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.

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?

The Odin Sphere: Leifdrasir Famitsu DX Limited Edition is Utterly Amazing

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Odin Sphere is one of those games that, while I think extremely highly of it, I’ve never actually finished it. Unlike my usual excuse of “well, I just got sidetracked…,” I can actually pinpoint the terrible slowdown the original PlayStation 2 version of the game experienced as the reason for my inability to complete the game. As you can imagine, I was thrilled when the HD remaster Odin Sphere: Leifdrasir was announced for a January 2016 release on PS3, PS4, and PS Vita in Japan. Not only will the game look gorgeous, but the new version should totally fix the slowdown problems of the original!

Though preorders for the Japanese version have been up since shortly after the announcement last month, the official website has only just unveiled the store-exclusive preorder bonuses for the game. Now, normally I am not a fan of these kinds of deals, but for my beloved Odin Sphere, I’ll make an exception. I may even make an exception and preorder my first Famitsu DX limited edition… I mean, just look at some of the amazing stuff you get:

Coasters?! A a Kitchen Pooka mug?! Not only that, but the extra special limited edition, exclusive to the Japanese store Ebten, will also include an A2 size tapestry, a desktop calendar, and a 3D LED crystal featuring the adorable Alice and Socrates (preview images not yet available). All preorders of the game also come with a special art book, and the Famitsu DX limited edition is no exception.

The Odin Sphere: Leifdrasir Famitsu DX limited edition will set you back ¥14,615 regardless of system for everything, or ¥11,534 for everything but the 3D crystal. I… may have already ordered the crystal-less PS Vita version. The game itself is retailing at¥7,980, clocking in the cost to get the additional tapestry, calendar, coasters, and mug at ¥3,554. That’s not so bad for all those neat goodies, in my opinion!

If you’re desperate to get your hands on this limited edition, keep in mind that the game has already been announced for an English release sometime in the future. However, I’d say it’s highly unlikely that items such as the mug, coasters, or 3D crystal will be made available elsewhere. If you’re ready to spring for this amazing set like me, you can either the preorder version with the crystal or without the crystal using a forwarding service such as Tenso to order from Ebten. I have a guide that walks you through the whole process. Happy shopping!

Japan Envy: Pikachu Nebukuro Collection

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Banpresto has just announced their latest Pokémon Ichiban Kuji, and if you can’t tell already, this one’s a real doozy. The series is titled Pikachu Nebukuro (sleeping bag) Collection, and features pikachus in a variety of Pokémon-inspired sleeping bags. As if it weren’t cute enough, the website even opens with an adorable short story that shows how the pikachus ended up with such an adorable sleeping arrangement! Read More

The Best of the PS Store Summer Sale: Week 2

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Who doesn’t love a good sale? While some companies are dragging their feet more on the digital sale front than others (I’m looking at you, Nintendo), Sony has been doing a great job of offering a lot of great deals for PS3, PS4, and PS Vita on the PlayStation Store (aka PSN). The North American PS store yearly summer sale is generally no different, but unfortunately the first week was not the thrilling kickoff I was hoping for. Luckily, they’ve turned it around with week two, which is chock full of super discounts on some great titles! But money doesn’t grow on trees, so I’ve narrowed it down to five games I think are most worth picking up this week.

Yowamushi Pedal: Puchitto Racers Tutorial Video

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I’ve finally ventured into the world of video tutorials! I’ve been meaning to try my hand at recording games on my iPhone, and the newly-released free to play smartphone game Yowamushi Pedal: Puchitto Racers seemed like the perfect opportunity. Since I haven’t seen much discussion of the game in English, I thought it would be helpful to do a tutorial on how to play. Watch and learn!

If you want to download the game for iOS, I have a tutorial on how to easily switch your iTunes account to a Japanese one. Unfortunately I’m not very familiar with Android devices, but if you have one and know how to download Japanese games, please share your method in the comments!

I had a lot of fun doing this video but I’d really like some feedback as to whether or not this is something you’d like to see more of. Would you like more how to play videos or highlights of interesting apps available in Japanese? Let me know! Also, if you enjoyed this video, please share it with your friends! It takes hours to record and edit videos like these, so any support will be a major boost to my confidence and help me make more in the future. Thanks everyone!