I'm going to do a picture heavy unboxing post of all the goods that I asked a friend to help me pick up at the Kalafina with Strings Christmas Premium Live 2015. Yay!!! Thank you friend!! :)
I really want to one day be able to go to either the strings or the acoustic lives but Christmas is a difficult time for me to go travelling because my family does celebrate Christmas and it's expensive. Sadly, although they have announced a three city Spring tour titled “Kalafina with Strings” Spring Premium LIVE 2016, I still can't go because I'll be attending Kajiura Yuki's YK vol.13 and travelling in Japan just a two weeks before the first strings live in Hokkaido. I won't be able to fly back to Japan again for that because the even the last live in the three city tour, Tokyo, is only 20 days after my scheduled return from that trip. :( So sadly, no chance for me to hear their voices in their full glory. My dream is that they will one day come to the Esplanade in Singapore and sing either the strings or the acoustic lives but I think that is near impossible. So I just keep dreaming..... :P
Ah well.... back to my original intention... unboxing photos now... :D
First up, the T-shirt.
I'm not sure if Kalafina has ever released a long sleeve t-shirt before. I know FJC has but I don't remember any from Kalafina. If there was, it was quite sometime ago and I didn't know about it.
The t-shirt only has printing on the front and I did wear it just to try and and it feels comfortable. The print is like glossy gold and I included a close up photo of it so that you can see the print and the fabric.
Next up, Postcards.
I think scans of these have been floating around on the internet. Or at least I've seen them somewhere. These is the standard postcard set that Kalafina has been releasing at their lives for a while. I've grown very fond of their postcard sets and postcard tokutens. :)
Which brings me to the following. The Postcard Binder.
I actually managed to fill up all the pages already. I'm sure other people probably didn't have enough sleeves for all their postcards too. :) You get a free postcard with this purchase which is the one in the last photo of this set.
Next up, the Christmas Ornaments.
This year, unlike previous years, the ornaments are made from felt. This is the first time that I've purchases the ornaments so I can't do a proper comparison. But I did shoot a closer shot of one of them to give you an idea of the thickness of the felt material they used. Also, I used a PS Vita game box for size comparison. It's not a small ornament. I do think they are kind of cool though. We haven't had a tree for a long time, so I don't know if felt ornaments are common these days. I have personally never seen one till now. :)
They've been making these ornaments member produced ornaments for some time. The orange is Hikaru's the red is Wakana's and blue is Keiko's. When I opened up to shoot the closer shot of the ornament, I picked Keiko's ornament without knowing. I had just randomly picked my favourite color. LOL... I just thought it was amusing since Keiko is my favourite vocalist of the three. :)
The ornaments came with a postcard with a handwritten comment from each of the girls printed inside. I liked the Christmas card. :)
Next up, Clear File.
This is a 2 file set. One of them has a photo of the trio printed on it and a plain back. The other has the cover design that they have been using for the pamphlets, the tote bag and postcard binder. It also has a plain back.
Then we have the Cookie. :)
There are actually two cookie designs. There is this Christmas tree design and the Christmas present design. However, as they were limiting this to one per customer, it was very hard for my friend to get be one of each so I picked the tree. I am really grateful she too so much trouble to get this particular good.
It's so cute that I know I'm going to find it hard to eat it but it does have to be eaten sooner or later. :( The expiry date is in March. So maybe I'll eat it after I return from my first trip to Japan this year.
I shot the back of the packaging so you'll know what ingredients this cookie was made from. And I also placed it next to a Sony Vita game box so that you have an idea of the dimensions of the cookie. It's a nice size cookie. :)
Also, the cookie comes with a postcard tokuten and I've included a photo of that above. :)
Finally we have the Kalafina Glass 2015.
They've been releasing these glasses with their Christmas lives for quite some time now. I've always wanted one and so jumped at the opportunity to get it this time. It's a pretty nice glass and a nice size too. The glass is also on the heavier side. It's not one of those thin glass types which I personally don't like as much. So I'm happy it's one of the thicker ones. I'm not sure how well it'll take hot water though so I wouldn't try it. It should be fine with cold or room-temperature liquids. Mildly hot liquids should be fine too. It was a bit difficult taking nice photos of the glass. For now, this is the best I can do. :P
Okay.... that's it from me for now. I didn't buy the tote bag, key chain or the pamphlet this time. I usually don't buy the tote bags or key chains so that's not surprising. I do usually get the pamphlet but decided against it this time because I wanted to save a little money for now. Hopefully it'll surface in the online store or in Animate when I'm on one of my trips to Japan, then I'll probably pick it up then. :)
That's it... I'm off to get ready and rush off to work now.
cheers :)
Ahhhhh that shirt is really pretty. Hope I can get one at some point. A little disappointed that it has nothing on the back though, quite a few Kalafina shirts do.
ReplyDeleteProbably a wise choice to skip the pamphlet for now, they're often one of the most available items of merchandise in the aftermarket. Most of them have appeared in the official Spacecraft store afterwards too, I think the only one that hasn't and is a pain to find is the To the Beginning pamphlet, took ages to get one of those and it cost a ton.
Coincidentally I just got my 2015 Christmas Live pamphlet copy today (along with a couple more shirts for my pile) and I was surprised to see it has a couple of pages of photos from the 2013 Christmas Live at the back. Those dresses are easily top five material for me though, they're gorgeous. Sadly I can't fully appreciate the new Christmas Live photos as I don't like Hikaru's hairstyle at all. I'll still pick up the postcard set if I can though, plus I need one of the new Postcard Files because the two copies I have of the previous one are both full.
It's quite a pretty shirt. I'll probably bring it with me for the Jan trip. :) Some of their shirts have something printed behind, some don't. Of the top of my head... the Kagayaku live in 2010, the black shirt had something printed behind, the After Eden lives... I remember those had stuff printed behind too, the To the Beginning live shirt had print on the back too. I can't remember if the others have. :P I do prefer to have print on both sides too.
ReplyDeleteOh... I didn't know the To the Beginning pamphlet was so difficult to get. I went to the To the Beginning live so picked it up at the live. :)
I don't have several pamphlets. But if I go for a live, I'll definitely pick one up. If I see the Christmas live pamphlet on sale somewhere in Jan, I may pick it up then. :)
Oh? You managed to get the 2015 Christmas Live pamphlet? I didn't know it was available online already.
TBH, I don't really like Hikaru's new hairstyle too. But the postcards have become a must get for me these days. They never used to be but I've been slowly conditioned by them because of all those postcard tokutens they keep giving out over the years. LOL I don't have the old postcard files. I only have the new one. :)
Yeah, it's pretty hard to get, although they do come around sometimes. Never cheap, though. I do have every single pamphlet now though. As for the 2015 Live one, I got it from an auction, price wasn't much more than the listed cost and Spacecraft take ages to ship things out, so I went for it. I have ended up getting so many postcards too, even though getting them all is a practical impossibility since there's so many of them.
ReplyDeleteAs for shirts, some don't have anything on the back but most do. Of the 29 different designs I own (not including 4 different colour but identical print shirts), only 6 of them don't have anything at all on the back, one of which is the Magia Tour design which has a sleeve print instead. The rest of them have something at least, even if it's just a continuation of the print like the Mirai or Hikari Furu designs or simply the Kalafina logo like the 6th Anniversary, al fine or the two Kimi no Gin no Niwa designs. There are a bunch of others I don't have so I don't know what they have on the back, but presumably they aren't all blank on the reverse side.