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Mandarake Mystery Madness – Part 1

As a frequent browser of Mandarake, I sometimes come across items that are strange or mysterious. Occasionally I think about buying them… and recently I decided to actually do so! I set a budget of ¥1800 and a max item price of ¥200 (this post isn’t sponsored, so the money’s gotta come outta my figure budget!). What resulted is 10 items of various levels of mystery, and a blog so large I’ve decided to split it into two. Images in the blog should link to their full-sized versions.

Here is the bundle of items before I unwrapped them:

https://i.ibb.co/6nZQGtZ/bubble-burrito.jpg

So time to go on a journey and see what I’ve dragged out of the dusty corners of the Sahra warehouse! Titles for each section will be what was on the listing I bought.

Sega mascot Donna
As the label is visible in the bubble wrap burrito, let’s start off with this one.
Listing photo:

https://i.ibb.co/BrW338D/image.png

So, uh, yeah this thing. Researching it before I bought it, all I could find it was some mascot for “Lisa”. I found another version of this mascot, but it didn’t have any other info about it.
Best I can find out is that it is something to do with the singer “LiSA”. Apparently she has monster mascots!

My photos:

https://i.ibb.co/YRysJZh/lisa-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/vhmzpbD/lisa-back.jpg

No particular surprises from the listing, other than the cute tail and wings on the back, however it was smaller than I was expecting – about 13cm (5.1in) tall. Not sure why I thought it’d be bigger – I wasn’t exactly paying a lot, and you can see a hanging loop in the original image.

Pictures of the tag:

https://i.ibb.co/23dy072/lisa-label-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/fCrYBB6/lisa-label-back.jpg

Further research reveals this character is related to the album LiTTLE DEViL PARADE, and is one of the characters featured on the promotional materials. Here it can be seen on this concert advert, at the bottom-middle:

https://i.ibb.co/JvkdkJQ/Cy-Lv6-Lg-VIAA-Wyj.jpg

Overall, I like this little cute mascot, and it did take a little while to find out what it was related to! Finding the artist wasn’t hard, but getting to the album took a little while, and to finally find an image of the actual character itself. The front of the CD doesn’t seem to feature this particular three-eyed pink monstrosity.

Banpresto Ichiban KUJI Movie version ing Ren Lagan Prize E Dorirupen green Kingukitan
Listing photo:

https://i.ibb.co/QXWKz66/image.png

A thing… for a thing. No idea what this is from, when I added it to my basket. Looks like it could possibly be a pen though.

Back of the packaging (as the front is clear in the above picture):

https://i.ibb.co/6tV9pf0/king-kittan-box-back.jpg

Unboxed:

https://i.ibb.co/JK1VzWp/king-kittan-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/5GyWhBw/king-kittan-back.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/QbvX7MX/king-kittan-pen-end.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/W5f024F/king-kattan-standing.jpg

A pen it is indeed! And the only item that seems to have made it onto MFC from my haul, as of the time of writing. His name is King Kittan, the pen has black ink and is around 10cm (3.9in), or 12cm (4.7in) with Kittan. King Kittan himself doesn’t stay too well on the top of the pen – he has a habit of coming loose, so probably not too practical to take somewhere where you’d be worried about losing him. I haven’t watched TTGL as of yet, hence my inability to recognise it, or the logo.

FuRyu yellowtail kun and mackerel-kun and together dishes with mascot yellowtail kun (red ribbon)
Listing photo:

https://i.ibb.co/BCppc7J/02301502970.jpg

Another item I ordered because of “lolwtf” factor. Some food… but cute. The listing title tells me this is “Yellowtail-kun” of “Yellowtail-kun & Mackerel-kun”. The only other fact I know about this is that it was made by FuRyu (a prize figure manufacturer).

My photos:

https://i.ibb.co/NKkgnBd/yellowtail-sideshot.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/5FrW5rz/yellowtail-front.jpg

The plate part is just under 12cm (4.7in) wide.
Label:

https://i.ibb.co/LYhQ5QV/yellowtail-sanrio-label.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/4t52zJx/yellowtail-tag-qr.jpg

QR code goes to FuRyu’s prize site (charahiroba.com), with a tracking parameter attached.

Research revealed this is a character from Sanrio’s Kirimichan series of characters, and is indeed “yellowtail-kun” or “buri-kun”. Buri-kun, or its Japanese equivalent – ブリくん – reveals more images of this character. This was a prize series from 2015 (Suruga-ya gives a date of 2015/01/20), roughly entitled “mascot with plate”. Has more in common with polystyrene packaging than a plate. The “plate” is rough-feeling fabric that seems cheap, and I think it would be better without. The mascot itself is made out of a nice material, and I think it would look pretty cute on its own. From my research online, it does look like some people have removed the plate part, just to have the mascot on its own, and am tempted to do the same.

Banpresto Ichiban KUJI EVA piece ・ of ・ Memories Prize I Komikaraizu Fusen Ray (light blue)
Listing photo:

https://i.ibb.co/232mwN7/image.png

This item I tried to find out if it was a magnet, clear file or art piece. Or possibly even a towel. My search proved fruitless, so not sure what kind of flat item this is. Only one reliable way of finding out!
Packaged:

https://i.ibb.co/X7bW2Rm/eva-stickys-wrapped-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/yY1gkbd/eva-stickys-wrapped-back.jpg

Outside isn’t giving many clues, at least to someone who can’t read Japanese. All I could tell at this stage is this is something thin wrapped in cardboard, and is a little smaller than A5.
Unpacking:

https://i.ibb.co/GFXRwTd/eva-stickys-outside.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/yyj6fxM/eva-stickys-inside.jpg

So, I seem to have bought myself some not-very-practical sticky notes! Maybe I’ll come up with something fun to do with them, or just end up displaying the cardboard part and forgetting there’s sticky notes in it.
After opening this, I do actually have vague memories of coming across these on Mercari once, where they did show what was inside. For fairly obvious reasons, I passed by the listing(s) featuring them, seeing as I wasn’t really interested in accruing sticky notes. Pictures on the card are nice though, and I’m probably more interested in those than the “item” itself!

Bandai movie public commemorative Kamen Rider: Ryuki (Dragon Knight (Ryuki) Ryuki ・ Night ・ Zoruda movie release Memorial HG
Wow, that title is a handful!
Listing photo:

https://i.ibb.co/y8HmXb7/image.png

So I can find many Ryuki figures… but couldn’t find a picture of this one unboxed. Tried Yahoo! Auctions Japan, couldn’t find any there. Tried some websearching… no luck. So what does this “special skeleton figure” look like?

Upon unboxing, apparently it looks like three figures, around 8cm (3.1in) tall:

https://i.ibb.co/z2QzJ83/ryuki-figures-packaged.jpg

Wouldn’t have found them on MFC, even if I wasn’t looking in the wrong category – was looking in the trading/prepainted, but these would count as “hanged up”. As of time of writing, these guys appear not to be on MFC.
Now for some pics of these guys unbagged.

Ryuki:

https://i.ibb.co/XzvWrhR/ryuki-ryuki-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/3Mg17WQ/ryuki-ryuki-back.jpg

Knight:

https://i.ibb.co/NS0XYBj/ryuki-knight-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/VQtZxVf/ryuki-knight-back.jpg

Zolda:

https://i.ibb.co/JBbRh47/ryuki-zolda-front.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/LngRwBZ/ryuki-zolda-back.jpg

Overall, these guys were a nice surprise. They look nice, and are painted decently well, as well as looking cool. Definitely considering hanging these guys up somewhere. Was initially expecting it to be a figure that required assembly (gachapon figure style), so this one was definitely a surprise to me.

And that concludes part 1!

Repairing Angewomon

This blog is about repairing Precious G.E.M. Angewomon, Holy Arrow version.

I bought this Angewomon on the cheap, as she was damaged. Two of her wing pieces had snapped off, and the previous owner tried to repair one of the wing pieces to little success. Here she is, laid out ready for repair:

The head needed a little heating to help pop it off – getting the angle to heat it with a hairdryer was a pain! This is the initial layout, with the glue I intended to use for both wings – it is a 2-part glue suitable for all plastics – in my experience clear plastic doesn’t take kindly to most glues, but from previous experience, this one works well.

Here is a close-up of the breaks:

They were what I would call clean – the breaks appear to have little to no shattering, however the one on the left has had glue applied (likely superglue), which may’ve caused some melty action. More on that later.

Here’s the wing edges, showing the break on this side:

So… I got out my hand drill and pinned it:

This is the first time for me pinning an actual figure piece, so it was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience. Once I got the hole started, things progressed smoothly. I glued this in with superglue, and it bonded well. Wasn’t any tugging the pin out! The pin is a piece of 1.5mm diameter silver-plated copper wire. This was actually the second piece I cut, as the first piece I trimmed too short – after drilling the two holes required I did a test fit, to ensure everything would go together as planned – would highly recommend doing this, as things can be adjusted easily at this stage. Once you glue it in, there’s no going back!

Closeup of the pin:

As the wing is translucent, you can actually see a good amount of it if you look closely.

Drilling the hole into Angewomon:

For this hole, I held the piece up against Angewomon at the right angle, and used that to work out which angle to drill into her body, and to work out the wherabouts. The hole ended up at the correct angle thankfully, though maybe a little low side, but not enough to put the piece in the wrong place.

Here she is, pieces glued, and left to dry & cure:

At this stage, I went out of the house so she had a good 9 hours to dry. Always handy to have some random bits of paper nearby – useful for propping her up so she wasn’t sat on any of the wing pieces being repaired. I did try to see if I could use the pin as a peg – it did stay there if you didn’t touch her, but it was easily nudged and slipped down into the wrong position, so I decided to permanently glue. The figure’s wings were never designed to be taken out (hence the breakages in transit…) so there’s no loss from gluing both sides of the pin.

Closeup of the repaired parts:

Not invisible, but certainly good enough, by my own standards. You can see it if you look for the repairs at a couple of angles, but it doesn’t affect viewing her from the front.

All the tools I used during the process, plus some extra scissors that decided to come along for the ride:

Here you can see the wire bag, plus the cutters to the bottom of the picture – be very careful when snipping wire of this gauge – it pings off fast in a random direction! I placed my hand over it whilst cutting so it didn’t catapult to somewhere I couldn’t find it. Next is the two glues I used (bottom tube is the activator for the glue above it), some paper I used to clean up some errant glue and a stick I use to help apply glue in tight places. It’s a disposable BBQ skewer I’ve sharpened to a point (have used it on some model kits previously, but I’ll snip the glue off the end each session I use it). Finally, we have the pin vise (aka hand drill). Was a bugger to get the tip in and I’m not sure it’ll come out now… Ah well, if it doesn’t I’ll just buy another – this kind is really cheap. Does take awhile to make a hole, even if it isn’t that deep – be patient :). I worked on the cloth so I could avoid scratching the figure – the paint isn’t particularly thick on several parts, so this allowed me to put her down without worrying about it too much. Have noticed a couple of paint scrapes, but nothing visible from the front thankfully!

Here she is! Standing proud and fully assembled!

Needed to heat the head again, so I could easily flex her hair back into place. The ball joint was happier about being put on than it was being taken off, though it did get a bit of warming.

View from the top. Love the way her wings spread:

Overall, I’m happy with how the repair went, and now I have a figure for the price I wanted to pay for her XD. She is now displayed in one of my detolfs, keeping her safe from any further damage.