I preordered this forever ago…. and yesterday IT FINALLY CAME!

I had stayed away from anything Figma for a long time, as I could have easily gone down the same road I did with Pinky:St… way too much money and a box full of parts. I’ve really had to restrain myself since moving to Japan with Pinky:St, as they are not as popular anymore and ridiculously cheap.

But, I had mentioned way before this was announced that I’d buy a Kuroko Figma if it existed. Those who know me know that I am a Kuroko fanatic at a top level. I think she is *OPINION* one of the greatest characters of all time. Yes. One day I will write a thesis as to why, but for now let’s just say that I can’t ignore such passion about something somebody loves.

I had no problem justifying the price of getting the game just for the figure. I had to have it.

Anyway, I took some pics…

I’m still new to taking decent pictures of figures and stuff. I want to get a good macro lens eventually. But yes, there she is, in all of her insane lesbian teleporter glory. Completely worth it. I will take a few more pictures later and upload them to my twitter.

As for the game…

My Japanese isn’t that great, but it’s been fun just to hear their voices again. I only played for a little bit, but the opening animation was hilarious. Kuroko at her best. I should have installed some kind of screencap software on my PSP… but oh well. The game itself should be pretty easy to get by now.

The whole package is still in stock at Amazon.co.jp as of now.

Today, I had one goal in mind: To see the new K-ON! movie. Unlike other anime films (Nanoha, Haruhi) it has pretty good distribution here in Japan and I had a theater that was a little over an hour drive from me. So I got up early and drove out….

Never underestimate the power of K-ON fans. This being the only theater within a hundred kilometers playing the movie here in Northern Japan, the fans were there in full force. I was hoping to go to the first showing at 8:30, but when I got there a little before 8:00, there were already over 100 people in line. I waited for oven an hour and got a pretty decent seat in what ended up being a sold out showing at 10:50.

I won’t give too many spoilers, but if you are a K-ON fan on any level you are going to enjoy and love this movie. My Japanese isn’t that great, but I knew exactly what was going on. To start off, the beginning is just…. epic beyond words. unless you catch one off part on Ritsu’s drum kit (the only hint I’ll give) I was completely fooled. Every part of the story is carried out in typical K-ON fashion, and the movie doesn’t seem long at any point. (even though it’s almost 2 hours)

As you probably already know, the girls go to England as their “Graduation Trip” or senior vacation of sorts. I predicted that there would be many incidents of hilarious English awaiting me, and I was not disappointed. The only two interesting things I’ll say without giving too much away is: Mugi’s English isn’t as good as we’re lead to believe in the series. (Her frustration at the speed of the locals speaking is beyond hilarious) And, interestingly, none of the English was subtitled in Japanese. I would say all of it was realistic and correct (With the exception of parts of a scene in a restaurant that I won’t give away) and it was interesting to see their reactions. Yui and Ritsu give the stereotypical “Yes! Hello!” response to everything. Azusa and Mio seem to be the ones that try to understand and speak anything. But overall there was very little English spoken in London. Oh well.

Also, London is nowhere near Scotland. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

The ending part was fantastic. Again, I’ll save the spoilers, but I really want the soundtrack just for that last song. It’s great. And as for the very very end of the movie, it’s one of those “It’s the ending but not really the end of the story” deals. Not sure how to interpret it yet.

Overall, it was a K-ON Quality A+. I plan to see it again if I have time and I’m near the theater  while it’s still playing. If you are in Japan, go see it! If not, it’s worth the wait!

Lastly, here is some of the promo stuff they gave me when I got my ticket:

It’s a stamp card (for each time you see the movie….) and a postcard with lyrics from a certain new song

If you get a chance to see it, let me know what you think!

I made a blog post over two years ago with the title “Ice Ice Fairy” just as a joke. Well, now it’s real. My mashup of Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby and おてんば恋娘 by ZUN.

And now it’s a completely different kind of joke I think it came out awesome.

I started this a few months ago. I found the acapella of the Vanilla Ice song that was kinda clean. I searched on and off for one that was and discovered that they were all the same. I also discovered just how BAD the timing is on the ORIGINAL. He’s not even on the beat for half the song. Some parts I fixed, some I left be.

A friend of mine, one of the very few that know that I’m into this stuff did the “Ice Ice Fairy” vocal part. (He also did the ‘Charisma Break’ on Pork Chop Sandwiches) He demands to be known as the Former Vice President of Canada and nothing more. He’s weird.

I had one version that I added a bunch of little audio samples from various things (Touhou M1, Epic Meal Time Guy saying Bacon really creepy) and a few more audio layers, but to be honest I think it sounds better a bit more simple and clean like it is.

It’s almost fate that the two seem to work together in so many ways.

Artwork is by me. I had a ton of fun doing it, but it took forever.

YEAH FUN MUSIC TIMES. The ultimate goal? To make at least one of these a year. Super ultimate goal? Make my own full-length Touhou album. But we’ll see..

If you want the MP3 of both of my mashups, they can be found here.

So yeah. I guess I kinda disappeared again. Though this was a bit more planned than before, and unlike before I came back with a lot of the stuff I’d been promising on Twitter.

The new video will get it’s own post in a bit. But for now, let’s go over everything else.

New logo.

I designed this forever ago, along with about 30 others. Some of them I posted earlier and I have a whole contact sheet full of them. I’d post that, but it’s really not that interesting. The only thing I did recently is I updated the line art of Cirno on the right. That lead to another interesting thing.

Hello.

I wanted to draw something to mark my “return” or whatever. So I came up with this idea. My mistake was to try and take the line art from the logo, tilt it in illustrator, and then just draw the rest. I’m still learning how to do cleaner stuff in Illustrator. (I’ve been working in Photoshop for a very long time but didn’t pick up Illustrator until a few years ago.) I made the mistake of trying to draw and color IN Illustrator. It took me longer than just doing it in pencil first and just inking in Illustrator. That, and as I’ll tell you below, it has been a long time since I’ve drawn anything like this. So I ended up rushing the coloring, which I had only just figured out the best way to do in Illustrator. I tried to make up for it in After Effects with lighting and layer tricks, but it still bothers me. I still kinda like it, but it will be replaced as soon as I have something better. And hey, it’s mine. I drew it. To me that’s kinda amazing.

The other goal for doing that was to practice for THIS:

I had been working on this mashup using Cirno’s theme and Ice Ice Baby for some time. When I did the Prismriver one I used create.swf and the whole thing was done in 4 hours. Well, I worked on and off on the mashup for months and I had no idea what I was going to do about the album art. Then while looking for ideas, I found this:

And the idea was born. I did a rough sketch on paper but did a lot of it in Illustrator. I learned my lesson from last time and did the coloring in Photoshop. I had to remember how to do some stuf, but luckily I work in Photoshop every day pretty much, but mostly repair and manipulation. Took the final into After Effects, added some filters and a background, and the above image is born.

I’m actually really happy with the final result. I am not an artist. Real artists can draw stuff like that in like a 10th of the time it took me. And better. But I honestly can’t believe that I drew that. It’s kinda given me a new confidence to continue on my plans to do 100% of my stuff. Music, animation, art, everything. And well, it’s not that I came out of nowhere being able to draw… I was trained in art, design, illustration, and multimedia. And I did draw anime stuff once… like, 10 years ago. I had my reasons for giving up and I debated back and forth on telling the story here. But one thing I decided recently is that I’m going to try and not spew personal BS on here anymore. Let’s just say that I had a good reason then and I still think I did. I wish I didn’t stop drawing, but that’s just how it is.

As I said, I am not an artist. I have a lot of work to do. My freehand stuff is a mess and I wouldn’t be able to do anything without a computer. I have no idea if this will change. I’m not sure how much more work and time I can dedicate to teaching myself this stuff again. I just want to have fun with it. Some people take their artwork way too seriously and feel that gives them the right to be assholes. I can’t do that. So while I can promise that I will try to continue doing new stuff, I can’t promise that I will continue with stuff.

To be honest, in the past 2 years I’ve done a few sketches… nothing that I’m willing to share…yet. We’ll see. I’d like to challenge myself and see just how far I can take it in a few years.

To be honest, it’s kind of exciting. The reason it took me so long is because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’m sure some of you real artists out there know how it feels when you don’t draw for a few weeks or months.

That said, many other new things happened. And then didn’t happen. I had this wordpress template that I had painstakingly edited and customized like a year ago for the new blog. And the other day when I went to try it…. there were so many problems that I just gave up on it. So I just installed the one you see now as a base so I can stop fretting over it. I’ll slowly change this one to suit my needs, but the old one is finally gone!

It’s like a new, fresh face for everything. New fun!

Got two more posts coming. One about the new video and then another one soon about the direction of everything Cirno is a Genius.

Look forward to it!

Here it is. The newest…. and last of the Fensler Film G.I. Joe PSA parodies. I started this… a long time ago. I stopped because I wanted to make something better first. Then I made the K-ON Top Gear thing… then I started on it again, then I stopped. Then I started a bunch of other projects that I haven’t finished. Well, that ends. I’m going to finish everything I started before I start making new things.

Also, this is the very last create.swf video I will make, maybe forever. Not that I have any problem with create.swf stuff, it’s just that apparently you are not allowed to have fun and make stuff just for the sake of making things. You are not allowed to use shortcuts or tools to save time just to make something for fun. I’m not looking for any kind of anime, touhou, or even artist street cred here. I don’t do these to show off and I don’t think I’m the “best ever” just because I make videos like this. I made them because they are fun and I enjoy it. Luckily, a few other people also enjoy them. If you start taking me or anything I make serious then it is you with the problem. I’m just having fun. But it’s amazing how serious fun has to be these days.

But I’m up for the challenge. I’m going to see if I can play the game. The one thing I don’t have on my side is time. I work more than one job and take on freelance all the time. But I’m going to see if I can manage this. The fun won’t stop… I’m just going to try and take it a bit more serious and see what happens.

But as soon as the fun stops, I’ll stop. That’s how it’s always going to be with me.

That being said, here’s what’s going on. New logo stuff will be ready shortly. New site will be up right after. I have a few other short and music projects that I started and never finished, or that I finished and I want to clean up before I post. I will soon retire the old logo completely… because retiring things is fun.

Until then,  you can keep up with me on TWITTER. I’m on there at least once a day. I also have a Tumblr now, which I post random things and will soon start posting even more stuff. You should follow me on both. You won’t be disappointed.

HEY.

Yeah. I’ve been promising to update in awhile. Those who follow me on Twitter know that I talk big about getting stuff done, but it takes forever. I always say this is going to change… and it will… and it is. Some of these changes have already happened.

Let’s go through this chronologically somewhat…

Shortly after coming back from Tokyo I started looking for a job teaching English again. I had been teaching part time before and filling in for people who needed me in the area. I was full time for part of my first year here and then last year I was in contract stuff and personal stuff. Nothing really worth mentioning here. But teaching full time is, as I decided to stay here in Japan another full year. I still do contract stuff and I’m still doing freelance projects, but teaching in Japan is such a strange job. I have so much free time. (in comparison to other jobs, especially anything I ever did overseas) I did this on purpose, as I can still do freelance if I want to.

And I can do fun stuff. I traveled a lot this year and last and I hope to still continuing to do so. And I can work on fun stuff… like new videos. And other…things….

So shortly after that I looked at all the Touhou and anime related projects I started and never finished or that I was happy enough with to post. After thinking about it… I only really posted stuff when I was in the mood to do something for fun. Spending time on something that takes too long isn’t too much fun. It can be, and I work on stuff for years that is still fun. But I did the Walfas create.swf stuff because it was fun, easy, and relatively quick to do. I respect all of the artists that can draw stuff for hours on end. I do that too, but it takes me too long to get something I’m happy with. Well, some people took my fun a bit too seriously. Apparently you can’t have fun and be confident in your fun. I eventually kicked those kids to the curb, as I don’t need that elitist bullshit. If you don’t get the whole “I’m the Greatest, I’m the Strongest” joke and you hate on somebody who is seriously having fun and never said my fan stuff was better than your “oh so real and original” work, I have no time for you. I have fans and followers because I’m doing something right, not because I’m “lucky” or I “cheat”.

But thanks anyway. You helped push me to stop having fun and take it a bit more seriously. Those who have known me since the beginning know that I didn’t plan on doing the create.swf stuff forever. I can do other stuff. So I’m gonna take it a bit more seriously and see what happens. But as soon as it stops being fun I’ll stop and that’s it. And I mean that.

But seriously, I thought about doing this for awhile. Just had to give myself time for it. I had to take out any factors that may prevent me from having time to have fun. So, I finished up my work stuff, got some school contracts, planned my next year in Japan, planned another trip to Tokyo and Osaka And…

Then the earthquake hit.

Holy shit, I have never felt anything like this in all my life. I live in Northern Japan and I was in a Shindo 6+ area. And I was INCREDIBLY lucky. Not only was the office I was in at the time really sturdy, my apartment did very well. Worst damage was all of my CD’s I had on a top shelf fell and most of the cases broke. All of my figures fell over, but nothing broke. Poor Okuu fell on the floor. I haven’t put any of my stuff back on my desk since. That’s mostly because we continued to have strong aftershocks and still have them to this day. After the quake I stayed with friends and was trapped there for about a week because there was no gas anywhere. We had plenty of food and we were in a safe house. We were all lucky, but we all knew somebody who lost someone. None of you know how that earthquake really shook this place and the whole country and you could never fathom how quickly we bounced back so far. Where I am now is 99% back to normal. I say only 99% because the roads still have damage and dips and there’s still a road closed by me. I too, tried to get back to normal as quickly as I could. I was lucky, the 3G was up even when the phones were down so I still got work done. I continued my plans to go to Tokyo, but cancelled the plans to Osaka because all the people I wanted to see and visit there left the country. I decided I wasn’t leaving. All I wanted to do was not think about how I almost moved to Sendai and took a job close to the coast. I spent a lot of time in Sendai before the quake. I have only been once since. Most of the people I go to see there left or moved up here.

But yeah… I’d rather not talk about the quake anymore.

I went to Tokyo as soon as I could and just had as much fun as I could, I saw all my friends who were still there. I also did a bit of shopping and made it to Akihabara. I bought a new camera and some Touhou stuff. I’ll do a swag post soon.

So after all of that, I came back home, got settled, started school, tried to continue my plans.

Then I got an email. I was shoved in an theoretical facebook concentration camp in a huge sweep of “illegitimate accounts” saying that my name was fake. So my account was closed unless I could provide ID saying that my real name was “チルノ天才”. I’m not going to use my real name for a fan account. They’re stupid. I enjoyed my facebook following, but it’s all gone now. I’m willing to bet most of the people I friended on there are gone now too, though

So to fill the void, I got a Tumblr. Follow me. Let’s get this thing moving. I’m still learning how to use this, so bear with me as I play around with it for awhile. Don’t forget, I have a Twitter that I always update before I update anything else too.

One thing you may see in the Tumblr and on Twitter is a new logo. I’ve been talking about a new logo for awhile. I made what I thought was going to be the new logo a few months ago, but I decided I could do better. So I opened Illustrator and just started working on stuff and sketching some stuff out. I have a ton that I’m playing with now, some text, some drawn, but I don’t think I have a final yet.

I like making logos. It’s fun. I do it for a living sometimes. I didn’t really take the first logo that seriously, but I had fun with it. I actually made it in…. After Effects.

Just layers and layer effects and a create.swf head with an alpha channel. Instant logo. Fun!

Right now I’m using this logo on Twitter:

I have a bunch of text logos but I like that one the most so far… I have some that I REALLY like but they need some work or more art. Here’s a few CIAG ones that I like too.

I have a new site design that I have coming soon too. As soon as I choose a logo I’ll finish that so I can base the design around it. I’ll most likely post it before I do the final switch along with test sheets and a ton of logos with variations. It’s fun!

The switch will most likely happen after I finish the LAST G.I. Joe PSA parody. That will be the last time I will ever use anything with create.swf except for homage or other throwback parodies. This is NOT a knock on KirbyM or create.swf. I love walfas and I will always be grateful for the fun I was so inspired to make and start all of this. It will always be my roots. I’ll never be ashamed of that. It’s just time to move on.

So yeah, that video is coming soon. If it’s gonna be my last, it’s gotta be epic. After that, though… hopefully the real epicness begins. I think I already know what I’m doing after that, but we’ll see.

If anything, I’m going to be posting here more. I’m going to be filling that Tumblr with good stuff too as soon as I get a good follower base. And there will always be Twitter. We’ll be talking about Twitter soon too.

YEAH!

So I recently did the world’s quickest tour of Japan’s biggest cities. I went to Nagano, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Yokohama, and Tokyo. I was also in Sendai for a bit, but I go to Sendai all the time anyway. Now, most of this was for business or personal stuff, so I didn’t get to do much shopping or sightseeing. I regret not being able to go to Nipponbashi, as I probably could have made the time if I wanted to.

One of my biggest issues is that I was around non-anime friends 95% of the time. This is something that I’ll talk about in the future, but most of the people who know me professionally or even personally have no idea I even know what anime is. I have maybe 2 friends here in Japan that know and some of my former students know too, but that’s about it. I even have some friends who HATE anime and otaku. Most of them have lived in Japan for awhile or are Japanese themselves. So, that being said… when I DID go out during the day it was usually to gatherings or other stuff. I didn’t have time to go do anime stuff until the last few days I had in Tokyo.

I still stand by my original statement: Akihabara is for Millionaires. Unfortunately, I got caught up in the New Years clothing sales in Tokyo and spent way to much on new clothes. I give myself a budget whenever I have a shopping trip as I have terrible spending problems. Akihabara is the worst, as if you’re not careful you can spend like 30,000 yen on just small stuff without realizing it. As for me It was easier not to spend too much on this trip, as I will be coming back to Tokyo a LOT this year. If you are going to Akihabara for the first time or you only go every 2 years or so… be sure to bring a LOT of money. I’ve looked on ebay and on American sites and Touhou stuff especialy… the markup is INSANE. When you see so much around that you want that presumably so cheap in comparison you can get carried away.

However, if you are living in Japan… I also recommend Amazon.co.jp. I get a TON of stuff there REALLY cheap. They usually beat even the cheapest place in Akiba (Especially in electronics)

One more thing, which I think I’ve mentioned before, is that I’m really holding back on buying huge figures and stuff (a rule I broke on this trip). I still don’t know where I’m going to be living in a few months and I could very easily get into a moving-every-month situation, or end up moving into a very small place (my apartment now is huge). I have over 100 figures in storage in America still, and until I know where I’m going to be for at least 2 years they have to stay there. Plus, it seems really silly importing them BACK into Japan. But, if I decide to make this my permanent home, then I’ll take out a mortgage and ship all my stuff to Japan. I already have too much stuff here now, but whenever I go to Akihabara… it’s so hard… there’s so much stuff… that is truly amazing.

There are no pictures inside stores. I got caught and reprimanded TWICE for taking pictures in stores. This never happened last time. I do have a few pictures that I posted on Twitpic, but I was terrible about taking pictures on this trip otherwise.

I did get some stuff. All of it is amazing.

The Toho Vinyl Series Nakayoshi Utsuho

As soon as I saw this I had to have it. I think it’s the most detailed of all the Touhou Vinyl series, and for those of you who haven’t seen these in person before, she’s about 20 cm tall and 17 cm wide. Definitely the biggest figure I own in Japan currently. I love this series and all of the new ones look awesome. They also re-released all of the first series too. And for less than 3,000 yen, a bargain.

Next, I bought one box of each of the first 3 series of the Toho Shushuroku.

Reimu is from Series 1, Komachi is from Series 2, and 2P Reimu is from Series 3. I WILL be buying more of these. But at 800 each, I could very easily spend way too much. I’m a big fan of the Reimu 2P figure. The quality of these is actually pretty good.

And the rest…

A tiny Rin. I have a Meiling and Alice from this same series.

I actually got this last time I was in Akihabara, but now….

I got one of the overlays for my REAL Suica card

Accepted anywhere that’s awesome. They have tons of these but I like Momizi’s the most.

A tiny Cirno Yukkuri!

I have a ton of these cards, er… mini pencil boards. But I thought this was funny. No more eat? She has eaten already? How many lives do you have, Mystia?

Finally! I’ve been wanting the Walfas book for awhile. I found it at Toranoana. It was pretty amazing to see it in a big shop like that.

The Kobato Pinky:St! I was really big into Pink:St before I came to Japan and I have a bunch back in America. This was sold out EVERYWHERE in Akihabara, but I finally found it in Kotobukiya (Which is now one of my favorite stores in Akihabara) I wish I took a picture of the package before opening it, though. Oh well. I love Kobato, but I almost love Ioryogi more.

And on to the CDs… I was going to hold off on Touhou CDs this trip, seeing that I dropped like 20,000 yen on them last time. But I’m glad I did. Heartcore Forte is AMAZING. It has some of my new favorite versions of almost every song it has. And to think I only got it because it had Kogasa on it…. the Iosys CD, 東方浮思戯革命 or Touhou Fushigi Kakumei, is also amazing. Another CD I got because of the artwork (The one with Tewi and Reisen) “絶弾奏結界 兎角宴舞曲 courante impromptu” is not too bad…

Now there’s one CD in that bunch that does not belong… and yet it’s the greatest CD of them all. Yes, I somehow got my hands on the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt OST. See, I was smart. I pre-ordered it on Amazon the day it was put up. But it was almost not meant to be…. I canceled my order when I realized I would not be home until a week after it was released and that I would be in Akihabara anyway.

Silly me.

Akihabara, no, TOKYO was COMPLETELY SOLD OUT of this CD. I checked EVERYWHERE. Now, I started looking on the 2nd of January. By the 5th  I had checked every shop in Akihabara that sold CDs and all the major retailers elsewhere. This was all I really wanted. I decided that I would take everybody’s advice I just get it on Amazon and have it shipped to my friend’s place. But within the 12 hours that it took me to decide to do this after checking that it was still on Amazon, Amazon sold out. I was at a loss. However… I knew that my Shinkansen stop in my area was close to an Animate… I tried there when I got home… and they had 2 copies left.

And just so you know, it is that good. It is “sold-out-everywhere” good. May be one of the best anime soundtracks of the decade.

All in all it was a fun trip. The only thing that I did plan to get if I saw it was the Drossel von Flügel Figma or the larger one (I forget who makes it…) but I didn’t see it anywhere.

Anyway, there you have it. A real post. I’m not sure what I’ll have time for in the future. I’ll try to give an update in the next few weeks… or even days. But if you want real-time updates, there’s always my Twitter.

Hahaha! I went to Akihabara! Again! And I made a blog post about it! Ha! Hahaha!

This one came to me in a dream…

Anyway, I can’t believe that its been JULY since I’ve updated. It seems like it was only a few weeks… But I have been crazy busy and life has just been insane. I promise that this is going to change very soon and that I will try and update weekly. If I don’t you can always yell at me on Twitter.

As for what is coming up next, I do have some video stuff in the works. Not sure if I can get it out soon, as I have a ton of travel to do in Japan and overseas in the next few weeks and I will be making a major move in the next few months. Other than that, I don’t see much keeping me from posting anymore.

But I have said this before. Oh well. I’ll be in Tokyo for awhile next month. I’ll try and take pictures and give another Akiba update if I can!

Oh how soon we forget.

I told you I’d keep making these. But I have more real posts coming soon. WATCH YOUR BACK.

She’s serious.

Yay, another post. Maybe next time I’ll post something full of thought and inspiration that moves millions. Or just more threats and insults. You never know where my creative process will go…