Recorded from a $2 DVD found at a Goodwill by yours truly.

Why waste time exploring that big world out there when you can explore my little otaku-ish world instead? Behold! A photo tour of my plastic-filled room.


( The Gitaroo Knight's HQ )

FINALLY! AT LAST! HUZZAH!

PVC maker Uplark announced a double whammy of awesome today: 1/8 scale PVC figures of Nia and Viral! I knew Viral was coming as his prototype was shown a while back, but Nia's a complete surprise. It's nice to see someone besides Yoko getting some love.

TOMOPOP BLOG ENTRY ABOUT NIA

TOMOPOP BLOG ENTRY ABOUT VIRAL

For those interested, both are up for pre-order at HobbySearch: CLICK HERE

(Go to the Others (Completed) Category to find them)

If you play a lot of video games there's a pretty good chance you've built up a sizable backlog. You get a new game and play it for a bit but place it aside for another title...and then let it collect dust for years and years and years...

I'm extremely guilty of a certain habit many RPG enthusiasts are guilty of: Play a game until the final dungeon and then stop playing. And that's the main reason my backlog is over 90 games long.

Behold!: MY BACKLOG

Since registering at this site I've finished off two games: Baten Kaitos Origins and Gitaroo Man Lives! Must...whittle down...backlog...

WARNING, CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR KILLER 7




[23:44] GKSilKamina: "Okay Suda, explain the story to me."
[23:45] GKSilKamina: "Okay, well there's this magical document named after a famous Japanese poem that lets you create the ultimate business and, in the case of Andrei Ulmeyda, become Jesus Christ."
[23:46] GKSilKamina: "A guy who is actually several guys but then learns he's really just one guy is sent on missions to assassinate Japanese politicians, a super sentai team that's actually a secret elite force, a cosplaying pre-teen and her pedophile father, and Jesus Christ Ulmeyda."
[23:46] GKSilKamina: "He's led by an old man in a wheelchair who is some kind of god who fights an Asian man who is also some kind of god and they spend eternity playing chess and saying "Let's dance" to each other but they never dance. It's just a metaphor for something."
[23:48] GKSilKamina: "And so you go around and shoot giggly zombie bombs because they're going to destroy America since Japan is still pissed off about World War 2. To beat them you get advice from several ghosts, including one dressed in red bondage gear who apparently wants you to be quiet since he always looks like he's shushing you."
[23:48] GKSilKamina: "That's about it."
[23:48] GKSilKamina: *shrugs*
[23:49] BangMotomiya: It sounds like a joke concept, or something too convoluted to be made into an actual game.
[23:49] BangMotomiya: And yet....
[23:49] GKSilKamina: It did sell poorly, if that means anything.
[23:49] BangMotomiya: It's understandable. I mean we love that game but are still left all messed up inside.
[23:50] BangMotomiya: Playing K7 feels like a bad breakup.
[23:50] GKSilKamina: That's probably the best way to sum up the game's experience.
[23:50] BangMotomiya: Yes.

What the? When did this come out? I've heard absolutely no news about this book, nor are any of my favorite shops carrying it! I guess there wasn't much hype for a...man book.

It pretty much follows the same format as the Yoko and Nia books. The first part features pictures by various artists. Some of the images are cute. Some are cool. And there's one with Simon and Rossiu that's...great if you're into shouta. Let's just leave it at that.



The problem with the book is there isn't that much artwork. Both Nia and Yoko got around 22 pieces of art, but Simon and Kamina only got 16! 16 for two characters! The second half of the book features interviews, episode screencaps and character design galleries. Simon's gallery is absolutely huge - not surprising considering his appearance changes several times.

Here's hoping they make a Viral book next.

In this video I try to survive a first person shooter...based on the story of Noah's Ark. But instead of two of each animal, there are instead hundreds of homicidal goats. And they all want to kill Noah.

Holy shit! The people that live directly across from me had their house broken into! The front and back doors have been smashed in. The cops are there now looking into what was taken and if there are any clues.

I live in a gated community so it's pretty shocking to hear this has happened...and RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from my house! I did hear about robberies in this area a few months back, but it wasn't this particular neighborhood that got it.

The gates are also closed most of the day...either the robber learned the gate code, or they memorized when the gates are opened. Or someone in the neighborhood did it.

Also, a few nights ago there was a suspicious truck parked in front of my house. Luckily it turned out just to be another neighbor's truck. Still, I'm pretty freaked out this happened. Hopefully the neighbors didn't have much taken from them.

If I haven't said this before, I'll say it now. I love having a fridge in my room. Behold!



This is what I assume a typical young adult's fridge would look like. It's full of:

- Junk food (fried chicken)
- Alcohol (Lots of it)
- Soda (Boylan's cane sugar soda)
- Pathetic attempt at healthy eating (Oikan's greek yogurt, a pickle)

The ice tray in the upper corner has never been used, and probably will never be used.

While traveling through the sea of otaku-themed blogs I came across an interesting article that definitely hit home.

The Figurine Collector's Cycle: A Requiem

What's said in that article is spot on. I've seen several popular figure collectors/bloggers lose passion for the hobby and eventually abandon it altogether. There are lots of factors that get in the way: new financial responsibilities, a significant other that won't stand for perverted statues, or a new (equally money-consuming) hobby. In my case it's the constantly rising prices of PVC's that's causing me to back out of collecting. What I could once get for forty bucks is now costing me seventy or more!

My "Stage 1" ended ages ago. At the height of the madness, I was getting four to six PVC beauties a month. But prices went up and space got tight, so eventually I fell into "Stage 2". With things getting worse, I'm now constantly bouncing between Stage 2 and Stage 3: I'm tempted to quit the hobby thanks to how expensive it is, but I just can't resist some of the new figures.

I did try to sell some of my figures but backed out. Looking at the empty spaces in my display cases where they used to be made me a sad panda. So I cancelled the sale and put everyone back in the cases.

Maybe when I move out on my own I'll finally quit the hobby for good.

I am absolutely, positively terrified of insects with stingers. Bees, hornets, wasps, and everything like them. They're the only type of bug that will literally cause me to become paralyzed with fear. It's happened before! One time a bee landed on my shoulder. Couldn't move an inch until it finally left.

Even looking at pictures of hornets and wasps makes my blood run cold.

Unfortunately when I arrived at this park, a fucking huge doom bug took an interest in my truck. I spent about five minutes just sitting in the truck (windows rolled up, of course), watching it fly around. Eventually I worked up enough courage to get out of the truck only to run away in terror when it got close to me.

*sigh*

( Lots of trees and a really big lake )

Another paycheck down the drain, yaaaaaay!

( Akagi, Tales of Destiny, and more Gurren Lagann )

Ah, doujinshi. It's the blatant copyright infringement-filled industry that major companies tend to ignore since they know pissing off fans is never a good idea. Doujinshi are fan made items based on licensed properties, often books or PC-games, that are made out of love...and often feature explicit content for some strange reason. There is some original content out there, two famous examples being Yoshitoshi ABe's "Haibane Renmei" and ZUN's "Touhou Project".

The most popular kind of doujinshi is the book, which is what we'll be seeing here today.


( Shin Megami Tensei, Gurren Lagann, Ashita no Nadja )

I find it amazing that despite all the nonsense I've seen over the years, Japan still manages to make me wonder what the fuck is wrong with it.

Have I ever mentioned that I love pink haired anime characters? Because I do. A lot. I've got an entire shelf in my figure display case devoted to them. That's why when Studio DNA announced they were doing a Louise (from The Familiar of Zero) "portrait book", I couldn't resist. At all.


I don't know about you, but my flames of passion are skyrocketing.

This is basically a pin-up book featuring lots of images of Louise in various states of undress. The Familiar of Louise is a somewhat perverted series...with each passing season, the show only gets more and more kinky. So while a couple of the images are somewhat tasteful, most of them have a half-naked Louise blushing as she looks into the camera. Perfect for otaku who love flat chested characters, I guess.

The problem with the book is that it's only half pin-up book. The second half features character and costume designs, episode summaries and various interviews. This is all useless to me, as I'm not weeaboo enough to read moonspeak. Yet. The page count is also smaller than the Gurren Lagann books. What a shame!


So do you like redheads, blondes, or pinkies? Also, aren't my bedsheets nice?

Ever hear of Dollfie? It's a brand of SUPER HIGH QUALITY ball-jointed dolls that range from creepy-looking to stunning. I've been itching for a Dollfie for a while but haven't gotten one due to a very good reason:

They're really fucking expensive, with some costing as much as $1000.

But then Volks, the manufacturer of the Dollfie brand, announced a Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Nia doll. CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES I can't express how much I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Nia.

However, I don't know if I love her enough to spend $700 on a doll.

Maybe I'll just buy more Nia doujinshi instead...

It's here, it's here!


Don't leave home without it!

It's the Mother 3 Handbook, the UNOFFICIAL guide to the UNOFFICIAL fan-translation of Mother 3! (Though I'm sure it also works with the untranslated version). Let me go ahead and emphasize the UNOFFICIAL part again. This is a book made by Mother fans for Mother fans. And since Mother fans tend to be a bit on the rabid side (in a good way), this is a product that is full of love.


Those that played Mother 3 should find the above quote oddly familiar. (Hint: Mapson)

Every single copy of the handbook comes with this personalized little card that features a random Mother character/monster, lovingly hand-drawn by the Fangamer staff. The first print run of the book also comes with a special Pork Army Survival Manual dust jacket. And if you were lucky enough to pre-order early, you also got a really neat Franklin Badge keychain (which is now being sold on eBay at jacked up prices).


BONUS FEATURE: The dust jacket's reverse side is a poster!

As this is a fan project, all of the graphics within the guide had to be made from scratch. There's artwork for every single character, monster AND item in the game. Some characters also have clay models similar to the ones from EarthBound. As for the word-related content, everything is written with the same quirky sense of humor found in the game itself. It's also really in depth: complete walkthrough, all sorts of little hints, chapter summaries, and more! It's a real high quality product that puts some official guidebooks to shame.

You can find the book and all sorts of other EarthBound/Mother related goodies at Fangamer.net: CLICK HERE

"FIREWORKS: You'll find another once-in-a-lifetime present left by an anonymous pyrotechnic on the Ropeway bridge. ...Ah."

Down here in the southern United States is a growing food chain known as Publix. Founded in the heart of Florida before I existed by a man who bears a striking resemblance to Walt Disney, it has since grown like the plague. Publix prides itself on customer service. Our glorious Disney-esque founder figured something out when it comes to business: customers like it when you give a crap about their needs.

This "be a doormat for the customers" policy coupled with a fine selection of products has allowed Publix's quest for world domination to proceed smoothly. In honor of opening our 1000th store, Publix associates have received...


Shot at 2009-04-03

...a bottle of Coca Cola. Though since I'm currently playing Fallout 3, I pretended it was instead a bottle of Nuka Cola. (Restore 10 HP, yahoo!) Maybe it'll be worth something...in another 50 years. I guess I could always drink it if I get thirsty.

I'm not sure about the rest of you trapped in the world of employment, but Publix often gives swag to its associates/grunts in thanks of their associating/grunting. I've gotten pins, pens, hats, a water bottle, a cloth bag (which has been a godsend for my park trips), shirts, and even an umbrella! Have any of you gotten weird things from a job?

Another year, another Pokemon movie. You'd think I'd be tired of them by now but there's always enough spice in each flick to keep me coming back for more. Somehow.

If only I could say the same about the TV series.

( A Legendary Asshole...? )

Hooray! Let's take a gander at an anime few of you have probably watched. After being recommended by the mighty Iwigglyzaru I decided to sit down and watch Kaiba. What is it, you ask?

Basically, this:



Yeah...


( Retro Meets Drug-Induced Visuals )