First, a little summary.

Ryu and I did the usual rounds around Orchard Road, Douby Ghaut and Chinatown. We did a lot of walking and took MRTs many more times than we ever took the bus service back in Kuching.

I have to agree with the consensus, food wise, good food in Singapore is hard to find, compared to Malaysia (or Kuching). But hey, have you ever heard of kolo mee with abalone for 8SGD?

Singapore does live up to it’s name for having the most lighted up esplanade in the South East Asia neighbourhood. I found myself comparing back to our little Padungan street back in Kuching, except Orchard Road has much wider walk paths, much more people, has humongous plazas and shopping malls instead of small cafes, and a much livelier (and safer) atmosphere.

Christmas tree at Paragon. There was another one in Ngee Ann, and many countless others here and there.

Must not forget about the rotating donut.

Though I pity those Ang Mohs getting ripped off here and there along Orchard Road.
We went around visiting hobby stores as well, and the trip brought us to Chinatown. Some random shots below:

Suffice to say, won’t be making a trip to Sentosa. Our schedule is packed, and we’ll be heading to certain places tomorrow.

While we were on our search, we stumbled across many interesting things. One of them is the BAKUC display at Ngee Ann.

More pictures for you Kuching guys later when we reach home. We headed to Sunshine Plaza after getting directions courtesy of Fung Yun. KKnM raiding time! I’ve spotted something that I’m interested to get.

Two of the shops were not open, but it did not stop one of them from displaying patung-patung yang melampaukan. Too bad my camera shot turned up blurred.

We left Sunshine Plaza and took the wrong street up Middle Road. Interestingly, we found something even more interesting.

Tamiya modelling competition? This seems to be a separate event from AFA, as we noticed that some of the talks will be given on Saturday. You guys who are interested can check out the place by yourself, and hope that we’ll get to see the stuff below in AFA as well. Oh by the way, I spot Hobbylink Japan!

Ryu had to leave as he had plans to have dinner with his sister. I continued alone along Orchard Road, and I really enjoyed the walk with the pretty lights and Christmas decorations. I also had the opportunity to explore the rest of the shopping malls around Orchard Road that we did not explore in the morning.

We’re planning to head to City Hall to check out Suntec and the area tomorrow. So till the next update, good night!

figmas from Swatwolf

S.I.C.s from Mr. Peter

Back to topic. Thanks a million to all gunpla, figures and the one and only S.I.C. contributor for contributing your precious merchandise and collectibles to help us out in boosting up the numbers. I’ll slowly pass around the collector highlight as I post the next few posts.

And to Swatwolf, thanks very much for the figmas, PS3, Wii and the much more stuff from all these times. Here’s a tribute and an all the best wish to Swatwolf in his going off to KL later today!

Panorama of our small little booth, taken by Swatwolf and hastily put together by me.

By the way, the reinforcements have arrived!

So do come visit us at our booth to take a look at more new gunpla and figures, as well as activities such as the Gundam modelling session and artist drawing session. Not forgetting the last minute put together cosplay as well.

I’m off to sleep.

Reinforce Zwei

Currently mine till ngumbang collects her from me.

Hikaru from Peace@Pieces

Great full review here by super-rats: Happy Soda

And Max Factory’s Mikuru.

I’ll be having my final exams soon, so I’ll be pretty busy again. I also have the I’ve Anime! Convention to handle, but I’ll try to free some time to blog at a high frequency. I’ll give Hikaru and Mikuru a full review if I do remember.

Next shipment up are the Shurakis! I’ll be receiving 4 Shuraki boxes, so do watch out for that!

About C.C.’s vector, I’ll post it up after my exams. I actually have a number of vectors going on, so please be patient yea?

Before the jump, heres Dirk from Brussels:

My name is Dirk, I live in Brussels, Europe, and I am doing a research to get my degree in psychological studies. I am in my last year at the “Université Libre de Bruxelles” ( U.L.B.). My research is about the look we people bring upon Japanese animation, depending on the culture we live in.

To be able to do this study, I will need the help of people and anime sites out of Europe, so I can compare these populations. …they will see an extract of a Japanese animation, and then they will be asked to respond to a questionnaire…

You can help Dirk by going here: http://www.toba.lu/memoire

Lovely figure, lovely posture. I like how the way she’s reclining back onto her green chair and having her right arm hold up her right leg. Gives out a really suggestive aura about everything. The short dress doesn’t really reveal too much though.

What’s really striking is the dress and the hair, in terms of color. The reds, the pinks, the greens are all really done nicely to perfection, giving Kotona a nice mix and contrast at the same time.

Here’s more better taken pictures of Kotona:

HappySoda

Moeside 

Simple yet elegant in a nutshell. You still can get her at Hobby Search or wait for Play-Asia. XD And if you’re wondering, that’s my new monitor behind. Yes it’s a Dell. If you can guess what make it is, I’ll probably award you a lolipop or two.

Tsuruya-san comes with an addon nekomimi and tail, which isn’t particularly interesting – probably the best outcome is that you can pair Tsuruya with the upcoming Max Factory Mikuru. Wish Max Factory would have included castoff function, or better yet, a separate set of serafuku clothes. Tsuruya-san in serafuku == Sexy. Same goes with Mikuru… where’s the Mikuru SOS meido we’ve come to love and want more off?

Trying out some lighting here, using one artificial light-source only. Second lamp nowhere in-sight anytime soon. Pictures actually taken in a dark area ^^

Solid and satisfactory work by Max Factory – minus the delay of course. I like how the green hair turned out, as I had worries that it would turn out like what HS had in their photos (Look at HS photos, and you can assume the figures will have better quality in person)

Next up is a customary NSFW upskirt shot. Her pantsu definitely does take a different path from the normal white ones. Do you girls actually wear weird color combinations like this? Honestly, the first time I saw the pantsu, I thought about cake icing…

Final words: Great get and recommended – that’s if you’re a Tsuruya-san fan like me. Nyoro~~~n

Edit: Happy Chinese New Year!

Akatsuki Mishiro-san stands at about 17cm tall and wields two katanas wearing her seifuku uniform. Her red katana is named: 黄泉乃夢; the blue one: 蒼乃癒鬼 – anyone know the translation for these names? Her flying hair braids (someone called them helicopter hair ^^) and fluttering skirt improves airtime for Ms. Akatsuki. Enjoyed taking her with the cherry blossoms very much. I got them from my mum. She laughed at me when I was taking Mishiro with her cherry blossoms.^^

Akatsuki comes with the standard nice box, Drama CD (2 discs) and illustration booklet. All for a measly 4000 yen. I remember someone commenting that the 1st box was relatively cheap in thought that it would attract prospective hobbyists, and those who bought Mishiro would be caught up in acquiring the rest of the Shuraki series.

I love those thighs. I have no idea why Meiki Igarashi and Zenko decided to put a knee high sock on one leg and thigh highs on the other, but heck I love those thighs.

There’s a lot of things that can be pointed out for Mishiro. Her wildly flying braids are definitely moe material, and so are her zettai ryouki. I probably would like to point out her dragon and fantastic base design. All combined, it makes for one very good pose.

She looks vulnerable without her clothes on. NSFW and obsession-with-Mishiro’s-thighs pictures next.

Oops looks like I didn’t fit in her arm properly >.<

Enough naked pictures. Onwards with the battle damaged costume. She’s a lot and much much easier to disassemble and put back together compared with Char. Customary panty shot below as well.

Koshimizu Ami voices Akatsuki Mishiro, and sings a single for the Drama CD. She’s (Amisuke) one of my favourite seiyuu, so I’ll probably open up the CD sometime soon to listen to what Amisuke has to offer. Did I forget to mention? Amisuke is doing a spectacular job as Horo in Spice and Wolf. Again, don’t mind those fingers!

I rate Akatsuki Mishiro as another recommended figure to get. Good Smile has started and is continuing a very momentous run of their Shuraki series. So far, the design, sculpting and paintjob effort has been consistently excellent. She’s still available at Hobby Search as of the moment, priced at a mouth-watering deal of just 4343 yen, which is so far, the most worthwhile deal out of the Shuraki series.

A short take with Char:

And a final batch of pictures before I finish this post:

Char has a great pose. The sword held high over her head, the outstretched arm and the sweeping dress highlights a very threatening challenge to any of her opponents. However, pal [Ngumbang] pointed out that some may not like her upper torso being projected outwards, which produces an illusion that the figure is bending forwards.

I applaud Good Smile and Red Entertainment’s effort in creating a story that could revolve around the Shuraki figures. Shows how much marketing research they have done. Haven’t listened to the Drama CDs yet, but I expect good stuff, as Tamura Yukari voices Char, and Nana Mizuki is in as well.

Good Smile did a great job in the paint job as usual. I especially love the flowing reds on her dress. Only thing that looks out of place is her underwear, the colour I mean… I assume that the contrast was meant to be sexy or something along those lines. However, I’m sure everyone loves a peak or two XD

Casting her off was pretty easy compared to Fauna or Ignis. Her joints are a bit hard to get together, and do seem shaky. I only had one other problem which I will mention later.

As you can see below, pal [Ngumbang] and I could not get the dress clasps to fit together, even with much effort. I’ll probably find a way to fit that in some other time.

The battle fatigue outfit idea of the Shuraki series is really a stroke of genius by the Good Smile team. Customary panty shot below.

Included are the usual Shuraki goodies: a full colour illustration handbook as well as the Drama CD. By the way, hope you guys and gals won’t mind the fingers.

I rate Char Rhousemann as a recommended figure to get. Her pose a major attraction for me, and I almost forgot, her eyes as well. Those blue blonde eyes are as great as they can get. For those who are worried they’re spending too much one a 1/8th scale model, Char’s good sculpt and extra goodies should justify her 6k price tag. Sad to say, most shops have her out of stock. Hopefully, Good Smile continues their trend of re-releasing the Shuraki set. I’m looking forward to my next Shuraki which is coming soon!

And also,

Tickets can be bought from me or any SAMS member. The Spring Charity Fashion Show site.

I love the bird, her hair and her dress – very solid paint job by Alter. Seriously a quality sculpt. Too bad Hikaru’s practically impossible to find.

The Good: Striking pose, lovely colors, hair

The Bad: Normal white plastic base…

Death-Sensei from Peace@Pieces is still available at HS.