goods – Anime QandA

Mandarake Merch Madness December 2018 Edition

Mandarake Merch Madness December 2018 Edition!

Oh, so another merch post, huh? Yep, I decided to spoil myself for Xmas, also I discovered a not-so-little show called ‘To Love-Ru’, became absolutely enamoured with it and so had to buy all the merch I could in a short period of time–it’s what I do!

I’ve come to expect such madness, yes. Also if you’re not familiar with Mandarake, its a second hand otaku goods store in Japan that has their extensive collection of goods available for purchase online. I talk about it in some more detail in previous posts if you want more information (see bottom of the page for links).

So uh… Right! The boxes, two (plural), though they came on separate days so I only took a pic of the first one (which was the larger of arrivals).

It’s about as big as ‘Mandarake’ boxes come, that is to say big enough to fit a small human!

Right, so you mentioned ‘To Love-Ru’ I expect there’s a reason for it. I watched the four seasons (+ OVA’s) that comprise the entirety of To Love-Ru and its sequel To Love-Ru Darkness and needless to say I was in love with everything about it. So expect the ensuing pictures to be mostly To Love-Ru centric. Also here’s literally everything I bought, skip the next picture if you don’t want to be spoiled on my purchases!

On to the individual pictures now? Yes. And like always I’ll start with the figures. Like the majority of figures I buy these are called ‘prize figures’ and aren’t as expensive as the more detailed figures you can get out there. These ones ranged in price between 800 and 2500 yen. (About $10 to $30USD)

Momo Deviluke figure from To Love-Ru series.

Nadeko Sengoku in her *best* form from Nisemonogatari.

A chibi version of Haruna Sairenji from To Love-Ru series, I’d like to get the rest of them in this chibi form later down the track. Though the plastic stand on the left is very unappealing.

The next figurine I didn’t take a seperate photo of at the time, but she sits atop our anime Xmas tree. It’s Momo again, but this is what’s called a ‘holding figurine’ she’s meant to be used to hold an item in her arms. But here she’s just holding on to the top of the tree.

Golden Darkness Nendoroid from To Love-Ru series.

And that’s all for the figurines, I was slightly disappointed in the height discrepancies between the To Love-Ru ‘prize figures’ but that’s entirely my fault as I should have paid more attention to getting figures from the same production companies rather than just getting whatever I liked the look of.

What’s next? I’ll take a slight break of showing To Love-Ru merch and show some other random stuff I got. These are two Laid Back Camp towels, I wasn’t expecting much because the price point was low and they were ‘prize toys’ (‘prize figures’ and ‘prize toys’ are products that are won in arcade games in Japan). But as you’ll see from the second picture, they are nice quality and absolutely massive. With the width of a door and almost the length of one too.

Rin Shima and Nadeshiko Kagamihara prize towels.

Unfolded Rin towel (I didn’t take a picture of the Nadeshiko one unfolded because lazy).

A few random little cheap goodies. Yui Kotegawa keychain, Red Blood Cell from Cells At Work plush thing and Gold Ship (best horse girl) keyring from Uma Musume: Pretty Derby.

A ‘First Astronomical Velocity’ hoodie. ‘SoniAni’ is a *very* underrated show.

And I also got a few gifts for Sharon, the irlwaifu. While she enjoyed To Love-Ru a lot I knew better than to get her merch from that show. Sadly a lot of the shows she has gravitated towards recently didn’t have much merch avaliable on Mandarake at the time of buying so ‘Yuri! On Ice is always a safe bet (plus there’s heaps of it out there)!

Yuri On Ice goodies, plus Funyassyi socks for the lols.

And now we return to more To Love-Ru stuff! There’s so much To Love-Ru merch on Mandarake that I’m slightly terrified of how much I’m going to end up bringing back when I go to Japan in February! Anyway, here’s everything else I got.

Acrylic stands of Haruna and Yui in idol costumes.

Obligatory clear file purchases to add to my growing clear file collection. The Lala clear file has her in a bikini on the back.

The next item was one of the more expensive purchases and unfortunately was a little bit disappointing in terms of quality. It’s a double sided half-body pillow, but it was rolled up into a tight cylinder shape and had undoubtedly been that was for many years at Mandarake’s warehouse as the creases are deep.

Other than the creases the art is really nice and bright.

Complete To Love-Ru mug set, these are actually quite small probably hold the volume of a small tea-cup but at 300 yen per two mug set I wasn’t letting these get away!

This was a surprise as I thought it was just a clear file from the picture on the website but its actually a plastic document case. I just adore the art on this though.

A Golden Darkness pillow case (pictured with pillow inside).

And the final item is a Golden Darkness bed sheet. I don’t know what it is about anime bed sheets but I keep buying them even though I don’t really have a use for them (I certainly don’t use them as a bedsheet as the thread count is too low to be comfortable for me personally). I think it’s just the novelty of having a character in such a large (practically life-sized) form that appeals to me but the price point being so much lower than a dakimakura (body pillow) makes them an impulse buy. Maybe I’ll find a proper use for them one day.

And that’s everything, huh? Surprisingly less lewd than I was expecting. Likewise, especially considering how much fan-service ‘To Love-Ru Darkness’ has I thought there’d be a lot more lewd merch. Anyway, that’s it, hope you enjoyed reading/looking at photos and if you have any questions about anything just drop me a comment!

Previous Mandarake Merch Madness Posts:

Mandarake Merch Madness Part 1
Mandarake Merch Madness Part 2
Mandarake Merch Mandess July 2018 Edition
Mandarake Merch Madness October 2018 Edition

If you liked my post and want to support my content, please consider supporting my Patreon page, or donating by buying me a coffee on Ko-fi!

Mandarake Merch Madness October 2018 Edition

Mandarake Merch Madness October 2018 Edition!

Another merch post huh? You really like that stuff huh. *nods enthusiastically*

For those unfamiliar with ‘Mandarake’ care to explain? They are reseller of second-hand anime/otaku goods in Japan, they have several brick and mortar stores in Japan but I find the range and prices of goods is arguably better online (it’s also easier to find stuff as they have an “English” version of their site which is pretty good all things considered).

Probably worth pointing out that this is not a sponsored post, right? I wish! Yup, no sponsorship here, paid for all of this with my own money and just talking about them because I love what they do. But if they’re reading, I am open to sponsorship!

Also worth mentioning that “second-hand” is kinda different in Japan–at least for Mandarake it is? Second-hand in Japan is not any slight against the quality of the merchandise, most of the stuff they have for sale has never been opened and they even reduce things in price if the box is even slightly damaged–which is great for me as I just throw the boxes out anyway–I like my merch for its aesthetics on the shelf not for collectibility things in mint condition! Anyway let’s get on with it!

I sometimes wonder what the delivery man must think of such a large box with this ambiguous logo on it.

Uh-huh, so hurry up and let’s see what’s in the box? So, first I’m going to post a picture of everything that was in the box collected in one picture for those of you who don’t want to see every individual item. But likewise if you don’t want to have the 1 by 1 approach to going through what I bought spoiled skip the next picture!

That’s a lot of stuff! Let’s break it down! ‘Kay, so I had just finished watching ‘Haganai’ and I loved it to bits so obviously I had to buy a bunch of merch from the show (and because it was so popular in Japan there was so much merch and a lot of it surprisingly cheap too!

Who’s that? That’s one of the main female protagonists from ‘Haganai’, Yozora. This is a Good Smile Figurine and pretty nicely detailed–though the face is maybe a bit off but considering the price I’m not going to complain.

Well that didn’t take too long to get lewd. You’re so innocent, this is the other main female protagonist from ‘Haganai’, Sena. And this figurine is just gorgeous, it’s an Alphamax branded one and I’ll definetly be looking for more figurines from Alphamax in the future!

Oh good, loli’s in bikinis… Quiet you. These are two other characters from ‘Haganai’, Yukimura and Maria from the Beach Queens range of figures. Very cute!

So is that it for the Haganai merch? Nope! I did say I loved the show, didn’t I?

A mug with a lid? Yep, Yozora mug, as the only picture online was of the outside of the box I was hoping it’d be a full colour mug but alas it’s a rather ugly brown. Oh well.

Anything else from Haganai? Yes… but you’re going to make fun of me…

What is that? You don’t know?! Well this is awkward it’s an ‘Oppai Mouse Pad’, it might be hard to tell from the pictures but the breast part is raised and padded, to rest your wrist on. Believe it or not this is my first ‘Oppai Mouse Pad’ its very comfortable!

No comment. And that’s it for the ‘Haganai’ portion of the merch. The next few pieces are what I like to call, “eh it’s cheap so I’ll buy it” (all these items were purchased for under 300 yen which is roughly $3USD).

This is supposed to be an Uma Musume: Pretty Derby phone pouch but the only kind of phones that’d fit in something this small would be mid 2000’s flip phones. It’s got a karabiner on the back so that increases its value as an item for carrying, something, maybe I’ll put my digital camera in it when we go back to Japan! Also it’s not my photography skills the print of Special Week on the front was disappointingly low-res. Still cute though!

Wouldn’t be a Mandarake shop without a clear-file! I bought this because I wanted at least something from Winter 2018’s most under-appreciated anime ‘Last Period’ though this is actually from the mobile game but the characters are all the same so hard to complain! Bright and colourful!

I always like to get one distinctly ~weird~ item and this absolutely fit the bill! It’s a drawstring pouch designed to look like the basketball tights the girls from ‘Ro-Kyu-Bu’ wear, it’s also smaller than I thought it’d be from the pictures (it’s length is just a bit shorter than a DVD case for reference sake). It also came with the glossy print which serves as a good illustration of what I’m actually talking about. Super weird but why the heck not!

Last of the cheap items was the one I was most worried about possibly getting picked up by customs (luckily it seems they didn’t inspect the contents of the box). It’s a charm from the anime ‘Tsugumomo’ featuring main girl Kiriha. Why was I worried about this getting through customs? Well because it’s made of wood and there seem to be some sort of ~iffy~ import restrictions around wood coming in from certain countries into Australia. I didn’t even think about it until after I placed the order! All good though!

Okay, so that’s all the cheap items? What’s left? Well I got four items for the irlwaifu (though I only have two pictures of them because the other two items were in-use at the time of taking these photos), so let’s look at those!

This is a tote bag from ‘Magical Girl Raising Project’ featuring protagonist Snow White.

Next is a plush Oopa from ‘Steins;Gate’. The other two items that I didn’t get individual pictures of (but that you can see in the larger photo with all the goods) were a pair of Pop Team Epic socks and a Gun Gale Online microfibre cloth which currently adorns the back-middle seat of the irlwaifu’s car.

Okay then, and now I’m guessing more stuff for you? More or less. The next two items are related so I’ll talk about them.

First is a ‘New Game!’ tapestry! I already have one, but it has the girls in yukata’s so I needed something that was, well the opposite of yukata’s!

And a Nendoroid of Aoba from ‘New Game!’ so very cute!

Anything else you’ve missed? I think we’ll call this final part the NSFW section, it’s just two pictures and there’s no nudity on display but still consider yourself warned.

This is a manga series called ‘Ureshon!’ which will never be released by a Western publisher in English. It’s not porn, despite what you may think it’s just a heavily ecchi romantic comedy. I’m sure you can figure out what’s it about, and I’ll leave it at that. This was a difficult purchase not because I was embarrassed or anything (if I was I wouldn’t be posting about it here!) but because it sets a Japanese-language manga buying precedent. I have over 200 English-language manga titles but this is my first one wholly in Japanese, I was worried that if I started buying them in Japanese it would open the flood gates (for the lack of a better word) but thankfully for my wallet I’ve not bothered to look for any more… yet.

She’s nude on the other side but I’m not showing you that, I’m a gentleman!

And last but not least another dakimakura (body pillow) to the collection! This makes three and this lovely lady is Ui from ‘A Bridge To The Starry Skies’, I’ve only seen the anime (not the eroge game it was based on) but I really thought the anime was beautiful and funny and touching.

Again, I think it’s best if I say “no comment” and let you wrap up this blog of yours. Thanks everyone for reading, if you have any questions about any of the items or just merch in general feel free to leave a comment below!

Previous Mandarake Merch Madness Posts:

Mandarake Merch Madness Part 1
Mandarake Merch Madness Part 2
Mandarake Merch Mandess July 2018 Edition

If you liked my post and want to support my content, please consider supporting my Patreon page, or donating by buying me a coffee on Ko-fi!

Mandarake Merch Madness: Part 1 – Untold Questions

An Untold Questions blog about Mandarake Merch Madness: Part One.

Okay, what’s this then? It’s a merch post!

“Merch”, “Post”, is this some kind of weird ritual? Yes.

No, but seriously what’s going on. Don’t be difficult, ‘merch’ means ‘merchandise’ and post is what this is.

—kay, but what’s a “Mandarake”? Well it’s got nothing to with Harry Potter if you’re wondering.

I wasn’t but do go on… It’s a second-hand anime goods chain in Japan, it’s like a treasure trove of anime related goodies for otakus like me! Also, second-hand for Japan is basically like new, 90% of the things they sell have never been taken out of the box!

And I presume this means you bought some goods from them? A whole BOX of ‘em!

That’s a big box! Ahem…

Always well protected, the more delicate items are individually bubble wrapped too.

Right-o, so get into it then! Full disclosure, a lot of these pictures will be of the items out of their boxes because, well, I was too impatient to take pictures of them in their respective box. I don’t know if this breaks some rules of unboxing/merch posts but give me a break, okay? I’m new here after all…

Fine, fine. Just get on with it! Okay, so prepare for a lot of photos, also I’m not really sure what order to display the merch in so I’ll leave the figurines ’til the end [edit: figurines in seperate post], and everything else before.

GET ON WITH IT! Right, so first off I wanted to get a new wallet. I’ve already got a re:zero one but it’s due for a replacement soon.

From: Is the Order a Rabbit?? Still in packaging because i’ll leave it in til I’m ready to change over from the old wallet.

What’s up next? Next is a couple of CD soundtracks! I have most of my music digitally but it’s sometimes nice to get the physical thing, plus the Amagi Brilliant Park one comes with a bonus DVD. Unfortunatley, Mandarake’s website isn’t the best about giving detailed information on the content of some of their products, and some things are just poorly translated, so as it turns out the DVD is of just one, 4-minute music video. But whatever it was cheap enough anyway!

Yuru Yuri Season 1 OST and Amagi Brilliant Park Character Song Collection + Bonus DVD.

4 minute long DVD, that’s got to be some kind of record for shortest DVD. Haha I doubt it, but yeah… Anyway while we’re on the subject of Amagi Brilliant Park. I got a stylus and a poster. I was a bit disappointed the poster was just a paper one as the site said ‘image board’ but again it comes down to translation issues and not very good pictures on their website. It’s certainly not a perfect system, but it kind of adds to the excitement of opening the items!

Amagi Brilliant Park, Isuzu Sento Stylus.

Buyer beware I suppose! It’s fine! Next up is a COSPA pillowcase for New Game! I’ve already got a bunch of COSPA brand pillow cases from the actual COSPA store in Akihabara when I went last year and I was so impressed with the quality when I got them home I bought another one! They don’t have a wide range of shows unfortunately, but they are double-sided with different images on each side!

New Game! Pillowcase, still in packaging until I buy a new pillow insert for it but you can see the two sides of the design on the paper beneath. Also it was a lot cheaper than the RRP, as *some* Mandarake items usually are.

When you said pillowcase I thought it was going to be something lewd… thankfully it’s only partially so with those bikinis… Did someone say lewd?! This next purchase was just because of how much it amused me, it’s an oppai drink bottle holder. It’s also from a series I’ve never watched before which I don’t normally do, but it was too good to pass up. Unfortunately, and I feel like I’m saying that a lot, but the hole to the bottle in the top is too small for most if not all water bottles, it might be able to fit a small coke can or bottle or beer, but I don’t drink either! Oh well, might have to just repurpose it into a pen holder or something!

Yeah… why am I not surprised you bought something like that… My browsing habits on Mandarake generally just result in me putting in the titles of shows I or the irl waifu likes and seeing what comes up. A show we both like, but not love is Persona 4: The Animation, ordinarily I wouldn’t bother with merch for a show I just ‘like’ and not ‘love’, but when I showed her this she had to have it.

Teddy plush thing from Persona 4. And yes it’s a working zip and you can put things in it! Not much though it is very small.

Well that’s cute and wholesome! And now back to our regularly scheduled smut! Well, not the item itself, but rather the show (or visual novel, it could be from either). I was searching ‘We Without Wings’ and this item came up, it was vague in the description, it translated something to ‘towel’ and I assumed beach towel, but it’s not, it’s more like a velour (or microfibre?) throw blanket. And it’s very big, it takes up most of the single bed in my office.

Is Naru best girl? I don’t even know, that show’s so confusing. Regardless I was pleasantly surprised with the quality and size especially considering the relatively low price.

Mmm-hmm. Moving on… I broke one of my rules twice this shop, that rule being never buy things for show’s you don’t watch/haven’t watched yet. But I think this one’s forgivable, because apparently it’s a really good show? Also, who can say no to a cheap, brand new t-shirt!

Angel Beats t-shirt. Really good quality print, really poor quality photo. It’s pristine white irl but the photo makes it look worn.

I wouldn’t have thought Japanese sizes would fit you… WOW. I mean it is a little snug around the belly, but it’s fine. I’ll probably only wear it at home, and only once I’ve watched the show too. Anyway, next it’s time for Interviews With Monster Girls merch! I got 3 phone charms and a really cute phone case. One I thing I quickly learned while in Japan is that while they have a LOT of anime phone cases, only about 5% of them come in the Large size for iPhone plus sized devices. So of course while browsing the site I was thrilled to find one for Interviews With Monster Girls that fits my phone!

Well this post has gotten longer than I thought it would be, should we maybe take a break? You don’t get breaks, but yes I see what you mean, it probably is a bit much for one post. Alright, take five and we’ll continue with figurines in part two!