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Japan Packages #2

Yesterday, I got a second set of parcels from Japan from my friend, who’s generous enough to spend some of his busy time, from tutoring the school girls and tutoring the school boys, to get me some items of utmost importance :3

Today’s post will be a quick run through of the items I got in the two parcels~

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*rubs hands together* I’ll make it short and sweet, those above, are the boxes~

Below are (from left to right) a Yayoi Takatsuki of iDOLM@STER (the game) clearfile, a copy of Vocaloid Miku, a Lievo promotional DVD set from TGS 2007 and finally on the bottom is a starter pack for Aquarian Age Alternative arcade card game. The second picture is look at what’s inside the pack :3

The Vocaloid may be familiar to some of you readers from a previous post, you can read them here, and here.

The Aquarian Age cards may also seem familiar, being based on the traditional tabletop card game of the same name, however Alternative is an arcade game, more info on it is explained at Heisei Democracy.

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Oh my god, so much advertisement material. Normally I see this as junk mail, stuff that you’d use for emergency toilet paper. BUT this stuff is made of GOLD. I can never ever get enough of the advertisements from places like Akiba. I treat it like it was gold leaf paper. There’s also a few artbooks in that pile as well, closer look later tho~

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Gah, bad photo, but who cares, it’s the CDs there that are the stars!
Those are the Master Artist series of CD singles from iDOLM@STER. I requested my friend to get some that I don’t have for me. I’m still missing three tho, Yukiho Hagiwara, Ritsuko Akizuki and KOTORI OTONASHI! (Yayoi isn’t there, I already have her). Also, for the keen eye there, Makoto saying “dododo” may be humorous to some of you who know of the Japanese Xbox360 ads :3

Onto the books, I’ve scanned the front covers for you folks to see :3

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okok, This first book wasn’t from my friend, I actually got this book last year when I was in Japan. This is the first in the series of children books by POP dubbed “POP WONDERLAND”, the artist for Moe-Tan, Fairy Musketeers and others. Presenting, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland!

Each of these books in the series is beautifully created, a nice thick hardcover with a soft-matte print dust jacket, textured paper with gorgeous artwork. The text is minimal since it is supposed to be a children’s book, even the kanji has large furigana (hiragana above the kanji) to help readers learn.

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Little Red Riding Hood, second in the series~

The books themselves are about 1cm thick, and are 265mm by 220mm in landscape format (that means it’s a long book rather than a tall book for those who don’t know). If you’re a lover of artbooks, this is a series you need to have a look at getting. While it doesn’t have a hundred pages, it does have about 50 pages of artwork that just shouts cute. They really have done a great job of portraying that children’s book feel that I have in my mind, but in reality, it’s a little too nice to be a normal children’s book XD

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Thumbelina, third of the series. I actually havn’t been properly read this story when I was a kid, so I really have no idea about it other than the fact that there’s a small girl… hmm, I think I might like this one. ^^;

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Now if you like POP’s work, you’d prolly be interested, if not already, in his 2nd major artbook, Super Lollipop (I keep typing Lolipop…).

It has over 150 pages of DFC for you to see, but no explicit nudity (meaning there’s nudity… just tasteful ones). Works include the Moe-Tan series, Fairy Musketeer, original works for Comic Toranoana, the Akiba Blog illustrations, along with others.

A definite GET for POP fans, or just plain lolicons.

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Aaah~ THE iDOLM@STER Precious Album, it’s more of a game guide than an actual artbook. It details on how to play the Xbox360 game, walkthroughs for each of the character events, a listings of clothes and accessories, interviews with the producers and also a section at the back FULL OF STICKAZ~! I dunno if I’ll use most of them, but there’s quite a few of them that are specifically for Xbox360 faceplates, which I’m tempted to try :3

Anyway, below is a list of some details of the books, enjoy~

Details – POP WONDERLAND

Name
Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, Thumbelina
Series
POP WONDERLAND
Publisher
Poplar Publishing
Artist
POP
Writer
Michiyo Hayano
Release date
Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland – April 2006
Little Red Riding Hood – November 2006
Thumbelina – June 2007
Place of purchase
Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland – Comic Toranoana
The others also from Japan
Retail price
1,365 yen each
Bought it for
1,365 yen each (approx $13.00 AU)

Details – Super Lollipop

Name
Super Lollipop – 2nd drawing works of POP
Series
Super Lollipop
Publisher
Sansai Books
Artist
POP
Release date
14th September 2007
Place of purchase
Japan
Retail price
2,800 yen each
Bought it for
2,940 yen each (approx $29.00 AU)

Details – THE iDOLM@STER

Name
THE iDOLM@STER Precious Album
Series
THE iDOLM@STER
Publisher
enterbrain
Release date
April 2007
Place of purchase
Japan
Retail price
2,300 yen each
Bought it for
2,300 yen each (approx $23.00 AU)

P.S. I also added a plugin that links a commenter’s first blog post I found on otadesho.com, I thought it was incredibly nifty, thanks to ron~ for doing some slight editing on the plugin as well :3

P.P.S..or is it P.S.S? I’ll be doing the weathering tutes for the Mecha Musume for sure it seems. However I don’t have the time for documenting the process in the near future, so it may be a while (possible in late November…after all my study stuff is done). Sorry that it’s so late >.< I’ll try to get at least one done soon to see if it tickles your fancy~

Project iM@S

THE iDOLM@STER
MASTER ARTIST 2

iiiihehehehehehe~ My iDOLM@STER master artist 2 arrived along with my 妖精帝國 (Yousei Teikoku, roughly Fairy Empire) Gothic Lolita Propaganda album :3

The master artist series of single from iDOLM@STER will feature a single idol per CD, within that CD will be a few of their image songs and covers with a lot of the seiyuu talking tracks in character.

Yousei Teikoku – Gothic Lolita Propaganda on the other hand, is their second album and features their more prominent songs.

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Now, you can prolly tell I’m a huge fan of Yayoi, so I didn’t hesitate in purchasing this CD. Some of the songs from this release I recognised fairly fast, some of you would too, like リルラ リルハ (rirura riruha “Real Life, Real Heart” – which also featured in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2) and ふたりのもじぴったん (futari no mojipittan). Having Yayoi sing these songs is just mind-numbingly cute if anything. @_@

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The cd is covered in that disgustingly cute illustration of Yayoi chasing a hamburger. I can’t get enough of that picture…
There’s also a card that comes with the CD :3

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Yousei Teikoku’s music can be described as being quite unique relatively. They do quite a bit of music for anime games and shows like My-HiME game, Venus Versus Virus and Magipoka~
I quite enjoy their musical flare, the vocalist has this very cold but heavenly thing about it, but that’s just my opinion XD

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Details – Photos

Camera
Nikon Coolpix P2
Date
2nd August 2007
Location
In my room, on my secondary desk

Details – Item

Name
THE iDOLM@STER MASTER ARTIST 2 – Takatsuki Yayoi
Yousei Teikoku – Gothic Lolita Propaganda
Publisher
THE iDOLM@STER – Columbia Music Entertainment
Yousei Teikoku – Lantis
Release Date
THE iDOLM@STER – 18th July 2007
Yousei Teikoku – 25th April 2007
Place of purchase
Play-Asia
Retail price
THE iDOLM@STER – 2,300 yen
Yousei Teikoku – 3,000 yen
Bought it for
THE iDOLM@STER – $19.50 AU
Yousei Teikoku – $33.35 AU
Availability
THE iDOLM@STER – Available at Play-Asia
Yousei Teikoku – Available at Play-Asia
Links
THE iDOLM@STER Official Site
Columbia’s iDOLM@STER MASTER ARTIST 2 Site
Yousei Teikoku’s official site