Doujinshi Stuff Part 2 (NSFW)

I’d meant to follow up my Doujinshi and Doll Stuff post earlier, but I wanted to wait till I received the doujinshi that I recently ordered. Now that it’s all here, I can show off some of the stuff that I’ve bought. No doll stuff is included here, though; I had intended to photograph Rei and Asuka (the original Medicom Real Action Heroes dolls) doing lewd things with each other but I forgot about it. I’ll give a quick review: decent likenesses, kinda sucky for playing around with.

A lot of this stuff is from Comiket 78. Comiket is a huge convention and hentai books comprise only a fraction of what’s exhibited there, but I still like to think of it as the greatest celebration of cartoon porn in the galaxy. This is my small homage to this wonderful thing.

This is the most recent book from Veronicanoha and is titled, “I Can’t Possibly Be This Cute” (heh). Basically it features Rance knocking up his female self. How existential can you get?
The only non-explicit book that I bought, this is a Strike Witches book by Kabocha Oukoku, the circle of Akaga Hirotaka. I bought it mainly because the artist created Irma for the Queen’s Blade series, but the art is very nice. It’s also a pretty short book at just eleven pages long. Now tell me, where is my Irma figure?
This book comes from the circle Hotel California and is called Strike Out. It’s basically about Dead Master raping Black Rock Shooter with tentacles. As you might imagine, it’s a great, great book.
This doujinshi is more of an artbook than a comic book. It’s by Gin no Hoshitei, the circle of Tamiya Akito, whose work I’ve effusively praised here before. It’s got pictures of Dizzy, Sophitia and Cassandra from Soul Calibur, Riesz from Secret of Mana, Tifa Lockhart, Fate Testarossa, some Sailor Moon girl, and a few more characters suffering traumatically large insertions, stomach inflation, maggot birthing, and all-the-way-through tentacle skewering. There’s a short comic at the end with the Mahou Shoujo Ai girls. It’s kinda hardcore (the Dizzy pic is one of the tamest ones in it) and fans of Zanjibaru and Inyouchuu would like this book a lot, I think.
Surely the book with the classiest title here, this doujinshi is titled “Rape Grade Up” and is by Studio PAL. It’s mostly black and white with a few color illustrations at the beginning, and it’s got some additional art of the Nanoha girls in compromising positions towards the end. No adult Vivio, though, sadly.
667 is an older book by Cyclone, who’ve produced a number of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha doujinshi. This one is all in color, which is very nice. Nanoha looks great in a Numbers suit; so does Fate, she shows up in the book as a brainwashed member of Jail’s harem, too.
This is Cyclone’s 667 Kai. I think it’s an omnibus reprinting of some of Cyclone’s earlier books, including 667 and I think 567 and 767A as well. It’s in black and white, so I’d recommend getting the individual books; 667 at least is in color, though I don’t think 767A originally was. I’m not sure whether 567 was or not. Cyclone’s titles are kinda confusing.
The other book is Cyclone’s Situation Note LM8. It’s basically about Nanoha getting molested by some kids. Vivio shows up in it but doesn’t do any of the molesting herself, which is a big missed opportunity.
Cyclone’s newest book is F850, and it deviates from their recent work by featuring Fate Testarossa during her younger days, rather than including the StrikerS cast. It’s in black and white and shows Fate being boinked by some faceless dudes, which is sorta par for the course with a lot of Cyclone’s books, if the Numbers aren’t involved.
This is Cyclone’s NNR; I’m not sure if it’s a copybook or not, since I’ve never bought one before, but it might be as it’s entirely black and white and is stapled together, while their other books have more professional binding and color covers. The neat thing about it is this little plastic thingy it comes with. I guess it might be a shitajiki; I don’t collect those so I’m not sure how large they are, but it’s a bit thicker than an index card, it’s made of hard but flexible plastic, and it’s a bit smaller than an 8.5 by 11″ sheet of paper. It’s got two illustrations, one with Nanoha being accosted by some Numbers and her former compatriots, and a picture of Nanoha having her clothes transformed into a Numbers bodysuit. Spiffy.
Cyclone has also done a couple of books based on Beat Blades Haruka; this one is titled T-01. Haruka gets raped by a group of faceless thugs, and it’s a bit disconcerting how she remains mostly clothed while the dudes are all nude; shouldn’t it be the other way around? Also, we learn a useful tip: when taking a girl out on a date, the cool new thing to do is to fill her backside up with chicken eggs. She’ll love it, I swear.
And here’s the sequel, which was released just a couple of months ago. It’s more Haruka and more faceless thugs, though she seems to be having a better time. Also, Narika shows up for a few pages and has a good time with some of the bad guy ninjas.
This book is by the circle Otogiya and is simply titled Kannagi. Appropriately, it features Itsuki Kannagi, who is tied up and raped by some faceless dude. You know, these faceless dudes really get a bum rap in doujinshi these days. Why are they so demonized in these books? Won’t anybody stand up for the faceless dudes?
The back cover shows Itsuki in her new job as a pitchwoman for useful products.
This is Fermata from Tri-Moon, the circle of Akira Mikazuki (usually written with an exclamation point, for some reason). It’s a large book, measuring about an inch wider and taller than most doujinshi, and it’s entirely in color. There’s a short comic featuring a woman who looks like Fate Testarossa, I think, and a number of gorgeous images of the Nanoha girls. I deeply admire Mikazuki’s art, and this is a beautiful book.
This book is Magical Seed Soushuuhen World from the circle Plum, another circle that’s done quite a few Nanoha books. It’s an omnibus book, weighing in at a hefty 177 pages. The artwork is very nice, but the thing I like the most about this book is the humor, which shines through even my total illiteracy in Japanese.
The book also provides an alternate telling of the events of episode 23.
Two books that were released at C78, the left is Tomose Shunsaku’s Level 16 and the right is Taihi Mixer and Type G’s Muv de Luv 2. I’ve seen both books floating around on the interwebs already.
And two more Muv-Luv books: the left one is Taihi Mixer’s Ore te Kimi Alter 2 while the right one is Project Prominence. Ore te Kimi Alter 2 is an older book, and the back of the book credits Azusa Makishima and Sou Miyata. I think Makishima is the illustrator of the Muv-Luv Alternative manga and Miyata has illustrated several Muv-Luv spinoffs, including Total Eclipse and Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles, so I guess this is about as official as an unofficial doujinshi gets.
Project Prominence is very much an official product, having been released by Age-soft back in December 2008. It’s mostly mecha art and text; I can’t read the text, but I can definitely appreciate the mecha art. Age also released a couple more books, including Lunatic Dawn, which I can’t find for a reasonable price anywhere.
I actually bought a bunch more books, but this’ll do for now. I’ll save the rest for a third part, and hopefully I’ll remember to photograph Rei and Asuka, too. Speaking of photography, excuse the crappy scanning here, I’m a lot better with a camera than I am with a scanner.
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127 Responses to Doujinshi Stuff Part 2 (NSFW)

  1. Chag says:

    I recently snagged a couple of doujins at a dismally-managed local con, and I have to admit: I could get used to collecting these things. Now I wish I bought those volumes of Bondage Faeries when I had the chance back in May.

    Reading this post brings both pain and pleasure to me, because as titillating as your loot is, a lot of it is unscanned and may remain so indefinitely. That Rance selfcest doujin made me bolt to google, /rs/, and the usual smut aggregators. but to no avail. I feel like a horse chasing a carrot on a stick forever beyond my reach — it’s almost too cruel.

    Thankfully, a lot of the Cyclone stuff is scanned, and I was able to discover a few great artists through this post — thanks dude! I also love you the way you candidly describes the horrible things that happen in most of these doujins — whoever says rape isn’t funny?

    • Tier says:

      Back in the day, I liked to collect artbooks. However, since auto-translators weren’t too accurate back then, I’d sometimes not know what I was buying, so I’d wind up with books packed with a ton of text or episode synopses and screenshots. I think I’d appreciate the writing if I could read it, but I mainly want the art. And I want porn. I see doujinshi kinda as small porno artbooks, which is great.

      UNICEF probably thinks rape isn’t funny! What a bunch of hosers. Some of the Cyclone books I’ve got actually mention something about the United Nations in the back, with the author comments, but I’m not entirely certain what they’re saying.

      Oh, and I forgot to mention, the book Dystopia has a maggot-birthing picture! I have no idea how I forgot to mention that, but it’s too important not to include, so I will add that part into the post. Maybe I oughta have scanned that picture and used it instead of Dizzy.

  2. Shashin says:

    Great write up. I’m definitely going to be picking up a few of those books sooner or later. My figure orders start to die out past October, and I don’t plan on preordering too many more unless a figure pops up that I absolutely must have. Hopefully I’ll use the leftover money to further expand my doujinshi collection (as I really think I should cut back on dakimakura at this point.)

    • Tier says:

      Unfortunately for me, my figure orders ramp up in October and are looking pretty expensive for November, particularly if I change my mind and decide I want Alter’s loli Fate and GSC’s new Black Rock Shooter. I’ve also got a couple more dakimakura scheduled to ship in October that I’m really looking forward to, though happily they are paid for already so I don’t have to worry about it.

      I forgot to give a shout-out to the guy who bought most of these books for me. I used Ash’s doujinshi service. Ash used to work for a site called Comiket Service which was reasonably well-known a few years ago for doujinshi buying, but unfortunately it shut down last year and now Ash does it by himself. He was a cool dude to do business with and I’m thinking I’ll get my doujinshi stuff from him from now on.

  3. Nice batch of loot you got there!
    What you’re missing is the rest of the pages from these books! You need to scan them, PDF them and upload them! Do it! Do it now!!!! LOL

    I don’t think I’d ever venture into this sort of collection, but I have to admit some of the artwork can be very nice. ^_^’

    • Tier says:

      Hehe, I should! I am very unwilling to damage these books, though. I love all of you guys but I love my doujinshi even more.

      Yeah, I hadn’t really intended to get into it much, but once I bought a few from certain circles, I decided I wanted to collect everything that I could get from them. It’s not a very healthy mentality for my checking account.

      • Shashin says:

        I most certainly feel you on the checking account. Already I’m seeing more dakimakura, more doujinshi, and more figures that I must have, now that my D-Stage order has finally been shipped (according to SMJ.) It’s so very tempting to place another order and deal with the expenses later.

        • LOL, my wallet already has a deep burning hole, and that’s just from figures alone. >_<'

          • Shashin says:

            I certainly feel you. $250-600 a month in figure preorders is fairly painful. Might not be as bad as some, but it certainly puts a deep hurting on my wallet. And then I have the nerve to like dakimakura, doujinshi, and to a lesser extent, video games. I swear, since finding this hobby I haven’t had a spare dime. D:

          • Tier says:

            Yeah, and on top of all of that, I’ve been wanting some new camera equipment. I need a new tripod and head, I’m thinking about getting another flashgun, and I might be looking for a new lens, too. Oh, and I also definitely need a short box to store my doujinshi in, because I accidentally spilled a cup of water on the floor the other day … right next to a pile of doujinshi and comic books. Fortunately nothing was significantly damaged but it scared the hell out of me for a moment. It’s funny how the fate of a bunch of black and white porno comics can damn near give me a heart attack.

          • Shashin says:

            Weird, I can’t directly reply to Tier’s post under me. 😮

            I know what a fright that could cause. Luckily I store all of my stuff in boxes until I find an alternate storage facility, but I’m quickly running out of room and have boxes piled up high.

            Though it really wouldn’t be a tremendous expense, that’s one reason I really like ordering from Mandarake. I just clip off the top of the plastic casing, and then after I’m done flipping through the book, I slide it back in and it’s fairly well protected from the dangerous setting that is my desk.

            On a semi-related note of porno books, I’ve been enjoying ordering the more mainstream ecchi magazines from Hobby Search. Dengeki G’s Festival/other quarterly(bimonthly?) I’ve been ordering for a few months and it’s always packed with cool extras. Actual content hasn’t been anything spectacular, but the goods are usually worth the $30. This month was really great as it included a Rance Uesugi Kenshin large microfiber towel with boobies. There was also a few colored pages with Yukihime and some black and white pages of Suzume/Kenshin/Senhime in a larger ~50 pages of story in the Rance world. By no means hardcore doujinshi quality, but not bad and the microfiber towel really made it worth it.

            Also bought my first issue of Red Ichigo (bimonthly) which was only $8 and had tons of mild ero material. And a surprising amount of goodies for the price. Feel like I’m missing something, but there was definitely a full color poster and audio CD from a few of the ecchi manga chapters in the book.

            Now obviously I’m not ever going to get the true value from books like these, but the swag usually more than covers the price and it’s entertaining enough to flip through the massive books you get with it (Dengeki is usually 600+ and Red Ichigo is probably 400+.)

          • Shashin says:

            Nevermind, I’m just stupid. Didn’t occur to me just now that there’s individual comments and then all replies are done below that comment. 😛

  4. The Endless General says:

    I find it amusing that I still read these reviews at work despite the warning.

    • x2, luckily I now have my own office so I can browse with ease.

      I’m surprised this site isn’t blocked yet on my network. LOL

      • Tier says:

        I’ve heard from a couple of people whose workplaces have blocked my site XD I’m guessing it’s all the occurrences of “NSFW” on the page … when I kicked off this site, I thought about not putting any adult tags at all purely as a way to boost up my hit count but I figured that would be moderately irresponsible. After all, I’d feel kinda bad if somebody got chopped because they looked at my site … ha, okay, no I wouldn’t, in fact, I’d probably change the tagline to “Things that get people fired” if I knew that such a thing had happened.

        • The Endless General says:

          I’d be very suprised if I got fired for something like this lol.

          • Tier says:

            Sounds like a cool job XD I often do blog maintenance at work (replying to comments, proofreading and editing posts, sometimes writing posts) … it’s a lot more efficient that way.

  5. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    Replying to your post in a new thread since threads can only go six deep and it’s getting kinda squished …

    Yeah, I need to get them bagged and boarded, too. A few of my doujinshi got a bit wet but other than a bit of crinkling at the top of the pages, they’re fine, so I’m not too stressed about that. A couple of books suffered slightly worse damage but they weren’t my favorite ones so I’m not stressed about that, either. Things could’ve been much, much worse. I’ve still got a ton of plastic bags and boards from my comic book collecting days and I think doujinshi should fit in them, other than some of the oversized ones (like Akaga Hirotaka’s Strike Witches book and Tri-Moon’s stuff).

    Anything and everything Sengoku Rance-related and especially Senhime-related immediately grabs my attention. I might have to look for that myself, since I’ve been meaning to get the Total Eclipse manga and the second Tech Gian Total Eclipse TSF Cross Operation book. Oh, and incidentally, I checked BeNippon’s FAQ, and they say that they can’t take Paypal as a payment method for adult goods. What’s up with that? I’m half-tempted to try putting in an order anyway, but ehh … maybe I’ll just use SMJ to get my porno manga off of Amazon JP or something. I’m also thinking about getting this dakimakura cover but I’ve already got two other covers preordered (a BRS one and Cyclone’s Nanoha one … funny how I’ll have a Nanoha pillowcase but no figure) and I dunno what I’m going to do with all of these pillowcases. And I also need to get some more doll clothes. Heh. I’m gonna have to make some sacrifices somewhere, I think.

  6. Shashin says:

    That’s good that none of your favorites were hit, but I don’t imagine that you were too happy about things being damaged regardless of how well you liked them.

    They still have it in stock at Hobby Search: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10115967
    Doesn’t Amazon JP ship internationally, or do they not allow you to buy some randomly decided adult items (I actually think you mentioned this in a doujinshi post before, but I can’t be positive.)? I have to admit, I find it fairly odd that you have a BRS dakimakura preordered; the artwork my be absolutely amazing or very erotic. That cover, as well as a few others I had thought about preordering (there’s at least 5 on D-Stage I want to preorder right now), I stopped on that one because I’m really not a big boob man with some exclusions.The artwork looked fantastic on the little thumbnail you see on D-Stage but as soon as I clicked it, I went “boobs are too big for me.” Still, if I were in a better spending position I’d definitely pick it up with a few others because it truly is fantastic.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, I was pretty upset for a while. It was okay once everything dried out, though.

      Ahh, it’s Senhime, I feel a strange force taking control over my mouse. Thanks for the link, I might have to pick that up, assuming finances permit. Amazon JP ships internationally, but they don’t ship a lot of the stuff that I would want internationally. Which is to say, figures and pr0n. I dunno why; I’m suspecting it has something to do with licensing agreements for the former and some type of craven panty-waisted ass-covering for the latter. Basically anything tagged [Adult] doesn’t get shipped overseas; some porn slips through, but not a lot. Not to mention the overseas shipping cost is hugely exorbitant for orders with multiple items; if SMJ doesn’t pass on the Japan shipping cost to their customers (and I hope they don’t since Amazon JP offers free super saver shipping), it might be cheaper to buy it from them anyway.

      I guess it’s not hugely erotic, but I do like the art a lot. It’s this one; it’s got a front and back view, which I like, and the back view looks pretty nice.

      Yeah, I’m not an overly large boob man but these are within the acceptable range, though I wouldn’t call them ideal. I wish one side had a back shot or something rather than a PG-rated picture, though I guess it does give the pillowcase a bit of charm – if something depicting a blushing girl with her underwear pulled down could be said to have charm, anyway. I don’t see a preorder cutoff date so I guess I’ll have time to think about it.

  7. Shashin says:

    Unfortunately, flipping through the book, I don’t recall seeing Senhime being nude, but she still plays a fairly large part in the story as far as I could tell. That’s too bad; I had eventually planned on ordering from Amazon.jp, despite their high overseas shipping, because I figured it would still be cheaper than going through a deputy. If I remember correctly, they charge a flat fee + $3 per additional item? While that may seem relatively high, if it’s EMS (is it? I’m not sure.) it’s actually fairly cheap if you’re buying books. I’ll never forget when SMJ stuck me with a $300 EMS shipping bill for ~50 books.

    I’d say it would largely depend on what lies behind the price tag in that sample shot, if you catch my meaning. Still, I really do like the art and would think about picking up that cover myself should I put in an order. I was actually just browsing D-Stage and the three covers I wanted most (and was going to put in an order for with a few others that I didn’t want as much joining the list) have already had their preorders close, so I decided I wasn’t going to bother preordering the covers I was still on the fence about. I actually have an Evening Call dakimakura coming with my D-Stage order, though. I really do like their art style. I purchased number 4 on their product page, and given the opportunity would probably pick up 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 10 as well.

    A good backside on a dakimakura will almost always sell me regardless of any other flaws. Still, I’m not against a “SFW” side if the art is really nice, every now and then. If the other side of the case makes up for it anyhow; I’m not ordinarily in the business of collecting tame dakimakura.

    • Tier says:

      That is fine, I have a mandate to procure everything that features Senhime, lewd or not.

      Yeah, Amazon JP charges like 2700 yen plus 300 yen per item for books and stuff; I think their prices are a bit cheaper for CDs. I think they use DHL or FedEx for shipment; the last time I ordered, I think I got my stuff in a week, so the speed was about comparable to EMS. On the other hand, I once used SMJ to get some porno manga from Amazon JP and the markup was incredible, so I dunno. I might try out Yokatta Web for a few things I’m thinking about ordering, it appears they might charge a flat fee for web orders.

      You can see the detail here, it looks pretty nice, I like the size of her backside, too. I kinda thought about getting their KOS-MOS pillowcase too but I’m not as fond of her Xenosaga III costume as I am of her original outfit.

      Hehe, I hear that. I figure part of the appeal (and hilarity) of dakimakura is their raunchiness. I’m really looking forward to the two I’ve got ordered; I just hope they both ship before the end of October since I rolled with M-World.

      I know i’m pointing out the obvious, but man, there is a helluva lot of Touhou stuff on the doujin retailer sites.

  8. Shashin says:

    I understand where you’re coming from there; I’m much the same when it comes to my purple haired heroines (didn’t even have Senhime in mind when I thought up that sentenced, but now that I think about it…) Granted if a figure or some such looks absolutely terrible I may pass on it, but if there’s a particular character I’m really fond of, I’ll try to grab up whatever I can that holds even a slightly practical value in my warped mind.

    I say warped because what I define as practical I’m sure most others would see as a waste of money. Let’s take the purple haired Little Busters character for example: I have an attachment to the character despite never playing the visual novel or even knowing her name (I vaguely know it, but would probably get it wrong if asked to spell it out.) I’ve passed on the character goods such as the fans, CDs, small cushions, pocket sheets, and whatever other crap Hobby Search peddles constantly. Yet I have a tapestry, dakimakura, and will soon have a figure of the character.

    I just think Japanese sites need to be more open. Though it would most certainly be a niche market for them, and there might be a lot of hassle to it, I’m sure it wouldn’t be that difficult to open up their site to foreigners. Hell, they don’t even have to open an English site, just let us do the grunt work. Whenever I browse Mandarake or Hobby Search, I usually end up on the Japanese site anyway (less so on Mandarake since you can’t purchase some Japanese goods and it just depresses me.) While it wouldn’t make them a ton of money, I know I’d probably spend more on these sites if I didn’t have to set aside a certain portion for deputy fees and the hassle that comes with it. If a website had a couple patrons such as us that spend more than we reasonably should, what’s filling out a few customs forms?

    I really like it, but I’m probably not going to go through the hassle of preordering it through one site without purchasing any other items. If it ever pops up on D-Stage or is on YHJ for a reasonable mark up, maybe I’ll pick it up. On the subject of D-Stage, SMJ finally billed me for the shipping, and it wasn’t too bad. Only $100 for EMS with a couple dakimakura and doujinshi – I guess it’s because I don’t have any of the book form which is what really put a hurting on my wallet. On the plus side, they sent me my tracking number and it cleared customs today so I should get it Monday.

    I really just wish I had more space, or even an area to display some of them. It’s depressing because I realize what a waste of money it is if they’re just sitting in the box. I recently moved most (I might have a few in a box I’m not sure about) of my dakimakura to one big box. It’s full to the brim (though admittedly there is one figure in the box) and it’s easily the biggest figure/doujinshi/dakimakura box I have.

    Yeah, pretty much. Though I tend to attach myself to certain characters and buy everything associated with them, a lot of my purchasing is done based on how much I like a cover/figure. I vaguely know what Touhou is as a whole, but I don’t have any attachments to the characters. Yet I have at least one Touhou dakimakura, 1-2 Touhou figures, and who knows how many doujinshi.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, I generally go only for figures, dakimakura, books, magazines, and such … I don’t often buy stuff like cigarette lighters, t-shirts, trading cards, or whatever. I mainly just get stuff that is either printed material or stuff that I can display.

      Yeah, I find it curious that so few anime goods retailer will sell overseas. I flipped an e-mail to White Canvas a few weeks back inquiring how to order, since there was a big-ass note on the top of their page saying that they ship overseas (though it seems to be missing now) and I wanted to see if I could get that BRS dakimakura cover from them, as it didn’t have an R18 tag on the item page. I never got a response and I wasn’t at all surprised. On the other hand, I recently got an inquiry from Hobby Search asking whether I’d consider becoming an affiliate of theirs. I know of a couple of other English-language figure websites got the same inquiry, so I wonder if Hobby Search is becoming more interested in their overseas customers. If they are, I really hope they open their R18 stuff back up for overseas orders. (Incidentally, I gotta admit it’s really, really tempting to try to make money off this website, but a major reason why I run this blog is the fact that it’s only a hobby and that I’m not beholden to anyone regarding site content or design.)

      I’d like more pillow bodies, though that’d take up even more room. Right now, I’m just rotating them on my one pillow, though I haven’t taken the twins off of the pillowcase yet. I know they’re not entirely practical and are ridiculously overpriced for what they are, but I love them anyway, probably because of their size; I like big figures, big posters, and big pillowcases. Small stuff like trading cards or whatever has much less appeal to me.

      I have a very superficial understanding of what Touhou is, but I can’t say that I understand the phenomenon all that much. I don’t really find any of the characters all that appealing, but looking at how much stuff and fanart and such there is of them, I suppose I’m in the minority.

      • Shashin says:

        Yeah, same here. I might eventually try something new to see if I like it, but I tend to stray towards the big (as you put it – this being figures or dakimakura) or the really erotic (books and such.) Of course, there are some figures/books that could fall under both categories, but I don’t really see a Zippo or audio CD doing either.

        That’s too bad, but I guess it’s good that we do have a few good sites such as Mandarake and Hobby Search to feed our hobby. I could see both sides of your dilemma. My personal thought on the subject is that if you can make some money without it hindering the quality of the site too much, then go for it. Of course, if you wanted to have pop-ups every two minutes and the page splash to an ad every three, that would be your choice. But I think if you just had a small, or even a fairly large and prominent, Hobby Search banner on the side without it affecting the user interface, then that would be great for all parties involved.

        I wouldn’t mind making my purchases through the affiliate banner (unless I had one of my own, of course) if it got you some money/a discount and didn’t cost me anything more. In turn, Hobby Search would hopefully receive more business (I probably overestimate how much) and possibly realize what a potential market there is overseas. And if you’re getting some money for your hobby, you may increase the rate at which you review items. Granted money has the power to corrupt and it’s possible that you’d either feel the need to churn out reviews for hits and lose some of the passion you have, or put out crap reviews for more hits, but I honestly don’t see that happening with you.

        And if it looked like it was going down that road, I’m sure your user base would let you know either vocally or through a drop in hits. Really though ,if it’s just a unobtrusive affiliate banner, it probably wouldn’t affect day to day operations; in all likelihood, you’ll get a few bucks, but not enough to live on and things will be business as usual.

        • Shashin says:

          So, that entire rant on becoming an affiliate made me prematurely post.

          I really like them too. Other than trying a few on just to see them in detail, I’ve only had three kept on my pillow for long term. My Mio from the Chinese circle (I actually picked up another from D-Stage because I liked it so much), my Syrup bondage one, and funnily enough, currently an Illust Guerilla Touhou (I think) cover. They have no practical value, other than being comfortable as hell (2way tricot, anyway) and display possibilities (unlikely given the content of most of my covers.) Yet their drawbacks potentially outweigh the benefits: they’re ridiculously expensive, and while some might be comfortable showing them off, as a bit of a closet collector, I don’t want to imagine what friends/family would think should they find my naughty collection… much less what I paid to acquire it.

          I know that they have bullet hell shooters (awesome in my opinion, but I suck at them) and I like some of the figures that have spawned from them (though the one figure I know I have was underwhelming at best.) That’s my Touhou knowledge… oh and that awesome shadow art youtube video/song.

        • Tier says:

          Yeah, that’s my hangup; I think even one banner ad would profoundly affect my view of my own site, regardless of how unobtrusive it is. It does affect my opinion of other sites as well; I’ve seen a few sites that are either brand new or are just flat out terrible and are plastered with ads, which looks cheap as hell to me. I’m proud that this site is fairly successful – in fact, from what I can tell, this site gets a very high number of visits and pageviews relative to other figure review sites – but I’ve never been interested in building traffic or asking people to click links. Keep it simple is my mantra.

          I don’t think there’s any way I can increase the rate at which I review stuff. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be slowing it down at some point. The fastest I can chuck our a review is probably in about six to eight hours of work; most reviews take more time, and if I construct a complicated background, it can take the better part of a week to get one review set up. On top of that, there are other things in life that I want to do; figure collecting and review may be my favorite hobby but it’s not what I spend my whole life doing. I think I may already be the most prolific anime figure reviewer on the planet who doesn’t do this professionally, and I can’t keep up this pace indefinitely.

          However, should I find that placing banner ads up would result in very lucrative earnings, or if something catastrophic happens to my employment situation, I absolutely reserve the right to change my mind and sell out. In fact, if someone were to make me an offer for this site at the right price, I would sell out in an instant. I can absolutely be bought if the price is right.

          There’s one positive factor that dakimakura have that may or may not be important; they identify you as a hardcore collector, particularly if they are rare and raunchy as hell. I gotta admit, part of the reason I like the racy ones is simply that few people even in the anime fanbase are comfortable buying them. It does raise another philosophical question for me, that of whether I want to tone down the content of this site as it becomes more popular, or do I want to keep on doing what I’m doing. I think that staying true to my roots is more important than hits, so I’m really looking forward to doing a review of that Nanoha pillowcase.

          Yeah, that’s about the extent of my Touhou knowledge as well. I’m not a fan of it but I gotta admire how it’s become such a sensation without much overt commercialization (versus, oh, I dunno, that BRS thing).

          • Shashin says:

            Ah, fair enough. I guess it would depend on what exactly Hobby Search would want/require you to do. If this were my site, I wouldn’t have any problem including a banner similar to the Myfigurecollection.net one you have. It would be fairly unobtrusive, and probably wouldn’t generate too many hits, but it wouldn’t bother me in the least to post it.

            The next step up from that is something I see a lot of sites do. After every figure review/preview, they’ll post a direct link to where you can order it, through their referral token. That one isn’t too bad, but I’d personally try to avoid it if I could, because if it’s a figure preorder, the content is almost always nothing but “look at these production pictures I stole from the Website, now go preorder it so I get some money.” It gets even worse when they mention the website on the page when the item/topic doesn’t have anything to do with the shop. These kind of sites annoy me and I stay away from them if I can.

            Then you get into the really obnoxious banner ads for figure sites and unrelated popups. I only visit one site regularly that has the large banner ads, and they have them off to the side; they don’t really disrupt the content. Of course it doesn’t help that they also do the second thing, but they’re not a bad site otherwise and you can’t really blame the owner for wanting to make some money.

            True time constraints would keep you from posting quality reviews. Like I said, I don’t think you would be easily corrupted with tons of banner ads and churning out crap reviews, but I’m sure others could be/have been. Let’s say it takes another figure review site 8 hours to do a review, and he has an opportunity to make some money based on hits/quantity of content. He might start rushing his reviews so that it only takes him 5-6 hours of work. No one would blame you if you did get a decent offer and sold out; hell, I’d be happy for you that your hobby turned into a lucrative venture.

            That’s true. I could probably claim to be the greatest dakimakura collector this side of the Pacific. ^^ Well, I could easily claim it, but there’s probably someone in Texas or something that has a collection that completely dwarfs mine. Still, I’m sure only a handful of Americans own a dakimakura, much less a fraction of the number I own. All I have to say is that please never stop posting the smut. 😀

            If I were to create my dakimakura site, I’d definitely be open to making money from it, though unless I was offered a large sum of money, I’d never post the really large banners all over the place. I was thinking about it today, and I’d definitely have a “Tools of the Trade” or some such tab that lists the various shops I purchase my goods from (starting with dakimakura and then listing sites that I purchase related goods from.) They wouldn’t be referral links, at least from the start, but would include a link to the site’s homepage with a brief description of the shop and why I buy from there. The idea wouldn’t be to make money from it, but to inform people obviously interested in the hobby on where they might acquire the goods to start a collection of their own. Granted most of the people browsing the side would already be away of the named shops, but if it helped even one person find something they were looking for, it would be worth it.

            On the other note for today, my D-Stage order finally came (along with Shoujo S, finally!) and I couldn’t be happier. In total, I have five dakimakura, seventeen doujinshi, a doujinsoft game, and a fairly cool poster. I really like the art of the poster, but I’m not sure if I like the gimmick or not. When I ordered it, I thought it was a two sided deal: one showing the goods and one slightly more modest. Instead, there’s a black bikini covering the goods on one side, but it’s raised slightly. At first I thought you could peel it off/restick it or something, then I tried blowing hot air. Finally I resorted to a translation and found that it goes transparent with hot water. Really neat, and I guess it’s meant for the shower or something. But it can’t really be displayed, at least in naughty form, outside of the shower/bath, as the transparency only lasts for a few seconds once contact with hot water is removed. I held it under my sink and tried to get a good look at it before it reverted and ended up getting a weird view of the black bikini bottom covering everything but a small portion of the goods.

            Haven’t opened any of the dakimakura yet, but I should be happy with all four new additions. First is a character I’m unfamiliar with, but I still like the cover As an aside, I really like the site it came from; they have tons (400+, though I’m not sure if you can still purchase everyone) of dakimakura and some are actually really nice.

            Then there’s the Evening Call dakimakura I mentioned previously, joined by a Saber and Nerv Trinity dakimakura.

  9. Ashlotte says:

    Your pure appetite for perversion continues to amaze Tier… :p

    I used to be more of a fan of cyclone style stuff, but lately been enjoying more…how to say it…Sketchy style of art. For some reason seems to make the scenes more intense when the lines aren’t quite so neat and clean. But then I’ve been reading alot of non-rape/tentacle stuff (Think I burned myself out on it…Can only enjoy faceless guys so long yea? >_>) lately so it probably suits that more.

    • Tier says:

      As this site is entirely a celebration of one person’s spending excess and overall perversity, I’m continually amazed that it’s achieved the level of success that it has.

      No, as long as I live, I will never, ever tire of cute anime girls engaging in beautiful, beautilful nonconsensual coitus with faceless dudes. Or maggot-birthing scenes. Or tentacle rape. Tentacle rape is a gift from God and should be celebrated and worshiped accordingly.

  10. BioToxic says:

    That’s a lot of extreme porn there! Are you not worried that some random crusader at the customs office decides they want your head should they happen to stumble upon these? I know I’d be worrying like mad if I happened to import this stuff.

    Yes, we need an Irma figure now! Looks like she’s being left out in the latest QB OVAs as well from what I’ve been reading.

    • Tier says:

      Nah, not really … I’d be very worried if I were buying loli porn since that seems to be what gets cracked down on the most, but I think this stuff is mostly okay. Heck, this stuff is pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen online, and besides, the seal of the state I live in has a woman with her tit hanging right out. I mean, if the government wants to crack down on porn, they ought to look at themselves first, right? (I’ve heard that this state’s fascist attorney general did try to mildly censor it.)

      Man that’s messed up. I wonder why the hell Irma gets kicked to the curb so much. It makes me want to boycott the Queen’s Blade franchise till justice is done.

  11. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    Maybe I ought to modify this site’s theme so that child comments aren’t quite so condensed.

    Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t mind if it were a fairly small ad, but I’m guessing that they’d prefer a larger, banner style ad like I’ve seen on most other figure sites. I did not take advertising into account when I constructed this theme, so there’s not really a convenient place to put the thing; the only place it could go is under the sidebar, and that’s probably too far down to be effective. The other thing is that Hobby Search pays by commission rather than by pageviews, so someone would have to click on the link and purchase something during that browsing session for me to be compensated. I kinda doubt that many people would do that, and I have no idea how that system works for preorders.

    Hehe, yeah, you’re probably up there, unless there are some anonymous collectors around that I’ve never seen. That would kinda surprise me since they’re such a niche item from a niche part of a niche industry. On a slightly related note, it feels like it’s been a really long time since I’ve bought and reviewed a porno figure.

    That’s a good haul, and I think I’ve heard of bathroom posters like that. Cyclone has one of Fate and Nanoha that I’m kinda interested in, except as you say, I dunno if I’d care much for the gimmicky aspect.

    Hmm, I’ve never seen that site before but they’ve got some great stuff. I’ll have to look through it, I like the art style. And the explicitness. Also, I swear to jeebus that I’ve seen that character somewhere before but I can’t remember where, and now it’s bothering the hell out of me.

    That Saber pillowcase is awesome; I remember seeing the artwork a while back and wanting it very badly. I haven’t seen the Evangelion pillowcase before, however, and it’s even more awesome. Asuka looks like she’s having a great time there. Really nice art there, something about plugsuits and the missionary position looks really hot.

  12. Shashin says:

    That’s true. It’s fairly unlikely that you’d receive much compensation if you had a small ad, even if they did take preorders into account (I think it would be likely, but obviously you wouldn’t be paid until the customer paid. I also find it likely that they’d screw you out of your commission if the customer used order recombination.) Once again going from my mindset, I’d wouldn’t mind placing a small add, regardless of whatever revenue, just to show support for the site at the very least.

    I guess it would depend on how you define “porno figure”. I’d say you should do more erotic figure reviews, but what comes along comes along. You reviewed Rider rather recently, but exposed boobies =| figure with chains and a dildo accessory. Also, apparently the Chrome dictionary doesn’t recognize dildo as a word.

    I almost put that one in my order originally, but I wasn’t sure how the posters would be, and I really wanted to slim down the order so I didn’t pay both arms and legs instead of just one of each. Maybe one day I’ll toss the poster up in the shower and get a really good view of it, but I took some more hot water to it and it’s definitely nice. Nether bits are censored of course, but it’s barely noticeable and in the form of some mosaic pixels over a gaping hole. If they release a non-gimmicky poster, I’d pick it up for sure.

    Yeah, I can easily imagine blowing a couple grand there easily, if I had it. >_> The cool thing about it is there’s such a great variety; not only in the characters from all different games/anime/manga/etc, but also in terms of explicitness. Most tend to follow the nice/naughty side, but a few deviate. Some have very detailed regions while others have a slit, but unless it’s a strategic pose, they all have something down there.

    Yeah, I absolutely love the expression on her face. The detail factor behind the sample wording is about what I’ve come to expect; there’s something down there, but it’s no Illust Guerrilla. It actually works really well with this cover though, especially due to the facial expressions… and the finger placement more than makes up for it in my mind. The Evangelion case on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. Needless to say, it’s fairly detailed, and I really like the Rei side. Looks as if Asuka is rubbing up on Rei’s leg.

    • Tier says:

      Porno figures to me are stuff by Gigapulse. I need a new Gigapulse figure, it’s been way too long since my last one. I wonder what they’re up to, I never get to see their stuff now that Hobby Search has delisted them from their English website. (Incidentally, I’m planning on doing a review of my big-ass doll and I’m kinda wondering how pornographic it should be. I’ve got pictures of it and the foot-long Mothra larva but I kinda have the feeling that putting those up might traumatize some of the people who see it.)

      Google’s getting off their game. First that Buzz thing went splat, now their spellchecker is grossly deficient. They’d better watch out or the next big thing on the internet will come along someday and swallow them up.

      Yeah, I’d really like some hentai posters. They’re kinda hard to find, so what I think I might do is just print them out myself. I’ve got this big-ass printer that says it’s capable of printing up to 13 x 19″ prints, so what I might do is just scan doujinshi covers, blow them up, and print them out. The shower posters are cool but as you say, I’d rather have regular posters instead.

      This talk about dakimakura is making me really look forward to Cyclone’s Nanoha and Evening Call’s BRS pillowcases. It’s been way too long since I got my last one, too. I need to get back to my roots and get some more porn goods up on here.

  13. Shashin says:

    Damn you, Hobby Search. I really want easily accessible adult goods. 🙁 Amiami is only good for so much; I guess HLJ usually has them, but their prices suck and their website leaves a bit to be desired. The more pornographic the better, I say! I’d love to see the Mothra larva pictures, regardless of what others may think of it. Maybe you could include the relatively tame pictures and then find a way to spoiler the really naughty stuff for the faint of heart? Whatever you decide to do, I look forward to seeing it.

    That seems to be the way the internet works, if not the entire business world in general. Google might be spreading themselves a bit thin trying to get into just about every area, but it may work out for them in the long run… or fail miserably. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they eventually lose their search crown (that they hold in the US, anyway), but I don’t think it will happen anytime soon. I can see why Google holds the success they do, but while we’re roughly on the same subject, the only thing I will never understand is the success of Apple.

    I once tried entering the katakana word for poster in the adult section of YHJ. If I remember correctly, quite a few things popped up, mostly AV goods, but I’m pretty sure there were some hentai goods too. I’m all for printing them out yourself, though; if you do end up doing it, you’ll have to let me know how it turns out. Or you could always go into Kinkos for a bigger poster and some shits and giggles. Though if you were willing to do that, I’d definitely settle on a tamer piece of work.

    Ah, that’s good to hear. We’ve beat the horse dead, I’m sure, but despite their practical applications, I really do love dakimakura covers. Though I enjoy figures, I could do without collecting them and plan to slowly cut back on the amount I order, but I’m sure that I’ll always order at least a small stream of dakimakura to pad my collection. I agree entirely with that statement. If my budget allowed, I would be browsing the adult dakimakura section on YHJ right now, as well as the site I mentioned a post or two ago.

    • Tier says:

      That is my dream, that one day, Japanese retailers will sell their goodies to gaijin across the globe. At least Rakuten is working towards that, though I dunno if that’s gonna include their cartoon porn.

      Ahh, there is no love as beautiful as the love between a young girl and a disgustingly gigantic insect larva … you can see it here. Pardon the poor quality of the pictures, I wasn’t putting a lot of effort into it, and the big-ass doll is so big that it’s hard to set up a decent background for her.

      Yeah, I’m sure that someday, someone will come along and come up with a better search system than Google. I’m not really an internet old-timer, but I remember the days of Hotbot and Lycos and Excite (and Yahoo, though they were more of a directory then) who then got swept away by Altavista, who got swept away by Google. Though personally, I’m hoping Google continues to succeed, because I am enormously dependent on Google Translate.

      Haha, that’d be hilarious. They’d be like, “Uhh, sir, I don’t believe we can meet your requirements. Err, hold on, I need to talk with the manager,” and then the employee would run off to call the cops on me.

      I’m sort of the opposite, figures are my main focus and dakimakura are more of a side thing to me. I guess there’ll be a time when I give up on collecting figures, but I hope that is way, way off in the future. I gotta admit, I still find it hilarious that I own seven (or is it eight? I kinda lost track) after pining away for one for so long.

  14. Shashin says:

    It will happen one day, I’m sure… if America doesn’t create more ridiculous laws that makes our hobby harder to take part in.

    That’s quite something you have there; really brings a tear to my eye to see that unholy bond take place. I could imagine the hardships, so I wouldn’t worry too much about the quality.

    I wasn’t around to experience the true beginnings of the internet, but I do remember all the sites you mentioned. I also remember a time, before Google came along/gained popularity, when my favorite search site was AskJeeves. I’ve tried to use them (now Ask) a few times, and they don’t even begin to scratch the surface that is Google. There is just absolutely no comparison. I’ll second your thoughts on Google Translate. I used a few different sites before I stumbled across it and it’s always been the most reliable for getting a basic idea, and it does so without suffocating you with ads.

    I hear ya, and figures are definitely more practical… even if it’s just that you can usually display them with their clothes on should you have guests over. I enjoy collecting figures, but I really do need to be cutting back on expenses overall, and I really want to pick up the doujinshi trade again. Dakimakura are really unique, and I don’t know how I grew so attached to them, but I have, so I do want to order a few every now and then to supplement my cartoon porn mags. Being that you find your actions hilarious, should I be absolutely appalled with myself? I’ve gone from one, and in an even shorter time than you, have now amassed a collection I honestly couldn’t even guess at… I know I have at least 30…

    • Tier says:

      I’ve got more plans for the big-ass doll, possibly involving the Matrix Sentinel and maybe NECA’s 18″ tall Terminator endoskeleton. Hopefully NECA will also re-release the 18″ tall Alien xenomorph, that’d work pretty well too.

      I’ve also been using Translation Aggregator, the auto-translator that I use for h-games. It works pretty well for webpages since it detects text copied to the clipboard, so I can copy chunks of text on item listings and get like five or six interpretations.

      Nah, you should be proud, it is a rare thing to have one dakimakura cover, let alone so many that you’ve lost count. I know I don’t know how many figures I have (I think it’s somewhere between 150 and 200) and that doesn’t bother me at all. Well, other than trying to find space for all of them. That’s one aspect of practicality that dakimakura covers have figures beat hands-down.

      • Shashin says:

        You’re right about that; I did a rough count (as I’m too lazy to count how many boxes deep it goes into my closest) and I guess that I have maybe 20 medium to large sized boxes in my room to house my figures, doujinshi and dakimakura covers. Plus a few small boxes for when I only got 1-2 figures in the mail (Shoujo M/S, etc.) Of those, I think two large and two medium house doujinshi alone, while 1 very large (biggest box I have) houses all of my dakimakura and a figure (unless one or two are lost in another box with a figure somewhere.) The rest are all figures. So that’s roughly 15 big boxes of figures I have taking up all my living space. I really need to move and get some cabinets going so my purchases serve at least some of their display potential.

  15. Shashin says:

    I can’t decide if Hobby Search’s bargain bin makes me happy or sad. On one hand, was just able to pick up a few figures I canceled at last minute for about 40% off; on the other, they have a couple figures I picked up for 40-60% off.

    • Tier says:

      Man, look at all that stuff that I just reviewed. Or am waiting to review, in the case of Saya Tokido. I guess it’s too much to expect that BRS Animation Version will wind up in the bargain bin in six months or so?

      • Shashin says:

        I know that I was really torn on Saya Tokido; I wanted her but last month I was expecting the big D-Stage order, so I really canceled a lot of stuff. Couldn’t resist picking her up now for the price. Some of those figures have been in the bargain bin for awhile, so you know they aren’t going anywhere, but I wouldn’t expect a lot of the stuff to last more than a few days.

        There’s two figures I did purchase in there, another two I was really on the fence about and dropped last minute, and another 3-4 I’d pick up if I had the money. HS had a lot of restocked goods yesterday with some stuff I had wanted but missed out on, so I took it as an opportunity to pick up some restocked goods, bargain goods, and figures that hadn’t sold out yet I had previously canceled (such as Saber figure I mentioned I canceled a few weeks ago.)

        • Shashin says:

          And I’d say the chances of getting the BRS figure for lower than the 20% off they’re offering are between none and none. But I suppose stranger things have happened.

        • Tier says:

          I also saw VN02 Miku was in the bargain bin for really cheap at Amiami this morning. I thought about picking her up but I decided not to; she’s really small but takes up a lot of space for a 1/8 scale figure. She’s still in the bargain bin at a lot of other places should I change my mind.

          I’m sorta wondering when the other shoe’s gonna drop and the BRS franchise gets forgotten in favor of the next hot thing. Maybe I’ll watch the OVA this weekend and base my purchasing decision on that. From what I’ve heard, I think I already know how I feel about the anime, despite not having seen a second of it.

          • The Endless General says:

            I saw Vivio in Hobby Search’s bargain bin. That made me sad.

          • Tier says:

            Yeah, I guess she wasn’t super popular. Sort of a shame, that. Oh well, she’s still one of my favorite figures of this year … and if she and VN02 Miku can get heavily discounted, maybe we’ll see some falling prices on other figures, too.

          • Shashin says:

            Oh wow, I found Hobby Search’s bargain bin within a few days of browsing the site, but somehow I never navigated my way to Amiami’s sale page. Thanks for the heads up; they actually have some other figures I had considered buying but passed on in the end (MegaHouse’s Sheryl Nome. If I didn’t have so much to deal with this much, I’d definitely put in another order on Amiami. I really need to work on controlling my spending. >_>

            I don’t understand the appeal of most of the anime that comes out these days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take advantage of it. I’ll probably never watch anything BRS related, but I really like my first figure, and I have the sword version as well. I do like the animation version figure and I really liked the huge cannon in the first figure, but since I need to cut back I’m really considering if I want to spend $100 for a figure that’s so similar to the first. I like it, but I don’t know. Anyhow, in a similar vein, I may never watch K-On!, but I do love some of the doujinshi/dakimakura that come from it. The same can be said for pretty much all the crap that comes out these days, replacing it with doujinshi/figures/dakimakura/whatever.

  16. Shashin says:

    “Q I love DAKIMAKURA. But I can not speak Japanease … …
    Can I send you English mail?
    A Not If You do speak Japanese, English ME Please send Mail. → Mail here
    We understand a little bit of English.
    And people who love DAKIMAKURA are my friend.
    For friends, we make DAKEMAKURA.

    Q I do not have Japanese yen.I only have momey for my own country,
    But I want to buy DAKEMAKURA!!!
    I looooove Frandle Scarlet!!! I want to sleep with her!!!!
    What should I do?
    A We accept peypal, too.
    And Frandle is my angel.
    Angel loves all people.

    Q Does DAKIMAKURA only ship to japan?
    A NO, we ship DAKEMAKURA to all countries. ”

    And now a chance to use my new favorite word.

    YAYIFICATIONS

  17. Shashin says:

    In my excitement, I pasted that over all the text I had written previously. Can’t help but laugh at that, because I started out with “Now I really am spamming the hell out of this site…” But basically, I was too excited not to post this after browsing Dakemakura with my amazing Google Translate skills. Now if only I had more money.

    • Tier says:

      Haha, that’s awesome. It’s nice to see at least one overseas purveyor of explicit goods be open to shipping to the US. What’s not so awesome is this oddity I came across at Hobby Search. If you look at this wall scroll, it looks to me like you can see the girl’s nipples. That’s no surprise since these characters are from an H-game (with the art by Tomose Shunsaku, who did the Dragon Quest doujinshi I’ve listed way up in the post). Now if you look at this wall scroll, there’s a note there that this item cannot be paid for by Paypal. What in the world?

      • The Endless General says:

        You can totally see nipples in that picture; clear as day. Does Hobby Search not sell adult products overseas? I have Diskvision original Rouage preordered, and if they don’t that could present a problem……..

        • Tier says:

          Nah, you’re fine. They used to sell everything overseas, including ero-games and hentai manga. Then they set up Paypal as a payment method and I guess Paypal has something in its rules that prevent it being used to process payments for pornographic goods (not that they seem to enforce it …). Hobby Search then took down their H-game and porno manga section on the US site (though you can still see them on the Japanese site) and they said they wouldn’t sell R18-labeled products overseas, but they still do on an inconsistent basis. If it’s up on the English site, your order should process fine; I’ve just never seen them specifically say “This item cannot be purchased with PayPal” on an item description before.

        • Shashin says:

          You know, Tier, I almost posted the exact same findings last night when they were first posted, but I already felt bad for spamming up the site so much. I was pretty sure you could see nipples in the first scroll, and the second one for sure, but there’s a third that I was going to pick up that can’t be paid with Paypal either. I mentioned a few weeks ago that it seemed Hobby Search was looking to start introducing adult items into their lineup again with all the figures and such that seemed to have slipped through. If you check their Japanese website, the second tapestry you posted has an R18 rating, but the rating is missing on the US site. A few months ago, you couldn’t find a single item for sale that was even slightly adult (with the exception of cast offs, but they generally didn’t show the cast off production shots.) Then I managed to score a tapestry that was double sided with exposed boobs (only the safe side had a production shot), and now they’re slowly introducing items that are visibly more adult themed. I doubt they’ll ever open up adult manga sales or anything, but I’m liking the change.

          The Endless General:
          If you were able to preorder the item on their site, you’re fine. They just have kept a lot of “adult” items off their English site in the past, while they were available on the Japanese site. During the last few weeks, a few items have managed to slip through. At first I thought it was just a sloppy move on their part, but it looks like they’re slowly starting to allow adult items back in.

          • The Endless General says:

            It is the fact that Vivio wasn’t very popular that makes me sad lol. Nevertheless, she’s still one of my favorites, and I’m glad I bought her full price or otherwise.

            I don’t really like VN02 Miku all that much, but I did preorder that Tony version. Every collector has to have at least one Miku in their collection; it’s like an unwritten law lol.

          • Tier says:

            Yeah, I love Alter’s Vivio figure, it is strange how unpopular she seems to be. I hope that doesn’t deter Alter from making a figure of Ginga.

            Heh, I’m thinking about hocking my Miku figure on eBay. I’m not really the biggest Vocaloid fan out there, and I can’t say any of them really excite me, though VN02 might if she were a bit larger.

          • Tier says:

            Yeah, I guess it could be a positive thing, in that respect. Some of those tapestries look really nice, I’m kinda tempted to pick up one or two of them. I’m gonna have to look back through the CGs for Arupiiji Gakuen, cuz I could swear to jeebus that one of the girls seemed to sprout a penis in some of them, and that’s not something I like to think about when I’m looking at my room decor.

          • Shashin says:

            If you do go back, please don’t inform me of any penis growing action. D:
            I’ve actually become a bit of a tapestry fan myself, though they have to be at least slightly erotic, or I don’t see the point. So i decide to preorder at least one of them and go from there.

  18. The Endless General says:

    Totally placed that last comment in the wrong spot lol.

    I’ve noticed that “can’t buy this with paypal” message on a few other sites, but I didn’t know Hobby Search didn’t sell adult oriented things on their english site. It’s kinda funny too, because Rouage is clearly an adult figure lol.

    • Tier says:

      They technically don’t, though generally they’ll just mark it R18 on their Japanese site and not mark it with anything on the international site.

      You know, one of the big reasons I dumped my old theme was to get nested comments running so that it’d be easier for me to respond to comments (and it’d also pad out the comment count, which is good for my ego, and I always take care of my ego). It doesn’t seem to work very well for extended conversations, though.

      • Shashin says:

        Yeah, but them listing any adult things (and just stripping the R18 rating) is definitely a new trend. A few months back if it had a R18 rating on the Japanese site, it wasn’t on the English site.

        It certainly does create a problem for people like me who feel the need to turn a comment into a conversation. But on the bright side, you should reach 100+ comment reviews without any problem. ^^

  19. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    Gee, I see Compact Hog there (she’s probably gonna be the next review here), and I see Vivio is 4000 yen. Maybe I ought to hold off on or cancel some of my preorders; a lot of the figures I buy usually aren’t all that popular and maybe I can save some skrills by waiting. I’ve got the feeling figures like Yamato’s Asuka will be hitting the bargain bin. I just bought this camera lens that set me back a bit, and I still want to get a new tripod, polarizer, and a monitor calibration device; I could use the extra money.

    I’m thinking about hocking my my BRS figure and getting the animation version. I might also hock my Mio figure, which I don’t care a ton for now. I had planned on watching an episode of K-On! just to see what it’s about, since I figured it couldn’t be nearly as bad as some of its detractors make it out to be. I got as far as watching the opening before dumping that plan. God that was an awful, awful song.

    • The Endless General says:

      I find it amusing that I have Dead Master preordered, but I don’t own nor plan to own a Black Rock Shooter. Weird. Maybe I should get that rerelease, or the animation version……….

      Im not a huge vocaloid fan either, and I find most of Miku’s “songs” insufferable. Well, except for Yukkuri Shitteite Ne…….if only for the guitar. Im not entirely sure what possessed me to preorder that Miku, maybe that song was running through my head……..

      On an unrelated note; E2046 really needs to get on the stick with their hilariously inconsistent release dates.

      • Tier says:

        I’ve gone the opposite way, I don’t intend to get Dead Master, which I think puts me in the minority of figure collectors.

        Yeah, I’ve heard a few that I don’t like, but I still greatly admire the people who make the music. There was a time when I wanted to get into music production, and I wanted a voice synthesis package to do vocals. The Vocaloid voices are still kinda rough (I sometimes rag on autotune when I listen to the radio but I think it’d improve some of the songs I’ve heard) but I think they’re an amazing technological achievement, and the things that musicians do with them often astonish me.

        I’m not a fan at all of the way the Vocaloid mascot characters have been productized, though. I’m not a particularly creative person but if I were a musician or an artist, I would not want my work used as jingles in a video game or stamped on a telephone card or a coffee cup. I think that this anti-commercial tendency of mine is one of the main reasons I haven’t put up any ads on this site. It’s also one of the reasons why my taste in music is pretty damn bad.

        • The Endless General says:

          Haha, I haven’t even heard of most of the artists on that list. My own musical taste is pretty damn absurd; running the gamut from Metallica to Enya, and most everything in between. I remember at this job I had awhile ago I put my ipod on the radio and played some Nightwish; my boss came out and asked “What the hell is this crap?” Lol. So I know what you mean.

          I wish I had more creative talent, or at least the iniative to do something constructive with it. I write in my spare time (the precious little there is), but I lack any motivation to put it to use lol.

          Well that was a lot of rambling………

          • Tier says:

            Hehe, yeah, it’s a good thing I don’t drive anyone around in my car, because I just play a bunch of MP3s on a CD-ROM. My stereo goes from gangsta rap to J-pop to instrumental thrash rock to adult contemporary.

            One of the things I really wish I had done as a kid was to have taken music lessons … though I guess that since I grew up in Korea, that would’ve been problematic, as I’ve never spoken Korean. I’ve still got a guitar and a bass gathering dust; maybe I’ll pick them up again and try to learn them one of these days.

        • Shashin says:

          I kinda liked the look of the Dead Master figure, but I wasn’t drooling over it, and then when preorders stopped before I could get one in, my response was “meh”.

          Never got into the vocaloid craze, though I think it is pretty cool, and it can also result in some hilarious songs. I did try to listen to the BRS song, just so I knew more about the figure I was buying, but that’s about it otherwise.

          I briefly went through the first 10 pages of your list, and saw some familiar artists, and I have to say I love the amount of video game music there. My music taste is much less varied, though. It’s pretty much a good 5-10 late 80s/early 90s bands that I’ve listened to almost nonstop for years. Only a few of them have put out a last CD in the last few years, and they’re a dramatic change from what the bands used to be about. Still better than 90% of the shit that comes out these days, though.

          • The Endless General says:

            I’m not really sure why I like Dead Master; probably her smirk. Or maybe I’m just jumping on the bandwagon. I was gonna cancel her, and I probably should since November’s going to be apocalyptically expensive. I don’t even think that’s a word.

          • Tier says:

            I never really understood all the excitement over Dead Master, though as my figure tastes tend towards the esoteric or perverted, I guess maybe I can’t understand the excitement. And yeah, I listened to the BRS song; it’s actually the first Japanese Vocaloid song I heard (I had listened to samples of the first Miriam Vocaloid when the software was still in development) and uhh, I guess I can’t say I was very impressed. Or enthused. I did give it a shot, though, that’s more than I do for most pop culture things that I form an opinion on.

            Much of my music tastes is stuck in that same era, which is when I really began listening to music. I listened mostly to rap and pop, though; I actually didn’t even like rock music until I was about halfway through college.

            A friend of mine likes to listen to current pop music on the radio, and I gotta admit, I’m kinda appalled by how bad it is when I hear it (though I shamelessly admit that I like Britney Spears’s music). I mean, I guess it’s a sign that I’m old and crotchety … but nah, I ain’t that old, that music really does suck ass, for the most part.

          • Shashin says:

            Yeah, pretty much the same here.

            My musical tastes have branched out a bit lately, into the truly weird. My favorite genre is still industrial (though admittedly, industrial can encompass a lot – be it electronica or even more rock sounding), but lately I’ve listened to my fair share of J-Pop/K-Pop, though I absolutely can’t stand to listen to (current) American pop.

            I blame you having a good 10 years on me (according to your last.fm page), so I don’t feel too bad admitting that I have been to a Britney Spears concert (my excuse being that I was 9 or 10.) Haven’t really listened to her in years though, and most of my memories stem from her being hot at one time, or bat shit crazy. So now that we’ve established I’m fairly young (nor are you that old), the music really does massively suck, regardless of age.

    • Shashin says:

      It is getting a little confusing however, I want to hit reply at the bottom post, but them I have to scroll up to posts on the same thread to read through it so I can address points.

      I thought about getting Compact Hog, but it’s still a bit expensive. That’s a Creator’s Lab figure, right? I had the Rei figure from them set to drop soon, because I really liked it when I first saw it, then when I was going through a purge, I really looked at it again, and it seemed kinda weird. I do have the Asuka figure preordered though, because I think that one looks really great. As far as preorders go, I’m of that opinion too, but there’s certain figures I just don’t want to miss out on, so I’ll keep those, while I might drop some others; every figure definitely has potential to go bargain bin, I’d say, but it’s a risky gambit. As for Vivio, despite not knowing the franchise, I do like the figure, so I hope they have it available for some time as I’d like to pick it up at a reduced price. Really hope your new camera bits show in your reviews. 😀 I really want to start using my camera more, but I’ve been busy with school and other things.

      I don’t have a Mio figure yet, but am strangely going to have three in a short time. I had to bargain bin the maid version, because I’m strangely attracted to it, and I really like both the Dec rerelease (which I think is the one you’re going to hock) and I love the January release. Still have absolutely no interest in K-On! other than the hentai that stems from it, though. I’m still definitely on the fence about the animation version, but my October preorders are quickly getting out of control, so I’ll probably cancel two figures if I’m really short on cash. At the moment my thoughts are ninja Kagari; I like the figure, and it will have nice boobs, I’m sure, but it just seems a bit odd to me, and the BRS animation figure. Mainly because it’s expensive, and I don’t want to cancel Soniko, Buddy, Senjyogahara, or Sasasegawa. Definitely considering dropping the plug suit Asuka and the eyebrow blonde (I just like the keyboard.) Then of course there are the non figure goods I have preordered that are fairly cheap, but add up when you have a lot of them. Only thing I’m thinking of canceling there is Boys Prefer Maid dress !? Visual Book Vol.2…. because I’m pretty sure I know what that’s going to be all about, but yet at the same time I’m intrigued….

      • Tier says:

        That was the problem I had back when comments were flat, I’d have to keep scrolling back up when I had to reply to multiple people. It got kinda hard to keep my train of thought when I had to keep going back to read the comments. Though admittedly, it’s pretty hard to keep track of things here, with comments all over the place and a bunch of them getting squished to the right side XD

        Yeah, it’s part of that lineup. She’s a pretty good figure though not super great, and while I like her I wouldn’t class her as one of the better ones of this year. Heat Blade’s looking really nice, though.

        It might, though I guess since almost everyone seems to use a DSLR for semi-serious photography, it gets kinda hard to tell whether someone is using a cheapo camera or an expensive camera. One of the things I used to do with a couple of friends is to link them a photograph (usually a poor one), and ask them to guess how expensive the camera was that took it. They don’t play this game anymore since they always guess $2,000 and that’s often in the right ballpark.

        Kagari is definitely one of those figures I think might hit the bargain bin. I’ve got this feeling that Daiki Kougyou’s Saeki also will, since I see Bible Black figures get discounted all the time, but on the other hand, she’s got a realistically-sculpted anus, and that sort of thing counts a lot in my estimation. I could probably also cut Alter’s Asuka figure without feeling too sad; I’m not very fond of the test plugsuit design, and I think I’m really only getting it because it’s an Alter figure and because everyone else is.

        • Shashin says:

          Yeah, I could imagine it was problematic for you, but I only ever really responded to your comments or very occasionally answering a question someone else asked. So it wasn’t too much of a problem for me. ^^

          I have an entry level DSLR with packaged lenses, so it’s probably not the best camera to take pictures of anything with; but I’m sure that if I actually took the time to learn the intricacies of the camera, I could put out some decent level pictures, but probably not anything amazing.

          I’ll almost certainly drop Kagari, but probably keep the Bible Black figure; short of October releases that are sure to be pushed back, my November lineup is actually really sparse, currently only four figures and nothing else. While I’ll certainly add whatever magazines and characters goods that come out for reservation in the coming weeks, I don’t see myself adding too many more figures. I honestly think the school uniform looks terrible in the production shots, like you can almost see where you can pull off the castoff, but I guess that’s the point; they really don’t want you to display the figure with any clothes on, so I’ll be more than happy to oblige them. I’m not the biggest Evangelion fan, but I’ve always liked Asuka. There’s just so many figures coming for her soon, and unlike certain characters, I’d be more than happy with one or two. Still, based on my limited personal experience and reading this blog, I decided that I’d at least preorder all Alter figures (and then go from there on which I wanted to keep.)

  20. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    Are you certain you don’t want to know? I did take a look at them again and I’ve got my answer. Should one of them have unexpectedly sprouted a penis, wouldn’t you like to know which one it was?

    Yeah, that’s one of my requirements, and the other requirement is that they be big. I don’t want to hang a wall scroll that’s not much bigger than a sheet of paper. It looks like some of the ones that Hobby Search is stocking satisfy my requirements. On the other hand, October is already looking like a really expensive month for me, and I’m sure there’s going to be stuff that I want to impulse-buy, too, so I’m gonna have to evaluate my priorities.

    • Shashin says:

      I suppose you can supply me with the details, though it would have to be either a picture or based on physical description, because I know none of the characters names.

      Yeah, a piece of paper would make for a pretty weak tapestry. Most are a bit bigger than that, but still not wall spanning. Still, they’re a decent enough size, I guess. I feel you on October; I did a quick calculation on my Hobby Search user menu, and the total comes out to 71338 yen, so I definitely need to cut back on that a bit. Especially considering I don’t know if I have anything set to drop from Amiami (which makes it a pain in the ass to check outstanding orders.)

      • Tier says:

        It’s the girl with the short light brown hair. She is clearly a girl here, and is clearly augmented here. I dunno what the deal is. She’s fully female in all the other pictures so I’m guessing this is some peculiar one-off thing, but I haven’t played the game or anything so I dunno.

        Holy smokes, that is quite a bit. Then again, I’m looking at mine and I think my figure preorders come out to around 45k yen. And then I’ve got two pillowcases, though they’ve been paid for already. And then I’m thinking about getting some more doll stuff. And I’m also thinking about getting BRS animation version, though I’m reasonably confident she’ll get delayed, since GSC never gets anything out on schedule.

        • Shashin says:

          That’s fairly… interesting. Maybe it’s some dream sequence or something. EIther way, I’ve preordered the three tapestries, and the only one I’m thinking I’ll pick up for sure is of the green haired girl.

          Yeah, but you know I’m the preorder first, cancel later type of guy; whereas you seem to take the more moderate approach. I’ll almost certainly cancel a figure or two, and possible more, getting the total cost down to around $500-600.. probably, anyway.

  21. The Endless General says:

    And now for a post relevant to the topic of the review:
    Rape Grade Up? It really doesn’t get any more distinguished than that lol.

    • Shashin says:

      That’s seriously sounds like it came from an Illusion Soft game, or something. Rape is a terrible thing in real life, but I can’t help but laugh my ass off at a phrase like that (and have an extreme love for tentacle rape.)

      • The Endless General says:

        Yeah, real life rape is far from funny, but that title’s a riot. Makes me want some of the doujinshi mentioned above lol.

        I kinda figured I was the youngest person who posted here, I guess not lol.

        • Tier says:

          Yeah, I guess I should insert a disclaimer somewhere that real life rape is abominable and I wouldn’t have a problem with it being made a capital offense (if it isn’t already; despite being a citizen of the US, I have a really shaky understanding of this country’s laws). I am strictly a fan of animated rape, in which hopefully no people were harmed or traumatized, other than perhaps some of the people who watched it. Like this one scene in the first episode of Kuro Ai. It’s something I’d really rather forget I ever saw.

  22. Shashin says:

    That was certainly interesting. Strangely enough, it didn’t really bother me all that much. >_> I probably wouldn’t watch anything else of that specialty genre, but I do have to say, other than the worms, I was quite fond of the art style.

    I guess the only thing I’m not really fond of when it comes to my hentai are unnecessary bodily fluids. Anything with poo or blood is almost always put on my do not watch list. Which is a shame if you consider the latter, as it’s used so damn often.

    • Tier says:

      I guess it’s a personal phobia of mine. I’m terrified of worms and other slimy things for some reason. I’m alright with the foot-long Mothra larva toy, though, and that one scene in Black Widow. Most odd. Yeah, I liked the art too, it’s kinda spastic, but I think it’s better than the really slow-paced action you see in too many hentai flicks. I really like Taimanin Asagi too, I’ve been hoping that it’d get a US release but I guess the hentai anime industry is dead here so that’s probably not all that likely.

      • The Endless General says:

        I don’t really have a problem with blood, but the other fluids aren’t high up on my list of things to watch. The worms were unpleasant, but in an inverse to your situation things like that don’t bother me at all in real life. I did like the art style though.

        • Shashin says:

          I bought some hentai DVDs from Right Stuf (along with anime) a few months back, and Anal Sanctuary was on sale. So I picked it up because, hey, who doesn’t like some anal goodness every now and then? And there was a promise of tentacles. Then I actually read the description after I had already ordered it, and hoped that it wasn’t as graphic as described. Still, it wasn’t bad, but I definitely could have done without the droppings.

          • The Endless General says:

            The name Anal Sanctuary alone would have thrown me. Not the biggest fan of that. I think the last hentai dvd I bought was the first Bible Black a few years ago. Come to think of it I haven’t purchased any anime, hentai or otherwise, since I bought Rin.

          • Tier says:

            I had hoped that it’d be good because I liked the CGs from the source game (Requiem), but I read the review on AnimeonDVD and got scared off. I think I saw some caps from the show and the characters didn’t look as cute as they do in the CGs, too.

  23. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    This is a response to your comment that starts with “Yeah, I could imagine it was problematic for you” because deeply-nested comments are kinda hard to read here. It was kinda funny, since I took a picture of my new camera stuff (this stuff here) and I had to use my old Rebel XS to do it. I used that camera for over a year and I’ve probably shot thousands of pictures through it, but when I picked it up, I had no idea how to use it; it felt all funny to me and I didn’t remember where all the controls were, even though I’d used it for so long. It was still a great camera, though, and I don’t think there’d be a big dropoff in the quality (such as it is) of my pictures if I were to use it again. I kinda wonder if anyone noticed that I did get a new camera back in March.

    I’ve only got three figures scheduled for release in November, though I’m sure some of the October stuff will slide or I’ll change my mind on something and decide to pick it up after all. Like maybe Alter’s Fate Testarossa, which I’m not enormously digging right now but I’ve got the feeling I’ll regret it if I don’t preorder it. Then again, I’ve got the feeling I’ll regret it if I do preorder it. Yeah, Saeki’s uniform doesn’t look too great, which is a little bit of a shame because I really like the school uniforms in Bible Black, but not much of a problem because as much as I like them, I’d much prefer that the figure wear no uniform. The other funny thing I’ve noticed is that her hands seem kinda big. Like, really big. I wonder if it’s just me and my imagination.

    • The Endless General says:

      November’s my big month, whereas october’s fairly quiet. Unless I’m dumb and buy Darth Talon.

      • Shashin says:

        I have a D60, and haven’t figured out the best way to tweak all the settings yet. Currently if I take a picture without the flash, it usually results in a nasty yellowish tint, so whenever I’m taking pictures of dakimakura or whatever, I always use the flash, even if it’s not really necessary.

        As I’ve mentioned I intend to slowly start cutting back on figures dramatically, October is my last really big month. I have 8 figures preordered. Compared to 4 in September (though one of them is $250), 4 in November (might cancel Nodocchi), 4 in December, and 2 in January. Of course I might add one or two in the later months, but it’s nothing like this massive October release.

        • Tier says:

          It took me forever to figure out how to light stuff. I’m still learning, actually. Dakimakura are still a challenge for me, though, since they’re so big and I don’t like to shoot them with straight flash since it sometimes causes a big reflective spot to form if they’ve got a shiny sheen to them. I’ve got to go back and re-take my Taka Tony pillowcase photos one of these days.

          I think maybe I oughta do another preorder outlook post soon; I usually space them out every three months but it seems like a lot of good stuff is coming out pretty soon, and it also seems like many manufacturers aren’t inflicting delays as often as they have in the past.

      • Tier says:

        Buying Darth Talon would be a wise move. I think November’s pretty quiet for me too, and December would be too, except I’ve got Alphamax’s Mai Shiranui on order and she costs as much as two or three smaller figures.

        • The Endless General says:

          Oh I mean buying her would be dumb because there’s no way I can fit it into the budget. As I’ve mentioned before, however, I’m very foolish when it comes to money so I probably will anyways lol.

          • Tier says:

            Ah, yes, I guess it would be, if you can’t afford her. Hopefully you can, because she looks great, and I dunno how easy or difficult it is to get Sideshow products on the secondary market.

          • The Endless General says:

            Google fetches quite a few listings for her from various places. Oddly though, it doesn’t bring up Sideshow’s page as a result. I’m probably going to buy her; I’ll just have to forego other things I needlessly spend money on.

        • Shashin says:

          I’m still thinking about Mai. I think the figure looks amazing, but it’s an expensive figure and I don’t yet have a figure from Alphamax. I really wish I had paid more attention to pricing when I first started mass preordering figure, though. I really like the Tomoe figure, but it’s freaking expensive and like I said, I don’t have an Alphamax figure. And even then, I’d rather have the Mai figure than the Tomoe figure.

          • The Endless General says:

            I really wish 1/4 scale figures weren’t so expensive. I only have 4 figures preordered for november, but two are 1/4 scale so they jack the price up : (

          • Tier says:

            Yeah, it’s an expensive figure to evaluate a manufacturer. I’ve got my fingers crossed … I mean, I don’t hear anyone saying anything really bad about Alphamax like I do with Griffon and sometimes Orchid Seed, so they can’t be all that mediocre, can they? (Of course, it could just be that nobody else has an Alphamax figure, either.)

          • Shashin says:

            I was originally going to evaluate them with the sexy (and cheaper) Kanu that was supposed to drop last month, but it got pushed back to this month. I don’t know why it mattered though, because unless I begged Hobby Search to cancel the Tomoe, I probably would have been stuck with her anyway. My guess is that HS may have allowed it, as I’ve been a good customer to them, but you never know how strict some places are.

  24. Tier says:

    >> The Endless General
    Ah, okay, you’re probably good then. Plus I see on her box that they made 1,500 of her; mine is #562.

    Yeah, that’s what I do to buy stuff. Like food; who needs food? I need to lose a lot of weight, anyway.

    • The Endless General says:

      Yeah food is for the weak, just like sleep lol.

      • Shashin says:

        You know, I’ve always been a pretty heavy gamer, even playing WoW for a few years, and I was never lucky enough to be one that can go the full day without eating. That would have been one benefit to eating, instead I’m not a skinny nerd. 🙁

        Still, there are plenty of ways to eat cheap, even looking past the obvious. Bag of rice and cans of tuna can get you really far.

        • Tier says:

          I think I had a few raids where I was on the verge of passing out due to exhaustion and hunger pangs. And those raids only went a few hours long. Back when I played EverQuest, I remember some of my guildmates went to camp this mob named Drelzna in Najena for the Journeyman Boots. If I remember right, this was a fairly rare spawn and the boots were a rare drop, and to top it off, they were desired by almost every class because they increased your running speed (very important in a game where running was the main way to get anywhere and where mobs ran as fast as you and soloing monsters was nearly impossible without a speed advantage). So the tradition was that the current group camping this mob would maintain a waitlist of people who wanted the boots, and as people either got their boots or dropped out of the group due to exhaustion, they’d call up the people on the list. I think my guildmates camped for something like thirty or forty hours straight. It was pretty amazing, and what’s more amazing is that extended camps like this weren’t all that atypical in EQ.

          Rice and tuna was a staple lazy food for me back in school. Rice, tuna, some shoyu, and a little butter, man that was good. Damn, I think I might go make some right now.

          • The Endless General says:

            I wish I actually could go extended periods of time without eating. Unfortunately the gym prevents that from happening; I usually have to eat something every couple of hours.

            I’m glad I never got into WoW lol.

          • Shashin says:

            My other favorite is dressing up (good) instant ramen, into a spicy soup with cheese, peppers, egg, and meat. Then if I have any leftover broth, tossing in a ton of rice and heating it back up. Good stuff, and still really cheap. I’ve also enjoyed tossing in some cheese and tuna after the rice finishes in the rice cooker, and letting it all melt and get nice and hot, then adding hot sauce/soy. Good stuff.

            I was always a fairly lazy person when it came to exercise (which is really unfortunate), but things became even worse when I started playing WoW. On my off days, I’d get on, play all day, go to bed, and repeat and other days was pretty much get home from school, log in, go to bed, do homework in the morning. I’ve picked up my activity quite a bit since I’ve quit, but I still really need to start going to the gym or something to really get into shape instead of just not gaining any more weight.

          • Tier says:

            I don’t regret my time playing WoW, but man, it really kills your life when you get into it. I mean, I probably lost a year or two that I coulda spent doing something else. I’m really, really glad I got into figure photography, since if I hadn’t, I might still be raiding today.

  25. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    Yeah, they might accommodate you; I guess it never hurts to ask. Funny story; I wasn’t happy with my pay earlier this year, so I went up to my boss and asked for a raise and got it. I related this story to a co-worker, and she was like, “You asked for a raise?” I was like, “Uhh, yeah, is that weird?” Another, more relevant story: back when my check card got jacked, I had to pay for Revy and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to since I was waiting for my card. I got the invoice from Hobby Search asking me to pay within like three or four days; I asked them for an extension and they were happy to grant me one.

    It comes to my mind that VF has a review of Spica, and she looks pretty good. I’ve seen pictures of the prototype version of Mai on Moeyo, so I’m not hugely worried about how she’ll turn out.

    • Shashin says:

      If the figure weren’t set to drop this month, I’d definitely email them asking to cancel it. I should have attempted to do so when I first noticed the mistake. Still, the figure looks really good and while it’s probably a bit more than I’d pay for anything but a 1/4 or a character I really like, I’m thinking I won’t regret the purchase too much.

      Yeah, I almost bought that figure myself, but I didn’t want to give Alphamax a try with such an expensive figure.

      • Tier says:

        (I’m combining this response with the response to your earlier post as well.)

        I’d thought about getting it as well. I still kinda want Ibuki Ikaruga and Mikuru Nazume is pretty cute, though definitely not 15k yen cute. Maybe they’ll hit the bargain bin or something, I wouldn’t mind that one bit.

        My lazy college student dinner was often pasta and meat. Didn’t really matter what kind of meat; I threw in cut-up frozen chicken breasts, ground beef, meatballs (the supermarket near campus had these big huge bags of meatballs for a really cheap price). I’m kind of a miser when it comes to food; I enjoy cooking a lot, but I really don’t enjoy spending a lot of money on food. It’s one of the reasons I don’t eat out often.

        I am way too lazy when it comes to exercise. It’s probably not a good thing for me since the male side of my family has a history of heart disease. I went to the gym one summer while I was a student, and managed to make good progress, but then the semester started and I had no time to work out anymore. I wish I’d taken better advantage of my school’s gym facilities, because gym memberships seem to be crazy expensive and they’re kinda inconvenient for me to go to. I really miss lifting, though.

        My Warcraft regimen was pretty much the same, though I didn’t start playing until after I had graduated. I knew there was absolutely no way I wasn’t gonna flunk out again if I played Warcraft while in school. It was pretty funny, my friends would jabber all the time about Warcraft in our IRC channel and I’d be like, “OMFG not the WoWspeak again” and go do my homework.

        • Shashin says:

          I had the Ibuki Ikaruga preordered by canceled it in the end. One figure I was thinking about picking up was Mizugi Kanojo Mizuho, but I was ultimately turned off by the price and producer (Beat.)

          Yeah, I actually have a gym membership. Was going 2-3 times a week, then I got really sick for a few weeks, and never picked it up after that. Real shame, and I think my membership is still good for a few more months. I should start going again, but I’ve been busy and I just don’t think about it when I’m doing other things.

          • Tier says:

            It’s funny how difficult it is to stay healthy. It’s so much cheaper and convenient for me to eat junky fast food than healthy food, much of the time, and it’s hard to fit exercise into my schedule. There was this one time years back when I tried to go jogging after work, except the neighborhood didn’t have any street lights, so since I couldn’t see where I was going, I ran off the sidewalk and fell into a hedge and cut myself up.

  26. Shashin says:

    >>Tier
    I feel you there; I have a lot of good memories playing the game, and of course some retarded drama, but overall it was a very good experience. But overall, if I could have spent the 2-3 years I played focusing on school or a real hobby, then I might be in a better position than I am today. But as you said, I don’t regret the time I spent playing WoW too much (but I do regret it.)

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, every time I quit an MMO, I think about all the time I could’ve spent doing something. Like I bought a guitar right before I began playing EQ, and I never even tried to learn how to play the instrument. I’m sure I could have also become a better programmer and learned a foreign language in the time I’ve spent playing MMOs.

      But then I know that I’d just be kidding myself if I think that I would’ve used that time productively. If I weren’t playing MMOs, I’m sure I would’ve just wasted the time surfing the web or playing other video games.

  27. Steve Chen says:

    Bro, How many pages is NNR?

  28. Steve Chen says:

    Thanks Tier.

  29. motaku96 says:

    Wall of text comments as far as the eyes can see. Well I’m not gonna read it all so sorry if this has been addressed already.

    In Fermata, the girl that looks like Fate is most likely Alicia. The *SPOILERS* girl that Fate is a clone of. */SPOILERS*

    And kudos on buying a book by PLUM. I love their art. That spanking scene looks familiar. It’s probably the same one in this doujin. Since you say it’s a compilation, the others are probably floating about elsewhere.
    http://www.mediafire.com/?tgv2ty1zv2h

    • Tier says:

      A huge-ass wall. It’s a good thing I haven’t set comment threads to go a hundred deep.

      That might be her, though I’ve seen a translation of one of Mikazuki’s previous works on Danbooru and it sounded like it was a cosplaying girl (or rather, a girl who just strongly resembled Fate). I could swear a saw a recent doujin with someone who might’ve been Alicia, though … maybe it was even one of PLUM’s.

      I still want to buy a lot of PLUM’s books, since I like their art and themes. I think you’re right; it appears that the initials of the books appear on the cover, I’m guessing G.L.M.N.O.2.P.5 refer to Magical Seed Galaxy, Logic, Mother, No Due, Other, and hmm … not sure what the 2 and P might be, but I guess 5 could just be No. 5.

  30. The Endless General says:

    I think this post has the most comments on the site. Kinda funny considering it isn’t a figure review lol.

  31. VoidWest says:

    Dystopia seems to be the only Gin No Hoshitei doujin I cant find, damn. Is it just really new..

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, it’s fairly new, I think. Toranoana, White Canvas, or any other doujinshi shop will probably have it in stock and if you’re looking for it on the internet, I can’t help you there.

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