Every month of 2023 (and potentially onwards) I plan to make a post that summarizes my experiences that month. Since the end of January is still a ways away and the site’s content is a bit lacking, I’ve decided to make a practice post to give people an idea of what the monthly posts will be like. Just to get the feet wet a bit.

December is the last month before my big exodus begins. I’ve been spending it more or less getting ready for what I plan to do in 2023. I’ve also been spending it as a way of saying goodbye to my old lifestyle.

One example is my impulse online shopping. Next year I plan to cut it down drastically with my net exodus, and because of that this year I’ve been going on various shopping sprees picking up things I’d like to own (I’ll get into what I bought in a sec) Basically my last chance to be irresponsible with my money online.

It might seem kind of stupid, and I feel a bit stupid in retrospect. However, I’d also say it’s useful for making me realize how important this internet exodus is. Having all this stuff just reminds me of what I’m liable to do unchecked and helps give me some pause when it comes to returning to that lifestyle.

What all did I get? Well firstly, for those unaware, Japan has been having a hell of a time with the yen. It used to be 100 yen was equivalent to about a dollar and now it’s only equivalent to 73 cents. Which means that 200 dollar figure is suddenly 150 . Not so great for Japan, but great for people who have expensive Japanese hobbies like me.

I invested in a trove of visual novels and figures because of this. Some of the figures were used due being harder to find new ones that weren’t super inflated. The vns were all brand new from Amazon Japan with the exception of the 10th anniversary Key Memorial Box which I picked up used from eBay.

VNs: Stella of the End, Mahoyo special edition (PS4), Little Busters Ecstasy (note: bought before I got the Key memorial box), Rewrite+ and Harvest Festa, Sakura Moyu, Nukitashi 1 and 2, Hentai Prison, 10th anniversary Key Memori Box (contains planetarian, air, little busters (see ecstasy for link), clannad, tomoyo after, and kanon), Oretsuba, Shinsou Noise, h2o, Aokana Extra 2, and Asairo

I do plan on reading a bunch of these in Japanese, but ironically a lot of them are set to be translated or already are translated into English. We’ll have to see how I feel and when I get to them to see (Though they are all highly rated games regardless so I’m not unhappy with the purchases that much)

Figures:

I got three shuten figures (separate links) Partially because I couldn’t decide between the first two and the nendo was cheap enough. Shuten is from Fate Grand Order (yes I’m still on that shit) drawn by Raita. I just really like the Japanese oni aesthetic she’s got going on.

I also ordered two Hokusai figures (separate links again) The second is technically a preorder that comes out in January, and I wasn’t going to get it initially but… Well Hokusai is probably my favorite character aesthetically in FGO (If she had straight cut bangs I’d probably marry her) and the pieces are just fucking gorgeous

Rounding off the FGO figures, the last one I got is a figure of Berserker Musashi. She is my currently number one most used servant in the game on NA (along with Castoria since they make a team) I actually really liked her character as a Saber, but as I never used her Saber form (due to having so many other saber classes) the Berserker version is the one I think wins out. Plus ‘merica

For whatever reason, I was feeling rather nostalgic lately for Dragon ball, which got me looking at figures for it. Specifically I was looking at both Chi chi and Bulma figures since I mostly only collect bishoujo figures (Yu Yu Hakusho is the exception) I found that Chi Chi has a severe lack of figures (they tend to give her her dorky Dragon Ball outfit more than any other) Bulma however had a wide array of figures. I ended up going with these two because I think they look the best aesthetically (Not to mention I was able to get both fairly cheap used)

Speaking of Yu Yu Hakusho, I wanted to get more YYH figures. I already preordered figures of Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei to go with the Yusuke that I bought forever ago (thankfully they’re doing another run since the prices on them is ridiculous) Though I really wanted a female character to round out my collection. Problem is there’s none that aren’t garage kits (build and paint yourself) except for this American made toy that goes for about 20-30 bucks more than it probably should. I still bought it though because the only alternative was to buy a used Botan funko pop for like 60 dollars and I’ll be damned if I’m going to buy a funko pop let alone one that cost 60

Let’s see what else? Oh I bought a three rem figures and two plushes. Why so much Rem stuff? Well, I used to be a member of this site Tokyo Otaku Mode. Membership required a yearly premium but you got cheaper deals and cash you could use on other purchases. When I was setting about cancelling my membership, I set out to deplete my balance and the thing that caught my eye was Rem in a white Kimono. I still had money left over and they recommended me rem plushes which I just thought “why the hell not” The two other rem figures are budget figures that I was just like.. Well whatever I like Rem. Doesn’t matter if the show is bad or good. I also don’t care if people find her pretty basic. Her aesthetic just pleases me.

Lastly I was going through what other series/characters I would like to have proper figures of and I saw some pop-up figures from Inuyasha show up. Thinking it might be nice to have a Sango figure, I checked the comments on her myfigurecollection page, but it sounded like people were fairly negative. I then tried to look at scales, but the only good one was way outside what I was willing to spend. Ultimately I settled on a Nendoroid version because I was able to find it used for a good price on this site called Akiba Soul (where I got one of the Bulma’s mentioned before)

While browsing Akiba Soul, I found they also had a Pop-up figure of Mako from Kill La Kill available. I’ve always wanted a proper figure of Mako (much as I love my battle uniform Nendo version) so it seemed like the right call given they aren’t making many other figures of her (sadly)

Edit: I almost forgot the most important figure this month, May! Up until now scale figures of her have looked pretty dicey, but this one looks great. Probably my highest anticipated figure in a long time

ACK forgot one more. I got Yozakura from Senran Kagura because of all the characters in that ecchi-bait of a game, she’s the one I most enjoy (bowl cut plus fighting with fists is like mmmm)

Though speaking of figures, that reminds me of a related purchase I probably should mention. Currently I keep my figures in 3 detolfs I managed to get shipped from Ikea several years back (the shipping is now ridiculous) They’ve held up okay, but I realized that I’m both running out of room and they lack any lighting options.

I could install a system of lighting, but the one I’d want would cost me over 200 bucks. In addition, I have some past trauma with trying to install LED lights in my room, and I’m a bit concerned that trying to modify my Ikea detolfs would be a disaster. It was then that I came across Youtube videos talking about this new case brand called moducases.

The rundown is that moducases are made of acrylic instead of tempered glass, but they offer more storage and a better (included) lighting system than what I could do with my detolfs. While it’s pricey, I figure for the amount of figures I have and buy, it’s worth making them nice. Not to mention that I feel like these cases will be easier to take apart and move someday (Which could always come sooner than later)

Unfortunately, they’re about half a year out from being delivered, so don’t expect much about them until summer 2023. Hopefully it’ll all be worth it.

Games:

Games-wise I didn’t go too crazy. In fact, most all of the games I’ve gotten this year are from trade-in credit I got by trading old shit into Gamestop. If you’re curious though, I bought Dragon Quest Treasures, Front Mission 1 remake, Sakuna: Of rice and Ruin, Live a Live, and Bravely Default 2 for the Switch and for PC FF7R as well as trails of Cold steel and Trails of Zero (I’m hoping to do a huge Trails of run through next year)

Anime:

I didn’t do anything for anime this year. Mostly because I own most things I’m interested in owning. Everything else I can either watch through streaming or other means.

Manga:

The big purchase this year has been manga. I’ve been getting back into reading/collecting manga, but the unfortunate thing is that covid really ravaged supplies of a lot of series (due to the influx of readers) Not wanting to experience the possibility of things going in and out of stock before I could get them and wanting to take advantage of the holiday sales going on, I bought a metric fuck ton of manga.

If you were nosy, you might have a ballpark figure of the amount I spent buying the figures in VNs. If so, let’s just say that the amount I spent on Manga was probably 3x that at the least. It’s to the point where I don’t even want to list them all (I don’t even know I realistically can) Only thing for sure is that I’m done with manga for a good while.

(I plan on talking about them more as I read them. Plus potentially taking pictures of my collection when I have them organized. Thus you’ll get to find out soon enough just how deep this hole goes)

There’s a few other things I bought but some of them involve stuff I’m not ready to talk about yet. Not to mention I’ve already spent a lot of time talking about this that if I don’t shift gears, I feel like I’m going to stop writing this. Let’s move on.

Video game thoughts:

Video game of the year goes to Elden Ring followed up by Xenoblade 3 for me. I’d talk about them more here, but I’m not as good writing about things after the fact. In the future though when I’m doing monthly posts, you can expect mini-reviews

Anime thoughts:

Anime the best thing I watched this year would probably be Cyberpunk. I’m still kind of miffed that Arcane edged it out as best animated thing at the game awards (though that comes from a purely fanboy who hasn’t even seen Arcane point of view) Second best would be a tie between Horimiya and My Dress-up Darling. Everything else kind of blurs together this year (to the point where I can’t remember what I saw this year)

Oh I guess there’s Chainsaw man, but I consider that more a manga than I do anime (even though I’m also watching the anime) Since I read it first, it’s going down as manga of the year rather than anime (Not to mention the anime is only halfway done with part 1 as it is)

Visual novel thoughts:

Favorite VN I’ve played this year would probably be Gore Screaming Show if only because it reminds me a lot of older VNs that I grew up on (particularly Divi Dead) Runner-up might be Sasasagu or Hatsuyuki or Tsui no Sora remake (It’s really hard to pick between them) Worse thing I read was probably finishing up Senren Banka, which I did purely because I was reading it as Japanese practice and hated to leave it undone

Speaking of Japanese practice, as you can probably guess it’s one of the things I hope to do more of next year. This year I read a few VNs and started a N5-N1 vocabulary deck on anki (flashcard program) I will have up to N3 vocabulary done by the end of this year leaving only n2 and n1 for next (In which I hope to use to tackle more Japanese vns than I ever have in a year before)

In closing:

Hmm what else? Health-wise I still don’t know what the fuck is going on with my body. I have a physical on the 3rd, an eye appointment on the 13th (to check if my vision is worsening or what), and a neurology appointment I still need to reschedule. It’d be nice if any of these could give me some answers, but I’m also expecting them to be meh (particularly the physical) due to how it’s often gone in the past. We’ll see (I’ll update you all on January’s post)

Shoveling snow has been murder on me. I wish I could build some actual muscle, but I would need to bulk up for that. Which I wouldn’t mind doing but then I don’t know if I should (I’ve been told I could potentially have GERD before and then there’s questions in my mind about whether I could have diabetes) I just hope the snow has stopped for a good while so that I can rest my weary bones.

Been feeling awful lonely lately. It’s not something I can’t deal with, but it still sucks given there’s not a whole lot I have right now to deal with it. Bleh forget that for now. Big things coming in January, hopefully

Signing off for now

betsuniisan