The Calendar - From Significance To Idolism

Tuesday, 01 January 2019 arrow_back_ios arrow_forward_ios

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to 2019. It doesn't feel as much personally especially after you've done this like, 24 times. Okay, maybe not that much feels but hey, it does help with the feels if you add a calendar to the mix!

Yes, we're going to talk about calendars this time of the year! Why? Because in recent years I said "screw the boring standard calendars" and threw pretty much all physical calendars out of my room especially those from insurance companies (ugh) and instead buy what I like to hang them (or place them) in my room. Bear in mind unlike many otaku who fill their wall space with stuff, I only had this one calendar in my room to make myself sane and not... feel like a creep haha

So, just for purposes of nostalgia and self-gratification, here are the calendars I placed in my room every year from the year 2013. Yes, I had to buy them the year before and send it back home because they aren't bought easily at your local stores unlike those free gifted garbage lmao

With that aside, and I'll explain a little on what I picked every year too, so let's get to it!

2013

Yes, it's a poster-sized calendar from popular manga and Anime series "BLEACH". At this point it has reached the final arc of the manga, and I thought why not give it its last chance under the spoilight by getting one of their calendars and putting it in my room to show how much of an Anime fan I am? (Well, it's only this for now to be honest) And so I did. I spent quite a lot of money not on this calendar actually, but on the shipping fees to bring it here. As I only knew of that disaster of a shipping service that is vPost from my country (yes you can go find out where I live I don't care) (besides, I mentioned it before, and on Twitter) and thank goodness this one did not disappear unlike the one in the following year as seen from my Facebook post about it (yes I show this off to my friends who probably freaked out at this) (every year, yes, every year...), and it looks great because of Tite Kubo's original artwork, so I did not regret this purchase one bit. Now you see why I had that mission to want to put a calendar on something I like every year now? Haha yeah

2014
Ah, this one had an interesting story for both its past and at that time, so hear me out. When I was a kid (yes, I was) I was brought frequently to the local library to find books to read. Not being a literature guy, I went to the comic section, and like any other non-Japanese library I'm filled with mostly English comics, from Garfield to Snoopy to whatever superhero comics that I'm not interested in that my friends are into now lol. But, there's one that stuck with me, and that is Patrick McDonnell's "Mutts". This guy has been drawing daily comics (a three-panel one, his website has examples if you're not clicking on the link on a Sunday) (no guarantees though lol) since 20 years ago in 1994 (with respect to buying this, of course) and they are simple, light-hearted, and sometimes give some meaning. This is because the story is about a pair of pets - a cat and a dog named Mooch and Earl respectively - and instead of fighting like dogs and cats always do, they talk about animal stuff, even though deep inside they are very human. I immediately caught onto this reading their yearly compilations, and as I grew up I followed their online presence as much as I could. Reading daily comics via email since... 2006? Yeah. Following their stories, living the adventures... but it wasn't until this that I truly took a step out to support them. Before this order, along with the calendar in 2013, I bought a couple of their merchandise, most notably their T-shirt with the dog on it. So the following year I took it up a notch and... here's where shipping screwed with me. Not in timing because I bought it early. November to be more precise. And that took a long time to arrive. It was eventually sent back for various reasons which made me order a second time (likely without refund, but I didn't chase after it because shipping business is already risky in itself) and it did arrive before the year started, so that's good. So yeah, this was the first recognition of my interests as a kid, and I'm glad to have done it.

2015
Hmm this is an interesting one. Normally I thought I would have found this somewhere from my Facebook posts but no, I can't find any evidence lying even around my room. I swear, I searched for it. Why didn't I buy a calendar for the year? I wonder. I would like to assume that I can't find anything good that is Anime-related and Mutts probably proved to be disappointing and in the end I didn't buy one. I do recall not having one throughout the year though. As to why, I have no idea to be honest.

Moving on!! Haha

2016

Unlike the previous year, instead of not getting anything I chose to get another of those wall calendars from Mutts again, and so I did. Funny how I didn't find anything on Facebook so I swear I didn't just take photos of this calendar minutes ago and place it on this post haha. Instead of quotes this calendar now features a character introduction with each flipped month moving on, and I think this must be the best thing I bought if I have to introduce my childhood to others, should the day come. (I haven't yet, so...)

(No, I'm NOT going to re-take all the calendars today and provide higher quality images. You know how troublesome it is to unroll that BLEACH calendar? Seriously...)

2017

Ah, this one is an interesting move. I suppose you guys know of my interest in Anime, and specifically, my interest in their real world counterparts instead of their 2D roles, also known as voice actors or seiyuu. Even more speifically, voice actresses. Yeah, you can see where this is going haha. So one day I told myself "I should support them in some way that doesn't require me to put their solo debut CD on my shelf for Klassic Note Review", and so the second wave of capitalism came into this room haha. On the table calendar which was really weirdly designed (suffice it to say it looks like a bunch of papers inside a dissected CD jewel case and feels cheap) was the one and only Komatsu Mikako, who was known BY ME, mind you, for roles from 2012 to 2014, if I didn't remember wrongly. Since then, I've been following her on Twitter (hehe) (@KlassicNote was not because of this) and what was interesting is her "interaction" with online fans for tweeting her images of her calendar, month after month. Did I decide to join in the fun so I can get replied by her? No. But I did want to make myself feel like I'm involved. That, and that wave of buying stuff from her newly opened online store, brought me a whole of stuff from photos (bromides) to an event pamphlet (which I wished I went, to Japan) to this, the calendar.

Okay that's a lot of words to be honest. Not going to bombard you of my love for... ah MOVING ON!! Haha

2018

Following the streak that is the limit release of what I could put in my room for a calendar (haha) (seriously, there was), in this year I took myself to catch a coincidental release real quick. You may have heard of me mentioning about actor and gravure (oops) model Baba Fumika (don't mind the weird leading family name, she didn't have a choice either) as I probably mentioned her a couple of times ever since I knew her in 2014 from... you guessed it, gravure. Since then, I've been following her around to see what she did and yes I know the gravure stuff is great (*fap fap* haha) but more importantly as she continues to garner more fans also for her acting, and on this particular year they decided to help her release a calendar based on her latest gravure collection, if I'm not wrong. And so it was released on November, and knowing this must be it for the year back in 2017, I took the pre-order approach and slapped it on my wall. Oh and since 2016 it was easy to ship things from Japan so that wasn't a problem, as the package came in early December, so it had to wait a month before I can... show everyone on Facebook what it is lol ugh I have no shame

WHY NOT XXX?
At this point I would like you think not about why I didn't choose other people I liked as my room calendar but think about why I chose that are now part of my room. Due to many reasons than other (availability, time of year, type of calendar) I typically go for larger calendars to make an impact, and I avoided school calendars in Japan (starts from April to March the following year) to not confuse between when to get another calendar and to avoid overlaps. So yeah, Isobe Carin, not on purpose, dear girl. They will get their chance some year ahead. Maybe.

*drum roll*

And the calendar which will accompany me for the following year ahead is...

2019

If you're unfamiliar, let me introduce. Along the lines with Komatsu Mikako I thought of which idol whom I knew (haha) that I can put in my room late last year, and since no one else were releasing calendars early (come on Futon-chan you know I don't go to comiket) I ended up choosing someone who has a regular release of this stuff every year. Hey, I did think of holding back, but who cares, and so voice actress Uesaka Sumire shall join me in the year ahead. She caught my attention around 2016 with her Anime roles and then music career which as of now even I'm into that "POP TEAM EPIC" song. Yes, that one. I chose her mainly because there isn't anyone else I know of who will release a calendar near November and December 2018, that's it. Okay, that and because I thought that I should repay back for the many days of wonderful selfies she has provided us online, along with her regular stylist Sano Natsumi) Those excuses aside, she does look great with all the... cosplays of "animals" (according to her blog, the first one was of a unicorn for some reason) throughout the year I'll get to feast my eyes on (her rack) (haha). What's different this time is, this huge wall calendar is actually a tear-away, so I gotta do this every two months too. And it has not been easy. Tearing off the cover page just earlier on already took me some time. And I'll forget this two months later and have to do this again lol (Note to self: Get a ruler and hold on to the binder tightly while tearing) but most importantly, now I got a voice actress with a rack in my room haha (yes I have to mention the occupation because Fumika-chan technically has a larger one I think lol)

Okay that's enough creeps. I'm freaking out seeing my friend gathering opinions on which girl to choose on this mobile game already, and I don't feel comfortable around that myself, so I better stop haha. I'll continue to do the Artist Evaluation and will post earliest by the end of today, or else by the weekend because I HAVE A JOB NOW haha cya guys around