Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid 01 made by Good Smile Company. This figurine is pretty I missed the original September 2008 release, the preorder closed way too fast, lucky they did re-release just 1 month after that…

The detail of this figurine is pretty; but I have two complaints tho.. first is her shirt is too dark, and second her skin needs more paint layers (it’s a lil bit flat, no not DFC flat, but paint flat!).

Full View (a lil bit too small, click the image for bigger view, a lot better!)

Her skirt is removable

Her base got her name printed

Now, I hope I can get my hand on Volks Hatsune Miku, saw the prototype when I went to Japan, which is a lot bigger compare to this one.

A must get figurine for any figurine collector if you still haven’t bought her, you can buy her from HLJ and play-asia, both still have her in stock

You can see more of her at Shino’s blog too

Camera Info

Nikon D40, Sigma 150mm F2.8 Macro HSM Lens

Figurine Info

Maker

Good Smile Company

Size

1/8

RRP

5200 yen

Release date

September 2008 (Re-release November 2008)

Availability

In stock @ HLJ, Play-Asia

It’s that time of year again 28 now! one year older but always young at heart Happy Birthday to me!

Congrats Kagami for winning Saimoe 2008! You deserve it

Click on these to see her past match results:
Round 3
Round 4
Quarter Finals
Semi Finals and Final

Quarter Finals just finished, only 4 remains now; Kagami, Nagisa, Tsukasa, and Hinagiku. A lil bit surprised that 3 Clannad girls were dropped in the Qfs, but I really like the Semi result :). I hope Kagami can make it into final this time, ganbare!

Links: Official Saimoe 2008 Site :: Competition Diagram

If you plan to vote, please follow the instruction here or here

Below you can find the break down of the Semi Finals and Final, which will start from the 30th of October (Japanese Time).

Semi Finals

Semi Final 1

30 October 08 Hiiragi Kagami 「Lucky Star」(1122) -VS- Furukawa Nagisa 「Clannad」(922)

Semi Final 2

31 October 08 Hiiragi Tsukasa 「Lucky Star」(1137) -VS- Katsura Hinagiku 「Hayate no Gotoku」(1096)

Final

Final

2 November 08 Hiiragi Kagami 「Lucky Star」(1037) -VS- Hiiragi Tsukasa 「Lucky Star」(976)

For semi final, I’m going to support both Hiiragi sisters this time, go Kagami! go Tsukasa! ^_^.

[update 3rd November 2008]

Congrats to Kagami for winning Saimoe 2008! as expected tho since Tsukasa once said that she can’t beat her sister ^^;

Finals Chart:

English guide for Tears to Tiara for PlayStation 3 to help people who don’t understand Japanese. This game is quite simple, you just follow the story line, and do battles.

Most of the information here are from the Official website and Tears to Tiara ps3wiki. If you have any suggestion, tips, or if you have question regarding the game, please post in the comment sections ^^.

This page is work in progress, any help will be greatly appreciated

Links:
Tears to Tiara Official Site
Tears to Tiara PS3 wiki
My Tears to Tiara Pages

Last update: 29th October 2008

CONTENTS

MENU TRANSLATIONS

There are several menu in the game, but most are the same, the first menu you will encounter probably the Organization Menu and then Battle Menu, and after the battle there’s Intermission Menu (pre Avalon), after chapter 3 you will reach Avalon, and then you’ll see the Avalon Menu.

Organization Menu

This Menu is available in battle (start of battle, where you select which character to deploy) and in Intermissions/Avalon.

In here you can check your party status, change the equipment, skill, special moves, and magic.

Finishing Deployment Menu

When you finish selecting characters to deploy for battle, press start to find this menu.

When you choose Go Battle, you will go to the battle positioning screen, you can arrange your characters starting position. Press start when you finish.

Character Command Menu

This menu is shown when you choose your available unit on the battle map.

General Battle Menu

This menu is shown when there’s no unit selected on the battle map.

Intermission Menu

This menu is shown after several events, so you can save your progress.

Sometime after battle there’s a similar menu but without Organization choice.

Avalon Menu

You will see this menu when you reach Avalon (around chapter 3). This place will be your hub between missions.

Logistic Center Menu

Logistic Center is the place to recruit generic characters, initially you can only recruit sword and magic user, but after several investments you can recruit other types.

BATTLE SYSTEM

The battle for this game is quite simple. There are 2 phases, player phase and enemy phase. You move and attack at your phase, the enemy can counter your attack in your phase, and vice versa.

Other battle components that you may need to know are: Chain Stock, Elements, and ZOC.

Chain Stock

Chain Stock is a gauge below the character portrait. Chain Stock is used to perform chain attack or boost magic. You can get total of 3 chain stocks. The chain stock is filled by attacking the enemy / receiving damage from the enemy.

Chain Attack
In order to perform chain attack, you need at least 1 full chain stock. When there’s at least 1 full chain stock, you’ll see circle when attacking the enemy. you need to press the action button (X for US and PAL PS3, O for JP and Asia PS3) before the circle vanishes to perform chain attack. Staff user can’t perform chain attack.

Boost Magic
In order to perform boost magic, you need at least 1 full chain stock. press the square button to boost the magic, this will consume the chain stock.

ZOC

ZOC or Zone Of Control is the Area surrounding the character. Enemy unit can’t go pass this area. Arthur has a skill to increase his ZOC range, which makes him nice character to block enemy movement.

Elements

There are 7 elements in this game: Fire, Wind, Earth, Water, Holy, Star, and Darkness.

The red arrow is the strong/weak arrow, the strong element will do stronger damage to the weaker element.
Based on the chart, the strong/weak relations are: Wind > Earth > Water > Fire > Wind, and Star > Holy > Dark.
So Wind will do more damage to Earth, Earth will do more damage to Water, and so on. This won’t affect the other way around tho, Earth will do normal damage to Wind based monster.

The blue arrow is the negation arrow, the elements linked with this arrow will do weaker damage to each other.
Based on the chart, the negating relations are: Wind - Water, Fire - Earth
Wind damage will do less damage to Water, Water damage will do less damage to Wind as well, Fire and Earth will do the same.

The elemental chart is always shown in the bottom right side of the screen when you are in battle mode.

Every turn there will be one boosted element, unit (both player and enemy) with the same element will have all the parameters increased. The boosted element is the one located north on the element chart (Wind is boosted in the picture above).

PLAYABLE CHARACTERS

Arawn - アロウン

Riannon - リアンノン

Arthur - アルサル

Ogam - オガム

Morgan - モルガン

Llyr (Swir) - スィール

Rathty - ラスティ

Octavia - オクタヴィア

Taliesin - タリエシン

BUYABLE SKILLS

*not finished yet

ACCESSORIES

CREDITS

GAME INFO

Title

Tears to Tiara: Earth’s Wreath / ティアーズ・トゥ・ティアラ－花冠の大地－

Maker

Aqua Plus / アクアプラス

Platform

Playstation 3

Language

Japanese

Release date

17 July 2008

RRP

Asia ver: US$69.90 @ Play-Asia / Limited edition: US$89.90 @ Play-Asia
Japan ver: US$74.90 @ Play-Asia / Limited edition: US$95.00 @ Play-Asia

Play-asia is having 15% for most of all in stock items (not all, even though they said all in stock items..).

The promotion will run until the 31st of October 2008, and seems like you cant combine with coupon.

For non discounted items, you can use this coupon to get 5% discount: UK-GCS-BKJ (multiple use coupon, coupon only usable when you have $50+ total purchases)

hint: you can actually use the coupon, first you need to buy something that is not discounted eg: this one, then go to check out, put in the 5% discount code, go back and add the items that you want to buy, after you have added all the items you want to buy, go to “My Cart” and remove the 1st item (the non discounted one), and then hit check out, you will see the 5% off at the check out screen from the coupon that you entered for the 1st item

Click here to read more information about Play-Asia October sale.

Round 4 just finished, there are only 8 characters left now. The result from last round was lil bit dissapointing for me, but as expected tho.. Miyako, Shana, Akari all dropped but I’m still happy tho, since I’m rooting for Kagami to win this match heh, ganbatte Kagami-chan!

Links: Official Saimoe 2008 Site :: Competition Diagram

If you plan to vote, please follow the instruction here or here

Below you can find the break down of the Quarter finals, which will start from the 25th of October (Japanese Time).

Quarter Finals

Q1

25 October 08 Hiiragi Kagami 「Lucky Star」(1138) -VS- Sakagami Tomoyo 「Clannad」(790)

Q2

26 October 08 Kawazoe Tamaki 「Bamboo Blade」(891) -VS- Furukawa Nagisa 「Clannad」(953)

Q3

27 October 08 Hiiragi Tsukasa 「Lucky Star」(1049) -VS- Ibuki Fuuko 「Clannad」(894)

Q4

28 October 08 Chiba Kirino 「Bamboo Blade」(750) -VS- Katsura Hinagiku 「Hayate no Gotoku」(934)

This time is harder to decide which one to support; The only one that get 100% support from me is Kagami-chan, and for the rest maybe I’ll vote for Tamaki, and Hinagiku. Still can’t decide for Fuuko or Tsukasa…. leaning to Tsukasa at the moment tho..

Past Saimoe Best Eight

Saimoe 2007

1 Rika（Higurashi no Naku Koro ni）
2 Nagi（Hayate no Gotoku）
4 Shinku（Rozen Maiden）
4 Rena（Higurashi no Naku Koro ni）
8 Takamachi Nanoha（Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS）
8 Izumi Konata（Lucky Star）
8 Louise（Zero no Tsukaima）
8 Hiiragi Tsukasa（Lucky Star）

Saimoe 2006

1 Suiseiseki（Rozen Maiden）
2 Fate Testarossa（Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s）
4 Shana（Shakugan no Shana）
4 Chikaru Minamoto（Strawberry Panic!）
8 Eri Sawachika（School Rumble）
8 Nagato Yuki（Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu）
8 Elulu（Utawarerumono）
8 Tosaka Rin（Fate/stay night）

Saimoe 2005

1 Takamachi Nanoha（Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha）
2 Souseiseki（Rozen Maiden）
4 Shinku（Rozen Maiden）
4 Re Mii（ZOIDS: Genesis）
8 Natsuki Kuga（Mai HiME）
8 Shizuru Fujino（Mai HiME）
8 Kanna（AIR）
8 Katsura Seina（Best Student Council）

If you compare with the previous Saimoe, this year Saimoe is a lil bit bland.. only 4 anime made it to the best eight.. Clannad, Bamboo Blade, Lucky Star and Hayate no Gotoku; and 5 characters are from Kyo-Ani… but thank god with the Quarter Final draw, there won’t be all Kyo-Ani semi finals heh (at least either Kirino or Hinagiku will be in the semi)

Now we are into the round 4, the block final. The result from last round was quite normal, the only surprises were when Miyako won over Rena (well, I’m happy tho hehe), Tsukasa won over Nagi (Nagi was the runner up from last saimoe!), and also the loss of Konata.

Links: Official Saimoe 2008 Site :: Competition Diagram

If you plan to vote, please follow the instruction here or here

Below you can find the break down of the finals, which starts from the 19th of October (Japanese Time).

Block Finals (Round 4)

Block A

19 October 08 Ibuki Fuuko 「Clannad」(1372) -VS- Hanyu 「Higurashi no Naku Koroni Kai」(1003)

Block B

20 October 08 Chiba Kirino 「Bamboo Blade」(1023) -VS- Yuuki Mikan 「To Love-ru」(888)

Block C

19 October 08 Hiiragi Kagami 「Lucky Star」(1448) -VS- Fujibayashi Kyou 「Clannad」(988)

Block D

20 October 08 Sakagami Tomoyo 「Clannad」(1046) -VS- Miyako 「Hidamari Sketch」(1007)

Block E

21 October 08 Shana 「Shakugan no Shana II」(898) -VS- Kawazoe Tamaki 「Bamboo Blade」(1058)

Block F

22 October 08 Furukawa Nagisa 「Clannad」(1198) -VS- Yagami Hayate 「Nanoha StrikerS」(1047)

Block G

21 October 08 Mizunashi Akari 「Aria the Origination」(861) -VS- Hiiragi Tsukasa 「Lucky Star」(1131)

Block H

22 October 08 Isurugi Noe 「True Tears」(926) -VS- Katsura Hinagiku 「Hayate no Gotoku」(1312)

4 Days match for round 4

19 October:
Block A: Fuuko vs Hanyu
Block C: Kagami vs Kyou

20 October:
Block B: Kirino vs Mikan
Block D: Tomoyo vs Miyako

21 October:
Block E: Shana vs Tamaki
Block G: Akari vs Tsukasa

22 October
Block F: Nagisa vs Hayate
Block H: Noe vs Hinagiku

Bolded are the ones that I’m going to support Some are still undecided, too tough to decide ><

Rita, from Magical Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS made by Alter. There are two version of this figurine, this red one, and the white unison version, I only bought the red one, since I don’t like her white version

As expected from Alter, the quality for this figurine is just amazing, everything are perfect. Her shiny red metal boots are also well done.

The details are just amazing, her ribbon is nicely done too

This version comes with two weapon (the big hammer and the small hammer), I only took pictures of her with the big hammer tho, since I’ve already put her box somewhere deep between other boxes.. her big hammer is a lot better anyway

Writing on her base, this time the capitalization seems correct, not like the one on Reinforce Zwei ^^

Can’t wait for the other Nanoha series figurine from Alter, next one should be Signum and then Hayate! Good job Alter!

Camera Info

Nikon D40, Sigma 150mm F2.8 Macro HSM Lens

Figurine Info

Maker

Alter

Size

1/7

RRP

6800 yen

Release date

September 2008

Availability

Discontinued

Been a while since Saimoe 2008 has started (July 2008), and I think now is the time to post about the progress of saimoe since it has reached round 3 which is the block/group semi finals, and only 32 contestants left. (well, a lil bit early compared to last year coverage).

Links: Official Saimoe 2008 Site :: Competition Diagram

If you plan to vote, please follow the instruction here or here

So far the results were quite surprising.. No more Fate, Rika, and Louise in the competition, all were dropped in round 2; Also there are plenty of clannad girls; all 3 Minami-ke girls managed to get into 3rd round (a lil surprised tho that Kana beat Yuno..) , and only 1 girl from Aria (doh!) and both Seto no Hanayome mermaids (San and Luna) are into the 3rd round as well

Below you can find the break down of the semi finals, which starts from the 10th of October (Japanese Time).

Block Semi-Finals (Round 3)

Block A

10 October 08 Minami Haruka 「Minami-ke」(709) -VS- Ibuki Fuuko 「Clannad」(835)

11 October 08 Seto San 「Seto no Hanayome」(762) -VS- Hanyu 「Higurashi no Naku Koroni Kai」(792)

Block B

11 October 08 Edomae Luna 「Seto no Hanayome」(608) -VS- Chiba Kirino 「Bamboo Blade」(892)

10 October 08 Yuuki Mikan 「To Love-ru」(811) -VS- Hiro 「Hidamari Sketch」(590)

Block C

12 October 08 Hinamori Amu 「Shugo Chara」(678) -VS- Hiiragi Kagami 「Lucky Star」(1086)

13 October 08 Fujibayashi Kyou 「Clannad」(1031) -VS- Minami Kana 「Minami-ke」(741)

Block D

13 October 08 Sakagami Tomoyo 「Clannad」(1080) -VS- Izumi Konata 「Lucky Star」(719)

12 October 08 Rena 「Higurashi ni Naku Koroni Kai」(853) -VS- Miyako 「Hidamari Sketch」(933)

Block E

14 October 08 Shana 「Shakugan no Shana II」(987) -VS- Takamachi Nanoha 「Nanoha StrikerS」(969)