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:

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

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

Every cake purchase comes with a limited edition Danganronpa coaster:

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

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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!

September is Ultra Despair Month!

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At the end of every month, I suddenly realize a whole month has already gone by and it’s time to announce the next Community Game-Along theme. I then proceed to scramble to the complete 2015 theme list I wrote many moons ago to refresh my memory and write up a post like this one. This month, however, when I turned to my handy list, I was shocked and awed to discover that I had some kind of telepathic foresight to deem September Spike Chunsoft month! Why, the heavily anticipated Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls comes out in September! Talk about awesome timing. Let that be a lesson to you all that sometimes things just happen out of sheer dumb luck, but there’s nothing stopping you from basking in the glory of a job well done anyway.

Sunday Spotlight: Final Fantasy Recipes

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Happy Sunday, and thanks for checking out my newest column, Sunday Spotlight! I’ll be using this space to highlight other bloggers, creatives, and otherwise cool people that I think you should know about. If you’re a fan of the kinds of things you see on Chic Pixel, you’re definitely going to want to check out the folks I’ll be showcasing here!

This week, I want to tell you about Final Fantasy Recipes, an awesome Final Fantasy food blog that isn’t quite what you’d expect. Instead of modeling food after the characters and icons from the Final Fantasy series, this blog instead seeks to create recipes that might reflect what the inhabitants of those worlds actually eat! As the Final Fantasy Recipes about page states, it attempts to serve as a bit of an anthropological survey of the Final Fantasy games. How cool is that?!

From the Festival of the Hunt Stew to the Narshe Spiced Wine, each recipe comes with an image and quote from the game that inspired it. I haven’t had a chance to try one of the recipes out for myself yet, but I am really impressed by this different take on game-inspired cuisine. I’ve got my eye on the Zozo Pub Soup – it looks relatively easy to make, but still sounds quite delicious!

Let me know if you end up trying any of Final Fantasy Recipes‘ recipes! Are there any other game-inspired food that have made their way on to your dinner table?

Chic Pixel’s Ultimate Otaku Shopping Guide

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It’s hard to be an anime, manga, or video game fan and not live in Japan. While our friends in the land of the rising sun have access to all of the latest merchandise, exclusive collaborations, and tie-in events, we’re left high and dry, with only an internet connection and a credit card serving as a gateway to the nerdy items we crave.

Admittedly, things have come a long way since I was a young Japan nerd! Now there are tons of online retailers that ship Japanese anime, manga, video games, figures, and virtually anything else otaku-related all around the globe. In fact, there’s almost too much choice! When you’re after a specific item, how do you know where to turn?

Introducing Kyoukai no Shirayuki, Gatchaman Crowds Artist Kinako’s First Otome Game

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Among the many announcements at Otomate Party 2015 this past weekend, Kyoukai no Shirayuki (officially subtitled as Nämlich Shirayuki), an otome game coming to the PS Vita in 2016, may very well be the most exciting. Well, if you’re as big a fan of Kinako, an artist best known for her work on Gatchaman Crowds, as I am, that is! It’s the first otome game with Kinako providing her illustration prowess and is partially based off of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. So far, it looks simply gorgeous. Check out the teaser trailer below and read on for a full translation and rundown of the characters!

15 Niche Journalism Worksheets Review

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Lauren Orsini of Otaku Journalist knows a thing or two about niche blogging and journalism. Not only does she run a successful blog of her own, but her work has been featured on sites such as CNN, Kotaku, and she’s published two books with tips on how to get into niche journalism. Now, her latest publication, 15 Worksheets to Plan, Build, and Bolster Your Niche Journalism Career in 15 Minutes or Less, offers concrete templates for beefing up your resume and taking your own brand of niche journalism to the next level.