Wing Gundam ver. Ka

It took me about 4 days in short bursts in all, but I had a 6 month pause on completing my latest Gundam kit, but a sudden urge pushed me to get it done today.

I present the Wing Gundam Version .Ka. The ‘Ka’ is short for ‘Katoki’ and in Katoki Hajime, a popular Japanese Mecha Designer, according to Wiki, he is currently working for the Sunrise Studio, not suprising on various Gundam anime series. If you didn’t know, the Wing Gundam is from arguably one of the more well known and popular Gundam series ‘Gundam Wing‘. Well enough of the background info, back to the review.

I chose this version of Wing Gundam over the standard one because I always had a problem with the feather type look of the wings on the Gundam, most notably in the Endless Waltz OAV. The version in the series was fine, it looked cool, robust and not like some weird side line attempt to make it look…..angelic?

Anyway, this was the only Master Grade kit of the Wing Gundam that didn’t have the dodgy feather wings, good job it happened to look great anyway otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it of course.

If you’ve had experience putting together a Gundam kit before, you should know that’s it’s not entirely difficult, this was no exception, just a matter of following the easy to view picture instructions that come with it. If not, just so you know, any writing in the book is in Japanese, but honestly, there isn’t much, and the picture diagrams are enough to get you through the assembly believe me , I barely know a word of Japanese and I can whip these things together with ease.

I won’t pretend to know what all the parts are called, what does what and so on, I can tell it has a heck loads of bit that move when its all put together, IT DOES TRANSFORM into the jet mode, It does have a buster rifle, but not the double barreled one you may be familiar with from the series, however it does have attachable power cells to give it more shots and the gun itself is HUGE. There are also two additional power reserve attachments for each arm, both carrying three more power cells. Also there’s a shield that can be attached to either arm, even when the power cell attachment is on at the same time, and the lovable beam sabre. All of which are viewable in the pictures below.

Overall, like most Gundam Kits of this kind, whether they be High Grade or Master Grade (I haven’t ventured into Perfect Grade yet), this was easy to put together, no hassle with glue or painting, just pop the bits off the rails and snap together, that’s basically all I can say.

Can’t remember how much it was when I bought it, but its around £16 from HLJ

Any questions about the process, just ask via the comments. Meanwhile enjoy the pictures below.

Solid State Society – Motoko Kusanagi

As promised in my very first post, I bring you the 1/8 Scale Motoko Kusanagi – G.I.T.S. Solid State Society PVC from ‘Good Smile Company’.

There’s not much really to go into with this version of Motoko as far as options and extras go, what you see is what you get, however what it lacks in accessories, it doesn’t lack in looks. Personally I think this is possibly the best likeness of Motoko Kusanagi in any PVC form, while I’m not sure what she looks like in ‘Solid State Society’, she looks almost exactly like she does in the ‘Stand Alone Complex’ series’.

Don’t expect to get a peek at Motoko’s lovely assets on this figure, as you can see, you can’t see them in the flesh, but you do get a damn good idea by the shapely curves in her chest which effectively shows how tight that cat suit like outfit is. The only other notable bit of sexiness on her is the hip she’s poking out from her large overcoat garb.

Measuring in at about 8.3 Inches tall, I would recommend this Statue, assuming you don’t mind paying a little more than expected for it. I got mine for about £32 from a UK supplier UP1.co.uk , but look around and you can prolly import one at a slightly cheaper price.

Enjoy the pics below.

P.s. Happy New Year!

Magami Magazine Vo.90

For the last few months now i’ve been trying to keep up with a monthly bishojo focused ‘Megami Magazine’. This mag for the most part is a huge collection of double sided posters/pin-ups featuring girls from anime, and Japanese games, most of which i’ve probably never heard of. The middle sections of the mag features imformation on mainly females from new anime shows and games as well as a few Manga teasers. But going back to the posters since thats where all the action is, and my sole reason for buying the mag.

The lastest issue i’ve gotten my slightly oily hands on is the 90th ANNIVERSARY ISSUE (Novenmber) featuring the girls from ‘StrikerS’ on the cover. If you read mags like NewType, you’ll be familiar with the right to left set of reading through the mag……well I say reading, but since what little there is to read in the mag is in Japanese I don’t actually read it.

As I said, the selling point of Megami is the number of posters that come with it. This issue alone has 26 posters (most about the size of 2 A4 sheets of paper). The posters all feature a girl or girls from a plethora of anime and games, in all type out scenarios and outfits. If you were lucky enough to buy an issue in the summer months, all the girls on every poster would be wearing swimwear of some kind….mosty skimpy bikini’s 🙂

Unfortunately, living in the UK this mag isn’t cheap to buy, I managed to buy it from Archonia.com for around £5.35 a pop (before Shipping costs). You may be able to find it in some of the specialist comic/book stores around the UK, or stores like Forbidden Planet etc that sell cult and Anime goods, but i’ve no idea on the price.

I hope to keep updated as an when I get another issue and will post pics of some of the great posters from each mag. Here are a few from Issue 90 to rub your eyeballs over.

Tokyoflash Watches

A few weeks ago, I was watching ‘BBC News24’ and caught some of their gadget/technology show called ‘Click’. In one segment of the show, they talked about what little gadgets are currently falling under the eye of consumers, one of these gadgets was called the ‘Tokyo Flash Watch‘. Simply put, these watches are mosty not your conventional digital or analog (hands) watches, a Flash Watch uses an array of lights and flashy things to tell the time.

These things looked cool, so I thought i’d take a look on the web to see what I could find. To my joy I came across TOKYOFLASH Japan a website dedicated to the unique range of Flash watches. After browsing the watches, it seemed aparent you’d need a degree in mathmatics or something to actually tell the time on some of the complex visuals on these watches (look at the site, you’ll see what I mean).

I decided i’d stray not so far from the good old digital watches I’ve usually used in the past, and decided to buy myself a ‘BPM Equalizer Watch‘ (pics at bottom of Post).

This rather bulky piece of kit cost 7,900 Yen, around £35. It kinda reminds me of a retro style watch that someone from an old 70’s sci-fi show would wear, possibly as an arm mounted communication device. Either way, it does stand out even though it doesn’t have the flashy, dazzling effect of most of the other Flash watches. What the BPM watch does boast, is a funky ‘Beat Per Minute‘ (BPM) counter mode, which is pretty neat when your listening to music. You simply press the giant black button to the beat of the music your listening to, and it counts how many beats your doing a minute. On top of that, short message’s scroll accross the screen as your bopping away to help with your enthusiasm, below are a few of them.

“You are the best!”
“Stick it to em!”
“Pump this crowd!”
“They’re workin up a sweat!”

The watch also had a small handy torch light on the top side of the watch, that is usefull for reading, or finding a keyhole in the dark, but its range is limited to about 15 inces. Other than those funky and slightly handy gizmos, its just your standard watch, it tells time and if you forget, it’ll tell you what day it is. Unfortunately it does lack an alarm, so don’t expect it to get your up in the morning, that right is still reserved to my cheapo casual watch.

Overall the TokyoFlash BPM Equalizer is a pretty decent show off piece, something for the weekend, but i’d imagine not more so than some of the other watches in TOKYOFLASH Japan’s lineup.

Enjoy some pics of the BPM below.

Sweet Body – Happou Bijin Illustrations

‘Sweet Body‘ is an artbook containing the works of ‘Happou Bijin’. As far as I know, he’s done work on a series of games, most like, hentai like dating sims, called ‘Boin’. I have no idea if he is also associated with a Hentai anime also containg the word ‘Boin’ but the style does look similar.

The style of body’s for most if his girls seem to be of the slighly curvy, while staying slim, with rather large breasts. The array of art in the book ranges from simple poses in bikini’s to full topless drawings to girls outdoors fully clothes on skate boards etc, just a general mix of great, erotoic and generally pleasing to the eye imigary.

I was quite astounded at the number of pages in the book at 128, all very sturdy thick (almost cardboard like) A4 pages. There is also and extra cover over the front and back of the book, and some strange smaller cover that only covers the lower 1/4 of the cover, not sure what thats for.

Sweet Body can still be bought from many places, I got mine from Play-Asia

I plan to look at the contents much more closely later, most likey with tissues in hand for the nosebleeds. In the mean time, feast your eye on some pics i’ve taken from inside the artbook, some of the few that didn’t contain any naughty bits.

Shunya Yamashita – 1/7 Shoko-san

As promised, if not a little later than expected. I’ve decided my first review will be of one of my favourite release of the year.
As the titles says, this piece was designed by the by ‘Shunya Yamashita’, now a household name in the Japanese figure world. over the past year or so, he has designed some of the most popular PVC’s and continues to do so, the line-up for nesxt year is already very appitizing.

This time round, i’ll show you ‘Shoko’ which was released by ‘Kotobukiya’ back in September 2007, back then she retailed about 7,300 Yen, thouugh she may have gone down slightly since then.

Shoko measures in at around 6.2 inches high from the bottom of the love heart cushion base to the top of her left foot, and her width is just touching 6.5 inces from the flowing hair from her head to the top of her left foot yet again.

As for features, she has two high heels slippers that can be taken off as you please, and they fit hey quite well, nice to have one almost slipping off to give the effect she’s bouncing her feet 🙂

The lower section of her gown can be easily removed also, simply by pulling her upper and lower body apart and removing the item of clothing, to reveal a nice slim, toned and sexy tummy.

Thats about it for cast off’s, unless you want to mod the statue yourself, with a little fiddling, the upper part of the gown covering Shoko’s breasts can be removed with minor damage to the actual part itself, though I would advise against it, since it’s not much to look at under there. The straps of the gown come over the shoulders and just stop halfway down each breast, and there are pretty nasty seam lines under the upper garment going round the sides of the breasts, so do at your own risk.

Overall I am very happy with the statue, I love the sexy and seductive pose sitting atop that heart shaped cushion, it’s sort of playful and just hits a spot. Like many of his other pieces, ‘Yamashita’ has done a good job designing the face, very characteristic of most his faces, nice big eye’s with lots of colour, make the face look somewhat life-like in a anime/manga kinda way.

Thankfully, Shoko-San is still widely available so I totally recommned picking her up, and she can be found at Play-Asia

In the mean time, here are some self taken shots of Shoko-San. Enjoy.

Apologies

Firstly, I apologize for lack of anything to look at. I said there would be something at the end of last week ,yet nothing has been added.

This is mainly down to work, and not getting back and getting a quick rest in before the light starts to fail, and being a bit of a picky fellow, I prefer natural light for taking photo’s of figures.

I can tell you i’ve had more new PVC’s arrive, and still more to come, I have a huge backlog, but I aim to get something on the blog by Sunday, when i’ll have a full day and hopefully sunlight to actually get something done.

Bogged down delays.

So I say they’d come soon….it’s gunna be a little longer, aside from a PC dying, failing daylight (not good for pictures) not long after i’m back from work, and a shed load of figures to actually get through, it’s a little more difficult than I though.

I’ve already done a couple of draft reviews, they just need a little polishing off and the actual pictures need to be taken and edited for posting.

I swear by the end of the week, there will be something to look at.

In fact, in the mean time, to wet your appetite, here’s a sneaky peak of a soon to come review of a Shunya Yamashita Masterpiece, and one of my current favorite PVC’s, Shoko-San.

Manny’s Blog. PVC staffage to come soon

So I’ve finally started, this will hopefully be the first in a series of daily-ish updates in my wonderful world of Japanese PVC buying. Nothing big today, still getting to grips with this blog thing.

I’ll cut to the chase. Over the next few days you’ll see some reviews of my latest arrivals, these will include a 12″ Kratos (God of War II) talking action figure, A-04 SHAMSHEL-XX PVC (Neon Genesis Evangelion), 1/8 Motoko Kusanagi PVC (Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society), and finally the latest re-release of the Portrait of Pirates (P.O.P) Monkey D Luffy PVC.

Expect additional info on other things stated in the About This Blog page over the next few days.