Yuri Mania 9: Gift from Yaku

Gokigenyou minna-san! Whew... it's been a while since I made a Yuri Mania post. Here's the standard definition of yuri for your convenience. This will be a short but very sweet post. The picture above is given to me by Yaku as a thank you gift for colouring her bunnygirl Mikuru. I'm going GAGA over this picture because these are two of my favourite characters, Ayanami Rei and Saber! I look through Gelbooru and Danbooru and there's nothing like it. A very rare combination of Rei and Saber in a somewhat yuri pose. When Yaku sends me the original scan, I will also attempt to colour this just like the Mikuru. I hope my colouring will improve by then ^^;

Yaku totally surprised me because she just asked me which characters I like and I gave her a long list of characters to play with. I was saying something like "Lunamaria in a plugsuit", but holy cow this is much better! Saber blushing as Rei is holding on to her bare back... looks like we caught them in the act of something, eh? >:)

Thank you Yaku! I loves it very much ^_^
Looking forward to more of your artwork!

Vancouver and the Things That Are In It

This is Vancouver. Some would say it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. For me it's just where I live. April 20th is something that's quite well-celebrated in Vancouver, a day of smoking marijuana, something very popular here. But to me and my family, it's the anniversary of our arrival in Vancouver. This year is our 19th year in Vancouver and I enjoy every year of it. I'm thankful for my parents for taking me here because it is a place I love. But not that I don't love my old city, Jakarta, either... They're both very important cities to me, it's just I'm right here in Vancouver, s'all.

The two pictures above are taken 20 blocks away from my house. Up on a hill. I was considering crossing the street and stop in the middle to take a better picture, but decided it might peeve the drivers that I stopped the traffic lights for ^^;

The weather is very moderate, but we get everything here instead of just rain and sun like in Jakarta. We sometime get snow (we got more than we used to this year) and usually a lot more rain. Our summer doesn't go higher than around 30 degrees celsius. And the winter doesn't get lower than around -15 degrees celsius. Though I think I've been too comfortable that I get cold and hot easily even though it's not much of a dip or peak in the temperature. I still like it better here because it's cooler than Jakarta. I was always dizzy and complaining about the heat back there...

This is the front yard of my house... I was hoping the picture would turn out better but it looks overexposed. Why? Well it's really warm and sunny today! I fixed the picture a little to show a bit more colour. We don't have much grass around the house so we don't worry about mowing the lawn much.

This is taken from the master bedroom of the house. Great great view. Sometimes I forget that we have this view in the house since I tend to stick in front of the computer too much ^^;

Another thing I love about Vancouver is the amount of Asian products that is readily available. That is because of the amount of Asians that live around here, not just in Vancouver, but its surrounding cities, Richmond, Burnaby, Surrey, etc. I think Richmond is almost like one big Chinatown, so much so that the first Starbucks that closed in Canada is in Richmond. I also don't feel out of place in this city because Asians aren't that much of a minority here. My school always had at least 65% Asians, most of them are Filipinos.

Uh anyway, back to the topic... Lots of Asian products readily available. We have stores here called T&T where they sell lots of Asian food, drinks and other groceries. There are lot of other Asian stores that sell books, CDs, DVDs, and foods as well. But of course there are also places that sell bootlegs...

I've been meaning to show these pictures since the end of March, but the "Your Room Giveaway" on DannyChoo.com sorta delayed me in posting them. So here are some of those products:

Karinto, Cocoa Pretz, Teriyaki Nori (seaweed) and a cream horn. I saw karinto at DannyChoo.com before, but it looked like... excrement. I overlooked the appearance and bought it anyway. Opened it, ate it... and LOVED it! Great stuff. I need to find it again now haha. The Cocoa Pretz is pretty good. I loves my seaweed, especially the teriyaki kind. Need to get these two again soon.

And the cream horn... Long time ago after watching Lucky Star I bought this and thought it'd be like the one that Konata eats. Well first thing you notice would be the non-choco cream in the centre and the chocolate coating. This is NOT the choco cornet that Konata eats all the time. It's very different. The one that Konata eats is soft whereas this one is more crispy, kinda like a pastry instead of bread-like. Not something I will buy all the time. It's a bit pricey too, at $1.19 at T&T.

Megami Super Deluxe. I wasn't going to get this but a lot of people were showing off their copy at DannyChoo.com that I can't help but buy it too. Good thing was, I knew where to get it for sure. At Iwase Book Store in Yaohan Centre in Richmond. I haven't actually opened it yet, though...

Ok, this one I didn't get from Vancouver... but it's from Amazon.ca. At least they ship it for free to my house, so there! A few days later after my rant about the atrocity of the paperback cover I received this hardcover on my doorsteps. I haven't looked through the book stores to see if they have it, but it's still cheaper to buy from Amazon. I'm quite ticked off at what it says in the black box on the back cover... This exclusive cover "[makes] it the perfect addition to any Haruhi fan's personal library!" Well eff you! Why can't you make the paperback cover look as good as the hardcover?? That cover should've been better so that it can be as close as possible to perfect for anyone!

Anyhoot... That is Vancouver and some of the stuff in it. I would've tried to take pictures of other landmarks such as Science World, GM Place, Harbour Centre or the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library, but you can easily find those on the internetz and even in some movies. Plus I'm lazy to go around taking pictures... heheheh. If you want to see more of Richmond and some of the cherry blossoms around Vancouver, check out chun's blog.

The Atrocity of Haruhi Suzumiya's Paperback Cover

Augh! Do you see this cover?? It's horrible!! I recently picked up the novel translation for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Yen Press. A friend of mine at the comic book store told me that it was released, but I didn't realize it looked like this >_<

I didn't realize that there is a hardcover WITH the official Noizi Ito cover, which cost a bit more than the CAN$9.99 pricetag of this one. BUT I'd rather pay more to have a better than cover than this piece of... dung. So right now it has been shipped from Amazon. I'm under the impression that the hardcover edition is only available through online... but I haven't proven this yet.

The inside back doesn't make it any better... I wasn't aware that neon is back in style. Ugh... It's like a rainbow taking a puke over my masterpiece that is the Haruhi Suzumiya novel. I personally don't mind if they redesign to make it look different than the Japanese version, but if only it's a good design! This is an atrocity!

The back is pretty simple and straightforward describing the inside of the book. Still if you see the original Japanese cover, this is prety much junk.

At least the colour pages are intact and they're translated it too. I loves my Noizi Ito art.

The novel translation itself is pretty good. I did read the Baka Tsuki translation last year and saw that this is pretty similar to that translation. I am a bit annoyed that the "Integrated Data Entity" has been simply translated as "Data Overmind", but that was nothing compared to the cover (yeah, sorry, I'm not letting that cover atrocity go). I'm pleased with Koizumi's "organization" translated into "agency" instead of Bandai's "syndicate" that they used for the anime.

The following picture shows the last few pages of the last chapter, so it may be a spoiler if you plan to read it, but I'm assuming everyone has watched the anime at some point.

Not very pleased with their font usage though... This is the part where Yuki is typing in the computer. I would love to see it in some kind of computer font thing instead of Extra Bold Gill Sans. Yeah, I'm too damn familiar with fonts nowadays. Occupational hazard...

Overall I'm happy to finally read it again in my hands. I read it within a week. I took these pictures before I lend it to a co-worker of mine. I personally wouldn't mind not getting it back since I have the hardcover on order anyway and I will read it again. It's one of my favourite books and heck probably one of the only novels I'll read ever since I finished the Shakugan no Shana novels. I hope Yen Press release the second volume soon and hope they rethink of the design for the paperback version, because to me it doesn't attract attention and these books DESERVE attention!

Kyon no Imouto - Summer in Spring

Wave 1/10 Kyon's Little Sister Swim Wear Ver. [Deluxe Edition]

Yay! Finally able to take pictures of Kyon's Little Sister figure that I received recently. I actually got it April 1st, but I had so many things happening during that week that I never got a chance to take pictures of her until now.

If you didn't know, Kyon's little sister is one of my favourite characters from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series. I've always wanted a little sister like her ever since I watched the show. So cute! Also I've gotten this question many times before, so I'll answer it here. She does not have a name, yet. The author of Haruhi Suzumiya novels have this interesting theme going on where people that have powers, Mikuru Asahina, Koizumi Itsuki, get a full name while ordinary humans, like Kyon and Tsuruya, has one name or no name at all.

The first picture shows you all the accessories that came in the box because it's the Deluxe Edition. It came with extra pairs of arms, two extra hairstyles and an extra face that winks. It's almost like a figma! Oh my... can you imagine a Kyon's Little Siter figma?? I want one!

If you came here from DannyChoo.com and expected to see three boxes then... APRIL FOOL'S! I almost did buy three of them, but I asked someone to stop me from buying three of them, through email, lol. She knows who she is.

I didn't realize that I could've put both the inner tube and the water gun when I took the pictures lol. I should've taken a look at the box first, I was too much in a rush, methinks ^^;

I guess the Deluxe Version comes with the extra parts in the plastic packaging on the left. I guess it was pretty easy for them to do it this way to differentiate between the deluxe and standard edition.

So yeah this is straight out of the box. I didn't even realize I could put the tube on her. It wasn't until I downloaded the picture that I saw this peg on her hand for the tube... But in order to put the tube you have to remove her arms and head first. So the standard version gets a twin tail.

The untied hair version. I decided to put the tube on this one. I took extra angles to show the top of the tube. Her shoulders are pretty easy to remove for easy arm replacement, but you do have to push it in tightly so that the seams aren't visible. I really love her beach flip flops!

The side ponytail version is my favourite! It's when I first fell in love with her... Conditionally speaking that is. I love her like a little sister... I swear! This is also to show you the winking face. Ain't she cute? One eye closed, one side of hair tied; that's how I thought of it when I took this picture. I've made this face into a default face when I put her back in the packaging. In order to change her face I had to remove it from the peg which was tight and putting in a new face is even tighter...

Kyon's Triple Little Sister. Made this in Photoshop. Took me a while because I had to separate three pictures from their background! Oh so painful just to make this composition... the one on the right is not even at the right angle... arrggh, so annoying. But whatever, it's just for fun anyway. Now I do have a chance to get two more of this figure, but I guess I won't since I don't have any space ^^;

The Melancholy of Saber Lily Special

An extra special episode of The Melancholy of Saber Lily! Gotta give Blowfish the credit for this idea. His comment on Yuri Mania 7 gave me quite a brainstorm!

The above picture was my attempt to edit Saber Lily so that it looks like she's using the computer. I'm running out of time to make it, so I just left it as is. It doesn't look as good as I'd hoped... She's browsing all my Weekly Lily posts to get an idea. She forced me to browse through Gelbooru to find specific pictures, but there were thousands of them!

Without further ado...

The Melancholy of Saber Lily Special

Seems like there's a reference to something in every panel! Did you guess what song is being sung in the first panel? I figured since everyone was posting about K-ON! I might as well make a reference to it. For those not in the know:



Did you see the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya novel in the second panel? I don't blame you if you didn't notice it since they really messed up with the cover there. They're using the original art for the hardcover while they're using this ugly dreck for the paperback cover! WTF!

Major edits in the 3rd and 4th panel... I took a picture of the bathroom and added Saber in there. I was messing around with the lighting effects in Photoshop a bit too much though, so it doesn't look too natural in there anymore. Oh like the 1/1 scale reference that I did there? XD

And the last post I had to ask my brother to take the picture since I'm... buried... Had to take a few photos because I wasn't specific enough on what I was looking for, but he went above and beyond and got me this nice angle. Oh noticed the Rumiko Takahashi-esque hand gesture? ^^

So hopefully I'll be able to continue with the regular story for next week... as long as Saber Lily didn't beat me up too much...

"OFF LIMITS!"

... is what I would've said after the DannyChoo.com "Your Room" giveaway was over. I was shy to post about my room in the first place, so I wanted to hide it after it was all over. But since I did win it, I can't really hide it yet now, can I? ^^;

And it's about time I made a blog post about it too... I saw 3 or 4 other blog posts regarding this while the guy who won it didn't post his reaction yet! So for a mini celebration I've finally put up the poster I've been meaning to put up on my door. I've had this poster on before, but it never did stick properly... Now it seems appropriate, doesn't it? Ahaha!

My helpful friend from Daiso ^_^

I have to thank Danny for picking my room out of the 89 entries. I mean, 89! THAT'S A LOT! There were so many good ones, like Rin's; who had a lot of stuff yet so organized, and then there was Akiba-kid's, whom I saw a kindred spirit with since our room is stacked with books! Karasu-kun and Syaoran's too! I mean Syaoran even said he'd clean my room after I asked him LOL! But wow... I was shocked! I didn't expect to win. I was hoping to at least get a runner up prize XD

So the night Danny was about to post the winner, it was about 12:45 AM on Sunday. I was staying up late, trying to catch up on Pastel (I blame Raz for this XD), and checked puchi blurb occasionally and saw that Danny was about to post the winner. Which then I blurbed something like, "Should I wait for the winner or go to bed, lol". Danny replied promptly by asking what time it was in [Vancouver], which was almost 1 AM by that time. "Give me 30 mins tops," he says. You'd think I'd clued in why he asked me specifically... ^^;

15-20 minutes later, I was shaking, laughing uncontrollably, my teeth was chattering and my face was red as I saw the first picture that popped up in the winner announcement. It was joy and embarrassment mixed at the same time, lol. I know I've been told not to be embarrassed by it, but face it, my room's an effing mess! Safe to say I couldn't sleep right away, even though I had to work in about 5 hours. I saw the Sitemeter on Sunday and it finished counting to 389 at the end of the day. That was the most visits I've had ever since I started Sitemeter!

The picture above was going to replace ALL the pictures I took for my room... it's null now ^^;

Right now I've so many things I want to get with the 20,000 yen, but I want to make sure it's something I really want and not just plain spend spend spend, just like what I did to my room... I still haven't registered at Tenso yet! I came home late from work on Sunday after having dinner with a friend and on Monday I've been watching Heroes and 24 while surfing DC.com. So many things happening right now...

Since I was taking pictures of my door anyway, here's a closer look of the thing above the door frame. It's the first letter to my name, R. And it transforms into a robot! Isn't it cute? :D

Hopefully after work on Tuesday I will try to register on Tenso and shop around. I already saw AmiAmi and jeez, I saw a lot of things I want to get already! Oh and 20,000 yen is approx $250 Canadian! That's a lotta manga I can get! No, wait... better hold off on the manga... Well I shall decide and will post accordingly ^^

Oh stay tuned, I have something special I will be posting on Thursday, if everything goes as planned. And thank you again Danny for choosing my messy otaku room and thank you to Tenso for sponsoring this great giveaway and to everyone who encouraged me about my room and all the participants & the runner-ups who contributed to this event. 'Twas very fun!!

Now I should really start cleaning my room if I don't want to end up like Gomiko...

Yuri Mania 8

Gokigenyou readers! Welcome to another session of Yuri Mania! This week I finished Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th season... Awww what a touching ending. It's kinda what you see in the above picture... ok fine those two didn't really kiss, but still hugging. It's a spoiler perhaps, but after you watched the whole season you see it coming.

I also finished Maria-sama ga Miteru 3rd season OVA. No, you didn't read it wrong. I watched the end of 4th season before I even watched most of the 3rd season... Safe to say I mixed up a lot of the timelines as I was watching both of them at the same time. This is also old news, but if you haven't heard, Nozomi/Right Stuf has picked up the license for the 4th season. So now I can't wait for the DVD specials that they always have in it. I just realized I reviewed first season of MariMite but didn't continue... Guess that's something I ought to do next week...

ANYHOW... This is also an excuse to post...

The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 12

Last time Saber Lily found out that Haruhi has a freaking tentacle monster for a summon! And well you can sorta imagine what happens when a tentacle monster shows up...

Ah two parts in a row that I couldn't figure out a title for the comic... I had to borrow from a brand of soda. Yes, there is an actual soda called "Tentacle Grape". Look it up!

I was mildly annoyed that the tentacle was rubbing paint all over my Saber Lily figma. I hope it's removable. It's minor, but still noticable. Panel 3B was also a pain to make. I know what I wanted to do, but I guess I didn't envision how it looks because Haruhi and Saber's picture were taken separately. I took them both yesterday, then as I was making it in Photoshop, it didn't match! ARRGGH! So I had to reshoot for Haruhi's part... I also modified Saber's eyes to match the shock, though it didn't look as good as I'd hope. Anyway, the MariMite picture is a better example of what I was trying to achieve in panel 3B.

Don't Ask About the Tentacle Figure...

Picture related... Courtesy of Gelbooru

The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 11

Here comes another installation of Saber Lily vs Chouyusha Haruhi! I think it's pretty much self-explanatory. I actually took photos for the first two panels weeks ago and didn't take the last two until today. I also took more photos for part 12 which I will post tomorrow (hopefully).

When I opened the box to the new cast of characters for this comic, it was sticky and oily! Gross!

Anyway, I made 3 versions of this part. An animated version, the normal version and an alternate ending. Let me know which one you like best!

The original ending

The animated edition. Just simple animation just to show some effects.

The alternate ending. I think Saber Lily is about to say "What the fudge" in the 3rd panel. And she's pointing at you, you sick and twisted dollar sign, percent sign, at symbol, and number symbol.

In case you're wondering, "Inju" seems to be the word most associated with tentacle monsters in Japan. I really have no idea what it means... It works well with the pun in the title, doesn't it :)