Comiket 79 took place last December and I bought some of the doujinshi that premiered there through Toranoana. There were also a lot of dakimakura covers sold there and I didn’t buy any of them, since the releases were strictly limited edition and I didn’t feel like going through the hassle or expense of using my favorite proxy services. One of the pillowcases I wanted was this one, and after reconsideration I briefly contemplated picking it up off of Yahoo Japan Auctions. A couple weeks after C79, I loaded up Amiami’s webpage and was surprised to see this dakimakura cover listed on their site. I put my preorder in with the quickness, happy that I wasn’t going to have to pay a proxy markup. They’ve since added a couple more dakimakura covers that I thought were Comiket exclusives, which is gratifying indeed.
This dakimakura cover features Chizuru Tendou, one of the potential love interests from the ero-game Renai Saimin – Tsun na Kanojo ga Dereru Saimin. I am told that this translates to something like, “Love Hypnosis: Turn a Tsun Girl Dere through Hypnosis.” Err, yeah. The game seems to be more innocent than it sounds; the plot description via VNDB (via the now-defunct Erogeshop) suggests that this hypnotism is used to convince people to follow their hearts rather than to turn them into love slaves, which is how I’ve seen this sort of thing done in other hentai properties.
The game was developed by C: drive, which I am assuming was founded by fans of DOS, and released late last year. It seems to be a typical visual novel, in which you assume the role of a male character named Takumi Okawa and click through a lot of text and listen to a lot of speech while exercising your macking abilities on the cast’s various females.
Like many other dakimakura covers, this pillowcase measures 160 by 50 centimeters and is made of two-way tricot. It is quite stretchy and feels very smooth. It’s also fairly thick so that it feels strong; I don’t get the impression that it’s going to rip or something whenever I put it on a pillow. The colors are quite bright and the print quality is very nice.
The artwork was done by Shikibu Fusataka. She – I’m assuming that’s a female name – has a very beautiful style that, at least in this game, is very reminiscent of Tony Taka’s art, stylistically and thematically. The girls are tall, willowy, and elegant, with an eye shape quite similar to Tony’s work.
One interesting note about the game is that all of the girls wear distinctive underwear. Chizuru seems partial to skimpy string panties. She also has a very cute garter tied around her thigh.
And here’s the reverse side, where she’s shed her uniform and panties and put on an enchanting smile.
And also this band-aid. It’s a strange thing to see there but I think it looks quite cute; the bandaid maebari has a great tradition in anime art.
It’s really cool how she’s carrying around some nice anal beads but I wonder where she was keeping them.
Showing that Tony style here. It’s a bit odd how her bangs fade out; I wonder if that was an artist error or not. Being that it shows up on both sides, I’m guessing it was deliberate. It doesn’t bug me, it’s not too uncommon for anime hair to mysteriously become transparent over the eyes.
Incidentally, Chizuru’s hands and feet are rendered correctly, which is something that I am looking out for these days.
And here’s her legs, with those very pretty panties. The artist likes to incorporate flowers into her character designs. Let’s take a look at some of the other characters in the game. I probably should note that I’m running the character bios through an auto-translator so I could be wildly off on some of these.
Tsugumi Aisaka
She’s a childhood friend of Takumi and seems to like him, but cannot bring herself to express what she feels. She also seems to have a bit of a temper.
Chizuru Tendou
Chizuru is the student council president. She is composed, regal, and well-liked, but has a difficult time depending on other people.
Kotoko Nonoyama
Kotoko is a quiet girl that nobody takes notice of. She seems to have feelings for Takumi from a distance.
Fuuka Kudoriya
Fuuka seems to be the most immature person in the cast, though she looks just as tall and well-developed as the other girls. She tends to be a bit tactless and needy outside of her home and also seems to be something of an instigator. She likes to call Takumi “onii-chan.”
Setsu Mikagura
Setsu is a member of the student disciplinary committee. She seems to have a conniving, devilish personality. She is proud and sharp-tongued and seems to come from a wealthy family.
And here’s some pictures from the game.
This is a great pillowcase; I love the art, the quality is high, and it’s comfortable to the touch. Amiami still seems to have them in stock as of this writing so if you want one of your very own, you know where to get it.
I jumped for joy the second I saw the top half of the dakimakura upon loading the main page. “Yay, another dakimakura review!” And now to read the actual review. 😀
(to avoid spamming, I’m going to wait and post after I read this >_>)
Hmm, tempted to pick it up, but it’s too late to pack it in with my AmiAmi order for the month; with the release of Catherine, it just shipped with my two tentacle-laden dakimakura covers yesterday. The first time I ran into the band-aid censorship method, I was absolutely pissed. It was with the SouSou Koihime Musou cover that released 6-7 months ago. I was still fairly naive when it comes to dakimakura covers, so I don’t know what I was expecting behind that Yellow Caution tape on the Hobby Search preview images. I guess I was a bit gullible, but in all fairness, I had already received a NoReal cover and a very erotic Mio cover, so I guess I assumed mass production cases would live up to the same level. I’ve changed my view on it a bit, as it’s certainly better than the smoothed out regions I’ve run into once or twice.
I really like the art from both the cover and the game. Definitely going to have to add it to my must download list of CG; the very first character shot you posted of Setsu had me going “I’m going to like what I see of her” and the next two just confirmed it.
I wonder what the first picture I saw that had the bandaid censor. I’m pretty sure it was something I saw on Danbooru a number of years ago. I thought it looked pretty cool back then so I don’t mind it now. I’m a fan of anime girls wearing maebari in general; for a while Rosanna was my favorite figure in my collection (admittedly, my collection was considerably smaller at that time). I knew about it with this particular pillowcase before I bought it, since Tsugumi’s pillowcase (which is also in the review queue) has the same thing and it was a safe assumption that Chizuru’s pillowcase would be similar, but I find it appealing anyway.
I was hoping they’d make a pillowcase with Setsu; I don’t have much familiarity with the game but she already seems to be a very interesting character and I like her albino style.
It kinda sucks that Erogeshop has shut down, there are not too many avenues to buy h-games outside of Japan. I guess maybe I’ll check prices on Amazon or see if there are any used copies on YJA.
Yeah, I kinda like it now too, but it can be such a disappointing tease at times. I’d imagine you’re right about Chizuru. On one hand, I’d hope not as it’s a cover that ran at C79. However, the fact that it’s from an eroge company and AmiAmi is selling it, means it will likely be censored in some shape or form. Hopefully it will be a more detailed form of censorship. I especially wouldn’t mind if tentacles were used to censor the side that has them. I say that being from an eroge company makes it more likely to be censored as it seems they are more than willing to comply with the laws. I don’t know how it’s enforced, but I’d imagine it would be much easier to damage a company that breaks the rules versus a small circle/person who’s selling the cover in limited quantities.
Very roughly on the subject of Danbooru, I came across a couple of animated gifs a few weeks back that I was absolutely overjoyed to see. I did some searching on the source material, and found that it’s an eroge set to drop in a few months. There was a demo available, so I figured I’d check it out. And I’d have to say, it’s absolutely how eroge demos should be down, with the exception of the looping music.
Basically, it showcased three girls in the demo. Don’t know how many more there will be in the release, or if they were (likely) introducing us to all the heroines. But basically it was what I’m assuming a short scene introducing the girl, then an H-scene with her, complete with 2-4 animated gifs, then repeated for the next two girls. So basically a 5-10 minute demo if you’re skipping text, with a decent amount of ero content. Obviously the gifs are looping until you advance, but that doesn’t make it any less hot. They’ve also done something that I think is long overdue (or at least lacking in many games), in that the audio loops as well. For the H-scenes anyway, they looped the female moaning after it was all “spoken” on screen once. Personally I think it’s a pretty cool feature, though I could imagine if the voice were one you didn’t care for it could get on your nerves rather quickly.
I’d support a pillowcase of Setsu.
Yeah, it really does. Hopefully they’re reopen, but I imagine that with the rising yen rate, their profit margins were either cut substantially or they had to raise prices to offset it and lost out on the few customers they likely had to purchase eroge. There’s still a few titles I want to buy, and I don’t look forward to buying them on YHJ and paying a proxy fee.
The game sounds pretty cool; I’m not too familiar with Kamisaka Kouhei’s work (assuming I’m understanding the tag coloring on Sankaku Complex, which is the second worst website on the planet, by the way) but the GIF looks very reminiscent of Taki Minashika’s art on Lovers. I never played the game but I remember that it had quite a bit of animation as well.
Yeah, I’m sure business conditions were pretty bad, particularly being in such a niche genre. It’s pretty depressing to see all these options for buying hentai goods closing up; I read a thread on the Anime on DVD forum the other day saying that Icarus Publishing had probably shut down, and Japan Anime is gone for good too so I guess there’s about no chance of ever getting an uncensored version of Mahou Shoujo Ai 5.
I couldn’t say myself. Just came across it, and was like “okay, I really need to find what this is from.” Which would be the worst website then? :O It’s helpful occasionally to decide if I want to buy a DVD or something, or pick up a service heavy anime series. But I don’t really read the content of any of the other articles; about half of them are trying to push some sort of figure/anime/game or likely exaggerating content.
Bleh, that’s depressing news indeed. It’s not like we get many hentai releases over here as it is. Though I’m really not up to date on what’s released in America these days as far as hentai goes; I’ve only really come in contact with older stuff that has been uncensored. I doubt anyone else would pick it up, but if Japan Anime was part of the reason episode 5 never made it over here anyway, I guess stranger things could happen… but I’m not holding my breath.
I picked up Marvel vs Capcom 3 the other day, and have been playing it a bit. I played the hell out of the two previous versions on DC, then later on Xbox for 2. Arcana Heart 3 is still fun, but I’m a bit upset that not even 3 days after I got it, the US version was announced. Guess it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still makes my $90 purchase a bit wasted. I guess I’ll always have the character pins to justify it, but I’m still thinking about picking up the US version when it hits.
The worst website is 4chan, I am sure that is absolutely not surprising at all. Yeah, I check Sankaku Complex even though the tabloid-style writing is terrible, but what really makes it awful are the comments. It’s amazing how many Japanese nationalists comment on that site even though I’m sure most of them are white.
I haven’t picked up MVC3 yet, though I’m sure I will at some point. The main reason I haven’t bought it yet is I’m not too enthusiastic about the roster. No Psylocke and no Rogue pretty much means no buy, at least for now. I’m not a big Capcom guy so I don’t care a lot about the characters on that side and I don’t really want to play as Ironman or X-23 or whatever. I really do not like this new trend of nickel-and-diming people with fighting games as far as characters and outfits go, but I’ll overlook that if they make Psylocke available.
I heard about Arcana Heart and the first thing I wondered was whether you’d get it twice XD It was nice news though it would’ve been nice if they brought the 360 version over too, since they probably could have done a disc version. Given the choice of digital download or physical media, I will always go with physical media.
I figured. I browse the h/gif boards occasionally, and use rs every now and then, but I try to stay as far away as possible from the other boards. Despite the terrible writing for most articles, the biggest peeve I have is the fact that a large portion of the articles are there for nothing but revenue. The DVD/BD screencaps that have a referral link to Play-Asia I can forgive to an extent, but it seems that almost every newly announced figure gets a page with some ripped production shots and a link to where you can preorder it. I try to stay as far away from the comments as possible… the larger the site, the more I avoid them. Reading Youtube comments is often enough to cause permanent brain damage.
MvC2 was great, but one of the criticisms I remember reading was that all characters played the same more or less, and that only 4-5 were viable competitively. I don’t really care about the competitive aspect myself, but I’m willing to sacrifice some depth in the roster if the characters remaining play uniquely. Though it is a shame when characters you really liked get left out; I’m sad that Strider got dropped. Given my age, I prefer Capcom; I just didn’t grow up with comics/Marvel that same way, say my brother did. There are certain comic characters I really like, but for the most part I grew up playing Street Fighter, Dark Stalkers, Resident Evil, and so on.
Yeah, I’ll probably pick it up. But it will be in some time, after a price drop. Digital Download only, eh? That’s too bad. Hopefully it will drop in price at some point, then. I agree with you though, I prefer my games to come with a box and manual.
There’s a non-chain game store a few blocks from my new house, and I decided to stop in today. Fairly overpriced in some areas and they were playing really shitty music, but it was nice to see a decently sized indie store. Even more delightful was the large collection of old school games. Ton of SNES/NES/N64/Genesis games, with a decent supply of DC/PS1 games. They also had a decent (in comparison to everywhere but the internet) selection of Saturn games. Probably won’t shop there too often, but I’ll definitely swing in and buy some DC/Saturn games when finances allow.
Speaking of which, there were about 10-15 dakimakura covers added to Mandarake today, and I just couldn’t help myself. Assuming they are all in stock when I get my invoice, I picked up a Ryoufu cover and two from HOP; a delectable school girl and I’m pretty sure a cover you were interested in at one point. They also have a Kanu cover still available if you’re interested.
The band aid thing seems to be a pretty common way of covering the bottom area up. Well, at least on the older ones. I have one that does the same thing. I’ve actually seen it on quite a few older ones as well, since before I think there weren’t many that actually showed it fully. I’m thinking perhaps they were afraid of some of the censorship laws, or no one really knew if it was ok or not? I dunno.
It is good to see more unique ones from amiami. Now only if other stores carried more instead of these JP only shops…
Yeah, the trope goes pretty far back. I think you’re right, it seems likely that it was used mainly to circumvent censorship laws, but these days I think it’s done mostly for moe effect; sometimes you’ll see anime girls with bandaids on their cheek or knee or some place where they have no obvious injury, it’s not much of a stretch to shift it over to the crotch on more explicit pictures for humorous effect and to emphasize cuteness (in the sense that a character complies with moe fanservice norms by exposing a lot of skin but refrains from moving into porn territory by covering up the minimal amount needed to not be totally exposed. That seems sorta unnecessary here though, seeing as how Chizuru does in fact come from a porn game).
The band aid ruins it for me T_T
I guess I can understand that. I think it looks cute, personally.
Very sexy. I am not sure why, but I love the band-aid. It is a nice little tease that kinda adds some sexiness I think ;3.
Yeah, I like it too, it’s kinda like she’s not completely nude (slicing the definition as finely as possible) so she still maintains the thinnest veneer of innocence. It gives the illustration a bit of a playful tone rather than going all-out on explicitness.
I’ll take the Redhead…Mmm maybe the gal with White Hair too. Have my sorta bust sizes!
Oh yea the pillow…I dig how it has an actual background instead of the usual “It looks like a sheet” deal plus lots of little extras scattered about are fun!
Yeah, that’s a nice touch. It looks like she’s laying down on some school desks; that sort of suggested exhibitionism is pretty cool.
>> Shashin
Yeah, I used to check /d and /h a lot, back before the *boorus were around. I still check /toy out a lot. I never, ever check out the more discussion-oriented boards on 4chan.
It’s funny that you mention ads on Sankaku Complex, because I always notice the gay porn ads they’ve got there just because I try to avoid them but I don’t even remember ever seeing a Play-asia link there. I think I’m so used to avoiding ads that I just never notice them now. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t put up ads on this site; I don’t think I’ve ever clicked an ad on any other figure review site and so I wouldn’t expect anyone to ever click an ad on my site.
I’m really bad at fighting games so I couldn’t even make a pretense of trying to play them competitively; I don’t even play online so the character balance isn’t too big a deal to me. I do like it when characters are unique but then again, I think that’s one thing that caused me to not play BlazBlue very much; I didn’t really care to spend a ton of time learning each individual character so I only ever played as Noel. On the other hand, I played Street Fighter IV a lot because the moves haven’t changed much from Street Fighter II.
Yeah, digital download only is what they said on the Aksys page. I think Sony has some rule about what can be sold in disc form; they sold Record of Agarest War on a disc for the 360 version but the PS3 version was download-only, if I remember right. I’m not quite sure what Sony’s rule is but Aksys didn’t seem too happy about it.
That sounds like a store that used to be sorta near by me called Starland. They had a bunch of old video games and a lot of anime merchandise and books. Unfortunately most of it was way more expensive than what I could get it for online. They shut down their retail store some years back and I’m not sure if there are any anime/video game stores like it in the DC area now.
Was that HOP one the one with the girl in the gym uniform? I got that one recently but I haven’t actually taken a look at it yet … I’ve still got three pillowcases here that are in the review queue. I’m probably going to space them out since they are easy to photograph and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m stopping with the figure reviews.
Yeah, browsing other boards is likely to give you a headache, scar you for life, get you arrested or all three.
It’s not the most noticeable thing. But whenever they have a post for a upcoming figure, DVD, or whatever other merchandise they post about, at the very bottom there will be a link to Play Asia/other affiliate site with “So and so is available for order/preorder now.” Taken by itself, it’s not as intrusive as the giant adds that line the sides of the page and are strewn through articles, but when you consider the fact that the particular article is likely posted only to get some affiliate sales, that bothers me a bit.
Oh, I’m terrible too. In fact, I’m just not a very competitive person at all; I much prefer single player. I haven’t played a single online match in Arcana Heart/MvC3, or going even further back, StarCraft II. So character balance in the offline mode isn’t the biggest deal, but it can still feel broken/cheap in some areas. For instance, Sentinel is currently disgustingly good. The stage 7 boss in arcade is fairly cheap, but not too bad once you get the hang of it… but if you have Sentinel in your group, it becomes almost a guaranteed win unless you get unlucky and he gets hit with something stupid right off.
I could see that. I don’t take the time to learn the combos or anything anyway, so a lot of variation really doesn’t bother me. Though if I do find a character that I’m good with, I do tend to stick with them.
That’s unfortunate. I wonder what requirements they don’t meet. Would certainly be interesting to know.
Yeah, I could probably find a deal or two, but I’d be sure to check every price online before I paid. Was going to pick up Grandia 2, as my disks have long be too scratched up to play, but they didn’t have the case for it, and I didn’t want to pay $20. I do want to boost up my DC collection and still get a Saturn, but I got to control my dakimakura spending first…
Was these two:
http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/shop/en/item_s-571543.html
http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/shop/en/item_s-571540.html
I’m pretty certain I remember you talking about picking up the second, but I’m not sure if you ever did. I’m trying to resist the urge to look on YHJ anymore; my credit card is just about maxed out, and at the rate I’m bringing money in now, it’s going to take some time to pay. So I’m trying to pay down my SMJ invoices as space out as possible so I don’t run the risk of hitting my limit, and then I’m requesting a shipment and curtailing all spending… except for Dizzy/Rin in the coming months… but hopefully by then my limit will be healthy again. Though I’m still waiting for SMJ to receive Illust Guerrilla’s Nymph.
Yeah, I rag on all the figure news sites a lot and a lot of that is because some of them seem to exist only to try to cash in on referral money. They just repost news taken from elsewhere and then they drop in a Play-Asia or J-List ad right at the end, which is pretty damn lame.
The story I heard is that Sony doesn’t allow games that don’t have English dubbing to be released in disc form. I don’t know if that’s true – I’ve heard that there’s some Sega game (I think) that has only Japanese voices but was sold at retail – but it seems plausible.
I’ve been thinking about hooking up the Dreamcast and Saturn to my TV, there are a bunch of games I want to play and re-play. It’s sort of a strange thing to feel with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age (and Dragon Age II, soon) in the queue but some of those old Japanese RPGs have a charm that I miss.
Ah, yes, I remember that one, I was thinking really hard about picking it up. I passed on it but got the artist’s second dakimakura cover, which is of a similar style but has the girl wearing gym shorts rather than a track suit. I have this thing for girls in tight athletic wear.
I understand banner ads, even if they’re annoying overdone. But as you said, a lot of them basically just rip the news/photos from somewhere else, not adding any new content to their article and then toss in a referral link. That bothers me.
Hmm, that’s pretty lame… considering English dubbing for Japanese games is oftentimes terrible. I always switch it out if it’s possible, and hate when companies decide not to include the Japanese voices. It was painfully understandable in the PS2 era, where disk size was limited, but there should be little excuse to include the original voices now. I can’t think of any titles off the top of my head that only had Japanese voices, though; Valkyria Chronicles include them, but English is the default.
I’ve had a nice queue of games I want to play again. Some older RPGs, Harvest Moon, and other games. While I have two fighters, Neptunia, and some PS3 RPGs I still haven’t completed. I still consider the Dreamcast my favorite console, and can’t wait to expand my library.
I liked it, but wasn’t going to order it, as I was probably bogged down with other items to pay for at the time (much as I am now…) But I couldn’t resist picking it up directly and at an excellent price.
I generally roll with the Japanese voices when I have the choice. Though I went with the English voices for another Aksys game (BlazBlue) since they were very well done. That reminds me I ought to give Record of Agarest War a spin sometime, I’m playing through Magna Carta 2 still and it’s alright but it’s not anything I’m going to remember six months after I beat it.
Back before I decided to run a figure website I had this idea to do a video game blog focusing on obscure RPGs. I still think it’d be an interesting thing to do someday; I meant for this site to have more of a focus on video games but that hasn’t happened yet.
Wow, I checked the price on that listing and yeah, that really is a very good price. I probably should check Mandarake’s pillowcase selection more often myself.
Yeah, I do if the option is there. Generally a lot easier on the ears. There are some games that I enjoy the voice acting in, such as the Persona series (with a few exceptions), but I always like to have the choice at least.
I browsed through the posts listed under the video game tag the other day, and there was only a handful with most of them being fairly close together some time ago. Hopefully you’ll pick it up again sometime, but you said yourself that you don’t play games that much these days.
Yep. I just hope it’s in decent condition, as the price is quite a bit less than it retailed for. The Ryoufu one I can understand, as that line retailed for 6000 yen to begin with. Mandarake generally does price them fairly, though. There are a couple that are high, but most are often cheaper than YHJ. Sometimes by a lot. They had a Nymph cover I wanted sell for 15000 yen a few weeks ago; the cheapest price on YHJ then and now is 30000 yen.
I finally see what you mean about the lack of anus there… Now it’s starting to bug me that she doesn’t have one, lol. But great art. Almost as good as Tony’s. I like this game art: http://bit.ly/eILJZX Because her knee pits are showing between the bondage. Good stuff! What do you think about the inconsistencies of dakimakura cover sizes though? I seem to think that 150cmX50cm was the standard, but different companies make different sizes for their covers… I wonder why.
Yeah, the lack of a realistically-rendered anus is a sad omission, more dakimakura covers should feature them.
I’m not a big kneepits guy or anything but a couple months back I came across this picture and one of the first things I thought of was, “Hey, she has kneepits.” Dunno why I was thinking that.
It looks like 160cm is the standard for dakimakura covers now, just checking some of the ones listed on Hobby Search. Most of the doujin pillowcases I’ve seen are also 160cm long; I’m not sure why they’re going with the longer size now but it doesn’t bother me, since my pillow body is too short for them either way. I need to get a new one that’s long enough to fit properly.
>> Shashin
Yeah, it’s hard for me to say much about video games since I don’t play them as much as I used to and also because I don’t have any way to capture video right now. Everybody always expects Youtube clips and stuff when you talk about a video game. I’ve got a few ideas for posts but it’d really help if I could provide some video, because I’m pretty sure 99% of the video game-playing world hasn’t heard of the games I’d like to discuss.
30k yen, ouch. That’s more than the tentacle stand. Without the extra tentacles, anyway. Speaking of Mandarake, it’s kinda funny how the different stores vary with their item descriptions; I guess the Shibuya store just likes to put “We’ve got a lot more stuff!” in their descriptions rather than say anything about the item itself.
Yeah, I’d imagine that without videos not a lot of people would bother reading posts about video games. Still, if there were a post lacking a video about a game I hadn’t heard of, I’d probably skim over it at the very least, and read it entirely if it were something that fell into my interests.
Yeah, really wish I had been able to pick it up on Mandarake, but it was sold out by the time I loaded up the page… I had checked not even half an hour before. Their search function is really hit or miss sometimes; I’ve had listings disappear entirely from the results, even when they were still available for sale. Some stores have really detailed English descriptions, while others have a mix of Japanese/English, then others are pure Japanese. It’s fairly strange. Also, it saddens me to say, but I sent an email to Mandarake requesting the order be canceled. I just can’t pay it in time, and really can’t afford it either. Hopefully they’ll allow me to order in the future since I informed them before the deadline, but if not it’s a true loss. If you were interested in any of the covers I had in my order, keep an eye out; you really can’t be the price they were at, and I’m saddened I just don’t have the funds right now.
Ugh, that sucks. And I gotta admit I’ve spent the last hour going through their doujinshi list to see if there’s anything I’d want to throw in should I want to capitalize on your misfortune. They’ve got some nice stuff there, including another dakimakura cover that doesn’t seem to have a photo of the reverse side anywhere on the internet. I’m not sure how comfortable I am dropping over a hundred dollars on a pillowcase when I can only see half of it, but the half I do see looks very nice.
Which would that be? I was kicking myself in the head this morning when I did my daily check of Mandarake and saw the C73 (I believe?) Tony cover on there for 4000 yen. I almost immediately re-added all the items I had canceled back to my cart, along with the Tony case. There were some other cases I would have added too, but the Tony case was the big one; I’ve had it on my list for awhile, but it’s not a really high priority. I’ve seen it on YHJ for as little as 9000 yen, but 4000 was just too good to pass up. But I literally can’t fund it right now, and I don’t think they would have taken too kindly to me cancelling an order, then making another order with some of the same items. Hopefully you picked up some good things though; I’m sad I wasn’t able to get them myself, so I’d at least like to see things go to people who I know can appreciate them.
On that note, I received Catherine and my two dakimakura covers from AmiAmi today. I’ve only opened one, and I’m sad to report that they have fallen into the same trap that Syrup did. There’s a tentacle there for censorship, but there’s not even a hint at anatomy down there otherwise; just smooth skin. I fear that the other cover will be nothing but smooth skin, as the more revealing side doesn’t have tentacles on it.
It was a pillowcase featuring Taki Minashika’s character Rie Kawai. Unfortunately it got sold about an hour after I first noticed it. Heh. I guess I know how you feel now. At any rate, I don’t know what the other side looks like; I looked all over the place to try to find an image but I can’t find one. That’s kinda problematic cuz I do remember seeing an art collection in which Rie wore that outfit but was pregnant, which isn’t something that appeals to me a whole lot. Sometimes dakimakura makers like to drop big surprises on the opposite side so I’m kinda hesitant to keep shopping around for this pillowcase … there was another one up on Mandarake but it cost 50% more so that quashed my interest.
Damn >.< I passed on the Mouryou no Nie pillowcases; I was waiting to find something else I wanted to buy from Amiami so I could combine shipping, since paying $30 to ship one pillowcase doesn't make a ton of sense. That's pretty disappointing to hear; at least a band-aid or something would've been nice.
Ah, I might do some searching around for it later out of curiosity, but I know what you mean. It’s bad enough that there isn’t a true database dedicated to showing sample images of entire covers, well at least better than current sites offer, anyhow. I’ve purchased at least a handful entirely on the small square face shot as it was impossible to find a sample of even one full side. It has definitely disappointed me more than once.
I know how Mandarake is, though. 2/3 of the covers I had in my order are sold already (they really were a good deal 🙁 ) and the other 3-4 I would have purchased along with them are gone too. Stuff just goes way too fast; second guessing yourself is the quickest way to lose stuff on Mandarake. That’s why I ordered without thinking, and regretfully cancelled later when I realized my finances couldn’t support it.
I’ll admit, I’m terrible with remembering character names. The cover you wanted was the one I opened. Everything else about the cover is very nice, by all means, but it’s just a tad disappointing. Especially since I had already been burned once before by the same thing, by another eroge circle… I would have happily taken a band-aid or a larger tentacle. On the plus side, the material actually is fairly nice. I don’t know if it’s Smooth Knit, SK or whatever… I always just assumed they were the same, but this doesn’t have the same feel that I’ve come to dislike. It’s almost like 2WT, but not as stretchy. Definitely makes me happy considering that the feel of the material was my second fear.
I did open the other, and it’s not as bad. Bit strange, as it’s two kind of on her side views, instead of a front and back view like the other. One she has a her panties mostly on, so no need to draw anything there. On the tentacle side, there’s still a lack of anatomy, but the giant tentacle going in what I assume is supposed to be her anus makes it better. On the negative side, her butt just looks really small to me, especially when compared to her seemingly massive legs.
I’ll try to take some pictures of both later. Overall I’m glad I picked them up, but it’s still a disappointment to find that laziness overtook creative censorship.
Yeah, that’s a tough gamble to make when you’re looking at spending $150 a pop with limited resale value, unlike figures or camera equipment. I do like the art but I’m thinking if I want another pillowcase, I might be better off rolling with Evening Call’s Saber.
I probably should’ve just pulled the trigger right away. I didn’t realize that they had it at a pretty good price till I checked a different store and saw the price was 50% higher than the one at the Shibuya store. I’m not stressed about it since I was waffling pending whether I could find the reverse illustration, but it would’ve been a neat thing to have; one thing I don’t yet own is a bondage dakimakura cover.
That character was, uhh, Chihiro, if I remember right. That’s a bit disappointing since Mouryou no Nie and the Inyouchuu games are kinda hardcore as far as tentacles go; it seems weird that there’s a 3D mousepad with Mikoto Shiratori having tentacles going into her nipples while this pillowcase tries to skirt around the explicitness.
That reminds me that I never did put pictures up of that mousepad on this site. Maybe I’ll do that when I write my doujinshi acquisitions post.
Long time lurker here ^^
Have you ever tried Mandarake? I’ve gotten some rare dakimakuras that way, without having to go through a proxy.
I’ve bought a lot of doujinshi from them, but I haven’t bought any pillowcases yet. They definitely have a huge selection so I’ll be looking there for stuff; I just wish their site were a bit more search-friendly.
Yep… though I think the highest I paid was 22000 yen for a pillowcase I could only see one side of. Rate was a bit more favorable then, but it was still quite the risk. Evening Call’s Saber would be a good pick, for sure.
That’s the other weird thing with Mandarake. I guess I could understand it as each store operates differently, but it’s just a really strange system when it’s all available online. It’s bad enough buying a cover on YHJ and then seeing it cheaper on Mandarake, but to buy something on Mandarake and finding one even cheaper there is even more painful. Well, if there’s a dramatic price difference, anyway. Still, when I see something I want, I try to search other stores and then quickly get an order in so that it doesn’t sell out before I have the chance. I looked around a bit for the other side of the cover, and couldn’t find anything myself.
It’s just weird all around. I guess nipples aren’t covered in censorship law. I speculated this would likely be the case a few posts ago (probably in a different review), but I still find it funny that an eroge maker has a tamer dakimakura than smaller circles.
Yeah, not to mention that this pillowcase first showed up at C79 a couple months back. I mean, Comiket’s not a porn convention or anything, but there’s some really raunchy stuff that gets sold there … it doesn’t make much sense to me. I guess they could’ve been planning a wider release right after Comiket but I mean, how many people are gonna buy a pillowcase from a tentacle (and centipede) rape game without knowing what the game is about? It’s also kinda odd since Amiami and Hobby Search sell full-blown hentai on their Japanese sites, so it’s not like they have a problem selling adult goods.
It’s just a strange occurrence, and I doubt we’ll even learn the reasoning behind it… even if it’s something I’d love to know. But from now on, I’ll just go in with the assumption that, for whatever reason, that an “official” dakimakura cover that stems from a hardcore rape and/or tentacle eroge property will lack even the slightest hint of lady parts down there. I’m 2/2 (3/3, technically?) so far, so clearly it has been proven until seen otherwise.
Hadn’t considered that about AmiAmi/Hobby Search, but for whatever reason the dakimakura covers they offer always seem to be tamer than the manga they may carry. Granted most of it is coming from big companies just doing it to cash in on a certain property, but even the more erotic ones have been tame in what they show. It’s just strange and lazy that this particular artist/company would decide to forgo any censorship at all (or use the most absolute censorship maybe?) and succumb to laziness. Especially when a band-aid is sufficient enough to have it sold, and I’m sure there are plenty of creative ways to cover the goods.
Either way, it’s a disappointment in that aspect, but I’m still happy to see Comiket goods getting a slightly broader release… especially on sites us foreigners can use without a proxy.
I forget if I mentioned this dakimakura cover – I’ve got this habit of repeating myself – but there was this one pillowcase I was thinking of getting a couple months back but held off because I couldn’t tell whether she had Barbie doll crotch. And she definitely does, which is disappointing as hell. I still kinda want the pillowcase since I really like Happoubi Jin’s art but come on man, don’t show her with her panties down and then wimp out on the genitalia. I would’ve been happier if she’d kept her underwear up or if she were crossing her legs or something.
I like this Dakimakura and the art style is very similar to Tonys. I see she is 4 desks tall, hopefully she won’t fall in between them. The reverse side is interesting and she seems to have come well equipped, the band aid is a nice touch too. Looks like she was studying English with those flash cards before Mr protag walked in, anything interesting in her notepad?
The eroge she’s from, Renai Saimin, looks fun. Some interesting CG there, I like the one with the ties you’ve shown. Looks like Setsu Mikagura has some good scenes too.
Falling onto the floor would be embarrassing, though I guess her circumstances are already a bit embarrassing. Her little flash card thingy isn’t too unusual; it says “hypnosis”, “thousand”, “flower”, and one more word that is partially obscured. It would’ve been pretty funny if she were studying some kinky terms instead.
Yeah, I hadn’t seen the artist’s work before seeing her dakimakura covers, but I like her style a lot, so much so that I’ve got another dakimakura cover featuring her art in the review queue. Hopefully we’ll get to see more stuff based on her artwork.
The artwork on this dakimakura is really nice, but the band-aid is really annoying which is what other people have commented about. I mean, isn’t the point of getting dakimakuras to get the most risque or “exotic” ones possible? Maybe that’s just me, but any form of censorship on dakimakuras is just plain annoying. You pay like, what, $120+ per dakimakura?
At first I thought that the dakimakura was by Tony Taka since the art looks so similar and I was surprised that the art was not by him. Whats even more surprising is that the artist is most likely a woman based on the feminine name as you pointed out. I thought only men drew art like this because most women would be offended >.> Although that would explain why their is a band-aid as a censor.
By the way, do you know of a legit website that sells authentic dakimakuras like Mandarake, Toranoana, Whitecanvas, dakemakura, evening call website, H.O.P website, Ask website, YHJ, rakuten or websites that are dakimakura resellers like D-Stage. I’m looking to buy some raunchy as hell dakimakuras, but I can’t find any or my searching skills just suck. Another thing, on YHJ, how do you find more pictures of the dakimakura that are listed? All I can see is the dakimakura in its packaging with just the face and no other picture. Thank you very much! Dakimakura collecting is going to bleed me dry fast D: oh well, money well spent in my opinion. I shall live on bread and water!
Keep up the censor free reviews! I view this site daily to see if any new reviews are up and other times I just reread the old reviews. Haha, I remember stumbling upon this site when searching up Mahou Shoujo Ai and I saw that you did a review on the art book. Great review by the way. Thank you for your efforts that you make to provide us, the readers, with quality reviews as opposed to other review sites that just review the same crap over and over again. Once again, Thank you and take care!
Yeah, I gotta admit the bandaid was kinda surprising to see, being that the art comes right out of an h-game. Then again, I’ve seen a number of pillowcases where they just draw in a Barbie doll crotch and that just perplexes me. I mean, it’s not like anybody who’s actually going to buy one of these things is gonna get all offended that the drawing is anatomically accurate.
I’m guessing the artist is female, though I suppose it could be a pseudonym. I think it’s a lot more likely that the artist is female, though. The game artwork is quite explicit so I’m not sure where the bandaid comes from; there are certainly no bandaids in the game, as far as I can tell.
Hmm, I’ve bought dakimakura covers from White Canvas, Toranoana, and Yahoo Japan. Doujin-Dou also sells them. Do you mean a legit website that will sell to customers outside of Japan? Unfortunately the only one I know of for sure is Mandarake; White Canvas has this note about international customers on their front page but I do not know if they will ship adult goods overseas. I e-mailed them to ask about that and I never got a response. Since none of the main dakimakura retailers that I know of ship overseas, I use a proxy service to buy them; there are a number of them out there and most of the ones I’ve used are pretty easy to work with.
That’s one of the big problems with getting stuff off of Yahoo Japan. To find a more complete image I’ll usually just search for it in Google Images; if you copy and paste the character’s name or the circle’s name along with dakimakura (抱ãæž•), you’ll often get a larger image. I also just go to the White Canvas or Doujin Dou sites and run the same search; they have full-length images of the pillowcases they sell. This dakimakura news blog is also a great resource.
Thanks for the kind words XD I’m glad that this site is useful and interesting.
I assume that this dakimakura is to grab the attention of people who are interested in it and learn about the hentai game that it originated from. Shouldn’t they display everything since you can see everything in the game if you buy it? I guess that this is a way of the company saying “You want to see more? Buy our game.” Expensive ass advertisement. Barbie crotch is just damn disturbing. It’s like you wonder how they even use the bathroom or where does all that waste that builds up go? Although I’m pretty sure its just the artist being damn lazy or they do not know how to draw the private areas. Pretty sure it’s the former lol.
At least band-aids provide the most minimal censorship that can actually censor the private region. See-through band-aid would be quite interesting though.
By Legit I meant that the websites actually give you the items you pay for and by authentic I meant that the merchandise, specifically dakimakuras, are not cheap reprints and they actually come from the artist. Bootleg dakimakuras are bullshit because the quality is so low and the colors look faded.
Do they even sell the explicit dakimakuras on YHJ? I’m not sure because I know you need to sign up and verify your age to get an account that can view the adult goods and signing up looks complicated as hell. I’m trying to find one by H.O.P and it seems that YHJ may be my last hope.
Nah, I think the bandaid is there to be cute. The bandaid maebari is a reasonably common trope and I’ve seen other dakimakura covers that featured it. It was also shown in an episode of Kanokon, if I remember right.
All of the retailers that you listed sell authentic items. Yeah, you can get explicit dakimakura covers off of Yahoo JP, they get sold there all the time.
Just to add to Tier’s comments a bit, yes explicit dakimakura covers can be found on YHJ; most of the time they’re not even in the Adult section. From my previous experiences, you can even list adult goods in the normal section as long as you censor the image/don’t show anything too explicit in the the samples. I’ve seen two different cases happen time and time again where an item was originally listed that had a full sample image and was pulled before the end, only to be listed a few days later by the same seller with the goods covered; or it was pulled and then listed in the adult section a few days later.
Also, you can find a guide online that explains the sign up process in English. It takes a bit of work, but it’s not that difficult and having access to the adult section is definitely worth it. Plus you get a cool email address out of it. I basically tried to secure my standard email in @yahoo.co.jp form… didn’t work as it was either taken or invalid. So for whatever reason, for what I had put in, they recommended fatemoodcastle, and I could resist such an awesome email.