The Penguin > Aquaman? ...What? Seriously?

I've mentioned my buddy McLovin in the past. If he does as I tell him, maybe in the near future he'll have a blog of his own I can link to so you can read all of his crazy toy ramblings. Yell at him in the comments of this post about how he should start a blog so you can read it. I'll link him to it and prove I was right. Dude has good opinions about toys.

But that's not why I'm here today.

Today I am here to talk about those super cute DC Universe plushes that Funko is producing that I've seen at Toys-R-Us and a few other stores. They are, seriously, the cutest thing I've ever seen. There's also Alice In Wonderland ones I think, but I'm not as interested in those because I do not care about that movie at all.



Wave 1 consisted of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash.

Okay that is all pretty standard fare. But, because I am me, I wanted an Aquaman. The idea of an Aquaman plush in this style filled me with delight. I ranted to McLovin and Suri that Aquaman was cooler than The Flash and should have taken his place in that set. But, y'know, Flash is generally a good comedic figure and anyone who watched the old Justice League shows remember him fondly. I know I do. So I could accept it.

Now, I just found out there is a second wave of these plushes. Another set of four coming out sometime this October. (From what I've heard, October is going to be a huge month for releases this year.) Do you want to know who is in this set? I'm going to tell you either way, so you might as well say yes.



That's right. Wonder Woman, Catwoman, The Joker, and The Penguin.

The. Fucking. Penguin.

They are all still super cute, but how the hell did The Penguin get a plush over Aquaman? No one gives a damn about The Penguin, do they?! Please correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen The Penguin do anything worthwhile in a long time, while Aquaman has ended up being a pretty popular character lately thanks to "Batman: The Brave & The Bold".

I can understand Wonder Woman and The Joker being chosen above Aquaman. Most people are not me and tend to prefer those two. I can even kind of understand Catwoman, just for the sake of throwing more chicks into the mix since were all into the gender diversity shit. But THE GODDAMN PENGUIN? Seriously? C'mon, Funko. Get your shit together.

There had better be a third wave consisting of Aquaman, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and... Hell, I don't know. The Question? He might not be as cute since he has no face and therefore can't have the cute button eyes. But he sure would have a cute little hat.

What DC characters would you like to see Funko put into this line, guys? Any favorites? I would love to hear who you guys would like to see among this line! My vote is still straight up for Aquaman, but I love DC's cast so much and I'd like to see more of these.

"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!

My Recent Nerdy Purchases

So I felt the need to finally update again. It's been a few days, and I haven't really been doing anything nerdy since I've been apartment-sitting. But I did buy a few things last Sunday when McLovin, Suri, and a few others came up to visit so we could run around for McLovin's birthday. So I can talk about all that I guess.

But first, man guys... Look at my visitor map...



I hope all of my international visitors, who probably came looking for something else, at least found something they could enjoy for a few minutes while they were here. From what I can tell form looking at my stats, a lot of people have ended up here recently searching for pictures of Alcyone cosplays and finding our picture we took of Super Cosplay Kazoku's Alcyone and Lantis. (Which, again, were just stunning.) While I'm on the subject, drop by and give them a look if you're into cosplay. They're really fantastic, and I hope to see them again at future conventions.

Okay so onto the stuff I bought on Sunday. At one point we ended up at Forbidden Planet, a great NYC comic store (one of several) and went upstairs to their manga section. I was surprised to see that VIZ had released a translation of the Bleach "Official Bootleg" book. A while ago, Downtown Otaku had bought me a japanese copy, and I've always been curious as to what all of the little bonus comics were about.



It's probably just been released in the past few weeks (it was on FP's new releases shelf) but if you've got a decent manga section at your local Borders, B&N, or other bookstore you shouldn't have a hard time getting it. And if you can't find it there, it's already up on Amazon.com. If you're a bleach fan, and you're like me and can't be bothered keeping up with all of the communities that translate supplementary material like this (and therefore haven't read it yet) it's definitely a worthwhile addition to your collection. The color comics are pretty hilarious and there's some other good general info included in the book.

The other book I bought was Let's find Pokemon! Crystal, which is basically "Where's Waldo" but with pokemon. It's all Gen II art, and is apparently the third in a line of "Let's Find Pokemon!" books.



I've already sat down and found all of the pokemon I was supposed to find, but it's also fun sitting down and seeing what other pokemon are in the scenes, and I love the Gen II artwork. When McLovin showed it to me I just took it from him and was pretty much set on buying it. It wasn't much of a question. Because I love me some Gen II pokemon stuff.

So I've still got a few more days before I go back to New Jersey. Hopefully I'll manage one more post before I head home and get back to my usual nerdings. Take care, ya'll!

In the hopes that one day I can play Atelier Marie.

Before I get started, I want to thank whoever linked my Saturday report for Otakon on facebook. It drew in a lot of traffic. I also want to welcome the new followers. It warms my heart to know people are actually reading this thing and it's not just me shouting into the dark.

Today I want to talk about something very near and dear to my heart. It is a game that I have fallen in love with, even though I haven't gotten to play it -- Atelier Marie.



For what it is, Atelier Marie doesn't get the credit it deserves in the western market. This is most likely because up until recently the Atelier franchise was struggling stateside. All we had was Atelier Iris, which iv'e heard is a bit different from the traditional games, and Mana Khemia, which is a spin-off of the Atelier series. More recently we've gotten Atelier Annie for the DS, which I have played multiple times and adore (and have covered here once), and are coming to Atelier Rorona for the PS3 (I'm not sure if this has hit the US market yet. I need to check my release dates.)

But a lot of modern RPGs owe their thanks to Atelier in one way or another, and Atelier all started with the one and only Atelier Marie. I've been completely in love with the artwork from this game for years now It's heavily influenced by Alphonse Mucha, who is one of my favorite artists. Some images are even reworkings of his illustrations.



Even with how Atelier has slowly been crawling into the western market, we still have not, and most likely will not, see any of the games from the original Zarlberg (Salberg?) continuity that started with Atelier Marie. Even if the franchise does finally become popular here, I doubt NiS (who is localizing the games) will go back and bring us Marie, Elie, Lilie, Violet, and Judie.



The closest we've come was Tokyopop localizing 4 out of 5 volumes of the manga "Atelier Marie and Elie: Zarlburg Alchemists". However, they dropped volume 5 when the going got tough. I have Japanese scans of all 5 manga, and have gotten the basic idea of what goes on in volume 5 (the ending is very clear from the visuals, and is fantastic.) but I'd love to actually get to read it.

Finding merchandise for what is, essentially, a dead fandom in the west has been a challenge, but I've managed to get some doujinshi, a guide book, a poster from the re-release of Atelier Marie And Elie, and matching figures of Marie and Elie. They're basically the stars of my collection of things, and I'm glad I was able to find anything at all. But it doesn't bring me any closer to playing the game.

However, there is still some hope for that. There is an Atelier Marie translation project that some fans are working on to make a playable rom of the game for English language fans. I've been following the project for a while now, both on the blog and on an Ar Tonelico forum and just quietly offering support.

But now I guess I'm going to make a little bit of a rallying cry? If there's anyone who has the time and ability to help with translating or coding, please drop these guys a line. If not, spread the word and see if there's anyone who can. I'd love to see this project completed and get to play Atelier Marie one day.

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!

Otakon 2010 - Thursday/Friday

So we didn't do anything Otakon related on Thursday, but it was a good day, so I'm going to shove it in with Friday's activities.

So Cass picked me up around 1, we grabbed Suri, and headed down to Baltimore. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch, and then headed down to UMBC, where we're staying in Cass's apartment on campus. We got ourselves settled in, and then headed over to the local Safeway to pick up some food/snacks for the weekend.

I made steak sautéed in olive oil (I am the most Italian), a box of white cheddar & broccoli Pasta-Roni, and a bag of frozen broccoli for dinner. Cass made a box of cupcakes for dessert. It was the most delicious. For those of you who didn't know, I absolutely love to cook. So getting to cook dinner for my friends (while wearing an awesome blue apron!) was great.

Suri played some Twilight Princess, I played some Cate West: The Velvet Keys, and we made a lot of jokes about mangos being 100 cents, Death Note's "Take this potato chip... AND EAT IT!!!", and various other things we all found funny over the course of the day. Just being out of the house is nice, and I enjoyed hanging around and just being kind of nerdy and awesome with two of the most important people in my life.

Friday rolled around and Cass dropped Suri and I off at the convention center. We picked up our badges and began heading around the convention. We met up with friends and took pictures of cosplayers until it was around time for a Q&A panel with Jerry Jewel, who voices Vino/Claire from "Baccano!".



The previous Q&A for Todd Haberkorn was still going on, so we sat in in the end of it and figured out that he voiced Firo from "Baccano!", which was pretty cool also. They are hilarious men, and will also be voicing Italy and Russia (respectively) in the dub of "Axis Powers Hetalia" with crazy accents. I've never been too into Hetalia, but I do love crazy accents so I may watch it just for that.

After that, Suri and I made a few round in the dealer's room and artist's alley to scout out things we might want to buy and what booths had the best prices. While doing that, we also found some of my favorite cosplayers of the day.



Once we'd made a few rounds, we went back and started buying things. I didn't figure there would be much I wanted, but I managed to find a good handful of Nia figures to buy, plus a few other little Bleach things that I couldn't resist.



The "cookies" are actually zipper-pulls/keychains. They are really really cute. The "decorated" cookies are of Abarai Renji and Hitsugaya Toshiro, the two square cookies are of Kuchiki Byakuya and Hirako Shinji, and the chocolate cookies is just squares. I don't really know what it is. If I can find the booth again, I may buy a few more tomorrow and see what else I can get.



I also found this poster in the artist's alley. While making my rounds, there wasn't really a whole lot that I wanted. There were things at the tables of friends that I'd planned to pick up (and will go back for tomorrow since I didn't get to today), but there wasn't much I wanted to buy. Then I saw this Bakuman poster by Rikyo (of Studio Painted Blade), and just stopped dead in my tracks. He asked if I saw anything I liked, I pointed at it, and said "That." I paid the $10 for the poster and we had a brief conversation about how great Bakuman is.

After that we caught up with Cass and headed back to the apartment. I made chicken, corn, and chicken-flavored rice-a-roni for dinner, and now we're all hanging around unwinding after a full, very eventful day. Tomorrow we plan to take another spin around the dealer's room and the artist's alley and then see what happens.

All of our pictures from this weekend can be found in this album on Photobucket. It is full of fantastic cosplayers, so do go take a look!

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.

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.