Battle of Azukizaka, 1542
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Another day, another Samurai battle! After having fought through several
iterations of the 1572 Mikata Ga Hara Samurai battle, the collection
remains out...
The Participant Roster for Challenge XV!
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Hi All!
Below is the participant roster and corresponding Daily Minion assignments
for Challenge XV. Sticking to form, I try to assign people to Minions...
Work-in-Progress Wednesday - 4 December 2024
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I've been feeling a little bored by the Work-In-Progress Wednesdays over
the last few weeks... or even months...? It's been feeling less like
"Work-In-Pr...
Back on track, and babbling on
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After a two week hiatus, I got back to painting. On the go at the moment
are 4 units of Reichsarmee infantry. (A unit is made of 50ish figures over
two b...
Skirmish Wargaming vs Roleplaying Games
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Are Skirmish Wargames and Roleplaying games with an element of combat just
the same thing? Or are they two sides of a different coin?
A Chiasm of Chinese
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*A Headless Body Production*
*Venue: *Wyndom Lancaster Resort, nee' Lancaster Host
*Event: *HMGSs' Fall In(tm) Open 15mm tournament, Round 2
*Players: *B...
Hwæt
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Okay so this post is not intended in anyway as a review of Age of Penda…but
it sort of is.
I bought the Age of Penda Rules by Daniel Mersey because they ...
Pogo, monkey father figure
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Work continues apace on the Umbrella Academy board game (although ‘apace’
is a very generous descriptor considering how little painting time I’ve
managed...
Kobold Hoomins!
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Because I'm apparently drawn to the wee beggars, here are another troop of
Warp Miniatures kobolds. These piggyback riders have clearly scavenged some
hum...
Hooptedoodle #471 - Whatever happened to...?
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This follows a lighthearted conversation with a friend, in which we were
lamenting things from our past which, somehow or other, seem to have
slipped in...
More Great Northern War with Blucher
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Colin got over earlier today,so we could have another bash a the Great
Northern War using Blucher rules. I had expanded the size of my Swedish and
Danis...
Fire Forge Samurai Minis
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After watching the new vesions of Shogun I was once again hooked in the
Feudal Japanese history and the later Sengoku period 1540 -1600.
Ofcourse the...
ASOIAF Battle Report: The Others vs. Greyjoys
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The White Walkers march again
I've been building The Others army since 2019, it was originally designed
by Yannic & co. for the 1.5 season of Song but ha...
28mm PBR for Vietnam War
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HI all,
Long time no blog. Sorry about that but I have been posting "mini blogs"
over on Twitter. So what has been going on? Well quiet a bit actual...
There we have it, the first "monthly overview" and all the links of stuff I got this january, and it certainly was a blast al ready to get the new year going!
A small disclaimer: if you watched my Lucky Bag unboxing, you'd see more obtained figures. But as I have nothing with non-anime models, I don`t consider them loot as they didn't end in my collection, but are going to be used as some trade away figures.
While I have won quite a bit at various Crane Game apps, over at Cremas2 I only was succesfully once.
Well, twice in that I also caught a pack of ramen noodles, as I needed a second item to have this Saint Seiya model shipped.
But what a happy win it was, because it is a figure of my most beloved of anime series, ever since I first saw it in the ungodly long ago year of 1986...
The Cosmo Memoir is a range that is bringing out Saints figures of the characters unarmoured. I also have Seiya from that line, and now the second one of the 5 released so far.
But without further ado, let's break open the seals and unbox the model!
The story continues of the lovely Chiho, and hopefully this volume satisfies a bit more then the previous tome.
Still, I`m a fan of the series, and now I`m already over the halfway mark. I guess it's about time to pre-order the next volumes as well.
And this volume starts with the four strange travellers... discovering cup noodles! But Chiho and Rei don`t let it get to their head, as they go on a romantic holiday together. But with Chiho being recognised everywhere, it's hard for Rei to ignore the people and relax completely. And then comes the stress of a ripped condom...
When mobsters pick a fight with the four travellers, we get to see that they have different abilities though then Papico, as one of them disolves a guy with her tears, while another gets larger and bulletproof.
It is however rumoured that Rei and Chiho are a couple, making her punishable by law for having a relationship with an underaged schoolboy. The media jumps on this, and makes life hard for the couple. After Rei gets beaten up at school, he decides to temporary break up with Chiho until he comes of age.
In the meantime, America even failed with nukes to stop the satan demon...
Well, this book picks up again after the for me rather weak previous volume, with some nice in depth storytelling. Even though it is by far the most "cultured" book in the series so far...
A double unboxing in today's video, as these two loveable characters from That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime came in from TokyoCatch recently.
I grabbed both of the models within a few days of each other near the end of december, so I had this "wave" in one go.
So let's have a look at these Otherworlder range models, of whom we already have a Shion and of course Rimuru in our cabinet, as I really like this range in size and quality.
So here we go, let's unbox these characters!
As a result, our shelf is being nicely filled up some more.
Those 2 and 4 figure Lucky Bags I caught at Toreba in the last week of 2021 arrived, in a nice and big box.
Guess that meant time to do a lovely big suprise unboxing video, which went to my YouTube channel. You can find the unboxing here on this blog a few days ago, but here are the figures that came out of it:
That is one nice pile for sure!
But the pile got even bigger, as the first order of the year from AmiAmi also arrived this week. On it my Nanachi pre-order, but also two Saint Seiya busts I got for a measly 10 euro each of their pre-owned section.
While my Otherworlder figures of Veldora and Gobta that I won over at TokyoCatch also dropped in.
So yeah, a very, very figure heavy week for sure this time round!
So this chinese animation movie in on Netflix at the moment, and it is part of the "New Gods" series as well, of which I did a review of another film from earlier.
But, it is apparently also the sequel to another, not on our Netflix, movie, White Snake ...
Verta and Blaca, respectively the demons Green Snake and White Snake, are suddenly assaulted by the demoncapturing monk Fahai. He locks Blanca away in a heavenly temple, forcing Verta to go look for her. She finds herself in Asura city, a sort of place between heaven and hell where human and demon alike try to survive.
Banding with Simon and his Raksha followers, she manages to meet with the Fox of the All Goods Market, who tells her and her companions that there is a way out of the twilight. Together with a mysterious boy that might or might not be her sister reincarnated, or at least connected to her, she assaults fahai for decades as time flows differently and open the Wishing Bridge.
Eventually she succeeds in overcoming Fahai, and gets back to our current world. She learns through an exhibit of what happened to Blanka, and that she was with her all along after all...
A good, if not excellent, animation movie with a rather special ending for sure, this series is turning out to be good fun to be honest.
Check it out on Netflix as such, they are worth it, or if you can find them elsewhere as well, let me know!
A sort of classic that I finally got to watch with Noshi on Netflix, and known in english as Blue Exorcist.
Counting two dozen episodes, this series from 2011 follows Rin, the son of Satan born in the human world.
At age 15, after being bullied, his powers start to awaken. Astaroth finds him and wants to take him out, but his adoptive father, head of a group of exorcist priests, sacrifices himself to prevent him being dragged to Gehenna by Satan. Together with his twin brother Yukio, he enrolls in college, and an excorsist school. His amazement is immense when it turns out Yukio is actually one of his teachers, always having known his secret and being trained in the ways of excorcists since a young age.
He asks Rin along to hunt a lowly demon and save the girl Schiemi, who infatuated by Yukio also joins the class. During a class camp, they get attacked but it turns out all to have been a hidden test to see if they can become ExWire ranks... or was it, as it seems the director is involved in a plot to bring out Rin's true heritage.
One day, during a training mission in an empty amusement park, Rin is attacked by Amaimon. The brother of headmaster Mephistoteles, this also forces the hand of one of his mysterious classmates, who turns out to be an inspector send by the Vatican, Shura, and who will train Rin as a promise to his late father.
During their training outings, he learns he has friends that can help him out, but then he is forced to reveal his powers as Amaimon takes Schiemi. Being brought to trial by the new paladin, Arthur Augustus Angel, he is never the less ruled to become a weapon in the grigori's fight against Satan. But this all causes distrust amongst his classmates, until one of them gets possessed by a demon and Rin comes to his rescue.
Yukio gets to meet his grandfather, and together they take over the Vatican from the Grigori, as Yukio is sold on his plan to make both the human and the demonworld one and into harmony. They want to open the gate to Gehenna, upon which the Messiah, a sort of holy nuclear bomb would be tossed in. But as their grandfather wants to sacrifice Rin for this, the truth gets revealed what really happened 15 years ago and how the boys came to the world, as satan possesses Yukio, in the progress awakening his powers, and making the siblings face off against each other.
So yeah, it was an enjoyable series, even though not one usually "up my genre alley" but with some great laughs along the way. It's worth checking out for sure, though for me it won't be one of my "waaaawwww awesome" series to remain though...
At the end of last year, I won two lucky bags of figures over at the Toreba crane game app, one containing two, and the other four, random, unknown figures.
I`m hoping for a Fate or a Quintuplets figure, and have a gut feeling there might be a Ranka or Soen from Slime in it as they remain on the app, but who knows? More lickely it'll be some QPosket, DBZ or One Piece figures...
So with Noshi by my side (of camera), let's crank these babies open! I already cheated a little bit by putting my hand in, and now it ain`t in paper bags, so Noshi is going to pull out a box at random every time.
So, the haul?
Okay, the F:GO was super... just a bit "damn" with which actual figure I got. Oh heck, when the second arrives, she'll go up for trade then. The other figures aren`t bad at all considering the value, because counting it at the prices it goes here in Belgium, the box has a value of about 150 EUR.
But they don`t rock my personal boat, and as such I`ll be looking to trade those around for figures I do like more.
But yeah, great value for sure, and I`ll be saving up all my points in the coming year in order to catch some more of these boxes next december!
Every year, my company runs a raffle for all the relationship gifts we receive, and I got the one thing I really wanted between all the wines and chocolates: a 25 euro gift voucher for Amazon.
So I duly used it, and while the order is split in two parts, I don`t mind as it had free shipping anyways.
But as such, the first parcel arrived this week, containing volume 2 of the That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime manga.
The next part of the order will be shipped once back in stock, so you'll see it here when it arrives of course, though that might take some time still.
And that makes it a very modest episode this time around :-)
The third of the Gundam Limited Edition Loot Crates, with Iron-Blooded Orphans as it's theme.
Now normally, this was supposed to be the fourth in the line, but alas it switched places with the ONE series of the franchise I actually took the subscription for, SEED. Oh well, saving the best for last we shall say!
So, that means I will now be opening this box, which is of the four sets the one that intrested me the least (the other two earlier ones where Wing and 00), but being the completionist that I am... I just wanted all four of them!
And here is a stack of the contents.
To be honest, the weakest of the boxes so far for me, and a pity it didn`t have a mug in it like the previous two. But that sweater is ubercool!
Papico is back on the reading table as I managed to obtain volume 5 a while ago.
And in this fifth volume, called The Savior of Shinjuku, we are immediatly thrown in the action!
The story picks up with Chiho facing off against the remaining Gods of destruction in Tokyo, and overcoming them by her "shrink then grow" technique. The result of her defeating the giants seems to be the catalyst to bring down the ETE website, but during a very passionate reunion with Rei her cellphone suddenly starts talking to her.
When a large satanic being attacks New York, the States send in their giant superhero team and sees them slaughtered to a man in moments. But in Japan, four mysterious travellers gather together to combat the evil as well... and looking for this "Papico".
Yes, I have gripes with this issue. The first chapter is only the battle, so okay, there is not much dialogue in that understandably, but the whole second chapter of the book is nothing else then people shouting Papico as she becomes the saviour and people's hero. Never the less, I`m still enjoying the series, but this book felt a bit of a let down to be honest...
In this second volume, the main story kicks off, as the first book was the "prelude" tale of how the cockroaches came to Mars, evolved, and wiped out a crew.
So now we are up for the real deal!
Afterprocedure child and cagefighter Akiko is recruited into the U-Nasa for a new mission to Mars. He joined the fighting circuit to raise funds for his childhood friend Yukiko, who suffered from a strange, and apparently extraterrestial disease. However, by the time U-Nasa got to her, it was to late and she died two days before he joins them, in order to find a cure should more people suffer from it.
It also offers more in depth background material of course then the anime, like the tale of how Alex and Marcos who in the search for their friend Sheila join the programme. They survive the procedure and join the crew of 100 enhanced people. But on the contrary to the mission 20 years ago, now it aren`t only insect genes implanted amongst the crew.
But as the Annex 1 approaches Mars, cockroaches invade the vessel and slaughter a few of the crew, as well as severly damaging the storage containers that hold the drug for the crew to activate their implanted powers...
A very good volume that gives some depth to the characters, before turning it's violent, graphical self once the Terra Formars sneak on board.
Netflix unleashed the second season of the adventures of Geralt of Rivia upon us half december, so Noshi and me sat down and in the course of 3 days went through the whole 8 episode story.
And it was, well, different from the first for sure, in that it took away the timejumps and "monster of the week" approach for an overarching storyline.
And to be honest, I didn`t really think it worked that well as the sometimes confusing, but in the end greatly woven together, approach of season 1.
The series picks up immediatly after the battle of the first series, with Geralt searches for the presumably dead Yennefer. But she is alive and captured by elves, who are under way to cement an alliance with Nilfgard in the captured city of Cintra.
Geralt then takes his protegee, Ciri, north to the fortress of Kaer Morhen, wintercamp of the Witchers, and his old master Vesemir. Ciri starts training to become a Witcher herself in the camp now. In the meantime, an escaped Yennefer arrives in Aretuza, where Stregebor tries to frame her in order to cement his own position on the ruling council, and uncover the fact that by using all her powers in the final battle, she is now stranded without any magic.
The Witchers learn during that time that Ciri possesses the blood of the Elders, and that it can be used perhaps to create new Witchers at last. Assassins are send after her and Geralt while they learn more everyday about their powers, and the lure of the witch in the woods, Voleth Meir. But it turns out to all be one big ruse, as all the witch wants is Ciri to become her vessel and spread pain across the world again, in what seemed to be a new Conjunction. Geralt and Yennefer barely manage to contain her in the end, but as Niflgard betrays the elves unknowingly to have them do their dirty work, war is about to errupt across the whole plain of existence...
So as I said, not a bad season at all, and with a good overarching story. But due to the other structure then year one, it felt like a rather different series to be honest. But never the less, let's hope season 3 comes rather smoothly and we can see how it all unfolds!
In today's unboxing, I`m taking a look at Shion from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
I immediatly errrr, "liked" Rimuru's well foreseen in the oppai region secretary / bodyguard, and Thorin got me a figure of her for my christmas.
So without further ado, let's unbox this lovely lady!
A very nice figure indeed, especially if you see how cheap the range of Otherworlder actually is (we pay them 30 to 35 euro here in Belgium retail stores).
Well, last year I often repeated that this anime, that I discovered during 2021, quickly became my "guilty pleasure" series...
... and what better way to continue that feel good feeling of the adventures of Fuutaro and the Quintuplets, then starting the manga it was based on. The manga has finished in the meantime, so I can start shopping in order to get the complete series together!
And in this first volume, we start again with Futaro running into Itsuki, a meeting not going well. But soon after, he lands a high payed tutoring job, which turns out not to be for Itsuki, but actually for her sisters as well. They are Quintuplets! And not the brightest bunch either, so a long and arduous job awaits Futaro, as he not only has to see how to teach them, but find out all their quirks and characteristics to see how to get best through to each and every one of them.
And he gets his first opening when Miku, who starts growing feelings towards him, opens up, allowing him to enter each of their school forte's. Slowly as such, he realises he needs to win each and every one of them over seperately...
And so my journey across the 122 chapters of the manga has begun, now to get the next volumes of the series and continue reading and enjoying this fantastic series!
Well, 2022 has kicked off, and the first parcels have come strolling in over the doorstep.
Starting this year with a price I won over at TokyoCatch back in december.
Yush, Quintuplet summer blankies, all miiiiiiiine! Itsuki, Yotsuba and the "All Stars" blanket (aka, all 5 sisters) will become the new "floors" for my shelf closet.
More Quintuplets though, as past sunday, me and Noshi went to the city so she could see the Nendo Addicts store "for real" at last. And she bought me this lovely gift, an Ichika from Pop up Parada, and some boosters for Weiss Schwarz. Thank you my dolly!
Just to late for the holidays unfortunatly, because that's what postal services do. But next year, these super cute My Hero Academia charms can go in the christmas tree!
Using the vouchers I received for christmas from the family in law, I ordered this nice looking game for my new Switch as well.
More mail came in, with a box from Claw Master Japan, containing my Aiolia and a bag of noodles.
And finally, the third of the four limited edition Gundam Loot Crates, expect an unboxing video soonish!
So that has been a really great week, with a lot of "to be expected" parcels coming in, kicking off the year spectacularly as such!
In today's article, I`m going to be singing the praise of two companies out there, and their great after sale customer service.
And the model it is all about, is the lovely Raphtalia Pop Up Parade figure from Good Smile Company.
I bought her over at Nendo Addicts beginning of november for Noshi, as we would give each other both heroes as a present, she got me Naofumi, and I got her Rapthalia. But alas and woe, upon opening the box, it turned out her extended arm was knacked downwards and her fingers totally bend outwards.
So I contacted Nendo Addicts, and he gave me all the information needed to contact Good Smile Company directly and ask for a replacement body part. GSC was very helpfull in this, as it only took a single mail with the proof of purchase and the pictures attached, and without any issue they would send me a new Rapthalia. They only asked to dispose of the old one of course.
Now, luckily a bit though, I waited doing this until I had the new one in my hands, as they understandably only send the body as a replacement. Had I already tossed away the old one, I would have ended up without the base and the sword.
So, of course then there was Bpost who made a whole hassle before clearing it in through customs, as the figure arrived already the 18th of november, but only in my hands the 23rd of december. Christmas traffic and the fact they didn`t seem to understand the concept of replacement parts not being purchases for VAT took some telephones and mails to and fro, but in the end, the lovely figure now stands with her friends in one of our miniature cabinets.
So thanks to Nendo Addicts and Good Smile Company Japan for solving this matter smoothly!
The story continues, and it still is in the "anime adapted era" so not to much big reveals here.
Because they seemingly literally out the manga to anime form, which isn`t a bad thing mind you.
The 4 chapters in this volume thread upon two paths: on the one hand there is Shoko, send out by Athena with the Equuleus cloth for a crash training with a mythical saint. This should get her up to speed, at least to fight for the godess, in a shorter time then the other saintia's did.
The second arc mostly is the still awakening Athena who is troubled by her destiny, and the lives she might get lost, and already has lost, in order to preserve the peace from the gods who have less nobler intentions with Earth and it's population.
This leads up to the first confrontation between Eris and Athena, neither awakened to their full potential, as Shoko suddenly appears. As Kyoko interferes with her host, the Equuleus cloth accepts Shoko as it's wearer...
Another nice volume, and I really can`t repeat myself enough, I adore the drawing style of this series. Clear and full of action, everything a Saint series should be about!
Here we are agin, the annual loot post of what dedicational participations in Instagram, facebook, YouTube and whotnot social media's have gained, as well as from other contests and challenges.
And it was another year where I fell in the prizes, so it really does pay off to like and share all those thingies.
The spoils already started at the beginning of the year, as in january the 6th anniversary contest of Nutaku Games yielded a digital copy of the HuniePOP game.
April saw me win this big Red Dragon, a resin 3d print from Rise from Resin to celebrate their first 1k followers, a desing by Cursed Forge. It arrived safely the 7th of May, though brexit did hit me on it, oh well.
On the 16th of arpil, I was picked from the comments on YouTube channel Wiggs Figs for the Weird Al Jankovic FunkoPOP.
Which unfortunatly never arrived.
My AHPC prize for completing the challenge map arrived end of april, a lovely commander painted up by Benito.
But there was another win as well near the end of april, as I won an Instagram giveaway for a Pokemon boxed set, Dendenne's Mad Party from Shining Fates range.
That box alas never arrived :-(
On the 13th of May, I got a mail from Geekster Blog, telling me I won their giveaway for a digital copy of the Alien RPG Starter set from DriveThru over on Instagram. So the Core Book and Destroyer of Worlds expansion found their way to my digital library.
On the 28th of june, I won some nice little personalised giveaway on Instagram, held by demonwheatthins, but the goodies never came.
Beginning of july, on the 4th, I finally managed to win something on the japanese crane game apps, with a Noodle Stopper figure of Hatsune Miku in Kung-Fu attire. Going on Ami-Ami at 980 yen, she goes between 30 to 40 euro at european retailers. Making use of the free shipping option, she arrived the 27th.
A few weeks later, on the 15th of july, I caught another figure with this QPosket Black Jack Pinoko. Again using free shipping, it came in the 18th of august.
On the 24th of august, I got lucky again on TokyoCatch, grabbing a Bijoid Rem figure this time. It shipped out the XXth and arrived here the XXth of september.
And she arrived safe and sound the 21st of september.
Now, in Crane games, you have to move and shuffle the boxes until it falls between the bars, as the claws aren`t normally strong enough to hold the weight. And then this game happened:
Rooooight... but heck, she's mine now.
On the 31st of August, I grabbed the first win ever on Toreba Crane Games, with this Demon Slayer figure of Gyoumei.
He bravely arrived the 14th of september in my mailbox.
The 12th of november I could add another win to the Instagram tally, being one of the 6 prize winners from OneShopTwoShop. When it was my moment to pick a price, the Kanao from Demon Slayer was still up for grabs, so of course I went for her.
She was never mailed to me though, as I never received the payment request for the shipping...
On the 25th of october, I won a figure I really liked on Tokyo Catch, with this Hatsune Miku noodlestopper of her in her "Villain" incarnation.
Shipped the 1st of november and she arrived safe and sound on the 9th.
The 26th of november, another figure was caught at TokyoCatch, this time Satoru Gojo from JuJu Kaisen. Only to be followed a day later by Echidna from Re: Zero, that was a catchy weekend for sure!
They got both shipped together on the 2nd of december and arrived safely the 15th of december.
But a few days later, november 30th, it was an absolute topday at TokyoCatch. I did not only catch one
not two,
but THREE simmer blankets from The Quintessential Quintuplets!
That means all three available designs, being Yotsuba, Itsuki and Miku are now mine normally, to be shipped out the 19th of december, and arriving the 27th at customs, meaning they will be delivered just after the new year.
The 7th of december I won Aiolia over at another app, Claw Master, but in order to ship that one out I needed to win a second figure as well. Or something at least, which I did with a pack of ramen noodles, as that was the cheapest and easiest in play points to get to have my figure come my way...
The items shipped out the 24th, to arrive at customs the 27th, so they will be here probably first week of january.
And yet, that was not all, because on the 24th, Veldora was caught as well over at TokyoCatch, as was his companion Gobta on the 28th!!!!
Shipped out on the 31st, I`m expecting these guys somewhere half of january to grace my collection!
Still the year wasn`t finished on winning stuff, as on the 27th I caught a random 2 figure Lucky Bag over at Toreba, while the 28th yielded the 4 figure Lucky Bag! I`m curious what it will contain, though inwardly I`m hoping for either a Fate or a Quintessential Quintuplets figure. I guess that is going to be one fun unboxing video when they arrive!
I had it shipped out on the 31st, so that will definitly be something for january to find out!
Think that was it? Think again, because on the very final evening of 2021, my TokyoCatch daily free ticket yielded me a Toonize Zenitsu!!! I`ll have him shipped out in a week or two, to combine with any possible first wins of 2022.
So that makes some nice haulage again this calendar year approximating 565 euro value! But sadly also a few "no-shows" of won items. Heck, not that I`ll be complaining to the organisers of the give aways, it's free stuff after all and no eurocent was lost over it.