February 2022 Loot

 The second edition of the monthly recap series of stuff I obtained for my collection.

And to make life easier for me on YouTube, this post has all the relevant links of the places I got the stuff from!

So here is the clip, and below are said links, enjoy!

Nezuko: she was won over at the Toreba Crane Games app.

Demon Slayer Toonize, Lalah, Hassan, Rilakkuma: all these came from the TokyoCatch crane game app.

I`m the Hero But the Demon Lord is Also Me volume 2 manga, gashapon's: Akiba at the local Antwerp Central train station

Macross 7 Fire Bomber scale figures: these came from AmiAmi where they where an exclusive sale.

Pop Up Parade Miku: through a sale over at MFC. 

Terra Formars volume 5: the second part of an order at Amazon.nl.

Valentine's gift stickers: Noshi got those over at NendoAddicts here in the Antwerp store. 

Lovely stuff this month, and hold your hat for march!

Unboxing Pop Up Parade Miku Nakano

 The hardest to find PuP sibling of the Quintessential Quintuplets, Miku is either sold out on stores, or goes on the aftermarket for around 100 dollars.

So I immediatly jumped when I saw her appear on an MFC add for 60 USD, sealed.

The seller was willing to send her transatlantic, so the deal was quickly completed and she arrived safe and sound a few weeks later.

And so the best girl of 2021 is now in my collection, only Yotsuba and Nino to go!

Fate / Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia

 Time for some more Fate to watch!

While I know I`ve not been going through the sequence, which seemingly nobody knows exactly anyways, I really like the franchise and how it depicts legendary figures.  Apocrypha, with Shakespeare as a caster for instance, was really great in my mind.

And now we have the series detailing the Operation Grand Order.  After the Mage King Solomon has decimated humanity, and now it rests on the last master of the Chaldea organisation, Ritsuka Fujimaru, to travel back in time and prevent the extinction event.  Together with the semi-servant Mash Kyrielight, they travel back to long before the birth of Christ to find Uruk, the last singularity.  Together with for example Gilgamesh, they must hold back demonic beasts and solve the singularity.

And so the battle for the seventh Holy Grail, which is the artifact Solomon had sent back in time, is about to begin.  Upon arrival, they meet Ishtar (who looks a lot like Rin of other series btw), who tells them a bit about the world and the demonic beasts, and Enkidu, who apparently waited for their arrival in this era.  This kind-hearted hero is the Weapon of the Gods, originally created to return Gilgamesh back to the heavens.  He tells them the Three Goddesses Alliance are the real enemy of humanity, having taken over already 60% of Mesopotamia, but that hopes lies with the fortress of Babylonia.

But Enkidu betrays them as he turns out to be an imposter, and they are safed by Merlin and Ana whom they encountered in the woods.  Merlin is the watcher of the world, and Ana a rogue Servant, summoned by the Grail but without any Master.  Together, they arrive at Uruk, ruled by Gilgamesh.  They are granted an audience before him, and strike a deal to obtain the Grail if they defeat the Three Godesses alliance.

After finding out more of the lands, Gilgamesh joins them on a transportation job to see how the land is going.  But as he encounters Enkidu, he shows a part of his powers.  More and more Fujimaru and his companions learn about the plan that is being put in action, and try to prevent it.  This leads to a premature awakening of Tiamat, seemingly Enkidu's mother.

Being forced back by Tiamat and barely saved by the false Enkidu, called Kingu, they are send out by Gilgamesh to try and bribe the second of the Three Godesses's, Ishtar, to their cause.  They manage to convince her with the help of the Chaldea homefront.  They set out to stop Quetzalcoatl, recruiting the strange Jaguar Warrior as well to their cause, only to find out she didn`t kill anyone at all but is making them ready to become jaguar troops.

Gilgamesh "dies" from working to hard, and our heroes travel to the Underworld to find him.  Here they join forces to fight the godess Ereshkigal.  After formulating their next move, they take on Gorgon, with Ana lending their power and evolving to her second form.  Together, they confront the Gorgon, as Ana sacrifices herself to defeat the monster.  Kingu appears, confronting them, and starting a spacial timequake.  This causes a heap of strange demonic beast creatures to appear in Uruk, called Lahmu.  Kingu intervenes, but he get's attacked instead by the beasts as the Gorgon wants to revive through him.  But she has other aces in her sleeve, as a "darkened" ghost from the past arrives.  They prepare to face Tiamat herself, as she treatens all of humanity.  As long as life exists, she seemingly can`t be defeated, but the godess of the Underworld appears to help them out.

A lovely series, and while for me not as great as Fate/Stay Night, it was very captivating as odds kept stacking up and up.  The tale of how to convince the godesses to join their fight was nicely wrapped around the overgrowing arc as well, not a simple beat and join up but the seeing of reason why to save Mesopotamia.

And of course, Gilgamesh...

Unboxing Fate Grand Order Hassan of Serenity

 A new Fate Grand Order prize figure for my collection on the unboxing segment today, and one of a movie I actually still have to watch.

Which will normally be within the coming weeks if all goes to plan on the watch list schedule, but that also means I for now have no clue how she appeared on the screen.

But she was "an opportunity" to get on TokyoCatch with minimal effort, so I went in, plucked her out of the machine, had her shipped and received her half of february.

So without further ado, let's break those seals!

A sleek looking figure for sure, she now stands nicely in the evergrowing collection overhere.

Terra Formars volume 5 - Yu Sasuga and Ken-Ichi Tachibana

 The survivors of the ANNEX program are being besieged by the cockroaches, and the situation looks dire!

 

 

And we pick up continuing the dire situation of the German / South American division.

 

Led by Adolf, who is Mars rank 2 (meaning only one member on the crew is actually stronger then him in fighting Terra Formars) and has the abilities of the Electric Eel.

 

His team is captured after losing a few members to the assault, and he faces the leader of the battle as he electrifies hordes of the bug warriors.  Making use of the cockroaches lack of knowledge about how lightning works, he burns him down at the cost of nearly his life.  But the bug somehow survives, and as they start blasting first with rifles, and then with rocks at Adolf and his forces, he finally succumbs to them.

But a secretly implanted device goes off, nuking the whole area and taking both bug and the division with them.  In the meantime, the Japanese division figures out that the bugs have been harvesting the corpses of the previous mission to improve their own abilities...

They find out that the bugs have been laying a trap for them, but during the ensuing confrontation they seem to be able to turn the tides in their favour.

Now to get the next volumes of this excellent series...

Unboxing Lalah Sune

 The most recent catch at TokyoCatch, this classic from the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime was released near the end of 2021.

 

And she is so much a blast of my anime past, being featured in the very first Mobile Suit Gundam series, which I personally watched decennia ago. 

So yeah, it came as a surprise that she has been released the past year as a prize figure, and of course that meant I would be playing hard to get her!

After rather swiftly succeeding, she arrived at the doorstep around half of february, and so let's unbox her in this video.

A simple yet good looking figure, she now stands in the cabinet proudly on display.

The Haul report 308: Fire Bomber, stickers for Valentine's and a small grail!!!!!

 A long awaited parcel from AmiAmi arrived this week, containing nothing less then Fire Bomber.

Long awaited btw not for the actual delivery, which took a week incl. customs clearing, but because their release was pushed back a few months.

But now they are here!

They aren't the only figures to arrive though, as a box from TokyoCatch also came in.

As came this rather hard to find Pop Up Parade figure!  Bit of a grail find, as she has been out of stock everywhere shortly since her release, and pops up on eBay for sick prices.  I was lucky to find one in the USA thanks to MFC's classified adds.  And the "Best Girl of 2021" in various anime polls as such arrived on valentine's day.

 

 

I aslo obtained some stickers, a gift from Noshi for Valentine's, which are just to cute.

 

  

The final parcel to arrive was the rest of my Amazon order from last month, with the 5th volume of Terra Formars.

So a truly great week this has been indeed!

 

 

Unboxing Fire Bomber

 Time to unbox two figures that bring back a LOT of nostalgia: the members of Macross 7 Fire Bomber.

In the music driven mecha anime, they make the cool poprock music of the 90's, and I have been a fan since I saw the series a first time almost 1.5 decades ago.

And this year they came out through an AmiAmi Exclusive sale, and of course I pre-ordered both.  They arrived half of february, and now in the following combined clips I`m unboxing each one of them.

Starting of with the hero and lead singer, Nekki Basara, followed by Mylene Jenius!

So there we have them, Fire Bomber.  A true musical and nostalgic blast, and I actually moved them into the living room cabinets because I`m so happy with getting them!

Dynamite!!!!

Demon Slayer Entertainment District Arc

 Demon Slayer is back with it's second season, and this time we travel to the Entertainment District.

A region where power and lust run strife in the night life, this is a walhalla for the demonic, and the setting for this 11 episode series.

But the story first kicks off with a tale of woe and redemption, as Tanjiro travels to the house of Rengoku.  Here, he wants to convey the former Fire Hashiri's final words to his brother and his father, but he finds the latter hostile and uncaring.  And hiding his feelings in sake.  He does learn though that his father's dance is also called the Sun breathing technique, the first and strongest form there is of which all the others are descendant.

Upon his return, they get to know the Sound Hashiri, Tengen Uzui (dubbed "pretty boy" by Noshi), who recruits them for the Entertainment District.  Here the heroes have to pretend to be girls, in order to find out what happened to Tengen's informants, namely his three wives.  As Zenitsu gets on the Upper Six's demon trail, Daki, he gets captured in her demonic belt.

Tanjiro faces off against her while Inosuke frees Zenitsu and the wives, with the help of Tengen.  Tanjiro in the meantime pushes himself over his limits to confront Daki with the Sun Breathing technique, causing Nezuko to intervene.  As she faces off with the Upper Six, she goes in her full, Awakened, form, becoming a true powerhouse on the level of the Upper rank demons.  As Tengen finds out during his confrontation with Daki, the Upper Six is actually two siblings in one, her far stronger brother Gyutaro residing inside her.

While they fight, Tanjiro has to go through great lengths to get Nezuko to calm down again, as she seemingly can`t supress a taste for human blood in her berserk Awakened form.  But after calming her with their mother's lullaby, the heroes have to take on the Upper Six.  While they manage to slice of Daki's head, Inosuke is stabbed by her brother through the chest as he tries to run off with her head to prevent a regeneration.

In the meantime, Tnegen lies on the floor, seemingly defeated as he has a hand sliced off.  As all his friends are down, Tanjiro buys a one in a million chance thanks to using a rouse on Gyutaro.  His friends join the fray (Zenitsu's God Speed mode!!!!!!!) as they cheated death, beheading the demon siblings, but Gyutaro goes up in a huge blast of slashing blood.

Our heroes, and Tengen, survive though thanks to nezuko who can burn the poison out of their systems, as we get a very sad flashback on how and why the Upper Six demons became what they where... and you can`t help but feel very, very sad for them...

This truly was a good season, a thing noticeable by the seemingly high speed episodes passed by, not ever giving the impression it was a full 23 minutes.

Oh, and Daki?  I hope they bring out a prize figure of the Banpresto range of the series, I'm soooooo getting this hottie then!

Dual Unboxing Toonize Demon Slayer Inosuke and Zenitsu

 They came together, even though I caught them at TokyoCatch in two different years ;-)

But these chibi like, comical figures are now safe and sound in my mano-cavo, so let's have a look at these little guys and put them in the cabinets.

So yeah, in conclusion, while QPosket's and FukoPOP's remain rather "meeh" to us here, these guys are considerably more cuter.

I might pick up some more of those if opportunity arises, I like them.

I'm the Hero, But the Demon Lord is also Me volume 2 - Tatsuya Endo and Akiyoshi Endo

 Time for some funny yet lewd reading again, with the second book released of this series.

And it is, like the first one, a tale of exhibitionism as heroes and demons gather to claim poor Yuuma Tsugari, child of both a nations hero and her demon lordess.

It all begins as the peace seemingly had returned a bit, and just then Alfin's little sister Lilfy barges in.  She is there to bring her older sister the princess back to their realm, as she sees demons present.  Unconvinced by her sister's plea, she believes her possessed and challenges Yuuma to a duel to free her soul and will.  During the duel the situation is cleared out though... but one of the demon realms generals decides to step into the fray as well!

When Yuuma is confronted by this general, his classmate Ruri steps in, revealing herself as the demon general of the Moon.  Reincarnated in this world after being defeated by Yuuma's father, she is just out here to have a good scrap.  In order to defeat the general, he needs to summon the Sacred Sword, which is carried in... the bossom of his best friend Kanna.  He summons it and defeats Gradolio... who turns out to have a serious humiliation fetish...

Another fun volume for sure, and a series I already had some serious laughs with.  Yeah, it is flat harem humour most of the time, but heck, nothing wrong with that in my book!

The Haul Report 307: my suprise win on Instagram

 In this weeks haul, I have a bit of a special win of an Instagram giveaway.

The contest originally would have two winners, but when the results where announced, a third prize had been added... and I snatched it.

The contest was for some original, anime inspired sticker artwork.  When the organiser, Chrysalis_eb,  contacted me, I didn`t want to know what exactly I had won, so that I would be pleasantly suprised when it arrived.

So opening the padded enveloppe, I found

What a lovely set that is!  And the Goku I adored was included, many thanks!

The Orbital Children

 A new, 2022, anime currently on Netflix, this 6 episode ONA was a good series to watch.

Especially as it deals with both the dangers of being to reliable on technologie, as well as product placement steering lives.

In 2045, the world is greatly dependant on AI and the internet, and when some children win a trip to the Anshin space station they think the world is theirs.  They meet Touya and Konoha, the last of moon born children and who carry a special brain implant.  However, those implants malfunction, and they have to get round to the problem or they will die.

When an accident occurs, the children must rely on each other though, and overcome the earth and moon differences in view and beliefs, as they are seperated from the adults and need to find a way to escape the perils.  As they need to work together, their views on each other change for the better during a spacewalk.

They learn the control crew also survived, but is stuck in ops, meaning they need to manage by themselves until the rescue ship arrives.  But it seems a terrorist hacker group, John Doe, is behind it all, trying to ressurect the intelligence of Seven.  This was a super AI that had to be shut down as it wanted to destroy humanity, and by the ways of the Seven Poem the group tries it again by enabling it to grow on a comet.  As the children discover this truth, Nasa is revealed to be a John Doe consiprator and she blows herself out of the airlock after the children overcome her.

Konoha realises she is nothing less then the key to the future, and starts merging with the poem and the Seven intelligence.  However, she starts to die from the effort, and Touya connects with her consciousness through their implants.  Fusing together, they learn the new Seven intelligence is nothing but a tantrum throwing child, and by overriding the cognitive locks on their drone they teach it about the world.  This results in the computer disintegrating both itself and the comet, and changes the ending of the predictive poem as Konoha lives.

Six months later the kids have regular lives on Earth, as the intelligence, now in microparticles circling Earth, gathers them for one last time and cry out to them...

A really good and intelligent series, taking a look at the danger of a world completely dependent on the internet and AI's, resulting in an AI becoming so smart the world solely relies on it.  But it also tackles the idealogy of two very different sorts of people learning to overcome their indifference toward each other and build a better future one step at a time.

Surely check it out on Netflix, it's worth it!

Unboxing Demon Slayer Nezuko

 The first win of the year, and it is none other then the cute Nezuko Kamado from Demon Slayer.

She is a welcome addition, I like the character but so far I only have a small one of her on my filming desk, so when the "snatch and grab" option in the machines appeared, I took the opportunity.

And so she arrived safe and sound in the beginning of last week, so without further ado, let's open her up!

Yups, that Kung-fu Loli sure is kawaii as hell, she goes straight to the living room displays!

De Bende van Jan De Lichte

 A high budget flemish television series, and a historically based one to boot.

Not to mention one of my ex-collegues at work is playing a small part in it!

De Bende van Jan De Lichte takes places in Flanders of 1747, a time where the rich exploit the poor to the highest level, and banishing them for no serious reason.  But these poor souls are gathering in the woods, and when a deserter, Jan De Lichte, returns to his homeregion, he is affronted by the differences.

He decides to start organising the poor people into a band, out to rob from the rich in order to stake out a better life for themselves.  In the city, a new baljuw, Baru, has the best intentions but soon finds how decadent the ruling caste has become.  But Baru harbours a secret, in that he fell in love with his informant, an orphan girl turned prostitute.

Jan's friend, Tincke, in the meantime had crossed Ijzeren Simon, a crimelord and people russler.  He needs to betray Jan to get back in his favour, but Jan goes to meet Simon, resulting in the latter being killed by his own son Schele.

Baru uses his information to capture Jan though, and he is hanged.  The series jumps one year forward, with Jan's love wed away against her will and Baru now on the city council.  But somehow miraculously Jan returns from the death as a pilgrim, killing the local corrupt priest.  But as the city prospers on the backs of the poor and their forced labour, they approve the digging of a canal, which would ask even more from these exiled souls.

It turns out Jan was saved by the executioner himself, and now he is reorganising the exiles into a community that wants to start their own, independent village, helped by the gold they unknowingly found from the postal carriage robbery.  The next victim he takes his vengeance on is the major, putting him to the torch alive.  Baru, now acting major, knows he will be next so he manipulates the french soldiers in the area to extract a heavy vengeance on the exiles.  They capture Jan, and he is put to death on the iron wheel.  But as Baru walks home, a young exile girl appears and stabs him in the guts, leaving him to die in some back alley...

Now truth to be told, I`ve seen far better flemish productions then this.  The pace feels slow and a bit all over the place, and at times it was honestly a drag to binge more then 2 episodes in a row.  And face it, the titular character would never be dead by the end of episode 7 out of 10... so you just knew there would be another twist on that part.

Visually impressive?  Very certainly so!  Enjoyable? No, not really.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime volume 2 - Fuse and Taiki Kawakami

I continue my journey with the loveable Rimuru in the second manga of Slime (for short), as it dropped in my mailbox a while ago, ordered from Amazon.

 

 

And as both me and Noshi highly enjoyed the anime, it is a fun thing to now read the story all over again in black and white, and try to spot any differences.

And it picks up at the trial before the Dwarf king, as Rimuru and the dwarven craftsmen he met are on a fake trial for assaulting minister Vesta.  The dwarves are exiled as a result, and join Rimuru's fledgling Monster Nation.

One day he helps an adventurer's party going through the forest with some giant ant's, causing him to meet Shizue, a girl that he was destined to.  Summoned at a young age to this world by a demon lord, she has been cursed by being bound with Ifrit into her, a fierce fire spirit.  While having a trip through the forest, talking about their previous lives, Shizue suddenly starts loosing control over Ifrit as he tries to break out.  Rimuru manages to contain Ifrit within him, but the separation causes Shizue to pass away peacefully of old age.  As a dying wish, she wanted to be absorbed into him to have a peacefull, eternal slumber in her village before the war, while allowing Rimuru to take her form.

But as it all settles down and Rimuru gets used to it's new form and abilities, a new threat is brewing...

And of course, we all get to see the events again at the end of the book, but now from the viewpoint of the still in the belly of Rimuru residing Veldora!

The Haul Report 306: new month, new stuff!

 It's already the second month of the year, time does fly for sure!

And a nice stack of parcels fell on the doorstep in the past week, so let's have a look...

First off, my Toreba parcel with the "double" Nitocris (see the Lucky Bags post of a few weeks ago) arrived, but of course it also had my Nezuko in it!

Followed a day later by more Demon Slayer, with the Toonize figures I won over at TokyoCatch.

I also made a little lunchtime walk to the local Akiba store, picking up a manga and some gashapon balls for the big tube for 2022.

That means I`ll have some lewd reading in the coming days hehehe... though if volume 1 was a pointer, better not read it on the bus x-D.

Terra Formars volume 4 - Yu Sasuga and Ken-Ichi Tachibana

 The war on the cockroaches on Mars continues, after we saw a glimpse of the true power of both Michelle and Akazi at the end of the third volume.

So let's settle down, and read some more hard action and gory battles in this fourth tome of the Terra Formars manga.

As Michelle and Akani battle some strangely mutated terraformars, they realise these are actually using genes of the Bugs 2 crew, and that someone or something must have spliced them together.  So there is somewhere a leader with a vision on the planet, but who or what is giving them access to the technology.

Miles away, the Russian team comes to the same conclusion, as the cockroaches didn`t evolve as they should have in the environment, meaning they have been artificially steered.  They hope to discover the secrets to this in the pyramids, hence their mission team consists of only professional warriors instead of wash out's and criminals as the service personel of other countries.

As night falls, it seems the Chinese division is already wiped out, while the German one is on the verge of following the same fate.  But then Adolf unleashes his powers...

Another great volume, and now it's time for me to start shopping for the next ones again!

Lost in Space season 3

 So we are back for more adventures of the family Robinson as Lost in Space returned to Netflix.

And the third season picks up immediatly after the discovery of the Fortune by the children, send away from the crashing Resolute at the end of previous season.

A year has passed now as the children have started a camp to survive on an abandoned planet, and which holds a great secret: the original place of creation of the robots.  While they fix the engines, Judy manages to find her biological father who was on the Fortune and revive him from cryosleep.  While they repair the Jupiter, Will learns more about where the robots came from.

On the "Danger" planet in the meantime, the Robinson's try to obtain a robot and a drive to get back to them, aided by Scarecrow who is being remotely send by Robot.  But SAR is still around and remembering, and traps them on the surface.  The children mount a rescue, but as the rest of the colonists finally evacuate to Alpha Centauri, the Robinson family is once again split off and propelled to another destination.

Crashing on a swamp planet, the family quickly reunites but are hunted by SAR.  Will decides to confront him in order to try and free him from his programming, only to learn it was actually SAR that killed the robots former masters.  He gets gravely wounded and the family, pursued by the robots, is forced to go to Alpha Centauri, in the process giving up the location.

But strangely, it seems the robots aren`t arriving with them.  When they are powering up the colonies defence EMF though, they discover the robots are already there and sabotaging the dam, which provides the power.  As a siege of the colony begins, Penny frees a robot from the wreckage in battle and he turns "blue" as well.  More robots are freed, and engage SAR's forces.  When the battle is seemingly being lost though, Will goes to the robot's homeplanet, where Robot sacrifices himself to save Will's life, asking him to trust him.  Upon return, this trust helps Will confront, and this time overcome, SAR, saving the colony.

And thus ends this amusing three season Netflix series.  It was an enjoyable reboot of a classic series, well worth the watch.  Noshi and me for example went through the whole season in the span of two evenings, because it has that fun, captivating story and pace to it.  

So feel free to take my advice and have a look at this series for sure!

Terra Formars volume 3 - Yu Sasuga and Ken-Ichi Tachibana

 With the mission in serious jeopardy by the events at the end of volume two, the crew of Annex 1 fights for survival.

The next book in the Terra Formars series, this details the landing of the crew on the Martian surface, and their encounters with the evolved cockroaches.

Not allowed to return to Earth, there is apparently some hidden agenda to the mission as Plan delta, the one where no return is expected, is immediatly instigated.  When the vessel also gets severly damaged during landing, the crew escapes in six rapid landers, scattering in different directions.

Pretty soon, all the landing parties are coming under attack by the Terra Formars, who seemingly stole the insect abilities of the crew of the previous mission 20 years ago, Bugs 2.  The Russians land near their own agenda objective, huge, mysterious pyramids found on Mars though.

But it is due to the death of Sheila that the crew learns of the fact their is apparently someone ordering the Terra Formars around and gave them the abilities of their predecessors...

But the humans come better prepared this time, as the BUGS procedure has been refined to include other animals, like the cockroach hunting Giant Crab Spider, giving them at least a fighting chance this time round...

Violent and graphical, this is another heavy volume as it sets the baseline for the powerlevels between humanity and the terraformars in the stories to come.