Dakimakuras anyone?

Yeah it's still a mystery to me why mandarake doesn't automatically put everything up on both the japanese and english sites. Even if there's really certain items that they think aren't suitable for selling abroad, they could be ones they manually flag to not go to the english site, rather than it being the default for everything not to go on the site as it is now ;(

The Essentia cover is going for surprisingly cheap this time round, seen a lot of auctions end in the 13-14k region and there's still some left at 10k bid with a few hours to go now (and one with 13k buyout even). Kinda surprised it's not more popular... sure it's not a super popular character like Kobato or Asuna, but it's damn cute! I managed to nab the full set (including tapestry too) for 19.5k.. which retailed for 17.5k.

I'm sure you already know, but there's a clesta cover with low current bid in the adult section with a few hours left on it.

Hmm that's a worrying rumor about Tony. Hopefully he won't be in any big trouble. Wonder why he prefers doujinshi to dakimakura though.. better profit margins and easier to stock a lot of in the limited space comiket allocates I guess?

Yeah, I'm pretty surprised it isn't going for more myself. There are a few things I'd love to bid on (Clesta cover included), but I'm not going to use a different proxy (I have no money >_>) And I'm currently, no joke, 100k over my bidding limit with SMJ.

lol yeah, you shouldn't be buying anything more indeed :P

Heh, yeah. Luckily, it's mostly preorder stuff that's spread throughout the next few months. I currently owe only a fraction of that to SMJ (yay for being in the US and not having to pay until they receive the item), but it's preventing me from spending anymore with them, since I'd have to pay about 100k before I even have 1 yen in spending limit. And since most of the items are preorders, it will likely be late September before I've paid that much off.

Anyhow, it's not really a useful trick for those outside of the US, but if you have the money to burn and want to go over your limit, it's pretty easy to do so with special orders. I had about 20k limit remaining when I placed about 120k worth of special orders, but fudging the estimated total in the form. They then placed all the orders, and my available limit shot down to 0.

Hmm this is my first time seeing this, it's a bootleg of this cover:
http://blog.埋もれる抱き枕er.jp/archives/8031

But they've actually altered it to be more censored than originally:
http://page8.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/h179462294

I don't check bootlegs all that often, but this is the first one like this. I've seen plenty with less detail or less censoring, but never where they made a safer version of a cover like this before..

I've seen it happen from time to time. The majority of the people I talk to seem to be more into ecchi covers than explicit covers, so it would make sense that bootleggers would try to alter the image to make it a bit tamer for a bigger audience. The other time I've seen it happen was when the best sample image available had a censor bar/obstruction in the way of things. The best example I've seen of this is a Saber cover that had stylized pink text over the goods; the bootlegger managed to turn it into flowers.

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/06/25/saber-ero-armor-dakimakura/

http://www.figure.fm/en/post/5710/Saber+Lily+Dakimakura+November+December+Loots.html

https://www.fakku.net/image-404/images/937307-7522EDV.jpg

Yeah it does make a lot of sense, many people aren't comfortable with a fully exposed cover after all. I just hadn't encountered it before.

I would say that that saber is slightly different though, as I reckon they just didn't have a clean sample image to work with without the censor-text so they used the text creatively rather than trying to redraw what's underneath it. Though probably for the same ultimate goal of increasing the audience it might appeal to.

I've clearly been collecting explicit dakimakura too much when my first thought about a cover with only breasts showing is that it's fairly tame ;(

I think I had pulled up the sample images for the cover in question on Getchu, and the higher resolution image did have some sample bars on it, but that could just be my short term memory playing terrible tricks on me (I know there were two samples images, at least.)

I know the feeling. I practically won't even consider Cospa or similar covers anymore, since they don't appeal to me at all, unless I really love the character. I was actually looking back at my first invoices not too long ago, and I've now been in the hobby for about 3.5 years, and some of the first covers I started with were fairly explicit (two explicit Mio covers, and some anko covers fairly early.) Whenever someone links something that's "NSFW", I usually end up disappointed and similarly get yelled at when I link something without tagging it as such.

Oh, It's already three day after the end of comiket. Today is deadline for mail (post) application for C85 but I'm going for online application anyway.
A word to describe my experience is the same with exokiel, hell.
I have done real bad in second day, cannot make it to both clesta and tony (Actually I heard later that some of tony's work got confiscated by comiket stuff due to "loli" thing, not sure about that though)
Day three is far more better than the others, tolerable amount of people and shorter line in co-operate booth. I still spend for mostly touhou cover though.
I am still regretting that I cannot get any limited cover but since this is my first time, the experience itself is worthy. Let's hope for better luck (and temperature) next time.

Wow I can't believe they don't put some of the items on the english Mandarake store. The things they do or do not put on the english store compared to the Japanese store doesn't make sense.

I'm still pissed I didn't get the Hisasi cover a week or so ago. I saw it the day it came out (this is when I didn't know how much shipping and stuff was which Shashin thankfully aknowledge me of), but hesitated to buy it. I finally logged in to buy it and it was sold out :(

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/shop/en/item_s-1344376.html

I really love the art on that Telephone card. I'd love to see more art of this character.

I'm waiting for the C84 GJ cover to come up again so that I can buy it. I also really want that C84 Lilith Asagi with tan lines dakimakura.

My general rule of thumb with Mandarake is: Don' think twice. In cases where an item is a good deal/relatively rare, it can sell out in minutes, so you really want to check out with it as quick as possible or risk missing out. In cases where it isn't a super good deal, and item can still easily sell out in a few days, so it's a good idea to snag it as soon as possible.

Heh, the GJ cover is pretty nice. I didn't know what to expect going in, so I couldn't find a published price or material (meaning it could have been 8k for a Smooth Knit cover), but luckily it's 2WT. Not a brand I've ever used before, but at least it's branded, and it actually doesn't seem to be all that bad. Of course, you can expect some creative censoring, but honestly, the detailing was better than I expected personally; I've been screwed by company covers before and always tend to expect to worst in terms of what they'll show.

And I ordered the Lilith covers through DMM, so I'll probably be betting those in the next month or two when I pay off the order and request shipping (I'll be requesting shipping on an order in a day or two, but probably won't have the DMM order paid off by then.)

New Tony cover just went up on Toranoana; was just about to consider trying to grab the C84 set on YJA, so the timing couldn't be better.

Nice! I was waiting for it to pop up there. Just need to find a proxy to order through Toranoana with now, since SMJ doesn't do it anymore. I tried using a forwarding service, and have a C84 doujinshi order in, but it has been a few days and Toranoana hasn't advanced the order yet, so there's still the possibility of it being canceled, I guess.

Awwww. I miss this thread. Hope everyone's been doing well.
Here are some of the goods that came in this month:

Looking good!

Yokatta really are so bad.. It's taken them literally a month to prepare my items for shipping and actually ship them (they haven't even given me the tracking number yet, so they're not shipped still probably..). I'm not in any particular hurry, but really...

Clochette stuff getting put up for order on 6th September, looking forward to that as always. Probably gonna grab the poster as well as the daki for a change, and maybe the goods set since I'm already giving them all my money anyway!1

Right now I'm most excited about the B&W Store KanColle and Puzzles and Dragons collaborations... the only problem I'm having is how I'm going to afford most of them while still paying for other stuff/saving for Japan. >_>

Yeah interesting to see how they'll turn out, likely to be a fair few I'll be interested in. I can easily imagine the images being finished and pre-orders opening just around the time of the japan trip, or a month before, too... destiny is clearly trying to make it hard for you to save!

I was talking to the guy on Twitter a few weeks ago (when the Sona/Ahri cover was added), and he said that the collaborations were planned for a September reservation.

Here's my list so far:

For PAD, I have one must order, and a few probables depending on how the final images turn out. There are some characters that don't have a sample yet that I really like. There's also one character I really like that has a pretty lackluster sample (I think it would be good otherwise, but it just doesn't fit the character well.)

For KanColle, I think there are three that I'll definitely order, with several other probables...

I'm really hoping it's like the UnLight collaboration where they had 3-4 order periods. When it pops up, I might ask if they'd consider doing an order window sometime next year, after things have cooled down a bit.

Marks mail order is up:

http://cart06.lolipop.jp/LA11973741/

Hi guys. Looking at buying a daki body. Anyone have any experience with A&J? I hear they're the best in the business. I'm looking at these:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0021SASGU/
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B0050MX960/r

Or possibly something else, I don't know yet. I want something with a bit of weight to it, but not something that's going to feel like a rock. Do I need anything extra, such as stuffing? Must be 160x. Any advice would be appreciated.

I typically recommend the A&J pillow to people I talk to, though I've personally never used it myself. At least one user in this thread has used it, and I believe they recommended it. I recently came across a ranking of pillows, done by the guy who runs what we tend to call "the blog", which is one of the best sites for viewing upcoming dakimakura covers. He rates the A&J pillows as some of the highest, though there are plenty of other 160x50 options (it's when you're looking for 170+ that it becomes harder.)

Here's the list: http://blog.xn--er-573a1isbf1441e2hs87j.jp/bodylist

The A&J DH3000/4000 top the list, along with the full smooth, but they vary in total weight a bit, which means one probably has more filling than the other. It isn't reviewed, but the DHR6000 is their newest and top of the line pillow, I think. So that would probably be a safe bet.

Regarding the Amazon links you posted, the first one doesn't have the model number listed that I can see, but the second is the Full smooth (3rd item on the list I linked.)