So my Moka finally arrived today last Friday. Honestly, she was on the chopping block for my preorders, but I’m actually very glad that I decided to follow through with the purchase. This purchase was made on e2046. Their prices are reasonable, I never get charged duty, and they are slightly faster than HLJ.
I can’t say that their packaging is the best though. It’s not as “specialized” as HLJ.
They’re also not as environmentally friendly. That bubble-wrap is literally wrapped around and around and around the figure. HLJ likes to pack theirs in a shrink-wrapped seal around a large piece of cardboard, plus air-filled pillows.
I have several rolls of these bubble-wraps now. It’s great free packing material that I use for when I ship stuff out to other people though, so it’s not a waste. I hope other collectors are doing the same to save the environment.
And there she is, in her original packaging. e2046 does sell PVC figures too, and they’re all authentic.
Another figure photoshoot to add to my already increasing backlog. No worries though. I’ve been noticing that blogs have started to literally disappear recently because the authors lack the funds to buy more figures. I’ve sustained heavy damage myself, but the figures will still keep rolling in at a steady and slow pace. As I sell some of my older figures, it will make more room, and provide more funds for newer figures. The backlog of figure photoshoots will make their way to this blog eventually, so no worries about me running out of content either.
More posts to come at a later date!
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Unfortunately that’s a reality of figure collecting. If you buy a lot in a short amount of time then you’ll have problems in terms of money in the future. My main problem now is space but I can still hold some more figures since I still have space for one big figure furniture. I can’t do as you selling my older figures, all of them have a special space in my collection because all were bought without impulse and I love them all.
I’m fortunate that I’m able to control my spending impulses a lot more now. I used to buy so much crap. Well, I’m glad I was able to get rid of those for better quality figures. Actually Belela-san, I know what you mean with selling figures now… as I slowly trim off the fat, I’m left with the cream of the crop, the ones that I love. So it’s becoming increasingly difficult to let a figure go. Already my Natalia is getting dangerously close to the edge of my favorites. (She’s like the border guard).
pretty figurine, very pretty. best moka figurine in the market atm.
I’m still buying figurines tho, but too busy to do reviews.. (I blame work and games haha)..
but I don’t buy figurines as often as before, only around 1 per month =\
Ron, that kind of frequency is actually pretty good. If you’re able to maintain that, you’ll continue to have a healthy and fun hobby. I’m definitely happy with this figure. I know nothing about the series, or even what her name was (I had to look on the box). But I’m not about fan-figure collecting anyway.
We all get busy now. There are always higher priority things to do, and that ends up pushing figure photos into the backlog. I’ve probably only shot about 10% of my figures on this blog. 😀
Hmm… I guess if your blog is focusing on figures then ya… lack of funds for figures really take out your content. Prolly why I didn’t focus on just figures when I started.
Nice Moka indeed, but I was happy with my first Moka and didn’t have money for this one ^^;
Offer blood instead =3
She’s a vampire afterall
Figure collecting is an expensive hobby, and with figures getting more and more expensive, it’s definitely not easy to keep up.
I’m a bit more varied on my interests so I tend to like to stick to things that are more affordable such as gunpla and figmas; as you may or may not know I only have 2 scaled figures so far (as I am really picky on them) and the third one won’t come ’til this October. I think that there’s always other related stuff to blog about should one starts to get short on funds for figures. At least you still have a backlog of photoshoot to do so you can definitely keep things going!
Q, it’s totally awesome that you’re limiting your scale figure purchases. I can tell you from experience that they take up a LOT of space really fast. The “Kotobukiya Standing Style” figures take up less room, but still. Scale figures are so much more expensive relative to their practical uses.
Moka takes up the space of 4 crowded Nendoroids. So collecting figmas and gunpla is a pretty good call. You can do so much more with them too – post about your building process, post figma scenarios, the possibilities are endless!
Money’s incredibly tight for me so most of my pre-orders have been cancelled. Luckily, if I run out of PVC’s and resins to review, I’ve got an entire army of Gashapon and trading figures to talk about instead. I was also planning on re-reviewing most of my figures when I got a new camera. (But alas, no money for that) So my blog will be chugging along for a while longer.
It broke my heart to see Exelica Meteor go down, though. That was a good blog.
I imagine most of e2046’s budget goes towards bubble wrap and that mysterious green wrapping paper. I wish they used sturdier boxes, though. Those little white ones are amazingly flimsy.
The sudden disappearance of James (Exelica Meteor) and a month later his announcement of “the end” sure came in a bad surprise, though I remember him reply to comments to his second last post once saying that he’s out of money and he had to cancel all 20 of his preorders, and he had no idea when he could be active again.
He even avoided going to figure blogs now as he doesn’t want to get reminded of them. I feel really sorry for him and hope things will go better for him soon.
That did come as quite a bit of a shock actually. I didn’t actually know he existed until someone mentioned that his blog was shutting down. After checking out his blog, it did seem like the inevitable was going to happen. It’s just a matter of when. He was posting figure photos every few days, which I’m sure with all those figures, can get quite expensive. It was either 1. he is incredibly loaded or 2. he’s buying beyond his means. It’s unfortunate that it was #2. I’m sure if he figures out a way to balance his purchasing, he’ll be back.
No doubt! Those boxes are terrible. I’m actually surprised that the figures typically arrive unscathed! In a way the flimsy boxes are a good thing, as it’s lighter, which lowers shipping costs. Bubble wrap is incredible low density as well, so all that packing still keeps it light. The green wrapping paper is so weird – black on the inside, and it’s heavy! I feel dirty just touching it! Do not want!
I’ve noticed that you’re blogging pattern runs at about 10-15 days between posts. I think this is actually a pretty healthy blogging pattern. You’re not obligated to blog, and you only end up flooding your content if your frequency is too high. All of a sudden, you fall into a cycle of a high-frequency, high-profile blogging site. While this does make a good blog, we are blogging about an expensive hobby. There needs to be more than just “sharing our loot” posts, and more about the hobby itself – though I suppose that can be difficult when there isn’t much you can do with a PVC girl other than prop her up for display…
I’ve actually had one figure box arrived completely smashed up thanks to the packaging: GoodSmile’s 1/8 Hatsune Miku, of all figures! Luckily the figure itself was perfectly fine, but that box was a lost cause…
But it is indeed a miracle (or some kind of mystery) that more boxes don’t get smashed up. I imagine that green paper is made of dragon scales or something.
I’m pretty low on PVC’s so I keep my blogging to a minimum. Whenever I do one these days it’s because I got a new figure (normally on sale). But my blog is actually mainly supposed to be about developing visual novel titles…guess I should stop slacking on that and get back to work.
I’m on a big figure buying binge right now, and while I’m under no illusions that I can sustain this rate of spending, it’s going to be a fun time while it lasts. I don’t really have anything else to write about apart from figure reviews, so if I’m low on material, I just re-photograph old figures.
For the most part, I select SAL shipping when I buy things from E2046, and they often don’t even bother putting the item in a separate box; they just wrap an inch of bubble material around the figure box and tape some packaging paper over it. It sounds terrible but it actually works out pretty well.
I will make a review of Moka. She is beautiful. It’s a nice choose to have her ^^