Your Books (and CD and DVD)

Still haven't seen when the blu-ray will be released, but a bunch of other stuff came out and showed up this week. Amazon talked me into buying the specialest special edition of the soundtrack, which comes packaged vinyl size, with a book, the CD, and a DVD. This one ships in the large box.

Objects are larger than they appear.

Not sure what I'm going to do about the card taped to the plastic envelope it came in though. I'm afraid of it! I think you're going to have to do some scrolling to read these pictures. I only skimmed the DVD but it looks like it's heavy on the band practicing. Even though I bought the separate sheet music book (why? I don't know!) the book that came with this has some of the music as well.

Keep scrolling

Of all the books (Another Side, the manga, the novels, the complete book, etc) probably the best one for Shinkai fans who don't have all the art books, complete books, storyboard books, book books, is the Walker book. This has some of everything from all of his work.

This one

Pictures

Story boards

The Promised Story

You get the idea. Here's the table of contents for the Your Name specific book, which if you're reading this, you'll probably want too.

But when is the blu-ray?

Your Spoiler Alert!

Not really. The novelization of "Your Name" came today. The movie isn't out til August in Japan but will be premiering at Anime Expo in LA, 4th of July weekend. Not that it does me any good! Starting to see other "Your Name" items on Amazon JP though. A book, "Another Side:Earthbound" comes out July 30th. Looks like it will be similar to the "one more side" 5 Centimeters Per Second book. The RADWIMPS CD (+DVD) is out August 24th. Don't see the blu-ray of the movie yet, just a show from the 50s of the same name.

Your Lie in April - Finale Event

From the "I'm going to watch this til I get sick of it" files, the blu-ray came for the "Your Lie in April Finale Event". The program consists of live readings interspersed with musical performances, both classical and original music from the show.

There's also a 60 page book with bits about the musicians and actors, including Ayane Sakura, who you will remember as Miho, the girl in the "Cross Road" video. (Yeah, and Nao from "Charlotte".) She does a cute performance of "For You" that's as if it's being sung by Tsubaki herself (of course).

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"

One of the highlights is near the end of the main program and starts with a live reading of the scene where Kousei reads Kaori's letter and flower petals fall to the stage. This is immediately followed by a performance of "Kirameki", accompanied by piano and violin, and more flower petals. This one I've watched about 50 times this week!

Following some clapping and closing remarks, the curtain goes back up and those crazy kids from Goose House do "Hikaru Nara". But they do it twice, after they make everyone get up and sing along with the second playing.

There's some great performances on this blu-ray and I would compliment it by comparing it favorably with "Crow Song" from the Visual Arts 20th Anniversary blu-ray, which has to date been my #1 live performance video.

March 4th

It's that time of year again and Crunchyroll will have She and Her Cat -Everything Flows- streaming today.

That's Right, More Pillowcases

Twenty eight more pillowcases done!

And now, the ironing board and gravity feed iron come down to make space for this! Time to pick up the sword once more!

While You Wait

First, there's some sewing to finish then we will rebuild it.

Your Name (Almost) Here.

The trailer for the new Makoto Shinkai movie is out! And the movie website is here!

You don't see kumihimo in movies every day!

1st Beat

It's going to take a minute to get pictures of all the stuff that comes with, but after like a year and a half of waiting, it's finally here!

ひらがな カタカナ キーボード

Still working on getting all the kinds of type to work how I want, when I want, but my wireless mechanical keyboard is here! I could never quite go for a mechanical keyboard given that there was almost nothing available in wireless. That just wouldn't go on my desk. Occasionally I would search to see if anyone had come to their senses and put one out, and one day I found the new Filco Majestouch Convertible 2.

With brown switches

I had previously set up an account on Tenso.com in anticipation of needing to use them to get the Angel Beats! 1st Beat game shipped to the US so I placed an order for this keyboard on Amazon.co.jp as a test run. There is a US layout version, but Amazon only seemed to have the JP layout themselves and I figured might as well go for that on the theory that I might get some use out of that feature.

Another nice feature is the fact that you can program it to link via Bluetooth to four different computers. I have another computer that is primarily for HTPC use, and operated with a FLIRC and a Harmony remote, but when I need a keyboard, this will be easier than pulling a Unifying receiver off something else that I always then need to use a keyboard with at the same time...

Tenso forwarded my order on to me within a day of my seeing it was available with them and selecting/paying for my choice of shipping method. I went with EMS International Courier Post since it wasn't that much more than the other options, but supposed to be faster. They shipped on Thursday, it came in to NY on Friday, where I thought it would get stuck in Customs for the weekend, but the post office came by with it on Saturday. Too bad I wasn't expecting it, because I wasn't home to sign for it, but at least I know the fast shipping method is as fast as the DHL Express Amazon uses on things they do ship to the US.

March 4th

Crossroad, and Other Mail From Japan

Somehow I managed to miss the announcement that there was a novelization of Crossroad, the commercial from Z-Kai and Shinkai, but I now have one copy in "The Archives" and one on my pile of books to read to see how many of these kanji are sticking to my brain.

No pictures in this one so not much to show here, but the cover and band.

Oh, and the US, English language version of The Garden of Words manga is coming out in a couple weeks, October 28th!

Also in the box with Crossroad was the new "compact edition" blu-ray set of Kanon. (Air came earlier). After watching Angel Beats, I went back and watched the other series, Air, Kanon and Clannad/After Story. Given the way they recycle story elements, I guess you have at least three possible reactions, 1. watch them all, liked them all, 2. watched them all, hated them  all, or 3. watched them all, liked things the first time they used them in a story. I went with Option 1. Angel Beats and Clannad have US blu-ray releases, so I had those, but then I saw the "compact editions" of Air and Kanon on Amazon.jp.

And the cat got a new scratcher, but from Target

The international shipping Amazon.jp uses got me the Kanon set on the release date. Actually, Amazon.jp has been beating Amazon Prime lately... The shipping isn't free from JP, but if you're ordering several things, it's not too bad considering that I'll get a shipping notice overnight (given the time zone difference) which I will normally see in the morning and that evening get a text from DHL that the package will be delivered tomorrow. It's crazy, but crazy good.

As it turns out, one of the compact things about the compact edition is that there are no subtitles at all. I'm under the impression that the previous Kanon box set had English subtitles, but this set looks to be a good four hundred dollars less, so I guess that's an acceptable tradeoff. If you ask me, I'll say the picture quality is a worthwhile upgrade from the DVDs, but if you ask me to prove it with pictures, I'll have to point out the picture above was the best I could do without showing more of my phone in the reflection on the packaging than the boxes themselves.

I'm Going to Need More Fabric

Time again to set up the pillowcase factory so I loaded up on a new bunch of fabrics.

Then my mother sent the new batch of labels for them.

Uh... I didn't bother to try to count them, but I'm pretty sure I only have fabric for 25 pillowcases or so. Well, we're still a ways out from Black Friday, let alone Christmas, so I'm sure Joann's will have enough sales to get all of these used up.