Yes, the package was from Otacute, the store that cancelled my order for the exclusive Taiga China Dress figure. I’m still very upset over that incident. This is the first time I’ve received anything from them which was why I didn’t recognize the packaging. At first I thought it might be the Remilia Scarlet Nendoroid, the only other order I have with Otacute, but it’s too early for that. When I opened up the box, I found this inside:

If you can’t read the print, it’s an apology letter along with a gift. While I can’t say that the choice of gift was fitting (what does One Piece have to do with Toradora?), at least Otacute is putting in some effort to make things right. I am giving them one more chance with my Remilia order, but if they manage to screw that up somehow, they will not be getting any more business from me.

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Unfortunately, the JR Pass only allows you to go on the Hikari and Kodama trains (the slow ones), and not the faster Nozomi trains. The ride wasn’t too bad, it lasted for a few hours and there was plenty of legroom. The only downside was that I was sitting near the front of a car right next to the washrooms so when someone walked by and the automatic doors opened, I’d get hit with a horrible stench. We arrived at Kyoto station around lunchtime and took a local train to Tanbaguchi station near our hotel. It was too early to check in yet so we just dropped off our bags and went out to do a bit of exploring. Lucky for us, there are maps everywhere in four languages: Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese.

Kyoto is very much a walking city so if you ever go to visit, make sure you bring a good pair of shoes. Our first stop for the day was Nishihonganji Temple. If you take a look at the map above, you’ll see that the entrance is at the bottom, but we entered through the sidesince we wouldn’t have to walk around. Thinking we were at the temple, we started taking pictures, and since this was our first temple, we didn’t think it weird that there was no one else there. Once we were done, we headed east (down on the map) and saw an elaborate gate so we went to take a look and found the actual temple building.

The real Nishihonganji Temple was 3-4 times bigger than whatever building we were just in, however the style and decorations inside were the same. This just goes to show you that you shouldn’t take shortcuts. Inside were a bunch of gold (or gold-painted, I couldn’t tell) decorations that you can see below. The entire floor was also covered with tatami mats which looked really new because the place had just been renovated. There was no flash photography allowed inside so the picture is a bit blurry.

Next, we headed over to Higashihonganji Temple, which is the sister templre to Nishihonganji. This time we made sure to go through the main entrance to see the temple itself and not just a side building. This time though, there weren’t as many people around taking pictures, the main reason being that this temple was still under renovations. There was a lot of scaffolding and a temporary building built around the temple so there wasn’t really much to see. You could get a nice view of Kyoto Tower from here though, so the walk wasn’t completely wasted.

Our next stop was Kyoto Tower. I admit, it doesn’t look very nice and it’s not very tall, but we still had some time to kill before checking in at our hotel and what better way to do that than to visit a tourist trap?

When we got to the tower, we discovered there was an entrance fee to go up to the observation deck. I can’t remember how much it was, but it didn’t seem worth it to go up so we just hung around the stores at the bottom for a while. That character to the left of the Kyoto Tower sign in the picture above for 3F says “books” if anyone’s interested. I was looking for artbooks so whenever I saw that character, I’d go check out the store. Since the Kyoto Tower is right next to Kyoto station, we decided to take the train back to Tanbaguchi station to check in at our hotel.

We stayed at a place called the Kyoto ryokan Shoei. The hotel offers the experience of a traditional Japanese inn (aka ryokan) with all the amenities of a modern day, western hotel. All of the rooms are fitted with tatami mats, designed like a traditional Japanese room, and you sleep on a futon which is laid out and put away for you every day. The washrooms, however, are more modern with a toilet that has more buttons than you know what to do with. There is also a wide-screen HDTV in the wall for those days when you don’t feel like going out. While some of the staff don’t know English, their service is excellent, always going out of their way to help you with your luggage and whatnot. There is also a traditional Japanese garden in the hotel for your viewing pleasure, but what really takes the cake are the large baths that they have for guests.

The way the baths work is you take off your clothes and put them in a basket, clean yourself using the soap and shampoo provided at one of the stalls along the wall, then soak in the bath for however long you want (be careful, it’s hot). It’s an excellent way to spend the evening especially after walking around the city all day. For anyone shy about being seen naked, they give you a little towel that you can find in your room, but you can also go to the bath around 10:30pm (30 min. before it closes) and there normally won’t be anyone there. Of course, baths are separated by gender. The hotel also provides some delicious snacks and tea in your room.

That night we ate dinner at the hotel’s restaurant and were pleasantly surprised to find good food with large portions for a very affordable price. The only thing that would have made the Shoei absolutely perfect would’ve been a ping pong table. I highly recommend this place to anyone staying in Kyoto. Rates are based on how many people are staying per room, so having more people in a room will save you on a bit of cash. We fit 3 people into an 8-tatami room confortably, but I think 4 might be a bit crampled. The Shoei might not be the cheapest place in the city, but I guarantee that you’ll get more than your money’s worth here.

The next day was dedicated to exploring the temples/shrines/castles of Kyoto. We stopped at Kyoto station to get some brochures and stuff to see what was most interesting. Although this was my 4th time at the station, I never realized how big it was until then.

Our first stop of the day was Fushimi Inari Shrine, home to thousands of torii gates and one of the locations where they filmed Memoirs of a Geisha (the scene with the girl running under the orange gates). We took the JR to Inari station, which is right next to the shrine. You can tell you’re at the right place because all of the pillars are painted orange like the torii gates.

The shrine is on the side of a mountain and at the base are the larger gates, which are spread apart, but as you go up the mountain, the gates get smaller and closer together.

I didn’t think that the climb to the top of the mountain would take so long, and I definitely underestimated how many gates there were. Our group lost track of how many we passed after about 400. We reached the top of the mountain after about an hour and were drenched in sweat from the heat and humidity. We passed a lot of schoolgirls and seniors climbing up too, but we rested at the top for about 30 minutes and never saw them so I assume they all turned back. Some advice for anyone wanting to go up to the top: buy your drinks beforehand. The higher you get, the more expensive the drinks get (yes, there are still vending machines everywhere).

The visit to Fushimi Inari Shrine took far longer than anyone had anticipated, so by the time we got back down to the base, it was already lunchtime. We grabbed some snacks from a convenience store and headed back to Kyoto station where we bought a 1-day bus pass for 500 yen. A very good price in my opinion, and it can be used on the “Raku buses” which are geared towards tourists and make stops at all the touristy spots in the city.

The next stop was Kiyomizu-dera Temple, which I’m sure many of you have heard of or seen in anime. Once again, this place was on the side of a mountain, and as luck would have it, buses only drop you off on the main street several blocks away from the base. From the bus stop, you have to go east and climb a hill before you reach the first steps leading up to the temple.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple isn’t as high as the top of Fushimi Inari Shrine, so it didn’t take us too long to get there. There was an entrance fee which I wasn’t expecting, but after coming all this way, that wasn’t going to stop me from seeing it. At first nothing looked like any of the pictures I’d seen, then when I walked to the other side of the temple and looked back, I saw the shot that almost everyone takes of the temple.

Also at the temple were some “love stones” where if two lovers can walk around them blindfolded, they’ll be together forever or something. I can’t remember what the sign said exactly. Anyways, one of the love stones is shown below, the other one is quite a distance away.

When we were done looking at Kiyomizu-dera Temple, we went back down to the main street and this restaurant caught my eye. I thought Hello Kitty dressed up in a kimono was cute so I just had to take a picture.

We wandered around for a bit and made our way to Gion, the geisha district of Kyoto. This place is supposed to look like what ancient Kyoto looked like, but surprisingly it was cleaner than any other part of the city. There were also power lines everywhere which kinda ruined the “ancient” feel to it. I’m pretty sure that this area was where they filmed some of Memoirs of a Geisha too. I didn’t see any geisha walking around though.

It was pretty late in the afternoon by this time so we headed back to the bus stop to try to get to some more places before they all closed. While waiting for the bus, we took a brief look at Yasaka Shrine, which was literally right next to the stop. There weren’t as many people there as the other places we visited, but that was probably because there wasn’t anything interesting to see.

Our next stop was the Nijo Castle, but we had to head back to Kyoto station to take a different bus there. At Kyoto station I remembered to take a picture of one of the Raku buses.

We got to Nijo Castle at 3:57pm and after we bought our tickets, the staff there were motioning for us to get through the gates quickly. In case you didn’t know, Nijo Castle closes it’s gates at 4pm, so we were the very last people to get in that day. They literally shut the entrance gates behind us. The castle itself doesn’t close until 5pm though, so we had some time to take a look around. Nijo Castle is a world heritage site and as such, they don’t allow any photography inside to preserve the art displayed, so the only shots I got of it were from outside.

I was more impressed with the gardens outside the castle rather than the interior. While everything inside was faded and looked like it was falling apart, the gardens outside were beautiful and very well-kept.

We were forced out of the castle at 5pm in order for them to close up. By this time all of the Raku buses had stopped running and most of the tourist sites were probably closed as well, so we took a regular bus back to Gion to see a performance at the Gion Corner. I printed off a free coupon from their website and got a bunch of postcards when I bought my tickets. It doesn’t look like they have that anymore, but there is a winter special on the tea ceremony: 500 yen and a photo shoot with the maiko (geisha). I think the tea ceremony cost 1500 yen when I went and I didn’t get a photo shoot

The performance includes shortened versions of the Japanese tea ceremony, flower arrangement, gagaku (court music), koto harp music, kyogen (a type of play), kyomai (a geisha dance), and bunraku (a puppet show). It was very entertaining and they have explanations in English so you don’t have to worry about not understanding anything. Afterwards, we went to the tea ceremony class and learned how the Japanese make green tea and serve it to their guests (and how guests should behave when being served). Below is a pic of all the materials needed for the tea ceremony.

After the ceremony, my friends and I went out for a late dinner and headed back to the hotel for some much-needed rest.

The next morning got off to a late start, but we still got to our destination for the day well before lunch: Sagano and Arashiyama.

This place is supposed to be famous for its bamboo forest so that was the first stop for the day. I have to say though, that the “forest” wasn’t much of a forest and I wasn’t very impressed. I’ve stayed in Borneo for a month before and the number of bamboo in Saga Arashiyama just doesn’t compare to the real forests there.

While walking around the area, I came across a tanuki statue, a raccoon-dog with big balls (literally). Japan comes up with some of the weirdest things.

Since it was nearby, we paid a visit to Tenryuji Temple.

Apparently the gardens of this place are more important than the temple itself since they were declared a heritage site. Unfortunately, due to its status, that means you have to pay a fee to get in (drat). It was worth it though, the gardens were beautiful. In the gardens a group of highschoolers came up to me and one of them asked (in English) to interview me. This was the first time anyone has ever asked to interview me so I was happy to oblige. As part of their English class, they had to interview a foreigner in English and write down their answers and take a photo (for proof). Back when I was in high school, French was a mandatory class and if I had to interview a foreigner in French, I’d probably be scared sh*tless, so kudos to those kids.

A short walk away from Tenryuji Temple is the Togetsukyo (Moon Crossing) bridge, which from what I read was supposed to be very romantic. When I saw it though, I just didn’t see how it was supposed to be romantic. There isn’t anything particularly special about the bridge’s design and the view isn’t anything spectacular. Below is the view of the river from the bridge.

Anyways, we crossed the bridge in order to get to the Iwatayama Monkey Park that was on the other side. I had only seen monkeys twice in my life before (both times in Borneo) so I was looking forward to the park. Little did I know that we had to climb yet ANOTHER mountain. I was still tired from all exploring done in Kyoto so having to go up another mountain was a real pain. I guess I should have predicted there’d be climbing based on the park’s name: Iwata”yama” (the word “yama” means mountain in Japanese).

When I finally made it to the top and saw my first monkey in Japan, I just kinda looked at it and forgot that one of the “guidelines” posted at the entrance was not to stare at any monkeys in the eyes. Well, I stared at this one in the eyes and it started snarling at me and just as it was about to jump on my face (it was on a ledge above me), I ran away. When I came back, I found this cute little baby monkey playing around.

The area had a ton of monkeys sitting around and chasing after each other, but it also smelled like crap (probably because there was monkey crap everywhere). There was also a large group of students listening to a guide talk about the monkeys and a few other tourists.

What I was not expecting at the Monkey Park was an extraordinary view of all of Kyoto. I don’t know how good the city looks from Kyoto Tower, but I doubt that it can beat the view from the park.

Back down in Arashiyama, we visited some dessert shops just as they were closing and managed to get a few treats for later. As I was walking out of one store, I saw some kompeito on the counter. I really wanted to try some since I’ve seen it in a few anime but the store was closing up, so I only managed to take a pic.

By 6pm nearly every store in Arashiyama was closed. It reminded me of my time in Germany’s countryside where everything closes at 6pm and it looks like a ghost town outside. With nothing left to do in Arashiyama, we took the train back into Kyoto. I found one more tanuki with even bigger balls than the first one before we left.

Back in Kyoto, I wanted to go check out the noryoyuka restaurants that I had heard about. They’re supposed to be these fancy restaurants with decks along the river in Kyoto. Walking along the streets by the river, we soon realized that we couldn’t eat at one of these restaurants. When I heard that these were fancy restaurants, it didn’t occur to me that they were also highly expensive restaurants. These places all charged anywhere from $100 to $500 per person. It was obvious that these restaurants and the people eating there easily outclassed us.

We didn’t eat by the river that night, but I got a shot of what the decks of those restaurants look like from a nearby bridge.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel for our last night in Kyoto before heading off to Osaka.

Kyoto was by far the most tiring part of my trip, but that was because there were so many things to see (and mountains to climb). One thing I noticed was that everywhere we went, there were schoolkids on a fieldtrip. I swear that every school in Japan must send their students to Kyoto, it’s like the field trip capital. I enjoyed most of my time in Kyoto, but there are a couple things I would’ve changed. If I had the ability to see into the future, I would’ve decided not to have spent so much time climbing to the top of Fushimi Inari. Doing that would’ve given enough time to see Kinkakuji, which I really wanted to visit. In case you couldn’t tell, the picture of kinkakuji I have in my highlights post is a fake. It’s a picture I took of a poster advertising the place to tourists. I also didn’t see a single anime store in Kyoto, so if that’s what you’re in Japan for, you might want to skip this place. That’s it for my advice for anyone planning a trip in the future.

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Bungaku Shoujo (Literature Girl) was originally a series of light novels written by Mizuki Nomura about a girl that can only eat paper with stories/poem on it, in other words, literature. I remember seeing the Bungaku Shoujo novels and an artbook around in bookstores when I was in Japan so when I heard that there was an anime OVA for it I thought I’d check it out. Bungaku Shoujo Memoire is a 3-part OVA that focuses on the characters Touko Amano, Asakura Miu, and Nanase Kotobuki.

The first episode focuses on Touko Amano, the “literature girl” of the series. Ever since she was a little girl, the only thing she’s been eating is books. Besides munching on them, Touko also enjoys reading them and when her classmates ask her for help with a literary class, it’s obvous that she’s very passionate about the stories she reads. In fact, she’s so passionate about them that she’ll often go off into her own little world while she explains the merits and “tastes” of a particular work. When she’s not caught up talking about books though, she’s just your regular cheerful high school girl.

It’s obvious to the viewer later on that Touko can’t eat normal foods. Well, she can swallow them, but she tastes absolutely nothing. To thank her for her help, some of Touko’s classmates take her out for parfait, and when Touko comments on how good it is, her classmates totally disagree with her.

Touko gets bailed out of having to finish the parfait when her cousin walks by and sees her through the window. They walk home together and we see that Touko’s cheerful personality isn’t representative of her situation as one might think. Touko was orphaned at a young age when her parents died, and she was taken in by her aunt, who did not seem too happy about it in the flashbacks. While Touko makes an attempt to get closer to her aunt, she refuses to even acknowledge Touko, usually ignoring her completely.

Later that night, Touko reminisces about her parents and flips through an old photo album of them.

For reasons not stated, the next day Touko ends up in the offices of a publishing company. There, she reads some novels which had been rejected and finds one that she absolutely falls in love with. Rather than explaining the story in words, Touko gives us a glimpse of what the novel was like through her imagination.

She begs the editor to give that novel a second chance and runs home in joy to tell her cousin about it and the author, Konoha Inoue.

Soon afterwards, Touko’s wish comes true and the novel written by Konoha Inoue is published.

All is not happy for long though, as tragedy strikes. Whem Touko makes a call to the publisher to find out if Konoha Inoue will be writting another novel soon, she finds out that the author has quit writing. Touko suffers from a bout of depression knowing that she’ll never be able to read another work by Konoha Inoue again.

Fast-forward to springtime and the start of the new semester. Touko is busy putting up signs enticing new students to sign up for the literature club when suddenly she hears the name Konoha Inoue. Taking a peek to see who it is, Touko sees for the first time the person whose work she fell in love with.

Now knowing that Konoha Inoue is a student at her school, Touko is determined to make him into an author again. Later, the two of them actually meet for the first time with Konoha discovering Touko munching on a book under a tree.

And so ends the first episode of Bungaku Shoujo Memoire.

A LOT of stuff happened in this episode, but I thought it helped give a clear picture of what kind of person Touko is. There are too many anime out there where a girl is given a special ability or trait, made super cute, and voila you have an instant character. If this episode is any indication, Bungaku Shoujo is nothing like that. At first glance, Touko seems to be just another cheerful high school girl with an interest in reading. Outward appearances can be deceiving though, as we see that there are many depressing things in her life. Because of her condition, Touko is isolated from her classmates in a way because she can’t share in the fun when they go out for something to eat. Likewise, none of Touko’s classmates could ever experience literature like Touko does. Her literature club also doesn’t have any members except herself so there is no one that Touko can share her passion with. Add to that the fact that she lost both her parents and her aunt won’t speak to her and you start to wonder whether that smile she puts on is just a mask for what she’s really feeling.

If Touko really is suffering deep down inside, it would help explain why she gets so carried away when she reads a novel. Whenever Touko reads or talks about a novel, her imagination takes her to a whole new world where she can experience that novel for herself. To me, this seemed like a form of escapism. The real world is just so difficult that Touko needs a place where she can forget about everything and experience a new world that has nothing to do with her world. This episode was full of similes and metaphors so perhaps eating novels is just a big metaphor for taking in a whole new world.

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but Bungaku Shoujo Memoire has some excellent animation quality. Unlike a lot of animation studios nowadays, Production I.G. didn’t cheap out with the animators. All of the characters looked great and the backgrounds were amazing. Below are just a couple of examples that I wanted to point out.

This screenshot was taken from the opening sequence. I loved how they made the pages of that book move realistically as they were being blown by the wind. The grains in the wood of the desk looks very nice with all of the detail put into it. The different darknesses of the shadows also add to the quality of the animation. It’s such a nice change compared to solid brown desks and single-shade shadows.

I was really impressed with the scene where Touko goes off into her own little world after reading the novel by Konoha Inoue for the first time. In one part, she’s running through the rain on a cloudy day. Once again, they didn’t make a solid grey sky, but you can actually see the clouds in the screenshot below. The rain droplets took me by surprise when I saw them. Rather than the standard blue-coloured water, they went with clear droplets, and not only that, they even got the wate refraction correct. If you look at something through a drop of water, you’ll see it upside down. I’ve seen plenty of examples where artists have forgotten this rule and drawn things right-side up.

Besides the animation itself, the way it was used to set the atmosphere was superb. When Touko first read Konoha’s novel, it was summertime and most of the scenes were bright and the trees were in full bloom. By the time she found out that Konoha had stopped writing, it was fall and it seemed like everything was dying. Not only that, but a lot of the scenes took place around dusk to give it kind of a falling into darkness feel.

Like the animation, the background music was also excellent. Most of the songs were carried by the piano with some other instruments, but the violin played a big part in some songs as well. A lot of the music played in the first half of the episode was really carefree and laid back, while in the second half it was rather slow and sad. I can’t exactly show you how the music sounds like so you’ll just have to watch the show and hear it for yourself.

I’ve been unimpressed with anime lately, so I was glad that I decided to watch Bungaku Shoujo Memoire. It has a well thought out main character, a plot with lots of possibilities, amazing animation and music, and great delivery. I’m hoping that the next two episodes and the movie will be as good as this episode.

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Moving on with my magazine posts, here’s the seventh volume of Nyantype Magazine. This one was released at the end of April this year, just a month after volume 6. Nyantype originally went with bi-monthly releases, but now they’ve switched over to monthly releases like Megami Magazine. The cover features Ako and Riko from Kissxsis sharing a popsicle. I’m starting to think someone over at the Nyantype offices really likes the Kissxsis series. Now on to the posters:

I didn’t recognize Nanoha at first since I’m so used to seeing her with her hair tied up. This was a funny poster because of Yuuno’s expression in the corner there. For those of you who don’t know, Yuuno is actually a boy that can turn into a ferret.

More Kissxsis for all the Ako + Riko fans out there.

I still haven’t identified where these two characters are from. They were in the previous volume of Nyantype too. At least this time we don’t have any backwards limbs.

The K-ON girls seem to have gotten more fashionable in the second season of the series. I like the striped shirts and Mugi’s hairstyle.

I like the character designs in Mayoi Neko Overrun, but I just wasn’t too fond of this poster. Seems the main purpose of this one was to show off some panties, and they left out my favourite character, Chise.

This poster seems a bit simplistic at first, but I guess it’s meant to give off that slice-of-life feel.

I was beginning to think that there might not be any exceptional posters in this volume when I opened up this page. I just love how everything is blowing in the wind, and this image really captures the characters’ personalities in my opinion.

This Strike Witches poster follows along the same lines as the previous Railgun poster. Once again, I like the blowing in the wind look, and it has a fitting background too. It would be perfect if only Lynette’s legs didn’t look like they disappeared below her knees.

I don’t recognize who this is or what anime she’s from, but I really hope her toes aren’t normally that long.

I thought this poster of Yukina from Senkou no Night Raid was lovely. Chinese dresses always look good, and the cherry blossom petals make this scene look even better. Whoever Nyantype hired to do all these blowing in the wind images is really doing a good job.

There have been quite a few images with Haruhi and Yuki in them, I wonder what happened to Mikuru.

Here’s one last fanservice shot to finish things off. While technically ecchi, I didn’t hide it because you could go to the beach and see more. I’m not sure why Yamada took off her top though.

Included with this volume was a little booklet celebrating Nyantype Magazine’s first anniversary. It doesn’t feel like that long ago that Nyantype came out so I’m surprised it’s already been a whole year.

Inside the booklet were some images taken from posters in previous volumes. There isn’t anything that I haven’t already seen, but it was nice to have so many of the nicer ones all in one place.

The back cover once again features Kissxsis with a reminder about the first Blu-ray and DVD release.

Out of all the posters in this volume, the three “wind” posters were by far the best. The other posters were average, but at least there weren’t any terrible ones in here.

For hidden images, read this post.

–>Subscribe to Nyantype Magazine

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The sixth volume of Nyantype Magazine came out way back before the previous season started so you’ll see a bunch of posters from older series in here. The cover features both Yui and Mio from K-ON, no surprise considering they’re probably the two most popular characters in the series. In the corner you’ll also see a little preview of the freebie that came with this volume, but more on that after taking a look at some of the posters.

I still haven’t watched the first Nanoha movie so it’s still weird for me to see Hayate grown up, but Fate and Nanoha still in their loli forms. It seems Hayate has also grown some furry ears and a tail?

The reverse side has Nagato looking pretty helpless. Personally, I thought Nagato was better as an alien rather than a quiet girl that likes her books.

I thought the artwork in this poster was nicely done. The proportions of the characters looks right, and I like the background. The only thing I see wrong with it is that the illustrator forgot that water refracts light. I’m not sure what series this is from though, so if you can identify it, thanks in advance.

If you haven’t seen Ookami Kakushi, this poster is supposed to be from the scene where Nemuru was tied up to prevent her from attacking the main guy (I forgot his name). I don’t know why they drew the knife right at her feet, but otherwise I like the dark atmosphere that this poster has.

This poster is similar to the one of Nemuru, but I don’t really like it as much. It isn’t as detailed as the previous one and the reddish tint makes it look a bit weird to me.

I remember doing an exercise like this in school, except we didn’t lift each other off the ground that high.

I’m not too fond of the moe-blob look anymore so I didn’t particularly like this poster, but it is decent.

I was impressed with this poster. You don’t usually see Nyantype come out with something this detailed, and as far as I can tell there isn’t any major flaws with it. The poster feels like an explosion of rainbowy gumdrops, but I’m assuming that’s what Pretty Cure is like.

Apparently there’s some kind of game where you pull a girl’s sash and maker her spin around. I think that’s what Kuroko is trying to do here, but she’d better be ready for a shock.

The characters in Hanamaru Kindergarten are cute, but the teacher looks so out of place here.

If any of you have read the yuri manga “Girlfriends”, you’ll probably know what I thought when I saw this poster. While it is a poster of Miyako and Yuno from Hidamari Sketch, they bear a striking resemblance to Akko and Mari from Girlfriends. It’s not only their hairstyles, but also their style of clothing and who’s on top.

A bit of Nyantype’s problem with distorted body parts is starting to show in this Ikki Tousen poster. While no limbs look like they’re broken, some of them seem to be at some rather uncomfortable angles.

Can’t say I liked Chu-Bra, but using lace patterns in the background here was a nice touch.

This Kissxsis poster seems to have less of a problem with distorted limbs. I knew the show was about a guy with a sister complex (or was it the other way around?), but there seems to be a lot of sister on sister posters in both Nyantype and Megami.

So in case you were wondering what that image in the corner of the cover was, here it is. For lack of a better word, I’m just going to call it a doll. You get this blank plastic doll  which you can stick stickers on to make into your favourite K-ON band member. The only problem is that you only get one of these dolls and there are 5 members. While you could use both sides of the doll, that still leaves out 3 of the girls. Nyantype really should have included more of these with their magazine.

I thought the back cover had an interesting illustration. It looks like parts of the page were ripped out to reveal part of an image underneath, but it’s really just one unripped page.

The quality of images used in Nyantype’s posters seems to be getting better, but they’re still not quite at the same level as Megami. It’s still nice to have them available though.

For hidden images, read this post.

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