A Low Key Birthday.

Since my actual birthday is Christmas and everyone is always busy on that particular day, when I was kid, my family celebrated my birthday on September 29th, St. Michael's Day. Alas, no one ever celebrates that day with me any longer, so I'm forced to celebrate by myself. After a work-related obligation, I popped over to Mandai in Izumi and picked up a couple of Q-Poskets of Loki. (Loki = Low Key, see what I did there?)

 

He's so dreamy!

 

A couple of months ago, I scored Iron Man and Tony and Spider-Man and Peter.

    

I've had these Harley Quinn figures for a while. Not to be confused with the Harley in this post.

I also managed to complete the pair of Catwomen.

  

Furthermore I have Loki's brother, Thor with and without an eye patch.

 

I really like the design on these Supergirl Qs.

 

I have a few loose ones, such as Newt,

Ariel,

and a recently-acquired Merida. (Yeah, I've got a thing for animated redheads.)

While there, I saw a stack of Movie Pamphlets for sale at 10 for 300 yen. Usually, they're 100 yen each. I couldn't see what was in the stack but since this one was The Meg and the other was Ghostbusters, I decided to chance it.

At least 15/20 are great and I'll take a look at them daily starting October 1st, during the Countdown to Halloween. Details to follow...

Meanwhile Happy Pseudo-Birthday to me!! 

Crayon Shin-Godzilla-chan!

On Sunday, I happened to be wandering S-Pal in Sendai Station and discovered a new shop embedded between a Snoopy Store and a Rirakuma Shop. It's the Crayon Shinchan Original Shop.

I'm not a huge fan of Crayon, but I browsed around just to see if there were any unique Halloween goodies. Nope. But I did discover this pair of socks!

Hey Michael, didn't you write about Crayon Shinchan vs Godzilla about 5 years ago? The answer is Yes I did. At that time, I didn't bother to look into any merchandise though, thanks to one of my roving reporters, this has been discovered...

Okay, unless you are able to enlarge that, you won't know what I'm talking about. Here we go again.

That tailless kaiju is actually a coin bank and by removing the buttocks, you can access the loot.
One lucky recipient of 怪獣シリマルダシ (kaijū shirimarudashi) shows off his purchase:



Wait a sec., how come I'd never heard of this before? Shinchan vs. Shin-Godzilla!



Just in case you couldn't figure it out, here is a subbed version of one of those previews:



There is a full-length crossover movie out there somewhere, I just need to research further...
Meanwhile, here are a couple of pics:

Ya know, speaking of crossovers, here is a independent comic written about a young gal with a Shin-fetish checking out a bunch of military vehicles. It's called Einsatz Gruppe and Manitou vs. Shin-Godzilla and it is pretty wacky.

Here's a sampling of its contents.

The author/artist hard at work.

Finally a friend reminded me of this crossover between Kemono Friends and Shin-Godzilla.

You can see a few more pictures at the bottom of this blogpost.

Stay tuned, it isn't long until the Countdown to Halloween!

Happy Batday to You!

The third Saturday in September has been designated Batman Day and I almost forgot about it! Earlier this week, I had framed my profile pic in the Bat-Signal and here's what it looks like:

Other than that, I'd neglected to do anything batty today until I recalled the date. (I blame the Mad Hatter!) So what I've done is just look around my room without digging through boxes or cupboards and see what Bat-paraphernalia I have sitting around. First up are some Bobbleheads that forewarn me of impending earthquakes.

I have yet to try and assemble this Brickhead, I'm afraid of losing some pieces in the process.

What follows are a few figures I've acquired over the last few years.

Without picking up the display case and jostling my Batmobiles, I've taken a picture from afar.

Unbelievably, the only Funko I have of Batman!

When I was home last spring, I emptied out my storage locker and sold 20 boxes of books. I managed to salvage this novelization.

Not as quite good as Ninja Batman, Samurai Batman runs a close second.

I scored this Big-Little Book-sized book of Detective Comics covers and decided to crack it open.

My favourite ally/foe of Batman is Manbat so I chose 5 Neal Adams covers featuring our Chiropteran friend.

For a serious discussion on Manbat, I suggest you watch this:



In honour of my friend Yvonne who I nicknamed Batgirl, here is her debut.

Finally, my proudest possession is this autographed photo by Adam West!

I've put out a request of my Tokyo pals to try and take a photo of the Bat-Signal as it shines on Shibuya 109, I hope I get some responses. Check out this list for the Bat-Signal nearest you.

REVISION:
I managed to find a pic on the net of the Bat-Signal and here is a link to a countdown to the turn-on!