Finally, I am getting down to working a little on the blog. It's the Chinese New Year break in Singapore and I've been using the opportunity to rest as much as possible between doing my Japanese homework and the usual family stuff that one must do during this season.
Now that I've feeling a little rested, I thought it would be a good idea to get down to doing this unboxing before work begins again on Wednesday. I'll go back to becoming very busy and will likely have to do more weekends again. I'm still feeling the strain of 26 work days in a row, complete with OT on most of those days. I'm not unhappy to do it because I'm working on a very challenging prep shot... well, at least it is challenging for my skill level... but I'm happy to do it. I think I've learnt tons and am really grateful for the opportunity to be working on it... but let's leave it at that... I digress too much. :) Back to the unboxing... it'll be picture heavy as usual... the whole point of my rambling paragraph about work was so that I would say that I would like to blast through this and then go to bed. :)
So here we go... I hope you enjoy it. :)
This is what the photobook looks like without the shrink wrapping.
I placed a blu-ray next to the book to give you a sense of the dimensions of the book. It's pretty much the breath and length of a sheet of A4 size paper. The binding is the standard binding.
This is what the book looks like striped of its dust cover which is a sheet of stiff paper with a wax like texture on one side.
The photobook opens with a short foreword by Kajiura Yuki. After that it's page after page after page of awesome photos of Kalafina. Some of them look familiar but I'm not sure if they are repeated photos form the concert pamphlets or if they're simply from the same studio shoot. I've not done a comparison with the concert pamphlets so I can't say for sure but what I'm sure of is that there are a ton of photos of them that I've not seen before.
The photos are very cool and quite a few of them are truly full page color photos which stretch from one edge of the page to the other edge. When I first flipped through it, even I didn't expect it to be so breathtakingly awesome. I was like... WOW!!! That's a lot of really nice photos and unlike the
Kalafina Record book, this is a true photobook. There is really very, very little text in the book. Aside from the foreword, epilogue and a few pages of interviews with each of the vocalist, setlist, credits etc, it's just photos of the trio.
Aside from the photos from the studio shoots, there are also photos at the lives and also photos of the trio at various events and when they have traveled overseas. I've included a photo of the pages of them at the Kalafina Week in Shibuya and of them when they came to Singapore for the Anime Festival Asia. Singapore is my home country and a country I love hence, I have to include those photos. :)
Although there isn't a ton of text in this hefty 236 page book, there are still a few pages of text. Aside from the foreword by Kajiura Yuki in one of the early photos above, each vocalist gets a 3 page interview.
The book also lists out Kalafina's Biography, Discography and Set List for the major lives that they've performed at. The book then ends with a 2 page epilogue by Kajiura Yuki and one more photo and the credits.
Here are photos of the freebies that people who pre-ordered via the FJC Club link at the Spacecraft online shop got.
Itsuko, my good friend, helped me to order the book because I really wanted the clear file and this version of the postcard that comes with this release. Sorry, the photo of the clear file isn't very good but it's quite hard to shoot photos of reflective things in my bedroom, it's all that overhead lighting and also because I'm shooting using a mobile phone, so the quality is always a bit lacking in all the unboxing photos.
If there was ever a time I felt that I should have taken unboxing photos with a proper DSLR, it was after I looked at the photos that I had shot of this unboxing. I don't think any of them do the photobook justice. The photobook's photos are really, really nice and I really cannot think of any reason why a big fan of Kalafina would not want to own this book and I also cannot think of any reason why any fan would be disappointed with the purchase.
If you're a fan and you can afford it, I really believe that this is a really good purchase. It's not terribly expensive for a book packed with soooooo many nice photos of Kalafina. If you wish to purchase it, you can use this link if you like. Unfortuantely, it doesn't come with any freebies but the book is more than worth the asking price. :)
Kalafina History 5th product page
Okay, next up, it'll be the Type-Moon 10th Anniversary Festival unboxing.
link to my short review ~
click me
I've already shot the photos much earlier but decided that I rather do the Kalfina History 5th unboxing first. If I don't get too busy or too tired tomorrow, I'll do that unboxing and maybe... maybe... maybe get to the final two volumes of the Mahou Shoujo Madoka Key Animation artbooks. :)
For now... time for bed.... I hope you enjoyed this unboxing. :) oyasumi :)
