Tasuke

looking back more and more on my favorite Anime/Manga/Games of the last 30/40 years, and hopping they see their due respect and admiration throughout the next 30 to 40...

it just dawned on me that the EVERYBODY's GOLF Mikuru Asahina shown above is a bit out of date, and that i've actually tweaked her accuracy quite a bit in the time since;

and it appears to star a possessed Sonico as one of the lead love interests;

giving the somewhat-underrated PS1 JRPG classic "THOUSAND ARMS" another go;

i began my road to OTAKUdom long ago, as a young teen back in the early/mid-1990s, by proxy of leftover 1980's Paint-and-Glue Anime Mecha model kits. around 1997, i took my first major leap forward thanks to my first GUNDAM-related kit, with multi-color molding, press-fit assembly and extensively-polycapped joints, it was a quantum leap beyond the standard no-frills plastic model fare i was used to up to that point. around 1998, i got my first MASTER GRADE series GUNDAM kit, and from there i scarcely looked back. my most recent kits, -just finished in late 2019- are also my most thoroughly satisfying. 2001 BANDAI MG MSZ-006A1 and MSZ-006C1, from 1988 ZETA GUNDAM side-story GUNDAM SENTINEL; here's something GUNDAM-related, though a little different; now for something a bit more old-fashioned than the average GUNDAM kit, dating clear back to 1983. a bona-fide classic, even;

been into Anime/Manga myself since my early/mid-teens back in the mid-90's. when the 21st century brought the modern Internet at large, as well as the Great U.S. Anime Boom, my collection extant rather exploded right along with it;

i've seen a handful of 70's Anime... last one was "CASSHAN" pretty silly and dated series, that one...

Some Pre-Y2K Greats; * SPACE ADVENTURE COBRA * CARD CAPTOR SAKURA * GALAXY FRAULIEN YUNA * VIDEO GIRL AI * MOBILE POLICE PATLABOR T.V. * CYBER CITY OEDO * SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS T.V. * MACROSS; DO YOU REMEMBER LOVE? * SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS II * MACROSS PLUS OVA/MOVIE ver. * BUBBLEGUM CRISIS (1987/1990 ORIGINAL)

anyone ever try "EVERYBODY's GOLF" (PS4) ? you can make up some surprisingly decent facsimiles of favorite Anime characters with it's character creation system;

Oh, Sorry; i belatedly realized that this was a VN-specific thread. Moved to; LINK

this little sweetie just arrived, part of VOLKS' pre-Super Dollfie late-90's/early-2000's 1/6 scale "Ultimate Figure Series/Dollfie" Anime-centered Character Doll line. she has the same early VOLKS "Spring Spine" body as my other two UFS Dollfies, Ah! My Goddess "Skuld" and Mamotte Shugogetten "Shaorin" except that her bust is flatter than either of those two girls' she's got a nice set of cute cotton undies all ready for her, but otherwise, i've plenty of work cut out for me here, getting her unfinished resin Ear-Antenna modules ready for her (she's an Android) and cleaning up excess seam fabric on her clothes and such... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi_(To_Heart) pretty much finished. there was excess mold plastic on the tips of her unfinished resin Ear Antennae that left an ugly gouge in each when cut away, so i had to rework them slightly, with leftover GUNDAM model parts i had around, painting the finished tips pink, to echo the style of the ear control pods on the "Persocom" Androids seen in "Chobits" http://chobit.wikia.com/wiki/Chii(Elda) also, the original ribbon on her Sailor Suit blouse was no good at all, so that was replaced completely; the fit of her sailor middy blouse was trued up around the collar some, and white ribbon added to the chest ribbon, for a little bit more accuracy towards it's original design; fit on her skirt has been improved some; yeah, there were many dolls made from the late-90's through perhaps the early-2000's or so; * at least three versions of VOLKS UFS/Dollfie, -including mine here- * one with hard plastic hair, of which i am uncertain of brand, * another with hard plastic hair, sold as sort of an unassembled model kit, also uncertain of brand, * a single, larger, 1/5 doll, -with somewhat awkward proportions- by TSUKUDA HOBBY i happen to also have the 1/5scaled TSUKUDA HOBBY. far larger in size, but not nearly as good looking as the VOLKS UFS/Dollfie, IMO, at least; Cute red slippers coordinate well with the rest of her clothing; ideally, i'd love to find her some indoor school slippers such as these; these days, at least, anything like those in 1/6 seem impossible to find, at least in reasonable quality at a reasonable price. perhaps i'll get lucky some day. in the meantime, these girlish red slippers, appropriated from my recent TAKARA/TOMY 1/6 Sakura Kinomoto, look cute and fit well... Multi, with Broom. a bit outsized, but probably about the closest i'll ever get; ((Character Sprites taken from "AQUAPAZZA; Aquaplus Dream Match" (SONY PlayStation 3, 2012)) the OBITSU i ordered up for her finally arrived!! among other things, her elbows can now bend beyond 90 degrees; new OBITSU vs. original VOLKS EB MINI body. both are actually quite generally similar, but the OBITSU has a great many design improvements, all where they really count; new, pure white cotton stockings for Multi, to replace her aging, yellowing original pair. not at all accurate to the look depicted in the Anime, but oh-so-very-cute even so; Finally, Multi, if she was still in the same school during the events of To Heart 2;

https://haruhi.fandom.com/wiki/Haruhi_Suzumiya_Wiki https://haruhi.fandom.com/wiki/Mikuru_Asahina https://haruhi.fandom.com/wiki/Yuki_Nagato late-2000's MEGAHOUSE-brand Haruhi Suzimiya 1/6 character dolls, each upgraded with state-of-the-art 2018/current OBITSU-brand doll bodies;

i was able to adopt both of these girls for Christmas 2019, -To Heart 2 Lucy Maria Misora and Konomi Yuzuhara- bringing me two steps closer to the complete To Heart Harem that i've long held idle ambitions on collecting; Lucy Maria Misora Konomi Yuzuhara when Konomi arrives, i'll have four To Heart series girls; HMX-12 Multi from To Heart 1, and Tamaki Kousaka, Lucy Maria Misora and Konomi Yuzuhara from To Heart 2; the final ones to essentially complete my To Heart collection, Maako Asakiri and Manaka Komaki, both from To Heart 2, are also seemingly quite rare, to say the least, so i don't hold much hope of ever finding them any time soon, at least not at anything resembling a reasonable price... Manaka Komaki Maako Asagiri ("Ma-Ryan")

due to the generosity of a family member, i might, -MIGHT- be getting a BANDAI PERFECT GRADE RX-0 UNICORN GUNDAM soon; if it all pans out, this will become the centerpiece of the GUNDAM-related portion of my Anime toy/model collection extant; Also; have this little cutie-pie coming my way from "AmiAmi" soon as the Japanese shipping lockdown lets up.... finally, gonna be revisiting some classics of my childhood, come June;

yeah, i got both her and Konomi right around late-2019/early-2020. figured i might find some fellow To Heart fans around here to share with...

a new girl is joining the 1/6 Anime Family; "Lucy Maria Misora" from the 2005 series "To Heart 2" she should be here by JAN. 02, a rather unexpected late Christmas gift to myself, since she happened to be there at the right time, at a price i just couldn't say no to, no less... NEW OBITSU 24 BODY; OLD OBITSU 24 BODY;

https://to-heart.fandom.com/wiki/Konomi_Yuzuhara she finally arrived, after about a full month of waiting. a little disappointing, as i was expecting her to be based upon an OBITSU 24, much as her companion Lucy Maria Misora was, but alas, she's based around the very same archaic OBITSU 21 design as the one that i had gotten a couple of years back for my VOLKS UFS To Heart 1 HMX-12 Multi. naturally, her head, being rather perfectly scaled for the 21, looks rather awkward when mated to an OBITSU 24, old or new design. perhaps someday OBITSU will roll out a new 21cm. design, and that will be poor Konomi-chan's salvation. for now, however; fully dressed photos to come, soon as i finish working on her sailor suit... a bit of Fun, Fractured Phrasing for those amused by such things; those "stretched" proportions on Konomi just kept continually bugging me, so i got her an OBITSU 24ver. 2 body, and... IT WORKS BEAUTIFULLY!!! at last, the Konomi-chan that i've pined for, for years now, has arrived;

hi!! been an Anime fan since the early 1990's. like most western Anime fans of my generation, it all began with MACROSS/ROBOTECH. been a hardcore Mecha fan most of those years, began paying increasing attention to the characters around the turn of the 2000's. this singleminded Mecha fan was suddenly thrust into the world of Character doll collecting in 2001 when the U.S. based collectible toy firm TOYNAMI released their long forgotten, rather crudely designed line of 1/6 character dolls from the 1992 OVA series "Tenchi Muyo!" these were my first non-Mecha related Anime items. they inspired me to begin a slow, clumsy self-education in Sewing skills so i might make outfits for them i'd like to see them wear. i learned the bulk of my skills under these crudely-proportioned Anime dolls, and by 2007 or so, when i finally, -FINALLY- joined the 21st century with regular home internet access and the ability to shop online, and was ready to finally put those awful Tenchi Muyo dolls behind me, i was able to catch up to a degree and begin locating more modern character dolls of Anime characters that struck my fancy. i stuck with 1/6 since that was what i could afford, and whar was readily available to me. my first was MegaHouse corp's 1/6 "Action Figure Collection" Mikuru Asahina from the once wildly popular Anime series "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" Mikuru was to become my favorite Anime Character, and she remains so to this day. her doll was a major evolutionary turning point for me as an Anime-centric character doll enthusiast. her doll, like all of MegaHouse's character dolls, is based around the fantastic 27cm./1/6 OBITSU brand poseable doll body. this doll body, a quantum leap above those awful TOYNAMI Tenchi Muyo designs, opened a new world of character doll collecting for me. so many 1990's era 1/6 Japanese market dolls of great, often long forgotten Anime and Video Game characters were produced, -and today are often quite affordably found- with heads sporting decent facial sculpts, but attached to abysmal Barbie-like doll bodies. the OBITSU BODY is the answer to that problem, and has afforded me several great customized character dolls of various Female Japanese pop culture characters i spent my teen years growing up around. i was born in early 1982, so that would be putting me between 4~5 years old when ROBOTECH aired. nevertheless, ROBOTECH did get me into Anime by proxy in 1988/1989, when a nephew gave me his built up, badly painted REVELL ROBOTECH DEFENDERS VEXAR, which was nothing more than a western market repackaging of the original early-80's IMAI MACROSS 1/72 VF-1S ROY FOCKER transformable model kit; that model, while short lived in my destructive pre-teen hands, stuck in my head until around 1994 or so, when i got to go to a large hobby shop, and found an IMAI 1/100 GERWALK mode VF-1J Hikaru Ichijo/Rick Hunter kit. that model led me to seek out hobby and comic/collectible shops, and finding the FHE double episode ROBOTECH VHS volumes at my local SUNCOAST VIDEO's Anime section turned me onto looking at other Anime. Anime on home video was expensive then, and U.S. offerings were heavily weighted with so-so quality OVA one-off productions and movie-length features. T.V. series were a limited and risky proposition, there being a majority of material out there that wasn't, at the time, considered a viable sell to the U.S. market. what little was available was often good quality, but very pricey at a nominal $25/$40.00 USD per one or two episode Dubbed or Subbed tape. for my part, i was of very limited financial means back then, and most of what i could spend was on Mecha model kits, so i only occasionally had opportunity to pick up an actual Anime video. naturally, being a MACROSS and general Mecha fan, i started out with MACROSS II and MACROSS PLUS MOVIE edits that MANGA VIDEO had released at the time, and only began branching out into somewhat less Mecha-oriented affairs in the late-1990's, starting out woth Tenchi Muyo! and Galaxy Fraulien Yuna. very late 90's/early-2000's were the beginning of a new age of plenty for me and my Anime fandom. a local BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO sprung up, with it's attendant Anime section, and i was able to rent a ton of stuff i would have never taken the risk on otherwise. then, into the 2000's, i got much more affluent, and the Great U.S. Anime DVD Boom hit, and me and my family were trying out all sorts of great series, series we ended up buying every volume of, such as Ai Yori Aoshi, Chobits, Hand Maid May and Steel Angel Kurumi. conversely, this was a dark age for me and Mecha model kits and Anime merchandise in general, as there were no longer any sources available to me. i had my local SUNCOAST VIDEO and BEST BUY keeping me in the loop for Anime on home video, but that was it. then, i finally joined the 21st century when i got home internet access around 2007. my local SUNCOAST VIDEO was no more, - BEST BUY drove them under with undercutting pricing strategies - and that aforementioned BEST BUY was scaling their once fantastic Anime selection WAY back. without the internet, i might have been forced out of Anime fandom altogether, or at least been forced into a VERY limited knowledge and availability of selection. i wouldn't have the Anime doll harem i have now, and i probably would never have known about the Vocaloid phenomonon. being a nobody, out here in a farming town region, without the interwebs i'd have been pretty well doomed to a life of ignorant mediocrity, missing out utterly on all the fine things in life Anime can bring to your table...