…

Disgaea series secrets opened in NG+, the real game will begin after you finish the story.

New game plus is about how the game delivers more stuffs to find, beat, open, etc after the first playthrough is finished and you start a new one. So you have to do those stuffs while you’re trying to finish the second story playthrough. Sometimes the game gives you ability to bring all items, level, etc. MGS3, MGS4, and Valkyria Chronicles are games that give you ability to bring those achievement in the next playthrough.

So gamers want to play those games because they want to taste those secrets. Disgaea series are the type of games that is filled with secrets after you finish the first playthrough. FYI, Disgaea 1 and 2 requires you to restart to access the secret, but Disgaea 3 doesn’t work that way. Disgaea 3 can be included in post end game achievement games. Disgaea 2 secret characters can be accessed after you finished the first game, like Laharl and friends.

Valkyria Chronicles brings you Hard and Ex Hard skirmish. The game also brings you a chance to replay all mission so you can get A rank in each missions. But no other secrets and whatsoever.

I rarely replay a games because of this reason. Disgaea 2 is an exception i guess, because like i said before, the real game has just begun after the end of the story. Usually, games with new game plus is minimum on new secrets, and that’s the reason why i rarely replay a games just because it has a new game plus. How about you guys? What do you think about New Game Plus?

It’s Grand Theft Auto if you don’t know what i want to say.

Next part is worth to play, a post end game achievement. Different than the first reason, new game plus, post end game achievement doesn’t bore you with the same events / stories you saw in the first playthrough. Those secret stuffs appeared after you beat the game, but you don’t have to restart the game and replay and rewatch all the stuffs you’ve watch in the first playthrough.

Games like Grand Theft Auto series are popular with this replay value. You can do things to get 100% completion, like hidden packages, jumps, rampages, races, etc. After the story ends, you can pretty much roams anywhere you want. Midnight Clubs: Los Angeles also gives you chance like this, you can go anywhere, get any kind of cars you want, and beat those <enter car types here> kings and get a hundred percent.

Those 2 games above are examples of games that have post end game session, but have almost no new secrets opened after the main story ended. But game like Disgaea 3 has new secrets opened after the main story ended. Grandia Extreme also has new dungeon appeared after you beat the story. Gamers may want to beat those dungeons or obtain those secrets before they sell the game or just put it in the repository.

Well, yeah… the post end game achievement is one of my main reason why i tried to play the games even after i beat those games. Depending on how many secrets revealed i might change my mind. Midnight Club LA and GTA don’t really have something new, so i guess i won’t be playing with it for too long. But games with so many secrets like Disgaea 3 has can be attractive to me. IMO, post end game session is better than new game plus because you don’t have to worry about rewatching the whole story again. So how’s your opinion regarding post end game session?

Tales series or 100% completion after the first playthrough.

Next is about 100% completion. A hundred percent is different between each games. You can only get 100% in games like Tales series after you beat it once. So it was like 100% in the new game plus. Games with post end game session like Midnight Club LA, GTA, and Disgaea 3 also has the 100% after you beat the game. But the real 100% is about how you get all the things you can get BEFORE you beat the game.

So it’s like, get all items, skills, subquests, equipments, and all the stuffs you can get before you beat the game. Normally, you can do this in the first playthrough. I remembered i played over 60 hours in Kingdom Hearts 2 just to get 100% for the secret ending.

So what’s the replay value IF you can get the number in the first playthrough? Well… not all people can get that number in their first playthrough. So they want to replay it and get the number in second playthrough.

Here are examples of games with the 100% completion in the first playthrough: Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 7 (don’t know the other series), Atelier Iris series, etc. You can get the 100% completion in the first playthrough, but if you failed or missed to get it, you can just restart the game, go for another try, and get the things you missed before.

Tales series are a very different examples. You can get most of the things in the first playthrough, but it still has the new game plus. As i remembered, Tales of Eternia has a new dungeon in the next playthrough. But in Tales of Abyss, only hardcore mode opened after you beat the game, no other stuffs.

Tales of Eternia bringing a lot of old memories to me. I still a n00b while playing the first ToE, so my target back there is just beat the story and nothing else. But after awhile i knew that ToE has so many potential in the game, so replayed it and beat it almost 100%, replayed it again for the new dungeon. I think this is the game where i spent so much time replaying.

I definitely wouldn’t want to replay a game just for 100% completion. Most gamers, including me, would like to try get 100% before they beat it, so it was like perfectionists who failed to perfect in their first playthrough would want to beat it again. So how about you? Do you want to beat the game just for 100% even though you knew you won’t get new secrets and stuffs?

Suikoden series, I’ve finished all of them and got the best ending except Suikoden 2.

And this maybe the other good reason why you want to replay the game again: alternate ending. Suikoden series are the games that popular with the endings. Each games always has these: 108 characters, one of your closest friend dead, and don’t let your character die at the battle. Target: best ending where you have to get all those character without dying and in the near end, you’ll have your friend revived.

So what if you failed to meet that requirement? Just beat it again! Easy! But it could take a lot of time to replay it again. You just have to beat it again with the condition met. A very potential reason to replay the game.

Most of you gamers, including me, would want to get the best ending at the first playthrough. But the difference is after that. Do you want to put the game off after you get the best ending, or want to play it again for the other ending (even the bad ending one)? For me, I’d stop after i got the best ending. Got more games waiting rather than rewatching the whole stories again. Maybe I’ll find a forum that discuss about the other ending and just read it just to let myself know what kind of stuffs lies in the other endings.

Bonus: Chibi Selvaria cooking (still in the happy mood after beating Valkyria).

The last reason is simple, just plain nostalgia. That’s pretty much self explanatory… Maybe the gamers just want to remember the games they’ve played or whatsoever.

So the main question is: do you still want to spend your precious time, let the new games waiting, and replay your previous games because of those reasons? I won’t be bothering too much with my past games, except i have no more games to play with…

Phew, a pretty long rant here… Well yeah, that’s it for now… See you at the next post.

Zero no Tsukaima: Princesses no Rondo

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:23:35 PDT

Zero no Tsukaima 3 - introducing new ~~bitch with big boobs~~ character: Tiffania Westwood.

After a week++ of absence, at last I’m back for another anime review! It’s Zero no Tsukaima: Princesses no Rondo turn this time. This anime is one of the 12++ anime series I’ve watched in my holiday. From those series, I’ve done only 2 reviews out of 12++, so yeah… basically this is the 3rd part of those 12 series, pretty slow huh!? Okay, then let’s get down to business.

Oh and don’t forget: SPOILERS WARNING!!!! Proceed with caution!

Tabitha got the most development in this season.

Zero no Tsukaima 3 story is pretty much short, with only 13 episodes you can’t really expect much plot twist here. Most of the episodes were wasted with fanservices and stuffs, leaving only 2-3 episodes near the end for the real story. The main concern in Zero 3 story is Tabitha and the main antagonist: Tabitha’s uncle (? *CMIIW*). Saito and friends already knew who and what are they up against. And yeah that’s it… The enemies managed to flew and Saito succeeded in saving Tabitha.

So yeah, Zero no Tsukaima 3 is low on plot development but high on fun. More fanservices, more harem, more action, and definitely more fun, unlike the previous season which filled with too much politics and low number of action and fun.

In this series, there were 2 more characters introduced: Tiffania Westwood and Irukuku. Tiffania was the forest fairy who saved Saito from death in Zero no Tsukaima season 2. Irukuku was Tabitha’s familiar in her human form –pretty sexy, i guess-.

Oh and apparently, Louise managed to learn about her void magic and she could control it perfectly, except her magic power wasn’t strong enough to handle such great magic (not enough MP XD).

Judging from the ending of this series, we definitely ARE waiting for the next season to air and looking forward for the continuation.

Saito’s harem, 3 melons and 2 strawberries.

The worst thing here is… Saito got more harem! He became even more popular, he got more girl, plus the girls became even more attracted to him. Let say you’re Saito and now you’re at the end of this season, then you can do these things:

Make love with Louise
Grope or even have sex with Tiffania
Kiss Henrietta
Make love with Siesta
Go out or even make love with Tabitha

I thought he’s loyal with her girl in the first season, but no… Now he’s just a bastard with a lot of cute, beautiful, sexy and dynamite girls loving him. XD

More fanservices!!!

Putting aside the harem, Zero no Tsukaima 3 is also filled with fanservices. Watched the OVA? Yeah… You could see almost all of Zero 3 girls in bikini, very very very sexy bikini. Need more? Don’t worry… There’s still onsen scene featuring Tiffania and Louise yuri action plus nude Tabitha. Still want more? Get a Zero no Tsukaima hentai doujinshi dude. XD

Yuri kisses found in this anime!!! That was really hot!

I forgot whether Agnes involved or not, but i know the best episode for me is the episode where Siesta tried to seduce Saito with love potion. But no… the best part isn’t Siesta, but when the love potion effects were already spread wide! Yeah, 4 girls got affected, and they were involved in some hot yuri chasing and kissing! I LOVE this episode! XD

Bonus: Louise gothic version.

Well, yeah, that’s all for now! As a bonus, an illustration of gothic Louise. I got the figure of Louise in this outfit, go check it out if you want. And yeah… this is it! See you at the next post!

Haruhi Gekisou – Max Factory

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:11:20 PDT

Suzumiya Haruhi Gekisou version.

Ouch… some school works forced me to make a week of pause between my last post and this post. Well whatever, this time i bring you another set of figure photos for one of my favorite figure: Suzumiya Haruhi Gekisou version. Get yourself ready for a total of 30 photos of the figure.

Max Factory manufactured this.

This figure is manufactured by the best figure manufacturer ever: Max Factory. I know MaxFact can create such wonderful masterpieces. But lately I’ve been disappointed by MaxFact. I don’t know how you guys feel with figma, but i guess MaxFact has been too focused with their “side” projects or even made this “side” projects become their main projects, and left the PVC building as the side projects.

Why make figma if they can produce something great like this?

As i said before, i don’t know how you guys feel with figma. Maybe some of you were happy collecting figma because of its posability, its cheap price, and most figma models came from popular characters. IMO, MaxFact is “wasting” their skills on projects like that, while us (or me?), static PVC lovers, left unserved, and maybe start to lean to other great manufacturer like Alter. Please do excuse me for saying things like this, especially if you’re a figma lovers, I’m just trying to express my feeling.

SOS-dan + concert = GODLIKE!

Enough about MaxFact ranting, let’s get into the figure. As you may know, around July 2007, there’s a big concert of Suzumiya Haruhi, called Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou. Its filled with Haruhi songs goodness like God Knows, Hare hare dance, etc. This Haruhi and her outfit came from the official promotion illustration of that concert. I saw that picture and thought about how great SOS-dan girls in those outfit. And 2 years later, the figures were at last released.

Cheerful and full of spirit Haruhi, well it’s her concert spirit after all.

Haruhi came with a different hairstyle this time. Yes, dig out some illustration of the concert and you’ll know that Haruhi had a different hairstyle. It’s very detailed, with that tied part of her hair and her ahoge. Her face? Just as usual, it’s the full of spirit and cheerful Haruhi we all know. She looks soooo great! Totally perfect!

The best Haruhi ever.

Max Factory’s sculpt is as usual almost perfect. I said almost because there maybe a few little unexpected flaws lurking around. But as usual, it looks better than the other. This maybe the best Haruhi figure ever released, except you prefer the school uniform better, then get the Alter or the old Max Factory version.

Nice eyes.

Max Factory really brought us the Gekisou concert spirit to our home via this figure. It’s all written on her full of spirit face. Oh, and her eyes, MaxFact produced the best eyes of figure IMO. Those eyes can give a live and sparkling feeling, and figures from other manufacturers can’t bring that in their figures (including Alter).

A side view of half of her body.

The minus part of this figure is the pose. Although Haruhi is in a concert, she doesn’t have that dynamic pose like Alter figures have. An even more energetic pose or dynamic pose can add up the joy of the concert.

Haruhi Gekisou concert… is it good? Never watch it.

I myself never watch Aya Hirano in that gekisou outfit, and that means i never watch the gekisou concert. So i can’t really compare this figure with the real world result. But, I’d love to see if there’s a video of Haruhi (anime version) singing God Knows in those concert getups.

The microphone.

She’s the vocalist, so she got this microphone hanging behind her right ear. Looks great for a concert accessory.

Her hair, around 60 degrees above.

A view from above, to get a clearer view around her hair. That ahoge really stands up. I never see any Haruhi with ahoge in the anime. I don’t know how she does her hair but making that ahoge stands out is pretty hard XD . Anyway, even with that new hairstyle, she still wears that Haruhi’s favorite hairband, except this time her side ribbons aren’t there.

A view from the back.

Her outfit is pretty revealing, especially around her shoulder and stomach. The skirt and the frills on the edge of her tank top give a gothic feeling for Haruhi. It’s not a totally gothic Haruhi though. Similar to Mikuru, it has frills around the edges of her clothes and layered skirt.

Nicely done!

Her upper body is surprisingly revealing. Her arms and stomach aren’t covered at all. They got a pretty nice design on the tank top, especially by adding frills around the edges. Nicely sculpted around here, and it’s pretty detailed on the wrinkles right below her boobs.

Cross necklace.

I’m a Catholic and Cross is a symbol of Catholic, so why Haruhi wears this? I ~~thought she’s the God~~ never knew about her religion in the anime. But above all that, this necklace is pretty nice accessory! If you noticed even deeper, there are another necklace and a belt choker on her neck. The other necklace is permanently sculpted on the body, it’s not separated like this necklace.

Ideal boobs for girls around her age.

Nice boobs, but not maximized. I know MaxFact did this because they want to keep Mikuru’s boobs as the biggest boobs in the gekisou set XD . Overall, Haruhi still got a nice boobs, you can still feel it and t** f***ed by it. It has nice size, but her cleavage isn’t revealed unlike Mikuru.

Her right arm.

Her right arm got this red long armband covering her lower right arm and half of the upper right arm. And she’s also tied with some black belts around her arms. Just accessories to keep synchronized with the official illustration i guess.

Her right hand.

And her right hand with red guitar pick on it. It’s a pretty small part, and it’s prone to small paint flow. Yes… small paint flows do happen even in MaxFact’s products. The other bad part here is her fingernails aren’t painted, it’s not that bad but it could add the fun factor of a figure.

Her left arm.

Her left arm, which has nothing on it except that black thing on her upper arm. It’s the part of her tank top. I guess that’s all for the left arm.

Her left hand, handling the guitar keys.

And this is her left hand which handles the guitar keys. Sorry i don’t know anything about guitar, so i can’t tell you much about the guitar and all, do correct me if I’m wrong regarding this guitar parts, because after this, we’re moving to the guitar parts!

The guitar of Haruhi Suzumiya.

And this is the guitar, her famous guitar. She played using this guitar once in the first season episode 12 “Live A Live”, singing God Knows. That scene is the best scene I ever watched and that scene burned to my heart. I will never ever forget that scene. Anyway, the guitar is pretty detailed and has nice paintjobs on it. Great job MaxFact!

Italia Mondial Classic.

Did a little search while writing this and i found something interesting from Sankaku Complex. It is said that Haruhi’s guitar is Italia Mondial Classic, and Yuki’s white guitar is Gibson SG Special White ~~while Yui’s guitar is GITAAHHH!!!~~ . Anyway, those guitar chords are real strings, don’t know if they’re just a string shaped plastics or a real string, but unlike Chua Churam’s guitar they’re not sculpted on the guitar.

Nice layered skirt, also gives a gothic feeling.

We’re done with guitar and moving on the skirt part. It’s a pretty unique skirts. It has 3 layers, the first layer is semi invisible, and the front skirt length is far shorter than the back length. It’s easier to peek below! XD

Her left leg.

Her left leg has a shorter sock compared to her right leg. It’s colored green, has some patterns, a ribbons, and frills on the edge. Those frills also give the gothic feeling for this figure. Anyway, the right leg’s sock is pretty long it reached her thigh, too bad i didn’t take a photo of it.

Her left shoes.

And this is her left shoes. The sculpt is greatly done! Yeah, and it looks shiny, as good as new, nice paintjob especially by adding that glossy effect.

A high angled photos for you.

That’s all the details parts, and here we go, a full view of this figure from above. Looks pretty normal, and no cleavage revealing for you. The parts that stand out here are her guitar and her skirt.

The mandatory pantie shot!

Ahem… Now you see it! It’s a pretty normal white pantie, and it’s already my job to bring a mandatory pantie shot for you otakus! XD

Blue light!

As to make a concert feeling, i tried to experiment with my wireless flash. It’s easy to make this color effect as long as you have a wireless flash set. Just prepare a colored carton / paper / cloth / whatever you have. Put it in your mini studio as the exchange of your reflector. Do your shot, and done! You got your colored effect photos. I know maybe some of you would like to do that in Photoshop, but I was pretty lazy for Photoshopping and chose this way instead.

Green colored!

Got a total of 4 photos with color effects, and each photos have different colors. This time is green. I also took this chance to experiment with some angles i didn’t take in photos above.

Pink colored!

Pink carton isn’t too strong to reflect weak flash, so i had to fire a stronger flash and the result is this. It’s a pretty harsh light result from Haruhi’s right hand side considering the flash was already reflected.

Red colored! And POI: gekisou!

And the last is IMO the best color effect I’ve done, just like Fate Testarossa photos. Oh and the POI of this figure is the “Gekisou” part. Everyone bought this figure because she got concert costume, guitar, and got the concert feelings in it. And that’s the best selling part of this figure.

That’s it for my review. For other reviews, you can go here (I’ve listed some):

涼宮ハルヒ激奏ver ~ Suzumiya Haruhi Gekisou Version by meronpan
Rockin’ with Haruhi Suzumiya by Optic
Haruhi Extravaganza by Vixion
Haruhi Gekiso Extravagance (Max Factory) by Shadonia
Haruhi Suzumiya Live!!! by Rin

Phew, that’s a pretty long list. If you also want to be listed here, please do tell me, I’ll put it right away!

Yeah… that’s all for now. See you at the next post!

Epic Win part 2: great news for you!!!

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:15:07 PDT

Found something great on konachan.

A very great news for you otakus, i found something very interesting. You remember this epic win picture right? We all know that this picture is pretty small even for 1024x768px wallpaper. And the great news is: i found the vectored wallpaper version of this picture. It’s not really a wallpaper size though, but it’s pretty huge for any kind of monitor (3000x2125px). Anyway, i don’t know if this is a widescreen or normal screen size, just try and stretch it on your monitor right away.

Finished reading? Get this RIGHT NOW:

http://konachan.com/post/show/58031/akiyama_mio-asahina_mikuru-bunnygirl-crossover-hir

That’s all folks!

One year (and 2 months) of gaming with PS3

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:54:13 PDT

Playing with PS3 for 1 year (and 2 months).

Last holiday, 26th June 2009, I’ve reached the 1st year of owning PS3. But i didn’t have the chance to post since i was gone MIA in Duri – Riau back there. And after 2 months, i remembered and took the chance just to post this up. So yeah, today I’m celebrating 1 year (and 2 months) of gaming with my PS3.

PS3 system is totally incredible. I never knew that 6 cores of microprocessors would give such performance. I almost never experienced any lags or framing or even freezing (except the game itself caused it, like Midnight Club LA).

The games are also awesome, except there were so little number of games that go boom like the past FF7 or games like that. But waiting between each games can be annoying, it took pretty long time between one great game and another games. Sometimes i also blindly hoped for something crazy (unannounced at first) like English version of Cross Edge (it took some months from the Japan release for the announcement of English version), Tales of Vesperia (from X360, but there’s still no news for the English version), etc.

Online experience? well… i don’t think so. Thanks to my wireless router and PS3 WiFi ability, i don’t have to pull a ethernet cable from my router to PS3. I am using a 1 – 1.5 Mbps internet connection, still too slow for online gaming. So far i only played PS Home and browsing PS Store. Tried once played Soul Calibur 4 online, but it’s totally filled with lags and disconnections.

Our stack of PS3 games.

See the photo above? That’s the stack of me and my 2 bros’ games, worth of 1 year (and 2 months) collecting. The stack under Yoko is stack of finished games, and the stack under Louise is stack of unfinished games. Let me go to details of how “we” are doing (now) on those games:

Left stack:

Ninja Gaiden Sigma (mine): finished it once, never touch it anymore.
Ratchet & Clank Quest for Booty (my bros, both): totally finished it, it’s a VERY SMALL adventure which is easily finished in 2 hours.
Midnight Club Los Angeles (me): 95% finished, finished the story and paid USD 1 million and get all cars and parts free, but haven’t finished every kings available (exotic, muscle, tuner, etc).
Ridge Racer 7 (me and my 1st bro): my bro passed me, he reached stages where you have to beat special cars and own it if you win.
GTA 4 (my 1st bro): finished the whole story.
Dynasty Warriors 6 (all): finished all musou mode.
MGS4 (my 1st bro): finished with Big Boss Emblem owned.
Ratchet & Clank Future Tools for Destruction (my bros, both): totally finished and almost 100%.
Folklore (my 2nd bro): finished it (don’t really know the details though).
Gundam Musou 2 (all): finished all story, i used Lunamaria, my 1st bro used Kira and reached the last ultimate mission in mission mode.
Golden Axe (my 2nd bro): finished the story, it’s a pretty bad game.
Enchanted Arms (my 1st bro): finished the story (don’t know the details).
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (my 1st bro): almost finished all of the available races.
Soul Calibur 4 (me and my 1st bro): there’s no finish in fighting game, just stopped playing.

Right stack:

Eternal Sonata (me and my 1st bro): played until i reached first time meeting Viola, never played it since then, looking for a good time after beating Valkyria Chronicles.
Disgaea 3 (me and my 1st bro): i stopped at the last chapter, my 1st bro reached Laharl and friends.
Cross Edge (me): haven’t even removed the protective plastic seal yet (ZOMGWTFLOL!!!).
Burnout Paradise (my 1st bro): finished the whole race and reached the maximum level, and downloaded the new bike upgrade. Played online with this.
LittleBigPlanet (my 2nd bro): finished the whole offline game. Rarely played with online level.
NFS Undercover (me): played it once until i got my 1st pink slip, left it dead since then.
Hot Shot Golf (my 1st bro): don’t how he’s progressing but he reached the 2nd row characters.
inFamous (my 1st bro): finished the hero scenario, restarted with bad guys scenario.
Elder Scroll 4 Oblivion (my bros, both): i don’t know how they’re progressing, it’s a bad game for me though, but they say it’s a great game.
BlazBlue (all): finished arcade for Jin, Noel, Litchi, Taokaka, Tager, and Hakumen. I main Noel, sub Litchi, and tried Taokaka, my 2nd bro main Jin, sub Tager, and tried Hakumen, and my 1st bro main Ragna. Haven’t tried the story yet, all we play is just versus and versus.
Valkyria Chronicles (me): reached the last chapter, exactly at the 2nd last battle.

And that’s how we’re doing with our games right now. Most of my games were left behind because of my school work. That’s why i still left my Cross Edge unopened. I planned on beating Valkyria ASAP and start Cross Edge right after that while doing Eternal Sonata with my bro. Damn, that’s pretty crazy multitasking i guess XD. For you who hava multiple games on hand, how do you manage your games?

Well, that’s all for now, pretty short post today. So, see you later!

Nagato Yuki - Alter

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:50:12 PDT

Nagato Yuki.

After almost a week of absence, let me bring you another photo shoot a.k.a. review for another beautiful figure from my collection. It’s Nagato Yuki, everyone knows who she is already, so I’ll skip the character introduction (if you still don’t know who she is, proceed to Wiki or Google). Anyway, this figure itself is manufactured by Alter and was released back around March-April 2009.

Manufactured by Alter.

Alter released this after their first Haruhi, and i guess this Yuki can be included as a series with that previous Haruhi. FYI, this Yuki has the same base style with Haruhi: white and has big Y letter carved on it, just like Haruhi’s H letter.

Not your usual Yuki here.

Yuki figure this time has an expression and body pose that kinda deviates the usual Yuki. She’s the type of silent character with exceptionally null and flat expression. But in this figure, she somewhat moved her eyebrows up a bit, making a little expression, it’s very little but it’s not her usual expressionless face.

Dynamic pose.

And not only her expression, but also her body pose, also looks unusual. I didn’t do any research of where this pose come from, never found any official illustration of Yuki with that pose. I think it could be Alter’s original idea, just like the other dynamic posed figures Alter made.

Taking of her glasses.

I heard that there was a limited version of this figure, with her holding a book between her hand and her lips, pretty sensual. For Yuki with megane fans, you maybe kinda disappointed because she doesn’t wear that glasses. Maybe she’s taking it off.

“Is there something on my face?” or “Do i look good without my glasses"?”

With a closer look on her face, you could just imagine what’s she trying to say? For me, her face is, like, trying to say: “please don’t stare me like that, I’m embarassed” or something to that effect. Depending on how you translate a figure face, you could get another interesting line right from staring at her face.

Great sculpt, better skin tone.

Putting aside the thought about her expression in this figure, Alter really did a great job on Yuki. The sculpt is as usual: totally great, and one thing i like is the skin tone is getting better. I know this involves my personal preferences but i guess her skin isn’t as pale as Haruhi.

Her face from her right side.

Tried some angle with this figure. Turned out pretty good, except you missed her unique expression a little bit. Anyway, for this Yuki photo session, i originally planned on using blue background with my Logitech keyboard as the base, but i changed my mind and borrowed my bro’s laptop for the base (and accidentally the black screen as background). Black is neutral, so i guess there’s not much problem with the color combination.

Photography tips:

For you Canon user, you can combine your camera RAW settings, Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software, and the picture style files from Canon’s website. You can view and get more picture style files here. As i said before, shooting using RAW gives you 2 advantages: image better and sharper than JPG (lossless) and it enables you to change your photo settings you’ve set in your camera (like Picture Style, White Balance, etc). Combining this RAW editing ability in DPP and new picture style files, you can open more possibilities of having great colored photos.

FYI, i used Studio Portrait picture style from Canon’s website. The color tone and the brightness are somewhat synchronized with studio lamp, or in my case: wireless flash.

I guess this tip is pretty much Canon specific, but i guess the other camera brand should have their own software and their picture style file, so be sure to check out your camera manufacturer’s website and search for more.

Back side.

Anyway, back to the review. Yuki this time really has a sensual pose. I do hope Alter combined their idea of dynamic / sensual pose with a selection of unique costume. That idea has yet to be realized so far.

Flat… common knowledge.

Going in to detailed parts, Yuki’s chest is, as you all know, flat. She’s one of the DFC character. So i won’t bother taking a closer look on her chest. Instead, i give you an almost full view of her body and uniform.

Right hand.

Don’t be tricked by the power of macro lens. I know her hand looks dirty there, but don’t worry, it’s not a factory defect, just plain dirty. Another thing to notice is seams on the side of her thumb. Oh and forgot to mention, painted fingernails!

Her left hand.

And her left hand, the one that hold that legendary Yuki’s glasses, also has those painted fingernails. I intentionally take a shot from this angle, knowing that i would get a dark and ugly result, just to show you Alter’s painted fingernails. Too bad, because of the power of macro lens, another seams is visible in the photo. Don’t worry though, those seams won’t be visible if you view it using your own normal eyes.

Nagato Yuki no Megane (The Glasses of Nagato Yuki).

And this is her legendary glasses. Kyon erased this glasses from its very existence by just saying “You look good without the glasses”. Damn Kyon! You destroyed the hope of all megane fans out there in the whole world!

Great sculpt on the details.

Moving on to the lower part, around her ribbon and sirt. Pretty much detailed, it’s not the main part of this figure, but it still looks great as parts from this figure. As always, Alter did a perfect job on this detailed parts.

Lower part.

Her cardigan is also beautifully sculpted. Everything looks nice, including the fold and wrinkles on the cardigan, and the edge parts of the cardigan. Pretty cool! Anyway, you can see the lines on the shoeprints, somewhat rough for me.

A view from above.

Nonetheless, this figure is a great figure, one of the best Yuki out of all Yuki figures ever released. I guess the other great Yuki figure is Yuki gekisou from Max Factory. The other great thing from this figure is she’s kneeling, so you don’t have to worry about leaning, connecting with the pegs, etc. You could just put her on wherever place flat, all you want.

90 percent…

…of you will look at the left part of the photo XD . Anyway, the main object of this photo is her left leg. Don’t worry dude, maybe I’m also in that 90% XD .

Mandatory pantie shot for those 90%.

And for those 90% of people who looked at the left part, I’ll give you a clearer and bigger view of her pantie. Don’t worry people, pantie shot is always a mandatory for every figure photo session XD .

Depending on how you see it, you could say this is an ero pose. XD

My wild imagination started each time i looked at this photo. She has just started by taking off her glasses. Next, she takes off her cardigan, lowering her skirt, takes off her shirt, and she’s ready to play with you XD .

Which one do you prefer? Kneeling or laying down?

Tried a few shot with her laid down on the keyboard. Turned out prety good i guess. It could be better if i used something like cotton or something soft like pillow or just plain white cloth, just to give a “laying on bed” feeling.

Be ready people, be ready to assault her. *Evil laugh*

Damn, this Yuki is tempting, even though she’s not sexy, she gives that ero / sensual feeling. I need to find and read Yuki H doujin after this XD .

POI: ero pose!

The POI of this figure is of course her ero pose. I’ve seen much ero figures, but i never seen any normal figures with a ero pose. From this angle, she looks like she’s ready to accept you and your dirty desire.

Well, that’s all for you hungry wolves! Be sure to follow the updates for more ~~prey~~ figure photos and anime stuffs. So see you later!

Epic Win

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:55:03 PDT

Haruhi x K-On! = instant total epic win!

This picture is made of pure epic win! Totally cool!!!! Haruhi and K-On! in one picture with the characters swapping costume each other. Mio in Haruhi’s gekisou costume, Haruhi in Mio’s gothic costume, and Mugi in Yuki’s gekisou costume, and the rest of them are total instant win.

Too bad there’s no wallpaper resolution of this picture. >.<

I’d say this is epic, that’s all! Via DannyChoo member news posted by p00hax0r. Original source from Gelbooru.

Indonesia references in anime

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:02:11 PDT

Picture totally irrelevant, just made of epic win.

Today, 17th of August: we, Indonesian, are commemorating Indonesia’s Independence Day. And that’s why, i, as an Indonesian too, also am commemorating Indonesia’s Independence Day by bringing you a few Indonesia references i found in anime.

Oh, for some people, this post could contain SPOILERS for CLANNAD, Code Geass R2, and Index-tan. So yeah, just watch out while reading it.

CLANNAD, Kotomi’s arc, around the ending.

This is the first reference: CLANNAD (first season). It happens in Kotomi’s arc, right at the ending. That “warui otoko” guy came to Kotomi and gave her the suitcase, with a bear for Kotomi’s birthday present from her parents. The parents died in plane accident and that suitcase dropped in the middle of nowhere. There was also a letter in the suitcase telling “If you find this suitcase, please take it to my daughter”. The suitcase found by someone from country to country around the world, including Indonesia.

The screenshot above doesn’t really tells that it was in Indonesia, but if you heard the lines, you’ll know that the person talking said that line in Indonesian.

Code Geass R2, total revolt in Chinese federation.

Next reference came from Code Geass R2. It happens in Chinese federation part, where the Eunuch generals tried to sell Tianzi to Britannia, but the Black Knight foiled that plan by broadcasting Eunuch generals evil plan to the Chinese federation and triggered a revolt in the whole Chinese federation, including Jakarta.

Apparently, Jakarta, which is the capital of Indonesia, already became a main city in Chinese federation. Heck, i think the whole Indonesia was already under the power of Chinese federation. In the screenshot, the subtitle already said Jakarta but the map hasn’t reached Indonesia yet.

Index-tan, last part in first episode: my favorite!

The last reference is the best IMO. It’s in Index-tan, almost the end of first episode of Index-tan. The actual scene is about Index and Touma were going to public bath, and in Index-tan, Index asked this: “Nashi goreng te nanii?”. I totally LOLed after hearing this. Anyway, Nasi Goreng is Indonesian fried rice, and it’s one of my favorite afterschool lunch.

Well, yeah… that’s it for commemorating Indonesia independence day. I’ll be taking my leave. See you at the next post.

Shugo Chara

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:47:03 PDT

Shugo Chara!

Hi! I’m back for more anime review. I did say that I’ll be choosing what’s next by random, and the randomizer’s result today fell to Shugo Chara. To be honest, i was introduced to Shugo Chara kinda late by my friend evangeline88 (at least that was HIS nickname in HIS myanimelist), IIRC Shugo Chara Doki was already at around its 60th episode. At first i was uninterested because of its “childish magical girl” theme, but in the end i decided to try and got attached to the end.

Anyway, as always: SPOILERS WARNING. You’ve been warned, if you want to proceed while knowing the risk, please do so.

Guardian, Shugo Chara, Embryo, Easter, etc, etc, etc.

Shugo Chara! revolves around a girl, named Hinamori Amu and her friends of course: the Guardian, and their life as Guardian with their cute Guardian Character (Shugo Chara). All of the kids in Shugo Chara has a “would-be self” which shaped in an egg form, called Guardian Egg (Shugo Tama). Those eggs are the shape of their would-be self or should i say dream. Kids with bigger strength of heart can make their Guardian Egg hatch and became Guardian Character. Most of the main characters in this anime have their Guardian Eggs hatched to Guardian Characters.

So what’s the conflict? A unusual egg called Embryo is rumored to be the magical egg that can fulfill any wishes. The Guardian main target was to get this Embryo. Of course there would be an enemy who also tried to get this Embryo, the enemy here was a group called Easter. They wanted to get their hands on Embryo by any means necessary. As you can guess, most of the story of this anime will revolves around the battle between Guardian and Easter.

Daily dosage: 1 episode of Shugo Chara per day, watch before sleep.

Even though i said battle and stuffs, this anime is pretty light and pretty fun to enjoy. There are a lot of cute, romantic, heartwarming, friendship, and funny events going on in this anime. But you know, this kind of anime theme always has that “embarrassing” moments or lines or stuffs (just like Akari’s lines in ARIA series). If you want to enjoy some not-so-light anime, you can try Shugo Chara and watch it with daily dosage of 1 episode per day before sleep.

Magical girls anyone?

And for you magical girl fans, Shugo Chara got so many magical girl costume for you. As i said before, this anime is filled with girls and their Guardian Characters. To fight their opponents they transform with their Guardian Characters, do a Character Transformation (Chara Nari, *CMIIW*), and became a cosplayer in an instant. XD

Chara Chen~ji! Chara Nari!

Oh, and before continuing, I’ll let you know more about the basic knowledge of this anime. Character that has Guardian Character can do a Character Change, it’s not really powerful but it can bring out their hidden character like Amu & Ran became an energetic and athletic, Rima & Kusu-kusu became a clown, etc. With more power and miracle, they can do Character Transformation, as i explained above. They use Character Change for everyday life and Character Transformation for fighting dark power.

Talk about the enemy, Easter, they tried to bring out the Embryo by extracting children’s heart’s egg and making it X Egg (Batsu tama). X Egg is a symbol of a people who has already thrown their dream and became desperate. The more they became desperate, the stronger the X Egg, and it could even hatch into an X Character (Batsu chara). Almost all of the 51 episodes of Shugo Chara will be filled with this X Eggs and X Characters and with the Guardian tried to purify them all.

That’s all for the basics, and let’s move on to character by character reviews.

Hinamori Amu: my favorite pink haired girl (even though she’s 5th-6th grader).

Hinamori Amu, a 5th grader, who’s also the main heroine of this anime. She didn’t have much confidence with herself until she made herself an “outside character”, the Cool and Spicy Amu. She looked cool and all on the outside, but on the inside she just didn’t want to lose her confidence and do something stupid. Because of her outside character and her inside wish, 3 eggs “came out” from her and they all hatched to a Guardian Characters.

The Guardian in the school however, believed that Amu who has 3 Guardian Characters with her, was the chosen one and they invited her to Guardian and gave her Humpty Lock. This lock itself still mysterious up until you completed Shugo Chara, the only thing i knew about this is just: this lock helped Amu and her friends perform Character Transformation.

Amu has the best combination of personalities.

Also with the power of Humpty Lock, she was also the only one who can do X Character / X Egg purifying action by doing Open Heart: “Negative Heart lock on! Open Heart!!”. Anyway, for me, Amu is my favorite character. She’s the main heroine and the person who moved the anime forward. She’s cool outside, funny and doesn’t have confidence inside. But she tried to overcome any trouble by believing in her heart’s strength and her friends. In the end, Amu herself could convince all the wavering hearts, including Utau’s heart (Amu’s nemesis).

Fujisaki Nadeshiko: Fujisaki Nagehiko is also HIS name.

Next is the 2nd main girl you met in this anime: Fujisaki Nadeshiko. Although she was Amu’s best friend at the first time, she left in the middle of the season and became *HUGE SPOILER* a guy. Nadeshiko was a nice and kind girl, but her real character was a wild girl. She also acted as Amu’s place to consult for her problems. Anyway, she became a guy in the middle anime, err… sorry… she is actually a he. His actual name is Nagehiko, and his family runs a tradition that a boy in that family has to act as a girl until he reached 5th grade. Just a little sneak peek to Shugo Chara Doki: he’ll came back and live as Nagehiko (boy). Urgh… i guess Nadeshiko can be counted as one of the best trap in anime.

Yuki Yaya: the childish wannabe baby girl.

This is the other Guardian, Yuiki Yaya. She is one childish girl and act as a baby. Heck, her would-be self is baby! For that reason, i kinda hate this character. She’s almost totally useless in the battle until she got her Character Transformation, Dear Baby. Nonetheless, she’s still Amu’s best friend who stayed beside her until the last episode of Shugo Chara.

Mashiro Rima: the God of comedy.

Next character introduced after Nadeshiko left: Mashiro Rima. Even though she was a guardian, she was very unsocial at first. She also was the first Guardian member after Amu who can do Character Transformation. Her outside character was kinda annoying but her would be self is a gag performer, she does like to laugh and do funny stuffs. Amu managed to befriend her and she became another Amu’s ~~yuri harems~~ best friend. I like Rima’s character and her story, but i don’t really like her appearance, i don’t like short girl you know.

Hoshina Utau: incest maniac twintailed blonde girl who likes to sing.

The last character is Hoshina Utau. She was Amu’s arch nemesis, whether in job and in romance (Ikuto). You’ll see her a bit annoying at first. She was one of Easter best employee in order to get the Embryo. By singing and doing character change with her first Guardian Character, Iru, she can bring out audience’s Guardian Eggs and make them X. These scenes happen a lot in the 2nd part of the anime.

She’s actually a good girl.

She’s bad indeed, but in the end of the anime, she was beaten by Amu and became a good character, and even Amu’s best friend (and rival). She’s so beautiful when she’s character transforming with Eru. In the end, she quitted Easter and opened new celebrity agency with her manager. I started to like her nearing the end of the anime, especially in that almost end episode where she and Amu travelled around the city to find place where she can sing (the best part is Amu was wearing megane in that episode!!!).

Black Diamond is the best! (from this anime)

A pretty darn good move to put Mizuki Nana as the seiyuu of Hoshina Utau. Most her song were awesome, i too still attached with her Black Diamond, totally like it! Utau sang 3 main songs in this anime: Meikyuu Butterfly, Black Diamond, and Heartful Song. The first 2 songs were the songs used to extract X Eggs out of audiences’ hearts. And the last song is the song she sang after she quitted Easter.

Mio moe moe kyun open heart!!

This illustration above is Mio doing Open Heart, for me. But for me, it’s Mio doing original move called moe moe kyun beam or whatever you name it.

Well, Mio above marks the end of this review. That’s it for today. See you at the next post!

To Aru Majutsu no Index

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:09:46 PDT

To Aru Majutsu no Index.

While waiting for another figure photo session, I’m gonna fill you with updates of anime reviews. You should’ve known that I’ve finished 12++ series in 1 month. So (maybe) the number of anime reviews will also be 12++. I’ll start with To Aru Majutsu no Index, and I’ll be random at choosing which one to do next.

Obviously, beyond this section is full of SPOILERS, so… if you haven’t watched this anime i suggest you stop here. If you already knew the risks, please do proceed.

No basic knowledge.

The story of To Aru Majutsu no Index circles around Kamijyo Touma a very unfortunate boy who lives in Academy City. In this city, science rules and supernatural phenomenon is pretty much normal occurrences. At the first scene, you’ll see is a girl blasting a damn huge electricity wave to a boy who can block that blast totally only with his right hand.

I was pretty much confused and kinda waiting for a clearer information or explanation, but no… i didn’t get any explanation about this city and the people of the city in the early episodes. So i continued on watching this anime without knowing any basic knowledge about the city, the girl, and Touma.

Apparently, i continued on with my own assumption. Here’s my assumption:

- There are 2 kind of supernatural power in this world: magic and esper.

- Academy city is full of esper, and they learned how to use esper abilities in their school.

- Misaka is the highest level of all esper, while Touma is the lowest level a.k.a. level 0, but he has that anti supernatural power right hand.

- Touma’s right hand can block both magic power and esper power.

I knew beforehand that this anime is similar with Shana, but as i remembered, Shana’s early episodes were filled with some basic explanations. It seems each anime has its own way to entertain their viewers by letting them make their own assumptions.

Anyway, this anime is pretty similar with Shana, including on how they split the stories between arcs. So I’ll be reviewing this anime arc by arc.

1st arc: Index is a loli noodle bread eating sister.

The first arc, which is the opening arc is about Index’s arrival on Touma’s apartment. As you can guess, Index’s arrival was pretty much funny: she came with empty stomach, begging for food while hanging on Touma’s veranda. Touma didn’t know at that time, that this was just the beginning.

Index came with some hard explanations about her church, her mission, about that grimoires, and about someone pursued her because of that grimoires. Doesn’t take too much long, someone suspicious calling himself magician: Styil Magnus came and attacked Touma. Not only that, Styil’s friend came and also attacked Touma: she’s Kanzaki Kaori.

Actually they both were Index’s friends and they planned on erasing Index’s memory which is actually a ritual that needs to be done every year in order to keep Index alive. As predicted, Touma found a way to prevent that at the cost of his own memories.

As expected, this arc is just an opening arc. You knew Index, you knew Styil, Kanzaki, Touma, academy city, and some basic knowledges. There’s not much going on here.

2nd arc: Touma’s first job, rescuing Himegami Aisa.

The next arc is pretty short. It’s about Touma’s first job as Index’s friends helper. Styil asked him to get Himegami Aisa from someone (forgot his name) who can do crazy magic (Ars Magna) which can turn his thought into reality. This arc doesn’t really important for story advancement. The only things significant here are: that man was Index’s previous partner even before Styil and Himegami Aisa joined Index’s group in Touma’s place.

Starting from this arc, i realized that Index’s role wasn’t that much even though the title of this anime is Index.

3rd arc: Misaka Mikoto and MISAKA sisters.

The 3rd arc is unexpectedly long. It’s about my favorite character: Misaka Mikoto. She was involved in a cruel experiment: making a level 6 esper. The level-6-to-be esper is called Accelerator, and his job was to kill 20000 clones of Misaka a.k.a. sisters. One of the sisters met Touma and learned that life is important even though they were clones. FYI, Accelerator’s ability is manipulating vector and air by calculating it and deflecting or doing whatever he wants with it.

As expected of our hero, Touma suggested that he himself, a level 0 esper, has to beat Accelerator in order to stop the experiment. And he totally defeated Accelerator with his right hand and some helps from the sisters (changing the wind so Accelarator would have a hard time counting and manipulating the air).

For a Misaka fan, this arc is definitely my favorite arc, since Misaka herself and also the sisters were involved in some action-packed scenes.

4th arc: Angel Fall.

Fourth arc returns Index and her friends back to the spotlight. The first thing you’ll get to see is fanservices: Index in swimsuit and bikini, pretty entertaining. The fun ends in just 15 minutes, suddenly everything went wrong. Everyone swapped body: Index became Touma’s mom, Styil became the hotel staff, and Touma’s blue haired friend (forgot the name) became Index!

Apparently Kanzaki came, and she told Touma about a big magic is activated: Angel Fall. I forgot the effect, but it sure is something big. Touma and friends investigated and found out that the one who activated the magic is his own dad.

This arc is unexpectedly short even though the magic seems pretty big. You’ll get to see Tsuchimikado and Kanzaki Kaori in action in this arc. Pretty cool, especially Kanzaki’s nanasen.

5th arc: Unabara, Touma, Misaka, a love triangle here.

The 5th arc, which only has 1 episode in total, is about a demon who tried to kill Misaka by disguising as Unabara, a boy who loved Misaka. This episode is pretty weird for me. Touma was able to beat that demon but he said about “more will come”. Up until now, I’m still curious about his “more will come” line. Because the enemies from the next 2 arcs didn’t have any connection with him.

Anyway, for a Misaka fans, this arc is also the best arc since you can see Misaka in her tsundere scenes. Misaka pretended to be Touma’s girlfriend because she needed to avoid Unabara at all cost. XD

6th arc: Accelerator is a lolicon.

The 6th arc could be called a side story. There’s no Touma involved here, no Kaori, no Styil, no Misaka (real). The main heroine here is surprisingly Accelerator himself. He involved in the continuation of MISAKA network experiment. He met with the brain of MISAKA network: MISAKA number 20001. Apparently, one of the researcher in that experiment tried to infect MISAKA 20001 with virus, so all the other MISAKA sisters will go berserk and destroying everything they see.

Accelerator is a bad person, but he tried to help MISAKA 20001 even almost with the cost of his life. This arc is short, not really funny, but it’s somewhat touching in its own way.

7th arc: Hyouka the megane oppai girl who isn’t a human.

The 7th arc which is also the last arc returns the spotlight to Index. She met someone new and special: Kazakiri Hyouka. Easy to predict, Hyouka wasn’t a normal human. At that time also, a magician from other church who can control golem, came and attacked academy city.

The main point of this arc is: Hyouka wanted to make friends even though she’s not human and of course Touma and Index gladly accepted her as new friend. As for me, Hyouka is very sexy: she got megane and oppai. XD . I thought she’s just an unusual human who can’t die but in the end, she managed to kick a golem butt and safed Index from pinch.

Overall, Index is a good anime. There’s a little significant story connection between each arc, just like Shana. Most of the arcs stand on its own and give their own great story. Action and magic fans should watch this. But as i said before, even though this anime has Index in its title, Index herself doesn’t really get much screen time compared to Misaka, unlike Shana which story always revolves on Shana herself.

That’s it for my (sorta lame) anime review. I’ll try to post it once per day / 2 days. So yeah… see you at the next post!

Louise Gothic Punk version - Alter

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:22:49 PDT

Louise Gothic Punk version.

Double the Louise, double the fun! Yet another figure photos coming right up, and Louise is still right under the spotlight, but this time is Louise in her gothic costume. I did this figure photos just exactly right after Louise school uniform’s photo session done. And i still used the same background for this one.

Alter made her.

It was pretty surprising for Alter to release 2 same character in just 2 months interval. That’s right, IIRC, Louise school uniform was released in February and this Louise gothic was released in April. Pretty short interval for a same character in 2 figures by only 1 manufacturer.

Louise yesterday and Louise today.

Considering Louise is my favorite character and in the past, there was no decent figure of Louise, i decided to buy both. I bought Louise school uniform because i like Louise and i bought this one because i like maid outfit.

Gothic or maid? You name it.

I did say about maid outfit in the haul post. Yes… even though the manufacturer named this figure: Louise Gothic Punk version, i still think that this is maid outfit. What do you guys think? Is this maid outfit or gothic styled dress?

“Sho…should i… l-l-li-lift it a little bit hi-hi… higher?”

While we got cheerful expression yesterday, this time we got a unique expresion with her mouth opened, shaping “o”. IMO, Alter did a wrong move regarding this one. Just see the lower part of this figure: Louise is lifting her skirt. It could be better if Louise’s expression filled with blushes and deredere expression, and you could see “Sho…should i… l-l-li-lift it a little bit hi-hi… higher?” written all over her face. XD

Maid hairband + red ribbon = not maid?

See her hairband? I think it’s safe to say that this hairband is maid hairband. Things that didn’t match up with maid is her ribbon. It’s red colored ribbon, and maid rarely wears red colored ribbon. Usually maid outfit consists of only 2 colors: black and white.

11 red ribbons attached on the hair.

There are a lot of red ribbons all over her hair. After doing some counting, i noticed that there are total of 11 red ribbons (including the 2 that attached on her hairband), that’s a lot! Anyway, Alter did the same great job they did on Louise school uniform: her long wavy hair looks great, and even greater than the anime.

Closer look on the ribbon.

A closer look on the red ribbon. Beautifully done by Alter of course. Not much i can say, so skip it.

Is that red line a bra line?

Uhh… i hate to say it twice in a row, but it’s a common sense that Louise’s chest is flat. DFC fans should get this figure in their collection. Anyway, can you see that red line on her right shoulder? Is that a bra line?

Her right arm.

This outfit has short sleeves with white ribbon right on the shoulder area. And she also equipped with maid gloves-wristbands things. You can only see the wristband from this angle, but the wristband continues, covering the backside of her hand like a glove, and stop at her middle finger like a black ribbon ring.

Her left arm.

A clearer view on her left glove. See what i meant? It’s her right arm in the photo, that’s all.

3 layered skirt.

You can see 3 layers of skirt fabric inside her skirt. But she’s lifting it, so you can easily see her pantie. Anyway, see her apron? That’s also another reason why i called her outfit maid outfit, not gothic styled dress.

Right knee sock.

She got different knee socks. The right leg is covered with white knee sock, and the knee sock is tied with red ribbon on the upper part. It’s pretty unique and cool i guess.

Left knee sock.

The left knee sock is just plain brown colored knee sock. Both of the legs has that frilly maid band with black ribbon tying it right in the middle.

Right boot.

Her boots, focusing on her right boot. Her boots also have different accessory and different lace(?) color. Her right boot has white lace and a “jack skellington”-styled skull (like Yoko’s hairpin).

Left boot.

And the left boot got red lace and a small tied red ribbon on it. Pretty unique and interesting style of boots fashion.

Mandatory pantie shot part 1.

This is her pantie, kinda pinkish white colored, with a frill or something like that on the upper side. I like her pantie. XD

Mandatory pantie shot part 2.

Hey, the pantie shot doesn’t end there. There are 2 small pink ribbons attached on her side of the pantie. It’s pretty hard to get this shot considering there’s a very small source of light can enter this part.

Change to black background.

Forgot to say that i did this photo session with my friend Jaya (he just opened his blog yesterday, be sure to visit it), who’s also helping me in the past photo sessions. He suggested that i should change the background from pink to black. I guess he got a sharp eye! The results are also amazing.

Flip horizontal.

Used this chance to try another angle for her face, and also a close up + tight cropping styled shot. Looks like a horizontally flipped version of the 5th photo, haha.

Black ribbon.

I like that black ribbon on her chest. I think that’s the biggest ribbon attached on this figure.

Higher, higher!

Yes Louise, you should lift it even higher! XD . My first thought right after seeing this figure is: “damn, you could lift it higher!”. Does anyone also has the same thought?

POI: her outfit.

Regardless of maid outfit or gothic styled dress, this dress wins the POI. The reason why people bought this figure is her outfit. You can’t really find Louise in this outfit in any official illustrations or in the anime.

I didn’t really take my time finding someone in my blogroll with a review post of this figure, found one though at Leonia. If you want to be linked here, just tell me and I’ll put it right away.

That’s it for now! Can’t really decide what’s next to post. I got the materials but i haven’t decide which one to prioritize. Guess I’ll go with random, just be sure to check it. See you at the next post.

Louise School Uniform version - Alter

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:20:27 PDT

Louise school uniform version.

Time for another figure photoshoot, and it’s Louise’s turn to get the spotlight. It’s been awhile since i did my last photo session, over 1 month and a half i think. I don’t know what’s wrong, but this time i only got 17 photos. Anyway, i’ll skip the character introduction since everyone already knows who she is.

Alter made it.

In this figure, Alter gave us fans a chance to enjoy Louise in her normal school uniform. Not just that, Alter also gave Louise a dynamic pose, which is somewhat unique because they made her levitating.

Cheerful and full of energy.

Another plus point from Alter is her expression. Louise is totally cheerful in this figure. Maybe some people would said that Louise looks the best when she’s in her deredere mode, but you’ll still love Louise in this cheerful version of her.

Levitating version? School uniform version? Or Alter version?

I’ve heard different names for this figure like Louise levitating version, Louise school uniform version, or even Louise Alter version. Well, all of them are true: she’s levitating, she’s wearing school uniform, and she’s Alter made. So which version do you like?

Try experimenting with some angles.

Louise’s photo session is somewhat fun. As you can see, she’s levitating, she got a dynamic pose, and she also got a unique angle. So you can try shooting her with so many angle… Even though i said that, i only managed to get 17 photos.

Low angle for this one.

Like this one, i tried a low angle from her front left, and this photo above is the result. Except this time, i didn’t capture her pantie from the low angle. If you want to look at her pantie, be sure to proceed to the next photos.

Can you see the difference between this and the 3rd photo?

I even tried to experiment with close up photo and tight cropping photo. I’m not really an expert in face close up or tight cropping photo, so i guess i need more practice on it. Anyway, FYI this photo doesn’t have much different with the 3rd photo.

About the cape and the base.

And this is her from a higher angle. If you want to make her looks like she’s levitating, you should take a photo of her without showing any sign of her base supporter. Louise’s body is totally supported by her cape and only her cape, while her cape is the one which is supported by that base. That set is totally permanent and you won’t be able to remove anything.

Her hair, beautifully sculpted by Alter.

The main question here is: Is Louise’s hair this long? I know she got a long hair, but i don’t really know the actual length of her hair. And also, Alter made a very detailed version of her wavy hairstyle, even more detailed than the anime version.

Flat chest, she’s one of your DFC character for you DFC fans.

Uh… Louise’s chest is flat, it’s a very common sense for us otaku, Zero’s or Louise’s fans, or even Kugimiya Rie fans. Talk about Kugimiya Rie, i watched so many anime with Kugimiya Rie doing the voice for the main character, and all of them are: tsundere, flat chested, and short.

Wand in her right hand.

Moving on to details, i got report of seeing wand on her right hand and painted fingernails. Yeah, they’re painted in pink, beautifully done by Alter. You could say that she’s ready to swing her wand and do some void magic.

Left hand also with painted fingernails.

The same sighting of painted fingernails is spotted on her left hand, looks clearer in this photo. Well, other than that nothing’s special.

Short skirt is common sense.

Her skirt is very short, it’s also a common sense for us otaku. It’s pretty hard to find anime nowadays where in the anime the girls wears a longer skirt for their school uniform. Most of them are competing to make the shortest school uniform skirt ever.

Shoe with dust.

Damn, i forgot to dust her before doing the photo session. I can see so many white dust on her shoe while I’m viewing this photo in 100% zoom (10 Megapixel picture). Someone please remind me to dust the figure before i do my photo session.

Extreme?

Whoops, i guess this photo is pretty extreme! Yeah, pantie right from down below, her thighs, and maybe the lower part of her butt. Judging by woman anatomy, i guess this is the place of girl’s *ahem*vital part*ahem*.

Her pantie is showing.

“Her pantie is showing” is what people would thought once they saw this figure. Yeah, i guess her pose is her selling point of this figure. You don’t have to lie her down or do anything special to see her pantie. Just rotate it until you see it, done!

POI: her pantie.

Hunger for Louise’s pantie? Get this figure! Her POI is “her pantie is showing”. I like it! Alter is surely amazing and naughty. XD

Looking for another review, i only saw one as i remembered, and again, i saw it in meronpan. If you want to be added here, just comment here and i’ll add you right away.

EDIT: go here for more: Leonia

Well, that’s it for now! Next post will also be a figure photoshoot, be sure to keep check it. See you at the next post!

Akashiya Moka haul

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:56:56 PDT

Play-Asia box, it’s been awhile.

This box was in my HQ before i was back, lucky! It seems this box arrived faster than me. Yeah, as you can see this is the only haul of July. I sorta cut out my expenses because Fate and Nanoha from Alter awaits me after this.

Akashiya Moka.

It’s Akashiya Moka from Rosario+Vampire. FYI, this Moka is the awakened version of Moka. I like Moka, and she’s my favorite from the anime, especially the awakened version. That’s why i bought this figure.

Good Smile Company and Gift?

She was manufactured by GSC, but i saw Gift’s logo on the back of the box. I guess this figure is a result of collaboration between GSC and Gift. I know Gift has made some good figures, but most of their products didn’t really took me into interest, instead i thought Gift’s Saber has the weirdest face ever (and ugly, sorry for Gift Saber fans :P).

Cross (big), cross (small), Moka, and base.

At the official preview shot, i saw metal chains on her neck and on her left lower arm. I thought those parts would be a separated parts, but no… the only separated part is her crosses (the small seal cross and the big cross she sits on). You can put her small cross in her right hand, between her thumb and index finger to be exact.

Gothic: yes, metal accessories: yes, Moka awakened: yes, yes, YEEESS!

She’s just totally gorgerous, and gothic! The main reason i bought her are: gothic styled one piece dress, Moka in her awakened version, and metal accessories. Moka in the anime is minimum on outfits but maximum on sexiness. She’ll look the best if Moka’s outfits are maximized, just like this figure.

Her hair! I like it!

Her hair is another plus. I like her long hair and the shape. Anyway, when i first opened the box, i smelled something awful. After a bit of investigation, i found out that the smell came from the base. I don’t know if it is a smell of the material used to create the base. It’s not a complete mirror, but it can produce clearer reflection than the usual base.

Great!

Overall, this is a good figure. If you’re a fans of gothic style or even a fans of Moka, this figure will be a great addition to your collection. Also, it’s Good Smile Company! we can expect great quality from this manufacturer.

It would be cool if the chains on her neck are connected to the small cross.

So far, i haven’t seen any review of this figure in my blogrolls except in meronpan, be sure to check it! Well, that’s all for now. See you at the next post!

Hauls (and loots) i left behind

noreply@blogger.com (sonic_ver2) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:53:03 PDT

Things i left behind.

Before i went to Riau, i left these hauls and loots untouched. Two of them came from Play-Asia, another 2 of them again came from my local store, and the last 2 came from STF 09 loots. And now, i took the chance to open them up, make a preview photograph, and create this post. So here’s the hauls / loots classification:

May Play-Asia hauls: Yuki Gekisou (Max Factory) and Nendoroid Kureha (GSC)

June local hauls: Seena Kanon (Max Factory) and Konjiki no Yami (GSC)

STF 09 loots : Nendoroid Yoko (GSC) and Nendoroid Louise (GSC)

This time i won’t separate them into 3 individual posts so this post will be filled with 6 figures straight.

Nendoroid Kureha.

Let’s start with the May Play-Asia haul, shall we? Nendoroid Kureha is one of the item in that haul. I love Kureha, and having a nendoroid of my beloved character wouldn’t hurt, so i bought her. I just love her cute face in this nendoroid version.

Nice parts , including the “draw sword” parts.

She got some nice interesting parts. Three faces (smiling, closed eye, and serious), 4 arms (1 normal pairs, 1 bow pairs), bow and arrow, 2 swords and 2 magic circles, and 1 ribbon for the “draw sword” pose.

Overflowing with cuteness.

Nendoroid Kureha wins the cutest face awards from me. Yes, she’s a total beauty in her real form, and in her chibi nendoroid form she’s still a beauty and also combined with overflowing cuteness.

Unlike in the anime version, her face isn’t showing that she’s having an orgasm.

GSC didn’t forget to put this draw sword pose. I watched the anime, and everytime someone drawn a sword from her chest, she looks like she’s having an orgasm. I wonder why GSC didn’t make her face looks even more like she’s having an orgasm. XD

Archery action.

And this is her with her bow and arrow, ready for some archery action. She still looks sooooo cute even with her serious face. Great job GSC, for making the nendoroid version of Kureha.

Yuki Gekisou.

The 2nd item from May PA haul is Yuki Gekisou. It’s the last figure from Extravaganza set. It’s a must get for a Haruhi series fans. Right after the announcement, I’ve already decided that i would bought all 3 of them. And here, Yuki, came as the mark of my set completion.

White guitar with real string!

Yuki is equipped with white guitar, cable, and something she stepped on below. I’m not really into musical instrument world, so i don’t know what’s that thing she stepped on. Someone care to fill me in?

I like that white guitar.

Compared to the other anime guitars (Haruhi’s, Yui’s Gitah, and Mio’s bass) i like Yuki’s guitar the most. It’s white and it looks so futuristic for me. That’s why i also bought figma Yuki with before. That white guitar is the reason.

Always with her serious null face.

Yuki came with her serious null face. She looks like she’s kinda angry for me. Don’t know why. Anyway, can’t you see her guitar pick? It’s purple. Uh… nothing much i can say from here on, so just skip to the next picture.

Cool outfit Yuki!

Talk about her outfit, she wears a different styled outfit compared to Haruhi and Mikuru. While those 2 wear gothic styled outfit with frills anywhere, Yuki got a cool and simple outfit. Red short jackets and a black tight mini skirt. It’s pretty cool for me!

Nendoroid Louise.

Next is loots from Surabaya Toy Fest 2009. I bought 2 items, and one of them is Nendoroid Louise. I heard something about Louise being exclusive Hobby Stock and all, which means it’s pretty hard to get your hands on this figure. So yes… Wajuwa sold it, i saw it, and bought it right away. Took me IDR 500k (USD 49) for this cutie.

Two whips!?

Louise came with 3 faces (angry, crying, and deredere? faces), 1 pairs of normal arms, 1 pairs of whip arms, and 1 arm for book i think. She’s also came with her cape, magic book, a magic wand, and 2 whips (1 straight and 1 bended). I guess she’s always ready to whip Saito.

“SAAA-IIII-TOOO!!!!!!”

Saito, you’d better be prepared… She’s ready to whack you with her favorite whip XD ! Louise isn’t complete if she doesn’t came with her whip. I didn’t put any photo of her straight whip here.

“Saito… kiss me…”

I don’t know if this is what you called deredere face. I still don’t know that kind of expression. I do think that this isn’t the deredere face, because the deredere face is the “shy” expression. So what’s this expression called?

I love her crying face!

Oh… She’s crying! I love her crying face, and right now I’m displaying her like this. Well, nendoroid Louise is filled with cuteness, but this Louise isn’t as cute as nendoroid Kureha.

Nendoroid Yoko.

Next loot from STF 09 is Nendoroid Yoko. I decided to bought her right after i started to watch Gurren Lagann last month (aired in Animax Southeast Asia), right a week before STF 09 started. I already predicted that Wajuwa would sell this figure, my prediction came true and i bought it right away.

I need her sniper rifle!

Other than Yoko, the reason i bought this figure is the sniper rifle. Yes, even though nendoroid filled with cuteness, sometimes cool weapon can bring more fun! Anyway Yoko came with 3 faces (smiling, angry, and that last face), 1 pairs of normal arms, 1 pairs of sniping arms, 1 “face scratching” arm, and 2 pair of shooting legs. She also came with her sniper rifle and her glasses.

This is my favorite version of Yoko.

There are 2-4 version of Yoko in the anime: before Genome defeated (which is my favorite), the hunter version, Yomako sensei version, and the space version. I guess Yoko looks the best when she’s in the first version. That’s why i lost interest in watching Gurren Lagann after Simon became the supreme commander.

Shoot! Shoot!

This is the first time i got a new kind of nendoroid base. I don’t know where and how to put the figure on the base. And in the picture above, Yoko was supported by her hair and her hair was supported by the base. I guess her hair is big and strong enough to support her whole body.

Sniper rifle is win.

Surprisingly enough, you can remove her scarf. She does look weird when she doesn’t put her scarf on. Anyway, nendoroid Yoko is fun to play with, especially with her sniper rifle. For a Yoko / Gurren Lagann fans, nendoroid Yoko is a must have.

Seena Kanon Max Factory version.

And this is the last haul set: local store haul. The first item is Seena Kanon, Max Factory version. This haul should have came around March-April, but local store is always late as always. I just got the items in STF 09, i met the store owner there, he brought the items there, and i bought them right away.

Nice pose: shimapan!

Judging by the look of her base, you can say that this Seena Kanon is a set of 2 MaxFact’s 1/7 Shining Wind figures. The first figure is of course Touka Kureha from Max Factory. The first Kureha doesn’t really have a unique or dynamic pose, but this Seena Kanon came with extra service included in her unique pose: shimapan.

Facing backward, too bad.

But as you can see, her pose is the “facing backward” type, so if you want to see her pretty face, you’ll have to skip on seeing her front side body, including her chest. I guess the special part of this figure is her butt and easy-to-look striped pantie.

Her legs is just too big.

Another downside from this figure is her thigh and legs look way oversized. It’s long, it’s thick, and the size seems doesn’t really match with her body. Maybe her naughty pose is the reason for that.

Best quality from Max Factory.

Overall, Max Factory always done a very great job. Seena Kanon’s quality in sculpt and paintjob is totally amazing, just like the Max Kureha… no… maybe even better than that. I guess this is the best Seena figure I’ve ever seen.

Konjiki no Yami.

The last item, which is also the 2nd item from the local store haul is Yami. I never watch any To Love Ru, but i know this character is a loli pretty girl. The other reason i bought her is: I’m a fan of Eve from Black Cat, and i heard that Yami is designed and drawn by the same artist.

I bought her because she’s Eve to me, not Yami.

First time To Love Ru became popular, Alpha Omega released a figure of Yami, sitting and eating something. I kinda interested back there, but i can still told myself not to buy it. This time is GSC’s turn, i like GSC’s quality, and i like Eve, so i decided to buy her.

She also has the same transformation ability as Eve.

This figure is also equipped with sword transformed lower arm. Just like Eve, i guess Yami also has the same transformation ability. Hey… i never watch and read anything about To Love Ru, so if anyone care to fill me in, please do so.

Glad i bought her.

This Yami is total loli beauty, and thanks to GSC for bringing the best quality of Yami. Of all the artistic photos i made above, i like this one the most. The best part of her is her swaying hair, it took a lot of space just like what Acesan said, but it is also the best part of this figure.

Well, that’s all i can post for now. Be sure to stay updated for the next post! So… see you!!