Price gouging, eBay-style

Remember that BGC artbook I bought quite a while back?
I’m not sure how much I paid for it but surely it was less than this:

Sealed or not, that price is ridiculous. If someone is hardcore enough to buy that they’re either rich or stupid. Or both. @_@;

A recent computer building adventure

A seemingly innocent decision on my part, to buy a new graphics card, resulted in much more work than I could’ve imagined.

Last summer, at least I’m pretty sure it was last summer, I decided that instead of buying a new pre-built computer to replace my ageing ticking bomb of a Compaq-system, I was going to try and build one myself. With (almost) enough money saved and all parts I deemed necessary, the work began. With the help of a friend my new system was up and running after an evening. It has worked well since then, but recently I decided that I maybe wanted to get back into PC-gaming. If the most serious offender behind this train of thought was TERA Online, which recently entered a closed beta I paid to enter, I will not say. Anyway, since the graphics card in my old build, a rather cute GeForce 210 with passive cooling, was something I just bought because I felt I needed some sort of graphics card, so that I could use multiple screens, watch youtube in HD and play the occasional older game – it performed poorly. Although I was impressed that I could actually play the Crysis demo on the lowest settings, since my old computer couldn’t even start it. :p

Anyway, so I went and hunted down a card. Then, it turned out, it was bigger than I thought it would be and the only place it would fit inside the case was near the bottom, making it overheat thanks to a lack of cold air being sucked in.
Because of that, I decided to buy a better, for the purpose more optimized case – on a budget. Cases can easily get expensive. So, I picked up the Corsair Carbide 300R and quickly transferred all the stuff to my new case, just to run into another problem. One that I probably caused myself.

The graphics card was now behaving (still not running as cold as the tests I’ve read – but I don’t know what witchcraft they use) but my CPU started to reach heat levels very close to overheating under the slightest load. So, seeing as the CPU cooler probably might’ve come a bit loose with me moving the motherboard and stuff around, I decided that, as I would have clean out and replace the cooling paste anyway, I should take this opportunity and install a new cooler as well.

And that I did, and I ran into some trouble but things thankfully got solved. Turns out this particular cooler wasn’t made to be installed with the motherboard still in the case :p Anyway, it’s up and running, it works and while there are some loose ends I think I’ve learned a lot of things during all of this.

Phew.

Loot 2012-02-21

Alright, first loot post in 2012!
There’s games, books, music and anime both in LD & Blu-ray. Yup, think we have all bases covered this time…
The How to draw Manga-books came from the same Amazon purchase as the collectors edition of REDLINE, since I wanted to reach the amount needed for free shipping. As far as how-to-books goes, they’re neither bad nor great. They feature some interesting inteviews but they don’t teach you any techniques besides “draw more” :p
And as for REDLINE, haven’t watched it yet. I’m thinking of watching it the first time with some friends for maximum effect.

Moving on then, to music! Let’s just get those Sailor Moon CDs out of the way first. One turned out to be some sort of drama cd, but giving it a quick listen, Usagi’s voice is all I can hear. Upon closer inspection there are songs in there, they just start after 1 or 2 minutes of the characters talking. Weird that they didn’t separate the tracks. The full OP & ED is included though so it’s not that bad I suppose. As for the other one, it refuses to play. I’ve tried that disc in, basically, everything that I own that can play a CD and it just doesn’t work. Weirdest thing is, the CD looks pretty good too. No big fingerprints, hardly any scratches…but there seem to be some kind of…something just around the inner area. Maybe that’s it. I’ll need to see if I can clean it somehow.

Aside from Sailor Moon, there’s also two albums from Mariko Nagai, who I discovered late last year through youtube and the anime Yawara!. There’s mostly good early 90′s j-pop in there and some slower songs as well. Good stuff!
Lastly, there’s an album by the group Pink Sapphire. A “tv-sized” version of their song “P.S. I Love You” is played in the main menu of the first Galaxy Fraulein Yuna game, so that’s where I heard it. Sadly, it also has some kind of playback problem during the first track. Wonder what I can do about that…

1st OP for Yawara! The song is “Miracle Girl” by Mariko Nagai

“P.S. I Love You” by Pink Sapphire

On to the games, then. There’s Bomberman ’94 for the PCE (HuCards are totally rad), which needs no introduction since it’s well…Bomberman. Same goes for Daytona USA. Then there’s JetMoto, which I have fond memories of playing the PC-version I borrowed from a friend when I was younger. And finally there’s Racing Lagoon, which is this rather interesting tuning-racer mixed with a healthy dose of RPG-elements (complete with an over world mode and “enemies” that forces you into a quick battle should they hit you with their car), from Squaresoft, of all companies. Now, the character CG models haven’t aged well at all, the driving feels floaty and slightly off but the music is, for the most part so far, bloody fantastic. Oh, and then there’s Noël – Not Digital, because I could. I’m not very good at these kind of games (Noël 3 on the Saturn gave me a bad end, oops!) but I’m strangely attracted to them.

And with that we move on to the last group, the LaserDiscs. Last time there were 5 of them, this time it’s only 4 but all very good. With this I can add Idol Defense Force Hummingbird to the list of completed series, and Bubblegum Crisis, Birdy the Mighty & All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku gets another one each.

Hummingbird is probably the only anime in my LD collection so far, with the possible exception of the Dirty Pair TV-series, that I haven’t watched in any shape, way or form before actually getting it. As a whole, it’s a pretty nice series, but the later two episodes, while trying to build up tension and be all serious-like (well, not really) wasn’t as enjoyable to me as the first two. Specifically, episode two is my favorite by a clear margin. It’s the most consistently animated, having lots of good key frames, introduces two new likeable characters and out of all four LDs is the only CAV one. Which is weird since both episode three & four clocks in about 30 minutes as well. Also, 3 & 4 has a different art direction where the girls doesn’t have the same colorful hair and the drawing style is slightly changed as well. Still, quite enjoyable for what’s it worth. : )

Also, yes, my bedsheets have an elephant-theme going on. You are now jealous.

Until next time.

More loot 2011-12-28

Edit: Corrected the part about the Dirty Pair LDs.

Earlier today I picked up a package that was in transit during Christmas. You probably know what to expect by now…

No games this time but an Arcade Card DUO for my…well, DUO. Others in the same group is a bgm collection sort of from the All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku OVAs, as well the soundtrack for Bubblegum Crisis episode 4 & 7 (I think I should collect all these, I have them as mp3s but they’re good) and finally yet another installment in the Namco Game Sound Express-series. I wonder if I haven’t gotten all the GALAXIAN 3-related ones now – Namco makes (and made) some good music, after all.

And then some more LaserDiscs. First off, the final two episodes from Aozora Shoujotai (801 T.T.S. Airbats). This marks the second OVA series that I’ve completed, the first one being YUA with only 4 episodes. And that’s one of the nice things with OVAs – they’re pretty “easy” to collect thanks to the small number of episodes.

I threw in episode 8 of BGC in there as well. I’d like to complete that series too but thanks to their age (and/or popularity, perhaps?) they can be a bit tricky to track down. Rakuten had a few more but at the moment I thought I’d just concentrate on my favorite episodes. Couldn’t get my hands on ep. 7, sadly.

Lastly, I picked up two LDs from the old Dirty Pair. I’ve seen a bit of before (mostly the OVAs) but not everything. Wasn’t sure exactly what these LDs would contain – it was hard to dig for info. Now with them in my hands, I can see that both of these (Dirty Pair Masterpiece Compilation +1 & Dirty Pair Complete +1) contains episodes from the 80s TV-series. However, the episodes they contain seem to be a bit random and doesn’t correspond to the order in which they aired. According to wikipedia anyway.

I wonder what the +1 stands for though…hmm.

More oldschool loot

This is my latest haul. The artbooks are by Makino Ryuuichi and Kikuchi Michitaka (also known as Asamiya Kia) respectively. They’re both very nice, though Ryuuichi’s got plenty of saucy content I wasn’t aware of. I don’t really mind though :p
The LD for Gundam 8th MS Team (contains the first two episodes) came with a nice folder/booklet & fold out poster to go with it, which can be studied below.
Other than that, there’s two more soundtracks from Namco Game Sound Express-series as well as some games for PC Engine & one PS1 game : ) That ought to keep me busy….I hope?

I wanted to take some pictures from the books as well but they didn’t come out all that well…so, that’s all you get :>

…56k warning?

Store Check: Rakuten Global Market

You might have seen the “shopping links” down to the right on this blog. These are not stores that I’m affiliated with, but rather stores that I usually use to secure delicious loot. Some of these might be familiar, Amazon, for example but others less well known. I thought that I maybe could try and introduce some of these stores – after all, sharing is caring, right? :p

Today I thought we could kick things off by taking a look at one of the more interesting entries on the list.

The rundown:
Rakuten Global Market seems quite bewildering at first. I will openly admit to not understanding all of which is happens on the main page – I do my shopping by searching for the things I want.

Rakuten seems to operate in a similar manner to Amazon, with a lot of other stores actually providing the items for sale. Most of these stores seem to have a clear idea of what kind of store they strive to be – there’s a little bit of everything really.

I mostly (and by mostly I mean always) end up shopping from Surugaya-a-too because they seem to have almost everything I’m in the market for. They have games, movies, anime on DVD, LD & VHS, music, games, the occasional doujinshi…you get the idea. Most of these things are offered at a very generous price, even though some items still stand out for being quit expensive. But most cool stuff is sold for an mouth-watering low price, save for DVDs, which can be quite costly. Did I mention the selection is awesome? I did? Well,  it is.
Go ahead and search for some obscure 80s or 90s OVA and you are likely to encounter both LaserDiscs and maybe the soundtrack. Sometimes you might find an artbook and doujins as well. The same thing works with games: A quick search for “Sega Saturn” will yield fabulous results~!

Now, there is a backside to all of this – shipping. I’m not sure about other stores under the Rakuten umbrella but Surugaya-a-too doesn’t specify the shipping when you’re browsing or when you’re checking out. Instead, they’ll gather the things you ordered and then get back to you with a total price for everything including shipping.* That is to say, EMS shipping. And that, as you can see here, starts expensive and only gets worse as the list goes on. NO REMORSE D:
So, even if that LD or artbook doesn’t cost you much, the shipping definitely will. Having an idea of how much stuff weighs is a way to keep costs down when shopping. If you don’t know, start small, be ready for the price and the next time, you’re a little wiser. Your wallet might hate you but it’ll go better from there. Possibly.

The good thing with EMS is that once shipped, it arrives pretty fast and you get a tracking number which can be looked up on a site like this.

The good:
★ Extensive selection of both old and new stuff. High chance to encounter rare and obscure loot.
★ The prices before shipping.

The bad:
☆ The Japanese name for whatever it is you’re searching for might be needed to yield the best search results, also, machine-translated item names & descriptions can make things confusing. Use the option to view the current page in Japanese to better understand what it is you’re looking at.
☆ The selection might be great but a large number of items are still out of stock.
☆ Depending on the seller, prepare for some serious shipping prices.
☆ Somewhat confusing to use.

Good for:
Securing all kinds of interesting loot, especially uncommon things like LDs, old games and soundtracks.

* The amount of time it takes for them to get back to you might vary depending on the content of your order (more items seems to increase the wait) and you might receive a few different mails from Rakuten during this period. If you’re shopping from Surugaya-a-too, be on a lookout for a mail written partly in english, asking for you to check and confirm the order.

PC Engine GET!

A PC Engine Duo-R was waiting for me when I got home today. Mmmmmmm yes. There are some slight scratches not visible in the picture but overall it seems to be in very good shape, sans a faint yellow tint :p
What really surprised me is how “small” the system actually is, just slightly bigger than the old PlayStation.

I wanted to get another system, preferably something 16-bit…ish (I know wether the PCE is a true 16-bit console or not is technically debatable). At first I was after the Model 1 Mega Drive but that dang CD-add on is somewhat elusive, not to mention expensive :> Then I went to hunt down the Super Famicom. I was this close to getting one. But then, suddenly I couldn’t contain my desire to own a PC Engine any longer and, even though it might’ve been the most expensive of the three, I quickly took action. Truth to be told, I’ve wanted one pretty much since I “discovered” it’s existence a year or two ago. Ah well, I can get the others some other time.

I bought it through Game of Japan but weirdly enough, they sent me Galaxy Fraulein Yuna 2 instead of the first game : / Hmm…I don’t really mind, I mean, The Galaxy Fraulein-games aren’t exactly expensive or hard to find*…not to mention I already have the first one…on the Saturn. AND what a horrible version that is! That, however, is a rant for another day.

: )

* With the possible exception of Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire, but whether or not it’s really a part of the Yuna-franchise, I don’t know.

Oldschool l00t of excellence

(Warning: thumbs are a bit screwy thanks to me not resisting captions)
During the time when my old blog was getting ignored by me, I did get a way of income and that has naturally resulted in some loot. First up was something of an impulse buy where heart went before all reason:

キタ━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!

And as a result of that, this:

Yes, I’ve started to collect Laserdiscs. I realize DVD might be better in many ways such cheaper per episode and generally less cumbersome but LOOK AT IT. IT’S SO AWESOME. I mean, it’s certainly not very economic to buy each episode loose as often seems to be the case with anime LDs but it really feels like you’re getting something for your money spent. High quality artwork on the front (and often back) of the big sleeve and then a gigantic disc that weighs quite more than you’d initially believe. And in all of LDs I have collected so far (not a very big collection but slightly bigger than pictured) there’s usually an insert of some kind, sometimes a folder, with interviews, comments and character/vehicle design/sketches.
Really cool stuff.

Some stuff that I bought together with the LDs also deserves special mention. Like, for starters, this B-Club Special Bubblegum Crisis artbook. I wasn’t expecting that to float around the interwebs for an affordable price, really happy to pick that up. My camera does suck though, apologies for that.

Fuck. Yes.

I also picked up the first artbook for another guilty pleasure of mine: Agent AIKa. Sadly, I didn’t take any special pictures of aside from the one above.
In the same batch, there were also two volumes of Namco Game Sound Express.

The 80s says "hi!"

And last but not least additions to my game collection:

I also got Rockman Dash (Mega Man Legends) and Tokimeki Memorial 2, pictured in the loot above.
Phew! I believe that’s most of it. I don’t have any more pictures, anyway :p