Rush Hour Report! Black & White Mini Plush Arriving!
I'm typing as rush hour hits Friday afternoon
because I got NEWS!
One of the three Toys 'R' Us stores in my area
got in a box of Jakks Black & White mini plush!
I snared Snivy (who will likely be my first
starter when I finally open my DS games on
Easter!--and don't forget to check the official Pokemon
website about the TRU egg promotion starting on
April 27, right after Easter!), Oshawott, Pidove
and Munna. Alas, the Tepig was gone; I
left behind the Sandile, as I just wasn't
"feeling" it... Hopefully, more stores
will start receiving shipments soon!
I have also sent a picture of last month's Jakks Zorua
wave mini plush (incomplete--see Pojo
sponsor Toywiz.com for extensive Jakks
collection pix), which I found the same day Pojo
informed me of the horrific disaster in Japan.
Deeply saddened and also having a failed hard
drive in my PC, I checked online and noticed
many other sites had already posted the news
about the Zorua plush wave, so I never sent out
the pic after my PC was fixed. Notable is
the Buneary, who now sports a wide smile as
opposed to the downturned mouth on the prior
waves that included this character.
The anime store in my area of course has had a
difficult time getting merchandise to sell--the
owner, who is Asian (but not Japanese), has a
young family to feed. He has been
scrambling to find other avenues to obtain
import merchandise in order to keep his import
store operational and generating income to
support his family. Pictured is a Takara Tomy
Pikachu puppet I obtained; the owner
had normally stocked Banpresto UFO plush and the
clerk with whom I spoke noted the Tomy stock,
which is what he could obtain while his Banpresto
shipment is delayed, is pricier. Next to
Pikachu is a Bandai Pokemon Pikachu action toy
which I found at my local Japanese market; the
three B&W starters are also available as action
toys. The Black and White dragon import
plush were available at the anime shop locally
but it's really difficult to ascertain what sort
of problems/delays might occur with merchandise.
A Japanese graduate student to whom I spoke this
past week said to me that his friends back home
said that although the tragedy is awful, they
didn't really want people to be so depressed as
to not shop/buy anything, as that would hurt the
economy. Besides all the wonderful
donations people have sent out, one can hope
that purchasing the import goods will also
somehow help Japan economically.
Speaking of imports, I also found Pocket
Monsters Special manga #38 at the Japanese book
store recently. Viz has been issuing these
translated as Pokemon Adventures and recently I
noticed they jumped ahead and released a
Platinum manga. That corresponds to Pocket
Monsters Special #30 as I can see from my
collection of the Japanese versions (I have
about 31 of the 38 total, mostly purchased
used), which I'm sure those who are into import
stuff already know. Hence, I'm hoping we
get *all* the translations this time (when they
were originally issued by Viz some years ago,
they stopped after Yellow's arc).
I snared a B&W TCG theme deck the day before
street date--I had to get the fire deck since it
has the Minccino card! I see Toywiz.com
projects a Jakks Minccino plush upcoming.
Yay!
Well, we're just about a week shy of Easter, so
I have to insert a small plug for the 2011 Year
of the Rabbit. I enjoyed the movie "Hop,"
despite the critics hating it (it's a kids'
movie, for heaven's sake) and went to
Build-a-Bear to make an E.B. and also to Wal-mart
which is now nearly cleaned out of Hop
merchandise (oh, Omahanime, did you ever get
any?). I'll close with tacking on that pic
of the Buneary in the Hello Kitty usagi kimono
(see the little white fluffy bunnies?).
And as a responsible pet owner, I'll direct you
to www.rabbit.org
just in case you think you want a bunny--not a
good idea on a whim, as Omahanime and I both
know that rabbits are fragile, easily
frightened creatures that require specialized
vet care that can be quite expensive and proper
routine care is time consuming. So please,
enjoy your E.B. and Buneary plush and chocolate
bunnies and never buy a pet unless you can care
for it properly.
Happy Spring everyone!
Loretta and Usagi Angel-chan
