Posted on

A look at modeling magazines and books at Bookman’s Academy in Maebashi

On the last Friday of June, after dinner in Maebashi we went to Bookman’s Academy, a nice two-story bookstore on the road straight south from the sushi restaurant we ate at. This bookstore not only has a great selection of modeling magazines, but upstairs in the “subculture” category, there are many books about modeling. First I’ll show you the magazine section.

Here you’ll see Armour Modelling with Umi Shinonome gracing the cover with her own color of paint (as shown above), Artpla, a Model Art mook on painting, Model Cars, a mook on modeling tools (I believe by Model Art), Figure King (covering pre-painted figures as well as kits), Macross Mechanics (a mook devoted to Macross modeling), a mook on painting techniques for WWII camouflage patterns from various countries, and something about the Yamato. To the far right you’ll see a couple of magazines about firearm replicas, which I am really not into. Looking down, you’ll see this:

Here are issues of Hobby Japan, Model Graphix, Scale Aviation, and Model Art. Oh, but that’s not all. I actually didn’t show you the row of modeling mooks on the shelf between these two pictures.

Here is a look at the Macross Mechanics modeling mook. This is the summer issue. Alright, now let’s head upstairs to the subculture section. This should blow you away.

Here are the magazines along the top. Gundam Archives is put out by Model Graphix magazine. These are mooks that are collections of Gunpla builds featured in the magazine. They also have Macross Archives and Votoms Archives that I’ve seen. In the middle is the SD Gundam Perfect Modeling Manual, and to the right is one on Ultraman models.

Look at all of these Gunpla modeling books! Here they have the Gundam Sentinel book, a compilation of the Sentinel articles once featured in Model Graphix magazine. Lots of other stuff too, like Hobby Japan Vintage, Hobby Japan Extra (these are mooks focusing on different subjects), more Gundam Archives issues, a book on Gundam MSV, and I spot a Scope Dog Votoms book. Looks like it might come with a model, the way it’s in a box like that.

Lots of other stuff, too! Model lighting, AFV, a book on building an F-14 Tomcat which actually covers the work of an American modeler building Tamiya’s Tomcat, various 72nd scale plane modeling books, and so on. This is the store where I bought the book showcasing modeling workbenches of several famous modelers, as well as the model lighting book by Dorobou Hige.

Here’s the Votoms Archives mook I mentioned, with a look inside. I love the paint scraping detail on the legs, from the armored skirt. Fantastic detail.

Here’s a book called “Soul of the 1/72 Scale” (ナナニイの魂) which covers multiple plane subjects in that scale.

Bookman’s Academy has such a fantastic selection of modeling books. I always enjoy going to this store with my family.

Posted on

Kuroda Toy Store in Maebashi

Mayu discovered a store called Kuroda Toy Doll （黒田人形店）in Maebashi’s Central Shopping Arcade on the internet and on Saturday we went there to check it out. Shoutengai （商店街）are covered shopping arcades and a tradition of Japan. Unfortunately, sometimes these shopping arcades have grown unsuccessful over the years with empty real estate. In English they call this one Maebashi Rose Avenue and this is where Kuroda is located. We’ve only ever been to this shopping arcade once before, when we happened to be in the area during the Tanabata Festival in July several years ago.

Kuroda specializes in traditional toys, so basically nothing which involves video screens. The first thing I noticed upon entering was their selection of Tomica cars.

Misato’s car from Evangelion.

Macross and Gundam Tomica!

Back to the Future Part III and Castle of Cagliostro cars. I bought the BttF III Delorean with the ’50s tires at Village Vanguard earlier this year. I hadn’t seen the one with train wheels until now.

A nice, modest selection of plastic models was there. Here’s the Gunpla selection. I bought the F91 Gundam kit at this store.

Here are car, ship, castle, and other plastic models.

An RC Delorean from Back to the Future! I’ve never seen this before.

There were many older anime and game figures. Here’s Kasumi from Dead or Alive and Mai from King of Fighters.

Plenty of traditional, wooden toys too. A meow-meow tower and… a toy for Klingons? Oh never mind… that would be “Qapla,” not “Kapla.”

There were so many different toys there, such as kendama, plush dolls, and so on. My daughter Ulan wanted the bullet plushy from Super Mario Bros and I got the F91 Gundam model. It’s a neat store.

Posted on

“Macross: Do You Remember Love?” movie re-released in movie theaters!

To commemorate the release of “Macross: Do You Remember Love?” on 4k bluray, the movie has been simultaneously re-released on the big screen, shown exclusively at Toho Theaters. From where I live, the two closest Toho theaters are either in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture or Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture.

My friend Adrian and I went to see the movie at the Toho Cinema in Utsunomiya. My friend was only familiar with Plus and Frontier, but had never seen the original. It was shown on screen 6 and there was this mini poster outside of the entrance in the picture above. It was an incredible experience to see this in a theater for the first time.

It was fully surround sound, too. In 2020, during the beginning of the madness of the era of Corona-chan when every other theater seat was taped off for the purposes of the “social distancing” nonsense (junk science), several Studio Ghibli movies were being shown in theaters to keep their revenue going. I took the opportunity to see Nausicaa at the cinema. It was in stereo only, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but only the front two left/right speakers were active. If they would have just had all of the left speakers duplicated for the left channel and all of the right speakers active for the right channel it wouldn’t have been so noticeable, but only the front two speakers by the screen were active and it took a while to get used to that. It was a cool experience to see Nausicaa on the big screen, but with the sound the way it was, it felt like I was watching it on a very big TV screen, far away. Seeing DYRL really dwarfed that experience.

The beginning of the credits with the song “Tenshi no Enogu” featured the animation from Flashback, which has been the standard since the second laserdisc release. The decapitation scenes were not edited, so this was the original movie experience (plus the Flashback concert animation). I’m gonna buy this release.

I’m glad my friend could go with me. My daughter calls this the “uaki (“cheating”) movie” because she was on Team Minmay when she first saw it, and was offended when Hikaru kissed Misa in the underwater city. I have this same movie poster on my wall, so I guess she was expecting the movie to be a love story between Hikaru and Minmay and she got pissed. So whenever I’d play this laserdisc movie, she’d gripe a bit. Now I wanna get it on bluray and make her gripe more!

We both had popcorn in the theater, but after the movie we were hungry for dinner. Since we were in Utsunomiya and it was Adrian’s first time visiting the city, we found a gyoza restaurant in front of Utsunomiya Station. Utsunomiya is famous for gyoza, after all.

There were many types of gyoza to choose from. This is “pakchi gyoza.” “Pakchi” is the Thai word for coriander, or “cilantro” as it’s known by in the USA where we use the Spanish word for the herb. Many people in Japan hate pakchi because to them it smells like stinkbugs. I’ve heard that said often. I really do not think it smells like stinkbugs at all. It has such a fresh, green smell that I find refreshing. Fortunately, my wife likes pakchi. It’s amusing because most Japanese people love eating natto, which stinks and its taste triggers my puking instinct. I can’t describe its stench, but it really smells bad. So in the same way many Japanese people cannot eat pakchi, I cannot eat natto. I could taste spicy nampla (fish sauce), giving the gyoza a Thai-style taste. Garnished with cilantro on top, it was very good. The restaurant also had “negi mayo” (green onion and mayonnaise) as well as cheese gyoza. Fantastic food. I didn’t have any alcohol because I had to drive us back home to Gunma Prefecture.

We listened to a lot of Ramones and The Clash in the car there and back. It was a great evening.

Posted on

I got a new hand-me-down laptop! Linux Mint Macross desktop wallpaper

While staying at the in-laws’ place, I upgraded my mom-in-law’s Fujitsu laptop. I had set her up with Mint Cinnamon nearly 5 years ago and she needed a major update. Going from version 19 to 22, she remarked how nearly identical the versions are, unlike Microsoft where they reinvent the frickin’ wheel with every damned iteration of Windows and make it gayer with each release. “Hey, you got used to finding what you needed, huh? Well too bad! Now it’s all in different places. Go ahead and get tons of vaccines and eat bugs while you’re at it, too.” Go to hell, Microsoft!

I was hoping to find a used laptop on Yahoo Shopping or Rakuten or something, but the chances of getting some crappy refurbished laptop that will croak after the warranty expired is too high. Or having the keyboard not work properly, etc. The best scenario would be to obtain a laptop from someone who had taken good care of an old laptop, and that’s what happened! I’m glad I didn’t buy one because I got this for free. I had told myself that whenever I got a laptop that I’d install Zorin OS to try it out, but I ended up just going with Mint Mate, the same as my desktop computer. This laptop is about 12 years old. 750gb HD, 8gb RAM, and even a bluray drive. I can’t get it to play any bluray movies yet, but this is still good. It was designed for Win8, but Yukari had upgraded it to Win10. She said that it would take about 10 minutes just to boot up. Now that it’s running on Linux, it’s quicker, of course! Go to hell, Microsoft! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Just go straight to hell and don’t come back with your totalitarian bullcrap. Eat a bag, Bill Gates!

Posted on

A treasure trove of modeling stuff found at Sanyodo Bookstore

In Komagane City, Nagano Prefecture there is a bookstore called Sanyodo with a fantastic modeling section. There I spotted Aoshima’s new Back to the Future Delorean from the 2nd movie! The first Delorean was released earlier this year. This is the first time seeing this second kit at a store.

I went there to pick up the latest Modelgraphix magazine (featuring Votoms dioramas) and OH BOY they now have a HUGE plamo section! Tons of neat supplies and everything too. Not just Gundams, but plenty of Macross, Votoms, Crusher Joe, shmups game ships, cars, planes… wow. Several years ago I picked up the Bandai mini Millennium Falcon there, but at that time the model section was pretty limited to just some Gundams. So, I was very impressed to see that their modest modeling section has been expanded to a few aisles even.

And check this out. They even stock Vallejo acrylic paints there. You don’t normally see these paints at regular hobby stores in Japan.

So yeah, plenty of great modeling supplies to be found there. I’m very impressed.

I picked up a Bandai “30 Minutes Sisters” kit. Girl #3 named Luluce. She has such a pretty, dark skin complexion and a cute ponytail. She is the one I was interested in getting, but never got around to buying before she disappeared. Maybe these kits were repopped because that model store had tons of them in stock.

Posted on

Screenshots of retro arcade games in Tokyo

We went on a family day trip to Tokyo today. I was able to go do my own thing in Akihabara and took some photos of game screens there.

These last few I took at the small game arcade on the top floor of Super Potato.

Posted on

Hasegawa’s big 1:72 Macross Queadluun Rau model kit spotted in Yodobashi

Yesterday I went to Yodobashi Camera in Utsunomiya with my friend Lou who is visiting Japan. Here is me in the Macross section of the model department. This is the first time seeing the new Q-Rau model in-person. Wow, what a big box! I have enough Yodobashi points that I could have walked out of the store with this kit without paying for it, but unfortunately I have to buy my daughter a crappy Chromebook for her schoolwork and I will need to use those points on that instead.