Category Archives: Swooning Over

Swooning Over the Monster Hunter 4 Bible and Lagombi Hunter Nendoroid

Anyone who’s following me on Twitter is probably well aware that I’ve gotten in a little, how should I put it, deep into Monster Hunter over the past couple of weeks (I blame MonMonth!). Just how deep, exactly? Well, I ordered this: 

While there are countless in-depth Wikis and guides to Monster Hunter 4 online, I couldn’t help but want a physical book that I could refer to for weapon upgrades, monster battling strategies, and, of course, sweet screenshots of all the armour and gear in the game. I was very impressed by the Animal Crossing: New Leaf guide I was gifted a while back, so I figured why not spring for another awesome, comprehensive Japanese game guide?

The full title, by the way, is the Monster Hunter 4 Official Guide Book by Famitsu. I’m told it’s the most comprehensive guide available, and it was just released in January of this year. The back cover is simple, yet they manage to pack in quite a bit of info on the obi (extra flap of paper that folds around the bottom)!

The book also comes with these two quick guides for “easy” reference when out in the field, I guess. I’ve already used the map with gathering point locations a couple of times. Inside the front jacket is a list of key quests, as well. Handy!

And when you take off the slip jacket… an adorable Felyne illustration is revealed! All of the outfits they’re wearing are armour sets you can get for your Felyne companions in the game.

The book itself is actually a whopping 1,380 pages, which makes it more than twice as big as my Animal Crossing: New Leaf book! The pages are much thinner, though, so size-wise it’s not significantly bigger.

If you buy this book looking for lots of pretty pictures, you’re probably going to be sorely disappointed. There are literally pages and pages of stats like the one above! This just shows some weapon upgrade trees and their stats, along with the items required to craft them. Page numbers are provided so it’s not hard at all to flip through and find where the items can be obtained.

The chapters, luckily, are broken up with some nice images such as the one above. It’s just too bad there aren’t more than them! Oh well, I shouldn’t have expected an art book.

Ok, I’m going to complain a little bit more (don’t worry, I really do love the book!): I wish they had better pictures of the monsters, too! But once again, I can tell they’re trying to fit as much information as they possibly can into the book. I love how they detail all of the monster’s different attack patterns and how you should fight them. Perfect for the diagram lovers out there!

Now this is a little more exciting for those who don’t just want to look at numbers and kanji: armor sets! I always have to check to see how a set looks here before I craft it, because who wants to go into battle donning an ugly set of armour?

And finally, my favourite section – the Felyne armour! I just love checking out all the different outfits! One of my Felyne sidekicks is wearing the Yian Kut-Ku fursuit on the top left corner of the right page. Cute!

I can tell I’m going to be using this book for quite a long time, especially since I’ve already clocked more than 70 hours into Monster Hunter 4! If you’d like to get your hands on one, they can be ordered for only $23 at CD Japan and other online retailers.

Another Monster Hunter-related item I received just the other day is something I preordered way back last year… the Female Hunter: Lagombi Edition! The Lagombi armour set is undoubtedly my favourite set so far, so as soon as she was announced I scrambled to place a preorder.

I forgot she actually comes with two weapons – a gunlance and a hammer! Since my main weapon is a hammer, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by this revelation. She looks so much like my own character in the game!

Before I get to the real good stuff, I just wanted to note that I think it’s a very nice touch that Good Smile Company added a winter mountain scene for the background. It’s separate from the box, so you could potentially use it as a backdrop yourself.

Here’s what she looks like just out of the box. I absolutely love that they included a Felyne companion along with the two different weapons. I’m not as happy about her facial expressions… It would have been nice if she got one more, or at least something different from her blank main expression and her tearful freaked out face.

The red things are called “action parts” and are supposed to help you simulate battle scenes. I assume one is supposed to be used with the hammer and the other with the gunlance, but I can’t help but think they’re extremely similar and I could’ve probably done with just one. Oh well!

And here she is all set up on my shelf with her Felyne companion! I still think her outfit is the best thing about her, but it’s a cute Nendoroid all in all. I’ve done a full video review if you’re interested in seeing more:

You can order the Lagombi Hunter Nendoroid at Jlist, CD Japan, and Ami Ami.

Swooning Over Puchi Chara! Sailor Moon Figures

Combine my recent discovery of the wonderful world of figures with the resurgence of Sailor Moon merchandise to coincide with the upcoming anime and you’ve got a deadly combination. While I’ve been pretty good about not giving into temptation so far, my mom inadvertently added fuel to my addiction when she preordered a set of six Puchi Chara! Sailor Moon figures for me over the holidays. 

Jlist has finally started sending out those preorders, and I was beyond thrilled to receive mine in the mail on Friday. Since I never buy this sort of thing, I had no idea what to expect… Sets come with six random figures, and the Sailor Scouts and Tuxedo Max have two different designs each, making for a possibility of 12 different figures to get. According to the box, some lucky people even get Luna and Artemis figures! But what would be in store for me?

Really, they’re all adorable, so I wasn’t really worried about getting one over the other, but I have to say Tuxedo Mask without his mask is pretty high on my “want” list.

I suppose it goes without saying to expect lots of gratuitous photos in this post…

It also goes without saying that I made sure to keep the box in pristine condition! It’s too cute to just throw away. 
Here you can see the six individual boxes the set comes with. You can generally buy singles of these kind of random boxed toys in shops in Japan, but (crazy) fans like me will preorder a whole set in order to try and collect them all. 
More adorable packaging… Note the 20th anniversary Sailor Moon logo at the bottom left of the box. There’s also a little note saying that the figures themselves are each 60 mm tall. 
I was pretty surprised to find out that the figures have a couple of joints in them, allowing for some minor pose changes. You can alter the angle of the head and twist the legs around a bit. Oh, and these toys are for children ages 15 and up, so it looks like I’m safe. 
But what about the figures themselves? Opening each box is a real treat since you have no idea what’s going to be inside. I won’t hold you all in suspense any longer – I actually got one of each of the Sailor Scouts and Tuxedo Mask, which means I have a complete set. No doubles! Plus, my Sailor Moon came with Luna and Sailor Venus came with Artemis. I don’t know if that means that I’m super lucky or that each box of six is guaranteed to come with one of each of the characters, but since I was prepared to get at least one double, I was definitely impressed. I’d love to know what others got, though! 
Sailor Moon type A with Luna
The figures themselves are very nice quality – they have a good weight to them and the sculpts look really great considering how small they are. Each character came in at least three parts: head, torso, and legs, which needed to be assembled after opening. While I didn’t expect this, it gives an added flexibility to how they’re displayed, allowing for some minor changes in the angle of the head, etc. 
What I don’t like about the Puchi Chara! Sailor Moon series, however, is the pegs that connect the figures to their stands. They’re made out of extremely cheap, flimsy plastic, and I actually managed to break two of them while trying to set them all up (technically, I broke one and my father-in-law broke another, but that’s a long and boring story). If you look closely at the picture above, you should be able to see a crack near where the peg connects to the bottom of Venus’s base. I was able to glue it and bring it back to a functional state, but I don’t think it’s unfair of me to say that I was really disappointed in the quality of the stands compared to the quality of the figures. 
Now that I’ve learned from my mistakes, though, I do have a suggestion to anyone who has bought or is planning on buying the Puchi Chara! figurine series: be sure to assemble the figure and connect it to the peg before attaching the peg to the stand. Then, after the peg has been secured in the stand, adjust the position of the figure on the stand by moving the figure around, not the peg itself. When I broke the peg, it was because I tried to adjust the angle of the peg from where it attached to the stand. Don’t make the same mistake! Let me tell you, it’s no fun at all to break a toy you’ve literally just opened. 
Sailor Jupiter type A
Aside from the peg issue, I’m really happy with these figures. I’m even happier now that I’ve got them all assembled and looking great. Sailor Jupiter here is the other figure whose peg got broken, but you really can’t tell, right? Right?!

Sailor Venus type B with Artemis
Sailor Venus could maybe use a little adjusting, but I wanted to make sure the glue on her peg had completely dried before fiddling around with her positioning. Still, I’m happy that you can’t see that something was broken from the front. 
Sailor Mars type A
If you look really closely, you can see each character has their symbol etched into their base. It’s a really neat touch! 
Sailor Mercury type B
Sailor Mercury is probably my favorite of the inner scouts, and I’m really happy I got her B version! She looks super adorable in that pose with both her eyes closed. 
Tuxedo Mask type A
Tuxedo Mask is actually the figure with the most detail in the collection. Both his cloak and his hat are removable, and he even gets a rose to hold (though it’s not removable). 
Tuxedo sans hat
I have to say, I wasn’t sure how much I’d like little figure like these, but the whole experience of opening the boxes and not knowing what I was going to get combined with the great quality of the figures themselves overall has me totally in love with this set. So in love, in fact, that I’ve… gone and preordered the Outer Senshi set! 
I must not be the only one in love with the Puchi Chara! Sailor Moon series, as they’re already reissuing them. Preorders are open now, with a scheduled release sometime in June. If you’re interested in purchasing the Puchi Chara! Sailor Moon six piece set for yourself, you can do so at Jlist, Play-Asia, CD Japan, or Ami Ami! I can personally vouch for each of them, but if you order form Jlist or Play-Asia, I’ll get a small commission which all goes toward supporting content on this site.
Finally, I hope you liked this “Swooning Over” post – I’ve been trying to find a way to showcase a few odds and ends I’ve picked up in recent months without “reviewing” them per say, and I think this will be a good fit. There should be more in the near future, but in the meantime please do let me know what you think! 

Thanks to Sailor Moon, I’m now obsessed with figurines

Way back in May, I preordered my first figurine. Sure, I’ve picked up the odd gatchapon or two over the years, and even had a sort stint where I bought a number of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy Play-Arts figures back in high school (I believe I wound up with Vincent, Sephiroth, and Axel but ended up selling them when I moved to Australia), but this was the first time I’d been so interested in getting my hands on a figurine that I preordered it. Now that my S.H Figuarts Sailor Moon is finally safe in my grubby hands, I think it’s safe to say that I’m officially a converted figure lover.*

I won’t take just any figurines, though. I believe the reason I could never get into the “scene” before (if you can even call it that) was because I assumed all Japanese anime/video game figures were $100+ affairs that were lovingly sculpted and painted but end up doing nothing more than sitting in the same position on people’s shelves for all eternity. Imagine my surprise when I gradually found out that there were many equally nice (from my not-very-discerning perspective) figurines available at a fraction of the cost (between $30-$50) that were actually posable and came with accessories! Now here was my true calling.

Even still, I couldn’t allow myself to go out and buy just any figurines. Thus, I proposed a very strict rule: I would only buy figures of characters from my absolute favorite series, and only if they were characters I actually had a personal emotional investment in. So, when it came down to it, there weren’t ever really that many figurines that met my criteria. That is… until now.

I have to say, there is something surprisingly satisfying about being able to take my very own Sailor Moon figurine and put her in almost every iconic pose from the series imaginable. The S.H Figuarts Sailor Moon may appeal to the little girl who liked to reenact epic dinosaur battles with her plastic toys inside me (I was never really one for dolls), but it certainly doesn’t feel like a cheap child’s toy! It comes with a number of different faces and hands, making it really fun to try all sorts of different setups. Unfortunately, the one nitpick I have is that her hair is quite hard to pull off when going to change faces, and I’m always worried I’ll break something or nick the paint, but I imagine it would be hard to make it more durable while still keeping it cheap and maintaining the posing options.

Also, I’ll readily admit that I’m not really all that creative when it comes to attempting to put my beloved Sailor Moon figure in new poses. Whenever I open the box to take out a new hand or go to adjust her legs into a different position, I’m sudden zapped of all my creative vision and ultimately end up just putting her in one of the generic poses found on the back of the box. I’m happy enough with that, but hopefully I’ll shake this “figure block” soon so I can start creating some neat new scenes with her! I’m constantly amazed by how creative and fun the photos fans post on the internet are. I guess for now I’ll just stick with this cute generic peace sign pose:

Now, this wouldn’t be a post about how I’m newly obsessed with figurines if I didn’t go into detail about what I’m currently drooling over. With Sailor Moon acting as a “gateway drug” of sorts, I’ve now amassed quite the purchase history and wishlist…

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Who wouldn’t want an adorable Shizue/Isabelle figurine to keep them on task? This Nendoroid took the internet by storm after it was announced, and though I hesitated to preorder it, I decided to bite the bullet and order one of myself now that it’s officially released. One of the big reasons I went for this and not, say, some other Animal Crossing: New Leaf merchandise is because, well, a lot of it is actually rather creepy… (it’s the mouths, I tell you!) I really hope they don’t release a Brewster Nendoroid, because that’d probably be the end of me.

The only thing that’s kept me from preordering one of these Digimon Adventures figurines is the fact that it looks like only their faces are interchangeable. My wallet’s thanking whoever designed them for not making them fully posable…

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Now this gorgeous Monster Hunter 4 Nendoroid has two things going for it: 1. the girl is wearing Lagombi armor, which is all kinds of adorable (not to mention Lagombis are basically mean oversized rabbits) and 2. she comes with a Felyne. I suppose it’s pretty obvious that I’ve already preordered it! The only thing I wish is that it came with a smiling face, rather than the upset face in the corner and the weird open-mouthed wonder face featured in the other two shots. Oh, and a BBQ spit accessory, but I guess I can’t have everything…

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Finally, the impending new Sailor Moon anime means that I’ll probably find myself dying to buy figures like the ones above for months to come. Unlike the Nendoroids or the S.H Figuarts Sailor Moon, however, they are not posable or alterable in any way, which means I should be able to resist adding them to my collection. Each character comes in two variations and boxes give no indication as to what figure you’ll be getting, so it could potentially be quite the money sink trying to get the one you want! I’ll need to be very careful in protecting my wallet if this figure obsession persists…

*I’m using “figure” and “figurine” interchangeably because I’m not really sure what the difference is!

I’ve found my missing artistic half, and her name is patty

I’m pretty sure the Pixiv artist who goes by the name patty and I are sisters separated at birth, because her work just about covers all of my favorite things (for the purposes of this post I’m going to assume she’s female). Retro-inspired color palettes? Check? Pokémon gijinka? Check. Girls with glasses, big hats, and frilly clothes? Check. Viera-esque bunny people? Check. She’s even done Princess Tutu, Odin Sphere, and Freya (of Final Fantasy IX fame) fanart! My heart be still!

Since I’ve been burying my nose in Pokémon Black Version 2 since I got it on Friday, I’ll just dedicate this post to showing off some of patty’s gorgeous illustrations. I absolutely adore her fairytale-like style! In honor of the new Pokémon games, I’ll start off with some of my favorite of her Pokémon gijinka (humans characters designed to look like certain  Pokémon) works:

What an adorable Ho-oh! I love how she’s taken its feathers and used their design in her hair as well as her sleeves. And none of that “pretty girl sitting around doing nothing” business – this Ho-oh gijinka’s a fencer!

Let it be known that I am actually quite partial to Shinx and its evolutions, so that may be part of the reason why I love this Luxray design. Some may think it looks nothing like the Pokémon it’s meant to be designed after, but I love the small details like the star on her parasol and her spiky blue hair. Regardless of whether she looks like Luxray or not, her costume is adorable, and the color palette used in the image is amazing, in my opinion!

Now Arceus is a Pokémon that I’ve never liked, but patty has managed to make it look so appealing! Again, the gijinka doesn’t look all that like the Pokémon aside from the color scheme and the gold spikes near her tail, but the Greek inspiration makes it a really interesting image.

Last but not least, we have a Leavanny gijinka. Leavanny just so happens to be the evolution of one of my favorite ‘mon, Sewaddle, and I’m thrilled with how patty has interpreted its design in this image. That’s actually an outfit I’d love to wear! And see how she represented its feelers with the feathers on her hat? I’m melting from sheer bliss!

She has plenty more gijinka illustrations and other Pokémon-related art that are just as amazing over at her Pixiv page, which I highly recommend checking out! Before I go, I’ll just share a couple more pieces that caught my eye:

I absolutely adore these rabbit-people that appear frequently in patty’s portfolio. Apparently they’re from something called Toto no Mura (Toto’s Village) which, as far as I can tell, is a series or world of characters created specifically for a Pixiv event called Pixiv Fantasia, where artists registered on the site are encouraged to submit pieces that fit the theme. The Toto no Mura theme seems to be from the fifth Pixiv Fantasia, as you can find many other pieces featuring the same characters under the Toto no Mura tag. I wish I knew exactly what Toto no Mura is, so if you know more, please do let me know in the comments!

And finally, I couldn’t help but include her rendition of the Mad Hatter… I blame my Alice in Wonderland obsession!

Guess who’s churning out some amazing Journey fanart?

Now, you may not have heard (because I somehow completely neglected to blog about it), but I completely and utterly loved Journey. In fact, it’s the first game I’ve given a 5 out of 5 score over at VGW!

One thing I’ve found really intriguing about Journey is how positively it’s been received in Japan. A quick search for Kaze no Tabibito (the game’s Japanese title, literally “People of the Wind,” often shortened to Kazebito) on Google brings all sorts of discussion and fanart for the download-only title. I’m not aware how popular thatgamecompany’s previous games were in the land of the rising sun, but download-only titles generally never really gain a very high following due to the fact that Japan just hasn’t jumped on the online gaming bandwagon in the same way the rest of the world has.  

Journey, however, appears (at least from a fan standpoint) to be changing that. There’s been a huge surge of fanworks for Journey from Japan in the recent weeks. Isn’t that fabulous? Now prepare to feast your eyes on some of the raddest Journey fanart around:

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The above artist does the funniest illustrations! These selections are actually from a long strip of various images, and I highly recommend taking a look at the rest of them. You also need to take a look at the artist’s awesome Journey-themed Twitter page, even if you can’t understand Japanese. Too cute!

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People who have played the game are probably wondering who on earth that bigger wanderer with the black robes is. Unless I’m missing something huge, he does not appear in the game anywhere, and is a product of fan imagination. What’s interesting about him is how popular he’s become, with various artists all over the internet depicting him as a sort of fatherly figure for the two, smaller wanderers. I don’t know about you, but I get a huge kick out of the above picture.

Update: Apparently the black and red wanderer is actually based on the game’s initial art from a series of prototypes released early on in the game’s development. The more you know!

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I love how creative the fans are being with making new designs or imagining new scenarios for the wanderers. Did you see the Christmas-themed wanderer at the top left of the above image? Adorable!

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Of course, I’m not discounting the amazing Journey fanart out there by artists who do not hail from Japan. I woudn’t have enough space to post all of the great work I’ve seen, even if I wanted to! But I think it’s worth highlighting how this title has really taken off in Japan. I hope we see much more love for download-only games in the future. But before I end this post, here’s one of my favorite pieces by a western artist (just so you all don’t think I’m playing favorite too much):

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Have any Journey fanart you’d like to share? Feel free to do so in the comments!

A shirt I love but don’t have the guts to buy

Well, I’m going to bite the bullet and make a post. I promised myself I wouldn’t post anything until I finished my book review, but that’s taking longer than I want it to and I don’t like going so long without posting anything. Since I don’t really have anything prepared today, I’m going to show you guys this awesome shirt by a tip-top artist, Kate Beaton (go check out her site if you have a minute, her latest Spiderman comics are too funny).

If you’d like to purchase one of these gems for yourself, head here. I honestly would, but I’m too meek to go around offending everyone that looks at me. This shirt truly speaks to me, though, so it’s a darn shame (I’m not a heartless monster, I swear).

I’ll also share with you one of my all-time favorite comics by the lovely Ms. Beaton (props if you know what it’s referencing!):

Ahhhh, that puts a smile on my face every time. But that’s all for now, sorry! I’m going to get this review done if it kills me. I know you’re all probably dying to know what I think about all the latest E3 news, but I think I’ve tweeted about it enough. Just click the link on the right sidebar to head over to my Twitter account and read all about it.