Animal Crossing – Happy Home Designer

And Nintendo wins again.

We’re all familiar with the Animal Crossing series right? Cute character living in a cute town inhabited by cute animals? Earning money to pay off your debts by collecting fruit, fish and fossils? Furniture hoarding? Making the perfect house? Right? Ok good. So Happy Home Designer is Animal Crossing, without all the money grabbing and town management. It’s literally just the furniture hoarding and making the perfect houses. Which is great. One of the best parts of the game. I miss the rest of the game of course, but I still have New Leaf, so I’m alright with that.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder… right? ^_^;

So I’ve clearly not posted in almost a year. And I have a really-really good reason for that. I promise. And no, I didn’t leave the country again or anything like that XD.

Some of the stuff that has arrived over the past months :3

Valentines, ney?

 

Chosen cos when I think of Tokyo Mew Mew, I think pink lol.(Would have prefered a manga illustration, but MI didnt have any....) Comes from Moe Imouto, thats the high res.

Now this isn’t some bitter old spinsters view on it, but Valentines day… really? Where the prices of literally EVERYTHING sky rocket! I’d like to refer to the ‘Love Day’ simpsons episode to back this up lol. If your in a couple, there shouldn’t need to be a day to make your love known, it should just be obvious anyways. And for those not in relationships who want to be in relationships, its just like rubbing it in their faces. It’s mean.

To sum it up, couples shouldn’t need valentines as excuse to shower your loved one with gifts! It should be done at every opportunity!!! lol (Don’t overdo it obviously lol, you’ll get broke really fast if you do, and you’ll get sued by your signifigant other for lying about how much money you’ve got like in an ep of Ally McBeal lol)

Now some lovely pics of Akari Yamigishi! She’s so cute!

Why do we love figures?

I’ve got no idea why the idea of owning many plastic women makes me happy… What makes us want to own so many chunks of inanimate plastic? It’s something we did when we were younger, want toys of stuff like power rangers, pokemon and other similar things. But this is different… They’re not posable, yet they’re more…alive in a way. They have more character, more charm, definately better craftmanship than any toys we had when we were little. Then again, theres surely arn’t toys, are they? Figures like Figma are yes, but I’m not talking about Figma’s and Revoltech’s. I’m talking about the static PVC figures. Ones from companies like Kotobukiya, Good Smile, Max Factory and Alter. What about these beauties makes us want to spend SOOOOOOOOOO much money on them?

Rational thought must not be involved when purchasing figures. To spend so much, an average of £30 per figure(usually more), is an insane prospect to most people. Or rather, to the people who don’t collect figures that is. I could have, with all the money I’ve spent on figures in the last 3 months, bought a PS3, or a XBOX 360 and games to go with it. But figures just seem more…. tempting… more needed… it’s strange. I’ve been through phases of wasting money on stuff like Pokemon cards, Pokemon toys, Ty Beanie Babies and other childish infactuations(Pokemon is still going strong, more for the games than anything, but sometimes I lapse and buy new cards…) but figures are something different.

Over the past year and a bit, I’ve managed to aqquire over 40 figures. I’m not sure of the exact number because a number of my figures are at home. I was only allowed to bring 4 larger figures with me to University at first. At this moment, 5 from my collection before I came to Uni are with me, but I’ve got 14 new big pvc figures, 1 revoltech, 2 Figma and some mini figures. But its the big pvc ones which are important right now. 40 figures over 13 months(ish) is more than 3 a month, I know thats not right, because I have got the majority of my collection in bulk-buys at conventions. Which is even crazier…. considering the amount I’ve spent at conventions… scary amounts…. It truly is a tad worrying, and now I’m in Uni I should be cutting back. I mean, I have done, apart from the London expo which I saved money towards, and I had my busary for the Midlands Expo… and other than those times, I’ve only got 2 pvc figures(one I preordered months earlier, and one I gave into buying, glad I did, because she’s not available through the site I got her at anymore) and 3 posable figures(Kagami, Gurren Lagann Full Drillized and Tsuruya-san(also preordered) while at Uni. My self control has been pretty darn good I must say. If I was working I could spend more. But I’d prefer to just hang with friends and have a good time, with all the work we’re lumped with…

So! (Went a bit off track there…) Back to the original question, why do we love figures so much? Is it because of the series they’re from? The attractiveness of the figure itself? The prospect of increasing your otaku-dom? I think…for me… Genshiken was a large part of why I started collecting… I began with mini figures because it was all I could afford, but once I got a job and a debit card, I was able to get big PVC figures, which after fawning over them on DannyChoo.com, I was very glad to finally be able to buy.

 

So. I’m going home today. For the holidays. 3 weeks. It’ll be weird not being here for 3 weeks. And it’s my birthday in now… 5 days… And Christmas in 7. It’s Christmas in a week!! Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

Temptations….

Having a debit card is BAD for me… VERY VERY BAD!!! There are so many places I can get figures from that I couldn’t before….. like Neon Martian and UP1!!! :sob: So much temptation….. and I’ve been told to save some money for uni….. I’ve got £30+ spare and I wish, wish, WISH I could get stuff with it… There are at least…. :counts: 10 things I REALLY want…. 5 of which are out of print….. Hauuuuuuuu :sob:

Figure Costs – (HOLYOMFGCRAP) – How much have you spent?

I took the time today, to count up just how much I’d spent on figures. I did the bigger PVC figures first. Getting a job had really impacted how much I spend, which in some ways I’m glad on, in others, I could cry at how much I’ve spent on plastic girls (and a couple of boys) alone… I converted the totals into Yen and American Dollars aswell for those who don’t know Pounds very well. I counted 24 figures as ‘big’ This included Pocco and my Figma Haruhi, cos they cost more the prices of big figures anyways, even if they are smaller. (Although Haruhi standing next to Konomi-chan, theres only bout an inch in it, and Pocco is the same height roundabouts.)