Got this lot on the 31st of July, the final day for two of my course contracts.
The candy has been opened so the bags have the tops torn off and not pictured is the mini Black Thunder cookie bar, since I split that with my brother. I have a sweet tooth so it was pretty natural to try some of Japan You Want’s recent foray into Japanese candy. It also helped that the main place I would buy Japanese candy, Candysan, has ridiculous shipping prices due to the circumstances. I can’t really comment on the value and it was a frivolity to begin with. Here’s some close ups:
Left to right: Puré gummy peach and plum, DARS strawberry chocolate, Apollo Starwberry Chocolate, Hi Chew peach, and Poifull jellybeans
The jellybeans – which were a soft, fruity jelly – had a little flap built into the packaging that acted as a dispenser, a cute little touch. The chocolate unexpectedly came on a little tray which makes it easy for serving – although I kept it all for myself :^) The strawberry filling had little crunchy strawberry pellets in it. The Apollo chocolate was something I always wanted but honestly, it’s kinda forgettable (although I’ve come to realize most Japanese candy isn’t uniquely Japanese unless it has foreign ingredients). The Puré gummies were a bit like Sour Patch Kids but with liquidy fruit centre. The Hi Chews had a similar texture to Starbursts and smelled exactly like a freshly cut peach. Being myself, I’ve already eaten most of the candy.
Now onto the tama things. First up, the cases.
It’s about time I got a hard case and the cute stickers convinced me. I’ll probably use them in other projects instead of decorating the case/tama. Even behind the case was detailed. This shell is supposed to be for the Umino or Morino, which is kinda funny considering these versions both have attacks which require keeping the device accessible. I usually don’t clamp it shut for that very purpose. The little cloth inside the case minimize the device jostling about, although it’s not perfect.
Now onto a real curio: a vintage-shaped bandaid case. I thought I could use the case for something else but it really can’t hold much in the end. The bandaids will be used as stickers instead since getting blood all over them just seems like a waste. Oddly, Japan You Want used the British “sticking plaster” instead of bandaid. Although Canada has a lot of ties to Britian, I didn’t know what it meant so I had to google it.
The case has a lenticular effect to cycle through Maskutchi’s discipline, idle, and sleeping animations. It’s not perfectly precise so some of the frames are distorted by other frames. It’s also way too big to be mistaken for a vintage, as compared to my Morino below.
Now onto the bandaids themselves:
Notice the back of the packaging has a little tam-bulance.
I also bought some Angelgotchi pencils that have tiny stamps on the end. It just seemed so perfect for me since I’m low-key obsessed with stationary – especially decorative stationary – for the aesthetic value. I also like stamps. I was happy to find that they were painted and not wrapped in plastic.
I don’t know what the Japanese says and oddly, the green one only has odd numbers with the text except for the inclusion of the even 8. It is also worth pointing out that the yellow things protruding out of the tamagotchis’ mouths is actually the heart candy they are fed in-game (so the Oyajitchi angel isn’t throwing up).
Lastly, the Vpets I bought because they were cheap.
These are a Gyaoppi Dino and a Henshin Counter (apparently for the animanga series Penguin no Mondai, which I should look into at some date). The Queen of All Penguins notes in
an early post that apparently the Henshin Counter isn’t a virtual pet but instead a pedometer game. I’ll move it out of the Vpet category once I’ve run it to see what it’s like.
The Gyaoppi did give me some trouble as although it was marked “working”, a battery connector prong inside the device was not fully attached to the indents on the circuit board. Said prong was oddly in one piece and I think someone had hot glued the other battery connector into it’s plastic indent. What kept happening was that the loose prong was lifted of the indent when a battery was put on the other end in the battery slot. I discovered this fact late on the night of the 31st - a day where I submitted three assignments - because I didn’t want to break my ritual of testing that new Vpets actually worked (my circadian rhythms still hate me). I solved the problems a few days later by making a block out of strips of duct tape, placing it on the prongs which were pushed into its circuit board indent, and screwing the device closed so the case forced down on block. Now it wasn’t acting like a seesaw. To my surprise, there was still nothing on the screen and then I discovered that, similar to the Penpy, this Gyaoppi has to be tilted downwards to see the display.