Who doesn’t love pins these days? It seems like pins are all the rage with independent artists lately, and I’m not complaining! There’s no shortage of cute geeky pins available, but one of my personal favorite companies is Soul Piece Labs. I’ve purchased five pins from them now, and I figured it was high time I did a proper review!
Many years ago, I stumbled upon this Japanese Sailor Moon Sailor Stars coloring book by Seika – so long ago, in fact, that I don’t even remember where I got it! It’s been through some rough times, as it didn’t come with the stickers the cover says should be inside, and I managed to spill water on it at some point. Luckily, only the cover got really wet, and it’s not really noticeable!
Of course, there was no way I was ever going to actually color in this collector’s item. I’ve always been meaning to scan in the images so I could print them out and color to my heart’s content. Now that I’ve finally gotten around to it, I wanted to share those scans with all of you!
The holiday season is coming up fast, so that means it’s time for a new Chic Pixel Holiday Gift Guide! Each year I round up my favorite cute and nerdy gift suggestions for every budget. This year, I’ve decided to break my suggestions into two categories: “For the Video Game Fan” and “For the Anime Fan.” Many of the links included are affiliate links, so by clicking on them to make your holiday purchases, you’re also helping to support Chic Pixel! Thanks for spreading the holiday cheer!
This post was made possible by Kit, who purchased me a copy of Death Parade from my Amazon wishlist to review. Thanks so much! For more information on how to sponsor a Chic Pixel review, click here.
I originally became aware of what would eventually become the Death Parade anime through “Death Billiards,” an animated short produced by Madhouse for the Young Animator Training Project’s 2013 Anime Mirai festival. The premise is that whenever someone dies, they are sent to a bar run by an arbiter who judges souls to decide whether someone will be sent to “heaven” or “hell.” While each bar is different, arbiter Decim’s bar is where two souls who passed away at the same time are sent. When they arrive, their bodies are in such shock that they often don’t remember everything about themselves, let alone the fact that they are dead. In order to best judge each person’s character, Decim pits his patrons against one another in various games, from billiards to darts and even fighting games.
These days, you can buy almost anything from Japan your heart desires online, but there’s one kind of item that’s always been particularly hard to find: Gachapon! Because gachapon toys are generally only sold through machines that spit out a random capsule toy, living outside of Japan means you miss out of the surprise of putting a few hundred yen into a machine, turning the knob, and waiting with baited breath to see what comes out… But with Tokyo Gacha World, a subscription box dedicated to gachapon, you can experience the delight of receiving random gachapon every month!
Who doesn’t love a good top 10 list? I’ve been meaning to share a roundup of my favorite anime opening themes for ages! Lately I’ve been swamped with thesis work, which has resulted in me not having much energy/time for blogging, which subsequently has me thinking about doing lists more than usual. I know some people can take them or leave them, so I hope you don’t mind!
Today I’m sharing my favorite anime opening themes of all time, which goes all the way back to some of the first anime series I ever watched. But let me tell you, it was seriously hard to narrow this list down to just 10! Here’s what made the cut…
Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how I edit my Instagram photos and compose pictures for #nerdyflatlay, so I thought it would be a good idea to do a post to explain my process! I’m definitely not a professional photographer, but I have learned some things about lighting, composition, and editing that I take into account when prepping photos for Instagram, and I’m happy to share my tips with you.
If you find this post helpful, please consider buying me a coffee through my new Ko-fi account! It’s a great way to give back if you enjoy my writing since I don’t get paid just to post cute pictures (I wish!). But for now, let me break down exactly how I go about taking photos and nerdy flatlays for Instagram!