Popcult Helsinki 2016

9.-10.4.2016

Picture heavy post coming up!
It's been a few weeks since the convention, but I haven't found the time to write about it until now. I probably would have more to tell you about the event itself, if I'd written this right after the convention weekend, but instead here's all the wonderful stuff I found and brought home from there. <3

The very first panel I went to see was held by Mari Kasurinen, who is known for her sweet My Little Pony sculptures. It was really interesting to see some work-in-progress photos of her sculptures and there were a few actual ponies on display. I didn't realize before that they came in various sizes, from really tiny ones to big ones. Now I regret that I didn't go to her workshop, but there were so many other interesting panels held at the same time! Curses!

The main thing that attracted me to come to the convention in the first place was of course the Pokémon Musical - I Choose You! It was quite spectacular, I especially loved the costume design for the Pokémons! I want one of them Zubat/Golbat hoodies so much!! Unfortunately, during the first half my view of the stage was blocked, because I just so happened to sit behind the tallest guy in the audience who also had big frizzy hair. Lucky for me, there was a half time and I was able to move to another seat and enjoy the rest of  the musical.

I couldn't leave the place without something Pokémon in my hands and that's when I found these super cute sleeping starter Pokes at a vendor table. I originally only wanted to buy one, because these tiny figures were too expensive for my taste. I was torn apart between Bulbasaur and Charmander, I couldn't pick just one! So I decided to take them both, but then I got a touch of OCD and couldn't leave Squirtle behind and now my wallet is crying.

Then I also found this chibi Mewtwo that came with a display background (or whatever you wanna call it), which I think is a bit unnecessary, but that might just be because I don't recognize place it's supposed to be. Good thing there wasn't any more of these for sale, otherwise I might have ended up getting the equally cute Mew, Eevee, Jesse & James and Meowth as described on the backside of Mewtwo's box.

....... and now we get to the part where I really lost control of all my money. For once, there were some Dragon Ball stuff up for sale and I bought it all, well, not all but most of it anyway. I got a cute Baby Goku, Super Saiyan Goku, Piccolo, Freeza.... oh sorry, I mean THE Freeza, like it says on the box. Also, I got close to 50  Dragonball Heroes game cards with awesome artwork. <3<3<3

Last but not least, the only Star Wars thingy I found worth taking home was this mini Shaak Ti. Do I even need to mention I think it's cute?

Truly a great weekend! :D

DBZ Loot

It's about time I got around to make a post about the greatest love of my life, Dragonball! Which has, to my shame, been greatly unrepresented in this blog, but if I have to find something to pin the blame on, I'd blame the poor availability of the franchise in Finland. It is surprisingly difficult to find any DBZ merchandise (except the video games and the manga) without having to resort to buying them from abroad. It seems every time I order something from abroad, there will guaranteed be a problem I've to deal with to the point that I'm sick of it! ...... Well, anyway, I was super happy to find the following items in  my homeland, without having to deal with any post shipping mayhem! ^_^

To the left we have Dragon Ball GT Adventure Pack Series featuring Goku, Trunks (with Giru on his shoulder) and Pan. I can't find any markings on the figures and the slightly poor paint job would lead me to suspect these might be bootlegs, but I can't be really sure. As far as Dragonball Wiki can tell me, the manufacturer is unknown and the release date as well. Shame really, because the sculpt itself isn't bad, the paint is just a little "off" overall.
Top right, we have two stickers that came on top of a round bubble gum box lid. The best before date on the back of the box says 2002! I vaguely remember this bubblegum being sold in a few selected cheap stores back then. I recall buying this same brand, but the "gift" was some rub on tattoos instead of stickers. The bubble gum wasn't anything special that I can remember.
Down right. What are these? Game chips, tokens or coins, whatever you like to call them? It doesn't translate to the picture very well, but the red color is metallic and for whatever reason the Krillin one is slightly "shinier" than the others. On the back there's a star motif and it says "official"  and they all have different numbers. Krillin is labeled 5, Vegeta 4 and Raditz 2. They are made of thick plastic, so you can't just bend and break them easily.

Awesome Stickers!! With scenes not only from the series, but also TV specials/ movies! Hmm.... "gum lollipop" doesn't sound that good to me. If I would be picking my favorite sticker out of these, I'd choose number 25, Vegeta!

Assortment of collectible cards and game cards. There were so many of them game cards I didn't bother to photograph all of them. After all, I do prefer the collectible story cards instead of  the card game I will never understand the rules of. My favorites are the cut-in-half Freeza and possessed Piccolo <3

These ones definitely have to be game chips, because on the back side there are points, numbers and stuff. These are made out of much thinner plastic that could break much more easily than the black coins above. Favorites here are Tapion, "farewell" Goku and Super Buu smacking Goku and Vegeta on the head!

Kid Goku, Super Buu, Emperor Pilaf, Fortuneteller Baba and Grandpa Gohan DX Vinyl Series by Banpresto. When I first laid my eyes upon the Buu figure I naturally assumed that it was portraying Kid Buu, but it turned out to be Super Buu in chibi-style for real. I'm a little disappointed, I wanted Kid Buu! XD Anyways, all of the figures are very neat, and I'm very happy to add my very first Pilaf, Baba and Gohan pieces to my collection! I've found a whole new love for Pilaf ever since Battle of the Gods came out, he is so darn cute in  the movie!

Piccolo (Ultimate Figure Series?) and Trunks with his arsenal of switchable hands and faces. Yup, none of the figures came in their original packaging so I don't know the exact series they belong to, like Trunks here, despite my quick google search. It's obvious which one is the higher quality out of these two. Trunks isn't by no means my favorite character while Piccolo on the other hand is. That' why I'm sad to say that it's quite ugly! The green color of his skin is all wrong! Unfortunately, Trunks wins this round, all the little details of the sculpt are astonishing and not to mention they got his colors right!


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Not related to this, but I'm fighting the urge to change my banner again and maybe also the background, but I'm kinda busy with other things now so that'll have to wait.

Digimon Collection

Digimon!? Where did that come from? Yeah, I haven't even mentioned Digimon until now, and after this I'll probably never mention it again. As a cursed materialist that I am, I have wanted to do a "collection" post like this one for a while, but frankly I didn't know where to begin. It was too much of a daunting task to start off with one of my biggest collections, so I thought it would be easier to start with something smaller. I'm not sure if I should even call this one a "collection", because I haven't bought any of these for the sake of collecting. These are just stuff that has stuck around because I've a hard time to throw/give/sell anything away. *coughhoardercough*

Anyway, back in the days Digimon was a little bit "controversial" around our playgrounds, you had to either like it more than Pokémon or absolutely hate it. Whenever I was asked which one I liked better, I'd say Pokémon of course. Which was true, but that didn't mean I hated Digimon. Okay, for a brief time I did hate Digimon, but that was before I watched any of the episodes (then I secretly liked it a little). Looking back at it now, I'd probably say that the Digimon anime is better that the Pokémon anime.
So if I wasn't that much into Digimon, how did this stuff come into my possession? Mostly because my parent couldn't tell the damn difference between Pokémon and Digimon >_> but that was probably the case with most parents. So here is my very modest collection of Digimon merchandise.

16 Trading cards 

The only foil ones are Gabumon, Devimon and MegaKabuterimon.

Lillymon figure 

I believe there was some sort of a stand or platform that you were supposed to put the figure on (as it is right now the figure can't stand on its own at all) and I have a vague memory of a profile card or something like that, but I'm afraid those have been lost through time.

Double sided Poster 

I think it came in the same box as Lillymon. It's all folded up and not much larger than a regular comic book.

Comics (Digimon Tamers)

I got interested in Tamers because of Renamon, who I thought was an insanely cool looking Digimon because it resembles Mewtwo (or Lucario....) and it's (Digi)evolved form is a beautiful nine tails. To my disappointment the comic got boring very quickly and with that, my interest with Digimon died. 

Gatomon & Gabumon 

I suspect these two came in a random toy bag that came from a flea market. Poor Gatomon is missing its tail. I guess Gabumon would talk if you moved it's arms around or something because it has a build in speaker on its back. I never bothered to check what kind of batteries it requires, so I don't know what it is supposed to say.

Gatomon bean bag plushie 

This one is an exception because I intentionally bought it, despite that it was a Digimon. It is too damn cute :3 Gatomon or Tailmon as I better know it, was my favorite Digimon from the series. Wonder why the gloves are yellow on toys, but in the show they are green?

*Update 07.03.15

Apparently I have a few stickers as well!

*Update 20.05.15

Found a Patamon plushie at a flea market!

*Update 15.09.15

Found a  tiny Gomamon at a flea market!

*Update 02.12.15

Found both Gomamon and Agumon plushie at a flea market, and apparently I have a few more stickers as well!

There you have it, but I'm not done yet! One other thing you had to love about Digimon was the opening and ending theme songs!

The first Digimon opening Butterfly done with Pokémon? Awesome!


Finally, there's nothing quite like taking a nostalgic trip by listening to the Finnish dub of the Digimon Adventures opening. We have The Bad dub and The Good dub. Both which are pure gold in their own special way. XD

We wants it, we needs it

Even tough it still October, the stores are already bringing out their Christmas decorations and whatnot up for sale. As I was walking past an aisle where the store clerks were busy shelving all the Christmas candies and something caught my eye. A box of chocolates with the Star Wars logo and a big picture of a Stormtrooper helmet!

Yeah, I bought some n_n' I thought it was pretty neat that there is a small window on the box were you can see the two different kinds of chocobits this box contains, white chocolate for the Stormtrooper helmets and milk chocolate for the Darth Vader ones. Kinda unnecessary, but right beside the window there is a picture of the content printed on the box, I guess they had to fill the empty space with something, right? I'm kinda wondering what it was doing among the Xmas candies anyway when there is nothing that explicitly says "Christmas" on it. Because people are not allowed to buy boxes of chocolate unless it is the Holidays?

 

I was surprised the chocolate tasted pretty decent! It wasn't great but it certainly was nothing bad either. I was expecting something horrible like in some cheap Advent calendars were the so called "chocolate" tastes just plain awful. Buy a couple of these and you got yourself a makeshift calendar that will last four days past Christmas eve!
Note! This box of chocolates in now officially the first Star Wars merchandise that I've seen that has the "Disney" logo on it. Suddenly, cold chills are running down my spine. Fortunately it doesn't say "Disney's Star Wars" at least.

Other recently purchased SW merch that were on sale are "activity fun pack" i.e. a coloring pad and some stickers, a notebook, clone trooper keyring, 2 metal boxes (the Clone Wars trading card game, series 3 &4)

Finally, my unofficial Darth Maul keyring, that I ordered from one of those businesses that print your photos to mugs, canvases, books, cards or whatever you want.
I'm a pirate! Ψ(｀▽´)Ψ