Moé Moé Rabu

Yes it’s finally here, Part 2 of my Japan Trip 2008 merchandise coverage. Many of you were surprised at the coverage of Part 1 and once again you’ll be even more surprised with the items that are featured in this post as majority of the items are from Comiket 74. Comiket 74 was the pinnacle of all the events from the Japan trip with very little sleep, many games of sudoku, and of course, much spending. So hit the jump to check out Part 2 of my Japan trip merchandise. WARNING: Picture intensive post and some images are NSFW.

Now before I go ahead and detail the items, many people raised some questions in the comments section of dannychoo.com which I thought would be good to answer here for those who actually read what I write, especially about EMS shipping. Of course you can skip this part of just go straight to the photos but I figured some people are interested in how I hauled all this home.

95% of the merchandise was shipped home via EMS shipping. The other 5% was in my suitcase. I DID NOT have everything with me when I checked in for the flight home. When purchasing a large amount like I have done, it makes sense that everything will have to be mailed back home. EMS shipping was chosen over sea mail for various reasons: weight, security, trackable packages, and speed. Each of my packages I sent home ranged from 7 Kgs to 18 Kgs, and the shipping cost varied on weight. I know a lot of people usually worry about Customs, especially Canadians, but I wasn’t too worried about Customs. Except when they open the boxes that were full of doujins.

Although I did ship across heavy boxes, only two were stopped by Customs, but they did not open the boxes to inspect them. There are various reasons why Customs will have to open a box and I don’t know how their policies work.But I do know that if I specify on the declaration slip something relatively close to what the packages contain and their overall value, they usually let it pass. In this case I noted them as books, toys etc and most boxes were valued at around ¥10,000 to ¥30,000. I also did not get charged tax on my packages since Australian Customs only charge tax on items if the value is over $1000 AUD (well from what I have been told).

For those wondering how much I spent in total, I don’t have exact figures nor can I give an estimate until I actually go through all my records (yes I recorded everything I bought). Although I did incur a debt from my friends but rest assured it was only around $400-$500 AUD. Everything else I had budgeted correctly, including shipping EMS packages, but the idea of buying more merchandise got the better of me.You will see my exact expenditure in a later report. Anyway onwards to more photos! We’ll start with some random items.

A clearfile or deskmat, not quite sure since I didn’t look at it properly, that I randomly bought at a booth in Comiket in the industry section. All I remember was wondering around and saw what the booth had left over and figured I wanted more CLANNAD items.

I mentioned about this item before when I went to watch Kara no Kyoukai Movie 5. A clearfile and info book/pamphlet that can be bought at the Candy Bar. The book contains interviews with the staff members etc.

Throughout the trip, I didn’t buy any food type souvenirs that I was planning on taking home. I bought some before but since they were expiring before the flight home I had to eat them. So instead I went into Akiba Gamers and bought myself a box of Lucky Star strawberry cakes. I should have bought canned bread instead just for laughs.

Ah yes, my growing Hatsune Miku passion. The trip started with the 4 Miku nendoroids from Wonderfest, but I couldn’t stop there. Starting from the top is a poster I found in K-Books which I grabbed randomly. Next is a small sketch drawing booklet, a tea cup and a pillow cover. These were created by CARNELIAN and as a package from K-Books in Osaka, it’s the second most expensive item that I bought. In the middle is a keychain from Yujin’s booth from Comiket 74. My friend found this and bought me one in case I missed it. Lastly is a Hatsune Miku dakimakura cover which I found at Lashingbang in Ikebukuro.

Now onto the Comiket items. First up are the industry items.

The very first items that I bought were from the Circus stand. Yes I’m a sucker for all things Circus and Da Capo. What it contains is a book, CD, and some stick posters. Just to let you know, I haven’t taken pictures of the stick posters as it’s a pain to put them back in.

Yes more Da Capo items. Everything here, except the Otome towel on the top right and bottom left, was from the S.O.F.T booth, which I went to straight after the Circus booth. Most booths have set packages for you to purchase. I just happen to have bought both of them although I had another set but that was for a friend. Rather strange how the days following up to Comiket I had a yearning for Otome related items.

Nogizaka Haruka was also a big thing at Comiket as well. Strangely however when I arrived at the booth the line was practically empty. The guys holding the signs were egging me to go in and buy, and that I did.One of the sets were already sold out so I opted for the other one. I bought two in fact and gave one to a friend. The set came with a clearfile, towel, fan, and small figure. The folder was a separate item which I found out was a phone cardholder when I took these photos. I bought it as I recognised it as Nanao Naru’s work.

Nothing really came with this bag except for flyers for various things. But an empty bag can be a good thing and was very useful for me later that day. Still I figured people would still like the bag.

HOOK isn’t a company I know too well about, but when the line only had 3 people, I just waltzed right in to purchase. Even though I had no idea what they were selling. Throughout the industry section I did this quite often and it works well. What came with the set was a set of stick posters, towel, fan, phone card, and some promo flyers.

Another free empty bag that contained only promo flyers for Zettai Shougeki. However when I saw everyone else carrying one, I wanted one as well. And thanks to the help of a random Japanese guy I met whilst resting, he showed me where to get one. And yes this bag helped me later on in the day as well.

August-Soft seemed to be the main booth for Comiket 74 since Type-Moon did not have a booth this tie around. When I first saw the line for it it was MASSIVE. It actually went down the ramp towards somewhere unknown. I got my friend to line up in this one and thought he was going to be in line for hours. Alas he surprised me by doing some gaijin teleporting and acquired the goods within 30 minutes of me leaving him. Read what gaijin teleporting is here. Featured for August Soft was there latest game Fortune Arterial and the set contains fan, phonecard, phone hangers, CDs, a tshirt, and some small booklets.

Crypton, developers of the Vocaloid series was also there selling Vocaloid stuff. Yes can’t pass up the opportunity to buy more Hatsune Miku items. Featured in this set is a tshirt, two sweat bands, CD, doujin, and stick posters. I was amused at the sweat bands but with the blazing summer heat it would come useful, if you actually use the stuff you buy.

F&C has been a company that I follow and I was quite interested in what they had to sell. The line was empty so I waltzed right in without even knowing what they were selling. I bought something and didn’t know what it was until I took these photos. They ended up being a set phone cards and a card holder. I bet you can see a pattern going on here. Phone cards, towels, posters. I have quite a number of phone cards which will never be used, lol.

Comic Blade was also holding a booth, and you know what this means? ARIA merchandise! Included was 6 phone cards (YES more phone cards!!) that featured each of the lovely undines. The book is a collection of short doujins created by manga artist who have their works published by Comic Blade. Amano Kozue only did the cover for this book. Funny about this set is it ended up being one of the most expensive industry items: ¥10,000 for everything here.

That pretty much covers the Comiket 74 industry items. Well I think that should be everything. With so much to sort through I kind of forgot if I took photos of items or not. Anyway the following items are the doujinshi that I bought from Comiket as well as some that I bought from Toranoana. From this point on some images are NFSW. But please continue on.

There are a lot of doujin circles that I don’t know about but when I was marking my items on my map, I took note of some of the circles that Hunting the Elusive had covered here. Above is just some items from WNB.

Shigunyan is the circle here. Four doujins and a Louise clearfile all in a bag. Normally circles who have a lot of works for you to look and browse, since this is circle on the outer wall the line can be quite long. So instead of deciding which ones I want I just grab them all. Much easier that way. The next set of doujins are sorted by series/character and then miscellaneous. First up, Hatsune Miku doujins!

The KuroNeko doujin came with a small bag and OMG this thing saved me. I was reaching a limit of how many doujins I could stuff into the industry bags until I got this bag. I could easily fit doujins without fear of them being damaged. I also used this bag on the other Comiket days to hold doujins. Koge Donbo was also selling a set. Though at first I was thinking of getting the doujin, I opted for the set despite running low on cash at the time. The last photo is also a set from a circle that I can’t remember.

Some Lucky Star doujins. Originally I thought I had bought a lot more Lucky Star doujins but was surprised at only seeing this much. Of course my fascination of girls with purple hair made me get mostly Kagami focused doujins. The Hiiragidansen was a complete set.

Let me say that there were plenty of ARIA doujins, but when browsing what was available, I was very very selective about what I bought. I only wanted the best that was available but I’m happy that I got at least this much. The one with Alice on the cover is actually a pencilboard which is double sided.

The only CLANNAD doujins that I liked. But once again, my love for girls with purple hair kicked in. Still, you can’t say no to a bunch of Kyou doujins.

Hayate no Gotoku doujins. Hinagiku was all I wanted and Hinagiku is what I got.

Zero no Tsukaima doujins. I don’t normally like Louise in anime style, but in doujin form, yes please.

Just some random Code Geass ones I picked up. Wasn’t exactly looking for them but the focus was on CC.

The only To Love Ru doujins I could get my hands on at Comiket. Other tables I wanted to visit just had a huge crowd or line thus making me turn away.

Of course I couldn’t walk away from Comiket without buying Da Capo doujins either. But so little were of quality so I walked away with a small collection.

Bamboo Blade seemed to be rare where I only found two. The Tony Taka one I bought in Toranoana.

And here are the miscellaneous doujins that I picked up. Of course the WNB I added in again by mistake. Some of the doujins here I haveno recollection of actually buying them. One of them is actually a Touhou doujin that I picked up randomly. I didn’t know it was a Touhou doujin until Roobar told me (he sifted through my stuff at the hotel). I was hoping to find more Arina Tanemura based series like Full Moon wo Sagashite and Shinshi Doumei Cross but alas not many were available. The best of the miscellaneous would have to be the Tinkerbell book as it’s very thick.

My most prized doujins would have to be these, Nanao Naru works. As mentioned before, the item to the left is a Nanao Naru original illustration sketches of Da Capo which costs me ¥15,000 and is the 4th most expensive item I bought. And yes I also have three copies of Nanao Naru’s C74 release. I originally bought two when I lined up at the circle table, but because I missed out on getting the special goods (which is a mousepad and keychain), I bought the set that was available in Toranoana.

That pretty much covers the doujinshi of Comiket and various buyings. The next following items are still doujinshi, but packs that I bought from K-Books.

First up is a Nanao Naru pack. I don’t know what year and what event as I haven’t looked at it properly, but anything Nanao Naru is more than enough for me to empty my wallet. It comes with two clearfiles, a book and the bag to contain the goodies.

This I have to thank my friends who spotting it for me. This is the Ito Noizi x Nanao Naru work from 2007 Winter Comiket. Included is the doujinshi itself, a pair of phone cards and the bag.

Ah this was more of a random buy for me. As some of you know, when one of my friends buy something, I have to buy something to match. If I recall correctly my friend bought himself a pack, so I picked one that tickled my fancy and it was the NekoNeko 2007 Winter pack.Included is a clearfile, doujinshi, 2008 calendar and the bag.

Just some random items that I totally forgot about. A Da Capo pencilboard, a Fate/hollow Ataraxia fan that I won in a UFO catcher, a heart shaped fan I got at Comiket 74 which I have no recllection about, a phone strap that came with one of the Hatsune Miku doujins, and a gift which is a card holder of some sort.

And finally my most expensive item and my most precious of all my purchases. Although the photo here doesn’t do justice but rest assured I WILL do a proper photo shoot of her. When you see this in person, she really is beautiful and hopefully when I get around to doing a photo shoot people will also understand that. And yes, I bought Erika a chair as she is my precious princess. The chair I bought here a few weeks ago, not in Japan.

That pretty much covers all the Japan merchandise I had bought. 5 packages, roughly 50Kgs of goods (a good 22Kgs was the doujinshi alone) and a wallet that has the largest hole I have ever made in it. I’m sure many of you are envious, shocked, and possibly disgusted (hey it can happen) at all the stuff I bought and thought that you would never be able to buy this much. Now I don’t want to sound snobbish but personally I don’t think I bought that much. Sure I could have bought more, if I had the money but it just seems that I didn’t buy that much. However it probably is a good thing that I didn’t buy any more than this as I have exceeded the space limit in my room ten-fold that some items STILL site out in the lounge room with no place for storage.

Anyway stayed tuned to my blog as the next post may interest a few people. It will cover my expenditure log for every single day covering everything from food, transport, shopping etc.