Ok I’m lying. As if I would voluntarily go to the beach. It’s just an oversized sandpit and a shit load of salt water for Haruhi’s sake. I just fell victim to peer pressure. It was horrible. People were getting buried alive. I think a few drowned too. Just imagine the fishes picking away at their corpses as we speak. The beach is dangerous place.

Since I probably won’t be going to Sentosa for the next few years, I took the opportunity to bring Saber along for a holiday that she deserves. I mean, she’s called “Holiday ver.” for a reason.

See…

Saber likes lions.

The Merlion is half lion. (Or so the travel brochures claim)

Therefore, Saber likes Merlion.

GAO!!!

I’ll just go lie down and die now. I think I walked for 10 hours today.

So anyway, here are some purchases I made this month that I have NOT been regretting. The rare few, that is.

First up, we have a D.C. II Nanaka mouse pad and phone card set that I mentioned before in a previous entry. It cost a bomb. Like the nuclear kind. But Nanaka fanboyism overcomes all, including food and daily necessities.

Mouse pad
Phone card

It’s pretty nice. The phone card is where most of the explosive price tag goes to. People are selling the mouse pad on Yahoo! Auctions for just a few hundred yen without the phone card… Ah, crazy Japanese collecting telephone cards that no one ever uses because every single one of them has a mobile phone surgically attached to his/her hand. No one will even notice the difference if NTT stops putting credits into these cards. (Or maybe they already did?)

Moving on, we have SummerDays & School Days Visual Collection. Despite the huge screw-up that was SummerDays, fanboyism dies hard and sometimes you are rewarded for it. This visual collection is waaaaay superior to the game. Really.

Full cover
Sekai’s mother
SummerDays preorder phone card from Messe Sanoh
SummerDays event-only promotion phone card
New School Days box design
Sekai so hawt
Setsuna V!
Setsuna turning kick!

And a whole bunch of other promotional and game-related art that I shall not post here because they are too… ummm… cool. Yeah. Let’s just say that Kinokuniya wouldn’t bring this in so I had to pay through my nose to get it online. (As opposed to paying through my nose at Kinokuniya, that is)

Next… Caladbolg from T2 Art Works (NSFW). Oh, so much win that I shed tears as I befouled it with my unworthy touch.

Back cover (NSFW!!!)
Saber Saber wai wai!
Rin in swimsuit

I’m sure you all have the complete scans of Tony Taka doujinshi stowed away somewhere on your hard drives, so I shall not bother with more pictures…

And finally, Zero no Tsukaima 1/6 1/8 Louise PVC (I have no idea why I like to type 1/6 these days) from Kotobukiya. This was a pleasant surprise because I was sooooo sure that the final mass production figure will totally suck compared to the pictures. It turned out quite awesome, possibly better than the Alter one.

Frontal close-up
Tsundere power
Right side
It’s moonspeak!!!
Book cover
Pantsu!

Speaking of which, I have a Chinese O’level paper tomorrow. Wow, I should really start working on that or something… Oooo shiny object!…

Anyway, before I go, I just want to say that Happiness! episode 4 has caused me so much mental pain and agony. GAOOOO!

It’s a pretty good deal considering the printed retail price is ï¿¥6,800 and I got it for S$75 (about ï¿¥5,500). Still, can’t say that it didn’t hurt a little…

At 1/6 and standing nearly 30cm tall, this Saber is quite eye-catching and her smile makes my heart melt like PVC left under the sun for too long. Mmmmm… burnt plastic… Anyway, most of the stores seem to be selling this at S$90++. If not for the S$20 dollars discount I probably wouldn’t have bought it, at least not today. I probably would have succumbed eventually.

I’m not sure if it’s Saber’s smiling face tinted with a hint of red, her totally awesome ahoge or her frilly off-shoulder top, but there’s just something about her that’s done right. Hmmm… I am not experienced enough at this figurine business to say what exactly. Maybe it’s just my inner Saber fanboy influencing my perceptions. :3

Look! No hand!

hawt

And of course, no figurine review is complete without the obligatory pantsu shots, except possibly the male and non-human(oid) ones. But alas, Saber’s skirt is too tight to allow my camera to obtain a good shot… <_< >_> <_<

ecchi nano wa ikemasen!

Fortunately, Saber—like all bishoujo figurines—is designed with a removable skirt. The companies know their customer base.

ecchi nano wa ikemasen!

Now we know why she’s blushing

Saber’s supporting her weight mainly with her right foot and it looks kind of unstable. But fear not! The clever folks at GSC screwed her feet to the base (ouch) instead of using those lame plastic protrusion thingies.

Of course, since her legs are made of PVC, she might just start to lean more and more to her left as time goes on and tropical heat does nasty things to the plastic… But ithe legs do feel quite sturdy compared to PVC legs on 1/8 figurines, so hopefully everything will be just fine. Only Haruhi knows.

S$75 well(?)-spent. I think that’s all my figurine purchases for this month. At least, I hope it is. Of course since it’s only the first day of the month, unexpected things may happen and blood money will flow.

Saber is available from Amazon for ï¿¥5,229.

Image taken from Moeyo!

This custom-made Saber from Paper Moon was on display during the recent Wonder Festival 2006 Summer. Now she can be yours for the price of just 480,000 yen (tax included) or your first born! That’s about 4000 USD (the yen, not the baby).

The figurine will be on sale exclusively through the DMM.com website. She comes in three versions: the movable joints in dress and leg armour version, the movable joints in casual clothing version and the fixed-pose soft material in casual clothing version.

Image taken from Moeyo!

The leg joints are quite visible (and ugly) if you pull down the socks (gee, why would anyone ever do that?), which is why a jointless version made of more flexible material is offered. The jointed versions are made with FRP (fibre-reinforced plastic) while the softer version is made from polyurethane rubber. The legging armour is FRP with a metallic coating.

Saber measures 154cm tall and has a shoe-size of 23.5cm. All three versions cost the same. Replicas of Excailbur and Caliburn measuring 117cm long are included. You can also purchase each sword separately for 150,000 yen.

I wonder what’s the market size in Japan for this. Damn rich Japanese otaku.

Visit Moeyo! (they were loaned a set for photo-taking and other lewd purposes) for more pictures.

Airtimes for Fate/Stay Night anime:

局名	放送開始日	曜日	放送æ‚é–“
ちばテレビ	1月8日	毎週日曜日	24：30～25：00
テレビ神奈川	1月8日	毎週日曜日	25：30～26：00
テレビ埼玉	1月6日	毎週金曜日	25：30～26：00
サンテレビ	1月11日	毎週水曜日	26：05～26：35
テレビ愛知	1月13æ—¥	毎週金曜日	26：43～27：13 ï¼ˆ1月のみ）
KBS京都	1月8日	毎週日曜日	25：15～25：45
MXテレビ	1月10日	毎週火曜日	25：30～26：00

TV Saitama has it the earliest. 25:30 on the 6th. So get your Winny and BT RSS feeds ready…