In which I score a slew of goods for twelve bucks and engage in my usual fangirl squee for this series.
Some people get smarter as they collect. I guess I have in some ways, but my sheer irrationality when I see something I really want hasn’t seemed to improve much. I don’t think about finding it on auction or via Mercari or combining shipping or waiting for a coupon — I get hearts in my eyes and it’s all over for me.
This is worse for me, living in the States, when I really want character goods for one or two characters in a series but don’t want them really at all for the rest. It’s even worse than that when the main characters are in junior high and pretty much act and look it and I feel weird, at my current age of 4.63 billion years, being stuck with embarrassing, awkward, fanservicey clear files and keychains and whatnot of characters who I love but am fifty times older than. So I don’t know why for so many years I thought of Mandarake as a place to buy doujinshi only, not character goods. They’re a perfect solution.
I corrected that misconception recently to get a Sumikko Gurashi item I really wanted and added on a $12 set of merchandise of Reo and Mabu from Sarazanmai, so I thought I’d discuss some of the particulars here. (If you’re avoiding spoilers for this series, this is inherently spoilery, so you might want to stop here. If you’re wondering what Sarazanmai is, I first talked about it and its goods here.)
This haul is full of things that are just plain inaccessible to me most other ways than buying a full box, so really even one of them makes the low price here worth it. But there are also some cool truly limited items as well. We’ll see both starting with these tin badges.
Quality-wise, these are your standard well-made metal pin-back badges, but hey, Reo and Mabu comprise my otp. And when you look closer here, almost all of these are limited in some way. We start off right away with a prize item from the Sarazanmai Rakuten Collection Kuji. That source applies to the first and second badges in the first row and the second in the second row as well. And if I’m not mistaken, the third badge in the third row is also limited, from a GraffArt Sarazanmai Pop Up Corner shop in early 2020. The first badge in the second row is from a limited Sarazanmai collaboration with the Chara Shop, and the third in that row is from the Sarazanmai x Hello Kitty Animate Only Shop. The only one that stumps me here is the one furthest to the right. Anyone have any ideas?
Above are some more items included in the lot. First from the left is a wooden omamori keychain from a trading set. To the right and slightly above, you’ll recognize the design of Mabu from the Sanrio x Hello Kitty Animate Shop. In the middle near the bottom, there’s one of the Seri Holder acrylic charms from Neo Gate. Each item in this line has a character’s quote, and Reo’s is 「今、ひとつの扉を開こう。欲望が愛か。。。」。 This is the catch phrase Reo says when he and Mabu open the door for the lost souls they milk the desires of. Read Ima, hitotsu no tobira wo hirakou. Yokubou ka ai ka…, it means something like “Now, let’s open a door. Desire or love?” It, you know, makes sense in context.
Fourth from the left above, we’ve got another prize item, a rubber strap of Reo from Hiko Kuji. And as for the Mabu chain furthest to the right, it comes from manufacturer Cabinet.
Above, the pins are from Sarazanmai Square Badge Collection Vol 2, and the sticker set of Reo and Mabu with Sara is from the Sarazanmai x Village Vanguard x Noitamina Shop — I have more merchandise from this I’ll share in a later entry.
I’ll also have more clear files to show you in the future (they’re a favorite of mine), but for now, these are from the Animate x Hello Kitty Shop I mentioned above.
These absolutely huge “key holders” (they’re more the size you’d expect from an acrylic stand) were hard to place. I know they’re made by Movic, but I can’t tell much else.
Similarly slightly mysterious is this delightful little dish set, which I know comes from a Sarazanmai exhibition but not much else about. If you’ve watched the anime, you know the constant dish puns (the Japanese word for dish/plate is sara; the town idol in the series is named Sara and says disshu instead of desu; kappa have a “dish” on their heads; sara sanmai can mean “three dishes,” but 三昧 zanmai is a Buddhist term also known as samadhi; Kunihiku Ikuhara loves these kind of layers). So it only makes sense that these cute four-inch plates with the main cast all in kappa form are such a clear source of sara-zanmai.
If I’d have paid thirty dollars for all this I would have considered it a nice deal, but for twelve this is nothing short of incredible. Now to find a better way to display straps and keychains…
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