On the same day that I went to the Transformers meets Japan popup shop, I decided to hit up the newly opened SEGA shop, as it also happens to be in Shibuya, hiding within the Parco building, which was just around the corner.
Incidentally, on the same floor was the also relatively newly opened Nintendo shop, a Capcom shop and a Godzilla shop.
Tourists were everywhere!
As you can tell by the title, there was another pop-up store made for the wonderful money vacuum we call the Transformers. I went to it and will now share what I have.
This one was cleverly called:
The EPOS card is a Japanese credit card that often has cool artwork on the cards in a variety of flavours and they have just started producing 2 types of Transformers credit card. One features the comic artwork above and the other is a black card with the Autobot and Decepticon logos on them. To be honest, the cards looking bloody great. However the problem with EPOS and other Japanese CC companies is they don't have the reach that companies like VISA/Mastercard have, so really there is no point (They are also kind of expensive with monthly fees and whatnot).
Obviously I was not so interested in getting a card, already having a few and need only one. Plus, they are hesitant to offer them to non-Japanese people. They were offering some freebies if you applied, but you had to be successfully approved and I believe you also had to actually use the card before getting them. That's a few too many hoops for me to be bothered jumping through, so I didn't bother. Enough ranting about companies capitalistic tendencies...
I went to another pop up shop a bunch of years ago, and that one was just a tiny stand, so I wasn't expecting much.
“T-SPARK” is the unified brand name for hobby products for adults developed by TOMY Company. As a hobby brand that offers an experience of boundless energy, the name T-SPARK means innovative and sophisticated adventure.
Well, for something different, I thought I would go through my building process of these little Gachapon Aqua shooters figures which I have been somewhat enamoured with the past few years. For a 500 yen roll, you'll find yourself blessed with either a kit action figure, to be assembled, or some kind of weapon set, also to be assembled.
Admittedly, like the GashaponQuest items, it feels kind of crap if you just do a single roll and just get a a weapon set, which is exactly what happened to me on my first try when I discovered these super late only to find the weapons were the only two left in the machine. Sigh. Oh well moving on.
I'll be building the Aquashooters! 12 series Izumi Motohashi, the one that took me longest to get (I think)... I went a bit overboard with these guys and I think I got the whole set a lot earlier than I thought.
Moving on, let's build a figure! (and weapons!)
Enjoy
So coming hot off the heels or wheels of the first one, here is another couple of pages of
My beautiful little boy Cosmos badly narrating a race with his gun flag thing. I tried really hard to fit some Daytona USA phrases in there, but they just didn't work. Also, it's no real surprise who wins... so... Although, thiking about it, does that mean Override has a higher speed stat than Blurr? Hrm...
Aaand here I am with the second part. What a cute little story of excitement and redemption and friendship.
Random notes and what not at the end.
Hellloooo ladies and gentlethings, Mr. Sakamoto has been hard at work drawing a new Manga with a bunch of pals and I have been hard at work trying to make it look like an English version of the same comic books.
Well, I have finished and thus I will share it here. Initially uploaded on Twitter, I messed it up a bit because I despise social networking on the internet. I have a bunch of accounts I barely touch. So naturally I made a complete and utter balls up of trying to upload the comic as a "thread" on the twatters.
Random Notes and Ramblings at the end.
In the delightful city of Yokohama is/was a delightful shop full of Gacha toys, called Gacha Gacha no Mori 「ガチャガチャの森」 (the Forest of Capsule toys).
I thought it was cool as there are just heaps of gashapon machines all over the place and it just feels a bit classy. If you have a chance, I highly recommend checking them out.
https://www.gachagachanomori.com/ Their website for store locations.
https://twitter.com/gachanomori Their Twitters as well.
I was allowed the opportunity to stroll through it with my camera and be a nuisance for a while. So thanks for the opportunity, and if you're around one one day somewhere, check it out!
Also, check out my video that I made.
So today I found out it is Gacha day!
The anniversary of gacha being launched in Japan in 1965. Well there ya go.
It was started by a company called Penny, who stole the idea from America. Penny is still around to this very day, which is nice.
Here's a link in Japanese. Google translate works with this if you need it.
https://www.penny.co.jp/gacha.html
And another link giving us the same information in a slightly different format.
https://zatsuneta.com/archives/102175.html
And the home page of Penny.
There we go, I just thought I'd share that. Happy birthday Gacha in Japan.
No, not Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. So far I only have a blue lightning version of Raiden, although a red/yellow glowing version of Scorpion would be kinda cool. Like he's fresh out of hell. Anyhoo, this is a nice little articulated scorpion of the arachnid variety.
What I found rather interesting about this toy, is how much I learnt about the little fellows and how similar they are to spiders!
Learning stuff from toys! Life is good.
Hey cool people of the internets, here I am with yet another capsule toy review, and this time I am having a look at the DeLorean from back to the Future. That sounds kind of familiar right? And it should as not so long ago, I did the exact same thing, but with a different one! OMG, are we approaching the DeLorean event horizon as described by the wonderful Douglas Adams??
No.
So you can relax (for now).
This video is all about Bandai's version of the enigmatic car that comes out of a round ball.
Good time of day to all. I thought I would drop a link another little video I made for a delightful little fellow called Smiski. For all intents and purposes, (as eloquently stated by a friend of mine)an indoor garden gnome. I like them, there is potential.
Thanks for checking it out!
Anyway, enough rambling, read on and enjoy. As usual for the Selects comics, read them L-R and check out my notes and ramblings after the comic! Enjoy!
A small temporary wagon for buying Transformers Tat and Trinkets. I went o have a look. Watch the video, have a look at the pictures, have fun. Visit the website to see what else you could get.
