Otaku Queue 25 Days Early to Meet Queen of Tsundere

Otaku desperate to meet with tsundere seiyuu queen Rie Kugimiya in her first visit to Taiwan are said to have staked their places in the queue a staggering 25 days prior to her actual arrival.

The otaku in question are queuing in anticipation of Her Highness’ January 27th arrival at the 2010 Taipei International Book Fair, having begun on the 3rd in order to be absolutely sure of gaining the all important audience, thought to be a record.

By the 13th 20 people had established a small camp at the site, with the Kugyuu-maniacs joined by other less eager strains of otaku.

Organizers are said to be concerned about disruption to other uses of the space, and police are ready to warn them should the supplicants become a nuisance.

Rie Kugimiya’s presence is believed to be the only cure for a thankfully rare condition known as “Kugimiya-byou,” or “Kugimiya Disease,” also called Kugimiya Virus Hypersensitive Cerebral Corticalitis, known to result in uncontrollable glossolalic utterances, most famously “kugyuuuuuuuuuuu.”

As some of you might have known, over the months of December and January, I was in Taiwan/Japan/Hong Kong for my regulatory family visit. My travels to Asia-land are in other posts, so if you’re interested in those you can go read them (1 2 3).

Anyways, my personal chance to see the Queen of Tsundere has gone down the drain, as I was informed way too late about her presence in Taiwan. Had I known much earlier that she would be at the 2010 Taipei International Book Fair, I would have booked my return flight to the United States, AFTER this event.

Having just finished school and in the market for job-hunting, queuing 25 days early sounds very decent and possible to me. I would totally do it. I hate to say it, but I would gladly trade my Aya Hirano / Yuko Goto / Minori Chihara autographed poster ANY day to see Rie Kugimiya and obtain an autograph.

With Anime Expo going through an internal shit-storm, my dream and hope of ever seeing Kugimiya in the United States has all but evaporated.

Now the only thing to appease my pain is to listen to this on loop:

My annotations for the ANN report:

To acquire Kugimiya’s autograph at the exhibition, fans could either buy one of 50 NT$2,680 (US$85) Shana ceramic plate online, or line up at the convention hall for one of 100 more plates. The online plates sold out in just 30 seconds on December 30, as 80,000 order attempts almost brought the server offline. Fans then began lining up for the remaining 89 plates. (11 of the plates originally reserved for the line-waiters were reallocated for the online buyers, due to the overwhelming number of orders that came in simultaneously before pre-orders were stopped.)

For a ceramic plate, that guarantees an autograph by Rie Kugimiya, NT$2,680 is an extremely decent price (cheap as shit).

Fans wanted to wait in line since New Year’s Eve in front of Taipei 101 (the second tallest building in the world), but authorities discouraged line-waiting due to other events being held there. So, the fans regrouped and began lining up outside a nearby mall complex. As of January 13, the outside nighttime temperature was 10 °C (50 °F).

10°C (50°F) does not seem like a lot, but Taipei is pretty humid, and if the weather says 10°C, it feels more like 5~7°C.

Three fans in line, who identified themselves as “Pony,” “Zi Yu” (literally “violet melancholy”), and “Fire Inamitsu,” agreed to be interviewed by ANN. All three came from the Taipei area, although there is another fan who is driving back and forth from 367 kilometers (229 miles) away to take shifts in the line. Pony has been in line since January 3, but there were actually people in line before he arrived. Due to the authorities’ discouraging of overnight lines, the fans in line have been looking for different sleeping spots to avoid security patrols.

I wonder how they keep any sense of queue. Unless they are ALL friends, having the need to constantly move around to avoid patrols or take shifts in line, any random person wanting to get in could easily slide in unnoticed as the numbers increase. Of course, they would probably call him out, but otaku these days seem to have less dignity than your average Joe.

Pony and Fire were introduced to Kugimiya’s work via Zero no Tsukaima (Fire has the autographs of the light novels’ creators Noboru Yamaguchi and Eiji Usatsuka), while Zi Yu’s part-time co-worker showed him Shana one day. Zi Yu said that he spent more than NT$220,000 (US$6,929) on Kugimiya merchandise in the first year he starting collecting, and he has now been a collector for three years. Fire acknowledged having all the Zero no Tsukaima novels, manga, anime, and Louise figures, while Zi Yu has every single Shana mug, the title character’s uniforms and casual wear, and life-sized pillows. Pony collected the limited-edition Shana bed sheets and Kugimiya’s moe bubble-wrap-popping keychain (“The tsundere version of course!”).

I wonder how they are allowed to even queue for so long and not have the need to do anything! These guys obviously have had jobs.

Here are the fans on Saturday morning, before it started raining. Image taken from ANN. Provided by dormcat.

Oh…how I could have been in this picture *sigh* This whole event does nothing for me, except prove ‘once again’ that if you aren’t living in Japan, Taiwan is probably the 2nd best choice for otaku sub-culture.

Via Sankaku Complex / The Liberty Times / ANN

Amazingly, when this figure got it’s official release, I was lucky enough to be in Taiwan. Not sure “how” or even “why”, but the local hobby/anime figure shops @ Taipei Main Station’s Underground Mall had a cart-full of these for sale, before anyone. I have an itch they released this before the local shops in Japan even did. Not sure if figures have some kind of ’street-date’, like games do in the United States, but in any event, this release was earlier than any other place I knew.

I was in Tokyo two days before I saw this figure in the shops in Taiwan and even Akihabara didn’t have any. Not even for display or as an upcoming promotion. If anything, this just proves my past points about Taipei, Taiwan been an extremely good beacon for anime related goods. Taiwan is well known for being called Japan Jr., due to Japan’s previous occupation in Taiwan. Plane tickets from Taiwan to Japan are as cheap and frequent as a domestic flights, and we pretty much get everything they do. Enough ranting…onward with the review.

Please keep in mind I am currently in Taiwan and I do not have my setup for picture taking, plus since I need to pack this figure into a suitcase anyways, I am not even going to bother taking her out. There are plenty of other official reviews that have unboxing pictures of her.

Pictures are great, so here goes…

BRS box still in packaged-wrapping-paper.
Box is huge! Really digging the white/black. Pardon the flash, only way to get ample lighting at the time.	Without flash, you can't see the blue eyes so well in this image.
Shot of the back of the box.	Shot of the side of the box. Nothing we haven't already seen.
Very very nice figure, I am extremely excited to own her.	The flowing jacket and hair are fantastic.

Written review taken from myfigurecollection.net profile.

Based on an illustration by Huke, comes Black Rock Shooter. She has been sculpted holding her huge Rock Cannon, in an striking pose that draws out her mysterious charm. Her flowing hair and jacket, as well as her weapon and beautiful stand have all been carefully sculpted. This PVC figure is strikingly detailed and is guaranteed to stand out amongst even the most elite of collections.

Original Black Rock Shooter image by Huke.

SCULPT
The sculpt is by Akeji based on Huke’s artwork. The most noticeable well sculpted parts of this figure are the hair, jacket and base. Starting with the jacket, the detailing is down to the notches on the zipper. For something that has been pushed through a manufacturing line, this is definitely a fine detail they did not miss. The hair, although we’ve seen many PVC hue colored hair styles (mostly with Shana figures) this one goes without saying as one of the best I’ve seen. The blue and black hue within the hair perfectly matches the feeling from the original image by Huke. Next would be the base. Broken apart as shown in the image, the sculpt for the base is fantastic and detailed. With the indentation for the Rock Cannon in the base and the number of broken tiles I wonder how much time Akeji had to spend to create the mold for the base. As a final note for the sculpt, it appears the scar is sculpted as well. Hard to notice with the eye, but the scar on Black Rock Shooters waist is indeed molded-in and not just a decal.

PAINT WORK
Overall the painting is fantastic; especially for the eyes. I was immediately drawn in by the wonderful detailing and blue hue on the eyes. Second would be the Rock Cannon. Not losing any of the grunge feeling, the Rock Cannon maintains a very rustic and dirty look to it. An unfortunate part is the painting on the scar, the paint color for the scar comes off rather bright reddish. Though this isn’t a deal breaker for me, it might be a bother for perfectionists, but nothing a little self-touch up can’t fix. Secondly, I feel the white base tiles could have been a little more pure. The color is closer to an ivory-white. Though at the end, the paint work is still fantastic and any cons are insanely outweighed by all the pros with this figure.

POSING
Posing is limited. This isn’t a figma, and the best is to look at it facing forward or to a slight angle. You don’t want to cover up the flaming blue eye.

BASE
As mentioned above already, the base sculpt is fantastic. Paint work is generally good as well, except for the fact that the white tiles hold an ivory-ish color, I had hoped for a cleaner white.

PACKAGING
The packaging for Black Rock Shooter was great. The box is HUGE. The figure stands at 290mm already. Inside the box came a flyer with special promotions and additional news about a BRS Nendoroid and the pre-order date for the Black Blade version.

===

I love this figure, it is hands down one of my favorites, due to [s]wonderful delicious flat chest[/s] it’s size and color. I had missed the pre-orders for this item originally so I was pretty sad. But upon my trip to Taiwan, finding this in a figure shop was a dream come true. Like I said at the top of this review; “This PVC figure is strikingly detailed and is guaranteed to stand out amongst even the most elite of collections.” Put this in your display case and I guarantee you it will grab someone’s attention immediately.

- Black ★ Rock Shooter [ぶらっく★ろっくしゅーたー]
- 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
- http://www.goodsmile.info/detail/eng/2362/BLACK+ROCK+SHOOTER.html
- 9,334 yen (Release Date: Dec 2009)
- Sold out everywhere at time of writing (including local shops in Taiwan)

AmiAmi has officially launched an English website, now allowing international customers to browse, purchase and pre-order all the items they sell on the original AmiAmi Japanese website!

AmiAmi is pretty well known for selling exclusive items and previously the only way to get them was to acquire the help of a deputy service. It was pretty annoying and very expensive, but now AmiAmi will ship to international customers. AmiAmi usually has pretty low prices on their items compared to other online retailers like HLJ or HobbySearch, so this makes purchasing from them enticing.

Unfortunately, for now, they only accept PayPal for payment. For shipping they only provide EMS shipping. Which honestly is not bad, just a little bit on the expensive side :\

Before you go rushing ahead and buying all the Touhou exclusives, take note and read through the AmiAmi FAQ, there are restrictions that you’ll probably need to be aware of. For example, you cannot cancel any of your orders; or if you do happen to order an item that is ‘Japan only’, they will promptly cancel your order.

Like many other shoppers online, I am very excited to hear AmiAmi has opened their doors to international customers. AmiAmi will probably become one of my top choices for ordering goods from now on. Sadly, this will push AmiAmi goods to become sold out even quicker than before. With the influx of international shoppers, I have no doubt I will be spending a lot of days pressing F5 and waiting.

syn-es-the-sia n. Physiol. Sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation, as of a color from hearing a certain sound (fr. Gk, syn = together + aisthesis = to perceive).

Not exactly sure how this was made, but it seems pretty obvious that it is a computer generated effect. Probably using [Sound → Color Synesthesia] mixed with particle effects and fluids/smoke. I would not be surprised if this was a plug-in for After Effects or something similar.

I apologize for the brightness on the left side of the picture. The tapestry is reflective so getting ample light and making sure the picture comes through un-blinded was difficult.

I really like this tapestry as the colors are faded and it is styled like a manga but it holds the look of the anime. Plus, they are all wearing yukatas and it looks like it is water-colored. I don’t believe this image has been digitized on some magazine so that makes it even more unique. However if someone has found a way to scan this tapestry in and vector it, please let me know. Thanks to Fenix from HongFire, a scan of this tapestry is available here. Source (moe.imouto.org).

This tapestry retailed for 3,000yen and it measures 59.4cm x 42cm. It was announced on the Official Lucky Star website and was available for purchase on the Kyoto Animation Shop Pro’s website. Unfortunately, the link to the Shop Pro website no longer exists and this item is probably only available on eBay or Yahoo Japan Auctions.