Dakimakura Review – Somei Yoshino from the Art of Carnelian (NSFW)

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review

Time for pillowcase show-and-tell. This one comes from Carnelian, although not from her own doujin circle. I own one of her earlier dakimakura covers and I was very pleased with it; this one is a bit different thematically but no less attractive for it.

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review

Carnelian is a very well-known artist whose professional work can be seen in Moonlight Lady, Yami to Boshi to Hon no Tabibito, and Schwarzesmarken. She’s also published a number of doujinshi and produced many dakimakura covers. This particular pillowcase, however, was distributed by Stylus, a group that produces and sells dakimakura covers from a variety of artists. It features some similarities to an earlier pillowcase depicting a character she named Haruka; however, this pillowcase has a different front image and of course, presents the character dressed in an abbreviated traditional Japanese outfit rather than Haruka’s disheveled school uniform. She also has a different name – of sorts, anyway, as apparently Somei Yoshino is the name for a breed of cherry tree.

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review

Like most doujin dakimakura covers, this one measures 160 centimeters by 50 centimeters and is made of sturdy but stretchy two-way tricot. The front side shows Somei Yoshino in a slightly concerned state, wearing just an open kimono (of sorts) and tabi socks.

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review

The image is explicit although not nearly as naughty as a number of other doujin dakimakura covers. There are a lot of artists and doujin circles who specialize in drawing exquisite anatomical detail but Carnelian isn’t among them.

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review

The reverse side shows Somei Yoshino looking happier. The organization of the pillowcase deviates somewhat from convention, in that the image shows the character from an angled side view, which isn’t nearly as common as a front-and-front or front-and-rear view (off the top of my head, I can’t think of a pillowcase with a rear-and-rear view). The image is less lewd than the other side, being that her legs conceal her genitalia, but I think I like this side a little bit better than the front. The unusual perspective gives a greater sense of depth to the image, which I think makes her body look more attractive. I also like the way her breasts are falling towards her sides; that lends them the appearance of having weight, which is sort of rare in this medium.

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review

I really like this pillowcase a lot; I’ve liked Carnelian’s artwork for a while and her style and skill are unmistakable here. I had thought about ordering her Haruka pillowcase when she showed it off around Comiket 81 time; I passed on it and later felt that that was a mistake. I’m grateful that she’s produced a pillowcase with a similar look.

I ordered a couple of other pillowcases from Stylus; I’ll be reviewing one in the near future but I’m not sure whether I’ll do a post on the other one. I’m going to have to read up a bit on the relevant U.S. laws before I make a decision on that.

Somei Yoshino Dakimakura Review
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48 Responses to Dakimakura Review – Somei Yoshino from the Art of Carnelian (NSFW)

  1. Phi says:

    The art on this pillowcase is really pretty. I wonder what those other pillowcases you have planned are?

    Anyway, have meaning to ask this for a while now. Is it weird that I can (sort of) predict when you make posts? :s Or do you have a certain post schedule that I am unaware of?

    • Tier says:

      One is by the guy who runs High Risk Revolution, and he has a long-running doujinshi series starring Tokimeki Memorial’s Shiori getting put into bondage situations. The other is by the artist who did the CGs for the eroge Musumaker.

      Nope, it is not; in fact, I was wondering if anybody noticed that I’ve stuck to a fairly regular posting schedule for something like two years now. I generally aim to roll out new posts every four to six days, and I try to get six posts done per month. Typically posting intervals are closer to six days at the beginning of the month, and then they start rolling out faster towards the end of the month when I start panicking because I need to hit my quota. I’m kinda proud that I’ve kept this site going for so long without going on hiatus even once.

  2. nagisa says:

    The daki illustration is great and that reverse side; no both sides look tasty. Again she’s cute and sexy at the same time.
    Moonlight lady? That’s an old h-anime featuring athrun zala (lols) when hypnotized he’s going for “seed” mode I think. The girls look great there even in today’s standards. So he’s the character designer for them, eh?

    • Tier says:

      Yep, she is! Carnelian is actually a woman; she’s been working in the industry for a really long time, relatively speaking.

      You know, I’ve never seen a single episode of any Gundam series, ever. That’s kinda strange given that mecha anime was what got me into anime when I was a kid (Robotech and Macross: Do you Remember Love, in my case. I also watched Tranzor Z when I was young but did not realize that it was Japanese in origin.)

      • nagisa says:

        so she’s a woman.I wonder how she could draw girls these pretty. Akira Ishida is a well known seiyuu even in the h-scene. He frequently voices male mc’s in hentai ovas (Princess Lover and Moonlight Lady, just to name a few). Moonlight Lady has a lot of tasty girls and h- scenes are very well executed in my opinion, despite of its age.
        My first taste in anime was actually from world masterpiece series, which aired in our country during our heyday 90’s. No I wonder if they have a daki of the main girl (I forgot the name, but she has a scale fig made, not so good though)

        • Tier says:

          She is! Maybe one of the best known in the hentai industry. Apparently she helped found Age Soft, or its predecessor company. Maybe they can get her to do some art for the second part of Total Eclipse, now that they fired off the former artist.

          The 90s was about when I got into anime; I’d known of it while I was younger but wasn’t really into it before my teenage years (except for Robotech, which I loved). It is probably no surprise that it was shows like Macross Plus that pulled me into the hobby.

  3. Aaron says:

    I like Carnelian’s art, but I am not really into this cover. I think that it has too much pink and white which makes it look kind of washed out. I do like the reverse side though with the side view, and the detail of the flowers in her hair, and her lower half on the front side (even without explicit detail).

    I will say that the side view is pretty neat to see for a change.

    • Tier says:

      It could also be my fault; getting the colors right is sorta tough for me when I take pictures of dakimakura covers. A lot of my older pictures have this warm color cast to them that I didn’t recognize at the time; I’ve been trying to improve my post-processing routine for dakimakura pictures as of late, but the results have been mixed. (I’m less concerned about color casts with my figure pictures because for those, I’m not too worried about reproducing accurate colors.)

  4. here-and-faraway says:

    As always, thanks for the review and pictures.

    “I’m going to have to read up a bit on the relevant U.S. laws before I make a decision on that.”

    Now I’m like Curious George trying to figure out why…

    • Tier says:

      The dakimakura cover in question features a rather young-looking character, and that’s always a really touchy subject. On the other hand, I think I’ve kinda gone past that line in the past already, anyway. Maybe I’ll go ahead and do that post.

  5. Wieselhead says:

    The girl and her traditional outfit reminds me a bit of Otome Youkai Zakuro.
    It’s very nice illustration with these warm and cozy colors, I also like the look of the character with her long brown hair and the big cute ribbon. The backside is refreshingly unusual.
    Mhh yeah the boobs are pointing to one side, but also a bit upwards, maybe you have to hang it upside down ^ v ^

    “I’m going to have to read up a bit on the relevant U.S. laws before I make a decision on that.” Ah hehe I see good luck then, import laws can be a pain.

    I also have a pillow case which I could review next, but it’s a more tame one ;D

    • Tier says:

      I must admit I have never heard of Otome Youkai Zakuro. I like how her boobs are kinda sagging up to her sides, it gives them the impression of fullness and weight. The pillowcase I’m thinking of reviewing doesn’t have quite so big boobs. In fact, you might’ve already seen it since I’ve already linked a picture of it before.

      • Wieselhead says:

        Otome Youkai Zakuro was just a small anime, but I liked it ^^
        It played during the westernization of Japan, with 4 Youkai half breed girls alongside 4 military lieutenants as main characters. They worked for the Ministry of Spirit Affairs, to create a better understanding between humans an Youkai and fighting evil monster. It was something like romance mix ed with action.

        The girls had a similiar outfit like the one on this dakimakura, ok they showed less skin overall..

        Ah yeah I remember, the one with chained loli? don’t get arrested Tier ;D

        • Tier says:

          Ah, okay; yeah, that must have completely missed my notice. As most anime does, I guess; I’m pretty far behind in watching Total Eclipse and I think I might be giving up on that So I Can’t Fuck Her! show.

          Yep, that one! Yeah, it’s a bit risque, I hope she looks old enough to plausibly pass for legal.

  6. azn0will says:

    I WANT HER! SO AWESOME!
    How can I get her? 😛 Better yet how can I get any of Carnelian’s works?
    I went to Carnelian’s site and well, let’s say my Japanese isn’t the best and I got lost in translation. XD
    Had to stress the awesomeness with Caps! Thanks for showing and telling Tier! 😀

    • Shashin says:

      Unfortunately, you just missed a fairly large resale of Carnelian’s work; she was selling about 10 of her past covers and it just closed maybe a month ago. Now your options are fairly limited.

      I’d recommend checking out Mandarake, as that’s where you’re likely to find the most reasonably priced items without having to use a proxy. YJA is likely to be the second best place to look, but the pricing can be really hit or miss and you will have to use a proxy.

      The Stylus shop has a Carnelian cover and tapestry in stock. You would need to use a proxy to purchase either of them, though:

      http://stylishstylus.cart.fc2.com/

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, as Shashin said, it was sold through the Stylus shop and that would’ve been your best bet, though I see that it’s marked sold out now. Barring that, Mandarake and YJA are your best bets.

      • Shashin says:

        The Stylus shop seems to be a bit weird in that regard. They have the typical pre-order windows that other sites have. And then at seemingly random intervals they’ll add a few more stock of a particular cover. They usually tweet about it beforehand which has allowed me to pick up a few in the past. My last big SMJ batch had two Stylus covers (and the awesome arm pillow); they were previously sold out and had been sold out for some time, but they sent out a message saying that they would be adding stock of so and so at a specific time. I ended up submitting my SMJ special order before they had even added the stock, but obviously everything turned out okay.

        You should definitely do a review of LoliBondage. I requested a SMJ shipment last Saturday, so hopefully I’ll be getting mine this weekend, but they were slow to process (shipment status was just updated to Done today) so Monday might be more likely. D:

        Speaking of, what are your thoughts on LoliBondage 2?

        • azn0will says:

          Why are nice things so hard to get? Q_Q

          Anyways how would I go about purchasing things through a proxy? What are the steps I need to take to get them my monies and for them to get me my goodies?

          • Shashin says:

            For a web order, I’d probably recommend YokattaWeb. They’re not the best at communication, but their web order rate is the cheapest and they’re easy enough to use. You basically just email them with a link to the item you want to buy, they quote you a price, you send the money, they order it, and then you pay for shipping whenever you’re done buying stuff (you can combine orders for a few months if you really wanted to.)

            For auctions, especially if you’re in the US, I’d recommend Shopping Mall Japan. Their rates are fairly comparable to other proxies, and they have some features that are really awesome if you’re in the US (they’re still apparently a pretty decent proxy even if you aren’t.) Here you sign up for an account, then send in a deposit (either cash or credit), and then once the deposit has been processed (takes 2-3 days) you’ll have a bidding limit. Their system is really nice: you basically find an auction you want to bid on, paste the link into their bidding system, and then put in what you want your max bid to be. In all but a few cases (adult auctions, mainly) your bid will be placed automatically and it will continue to bid up to the amount you put in as your maximum bid.

          • Tier says:

            Shashin speaks wise words. Hope you successfully get your stuff.

        • Tier says:

          I’m thinking I will do a review of Satsuki. I mean, there’s nothing really that sexual about her pillowcase, is there? It’s not like there’s anything going in her or coming out of her.

          The second pillowcase – Mizuho, I guess – looks great. I have this thing for bridal-themed bondage – which is why I like the Nozomi pillowcase so much and why I’m such a big fan of Saber Bride’s character design – so I like that pillowcase a great deal. I’m gonna have to clear up some funds for it.

          • Shashin says:

            I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Satsuki. I knew it was going to be a great case when I first saw the rough sketch and I had your image to go by, but neither really compare to having it laid before your eyes. It’s fairly tame by hentai standards, but it’s still likely enough to piss off someone or another. But what isn’t these days?

            On that note, I thought the extras Stylus included with Nozomi and Satsuki were really cool. I don’t think anyone (myself included) would ever use either bag out in public, but they were cool freebies nonetheless. The postcard prints are really cool, too.

  7. What a surprisingly tasteful cover. Despite having all of her junk hanging out ready for you to salivate over, she still looks innocent and…even a bit elegant! The only thing that bothers me is that on the front side (where she’s lying on her back) it kinda looks like her legs have seamlines. Look, at the part where her upper thighs connect to her body. I see what Carnelian was trying to go for. Just looks a little odd, is all.

    • I guess I should say ‘lying flat on her back, not the cover side where she’s looking sideways’ as I just now realized both sides feature her lying on her back. D’oh.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, I see what you’re saying; she probably extended the lines a bit too deeply.

      Maybe I should go ahead and do a post of that one pillowcase that I wasn’t sure I was going to do a post on; where this one is innocent and elegant, maybe even dignified, this other one is anything but.

  8. azn0will says:

    @Shashin
    I am in the US. However, if you wanted to use YJA, and don’t have an account, you would still have to use a proxy service correct?

    And thanks for your replies Shashin!

  9. Tier says:

    >> Shashin
    Yeah, I was quite impressed by how it looks. And feels – I got that one pillowcase of Chika from Sisters and the material is quite thin, much more like the feel of a cheap t-shirt than the thicker fabric of the Stylus (and most doujin) pillowcases. I kinda figure that part of the reason I started this website was to showcase porn, though, and I’ve kinda gotten away from doing that this year. It feels like I should get back to it.

    • Shashin says:

      Doujin cases are usually the best when it comes to material. Though Stylus uses A&J, which a lot of companies also use for their covers. It seems to be the material most people prefer/call their favorite. It’s definitely good, but I think I prefer Seiren’s Pearl Roika and P80’s 2WR over it. I agree, every site can use more porn, but yours especially.

      I’ve been particularly lazy as of late, myself. I have this big box of goodies sitting next to my bed and I’ve hardly bothered to take pictures of any of it. Considering I wouldn’t call myself a photographer and never mess with the settings, that’s pretty bad. >_>

      • Tier says:

        Yeah, I need more porn. Maybe I’ll review that Kaori Saeki figure next, she’s pretty porny and I find myself liking that figure a lot more now that I have Imari.

        I’ve got some other stuff I’ve been meaning to take pictures of but I’ve also been very lazy, particularly since football season has started. I was also fairly sick last week, which wasn’t a lot of fun; it’s a bit disconcerting when you lose six pounds of weight in a span of twelve hours.

  10. anonymous says:

    What are the differences between a bootleg and official daki? I know there’s usual low quality, cropping, ect, but are there any other giveaways, like 2way tricot vs peach skin? I’ve been trying to find certain dakimakura for ages, but either the dimensions are off, or the price is suspiciously low.

    And what daki sites do you reccommend? I’ve been looking at Evening Call, Mandarake, and Bon Cool, but are others like BW Store and Coszone trustworthy?

    • Aaron says:

      Bootlegs can come in various materials (2-Way Tricot, Peach Skin, Satin, etc). I have normally seen bootlegs in Peach Skin, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be in something else and some official dakimakuras use the satin/peach skin type.

      Most official dakimakura are 160cm x 50 cm. Most bootlegs are 150cm x 50 cm. I have seen smaller official dakimakura and longer bootlegs.

      You can usually tell by price if it is a bootleg or not. Post which one you are looking for and maybe somebody knows where to get an official. I assume you look at Yahoon Japan Auctions.

    • Shashin says:

      It depends entirely where you’re searching. There are some giveaways, but you would look for different things if you’re searching on Yahoo Japanese Auctions versus buying from a specific website. Image quality is usually the main difference between a bootleg and a legit cover; oftentimes bootleggers will have to use whatever sample image is available to create their product, and they may have to fill in some of the details themselves. However, this doesn’t really help you when buying since you usually don’t get to see a full shot of the actual item you’ll be receiving.

      I’d be more than happy to look for a specific cover if you’d like. If you don’t want to post it here, just shoot me a PM on Fakku/MFC/Reddit (Shashin for Fakku/MFC, DakimakuraGuy for Reddit.)

      Unfortunately, it’s really hard to be more specific in what to look for without knowing where you’re looking. Generally speaking though, peach skin is always a bootleg, really low prices are usually a bad sign (though you can find a deal every now and then), and any website that is selling a large selection of covers from multiple circles probably isn’t legit. But these are just generalizations and can apply to legit covers in some cases (for example, the circle Big Love does print in both peach skin and 2WT.) Aaron is right that bootleggers do use 2WT these days, though that’s usually an added option on a website. If the website you’re looking at offers multiple material choices, that may be a red flag.

      Your second question is a bit hard to answer, as well. There’s are two ways to buying a dakimakura cover: either during the preorder phase/directly from the circle or through a second hand source after the production run has ended.

      For example, Evening Call, Bon Cool, and BW Store are all circles (I think BWStore is actually a collection of circles under one manufacturer – and yes, they are legit) that you would preorder from. This is where you’ll get the cheapest price, generally. Most dakimakura covers are sold directly by the circle at some point (short of event exclusives) either directly through their website or through a consignment shop like Toranoana or D-Stage. Unfortunately, the vast majority don’t deal with international customers, which is where you’d need to use a proxy. There’s maybe a handful of circles that are friendly to international customers, and off the top of my head, that list is: Dakemakura, Evening Call, Bon Cool, and BWStore. W-Canvas is the only consignment store I know of that is wililng to ship internationally. However, there may be others I’m missing.

      Once the preorder for a particular cover has closed, it generally isn’t available anymore. That’s where the second hand purchases come in. Honestly, I’d say the most of these take place either through Mandarake or Yahoo Japanese Auction, but that’s not to say that there aren’t other places (like Rakuten or K-books.)

      I’ve never heard of Coszone, so I couldn’t tell you. I’d be happy to give you an opinion if you linked me to their site or whatever, but unless they’re a circle that I somehow haven’t heard of, my first inclination is to be wary of them.

    • Tier says:

      I think Aaron and Shashin covered most of the bases. I do not own any bootleg pillowcases so I have no idea whether the quality differences are substantive or not, but the people I know who do seem to be satisfied by them.

      I generally buy from the sites you mentioned; I’ve also ordered pillowcases from White Canvas and Doujindou (though I once had a curious problem with the latter that gave me apoplexy for a while). I’m not sure if Rakuten stocks pillowcases either, but that might also be worth a look, since from what I remember, they are quite eager to embrace the international market.

      • Shashin says:

        I own one bootleg (that I know for certain – it’s definitely possible I own others) that I acquired through rather unfortunate circumstances. It was back when I was still fairly new to YJA and didn’t know what all to look for, so I ended up paying 11k for a bootleg dakimakura cover. A fairly shitty one, too; it was a bootleg of Sayori’s Miku and I guess due to the terrible sample images available at time, or whatever, they had to greatly alter the breasts. They didn’t do a very good job, to say the least.

        Bootlegs can definitely vary a lot in quality, but generally speaking all the people I’ve talked to that own both legit and bootleg covers say legit covers are worth the added cost. I’m definitely of that opinion with my one bad experience; even if I didn’t have a silly moral block that’s keeping me from buying bootlegs, one bad experience was enough to risk spending $70+ on a bootleg. The other factor when considering whether someone likes bootlegs is material. I really don’t care for the peach skin material myself, but other seems to like it. Since you don’t have any bootlegs, the closet material I can call to mind is the material your Tony cover is made out of; a very slick, very shiny material that doesn’t have any stretch to it.

        I mentioned Rakuten mainly because their auction site seems to be compared to YJA every now and then. I’ve seen a few dakimakura covers over there, but never what I was looking for. Still seemed like it was worth the mention, especially given the point you brought up about them wanting to appeal to a global market.

        Going off the topic (of bootlegs), I have to ask: Are you as excited about the BWStore Retia cover as I am?

        • Tier says:

          Interesting; I would have expected that there would not be a huge – or even discernible – quality difference between bootleg and authentic pillowcases since textiles are not particularly complex to manufacture. There were quite a few bootleg clothing stores in Korea near where I grew up that sold lots of fake designer-brand clothing that was very difficult to tell from legitimate garments.

          I missed your message about the Retia cover and actually had to go Googling to find it. Oh my; it is looking awesome indeed. Rather propitious as well because I’m playing through Daiteikoku again (it seems a lot easier than it was my first playthrough). Looking through the BWStore again, man they have some cool stuff there. I notice they sold one of the Kyonetsu Zanbun covers a while back, too; that is interesting.

          • Shashin says:

            Yeah, as far as actual print quality and material quality it is really surprising just how much it can differ. My bootleg Miku now has a distinctly yellow tinge to it. The primary reason I wouldn’t buy a bootleg, other than whatever moral reservations I may have, is because you new know what you’re going to go in terms of how it compares to the original image. The most obvious example I like using is for the 紫源亭 Saber I have.

            http://www.figure.fm/post/en/5710/Saber+Lily+Dakimakura+November-December+Loots.html

            http://sadpanda.us/images/937307-7522EDV.jpg

            Yeah, I’m absolutely going to pick it up. I can certainly understand what you mean; Alicesoft is great at making games, but once you learn the system to a particular game it becomes a lot easier. I experienced the same thing on my few Daiteikoku playthroughs, as well as with Sengoku Rance and Big Bang Age. I’m still quite proud of my 5 star clear of Sengoku Rance. And I know I must plug it every few months, but if you haven’t played Big Bang Age (Daibanchou) yet, I’d really recommend it. It’s fully translated, fairly similar to Daiteikoku in gameplay, and has some cool unique elements to it.

            I know I mentioned the Kyounetu connection before Reimu went up for sale. Since they had sold their previous cover there, I was wondering if they would also consign Reimu to BWStore. Unfortunately the Kyounetsu sale was Taiwan only, but BWStore has always been really good about dealing with foreign customers so I wondered if they would have been willing to ship internationally. Of course the point is moot since it doesn’t look like they picked up Reimu.

  11. Tier says:

    Ahhhhh, a figure.fm link … let’s just say that’s not a website I like to spend much time on. Yeah, I’d rather not buy bootleg pillowcases either, but I’m not going to get all high-and-mighty about anybody who does so; it’s not my place to judge and the internet is full of too many people who think nothing of judging other people. The world would be a better place with fewer such people.

    I took a look at that Retia pillowcase again; I thought it interesting that the artist is, as far as I can tell, living in the United States right now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an artist residing in the US ever get published by a Japanese or Chinese circle.

    Yeah, I should give Big Bang Age a try; it’s tough to find time, though. Daiteikoku takes me the better part of a week to play through, and I’ve got Tekken Tag 2 and Persona 4 Arena here not even opened, and I just bought Torchlight 2 (and Torchlight 1, because I’m a moron who doesn’t notice the lack of a “2” in the title of the game. Incidentally, this is yet one more reason I prefer being retail boxed games; I’m not going to make a dumb mistake like that if the game has a physical box.)

    Ah, you probably have and I have probably forgotten, since I’m getting old and forgetful. Yeah, it doesn’t look like they are carrying Reimu. I need to decide if I’m going to buy that pillowcase; there is a lot of stuff competing for a limited amount of dollars this month.

    • Shashin says:

      Fair enough, I’m actually not much of a fan myself anymore. Not that I ever was, but there have been some recent changes/problems that have caused me to like the site even less. Just happened to link that Saber since I believe I came across it in a Google image search at some point or another; I saved the link for whenever I wanted to demonstrate a possibly difference between a legit cover and a bootleg. It is fairly funny that the post was done by Wolfheinrich as I know he’s a frequent poster here.

      Yeah, I don’t hold it against an individual is they decide to buy a bootleg; I know that dakimakura covers are expensive and regardless of the level of quality, $70 is a lot cheaper than $150+. With that said, I still do everything I can to educate people on the subject, and then they can make their own choice from there. It’s a sad reality that it’s easier to find and order from a bootleg website than it is to order from a circle, most of the time anyway. I’ve spoken with many people in the past who have mentioned bootleg sites, without knowing that the sites in question were bootleggers. Dakimakura covers aren’t a very mainstream item as of yet in the anime world, so it’s understandable (if very unfortunate) that most people are unaware of the inner workings of the hobby or the commonness of bootlegs.

      I will say that while I won’t hold it against the individual if they decide to buy a bootleg, I really don’t like bootleggers. I think that as a community, bootlegs should be looked upon just as unfavorably as bootleg figures (generally) are. For instance, MFC’s policies disallow any discussion on bootlegs; I’ve seen blog posts mentioning E2046 removed. As such, I definitely believe the same policies should apply to dakimakura bootleggers, like Hobby Heart.

      Hmm, that is pretty interesting. Well, it does look like the artist is Taiwanese and is just studying in the US for the time being. So I guess he was probably already with the circle when he was commissioned to do this cover (or however their system is set up.) I haven’t purchased a BWStore cover in some time, so I’m really looking forward to Retia (and the new sample image they just released.) They’ve always done good work and their packaging/presentation are definitely top-notch.

      I understand the time thing. I’m a lazy college student who spends far too much time refreshing webpages and even I can’t set aside the time to play a tremendous backlog of games. I imagine it only gets worse as responsibilities increase. I prefer retail boxes myself, though I think they’ve been deteriorating in quality over the years. Though I doubt many people ever bother reading them, I do like when there’s a lot of thought and effort put into a game manual. Some recent ones are only a few pages thick with nothing but the basic controller layout and some trouble shooting tips.

      It’s a good case that I’m happy with, but depending on what it was competing against for the month, I could see it going on the back-burner. Limited funds for too many items always seems to be the case, unfortunately.

      • Tier says:

        Ha! I think those changes you refer to have been there for a while; I’ve heard of more than a few people getting banned on moderator whim. My ambivalence regarding the site is less due to policy and more due to content, though. Let’s just say that there are certain sycophantic elements that I am not too interested in seeing … ahh, Christ, I’m getting judgmental, aren’t I? I’ll leave it at that. Yeah, Wolfheinrich’s a good guy. Off the top of my head, I don’t think I’ve heard of him posting on that site much anymore, though that could just be because “figure.fm” was the first string I entered into Tweetdeck’s global filter.

        It’d be hypocritical for me to express disdain for bootleggers seeing as how I own more than a few E2046 figures myself. I’ll just say that I would rather not participate in the process myself and I wish that I had been more forceful in rejecting such a request in the past.

        Yeah, the guy’s Pixiv profile says he is Taiwanese. It is interesting that most of his commentary is in English, though. Not that I know how closely-related written Chinese is to Japanese.

        I think I might actually have more game time now than I did when I was in school. As much as I miss college, I really do not miss all-nighters and panicking whenever I had a project deadline coming up. One really nice thing about working (well, working at my job, anyway) is that once I get home, I’m not thinking about my job anymore. And of course, another nice thing is getting paid. As much as I talk about budgeting, if I really wanted to quit my job and take a year off to go fly around the world, I could do it, and I can’t deny that as I get older, there’s a certain strong appeal to doing so.

        • Shashin says:

          Ah, I guess it wasn’t really a policy change so much as the policies finally coming to light and now being enforced much more strictly. I’m honestly not very familiar with the site; the only posts I ever look at are those that are dakimakura related or are linked by a fellow collector. Most of the other posts on the site don’t really interest me. I will say that they provide a fairly easy system for posting content, but it doesn’t do me any good if the content I want to post isn’t allowed. D:

          True enough. I think my opinion has evolved on the issue, personally. A few years ago, when I first got into the hobby, I decided mostly that bootlegs weren’t for me. I did buy two E2046 figures but have since gotten rid of them and don’t intend on buying anymore. At this point, I don’t want anything to do with bootlegs myself. I understand that people will buy bootlegs, but I’d still like more information to be available. The comment down below (which has me absolutely dumbfounded) is the type of thing I’d like to prevent from occurring.

          • Tier says:

            It used to be a pretty good site; I liked it a lot during its first incarnation, when it was sort of a 4chan-style board (without the 4chan-style immaturity). I stopped paying attention to it when collecting Dollfies became fashionable.

            Ha! Well, I said I wasn’t going to judge so I will say no more on this topic; I think my stance is reasonably clear, if somewhat conveniently nuanced.

  12. darkr22 says:

    Hi Tier, i have a question for you about the bootlegged dakimakura’s you purchase. Well i buy custom dakimakura too which you could also call bootlegged ( only because i cant find those characters originally selling from japan because they are males ) and im just wondering when you buy these do you notice any weired dark blue fibres stuck inside them? I bought a few dakimakura’s, my recent one i received today -__- and i couldve sword that blue fiber stuck wasn’t on there but was? on my other dakimakura’s they come up already there or just appearing and this is when i don’t wash them. Do you ever have that same problem because just looking at them is so nervracking xD

    • willowywicca says:

      His aren’t bootlegs so he won’t be able to answer. I have a few bootlegs for experimentation purposes and none have the property you have described. It sounds like something specific to the manufacturer you have chosen.

    • Tier says:

      I have never purchased any bootleg dakimakura covers so I have no idea what is causing your issue.

  13. darkr22 says:

    Ohhh, ive misread your blog then sorry about that :/ i thought you mightve knew what i was on about though, mine are bootlegged but they dont look that different from originals. Thats like the only problem ive had with them so far, but the color doesnt ware off even with hot water soaked so xD now i feel like a cheapskate cuase i couldn’t afford ones from Japan and usually the ones i want are only from comeket and they don’t even last long in sales because its only limited and many people purchase allot on those kind of events.

    • Tier says:

      Yeah, legit dakimakura covers are expensive, particularly for what are basically oversized textiles. I truly have no idea what is causing your issue, though, having never encountered anything like that myself. If they’re on the inside of the pillowcase and not visible on the outside, though, I would guess that that’s not too worrisome.

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