The end to all mistakes "for the year", please, I will make more mistakes next year if this isn't any indicator. *laughs*

Welcome back to another unboxing, my PC has crashed yet again (the new one, yes, 3 months in) and my long weekend is kinda ruined BUT NOT UNLESS I RUIN THIS MYSELF *dabs* we will press on and speedrun this new package using a new forwarding/proxy service this time around, and then maybe the CD reviews this weekend because I am dumb enough to say yes to that work afternoon shift tomorrow. *cringe*

Anyways, this has dragged long enough, so let's talk about more of other mistakes I made! Or the lengths I went to get these mistakes I guess, whichever comes first. Yes, there is a part 3 do not be surprised LMAO

Okay I don't have much time to talk about why now, but I will just end up talking about how this all happened, so hear me out.

Buy&Ship is a proxy/forwarding service available in Singapore (yes I did mention that as my hometown, refer to the 2 3 photobook reviews I did lol) and what brought me into its attention was from my bro who bought a box of limited edition Pokémon cards (what else is new lmao) directly from Japan and he said he did not spend a lot more for it and shipped it in good condition to his place. I did have a couple of months of hesitation until I found the perfect opportunity for it... because no one else wanted to do it? *laughs*

Because turns out, many proxy sites like *wink* Buyee and *wink* Zenmarket (haha) will reject purchases of listed gacha store items, ie. if they are an item listing on a store that has a chance to get anything on a list of items (so yeah we did that before through Raffle with marupi-chan, and Ueshama's keychain years ago, but those were all me buying direct from the stores themselves) and just turns out, I can't buy this new item I found recently directly unlike the many times I did over the years. Yep, I have hit that wall before and normally I would just *shrugs* and just never think about it ever again... until I noticed I can try with this service. They don't know the risks of users complaining not getting what they want even if it is literally random. *giggles* So I went and tried, and all I got, mind you, was just a warning from the service themselves, stating that you know, blah blah this is an item of random chance so don't blame us for its results, sort of thing. (Edit: "...the product is lucky draw which we cannot choose but random products will be shipped, and we would like to reconfirm if you still want to continue to purchase the product...") Yes, I know, that's why I paid for it. *laughs* We will talk about it in due time below no worries, and in the meantime I need to find stuff to pad this order since I'm not going to ship like, bromide photos and badges only on this, as usual.

This was around February already when it happened, and turns out my birthday week of music releases (mid Feb on a Wednesday so go guess my birthday if you'd like) were great, I ended up giving TrySail's new single, and then Asakura Momo's new single the following week *dabs* so yeah, I went for the most niche stores I know no one will get (and I can't too because not Japan credit cards), and then padded it with a manga series I've been wanting to talk about, continuing the tradition of wanting to give doujin artists their chance of releasing something that I will buy, no matter the medium. Hey, I have so many rules in doujinshi, I could give this a pass. *wink*

Now it's the time to talk about its strengths and weakness of this new service. Yep, it's customer rant time! *laughs*

I'll talk about the good first. For starters, I think their fees are overall cheaper. Though I'm paying in SGD which you know, can be way too strong a currency against the Japanese yen today but that's a world economics problem, you just need to know both currencies are rather even at rates at this point, so this didn't matter. What DID matter was apart from the usual fees - the item price, local shipping, international shipping - I paid NOTHING ELSE even though, by the way, their system requires them to ship to their regional warehouses (in this case, all Japan) (lol) (they have locations all over the world) and move them to their consolidation base at Hong Kong to ship out. (My bro says he didn't have this part but he only bought the one item so maybe they know?) And it's due to this, that I think their shipping fees are lower, they did not charge on consolidation I don't think, no service fees, no insurance stuff. Taxes sure, but other than that... And they moved their stuff that much?? Bruh, how are they still offering a free cashback membership on this? And a place to showcase your wares? (Yeah haha) AND a sign up phone verification will net you a $5 voucher?? Okay, about that. *laughs*

For the bad, there are a lot. Whether it's enough to leverage on its current offerings or not I'll let you judge yourself and of course when you see the actual box as you read on, but there are a couple of things I can say first. For starters, their convenient chat service is their sword they end up stabbing on their feet. *laughs* Two things in particular got me more pissed than I should have been which also results in the delay of this package. Mocho's single had to be re-ordered again because it failed buying proxy first time and the only way I found out was because it took more than a week compared to the other CD which only took a couple of days to confirm. Yup, imagine if you only bought the one. *cringe* I will iterate this again on the CD reviews, but I will talk about the other thing that delayed the heck out of this: That introductory voucher. *sigh* I think I went through dozens of emails with them and almost in real time, did they then decide to send me the phone verification code (via chat lol) which should have appeared on my (local) phone number but instead didn't, after they continue to tell me to hit the resend button time and again only to have me time out after several tries, and don't ask me how many days I have tried this to no avail. *pukes* THAT, is not how you do customer service. Bruh. (This one's a different one than the previous, trust me)

The next and most important thing that is definitely bad about this service and how it works: the time it took was really long. Yes, this one I think will be its Achilles heel almost immediately I can feel that compared to the others. I know like, Buyee also suffers from the same fate, but I am pretty sure they don't take in the length of WEEKS to buy anything, WEEKS to then move to a consolidation point, and then tell me it's shipping in a couple of days that way. Buye would've done this much in half the time. Bruh. (Also different, by the way haha) I am so used to Tenso shipping like, ON TIME, so I know when to plan ahead to times where I had to do these and not like, be surprised on its speed only when it shipped out after consolidation, that this is just like, a total mess to me, which means more checking and confirming if things are here even though they send an email every stage of the way (and that's still not enough stages by the way, note Mocho's single re-order which I didn't know, I had to ask in the support chat) and I can assure you that this is not good enough. *dabs* Hey, I'm a busy man, and I don't want to be checking every day on this to know when something will arrive, okay? I promise you the run with Zenmarket (whenever that is done lmao it's on the way as I'm doing this) will be easier to deal with than this since it did not have that many steps while still ensuring you can only see half of those steps and then not screwing them up. The staff in this service aren't Japanese, right...? *giggles*

The other thing that bugged me now that I have seen the contents of the package, is that without the extra consolidation and checks and insurance stuff, means the packaging is also a little... sparse. I mean, tape and cardboard is fine, but this is not your full-on box nor will you see bubble packaging which isn't a bad thing, so I would think I got lucky for not having anything damaged... so far. (Fingers crossed on the CDs, by the way, I haven't opened them up)

Speaking of, let's unbox, shall we? Haha I gotta stay sane here it's already crazy at work-

Let's first talk about one of the 2 things I intend to review here, and "Super Marika Club" is here to the rescue!! *laughs* Oh shit is this already copyright infringement Nintendo is coming for us haha this is actually Kouno Marika's radio show series event gacha!! *laughs* Okay, she has been doing this for years, and unfortunately for us this is one of few paid radio shows on Internet Radio Station Onsen (yep) where apart from normal voice actor radio and Anime ones even, they have stuff like this too. Well, not the gacha, that's just part of its own radio store similar to how Seiyuu Grand Prix has an affliate store Infosquare as its backup. In this case, this will be the second time I will be able to buy bromide photos from Marinka-chan directly (sort of haha this is proxy) so this kept hanging in my brain since after the event last month until I found this opportunity to get it before stock ran out. Well it didn't even though this one was out for more than a month lol thank goodness she isn't crazy popular like Kana-chan (lmao), so yeah, I took a bet and see what I could get.

Uh, if it's mistakes...? Then it's just "the idea of doing this" to be honest. *laughs* Because despite only paying for FIVE items total since I didn't look at the prizes more closely, I ended up with like, 1 set of 3 bromide photos (I thought this was for 3 rolls but this is counted as 1), 2 acrylic stands (1 roll each) and what, 4 badges? Yeah, told myself not to get that but MaiMai's ones are coming in soon so *shrugs* haha I definitely have miscalculated on this big time.

Okay this one I know what the mistake is: To not give the artist their doujinshi in my yearly run and instead decide to buy Harakenshi-sensei's first ever comic series based on their illustration girls!! Yep, you might know of them online, and end of last year they released a comic book full of stories from how the girls met, who they are in person, and how they interact with each other. Quite a fresh look compared to the girls love stuff we keep trying to buy time and time again (LMAO I am so sorry Chigusa Minori-sensei that is still on hold and I think I will hold it a bit longer) just because, but that doesn't mean it's great because the mistake specifically is HOW DAMN THICK IT IS!!! *laughs* No, not talking about the girls yet I will have my share of them later hehe, but yeah, I'm taking a proper break after this one. *laughs* If you thought "Shino to Ren 2" last time was long, wait till you see this one. *ugh*

Haha okay time is short though the night is long, so let me tell you a little more about- Kokoro-chan. *laughs* She is the best. *giggles*

OH SHIT WE GOTTA CENSOR THIS ONE

Wow, I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight. *laughs* And I don't mean how much I have done on this post and how much I will over the long weekend. It's work. *sob*

Oh yeah happy birthday Yuuki Aoi. *laughs* I know right, nothing to buy from you- I didn't even bother putting your as my wallpaper for... anything really, phone and desktop and browser and tablet and everything, it's all Isobe Karin now. *giggles* Ah, her monthly livestream yesterday was rad shout out to the close-up camera view for the second half for paid subscribers. *points at self* Oh yes, Yuuki Aoi. Uh... suck it? *laughs* Yeah I will be back tomorrow for fanfic but also more of this in case you didn't notice something was missing as in half this package, and I will talk about what actually made my birthday. Well, that is if you can see this on the actual site and not let this rot on its own while I figure out how to deal with setting up the environment on my Surface Pro (backup device, by the way) so I can upload this for it to be hosted online, that sort of thing. Fingers crossed, people!! Why can't I just boot my portable drive's Linux boot on another device though?

Oh, I don't have a bootable device. *laughs* And kill me if you think the Surface Pro isn't more annoying to boot into a USB than a Mac BOOM GOTTEM *giggles*

P.S. To celebrate the end of A&G+ and it moving to a mobile app because what is web radio nowadays even in Japan this change has been slow, I'm listening to the final episode of Toyosaki Aki's solo (live, by the way) radio program while doing this. Yep, just as I did 15 years ago when I didn't understand a single word of what this cutely-voiced woman is saying. Now I understand everything, trust me, even the unitial ending jingles. *giggles* But yeah, seasons are changing, radio shows are ending, and I will have more time to do packages...? *laughs* I'll just listen to Kana-chan and Ueshama afterwards too why not haha it's the last Thursday for them anyways.

See you guys on Saturday.

P.P.S. *thumbs up*