Tomoe Mami Trinkets

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale. Today, we have a post from the archives of our collection that never quite made it into live publishing due to scheduling conflicts in the past. Initially slated for a release back in July last year, this post was one of the many that were scheduled ahead of time to be released to make up for a particularly busy period for me then. Back then, I was juggling between starting a new job and moving to a completely new place that it left with me with little to no time to actually write up this post. 

As time moved on, the images prepared for this particular post about Tomoe Mami trinkets slowly became relegated to the archives. That is until, I decided to finally dust off the old archives and get to work once more! 

Part of the reason I had not pushed the article for release was partly due to the rather simple nature of the content, simply a set of Mami & Kyubey tin badges and a Mami Soul Gem themed strap. Both very simple trinkets that I got as part of a larger haul. As the collection of Mami paraphernalia begins to slow down, it is these smaller and rarer trinkets that I begin to keep an eye out for. 

The best part about collecting said trinkets is the price. Where figure and art pieces may set you back thousands of Yen, trinkets cost you hundreds of Yen at most. This particular tin badge cost just 200 Yen and its utility is certainly not lost either after all these years. 

The only downside is that this particular set of badges does come with a pairing Kyubey one and we all know how much it is the reincarnation of evil. Nevertheless, that was how the entire set was meant to be presented and, keep in mind, this was released before Bebe was even a thing. These days, we would often see most pairing Mami merchandise having her together with Bebe/Nagisa. Just a neat piece of trivia if you ever needed to approximate the age of any particular Mami merchandise. 

The next trinket on the list, is a Mami Soul Gem strap that gives off a very jewelry-esque feel to it. With bright gold and yellow, this charm looks really elegant and stands out as unique piece rarely seen in the realm of Mami merchandise.

Together with the fabric strap, the charm also comes accompanied with a clear headphone jack as many smartphone today no longer have a hole for charms to fit. Speaking of headphone jacks, those seems to be on the way out too. I wonder how will the charm market respond once the removal of the headphone jack become widespread among Japanese smartphones too? 

Part of the elegance in design for this charm can be attributed to the source material from which it is based off. The white dress series were a series of illustrations of the Magica Quartet in beautiful white ballroom-type dresses. Unfortunately, these series of original illustrations never got far and were only capitalized in the form of simple merchandise such as clear files and straps. Till this day, I still wish someone would make a figure out of these series of illustration as I have no doubt that it will be a surefire hit!

Owing to the rarer nature of this particular charm, it set me back 400 Yen. Certainly not the cheapest trinket but, it is a good 400 Yen off the original list price of 800 Yen. Considering I would have paid the asking price back then, I would say that is money well saved on my end.

So there you have it, two simple Mami trinkets that cost 600 Yen in total or roughly the price of a bowl of ramen. While trinket hunting and shopping can be very fun, if you are not careful, that bill can slowly rack up to a tremendous figure. So, do stay vigilant the next time you are out shopping for trinkets too. As they say, enjoy in moderation. With that, we come to the end of this little post from our archives and, believe it or not, we still have several posts in the archives just collecting dust. When the time is right, we should probably blow the dust off and get those posted too! Until then, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!