In these last weeks I’ve been on a rampage of watching old school anime, already had watched Zeta Gundam and Macross but I wanted to watch other classics so I got my hands on Saint Seiya and Gunbuster. The only reason why I never watched Saint Seiya before even though it was and is now being transmitted on Animax is because I hate the Portuguese dub, seriously some voices sound gay, the conversations are stupid, the name they gave to some saints are stupid, I could never watch such series, so I managed to get the full series besides Elysium with the original voices and English subs. If you haven’t watched Saint Seiya you should, it’s really amazing, no wonder its so famous around the globe.
Gunbuster is one of those very classic Super Robot series, I never expected it to be so good, well I heard it was good but never thought it was that amazingly good, give it a try you won’t regret it.

The legendary opening of Saint Seiya, the song is so great I heard that it plays on every real anime convention.

There are some rare occasions when music pops in the middle of a battle which makes the fight even more memorable.

Definitely my favorite of all I’ve seen so far.

Gunbuster opening, you can really feel those 80’s music pumping up ^_^, I’m such a sucker for 80’s musics.

Gunbuster is known for having one of the most hot space battle ever produced on any space anime series. Of all the ones I’ve seen this one is still the leader .

In June 5th Good Smile Company announced their new line of action figures called actSta and the first to be produced is Subaru from the series Nanoha StrickerS. Scaling at 1/8 this is one of the biggest PVC/ABS action figures, well at least that I know of . No price or date has been announced by Good Smile, for everything I managed to understand from this action figure at first eye is that her price will be heavy, I foresee something around 4000~7000 yen.

Photos taken from valho san flickr which in return were taken from mikatan blog.

The following videos are from Good Smile where they explain everything about the figure, the name actSta, the scale, action poses and more, unfortunately there are no subs and no price was announced. From the videos we can get a glimpse of this figure joints, either the guy is going really careful moving those joints or they are real strong.

About two weeks ago I got Cross Edge for the PS3, still hasn’t been released in PAL territory so this is the American version (yeah I’m naughty). Didn’t pay to much attention to it at first, was to busy shooting zombies/ganados on Resi 5 but now I’m playing it with full attention. This game is targeted at a very specific audience and its not those that are all for JRPGs because some of these JRPG fans will not enjoy this game, I see it almost like a Gundam game which is target specifically at Gundam fans, so this is targeted at those that like titles like Disgaea. You won’t see great graphics here because this looks like a PS2 title and the price itself does not lie, its 10 to 20€/$ cheaper than your average game, the story is a bit weird but the amount of known characters and the conversations between them are hilarious at some points. The menus are complex, the fights can be a bit hard but if you play it on easy its really a “walk in the park”. The strongest point in the game for me is definitely the soundtrack, I’m a sucker for soundtracks like this ^_^ , the anime designs are amazing, and again the characters from Darkstalkers interacting with the ones from nippon ichi Disgaea is funny (search for the scene when Etna meets Morrigan). Again be very careful when you purchase this game, unless you are a fan of turn base SRPGs stay away from this.

And of course this game presents us with the original voices in Japanese which is amazing, listening to Etna arguing with Prinny is a must. As I mentioned in the past I normally can identify pretty quickly known Japanese voice actors and so I managed to pinpoint Rina Satou on the character Mikoto Aiba (original character), she’s known for her role of Haruka on the Minami-ke series and of course Etna wouldn’t be possible without Tomoe Hanba.
The opening is not as “animeish” like Atelier Iris, Ar tonelico, Persona and other known games, but the music stays on your mind.

So far this is my favorite theme from the game, the battle theme.

One funny thing about this game is that the developers were kind enough to put costumes on it so that we can dress the characters in various forms, its not only fan service but these costumes give nice attributes (not on appealing physical ones), these are not the only costumes, there are way way more because of the “buttload” of characters, unfortunately thats one of the points I don’t like on these sort of games, loads of characters to develop and train.

There is no other video game company in the world like Blizzard, not Square, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, you name it, Blizzard has legions of fans because of the quality in their games. People may call me Sony fanboy, computer nerd, video game freak but of one thing I’m sure… I’m a full Blizzard fanboy and am proud of it. I grew up playing Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and then it was Starcraft back in 98 which I love amongst all the three universes, Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft. Currently I am impatiently waiting for Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, I still remember waiting 3 frickin long years for Warcraft 3 when it was announced in 99, we all (fans) hope that Starcraft 2 will be launched in this year, we’re hoping for a date to be announced at BlizzCon in August. I’m also a fan of game novels especially if the universe of those games is good so I have a good quantity of books, would like to get more but its quite hard to get them so I have always to buy them through Amazon UK or purchase them in the States. Here’s my current collecting, still waiting for Starcraft second “manga” volume which should had arrived yesterday or today, still hoping for tomorrow’s arrival.

Bought my first three volumes Warcraft: The Demon Soul, Warcraft: The Sundering and Warcraft: Day of the Dragon back in 2003 on my first trip to the US, after that I managed to get the first volume of the saga War of the Ancients through Amazon. It’s very rare to see these books in bookstores here especially the novels (which I think don’t even exist here), the “mangas” of The Sunwell Trilogy are sold here translated to Portuguese but mine are all in English because of buying them at Amazon . The Starcraft Archive is not an archive of the game but its a “compilation” of the first four books that were released. Halo…well I like Halo’s universe but I don’t own a 360, only the first X-Box .

I also have a couple figures of World of Warcraft, you already know Benedrom from a previous post, still haven’t managed to finish the photo shoot because its very hard to shoot in the dark without a tripod, the other figure is of a Draenei mage called Tamuura, I have a character similar to that in WoW xD, there are more figures from WoW but not as pretty as these ones.

Earlier this week I got a package from HLJ, it was my first purchase of an AppleSeed action figure of Deunan Knute, the normal price is 8800 yen but I got her for 4400 because it was promotion time celebrating a year of HLJ japanese version store but the figure I really wanted was the one of Deunan from Hot Toys, unfortunately even with their promotion the fig was expensive as hell. Eventually will have to do a photo shoot of her.

Normally I don’t make posts about upcoming products unless its those that really catch my eye and ESPECIALLY since it is Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier. I really loved that anime, I’ve watched all of the other Macross series and Frontier is my favorite of all and Sheryl was my favorite character although a bit annoying and full of herself on the first episodes but her character was great. She’s schedule to launch in August by Megahouse also known as Alpha X Omega, the retail price is ¥6800. Been waiting for more info on this figure ever since I saw her at February figure festival of this year.

And of course there had to be some cast off into her other stage clothes

If you still haven’t seen Macross Frontier you don’t known what you’re missing, amazing scenes, soundtrack from another world, etc… Here’s a clip from episode 7 where I barely stop breathing XD

As you might already know Hayate Yagami from Alter is a masterpiece of both sculpting and painting, her size does not judge her greatness. She’s massive, big, huge and beautiful, probably her biggest downsize is her hefty price but for those that like a good piece of artwork that shouldn’t be a problem. You’ll not see the small Reinforce here for I intend to make a special photo shoot with the other Reinforce figure.

The magic flying book, yeah she can really make it fly.

There are no dead angles on this one but due to my lens limitation that does not allow me to make closer zooms I had to rely heavy on her right side.

Do not cast a spell on my town Hayate.

Massive massive massive, I can think of no other word.

With the light of the sun on her back and with the little of my good friend called photoshop I managed to capture a silhouette.

I like the effect the wings got.

“Unison version mode up…where the heck did my hat go”

Other thing like about her is all that gold color.

“Ah here’s my hat”

Belela-san over and out.

This was my first Armored Core kit, I must say that its gorgeous, it’s more realistic than a Gundam in my opinion but I had more problems building this than the Perfect Grade. Why?! Well because some pieces are so small you can hardly fit them in their places and they need glue (some of them). I recommend this kit to those builders who have experience building plamo kits, if you’re still new to plamos than avoid the Armored Core series at all costs or you’ll go nuts stressing out so much because of some pieces not fitting in their places. Had some problems photographing it in a dark environment, mostly because I don’t have anything dark enough (besides clothes…yeah I dress lots of black for years and it wasn’t by influence of anyone), no tripod (at least mine sucks like hell) and only had one light, if I had a dark reflector than we’d be in business, so I had to mess up lots and lots on photoshop. Be advised that I “abused” on photoshop by purpose.

To bad this one didn’t became as focused as the others -_-

Sorry that the rifles became so dark, they’re quite good looking.

My favorite picture of the bunch ^_^

The back view of course and again it was made this dark on purpose.

Hope you enjoyed the shoot and a quick question, is this color the real one or was it also made on photoshop ?

There is not much to say about one of the best works from Alter, first time I saw her on the web I thought “another saber in maid outfit -_-” but after seeing her at Jikai almost two years ago I completely changed my mind about her and decided that if she ever got a re-stock I would get her, and so when I got the message from Jikai that the store was going to get her again I placed my order. It took a while for her to arrive but I don’t mind that anymore because I save loads of money of buying my figures and kits there instead of importing them.

And again one of my favorite photos, I always like taking photos from this point of view.

One of the strong points on this figure besides the huge amount of details on the clothes is the hair, simply amazing.

Clean sky is great but with some clouds it makes even better to add texture.

I’ve lost my head definitely, last week Hayate and Saber Maid enter my house and now the big and mean Playstation 3 O.o. Well yeah it was about damn time to get this baby since more and more good games have been coming out, some may wonder why PS3 and not XBox360?! Well I have nothing against the 360 I actually love some its games like Halo 3, Gears of War 1&2 and Mass Effect, but lets face it most of these games are on or will be on PC which I’ll need to buy a new one as well (Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3) so why buy a 360 if most of the games I like are on PS3 and PC, another reason that lead me to buy the PS3 is the Blu-Ray, DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, region free games and many other reasons. I bought the bundle of PS3+GT5 Prologue+GTAIV, the other bundles were not of my taste except the one that only came with Killzone 2 and was 10€ cheaper but two games is always better than one (already had Folklore with me and I love it). Who better to greet PS3 the girls and Strike of AnimeStuff .

“I’ll keep it cleaner than the shiniest of diamonds”, “Why thank you Saber ^_^, hope your other self doesn’t tear it to shreds”.

What a lovely couple ^_^

“Shiny shiny” “You’re the best Saber” “~blushing~Stop teasing me teehee ~punches my face~ Master you ok?!” Out cold

Early this week my latest merchandise arrived after long months of waiting, they say waiting is a virtue especially for those who want to save money, the amount of money I saved for not importing is astounding believe me. Who else to greet the arrivals than Strike . Oh yeah I finally got Saber maid from Alter, probably one of the most detailed and beautiful figures I’ve seen before Chua Churam.

Strike is peeking at what could be so big. “Seriously Sensei what could be so big?” ” Well I don’t know, why don’t you look from another point of view”

“Holly crap, how could this thing be so big?!?!” Strike fell to his knees in despair, Kira cried so much that he lost his senses.

And so here it is, my latest merchandise no other than the famous huge box of Yagami Hayate and Saber maid. Future merchandise is still on hold. Can’t forget that I’m simply out of space for more stuff xD. And again Alter hits my heart, seriously they are my number one figure makers

It would seem I forgot to finish the photo shoot of Benedrom, well I haven’t forgot about it, simply I haven’t felt like to do it, still need to get over this stupid mini insignificant depression. Now I have Easter holidays till the end of next week, I’ll try to make that damn photo shoot.