Drantin
05-21-2007, 01:51 AM
Hello people!
I've been visiting this forum for a week or two. Here's how I ended up finding the place, but first some background.
I'm from the US, and after High School ended up joining the Navy, not planning on making a career out of it, but anyway... I'm stationed in Sasebo, JP on board the USS Essex LHD2, and have been for nearly three years now. I rent a house along with 4 other people from my ship. Much of this time I've been collecting Anime and PVC Figurines based off of Anime. I was loosely aware of Garage Kits before, although I can't recall where I heard the term.
A few weeks ago a neighbor of mine stopped by to introduce himself, he had placed samples of things he liked to do in some bags and brought them up the stairway to our house and began taking the things out of his bags.
After some confusion as to why he was there (my roommates thought he was the equivilent of a Japanese Avon Lady... a door to door makeup salesperson...) I discovered he was merely introducing himself and inviting us all back to visit his home.
I went over and visited with him for a while, looking at his collection of GKs, and models (mostly Space Battleship Yamato) GKs of Belldandy, Ruri (Nadesico) Sailor Moon, etc...
He ended up agreeing to teach me how to build and paint them, problem was that I hadn't seen any available in town (I've since seen a total of maybe 12 distributed between two stores now that I'm actively searching for them)
I tried to bid on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but didn't have a Japanese Credit card (even with a JP mailing address, the site didn't want to accept my card information) I ran down to his house and found him outside, I explained through my pocket translator what had happened (being the high bidder with no way to pay... somewhat naive of me, there were still 4 hours to the auction) (The auction was for three kits, two from Urusei Yatsura (うる星やつら), and one from Cat's Eye, it ended up going for around 2700円 IIRC)
I tried in vain to search Google for garage kits, but kept coming up with things for repairing or setting up garages. Finally I input Garage Kit Japan intending to narrow the results to anime figurines and the like.
Guess what was first on the list?
I've been visiting this forum for a week or two. Here's how I ended up finding the place, but first some background.
I'm from the US, and after High School ended up joining the Navy, not planning on making a career out of it, but anyway... I'm stationed in Sasebo, JP on board the USS Essex LHD2, and have been for nearly three years now. I rent a house along with 4 other people from my ship. Much of this time I've been collecting Anime and PVC Figurines based off of Anime. I was loosely aware of Garage Kits before, although I can't recall where I heard the term.
A few weeks ago a neighbor of mine stopped by to introduce himself, he had placed samples of things he liked to do in some bags and brought them up the stairway to our house and began taking the things out of his bags.
After some confusion as to why he was there (my roommates thought he was the equivilent of a Japanese Avon Lady... a door to door makeup salesperson...) I discovered he was merely introducing himself and inviting us all back to visit his home.
I went over and visited with him for a while, looking at his collection of GKs, and models (mostly Space Battleship Yamato) GKs of Belldandy, Ruri (Nadesico) Sailor Moon, etc...
He ended up agreeing to teach me how to build and paint them, problem was that I hadn't seen any available in town (I've since seen a total of maybe 12 distributed between two stores now that I'm actively searching for them)
I tried to bid on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but didn't have a Japanese Credit card (even with a JP mailing address, the site didn't want to accept my card information) I ran down to his house and found him outside, I explained through my pocket translator what had happened (being the high bidder with no way to pay... somewhat naive of me, there were still 4 hours to the auction) (The auction was for three kits, two from Urusei Yatsura (うる星やつら), and one from Cat's Eye, it ended up going for around 2700円 IIRC)
I tried in vain to search Google for garage kits, but kept coming up with things for repairing or setting up garages. Finally I input Garage Kit Japan intending to narrow the results to anime figurines and the like.
Guess what was first on the list?