Ramen Universes Beyond: Batman

February 19th, 2023

Over the last several years I have reviewed an amazing 51 different chicken ramen products. But it’s now been almost a year since I found a new one to try, and not for lack of searching! I even kept my eyes open in Japan, but despite plain chicken ramen being one of the first flavours ever marketed, I couldn’t find a single example.

Since I enjoy the occasional ramen blog, and because of this chicken dearth, it’s time for a companion series! Today is the first entry in a probably very sporadic licensed ramen series. And we’ll start with this one:

This was a Japan pickup: a Batman themed ‘garlic shrimp’ flavoured instant ramen. It’s a big, beefy man-sized cup with beautiful graphics on the side and lid:

But the real treat comes when you open the lid, since it also contains bat-symbol narutomaki, a traditional ramen inclusion in Japan made from tiny dried fish cakes:

As you can see there’s no flavor sachets: it is impregnated into the noodles which seems common for Japanese instant ramen. There was a strong garlic smell as soon as I peeled back the lid, and this became much stronger when the water was added,:

The dried shrimp, veggies and narutomaki puffed up as they reconstituted and the soup looked quite tasty once it was prepared! Even though I was sure I’d hate this, it was time to give it a try:

The product contains 372 kCal of energy, 6.6g of salt and 12.7 grams of fat, all somewhat normal for a ramen. Despite the strong smell, I was surprised that the taste was quite mild, and I could barely taste garlic at all. It tasted unpleasantly seafoody, and the aftertaste was disagreeable. The noodles were extremely tough – almost plastic – and it’s likely I didn’t let it sit enough before eating. KLS tried it as well, and was as unimpressed as I.

Because of the lovely packaging this one is more ‘for the collection’ than for eating, and would look lovely on the shelf of a Batman collector. Even though the little Batman fish cakes were superb, my verdict is that as a meal this ramen was a dud.

The Magnet-Mages

February 16th, 2023

It’s time for the second installment in my magnet series! Sure it’s been almost five years since the last, but there’s been a development.

For the first time ever, I sorted through our voluminous abundance of magnets, discarding and rearranging them, and clearing some space on our fridge for new additions. In doing this – which took much longer than expected – I thought it a good time to showcase a few.

Some of the oldest magnets we own are Pokémon and Digimon ones bought almost 30 years ago. I’m surprised they’ve lasted so long since they’re so cheaply made: just a sticker on a plastic base. Even though they’re a little low-rent, now we’ve had them for so long they’ve endeared themselves to us.

Back in 2019 when I was in Tokyo with Bernard I picked up the above magnet of ‘Someity’, one of the two Olympic mascots. She was supposed to evoke a cherry blossom, and merchandise of her (and her brother) was abundant. She looks a bit like a Pokémon doesn’t she? The Rey is a large static cling we’ve had for about a decade but I no longer remember where I got it.

A few years back I visited Forster with Sue and picked up this magnet. Thermometer magnets like this are trash of course, and questionably accurate, but there’s a lot of good in a bad magnet! Apparently it is possible to take whale cruises from Forster… maybe I should investigate that more one day?

A recent purchase! I got this striking metal embossed magnet (it’s about 10 cm wide) from the Ultra shop/exhibition in Nakano. This is a wonderful magnet, but it was a tad expensive. I wish I’d bought more though.

Not a magnet, but the above is our first ever ‘digital photo print’. This photo of Daisy was taken and printed on a dot-matrix printer when she was a little kitten. Its wonderfully low-tech and quaint, and since it is over 25 years old now I recently embossed so it lasts forever 🙂

Can you guess where we bought this? I’ve read that tourists can’t get very close to Stonehenge anymore, since they’ve moved the barrier back even farther than when we visited twelve years ago. I’ll always remember that as a special day.

A few years ago Florence texted me a photo of the above magnet, so naturally I had to buy it. I laughed aloud when it arrived and was about five times the size I thought from the pic. There were two to choose from, the other being Putin. I made the right choice.

I don’t recall exactly where I bought the above, but they feel like they’ve been on the fridge forever. The Luke is permanently attached to the base, but the other two can be replaced with any minifig. I recently had a look in the LEGO shop to see if you can still purchase these magnetic bases and they’re no longer made. A shame, since I think they’re great.

One of my all-time favourite magnets! This was purchased in Nara (Japan) back in 1997. Nara is the city with all the deer oft visited by school groups hence the design (the deer is wearing a school backpack). It’s only about an inch high, and its smile is infectious! I want to return to Nara one day…

Two ‘home made’ magnets. The bottom I made, and the top was bought on Etsy. It’s a 3D printed skull painted black with gold accents. I bought this as a gift for Bernard but liked it so much I kept it 🙂

I wonder if these sort of magnets – funny ones with jokes on them – are made in other countries? This is one of the better ones I’ve got, and for a long while lived on the whiteboard in my office at school.

The traditional ‘lake monster’ magnet, displayed alongside a couple of others also from Inverness. I bought all these the day we went to see the loch. That was another great day, since it was a place I had wanted to visit since childhood.

These are extremely high-quality mini Star Wars magnets. These were a series of blind-box items from over a decade ago, and I first bought them in Japan and then at Target when they were (surprisingly!) released here. I’ve got lots, and they’re now all together on the fridge. Can you name all these characters?

The above are our front doors, now covered in magnets from all over the world. There’s still space though, but I’ve probably got another twenty or so years before I need to sort them again…

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

February 2nd, 2023

This will be the last of my Japan pickup posts. While I have a few other items that will eventually be shown here, I’m going to end the series with my favourite items that I purchased during the recent trip: Wizardry games.

As many of you know, I’ve sold off a large chunk of my game collection these past five or so years. Amidst this I chose to focus on collecting one series, and it’s Wizardry, which I’ve been playing since I was a boy! I’ve bought games in the series before in Japan (all the way back to our first trip in 2002!) but this time I really hit the jackpot.

The game on the left is a Saturn port of an adventure-style Wizardry spinoff, which is apparently quite poor. On the right is the Saturn port of Wizardry VI and VII, two of the series best. It’s supposed to be a good port, albeit somewhat slow. I’d never seen either before and was surprised how reasonably priced they both were.

Here’s the PC Engine port of Wizardry 5. I now own four versions of this game! According to what I read it’s a fairly good port, but the slow CD speed makes the SNES version the one to play. This one was about the cost of a brand new game.

Here’s a couple of curios: Wizardry Empire II and Wizardry Dimguil, two Japan-only games. As I’ve mentioned on the blog before Wizardry continued in Japan long after it ended in the west and all sorts of weird and wonderful installments were made. Without getting into needless detail, the Empire games introduced certain innovations without straying too far from the old game design, while Dimguil is a faithful installment in the old style that also added polygon dungeons and enemies.

And here we have Wizardry Xth, Wizardry Alternative Neo and Elminage III. The first was the game that ‘modernized’ Wizardry and would eventually lead to the Class of Heroes RPG series (and it’s own spin-offs!). Busin-0 is the Japan-only sequel to the last Wizardry game ever released in the west (Tales of the Forsaken Land) and Elminage III… well let’s say it’s an important ‘Wizardry adjacent’ game 😉

None of these – or the preceeding PS1 games – were cheap, and in some cases cost more than a typical new game. All are in fantastic condition, complete with box and all inclusions. If you’re keeping track then no, I can’t play any of these since I don’t have the Japanese consoles. Except for Elminage of course (I still have my PSP), which I plan to play one day.

I also found these four hint guides! Two of them are for games shown above, but the other two are for games I don’t have. Throb of The Demon’s Heart is a SNES game, and if I ever see it for sale I don’t doubt the price will bring a tear to my eye. Likewise for Wizardry Xth 2, the PS2 sequel to the one I bought. Why are Wizardry games so expensive! It’s not like there could be many collectors focused on this series?

The books are all great, packed with details such as dungeon maps, monsters, items and strategies for building your party. The latter ones are full colour (and fairly lengthy) but the SNES one – almost 30 years old now! – is all black and white. The above pic is an example page, which shows a fiendish dungeon that appears to be mapped on the face of a cube!

Speaking of books, when I saw the above packaged as a set I was literally speechless. They were in one of Mandarake’s glass cases, tightly bound together, and I didn’t know what they were at first. The price was high, and when I asked for a look the cashier misunderstood me, took them out, and rung them up! Of course I bought them, and I’m happy I did.

They are a six-volume series of hint guides for the first four Wizardry games. The books seem to be written for computer players (they reference Japanese systems of the day such as the FM-7 and PC-88) although I’m sure they work with any versions of the games. The interior and cover art is beautiful, the the detailed contents astounding!

The first and third games have two books each, and the other two just one. The extra books (for games one and three) are dedicated ‘monster manuals’ with two pages for every beast! These books are magnificent and such an incredible find: a ‘grail’ item I didn’t even know existed.

Speaking of treasures, I also bought the Wonderswan version of Wizardry 1. This was expensive: in fact it was the 4th most expensive game I’ve ever bought, at about thrice the cost of a new game. This is because it’s very rare, and because it was complete including an unused sticker sheet:

I have a Wonderswan, and plan on playing through this one day. Yes it’s in Japanese, but google translate these days is a wizard (no pun intended) and will more than suffice.

And the bonanza didn’t stop there! I found the above trio at Mandarake Nakano, and spent at least one minute deliberating before handing over my credit card and buying the three most expensive games I’ve ever bought. These are the (Japan-only) Gameboy Color versions of the first three games in the series, and are in fantastic condition. One of the biggest deciders in me splurging on these is the fact I can play them all on one of my many GBC’s, and will.

With 12 new (old!) games and 10 books my Wizardry collection expanded a lot this past trip (here’s an old post about it)! And yet I didn’t buy everything I saw, since even for a no-budget Wizardry collector some items were a bit too pricey, such as a factory sealed Empire II (the same one I bought for ~$40) for $300+, a 3DS Elminage game for $130 (which I couldn’t play since the 3DS is region locked) or a ‘greatest hits’ version of Busin for $100+ (I own the USA version).

And then there was the above soundtrack CD for about $220, which suggests that it is spectacularly rare.

Or these metal miniatures for tabletop RPG play. Give they are sealed, and probably insanely rare, I was a fool for passing on them at ~$70. If they’re there when I next visit (they won’t be) I’ll get them for sure.

Despite this bounteous haul, the two items I was really after – both of Jun Suemi’s Wizardry art books – eluded me. Both are very expensive now, so if I ever do find one I’ll be paying out the nose.

And when I do, you can read about it here 🙂

Japan Pickups: Model Kits

January 29th, 2023

One category I hoped to refill in Japan was model kits, since I’d built all the ones I had and needed new ones. They’re also usually much cheaper to buy in Japan than in the USA. However I had no particular kits in mind, so what did I find?

This is a stylish female robot kit that was designed for pose-ability. It was manufactured in many different color combinations and I had my pick. I remember seeing this in Australia for about $100 back in June but bought this at Yellow Submarine in Akiba for under $20!

I don’t know the character but I thought the kit was cute and the price – about $8 – was too good to resist. Visiting Japan at new years and taking advantage of the sales turned out to be a good thing!

The Umamusume anime – about horses anthropomorphized as young women – is very popular in Japan right now and there’s loads of merchandise available. Early in the trip I saw this kit in a glass resellers case in Akiba for a too-high price and vowed to find an affordable one. Despite my best attempts searching the many shops that sold new kits I never succeeded (which is weird; why isn’t a Bandai kit available?) but then on the penultimate day found a new one for a great price (about $30) at Akiba Mandarake. This one will be fun to build 🙂

There’s a wide range of Ultraman kits available now, and I’ve already made a half dozen of them. The above was a new release, and a no-brainer pickup at under $20.

Despite the low cost and light weight of these things they take up a fair amount of luggage space! This was one of the reasons we bought a new suitcase in Japan. In total our four suitcases weighed over 140 lbs!

Lastly I found the above on our unexpected last day. It was very cheap, was the only time I’d ever seen it, and it called to me so I got it and found space for it in our already-packed suitcases! Just now I built it:

It only has about 20 pieces including creepy rubbery gums. The mechanism to open the jaw is impressively simple and it works very well. It only took me a (fun) half hour or so to assemble:

This one will go to work and be displayed on a cabinet next to my dinosaur skeleton kit.

Japan Pickups: Ultraman

January 23rd, 2023

Some more items I got in Japan; this time Ultraman figures!

Before arriving in Japan, I didn’t even know Zoffy was in Shin Ultraman. So my amazement when I found out, coupled with how beautiful his design in the film is, meant I absolutely wanted this figure.

This is the ‘S.H. Figuarts’ version, and was very difficult to find! I never saw a brand new one, and ended up paying ¥7700 for an ‘opened but unused’ version. As it turned out the only part that was opened was the box, since the figure was still sealed in the plastic trays and had the factory plastic on its joints.

Isn’t he wonderful? I can’t wait to see the film and his role in it, but I hope/assume it’s the same as his appearance in the original Ultraman series.

Speaking of Shin Ultraman I also picked up this metal figure made by toy car maker Takara Tomy. It’s small and cute, and will sit on my desk (next to a metal Rilakkuma!) forever 🙂

There’s an astonishingly large amount of inexpensive plastic Ultraman figures (over 200 I believe) targeted at kids, and the range is so large it’s a bit difficult to choose. I already had a few of my favourites but picked up Ultraseven, 80, (another) Shin Zoffy as well as two others for their visual design: Kaiser Belial and Dark Tiga. I love these little plastic guys, and I can’t imagine not buying more next time I visit.

These are just the figures: I picked up a few other Ultraman items during our recent trip, such as cards, a tin, a book and one other item you’ll see an upcoming pickup post.