In today’s update: lots of news on the figure side as late December releases are digested and a few interesting spring releases pop up, a flood of Comiket reports and images from the usual Akiba-kei suspects, New Year’s wallpapers and updates galore, and a few new ero scoops. Now caught up through the first, so the next few days should be relatively slow on the news front.

Media Side

Ero Side

  • Following the recent releases of Galzoo Island and Pastel Chime C++, Alice Soft has put up a splash page for its 2006 spring offering entitled Yokubari Saboten. It’s billed as a “dotabata gakuen love comedy ADV”, and from the designs seems to have a maid cafe element as well… moe exploitation at its finest.
  • Hadashi Shoujo has a splash page up for its next release, this one entitled Sweets!! -Oshioki Sweetie Fan Disc-. The official page for the original Oshioki Sweetie can be found here; I, for one, am looking forward to more Shizune in any format they choose to release. :3
  • Check Moon Phase‘s January 1st update for a list of sites (both ero and not) that have updated with special images for the new year. They’re too numerous to link individually, though I’ve tried to list most of the ones with nice wallpapers available below.
  • We’ve Got Movie Sign!!
  • Demo Downloads
  • Sample CG
  • Wallpapers
  • Comiket Corner
    • Toranoana has circle France-pan‘s C69 doujin soft items in stock (including Lilian Fourhand – Nuclear soeur the Fighters -).
    • Atelier D has a C69 event report online, detailing the activity at its industry booth.
    • Akiba Blog reports on the post-Comiket madness at Toranoana, which over the past couple of years has become like a second mini Comiket in Akihabara after the closing of the official event.
    • The newest Higurashi no Naku Koro ni expansion was released post-Comiket as well, and I was witness to the hideous lines on the evening of the 30th. We couldn’t pass Toranoana on the sidewalk, much less enter the building, so we beat a tactical retreat to Messe Sanoh instead. One of the reasons for this insane Higurashi boom is that it was featured last week on an NHK TV special on Akihabara (an event on the lips of most fans I’ve talked with recently – apparently NHK scooping the otaku side of Akiba is Big News).
    • Exiting the Big Sight after Comiket, maids were offering the services of a special limousine bus that would take you straight from the event site to Akiba. Yet another new innovation for C69, and another link in the chain between the main event and after-hours Akibatic festivities.
    • A new post-Comiket activity: bagspotting.
    • Though I didn’t catch sight of them near the Big Sight, the eroge cars were out in full force in Akiba on the evening of the 30th.
    • Akibajin scoops C69 industry booth figure releases here, here, here, and here.
    • Post-event Akihabara action from Akibajin here, cosplay here, and cosplay here.

Hobby Side

And that’s a wrap. Good to be up to speed news-wise again, now to focus on other updates…

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