My Early OTAKU Room (2003ish)

[tasuke]

here's the oldest set of photos i have of my earliest OTAKU/Weeb days, several years before i even had my own actual Internet, in fact,
practically Stone-Age compared to how i have things today.

without the now-indispensable freedom of worldwide online shopping,
i was once forced to satisfy my OTAKU needs with what was locally available to me (which was not much)
and the very occasional opportunity to hit a Comics/Collectables shop in desperate hope to find something better,
about four/six times a year if i was lucky, usually resulting in nothing better than an average GUNDAM kit anyway.

at any rate, Enjoy and Discuss, if you care to, relics from the age when being a western OTAKU was usually H.A.R.D. for the majority...

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[Offgenemi]

i would have loved your collection I was in Turkey, 1993 is the year internet came in. there was nothing remotely for otaku at all in anywhere but i think because it was cheaper than disney cartoons turkish tv would show a ton of anime but no merchandise. until pokemon became big there was no merchandise. years later i saw stationary with candy candy and lady georgie online. too little, too late!

[Cornflower Blue]

Interesting juxtaposition of the Japanese dolls with the Victorian dolls.

[GreysPrincess]

Very cool! I wasn't collecting much of anything in the pre-internet era but I do remember when I first got into anime/manga I was still young enough that I didn't do any online shopping myself so finding whatever I could "in the wild" was all I had. Still, for me that was after Hot Topic had started to sell more of that kind of thing and we had an FYE so it was never as difficult as it could have been.

[tasuke]

Interesting juxtaposition of the Japanese dolls with the Victorian dolls.

yeah, those three TOYNAMI TENCHI MUYO! character dolls were my impetus for learning how to make doll-scale clothing.
it began with a desire to make my original Waifu, "Ayeka" there, (purple-hair woman) a full set of undies in lieu of the "mesh" panties she wore out of the box.

from there, i began crudely adapting BARBIE clothing to fit her, than came the baby steps towards my own fully hand-made outfits.
all the while, i found clearance-priced SAILOR MOON and CARDCAPTORS dolls at my local TOYS-R-US to modify/improve,
and porcelain decorative dolls to fiddle with as well.

today, with the world market afforded me by the Internet, and sewing skills to modify, improve, or make just about anything in very small scales,
i stick almost exclusively by 1/6 Japanese-market character dolls, many of which being semi-vintage examples, modified for compatibility with the OBITSU BODY system.
as a result, all of my girls measure well with my old TENCHI MUYO "Tenchi Masaki" all being the 1/6 equivalent of several inches shorter than he. case in point;




also, modern photos. got things divided up into my main room and computer room these days;

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[renlee83]

Cool pictures. Love your Macross collection.

[MissMandyLynne]

I <3 you so much more now that I know you're a Gundam Wing fan!

[PullipPrincess]

Wooow! :O Such a cool collection! It's really impressive!

[davidd]

That is such an awesome otaku-cave!

[tasuke]

thanks! my formative years as a budding OTAKU, from about 1995 onward, a freshly-minted hardcore MACROSS/ROBOTECH nerd,
stuck out on a farm five miles out in the middle of nowhere, with a burning desperate passion to own some form, -any form- of transformable VF-1 toy or model kit, and virtually no avenues open in which to satisfy such desires.


today, i've more than made up for it, with at least six different transformable iterations of the ROY FOCKER VF-1S and HIKARU ICHIJO VF-IJ to my name,
from the 2001 BANDAI reissue of the original 1/55 "Chunky" VF-1 toy, to the more recent 1/60 YAMATO/ARCADIA "Kanzen Henkei" toy.

i've been feeling rather nostalgic lately, however, and have felt like returning to the Genesis of it all with my first introduction to MACROSS and the VF-1 "Valkyrie" Mecha,
the 1990 BANDAI reissue edition of the 1984 CEJI/REVELL "ROBOTECH DEFENDERS VEXAR" U.S. market issue of the original 1983 IMAI 1/72 Parts-Forming variable model kit,
-complete with metal landing gear and shoulder hinges- that a nephew had given me back around 1988/1990, when i was about 7/9 years of age.

i picked this one up late last year for cheap, and have just recently gotten it nearly completed;

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-now while that would be, technically, my very first ever VF-1 toy or model, and, indeed, my very first item of Anime merchandise ever, -long before i even knew what "Japanimation" was, in fact-
my personal all-time favorite MACROSS VF-1 product has to be the 1985 BANDAI 1/72 High Complete Model. this piece not only gives me the same sort of "Had It as a Kid"
retro vibe, but is near-perfect-transfomation and just about as rugged and reliable as the much larger and more crudely designed 1/55;

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