A Trip to Wonfes – Part 1

Warning: this post is very image-heavy.

Long time no post! Real life got rather busy all of a sudden after New Year’s, and I rather lost the time and energy to be blogging, but now I’m back with a rather special post – photos from my trip to Wonfes!

As most figure collectors are probably aware, Wonfes is one of the largest and most important events for figure fans in Japan. It’s technically a garage kit event, but most of the major figure companies, plus many smaller figure shops have a strong presence there, and it’s common to announce lots of new figures. I have to say though, most of the manufacturers really outdid themselves this time! There’s usually a handful of interesting announcements made, but this time it was more like a cascade of new products! GSC/Max Factory in particular had some really interesting things to show off. I wonder if this is why there have been so many delays recently?

Click on the images to enlarge. Some of them are rather blurry, for which I apologise – it’s hard taking photos of figures in glass cases when being pushed and shoved by otaku from all sides, and I’m far from a good photographer!

Christmas in Tokyo

Since there was no way I could afford to fly home to the UK this Christmas, I had to settle with making the best of things here in Japan. Although Christmas is pretty much like any other day here, I didn’t want to just stay in my room all day so I met with some friends in Tokyo in the afternoon and had the strangest Christmas I have ever had.

First up I went to Akihabara on my own. The train service from Tsukuba goes directly to Akihabara, so it’s really tempting to pay a visit to some of the shops there if I have the time on one of my trips into Tokyo. I picked up a couple of Christmas presents for myself and my new doll. First was Figma Saber Lily! I had been eyeing her in my favourite figure store on my previous visit but restrained myself, but this time I saw she was still there and couldn’t resist. She’s second hand and came as just the figure with no game, but I only wanted the Figma anyway so I’m quite satisfied. Oddly the previous owner threw in a little extra – this pair of metal replicas of Fate Testarossa’s blades. They have been modified so that the ends of the hilts don’t have a loop any more, and neither the chain nor the little magic circle were included, but I’m not complaining because they make interesting Figma-sized weapons.

Then I bought a second pair of hands for Maya, my Dollfie. I bought him with a pair of FCS exclusive hands because it was my only opportunity to get them, but I also wanted some more practical ones as well. I was tempted to get another outfit or the other set of feet, but it would have cost too much money.

After that I went to Ikebukuro to meet up with my friends who had already been in Tokyo since the previous day, and our first stop was a rather odd place: a cat café. Essentially it’s a café where you go and play with cats. You pay based on the time you spend there and there was a free vending machine you could get drinks from, but the real attraction of course was the cats. These types of cafés are reasonably common in Japan, but it was my first time visiting one.

If you’re in Japan, like cats and have the time then I’d recommend visiting one just for the experience!

Dollfie Arrival!

I had a surprise arrival yesterday evening in the form of three parcels all in one go! One I was expecting that day, the other I had been expecting within the next few days and the other was quite a bit earlier than I expected.

Yesterday’s arrivals: Figma Canaan, some bits and pieces from Volks, and… my brand new Super Dollfie!

Note: this post is very image-heavy and contains censored doll nakedness.

Rice Cooker Cake

Today I tried out something I’d been meaning to do for a while – baking with my rice cooker. One of the things I’ve missed greatly since coming to Japan is an oven. They’re not as common over here as in Western countries, and certainly you won’t find them in old student dormitories like mine! Rice cookers are surprisingly versatile though, and one of the things you can use them for is cake so I decided to give it a try.

In the UK we don’t tend to use cake mixes as much as other countries, instead making cakes from scratch, but alas, I couldn’t find any Western-style flour in the supermarket I usually go to, so I had to settle for a basic cake mix instead. It was plain, so I customised it by adding lemon juice. I used this recipe, but without the icing and filling.

This is the result. I think it went quite well for my first attempt, and it tastes pretty good although the texture needs a bit of work. Next time I’ll have to experiment with other flavours and different cooking options. Apparently some rice cookers have an actual cake setting, but mine just has several different types of rice, and one for okayu. I just used the basic rice setting a few times for this, but I might try the okayu setting next time since it’s the one non-rice option. I also might try icing next time, but I didn’t want to today because I managed to catch a cold so I haven’t been feeling too good (I made the cake wearing a mask, and washing my hands with soap regularly).

My copy of FFXIII shipped this morning. I’m not sure if I’ll get it tomorrow or Friday because I have classes almost all day tomorrow. I’ll check back during my lunch break to see if it turned up in the morning and if so I’ll be able to arrange for it to be redelivered in the evening, but otherwise I’ll have to wait until Friday morning because my classes don’t end until six, at which point it will be too late to arrange a redelivery. Either way, I’ll be trying it out before the end of the week!

Winter 2009/10 Anime

I took a bit of an unannounced hiatus due to exams, but now I’m back again for the moment, and have a few more posts planned for the next week or so, plus I’ll get around to replying to some comments on previous entries that I haven’t gotten around to yet.

The second version of the new anime chart for the upcoming Winter season is now available, and looks just marginally more substantial than the previous version, but sadly no more interesting. Winter is never the best time for new anime, but this is probably one of the worst I’ve seen for lack of potential. Most of the new shows look like generic otaku-centric rubbish.

The comments below get pretty snarky/rantish in parts, so if you’re easily offended by people who find otaku fanbait shows generally loathsome you might want to stop reading.

Review: Nendoroid Ryougi Shiki

I had this post all written up, and then I went and got ill and forgot about it!

A new figure arrived from Amazon this weekend – the newly-released Nendoroid Ryougi Shiki, the protagonist from Type Moon’s Kara No Kyoukai series. She’s one of my favourite anime characters (I’m weak to the Type Moon girls), and I really love the movies, so Nendoroid Ryougi was a must-have for me, espeically given how awkward some of the other figures of her are to get hold of (like a certain PVC from GSC which is virtually impossible to find for under 10,000 yen now).

A Trip to Volks in Akihabara

I made my second trip to Akihabara today, as I’m fortunate enough to have no classes on a Friday, and it will be my last trip there for a while because I spent an awful lot of money today!

More art and craft in Ibaraki-ken

As a follow-up to my previous post about pottery in Kasama, I have another post, this time with pictures from Mito, Yuki and a different part of Kasama. It was the second and final trip I made as part of one of the modules I took at Tsukuba, which I picked on a whim but it turned out to be pretty interesting and a lot of fun.

First up was another museum, this time in Mito. Rather than art this time, the museum contained various old artifacts from different periods in Japanese history. This was rather more to my taste than the ceramics museum I visited in Kasama, as I’m rather fond of history, the older the better and some of the pieces in the museum were pretty old. No photographs allowed inside as with the previous museum, which is a shame because they had some interesting things there, including a replica of the Seven Branched Sword (七支刀, shichishitou), which fans of the Phoenix Wright games might well be familiar with as in made a cameo in the third game.

Next to the museum, and pictured above, was an old school building. According to my teacher it’s one of the oldest in the prefecture. I don’t think the original building is being used any more, but it was interesting to look at.

Akihabara Loot

I finally received my first scholarship payment yesterday (or rather my first three, as the previous payments had been delayed) and decided that a trip to Akihabara was in order! It was a short trip this time, as although I had planned to spend most of the day there and make a trip to Volks, a friend of mine had some tickets to a couple of films at the Tokyo International Film Festival, so I went along to that in the afternoon.

A couple of hours wasn’t long enough to fully explore Akihabara, but I did visit the big anime stores and a few smaller ones as well, and I’ll have  a better idea of my way around on my next trip (which should be pretty soon as I want to order myself a doll from Volks while I have the money for it, and while I’ve got enough time for their Full Choice System wait time which is currently about two months).

I just have pictures of the spoils of my trip this time. Next time I’ll be taking some pictures of Akihabara itself.

From top to bottom, left to right: Figma Kagamine Len, Azone Ryougi Shiki, trading figures from Togainu No Chi and Sengoku Basara first and second sets, an Azone biscuit freebie, clear files from Kara No Kyoukai and Canaan.

Kasama Pottery

Here’s another Japan-related post. I won’t be traveling much until after I get my scholarship money, but I do have a couple of interesting trips to post before then. First up is a visit to Kasama – a small city in Ibaraki Prefecture. I don’t expect many of my readers will have heard of it, but it does have some points of interest. It’s home to a famous Inari shrine, and is also known for its art and in particular its ceramic products known as 笠間焼 (Kasama-yaki). As part of a study tour I signed up for at Tsukuba University, I got to take a trip to one of the ceramic centres there, as well as a ceramics museum.