Harry Potter Film Wizardry (Revised and Expanded)

Seriously I did not see this coming at all. I never expect that Harry Potter Film Wizardry book, which was released in 2010 before all the movies were released, would ever be reproduced again with additional materials from the 8th movie. That was why I eagerly bought the book last year :( Anyway, the book was released again with the title Harry Potter Film Wizardry (Revised and Expanded). Basically, it is almost the identical. The only differences are the obvious advertisement "belt" on the cover, the 6 last pages about the last movie (return to Gringotts, Battle of Hogwards, the Deathly Hallows, and the Tales of the Three Brother) and additional bonus of Film Photo Diary. As good as the name sounds, it is only a book with a few photos from each film and each film only gets a page. So yeah, actually nothing much.

Last year I had not used Amazon yet. So I still bought books from Kinokuniya. Amazon typically slashed 40-50% off the book price and charges about USD 10 for the shipping. Only know I realised that despite the additional shipping fee, the total cost from Amazon can still be cheaper than from Kinokuniya even with 20% members off. Oh well, what's done is done, no point for me comparing prices for items I purchased in the past, like how Harry Potter from Page to Screen is being sold for $100+ at Kinokuniya here vs USD 45 in Amazon currently :p

While on the topic of Harry Potter from Page to Screen, they are releasing the collector edition which will be called Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Film Making Journey, Collector's Edition. On top of the from Page to Screen book, this set comes 6 other books which cover the costumes, the arts, the props, the environments, the creatures, bla bla bla used in the movie. It also comes with replica of The Monster Book of Monsters. Sounds cool yeah? But I will give it a miss. The price is ridiculous USD 1000! I am not joking. It is not one zero to many but it is indeed one THOUSAND bucks! Even with 40% off from Amazon, I am still not interested. Haha. Greedy publisher.. I think even with saying "Collector's Edition" and "only 3000 copies available" will make people be interested if the price is this ridiculous.. Aaah.. just like the Harry Potter Wizard Collection which is also ridiculously priced and only produced in limited quantity, it is still not sold out until now :p Haha

Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Film Making Journey

Darn! It looks damn good!

I bought this together with Avengers: The Art of Marvel's The Avengers. I have always wanted to get the book after I watched the movie but I have always been keeping it on hold. After more than 6 months, the price did not go down further and since I am buying the Harry Potter book, I might as well buy this together to save on the shipping. I have not opened and read it so I can't really comment on this.

Update about my problem with Shopping Mall Japan

Wew.. Now I can very confidently advise people NEVER EVER use the service of this Shopping Mall Japan/SMJ. It seems that our discussion reached a stalemate and SMJ finally resorted to name calling. They called me "borderline fraud" for opening up a PayPal dispute as it "froze" that particular transaction. I actually do not intend on doing so as I am not aware that opening a PayPal dispute means freezing the funds on the disputed transaction. On top of that, now SMJ accused me of buying a damaged item and making claims for it. Utter rubbish. The item description only states "loss of colours in several places". I am not making claims for this. I am making claim for "broken base" and "broken gunblade" which is nowhere in item description.

I paid the problematic item with the non problematic ones so the "frozen" transaction is actually more than what I disputed. I just find it ironic how the guy is so angry to have his funds "frozen" and not to think about me at all: I am also at risk of wasting that amount of money because of the damage. Selfish greedy human being.

Original seller -> SMJ -> Postal Service -> Me

Obviously, the three points where damage may occur is original seller, SMJ, and postal service. I doubt that seller was trying to lie. As promised here are the pictures. If seller obviously pointed out Rinoa & Siren crack which is very difficult to spot, how can he possibly lie about Squall's Gunblade and Bahamut base which I posted yesterday??

I still give the benefit of doubt and ask SMJ to contact the seller about Squall being damaged. SMJ is too lazy to contact the original seller and there is nothing I can do about it. So yeah, original seller has been decided as a non guilty party.

Moving on the next party, the Postal Service. I made report on my side. I don't know whether SMJ made report on their side because right from the start their tone has always been negative. Initially they said "must be shipping damage" but after I sent them the pictures, their stand changed too "looks like they will refuse the claim as the box did not seem to be damage.. but still, the damage is done by postal service". Contradictory? Hell yes!

So now who is the weakest link? Am I being fraudulent for having SMJ being irresponsible for the damage? They had no proof that they did not mishandle it, they did not attempt to contact the seller about the damage, they did not attempt to fight for the claim from postal service if they think postal service is at fault. Who is being fraudulent here? Anyway, the only proof that I have for SMJ being the culprit is that they send the item with the box "lying down" instead of "standing up". As such, Bahamut is actually resting on top of Squall's gunblade. Considering Bahamut is about 2kg heavy, it is likely that this stupid packaging caused the damage.

And here are the 2 options they gave me:

1) Take the waiver of US$20+ service fee for the incurred damage to me of close US$800

or

2) Waste my US$200-300 for shipping and they will refund me the item cost only i.e I simply wasted US$200-300 for nothing.

Why should I be paying for the damage done by someone else?

Grrh I shall wait for the confirmation from Singapore Post and after that I will just escalate the dispute and let PayPal decide. So be it if in the end I did not get anything back. Perhaps that is a wake up call for me to stop all this online shopping.

Bad experience with Shopping Mall Japan (shoppingmalljapan.com)

Have you heard of a Japan deputy service? It is actually sort of a middleman to help people around the world purchase items from Japan (or Japanese website) where international shipping is not available. So basically the deputy service will help us bid, buy, and pay for the item and then ship the item to us. I am new to this service and I was considering it becaues I grew desperate to complete my Final Fantasy VIII Transcendent Artist's Collection. I managed to get Rinoa & Siren when I went back home a few weeks ago so I am left with Squall & Bahamut. I have been keeping an eye on one which is available in Yahoo! Japan for months as it is being auctioned with starting bid of 40000+ yen. Too expensive. So I was excited when there was an auction for both Rinoa & Siren and Squall & Bahamut as a set. Rinoa & Siren was damaged but it did not bother me so much as I already have 1 undamaged one at home. What I really wanted was Squall & Bahamut. My consideration was if this set were to be 40000+ yen, then it will be better than the 40000+ yen for Squall & Bahamut alone.

There are many deputy service out there and there is no concensus regarding which is good and which is bad. I tried my luck with a few but I ultimately used Shopping Mall Japan (www.shoppingmalljapan.com). Firstly, in everything, there are always pros and cons. Lets start with the pros first. To be honest, the website looks convincing, it has SMJ Guarantee, terms and policies, etc in good English. Okay, so I thought in case anything happen, I will more or less get my butt covered and communication should not be a problem. Secondly, instead of having to leave a deposit with them, they allow credit authorisation for the bidding. This simpler as I actually do not need to send anything before I win/buy something. Thirdly, it features auto sniper for auctions.

First impression looks good but unless you use something, you won't know how shitty and rotten things can be. This is where the nightmare begins. Firstly, the communication is awful. It takes them 24 hours (or more) to reply to enquiries. I have tried other deputy service whose response is around the clock except for the offline time which they designate. Now if you have experiences doing online auction, 24 hours is a long time. Worse, for every function that I do with the website, I do not actually have any notification. So I don't know whether what I request is accepted or not. And upon asking for clarification, I only got the reply 1 day later. And according to them "No, normally they do not give notification". Wow.. I am speechless.

Secondly, the cost is outrageous. I am not talking about "service fee" which I think is fair. It's their payment policy. They convert everything to US$ and payment has to made in US$, with their own conversion rate! How cunning and dishonest. Their conversion rate is always -5 yen than the current rate. So assuming 1 US$ = 80 yen, they will convert at the rate 1 US$ = 75 yen. Do the maths and that is already about 6.25% more expensive. I think it's a scam to get their income while claiming to have a "low/reasonable service fee".

Thirdly, they are irresponsible for any shipping damage. Yup, this is the worst possible attitude of a deputy service. They claimed that they do not lower value declaration. My first package cost me 18500 yen and in the value declaration, it was declared as 6100 yen only. Is that a big deal? Yes, because if something gets damaged, the insurance will only cover up to the declared value. For my second package, I requested to be declared a certain value because I do not want to take risk that my Squall arrived damage and I got nothing. Squall & Bahamut was declared properly but Rinoa & Siren was declared for 14500 yen even though I requested for US$ 200. You may wonder why such number but I won the auction for 41500 so when the boxes were shipped separately, I wanted to declare them about 50% each and that is how I came with US$200. Rinoa & Siren came okay so I don't care about it being declared lower value but Squall & Bahamut were damaged and this is the reason of my fallout with SMJ.

I immediately took photos of the damage and sent it to them. Rinoa & Siren came with damage as described by seller so I do not think seller is a scammer or something and sell a damaged Squall without documenting it. After all, seller pointed out the crack in Rinoa & Siren very honestly. So why lie about Squall & Bahamut? Another reason for me to think that seller is not lying is that the broken pieces are all there. The broken pieces are very small. If it was damaged from the start, I do not expect that seller still kept the broken pieces and shipped them to me. The broken pieces may look big in the photo but in the actual thing, the 2 gunblade pieces are about 3mm x 1mm in dimension. Ya, THAT tiny! These damages are more glaring than the crack on Siren's hair. If seller pointed out the hair crack, how could she/he miss out these major damages to Squall? I will show the crack on Siren's hair when I post about the statue, then you can see how "minor" that damage was as compared to these.

Thus the damage is likely due to shipping or due to SMJ. SMJ did not send the item using the original packaging from the sender. SMJ actually repacked every package before they send it to me. I don't know how but the possibility of them damaging/mishandling is there. SMJ, however, is being unhelpful and irresponsible. After looking at the photos, the reply was something like "Hmm.. the external packaging was not damaged so I don't think it was damaged due to shipping. I will let Japan Post know about it but I think they won't accept the claim". The moment I heard this, I immediately was like: Fuck you! It totally ruined all the trust I had. Not only they are unapologetic about it, they sound indifferent and unhelpful. EMS is insured for a reason and upon knowing something is damaged, the simplest thing that sender could do is to help with claiming for insurance. Until now, I don't know whether they bother to contact Japan Post or simply cannot be bothered about it.

So I asked them: if it was not damaged due to shipping, then either you damaged it when you repacked it or the seller was lying. SMJ conveniently thinks seller would not be lying (for the same reason as I have) and is not bothered to contact the seller. So what is left? SMJ damaged it right? No, they claimed they could not possibly damage it. So yeah, here we have a fantastic deputy service with the various Guarantee, Terms, and Policies which are mere bullshit. I bought an item which was advertised not damaged but I received it damaged. I don't care who damaged it what I wanted is a compensation be it from the seller, SMJ, or from the post office as they are the possible suspects who handled and could possibly damage the item. If SMJ, as one of the possibly guilty party, is not taking responsibility, the least that they can do is to prove otherwise. Contact the seller or the post office. That is what deputy service is supposed to do because that is what their service is about.

The story does not end here. This is where the story gets more interesting. After always maintaining the stand that they cound not possibly damage it, as a service recovery, they offered me their SMJ Guarantee provided that I returned the item to them for inspection. Lets do some maths. I spent close to US$ 600 for the item+ (lousy) service and another US$ 150 for EMS shipping to me. Assuming I returned the item and the fee is the same as how they sent it to me, I will fork out another US$150. And how much can I get from their stupid Guarantee? Only the item cost of 41500 yen or about US$ 500. So basically, I will be losing US$ 400 for nothing. Come on! Am I an idiot?

I do not know what else they want to inspect when I already sent them the pictures. Clear enough to show all the damages. Do they think I will deliberately damage a limited and out-of-production item simply for fraud?  That's really low of them if they think that way.

So I declined their Guarantee offer. And their reply was: okay then we will waive the service fee, I hope that lighten up your burden. US$ 21 for US$ 750 loss?? Hell yea -__- I consider a wasted US$ 750 because if I knew Squall & Bahamut was damaged from the start, I would not even bother bidding for the set. I already have Rinoa & Siren after all.

My last hope is with PayPal.. Crossing my fingers now.. Sigh.. I feel very helpless and hopeless because I am using a middleman. And the middleman is not helpful and may even be the culprit of the damage. Anyway, even if I cannot get any single thing, I cannot do anything about it :( I only hope that when people google Shopping Mall Japan online, they will come across this and think twice before using their service. In summary: poor communication, unfavourable payment rate, and if there is a problem with your items, you can just say bye bye to your money. SMJ is not bothered to help you (not gonna contact the seller, not gonna contact the shipper, but claimed that they could not do the damage while it is possible that they damaged it as they are also one of handler of the goods).To me, SMJ is only interested in getting your money. After they get your money, they will not be bothered with anything else.. Yeah.. talk about after service.. And if someone knows of a better deputy service, please let me know. I'm done with this crap.

Rise of the Guardians

Jack Frost is more than a myth

Santa Claus is more than a legend

The Easter Bunny is more than a fable

The Tooth Fairy is more than a fairy tale

The Sandman is more than a dream 

-Dreamworks-

Truthfully, from the poster alone, initially I had no idea and no interest in the movie. The trailers do not really invoke any interest or excitement (lucky I saw the trailers only AFTER I watched the movie) However, everything changed when I found out that the story features famous fairy tales characters such as Santa Claus, Jack Frost, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and Sandman. My interest shot up higher when I read that it was made by the group which produced How to Train Your Dragon. I remember watching it in the airplane and perhaps it is the only cartoon movie which managed to made me cry thus far.

I was quite embarassed to watch this alone as most of the crowds were children. The adults were mostly parents who accompanied their kids.. Oh well, there is a child within everyone, isn't it? Anyway, I am no longer a kid, and I think it will be unfair to judge the movie based on adults' standards. Oh ya, just a warning: spoilers ahead!

I thought the story is rather shallow, simplistic, and predictable: the goodies (the Guardians) vs the baddie (only one: the Pitch aka the Boogeyman). Children believe in fairy tales and this gives strength to the Guardians. Boogeyman is tired being alone and "invisible" as children do not believe in him. Thus Boogeyman wants to take over these children's heart and make them no longer believe in Santa Claus and friends and the Guardians must prevent that. Now, Jack Frost is the center of the movie. He is carefree, mischievous, and only wants to have fun. He has been chosen to beome a Guardian but he is not interested in having a duty and commitment to protect the kids. Jack's adventure made him realise that he also likes to protect children and eventually fight the Pitch. In the end, he agrees to officially become a Guardian.

The plot, the climax, and the resolution are abrupt and are not really coherent. The action scenes are cool but the action tend to be very quick and all I can follow is just light and bang here and bang there. Sandman, Jack Frost, and Easter Bunny are kinda cool but Santa (with 2 swords) and Tooth Fairy (I don't know how she fights) are kinda lame.

Each character has different personalities which stand out among one another. Although I think it is unfortunate that the only girl character (Tooth Fairy) has the most unmemorable personality. And I personally dislike Santa's personality here as it does not fit into typical Santa fatherly character at all. Jack Frost suits his traits commonly believed in fairy tales and Easter Bunny is the typical strict-on-the-outside-soft-in-the-inside and serves as the comic relief. I thought Sandman is the most memorable one and this is ironic because he is a non-speaking character!! Haha.. He does not speak as he does not want to "wake people up from their dream" and communicates with sand images above his head. His superpower is also the most gorgeous with all the golden streaks against the pitch black sky.

Having said that, the kid in me actually enjoyed the show. They stayed true to the fairy tales with Easter Bunny to paint and distribute Easter Eggs, Santa running the North Pole, Tooth Fairy collecting teeth, Sandman spreading dream sand, and Jack Frost causing snow, frost on the window, and nipping the nose. Having a visualisation of these fairy tales characters is surely a great experience. There are plenty light hearted and funny moments (although I don't find anything particularly moving, touching, or made me cry.. hmm.. an exception will be the scene where Jack gave proof to Jamie that Easter Bunny exists).

And who says cartoon are for kids and useless? I honestly was not familiar with Sandman, Tooth Fairy, and Jack Frost. This movie introduced me to the folk lore about them. Perhaps it is useless information but I value knowing general knowledge like this. And I am not sure whether kids are able to understand some of the jokes such as "Haha.. the ones who build the toys in North Pole are Yetis, not elves as what people believe".

It may not be the best movie but it is still a good movie. I consider this as the box office of 2012 end of the year and 2012 Christmas/Holiday movie. Hmm.. the last time I had cartoon Holiday movie was the Polar Express a few years back.. Perhaps it was my last cartoon movie prior to this too. Well, movies which invoke Christmassy feeling will always tug the strings in my heart ba.. (Haha.. but I still think the Polar Express was more impactful than this). Oh and gosh, the movie really awakens the kid in me. I am now tempted to collect McDonalds' Happy Meal toys and to buy book: the Art of Rise of the Guardians.

Am I on the Naughty List?

Naughty List? You hold the record.

666

666 is associated with bad omen and it seems appropriate that I post something negative for my 666th blog post. I had an awful today. Firstly, I almost came late for work today. It was not a big deal if not that I was supposed to open the shop. Usually it takes about 10-15 minutes to prepare the shop for opening so coming 3 minutes before opening time today was considered late.

It all began with my damaged Squall & Bahamut statue which arrived yesterday. The gunblade broke into 4 pieces :( I got agitated as I had to take photos and claim for insurance again. Considering the disastrous insurance claiming process previously, just the thought of having to make claim again made me shudder. To avoid customs, I did not declare the value properly so even if I get a full refund, I would still lose money. And I don't know whether I can get a refund for the shipping. To waste USD 55 for shipping a broken item seems too much :( Of course my biggest irritation was the fact that the item was damaged. After all it was a limited edition and an out-of-production item.. Bleah..

Anyway, I was not late because of that. I did not wake up late and I left at the same time as usual. It was just a bad luck that I missed the bus right in front of my eyes!! Zz.. Usually I still can make it on time even when I take train and then bus. But guess what happened today.. 238 was delayed at the interchange. Damn! After that, I realised that I forgot to attend a talk, which I signed up for, yesterday. Oh well, I was prepared to pay the penalty liao.. The series of unfortunate events affected my mood. I checked CPRS wrongly.. Sigh.. I mistook a prescription from 2011 as this year's prescription.. Bleah..

Thank God for being merciful to me as my luck seems to improve after that. This time I am able to make insurance claim simply by sending the pictures. Yup.. no need to go to post office or arrange for inspector to come to my place. Fiuh.. lucky I still keep the email address of the customer service person who managed to solve my previous insurance claim problems. I simply lose faith with the stupid people behind the email and the customer service hotline.

I would also need not to pay the penalty for the missed talk yesterday. The organiser would not be billing for participants who did not attend. Thank God for the $10 savings which I then used to watch movie: Rise of the Guardians. Since it is past midnite now, I will write more about the movie tomorrow. I should sleep early and not to come late again tomorrow sia..

one Sexy Zone

Sexy Zone released their first album last week (14 November). The title of the album is one Sexy Zone. I am lucky enough to be able to get it (albeit illegally) 2 days after the release. As I have mentioned previously, I like good songs and singers are secondary. That is why I don't consider myself a fan of "a singer or a band" but a fan of good songs. Having said that, I have to say that I am disappointed with this album.

I have high expectations because I think their previous 3 singles (which were all number 1) are pretty good. The songs in this album, unfortunately, seem to be moving away from the cute and fun tunes/images from their previous singles. Tune-wise, I don't find any new song which is memorable, even after listening to the album for few times.

I know it isn't fair to compare but I think Hey Say JUMP! and NEWS albums which I have are much better than this one. They are better because they have more nice songs which were not previously released as singles. To me, this album is somewhat similar to KATTUN albums which I don't quite like for similar reason.

Anyway, who cares about my opinion right? one Sexy Zone still reached number 1 in last week's Oricon chart! Apparently they also broke the record as the youngest group whose album topped the chart. Congrats to them for that.

"Lady Diamond". Their second single which I think is the best out of their 3 singles. Quite a bad live version here but I could not find the PV in Youtube :( Johnny's Entertainment is quite shiong when it comes to closing videos with copyright infringement.

Babies

"Babies" is a hot topic at my work place recently as my boss just delivered her second child last Friday. One of my colleagues randomly asked me about my future family plans. She asked me what age I am planning to get married. I told her 25. The second question obviously would be how old I am this year. I told her I am 25. LMAO. It is always my childhood dream to get married at 25 and to have 4 kids (2 boys and 2 girls) by the time my wife is 30 years old. We should do it fast and close the factory and then focus on raising kids. Lol.. Of course dream is always contrary to reality. I am nowhere near to marriage as I am still single. And I don't plan to start a family before I can afford a house.. So yah.. long way to go.

Today I visited my boss. Her first child is about 2 years old and she is already very active: running around and making incorrigible noises, exactly the same as my landlord's grandchild who often spends time in my house. Woah.. Looks like I gotta think twice of my plan. I cannot imagine having 4 rascals running around noisily..

"Babies" is also a hot topic in Singapore due to the mixed up case in KKH. You know, it is human nature to always blame others when a mistake happen. How about we think the other way around for once? If parents cannot even recognise (or check) their own babies, how do they expect strangers to do so? Especially since these strangers deal with many similar-looking newborns day in day out.. Haiz.. Seriously.. people should stop complaining and start thinking whether they are playing their part. It is similar with medications. Many people cannot be bothered about their own medications, do not want to listen to counselling, do not even want to verify whether they are given the correct ones. But when something goes wrong, they blame others for not checking properly.. Hello, if you yourself are not bothered about your own health and medications, how do you expect strangers, who handle the same medications thousands of times day in day out to different people, to be bothered about you?

And time indeed flies. I knew that I started blogging in November a few years ago but I did not expect that my first post was on 20th November 2006. That means that today is the 6th birthday of my blog. Wow.. I certainly never expect that I will last this long. Thank goodness that I still blog until now.. And I am glad that my intention has never changed all these years. Blogging is like writing a digital diary to me and I don't expect that other people will read. Of course I am glad that sometimes I receive comments from readers. But I never wish to have people following the blog or making this blog "big" or "famous". And I also do not want to reveal my identity here because internet is an unsafe place. So pardon me if sometimes my posts can be "cryptic". One thing which I always wish to do but I have never done: to re-read my blog from the beginning. It will be interesting to see what my life was like back then, to see whether my English has improved (I find that my initial posts are insulting to English language), to see whether my writing style has changed, etc. Hmm..

Mass at Cathedral

I went for mass at Cathedral of the Good Shepherd for the first time yesterday. Yup that is after 4 over years of being a Catholic. Of course I had a visit prior to that but the overall feeling to be there as a visitor and as a mass-goer is vastly different.

 It also felt like travelling back to the past before the modern era. The high ceiling, the yellow lights (which resembles lights from candles), the old creaky pews (no cushion for the knees ouch!), rectangular rather than a squarish worship area, the church pipe organ, fans and many other things simply evoke the feeling of being in a holy place.

2 things which stood out the most for me is the music and the painting behind the altar. It is nice to have the organist playing worship music while the people who come early wait for the mass to start. It is definitely nicer than having the rosary and people chit chatting as in other churches usually. With the nice soothing music, it provides a more condusive atmosphere for me to pray and prepare for the mass. The pipe organ itself is capable of making fantastic sounds. The counter melody (which sounds like a bell!) during Sanctus sounded heavenly to me. Too bad the Gloria was recited. I imagined how great it would be if it was sung as usually Gloria is another "high" point during Mass.

The painting behind the altar is simple: a crucified Jesus on a blue background. The blue background has gradient from light to darker blue on the outside. Despite the simplicity, I thought the painting was impressive, more impressive than typical church stained glasses.

However, there is one thing which kinda shocked me and that happened during Holy Communion. I had no idea that "queueing" culture is something modern. I was kinda lost when suddenly everyone just literally rushed to form a line during Communion. Was it the culture there? Am I supposed to wait for my pew turn or should I follow suit and just rushed? Some people were actually waiting for their pew turn too so I am still not sure what was going on.

It is a beautiful place which unfortunately is a bit dilapidated. The walls are yellowing and some parts are flaking off. I see wires on the wall which is an eyesore. I know that there is a plan to renovate the building and so far only about $7m collected from a target of $30m. Seeing how little the crowd for Sunday morning mass and that quite a large percentage are actually visitors and tourists, I wonder how long it will take to reach the targetted $30m. I think the local Catholic community should do something about this. There are rich people out there in various parishes. I find it ironic when many parishes have nicer buildings than the Cathedral which is supposedly the "main" Church of the Archdiocese. At each parish, there are tonnes of fund raising activities for respective parish projects so why is it so difficult to get $30m for the Cathedral??

The Sky: The Art of Final Fantasy Boxed Set

Yoshitaka Amano is one of the world's foremost fantasy artists, and the limited-edition The Sky: The Art of Final Fantasy boxed set is a giant-sized, signed collection of five books plus bonus items that showcase Amano's ethereal illustrations for the first ten Final Fantasy games! The 12'" high, 11" wide, and 3 1/2" deep box that encloses The Sky has a hinged lid featuring artwork from Amano inside and out. Its contents include:
* Three 11 3/4" x 10 1/2" hardcover books, printed on high-quality stock. Volume 1 (144 pages) contains Amano's work for Final Fantasy I-III. Volume 2 (276 pages) contains his contributions for Final Fantasy IV-VI, and volume 3 (156 pages) features his art for Final Fantasy VII-X.
* All About Yoshitaka Amano, an 8 1/4" x 8 1/4" 128-page softcover full of photographs and images, the most extensive look ever in English at the artist, including an interview with Amano, a timeline of his career, a glimpse into his studio in SoHo, his favorite places in New York, a visual index of each illustration that appears in the three The Sky hardcover art books, and more!
* A 2 1/4" x 4 3/4" Final Fantasy animation flip book designed by Amano, containing two different "movies."
* A 10 1/4" x 11" acetate print with silver ink.
* Two 5 3/4" x 8 1/4" postcards featuring the interior and exterior artwork used on the box.
* And finally, a 5 3/4" x 8 1/4" card signed by Yoshitaka Amano!
-from the publisher-

I first came across the news of the existence of this masterpiece sometime in August. I found out that this is an English version of the set of the same name which was initially released in Japan back in 2001. The original retail price for the Japanese version is about US$ 600 and nowadays people are selling it at US$800-1000 on eBay. That is why it is a super duper good news when Dark Horse will release an English version for only US$ 139.99. It became a super duper better news when Amazon was having pre-order for this for $89.19. Without thinking twice, I immediately placed a pre-order.

However, the joy turns into a nightmare.. A big nightmare. On 31 October (the supposed release date), I was notified by Amazon that there was a delay due to Sandy storm. But today, I was terribly upset and angry when I received the news from Amazon that the order had been cancelled as the item is no longer available from supplier. Fuck!

After googling around, apparently Dark Horse only produced 1000 sets. A lot of people are angry, in fact, damn angry at the stupid publisher. I don't understand what's their fucking problem of only making 1000 sets. Firstly, the price is not that expensive. It were a US$ 600 set, I can understand if they ae making it limited because not many people would be forking out so much money for this. But no, the price is relatively cheap. Secondly, they "opened" the pre-order for so long. They knew that there were more than 1000 people were interested in this so why couldn't they make more? Or if right from the start they wanted to have it limited, they should say so. I personally feel very angry and cheated. I made pre-order and I have the assumption that I will get it.

I think the people behind is just dumb. There is so much money to be made and they just gave out the opportunities. What made me even angrier is the fact that some people are reselling the set for US$400+. That is about 3x of the original retail price or about 5x from what I would be paying initially when I pre-ordered through Amazon. I know the item is cool shit but I don't think it is wise to spend so much on books. I don't mind spending that amount for large scale toys but for books, no.. I am actually more interested in the 3 illustration art books. The bonuses are.. well.. bonuses which I can live without. And the reason why this English version is appealing is because of the book on Yoshitaka Amano (with the interview etc). Thus, no point buying the Japanese version as I can't read Japanese.

Now there is rumour that the stupid publisher will be releasing only the 3 artbooks somewhere in Spring 2013. Seeing the poor track record, I am sceptical.. And I am also sceptical about the price. Comparing the boxed set (5 books, tonnes of bonuses, a card signed personally by Yoshitaka Amano) with the future "set", the price of the future "set" should be US$ 20-30. I doubt it would be that cheap. Anything more expensive, it will be a rip off from the dumb fuck company. If they want to make money, the should have produced more of the boxed set.. or sell a boxed set for US$ 500+ if they really want to make it limited edition of size 1000.

Stupid shit horse! Pfft...

I am also equally pissed with Amazon. It took them more than 2 weeks to inform me that the book is no longer available. By now, it's too late even to buy it from resellers. Sigh.. I found that there are those being sold for US$ 160 somewhere near late October.. But nowadays, it is all US$450+++. For the inconvenience, Amazon gave me US$10 compensation. Wow great.. Very touching (sarcastic!)

I am still praying and crossing my fingers that I will find a reasonable offer. I mean I don't mind paying more than the original price as long as it is reasonable.. 3x or 5x more than the original is simply too much.

Yume no Kawa

I managed to sell my second item on eBay: the KFC Marvel Avengers' set. I am a bad businessman and I don't buy things only to sell it later on. I actually intended on collecting this but as I am running out of space for my Final Fantasy collections, I have to let them go as I am a bigger fan of Final Fantasy. I sold them for $20 or $5 each. I "made a profit" if I consider that it cost me $3.80 to top up my meals to get the toys. However, I actually "made a loss" if I consider that I would not even get the meal if not for the toys. Whatever.. at least I get more space now.

This is totally unrelated but I thought I would share Yume no Kawa by AKB48. This is the last song with Atsuko Maeda as a member. No official video clip uploaded in youtube yet but this fan-made video is the quite excellent to share the song as well as Acchan's high moments with AKB48. It is quite touching actually.. The song itself is also pretty nice. Firstly, it is seldom to see AKB48 members get solo parts on their hit songs. Although I think their voices are so-so to sing solo, their voices sound very emotional here and that nicely delivers the "goodbye" feeling. Anyway, only 9 other members, other than Accahn, are involved for this song: Kojima Haruna, Takahashi Minami, Itano Tomomi, Minegishi Minami, Shinoda Mariko, Oshima Yuko, Kashiwagi Yuki, Watanabe Mayu and Matsui Jurina.