Unboxing Azur Lane Z1

 A Keep from the Archonia Mystery Box I opened in the beginning of this month, comes this lovely Z1 figure from Azur lane.

An anime I enjoyed, though I keep away from the video game though.

So without further ado, let's open this box.

A nice figure, with a pretty impressive base I must say.  While I have no intention of actively chasing after models from the series like I don`t with Fate or Miku's this figure has the feel I won`t mind when i ever get a chance to grab some of them, I won`t let it pass.

Because, battleship girls, what's not to like...

On the Painting Desk 204

 Got some painting time in the past week, as the sweltering heat went away a little.

So I took that opportunity to spend some work on the Freedom gunpla, going for the Sky Grey layer first.

I managed to get that whole layer done, and as that is the base colour compared to the darker grey that was the shading colour, the model already comes to life a bit.

I also did some work on my Quintuplets painting, so that means it has been a very productive week indeed, and I HOPE to get both finished in the coming months.

Until the next update!

Disenchantment season 4

 So we almost caught up to the series.

And the fourth season is hopefully as fun as the third, where our heroes where stuck in all kinds of hard situations.

Lucy, together with Jerry, escape from heaven to save Bean from a forced marriage with Satan.  But she tricks her mother into the marriage instead, making her Queen of Hell.  Back on the surface, Elfo finds out his mother is the queen of the ogres, while Zog regains his sanity and after finding himself in a monastery returns to Dreamland.

 

Upon their arrival, it seems Cloyd and Becky have taken over the land.  While they drive them off, they possess a couple of dolls, working together with an awakened Freckles. Elfo learns about how humans stole Dreamland from the elves in an old sunken castle, while Zog himself finds out he has a child with the bear selkie from season 3, Ursula.  When she perishes in a fire, he takes Jasper with him back home.

But the elves in the meantime demand their castle back, taking up arms and resulting in reuniting with the Trogs as a single people.  The "Goo" is drank by a nightmare ridden Beanie, and as a result her dreams reveal her evil self to her, bend to take her place.

So, after the dip of season 2, I really enjoyed the next seasons including this one.  Now to wait for the fifth one to see how the cliffhanger resolves...

365 Days: This Day

 Okay, so the original 365 days, a polish movie, was "enjoyable" trash.

This, well, just trash...

It begins with Laura, who apparently was killed in an assassination attempt at the end of the first movie, is happily alive and fornicating with Massimo before their wedding.  She lost her child, which he doesn`t know, and not one piece of explantion is given on how.

But quickly the happy, horny, married wife changes in the bitchy bored housewife.  And then she catches massimo having his way with a red-head from another maffia family.  Laura flees and enter Nacho the gardener, a simple working class man living in a villa you see in boutique resorts.

But now comes the big twist!  She didn`t see her husband cheating on her, she saw his secret identical twin brother instead!  And he works for a rival family together with the redhead, in what is a criminal duo so inept it puts Team Rocket's Jesse and James to shame.  At least those two had a witty talking cat...

So nope, this wasn`t a good flick at all, 65% of it consisting of nudity, 5% of comical relief of Laura's friend Olga and her lover Domenico and 30% of thinking "why the hell am I watching this rubbish".

But heck, only one more to go apparently, so let's hope it at least gets SOME story back... as we all know she will survive the gunshot wound at the end of the movies cliffhanger.

MS-05A Zaku I Early Type

 The most recent, and third, model I finished this month is the venerable Zaku I.  

Predecessor of the widely known and popular Zaku II, these basically served as the testbed for the line, and the first succesfull model Zeon produced.

And this particular one has the markings of the Midnight Fenrir Corps, who operated mostly on Earth and appear in the Zeonic Front video game only.

Armed with a power axe, these usually carry a machine gun as well, so making for a pretty basic lay-out.  But that bit of versatility make them great "grunt" troops to fill out those few left over points for gaming.

Now, which one to paint next...

Turning Red

Recently, Noshi was watching this movie with Thorin, and daddy watched along from the tabledesk.

 

 

I read online the movie came highly rated, so it peaked my curiosity even though I`m not that much of a Pixar / Disney guy.

 

Back in 2002, 13 year old Mei-Lin lives in Toronto, helping her family out in the ancestral temple they run, dedicated to the Red Panda deity. Not wanting to hurt her overprotective mother Ming, she hides her true intrests, like the boysband 4Town she wants to go see with her friends.

Spirits from the temple come to her in her sleep, and she now transforms into a huge Red Panda if she gets emotionally charged.  This is actually a family curse, passed down for generations, that awakens once the girls in the bloodline come of age.

She exploits her new ability to make money for the concert tickets in secret, even attending a birthday party of the school bully who knows her secret.  During a family ritual to seal the spirit back away, Mei sneaks off to the concert, her mother getting so angry she transforms in a gargantuan Red Panda giving chase and wrecking the concert venue.

But with the help of her grandmother and 4Town, they manage to overcome her and during a shift to the astral plane she reconciles with her mom, bringing life back to more normal states, even though she keeps using her transformation ability to help at the temple as an attraction.

Well, no, this wasn`t a bad movie per se, but not my cup of tea.  Oh well, can`t love everything you see I guess.

The Haul Report 320

 Another haul of manga came in this week, as my new thingie, a monthly box from Archonia, arrived.

And in it some volumes of three series I'm really enjoying at the moment.

The box system is really something great to save on the shipping costs, as you can put items in all month long and then have it send out for a single pick up point fee.

I'm going to be a regular user of this service for sure!

 

Sadly, my trusted HP monitor gave up on me after 1.5 decade of faithfull service, so a last minute rush to the electro store brought me a new screen.

 

 

Ah well, it was bound to happen one day...

Unboxing Shion and Shuna WCF figures

 I like these small scale figures, and I like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, so when these came up for sale on la Cité des Nuages earlier this month, I quickly ordered them.

Adding to that as it is a Belgian store, shipping costs where minimal using Mondial Relay.

So, now let's open these small boxes and take a look at the two kajin girls.

Aaaah, Shion, I wished I had a secretary like that...

AMX-003 (MMT-1) Gaza-C Haman Karn Custom

 The latest suit painted up for MechaTop or Mobile Suit Skirmish gaming.

And like always, I opt for 1/400 scale gasaphon models, as they have enough details, are easy and cheap to get (bar import charges), and fit wonderfully well with 1/300 scale terrain.

The Gaza-C were recycled from older lines and updated, but became a very succesful design balancing speed and firepower for little cost.  So effective even that Haman Karn herself had a customised suit of the model.

The model itself was painted in my two tone style for these size of models, which gives them some good contrast, while at the same time being fast and easy to work on, taking about a day for a figure of this size except basing.  

 

 

Talking basing, as soon as my Ender gets back, I can start printing the needed octagonal bases for them, and add them to those in order to get the game finally going and try it out with some solo-games, before taking the game to the club against Nemesis.

 

So keep your eye on this little corner of the internet...

Spiderman No way Home

 While i did miss a couple of MCU movies so far (the Infinity War and Endgame for example), I sat down with Noshi to watch the newest Spiderman movie.

Because, Spiderman...

The story starts with the fallout of Peter Parker being revealed by Mysterio at the end of Far From Home (which, alledgedly, I still need to watch as well) and how it impacts his personal life as well as that of those close around him.  In desperation, he seeks the help of Dr Strange, but a spell to make the world forget his identity goes awry and causes a crack in the multiverse.

This means that we get some villains from the older Spiderman movies appear in the MCU: Doc Ock, Electro, The Lizard, Sandman and Green Goblin, all the roles picked up by their original actors.  Peter wants to help Strange sending them back home, but he learns that they where transported here moments before their deaths.  He decides he wants to help them by curing their evilness, and send them back to have a new chance at life.

This goes against Strange's wish, and he traps Strange by using a spell against himself while trying to beat the others.  But this results in the dead of Aunt May (the Uncle Ben variant of the MCU, as she utters the famous line 'with great power comes great responsibility' as she passes away) during the betrayal of the villains.  They don't want to go home, as this is a brand new world full of opportunities.

As his friends Ned and MJ try to gather help, it turns out Ned can open portals as well, and help arrives from unexpected corners: the previous two movie series Spidermen, Tobey Maguire (still the best) and Andrew Garfield.  Together the three Spidey's start working on cures for the villains and lure them to the Statue of Liberty to capture them.

As they are about to defeat all of them, with the help of the redeeming Doc Ock, Strange arrives.  But the Green Goblin shatters his binding artifact, causing rifts in the Multiverse.  The only way to stop it is by Peter (the MCU version) making the decision that everyone, including his friends and allies, should forget his identity and he can become Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman and Peter Parker as two seperate identities, like the other two before him...

A really good film, boosted by the tongue in cheeck humour typically of Spiderman... times three.  I kind of like where this MCU phase 4 is going to, so now I might be catching up on the Disney+ series and missed movies this year after all...

GAT-X131 Calamity Gundam

 Not only is this the first figure of the year I completed, but also the third one only since the AHPC of last year ended in March.

But, we are back into it, aided by some much needed glasses.

And for the first model of the year, as well as the first one of painting 15 mobile suits to use in Mechatop, it was my 1/400th scale Calamity Gundam, a suit from Gundam SEED I always loved the look of.

The turquoise artillery suit has a bright appearance, and lethat weapons with the two huge cannons on it's back, and shares the same design frame as the Strike after all.  A successor of the Buster suit, it was piloted by Orga Sabnak.  In the end, it was destroyed by the Justice Gundam at the second battle of Jachin Due.

So now with the first model complete, I`m going to try and finish some more this month, and finally get the painting tally up and running again!

Archonia's Free Comic Book Day manga bundle

 Okay, so a bit of a special mystery box this time.

Back at the end of january, you could order for free (bar a few euro postage ofc) bundles for Free Comic Book day from Archonia.

Yeah, I could have taken ALL the free bundles, but as regular comics don`t rock my boat, I didn`t bother, and only went for the Manga bundle.  

And now I picked up the parcel at the local UPS point, and have NO clue at all what will be inside, so let's do an unboxing!

 

 

Now, these aren`t manga sized, which is a bit of a shame as they don't in the shelves, and the western manga will be a trial and error when I go to read them.  But heck, we might be suprised, and if not, I'll give them away over on my YouTube or something.

The Haul Report 319

This week saw the arrival of some chibi figures from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

 

La Cite des Nuages, a belgian webstore, had a sale last weekend, and combined with Mondial Relay these two lovely ladies came to my place for less then the price of a single one normally.

 

 

Because, well, Shion of course, and Shuna to make up for it actually being a good deal.

 

I`ll unbox them in one of the coming days on this little corner of the internet.

 

The Archonia Free Comic Book Day box also arrived, and this year they did a manga package which I duly ordered.  Only a few euro shipping for this box, and expect the unboxing soon to see what is in it!

 

 

So, two fun parcels for sure this week!

On the Painting Desk 203

 We continue painting as the drive is slowly coming back!

And this time, I worked some more on the Gaza C to get it ready to the "varnish and base" stage.

And we started on the next one in the meantime, the old Zaku I, bringing him all the way to the same point.

Now, apart from those, I also did some work on the Freedom kit during the week, finishing the first of it's three paint layers.

So yups, a good week for sure on the painting levels of things!

Ghostbusters Afterlife

 Movie night with Noshi, and I got to pick the one to watch.

So, let's all forget the all female Ghostbusters thing, and settle down for what was advertised as the closure of a legend, and a tribute in one go.

In June 2021, Egon Spengler captures an entity in occultist Ivo Shandor's mine in Summerville, Oklahoma, and lures a separate creature to his farm. Egon activates an elaborate setup on his property, but the power fails, and he conceals the ghost trap in his home before being attacked by the creature and suffering a fatal heart attack.

His estranged, financially struggling daughter Callie inherits the farm, and moves there with her children Trevor and Phoebe after being evicted from their Chicago apartment. Trevor becomes infatuated with carhop Lucky Domingo, and the scientifically-minded Phoebe enrolls in a summer science class taught by seismologist Gary Grooberson.

Phoebe discovers the farmhouse is haunted and the poltergeist residing in it leads her to the ghost trap, which she shows to Gary and her new friend Podcast. Gary, a fan of the Ghostbusters, helps Phoebe learn more about them and her grandfather. He, Phoebe, and Podcast tamper with the trap, releasing one of Gozer the Gozerian's Sentinels that escapes to the mine. The farm ghost leads Phoebe to Egon's underground laboratory and, after revealing himself as her grandfather, guides her in restoring the Ghostbusters' equipment.

 While testing the proton pack with Podcast, she finds a ghost they call "Muncher" that haunts Shandor's foundry and flees to the town. Having repaired the Ghostbusters' Cadillac Ecto-1's engine, Trevor uses the car to chase Muncher with the pair; they capture it but are arrested for the damage incurred and their equipment is seized.

Recalling the Ghostbusters' telephone number, Phoebe contacts Ray Stantz for help and tells him Egon has died. Ray in turn informs Phoebe of what became of the Ghostbusters after they defeated Vigo the Carpathian and reveals that after the Ghostbusters had disbanded, Egon had stolen their equipment and moved to Summerville to pursue an unspecified threat. Egon's ghost leads Callie to a wall of detailed notes and pictures he kept of his daughter's life, showing he cared about her more than she thought.

Phoebe, Podcast, Lucky, and Trevor find a Gozerian temple within the mine. Exploring further, they discover Shandor is alive in his casket, and automated proton cannons installed by Egon that hinder Gozer's attempts to cross over. Zuul and Vinz Clortho possess Callie and Gary, respectively, and destroy Egon's equipment, allowing Gozer to escape. Shandor awakens and pledges his fealty to Gozer but is killed nevertheless.

The children discover Egon's setup is an array of ghost traps buried around the property. With supernatural chaos distracting the town, they recover the seized equipment and travel to the mine. Phoebe distracts Gozer so Podcast can capture Zuul, freeing Callie and weakening Gozer's physical form. They lure Gozer to the trap field, but it malfunctions and Gozer frees Zuul, who possesses Lucky and fully restores Gozer's power.

Ray and the other surviving original Ghostbusters, Peter Venkman and Winston Zeddemore, arrive to help, and Gozer, after having already killed Egon, seeks to complete their revenge against the quartet for vanquishing them. Supported by Egon's now-visible ghost, Phoebe battles Gozer with her proton pack. The Ghostbusters help Phoebe restrain Gozer by crossing their proton streams while Trevor uses his to charge the traps' power source, allowing Callie to activate the ghost traps, capturing Gozer and their minions. Egon reconciles with his family and friends before departing for the hereafter.

Later, Peter is revealed to be married to Dana Barrett. Winston, having become a wealthy businessman and family man since leaving the Ghostbusters, returns Ecto-1 to the Ghostbusters' firehouse. In the basement, a light on the ecto-containment unit flashes red.

Yes, this was truly fantastic.  While not as hilarious as the original two films, this movie was all one could want for the franchise.  They way they incorporated the late Harold Ramis (Egon) is far better executed then let's say Piett in Rogue One, by instead of using flat CGI, they made him come "alive" by an actor, prosthetics and CGI.

But yeah, for me it was an almost two hour long nostalgia ride full with nods to the "Great Two"...

 

 

That time I got reincarnated as a Slime volume 4 - Fuse and Taiki Kawakami

 Time for the next volume of manga of a series we really like.

And Rimuru stands at the point of decision wether to engage the Orc Lord of not, as asked by the Dryad Treyni...

 

He accepts the task after consulting with his advisors, but in the Lizardmen wetlands, Gabiru, influenced by a being called laPlace, is plotting to overthrow his father and ruin the alliance.  Influenced by a mysterious figure called LaPlace, who is an agent of the majin Gelmud, he orchestrates a coup.  Leading the lizardmen into battle, he does not know of the Orc Lord's skill of evolving his forces with the abilities of those they eat.

Rimuru and his companions rush in, saving both the chieftain and Gabiru while destroying a portion of the orc army.  But as Rimuru's forces close towards the Orc Lord, the true manipulator behind the events, the demon lord Clayman, takes an intrest in our little slime.

And now let's wait for volume 5 to be picked up and continue the epic battle ahead!

Disenchantment season 3

 More catching up has been done with this Matt Groenig cartoon by me and Noshi.

And thank God it was serialised again instead of the stand alone episode format of season 2.

After being saved from the stake by her mom Dagmar, who seems out to redeem herself, Beanie and her friends find themselves trapped in an underground lair with bug eyed trogs.  But soon they learn her mom is still putting on a farce.

In the meantime, Zog is buried alive as the revolution led by Osvald and the arch druid continues, and he looses his sanity in the process, becoming a honking madman.  Oona returns to try and help him, but it all seems in vain.

The archdruid flees to Steamland, chased by Bean and Elfo, but soon the little elf finds himself caught in a freak show, while Bean is stalked by a rich guy, Alva, that got a crush on her.  But together with Mora, a mermaid from the freakshow, they escape, and Bean discovers she has feelings for her.

Back in Dreamland, Bean tries everything in her power to get her dad back to normal, but with seriously mixed results.  In the end, it is decided he will go to an asylum, and Bean is crowned queen in his wake.  Big Jo arrives, seemingly rissen from the dead, as ogres attack the castle.  They are after Elfo, and while the trogs come to the aid, Elfo in the end decides to surrender himself to save Dreamland.

Dagmar takes Bean to hell, as Luci gets decapitated in the process, finding himself in heaven.  While the elves discover an ancient throne in the trog tunnels, realising Dreamland was once actually Elven lands...

So that's a lot of cliffhangers, and as I said in the beginning, the series is far stronger in a serialized fashion.  So onwards now to season 4 and see how it all plays out!

My Hero Academia season 5

 As Noshi and me are playing the anime catch up game, the next on the list to watch between episode releases of the new Demon Slayer season was MHA's 5th season.

And it did certainly start with a whole lot of story arcs!

If one ignores the first episode, which is basically a recap of the students powers during a training excersise, the season already gives us a lot of intakes for the season in episode 2.  The first is that Hawks is infiltrating into the League of Villains, in order to get their thrust and as such can report on their plans.  In the meantime, the healed from his battle with the Nomu Endeavour is setting on a path of atonement with his family.  And Deku learns that his One For All power is actually created by One For All in order to give his quirkless little brother, the first of the 9 wielders of the power, his abilities.  And that was all in just one episode!

The first big arc f the story is a school training battle between classes 1-A and 1-B, but Shinzo, the boy with the Brainwash powers Deku faced at the sports festival, also joins.  He wants to transfer to the hero course, and has been training to catch up with the students.  The class duels show the progress and experience both classes obtained since the sports festival.  As the classes face off in a series of 5 battles, allowing some of them like Shoto to unlock even greater potential, it comes down to the fifth and final match to decide the winner.  In which Deku's team now must face Shinzo... and it won`t be a walkover like Bakugo and his team did in the fourth match, clearing the enemy out in under 5 minutes.

During the final match, Deku's powers go out of control as a black whip of energy manifests.  He learns in the One for All quirk from a previous owner, that he will have access to all their quirks over time, but that he must learn to control himself and them in order to unlock it's fullest potential.  While they win the match in the end, Shinso also passes his entrance exam to the hero course.

The second part returns to the arc of Hawks infiltrating the Liberation Army, making use of secret messages to alarm Endeavour and start preparing the students for the big battle that is to come in only four months.  Endeavour keeps pushing them to their limits during their internship as such, all the while trying to reconcile with his family and Shoto.  He wants to atone for the death of Toya, an older brother of Shoto, as he sees how his children blame him for it.

When President Mic and Eraser Head are called in to try and talk to the nomu Kurogi, who creates warp gates, they learn he was once their fallen youth friend Shirakumo.  The series then turns to become My Villain Academia, and in that story arc we get to see the sad pasts of Toga, Jin and Tomura.  They face the Liberation Army who wants to use Tomura as a base for another Nomu, but this plan backfires as they overcome the leader, Re-Destro, and Tomura settles himself as the new lord of the bad guys...

A season that for me felt a bit mixed.  The first class vs class arc was long winded and not that exciting, but the second part of the season more then made up for this in my opinion.  Especially the villain part, which delivered just as epic a battle as the heroes usually do.  It was perhaps striking that the League actually functioned better as a whole then the pro-heroes often do...

And of course, never enough Toga...

That Time I Got reincarnated as a slime volume 3 - Fuse and Taiki Kawakami

 Finally I obtained volume 3 of this loveable series, a volume for some reason hard to find here.

But I got it in the end through Amazon, and now I can continue my drawn journey with Rimuru and the rising of his Monster Nation.

 

As Rimuru gets used to his newly gained human form, he decides to train the skills recent events brought him.  In the Sealed Cavern the Great Sage finetunes his skills, combining them into more powerful versions and all.  But then he gets a distress call, as one of his border patrols is being beaten by a group of ogres that arrived at the edges of the forest.

 

 

Rimuru manages to subdue them, hearing their story.  They had to flee an Orc invasion as their homes got destroyed, and Rimuru offers them shelter.  They accept, pledging loyalty to our beloved slime, and in doing so get named by him, causing them to evolve into Kijin. But as the Lizardmen are threatened by the rampaging Orc army, they approach Rimuru for aid by the word of Gabiru, captain of the Lizardmen forces.  Negotiations don`t really work out, but then the dryad Treyni appears, asking Rimuru to defeat the Orc Lord...

 

Yet nothing he faces will ever stand next to Shion's cooking...

The Haul Report 318

 Some nice stuff again this week!

And that is with some mystery goodies!

 

And it all begins with this Mikazuki fron Gundam IBO, whom I found second hand on a Facebook group for a measly 5 euro.

Surely an awesome find!

More stuff came in with the Archonia Manga Mystery box, which should contain 2 pieces of merchandise and 3 prize figures, for a price of 40 euro.  I've uploaded the unboxing earlier this week so this was inside!

From Amazon came the Practical War Game light novel of No Game No Life.

And finally, a simple can of lemonade hehehe, orange with a punch!

A  truly good week for sure!