Behold: the latest Gundam shipment just in time for the event tomorrow!

See you for the Gundam extravaganza!

February 18th at Noon Weekend Anime will be hosting its first ever Gunpla event. What does that mean, you ask?

To Wikipedia!

Gundam Models refers to plastic and non-plastic model kits depicting the mechas, vehicles and characters of the fictional Mobile Suit Gundam universe by Bandai. These kits have become popular among animefans and model enthusiasts, especially in Japan and in other nearby Asian countries since the 1980s. The popularity of Gundam models increased in the 1990s with North America and Europe being exposed to Gundam through television, video and manga. These Gundam Models are also called Gunpla (???? Ganpura^?), a portmanteau of “Gundam plastic model”. “Gunpla” more commonly refers to the practice of building Gundam models, rather than the models themselves.

Basically: we’ll be making Gundams. Lots and lots of Gundams. A few of the people coming to the event have tons of their own Gundams, and some of us (coughcoughJuliecoughcough) have none. To help prepare for the event, we’ve ordered a ton of Gundam kits: from basic to advanced. The easiest and most fun of the basic level kits is the SD Gundam Kit.

The SD Gundam Kit, or BB Kit, is a small, chibi version of its larger anime representation. Basically: a simple, easy to afford model that gives you the experience of putting it together without having to deal with too many small parts and intricate details. To prepare for the 18th, we may have “whoops” ordered more than 20 of these small kits.

Here’s the photo of one of our orders laid out on a table at the store:

Gundams. We have them.

If you’re interested in Gundams stop by the store or visit us on the 18th! Gunpla: let’s build together!

Lately, “Board Game Mondays” has turned into Mansions of Madness night. Never heard of it? Mansions of Madness is a new and awesome Clue-like strategy game that recently made its way to Weekend Anime. Fans of Arkham Horror might recognize the Lovecraft-based setting and several of the in-game characters. An interactive mystery, the board game is hard to win but exciting and different to play. If interested, see anyone in the store for the next demo time and join us on Mondays for board games and good times.

From Fantasy Flight Games:

Up ahead, isolated in the Massachusetts countryside, stands a secluded mansion. This is where the clues have led you. This is where you will finally find the answers you have been seeking. As you advance through the cold, driving rain, the dim light dancing in the ornate windows gives the appearance of a dozen sinister eyes watching your approach. The very walls are infested with evil and the great house seems to stare at you with hostility, but despite the growing fear gnawing at your soul, you press on. You must. This madness has to end, and by God, it will end tonight… even if it kills you.

Designed by Corey Konieczka, Mansions of Madness is a scenario-driven board game of occult horror and mystery for two to five players. In it, one player takes on the role of the keeper, a malevolent force working to complete a sinister plot, and all other players take on the roles of investigators, the unlikely heroes who gather to oppose him.

During each game, investigator players explore an eerie location in the hopes of solving a mystery before it’s too late. Investigators win or lose as a team, and need to keep their wits about them to find the artifacts, weapons, and clues needed to stop the keeper’s diabolical plot. The keeper’s goal is to fulfill an evil scheme, which can range from driving the investigators insane to bringing about the end of the world. The keeper’s weapons are fear, paranoia… and terrifying monsters. Can a handful of brave investigators uncover the truth in time, or will the wicked plans of the keeper come to fruition?

The store is making a true movement towards thrifting and selling used goods. Why? Because a lot of us have been collecting for a long time and in that time collected a LOT of STUFF. Board games, card games, comic books, figures, toys, and other miscellaneous hobby goodies that essentially sit on a shelf or don’t get used as often anymore. And it’s not like we’re not buying anything else: we’re still collecting! Sometimes it’s different goods: board games instead of card games, or sometimes it’s the same thing but a different series, like with Magic: The Gathering. Either way: there’s a lot of stuff accumulating, and sometimes it’s nice to make room and make a little money by trading it in.

At the store we accept a lot of different product in trade. You can very easily come in with your collectables, see one of us, and ask how much we’ll give you for whatever it is you have.

Please understand that we base our prices on: market value, current interest, and condition of the item(s). If you bring in out of print, unused, and undervalued items you will not get what you want from them if you have sentimental reasons to think they’re worth a lot. We suggest making sure that you want to sell and let go of your items before coming to the store.

Also please understand that you can say no! If we make an offer to you that you do not think is enough, feel free to say no and try another thrifting location. Who knows: there might be other stores that have a population that would support offering you more for whatever the item in question is. It doesn’t hurt to get it looked at in the meanwhile!

So. Magic collections, figures, old manga, old board games, old figures… old or somewhat new anything: feel free to stop by today and trade it in for either store credit or cash!

Just got a small selection of D&D 3.5 books in. They will probably go fast as they usually do. Most notable titles include the following.
Players Handbook
Dungeon Masters Guide
Monster Manual
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
Expanded Psionics Handbook

Crunchyroll: a legal way of staying on top of the newest anime. Good thing, or best thing? You don’t even need to pay to watch their service! The only thing paying does is remove the somewhat obnoxious ads. If you don’t mind the ads, you can watch all the newest anime for free!

One of the services I really enjoy from the site is the listing of series by season. For example, here is the list of Fall 2011 releases. I try to keep up on all of the newest releases online in order to have an idea of what people are talking about when they come to Weekend Anime or PortConMaine. So here’s what I think about some of the new series I’ve been watching/or watched an episode of (mostly from the summer season, with a few from the new fall season):

Chihayafuru is a series I have yet to watch but that I have added to que. I plan on starting it tonight, actually. Here’s the description:

Ayase Chihaya is a sixth grader whose dream is for her older sister to become the top model in Japan. But one day, a transfer student, Wataya Arata, tells her that her dream should be about herself. Arata’s dream is to become a famous competitive Karuta player. Chihaya is somewhat shocked when she sees how intense the normally reserved Arata gets about the card game. Eventually, she and her childhood friend Mashima Taichi find themselves being captivated by Karuta. Arata is thrilled by Chihaya’s talent and extraordinary hearing, as well as the fact that he has friends to play Karuta with now, but they are forced to go their separate ways after graduating from grade school.

Four years later, Chihaya enters high school and discovers that Arata, who returned to Fukui, no longer plays Karuta. However, she believes that if she continues to play, they will one day be reunited. And so, she and Taichi start a Karuta club at Mizusawa High School.

Kamisama Dolls is a series Ryan started up. To be honest, I only catch it when he’s watching it. It has a bit too much fan service for me and dwells a little bit too awkwardly on the affection between the sister and her big brother. The main heroine of the show, the love interest of the brother, has amazing ever expanding/shrinking breasts that get almost uncovered every episode. …Yeah, it’s one of those kinds of shows. It tries to be serious, Evangelion serious, but it never quite achieves it.

Here’s the web description:

KAMISAMA DOLLS follows Kyouhei, a college student who came up to Tokyo from his hometown. One night, he and Hibino discover a dead body and coincidentally Kyouhei’s sister appears with the doll called Kamisama she controls…

Hanasaku Iroha is one of the bigger releases for me, other than of course Blue Exorcist– which I devoted a whole blog entry to. Hanasaku Iroha is a slice of life anime taking place in an onsen. I really enjoy the art style and the calming, quirky story. It’s very typical and episodic, but it’s an  easy on the eyes and warm on the heart kind of series. It’s very drama and low action so if you’re not into characters and romance, don’t bother with it.

Here’s the web description:

Hanasaku Iroha centers around 16-year-old Ohana Matsumae who moves from Tokyo to out in the country to live with her grandmother at an onsen ryokan named Kissuis?. While restarting her life there initially seems daunting, Ohana begins working at the inn, makes friends with the other employees and watches her life take an unexpected twist.

Feel free to leave comments on new series you’ve been into! And if you’d like to become a blogger and share your input with the rest of the community simply email or talk to us in the store. We’d love more bloggers!

Zombies!!! (my that’s a lot of punctuation) by Twilight Creations Inc retails for $29.99 and is for ages 12& up.  The concept is very simple and there is very little learning curve at all. The Goal of the game is to be the first person to escape the incoming Zombie invasion by finding the helicopter pad and escaping or to be the first person to kill 25 Zombies. Which ever happens first.

Each turn you flip up a new city tile and place a certain amount of zombies and/or bullet and life tokens on it. Then you draw up to three of the event cards. Roll a d6 to see how far you can move. Then run around the city anytime you move into a space with a zombie you have to fight it until you or it dies.

To fight you roll a d6 on a 4, 5, or 6 you kill the zombie on a 1, 2, or 3 you may spend bullets to raise your number by 1 for each bullet you spend. Otherwise you lose a health if you have zero health you die, lose half your kills and start all over again in the town square. At the end of your turn you roll a d6 and for each point you rolled you may move any zombie one space. So if you rolled a 6 you could move 1 zombie six spaces or 6 zombies one space or three zombies 2 spaces etc. Then you discard up to one event card and pass the turn.

At any point you may play one of your event cards but you may only play one per round. The event cards do simple things like move extra zombies, give you extra amoe or life, spawn extra zombies etc. As well  they can add useful weapons to the game which make combat or movemnet easier however you need to go to specfic buildings to  get each weapon. For instance the fire axe can be acuired at the firestation, a grenade can be aquired at the army surplus store, and a skate board can be found at the toy store.

Eventually the helicopter pad will be flipped up from the city tiles then it is a mad dash to get to it first and escape.

I’d give this game a 9/10 for its simple game play mechanics and good setting. You can also make this game more complicated for the more adventurous board game player by adding some of the many expansions. One expansion add sewer tile another adds a mall setting. Also some add zombie animals or clowns. And more recently expansions have allowed for players to play as the zombies themselves or as martians who are seeking to extract human brains.

The Secret World’s phase one beta  has just opened. Don’t get to excited because the phase one part of that statement means that you can watch some new faction videos and take a new slightly improved personality test. Finally you can register for the beta. I simultaneously hope I do and don’t get selected for the beta. This is by far the next mmorpg that I am interested in but I also kinda want to talk about the game and most betas make you agree to not talk about them. If you haven’t heard about this game you need to check it out. It has a modern day setting with a fantasy twist. All myths are at least partially true in this game world. The big feature of this game that i am most interested in is the skill based system which promises for very customizable freedom of play. Also a three faction pvp system with persistent pvp zones. The rumour I have heard is that its due out for April of next year but I don’t think thats an official release date yet. Check it out at http://www.thesecretworld.com/

This week I decided to review Illuminati from Steve Jackson games. It retails for $34.95.  In Illuminati you play members of the Illuminati “secret masters” attempting to control the world from the shadows.

Despite a slightly higher then average learning curve (Which i think is just because the rule book is rather comprehensive) this game is actually very simple. You start with one card representing your Illuminati group and from there can attack  to control neutralize or destroy other groups. Each group has a power resistance and an income.  Normally you attempt to control a group and when doing so you subtract the defending groups resistance from the attacking groups power and then roll 2d6 if you roll under that number you gain control of it. Where it gets complicated is that each player may spend money to raise or lower the target number. On top of that many groups have alignments which also modify that number. There are a few special cards that come up while drawing new groups to replace the old ones. These give you some special benefit and are really useful. They have to many different effects to describe but they add some variety to the game. Also you can discard one to make a privileged attack in which no one can interfere with your roll so no matter what the card does they are always useful. The game ends when any player controls a certain number of groups based on the number of people playing or when any player achieve their Illuminati’s special goal. These special goals do a bit more to flesh out the different Illuminati groups the Gnomes of Zurich for example need to acquire 120 Megabucks anywhere amongst their groups in order to win. The Cult of Cthulhu on the other hand simply has to destroy seven groups (harder then it sounds).

I’d give this game a solid 9/10 the game play is great, there is a ton of room for strategic play, and the cards themselves are hilarious.

 Cults Across America is an old favorite of mine. Its risk on crack with a lovecraftian theme. In cults each player plays a cult attempting control the US. Or at least send it screaming into the night calling for mommy.  Arm your cultists and high priests with weapons (like Chains and Whips) vehicles (like the Satanic Push Cart) or summon nightmares from beyond to bolster your cult (like Mi-gos or the great one Cthulhu himself). Then vie for control of important personalities like the Director of the CDC, the President of the United States or perhaps the Pope. Once you have a good army its time to cause some mayhem. Why not start a plague while your retreat your high priests to the dream world, or maybe you’d like to have a satanic push cart race across the country. Maybe you want to run around with the ambassador from Uruguay and assassinate the pope. Why not steal on of each cults holy relics just so they cant have them? There are all manor of crazy things to do while attempting to overthrow the country.

There are three different rules variants to chose from when you start a game of cults. The Standard Game, The Strategic Game, and The Bloodbath scenario.

The Standard Game is the most fun in my opinion. This is also the fastest version of the game as it has the most possible ways to win. It has the most wackiness and still leaves just enough room for strategy.  There are two ways to win in this game. First you can control one unbroken line of cult cells from coast to coast and control the president of the united states. Or you can win by collecting victory points from causing enough mayhem to send the country into a panic. You can do this by completing lots of small tasks on victory cards which come up randomly as you play the game.

The Strategic Game is for the players who want a more serious game based solely on strategy. This version takes slightly longer then the standard game and less crazy things happen in this version as the victory cards are taken out. Victory points are instead earned by controlling key cities in the game larger cities are worth more points the smaller ones for example.

Finally The Bloodbath Scenario Last man standing wins. To keep this from taking forever this variant has some of the more detailed resource mangment rules taken out. Still this version of the game is likely to be the longest as you have to completly kill all enemy cultist cells to win.

So I mentioned this is one of my old favorites. Even so I am giving it only a 8/10 here’s why.

The game is amazing however its been out since 1998 and they still haven’t fixed the cheapo thin cardboard game board.  Seriously make a deluxe version and charge me 10 bucks more it would be worth it. I have to say I have owned my version since 98 and the board is still intact but i only attribute that to me being super careful with it. The first time I played the game it was on a friends copy also when the game first came out in 98 and the board was already in bad condition. Secondly the learning curve is just a little steep and if you add to that the Cthulhu mythos theme new players who aren’t H. P. Lovecraft fans may just be overwhelmed and never get into it. I would definatley buy this game but be careful with it cause the board is cheap.

And now time for some details I left out incase anyone cares. The game is produced by Atlas Games, is designed by Jeff Tidbal,  it retails for msrp of $44.95, and finally it is for 2-6 players.