Shopping at Nakano Broadway

Hello from a cloudy Tokyo! Yesterday a storm came through and dumped a large quantity of rain on the city and surrounding areas, which meant one thing… shopping! We went over to Nakano Broadway in the afternoon since it was indoors and out of the rain.

IMG_0526

It’s a great little shopping center with plenty to see. Mandarake operates most of the stores in the 3rd and 4th floor and many of the other shops deal largely in second hand goods. It’s typically less crowded than Akihabara and is completely indoors. Since it’s a bit less traveled, you can often find some interesting little gems!

Continue reading “Shopping at Nakano Broadway”

Setting up the di:stage

First of all, Happy Chinese New Year! Here are some tiger girls to start things off right…

13514-620x-tigers

For more, see the post over at Japanator. Now that I have that out of my system, it’s time to move on. Yesterday, I went to the post office to pick up a package from Japan. Since AmiAmi is offering half off international shipping on all orders shipped in February, I put in an order for some of the di:stage figma display stands. Since my collection of figma is growing, I wanted to create a more dynamic display for them. This would require a decent number of basic sets…

IMG_3436

…so I ordered 10 of them.

Continue reading “Setting up the di:stage”

Charlotte’s first anime convention

I’d gotten word about a month ago that a new anime convention was coming to town. Billed as “the Carolinas’ first anime con of the new year,” it promised to be three days worth of exciting anime goodness. Since it was only a short drive from where I live, I decided to give it a visit. The organizers have dubbed this new foray into the American convention scene Ichibancon (www.ichibancon.com). It was held at the Great Wolf Lodge and Resort in Concord, NC, just a couple minutes north of central Charlotte.

IMG_3407

Given that this was a startup, I didn’t set my expectations very high. The venue itself wasn’t extremely large, so space and attendance would be limited. With that in mind, I set off last night after work to sample the offerings.

Continue reading “Charlotte’s first anime convention”

Sophie talks, and new wall hanging arrives

Yep, for your amusement, I had a conversation with my cat this morning. I think she was hungry.

…moving on…

I got home from work today and found a nice big box from RightStuf.com. I was expecting something from them today, but I didn’t expect something quite so large. When I picked it up, however, it weighed almost nothing. That pretty much ruled out anything like DVDs or manga, which meant that it could only by the ARIA lithograph that I ordered. Either that or it was a big empty box…

Big box!

Ever since I saw the shipping notification, I was a bit puzzled. From the description on the item page, I really shouldn’t have this in hand yet…

Date Available – Dec 8 2009

Poster

Media – Poster or Wallscroll

Product Availability – Pre-Order, Not Yet Shipping

Continue reading “Sophie talks, and new wall hanging arrives”

Loot from Japan trip

In some earlier posts about my trip to Japan, you saw the following two pictures:

Loot 1

Loot 2

Before I go any further, yes, I did spend way too much money on toys when I was overseas. Fortunately, my plane ticket back was already paid for, so I couldn’t have wound up like Piro and Largo. Now, after some wait time, here’s the unveiling of the loot from Japan!

Continue reading “Loot from Japan trip”

First loot of June & Kagami Cosplay ver. review

When I got home today, I found a couple of small boxes on my front porch. One was marked from HLJ and the other from RightStuf. Behold, the first loot of June!

IMG_3076

Today’s arrivals: Kagami cosplay ver. Figma, Excel Saga 19, Kannazuki no Miko 1, Sunshine Sketch 2, and Enchanter 10. The manga isn’t anything terribly special, so let’s focus on Kagami.

Continue reading “First loot of June & Kagami Cosplay ver. review”