The Ikebukuro Haul

Hello everyone and welcome back to another haul post here on Tiro Finale featuring items procured from Ikebukuro's hobby stores. Honestly, I had not expect to purchase these many items prior to visiting. But spend several hours digging around and you are bound to stumble upon several hidden treasures. Without further ado, let us take a closer look at what we got!

Starting with this acrylic strap of Kurosawa Dia, takuya was more than excited when I showed him this version of maid/waitress Dia. Needless to say, the 800 Yen price point was nowhere near enough to discourage him from adding another Dia trinket to his collection. For those of you curious about the design, this is actually from the School Idol Diary side-story series and this particular Dia is part of the Trading Acrylic Holder 3 series.

Next up, we have a rather unexpected find on my end of things. Rummaging through the Love Live pile and going through several towels and blankets, I stumbled upon Rin's hoodie that she wore in the movie. Under normal circumstances, I would ignore these as they often go for a rather steep price. But this particular hoodie cost only 2,800 Yen and after some due consideration, I decided to go ahead with it. It may be one of the more expensive items in this haul but, also one of the most practical ones.

Speaking of practical items, my recently growing pile of paper work meant that I needed to purchase several new clear files to help keep them in order. While most normal people would head to the stationery store and get a whole stack for cheap, my idea was to head straight to the nearest hobby store to get my fix. It did not take long to find several 100 Yen clear files which not only looked good but, served a practical purpose. 

There have not been any new Madoka Magica rubber straps released as of late with many of the newer releases focusing on the new Magia Record's group of characters. As such, I have been doubling down my efforts on collecting the older Madoka Magica rubber straps before they become too hard to find. One such strap is the Lawson Mami rubber strap which can be quite a rare find. This one for 400 Yen marks my second one of this exact type. 

If you have the time to spare, the "junk" piles in most hobby stores are often worth a look. These are piles of unsorted merchandise from all series and are often sold for a very low price. Often considered a service, the main goal is to clear products rather than making a profit. One such item you may be able to find in the junk pile is this Madoka Magica Photo Stand Clock featuring an illustration of Mami and Madoka. While information is scarce, I do believe these came included with a magazine and for the low price of 100 Yen, I decided to give it a shot. 

Lastly, we have one item that had me extremely undecided. Prior to this, the only other anime Blu-Ray I have is of the Love Live movie. Since a large majority of my anime are streamed online, I was unsure if I was ready to drop such a large amount of cash for another Blu-Ray. 

But after due consideration, I decided to pull the trigger and go for it. Rebellion was, and still is, one of my favorite anime movies and it was high time that I added a physical copy of the movie to my collection. Even if I was not going to watch it again, the packaging and included bonuses more than made up for it. Moreover, the 4000 Yen price point while steep, was more than half off the original price! With a firm grasps of the pros and cons, I finally decided that this would no doubt be an invaluable addition to the collection.

With that, we come to the end of this haul post having spent a good 8,300 Yen in total. Certainly more than I expected to spend in the first place but, it certainly goes to show that we should never underestimate the powers of Ikebukuro as another one of Tokyo's main otaku-havens. As usual, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them in the comments section below. Until the next time, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!