Like most years, 2011 was a mixed bag, especially as far as watching anime and blogging goes. Spent much more time this year fiddling with tabletop RPG stuff. I still love anime and figures, which is why I can’t quite kill this blog, no matter how sad it gets.
I love Native. They extend the collection experience beyond most companies. Native doesn’t stop at the figure, at least with the three in my collection (Kotone, Shoujo-S, and Trunk Girl). Each of the figures came with an almost designer-like box. I didn’t take photos of the boxes, a) because it’s a pain and b) it might just look like a colored box in a tiny jpeg. Something about that little extra thought in the package design makes Native figures feel like “Special Collector’s Edition” stuff. The box is not just this thing protecting it in transit and then quickly cut open. Trunk Girl’s box was shaped like a suitcase, looking like one of those gift packages that come from a spa or a boutique. Those boutique packages are designed to make you feel special with your little treasure. Native has the right idea with their approach on their boutique items.
(Bare plastic beyond this point).
Continue reading “Going Native Again: Trunk Girl and Shoujo-S (NSFW)”
Daikichi is a single, never married, thirty-something male who takes the responsibility of raising Rin, a five year old girl who was in the care of his grandfather who passed away. Nobody in the family wanted her, so Daikichi took responsibility. The setup of Usagi Drop sounds close to a Hallmark Hall of Fame type of thing, a family drama produced by a greeting card company.
The official character illustrations for Mikoto and Kuroko appeal to me due to a distinct art style, a little sharper, a little less soft, a bit more linear than cute girls get drawn. So yeah, I like the characters via the designs and the expressive images I’ve seen floating around. In much of the official looking art I see for this franchise, many of the images tell some kind of story, often with Kuruko as the instigator of something to funk up Mikoto. Kuroko seems awesome like that, at least, that’s what I’m going with based on random images I see.
Worlds change in an instant, mused Rin Ogata as she danced on stage. She was a rising star in the ballet world, but when her ankle gives way it changes what she had thought would be the rest of her life, following her mother’s path of the prima ballerina. Now that the dream had slipped away, there was a void in her life; something was missing which left her aimless.
I’m a little surprised that there haven’t been more Rin figures made over the last few of years. I can see why Saber figures outnumber Rin. Armor. Big sword. A wider variety of costumes and outfits. Plus if you go with the extremes of Rei and Asuka spectrum of anime girls, Saber is closer to Rei, who as it’s been thrown around, is more appealing to otaku. Rin on the other hand, at least as far as the anime goes, is more of a bitch, doesn’t wear armor or carry a big frakking sword. A serious lack of props that a pendant and a dagger can’t compare with. Still, expected more Rin figures than what was released.
Every year since about 2007, I’ve been saying to myself on the drive home from Otakon that I’m getting too old for this shit and this is my last anime convention. Pretty much everyone else I know considers themselves too old for it, or you know, they’re just not into it enough to want to go. This year though, on the drive home, making the usual wrong turn onto 295 South, instead of 95 North, I decided I really didn’t care about being too old for this shit or not. I had fun doing the Japanese Figure Panel with VManofMana and his friend Andy, had the fun of a collective “holy shit!” with several hundred people during a screening of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and got to go through my silly convention mini-games (buying a Cinnamorrol item, eating at the same place three times, complimenting a nice hat, etc.). The final Otakon weekend ritual includes DMing for my gaming group as soon as I get home, which turned out to be an awesome session.
Loot was light this year. A character design sketch folio for Shangri-la, the art book from the person who draws all of those awesome Persona things, Birth from the Aria artist, a bag of like 20 dice (frosted pink, blue, and colorless), a set of large K-On pins (these are pretty huge), and a dancing Cinnamorrol.
