GeGeGe Gone.

I'm sad to report the passing of Shigeru Mizuki, creator of GeGeGe no Kitaro. Even in his 90s, he continued to draw his characters, possibly the oldest working manga artist up until today when at the age of 93, he has passed on.

I've loved his work ever since I first discovered his youkai and just recently I picked up a couple more figures based on his work.

This box contained two red or green characters but, unfortunately I couldn't complete a full set, so I just bought two.

Within you get a trading card, the two figures, and a piece of gum.

On the left is ぬっぺっぽう (Nuppeppou) and on the right is おとろし (Otoroshi) and you can visit it at the Kitarou Chaya Teahouse.

Be sure to click the label GeGeGe below to see my many many links on Shigeru Mizuki's creations!



Above is one of the few songs that I can sing in Japanese at Karaoke!

May The Force Be With Me.

Yay! The random draw at 7-11 is finally here although it is not yet everywhere. I went to my nearest locale and, sure enough, they had the goods and I picked up a few items. (Fortunately, I came into some extra cash yesterday so I can justify the purchase.) I then walked to two other conbini in my neighbourhood (I need the exercise) and discovered that one starts the kuji draw tomorrow, the other had no idea about what I was inquiring.

Here's the loot so far!

Starting with the J prizes, I landed three out of five face cloths or "art towels".

REVISION:

I am now only missing one of these towels.

Of the I Prizes, I landed 3/4 "Blister Figure Charms". They're actually pretty nice.

REVISION:

I now have a complete set of Crystals!

I got 1/4 H Prizes, a "Glass". The tumbler I choose is the Millennium Falcon.

REVISION:

I landed the other three glasses. Now I can entertain in style!

I managed to obtain all three of the G Prizes, "Visual Sheets", A3 sized plastic prints with wonderful artwork. The first of these is credited to "Papuzza". The others have no credit but seem to be drawn in his style.

I received neither F nor E Prizes, yet I did successfully nab both D Prizes, "Special Posters". Someday, when I clear some space, I may even hang these on the wall.

REVISION:

The F Prize is a "Light Sabre Towel Case" with a Darth towel to boot.

The E Prize is a "Stormtrooper Hood/Blanket". I got two! One to keep, one to give away as a Christmas present!

The dimensions are only 80X60 cm. so they are smaller than the Uniqlo Fleeces but it is still pretty nifty!

No luck on A, B or C yet, I think I'll wait until some of the wheat has been separated from the chaff to improve my chances. (Be sure to click the link at the top of the page to see what these prizes are.)

If you act quickly, you can acquire a mini-Calendar with the purchase of two Onigiri. It has 12 original pieces of postcard-sized art, one for each month.

Somewhat of a non-sequitur with respect to the above, yet hear are two pics I took today in Morioka. The first one is a Crèche that isn't very religious but pretty cool. It is in the Men's washroom at the station!

The other pic is of Iwate-san looking rather chilly.

At each of my weddings today, something occurred that I had never seen before. The first wedding had a poster with the couples' picture upon it and around it were the stems of balloons. A guest places their finger upon a colourful stamp pad and then puts their fingerprint on the poster. Pretty cute idea.
Another first for me at the second wedding. At first I thought it was a typo of bouquet by my wedding coordinator, but no it wasn't.  In addition to the Bouquet toss for the maidens, there was a BROCCOLI toss for the bachelors! An amusing end to a long tiring day.

Let me know if you land the A, B, C, E or F Prize. I will be super-jealous if you get B!

It Is Your Destiny.

A week ago, I'd heard of a "random draw" for 620 yen coming to a conbini on November 26th. Today was the day and I went to 5 different conbini to no avail. At Lawson's though, I did find some new treats, such as these cookies.

Yummy looking, I'll hand these out at training tomorrow (to people that I like, few and far between though they may be.)

These are the Draw items that I'm looking for.

There is not a single item there that I wouldn't mind having. Some worth less than 620, some substantially more. Let's break it down, shall we.

The A Prize is an R2-D2 figure that looks like it can be used in various ways. For example, a pencil, gum, or coffee holder.

This is what I really really want, the B Prize is a nabe pot for cooking soups or stews within!

The C Prize appears to be a Darth Vader and 15 Stormtroopers set.

The D Prize is a special poster set.

The E Prize is a Stormtrooper Hoodie/Blanket, similar to these. 

The F Prize (above) is a towel plus a Lightsabre case.
The G Prize (below) is "Visual sheet" whatever that means.

Winning the H Prize entitles you to one of 4 different glasses.

The I Prize is a quartet of 4 different Chrystal Charms.

Finally, the J Prize are 5 various Art Towels.

If you're lucky enough to be around for the end of the campaign, the one who lands the Last One of the random lot lands a Darth Vader Hoodie and Blanket! Sweet!

You get to keep the lottery paper and that entitles you to a Second Chance at winning one of 50 different figures!

BUT for some reason I expected this campaign to start today. I dug further and discovered that it'll be at 7-11 yet may not begin for another few weeks. Doh!

On the plus side, during my search, I bought several items from Lawson.

I pick up a few more cookies to give out to random pals. Such as this Chewbacca Crisp Choco,

or these Stormtrooper Biz Biscuits.

(UPDATE: the above two items have already been consumed by me.)

Dark Lord DARS chocolate pieces, "Give yourself to the DARS!"

Dried Spicy Ramen noodles.

Yoda's Mame (bean) flavoured potato sticks,

Or Vader's Chili flavoured potato sticks.

The downside of the above snacks is that there are no stickers or anything given away with them. Well, that's one less item I need to collect.

Finally an item I didn't buy but a friend kindly snapped a photo for me, some Chewbacca Caramel Corn twists.