Author: Anne

Happiness Tastes Like Butter Chips

Happiness is a bag of chips, right? Well, apparently Calbee thinks so… Butter potato chips, to be precise. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an Apricotsushi Samples, but here’s one I filmed back when my hair was nearly at my shoulders and it was cold enough to wear scarves!

I was quite surprised at how sweet these were! There wasn’t really any of the saltiness I expected, but that’s because I was silly and didn’t read that one of the ingredients was honey before chowing down. (Fun fact: I record the audio for the package close up portion in post production, so I clearly didn’t read what was on the bag until much after the fact this time…)

Are butter-flavored potato chips something you’d like to try? How about… mandarin? I’m always looking for weird new food products to try, so if you find anything, send them my way!

 

Sofubi Invades Brisbane! Soft Vinyl Mayhem Event Recap

Soft Vinyl Mayhem logo

This past Friday, Australia saw its first ever sofubi exhibit right in my home of Brisbane! It’s not often that I get to attend a first of anything in Australia, let alone something related to Japanese pop culture, so of course I had to go. The event, titled Soft Vinyl Mayhem, was all about showcasing the bizarre world of sofubi, or soft vinyl toys. Before Friday, my knowledge of sofubi began and ended with Negora, but I’ve studied up and am ready to share what I’ve learned! But first, here’s a peek at what awaited me at the Soft Vinyl Mayhem show:

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Sunday Spotlight: Aiccio’s Video Game Cross Stitch

Sunday Spotlight Chic Pixel

Another Sunday, another Spotlight! This week I’m really excited to share one of my absolute favorite crafters. Cross stitcher aiccio is only on Instagram, as far as I’m aware (update: they are also on Twitter), but their mostly video game-themed projects are some of the best I’ve seen! Video games, particularly ones featuring pixel art, tend to lend themselves really well to cross stitch, but aiccio stands out for highlighting series and characters that you don’t often see get much love.

Check out some of their awesome works:

The above two pieces are Mother-themed book covers aiccio designed for the Hobonichi Techo planner, inspired by official designs. I think I prefer them to the official ones!

大きさは直径38mmです。#クロスステッチ #crossstitch #pixelart #8bit

A photo posted by @aiccio on

Buttons! Check out the rad Splatoon one!

Recognize this? It’s Angelique, which popularized dating sims for girls!

ファミコンリミックス⑥ #crossstitch #nintendo #nesremix #pixelart

A photo posted by @aiccio on

Of course, no video game cross stitch collection would be complete without some Mario. I could seriously link every single one of aiccio’s Instagram posts, they’re all that awesome. But instead, do head over and check out the rest of their work! They only have about 1,500 followers, which is not nearly enough, if you ask me, so give them a follow if you can! If you don’t have an Instagram account, show them some love on Twitter. Now I want to go do some nerdy crafts…

Japan Crate Review

Apricotsushi Reviews: Japan Crate

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Japanese snack subscription review! A while back I was contacted by Japan Crate to cover their service, and of course I happily obliged. I was particularly excited for this one because they offer a “mini,” “original,” and “premium” crate, allowing you to choose what box fits your needs and budget. Let’s see what’s inside!

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Sunday Spotlight: Cute Travels

Sunday Spotlight Chic Pixel

Another week, another Sunday Spotlight! Today I’d like to point your browsers to Cute Travels, an adorable blog featuring travel, food, and craft posts. Eimear loves all things cute just like me, and she also happens to visit a ton of themed cafes! I could spend hours looking through her themed restaurant tag alone.

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Not only does she visit all kinds of cute places, she also likes to create cute food and crafts at home. Some great examples of this are her Polar Bear’s Cafe marshmallows and scrap paper magnets. A lot of the recipes look a little too complex for my clumsy paws, but this Miffy parfait shouldn’t be too hard to do, don’t you agree?

Another great thing about Cute Travels is that Eimear visits all kinds of places besides Japan (mostly in Asia), so you can catch a glimpse of cute places all over the world that you might not see covered here at Chic Pixel! I highly recommend checking out Eimear’s site and giving her a follow on Instagram.

Japan Envy: Danganronpa Cakes from Patisserie Swallowtail

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Why look at that, Japan is celebrating Ultra Despair Month, too! Well not really, but it’s a great coincidence that Patisserie Swallowtail is offering two rad Danganronpa-inspired cakes during the month of September. The sweets shop, which specializes in collaboration items for anime, manga, and game series popular with women, is located in Shibuya Marui on the 8th floor. If you happen to be in the area between September 9th to the 23rd, here’s what you could pick up:

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The Monokuma cake is ¥750 (about $7) and contains white chocolate mousse and raspberry jelly. Yum!

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The Monomi cake is also ¥750 and contains cream cheese mousse and passion cream.

Every cake purchase comes with a limited edition Danganronpa coaster:

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Usually collaboration drinks are what come with coasters, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if I got one of those neat designs! Of course, which coaster you’re given when you order is random, but I’d have my eye on the Nagito or square Monomi one.

If you’re like me and have no hope of ever making it to Japan in time for this awesome collaboration, you can follow Patisserie Swallowtail on Twitter and drool over all of their various adorable creations there.

5 Awesome LINE Sticker Sets for Otome Game Fans

5 Awesome Line Sticker Sets for Otome Game Fans

LINE may still be relatively unknown in the west, but the messaging app’s vast array of adorable stickers and themes has taken already Japan and much of Asia by storm. From Rilakkuma to Hatsune Miku to nearly every Disney character you can think of, these illustrated reaction images make chatting constantly adorable and fun. If you aren’t using LINE already, you can download it for free for iOS or Android and start using the free sticker packs right away. Once you’ve made an account, you can even install and sign in to the app from your PC or Mac!

With the recent addition of the Creator’s Store, now anyone can create and market their own sticker sets. The unfortunate side effect of this is that there is no real way to easily find what’s available looking for, and most Japanese creators do not share their sticker release announcements in English. While you can do a simple keyword search, they often gives hundreds of results to wade through!

The good news is, if you’re into otome games like me, there are actually a plethora of official stickers available. Since they’re so hard to keep track of, I thought I’d highlight five of my favorite sets so you can make sure to add them to your LINE library. If you want to see more, let me know in the comments and I’ll whip up a part 2!

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