Lunar Shards

Macross Frontied BDRay

Originally uploaded by chiroKitsune

Went and picked up my package at the post office. Can’t wait to sit down and watch this This version also has the Macross PS3 game as well.

That’s what I can say about Good Smile Company’s first attempt at selling their goods overseas. The first product available from Good Smile Company was a Miku Nendoroid which part of the cost of the figure was going to charity for the Japanese Earthquake back in March. Shipping from Japan is costly at times usually around 20-25 US Dollars (2000 Yen) since everything ships out of there EMS. The Miku Nendoroid has been out of print for a bit and usually goes for a pretty jacked up price in most conventions. This particular one comes with extra items like a flag of support for Japan. The figure itself costs about 3000 yen (35-40 US Dollars) and when stacked with the shipping is about 5000 yen (60-65 dollars). Only about 1000 yen goes to charity (about 10-15 US dollars) from the sale. Pre-orders occurred earlier in the and were suppose to ship July.

Here is where things get odd. AX in California took place which featured the first US concert for Hatsune Miku which I really wish I could have gone to. There they sold the same Miku Nendoroid for about $36-38 which was far cheaper then then one we ordered from the company. They sold out fast from what my friend told me. Not long after that we got a notice from Good Smile that they shipped out which meant they would show up a with the week. Well that week came and gone and the status sat there in prep for some time on the order. Fast forward to last week and i was getting tired of worrying that it got lost in the mail. There is no tracking number for this order which is odd for an EMS shipment but I remembered that another company I order from has this issue where EMS shipments don’t have tracking numbers they can give out. I contacted Good Smile through their contact form to find out what was going on and when was it shipped so I can figured out roughly when it should arrived. That was last Friday.

Tuesday morning, I received a badly translated notice from Good Smile regarding my order. Shipment of all products were sent via Surface Parcel. In other words standard slow mail service. I would be fine with this if A. they didn’t charge us for EMS shipping up front and B. they didn’t tell us till a month after they sent the shipping notice there was this change and no option to adjust it. For most shipments via Surface Parcel it’ll take 3 months to arrive in the states with 1-2 months varying inf your closer to Hong Kong which is apparently the point of origin.

What gets me is Surface Parcel is the cheapest method of shipping but very very slow and high risk of damage to packages. That being said, what happens to the extra not used for EMS shipping? I sure hope to god GSC isn’t going to pocket the money and it sure as hell had better not have paid for something else. I highly doubt they’ll refund the extra they charged us for but it would be a nice gesture to this total screw up. Hell, give us the option to decide to put the extra not used to the charity they were donating to from the sales.

Even after a few days I’m still miffed over this whole thing. I think I’ll stick with ordering from AmiAmi in the future…

I’m not alone in this feeling, quite a lot of people have been upset by this too:

http://www.figure.fm/post/en/30418/Nendoroid+Hatsune+Miku+Support+Delay.html

Update: Late Wednesday night I got an email from Good Smile Company with an apology regarding the shipping fiasco that occurred. They refunded the shipping cost that was meant for EMS due to the mistake in shipping. Any damaged Nendoroids will get replaced due to shipping via surface parcel.

I love Evangelion 2.22. I really really like the new character they introduced Mari! Yet something bugs me about the situation here. One of the theories tossed about among my friends is the possibility that Shinji jumped dimensions to attempt to redo his decisions in the past. The end result is a return to the beginning of Evangelion and a replay of events. Of course things aren’t all the same this time around. Things have changed a little bit. Shinji’s grown a little bit of a backbone for once and shit is happening far differently now. Evangelion 2.22 opens with the newest girl to the group, Mari Illustrious Makinami. Rambunctious and a bit of a psychopath, see’s a bit of fresh air considering our pilots are Shinji, Asuka and Rei.

The question is what role does she play in the universe? Her introduction has her piloting and eventually destroying Evangelion Unit 05. Who is she and why does she know so much about the Evangelions. One theory I stumbled upon whole thinking over things is the possibility that Shinji wasn’t the only one to travel back after the events of the End of Evangelion. Assuming this is the case with the ReBuild, the only other person who may actually make the Jump would be Asuka. Yet there already is an Asuka in the ReBuild series. Of course the trick is it the same Asuka? Asuka Langley Shikinami is our ReBuild pilot 02. She acts a little bit differently then in the TV series which can be attributed to the possibility that they wanted to refine her character but another thought popped up.

So during the Freecon panel this year for Evangelion, a thought blossomed in my head regarding who Mari might be. What if Asuka came back not as herself to make another attempt but as someone else free of the burden that dragged her down the first time. The only other person this could be is Mari since she’s the newest character. Yet for Asuka to exist also would mean a part of her, the part that carried the burden still returned. The possibility of a soul getting split into to when returning could work in this particular case since Asuka of ReBuild acts much more recluse then the TV series version however seems much more reasonable over time. Mari seems to share the more primal tendencies of the original Asuka. Elements upon which Asuka originally had such as interaction with Kaji and such seems to have been taken up by Mari. The two are expert pilots probably on par with each other.

Looking deeper into this strange theory, another strange event occurs in 2.22 that has me wondering. Towards the end of the movie, Mari launches in Evangelion 02 which was locked in storage with it’s core removed. Evangelion pilots have difficulties using other pilot’s Evangelions due to the nature of the core inside of it. Rei can pilot Unit 00 due to the fact that supposedly her first incarnation exists inside Evangelion 00. Shinji can pilot Unit 01 because the core is made up of her Mother. The two pilots can switch Evangelions without much problems due to the nature of their cores. Asuka only seems to be able to pilot Evangelion 02 since the core is that of her mother’s soul. That being said, in Evangelion ReBuild this nature isn’t’ mentioned though it is implied. If this is the case, Evangelion 02 shouldn’t be able to activate or even act at such a high Sync rate while Mari is piloting it unless the unit accepts her as a pilot. This can only lead me to believe there is some connection.

She eventually replaces Asuka in the fight against Zeruel. Similarly the results are almost the same with Evangelion 02 losing one arm but avoids losing the second one. The strike to the head which decapitates Evangelion 02′s head in the TV series only results in part of the head being damaged. Is it possible that Mari knew the attack was coming and was able to avoid being taken out completely? Strange as it is, the usage of Evangelion 02 seems to be a strong point of interest on what is going on.

Finally one final point in her personality is how she seems to look at Rei with contempt the same way Asuka did originally. This is seen in the preview of Evangelion 3.0 yet it’s hard to tell in such a short clip.

There are characteristics outside of this that seems to point clues at the possibility of a split existance of Asuka in this version of Evangelion. In the new ReBuild, Asuka Langley Shikinami is the new Asuka. New last name instead of the original TV series. Oddly, Mari Illustrious Makinami is the name of the new pilot. The two pilot’s last name’s Shikinami and Makinami share the same last character of “波” which is Nami or wave. Could this be a case of two different wave forms that make up a single person? Of course another possibility is simply the naming convention of female pilots which take names after the Ayanami-class Destroyer.

Maybe Mari’s pink (light red?) plug suit is a clue? That one’s a bit of a wild guess! Or her glasses! they’re red! Her head band has Evangelion Interface headset and she wears them all the time like a certain someone we know. Really though there’s a lot they Mari shares for some reason and it’s kinda troubling till we find out more about her.

I guess all we can do is leave this folder open until Evangelion 3.0 rolls around to see which elements actually do come true. I mean with how things end in Evangelion 2.22, anything can happen.

September has been a blur to me. The first weekend of the month was Dragon*con which was a blast! I’ll eventually write more about it but dang I’m still spinning from the whirlwind that was! On the gaming side, a bunch of games came pouring out of the woodworks that I was interested in and/or forgot about. Enough that I had to skip a few that I wanted to play. I keep a list of games and release dates on my computer of games that I would be interested in, which as I later realized to be wildly out of date, and counted up what games came out in September that was considering. The warning lights start going off after my count passed 5 and I eventually totaled up 16 in all that I eventually want to drub my dirty hands all over but I had to cut back obviously. Of the games that came out in September, the biggest ones that drew my attention were Halo Reach and Final Fantasy XIV. While in doing some trimming, I had left off a few games by accident and eventually found a surprise package from NIS America showed up containing Atelier Rorona… 4 days before release! I truly had forgotten I had ordered it and glazed over the email notice they sent me about shipping it. I mentioned this to one of my friends who works at EB Games… errr… Gamestop near where I live and he agreed that September was really hectic if your in the gaming community. What? Why do I frequent the so called cesspool of gaming industry? Well the people at this particular Gamstop are actually nice.

In any case, I wanted to Focus on Final Fantasy XIV. Yeah I know I wrote about the beta but this is launch, the final release version. Square Enix decided to do something a little different by releasing the Collector’s Edition a week before the regular version. This is kind of a neat way to do it. The US Collectors edition comes with the game obviously, bonus items you can get both in game and real, a nice journal and a security token which is very much like the Blizzard Authenicator (it’s made by the same company!) Not bad for a collector’s edition though compared to some, it’s actually pretty spartan… hmm maybe a bad choice of worse considering what came a week before it. *sweatdrop*

Anyway! Compared to the Japanese version which contained a cloth map and and the tumbler (Europeans got the tumbler too but no map). I think we got a decent enough Collector’s Edition in the end. I’ve been hearing disturbing reports of the crappy design of the tumbler and the list of liquids not recommended to be used with the tumbler. In truth, with the list covering nearly 90% of all known liquids, I’d probably end up using it for a pen holder/cup or something since it’s mostly unusable for anything else… or maybe even a dice cup! Damn it! I knew I forgot to pick up something at Dragon*con!!!!

Compared to the beta registration process, the retail registration process was pretty straight forward and the servers didn’t choke like it did late in the night of September 1. I quickly got everything setup while at work and waited till I could get home to actually play the game. A slow install and update process and I was up and running within an hour or so. Since it never removed my beta settings folder, just the beta program, the retail version picked up my saved character designs from my beta settings and let me pick any of them for use.

Now I could have gone with my original setup during beta and just picked up from there but where is the fun in that? So end result was a bit of a change up. Frei Casull, my Miqo’te fisher had switched roles with Katida Casull, my lancer who I was using to verify items for my ongoing guide. Frei started in Ul’dah and Katida in Gradina. Can you further believe this was done via a roll of a dice? Chiro never got created as the dice never came up for him ^^;

From beta to live a few changes were present. Vendor items have gone up in price since beta. The pattern from the beta prices are pretty obvious as they applied a x2 multiplier to weapons and primary tools. Some secondary tools as well however some of the beta prices were already priced as they are in retail explaining some of the high costs in beta. Some items were moved from a central vendor to the respective visiting city vendors and some that will make you scratch your head. For example, in Ul’dah bows were moved to the Gridania vendor but not the ammo for them. Some equipment is gone now such as shields, I assume they want you to craft them. Another noticeable change was the hardware mouse! I don’t use the mouse when playing FFXIV beta as I never needed to but at least the change was good. Performance wise the game is running better now. I haven’t experienced the crashes I saw during beta and that’s good.

During beta I had to run the game at 720 vs 1080 as the game was too choppy to play but in live, I’m currently running it windowed full screen so I can work on things while I play. The game itself is gorgeous. There’s no doubt about that. Surprisingly the game ran mostly smoothly at 1080 this time. I assume updated base code and driver support. There’s still a odd shadowing issue but it’s mostly only present in certain areas like Gridania oddly enough. I assume this will get fixed in a patch or a driver update.

So for the last two or three weeks I’ve been playing this game now and have been enjoying it immensely. There are some obvious deficiencies with the game but overall the launch was met with few problems. Content wise, I’m not really certain what’s missing but the people who rush are seeing it but that’s true with most MMO games. No, expansions to WoW don’t count, you’d have to look at vanilla WoW in the first few weeks of live service. SE’s got a lot of room to expand from here and they’re definitely make an effort with improvements coming in every few days. Would I recommend the game to others? Yes, I would if they’re looking for something different but I also caution the high bar for entry. Since the PS3 version doesn’t come out till march, some may not have a computer capable of playing the game at the moment. I do have a friend of mine who’s stationed out in Korea will be joining me soon online on FFXIV! I even have a cousin who’s waiting for the PS3 version to come out so I’ll see if I can convince her to join me on the same server

Hmm well back to work. Going to have to start collecting my thoughts on Dragon*Con.

Sakura Matou Dollfie Dream

So last Friday I received a package from VolksUSA. Sakura Matou was the most recent of the Fate/Stay Atraxia Dollfie Dreams to be released. The pre-order period was only a few days at the start of May and about a week late we learned if we were picked since pre-orders are then put in a lottery system since they are a limited run. At first I was sure I hadn’t gotten picked since they were suppose to announce the selection that Friday and no email showed up however Sunday afternoon I got the email from them saying that the pre-order was being processed. Fast forward to August 20 and a package was waiting for me in my old office which I quickly went down and picked up. Now I’m not crazy enough to pull her out of the box and dress her up at work so I brought her home.

Things included are...

Once I got home, I got to unpacking her from the box. There were several baggies with the shoes, information packet, the wig and the outfit which was in a giant baggie with some pieces inside in their own bags as well. I have to say I really like the way the Japanese bags their stuff. They’re all easy to open and resealable bags. Very few US companies use this style of bags. Japan uses it for about everything!  That said, I started with getting the clothes separated out.  Funny enough they make bras for Dollfie Dreams but they never seem to include them with the outfits. Panties, yes, bras, no. Hmm… Anyway,  getting Sakura’s outfit on wasn’t much of a hassle for the most part. There was one slight problem initially but it required a bit of careful effort. The blouse for Sakura is a bit snug thanks to her large bust. No complaints or anything but I kinda expect a button to suddenly smack me in the face one day. In any case the rest of the outfit fits on pretty well.

Sakura's outfit

I eventually checked with my friend about this since she knew more about the Fate/Stay Night series then I did. Even though they are sisters (yup, they’re related in series), Sakura beat Rin out in this area. ^^; Beyond that the only oddity with her outfit  I had left was the tie. It curls a lot. I guess it’s from the stitchings but it’s kinda annoying me a bit. I may need to sit down and iron it flat again.

Sakura and Rin (and Canaan!)

That said, the hardest thing to put on her was the wig. Funny… I never had trouble with Rin’s wig… The wig for Sakura would keep slipping off. It took me a while to get it right and I eventually fixed it using the wig stopper I ordered. I had to pick it up from work Saturday since I left it there by accident. With that, Sakura now uses the doll stand that Rin vacated for the chair I got not to long ago.  Hmm… Maybe I need to sit down and work on that Valkyria uniform a bit more. Though should I size it for Sakura?

Well Dragon*Con isn’t to far away. I’ll see if I can find the doll vendor there and see what she has for sale. I remember seeing some cute hats I could get them.

So after Ted clued me in of the existence of a fansub of Evangelion 2.22 I went ahead and watched it. I thought that after watching the Evangelion TV series and movies through already that 2.22 couldn’t possibly turn my brain to butter like the series did but Gainax proved me wrong yet again. It isn’t just melting, for a good quarter of the movie my jaw was literally on the floor with the changes. I’m pretty sure what’s happening isn’t a retelling anymore and more of a reboot. We’re not talking simply starting over, to many references to a second attempt at things keep springing up. I won’t spoil the new changes but when you do see it, make sure that your sitting down because it’s a roller-coaster ride jettisons you off at the end and wanting 3.33 out right this moment. Here’s hoping that Funimation does pick up the license for this soon and get it released in the US right away.

Oh yeah, if your curious, the image is from the trailer for Evangelion 3.0 (theatrical release). Seriously, eye patch is so much better then bandages :3

Woot! Seems I’ve won a Canaan Nendoroid from Dancing Queen’s blog, How a Girl Figures! Saw the post through my reader feed earlier today! Yay! Some much needed good news this week :3

So late yesterday afternoon, I finally got an email from Volks USA that I was eligible to order the Dollfie Dream Sakura Matou from Dollpa 23. This was great news for me especially since I was a bit disappointed when the day they mentioned in the information came and went with no email from them. For those not certain who Sakura is, she’s Rin Tohsaka’s sister in Fate/Stay Night. What’s that? Spoiler? Uh, game came out back in 2004 so if you don’t know by now from Wiki, doujins, or playing an unofficial translated copy of the game your out of luck.

Anyway, Sakura won’t be arriving till August. What does that mean for my budget? Well, no new games for the next several months. That much is for certain. Does that mean I might get another Dollfie again in the future? Most likely not, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

I had planned on working on the Valkyria Uniform for Rin after Dragon*Con but considering all the delays and such I’m going to wait a bit before I restart the project. Reason being is I’m not 100% certain about how to make the jacket right. I have the materials so I’ll eventually make it.

I actually bought Rin a new dress :3 I’ve been eying this dress for a while. I hope it looks nice on Rin :3 I saw some stuff about White Album Dollfie Dream project. Hopefully they offer the outfits for purchase. I don’t plan on adopting more right now due to the cost.