Tokyo Trip 2019 Haul

Hi everyone welcome back to Tiro Finale! After my lovely trip to Tokyo with friends, naturally I had returned with some loot to show for it =3 this was probably my lightest haul thus far from Japan,  somewhat due to the tighter budget, but mostly because I didn't find any merchandise that I just HAD to get this time around.

First up is this little key-chain I got from a blind-box featuring Love Live characters paired with food items from the Over the Rainbow movie. What I was not expecting was instead of getting one of the 9 Aqours characters, I managed to nab Sarah from Saint Snow, nibbling away at some delicious looking Anmitsu from her family's restaurant. Unexpected for sure, but its cute nonetheless.

Next is this adorable strap featuring Hanamaru at her Sega Poster Girl gig, frantically trying to restock the plushies in the myriad of Crane-game booths you will doubtlessly find in any Sega arcade. This strap is one of many in a set featuring the Sega girl and when snwlprd (thanks) spotted this at a mere 150 yen I couldn't pass it up and nabbed this cute little thing.

This here is a neat T-shirt I got from after visiting the main Cospa building in Akihabara. The clothing company specialized in both cosplay and other otaku-related apparel had a wide selection catering to practically any fanbase I could come up with. Originally eyeing something Gundam or Girl und Panzer related, their offerings at the time didn't quite work for me. But I did however nab this simple Tee with a very excited-looking Yuudachi and her signature catchphrase. I personally don't really buy much into otaku apparel, but this piece was simple and nice enough to see regular use. Plus, its just so adorable! (note: nesoberi Maru not included, she's here just eyeing up new additions to her hoard)

Unexpectedly enough my favourite find this time around was actually a pair of books! This here is a pair of tankoubons titled Quantum Mechanics Rainbow: Remaster volumes 1 & 2. Quatum Mechanics Rainbow is an irregular series of doujins by the circle SEQMED featuring the ship girls from Kantai Collection just lazing around and generally having a good time. It is very fluffy stuff certainly, but the main draw is their high quality full color prints. They make plenty of poster worthy content, but to see it in nearly every spread and manga page is certainly very pleasing to read.

Now normally their works come in individual doujin booklets, now at issue 30+ and counting. Collecting those individually can get pretty messy, and quickly add up to a small fortune, so I was delightfully surprised to see them re-release their older works in these neat little compilations, these 2 volumes in particular covering up to issue 14, together with a few new tankouban-exclusive chapters each. I'd say I'm a fan of their work, and given the opportunity to give my support I quickly added them to my collection.

I was also not disappointed with the quality of the books' content. Judicious use of gloss paper on every page made the colors really pop, staying pretty damn close to the original raw digital images. Digital reading material is hard to beat with its sheer breath and convenience, but having something feel so smooth to the touch, the fragrant book smell, and just flipping through pages of gorgeous artwork always just reminds me of my not so small tankouban collection of older manga, which I just adore. It's also a reminder of how much money I could blow on books if I lived where their availability wasn't an issue... best not to think about that.

Also a nice surprise personally was how I could go through these volumes without referring to a dictionary this time. Reading manga and light novels was always a doable but extremely slow process for an already slow reader like me, so being able to flip through both in a couple hours (half of it just staring at the great art) was a heartening experience for someone who can hardly claim to have cleared elementary level Japanese, but baby steps!

And that's it for my loot report this time. Here's to the next haul being more fruitful! Have a good day!