Nothing intimidates me like doing a review of a poseable figure, so instead we have here another dakimakura cover review. And it’s not explicit! Sort of. The Agarest War games have a saucy reputation though I am told that the level of suggestiveness veers more towards fanservice than full-blown hentai. This one has a little bit of both, I guess.
Eva is one of the lead girls from Compile Heart’s tactical RPG Agarest Senki 2. The first game in the series was localized in the United States as Record of Agarest War and in Europe as Agarest: Generations of War. Aksys Games has announced plans to bring over the prequel Record of Agarest War Zero, and presumably Agarest Senki 2 will make it over here at some point. If nobody picks it up, overseas people can still easily play it since it’s only on the Playstation 3 right now and region locks will thus not be an issue.
The Agarest War games are more noted for their suggestive graphics, attractive character designs, and the Soul Breeding mechanism, in which the lead protagonist mates with a female character and their progeny takes up the mantle of hero and party leader. You don’t hear much about how the games actually play, which I suppose doesn’t say anything great about them, but then again, that is not a particularly uncommon thing these days. Heck, I spent 120 hours playing Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball so I don’t mind shallow gameplay.
As English-language information on Agarest Senki 2 is somewhat hard to come by – the TV Tropes article seems to have spoilers for the whole game but I’m not going to read it now – I don’t know a great deal about Eva’s personality. From what I’ve seen of her she seems to be of the cool and mysterious archetype. I’m making this guess since she has a calm voice, doesn’t seem self-conscious and wields a gigantic scythe. I could be completely wrong about all that, and in fact she looks pretty happy and willing to reveal everything she’s got on this side. At least in this illustration, she appears to be a good-natured girl as she’s flashing a shaka sign. Maybe she enjoys surfing? She’s appropriately dressed for a day at the beach.
I’m not sure if you’d classify this as a belt or a skirt or something else. Anyway, she looks agreeable enough here, what about the other side?
Oh my, she seems displeased. I wonder why? Did somebody say the wrong thing to her? Did someone leave the toilet seat up?
I guess it could be because she is collared, chained, and has a bunch of disembodied hands clutching and scratching her and clawing at her crotch. That looks like an uncomfortable position to be in.
There’s a Youtube video showing the story sequence from which this image is presumably derived. Also, that video might have story spoilers for people fluent in Japanese. Just a fair warning since I don’t speak Japanese so I do not know for sure.
Here’s Eva’s midsection.
And her legs. Nice boots. Incidentally, I was unsure for a while as to how to spell Eva’s name, since an early promotional video for the game spelled her name as “Iva.” Her name is pronounced “Eva” rather than with a long I sound and that’s the way just about everyone else spells it, so that’s what I’m rolling with.
Here’s what this dakimakura cover looks like in comparison to the Ellis pillowcase included with Aksys’s Really Naughty Limited Edition of Record of Agarest War. As you can see, Eva’s pillowcase is quite a bit larger. Double-sided too, Ellis’s pillowcase is printed only on one side. I have to get around to playing Record of Agarest War sometime. Maybe I’ll start it up soon; I’ve got Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age (and the upcoming sequel), Fallout 3, Oblivion, Lost Odyssey, Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2, Ar Tonelico II (and the upcoming sequel), and Valkyria Chronicles all sitting here unplayed, but I feel like playing Agarest War instead.
Hmm, I haven’t said anything about the pillowcase itself. It’s 160 centimeters long by 50 centimeters wide, which seem to be standard dimensions for a dakimakura cover these days. It was sold through Red Entertainment’s and Compile Heart’s online store along with a dakimakura cover of Fiona, another heroine and prospective love interest in Agarest Senki 2. It’s made of stretchy two-way tricot, which feels smooth and durable.
Also, I should note that it looks kinda like there might be an illustration error regarding Eva’s left hand on this side. It appears to be pinioned behind her back here but her thumb ought to be on the top of that hand, and we don’t see it here. It doesn’t bother me too much here since the thumb could plausibly be folded over her palm and that could be her index finger on top in the picture. It’s also not particularly noticeable compared to, say, feet problems. What is more curious is given the angle of her left shoulder, it looks like her arm shouldn’t be bent that way. Unless it’s been broken, maybe by those evil hands. Just between you and me, I think that’s an incredibly kinky scenario.
I really like this pillowcase a lot. Eva has a beautiful design and she looks great on both sides. There’s a lot of personality on display here, particularly on the reverse. Assuming somebody brings over Record of Agarest War 2, I’m looking forward to macking on her. I mean, learning more about her character.
Incidentally, does anyone else think Fyuria from the first Agarest War game would make for a great figure? I think she would.
Yum, this is a nice one. The claw marks are a cool touch. I’m a little conflicted over the hands; on the one hand, I like how she’s being stripped and bound by them, but on the other, I’m not sure if I want a bunch of evil spectral hands in the same bed as me. Wait, on second thought, I’m sure the evil hands and I will get along fine — we DO share a few vital common interests, after all!
Also, 120 hours in Doax? Nice. Believe it or not, that game was one of key points of contention when I was deciding whether to get a PS3 of Xbox 360. I still regret choosing the PS3 when I see the game in bargain bins.
Fyuria doesn’t seem to be wearing any panties. There’s just no conceivable way you can hide a pair of panties underneath that joke of a skirt. I like it.
Indeed they do! I figure the angry woman is probably the greater threat and the hands will keep her fury at bay.
Yeah, I was trying to get all the suspender swimsuits on all of the girls. I think I was about halfway done by the time the 360 came out and I stopped playing the original Xbox. It was a really fun game, and while I enjoyed DOAX2, I felt that it had some shortcomings compared to its predecessor, mainly in the reduced number of suspender swimsuits and especially the massive load times, which are compounded by the curious prohibition against installing the game to the hard drive.
I’ve really been wondering what Fyuria’s wearing under there. I guess I’ll never know for sure, since Agarest War uses Disgaea-style graphics so you can’t take a peek up under there. Maybe she could be wearing a band-aid to preserve her modesty?
This dakimakura of Eva is really nice. It’s not as explicit as your other ones, but it’s equally as interesting to look at. The purple spectral hands are a nice touch. You’re right about her left arm on the reverse side, it seems to have been contorted in a strange way.
This is the first of me hearing about Record of Agarest War. The trailers I watched on youtube from your link are quite amusing. Too bad I can’t give it a go, I pulled apart all my consoles :(.
I hope those games you’ve listed in your backlog are PC versions (where applicable). Oblivion on PC is mod heaven, you can get a really slick looking game out of it. Once you’ve played the PC version there’s just no going back to consoles.
I’m playing Agarest War now and it’s pretty fun, though a bit on the brainless side thus far. The game kicks off with a bunch of combat system tutorials but it seems pretty straightforward thus far. Aside from the fact that I can’t seem to keep the three-eyed girl alive through a fight, anyway.
Nah, they are mostly console versions. I’ve got the PC version of Fallout 3 because I wanted to try out all the mods I’ve seen, and I’m thinking I’ll buy Oblivion for the PC too, just to dress up as Dizzy. The problem with those Bethesda games is that I suffer from debilitating motion sickness whenever I play them. It’s the strangest thing; I can play a lot of first-person games without a problem but Morrowind and Oblivion make me so ill I literally have to lie down for a couple of hours. It’s pretty annoying, since I always hear how those games and Fallout 3 are absolute classics but I can’t play them for longer than half an hour at a time.
Hmm I get migraines from 1st person shooters too. Think it was AvP2 which put me right off the genre. I have Fallout 3 on the PS3 (picked up GotY edition for a pittance) and I’m OK providing I don’t play more than 2-3 hours… anymore than that and I start to feel spaced. Did love the original 2 Fallout games which is why I got it. Haven’t finished Fallout 3 yet though as I didn’t want to complete main story (which is relatively short) until I’d finished exploring. Then I got FF13 and got very disappointed… so I got Star Ocean… got near the end of that… then I got Vanquish etc.
I have to say that I’m not convinced Eva’s arm is broken – think it could be held back without too much problem providing she is not lying down. I do like the look of this – my bill came through from SMJ (though they haven’t received the item yet) and it’s just over $150 which isn’t too bad… though about $125 more than I’m used to paying! Have to see how she compares to my others (and I have few now – only have 6 cupboard doors in my room to display them from too!)
Have to say that I’m pretty impressed how well Dizzy is selling. She seems to be sold out on all 4 of the preorder sites I usually check out… she looks cute, but not enough to tempt me too much… I think.
Some of them make me ill and I’m okay with others. A long time ago, I played Unreal Tournament for several hours at a friend’s place and had no problem with that. Then we switched to Quake 3 and I immediately felt sick. I haven’t played any recent FPSs on the computer, though; out of that genre, I pretty much just play Halo.
Yeah, you could be right. I like the picture every way it’s interpreted. I wish I had more pillow bodies since I’ve still got Chizuru on my one pillow.
I was kinda surprised by the positive reception she got, since she’s from a relatively obscure video game series. I’m happy to see her get love, though. I’m also a bit surprised at how simple a lot of Alter’s recent sculpts have been; okay, Dizzy looks fantastic, and the Phantom Minds Fate Testarossa is also quite dynamic, and I’m thinking about picking it up (admittedly, that’s primarily because she’s in the bargain bin at Hobby Search). But their upcoming Fate/stay night, Railgun, and plainclothes MGL Nanoha figures are a bit unexciting and comparatively nondescript. Houmei looks nice but we saw her a year ago. I wonder if they’ve got anything more ambitious scheduled to debut soon.
After you included a link to this on a previous thread, I very seriously considered buying this cover (would have been my first legit one too!). It’s very cute and I found one on SMJ I was going to buy… only thing that stopped me in the end was the amount I had already spent in February and the fact that I have several preorders due for release soon which will sap me this month.
Very hot… just wish they would drop in price, but the Japanese figure and Dakimakura industry doesn’t seem to work that way. Just picked up Mass Effect 2 on PS3 after I deemed that it had fallen far enough in price… good game… but I don’t think the main combat is anywhere as good as Vanquish though.
Yeah, these things still seem to be very much specialty items, particularly as they only seem to make as many as they can sell so you don’t often see them get discounted. If I could draw cute anime girls, I’d be a pillowcase-making machine, given the profit versus effort ratio these things must have.
Is Vanquish any good? I’ve been thinking about picking it up along with Bayonetta, since they’re both pretty cheap and I’m kinda in the mood for a good action game. The only negative I’ve heard about Vanquish is that it’s kinda short, but that’s a big plus for me since I’ve got the attention span of a ten-year old on Ritalin and not a lot of time to play video games.
Yeah, Vanquish is a very cool game… best description would be a third person shooter on acid. Seriously, the jet pack is awesome whilst the melee attacks (equip the assault rifle and then keep hitting circle) are insanely cool – shame the suit overloads so quickly.
Have to admit that when I first started I found it very frustrating. Think I racked up a lot of trophies very quickly along the lines of Death Wish, Kamikaze, Suicidal charge… think you get the idea. I died a lot and the first boss pissed me off no end – just didn’t seem to have enough ammo (and the guns were crap too). But after that I liked it a lot… still I lost interest after a while – missions are a bit repetitive… and some of the instant kill attacks are a bit annoying, though there is not really any excuse for failing to dodge them.
Have to say that I am getting increasingly tempted by this cover… she’s very cute and I do like the clenched teeth, adds a certain strength to the character… that almost certainly means I will end up buying it… think I need to break my PC again for a few weeks or I’ll overspend… as usual
That sounds like what I am looking for. I think I may pick it up real soon then, since it’s not too expensive.
Yeah, I like that look, I’m not sure if she’s in pain or if she’s embarrassed or if she’s just brassed off but it’s a good look. She’s a worthy pickup if you come across it.
Mandarake has it for 16000; not sure what it’s going for on YHJ, but that’s probably a decent deal for a dakimakura past the initial run, considering you don’t need to pay deputy fees to acquire it. Though I can’t reliably count out many people willing to pay that much for a dakimakura unless they really wanted it.
Just got it for 10,000 yen on YJA via SMJ… I hope.
Have to wait ’til I get all the commission, 2 lots of postage (and hopeful no import fees) before I know the final amount… was a bit surprised as this seemed to be lower than the retail price… I haven’t just bought another cheap knock off have I?
Seems to be another one here – http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w58561261
Did see a horrible dancing routine of Eva and Fiona on Youtube (though there was at least a decent jiggle in the right places)… still hate those cheesy choreographed Japanese dance routines.
Think it was a sub-sub-link from one of yours above… just glad she doesn’t look the same on the cover
Nice, should probably be cheaper than Mandarake then, considering how well the yen has been doing recently.
As far as I can tell, it’s a legitimate product; The dude has decent feedback rating, it’s being sold from within Japan, and he even has a couple pictures of the cover. The only odd thing is why he bothered to upload images for what he’s not selling. He has a listing for the other cover, but it could be a bit misleading at best (thinking you’ll be getting both) and a sign of a knock off at worst (half of one dakimakura on one side, half of another on the other.) But yeah, chances are you got a legit case.
Sounds like a good deal; the price is in the right ballpark and I don’t see any cheap listings on eBay yet.
Haha, yeah, I saw that video, it was a strange thing to see. It was almost as weird as this video I saw of the dark elf and light elf characters from Lineage II dancing around.
For once, I’m fairly tapped on what to say about a dakimakura cover. Maybe I’m just so used to explicit covers from you and myself that it’s messing with my head a bit. I still really like the cover, though. The backside especially. The front side looks great, but the background of it pales in comparison to the back; the shadow and extra parts of armor really add a lot. Plus I’m really digging her facial expression and the way her hair is positioned on the back. It’s probably not a cover I’d pick up at a normal dakimakura price, personally, but if I could get it in the sub-10000 yen range, I definitely would.
I still need to pick up Agarest myself; I have a friend that works at GameStop, and almost picked it up once. But they were selling the Xbox edition without all the goodies. I had just assumed that all Xbox copies came with the stuff, but I guess that defeats the purpose of a limited edition; still, I wasn’t going to pay the full $60 they wanted without all the stuff. I don’t really know anything about the game or the characters, but I could already tell that Fyuria would appeal to my interests; though she does look a touch too close to Miku.
Did you recently get a request from SMJ to ship things? I had emailed them a month ago when I had some items approaching the 90 limit, and they said US storage generally wasn’t a big deal and that they could probably store things until all of my special order items came in. They sent me an email last week saying that they needed to clear all items they were holding for me (some had been stored only 20 days or so) within the week. Just thought it was really strange and wondered if anyone else got a similar request; in all fairness, my credit card limit didn’t allow me to pay two invoices on time, so two were late and some invoices were around 140 days old. So that could be it, but they allowed the items that haven’t been paid for yet to be included in the shipment, so that was a bit odd.
Anyhow, it was a bit unfortunately timed, as I’m still waiting on my Illust Guerrilla Nymph cover, but I’m not complaining. The major plus side is that I’ll be getting two boxes of goodies in the next day or two. Not sure what I’m most excited for.
Hmm, nope, I haven’t gotten any message from SMJ about that, even though they’re holding a couple things for me. Admittedly, neither of those things is very large – one’s a doll costume and the other is a pillowcase. I dunno, maybe people ordered some bulky stuff recently that is taking up all their space.
Yeah, I’d want to get all the stuff in the Really Naughty Limited Edition. With a game like this – which is to say, a game I got mainly for the character designs and general immaturity rather than its sterling gameplay – I value the swag almost as much as I do the game. I’m probably not ever going to use any of it but I like collecting that sort of thing anyway.
This cover is nice, but honestly that one picture of Fyuria you posted at the end stole the show for me…Pale skin, flat chest, elf ears, twin tails, slim build, and very little clothes?!? She’s so in my strike zone it hurts!
*goes off to find any art of her*
I agree with you 100% on this. Think the artist was trying to clone Miku a bit in the picture above, but the changes are in all the right places. The paler skin and hair, longer ears, even fewer clothes and the look on her face make her superior to comparable Miku art in just about every way.
I gotta admit that I didn’t connect her with Miku and I don’t see a strong resemblance apart from the hair, which isn’t too uncommon among anime girls these days. I think when I first saw her design, I was reminded more of Ruri from Martian Successor Nadesico.
Incidentally, Fyuria is pretty damn snotty when you first meet her, which I am sure is no surprise at all. It’s all good, though, I can always get her killed if she gets too annoying. I wish anime shows offered that option.
I see a resemblance based on three things, I think. The hair obviously being the major similarity. The most minor would be the brace she has on her arm; it reminds me every so slightly of Miku’s normal keyboard like sleeves. The third would be her pose. Maybe not a dead match for some fan art of Miku I’ve seen, but I swear I’ve seen her in a pose close to it before.
Yeah, I’ve seen similar pictures and her pose resembles Max Factory’s alien Miku figure, which I have a review of somewhere here (which I wish I could do over since I don’t really like those pictures). Looking back at the game’s release date, I have some doubts that the artist was even aware of Miku, since Agarest War came out less than a month after Miku’s voice synthesis software was released and it took a little while for the Miku hype train to get rolling.
Yeah, there’s very little chance of a true connection, but I just can’t help but see an unintentional semblance to Miku; probably because she’s been the hype for so long now that I can help but unconsciously draw a connection.
I feel like a kid on Christmas. I just received my two packages from SMJ earlier today, and have everything but my Illust Guerilla Nymph. I’ll take some pictures later, but I have things to do now. I’m excited to share.
Didn’t do a count of dakimakura covers, but I only opened one so far. Was one of the two I had been waiting forever to acquire, but fwisy was the only one ever selling it. And the fact that there were two versions and he didn’t specify furthered my apprehension. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the version I wanted, but I was pleasantly surprised by the level of explicitness for a cover made in 2006. Not to Illust Guerrilla levels, but there is more anatomy down there than I’ve come to expect from most other circles.
I ordered 5 doujinshi in total; two from Ishikei, the Stray Moon book I mentioned previously, and a K-On/Oreimo book. All were sealed but the small non-color Ishikei book; from what I can tell it’s just a supplement to Mikanal, or something. I opened the Stray Moon book, despite downloading it, and am happy to say that it’s just as pleasing in paper form (if not more so.)
Took a couple overview shots, and then close ups of 4-5 covers tonight. Will probably do the same for the next few nights, as I’m too lazy to do it all in one sitting.
Also too lazy to upload each shot to an acceptable hosting site, so as usual, they’re in the rar. Here’s a preview shot, though:
http://sadpanda.us/images/390587-HNJRFWP.jpg
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HP5SWZD7
I thought you might like her design XD It’s too bad she doesn’t have any merchandise herself, as far as I know.
Yea all I found was mostly official illustrations and the in-game CGs which were sadly lacking…Artist can draw a nice character design, but apparently not complete pictures. >_<
I did see an illustration of a pillow cover, but even if it was ever made I'd never be able to find it… T_T
Yeah, I’ve been disappointed with the lack of Agarest War fanart out there, particularly Fyuria, who seems tailor-made for the moe. Even a Pixiv search didn’t turn up much, which is a shame.
I was really ready to hate this daki. Big breasts AND non-H? What’s the point! But that second side is really something, I like how nothing’s revealed, her clothes are torn apart and she’s being held by some disembodied hands! That’s hot. The look on her face as well, angry but enjoying it at the same time. Not a fan of the scratches or potentially broken arm, but I can look past them.
The pink haired girl in the video looks nice. And that twintailed flatchested girl looks splendid as well.
Yeah, there’s something about a girl being restrained and not being pleased about it that’s pretty hot. Particularly when the girl looks like she can take care of herself otherwise. Just checking Red Entertainment’s store, most of their other pillowcases are sorta the standard happy girl front and embarrassed girl reverse but this one’s got much more of an edge to it. I’m really hoping Agarest War 2 makes it over here sometime in the next year or so so I can understand the context of the scene.
>> Shashin
Yeah, it’s hard to escape that comparison now, since she’s so prevalent. I’m still wondering if anyone’s planning on making a Vocaloid anime, it feels like it’s inevitable.
Wow, that is an incredible haul. I don’t think I recognize many of them other than the Saber Lily pillowcase, and the BRS one, of course. The detailing looks great, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten any pillowcases that explicit. I wonder if anybody’s made a pillowcase of Teresa Beria? She seems to be the forgotten Qwaser girl. Along with Lizzy, I guess. Hmm, what’s the pillowcase with the two girls? They look kinda like Mian and Amane from Dream Club.
It will probably come sooner or later.
Yeah, the Saber Lily case was done by the same circle that did the Mio case I love so much. I was still fairly new to dakimakura covers when I first saw the preview images for it, and you couldn’t really zoom into them. I thought they censored the goods with some pink flowery type things, but after looking back at the images again, I thought it was some wording and just for the sample image, so I decided to pick it up. No idea what it will look like under the censoring, but given their previous work, I should be pleased.
Talking about the Qwaser cushion as far as the explicitness goes, I’m guessing? The others aren’t too bad, but of course it would be an Illust Guerrilla cover that goes as far as it does; even fits into the theme of the show a bit with the Tomo’s lactation. I paid a hefty price for it, and without a true sample (since their website doesn’t have a link), but my trust in the circle didn’t let me down.
You’d probably be right, there; I know they’re from Dream Club, but I’m not sure of their names. The case is from the same circle that did Evangelion girls, and also the Mio case that you can hardly see in my pictures there (around the same area, I think.)
Here’s the link to their website:
http://cakemoon.blog74.fc2.com/
The Dream Club case is near the bottom of the page.
Just in general; the one Illust Guerrilla pillowcase I’ve got is very explicit but the other ones I’ve got don’t have nearly the same level of interior anatomic detail.
Ah, k, thanks for the link. They’ve done some great stuff, I’ll keep an eye out on their stuff. I still kinda want that Evangelion pillowcase. The only pillowcase I’ve got on the way is the one Lovers pillowcase I linked the other week; I’m still wondering what’s on the reverse side, or if it even has a reverse-side image.
Yeah, true enough. Most cases tend to stay on the safer side, even if they are made by independent circles. As such, we see a lot of lines for anatomy down there, but only rarely do we see any actual detail. I guess it doesn’t really excite me quite as much anymore when I see some extra detail down there, as a good number of my cases are on the more explicit side of things.
I’m very fond of their work. I’ve gone and deleted all the YHJ bookmarks I had on my bookmark bar, since it’s the only way I can control spending it seems, but they were one of the circles I checked 5-20 times a day. After seeing that Dream Club cover in some more detailed shots and seeing it for sale every day on YHJ, I just couldn’t resist any more and had to pick it up. I really like the Evangelion case, and am glad I picked it up at retail price; shame that J-List wasn’t selling legitimate goods, as it would have been a great pick up for you.
I can’t wait to see the other side. For the price, I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t another side to it, though it would certainly suck in the off chance there isn’t.
Was too tired to take any more pictures last night, but I opened up the Saber Lily case and wasn’t disappointed. The front side is beautiful even without any real exposure. The opposite side more than makes up for it, I’d say. Though funnily enough, there is a flower petal slightly in the way. In this case though, it doesn’t fully cover anything, just keeps us from getting a true ‘interior’ shot.
It’ll also really suck if she’s pregnant or something on the other side. Oh well, I suppose that’s part and parcel of this hobby. So is drastically underestimating shipping expenses; I bought a bunch of used manga off of YJA for what I thought was a really good price, and then SMJ billed me like $60 for international shipping. Whoops. Technically, I suppose the price tag still is pretty close to what I’d expect to pay if those books were localized US titles.
Yeah, that would kinda suck.
I’ve definitely been there, and have vowed never to order more than a book or two at a time from YHJ. Unless I buy a lot of the Japanese hentai magazines again. I got about 40 or so, for 5000ish yen, then shipping was about $120ish, if I remember correctly. So it worked out to about $4 a piece, which I didn’t mind paying at all considering there was a lot of content. The 50 books for 5000 yen on the other hand, was not a good deal with the 230ish shipping fee.
Did a small set tonight. Had originally intended on doing a few more, but got lazy and kept it to 4. The fifth was going to be loli Nanoha, so that will be first next set. This set includes: Saber, epic ass, loli, and cat girls (really like the art on this one.)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NNGRD36E
Now that’s a chick I am willing to play a game for! You heard it! I am definitely getting the game when it come to the state. Speaking of the Dakimakura itself, it’s quite tempting I have to say but I cannot recklessly spend money now with a trusted informant suggesting I should brace for an imminent release of Dollfie Dream based on Tony Taka’s design. I can’t speak too openly regarding this matter however.
On the other matter, Fyuria is totally hot, she was my first gen wifu XD
Yeah, I saw the Fetishroom guy posting Tony pictures in between bondage harness pictures. I remember seeing illustrations of Maxima decorating the Volks booth during the last Wonder Festival convention, so I guess it wouldn’t be surprising if the next DDs come from Shining Wind/Hearts/etc. Tony seems to be everywhere these days. I wish the recent hentai OVAs based on his art were better; none of them seem to come close to Sora no Iro, Mizu no Iro.
I’m macking heavily on Fyuria in my playthrough now. Admittedly I have no choice since I don’t have any of the other potential mating options on my team yet but even so, I’m going to pick Fyuria. I wonder what sort of offspring will spawn from her loins?
>> Shashin
Those dakimakura covers are awesome, I especially like the twintailed blonde girl. I know I’ve seen that one on the dakimakura news sites but I can’t recall who the artist is. Epic ass, indeed. Thanks for sharing the pictures.
Yeah, I know all about being lazy … I had planned on taking some pictures of the actsta Nanoha that I’ve had lying on my desk for the last week, and then I realized a few days ago that I had no clue where her base was. I put off looking for it, thinking that it’d turn up eventually, but I still can’t find it so I wound up doing a very ad hoc figure shoot so I’ll have something new to post tomorrow. I usually like planning these things out a bit better than that but not many people have this figure so I suppose any pictures will do.
I like all of the ones in the batch, but the twin-tailed blonde is probably one of my favorite covers out of the entire order. I really like the coloring, and that is one wonderful ass. I remember wanting it when I saw it on a few news sites, and figured I’d pick it up on YHJ eventually. It was listed on Mandarake for 15000, I think. It sold out before I had a chance to buy it. I’m pretty sure I then mentioned it here, and you directed me to the website where they were still taking orders. Scored it for 9000 yen, with special order fees, but still probably a decent amount cheaper than Mandarake.
Heh, I think we’ve all been there in regards to losing something. Don’t worry, though. Your base will pop up in a couple days now that you’ve gone through the trouble of taking pictures without it. Think I’m going to hold off on taking any more shots tonight, but I’ll try to get a batch or two out over the weekend, if not the rest of them. I can’t recall off the top of my head how many I have left to take a few shots of, but I think it’s in the 10-12 range.
I’ve actually surprised myself with my patience. I’ve opened 4-5 of them that I haven’t shot yet, but I still have a few that have remained unopened. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been so busy or what, but I personally expected I would have at least given a quick look at them all. Still, it’s nice to be able to open one or two a day.
I hope it does magically reappear, I’d like to get those shots done since it’s a recent figure. Oh well, I’ve got like a half dozen figures in the review queue and probably 30 or so old ones that I could review if I really ran out of material.
I was looking at the Umo Reru Dakimakura blog (I think that name translates to “Buried in Dakimakura” but I have no way of being sure) and I like the Migite ga Tomaranai Boku to, Shinjin Nurse pillowcase they have up there. I ran the name of that eroge through an auto-translator and it interprets the first part of that name as something like “my right hand will not stop.” I gotta admit that I’d feel kinda weird e-mailing a proxy buyer going like, “Hey, can you buy this pillowcase from this game for me?” I also gotta admit that I feel a little bit tacky shopping for pillowcases the day Japan got plastered.
Love the Agarest War ones. Especially with what seems like a battle version side. I really wanted the Dyshana one in the first Agarest and Victoria for Agarest Zero 2 though. Always seem to notice them way too late for me to order 🙁
I want a Fyuria one … there’s an illustration in the Agarest War artbook I just received today that looks like a Fyuria dakimakura but I’ve not heard of one. Although to be the frank, the illustration isn’t one of my favorite pictures of her. Also, the artbook gives her height as 175 centimeters which is like what, 5’10? That seems kinda tall though I suppose she’s not human. It does kinda wreck my mental image of her, though.
I think there’s only one of the four illustrations in that book that is an actual dakimakura? Or maybe 2. The dyshana one I haven’t seen either.
Hehe, those measurements should be made up anyways. The picture of Fyuria does make her look shorter though imo.
And it is indeed a shame there aren’t more fan art or official works for the series. They make awesome illustrations.
Yeah, I’m guessing they weren’t thinking too hard when they assigned heights. Kinda like when a dakimakura cover illustrator gives a character two left feet.
So I was playing Agarest War today and I realized that my game disc has no voices. I did some googling and found that there are supposed to be voiceovers during the dialogue scenes and I think the battle scenes as well, but my copy has none of them. I asked a friend to pop his game into his 360 and he told me his game has voices, so I’m wondering what the hell is up with that.
Does the 360 version have an install option or some such thing? If so, I’d guess that would be a potential for error. Other than that, I couldn’t imagine what the deal is; if other sound effects/games are working, I’d very highly doubt it would be a problem with your tv/sound setup, and a problem with the 360 itself seems unlikely.
Yeah, I tried the game loading from the disc as well as installed to the hard drive. All my other games work as expected so I dunno. It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen on my 360.
All things are relative… I have a reputation of calling people who are 6′ 2″ short arses. Seriously… they should grow a bit, lazy slackers.
@Shashin: That is quite the haul. Those are extremely nice. Would hate to imagine how much that would have cost.
You an Azusa fan? Seems to be a few of her hehe. Were all those normally found on yahoo auctions, or are there other sources? I guess I’m too newbie for finding those particular types of covers.
Also are most of them generally sold at comiket or those type of events only? I’m actually interested in one or two from the site you linked (http://cakemoon.blog74.fc2.com/), but have no idea how to go about finding and/or ordering them.
Think the total was 24 dakimakura covers. I paid 9000 yen for some, but up to 25000 for a few. Definitely over a 15000 average, though, and with the way the exchange rate is plus SMJ fees…. yeah, not cheap.
I’m not particularly an Azusa fan, but I don’t dislike her. It mainly came to the circles that released the covers. I really like the circle NoReal, and I purchased two of their Asuza covers (one with cat ears/clothes, one with no clothes/no cat ears) and then the other I really, really liked the positioning.
Probably 95% of all my dakimakura covers were acquired from YHJ; there is a limitless selection there. You can either google the Japanese for dakimakura (which is what I did when I first started looking), copy it, and then paste in the YHJ site, or you can find the Japanese name for a circle you like and enter that in. I had (recently deleted due to excessive spending) bookmarks for YHJ dakimakura pages, and then like 5-6 circles that had covers I wanted.
The other option (which is generally cheaper) is to get the cover during its initial run. This basically requires that you keep up to date on the happenings of the circle you want, and then buying through there.
This website: http://blog.xn--er-573a1isbf1441e2hs87j.jp/
In combination with Google translate, if necessary (generally order dates will be listed in a month/date format) will tell you how to order, and when you can place an order. Then it’s just a matter of finding the order site (usually linked on that blog) and submitting an order with a proxy. There are two ways you can usually get a cover through the first run: either directly from the circle (NoReal, Illust Guerrilla, etc.) or if they sell it through a intermediary like D-Stage. I’d google D-Stage and navigate your way through their site; it’s possible they still have some of the covers from the circle you linked, depending on which they are: I ordered the Evangelion cover directly from them, and the Mio cover from a similar site. Compared to the 20000 yen I had to pay for the Dream Club cover (which probably retailed for around the same 14000 price.)
I just checked D-Stage, entered in 夕月工房 (the name of the circle linked above) and they currently have 3 covers still available for order: the Evangelion cover, and two others.
In short: I’ve probably ordered 3-5 covers directly through the circle’s website, another 3-4 through an intermediary like D-Stage, and then the rest through YHJ.
I also forgot to mention Mandarake, which is great, but you have to be very quick to acquire goods there. You can try searching by individual circles, and they may have one or two items available, but most of the harder to come by items are sold out quickly. Just try searching 　抱ãæž• and see if there’s anything you like, or go by circle name.
Case in point: I was late in search this morning, and they had sold out of a 2wroica Illust Guerrilla Twins case for 15000 yen. The only auction currently on YHJ is 24000 buyout for an SK cover. Needless to say, I was fucking pissed I missed it.
Another set of 4 tonight; three from ã‚ã‚“ã“工房 and one from 強熱残分. I’m pleased with them all, though I either paid out the ass or underpaid for every one of them. Paid heavily for the Nanoha cover, then could have gotten it for cheaper as a 2WT the very next day (it’s 2WR), the Nagato is the SK material I’m not overly fond of (works for display, though) and was still expensive (as the cover released a couple years back), and the last from ã‚ã‚“ã“工房 I found about 3000 yen cheaper on Mandarake the next day. But that’s how it works, on the plus side the 強熱残分 cover only cost me 9000 on YHJ, and I ended up liking it much more than I expected.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FI91JLUV
That Nanoha one is awesome. There’s something hilariously perverse about her being half-naked while wearing what appears to be a bridal veil. Not to mention that she looks rather young there.
Thanks for the info!
I generally just search 抱ãæž• since I don’t know the circle names, but don’t always find too many of the unique ones. I guess I always have to search.
Sucks not being able to read Japanese lol.
So this review finally drove me to buy Agarest War from PSN. I wasn’t expecting a triple A title by any means, but I was hoping it would be a decent strategy game. I’m not disappointed in that aspect; the battle system is pretty cool, and I hope as time goes on more things are added.
Even if the game were mediocre, I figured the story/ecchi elements would be able to drive me through the game with ease. In that, it’s almost a shame they didn’t decide to go all out with the ecchi (then again, I guess we wouldn’t have gotten a US release then.) The combat is fun, but there are way too many trivial battle points in between story elements. Hopefully it picks up in future generations, but right now it’s fairly tedious. I’m tempted to preorder the prequel, but I think before I do I’m going to have to check and make sure that this element is improved a bit… if it’s exactly the same, I don’t think I’d bother playing the game no matter how many banana eating lolis they threw at me.
Wikipedia wasn’t any help, but I have a feeling the true sequel won’t be seeing a release here without one minor change… This made me laugh quite a bit “The Soul Breeding system receives a new additional feature with the implemention of a “Dark Love” ending where if the relationship rate is low with the chosen mate. Rather than a happy wedding, the main character forcibly makes the love interest his bride and enters a loveless relationship to conceive a child” If the video you linked didn’t suggest otherwise, I would have guessed that’s where the backside of the cover came from.
Yeah, I was getting tired of fighting the same goblins or dogs or whatever at the beginning of the game. I’m not sure when I start getting new equipment or abilities or whatever, but I’m a few hours in and I haven’t gotten anything new yet. Hopefully it picks up soon.
I’ve got this weird problem with the game that is deterring me from continuing: I have no voices. It’s really strange, I’m told that the dialogue and battle scenes are supposed to have voiceover tracks but I’ve got no voices. I’m not sure what the deal is with that; fiddling with the volume settings doesn’t help and there doesn’t seem to be a switch to turn them off, so I wonder what the deal is.
Haha, that sounds awesome. Who knows, maybe they can sneak it through with some careful phrasing. Hopefully the ESRB won’t be paying a lot of attention to that.
Yeah, the combat is fairly solid on its own. But fighting the same mobs over and over in the same subpar 3D environment really isn’t that satisfying. That’s probably why Disgaea is one of my favorite games; it has the same meaningless fights with repeated mobs (though to its credit, you usually get some story after every fight), but even with levels in the same stage (and thus share the same scenery) are varied in their combat area and geopanels. It makes every fight feel somewhat fresh, even if you’re fighting the same mobs over and over.
As far as new equipment goes, I’m thinking (I hope I’m wrong) it’s all through the Alchemy system. Materials are a bit hard to come by at the beginning, but I’ve already managed to power my main character up to a tier 3 sword. Hopefully new items will be added eventually, but at the moment it’s looking like you have to create everything once before it can be added to the shop. This requires buying the books in the item shop, then going over to the Blacksmith and seeing the items you need to make something. Once you’ve made it once, it’s added to the item shop for purchase.
Generally the item, if it’s a weapon/armor will require an item from the previous tier (sword, gun, bracelet, etc) then a drop from a mob. It’s somewhat frustrating, but would be a fairly cool system if there was a better way to sort things. That’s for items anyway, not sure how new abilities would work, though I’d imagine it’s pretty similar as they do have a page for skills in the Alchemy menu.
That is really strange. I’ve heard voices for just about everything story wise, short of maybe shops (though I think they say something when you enter.) Characters generally say something when it’s their turn to move and when they use certain abilities too. Even the baddies scream in pain when you’re beating the shit out of them. I’d try googling the issue and see if you come up with anything, because I definitely have voices.
Yeah, it would suck to see any part of the game altered. Though I guess they wouldn’t be too happy about getting a Mature rating for the game, I would hope that if they bring it over they’re willing to accept the possibility.
I got real tired of that same forest tileset during the early part of the game. I don’t mind repetitiveness – I played a lot of Warcraft and Diablo back in the day and those games are the essence of repetitiveness – but that’s only if there’s some other form of motivation to keep me interested. The Blizzard games have random loot while in Agarest War, I guess I’m just trying to get my character hitched or something. That’s a bit less compelling than trying to find a Windforce.
I’m hoping Disgaea 4 is good, it might give me additional reason to finally pick up a PS3. On the other hand, I might get a PSP before I get a PS3 due to the price drop. As much as I’m interested in playing Valkyria Chronicles, I think I might be more interested in going through Persona 3 again.
Yep, the forest tileset really got on my nerves too. I played the hell out of Diablo in my age, and it had a reasonably varied campaign, but it was no doubt repetitive. Especially after you made your way all the way down to hell and took out Diablo… then had the choice of doing it again. At least the maps were randomly generated, and as you said, you had plenty of loot to keep you interested.
Agarest has improved a bit, but I’m still dreading ever 3-4 battle points before the next event. Not sure how far you are, but after you defeat the first real boss, a lot more stuff opens up. Items can be purchased with TP in the Adventurer’s Guild, and you can also research skills there. Then equipment is still created via the Blacksmith. There is also a monster capturing ability, but you have to research it first.
Unfortunately, the tilesets are still largely the same, even if they are varied. They all seem to be confined to the same small area, and no matter what the skin is, you can’t help but feel they’re the same.
We’re getting a bit more story now, but it’s still way too many random battles between events. At least I finally have all three heroines for the first generation; I had planned on going with Fyuria for sure, but surprisingly, I do like the other two chicks as well. At the very least, I’ll make it through the first generation since I’m almost there… but I’m not sure how far I’ll get past that.
I’ll probably pick it up as soon as its released, no matter how good it is. I haven’t even beat Disgaea 3 yet, as unfortunately it was more of the same and I didn’t really like the main character. Was still better than most games, but I guess I just wasn’t in the mindset for it. Similar to you picking up a PSP, I’m hoping the DS series drops in price soon with the release of the 3DS. I have an original DS, but the battery died on me and I haven’t bothered buying a $10 replacement from Nintendo. There is more than a few games I want to play (including games I’ve purchased but can’t play) and I’m just waiting for a price drop. Should have picked up a Lite for $79 during all the Black Friday sales, but I’m still holding out for a better price.
Uhh, where am I at … I just got off of a boat and am supposed to slay some sort of beast. I’m not playing anymore until I figure out what’s up with the voiceovers; I’m gonna try to borrow a friend’s disc to get that determined.
The thing holding me back from picking up a PS3 and PSP is that the last thing I need right now is another video game console, given my tremendous backlog and the other stuff I want to do. I’ve got like four or five figures that are stuck in the review queue because I haven’t gotten around to building their backdrops. I’m really enthusiastic about photographing them but really lazy about doing the work needed to get to that point.
Yeah, first boss 3-5 fights after you get off the boat; there should be an event marker to in the northwest direction. Really strange on the voices, though. I don’t see how it could be a disc error; that seems too specific to lose all audio, it’s working on your friend’s Xbox, and I’m assuming you keep your discs in fairly decent condition. Just really strange.
That’s certainly understandable. I don’t really have a hobby that I’m passionate about in the sense that I do things to further it; I buy a lot of dakimakura covers, and I like watching pro StarCraft, but I’m not doing a bunch of cool things for either (at least yet on the dakimakura covers.) I’m just lazy.
The thing that usually keeps me from jumping deep into games is that I like to play them in large chunks, so I find it hard to actually start a game unless I can devote the time to it. So as a result, a lot of me leisure time is spent browsing the internet and/or playing flash games.
I will explain what happens, while previously in the first two, you got a normal wedding image and then to a scene where you and the bride do the deed for the next generation. What the new feature is that it has a Low Relationship end feature where she hates the main character but will bear his child for the next generation and to do that, you stick her to the soul pillar to bind her soul and thus her child is now bound to you in both spirit and blood and what happens after that is unpleasant to say the least.
Ah, that doesn’t sound as bad as it could have been, then. Certainly not a happy situation, but the fact that it’s a bit less… rape-y could let it see a US release, depending on sales for the upcoming prequel, I guess.
Ah, that sounds awesome XD Thanks for explaining that, I’m looking forward to this game even more now, then, presuming that NISA or Aksys will bring it over.
Aksys will bring it over after Agarest War Zero perhaps, given the fact they also localized Agarest War
Yeah, it doesn’t help that most of the time when I get home from work, I am tired as hell and really don’t feel like doing anything at all. A lot of times I’ll just spend the evening browsing webpages or watching basketball. I’m often too tired to even fire up a video game. I really do not remember how I did a figure review every three or four days back when I started this website.
I’m the opposite way now, I have this really short attention span that stops me from spending a ton of time on a game. Unless that game is Sengoku Rance or World of Warcraft; I can spend a ton of time with those games. Moreso Sengoku Rance than Warcraft these days, though; what my friends tell me about Warcraft does not encourage me to ever play it again at all.
Cataclysm was somewhat fun for the month or two that I played it, but I guess I just don’t have the interest/desire I once had to play the game. I might pick it up again eventually, casually (okay, it’s never casually with me and WoW) but I don’t think I want to waste the time.
Sengoku Rance on the other hand is an absolutely addictive game. The actual combat system is just a tad shallow for my liking, but all the other trimmings (decent enough story, management, hentai, etc) make it an amazing game. I’d probably put it in a top ten list if I were to ever create one for favorite games of all time. I really hope we get a new Rance game soon (along with a translation effort.) Only downside is that a bit of motivation is lost after you clear all the routes; even though the game was still fun and I had some characters/scenes I was missing, I just couldn’t decide which way I wanted to play the game after that, and it made me lose interest.
Big Bang Age is a lot of fun, too. Though I’d rank it below Sengoku Rance. I’d actually say the combat system is better, but I didn’t like all the girls as much as some in Rance, and the girls that I really liked only got a scene or two that wasn’t necessarily suited to my tastes. It’s also a lot shorter; there doesn’t appear to be as much to conquer, and if I remember correctly, you had a strict 100 (for the last area, anyway, maybe 150 total.) That really put a damper on me, as while I’ll generally rush pushing things to trigger certain events or what have you, but I’ve always enjoyed taking my time, building up defenses/characters and just enjoying the game. I also believe there were only two real routes; there were 6 heroines in the game, that had 10-20 H-scenes each, but only two had an ending. I left off beating the first route, and stopped playing during the second route when school started back up or something.
I really need to go back to it and play it again. It’s a fun game with some great hentai, and it feels a lot like Rance. I’d check it out if you’re looking for something (not entirely) new to play.
Yeah, I think I’d regard Sengoku Rance the same way. It’s got a lot of depth for an h-game; I didn’t expect an ero-game to have nearly the level of gameplay that it does.
I should give Big Bang Age a try sometime. I kinda want to play an h-game now since Agarest War is going back on the backburner. I did buy Guilty today so I’ll probably be spending some time with that; it’s kinda dated but the artwork is by Yoshikazu Miwa, so that’s a big plus in its favor in my view.
Me either. It’s honestly better than a lot of games that don’t have the hentai factor to consider; you come to expect so little from the games that are loaded with porn, so it’s a very pleasant and refreshing surprise when a game as good as Sengoku Rance comes along.
I’d highly recommend it, even if you can’t get a copy from Erogeshop anymore (really wish I had bought a copy when I had the chance, it was only like 4000 yen.) I’ll stick with Agarest for the rest of the generation, just to see things finished with Fyuria, but after that I don’t know how likely I am to keep playing it. It’s just a tad bland for what was a promising battle system, and I knew the marketing was overplayed on the ecchi factor, but there are way too many forced battles between story elements. I’ll probably check out Agraest Zero, and may even buy it just to show support for some niche titles, but I really hope they change things up a bit as far as the combat/rate of combat goes.
Hooray, I have fixed the audio problem. Or resolved it, rather. I flipped my receiver from Dolby 5.1 to stereo sound and the voices seem to work now. I’m gonna have to do a check if my center channel speaker is malfunctioning later on.
Thats a nice looking pillow case, the first thought that came to mind was “Um no real backside?” ;D But this way it is also interesting, on the one side you have the cool and sexy girl and on the other hand the slightly creepy ero hell in your bed. I like the one side of the Fiona pillow cover from the link as well, but the daring side is… how should I put it…pretty daring XD I’ve never heard of that game before, but I like the characterdesign you showed us here, Fyuria looks also as nice as Eva.
Haha, yeah, this is one of the rare pillowcases I buy that isn’t full-out explicit. Eva has a great design; when I first saw the character designs from Agarest Senki 2, I was sure she’d be a bad guy since she looks like a bad guy, but I was very pleased to learn she was a main party member and one of the romance options.
was looking at my youtube videos and was watching again that Eva CG
when I took a look at my referrals, majority of the views came from this website..
It’s a good video, I’m glad you put it up. It makes Eva all the more appealing a character seeing her go through something like that.
So, I had said I was done with purchases for the next few months, I just couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Wish I had picked it up months ago for around 15000 yen with a better yen rate, but that’s what I get… Anyhow, I finally managed to get a roika version of the Twins. The cover has been very limited on YHJ for a few months and I missed it on Mandarake just last week (the auction I bought today was probably from Mandarake >_>) I’ve only seen SK versions over the last few months, usually for well above 20000 yen. fwisy was the only recent listing I’ve seen at 24000 yen for SK. So I couldn’t pass up the roika for 20000 yen, even if it well end up being over $300 with fees and conversion.
Nice, I know you’ve been wanting that one for a while. It’s hard to pass up something like that; there’s a couple things I’ve been looking for on YJA for months now but I haven’t had any success winning them.
I think I’ve seen that sort of thing with Mandarake as well; there was this one Muv-Luv bundle of goods that was sold at Comiket (78, I think) that I was thinking about buying. Of course it got bought up while I waffled and of course the next day I saw it up on YJA for twice what Mandarake was selling it for. Curiously, Mandarake re-stocked it a few days back even though it seems to be a limited item and C78 was quite a while back. I didn’t waffle this time and I’m glad I didn’t, since the artbook that came with it is really nice. I’ll have to take some pictures of it and some of the other artbooks I’ve bought recently and do a post on them.
Yeah, I’ve been wanting it since I originally brought it to your attention. There was like 3-4 on YHJ at the time, including one from fwisy… then they dried up almost overnight and have been hard to find since. :_>) and a few days later the cover pops up on YHJ for 27000. I know I’ve seen it happen with a few other items, but that’s the one that remains well within my mind. Definitely would like to see some artbook shots sometime. 😀
I really should look over my comments to hit post to make sure there is nothing else I want to say…
I know how you feel about looking for items for months, and either not having luck winning them or them just not appearing. It’s funny how things tend to happen in groups, at least for me. I managed to get the two covers I wanted most in the span of a month or so, after 4-5 of searching YHJ by the item/circle name 10-20 times a day. I’d say the Twins acquisition completes my “must have” dakimakura spending, but I there will always be covers I really want. I just need to let my finances recover for a year or two before I go on another binge.
Ok… is the material this cover is made of normal?
When I go to hang her up she seems to be bungee jumping in my hands. All the other covers I have (of dubious source) have been made of what I would consider a normal cover to be made of… cotton (or something like that).
Where is this dubious piece of artistry you refered to, the missing thumb? Haven’t noticed that at all. If it’s the only hand visible on the demonic side… I assumed that was her right hand and the finger visible was her pinky… not sure what the purple hand on top of that is doing though
Welcome to the joy of 2-way tricot. It’s really stretchy.
Yeah, that’s pretty normal. I was surprised the first time I got a two-way tricot pillowcase too, since the first dakimakura covers I got were Cospa ones that were made of fairly typical pillowcase material. A spandex blend seems to be the most common material for dakimakura covers now, as does the 160 centimeter length.
Her right hand is actually the one with the glove. It looks like the ungloved hand ought to be her right hand but she wears that style of glove in her game artwork. It’s unfortunate the ungloved hand appears at all since now we must come up with some sort of explanation for it.
Dear Tier,
I have a quick question regarding a Dakimakura website that I recently stumbled on.
http://www.hobbyheart.com/index.php
I would like to ask for your advice and if you happen to have used it before. The prices seem to be “too good to be true” in my opinion, and that’s why I hesitate. It could be legit but the materials may be cheap…At any rate, thought I’d show it to you and see what you thought of it. If indeed this does turn out to be a legit site, then I think this site and its prices would make a lot of happy otakus out there!
Not legitimate. All fakes tend to use the peach skin polyester material. Certainly not as stretchy as 2-way tricot. Quality of the print could vary from bootlegger to bootlegger; I’ve seen some fakes that looked pretty good and others that looked terrible; it’s just a chance you take when you buy fakes.
Definitely not legit, but the quality (other than feel of material) could be fine, so it’s really a personally choice if you’re willing to buy knock offs for a much cheaper price, or you have to have the real thing for whatever reason.
I haven’t ever bought anything from them but yeah, those are bootlegs. The images from some of them give it away; I have one of the Black Rock Shooter dakimakura covers they list and the photo isn’t the same as the one I’ve got. The 150 centimeter length also deviates from most of the ones I have, which are 160 centimeters long. Unfortunately in this hobby, if the price looks too good to be true, it’s always fake.
Regarding that last bit, I was 99% sure they were fakes when J-List listed their covers a few months back. But I was absolutely blown away when Mandarake had listed a run of covers (including some really recent ones that retailed for 10k plus) at 6k. I say blown away rather than skeptical because I trust Mandarake to know their shit, while not so much with J-List. Really wish finances at the time had allowed me to partake in those awesome deals.
Yeah, that was pretty surprising. I wonder if they were technically opened goods; I didn’t check the product descriptions but I’ve got the feeling that secondhand dakimakura don’t hold their value too well, even if they were just opened up to inspect their condition.
Thanks for the replies! I do appreciate the help. Yeah, I guess this was a “too good to be true scenario.”
What websites do you guys buy your dakimakuras from? I own only one and I bought it at DSTAGE when I visited Akihabara. That was definitely an awesome store…but sadly I can’t read Japanese and when I visit the DSTAGE website, “confusing” is an understatement.
Thanks in advance for the help and just want to say, I love your site!
Thanks! Among Japanese stores, I’ve bought from White Canvas and Doujindou. There’s also Yahoo Japan Auctions of course, but all of those probably necessitate going through a proxy service. There’s also Mandarake, and they’ve got a big selection of stuff. Unfortunately it can be difficult to find things since the Nakano store seems to be the only one that consistently provides English translations. If I’m looking for a pillowcase featuring a particular character, I’ll usually go to Wikipedia or Myanimelist to copy and paste the name in Japanese along with “抱ãæž•”, which is “dakimakura.” I usually get reasonably good results when doing that.
Awesome! I appreciate the links and advice. I will try to navigate the stores as best as I can. If I have trouble making a purchase do you mind if I ask for help? Of course I’ll try on my own to figure things out…can’t be that tough!
抱ãæž• hobby ain’t cheap lol but there’s something about them that makes me want to buy more (^_^)/
The best places to buy dakimakura are probably Mandarake and YHJ; Mandarake has a good selection at prices that are usually reasonable, and YHJ has the best section (at not so reasonable prices, usually.) Especially considering you’ll have to use a proxy (as with most non-Mandarake sites, anyway), which will tax on a lot of extra cost. Basically just navigate to auction.yahoo.co.jp and enter the same word. Feel free to either get the Japanese name of a character and add it with 抱ãæž• or just use 抱ãæž• and browse through. It may also help to specifically use “抱ãæž•ã‚«ãƒãƒ¼” (dakimakura cover) instead, as it will remove most of the actual pillow results. It also helps if you can navigate your way and create an over 18 foreigner email on Yahoo.co.jp. There’s a guide floating around somewhere on how to do it, but even with the guide it can be a bit tricky; but the payoff is worth it, as it will allow you to browse the Adult section (by clicking the very bottom category on the left, and then the second from the bottom.) Most of the dakimakura covers aren’t in the adult section, but it doesn’t hurt to broaden your buying possibilities.
D-Stage is a bit hard to navigate, but it can be done much the same; I usually just click ” 予約” to the right of the HOME on the top bar, and then enter the dakimakura search term in the search window. You’ll get a decent amount of hits, and can browse from there. However, Doujindou, which Tier already listed, has roughly the same amount of items and they’re a tad easier to navigate.
I’d highly recommend checking out http://dakemakura.com/top.html
They have a massive selection of covers, all created by their circle I believe, and they usually sell through sites like D-Stage and such. In their FAQ, they say that they’re willing to deal with foreigners and that they do speak a bit of English; I haven’t tried using them directly yet, but Tier and I have spoken about it. If you could successfully arrange something, you’d save a lot by buying directly from them (500-2000 yen versus D-Stage/Doujindou) and not having to go through a proxy (a while lot more.)
Those are all purchasing options, I’d say Mandarake/YHJ is your best bet and fairly easy to navigate once you get used to it (though Mandarake is certainly easier.) Of course, Google Translate is your best friend; I’d have an open tab of it whenever you’re either searching for covers or attempting to buy one. And finally, one last piece of advice if you aren’t already aware of it:
http://blog.xn--er-573a1isbf1441e2hs87j.jp/
That website will quickly become your best friend, along with Google Translate.
I think Shashin pretty much covered everything I would have said. One other thing you can do as you become more familiar with various dakimakura-making circles is to find their websites and check them every now and then.
If you have more questions though, feel free to ask; I am always happy to help people out with spending their money on this hobby. It’s definitely a hobby where once you buy one pillowcase, it leads to another and another XD
Are you posting your reviews on other forums under another name, or are you just being ripped off by someone passing off your work as their own?
http://animefocus.net/2011/07/12/dakimakura-review-%E2%80%93-eva-record-of-agarest-war-2/
That is definitely somebody ripping off my stuff. This person has also ripped off Super Rats’s work, and quite a few others, it seems.
Did notice that the same person was posting your review of Super Conehead too… not good
Yeah, just going through reading the first line and calling upon my memory, I see the BRS dakimakura and Alter’s Dizzy. Seriously not cool.
Yeah, it’s pretty annoying. I suppose that’s the way things go when you run a website; the only sure deterrent to crap like this is not putting stuff on the internet.
Real question is I guess if it bothers you enough to contact them/whoever is hosting their site about removing the content. I’m honestly very in the dark about what exactly would need to be done in a case like this, and if it would be worth whatever hassle is involved.
Wonder if their other reviews are just copy/pasted from other bloggers or if they legitimately wrote a review or two of their own.
I am not sure how to go about doing that. The person’s webhost is Vietnamese, which complicates things.
I do not think the individual has any legitimate content on the site. He stole quite a few posts from HappySoda, and from some other places as well.
I’m not so naive to think that my stuff isn’t going to get jacked. If it’s on the web, it’s going to get jacked. My pictures are all over the web. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, and it’s not the second time it’s happened.
Ah yeah, I imagine that would complicate things. I figured it probably didn’t have much unique content, if any, but even if it did it wouldn’t have done anything to correct the wrongs made.
On more pleasant notes, I guess, I saw that you got a new dakimakura cover via Twitter the other day. Would that be the cute one we talked about a few weeks ago (I’m bad at remembering names)? I know it was listed on Mandarake a few days ago, so I know it’s out; unfortunately it was on the Japanese site only and sold out almost instantly.
Mentioning Mandarake actually leads to two somewhat interesting hobby related stories. I’ve been in another buying fit lately after cooling off for a bit, because I know I have a bit of money coming in soon… not that I can really afford, but I know that I’ll be able to pay off bills in a fairly reasonable amount of time without much/any interest… so I’ve splurged (is it splurging if it occurs on a regular basis?) a bit.
I finally tested the willingness of Mandarake to sell items from their Japanese site that aren’t posted on the English page. I had my eye on a cover from Blueberry since it was added about a month back; it never sold but wasn’t ever posted on the English site, so I figured it was about time to send them an email and I may as well add a few more unobtainable items to my list while I was at it.
As always, I was impressed with their response time; they got back to me within a few hours. They basically said that they’d alert the stores to add the items to the English site, but from how I was reading into things, not to expect it to happen much in the future. More specifically they said that I should understand that they’re prohibited from selling certain items outside of Japan by circles/other forces and they’re intended mainly for shipping within Japan.
I expected something like that, but since I tend to browse the Japanese site mainly these days and only revert to the English side when I see something I want, I’ve come to realize that it’s only certain stores that hold things back. Nakano/Nagoya/Fukuoka probably post the most items overall on the English site, and the later two get in quite a few dakimakura covers; almost all of which make it to the English site. Whereas a store like Grandchaos posts a decent amount on the English site, but almost entirely doujinshi; they get in a lot of dakimakura covers, but I’d be surprised if 1/10 makes it to the English side.
I basically replied stating that observation in a sentence and adding that I’ve seen the same exact cover posted by one store but withheld by another, and that it seems certain stores are much more reserved by what they post on the English site. I didn’t get a reply, but I didn’t really expect one.
Still, I was happy they were willing to go out of the way for me, and I thanked them in the same email. I hope I haven’t worn out any good will in the future and they’re willing to go through the trouble again, or better yet, start posting things across all stores. But I’m not sure about either, and I’m not likely to ask again soon unless it’s a rare item I’ve been after for some time.
Both the stores were really quick, though. I checked my email about 20 minutes after they had replied and when I checked the page, one cover from one store had been added under the new items page, and the other two from a different store had been added by searching specifically for that store’s items. I’m glad I was able to scoop them up before any others limited to the international sites.
The other story stems from that, kinda. One of the covers was from a circle (I think – the whole situation is a bit unclear to me) that I had recently come across. That Touhou cover I mentioned the last time I talked about dakimakura covers was by them, and I had just won another cover the other day from YJA. So as I was searching for a sample image, I navigated my way to their website, and was surprised to see that some of it was in English. I knew that they were a Taiwanese circle, but it still threw me off a little.
They had two open preorders, one for a Sonico cover and the other from Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, which I really liked. On the page, each cover had two listings, one for shipping within Taiwan and the other had a [Foreign] tag. So I figured what the hell, and put in a order with my US shipping address. Got a Paypal payment request some time later, paid, and got a confirmation shortly after in (rough) English. Was a pleasant surprise and I hope everything goes well as it would be nice to actually get goods directly from a circle I like without any extra costs.
Then finally, after about six months of saying I was going to do something, I’ve actually cleared some of the boxes out of my hobby room. It was starting to get pretty ridiculous with my recent acquisitions, and clearing out some boxes has actually provided some walking space. It’s still an absolute mess though, as all of my dakimakura covers are overflowing from 3-4 large boxes I had try to stuff them in to. Maybe if I have some free time I’ll get off my lazy ass and find a solution, and then take some pictures finally.
Nah, that wasn’t a new dakimakura cover I was referring to. I haven’t gotten a new pillowcase in a month.
It’s cool of them that they responded to you. Hopefully they were just speaking conservatively; I sort of think of Asian customer service as being understated.
That’s also pretty cool that the Taiwanese circle is willing to sell stuff overseas. Hopefully, anyway.
I love the Agarest War dakimakuras, but I don’t know the best way to go about finding them. I have used the Yahoo Auctions Japan site and from what I can tell it is fairly good to go. I don’t want to pay too much though.
I am wondering if there are any other sites that I can check. I am really only looking for the Shernini one.
I have seen two of them on yahoo, but I am wondering if people have actual retailers websites that may sell them. I rarely have luck with auction sites in the states and usually do better at brick and mortar stores.
Thanks for the advanced help.
Honestly at this point, if you want legitimate products (ie expensive) your best bet is going to be YJA. It’s not really that big of a property outside of Japan, and neither are dakimakura covers, so it’s unlikely that more than one or two foreign retailers carried it, if any at all. And given that it probably won’t get another run, unless there’s a new set with the next game, your only real option is to pick it up from second hand sources. Which means either YJA or Mandarake; I checked Mandarake and they only have one Agarest cover in stock. But it isn’t the one you want.
I checked Mandarake, Amazon JP, and Rakuten but I did not see any dakimakura covers there. This is the cheapest Shernini pillowcase I found and it has a buyout price, so winning that auction could be straightforward.
Does anyone happen to have the [Victoria] pillow cover from Agarest war?
As seen here: http://www.red-store.jp/agarest2/bikutoria.html
If so, could you take some nice pics off it like the one above?
thanks!
It’s unlikely anyone here has it, considering it seems to sell for 40000-50000 yen these days. >_>
That is too bad. it is nearly impossible to find, to buy. While he has such great illustrations.
Well, if anyone knows a good forum to ask please let me know.
thanks!