Anime Goods: Hypnosis Mic: Goods Roundup

In which I’m basically always thirteen years old when it comes to a certain type of good fun fanservice, and cuteness gets involved too, as always.

There’s a certain type of “sexy anime guy” franchise that just gets to me. Especially if it’s got a performance element or a particularly exciting look (Twisted Wonderland, I’m looking at you extremely freaking cautiously) or whatever, I’m there getting as enthusiastic as I did back 1.84 million years ago when my first big fandoms were things like Saiyuuki (Oh Nii-hakase you sexy bastard ♡) and Prince of Tennis (in which a bishounen literally causes the extinction of dinosaurs with tennis).

Does Hypnosis Mic get to me? Oh yes it does. The storyline is exceptionally ludicrous, even for someone who’s liked a couple such things before (a third of the world is dead, but that’s super easy, barely an inconvenience; fragging microphones that mess with people’s brains used in territorial battles as the whole central idea). And the characters actually have really nice, appealing designs and aren’t all like fourteen years old, and the music is honestly really awesome, so, yes, I’m super into it.

Plus, I’m always tickled by collaborations between cute characters and cute guy series like this one. Rascal the Raccoon is based on a classic 1970s anime based, in turn, on an American book. To understand why he is doing chores, it helps to know that the Japanese word for raccoon is アライグマ (araiguma, washing bear — it’s the same in German). So it makes sense they’d get together for a cleaning day.

These are a set of six acrylic keychains by Toshin Pack. In the pictures below, the left side is Fling Posse (Shibuya division) and the right is Matenrou (Shinjuku).

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• Above left: Ramuda Amemura: he’s like the worst of Todomatsu but in the best and most entertaining way possible. Oh no, actually, he’s kind of the rap Ouma!
• Above right: Jakurai Jinguji from Matenrou (Shinjuku), the doctor with the voice of Wolfwood.

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• Above left: It’s probably not the first time old Dice Arisugawa has groveled on the floor next to a raccoon. (I’m just joking — what with my Toreba spending, I’ve got no room to mock a destitute gambler.)
• Above right: I don’t know what it says about the modern world that “suicidal and unbalanced” is a specific ikemen fantasy type, but Doppo Kannonzaka is the one for HypMic.

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• Above left: This is Gentarou Yumeno, who I guess you’d actually have to cross with Ramuda up above to get Ouma from NDRV3, huh.
• Above right: Hifumi Izanami, the host afraid of girls and really slashy with Doppo up there.

At almost forty dollars for six keychains (they are large, but I don’t know if a keychain being between two to three inches is a blessing or a curse, really), you might have a lot of questions about why I bought these. I assure you, I do too. The design is really cute and the quality can’t be beat, but we might ponder things like why, when my favorite division is Mad Trigger Crew, did I buy Matenrou/Fling Posse merchandise? The answer lies in going simply by character designs and then learning more about characters.

I realize this isn’t exactly the biggest goods roundup I’ve ever done, but I didn’t want to leave out the scant two items I own for the Osaka and Nagoya divisions — these Takara Tomy Arts clear folders are standard A4 size, with three pockets, and I love these little pressed-cheek designs. Well worth it for about eight dollars each!

With the anime scheduled for October, I get the feeling this fandom is going to grow significantly, and I wouldn’t exactly be shocked to see more posts on the franchise here…