The beautiful Valkyries descend from the skies supervising the fairies of the forest they dive into the battle. The Valkyries are at the winning hand and among the female warriors an huge dark shadow appears. The demon lord Odin swings his huge Psypher into the air, slamming the queen of the fairies to the ground. But as one victory is made another is lost and Gwendolyn loses her precious “sister” Griselda. Sister, as all Valkyries are one of each other her heart cries out of hatred toward the huge demonic cauldron they fight for. Still whatever the great lord orders, the Valkyries will obey his command, however when Gwendolyn finds out a traitor she has to disobey her father. She wishes to safe her father even if it will strip her of her pride and honor.

Thus the lovely princess Gwendolyn is expelled from her world. Strip of pride an honor she is cast a spell called “Love”. She now must grow old to be a mother and love the man she fought to.  Oswald the Shadow knight bearing the cursed sword and slain the great wise dragon Belial who have chosen to live with the humans. While Gwendolyn drags herself from her bed she still praises her father and never doubts her decision. Cursed with her faith she’s eager to obey the laws of her father. Night after night the shadow knight returns of battle but when he suddenly remains absent, Gwendolyn starts to worry. In disgusts of her thoughts of the curse she has, she goes and find her husband. Soon she will discover a bigger plot.

The story continues in the playstation 2 rpg game of  Square Enix, Odin Sphere. The game plays itself with several different characters who’s fate are intertwined. Gwendolyn the Valkyrie, Cornelius the Pooka prince, Mercedes the princess of Ringford, Oswald the Shadow Knight and Princess Velvet a survivor of the ruined kingdom of Valentine. The game itself plays in a 2d world in which you’ll find yourselfves running around as you were walking a sphere from left to right. Best to see this for yourselves. Check the youtube video if you are interested.

So that about the introduction of our Princess of the world of Valkyries and the related game. If I may say, it is a great game. Even in the time of HD, playstation 3, wii and xbox360 Odin Sphere is worth you money! You gotta live the cartoon look and gameplay obviously. The story … just great.

Alter have dared to face Gwendolyn and mold her into a figure. The princess feathers and pshyper was probably the difficult part. As heavy as she looks, she’s really light. The first thought she is as heavy as Fate Testarossa Burst version of Alter, but she definitely is much and much lighter.

Scale: 1/8
Sculptor: Fukumoto Noritaka
Company: Alter
Price: ¥7800
Released: December 2008

Gwendolyn feathers are one of a kind. As thin and light as I have seen around and they are translucent! Whenever light shimmers through your window the wings seems to lightly glow in cyan colors. However I couldn’t shoot a shot of this since to get it on the camera, an greater light source is required, but the camera will just show you a dark picture. Aside that feature I go on praising this figure in the skies.

I love creative bases. This is a beautiful base right from the forest. The tree-stump is a great landing spot for our descending Gwendolyn and he flowers and flora around makes it appear she landed in a fores. However the base is far too light  considering the length of the figure. From her boots to head Alter did a stunning detailed work. The small feathers on her knees are as much detailed as the wings on her hips. Her skirt feels firm and has a nice leather look.

While you are watching her butt I want to point out her wavering white dress between her wings. The curls and fowls are dancing into the air and it is truly a magnificent sight. May I recommend it to put this figure on the corner of your collection? You’ll move from the corner to face her and admire her over and over again.

On the end I played around with me new camera and shot the following picture on the left.
On the right we see a nice artwork of Gwendolyn you’ll find Odin Sphere’s artbook.

Fate stay night (found at imouto.org) see description source information

Did you wonder what Hirvine do these days? At least I’m not blogging, that’s for sure. I’m still reading anime and figure blogs daily but I have no time to write posts for my blog. I do have a lot of figures I can review about and I even have shoot a number of photos in contradiction of Dancing Queen on HowAGirlFigures who’s taking shots of loaning figures. So instead of blogging I’m working on three separate projects. Obviously I have a job in which I was `promoted` this month, yay. Secondly I’m nearing a deadline for a website about dumping code. I will address the site in the future. At last I still want to update my blog but I can’t find a designer. The new design I made isn’t any good :S.

The site is almost to an end and I have got good tips of a new design. Now I just have to re-read the Wordpress API to get myself into the themes again. This time I make sure I get to read the plugins docs too, so I can get the pages to load a lot faster. Well bear it for now, at least I’m still alive :S.

Finally after waiting over a month my new camera arrived tuesday. As I work in during the week I have no time to get it until Saturday. Now I have my hands on it I have to read the extensive manual and play around with the camera. It is my very first digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) ever and I have no clue about filters. The salesman said I at least need a UV filter and explained to me how the most basic functions work. Well, functions, I now can break and setup the camera . Unfortunately another project is consuming an huge part of my freetime. It’s fun but kinda much with the daily work around… You can find some pictures of the camera if you read on. For now I remains as inactive as I these weeks. Bear with it for a while.

The Sony Alpha 500 camera has an automatically High dynamic range imaging (HDR) function which shoots 2 shots almost directly next to each other. They will be combined into a more contrast having picture. To summarize HDR, HDR combines the details of a darkened picture with that of an lightened picture. Together they make up the lost details both settings have and enrich each other. HDR is a became very popular the last years and as a starter, I really like the automatic function .

Obviously the camera can save the picture in RAW format, which is an unmodified version of your photo saved into a binary image file. Common JPEG files apply a white balance, filtering, histogram equalizing etc… Regarding holiday photo’s this is indeed a great tool as you can directly print and view your photo’s. However, if you keep on pushing the edge and want to decide all of the filters yourselves, you require RAW.

Amazing speeds with 5 frames per second let you shoot a motion pictures effortless. We will see… At the moment my figures do not run away, but you never know. The high ISO 12800 is a more stunning feature and I do hope the noise is reduced much better than it do with my current camera (Koday 1093IS) which by the way is not a DSLR (to remind you Sony is my first DSLR ever).

I’ve chosen Sony Alpha 500 because of it’s auto HDR function, CMOS sensor, easy sharping different objects in live view (not seeker) and obviously I have heard so many good stories. Testimonials seems to do the trick here once again. Now I still need an hour for the battery to be completely loaded and I may finally start expressing myself.

Hirvine wish you all an happy 2010! Hirvine 2010 will be the year of Anime and Figures. Hirvine started out to be an Anime and Manga blog in 2006. Later on changed into Anime and Toon. In 2008 I discovered the world of figurines. The year 2010 will focus on my new compassion: Figures and Anime. In that contrast I think a change of themes (design) is in order. The new design should be up in February.

Did you notice Gwendolyn, the picture at the top of this article? Gwendolyn is a princess, a Valkyrie. She arrived on the last day of 2009. I was so happy, because work that day was really troublesome due a broken switch at the office. To make things worse, the cursed server gave up and dns routes automatically changed :S. Obviously, at 31th December, there were almost no people to get things fixed. So, to get home and find an huge box in the hallway was truly too sweet. Great, let’s shoot with the new camera I get on the 2nd January…

However, today I heard the order was delayed. That was really a bummer… I really wanted to shoot Gwendolyn with the new camera. For now the older camera had to shoot these previews for now. The same goes for Garnet and Zidane on the right.

Merry christmas 2009 everyone!

Our government has not declared it to be a white christmas, but they didn’t defy it. There is still hope we can have a white christmas at the Netherlands. For me the snow was quite a bother since I had to spend at least two days home. Stuck, since I couldn’t get a bus or car. Well, some spare time is not too bad, though I wish I didn’t wait for 4 days more than hours in the snow, awaiting any bus to get me in the right direction. 17th thursday was really the worse. They bus did come, but it did not stop. Together with more than 30 passengers we watched as the bus just drove off. After an hour I took an other bus, other city, but the right direction. Then I start walking … :/ Well quite an adventure I must say. I’m still alive and I have a nice story to tell. Still, shouldn’t be a common thing around here. I’m not blind, I wish the US citizens strength as the blizzard really covers them up. Good luck to you.

For now Hirvine have encoded new series of the very old, yet great series The Mysterious Cities of Gold. To those we bothers me not updating my blog software Wordpress, I’m testing Wordpess 2.9 now.  I really can’t afford to break up the captcha nor cache plugin since it will both break my server resources. I still have some great news for the site in store, but I think the new year would be a much nicer post to blog on.

While Estaban and Zia remains in the cabin, Mendoza navigates the ship safely through the stormy weathers. Ordering Sancho and Pedro to take over the rudder and take the course Mendoza’ orders.  As scared as Sancho and Pedro are they won’t withdrew to their cabins as the crew did. They remain loyal to Mendoza, but they are scared as hell. As the storm grows stronger the three of them are left alone to roam the ship. Even the higher ups, the captain, Gaspard and the colonel Gomez doesn’t interfere and remain in their cabins, probably praying to survive.

However the cabins aren’t complete safely either. Everyone, the crew and  our stowaways heroes Estaban and Zia bounces from wave to wave, to the floor and ceiling of their small cabin. It is nearly 4 days ago since the storm begun and Mendoza finds a small canal. The narrow stream is their only escape to survive the stormy weather of the open waters. Dancing on the waves Mendoza forces the ship towards the small canal. The chances to survive is still much more than they have in the storm. Poor Estaban and Zia can’t bear the bitter world of the sea. The bad food, locked up and dealing with the stormy weather is just too much for them. They can only seek shelter to each other but they both lack the courage to calm down.

The moment the ship enters the narrow canel the storm withdraws and Esteban looks up in the first time of days. Here he find an astonished `beautiful` landscape covered in snow and ice. Quickly he calls Zia over to watch. Together they observe the nature’s wonderful sight of the world. They ignore the shipwrecks stewed on the beaches, but looks up on the pillars of ice and glaciers they drift alongside. Both children continues to watch as they see an iceberg breaking up into smaller pieces, to drift away into the bottomless pit of the endless ocean to dissolve in the dark maelstrom. The storm and danger is over and they can breathe clamy again. At last, after four days and nights Mendoza had spend on wheel, the ship is safe. Finally he may rest and sleep as the crew celebrates their survival. Happily our children runs on deck. At the moment Estaban sets foot a the sun welcomes him and the dark clouds flattens and vanishes.

Now the bright daylight has returned our friends lurks the seas from the deck again. As they drift along the pacific ocean Estaban finds new species which makes him even more exciting of the new world. Mendoza informs Estaban, this sea is where he took him from his father… Though there is no time to worry, as crew along the children has almost no food as all is wept away in the storm. Estaban complains about the water, but Zia silently drinks it and becomes ill. Mad Estaban searches the cargo for fresh water to find a plague of rats instead. When Gaspard finds Estaban at the cargo entry he put them in irons. Mendoza quickly covers them, as they are just children. The crew, especially Sancho is mad about the difference in rations. However Gaspard thinks he doesn’t need Mendoza and provokes him when suddenly a typhoon rises on the lap of their ship.

They children in prisoned have no clue why the ship shakes and are shaked up pretty good in their cages as the ship starts to crack. As Mendoza steers the wheel bravely his chivalry is no match of the approaching storm.

Original posted at http://moe.imouto.org/post/show/85902/aida_kensuke-ayanami_rei-horaki_hikari-ikari_shinj

Neon Genesis Evangelion, (short Evangelion), is the ultimate anime classic series any anime fan knows (or should). There would be quite rare anime’s of which there is spoken more than they did at Evangelion. Aired in 1995 it surprised the world with it’s awesome mecha combats, music, plot and great characters. Each of the characters have their own personality. Even in 2009, the story, music and characters are truly awesome. That must have been the thoughts of Anno Hideaki when he complete rewrote and published Evangelion 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone in 2007. It was an huge success, 2 billion yen (according to Wikipedia) was earned and the next installment should shatter in dec 2009 (now in cinemas see riuva).

I’m not going to completely review the series, sequels or neither these remakes. There are just too much reviews… I will fulfill the question whether to watch/buy if you have already seen the Evangelion series. Those not watched Evangelion, stop reading and start watching. Though Evangelion is a mech genre fighting of aliens (angels) it’s truly about humans. Shinji, the leading role, might seems to be naive and far too complicated, but that’s the point of the story … you’ll see. So, not watchers checkout first, watchers … read on!

At first let’s throw some comparison screenshots. A 1995 vs a 2007 cuts.

Not very surprising the graphics are great! But did the 26 series story hold up vs the trilogy remake? The first installment, Evangelion 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone, covers the first 6 episodes. With the length of ~1h 35 minutes (minues credits).

Yes, it holds. They luckyily didn’t cut the less action scenes too much, such as the rising city Tokyo3 due the sunset on Shinji’s first day at Nerv. They also left in Pen Pen, who Shinji meets while he enters the bathroom. You know, when Shinji’s runs down to Misato, compelety naked, to question about the weird pinguin in the bathtub. Though, don’t misunderstand me. Some hilarious or dramatic scenes are left out and you have to think a bit more. For example, when Ikari opens Unit00 to get Rei out of the entry plug he burn his hands. In the series we get a good look of how Rei notices it. When Shinji, later on, burns his hands to save her likewise, you must make the match yourselves. Even Rei doesn’t notice the burning hands of Shinji ..

What I missed the most? I missed the arguing between Misato and Shinji. But especially, I still don’t get it why they remove it, the protective hand of Eva when the ceiling drops down to Shinji. You know, when Shinji arrives at the Nerv headquarters the first day. The day he met the Eva the first time and huge rocks were cracking down. Rei had fell and Shinji had covered her. At the moment they would be smashed the Eva suddenly, without power, moved it’s hand between them and the boulder. I found it very important, but I guess I was wrong.

At last, the ending theme is now Beautiful world instead Fly me to the moon. Both songs are meant to last forever!
Please check the lyrics of Beautiful world whenever you do not understand Japanese. Great lyrics!

Conclusion, to watch or buy the remake …

I did, I mean, I did bought Evangelion 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone. It should say enough. Though I think re-watchers will mostly enjoy reliving the old memories. Especially the more memories now found to be found in HD. Europe watchers though have no bluray at the moment, but my guess a bluray will be released shortly (hopeful). Whenever the bluray is released, I definitely get it!

Not convinced?
Ask yourselves this.

Do you not want to see Rei Ayanami in High Definition, completely revised?

Original at moe, http://moe.imouto.org/post/show/106863/bikini_top-black_rock_shooter-black_rock_shooter_-

Today’s my birthday. I have uploaded two episodes of The Mysterious of Gold which I release in the morning. At the moment I’m a bit busy . Finaly my father remembers my birthday and a nice (just) girlfriend (Namaca) have given me a sweet present. Well sweet, it’s a figure of the anime Serial Lain Experiments. Lain Iwakura is a teenager girl who’s living in a world of science. Technology has driven the world completely and even the network seems to life. Great series, .. I’m not going to review it, way to few time. At any case, check the figure Lain Iwakura on the right. She’s lovely.

At last the cover is a nice picture I found at moe of Black Rock Shooter. First it seemed she was the sister of Miko Hatsune, from Vocaloid 2, but later on it seems not. :S I’m not totally out, but I do know there is an anime and a splendid figure of Black Rock Shooter. The figure is great and I’ve it pre-ordered months ago. For now I love my new Lain and I still wait, 6th week now, for Gwendolyn. I’m starting to lose hope, which is never a good sign.

A war is brewing and the fairies prepares themselves for battle. The forest is their home and lives, without the phozons the forest casts, the fairies will wither and die. Despites the commands of the queen the general commands the dwarves to forge a forbidden blade. In meanwhile the queen’s daughter, the princess, Mercedes has borrowed her mothers bow. Out in the woods she had practice her skills, hunting frogs. When she returns she finds her mother preparing for combat. Quickly she takes the bow up her feet, so heavy she can barely carry. Her mothers smiles and questions her intention.

Mercedes face rises when she looks up to her mother. “Help ofcourse”,  she says. Her mother smile wary, ‘my dear’, she says, ‘do not go to battle when you do not know the reason to fight’. Her daughter looks to her. a bit confused first, but then she asks “So, why what do we battle for”. Her mother let out a small laughter, she doesn’t want her daughter to get mixed up in an battle between the fairies and the demon’s lord daughters, the Valkyries. So she waves her help away and set foot the her troops. The battle will start as Mercedes grants her mother a unknowing last eye. The queens energy would flow back into the woods, giving birth to new plants and other lifeforms when she returns …

Mercedes as appeared in the official art book

A passage of the ‘fairies’ chapters in the PS2 RPG game Odin Sphere¹ of Square Enix. Square has a tendency of creating their figures themselves, but in this case Yamato takes up the long shot (as a partner of the game) and creates the graceful and fierce, but yet so innocent princess Mercedes.

Sculpted by: Makoto Kobayashi
Publisher: Yamato US
Released: August, 2009
Scale: 1/8
Length: ~180mm
Price: €93 ($138)
Other blogs: kotaku, tomopop

As the short passage may tell you. Mercedes isn’t a capable leader who will win the fight for her mother, right? Mercedes youth and it’s innocent just emits from her. The huge crossbow in her hands bestows her sad fate and responsibility. Her story, like all, is full of emotion. Good story, you should play the game sometimes.

There is one more thing you need to know before I start reviewing. The princess did lost her crossbow, but a talking frog have surfaced her bow from the depths of the swamp. I won’t spoil too much, so for now you need to know the frog does follow Mercedes because he wants to be rewarded of his good deed.

Well let’s get to the figure review shall we.
Fairies have graceful wings. Their wings are always semi transparent and glitters in the bathing sunlight or the dozing moonlight. Fairies, beyond Elves, are connected to nature. So does Mercedes looks like. Her wings are well done, but the material used is too hard. Yamato have choosed to use hard materials for the wings, which makes it firm and strong, but it doesn’t ‘glow’. It’s not too bad, but I think the black material is way too thick, or too firmly looking.

I can’t mutter on the clothes. The leaves on her skirt are well detailed and above all any painting seems to be great.

The pose might seem kinda dull, but I like it. She has a bit of childish curiosity pose with all the innocences she can draw from it. The huge crossbow on her right arm does well appear heavy. The wood truly likes wood as less the iron glimmers.  The huge Psypher² (the purple jewel).

The frog aside from Mercedes completes the figure. I do think he belongs there.
Did you already notice the base, shaped as a white lily with a pearl of two in front of the camera? It is one of the beautifulest bases I have right now. I love it when a base isn’t just a plate on the bottom of the figure. Something more and more publishers seems to understand, finally.

Recommendation, if you still think the pose is kinda dull. Watch out for Alter Mercedes.

¹ In Odin Sphere you play with several (five) characters. All of these characters have their own story, but their stories are all connected. You will find yourselves loving the Valkyries as they prideful expand their kingdom. On the other side, you will be astonished how they could attack the small group of fairies and how a dark knight finds his way to true love. If I were to review the game, I would definitely grant it a 9/10. Story and graphics are great, the gameplay is good but you must like the system.

² A Psypher is an huge crystal created from the crystals of the Netherworld. This powerful weapon pierces through the dragon blades and summons magic to rain hell to foes or heal the casters wounds. The psyphers are feared as well beloved for their power. Just a paradox which lives in the world of Odin Sphere as well in ours.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is an exceptional exception of me watching mecha. I never like the big bots rushing around and demolishing the city in every step and blow they take. Nevertheless I’ve seen Evangelion… I think Lagann is much better . So, the figures.

I got the figures from Abunai 2009 ‘Once more with feeling’ in the Netherlands of a little store in the corner of the dealer room. I don’t even remember the shop’s name :/. At any case I was looking for a different Nia-figure, but Nia and Yoko were almost waving to me. I mean, I can’t just purchase a Nia without a Yoko right, she would be alone. For those we doesn’t know Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (shame on you), a little introduction to the figures.

For those who are not familiar to Yoko and Nia, a small introduction
Yoko is a excellent rifle/sharpshooter. An earthquake had pushed her borrowed up village to the surface of the earth. Being on the surface of the world of Gurren Lagann is being exposed to the beastman who seems to inherit earth.
Nia is a beautiful naive princess from the earth surface who never met other humans. When her own father abandoned her, she meets Simon and is astonishment not to be the only human! Together she finds an hidden world of war, rage, pain and love . Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann had suprised me with a deeper plot than I could imagine.

Related Anime: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (AniDB, AnimeNFO)
Length: 180 mm
Manufacturer: Sega
Produced: Zenko
Scale: 1/6
Price: €25 (each), $37
Store: 1999

Quality
Overall I could say I’m not a fan of the shiny cheap plastic. The glancing plastic is kinda dull and does not feel skin like. Yoko’s pair of tights are almost wrapped inside her leg. Well, about Yoko, definetely not the best or even recommended. But still, the pose is kinda okay. Nia needed a familiar face right .
Spealing about Nia, I do like the clothes, face and especially the hair. Nia’s face is wonderful and the pose is very Nia like. Good job on the Nia, though still not amused of the shiny poor plastic.

This review covers both Nia and Yoko figures of Zenko. Let’s start with the princess, the naive and graceful Nia. Her pose is kinda, talk to kids, but I kinda like it. Somehow I see Nia as a little girl, exploring the world. It’s only naturally as she was locked up years inside a “golden cage” (the palace).

As I said I don’t like the plastic and the shiny legs and arms. The paintjob is far from flawless, but… Nia’s cloudy hair and face looks great. Though i had hoped her jewels would be from another material (not plastic) they still look good, but somehow less shiny than her body. The colors are wel picked and do honor the anime quite well.

Obviously you don’t look to the ass of a princess, but as figure shooting we always shoot a nice panty shot, right? Though, this figure does not have a nice panty. Just a slubby pinky dress or whatever it goes for. They definitely didn’t want you to look there.

I hope you like the last picture of Nia, I think most of Laggan’s clan would see Nia in this perspective. Small, innocent and just cute all over the places.

I’m not really a Yoko fan, but I thought Nia wanted to have someone familiar to her. She would be a bit lonely up in my room, all on her own… So Yoko came …

Well, what can I say. Again the face and hair is the best part of the figure. The twisting body looks fine too, but the butt and legs are really defying the eye. The but is kinda small while her legs is kinda huge. It may also be the fact her tights is sucked inside her legs.

Still if I put Nia and Yoka aside each other, they look a good set. Just don’t place them on the front row and they are a fine set of figures. If Zenko would have put more effort in the paint job, the choice and varieties of materials the figures would be much better. I can’t  recommend these figures unless you are a Laggan’s collector :/

Racing the highways and slamming the fiends with a physical assault. A fierce ‘melee’ warrior, quick, agile and relentless fighter in the world of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha … That must be Subaru Nakajima. Subaru is introduced in the last season of Nanoha named StrikerS. Along her friend Teana Lanster she makes her way to the 6th devision created by Hayate Yagami.

When Subaru was young a terrible fire broke out. She had struggled and cried for her sister between the burning furnitures of the building until a pillar started to collapse. She fell down and cried and yelled as she was going to die. Suddenly a pillar  moved but froze in it’s fall. Behind the dark shadows of the pillar a friendly smile appeared. Nanoha safed her, she called out  her magical device Raging Heart and casted her famous ’starlight buster’. A moment later Subaru found herself safe. Nanoha’s warm arms wove the the cold breeze of the lonely night which dazed before her eyes as they fly to in the sky. As she rose her eyes she would meet Nanoha’s friendly smile as the dazing stars passes. In that moment she promised to be brave. Then she broke in tears and awaited her big sister.

Related Anime: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Length: 220 mm
Manufacturer: Alter
Produced: Mumei
Scale: 1/7
Price: €80, $112
Store: 1999, archonia
Other blogs: foobarbaz, rehikage

The first firm and solid Subaru with a superb motion figure will now be reviewed. I think the motion and expression of the figure is the best way to put Subaru down. She never gives up, never hold back and the determined eyes sparkles. I love it. Nevertheless I must warn you, the figure really is expensive. It’s around the $100 (for Europeans at least) dollar to get you this figure. The base does eat up a lot of space. It’s just a plain, huge white rectangle place holder of the figure. You should put some figures on top to utilize your little room space.

Let’s start with 3 shots of Subaru without the wings and the dancing lights of her powered up device, ready for buster.

Did I not told you? The figure bursts with action, ready to roll on forever. You only need to to take out the figure and place the left feet on his stance at the base. It slips in fine. The wings and whirlwind in contrary is quite painful. The whirlwind thingy on her right hand should be placed on the inside of her wrist. Though to get the whirlwind there you must avoid her big head, the stiff hair and obviously the little space between her shoulder and hand.

I did spent a lot of time troubling with her feet. It took me about 20 minutes to discover I have a figure with 2 left feets. It would mean I will never have the ability to have a left and right side wing. Cursed I bloated I return it to the store, but given the trouble and the actually problem, I reconsider. I now think I have one of the more unique Subaru’s around . Well, I don’t see the trouble any longer so stick with me accepting the tiny issue.

I can’t say the Subaru figure is a must-have. The figure sprouts with life given her motion and action I would definitely rate it a 8 out of 10 for total score, reminding you I’m a total Nanoha-fan.

Moe original at http://moe.imouto.org/post/show/98102/bakemonogatari-oshino_shinobu-redjuice

This week the site was kinda slow. It could took over more then 10 seconds to generate and pass the page over the web to you. I was testing some new features at the developers area and installed a few programs. Though they kinda crashed and a few eated 65% of my RAM. While more than 70% was used for developers project instead a merely 3%, the blog (the public) site was kinda slow.

I realized it after three days … Now, today at work an entire website vanished in the thin air. Brushed from existence I recovered the site using an old backup, but manually synchronizing the database with the new users contents. To get the job harder, our company went offline and I had no access to any web resource. Still fate thought I could live with it, it even get back to me and finished it off with a major break down of one of our main network services. Well, screw it, I’m going to post Saturday a nice figure review. Got my mind on the job all over this week.

See the anime district.

(Yes this is a kind of filler post, I was busy on a post but I found the game `Infamous` for the playstation 3 …)

Mendoza has lured Estaban to set sail to find the Mysterious Cities of Gold, looking for his father. In the previous episode, Estaban found Zia tied up in one of the chests in his hideout.

The next morning the boats sets sail and the children awaits Mendoza to tell them it’s safe to enter the deck. Until then they are forced to be in the small cabin and Estaban quickly discovers the poor shape the boat is in. Suddenly his eyes falls on Zia’s medallion.

He and Zia put theirs medallions next to each other. Both medallions looks the same, but one is shaped as a sun and the other as a star. Confidently Estaban promises Zia she won’t let anyone, especially her kidnapper Mendoza to harm her. He’ll protect her.

However soon after they reach open seas Estaban gets seasick and have to throw up (on deck). He’s finally caught in Gaspard hands and Gomez isn’t pleased to find Estaban. He and Mendoza seems to have scheming a plan, something the captain (Perez) is aware off. However they can’t throw Estaban over board as he’s the child of the sun, Mendoza claims. As he states both Gomez and Perez are awkward, but they let him be.  Let him be satisfied, they think, there is always a ‘chance’ they (including Mendoza) will fall overboard.

The children are saved for a while and are now given a room. As the night falls so does the illness of Estaban. Awoken he sneaks the ship until he overhears the a conversation of Gomez and the captain. They indeed schemed a plan to hand over Zia to Governor Pizarro. A Spanish soldier which wants to rob the Inca’s of all their treasures. Shocked Estaban runs towards Mendoza and Zia to inform them about the plan. Mendoza however, isn’t very surprised as he’s to hear Zia is the key to the Mysterious cities of Gold. Though Zia is determined never to betray her people. At any case, Mendoza tells them not to worry, they need him to navigate the ship.

As the journey crawls forward and the reach the eastern coast of south america Estaban looses all his illness and finds the ship a well home. The ships sails forward and the whales sings along. Even golden butterflies forecasts them a well journey as they swift among the ropes and sails of the ship. The journey passes well until they reach the fearsome Straits of Magellan.

Mendoza informs Estaban and Zia of the terrible seas ahead and goes to sleep as he will need to navigate the ships continuously four days on row. Astonished Estaban questions why the storms gathers at the tip of the southern continent. Thus Mendoza explains the Atlantic and the Pacific aren’t on equal foot and will collide. The warm and cold streams will sweep the seas.

Hi, welcome back to you all! After two weeks of vacation in Germany and two weeks of slacking out the blog I returned to find the website a bit in a mess. The soundtrack indexer seems broken due the fact of bad programming. The script consumes too much resources the server doesn’t have. Well, I scripted it almost 5 years ago, so not a real bummer …

This week I bought Odin Sphere for the playstation 2. Though it is a playstation 2 game, the graphics are marvelous. All graphics are drawed by hand and it just looks great! The gameplay is a bit of a platformer without the jumping parts and a lot of hack and slashing. You have a bit of magic and gain level in character and weapon. The storyline takes you to five (playable) characters. Nice…

At last my pre-ordered Subaru Nakajima from Alter was shipped on thursday and I got it on my office the very next morning (two days ago). I have resembled the figure yesterday, but how I fitted it in, something weird popped out. Well, I blog it later on. For now, be happy with a single shot of a part of my collection so far.

Be tuned for the following summary of the Mysterious cities of gold series and a short review of my Subaru from Nanoha. … I still need Zafira before I can call my set of heroes/heroines complete! Haha, that day my friends claims of being Nanoha nuts would be undeniable.

Her tail twists up the air as she crawl her way to the pillows. She grabs a Saito looking doll in her mouth and drags her puppy all over the bed. Spinning she blushes as she stumbles upon the cam. A bit of embarrassed, but despite, determined to continue to tempt Saito off guard. She already doesn’t care much of the other nobles as her heart continues to grow for this ‘outlaw’.

Nekomimi model of Louise has almost no relation to the anime. The only connection would be Louise dress up as a kitty to impress Saito, which I suppose was enough reason to have a figure of it. Neko, cat in Japanese, version of Louise of the anime “Familiar of Zero” is a very cute figure. Her drooling eyes, nice pose, a little of blush and a very cute Saito Hiraga doll in her mouth makes it a such a lovely figure and I couldn’t resist to buy. Photo’s and pictures within the review (underneath or click the read on link on the frontpage).

Well there isn’t that much to tell so let’s start from her butt to top. Though the most people might love her tail, I think her face is the cutest part of the figure.

At any case from her back we can see her wiggling tail flipping from right and left. Her cute tiny butt scores an overall score of 8. But that can just be me …

At any case, did you already notice the ribbons wrapped around her ankles? I think that was such a good such. Having them is cuter than having nothing at all. I know she’s still kinda euh, less wearing, but the ribbons does the trick.

Nice hair, good details and excellent paintjob. I can’t say it’s flawless, but at any case nothing to jump in the eye. Of course the kitty ears expresses the cuteness, even without dropping a single spot of her face.

She has just so tiny belly, I hope she does eat well enough.

Let’s turn her over.

On her face is a little of blush. The suit should be a bit embarrassed, but she seems very happy though.

Her hands close together holding a puppy Saito doll in her mouth is just way too cute.

Did I mention the hairy pillow she crawls on?
- No
I forgot the tell you get the hairy pinky pillow with the figure which is great as it truly a part of the figure. I wouldn’t say it’s a base, but you might think of one.

Here are other pictures.
The best pictures of the shoot would definitely be (for me) the very first photo at top of this review.

Photo uploaded for Shino, the way you optimize space. ^^

Anime District and Toon District were under attack, an ambiguous script made it to one of my PHP files. I quickly resolved this issue and will investigate the cause of the problem this week. At the moment the districts seems to be fine again, but it might take a while before Google/ Badware sites refreshes their lists.
I will, ever, redo the anime and toon district. I have redo so much nowadays.

Nowadays I’m on holiday, so I go out a lot of time. The blog may suffer under this lead for a moment. Thought I had to mention it. Please be patient as you comment and await an reply.

The Hirvine encode of Cities of Gold is a DVD rip, converted to a mkv 264, aac encode. I have filtered out the scanlines and compression noise which goes along the MPEG2 encode. I’m not really keen on encoding, but I think I did a decent job. At least I’m confident. I have and won’t release an xvid/divx as mkv works fine. Whenever you like to watch it on your PS3 use a program. In the case of a PS3 use ‘mkv2vob‘ to convert your MKV to VOB. The progress won’t affect the quality.

Along the episode I have retained a documentary, which goes besides each episode. I found the documentaries a great extra as they were quite interesting. I hope you find them too.

At least if you live  in Europe, think of buying the series at Archonia. The price is quite reasonable for a 39 episodes series.

Classic Media Player tells
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 710×480 (631:480) 29.97fps [Video]
Audio: AAC 48000Hz stereo [Audio]
Size: 200MB

Download: Estaban, the child of the sun [Hirvine] .

In the first episode of Mysterious cities of gold we meet almost all the main characters. The beginning is quite innocent were Estaban runs into the rain of the church to the pub. A cleric warns he will be soaked but Estaban runs off. Once set the window of the pub and gets on top of a stocked wine barrels. Here he listens to the stories of all sailors in the pub. Two of sailors are babbling about the cities of gold and questions the listeners for a starter loan.

Suddenly the pub doors jumps open. People in town are looking for the child of the sun, Estaban. They will even reward the finder with a piece of gold. Greedy, the pub is left alone in a couple of seconds in exception of a single man. Unlucky for Estaban he had spotted him a while back ago. However he introduces himself as a navigator, Mendoza and ensures Estaban he won’t hand him over. The navigator eyes crawls down to the chest of the boy to find a miracles hanger. Surprised he enlunges his arms but Estaban is shocked and pulls his hanger away and flees.

Outside his hideout he’s quickly caught and is put into a luxurious chair. After a small tour around the city the chair is lifted on top of the ship. Encourage demands are yelled to Estaban. Confused Estaban informs them over again he can’t command the sun, however the dark clouds are swept when he raises his head. The rays of the sun breaks free and sets Estaban in a beam of light. Astonished a cleric calls from below, his guardian is dying.

The last words of Estaban guardian is about his past. Estaban was rescued during a huge storm. One of the ships was sinking while on board a man and a baby begged for help. Then a man threw himself reckless into the open sea to safe them. However I couldn’t safe the man. As soon as the baby, Estaban, arrived safely on the ship and laughed. The sun broke free and the light bestowed the open seas of it’s gracefully glittering.

The power to command the sun is a great gift which must be used for good, so he narrates. Then the gaurdian-father laughes and peacefully slips away. Estaban cries out as he runs out to the top of the church, to be alone. However Mendoza, the navigator have overheard their conversation and reveals he had saved him. To prove he give Estaban a glimpse of a piece of his medallion, a part Mendoza stole at the storm.

Mendoza actually persuades Estaban to set sail to find the cities of gold. Though the gold is no interest to Estaban, Mendoza says his father might have survived the storm. He also informs Estaban his medallion might be the key to the cities of gold and thus his father could be there.

As there is nothing left, Estaban decides to set sail along with Mendoza. In the early morning Mendoza helps Estaban to sneak into the cargo ship and commands him to stay until he tells to come out. Estaban nods and drops his head on a chest to sleep the night over.

At sunrise the chest suddenly knocks as someone pounds from the inside. Curious Estaban lifts the chest and is shocked to find a girl. Completely tidied up it’s clear she’s been abducted. Estaban quickly unties her and make a safe run to the deck to find and tell Mendoza. He, however, has business as navitor to attempt and Estaban can’t come out just yet. So they wait as the ships sets sail and their adventure to the cities of gold begins.

The mysterious cities of gold is a very old adventure of three children named Esteban, Zia and Tao. The three children completely differs from culture and religion but all believe the cities of gold can reunite them with their family bonds. Esteban believes his father was among one of these legendary cities of gold. Zia was abducted from her family in Peru and ’simple’ want to be reunited. At last Tao believes the cities of gold may relieve the secrets of the weird objects his ancestors left behind, as he’s the sole survivor of his clan.

It’s 1532 when a Mendoza finds Esteban whose life he saved during a wreckage of several years ago. During the rescue he stole a golden medallion piece from Esteban’s hanger. Mendoza had strayed around and is been told the hanger is the key to the Mysterious Cities of Gold. Driven by lust of gold he and his friends Sancho and Pedro starts their quest to capture and claim the gold. Unlucky (or luckily for Mendoza) Esteban’s guardian dies when he comes overseas and lures Esteban to find his father. Mendoza informs Esteban about his salvage, he also claims his father might be alive as his will was very strong.

Anime was started in 1982 to 1983. Very late in 2009 an boxset was released which I bought 29th June, 2009 (and got it 2 July).

There are 39 episodes each of a duration of 22 minutes. It was produced by: Max Saldinger, Kanae Mayuzumi and Atsumi Yajima. I couldn’t find the name of the publisher, I hope anyone else know. Archonia simple put ‘MISC’ as publisher but well

I will continue to blog mysterious cities of gold and I hope you will enjoy it as I did yearsss ago. Watching it again makes me feel nostalgious, I’m aching to watch on.

Started as a mere face of a synthesized program Vocaloid2, 16 years old Hatsune Miku’s grew up as a world phenomenon of “featured cyber-pop-star”. Powered by her cute and high pitched voice which may not be achieved by humans, she is truly blessed. Looking again, Hatsune Miku is actually not a popstar, in fact she isn’t even an human at all. She’s a production of Yamaha to be a face of their program named Vocaloid. Yamaha is known for the synthesized specialty. A Yamaha Synthesizer was earlier often used for midi files. … Though I won’t bother you with the Yamaha, check the wikipedia page for it.

Nowadays we find Vocaloid and especially Hatsune Miku all over the world (blogs). I read the criticism at riuva to blog anything popular, but Miku can’t be ignored. She’s just too cute and her voice is something unearth. There is no way you can ignore her voice and it’s quite unbelievable she gained popularity in just a few months after her broadcast in Tokyo (see the youtube review). She crossed the path as popstar and anime all together having both the popularity of anime and music fans. Breaking the boundaries Miku introduces a new world to a lot of newbies. The world of synthesized music, high pitched and fully digital. Now enough introduction and start roling the figure review.

Sculpture: Yoshi (Trepang)
Scale: 1/8 (18cm)
Publisher: Good Smile
Price: €55, $77, ¥5000
Official sites: official, hobby-search (store), archonia (store)
Other blogs: howagirlfigures, koiaichaku, ramathaine, rephin, exelica-meteor
Music clips: Anger, The world is Mine, the world’s famous diva (review, 13 minutes long, but great)

More information about Vocaloid and Hatsune Miku are all on the net. Use wikipedia or google it up whenever you feel like to be more informed. This blog will now continue reviewing the Good Smile version of Hatsune Miku.

Miku’s probably most catching parts would be her two extreme long ponytails, starting from her head (obviously) and dropping far below her knees. The paint job of the her hair is a fine gradient spray along the top and bottom from her hair to the inner part next to her body. As the hair is extremely essential I have toke a second look. I must say, Good Smile did an excellent job, it’s flawless!

Miku is all about music and the gadgets on her skirt and sleeves aren’t forgotten. The small details are sharp and elegantly ’sticked’ on her dress which I had assumed, if they were, would be less of quality. However I got it all wrong and even those tiny details are wonderful.

Alike the most skirts of figurines they can be removed by pulling out her body from the waist. Vocaloid’s tiny butt looks again surprising cute and the small green ribbon on the front makes it all complete. I love the small underwear she has, somehow I also think it’s something she would were, regardless if it’s just a 3d model. But ok, no troubles, we’re not going to discuss whether she actually would wear black panties as it fits with her overall costume . Urm, oh I almost did… So let’s go on with the ‘clothed’ shots of Miku.

Look at that. A nice dynamic stance from top to bottom. I like the way she enforces the sound of her head phone by pushing her left hand on to the ear. That way she seems to really enjoy the music, which is Miku (Vocaloid) all about. You can say, as mascot she’s a total success, but we know, she’s much more than a mascot! Go Miku!

I actually have no criticism, I have no idea how to make this figure more attractive as it looks perfect to me. I’m not a total Miku fan, but I love to see her clips, hear her voice and own her figures. Though I’m not looking for them searching blogs and reviews. It may, or may not come.

At last the Miku clock widget below. I just bumped on it and I thought it was kinda funny. I like to share the fun with you so here it goes.

On the other side, I think they* seriously need to check Nanoha’s face over again.

*They are GoodSmile and CMS which both lacks the girlisch face of Nanoha and the staring, sad eyes of Fate. Well, ok, if you were on the beach you shouldn’t look sad, but I mean, the faces are kinda dull. I can’t remember Nanoha having such a bust too.

If I do see them in the local stores, I actually may buy them. Let’s see what abunai offers at september. Abunai is a dutch anime convention I will attend to at September. It isn’t as expensive as the AnimeCon was in May, but shouldn’t be any smaller at all.

GoodSmile Fate Testarossa Swimsuit
GoodSmile Nanoha Takamachi’s Raging Heart

Taiga, from ToraDora. Official from moe.imouto 72268

Hello my fellow visitors. Yesterdays night and today’s morning was quite a stumble for my poor server. It didn’t took me very long to find the cause and a stumbled upon an hack. I’m not sure how long the hack lasted, but it might be the full previous week. I’ve no clue how they did it, so poor me hopes it won’t happen again. Your virus scanner/firewall now shouldn’t warn any longer about a fake and dangerous site “trafing.com”. Do NOT visit that site! If your virus scanner/firewall is still making warnings, please use Ctrl-R or Ctrl-F5 in your web browser to fully refresh the page. You may also remove Hirvine from your history to resolve the problem. Again, I’m truly sorry I haven’t found the hack earlier, the site is known for their ad or spyware. You might want to check your pc. Mine was still clean, but you never know.

To Visitors, Hirvine does NOT display any advertising.
When you do see any please refresh the site due an hack earlier this week.
(It’s all okay by now, read the date)

Webbloggers having Wordpress might want to read on as the hack was found in Wordpress. Obvious I have no clue if the hack was fetched by any plugins.

For fellow wordpress webmasters

Hi there, so what did the hack?

The hack replaced your jquery script with an advertising script.  It kept working for jQuery so it didn’t break anything.
However it did also digg in an ‘free’ advertising to goOogle.net, which on his path refers to ‘trafing.com’.  (be warned dangerous sites)
Lucky for me my firewall stumbled upon a dangerous site and didn’t load the ad until I would decide for yes. Obviously I pressed ‘No’
’cause I do NOT have ads at my site.

Please check your jquery script in.

When you open the file (use an editor is safe, but don’t use emascript to execute the file) you stumble upon a compressed jquery script.
At first it looks like anything is ok. The header is equals to the current wordpress installation and tells ‘jQuery 1.2.6 – New Wave Javascript’.
However the line does have “advQuery()” at the end of the script, just scroll until the end.

The file must be “31.111″ but it was “31.409″ bytes. The modified date was ’safely’ hidden, which I mean was the same as all the other files around.
So if you would check the modified dates, you will think it’s the file installed. No, not true! So please replace this file with the correct file.

My active plugins were:

• captcha
• commentluv
• subscribe to comments
• wp cache
• wp ajac edit comments

If you like to get a look into the fake js you can download it from this site. I have added the extension .txt so you won’t mistakenly execute the script (and it can’t be executed from this server, which is also great ).

Download FAKE jquery file (the hacked version).
Wordpress topic

Louise de la Valiel is a student at the magic school who is barely able to cast the most simplest spells. When she is to summon her life time guardian familiar, probably a Lizard, Dragon or Salamander in the magic world she lives ine. She instead summons a Japanese boy from earth. Being laughed at her summoning can’t be redo, so she drags the boy to his ‘cage’. The boy still is her familiar and though it doesn’t seems so, it is a gift send from the heavens (for her). Obviously the boy, Hiraga Saito, is kinda confused and doesn’t obey his master commands very well.

Soon after being summoned Hirage clears his mind. Though confused he doesn’t allow anyone to laugh at him and makes a big fuss. It doesn’t even take a day until he discovers his master, Louise reputation. Louise is mostly addressed as Zero at the campus, referring the zero to her spell casting skills. Though she’s incompetent in casting she still tries her best all the time. Even the family spots her and her father is mostly disappointed. A  la Valiel, a noble blood, must be able to cast at least those simple spells at the acedemy.  This might be the cause why Louise has a low tempter. Can Hiraga find the real Louise behind Zero? Is Zero really the first la Valiel without grand casting spells, or does she behold a more severe spell?

Zero no Tsukaima, The familiar of Zero, is a humorous anime series. Stuffed with ecchi and magic it appears to be quite a charming series over 3 seasons.

Related blogs: Polyvinylcrush
Price: €49.99 (~ $71 American Dollars)
Publisher: Kotobukiya
Sculpted: Masaki Sanada
Scale: 1/8
Store: archonia

Let us first slim the figure down and undress the skirt and cape. IF you watched the series, you won’t find the panties all to surprising. The last OVA at top was really overdoing the ecchi content. Well let’s continue the review. The first pantie/figure shots are placed below.

Figma cape support solution, from Fate Testarossa Figma version

Yup, the mini pantie is there, but I actually wanted to show how firm this figure stands. The base is a plain base and the figure stands using the small pins in the base and gaps in the feet. Additionally a seamless/ transparent stick is required to hold up the cape, we’ll see in the following shots. A stick might be a good supporter, but I prefer the Figma solution. Figma’s “cape-supporter” is hidden underneath the cape. On the other side, Alter’s Fate Testarossa Burst Version does not need any support since it’s firm enough. So, thinking about those two options, I think the stick support shouldn’t have been this simplistic. :/

Well, after we have bothered about the cape support, let’s checkout those crossed legs. She has beautiful legs and a nice tiny euh.. butt. I love her stance, even without the wand you can tell she’s casting a spell. Though having the wand in place, it truely completes the casting impression. I wouldn’t leave out the wand if I were you. Be careful though, the wand should be tend with care as it breaks easily. The wand can’t bent, so don’t try!

Instead only looking and judging her panties (what’s wrong with that?) let’s move on and watch her curly pink hair. The painting job must be hard around the area and isn’t flawless. Though the overall painting isn’t very bad and the hair is quite impressive. The quality is just what we are used of Kotobukiya, not too shabby, not flawless. I even think this figure is good quality Kotobukiya figure.

So how does the full figure represent itself?

Well what’s closely as I shot a view pictures below.

The cape and wand supports Louise casting session. I love the way the cape wappers behind Louise’s back, but I can’t help it to think the angle of blows differs from the hair.

Though Louise’s face is quite plain I truely like this figure. The stance is great and the huge cave wappers as she draws her wand to cast, upholding her book of spells. Certainly not a must have for Zero no Tsukaima fans, but on the other side a fine part of your collection.

I’ve spotted some Nanoha nendroids at nekomagic. Nekomagic have some nice shots from the Hobby Complex 07 which was held in Tokyo. Among these there nendoroids there were also several Nanoha figures I wasn’t familiar with. I’ve copy-pasted the Nanoha images here on hirvine, since I’m a big Nanoha fan. To view all the photos of the Hobby Comple 07, Tokyo , please visit nekomagic.

Here are some figure shots of Fate Testarossa and Nanoha Takamachi.
I don’t know who sculpted them or who distributes them ‘yet’.
Image source: Nekomagic

Animecon 2009 at the Netherlands, Almelo thx to nekolinoge @ flickr

Edit: Daniel has contacted me to give more cleary credit to the picture above. So the picture posted above is posted by nekolinoge @ flickr, also known as Daniel. His homepage is ran4art.nl

Final I went to an animecon last Saturday (a week ago). Animecon 2009 the Netherlands, Almelo, after 2+ hours of pushing the traffic I finally stepped into an big luxe hotel. Theater Hotel Almelo is an huge hotel in which Animecon each year “celebrates” anime. I never went to any anime event like AnimeCon and so I figured cosplay is common, common is unusual . If I didn’t want to push the scenery I just had to jump into a custom. Well next time …

I didn’t make photo’s, but I think quite a lot of people did so I ran around the internet to find. I didn’t found too many, but a pair of photo’s are on flickr and StiX and Zucht of stix have uploaded a AnimeCon 2009, The Netherlands Almelo slideshow on youtube. The picture posted above is from nekolinoge @ flickr, I got this photo by ran4art.nl .

I really don’t have any photo’s here, so I guess I stop right here.
If you would read on you will be informed what actually happened during the downtime and instability of Hirvine.com the last pair of weeks.

Recent downtime! We had a recent downtime due a move to a new server. Unfortunately the move didn’t went as planned (as usual) so it went down for a couple of days. It should now be up and running smoothly again, thanks to Dreamhost. Though they went to the trouble repairing the server I had to replace configuration and a couple of entries to comply the new server.

However the new server is nearly 25 times faster than the old! So the trouble was worth all.
Recent spam issues
! This week we got a lot of spam, 50+ a day! It turns out our captcha was broken due the move of servers earlier this week.