This post contains minor spoilers from the Zettai Karen Children manga, volume 14. Nothing very shocking here, so do read on for the love of the God of the New World, Shiho-chan (:3)

With the anime nearing its end, I’ve finally mustered enough love for this series to pick up the 15-volume (and ongoing) manga. This is a filler arc which spans three parts, compiled in volume 14, and involves the Children picking up a notebook which has the power to grant wishes.

Of course, the resultant effect is a highly amusing tribute to Death Note.

Note Sakaki-sensei’s posture (laughs)

The little references aren’t the rest of it.

Shiho promptly starts trying to kill. Sakaki saves the day with an eraser.

“Minamoto-san opens the door and enters the living room right now”

Having tested and realizing that the destiny changing powers of the notebook may very well be true, the Children descends into greater evil.

*Cue more Death Note references

Shiho: Shut up, I will be the one to become the God of the New World!

Just As Planned.

After the success of its anime adaptation, getting a PS2 port and a live-action movie, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni will now get a Mahjong game.

Titled Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Suzume (ひぐらしの哭く頃に 雀), there appears to be nothing striking about it until you see the promotional picture

GAR RENA EATS J00

Its slated for an arcade release this coming summer. I don’t understand the workings of mahjong one bit so I probably wont play it at all. Not that I would have the chance to, this is another one of those games that probably won’t make it beyond the shores of Japan.

Some in-game screencaps from Famitsu.

Because this is Higurashi, I’m guessing what will set this apart from the zillions of bishoujo-themed mahjong games out there will be that everyone else can read your hand by looking at miniscule scratches and scuffs on the tiles you hold. Or whatever other tricks Satoko can come up with.

In other 07th news, the Umineko anime page has been updated with character sketches, and I’m liking the way its turning out. Two trailers for the anime have been put up at Animate.tv here.

Our second anniversary! Its here!

And it had to fall on one of the busier days of the Lunar New Year. Meh.

We’ll be celebrating this occasion, all right, and in the form of more randomness, like how this blog usually is (Though we look like a Perfume blog now, and I don’t deny it. WE ARE A PERFUME BLOG! *bonked 8D*). Ah, and as I’ve tried to say (but failed because of my ever digressing writing), we’ll be celebrating on a later date, on a day which wont be punctuated by endless visits to relatives who try to enquire about every single nook of your lifestyle like psuedo-paparazzi.

I hate reunion dinners.

In any case, this marks TWO years since the day our conquest (Of? Of nothing at all, or probably, probably the internets! Or not…?) began, January 27th. May this day be engraved in our hearts as a solemn acknowledgement of the vile effects sugar has on our sanity, and also in celebration of bad humour, boke and tsukkomi.

Na-nandeyanen-! Hooooooo-

..Ha, this post has veered horrible off-course. Happy anniversary, you bonklers!

The previous two nights were spent watching late night Christmas SPs on TV till early in the morning (Capsule and Perfume were on the same programme, which made me very happy :3), hence I shall lump the updates meant to be posted over Christmas into this one post.

On to Day 4!

I’m loving the bentos here. They still taste good cold, and this particular one was pretty cheap (Less than 500yen).

After breakfast, we took the Tsukuba Express to the second land of financial abyss: Akihabara.

It was still rather quiet when we got there in the morning

Fate/Unlimited Codes!

Rows of shops with cheap electrical parts. We didn’t have time to look at what they were selling in detail though.

More F/UC promotional banners. Saber Lily is hot.

IM@S PSP out soon. The promotion setup was way too cute

Chaos;Head promo on lift. This is also the first shop we went into, and would stay for 3 hours that day, as there were apparently wonderful MTG cards going for cheap, and Zel and Jinya stayed there to go through every single card they had.

After we were done looking through and picking out cards, we went down the street to Kotobukiya. Wasn’t really eventful, however a little while later, as we entered Sega Station, I found the UFO catcher machine with Nico Nico’s TV-mascot.

Too. Damn. Cute. There went 500yen (6 tries), and without any profit :< I'm terrible at catchers, I guess.

More drab buildings with beautiful ad-banners.

We didn’t go into the hueg Taito Game Centre D: But there are plans for a second trip, so we’ll go to arcade heaven then.

We did, however, go into several second hand figure shops (Yellow Submarine and Liberty), make a round up five stories of AsoBit City, and spend a large part of the afternoon in K-Books.

Za-ha-ha Loot picture; Now, this is one hell of a loot picture.

DMC shirt from Asobit city, W-S F/SN deck/ LB booster box for Mista (also at NKDS), LB card sleeves (Kud and Komari/Rin :3), Famicom catridges (Takeshi no Chousenjou, Xevious -zomg its a gold cartridge- and a non-pirated copy of Mappy), Dengeki Bunko (which comes with a large poster of Noiji-drawn Shana <3), Miku doujins, STEM OF RADIANT, a Kyonko doujin, A WHOLE LOT OF FATE 83 and Sachiel, a Nanoha/Evangelion parody of sorts, both parts.

-

On Day 5, we returned to Ikebukuro to see the Mizuki Nana Live Fighter Costume Exhibition at Animate and to pick up things we had wanted to buy the previous round. We went early to have breakfast there too.

After a quick breakfast of bento and bread (And epic pigeon feeding), we went to Toys R’ Us at Sunshine City.

1. Toys R Us (JP) sells Idolm@ster figures.

2. Toys R Us (JP) carries gunpla madness.

And Busou Shinki!

We also saw the alternate poster for the GOTH movie seen on Day 2

Having done our shopping, we returned to the hostel to put down the stuff as it would be quite impossible to lug all that loot around Shibuya.

And this is Shibuya.

The 109 :o

Jinya doing his World Ends With You thing.

Super Special♪ (Also, chaotic three way crossing.)

Japan doesn’t leik the tagline, ‘His Master’s Voice’.

Graffiti covered every empty wall in the quieter areas of Shibuya.

A long row of vending machines, possibly a phenomenom unique to Japan.

We passed by a strange event which drew several schoolgirls (They were queueing up like it was Comiket), and stopped to see what was happening

We observed for a good ten minutes but still failed to see what was going on. A quick google for Mae Age Live revealed a compeition-like elimination system, they were probably amateur artistes?

Our main destination was Book-off, a large (3 storeys) second hand shop dealing with CDs, games, books and manga.

I could live in this place. 500 yen PS2 games and CDs on the first floor, heavily marked down concert/live DVDs (I found stuff that used to go for 4000 yen for 1000 yen), games for all manner of consoles going for cheap, depending on condition.

The second storey had mostly books. Here lay cheap artbooks (!) and light novels, and guidebooks for nearly everything.

The third floor was m4d sp3nding heaven, once again. Book-off had two long rows of shelves of manga going for 105yen (!!!) and the rest of the manga there were also, nonetheless, cheap. There were also very recent releases going for half their original price.

Our last stop was a random arcade which had an entire floor dedicated to music games, and we stayed there from 8.30pm till 10.30pm or so.

Needless to say, I didn’t leave empty handed. Here is Day 5’s epic loot picture.

From top left: A whole lot of cheap manga from Book-off, cheap DVDs also from Book-off, cheap secondhand DMC manga vol. 1-6 (at about 300yen per volume), cheap TRC Manga hardcovers (also at around 300 yen per volume, thanks to Lashinbang’s awesome bargain rack), xxxHOLiC 1-11 (for cheaaaap), a music magazine for HMV I bought for obvious reasons, assorted doujinshi (mostly female-oriented) from Mandarake at Ikebukuro, which was filled with fangirls when we were there, making Zel and Jinya look quite out of place, which was amusing), Oofuri DVDs my collection was missing, from K-Books, a second-hand copy of King Gong, once again cheaper, and a special mini file and telephone card set I got as a free gift from Lashingbang.

And last but not least…

Live Fighter, side red, shown here with the animate tokuten booklet and poster <3

That concludes the post. We’ll be off to see the Tokyo Tower today, see you later :D

Legs! Dying!

I’ll probably make this post as quick as possible. Need to rest in order to prepare for tomorrow, too.

Starting from the very beginning again, we had breakfast at another random eatery. I ordered a rather large set consisting of a bowl of udon and another bowl of rice topped with grated yam.

And this is the vending machine that dispenses coupons you use for ordering food. Its still pretty novel to me.

After breakfast, we took a short walk over to the Sensou-ji…

The icon of Asakusa!

The stuff of Reimu’s dreams.

And omiyage sauce Nakamise

Most of the shops either sell trinkets or snacks. In short, its one hell of a tourist hotspot.

The automation is amazing!

Senbei’s relatives.

It was nearly 10am when we were done so we decided to move on to the main destination for the day: Washinomiya, at Saitama.

Seen on the way to the station, C.C.

And lovely strawberries with not-so-lovely prices.

Washinomiya’s a pretty quiet and laid back area, but its been made into another tourist spot because of KyoAni and their evil marketing techniques. Yes, Washinomiya is home to the shrine of the Hiiragi sisters, of Lucky Star (And Saimoe) fame.

Upon reaching the station, a short scan for area maps revealed this:

It’s probably something of a main attraction, now.

While going down the road towards the shrine, I spotted this…

Awe. This is really a town that embraced Lucky☆Star for all of its marketability. Theres even a banner acknowledging its presence in the area.

More signs of this being not actually just-another-small-town-on-the-outskirts but a Lucky Star amusement park.

The shops along the way all had Lucky Star related posters up. There was only one thing to do.

In action.

What, Lucky Senbei?

And Lucky Liquor, on top of that.

We entered the shop promptly, and saw this tower of Lucky Sen-chans-

I bought a box for Sen-chan. It’s his share of omiyage. I got a Lucky Scratch-card from a Lucky Box for purchasing the Lucky Senbei.

Didn’t get anything after all. All that luck probably canceled each other out.

Upon reaching the carpark in front of the famous shrine, we chanced upon a small itasha gathering

Hachune Miku!

Someone really likes his seiyuu

From the same car-

Moving on to the shrine. First thing to catch our attention-

Ooh my…

Hanyuu, this is the wrong shrine.

I lol’ed (Ore Watashi ga Gundam da - Seiei Setsuna

Advertising!

Person who puts up something everytime he comes, and numbers them accordingly.

Apparently number 58 is today’s addition, as DM’s report from yesterday states 57 as the latest number. Does this guy visit everyday or something?

We went around the shrine and did the usual things people do when visiting a shrine.

It was a normal shrine.

This was at the exit. Happy belated birthday, Yutaka-chan!

And this is probably not on purpose, but–

It was lunch-time and there was this shop joining in the fan-milking by selling the bentos of legend – the ones featured in the anime, the bentos of the Hiiragi sisters.

Tsukasa makes her bentos elaborate.. (1000 yen each)

While Kagamin keeps hers simple due to lack of skill… (500 yen each)

I went for Kagamin because I am cheapskate because I like salmon better than meat patties.

A regular clothes shop, selling cosplay uniforms.

We got a little lost here, but we passed a Daiso outlet the size of a supermarket, and had totally awesome things going for 100yen and slightly more. Such a wonderful place.

We went in and didn’t come out for the next hour.

Resuming the journey back to the train station, and we got even more lost than we were previously.

Some sights from the long walk (direct cause of sore feet)

An abandoned scrapyard

We finally resolved to ask someone for directions, and found ourselves at the station at long last.

Sitting down at the stairs to the station, we took a few moments to replenish our HP and also to eat the lunch we had bought.

Would you prefer Tsukasa’s…

Or Kagamin’s..?

Even the chopsticks were wrapped in Lucky Star art.

Despite it being simple, Kagamin’s bento looked damn good.

And it tasted damn good too.

And while its a pretty odd selection of purchases today, here’s the usual loot pic.

Yes I bought a doorplate that says Nakamura from Daiso 8D

Geh, I’ll be off to rest now. Will be back, again, tomorrow! :>

We’ll start from the beginning. Woke up at 5am today and went to the nearby vending machine to get coffee. When Zelfi and Jinya woke up, we headed to Asakusa for breakfast.

The shop was slightly larger than the udon place we went to for dinner the previous night, and operated based on a vending machine, the ones which dispenses coupons with the name of the dish.

It would seem like an unlikely combination, but natto tastes wonderful with soba.

After breakfast, we headed to the train station. Took the Tsukuba Express to Akihabara, but this is not where we planned to spend the day doing m4d sp3nding. It was to transfer to the JR line, to Ikebukuro.

Early morning rush

Reached Ikebukuro a little too early at 10am, and had to kill time till 11am (when all the shops open). We walked around and looked at stuff.

Toranoana store front.

Ito-En produced FF Dissidia drinks, spotted when buying tea from the supermarket.

Upon noticing cinemas, we looked for theaters screening Kara no Kyoukai. We found one but did not proceed to check the ticketing status; however we also chanced upon a very interesting poster…

GOTH has a movie. For the uninitiated, GOTH is a novel by Otsu-Ichi which offers an interesting perspective about murder. There is a single-volume manga for it, but I would recommend the novel over that because of its strong descriptive prose and well-paced plot progression.

I hope we get to catch this, along with Kara no Kyoukai 6 on our next Ikebukuro trip.

As it was still early, this HMV outlet wasn’t open. We didn’t have the chance to go in even after opening time because this took up most of our afternoon…

Otome Road.

We stood outside Animate a little before 11am, and went in when they finally opened.

No pictures here, but we went through all the floors and left satisfied. We went on to explore Lashinbang and K-Books, all of which yielded great returns.

At 1:30pm, we had finished going through what the Road had to offer, and went for lunch. It was another shop with a ticket dispenser, and I had udon again. Cold weather makes one want to eat warm, soup-based foods, I suppose.

The okra was in a perfect star shape, and the noodles were pleasantly chewy. This meal was delicious, too.

Met up with Zelfi’s friend from NUS, and went for a short karaoke session. The thought of being able to sing newer songs made me really excited, because here in Singapore the karaoke machines were last updated July 2008.

I started the session with Perfume’s Love The World, which I always wanted to sing in karaoke but never had the chance to.

And so the song played. Wait, this is—

Oh god, this beats karaoke in puny Singapore by a mile. This machine, this BBcyberDAM, despite being the same model as the one in Cash Studios (local karaoke box), used the original PV as the background video. It made my day.

I tried again with Dream Fighter, and it had the official PV too. Anime songs also had background videos from their corresponding anime. Sobakasu has Kenshin, F.D.D had random scenes from Chaos;Head itself, and later tries of Sousei no Aquarion and Zankoku no Tenshi no Theses had original anime videos. W. I. N.

When the two hours were up, we headed out of the building and into the rain. The weather got progressively chilly that night.

Our last stop was Toranoana. Again, I was not free from purchases 8D

The loot? The loot, I say! Today’s loot is nosebleed worthy, fangirl-worthy! I present to you, The Loot!

From top left: Uroboros’s infamous Nagato Yuki doujin, Kantoku’s Nanoha doujin, whitepaper (shiro)’s Higurashi doujin, a random SZS doujin, Toho Nifun’s epic (EPIC!) Koumakyou Part 1 and 2, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Kyou, Gachikoi, which has ojousama Patchouli and faek old-shoujo style jokes, this BL doujin with Iiiiiiitsuki and Kyon doing unthinkable things, Kindergarten Geass which has C.C. bullying Suzaku and Lelouch being a crybaby, hot Feito-mama, a Miku doujin from her creator himself, Kei, the Blood Tune novel featuring Seira-tan on the cover, Mizuki Nana’s Trickster single which came with a photo print of Mizuki Nana herself, Perfume’s Love The World L.E. single, though it was odd to find it in Animate, of all places, a CD I bought just for the cover (Nakamura Yuuichi’s on it, thats enough reason, and before I knew it I donated more money to Animate, and crap I have no idea what this CD is about…), and a Haruhi sound-drop.

Thats it for today, now for me to rest my tired limbs and enjoy the above.

Me, Zelfi of NKDS and Jinyamoto are in Japan on a 12-day trip right now. Thanks to everyone who came to send us off yesterday, despite it being 4am in the morning.

Having to wake at 3am, I decided not to sleep altogether. It wasn’t very pleasant as I ended up having a migraine at the airport, but I got better after sleeping through most of the 7-hour flight.

I woke up once in a while to take pictures of the sky 8D

And finally, as our destination approaches-

NARITA!

The first train ticket I’ve bought. We are staying at K’s House, Tokyo, so we followed the directions as given from their site and bought a ticket to Kuramae.

From the airport to the train ride, the temparature was nearly the same as what I’ve experienced in Singapore. However, upon disembarking at Aoto, the greatness of autumn hit me. Between 16-18 deg Celsius, it was like being in air-conditioned comfort, but outdoors.

Some sights from the long train ride

Reached the hostel without much difficulty. Am loving the single room :D

After a bit of settling down, we went out to the Asakusa area in search of dinner. Vending machines are everywhere.

This one is for cigarettes, and is a common sight at corners.

Bottled liquor too. They really do appreciate vending machines.

Ice cream!

Cute soft toy shop, may visit tomorrow.

Made our way to the first shop that seemed liked it still had seats, and found ourselves at a handmade udon shop, which turned out to be pretty good.

And my first proper meal of the day was dinner, orz.

After dinner, we hit one arcade! And another! And yet another!

They had Taiko 12. I carried out my duty as a minion of the Namco empire, and with great pride and joy.

First up, Caramell Dansen! A slightly draining song, but fun nonetheless.

They had O2.

And I managed to set the high score.

This is Over The Future, before…

And after :D

Zel and me conquered the pair-score rankings too

7th place:

Perfume’s Polyrhythm. AMAZING STUFF, especially at the end, with the repeating notes for the ri-ruupu part.

Do-dai was cuteness. We need this version in our arcades ASAP.

Jinya and Zel at Break The Chain.

Zel got a rank-in for it too :D

There was Mojipittan, I never knew an arcade version existed.

And a cool Gundam-pod-cockpit game (Also by the Namco empire) which Jinya tried. He got a card with his name on it. He’s apparently part of Zeon now.

I’m madly in love with the arcades here, but the only gripe I have is that all of them reek of cigarette smoke. But for the quality of the newer games, I’m more than willing to put up with it :o

We went shopping at Daiso and a DVD/CD rental shop (Which had pretty recent (but used) CDs on sale from 100 yen to 300 yen).

Today’s loot:

To end off, here’s the icon of Asakusa, taken at night on our way back.

A very happy and satisfied Ume, out.

No, they didn’t literally explode (Though they have had a m4d surge in user signups and is thus now an invite-only service, so go blackmail pester your pixiv-addict friends for an account. Each existing user only has three invite opportunities.)

Ah, but the point of this post is not to talk about their increasing popularity. Pixiv will now tell you the sekrets of life! No rly.

Titled pixivで学ぶイラストテクニック集 (Learn illustration techniques with pixiv) , this ausum guide is going to make you paint like huke (Of Black★Rock Shooter fame), and other notable pixiv artists. Though its pretty obvious from the cover who’s the main draw.

Regardless, the pages shown in the amazon.jp preview look extremely promising (and useful if they are easy enough to follow), and I will be picking up a copy for myself, probably when the yen rate goes down.

Add to the mix the upcoming Pixiv Official Artbook/DVD (Page here).The themes are “お絵かき娘 A girl drawing” and “ウマウマコンテスト Uma uma contest (Caramell Dansen)”.

Submissions so far are eye-candy, to say the least. Closing date for this competition is on the 15th of this month, and there has been no release date announced for the artbook yet.

Ah, and the Pixiv Fiesta details are up. Looking at the event description, this would have made a very good Aprils Fool’s joke. Participants submit works for A1-sized prints (it costs a good 6000 yen to join, so I suppose that covers printing costs), and these prints are displayed at a section of the Design Festa Gallery. Visitors pay 500 yen to go in, give real stars (method of rating pictures submitted on pixiv), write comments in real time on real paper with a real pen, and this takes the cake; You attach REAL tags.

I wish I could go see it, but I’ll be sitting in front of my PC at home doing the same activities online. Which is a pity, because as pointless as it is attaching tags to images in real life it sounds like crazy fun, especially if you consider how much humor goes into tags on nicovideo and other imageboards/video services.

Jawdrop worthy, DW Yukkuri plushies!

Produced by doujin circle PhantasmScreen, it went on sale recently at various shops in Akiba. Coming in three different sizes, you get to choose how easy you want to take it.

Bad pun intended.

Mountains and floods of heads taking it easy.

Christmas ideas, anyone?

-

For a m4d fanatical history and more facts than you ever need to know about Yukkuri-s, visit their page on Touhou Wiki here

For a wiki dedicated to Yukkuri-s, the m4d fanatical Japanese have developed one here

And its all in one convenient place 8D

Just about recently, a number of marriage certificates has appeared on Pixiv (An account is required to view images on pixiv). Some of them are win, others are downright hilarious. Here’s a couple I saved so far, after the jump.

Happy Fate is Happy (Nanoha, lets shower together every night from now on *nosebleeds*)

Being vertically challenged is a sad thing.

Battler-kun has been cheated.

Even so, I WOULD marry Yuno. :3

Nothing to complain about there (LIES)

Hiro C married himself ;o

And Secchan with Exia D:

The Spoo gets married.

Miku would very much rather marry a leek than be with her legions of brainwashed fanboys/fangirls, or Kaito for that matter.

Banchou-! P4, out in English very soon :3