Category: Otaku

The (Long Awaited?) Can Collection Post!

July 15, 2018

I’ve threatened this one a few times over the years: a post about my can collection! I’ve covered some of it before, so I won’t mention them here today. This is the rest of them 🙂

Incidentally I’m not a collector of cans. Im not like these guys! I just keep some every now and then…

I started with the above since I drink the damn stuff every day :< The can on the left is some weird camouflage design, and the one on the right was sold in 2012 to market a Batman film. Both are about 50% taller than normal cans.

Similar to the above, tiny and narrow Lift cans from Oz, and a tiny Fanta can that was in stores last year to (bizarrely) market the new Mummy film!

This set of 8 was out way back when the first Avengers film released. We bought lots of Dr Pepper to get them all, and I recall pouring lots down the sink. I believe I saved three of these sets; and think I gave one each to AW and BS?

I believe the above were for Avengers 2? Again Dr Pepper, but this time I couldn’t get them all because some were only on regional flavors we never saw in shops!

And then they continued the madness with Batman vs Superman…

And Wonder Woman. As you can see I didn’t complete either, again due to the difficulty of getting the weird flavors.

Actually Dr Pepper movie cans have become a bit of an annual thing, although the contrast on this years Jurassic World cans left a bit to be desired:

Again… I only found half of them 😐

Moving away from endless Dr Pepper a while, here we have a lovely Dragonball can from Japan, a customized Coke can that was part of a promotion in Australia, and two game-related energy drink cans.

Here we have Evangelion coffee and a special Hakone-themed beer can (bought in Hakone) both from Japan.

And a variety of additional Japanese cans, including AKB48, Frame Arms and Queens Blade (my only ‘gamebook’ can!). Most of these are energy drinks, and all are the tiny half-sized cans.

Here’s one from 2012: a Michael Jackson Pepsi can! It’s oversized and nicely designed.

And continuing the music theme, three Pepsi cans I bought recently. I don’t drink Pepsi and neither does KLS, so I poured all the contents down the sink…

And I say I’m not a collector! Actually to be completely honest, after photographing all this and making this post I’m wondering just why I keep this stuff? Yes some of the Japanese ones are nostalgic souvenirs (I recall exactly when I bought the Dragonball one for instance) but Michael Jackson?!?

At least they don’t take up too much space 🙂

I’ll end by saying I’m a little disappointed there hasn’t been any additional Star Wars cans released since 1999, especially considering the annual Dr Pepper series. Surely consumers would prefer a Porg can to one with ‘Stiggy’ on it?!?

Air Port Panic

July 8, 2018

In Inverness, a quick search on the information superhighway led me to a used game shop only a few hops and skips away from where we were staying. Of course we wandered over, and found a most intriguing and messy little shop full of records and games.The walls were decorated with album sleeves, mostly examples of 1970s Top Of The Pops ‘cover girl’ compilations like this:

There were loads of records and singles, and even a few cassettes. Disorder was the name of the game, and actually finding anything specific would have been a matter of luck. And yet I reckoned there were treasures in the boxes, and had I not been overseas I may have dug a bit through the vinyl.

Happily the games were sorted, but unfortunately 99% of them were 16 bit or older. I spied a few old Spectrum and CPC computer games, and may have even purchased them if they hadn’t been lacking their sleeves. There were no signs of actual 8-bit computers, or magazines from the 1980s. It looked like I would depart without making a purchase.

And then I saw this:

Its an LCD handheld from 1982! The last game in Bandai’s LCD Solarpower series to be precise, and one of the very few released outside of Japan. I’d never heard of this series of games before, and was intrigued to find that they rely completely on solar power to run.

The Japanese box (mine didn’t come with the box) also shows how it has two layered screens for a very subtle 3D effect. This works well and makes the screens look busier than in the Game & Watch units from Nintendo.Unfortunately the technology requires actual solar power, and doesn’t function at all under artificial lighting!

Furthermore, it’s incredibly difficult to get good photos due to how reflective the screen is, but here’s my best attempts:

Air Port Panic is ridiculously difficult to the point where I suspect it’s slightly buggy. The action seems to lag the processor slightly and you seem to die moments before being hit by a projectile. But this can be accounted for somewhat, and success – reaching the hijacked plane in screen one and reaching the terrorists in screen two can be achieved with practice.

Sadky it’s not much fun, and not just because of the stupid difficulty. You also need to be standing in direct sunlight to play, and even then can hardly see the screen. I can see – impressive tech aside – why Bandai didn’t beat Nintendo in the early 80s handheld wars 🙂

I paid a mere £15 for this gem, which is considerably less than I see then for on eBay. As a game I’ll rarely return to it, but as another for the collection it was a happy find!

Gun Sniper Leena Special

April 15, 2018

I got it into my head that there were too many ‘model assembly’ posts here so cut back on them intentionally. But here I break my own rule because:

1) It’s been a while since I’ve made a ZOID.
2) This kit was a gift from JF.

The kit I refer to is this:

And here are all the pieces before I started assembly:

As usual with these kits, it seemed a bit over engineered, with 3 or 4 pieces going together to form what could have been one. But the quality control was fantastic and although more difficult than your average Gundam everything went together nicely:

Those are the legs and arms, just before I attached them to the rest of the body. It’s ridiculously articulated and I was amazed how well balanced it was:

Here’s the cockpit, complete with tiny pilot:

Yes the orange ‘glass’ canopy opens.

Now I’m no Z.O.I.D. fan (says the guy with 6 pricey kits…) so I can’t give many details about this robot but I can reveal that Gun Snipers are (apparently) semi-autonomous ‘Helic’ ZOIDs created using the ‘Organoid’ system. I’ve no idea who Leena is, but I’m guessing the ‘special’ thing about her ZOID is the ludicrous amount of weaponry it carries.

You see the above shot was only half way through. It took me at least as long again (several hours) to assemble all of the weapons:

Attaching them all to the ZOID itself was no easy task but I managed after a little bit of cursing…

It’s pretty great isn’t it! Here’s an overly-treated scale shot with a LEGO minifig:

Overall a fun build and a spectacular looking kit once complete! Thanks JF!

Robot Claw