Gurren Lagann vol. 5

So I finally bought, and the days later finally got around to reading, volume 5 of the Gurren Lagann manga. It is probably my least favorite volume just because it saddled me with a wide range of negative emotions, though it finished off with a really cute chapter.

This volume brought with it the end of the remaining 3 of the Big Four, which means we lost Adiane. Anyone who's hung around for a while, or knows me and my relation to this series, knows I adore Adiane. I cry every time I re-encounter her death. The whole reason I put off buying volume 5 was because I had once flipped through it in the comic shop, read her death, and cried in the store for about fifteen minutes.



Of course, reading it now, I cried again. In the anime, there is a lot of implied character development that the manga takes and expands on. But since giant robot battles are pretty faced paced, and therefore only take up a small amount of the manga they use the extra space to expand upon implications made in the anime. A significant one to note is the relationship between Adiane and Thymilph. The anime keeps this very vague, because there's no time to cover it. It's really only hinted at by Cytomander very briefly.

The manga really takes this and makes it into something. There is a short bonus chapter after chapter 7 that is about Adiane and Thymilph right before he goes to fight Kamina. Thymilph gives her a flower and tells her to protect the capital while he's away. Adiane demands a better gift, and Thymilph promises to return with Kamina's head for her, and then leaves.



We then get a brief glimpse at a softer Adiane, saying she'll look forward to his return. We see her briefly in chapter 15, as Thymilph and Kamina kill each other, seeing the explosion and realizing something may have happened to him, and then in the beginning of 16, enraged that Thymilph is dead. Skip ahead to chapter 22, when we come to Adiane's own death. She's fired upon by the whole of Dai-Gurren's artillery. As Sayrune is destroyed, we see Adiane reaching for the flower, encased in some sort of crystal, that she brought with her in memory of Thymilph. Thymiph's spirit grabs her hand, she looks back at him, starts to cry, and thanks him as she dies.

Viewed this way, through the manga, with a closer look at her, Adiane's death -- and her life for that matter, but that is a post for another day -- becomes so much more tragic, and completely heartbreaking. I am pretty sure that the manga is what convinced me that Adiane is easily the most tragic character in this whole series.

Of course with Adiane's (and also Cytomander's) death, the story moves forward into fighting Guame. This was significantly different in the anime, but still leads to a village full of girls being trained as servants/whores for the Spiral King. But the manga introduces another abandoned princess, Straea, who escaped death like Nia, but was caught and forced to be the matriarch of the village. She tries to convince Nia to be her successor on threat of killing the rest of Dai-Gurren, but Nia refuses.

Yoko steps in to be Yoko and pretend to play here, giving Nia words of encouragement when she almost gives in, but this is pretty unnecessary because as she's doing this, Simon regains control of Lagann and breaks out with the rest of the group. Then Guame shows up and the battle between him and Dai-Gurren begins, as does another round of me being completely fed up with Yoko and the unnecessary attention she gets.

Guame has seized control of all of Dai-Gurren's ganmen, so Simon can't combine Lagann with Gurren. Oh no. Why the hell isn't the rest of Dai-Gurren going to get them back while Simon holds off Guame? Y'know? Logical thing to do?

Of COURSE it's because Yoko has to seize a ganmen from some beastman so Simon can combine with THAT so that Yoko can give a speech about her "pride as a woman" and a lot of stuff about her feelings due to Kamina's death. This really really bothered me, you guys. More than I know words to express.

Yoko does not deserve to have a monologue like Simon got.

Simon's overcoming of his grief over Kamina is not the same as Yoko's. Disagree if you will. It doesn't much matter to me what your opinion on Yoko is, so long as you have good reasons that are something aside from "But she's really hot!". But I dislike her, and I hate that she was given this moment.

Simon's grief was over the loss of someone who was like a brother to him. Someone who, over may years, had become the only thing even close to family Simon still had. Someone who has supported him for years, and had been the only one to show Simon respect or have any confidence in him. Simon's confidence, his pride in himself, and his ability to fight for a future where he would be happy, all came from Kamina.

Losing that destroyed Simon. He was suddenly without guidance. He had the power to be great on his own, but he didn't know how to use it. Simon suddenly had nothing to fight for because the only person who believed in him up until that point was suddenly gone. The only person who had loved him for the past handful of years of his life had been taken by the very people Kamina had promised they would defeat.

Yoko had known Kamina for about a week. Maybe two? Long enough to form an attachment and become infatuated with him (which is, again, a subject for another post), but not nearly long enough to form the sort of relationship with him that would warrant her being allowed to judge how Simon grieved, or getting to have a similar monologue, as if she had overcome the same grief and pain Simon had.

Straea eventually sacrifices herself to save Nia, and there's a very sad scene between she and Old Coco (who's name is actually Theives?)and it's very sweet. Then she dies, and Nia cuts off her hair and leaves it on Straea's grave. Then there's the Nia and Yoko haircutting scene, over which Simon comments that girls are hard to understand.

The book finishes off with a chapter about Kittan and Kiyal, which was adorable. Kiyal wants a ganmen and Kittan won't let her pilot one. So she tries to form her own team within Dai-Gurren and no one takes her seriously. She then tries to hijack the King Kittan, fails, and then in an argument with Kittan, falls out. Kittan sustains a head injury in saving her.

Kiyal is afraid to face him until Yoko shows her the Ganmen that Kittan has been restoring for her and tells her what Kittan said about why he was afraid to let her pilot it. Kiyal then goes to Kittan and hugs him and apologizes, then says she's going to start piloting it and they have a cute sibling moment.

It was a very cute chapter, and I'd love to see Gainax animate it as an OVA episode, unlikely as that is to happen. This chapter was a good way to end the book, and kept me from leaving the volume enraged about Yoko, and reminded me why I love Kittan and his sisters.

Anime Workshop - Week 1 Response

Last week I started my Anime Workshop class at school. Each week I am required to write a one paragraph response to the assigned readings we're given. This week we were asked to read chapter's one and two of Susan Napier's "Anime From Akira to Howl's Moving Castle" and chapters two and three of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" (which I have read a hundred times before). I ended up writing a multi-paragraph essay which I thought might be interesting to post here as well.

The first chapter of Susan Napier's book raises some interesting points about anime as a cultural phenomina and how it has managed to stretch to places that it may not have been expected to. I agree that anime's popularity outside of Japan has lead to a revival and expansion of the American animation industry, but the fact that every time Napier mentions of American animation seem to call it “predictable”, only point out it's flaws and seems to look down on it bothers me. This book is not so old that it can ignore American animated shows like “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, “My Life As A Teenage Robot”, “Samurai Jack”, and even “Futurama” and “The Venture Bros.”.



Yes, these shows were very obviously anime influenced, but they are not anime, and deserve credit for what they are – Attempts to increase the audience of American animation. Especially shows like “Futurama” and “the Venture Bros.” which draw minimally on anime and are more influenced by other sources. The same goes for her treatment of American animated films, which have made incredible advancements in catering to older audiences. It is because of these things, which are influenced by anime, that Western Animation is truly capable of advancing, and looking down on it is only making her seem elitist and difficult to read.

Her talk about the “modes” of anime also bothers me quite a bit. Yes these things exist, but I do not think that different anime fall into one or the other, or even switch between them within a series as she seems to imply. I firmly believe that all three, as well as other “modes” (which I would prefer to apply the term 'emotion' to, since 'mode' implies that only one at a time can happen) can not only exist simultaneously, but happen simultaneously more often than they do individually. To try and break things down into one piece at a time can strongly devalue how the other pieces play into a specific moment. Specific examples of my point can be found in episodes 9 through 11 of “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann”, the first two “Pokemon” films, and throughout the anime series “Baccano!” and "Magic Knight Rayearth. (I have offered to write a second essay elaborating on this point. We'll see if that happens.)



McCloud, much more tolerably, acknowledges comics as a whole and simply points out differences between western comics and manga, and their influences on one another (Not just one side to the other!) without devaluing either side. He focuses not only on America and Japan and how they have seeped into other cultures, but on the fact that other cultures have their own comics and sequential illustrations and that those have also influenced America and Japan. In fact, he gives much credit for the birth of comics to Europe.

Though I suppose since McCloud's book is on comics as a whole and Napir is focusing specifically on anime (and by association, manga), I guess it is to be expected that she is not going on about Europe in the 1700's. Still, I feel that Napir is over-analyzing anime and manga and putting it above other forms of comics and animation, while McCloud is simply taking the things we all know about comics, making it easier to understand and talk about, and then expanding on it.

I'm going to hopefully keep posting my weekly class responses here, but it really depends on if I find my responses interesting enough. Hopefully my teacher will want me to write the essay I offered on elaborating points about the "modes" Napier mentions, because I can basically rip that to shreds and that might be interesting.

"Tuesday's Anime Sampler" or "Thanks For 1,000 Hits!"

Back home from my two week stay at Downtown Otaku's. It was a great trip and I was glad to hear that he had a nice time and got there and back okay. He bought me a figure of Rukia with Shirayuki, even though I already had it. so now I have one, and a special one from Chile. He also bought me GOALSBOT, which is probably the coolest robot I now own.


The one he got me is red and blue and has a 7 on it's uniform, but I couldn't find a picture of it, and I'm too tired to get up and actually take one. This is why I should not blog right after waking up.

"Rook Takes Queen" has also hit the milestone of 1,000 page views. For a blog that's only been consistently updating for two and a half months (which is the period of time I've been tracking visitors) I think that's a pretty impressive number, and I want to thank you all for coming by here 1,000 times. I hope in the next two and a half months, you'll all come by 1,000 more times.

To celebrate, let's take another look at my ridiculous visitor map.



Spent yesterday with McLovin and Kristin, once again in Kristin's basement watching anime. This is usually the only time I get a chance to watch new things, because on my own I am generally just too busy and impatient to sit and watch series. And I miss out on a lot because of this. But it's been fun sitting around with friends and watching things together and I'd rather see things with friends than alone anyway. While usually we pick one thing to watch and marathon, this time we watched a little bit of several things...

Gurren Lagann: Parallel Works 2


In all honesty ParaWorks 2 deserves it's own post, so I think i'm going to hold off saying too much and write about it in full later. Like most people, "Kittan Zero" is my favorite but I also adored "Kiyal's Magical Time". It was humorous and sweet, and I think I described it as "If Gurren Lagann and Di Gi Charat were the same thing." Over all, I liked Parallel Works 1 better, but 2 had some really great stuff.

Hetalia: Axis Powers


I've always been pretty against Hetalia because portions of the fandom drive me insane. (Sorry guys, but it's true.) But at Otakon, I went to the Voice Actor Q&As for the voices of Vino and Firo from "Baccano!", who happen to be doing Russia and Italy. They did a bit of the voices, and there was so much crazy accents that I thought I'd give the dub a shot just for that.

We watched the four episodes that are up on Funimation's website, and while I'm not suddenly going to throw aside everything else I'm doing to dive into this fandom, I did think it was pretty funny and cute. I have also developed a huge crush on Italy. Italy and Germany are amusing to me, but so far i'm not that into anyone else. We'll have to see where things go as I watch more.

K-On

McLovin once described K-On to me as "If the cast of Lucky Star was in a band." and I have to admit that's pretty spot on. The story isn't quite as scattered and moment-to-moment as Lucky Star, but it's got a lot of the same feel. The characters are very cute, and the show is a little mindless (at least as far as I've watched into it), but I think after watching things that are a little heavier, like "Baccano!" and "Durarara!!" (which are both still hilarious at points, but are not straight comedies), there's nothing wrong with something that's just silly and cute.

I'm loving all of the character interactions in K-On a lot, and their reactions to the world around them. it's a very sweet little series and if you just want to laugh and enjoy something fluffy and silly, I'd recommend it.

I'm still waiting on the last chapter of "The Lucifer & The Biscuit Hammer" before I can blog about that, and Kristin just sent me a link to "Yankee-kun to Megane-chan" for me to start reading, so I'll have those to blog about in the near future. I'm also planning my next cosplay; Marlone from "Atelier Marie". I've got lists of everything I need, and my best friend, Cass, has offered to help me make it. Suri's possibly going to do Kreis so we'll be a matching pair. So I'll have updates on that as things happen too.

Thanks again for coming by guys! It's been great blogging for you all and I hope to bring you more great things to read about in the future!

Otakon 2010 - Saturday

Day two of Otakon 2010 was a good time. It consisted mostly with trips around the dealer's room and artist's alley, and one long trip outside. Suri and I went around watching cosplayers until we met up with my friend Amber. She gave me things to give to Downtown Otaku, and gave me a cat-earred hat that she made for me (complete with a hole in the back for my ponytail!) and a pink collar with a green bell that she got for me at another convention.

Once we separated from Amber, we planned to go to the AMV Contest. Of course, that was when fire alarms started going off and everyone was told to leave the building. 30,000 nerds were suddenly sent out onto the streets of Baltimore, not knowing what to do. The area around the convention center probably sent the regular residents into a panic. We were out there for maybe an hour before they let us back in.



While we were out there I found a Prof. Birch and asked if I could take a picture with him. He let me and then offered Suri and I pokemon cards of Mudkip, Torchik, and Treeko. I laughed and picked mudkip, and Suri picked torchik.

Once regularity had resumed, Suri and I went back in and took a spin around the artist's alley. I picked up a few things for Cass. I also got a cute poster of Kamina, Simon, and Nia, a Raichu postcard, and my friend Kyle bought me a bookmark with Italy from "Axis Powers Hetalia" on it. I also hung out with the dudes from Studio Painted Blade for a while. They are really cool dudes, so you should totally check them out. I think they have a webcomic going, and they just generally have fantastic work from what I have seen.



When we were done there we went back down to the dealer's room. There wasn't much for me there. I bought a few more of those Bleach cookies, a DBZ blind box for Downtown Otaku, and a little Hetalia figure since I'm apparently going to be watching that due to my love of ridiculous accents. We then went with Kyle to the Dr. Who photoshoot, and while they were busy with that I found a trio of unexpected Magic Knight Rayearth cosplayers...



I found Lantis, Alcyone, and Caldina. I spotted Caldina's cape and then noticed Alcyone next to her and needed a photo. Alcyone is, and has always been, one of my favorite Magic Knight Rayearth characters and I have never seen anyone cosplay her before. I expressed my excitement to the woman cosplaying and then we went back to the Dr. Who shoot.



After that, Cass came and picked us up. Dinner consisted of nachos and ice cream, and we watched some of our favorite episodes of "Avatar: The Last Airbender". I have no plans to go back Sunday. I'm out of money and there are no panels I want to go see.

As I said yesterday, all of the pictures from this weekend are up in their own album on Photobucket, and there were some absolutely stellar ones, so you should definitely check it out. This was a fantastic convention, and I'm so glad I got the chance to go for another year.

Thanks so much to all of the attendees for being such great company, and an extra special thanks to the con staff for putting on such a great event and for handling a small emergency like total champions. It was a great year and I cannot wait for Otakon 2011!

Short Post: State Of Affairs

So, apparently the Adiane figure in my last post, the one I am still so desperate to own, is a garage kit and is fairly hard to find. I'm certainly having a time of it via the internet. I'm going to try a few other means and see if I can't get my hands on it somehow.

In other news, Otakon 2010 is next weekend. Suri and I will both be wandering around. I'll be dressed as Professor Araragi from Pokemon B/W, and he'll be cosplaying Yuuhi from The Lucifer And the Biscuit Hammer. If you're going to be around, feel free to look for us and say hi!

I know I've got things to catch up on. It's just been way too hot lately, and things have been kind of hectic for me. I've barely been able to think straight. But I promise I will get back to proper blogging soon enough. I've got a whole lost of things to write about.

I will punch babies until I own this.

So this morning I wake up and check through the shit that happened on Twitter while I was asleep. I see that McLovin tweeted "This is for @SonoYourFace:"



Right now I know nothing about this figure. I don't know who makes it, the scale, the price, when it'll be released, or where I can get it. All I know is that I need this figure.

I've been whining for ages about how there needs to be figures of the antagonist cast and some of the characters less represented in the merchandise. And the top of my list has always been Adiane The Elegant. She has become my favorite female character in Gurren Lagann (just barely squeaking by Nia) and I've lamented the fact that there have been no figures of her to occupy my shelves.

In fact, just yesterday Armaina and I had been tweeting back and forth about Gurren Lagann figures and I had mentioned how much I wished there was an Adiane. Looks like someone decided to grant my wish.

McLovin is probably at work now, but as soon as I can I'll be grilling him for all the information on this figure. When I have it, I'll update here with all of the information.

Until then I will be squealing like a little girl.

It's like watching myself on Youtube.

A brief post, but I wanted to share this. It's my blog and I'll do whatever I want.

So a while ago, I posted about the Chozokei Damashii Gurren Lagann blind box figures and how completely amazing they are. I know I've also mentioned in the past that my friend McLovin is a writer for the awesome toy site, Tomopop.

Well today on twitter, he pointed me toward a video of his editor-in-chief opening up some of the boxes. It was basically exactly the same as my experience, and I thought I'd share because it was pretty fun for me to watch.



It's refreshing to see someone who reacts to Yoko the same way I do.

Chozokei Damashii Gurren Lagann Figures

So this week my Chozokei Damashii Gurren Lagann figures came. I essentially bought a 10 pc. case of blind boxes, so there was no real guarantee I'd get the full set. Fortunately, I got very very lucky:



For those curious about my 10th box, it was an extra "Yomako-sensei", which I may end up selling unless I can find someone to trade her with for an extra Simon, since I'd love to have him doing both poses.

I'm going to start this with manliness, and work my way through, so let's take a good look at these, because I am completely enamored with these figures. So let's kick it off with the Kaminas...



I'm not sure why Kamina wasn't just given alternate arms like Simon, or there wasn't two Simons like there are two Kaminas. They are essentially the same sculpt, just given a different left arm -- one to hold his sword, and one to point dramatically at Simon. The pointing-Kamina has no sword.

His face is a little strange to me, but I am glad for a couple more Kamina figures for my collection. I still need to go back and get the one from the first blind box set. I do love pointing-Kamina though, because they specifically advertised being able to do this:



And this is exactly how they will be posed on my shelf forever, because the reuniting of Bros in the Multiverse Labrynth was the most amazing thing ever, especially in Lagann-hen. But that's a story for another blog post. But since we're here, let's segue into looking at Simon.



It's about time we got a figure of adult Simon. I could be mistaken, but i'm fairly certain this is the first one, and I'm really not sure why. In fact I think Yoko might be the only one who had post-skip adult fugures until now. Oh wait, there was the Figumate sets. We did have some adult Simon and Nia in those. Though this is still the first Gar-Simon, if memory serves.

BUT I DIGRESS.

I totally forgot to photograph his alternate pose, but it's just him standing with both arms down. So, uh, not that exciting? But he is a good looking figure. He's got a lot of nice detail and there's some really good shine on his coat, which I like. Unfortunately, as you can see they all have little plastic things to help them stand instead of being given actual bases (except Anti-Spiral Nia, who really needed it, and Nia who didn't need it at all.) They work pretty well for msot of the figures, except Simon. His fits a little awkwardly and even with it, he has a bad habit of falling over backward. thankfully, my shelf space is a little cramped, so he can lean on Anti-Spiral Nia a bit so that he doesn't fall.

I guess I'll stick the Yokos in the middle. As you all probably know, I'm not really a fan of Yoko. I kind of wish they'd stop stickig her in every single set. There are characters much more deserving of figures than her. Like Viral, or Adiane, or Rossiu. You know, people who actually contriubuted to the plot. But fan-service is fan-service and there's not much I can do about it.



For some reason, I couldn't get a good picture of Yoko in her teacher get-up. The camera consistantly decided to focus on something other than Yoko. Not that I really blame it. This is, I think, the second Yomako we've gotten, which isn't a high number if you take a look at all of the Yoko figures available. She's pretty okay, looking. It's a nice sculpt and a nice paint, and I guess she's not looking like a total skank in comparison to some of her other figures. Funny story about this one though...

When I was setting these up, my mom was in the room helping since she finds my nerdings amusing. So I pick it up and whine a bit about how there are too many Yoko figures, and my mom leans over to take a look, pauses, and then loudly proclaims "WHORE!" I start laughing and direct her to Space-Yoko...



Mom and I had a good laugh about how Yoko's kind of a skank and about how guns should not work in space. Space-Yoko's cleavage kind of bothers me, since it seems to be pushed up kind of awkwardly, but over all, again it's a nice sculpt and a nice paint. The one problem Ir eally have with her is that her rifle doesn't like staying in palce and if you move her at all it kind of slides around everywhere. I feel like her plastic "Base" should have extended out a little to have a slot to put the end of the rifle in to in order to prevent this.



I really enjoy the Laganns in this set. I'd totally forgotten about him since when AmiAmi finally got the preordrs in stock, he wasn't on the product image. So when I found the regular Lagann in my set, I got excited. Then I came across metalic Lagann and had a fit of giggles because I had no idea this was in the set. They both look fantastic, but metalic Lagann just has this extra charm of the metalic shine that makes him seem a little more real.



Now it's time to move on to why I was really excited about this set. I've saved the best for last. It's time for Nia and Anti-Spiral Nia.



If you remember the post I made back in February, I was excited over this set because this is the first time we've gotten an Anti-Spiral Nia figure, even though we were promised a Revoltech one years ago that never happened, much to my disappointment. But now we at least have this, and my friends can stop listening to me complain about how Anti-Spiral Nia has been completely ignored.



She is absolutely gorgeous. She has all of her markings, and is positioned to "float" just as she always did in the series. (Because gravity is for suckers.) The way her hair floats around her is a little unsettling for me, since it never actually separated up like that, but I can deal with it since it's painted so well and we finally have this figure at all. I also wish the pole that held her up was clear plastic like the bases instead of blue so it was a little less conspicuous. It was also kind of hard to get around her waist. But that's okay since it means it will hold her stably now that I've gotten it on her.

Regular Nia, even though she's kind of naked, is also fantastic.



This is probably the only really "adult" figure I have, due to Nia being naked. But even so, she's covering herself pretty well. I don't think my mom (who is the one who attached Nia's hair for me since I couldn't get it) even noticed she was naked. Or if she did, she at least didn't comment on it at all. Though given her reaction to Yoko, she probably would have. None the less, she's painted wonderfully, and it's nice to have something a little Simon/Nia related, even if it is pretty blatant fan service.

So I am really pleased with how these figures turned out and I'm glad to finally have them on my shelf to enjoy up close, instead of staring at pictures on the internet and waiting for them to arrive. If you're a TTGL fan and like collecting figures, I'd definitely recommend this set. AmiAmi has plenty in stock right now. Though if you get registered SAL shipping, your total is going to come out to around $75. Just thought I'd give you fair warning.

But guys, it's totally worth it.

This post is about 75% inappropriate. But that's never stopped me before.

So, the BP Oil Spill has been going on for over a month now. It's one of the most terrible natural disasters of all time. It's something that's going to take years, if not decades, to set right.

BP has been downplaying the incident as much as possible, trying to make themselves look good and keep their cash-flow going. They've made plenty of idiotic statements on the subject and enacted measures that haven't done a thing. Worst of all, they refused to take responsibility for the problem.

But this all could have been prevented by a single action two years ago.



If only we had elected this man president, the whole disaster int he Gulf Coast could have been avoided.

After all, who knows drills better than him? He wouldn't allow for unsafe drilling practices, and he'd probably head up all drilling endeavors himself. I headed up his campaign back in 2008, using drilling as his platform. Unfortunately, he didn't make it into the White House.

And look what came from it.

If he was in office, it's entirely likely this wouldn't have happened. But if it had, he would have solved it by now by doing the following to the oil spill:



And then after that he'd probably do it to the BP executives. And manliness would solve everything, as it rightly should.

But sadly, this is impossible since he has no legislative power. But that doesn't mean manly spirit won't be effective. But since Simon isn't around to lead us, we have to right this on our own.

There's some great do's and don'ts as to how you can help. If you look around there are plenty of places to donate in order to help out. The National Wildlife Federation is helping affected wildlife, and the Environmental Defense Fund also needs help. Or you could buy a "BP Cares" t-shirt to give a helping hand to the Gulf Restoration Network.

And if you can't afford to donate (because, let's face it, some of us are pretty broke) there are plenty of protests to get involved with to show that you want this fixed and for BP to take responsibility.

So make up for not electing the one man who could have prevented this, and help get the problem solved.

Ichiban KUJI Premium - Genome Figure

So about a week ago, while talking about upcoming Gurren Lagann figures, I mentioned that I had ordered Banpresto's Genome figure. This morning, eight days later, he arrived in all of his glory. What I hadn't realized about this figure is that he is HUGE.



This is him next to my iBook G4, for comparison. The screen comes up to his shoulders. If you'd like another comparison, here he is with Uplark's Nia figure.



Dude is ENORMOUS. But he is also totally amazing to look at. Genome is an enormous, bulky, hairy guy and that is reflected so beautifully in this figure.



Everything about him is so wonderfully defined that I can see a lot of his details from the other side of my crappily lit room. Banpresto went above and beyond here. His chest hair/foot hair is amazing.



They have gone into such detail on him. He's an Ichiban Kuji premium, so I'm not that surprised. But Just got damn. Look at him. Even his BACK is ridiculously defined. (Though I guess if you're going to do it, do it all the way, right?)





Yet another purchase I don't regret in the slightest.

More Things That Will One Day Line My Shelves

As I mentioned last time, my friend AnthonyMclovin is a pretty big toy nerd. He has a bad habit of dropping things in my path that I either don't care about or would rather not see. But he also knows what I like, and if he sees something that I'd be interested in, he's always quick to bring it to my attention. Because of this, I tolerate everything else.

This morning he passed the following along to me...


Click here for a slightly larger version of this image.

...and I just about died. He has been listening to me complain for AGES that I wanted someone to make an Anti-Spiral Nia figure. (Not to mention just some older Nia figures in general.) And here she is. I want both of those Nias, since they both look gorgeous.

I'm not that interested in the Yokos (since my interest in Yoko herself is nil) but I'd probably buy them all as a set and just leave her standing around the back of the collection. but Id would display Simon and Kamina reenacting the end of Simon's anti-spiral dream for all time. Because the fact that they've enabled that is FANTASTIC.

He's also told me there's supposed to be a second wave of figures featuring villains and minor characters. My mind instantly jumped to one person -- Adiane the Elegant. If this came to pass, I'd probably die of joy. Adiane is probably my favorite female character in the series (only barely surpassing Nia) and the idea of any merchandise at all of her sets my heart a flutter.

These aren't coming out until May, but preorders are open. As soon as I drop some money in the bank i'm taking a swing at them.

I also just now purchased this handsome fellow for my collection:



I saw this ages ago and never thought I'd have the chance to buy him, but I spotted him on eBay and knew I'd regret it if I didn't jump at the chance. So expect a post featuring his exploits in the future.

There are actually, finally, quite a few Nia figures out these days, and I eventually plan to start gathering them up for my shelves. Though the rest of the cast is still dwarfed by the sheer volume of Yoko available. I shouldn't be surprised since Yoko exists entirely for fan service, but I wish we had more figures of everyone else instead of a couple dozen of her showing off her boobs.

But oh well. No one's making me buy them, so I'll just glare angrily at them in the stores I go to and then come home and enjoy the figures I've bought.

Expect a post about Lagann-hen soon, guys! I need to rewatch it and take notes and screencaps so I can write a decent post! But I have watched it through once and can say that it was SPECTACULAR.

Figures - Viral & Nia by Uplark

One of my favorite things is collecting figures. I'm not even really sure how I got into it, but it became a complete addiction of mine. I've sunken ridiculous amounts of money on my collection. I swear, being a nerd is a lot like being a drug addict, except it's not illegal. But that aside, I'm here today to show off the two newest additions to my collection -- Uplark's Viral and Nia figures.

Suri and I went half and half on Uplark's Kamina figure last Christmas. Since I'm the one who doesn't have a hyper-destructive younger sibling, the expensive figure lives with me. So having basked in Kamina's glory for a year, I know Uplark puts out quality products.



A good friend of mine who writes for Tomopop keeps a pretty close eye on the toy scene, and alerted me that Hobby Link Japan had these two figures on sale shortly after Christmas. A brilliant move on their part since I was no longer broke and yearning for something new for my shelves. It still cost me a pretty penny -- $130-ish for the two of them and shipping. But honestly, since on their own they're normally about $100 each, it was a bargain.

I picked Viral and Nia up from the post office this morning and when I took them out, I was not disappointed.



I pulled Nia out first since her box was smaller, and I instantly fell in love with her. She's got a certain rather lovely elegance about her that I noted right away when I got her on her base and set her on the table to get a good look. And her face is just so charmingly "Nia".





She comes with an alternate head that you can change out of her later pre-skip look after her hair had been cut. But for some reason I can't look at her with short hair if she's not wearing her adorable pink Gurren-dan hoodie, so that head has been left in the box.

I think my favorite thing about this pose is her feet.



I love how one foot is just about off the ground. It's a nice little detail. I also love the bend in the strap on the back of her shoes. Being female, and having a mother with a million-and-five shoes, I don't think that the one on her weight-bearing foot should be bent out so much, but still it's nice that they at least acknowledged the way womens' shoes actually work instead of just painting a red stripe down the back of her foot and calling it a day.

I also love the lace detail on the back of her skirt.



I have to admit, this was pretty much the last thing I noticed about Nia's outfit when I watched Gurren Lagann, bit I always thought it was rather charming and I love the way it's handled here.

Now let's cross the spectrum from cute to completely badass and take a look at Viral, shall we?



Viral is absolutely glorious. I've seen this figure in person before (though it was in it's box) so I knew it would be, but being able to get up close to him was fantastic.



He has a great, classically "crazy Viral" face going on, though unless you're looking at him from a certain angle, it's really hard to see it. He's a figure that definitely needs to be displayed on a shelf above eye level. Otherwise you just totally lose some of his charm. But even so, it's impossible to miss the great details on this figure.



The best is his weapon. Uplark, you get a gold star for this. It's all knicked and worn and scratched, as if he's been slicing up bitches left and right! And you know he has been. It's Viral for christ's sake. You don't have to get up close to really notice it but it is something you'd have to be really looking at him to notice.

But the one thing about this figure that can't go beyond notice? Viral's hands are enormous.



Now my hands are really tiny, but I've NEVER had a figure with a hand much larger than the end of my thumb. I can only say that because of Kamina. The rest of them are roughly the size of my thumbnail. But I can fit an entire finger in Viral's huge cat-hand. I'm pretty sure it's for dynamic effect, but I'm certain Viral's hands aren't normally that ridiculously huge. None the less, huge hands mean I can make him hold smaller things...



The best I had on hand was Ririn from the "Bleach: The Styling" set, who will probably be a snack for Viral until he figures out that she's a stuffed animals and not a bird.

All in all, there is no way I regret spending the money on these two. They are absolutely gorgeous. Judging by a slip of paper that came in Nia's box, Uplark also has a Darry figure out (or on the way) so I hope to get her, and pray they eventually do a Simon to round out the collection.

Otakon 2009

Last weekend Suri and I, along with several other friends, made the long trip down from central New Jersey to Balimore, Maryland for Otakon 2009. It's our one big convention of the year and we're usually pretty psyched to rock it out. It was great this year, as always.

General reports for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday can be found via their respective entries in my LiveJournal.

But overall, it was a great con. This was my second year cosplaying Simon form Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and this year I got to be accompanied by Suri and my best friend Cass as my Kamina and Nia. We all hit up the Saturday photoshoot which was a lot of fun. Cosplay is about 50% of the reason I do Otakon, and it was really great to get to see other cosplayers and join in on photos and things.

We are the bitch-sassiest pair of Simons ever.

In an amusing twist, a friend of mine form high school who writes for Japanator ended up writing a short entry about when the Gurren Lagann shoot and the Super Smash Bros. shoot decided to wage war against each other. I ended up in a few of the photos he posted and we had a laugh a little later about what a small internet it is.

The better part of the weekend was spent in the Artist's Alley and the Dealer's Room, which is the other 50% I do Otakon. I got to see a lot of good friends in the Alley. These are people that I only really get to see once or twice a year at Otakon and NYAF, so it was really great to see them and catch up for a while. I also bought a few posters and prints, and a comic from the amazingly talented Hilary Florido, who is maybe one of the coolest people I know.

The Dealer's Room was fantastic this year. I bought two figures (Urahara Kisuke and Kuchikir Rukia) and an old Magic Knight Rayearth doll (Hikaru. I already have Fuu. Now I'm on the hunt for Umi.), and a really fantastic Sailor Moon pencil case.

I also got myself a few doujinshi, though I was only really satisfied with one of them -- an Ukitake/Unohana bleach doujinshi that looks like it's really cute. I may have to eventually try to translate it. I somehow ended up with another Ukitake/Kyoraku doujinshi, but while sitting outside of one of the panels we were waiting to go to, I decided to narrate it with hilarious dialog for my friend Jess and it turned out to be the best purchase ever.

"Blah blah blah I have cancer."

"No you don't. You have lupus."

"Well shit..."

I really don't have the slightest idea what was going on through the whole thing other than that Ukitake and Kyoraku kept fighting and bitch-slapping each other, but it made for an amusing little tale. I also got another Bleach doujin about Kon and some members of the female cast, and a FullMetal Alchemist Roy/Havoc doujin that also includes Riza somehow. Again, I need to learn to read Japanese so I can know what the hell is going on.

But the real prize for the weekend was buying a replica of Sode no Shirayuki, Kuchiki Rukia's sword, for $25. Anyone who knows me as a member of the Bleach fandom knows the crush I have on Shirayuki. So when I found it, I was sure it was really expensive and made Suri lead me away. But then he kept suggesting going back to ask how much it was, so we went and found out it was cheap enough for me to buy!

The unfortunate part is that she'll probably remain in her box until the spring when I either move back down to central NJ for good, or move in with my good friend Boomer over at Downtown Otaku. Then she will be proudly displayed on my wall where I can admire her.

So over all, it was a great con. I may switch up my cosplay next year, or I may not, but either way I'm looking forward to it.