I really love my new job (teaching at the Elementary Schools in Watari) but there is one snag to the whole gig. My commute takes me by several geeky venues at which I am sorely tempted daily to pick some geeky items.
Case in point, this 1986 DorMei Godzilla figure purchased at Second Street, a second-hand store. Awesome looking though slightly off-model.
Speaking of Godzilla, I saw this poster in the window of 7-11 suggesting you buy advanced tickets. The bad news is that the Mecha-Godzilla mentioned at the bottom of the poster is no longer available to win.
Across the street is the incomparable Mandai. I was there when I first started the job in April and managed to depart without buying a thing. During my last trip, I was not so fortunate.
3 mini-discs of Pink Lady, a disco duet from the 80s. Click that link and you'll understand my obsession.
Two Dynamic Game Blocks of Go Nagai's characters. Though I'd heard of シスタージル Sister Jiru, I've never seen ゴール Goal before. If I can find the others as cheaply as 150￥, I plan to get the rest.
A couple of Dark Knight Bearbricks. The Catwoman was twice as expensive as the Batman.
A couple of packages of loot, one of some Ultraman figures et al. and one of Attack on Titan stuff. I'll open those later.
And the best for last, two cars from Wacky Races; the Japanese version is called チキチキマシン猛レース (Chiki-Chiki Machine Fierce Race). I got the best two of these probable Gacha-capsule cars, #1 is the Boulder Mobile driven by the Slag Brothers and #2, the Creepy Coupe driven by the Gruesome Twosome.
Now that I know these exist, I have to track down the others!
I missed out seeing it in Canada when it premiered there so I was forced to watch it here in Japan, unfortunately dubbed into Japanese. To its credit, the dubbing is well done but it is very frustrating that there are NO viewings of the movie with English. (Why do they promote the Hollywood voice actors here when only a very few cinemas in Japan show the movie in English?) I've complained about this before and I'm sure I'll complain about it again. Oh well, I suppose I can accredit it to my need to study Japanese.
As the title of this post alludes to, the movie I'm talking about is Zootopia. If you haven't seen it yet, run out and do so. It's wonderful. (Even in Japanese.) I'm sure many of the jokes went over my head, for that matter, they went over the heads of all the other audience members. No one in the joint was laughing. At my showing, there were no kids, just adults silently sitting there watching the animation before them.
NOTE TO HOLLYWOOD! My idea for a sequel involves the Zootopia gang getting into an altercation with chimps, monkeys, gorillas, etc. from Simiantown. "Forget it, Judy. It's Simiantown!"
You heard it here first!
I didn't see the movie upon its Japanese premiere though I did snap up a few items just in case they sell out quickly. A couple of Clear Files (of course):
Front above; reverse below.
Front above; reverse below.
Front above; reverse below...and
Interior.
We DO need some stinkin' badges!
A couple of stamps.
Not bad looking, I'll have to head back to the Movix in Rifu to see if there are any left.
Giant movie poster:
Before it premiered, I was lucky enough to win these four characters for only 7 bucks. Not bad!
On Saturday, I slyly nabbed a fox on only my second try. Not quite as lucky with the other large plush.
At UFO Catcher today, I espied this sextet of mini-plush toys and was happy to see 4/6 of the lesser famous characters.
This particular venue has very week arms to its cranes and thus I was only able to tame a shrew.
At the Disney Store, one can buy some Zootopia Tsum Tsum, yet at 620 each, it would take a lot of cash to make your pyramid.
I have nothing against Shakira (prior to this, I had never heard of her), but I think I prefer the Japanese version.
It's sung by Dream Amiand I think she has a lovely voice.
Which do you prefer? Also, where the heck is her biggest fan, the obese cheetah Officer Benjamin Clawhauser, plush figure??
As an aside, I thought this deep chinned Jay Leno lookalike orca was kind of cool.
I may try and get the panda or croc.
Aside #2. From what I understand, several Furry conventions were renting out entire theatrical presentations of this movie so they could enjoy the movie in all its anthropomorphic glory. I don't know if the VancouFUR furries were attending a movie showing yet the Hotel in which they were housed was also where several hundred recent Somalian refugees were also placed. Welcome to North America!!
On this date, when I remember to do so, I preview a little Oz book in honour of the birth date of Frank L. Baum. Rather than dig through myOzu archives myself and figure out which books I've already done, I will show the covers of all the Japanese books I own*. (Click that link or the handy label at the bottom of this post to see them.)
Starting with the Hard covers...
The smaller paperbacks are quite ubiquitous, one can find them in any bookstore, some conbini and there are often a few for sale in the used bookstores. I donated several of these to a Winkie Convention (a convention for Oz-ophiles) and they were auctioned off with half of the proceeds going towards Japan Red Cross!
I've only seen this variation of the above once, though it is very nifty. A similar edition yet with a trio of figures from the anime.
I have picked up two different paperbacks even though they only have a few pictures and way too many actual words for me to attempt reading.
Finally, here is an odd program from an independent play of Oz.
(*I think I may have some more books in a box somewhere, in which case, I'll update this entry.)
