Past News Archive: October 2005

Happy Halloween, everyone! I bet some of you people were cosplaying as one of your favourite anime, manga or video game characters today. Not me though. I can't cosplay as anything.

In anime news, Funimation has announced another license at Anime Vegas 2005. The anime they have licensed is Mahou Sensei Negima. I was waiting for the last (?) episode (#24), but I guess it's hopeless now. I was going to wait until I finished watching it & do an anime review on it. Maybe I'll do the review on how much I saw if I got the time.

For my anime store, tamago toys, today's the last day for the current promotional sale. Starting tomorrow, there will be a new sale that we came up with. It'll be a daily surprise sale where we put 1 product for sale for the day & change it the next day. It'll run from November 1 - 12. Check it out daily! Don't forget to put tamago & the name of site in your orders.

As for my personal website here, expect some updates much later in the month. I'm planning to expand the Downloads section by then.

Somehow, this slipped past me. This site is now listed in Anime Links - Manga Links database. For the people that came to this site from there, I welcome you! Since I'm linked there, I added their link to my Links page. Lesson that I learned from this: Always check your Bulk/Junk folders in your email accounts. Sometimes they aren't junk at all!

Yesterday, Funimation has announced on their website that they have the license to Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~. On their website, they stated that the DVD will be released on Summer 2006. I did a minor update of my review of this anime to add this bit of info. Also, I made minor changes to the PSP News, Hacks & Secrets section for the PSP Giga Pack information.

Quite a lot of stuff here really; mainly in the Collectables section. This is most likely my last update for this month.

As a reminder for people looking to buy some anime toys & collectables, my anime store, tamago toys, still has that promo sale going on until October 31. Take a look if you have time. And don't forget to mention "tamago" with the name of my personal website in your email order to get that surprise.

To follow up on the PSP Giga Pack, I can confirm what's inside it now. The pack will have the 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, AC adaptor, battery pack (probably the 1800mAH one, not the new 2200mAH), USB cable, & a stand. The stand is basically use to watch movies hands free & is small. The Canadian price for it is $349.99. Looking at this pack, the Value Pack is the better choice in my view. The only thing worth purchasing the Giga Pack is the 1GB memory stick. The USB cable can be taken from most digital cameras & it's not worth a lot & the stand is pretty cheap. You still need some sort of case to protect your PSP from damage & dust, which adds more money to spend on your system purchase. Plus, the price of the value pack is slightly dropping in Canada by CDN $10 when it's on sale (which happens a lot now).

I plan to have this site uploaded before the end of this month hopefully. Too busy with work stuff.

Today, my order for a Fate stay night Saber plush doll was cancelled from the web store that I ordered from. They don't have the product in stock. This is the 2nd time that store cancelled my order for unique Fate stay night stuff (the 1st one was the music box). I'm beginning to think that they never had any of those products in the 1st place. I pre-ordered that plush way before the 1st release date was pushed down. Although they will give my money back from Paypal, I'm starting to lose faith in them for getting these kind of products.

As I'm thinking about replaying Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 again to work on the coming soon Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 special section, I found out my bookmark to the game guide doesn't work anymore. A 404 page. It wasn't easy to find that guide since I spent a lot of time looking for it from Japanese sites. Luckily, I found another one even though it's different from the one I had. Nevertheless, I can play it again & continue with the Pia Carrot 3 special section so I can move on to the next project if time permits.

In PSP news, Sony has announced that they will release the PSP Giga Pack in North America & (I think) Europe in November. This is most likely to get saels from the Christmas season. The price of the pack is US$299, which is higher than the Value Pack. I'm not exactly sure what's in the pack, but I did read what it will contain for sure. It will have an 1 GIG Memory Stick PRO Duo & an USB cable. It will not have the sampler UMD & 32MB Memory Stick PRO Duo. As for the rest of the accessories found in the Value Pack, I'm not sure if they will be included. But based on the price of the Giga Pack, it's current known contents, missing sampler UMD, & the accessories currently sold separately, I think it wouldn't have them. Plus, in terms of retail value, the 1 GIG Memory Stick PRO Duo makes up most of the Giga Pack's price. Of course, these PSP will have the 2.50 firmware or higher preinstalled. I updated the PSP News, Hacks & Secrets section with this information & others that I mentioned in the main page before.

In other PSP news, all the RPG games that suppose to come out this month have been pushed down to a month or 2. I was waiting for Legend of Heroes to come out this month, but now it's delayed. Maybe I should wait until Christmas when the game should be out by then & get it when it's on sale.

In the world of Anime news (old news), a 26 year old Edmonton man was arrest for possession of loli hentai mangas. The mangas contained images of young girls having sex. Some of them were in their diapers. The man was in Vancouver, trying to send them to his home in Edmonton but got arrested. Because it wasn't real child porn, he was given a light sentence. To my surprise, the man thought it wasn't illegal. But even more surprise is what The Edmonton Journal, the media that did this news report, wrote in their article that "Anime is illegal in Canada". It's obvious that the reporter didn't do his/her homework correctly. If it was illegal, YTV should have been heavily fined for their night time shows a long time ago. The next day, The Edmonton Journal remove the article from the Canada.com website where it was place (it wasn't published in printed newspaper) & wrote a separate statement as follows:

A story Thursday may have left the impression the word "anime" refers to animated pornography or to a specific example of cartoon pornography. In fact, anime is a style of cartoon that originated and remains popular in Japan.

© The Edmonton Journal 2005

Personally, that still doesn't show that reporter doing his/her job properly with that poor brief description. Nevertheless, people that don't know what anime is will now get a better impression of it not being pornography only.

In other Anime news, Tsubasa Chronicles will have a 2nd season in Spring. This is confirmed by NHK, the Japanese TV channel that showed the 1st season, & CLAMP, the creator of Tsubasa Chronicles. I haven't seen the ending yet, but I assume it will continue where the 1st season left off. Tsubasa is a long manga, so the 2nd season should complete it.

As for my website here, the next update will probably be the last one for this month since I will be extremely busy in the next few days or so. Probably anime reviews again.

Lately I've been busy with a lot of work stuff, especially my anime web store. So, I haven't been working on this site for a while. But I managed to get some things done. Not much updates here, but here goes.

I did a minor update on my Final Fantasy X-2 Play Arts figurines & Utawareumono Mutsumi figurine since I recently sold themaway on eBAy. Also, I did some minor updates on their respective sections.

For those wondering how people collect so much anime stuff or want to try out this hobby, I added a Managing an Anime Collecting Hobby page in the Collectables section. It basically talks about how to manage a collecting budget & the type of products beginners should out from based on my personal experience.

Speaking of the Collectable section, I managed to move all of the pics from Photobucket to Imageshack. Now I can concentrate a bit on making more reviews when I get my anime business running smoothly.

In the newly Downloads section, I plan to expand it with anime computer goodies. But to do that, I need to sign up for another free web space host like Geocities. This is basically because the programs that I want to put up may take up too much space on this 15MB host. I want to get a host dedicated for these downloads alone. Currently, I'm planning to use my Yahoo Briefcase first & see how it goes. It has 30MB of space & I think it should be enough for the time being. If you know any free web hosting sites that allows a lot of different file extensions like exe, rar, & zip with good bandwidth limits, let me know. Also, if you want to show your work (eg, wallpapers, skins, fan stuff, etc.) in my site, email them to me. Since I suck in making those stuff, might as well have other people who have problems putting them on the web to show theirs here instead.

If you are wondering what I'm putting in the Downloads section in the future, it's basically stuff I got from Japanese fanboxes & special CDs that I have. They are basically discs that give a lot of computer stuff for fans & are usually sold in limited quantities. The ones you will see here are:

There will probably be more, depending if I got time & can find some of them. Keep in mind that I'm NOT going to give out everything from those discs; only sample amounts. You're going to get these discs yourself if you want everything in them.

To increase expose of this website (but mainly my anime web store), I added my site to anime directories that I could find. My site is now listed on Animehit, J-Fan, & Anime-Links. If you found my site though those directories, I welcome you! To be fair with them, I added them to my Links page. Now it has more links than 1!

I'll try to get this place up to date. Right now, I'm using most of my time focusing on my web store, Tamago Toys. The upcoming update won't be large, but at least I'll get something done.

Yesterday, I asked my sister to list some of my personal collection on eBay since I wanted to get rid of them for quite some time & needed some room for new stuff that I'm getting soon. Here's what I selling with direct links to the eBay listings:

Since I already written reviews for them, I'll keep them up with minor updates of them not being in my collection anymore if they get sold. They'll make good references for people deciding to get those products in the future. If you need some more details about the products, click on the following for reviews of each:

If you have been looking around my collectable reviews, you may notice the thumbnail pics being different from others. Currently, I'm moving most (if not all) of my collectable pics from Photobucket to Imageshack. As mentioned in the past, I was past the 50% mark on my storage space at Photobucket & I had more pics to go. Imageshack seems to have unlimited space afterall, so I plan to use it. But, I don't like their system since I can't sort my pics in different folders. Anyways, I plan to use Photobucket for special sections on my website instead.

Speaking of special sections, I'm still working on the Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 section. I pretty much need to get some more pics & work on about 80% of the girl's storylines. Probably be done by the end of this year. The next project will be Key's planetarian. It's a visual novel that, I think, came out in limited copies. Although you do nothing but click & read, it has a very good storyline. Like the Pia Carrot 3 section, I want to spread the word about planetarian. I think it has a good chance to be a 13 episode anime series in the future & I would like to see it.

For PSP owners living in Canada, stop by at your Toy R Us store cause they have some PSP games on sale for $14.97! Sale ends on October 21. This is mainly the old ones. I went in late in the afternoon, but I managed to get the last Death Jr. from my local Toys R Us. I'll probably play that game later since I'm still working on Dynasty Warriors. I read from a forum that someone working in Toys R Us has spotted in their database that X Men Legends 2 & GTA will be listed as the sale price. I'm not sure if this is true or not since they will be released a day or 2 before the sale ends.

I'll probably get this site update with more stuff some time in the next 2 weeks or so. Hopefully some more anime reviews.

I have a confession. I do sucky reviews, especially the anime reviews. Actually, make that an already known fact. Usually because I'm too tired to do them & tend to forget parts of the story. But at least I'm giving my opinion about it & hopefully give some ideas to the readers out there wanting to know about those shows. Anyways, I added some anime reviews in the Anime section:

I'll make a new subsection there telling what new anime shows I'm currently following at the moment some time in the future.

In the Downloads section, I added my PSP game save of Dynasty Warriors in the PSP Game Saves subsection. It contains 1 character from Suikoden, some Samurai Warriors, & 7 turns of Lu Bu (he's not that great of an officer in my opinion). Get the save in the PSP Game Saves subsection. I'll update it again when I get more officers & time to upload it. I'll probably upload my Bleach: Heat the Soul save next since it's close to completion. The Downloads section will probably be PSP games saves for a long time since I got no wallpaper, skins, or other computer goodies. If you want your wallpaper, skin, or any of your personal work here, email me. Of course, I'm going to check them first to make sure it's suitable.

In PSP news, Sony Japan has recently released version 2.50 for download. It contains minor web browser stuff. The biggest thing in the update is the Location Free Player. From what I heard, it basically lets you watch TV on your PSP. However, I heard it requires some hardware to do this & it's expensive. Overall, it's not really a "must have" update sunless you want those new browser features.

Back then, I did mention that I would put up pics of the Nintendo Revolution controller. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:

The design is like a remote control. I heard that you can use it like a "normal" controller if you turn it 90 degrees. It seems like it has a motion detector as it can tell if you are moving it up or down to make your character jump or duck. Although I find the design to be weird, Nintendo seem to have made a new revolution of how controllers will be someday.

Not too long ago, I mention that I would put up a pic of the Pia Carrot 3 Takako Kinoshita PVC figure I preorder. Here's how it looks like:

Personally, it's really stunning how that pose looks. Although it comes out on December 20 this year in Japan, I'll probably get it in January due to the holiday season.

Woo! My site is back on the Yahoo search engine. It's also now in the MSN search engine too! But Google still hasn't listed my site back up. I still don't know how my site was removed from Yahoo & Google initially. Oh well.

Since Halloween is coming up, this is a good time to cosplay on the streets without problems with the law. Usually, people will look at you weirdly if they see you dressed up as some anime character. You might have some trouble with the cops if they catch up like that as they think you might be some sort of threat to society. With Halloween coming, that can be avoided. By the way, I don't cosplay since I don't look like anime, manga, or game character.

Lately, I've been trying to cut down on the storyline sections of the anime reviews. They're for the newer ones though. They are pretty long & it was enough to almost retell everything step by step. So, I'm trying to cut them down to the main points. Probably easier for the reader's eyes now, but may lack a lot of plotlines. I'll get some up this week if I got time.

Today, my anime web store, tamago toys, got new shipment today. I placed the new items in the site already. Plus, my sister & I have decided to hold a sale until the end of this month for some of the items & it includes some of the new stock! Check it out if you got time & want something from there. Don't forget to mention "tamago" & my site in your order to receive the surprise!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada! Hopefully you have enjoyed your long weekend & turkey dinner. For you US viewers, Happy Columbus Day!

For you PSP owners that haven't heard about this, it seems there is a virus running around the net that "bricks" your PSP. In other words, it damages your PSP due to the virus' hacking activities. The virus comes from a homebrew program that's for version 2.00 systems. I don't remember what the program's name is, but you should be careful when using homebrew programs anyways.

Because of the new gashapon sets I got recently, I added 2 new subsections in the Collectables section. They are Fighting Jam & SHUFFLE!. I also pre-ordered a Pia Carrot 3 PVC figurine of Takako Kinoshita in the Tropical Type uniform. I pre-ordered it when I saw how stunning it looked. I'll post a pic of it when I find one. I think I need to stop getting so much anime stuff since I still have some I haven't opened or display yet. Especially the gashapon sets.

I added a new section, which is the Downloads section. It should be empty at the moment since I'm working out my PSP game saves. Expect that subsection to go first. The saves I plan to put up are incomplete saves of Dynasty Warriors (with 178 officers), Ridge Racer (with very little unlocked cars & tracks), Bleach: Heat the Soul (everything unlock except the 2 player Block-On game), & Vampire Chronicles (with some artwork & endings). I plan to open a Wallpaper section that will contained work from people who submitted them to me. If you want me to put them on my site, email them to me & give me a description of them. Of course, I need to check if it is suitable for all viewers. I may add small anime programs like mouse catchers, but it might not happen since I only got 15MB web space to play with.

In PSP news, the hackers have found the way to play UMD ISOs from the memory stick. This is probably old news, but this is quite a big step in the system's future as games will probably be pirated now. The program to do this only works with 1.5 PSP at the moment. This is probably why the downgrader program is highly popular now.

In more PSP news, there are a lot of rumour talks about the PSP getting add-on hardware. Keyboard, camera, mouse, etc. If some of these hardware rumour are true, I'm going to see the PSP as a console system instead of a portable one. I can probably image how bulky the PSP will get from these add-on hardware & start ditching my seldom used PDA.

In anime news, there's good news for you G1 Transformers fans! A UK company has licensed all of the G1 Transformers series from Japan that was never shown overseas. Those series are The Headmasters, Victory, & Masterforce. The DVDs are sold as a whole set in 3 volumes I believe & are scheduled to be released this past week or the next. I don't remember.

Yesterday, I stopped by my favourite Japanese hobby shop & picked up 2 gashapon sets. They were Yujin's Capcom Fighting Jam series & Bandai's Shuffle!. These sets were actually a surprise to me when I picked them up. The Fighting Jam was expensive than I thought when the owner told me the price. But I realized all the secret figures are in there. I could only see Chun Li in the sealed bag & 1 repainted figurine at the moment. There are some I spotted, but I can't make out who or what they are. The Bandai Shuffle! gashapons are a surprise to me personally. I never heard about these gashapons. I only know that Bandai is going to release them as trading figures sometime next year. These were truly a great find for me. I was going to pick up the K&M DOA trading figures too, but I didn't want to buy a whole box of 12 & possibly end up with 2 sets. I don't know what to do with the other set. Plus, I didn't have a lot of money on me too. ^^; I may buy them next time if there is a next time & if it's still there.

News from my anime web store, tamago toys, we received a new shipment of items yesterday. It's going to be awhile to list all the new listings on the site as we will be doing them slowly. Also, my sister & I have planned to make a promotion on some items, including the new products we got. Don't forget to mention "Tamago" in your order for the limited time special surprise. Remember to mention that you heard the surprise from my site. Check it out if you got time! ^_~

A lot of new anime series this past week & I need to put my ass in gear in make some anime reviews. I'll probably mention the series that I'm going to watch in the next update or 2, so you will probably get some ideas of what reviews I may do in the future.

Currently, I have been mainly focusing on working on the Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 special section. Since I don't exactly remember some of the character's storylines, I'm probably going to play the game again some time soon (which I was going to do anyways). I'll probably finish it before the end of this year & probably after Pia Carrot!! G.O. comes out.

My PSP games section is pretty poor since I don't play a lot of games & I don't have a huge game library. I was thinking of creating a Downloads section & putting some downloads of my game saves. I'm thinking of putting up my Ridge Racer, Bleach, & Dynasty Warriors saves. Vampire Chronicles is a maybe since I don't think I can get everything unlocked. I can't read & understand what requirements I need to do in the Tower mode since it's written in Japanese. I'll probably upload what I have, complete or not. I need to check if it's possible to upload them in Geocities as zip or rar files too.

For that Download section, I'm thinking of asking the readers here to submit their fan made wallpapers to my site. I'll upload them & post them in the Download section for people to download & enjoy the work made by those people on their computer. If you have some anime, manga, or game wallpapers you have made & want some place to upload them to show to the world, email them to me. Before I post them up, I need to make sure they don't have any nudity, racist remarks, or any discrimination in them. Also, I need to make sure they are from anime, manga or games. ^^ When you email them to me, give me your name so I can get credit to you, the resolution size of the wallpaper, what series it's from, & the title of it if it has one. If it's something you totally made from your creativity, let me know too. If you like, give me your email too in case someone out there wants to comment about your work. If there's a lot coming in, I may consider doing this.

In Pinky news, I've seen sites talk about the KOF Pinkys being 1.5 bigger (at 15cm) than the regular Pinkys. I have no idea about this, but I'll probably look at them when I get from the mail some time this month.

I've being making that special Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 section at the moment. It's basically going to be information about the game's story & characters. I may talk about the game's playing system. There's not going to be any links to download the game or a game guide to help you get through the game (but I may change my mind if there are requests for it). You probably won't see that section until next month I think.

It's a new month & I clean this home page by moving all the September stuff into the Past News Achieve section.

For some reason, this time Google has removed my site from their search engine. I have no idea how this happened. First Yahoo!, now Google. I resubmitted my site again. Sigh.

The online anime store I usually go to emailed me & told me that they apologize for the long time as they got the KOF Pinkys in stock! FINALLY! It looks like VANCE set it to October 3 instead of 5th. Since I pre-ordered a Misuzu Kamio PVC figure by Toy Planning from them, I asked them if they could wait for awhile if that figure is going to be released this week. Hey, I waited long enough for those Pinkys so it shouldn't hurt to wait some more. Not only that, those Pinkys aren't mine's. ^^

In PSP news, Sony has released version 2.01 firmware recently. I think it was yesterday to be exact. It only strengthens the security of the system. I guess it's to prevent the downgrading program & future emulators. So this update isn't really necessary. I added this & other past PSP news into the PSP News, Hacks, & Secrets section.

Finished watching Gundam SEED Destiny & it was awful! I posted my review of the show in the Anime section. Click here to see the review. Embedded in that review is my opinion of who the best SEED pilot is. Also in the anime section is a brief review of Suzuka. A really good anime shows to watch. A lot of new anime series are coming up this month & should do some more anime reviews. I finished a couple recently & I should do reviews for them. Also, I should get that section organized better.

I'm actually still sick, but I'm getting better now. Hopefully, I get some updates here within these 2 weeks.