Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by EXCELLENCE!)

GODS, WHY MUST YOU FORSAKE ME!?

NYANTYPE!!! Why do you put THIS issue out just after I’ve left Japan?! Ok, the Nagato poster in the issue I actually bought was neat and all, but she’s not really my favourite, you know? Ugh. I guess I can find this used on my next trip over. Shouldn’t be too hard to find…

I am sad that I have no Mikuru posters gracing my walls. I guess another thing to do on the next Japan trip is along with picking up this issue of Nyantype, I’ll have to pick up Haruhi-era Megami issues.

Ok, man. It’s time to chill.

How am I going to find time to read all these books in between sitting around and doing nothing, humping hug pillows and having delusions of grandeur about running a Shinbo panel at Anime Boston?

Ok, what the fuck’s going on here? There have now been more than three separate occasions where I’ve seen Fluke’s (even if Fluke vectors doujin images, he credits the artist so he’s cool in my books) vectors of TimTimMachine’s work around AKB.

First Occasion

Ok, this actually wasn’t in AKB, but in Shibuya Mandarake. I also lack photo evidence (for obvious reasons), but bear with me, ok? While looking through cheap and bad doujin dakimakura I’d never buy (all the good stuff is the showcases) I came across a cover that was clearly just an older version of this vector.

It struck me as odd then. An anomaly. I don’t doubt that bootlegged anime goods exist in Japan (they exist in large numbers) but the fact that I knew both of the parties involved behind that imagery did spook me a bit.

Second Occasion

In the midst of some late-night AKB strolling, I wandered towards one of the shadier stores to check out their wares. Low and behold, I found (what looks like) a mini dakimakura, once again featuring another older version of this vector.

Third Occasion

This third run-in comes to us via Akiba Blog-san, but I do intend to check this out later myself. Long story short, some guy in the backstreets of AKB decided to make bootlegged oppai mouse pads. The imagery used is either appropriated fanart, or appropriated official imagery, but the Mikuru pad is–once again–a vector by Fluke based off of a TimTimMachine illustration. While the original can’t be found (a lot of the old vectors got lost in some site move, by the way) here’s a newer version. That’s an 18+ link, by the way.

I won’t be buying any of these since I don’t like bootlegged goods, even if official Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu dakimakura and oppai mouse pads are zero in number. Ok, so Animage did put out some low quality Haruhi dakimakura (one of which I have) but that’s it. Clearly if they want to get a one-up on these pirates, Kyoto Animation must act with official goods.

I’m waiting for that Mikuru dakimakura, you hear?

やっと終わりました。お疲れ様でした。

Now, if KyoAni really wants to win points with fans, next week’s episode will be the first episode of Endless Eight…

I imagine the scene at the post office will play out something like this.

Comedy Dr. Strangelove option.

I know THE FIRST THING that’s coming to your mind is, “But wah, you already own that Kaede figure.” And to this quite understandable query, I will reply with this–that Kaede figure was the first PVC I ever got, and as such I didn’t know how to take care of it, so I left it in the sun for an extended period of time, and it got bent up. I tried to fix it up, but my mortal hands can only do so much. I saw the same figure in Mandarake for 1200 yen, so I figured I may as well buy it.

With that matter taken care of, I bet you are now wondering, “But wah, you don’t like Rei! Why do you have a figure of her in a bikini?” Well, see, my friend found that figure on the street. Literally. Standing straight up on the street, right out side of club Sega. I offered him 1000 yen for it.

Her tummy is soft!

１５分前

５分前

１分前

２５：００時(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

(ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!)

おわった（　￣∀￣）

What follows is a list of items I intend to buy in Japan come hell or high water. I will most certainly buy a lot more things, but these are top priority.

• The Rest Of Chocotto Sister: Despite the misguided cries of naysayers, the Chocotto Sister anime is a fine adaptation of the heart-warming manga by the same name. I bought volumes 1 and 5–because they came with artboxes–and now I’m looking to get the rest. Used is the best way to go, I suspect. I’ll probably be hitting Liberty and various other Akiba shops, but if that fails I’ll have to make do with Amazon market place.
• Choco Dakimakura Cover: While still on the Chocosis vein, I figure I may as well pick up this nice little trinket, since it seems to finally be back in stock. I may pick up her cute little friend, too.
• Really? Really! visual fanbook: I love Kaede, I loved her game (that I could hardly understand) and I’d love to own more hard copies of Nishimata Aoi’s work, so this is more or less a given.
• IQ FINAL PERFECT MUSIC FILE: Even though I was a dirty little pirate and downloaded this album, I’d like very much to own it. IQ has one of the most amazing soundtracks I’ve ever heard, and it’s just a puzzle game!
• Max Factory’s Asahina Mikuru Gekisou Version: Mikuru-chan is amazingly cute, and my most favourite Haruhi girl. That being the case, I have quite a sizable collection of 3D PVC depictions of her, so another one can’t hurt, right?
• Max Factory’s Asahina Mikuru Adult Version: See above.
• KOTOBUKIYA’s Sanzenin Nagi Bikini Version: Sweet, another figure I can’t display in my parent’s home!
• Otaku no Musume-san: This is a great manga that has unfortunately been marred by not-so-stellar translation work as of late. I have the raws, but I’d rather squint at tiny furigana on a page, as opposed to tiny furigana on my monitor. It’s probably healthier.
  
• Some Zero no Tsukaima dakimakura: I kind of want the Tifa one.
• Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~ Best Collection: Tsukuyomi has a most beautiful and haunting soundtrack, and I’ve always been sad that I don’t actually own it. The CD has gone out of print, but with hope I can find it used somewhere.

There will be a lot of impulse purchases, as well–most probably of doujinshi and rare items that I can only find at Mandarake. I can’t wait!

Original Post

I really wanted this bad boy to go up on Saturday, but I just couldn’t swing it. See, I was busy working on the comic project that my friend commissioned me to do, and I was hell bent on getting it out before Christmas. I’ve since finished it, and it’ll probably be available for people to see in some form… soon^TM. For those who don’t know, it’s a SFW Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu doujinshi. Story is, my friend offered me cash to do a comic for his anime club. I agreed, and decided to make a Haruka doujinshi. While it was a lot of work, it was a very rewarding experience. Though, I kind of feel like a dick because it took money to push me into making a doujnshi, but I’ll probably make more on my own now, and they will be terribly dirty. Terribly.

Anyway, on to this current comic. First of all, the de-Tomino’d version is available here. It is very much not safe for work. Yes, in the great tradition set forth by Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, I used a bald man to cover up naughty bits. Since Maeda wasn’t available, I used someone just as–if not more–crazy. I guess Keep Out tape would have been more characteristic of Chocotto Sister, but the image of Tomino’s screaming face over a loli’s DFC is just too funny.

The script is based off of this comic’s VERY FIRST Christmas comic, which you can find if you look through the archives hard enough. It’s kind of lazy on my part, but in the end I think it’s also pretty funny. I did the art for this all on one giant sheet of paper to help me size the characters in their panels better, and I liked how it turned out. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s a nice way to work. I usually draw characters on different sheets of paper, and combine them all into one comic on the computer. This way is fine, but sometimes it hurts to make detailed drawings really small when resizing for comic composition.

I guess now I’ll backtrack and talk briefly about the last few comics, since I haven’t done that yet. I really like how the art in the CHAOS;HEAD comic came out, even if it’s not perfect. The comic really could have ended at panel three, but I needed to fit a meme and a Newtype flash in. Because Mistakes of Youth is actually a Gundam prequel doujinshi, and Rets is Char Aznable’s ancestor. Really.

The two somewhat Shinbo centric comics were made to kind of loosen me up, since I was stuck in a boring scripting routine, so I wanted to mix things up. I also wanted to throw Anonymous for a loop, so they would stop posting my comic and saying, “NO IT’S ‘WHOSE EYES ARE THOSE EYES YOU FAG’ GOD.” If you start to notice comics being more off the beaten path than usual, that’s because I’m trying to broaden my horizons. Two kids walking around and talking about anime is fine, but I want to channel the kind of spirit present in the opening comics more.

I really liked the artwork in the Giant Robo parody comic, and have no qualms about that one at all. I like the script for THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHINBO but the artwork came out bad. I tried for realism and failed. Oh well.

But enough blogging, and back to Christmas. Happy Holidays, motherfuckers!

Shingo may be lost in the wild, exotic and dangerous lands of World of Warcraft, but that doesn’t mean the fine art of reviewing anime, manga and game figures is dead! Far from it! With him eternally lost in a land of wonder, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers must stand and pick up the slack. As such, I have four great reviews right here, coming towards you at the speed of a Rocket Punch!

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