31 March 2013

Easter Break

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Easter bunny chocolate from Archangeli, photo by Stepswalker.

Time flies, and we are now a quarter past 2013. Wish everyone had a great Easter!

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While there was a 4-day Easter holiday for me, I could not get to enjoy to the best of the extend due to some medication disaster I have to recover from. There are a lot of things I wanted to do, but ended up not being able to do so.

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Photo by Stepswalker

Nevertheless, it's great to meet up with Archangeli on Friday, who came to Hong Kong for a day, together with fellow local doll mates such as TonyBSD, Stepswalker, and XOHimitsuOX. I rarely bring my Black★Rock Shooter out, so it's nice to do so for a change now and then. Thank you for the great night out!
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30 March 2013

Dragon Can.Do 1/144 Warrior (UNPROFOR)

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Although having collected 1/144 scale tanks and other military vehicles for nearly 10 years, I still have a couple of rare or special ones not in my collection until the recent years, where I have been able to acquire them via the Internet or informed by friends. This time it's not of a WWII tank, but a military vehicle from the modern era - the British Warrior.

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The FV 510 Warrior tracked armoured vehicle is an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) for the British Army, much like the M2 Bradley of the US Army. For those who don't know what that means, it's basically an armoured troop carrier with an automatic cannon mounted on top so that it can fight alongside with the infantry it carries.

This Warrior is from Dragon's Can.do Challenger II & Warrior shokugan series, which has a assorted mixture of the Challenger II tanks and Warrior IFVs.

THE BOSNIAN CIVIL WAR:  BRITISH FORCES WITH THE UNITED NATIONS PROTECTION FORCE IN BOSNIA AND CROATIA, 1992 - 1995
THE BOSNIAN CIVIL WAR:  BRITISH FORCES WITH THE UNITED NATIONS PROTECTION FORCE IN BOSNIA AND CROATIA, 1992 - 1995
This particular Warrior I have depicts from the Cheshire Regiment, UNPROFOR in 1992, which was the name of the UN peacekeeping force when it first fought during the Yugoslav Wars.


White colour stands out a lot from normal sceneries, but this is intended for UN peacekeeping force; instead of camouflaging themselves they must let everyone know of their presence. But I tried looking for relevant landscape to go with it.
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28 March 2013

Gundam Battle Operation now in Hong Kong

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Mobile Suit Gundam's free-to-play multiplayer team action game is now available on Hong Kong PlayStation Network! Originally available on Japanese PSN only,

The game is a little similar to the online multiplayer counterpart of XBOX360's Operation Troy (aka Mobile Ops: The One Year War), where you can fight in MS as well as on foot, with the latter taking more of a role of taking control points and destroying objectives. Overall the gameplay can be compared to the popular Battlefield series.

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Each team (Federation and Zeon) start out near their base and work their way to capture control points (for spawning and scoring points). Apart from taking down enemies and capturing control points, one can also set a timed bomb and destroy the enemy's main base, which will score a great amount of points. The battle ends when the time is up, and the side with more points being the winner.

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As more games are played, more points and schematics can be obtained for new MS, parts, and weapons. Once a particular schematic is completed you can use the points to unlock it. The new content will then be available for customisation.

However, there are restrictions for free-to-play. There are restrictions on how many times you can go on a battle: There are 3 "energy slots", and one gets used up per battle. They will get recovered over time, or one can pay money in order to play more games consecutively.

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I played a few games on the beginner-friendly battles. Combat system takes a small time to get used to (as I suck aiming at enemies with an analog stick), but the game does offer a fair amount of customisation as you play more. The only problem I have at the moment is how it is not easy to start a game, as a room has to be full with all players ready before the game can start. There are several occasions where one cannot join any rooms, or that the wait for the last player to get readied takes too long and people come in and out indefinitely. Hopefully this will get fixed soon.


Here is the official trailer for the Hong Kong version. Don't worry too much about the Chinese if you cannot read them; the video is fairly self-explanatory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCnxENdOu3g


Official Hong Kong website:
http://bo-asia.ggame.jp/zh-HK/

Official Taiwan website:
http://bo-asia.ggame.jp/zh-TW/
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23 March 2013

2013 C3 in Hong Kong Coverage

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The 4th C3 in Hong Kong event occurred over last weekend. This came a week late, but hopefully it's not too late!

Captions will be filled later! Also check out Shuichi Ikeda's (Char Aznable's seiyuu) stage appearance in the previous post!

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One Piece 1/1 scale character stands

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Gundam faction badges gachapons at Bandai's shop area

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"Smartpants" - underwear for smartphones anyone?

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Premium Bandai stuff: "Lighting wings" effect parts for upcoming RG 1/144 Destiny Gundam

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RG 1/144 Zeta Gundam Unit 3

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MG 1/100 Johnny Ridden's MS-06S Zaku

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Black Lotus Ovedrive Mode Green

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Robot Damashii Psycho Frame Initiation version

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SHFiguarts Frieza

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D-Arts Metal Garurumon

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Now for upcoming Gunpla kits: HGUC 1/144 Full Armour Unicorn Gundam

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MG 1/100 Jesta

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MG 1/100 ReZEL Defenser Type a + b

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Event exclusive Gunpla: HGUC 1/144 Unicorn Gundam 02 Banshee Norn Extra Finish ver

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Early release of SD Unicorn Gundam Banshee action figure, with Unicorn Gundam next to it for comparison

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SD Full Armour Unicorn Gundam action figure, display only

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HGUC 1/144 Gundam Ez8

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HG 1/144 Gundam AGE-1 Gransa

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MG 1/100 Aile Strike Gundam HD version (what's wrong with the wings though? ^^;)

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HG 1/144 Astray Blue Frame 2nd L

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Diorama

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Byarlant Custom vs Marasai

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End of episode 5

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Line art for episode 6

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Stand arts for Kyousougiga (京騒戯画)

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Gundam Battle Operation, a free-to-play game on PS3 originally for Japanese PSN accounts, is finally coming to Hong Kong too!

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Upcoming Unicorn Gundam 02 Banshee 1/35 scale head stand on display from Hobby Japan booth

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Collaboration project between Bandai (namely mecha designer Okawara Kunio) and Threezero

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Now into Tamashii Nations stuff. First off is the chogokin "Disney Combiner", featuring Mickey and his friends as some sort of super robots

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D-Arts Alisa Ilinichina Amiella from PSP game GOD EATER

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Metal Build Gundam Exia / Exia Repair III

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Code Geass Akito the Exiled banner

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Alexander Knightmares plamos for Code Geass Akito the Exiled

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New mecha Valvrave plamo for upcoming mecha anime Valvrave the Liberator

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Sunrise has a huge signing board for anyone to feel free to sign or draw pictures on

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Evangelion statues and a cosplayer (but I don't recognise the character she's cosplaying as)

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Kadokawa pavilion

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Artwork from Boku ha Tomotachi ga Sugunai (meaning "I have few friends") aka "Haganai"

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Cospa t-shirt of Master Asia from G Gundam, which is Hong Kong exclusive

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Toys distributor Elite Toys diplaying figures from Goodsmile Company, Max Factory, and ALTER

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figma Ultimate Madoka

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Belldandy with Holy Bell figure

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figma Anzu Futaba and Rin Shibuya from THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls

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Nendoroid Petite: IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls - Anzu, Kaede and Rika + Live Stage Set

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Nendoroid Sakura Miku

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Nendoroid Snow Miku Strawberry White Kimono version

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There is a small section for photographing cosplayers with

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Miku cosplayer in wedding dress

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Silica from Sword Art Online

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Nyaruko from Hayore! Nyaruko-san and Kirito from Sword Art Online

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Nyaruko and Ezio Auditore da Firenze from Assassin's Creed II

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Athena and Seiya from Saint Seiya

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Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee from Macross Frontier

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Saber in her casual cloths from Fate/stay Night

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Danboard from Yotsuba

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Serra from Final Fantasy XIII-2

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???

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Snow Miku

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One final shot at the venue before leaving.


Just like previous years, C3 in Hong Kong is a much more spacious event compared to ACGHK in the summers. I usually don't take pictures of cosplayers, but this year's cosplaying seems to have improved a lot, which is a good thing (as I tend to be quite picky on this). The organisers seems quite pleased with this year's event, and announced that they will make a return next year! Hopefully this will be an annual event like ACGHK is!
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