Past News Archive: September 2005
September 29, 2005
It's my birthday today & it sucks cause I'm sick. I haven't gotten sick for over 3 years & it looks like I stopped it. My sister gave me a present. It's a Japanese item. It's a cat inside an egg. You need to crack the egg to get the cat out, but I'm not going to do it since I'm pretty ill now. But I could care less about my birthday really since it's just another day.
In PSP news, the hackers/homebrew strike! Not too long ago, they successfully create a program that allows you to downgrade your PSP from version 2.00 to 1.50. The benefit of that? To continue playing emulators. Since I don't touch that stuff, I'm keep my version 2.00.
In Pinky news, the KOF Pinkys seem to have been delayed YET AGAIN! According from websites I've seen, the release date has been moved to October 5, 2005. With everything all set for release, I have no idea why VANCE delayed it this time.
I'll update this place when I get the time & feel better.
September 28, 2005
For you Pinky fans out there, VANCE has officially announced that the KOF Pinkys will be released in Japan on September 30. Also announced is a new Pinky chara character. From the Tokyo Hobby Show, VANCE has displayed a colour prototype of Sakura Shinguuji from Sakura Wars. Looking at the pic I found on the web, it looks really nice. I'm no fan of Sakura Wars, but I do plan to get this Pinky. She comes with 2 bodies: the kimono & that pink uniform she wears for her job. A katana will come with her based on the pic I seen. But the interesting thing about it is the body of the kimono. It's designed differently from other Pinky's so far.
More Pinky news, a majority of you should know about the Fruits Basket Pinky coming this Christmas/New Year. The Pinky is a lucky prize draw only. It has a lot of accessories from what I seen. Another Pinky news you may heard about is the ChoroQ collaboration project. It seems like there will be a line of these products. The 1st product to come from it is the Rabbit scooter. It seems there are 2 types of it. From my anime business supplier list I received, I've seen that scooter & a car from the ChoroQ project. Since it's confidential, I won't release the pic of that car. I'm not sure if it will be made. Anyways, it will be release sometime in early 2006.
Since we are talking about Pinkys, I added the Pinky St: D.C. Nemu Asakura Cell Strap review in the Pinky section. This is something you Pinky fans may want to check out as this is, I believe, really a rare item
Also added & done to this site are the following:
Anime
Collectables
Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 Capsule Figure Collection Gashapon Set in the Welcome to Pia Carrot 3!! section (now completed for the time being)
Binchotan Part 1 Gashapon Set in the Binchotan section (finally opened!)
Speaking of Binchotan, I redid that section a bit since I learned a bit more about it.
You may notice a slight change in format in the collectable reviews. I'll started using Imageshack & gave it a try. So far, it loads the pics slower than Photobucket. The important thing is that it's doing the job at least, although it's a pain in the butt to upload pics 1 by 1. I know there's a credit feature, but I'm not going to buy any credits. Too bad there isn't a way to sort the pics out by folder or subdirectories. It's going to get messy later. Expect all of the collectable reviews or section with thumbnails to be reformatted as I move the pics from Photobucket to Imageshack. The changes will move slowly since there are a lot & I'm not really sure if Imageshack's unlimited space is really "unlimited". Also, don't expect some updates for a while due to the slow upload speed of Imageshack.
September 27, 2005
For some reason, my site was removed from the Yahoo! search engine. I just discovered about this today & have no idea how it happened. At least I'm still in the Google search engine. MSN isn't doing squat. Anyways, I re-submitted my url of this site again. Hopefully, it will stay on this time.
Lately, it has been very frustrating for me to complete my Chobits DVD collection. You might be think, "Why is it frustrating? You can get the whole series easily from any video store." For me, that's not the case. I've got the limited edition box with the stationary set that was sold with volume 1. I also got the limited pencil boards from volumes 2, 3, 4, & 6. Forming all the pencil boards together on the back side makes a huge picture. I'm missing 2 more pencil boards to complete the set. Originally, I got my Chobits DVDs from a local Japanese anime store quite easily. I got them within a week when the DVDs came out on release day. However, the store decided to move 2 cities down the road & I didn't want to drive all the way down there just to get a DVD. It was the only store in my city that had the official Chobits DVDs. I got volumes 2 & 3 from there. The rest came from eBay & those weren't easy to get. I think it has been 2 years now, but I feel I might need to give up on my search since those were released in the first production run.
A lot of new anime coming next month. From the looks of it, it's pretty much the same kind of lineup: manga, sequels, & ero-game adaptations. For those waiting for Fate stay night anime, it's coming out on January 2006. Judging from the month, I think it will be a 13 episode season anime.
In PSP news, not too long ago it appears that hackers have found an exploit in the version 2.0 firmware. Cause of this, expect homebrew & emulators to pop up some time before the end of this year. It seems that hackers are working harder & smarter this time since it's been "crack" just a little over a month.
Since the web photo hosting I using, Photobucket, has exceed over 55% already, I'm thinking of getting another web photo hosting service. I seen people using Imageshack in net, so I think I'll sign up for it soon. Cause of that, the layout of the review may be different. Plus if the service is good & really has unlimited space, I may redo the reviews here to save some space on Photobucket for something else.
September 26, 2005
My relatives left today, so I can finally have some free time for myself. I think....
When I wrote that Comic Party Revolution OVA review & put it up on this site, I mentioned that episode 1 of the TV version was released. Actually it's not true. It's really the OVA version when I got it. I guess the people that submitted the episode got confused. The difference between the the TV & OVA versions is that the TV version is about 4 -5 minutes shorter than the OVA. Other than that, it's the same thing. So much for the TV version being fansubbed. By the way, I'm not fixing that tiny section of the review because of that.
PSP NA owners will probably be happy as a lot of new PSP games will be coming out next month, especially a couple of RPG ones finally. By the way, Untold Legends doesn't count as RPG. The RPG games coming to North America are, in order, PoPoLoCrois & The Legend of Heroes. Personally, I would be getting The Legend of Heroes since I heard good things about it. Also, another big hit coming this month is the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. Although there are more games to mention, I don't think most of them will get some attention. Of course, the release dates are subjected to change by the game companies.
In toy/collectable news, there was a big toy convention that happened in Tokyo; the All Japan Plamodel Radicon Show (better know as the Tokyo Hobby Show). No doubt a lot of toys were displayed there. Before the convention happened, I was kicking myself silly for not going. Why? Because toy company Spring was selling Deluxe Figure Fate stay night Saber figurines there. This figurine was exclusively for sale at the show. There were 2 ways to get it: going to the convention to buy or ordering it on Spring webstie & pick it up at the convention. Either way, you have to go to the convention to get it. The figurine is an action figure that has quite a lot of articulations to do a lot of beautiful poses. It's really a good looking figurine. It measures at 14cm, made of PVC, & the price is a whooping ¥8,000! It was available only for 1 day on September 25. The only way to get it for me now is paying a extremely high price of it, which I'm not really prepared to do.
In PC gaming news, Leaf has announced that they will make a XRATED To Heart 2 game for PC. I've seen the demo/trail version available for download. Some of you may know that To Heart is originally a hentai (now called ero) game series. To Heart 2 was first released on PS2, thus there weren't any hentai scenes. I don't know if there is a difference in the storylines, but fans wanting a ero version of the game will be happy about this news.
In other PC gaming news, FC02 will be releasing the next Welcome to Pia Carrot!! game: Pia Carrot G.O. Although some of the characters have been announced, I don't know what system this game is actually. Judging from the "G.O." word, I'm thinking it's for a portable system like PSP or DS. Judging how the game series was released in the past, I'm assuming it will be coming out for PC. This is actually old news really.
Speaking of Pia Carrot, in the past update, I did mention that I might make a special Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 section. I may reject this idea cause of the following:
I knew beforehand that Pia Carrot G.O. was coming. The reason why I wanted to do a Pia Carrot 3 section is because it's basically the most popular game in the lineup with it's characters & mountain of merchandises available for so many years. I'm basically giving people a chance to know about this series really, since there is very little English websites covering it.
Enough chit chat, I'll be updating this site sometime in a week or 2. I didn't really get a chance to do any reviews beforehand during my relatives stay at my place. The only update I did was redoing Halloween-chan since I got her out for Halloween season.
September 20, 2005
This will probably be the last update for the month. As mentioned, my relatives that are coming are planning to stay at our place for about a week. Depending on the housing situation, it may be longer or shorter than a week. So, I pretty much done some reviews for the following:
Anime
Collectables
Hopefully these will keep people busy for awhile.
You may notice that I added hyperlinks to the reviews & sections now for easier access. I'll probably keep this format from now on until it gets very messy or something. This will give me a lot of work now.
Next month, I'll probably add more new sections, redo some sections, & maybe make a special section for Welcome to Pia Carrot 3!!. It's probably unlikely that I'll do the Pia Carrot section since it will be a lot of work & I'm using my time for other things. Also, I plan to get some more reviews here. I'll probably prepare some when my relatives are here if I have time.
September 19, 2005
Tomorrow, Nintendo will be releasing the Game Boy Micro to North America. The Game Boy Micro plays all GBA games & the system will be sold with 3 changeable faceplates. Although it's a hit in Japan, I personally don't see myself getting one. Because it's 10 X 5cm in size, the screen will be painfully small to see. I haven't seen the product yet, but I think the screen will be 5 or 6cm in length. The portable system will be selling for CDN$129.99.
In other Nintendo news, I was browsing through the web & saw what appears to be the official controller for Nintendo's upcoming Revolution system. It looks like a remote control with a iPod mini-like joystick connecting to it by a wire. Personally, I think it's a bad design in terms of the button placement & the way you hold it. Rumours say that Nintendo will be using that controller design for sure. If I can, I'll post pics of it here.
In PSP news, my sister told me that Sony has recalled the PSP system due to an overheating problem. She can't remember the exact details, but she told me it was some part of the system or charge gets overheated too easily & may cause a fire. I have my system since launch day & I admit the system does overheat a bit. I played it 2 hours straight before & it does overheat. However, the fire thing is highly unlikely to me. It's probably a rumour being spread around by DS fanboys hating the system. I never hear of this recall thing & I'm not taking the time to find out if it's true or not.
In Pinky news, the King of Fighters Mai & Athena set is scheduled to be released in this month finally! There are pictures of the final product with accessories in 2 colours. The blue colour version are from SNK's King of Fighters 10th anniversary contest. Thus, those are limited & were only award if people collected enough points. The normal version is the one people can buy. The blister card packaging has also been shown in the web. So, the KOF Pinky should be ready to be release sometime this month hopefully. The excepted release is the week of September 25th. Although I have preordered them, I decided to give them to my sister since I owe her some stuff.
The Street Fighter Chun-Li & Sakura set, however, has been reportedly pushed again from October to November. Sigh. The full colour prototypes have been shown very recently at the Tokyo Game Show 2005 convention at Capcom's booth & they don't look too bad.
My sister & I have decided that to do a promotion for our anime store, Tamago Toys. We will be giving out a surprise to customers that order from our store. Mention Tamago sent or refer you in the order & you will receive the surprise. Also mention where Tamago sent you from (in this case, from my website). We are trying to spread the word out about our store & help the anime community fulfill its anime collecting needs. This is an limited time offer, so don't delay!
In terms of updates for this site, I'm planning to get some stuff up here tomorrow before my relatives come over. Hopefully it will be a massive one.
September 18, 2005
Yesterday, I decided to take some pictures of some of my collection since I finished up my work on my web store for the time being. Why did I do it? Mainly because my relatives will be coming soon & stay here for a long time. Thus, I won't have time to take pics. Plus, I (for some reason) remembered that I had a DearS gashapon set lying around my closet. When I found the gashapon set, I found something else I forgot I have. I also have a Mizuiro gashapon set. Talk about the amount of junk I have! Both of them are still sealed in their packaging & I probably should display them when I have time & room.
During the photo shooting, I had some pics looking bad because the sunlight coming in my room was creating a lot of light beams & shadow. Since I was tired, I decided to keep the pics as is. I'll probably redo them if I have time & when I feel like it. As I took pictures, I figure that I should create a section about photographing your collectables, even though I'm no professional photographer. This section not only provides tips on taking good pictures of toys & collectables, I feel it may be of some use of other photography projects. I'll probably make this sometime in the future.
For the Anime section, I decided to write some reviews on some of my past favourite anime series as well. Except some reviews to contain anime shows finished for some time ago.
Hopefully, I can get a lot of stuff uploaded here before my relatives arrive. That way, you can see some new stuff here when I'm gone, which is unlikely since I rarely get any visitors here.
September 17, 2005
This past week, Sony Japan has released the Ceramic White PSP Value Pack in Japan. The pack is the same as the black one, except the system is white as well as the soft carrying pouch. Personally, I think it looks bad. That white doesn't make it shine like the original one. The benefit with that white one, however, is not seeing any fingerprint smug marks on it. I get a lot of fingerprints on my PSP & I tend to wipe it after playing with it. I don't believe this pack is selling as well as the original one, since most people got a PSP already. Sony America has officially stated on the PSP home page that they don't have plans to release the white PSP here. Sony Europe, on the other hand, might since they had release different colours of the PS2 system there.
In other news, I wasn't aware that the new Final Fantasy Creatures Trading Figures was released. It turns out that it came out the same day as FF7 AC. One thing I think I know about the new FF Creatures is that is was release in very limited numbers & is available to a handful of stores. The online stores I go to don't have this item available. I was planning to get those to sell on my web store.
On the topic of selling, I noticed that Ragnarok Online Trading Figures are coming to Japan in December. I discussed with my sister about getting these & selling them at Tamago Toys. Before I went out to look for suppliers for this product, something hit me. I remembered that there was an Ragnarok Online anime & had the idea that these figures are based on that series, not the game itself. Since I haven't seen any pictures of the item, I withdrew my decision until I see what it is
Since we are still talking about Ragnarok Online, I recalled that the game would have 2 different anime series created for Japan. One of them is the one that has already been shown in Japan, which was made for an all age audience. I seen the anime & felt it was bad. I didn't finish the series since the fansub group that was doing it was slow & I don't plan on finishing the series. The other one is for a mature audience. It was said that it would 13 episodes long & will be different from the one shown already since it's from a different studio. Although this anime was announced at the same time with the one already shown on TV at the same time, I haven't heard anything about the mature one since then. It's probably due to possible low TV ratings from the all age ones or the interest of the game had died down.
In my Collectable news, I picked up a set of Konami's Magister Negi Magi Volume 1 trading figures from my favourite local Japanese hobby store. These are quite hard to find & I was surprise that the store managed to get 2 boxes (24 pieces). They are quite small, about 7cm, but they are quite kawaii! ^_^ I haven't assembly them yet & will probably do it tomorrow or next month. I got relatives coming on the 21st & will be stay here for a week to do some house shopping. So, I'll probably won't be able to do any updates during that time until October. Sigh. -_- I'll see if I can get some updates here before they arrive.
September 13, 2005
As you may know, Square Enix has officially released Final Fantasy VII Advent Children for DVD & UMD. There are, actually, were 3 editions available: normal, first print limited, & Advent Pieces Limited Box. The normal edition is just the movie itself, the first print limited edition is the movie, game event digest, & trailers all in one disc. The price difference between those 2 editions isn't too big. But the Advent Pieces Limited Box edition has the biggest price difference.
The Advent Pieces Limited Box edition has the everything the limited edition has plus FFVII Last Order OVA, Cloudy Wolf T-shirt & key holder, PSX Final Fantasy VII International Advent Pieces Limited game disc, a making & promo from game conventions disc, Play Arts Cloud figure with Fenrir motorbike, replica scripts of the storyline, & a nice black box to store it all in. Packaged in a brown cardboard suitcase-like box, you get it all for ¥29,500! That's a lot of money & yet it's all sold out just by preorders alone. So, you have no chance to get this unless you preordered it in advance. Of course, there is the option of paying more than the retail price by going through online auctions; preferably Yahoo Japan auctions. No one knows if the North American release will have this kind of package. By the way, I heard the NA release has been push back to winter 2005. Probably due to English voice acting & scripting situations. So much for the simultaneous release!
If you have been a bad boy or girl, you probably heard about FF7: Advent Children being leaked out on the web last week. I have seen the fansub available for download a couple days ago, but I haven't touched it since it was in MKV format & I got enough video codec on my computer as it is. Don't ask me where to get it since it's licensed internationally.
September 12, 2005
I finally took the time to move the old news in the Past News Archive section. Since all of it is from August, I'll sort it out next time.
I received an email from an online store regarding an item I preordered. It turns out that my order for a Fate stay night music box has been cancelled since their supplier won't get anymore & the company, Exhaust, won't make anymore! I was pretty sad when I got the news since that item is really unique & collectable. But I pretty much knew that I wouldn't be to get it since the day I preordered it. I preordered it too late, so chances of getting it were pretty low. The store refunded my money back & I'll probably use it to get that AIR Misuzu figurine that's coming out this month. Although I should use that money to invest into my anime business, I make bad decisions anyways when it comes to money.
Updates! This time, I added a couple of anime reviews. This place is starting to turn into an toy review more than anime series. But at least, those toys are anime stuff. The reviews that I've added are:
I did some minor updating to Boku wa Imoto ni Koi wo Suru since I got some missing info added there now. I'll probably do more again if I have time this week since a lot of anime series are close to ending. Currently, I'm in the process of watching AIR in Summer. I'll probably do a review for that after I do a review on AIR TV.
For the Collectable section again, I added a Tokimeki Memorial section. I totally forgot I had stuff from that series since I seldom see them in the house that I put them at. Anyways, what has been done?
Didn't think I would update a lot within a week. Probably won't update for a long time since I'm out of pics for the Collectable section & the anime reviews take up a lot of time than I thought.
September 9, 2005
My lesson for the day: Making web pages are really a pain in the butt! Today, I spent most of my day making web pages for my personal & business websites. I added new pages in the Collectables section that I don't feel like listing out here. Also, I added more toy reviews there:
Also added in the Collectables section is a page about the differences between Asian & Japanese toy versions.
Recently, I saw AIR Movie & was a bit disappointed about it. Why? Find out in the review I made for it in the Anime section. I really need to get that section going soon.
In other news, my anime retail web store, Tamago Toys, has officially opened! YEAH! Got the business license in the mail today, so I spent most of my time getting it launched. Currently, there isn't a lot of items for sale there & there are some bugs I need to fix up for the web pages. If you are looking for some anime goods, check us at www.tamago-toys.com. Help spread the word about us! We want to help strengthen the anime community & give fans a piece of anime collectables to own. ^_^
I'm getting tired, so I'm ending here today. Hopefully, I can get some more stuff on this website when I have the time.
September 3, 2005
A new month has arrived. I'll put some of the old news in the Past News Archives soon. No real updates. I'm just taking the time to announce that my anime web store will be opening soon. Right now, the web store is open for announcement purposes with no items to sell. Why? Because I'm waiting for my business license from city hall. I find it weird to get a business license to do business over the net where my customers are pretty much the whole world, not the city I live in.
The name of store that my sister & I will be opening is Tamago Toys. Check out our store at www.tamago-toys.com. We'll be selling a small variety of items at the moment due to cost & being a new business. So if you are looking for some anime-related toys & collectables, check us out! ^_^ I'll put our store's web address in my Links page.
Hopefully some time next week or 2, I'll put up some more collectable reviews if I got time. Also, I want to try to get some anime reviews done as well.