I found Onegai Teacher appalling - I disliked the male and female leads, the story was kinda dumb with the Rip Van Winkle sickness and alien/UFO thing. In contrast I enjoyed Onegai Twins very much - I liked the three main characters and the simple, elegant way the story was built around their past, moving towards the future. As such, it passes the rewatchability test (aka as the Jeff Lawson test) which is my first condition for proceeding with a DVD purchase. RightStuf also offered a great price for it during their Twelve Days of Christmas sale - second condition, tick! (Currently they’re having a 20% off Spring Cleaning sale until 30 Mar 2008.)
Continue reading ‘Seeing Double: Onegai Twins DVD Review’
I’ve moaned before about how London’s Forbidden Planet and Japan Centre doesn’t seem to stock MEGAMI. But I happened to see that evil magazine in the display window of Orbital Comic’s Moor Street branch. And the price was just shinjirarenai.
Continue reading ‘How much is that MEGAMI in the window?’
Although my good brother Stripey includes Mai HiME as one of top ten animes with botched endings, for a long time, his view was a much more considered and tempered one than mine. And he liked the series so much that he asked me to take advantage of RightStuf’s Twelve Days of Christmas sale and purchase the Mai HiME DVD bundle for him at USD 69.99 (works out to about SGD 18.50 a DVD, including S&H - what a bargain!).
I have to confess to being one of those who were bitterly disappointed by Mai HiME’s ending. But, at Stripey’s request (’Please check if the DVDs work, quality ok etc etc.’) I rewatched the series and have been converted to Mai HiME fanboyism. Just as that cunning eviiiiiil tanuki had foreseen! >_<
Continue reading ‘Mea Culpa on Mai HiME’
Just slightly late to the party but slightly late was still almost too late when it comes to pre-orders, or so I thought, so I resorted to Ebay to get my hands on Max Factory’s Ryoko Asakura - also via a Japanese reseller but, thankfully, without having to pay any significant premium over the release price. My guess is that the seller’s margin came from the 20-30% discount that Japanese online shops often give so, potentially, this was a pareto-efficient outcome where everyone got a good deal out of this situation.
The delay (and non-pre-order during the pre-order window) had a lot to do with my belated conversion to Ryokoism. Though, of course, I stress that my allegiance is still first and foremost to St Nagatochi. And you can see both of them together towards the end of this fantastic digirama [add: and review post]. Here’s the link to a Yuki gallery too. This type of figurine photography is simply the stuff of legend!
Continue reading ‘The Striking Pose of MaxFac Ryoko Asakura’
tjhan noted that Alter’s August 2006 re-release of their Jo and Meg figures (RIUVA review) would mean that their ‘monetary value and rarity will… go down’ - well, he needn’t have worried too much. Almost 14 months later, Jo sells on ebay (via a Japanese reseller) for a whopping 80% premium over her release price (not inclusive of P&H). orz
This particular ball got rolling when I asked Stripey to pre-order Alter’s January 2008 release of El Cazador’s Nadie on my behalf. The Shima-Shima-Tailed One casually noted that Nadie would go well with Alter Revy whom I had acquired at the Akiba Kotobukiya shop. ‘Pity you didn’t get Alter Jo earlier,’ he said, ‘would had made a great team in a “girls with handguns” theme.’ And I knew it was The Truth. And so, off this Zaku went on another one of his mad online shopping rampages. Ah revenge (since Stripey blames me getting him started on figurine collecting) is indeed a dish best served cold. orz
Continue reading ‘Late to the Party with Burst Angel’s Jo by Alter’
