Commemorating 1 Year of Figure Collecting

Hallelujah! What’s better to commemorate my first year of figure collecting as a follow up from yesterday’s celebration with a long background story on how I started this hobby, right? If you have some free time to spare, why not join me in my story?

Today doesn’t actually mark my first year of figure collecting–it was back in November–but since I’m not the type of person to purposely keep track of dates of events or any anniversaries unless in the mood, I didn’t get this entry out last month. I finally picked up the motivation I’ve always left lying on the cold hard ground under my bed while I was preparing for Christmas and got to reminiscing on the journey I’ve taken this past year in figure collecting.

It was not until high school that I became well aware of what exactly anime and manga (or animanga, as I put it) were so you can technically consider me a late bloomer in this part of the entertainment industry.

I first started off with unofficially released merchandise such as keychains, necklaces, and decks of poker cards (which steals various official and/or fan art without permission as the cards’ print) found in my local hobby store. I’m pretty sure there were a few mini figures–bootlegs or not–displayed in those stores but I’ve never taken a second glance.

While passing by a local bookstore one day, I saw a clear plastic packet containing parts of two disassembled of what I would call, “figures”. It was the only one item that didn’t seem to belong in the bookstore. I nudged my mother about it, and she decided to buy it for me, seeing how I was fascinated with it. Upon reaching home, I put together the pieces and was amazed but that was all there were to it. Up till today, they still sit inside my cabinet and I still have no idea of their origins, neither am I sure if they’re official or not.

Then, slowly, I found myself getting excited over seeing the gashapon machines at local malls containing toys from a few of my favorite series. The temptation grew and, gathering all the one dollar coins I can find in my humble piggy bank, I went to the mall one day and got myself a few turns of those luck based toys from the welcoming gashapon machines. Needless to say, I was delighted with how lovely they looked.

I continued to spin those machines once in awhile in a span of a few months and eventually accumulated that small collection seen above. It was a bliss that I’ve not gotten that many doubles. However, I stopped because I thought throwing those heavy one dollar coins at the machine mindlessly was expensive.

Even so, animanga carried on being my main interest and it grew rapidly. When I was in a game store one day, a set of Revoltech, Toro and Kuro, Hatsune Miku version, caught my eyes. Now, I was (and still am) a fan of VOCALOID and cats are my favorite animals. So, evidently, I grabbed the boxes of Toro and Kuro off the shelf with fondness even though I had no idea of who they were and what they are. The day ended with my brother offering to get both of em’ for me and I had an enjoyable time fidgeting with them at home afterwards.

An old image.

Around a month after that, my continuous growing interest of animanga and curiosity led me walking into a local figure store I was passing by while hanging out in a mall. Upon entering, I was greeted with colorful walls of dozens of figure boxes all stacked up one after another–I was allured. Then, still even with no knowledge of what they actually are, I took home a box of VOCALOID nendoroid petits despite its extraordinary cost.

An old image.

Back home, I painstakingly set each and every one of them up and was absolutely delighted. The thought of what exactly am I spending my leftover allowance on finally occurred to me, so I looked them up, which is then the time I was introduced to something called ‘nendoroid’.

I started browsing through pictures of nendoroids of many characters on the net and although I was most attracted to Mashiro and Takagi from Bakuman., the temptation of trying to obtain them didn’t come to me …well, at least not until I saw that Eiji, along with Miho, were going to be released as nendoroids, too.

I was, at that point in time, very fond of Eiji, so I was set on buying him even though his price is a two high digits I’ve never came across before as a naive teen when buying just one item. A new side of me, mainly, a completionist, surfaced afterwards, which is why I ended up getting the whole Bakuman. nendoroid crew.

An old image.

And finally, my journey starts the moment I decided to create an account on MyFigureCollection.net (MFC) six months ago–a website I’ve came across a few times while searching up on previously mentioned figures’ details. Obviously, I was overwhelmed by the number of figures and the various types available, and so that was the start of war between my wallet and I. Now I’m a happy avid figure collector and my wallet’s a beggar on the street.

So, with my background story gone, I’ll move on to my progress made as a figure collector this year.

 

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