Boomslank – Trendy Otakuwear!!

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A CONTEST! A CONTEST OMG IT’S A CONTEST!!!

Coming off of my previous Otaku Pride Fashion – Looking Cool and Nerdy blog post, I’m going to give an example of exactly what I’m talking about with Boomslank. Keep reading, and join in on the contest at the end of this post!

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Boomslank is a T-shirt company that I have been following since they started their business. It’s run by two brothers who have a great interest in anime, and aren’t afraid to express it.

While these shirts do go outside of the rule of subtlety that I had mentioned, Boomslank rightfully does so for two reasons – 1. these are original characters designed by P-Shinobi, and not from any specific anime. 2. They’re highly graphic T-shirts.

The composition and design elements work so well that it being an “anime shirt” becomes more of an incidental style choice rather than the main idea, allowing the wearer the freedom to “get away with it” if that makes sense to you.

You still have to be careful about your fashion statements though. While wearing these T-shirts, there’s a blended aspect of full-on anime mixed with high-energy trendiness. It’s a certain level of “otaku pride” confidence that shouts “I’m an otaku, and it’s f*cking cool.”

With that in mind, you probably will not want to mix these shirts with any other anime merchandise, as that will most likely be too much, and cramp the style.

Boomslank was nice enough to send me their best shirt requesting for a review. As you know, I’m unbiased about reviewing things, so I can say right off the bat in all honesty, I really am impressed with these shirts.

My shirt arrived in a neat and well designed box. I actually like the perforations on it, as it prevents the box’s surface from getting crushed. The fact that it’s in a box to begin with already shows the level of care and quality that goes into this. Packaging is very important, and it seems Boomslank knows this well.

I do have to bring attention to opening it though – it’s two flaps held together by a piece of tape that requires a cutting knife. If you’re not careful, you may cut the shirt. Perhaps a protective piece of cardboard on the inside may be needed?

Opening up the box, I’m greeted not with a T-shirt, but with a white bag with a big glossy sticker on it. The bag is well sealed, and has a perforated top for easy opening. More emphasis on great packaging.

The contents. This is one of the T-shirts Boomslank offers on their site for $30, and also happens to be my favorite design. I really dig the composition of the piece, and it’s definitely more polished than their original prototype shirt.

Unfortunately, due to the limited number of colors (there are 5), the dude sitting on the ladybug on the right gets lost within the building structure. This probably could have been remedied if he was wearing fully red or white.

Contained within the bag was also a post-card sized card. It’s glossy and feels nice. It’s a description of the T-shirt’s artwork, and what brought it about. Reading about the shirt’s origins was interesting and added a personal touch to it.

On the other side of the card is the illustration on the T-shirt. It’s very sharp and pretty. Click here for a digital image.

Okay, I’m revealing some personal information here… I wear medium. This tag sits at the collar of the T-shirt, with a bit of instructions. I find it a bit unusual that a 100% white cotton shirt requires cold-wash. But I will say that you should tumble-dry on low heat.

Before I did my review, I decided to iron out the wrinkles of my shirt. Being careful, I flipped it inside out so as not to accidentally melt the graphic pattern. I did still notice a slight “burning smell” though, but that might be due to the fact that I hadn’t yet washed it.

As a size comparison, my Uniqlo Pikachu shirt was purchased in Singapore, an Asian country. The tag on that reads Large. And it’s still quite a bit smaller than the Boomslank medium size. Keep that in mind when you order. The Boomslank shirt feels a little bit big on me, so I’m assuming M is more “USA M” rather than “Slinky Canadian M”.

On the bottom right (your right when you’re wearing it) of the shirt is another tag with the Boomslank logo on it. I think this little tag looks quite nice, and adds a bit of trendy branding to the overall shirt.

One very important feature I like about this shirt which I haven’t really seen with any other shirt is that it’s seamless around the sides. Most T-shirts have seams on the left and right sides that basically sews the front and the back of the shirt together, and them seamed for the sleeves. I don’t know how Boomslank did it, but these shirts have no apparent seams going up the sides. It’s like one seamless tube! Very cool!

The texture of the T-shirt. It looks pretty high quality and thick. What I found interesting about this was that it’s not thick. It’s a very comfortable, and soft material. It seems quite durable, and able to stretch a bit with the quality of a nylon blend, but it retains the softness of a cotton shirt.

There’s quite a bit of detail going on, as as a 5-color shirt, I’m guessing that these details are very high resolution vector point graphics, which by the way, would take a long time to form. Even using a Live-Trace method of converting to vectors would still require some cleaning up.

I wonder if 12:45 actually means anything. As I was saying, the detail is pretty astounding for a graphic tee. You’ll also notice that they used the white shirt itself as a 6th color.

A beautiful full color version of Airport. It would make a great poster!

I’m a little self-conscious when it comes to revealing myself online (though if you looked hard enough, you’d probably find me). So I’ll just use Boomslank’s sexy model instead. As you can see, the shirt fits very nicely, and the graphic design fills the shirt well.

In conclusion, I’m very impressed with the level of quality Boomslank provides, both with their shirts, and their packaging. You could consider this “Premium T-Shirts” with a unique and trendy style, as opposed to your standard stuff.

You’d be best advised to head over to boomslank.com and browse through their collection!

Decide on a shirt, because you may end up getting one for free if you participate in this giveaway contest below!

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Contest Rules

So how do you enter? Do any or all of the following to enter (each task will count as an additional entry):

• Blog about this contest. All pingbacks and trackbacks will be logged on this page and counted as an entry from you. Each pingback counts as one entry. You must link back to this post on your blog!
  
• Subscribe to my RSS feed and read it through an RSS reader. In my Otaku Pride Fashion post, there is a secret code that only RSS readers will be able to see. Enter that code here in the comments (it will be hidden from view). Only your first answer counts.
• Refer a friend to subscribe to the RSS reader. Have them enter the contest, and put the secret contest code and “referred by:(yourname)” in the comments. You get +3 entries, they get 2 entries.
• Follow me on twitter and retweet this message by clicking on this link . I’ll be checking my @radiant_dreamer on twitter. Any non-followers tweets will not count! Each Retweet is +1 entry! RT as often as you want! (if you’re having trouble retweeting it, feel free to use a variation, as long as the the link to the contest is in it, and my twitter name is mentioned somewhere in it, I’ll be able to track it.) You must have at least 20 followers to use this method!
• Subscribe to my new mailing list! By joining, you’ll be automatically entered into all future random draw contests as well! If you’re concerned about privacy, check my privacy policy below. Click here to subscribe.

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The contest will end on May 22, 2011. Once it’s ended, I’ll be compiling all the entries into a numbered list, and then use a random number generator to pick the number, and announce the winner on this blog with further details.

The Wheel of Fate is turning. Get Ready to Rebel!