Past News Archive: February 2006
February 28, 2006
Because of the spyware incident, I didn't have time to do any updates here. I formatted my computer yesterday & still in the process of install some more of my old programs in. They aren't really needed since it's mainly games or desktop accessories. Plus, I discovered before formatting that the viruses & spyware was still in my computer after making a final virus check.
Yesterday, I picked up a used copy of The Legend of Heroes from EB games. My months of searching has ended. However, I'm not done with Popolocrois yet. For some reason, I'm starting to get bored of the game. I'm not sure if it's because of the random monster encounters that happen too often for me. I also preordered a copy of Generation of Chaos. The game is scheduled to come out on March 13. Although I paid half of the game already (it'll be CDN$49.99) instead of $5, I'm not sure if this is a good game for me. I liked Final Fantasy Tactics & Ogre Battle (both PSX games), but I heard this game isn't like those. Since I can get my money back, I still have some time researching on it. This week, I hope to get Ys as well & the price of it will be CDN$39.99, which is bad expect for the game's lifespan of 10 - 20 hours of gameplay.
Today, I got my Yujin ARIA SRDX figurine of Akira Mizunashi in the mail. It's still in bubble wrapping since I'm more focused on fitting my computer & my work week is starting to today. From the looks of it, it's not bad in terms of the paint job. Also, I brought a display case for my Figumate Negima trading figurines. It's got a couple of LED stage lights & 4 steps. The bases of the Negima figurines are just a bit big & I have room left for 2 more of those trading figurines. Probably need another 1 for vol. 4 & these cases don't stack since it has a battery compartment stick out from the bottom of the base. It takes 3 AAA batteries by the way. Since I created some more room on my shelf, I may put some new stuff there if I got time. I'm thinking of either my small figurines of SHUFFLE! items or a PVC or 2 there.
Now some anime news. This past weekend, there have been a lot of announcements in the manga side. But I'll focus on the anime side. Full Metal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shambala was licensed by FUNimation, which makes sense since they have the TV series. They also licenses Afro Samurai, which I believe hasn't aired yet in Japan. Samuel L. Jackson will provide the voice for the main character, Afro. This may be something interesting to see. The 1st DVD is scheduled to be released early next year.
February 25, 2006
Had a tough time during the middle of this month. My computer picked up a spyware & it took me a couple of days getting it out. I didn't have a lot of time since it happened the day when I started working for the week. The spyware wreaked my JavaScript & cookie settings on my IE, so it lost my cookies & I can't login into 1 of my email accounts. Plus, my wireless network card has gone worse than before as it loses signal randomly. But the damn thing has a tendency to lose signals since I got it, thank you very much Linksys! Although I planned to format my computer from scratch & the problem finally got fixed in terms of finally removing it, I think I'll still format it some time in the future when I have free time.
Not too long ago, I won an eBay auction for a Yujin ARIA SRDX figurine of Akira Mizunashi. Wasn't too expensive & it wasn't cheap. Probably average price I'll say for a 14.5cm figurine. I'll probably get it by next week.
In anime news, it seems Canada again has the definition of anime wrong again. The Canadian Nation Police Services posted an article about the definition of anime on it's Canadian National Child Exploration Coordination Centre website on how anime is "adult oriented material that contains scenes depicting sexual acts". The RCMP has remove the article for review as it's the wrong definition. That should be hentai instead. Anyways, I feeling a bit ashamed on how Canada views anime like this. Keep this up & anime won't be seen a lot here. Plus, my anime business will be in trouble.
In more anime news, another Ghost in the Shell TV series (aside from the new OVA that recaps the 2nd GIG) is under works by Production I.G. & Bandai. No announcement was made for the release date. Also, the rumour about the next Gundam Seed anime has been revealed. It's not a 3rd installment, but a special edition of Gundam Seed Destiny. It's a 4 DVD volume that covers the whole show in 4 90 minutes DVDs. It will be entitled Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Special Edition: The Broken World. Extras will be included on each disc like a image gallery collection. The only new thing from this series is an OVA tentative titled: Mobile Suit Gundam Seed C.E. 73 Starglazer. There is no other information about this OVA at the moment.
More anime news recently, ADV announced that they have licensed Area 88 OVA & This Ugly & Beautiful World at New York Comic-Con. Area 88 OVA was released by Central Park Media in the US in DVD & video before, so I'm assuming that the licenses got expired or brought out. I was a bit surprised that This Ugly & Beautiful World was licensed by ADV instead of Geneon. More licenses to mention from New York Comic-Con are Embracing Love (Haru wo Daiteita) by CPM & Pretty Cure by 4Kids.
I'm going to see if I can add more new stuff here before this month ends.
February 19, 2006
Just a quick announcement. Yesterday, FUNimation announced that they have the license to Kimi ga Nozomu Eien at Katsucon 2006. It will be renamed as Rumbling Hearts. Although it's like Eva where some people think it's overrated, I'm some of those people that really like KimiNozo. In fact, it's my favourite anime of all time. Personally, I found this licensing a bit surprising. Not only is the show roughly 2 years old now, the genre it's in is a rarity outside of Japan. These types of shows rarely come outside of Japan. The only know ones that have come here are To Heart & Boys Be, & those came from small companies. With a large company as FUNimation, it will be interesting to see how they will market this small niche ero-game based anime to a large audience here. According to FUNimation, they plan to release all 4 DVDs by the end of this year which is very quick & unlikely to me. I do plan to by the DVDs for this series & hope there is some collectable extras in it like art box & special limited items.
February 18, 2006
Last week, I stopped by my local Japanese hobby store. I picked up some old stuff from his store: Peace@Pieces 1/8 Akizuki Nagi PVC figurine, SHUFFLE! Collection Figure set, & World's End Trading Figurine set. The SHUFFLE! set isn't a full set since I'm missing the secret figurine (NUTS!). The store owner told me that he'll help me find it when he figures out if he has 1 inner box left in his stock. Hopefully, he'll find it. From my last visit which I didn't mention from my past news, I picked up a To Heart Trading Poster of Multi. It's a special version that glows in the dark. Drawing is pretty crappy (it's the same as the game designs), but it's pretty nice in terms of features. And yesterday, I picked some more stuff as his new shipment came a hour before I came. I picked up a full set of Konami Figumate Mahou Sensei Negima Trading Figurines Vol. 3 & the Kaiyodo MON-SIEUR BOME Collection Vol. 9 Éclair & Lumiére figurines. Because there was only 1 Kiddy Grade set, the owner told me to take it1st & pay him back later. Although he trusts me, I do feel bad in owing him money now since I don't know when I have time to pay the remaining amount. I paid him 60% of my total. I have no plans to open them for a while since I'm nearly out of space right now. Need some space for more important stuff. But for the Negima vol. 3, I can say this: it's a bit disappointing. No accessories with the exception of changing the character's frontal hair with another one with the maid cap. Also, the characters from the past series have the same face molds. Very disappointing really. Recently, I've received an email that my pre-order for the Pia Carrot!! 3 Takako Kinoshita Tropical Uniform PVC figurine has been shipped. From what I heard & seen so far, this figurine is currently selling at a premium since they are now sold out.
Since I've got the Negima Vol. 3 now, I've put up the Konami Figumate Mahou Sensei Negima Trading Figurines Vol. 2 review in the Collectables section under the Mahou Sensei Negima section. More in the Collectables section are:
In the Anime section:
As for my working life, I'm really out of it. I wasn't doing too bad with my training at the hotel job I got. But at the 3rd & 4th days of working there, I started to make too many mistakes. I even did some of the same mistakes 3 times, which I felt was pathetic on my part. I must have been very nervous & choked. I hardly got any breaks or even get a meal break since it's busy there & the renovations going on are really screwing me up. I'm hoping these mistakes won't cost me my employment to the company. So far, I haven't got word from my other job at the retail store. They either thinking about my schedule or really don't need me. Either way, I'm ok a bit if I lose the job since the hotel one is really burning me out. However, if I lose that hotel job & my backup job as well, I'm totally screwed.
I finally opened my Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX after mindlessly being drawn to it. Playing with it, I went for the 4 new fighters. Personally, I think is different from the PSX version. If you have the PSX version of the game & had doubts about getting this, I strongly recommend get it. The AI is more challenging for some reason & there seems to be some new moves. For example, in the instruction book, there's a game action pic of what looks like Chun Li firing a gun at M. Bison. Personally, I haven't seen the move in game nor used Chun Li yet. One thing to note is that there are some new animation victories for the old characters that wasn't in the PSX version. Plus, some of the voices are a different. My recommendation is to get this if you are a SF fan or love fighting games. Even if you have the game, I would still strongly recommend getting it.
In anime news, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid will have an OVA released on May 26. The title of the OVA will be Wari to Hima na Sentaichou no Ichinichi which will focus on a day of Teresa Testarossa's life. The OVA has a running time of 30 minutes. For Final Fantasy VII The Advent Children, the DVD release date has been pushed yet again to April 25 for DVD & UMD. There is a 2 disc special DVD edition, retailing at US$26.96, which will contain extras such as deleted scenes, the "making of" featurette, Venice Film Festival footage, & a preview of the upcoming Final Fantasy VII games.
February 11, 2006
Seems like a lucky year for me. After giving my hotel work schedule to the retail store, I thought it's not possible for me to secure that position when the assistant manager told me that I was scheduled to work. However, she was willing to give me the position until I get afternoon shifts next next week. Hopefully that's possible since I told her that I would get afternoon positions at the hotel at that time since I wasn't too sure. Need to ask my hotel manager about the schedule.
Also, I picked up a copy of Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX from Best Buy at regular price. I used a $5 coupon with it. It was the last copy too. I haven't opened it yet though. I want to see if there are any places that has this game cheaper, so I can get a better deal. However, I don't think it's possible since it's new & hard to get now.
In PSP news, there is a strange firmware floating around the net: version 3.1. According to many sites, this isn't an official firmware update from Sony since it doesn't appear on their site. It's a homebrew. What's in it seems to be no different from 2.6. However, you can update your PSP with it despite the fact the CRC hash of 3.1 & 2.6 are the same. Personally, I would recommend not installing it. It may prevent future firmware updates from Sony, although this is only a guess. It's better to be safe than sorry.
Updates. Not many really, since I want to preserve some for future updates where I won't have time to write reviews.
In the Anime section:
In the PSP section:
In the Downloads section:
Hopefully, I'll get some more updates here before this month ends.
February 8, 2006
Interesting day for me. I went to my 2nd interview for the retail clothing store. The assistant manger there didn't give me a hard time, but I had some problems answering questions, such as knowing the origin of their brand (which is pretty rare for me to come across). Also, they asked me for another reference which was a bit hard for me since the HR department for the marketing company I worked with is in Toronto. However, I could have gotten a reference from the main office in Vancouver. Stupid me. After about 15 minutes from the interview, she told me to get another reference & they'll get back to me next week. Leaving the place, I thought to myself that my performance there wasn't good & it's not a big loss if I don't get the job since I got the hotel one at the moment. Afterwards, I walked around the mall & pay some bills for about 30 minutes. Went looking for Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, but couldn't find it (but the Generation of Chaos has caught my eyes & now I'm thinking of that over SFA3 MAX). So, I come back home & less than 5 minutes later, the retail clothing store phones me at my home number. The other assistant manager tells me that they checked my references & I got the job (lucky me!). But I need to work out the schedule with them tomorrow after my 1st day at the hotel & see how it turns out. If there are conflicts, I'm going to turn it down since I assume the pay isn't good as the hotel one.
So, what does all this mean? Updates here will be much slower from now on! And those 2 jobs really get stable, I might close my anime web store. But I'll close it for commercial purposes & treat it as a personal extra income business for my sister & me. So, I don't have too much paperwork on taxes. New stock will be slowly coming in than usually since I don't have the time to pick them up at the rate I'm going.
Because there won't be any updates for a long time, I decided to put some here today:
In the Anime section:
In the Collectables section:
In the Downloads section:
You'll probably won't see another update for a long time.
February 7, 2006
Nothing new really. Just some more reviews. It's seems a lot actually.
In the Anime section:
In the Collectables section:
I'm going to see if I can throw in some more stuff tomorrow before things may get hectic for me from my new job(s).
Today, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX has been released for the PSP. I'm not picking it up today since I'm still thinking about it. For CDN$50 for a game I somewhat already have on my PSX, it's kind of expensive for a remade game with a small amount of new stuff. If I see it for $10 off at Best Buy, I may consider getting it since I have a $5 off coupon as well.
February 6 , 2006
I'm still in the process of moving files around here. So, continue to expect some dead links. I'm figuring out how to sort the anime reviews at the moment. Plus, I recently got a new job working as a F/T Guest Services Agent at a hotel. And, if I get through my 2nd interview & the work schedule fits with my hotel one, a P/T sales associate at a retail clothing store. So, this site may slow down a lot in the future (e.g. slow reviews).
Yesterday, after my job group interview at the clothing store, I went & brought a magazine from my local Japanese bookstore. I brought a G's Festival! Vol. 2 magazine. It's pretty old, from October 2005, & it's 1 of those special magazines that covers a certain series. In this, it covers 2 PC games: Brighter than dawning blue & Fate/hollow ataraxia. It mainly has info about those 2 games that were upcoming at the time. It's got character data, company interviews, game info, manga strips, artworks, & covers some merchandises. It also got what it calls a Premium Box containing 3 bonuses from the 2 games. It's a double-sided Fate/Pillow ataraxia (pun of Fate/hollow ataraxia), a Brighter than dawning blue original jigsaw puzzle, & 2 mobile phone heroine straps (1 character from each series). Bonuses are nice, but I'm not going to use them. For example, the Fate pillow case is too "good to use" & it's small. I still have a craving for anime art books as this isn't really enough.
Since I haven't update this place for a while, here's some new stuff:
In the Anime seciton:
In the Collectables section, a lot of Fate/stay night stuff & that's pretty much it:
In the Downloads section:
Doesn't look like a lot until you actually do these reviews. Anyways, I do have more items available but decided not to upload them now. Want to save them for future use.
Anyways, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX for the PSP is tomorrow. I'm still thinking whether or not to get the game. I have the PSX version, so I don't want to blow my money. Although the 4 new characters & new modes such as tag is attractive, I'm still iffy about it. Plus, pulling the moves may be tough since Capcom has it's own D-Pad mod specially used for fighting games to pull off the moves. They probably designed the game to work with this feature. I heard that the analog nub can be used as well. I'm not sure if that is true though since it would be hard to use.
I'll get some more updates in the future when I have time. Hopefully more tomorrow.
February 3, 2006
You may noticed that I changed the name of my website. I took the word "website" out. Oooo.... If you have been wondering what the "Thoughts" part is, it's basically my rants about real life issues. So, they are like your typical essay style reports. However, they aren't heavily based on research facts but my personal opinions. Hence why I say "rants" & the title "Thoughts". I haven't made any since it takes a lot of time to write up.
During my web store inventory checks & managing, I noticed that from 1 of my cases that Kotobukiya has the letters "HK" next to it's logo. I did some thinking about this since I never heard of Kotobukiya HK. Then I realized it's just a distribution centre & there's a reason why. In the past, a lot of Japanese toy products would have some labels like "Not for sale outside of Japan" or "For Japan only" or something along those lines. Back then, there was no such thing as Asian versions. However, those labels have disappeared now as Japan has allow their products to be sold outside, but only within Asia. To do this, Hong Kong would be the best choice to distribute the products. Reason why is because Hong Kong is a porting station island & it's located pretty much in the middle of Asia, making distribution easy. Because of this, you would see some HK version products. Even though there are some HK only bonuses like Bandai's Saint Seiya Myth Cloth Bonus Limited Metal Plates, the products are the same as the Asian versions, which are the same as Japan versions. If you haven't done so, you can read the differences between Asian & Japanese versions of my old report here.
A couple of days before Chinese New Year, I brought the Fate Unlimited Guide book from my local Japanese bookstore for a little over CDN$35 with taxes. The book isn't thick & contains some bonuses. Personally, I don't know why I brought it. Maybe I was blindly attached to the bonuses & have been thinking about getting an anime art book these past days. You can find more information about the book here or in the Fate/stay night section. And if you are wondering, yes TYPE-MOON is developing a PS2 version of Fate/stay night. Since the book is Japanese, it's pretty much useless to me since it is mainly for reading. In my case, it's more of a collector's item for me & slightly satisfying my art book wants.
In PSP news, EBOOT Loaders for 2.01, 2.50, & 2.60 has been released last week. Now the power of the emulator world has gotten strong. However, you need a copy of GTA in order for them to work. It shouldn't be long until Sony will release an update. I've added this news to the PSP News, Secrets, & Hacks section.
In anime news, Prefectural Earth Defence Force has been licensed by ADV Films. I have no idea what this anime is, so don't ask me. I'm thinking it's Precure. Also on ADV's list was UFO Princess Valkyrie OVA, which will be released when they finish the TV series. The OVA is the one between the 1st & 2nd season; not the 3rd season. That OVA had 2 episodes: 1 recap of the 1st season & 1 new.
I did a minor correction of the Final Approach section in the Collectables section. It's actually not an ero-game as I originally mentioned. It's actually a dating simulation game released on the PS2.
During my relatives stay at my place, I managed to do some leftover reviews. I'll have them up sometime soon hopefully. Also, I moved all the January 2006 news into the Past News Archive.