Lolita and J-fashion Resolution 2014

Last year I didn't do so well on my resolutions, so here's hoping my list this year is going to be better. This is actually just copied from my tumblr, but with more detailed information.

Shiki collaboration with Angelic Pretty and Metamorphose

-Buy five main pieces not in the color pink (skirts,jumpers,OPs)
      If you're wondering why I make distinction of pink, it actually has to deal with it being my favorite color and a color I heavily gravitate too. So I still tend to buy pink pieces regardless, but hey, I need more variation in my wardrobe, so that's why this will always be in my list.

 

Stained Glass by Moi Meme Moitie

-Buy one Moi-Meme-Moitie main piece
     I've loved Moitie pieces since I started lolita (I actually remember Iron Gate being sold on CD Japan) and with quite a few Moitie pieces being more accomidating towards varying sizes, I thought it might be a good thing to try.

Milk Heart Bag in Gold

-Purchase something in my wishlist
     I've got a huge varied wish list that contains all sorts of items. Most likely from my list I'd probably end up buying shoes or a bag (or both) since as a lady accessories are quite an important thing.

Moonstar x Sousou collaboration Festival Tabi

-Buy a pair of unique shoes
      Actually this one is already done to be honest. I recently this year already acquired these tabi shoes. And you can't deny that they're not unique. You don't see many people wear tabi. I actually had a very interesting conversation with a Japanese lady about them. She was so surprised and happy that someone was wearing traditional shoes. And honestly, the grip on it is amazing. The regular shoes from Sousou don't have a firm grounding grip since the bottoms are more akin to tennis shoes.

Also, I bought these because I've started to dabble into using wa-fabric.

Metamorphose Diamond Print Blouse

-Purchase a white/black/and an unusual colored blouse
     Always needing those staples. I just purchased this Metamorphose blouse and am waiting for it to arrive. Already one third of the way there. Which is pretty great because I seriously need blouses, especially since it gets cold up here.

Haenuli dress

-Purchase one indie designer piece
     There are some great indies shops out there and I want to support them, so I thought that maybe if I just even get one piece from them, it would be a good start

-Purchase 2 parasols/umbrellas
     I live in the rainy part of the US, so I need these, because... It rains a ton. Kinda self explanatory.

-Make at least 3 sets of clothing that could be used for J-fashion or lolita
      Since I started to learn how to sew, I've been getting a quick grasp on it, so I want to sew a few outfits. I've got a lot of varied fabric and everything. Just need to start piecing them together.

Jane Marple Stamp Skirt

-Purchase an otome main piece
     I really like the idea behind otome, especially since this could work for when I don't feel like dressing up fully in lolita clothes.

Alice and the Pirates x Disney Collaboration

-Purchase a main piece in either alice or trump theme
     I really like Alice themes, so I still need to get something to brighten up my wardrobe.

So that's it for the resolutions, and I seem to be ahead of the game this year, which is great. Hopefully I can knock everything off of my list, even though it's longer than last years.

Lovely Glutton and Kamen Rider...Lolita?!

I actually bought quite a bit of lolita things this month... Ok well not a lot just two dresses that are both coming in late August.

The first one is To My Lovely Glutton from R-Series.

R-Series To My Lovely Glutton in Dusty Pink

 Ok, I know it's going to be a little bit funny or perhaps ironic that I bought this as a gift for slimming down a few inches off my waist and bust. I really did like this design as it looks and feels more Otome to me than anything else. So it's probably a dress that can lean to either side depending how I dress along with it. And I know... Another pink dress.

It seems that my resolution to buy five main pieces that aren't pink this year seems to be heading in the wrong direction... But my other dress I preordered might change that.

So I'm subscribed to Metamorphose's mailing list so I get updates and I wasn't even busy reading it until I saw written in katakana the words "Kamen Rider". So I had to jump on it, since the item was being sold on August 10th 6:30pm Japan time. The thing was... It was sold out within minutes. Yup a Kamen Rider Wizard collaboration with Metamorphose.

Kamen Rider Wizard collaboration dress in Wine Red

To be perfectly honest, red wasn't my first choice, it was actually the ivory color but red was the only thing left and I didn't want to be put on a waiting list, so I just preordered it. I was glad too because I got one of the last ones. The series is completely sold out. I haven't watched "Kamen Rider Wizard in Magic Land" which is what the dress is based off of one of Koyomi's outfits, I think. There is a matching cape to this though, but even though I think it's super cute I just couldn't see myself buy it.

Kamen Rider Wizard full collaboration coordination

Though they did another Wizard one earlier, because the outfit Koyomi initially wears is from Metamorphose. Same with the Goth girl Tomoko in Kamen Rider Fourze. Though overall, it seems that out of all the brands, Metamorphose does the most collaborations and more of them do get posted online for everyone to buy.

So hey, one dress down. Four more to go.

Yami Marik from Kotobukiya ArtFx-J line

So what's better than a figure of one of the shows you nostalgia over? When that figure is a man. No seriously, it seems that the Otaku/Anime market has finally figured out that they should be making more female oriented figures, which means more males.

At events such as Comiket women dump more money per men on a whole for goods, so why haven't they been making anything until now? No idea, maybe they just didn't want to take a chance.

Anyway recently on preorder was Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. Now to be honest, he's one of my favorite villans, just because of the rediculous faces that he makes. You know what I'm talking about, and if you don't.... Kotobukiya made it an optional head sculpt.

Yami Marik Optional Face Part

Yup folks, the face only a mother, and rabid fangirls can love. Honestly I probably would only use that face for joke pictures because... It kinda creeps me out. The normal face is much better.

Yami Marik Original Face

He's still smirking which is great. Because smirks are a good look on villains. But really I can't wait till he is released which if there are no delays, December 2013.

Release Dates Postponed AGAIN?!

I'm not one to really complain about things like this but it seems that the Racing Miku figure by Good Smile Company is postponed.....AGAIN. She was supposed to come out in September, but now she's moved all the way to November which really sucks but is a blessing in disguise.

Racing Miku

But honestly if you're going to give a release date and not be able to live up to it, just make it a tentative preorder with no actual release date. It would be much better than that.

Another preorder that got postponed is Accelerator from To Aru Majutsu no Index. Dude was supposed to be out this month, but he already got pushed back to November already.

Accelerator from Amiami

I'm not actually as pissed off about this as I should be only because it was slated for a October release and already got pushed over to November. Usually Alter and its sibling companies will push things back at the last minute making you think you've gotta pay at the end of the month, so knowing this one isn't coming out till November is OK by me.

In all honesty I actually don't have many preorders slated for the November month, just two toys an a few coffee cups from Amiami so I can deal with two additional figures. But who knows if these will get pushed back till December. I hope they don't though, I have a really expensive item that I'll be paying for and is my only item that month.

But once 2013 happens, I will be pretty much putting all my toy purchases on the back burner.

Adventure Time print idea

I've been watching Adventure Time a lot since I bought the first DVD box set. And then I had a weird sort of idea pop up into my head. I was thinking about designing some Adventure Time fabric to be printed and create a skirt or something with it. Like doing the candy kingdom or a fun Finn and Jake inspired print.

Also I've been drawing a lot of Finn and Jake recently. I also have been doing quite a bit of studying of people and real life, so I've been slowly improving on that.

Also have been sketching on Paint Tool Sai. It's been really fun. Maybe I'll throw up some scraps to show later.

Anyway back to drawing with me.

Flan's Flying

Anime Expo 2012- A rather big "disappointment"

Well as you know I was at Anime Expo from June 28- July 2.In a word the whole con was a "disappointment".

We had problems with the hotel, the con itself, the tea party event; pretty much everything was messed up. The biggest reason being why was two reasons.

1. The X-Games

Yup, the X-games was held at the same time as the convention. Which made it harder to even move around town and there were tons of detours and everything. What was even great was our hotel lied to us about the booking of our room saying it was Anime Expo's booking systems fault when in actuality they gave away more hotel rooms to X-games people because they had to pay full price. So it was the three of us in one bed...

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate the people who attended the X-games, just the event itself and the shitty excuses and roundabouts we got from staff and the literal detours we had to take to get anywhere in downtown LA.

2.The Anime Expo staff

Oh yeah, this part really pisses me off... THE STAFF HAD PRETTY MUCH NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON. Like for everyone one person who had an idea of what was going on... There was 20 who didn't. Most events were either canceled or moved, and then there wasn't enough adequate room that a lot of times we couldn't get into things. This Anime Expo ended up becoming "Line Con:Anime Version".

No offense to people who love to go to San Diego Comic Con, but it does have the nickname line-con for a reason.

But yeah, staff didn't know what they were doing. Fate/Zero GoHs and not much more....

Oh yeah, the Misako tea party wasn't even a tea party. It was more of a meet and greet. And we couldn't even get individual pictures with her, it had to be done as a group at each table. Made me kind of steamed. And sadly enough, I'm making the stupidest picture in our group photo that I don't like it. Yeah... So that was a personal disappointment.

There were some good things about Anime Expo though, and I am going to write about them, but I needed to get all the negatives out of me first.

On a positive note, at least next year my friends and I will be attending Sakuracon instead. So instead of me coming down to CA they'll be coming up here. And that should be fun.

TL;DR My feelings for Anime Expo 2012

Sadness and disappointment

Got ticket for second Misako party

I was able to snatch up a ticket for the second Misako tea party that was happening on later on in the day 5:30pm-7:00pm and I'm quite excited.

The only thing left to do is figure out what I'm going to wear. I am probably leaning towards wearing my Melty Chocolate dress since it's really more nice than most of my dresses and I can wear my tea party shoes with them as well. Probably won't be wearing a wig though, since I'm planning to wear my Liz Claiborne hat. I'm trying to go for a more Otome/summer theme, since Misako wears a lot of more toned down dresses and styles outside of magazines.

To be a bit honest and a little bit truthful, I kind of feel bad for my Melty Chocolate dress... I wear it too much. It was the first piece I bought after I sold all of my lolita clothes. But I fell in love with it and paid a pretty penny for it as well.

Angelic Pretty's Melty Chocolate

I know it's stupid to be sentimental about this dress, but I can't help but feel it. There are a lot of memories along with this dress. It does mean a lot to me.

Do you ever feel sentimental about things? I wonder if it's just an age thing, or am I just really being nostalgic.

Anime Expo disapointments and guest of honor

Right now as Anime Expo approaches, I've got mixed feelings about the whole thing. First we'll get the negative out of the way first.

The musical guests, right now musical guests are rather weak sauce, but not only that, they're now charging WAY more than last year. Also last year was Miku and Kalafina at both $8 a piece in venues outside of AX. Nokia theater and the little Nokia one nearby.

This year they're going to be in the convention center, and you'll pay anywhere between $20-$40 per ticket. Now this really cheeses me off for a few reasons, mainly the HUGE price difference from last year and the fact that they're making it in the convention center. I'm not paying a minimum of $20 to go see an artist in a convention center.

So....

Now for the good stuff.

Lolita model, Misako Aoki will be coming to AX and hosting all the fashion shows and a teaparty!

Misako Aoki in Casual lolita

I'm super excited for this. The more I think about it, I think I will try to attend the teaparty and then go to the fashion shows. I think it would be a great experience, one that I've not really been to doing before. So I'll probably go.

But at the same time I have a few phobias about the whole group/teaparty thing. Though most of it has to deal with my weight. I'm not insecure with knowing that I'm fat or whatnot, but I fear that because of my weight, I feel that people will snub me off or make offhanded comments about me. It's happened before with other lolitas so the fear is still there.

And then the fact that I probably won't have a beautiful coordination in sweet lolita or whatnot. I've only bought one new dress this year because I can't really find things I want and keep to it (and it's a gothic dress) so I've got that against me. All I have is my Melty Chocolate, Princess Drop and Fairy Princess dresses.

I'll probably make coordinations with them and see what would be the best for me to wear. But gosh... So much stress so soon to convention time. So very anxious and yet... So very worried.

Long time no post

Well it's been a long time since I posted up here. Not that I haven't forgotten or anything... I've just been rather busy with life, so that been keeping me on edge.

Anyway we've only got weeks before AX comes up and I will take lots and lots of pictures. But in the mean time I guess the only exciting thing that's happened so far is that I've bought some magic cards to play with my friends and got the card I wanted very quickly.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Also preordered some figures and toys, nothing too much. After AX I'm going to try and hopefully buy lolita clothes again, or rather more frequently instead of just letting my clothing take a back seat to the real world. I love wearing lolita but it seems I haven't been making a lot of time for it lately. I think this mainly happened because a lot of my pieces are so extravagant, I need to get some clothes that aren't so formal compared to everything else.

Racing Miku figure-1/8 Scale

A very beautiful figure was released by Good Smile Company for preorder and I really, REALLY love it. It's a Vocaloid statue of Miku Hatsune-Racing Version.

Racing Miku's Design

As you can see it's a very interesting design and I really like her hair and costume. But how exactly does this translate into 3D? I think it was done very nicely.

Composite Image from Amiami

As you can see from the composite picture it's still has the same feel and gorgeous look as it does in the image. But her figure, pose and flowing hair add to the beauty of this figure.

Picture taken from Amiami

Even from the backside, the form and the details are carefully payed attention to, which makes this a great figure on all sides.

Picture taken from Amiami

And her face, her smile is really cute and I love the detail in her eyes. They just look so gentle and inviting.

Overall, I really love this figure and will be ordering it. This is most likely going to be my first Miku figure and a really cute and adorable one to boot.

Anthro BJDs

At first I wasn't a fan of anthro ball joint dolls, I thought for the price and size they were kind of a waste of money. But now I'm just starting to look back at them and saw that a lot of things have changed. Not with size or anything but just the way I saw them. I now see them as beautiful pieces of art and I kind of want a few.

Wake Up Ruby by Coco Tribe

I was looking at this Bunny named "Ruby" from Coco Tribe to be my first one. I really think how her bunny parts are sculpted makes her so adorable and her white skin, I really like it a lot. Thinking about giving her some pink under tones or maybe even doing a more natural brownish color with her. I think both would work really well for her.

She's not very expensive as well, found that buying her on the Taobao site compared with getting her from a US speaking site would save me some serious money (a huge enough chunk) so that I could probably get a dress with her at the same time.

The only problem with Coco Tribe for the clothes is they don't have that many that I like, so I was just thinking about getting this white dress and then ordering more stuff for them later.

I'm kind of excited to get back into collecting and customizing BJDs so it will be lots of fun doing all sorts of stuff with them. I'm just really surprised that my tastes have changed somewhat though, it's quite surprising.

Tiger and Bunny-Plushie and Out

If you're an avid anime watcher, you'd know that pretty much the internet is spilling to the brim with Tiger and Bunny fandom.

While as far as merchandise go there's lots of outlets from Cospa items, handheld cellphone accessories, Bandai Tamashii nations goods; there has been one outlet that has been completely neglected until recently. And that's....Plushies.

That's right folks, soon you can have your own Kotetsu T. Kaburagi or Barnaby Brooks Jr. to squeeze and adore.

Promotional display for Wild Tiger & Bunny Plushies

Being released by Alter/Gift these plusies are great for anyone who wants to see a cuter side of the two heroes of the show.

First one to be released at late January 2012 will be Wild Tiger; Kotetsu T. Kaburagi.

Wild Tiger believes in Heros

Though he's currently in disguise, you can take off his mask for him to be just plain ol' Kotetsu. The sash is also removable as well, but you know, I think it's a good look on him.

And just now recently released for preorders is Barnaby Brooks Jr. He's expected to come out late April of 2012.

Bunny and Bunny

Just like Kotetsu the sash on Barnaby will be removable but as extra added fun he comes with a cute "Bunny-chan" plush as in Episode 5.

As for these guys I am really excited about them and have both of them on preorder. And I am very excited to get them, I can't wait for the date when they each come out.

Ladies Scream... You're Card Battling King Is Back

There's something exciting in the works over at Kotobukiya and it's named "Yami Yugi".

That's right card battling kid Yugi Mutou's alter ego/body swap buddy; the king, is here in prototype form just for everyone to see.  

Full Body Picture

He looks like he's about to throw down a card onto his duel disk, the pose is quite good and nostalgic of the anime and manga series. Along with his flowing "cape" (which is just the jacket of his gakuran) this is looking to be a great nostalgic piece for anyone who was a fan of the show to collect.

Back Side

The gakuran top seems to be a cast-off part of his figure which is quite neat.

The details in the duel disk are quite amazing to begin with as well. As with the gakuran top this piece seems like another interchangeable piece to position Yami Yugi in a different style, at least compared to the back image.

He will be 1/7 scale and should be completed some time in 2012. Hopefully Kotobukiya will keep us updated with color prototype soon.