Another LunaMaria Hawke: my first MFC purchase

 In this little post, I can show another little LunaMaria for my ever growing collection of the waifu.

And she is the very first figure I bought second hand through the My Figure Collection collector's forum.

A lovely person in Canada sold her, part of a large Gundam SEED Destiny lot of figures, for 30 USD total.  Adding tracked shipping and of course the dreaded taxes, it still was a good deal as she doesn`t show up a lot on auctions at all.  I payed her the 9th, and she went on the mail the 10th.  And then, on the 27th of august she was at my doorstep, ready to be grabbed out the package and go to my shrine!

With all the figures in the lot, she comes to about 3 EUR for an item from the bundle, so I am perfectly fine with that.  I am going to keep all the others as well for the collection, so I`ll be adding quite some stuff to my collection database as a result.

 

But, a positive experience, and I am going to be using the website for sure to grab things left and right!

Lovely little chase find

Lupin partie 2

 So, after a few months of tension, Netflix released the 2nd part of Lupin a while ago.

Making use of the evenings while on holiday, me and Noshi enjoyed as such the final 5 episodes of this pretty awesome series.

Together with Guedira, the police officer and Lupin fan who is onto Diop and his method's, they chase Leonard.  he has kidnapped Diop's son Raoul, and brings him to an abandoned mansion to try and trick his father and kill him.  As he fails, he sets the car on fire with Raoul still in the trunk, but unbeknownst to both Guedira had saved him from the inferno.

Diop is arrested, but he manages to escape on the road to Paris, and as Pellegrini has used his son to bait him, he now decides to do the same using his old love Juliette, Pellegrini's daughter, and unearthen his dark secrets to the public.  Even though Pellegrini seems to get arrested, interference from the minister makes him walk free, so he has to do it all at a fund raiser concert to the public eye.

The show let's us in on how all the preparations went in the weeks before the concert (basically the time period between the kidnapping and the season finale), and unfortunatly Diop is falsely accused for murder.  Luckily, Guedira doesn`t believe this and under the name of Ganimard is drafted into the plan to bring about Diop's innoncence (in the murder, he is after all still a thief) and bring justice to Pellegrini and the corrupt commisioner Dumont.

Another great series, though as someone working in the diamond industry perhaps the one downer is that he pays everyone in the polished diamonds from the necklace he stole back in the first episode.  There is no way, without a certificate, anyone is going to be able to sell these, let alone prevent from being linked to the crime...

But it was another intelligently put together series, and the flawed main character is a great welcome from all the goodie-two-shoes of mostly stateside based series.

And Thorin liked watching it as well ;-)

 

 

The Haul Report 289

 Another week gone by, and as I`m nearing the halfway mark of the book I`m currently reading, it was time for another to be obtained.

And oddly, while I was at Mekanik Strip, I bumped into this one.

I didn`t even know there was a spin-off!

 

And more reading fun I got at Akibe.be with these volumes of Gigant, now to search online for the remaining three...

I also received some boosters from Weis Schwarz this week.  Not at all intrested in the actual game, but I`m looking for the nice arty cards of the characters to have... or even if I`m really lucky, the signed ones!

I`ll do a booster opening on them in the near future and see what we got!

Fate / Extra: Last Encore

 Right, time for some Fate, a franchise I'm growing more and more fond off.

And this time, it's the 10 episode long Last Encore series first season, an alternate path of the Holy War depicted in Fate / Stay Night

A technological hell masquerading as paradise, Tsukimihara Academy is an artificial high school that serves as the setting for the next Holy Grail War. Created by the Moon Cell computer, the school is inhabited by Earth-projected souls who have even the slightest aptitude for being a "Master." Of these 256 souls, 128 will be chosen for the main tournament and granted a Servant. With all of the Masters selected, the Academy activates a purge, targeting the remaining lifeforms for elimination.

 

Awakening in a pool of his own blood, Hakuno Kishinami refuses to die. Fueled by unknown feelings of hatred, he vows to fight for survival. As he struggles to escape from a relentless pursuer, he finds a crimson blade plunged into the ground; and by pulling it out, Hakuno summons his own Servant, Saber, who instantly destroys his pursuer in a flurry of rose petals. With his newfound power, Hakuno must now begin his journey to Moon Cell's core, the Angelica Cage. There, he will unveil the reason for this artificial world and the secrets of his own blood-soaked past.

 

 

As he starts out at the first level, he learns from resistance fighter Rin that he needs to defeat the floor master, his old friend Shinji Matou.  Shinji runs the city now, build for Masters that laid down the ambition to gain the Holy Grail and exploiting their servants.

Hakuno and Sabre ascend the floor thanks to the virtual copy of Rin, only to be hunted on the next level by an Archer class.  A rendition of Rani comes to their aid, explaining what is seemingly going on and that the battle has lasted at least 50 years now...

On the second floor, he meets floormaster Blackmore and his servant Robin Hood, out to kill all Masters.  Blackmore has been doing this now for 999 years after being ressurected here, yet is unable to ascend higher.  Arriving at the third floor, Rin has returned, apparently having survived the flooding of the first one.  He faces Alice, a cyber-ghost, and be ready for some really psychedelic episodes here in the better Alice in Wonderland madhouse style.

 

When he has to battle the older brother of the best Master in the history of the Grail wars, it turns out Saber had a master previously, but also that his memory seems to start playing tricks on him.  Slowly but surely, he starts to learn the truth behind SERAPH and how it is all connected... or isn't.  As he unravels not only the secrets behind his past, but even about is whole being and coming into existence, he gets more and more conflicted about why he fights for the Holy Grail...

 

 Another action packed series, but it is a bit of a strange jumping around in time and realities for this series, and it (which is a good thing!) takes a while as a viewer to lay down the pieces and make the puzzle.

Opening Happy Meal Pokemon boosters

 To celebrate 25 years of Pokemon, McDonalds ran an action in which you could get a special series of 50 cards.

Coming with a special promo icon, these cards where sold in Happy Meal boxes, and each booster contains 4 cards.

 

 

The total series consists of the 24 starter Pokemon from all the games so far, as well as Pikachu, and then every card again in holo version.  With Pikachu holo apparently being the rarest of them all.

So over the past period, I spend my lunch breaks grabbing a Happy Meal (farewell BMI), and now I`m going to open up all the packs in this videoclip:

 

 

Although I only got 5 boosters before they sold out at the local McDonalds, this still means some nice cards, though some of them will be ending on Cardmarket...

The Rising of the Shield Hero

 The latest anime me and Noshi have been watching, and another "isekai" to that, Rising of the Shield Hero or Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari comes highly rated on MAL.

Because even with an overabundance of that genre currently, ever since the popularity of Sword Art Online, we still enjoy that for some late evening after work watching.

Naofumi Iwatani is an otaku, who one day in the library finds a strange book with blank pages.  He gets transported to the kingdom of Melromarc, where he turns out to be one of the four legendary heroes, the Shield Hero.  While frowned upon by his fellow heroes (Sword, Spear and Bow) for his personality and the fact the Shield Hero has no offensive powers, he needs to get stronger.  

The kingdom is besieged by Waves of undead, and as he is framed the very first day by a set-up companion, he loses all his stature and honor, and sets out alone.  He saves a demi-human raccoon girl, Raphtalia, from a slaver, and together they start training to be able to aid in the defence of the kingdom.

 

But Mein in particular keeps trying to make his life sour, forcing him into a duel with the spear hero to "free" Raphtalia from her "enslavement" by him.  He loses after Mein intervenes, but the other heroes step in, as they noted the foul play, and Raphtalia choses to remain at his side.  He also wins an egg, which should be hatching into a carriage animal, but instead turns out to be a mythical birdqueen that can shapeshift into the form of a small girl, and he names her Filo. 

But when facing a zombie dragon, and before with the duel with the Spear hero, it seems there is a curse on his shield, which can unleash great power, but at great risk for those surrounding him.  When he meets Melty, the heir to the throne and set out to scorn the king as to his treatment of Naofumi, as well as gaining more and more people routing for him, it seems he is indeed rising as a hero of the people.

But Mein frames him through an assassination plot on her little sister, the crown princess Melty, forcing Naofumi to take her along and see to it he can prove his innocence.  Learning more about Raphtalia's past, the party has to decide wether to visit the queen, or go into demi-human country to be able to use the Dragon Glass and advance their classes.  In their fight with Glass in the second wave, they learned they where far underpowered and only survived by stalling for time!

He meets with the filolial queen Fitoria, who insists he must reconcile with the other heroes, as it wasn`t supposed to be that they where summoned all to the same country.  She duels Filo, who grews above herself and becomes the named successor of Fitoria.  In the meantime, the Bow hero and the Sword hero discover a hidden archive below the Church of the Three, causing them to slowly be convinced Naofumi was right after all.

But as Naofumi meets up with the Spear hero, he is framed for killing Ren and Itsuki.  The Pope arrives, and reveals that the Church of the Three Heroes have been playing them all along, thinking them weak, and that Mein was an unknowing puppet.  As Naofumi and Motoyasu try and defeat him, they are saved by the Bow and Sword heroes, who weren`t killed after all.  Together they hold out until the Queen arrives to relieve them, as Naofumi unleashes a powerful attack leaving him on the brink of death, slaying the traitorous pope.

This results in the queen clearing his name on a public trial, where she sentences the king and Mein to death, but at the last moment Naofumi intervenes, exiling them instead.  Filo and Raphtalia get their upgrades, as they travel to an archipelago event to level up.  Here they meet with L'arc and Theresa, two fellow adventurers, just as another wave is about to happen.

It turns out their new friends are allies of Glass, and heroes from another world that can only survive if this one, and it's four Cardinal Heroes in particular, fall.  Naofumi beats them, and as a reward becomes lord of the region where Raphtalia's village is located, making it his capital and rebuilding the region...

A truly good series, with some very hard moments in it (Raphtalia's past) and humour (how he orders the king to grovel before him, I should try that on my boss one day!) making it a real 25 episode rollercoaster.

Lord Ipsqueek's Adventures: my first seaside holiday!

 Hello fanbase, here is your idol again, and this time I`m going to tell about my fantastic holiday I had with mommy and daddy in Westende, at the Belgian coast.

With Covid-19 still a thing, they decided we where going to do another staycation this year, and opted for the coast.

Now, the weather is back to normal Belgian standards, in that it rains and is chilly, but the geezers where in luck as I brought sunshine along!

Upon arrival after an arduous journey, I of course went to inspect the appartment first, and directed where my bed would be.  Because of course, no-one knows better where I sleep well, then myself (editor's note: you sleep like everywhere in every position)!

 

 

The hotel also had some inside play accomodations, whom I of course had to try out.

 

 

We went to an animal farm there as well, but believe me, the plants there are vicious.  Luckily, as you can see, I did some druidic magic on them in order to soothe them and be excellent bunny food again.

 

 

Talking food, after working hard there in rebuilding the sandbox, I treated myself to daddy's pancake with whipped cream.

 

 

Ooooh, shineys...

 

 

Ow sorry, I was distratced there for a moment.  In Middelkerke, there was a Stripfestival, so we just had to explore that.  I saw a lot of stripheroes, and took mental notes that daddy has to read from them in a few years.

 

 

I also got a grave injury at the seaside, but they immediatly send the rescue helicopter to treat my wounds.

 

 

I also received this cool unicorn ducky, my new favorite chewtoy when I feel like it being my favorite chewtoy.

 

 

Talking chewsies, did you know that belgian waffles with whipped cream and nutella are absolutely delicious?

 

 

Of course, we also went to the beach itself, where I could live out my heart's delight in the sand.

 

 

Though at times, it was kinda windy...

 

 

And Westende has this amazing large playground, which I braved armed with nothing but an oaken branch!

 

 

It was a super holiday, and after driving around a bit in my dino mobile, it was time to slowly pack up and leave back for home.  But what a fun vacation this was!

 

 

 

Thanks mommy and daddy for doing this!