Happy Thanksgiving! And a coupon code

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Here in the US it's Thanksgiving. It is a great time to really reflect on what your thankful for be it your friends, your family, the new Sailor Moon anime coming out next year, or just getting some new action figures. We hope you have something in the past year to really can feel happy with or proud of. Even if you don't celebrate thanksgiving, we've got another reason for you to be thankful, our Black Friday/Cyber Monday Coupon !

So Starting from  now through Tuesday the 27th you'll get 25% off any order over $20.

Use Code: IMTHANKFUL

Additionally anyone who makes an order of any amount between now and Tuesday the 27th will be entered into a drawing for $10 giftcard to the shop! So if you've had your eye on anything now's the time to buy!


As usual we've updated lots of new stuff and restocked some old stuff over the last month. We're also super stocking the store for the Holiday season we're adding and restocking dozens of new items per day!  So
 stop by our shop and snag yourself a good deal!

Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Sailor Vacation

 Today's crazy Sailor Moon item is straight from Japan, once again proving that it wasn't just Irwin or Chinese bootleggers who had insane ideas about what items do and do not make reasonable Sailor Moon toys and collectibles. With that in mind we present you Sailor Vacation:

All the fun of visiting the Moon Kingdom in one convenient box!

It's kind of confusing as to what exactly Sailor vaction is for, is it for taking on vacation with you? (it's not visible in our pictures but there is a litte plastic handle on top). Is it what the scouts would take on vacation with them? Is it supposed to give you the feeling of going on a a "Sailor vacation" without leaving your room? Honesty we have no idea, and the box doesn't seem that helpful.Admittedly as usual we have very limited grasp of Japanese, so we don't have any idea what the box says, but it looks like generic warnings and a parts list mostly. All we can really tell is that it's a box of stuff with eternal Sailor Moon and chibimoon getting a lot of face time.

Opening the box and examining the parts actually just confuses things further.

For your vacation you need a plastic tray with plastic coins and some Sailor bank tickets, which is just more fake money but in a paper pad form this time. These are the items that  actually make sense you would need money on vacation. What's less sensible is why you would need 4 different memo pads, a cardboard "pouch" (which is just a cardboard box with a flap and plastic handle) and an (unpictured) plastic whistle. I suppose there could be some sort of game using these items, but it;s pretty unclear and there isn't really a whole lot of items with text on them in the box leading me to believe that if it is a game you've got to make up your own rules.
 Also unclear is why poor Sailor Jupiter was excluded from the Memo pads even though the other inner senshi are accounted for. Perhaps she decided to skip the Sailor Vacation and went someplace more fun?

Quirky, unclear usage, questionable design motives and plastered with Sailor Moon characters, just the sort of thing we love adding to our collection.

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Vintage Mario Halloween Mask

 One of our most infamous posts was our Legend of Zelda Link Halloween Mask. It's October again, so we thought it high time we horrify with some more Nintendo Insanity from 1989.  In addition to making our little green hatted hero of Hyrule, they also made everyone's favorite mustachioed plumber for children of the 80's to horrify their friends and loved ones on Halloween or any other occasion.

It'sa YOU! MARIO!

Like Link this is an official product tagged Nintendo of America 1989, has large souless holes for eyes and is a made of the same breathable plastic. It's a little better than Link though as it actually resembles 80's era Mario rather than a demented Leprechaun, and looks a little less horrifying on a human being.

Link still edges out Mario as being our favorite creepy plastic mask, but Mario is still a pretty fun and still creeps out our friends. However given the brittleness of the vintage plastic and the general uncomfortableness of an 80's plastic mask it's probably better left as decorative item than an actual usable mask.

We display our proudly next to our Link mask and someday we hope to add any more of these monstrosities Nintendo may have made. (we know in addition to Mario and Link ,there's Yoshi, but who knows what else might be out there)


~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Japanese Sailor Pluto Mask

We have a thing about Horrifying masks, a thing where we like them and put them in our home to horrify friends and loved ones.  This is the first one we've been able to add to our Sailor Moon collection though:

There is a set of Sailor Moon Masks, but we so far only have Pluto. For some reason, she's traded her long luscious deep green tresses for a short black bob, which would normally make you wonder if this was supposed to be a mars mask instead, but luckily she has her trademark ridiculous earrings to clear it up for you. (Seriously Naoko, what were you thinking when you drew giant chevrons on her ears?)

This is a child's mask, a young child's mask, so it unfortunately ends above the mouth of an adult (or  at least on both of us at any rate). So you sadly you can't wear it to horrify people in the same way as you can with our Nintendo masks. (apparently American children have much bigger heads since we can wear those) So it'll just have to sit on our wall, watching with it's empty soulless eye sockets, waiting until we steal it's key to fly off and attack us  for other senshi to join it.

~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Crayons

 These Crayons are North American releases and are actually pretty rare, we'd seen them once back in 2000, didn't buy them then and regretted it a bit. It took us 9 years or so to track down another set for our collection:

There giant piles of Sailor Moon desk supplies available, pencil, marker sets, stationery, notebooks folders, etc. So strictly speaking sailor moon crayons aren't that odd. However, while we neglected to photograph it, these are really really lazy integration. They are really generic crayons, you know the ones that say "crayons" on the side, no makers mark or anything else. Additionally the box says 48 crayons, but only contains 12 or so colors.  So in a nutshell the sort of crayons they really aren't good for anything.

Basically the box art with Sailor Moon is the only thing that makes them Sailor Moon Crayons. In fact this would probably be better  referred to as the Sailor Moon Crayon box. Admittedly if we'd known it was just a lazily marketed crayon box, we might not have spent so much time looking for one, but we've got it now and holds a place of pride along with the rest of our insane Sailor Moon items.

~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Pop-up Fan Keychain

 Don't you hate it when you're overheated and try to use your keys as a fan with less than stellar results? Well like so many things in life, Sailor Moon has you covered.

In the name of the moon I shall fan you!

This is a Keychain fan with a Chibi Usagi topper and says Sailor moon S across the actual fan part. As though having a fan at your finger tips at any moment isn't exciting enough this one also pops open with a quick release button. When heat strikes, hit the little button in the handle and BAM! instant fan cooling power. When the heat wave subsides, you just pop it back into the handle and it clicks into closed position, sleeping once again, awaiting it's time to be the heat avenger once more...

On a more serious note this is a cute item, and we do legitimately like it, but one does have to wonder who exactly needs a keychain fan with a quick action button as a functional item?

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Toothbrush Set

 This item really isn't that strange. There are a lot of character branded toothbrushes and have been for years (at least from the 70's that I've personally seen) so it makes sense that a popular kid's show like Sailor Moon would get them. Unlike some of the other North American items from this period they don't even look that bad.

 OK, so they don't look great either, but cute in their own way. It is a weird thing to collect though which is why these are in the oddities collection. Ours is almost a full set of  the senshi that were made, but they did make a tuxedo mask as well which we're missing. It seems likely most moon collectors have no idea that they could be brushing their teeth with the sailor senshi on a regular basis. Though honestly these are at least 16 years old, putting them in ones mouth is a horrifying prospect.

We've rarely seen these in other collections so they're, unique, if not rare.  We're happy to have them.

~Stephanie


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Looking for an www.Avaneshop.com Coupon Code?

This blog gets a number of hits from coupon code searches. We rarely post them in our blog anymore, but we know everyone likes a good deal. So if you're looking to make your next purchase at www.avaneshop.com a little easier on your wallet, join our mailing list.We send out one email a month with a coupon code good for a few weeks,  a few tidbids about what's been happening at our shop and a few featured items updated in the last month.  Just Click Cornelius the Octopus below to join the list.

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For those of you looking for more instant gratification, you also get a coupon code you can use immediately as soon as you sign-up!

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Bath Salt Set

 There are a lot of Sailor Moon toiletries, toothbrushes, bubble bath, hairbrushes and more. In that illustrious tradition we bring you the Sailor Moon Bath Salts Set:

There are actually several sets of Japanese bath salts sets, but this one is our favorite since it has individual packets in their own box and each packet has unique images on the front and the back . The best one by far is Tuxedo Mask who takes his top hat and mask into the tub with him. Though the weird fish in with Luna is also an eyebrow raiser. On the subject of Luna, she must sort of fail at being a cat if she needs bath salts and a bath instead of just grooming herself normally.

We don't read much Japanese so we sadly don't know what scents these are, but we're pretty sure if we were to use these 20 year old bath salts, which we aren't because we don't want to be zombies, but we feel confident we'd end up Sailor fresh and ready to take on evil.

~Stephanie

PS We have this same set available in our store right now. If you buy them and decide to open them please let us know what they smell like.  :)

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Princess Chibiusa Flu Mask

 This is one of those things that's odd in it's practically. It's a completely utilitarian useful item made crazy with weird branding. So here is the official Sailor Moon Chibiusa Flu Mask:

 This is an officially licensed item from Korea, but seems like it ought to be a bootleg. We have a LOT of crazy Sailor Moon stuff, but this is one of the strangest. Flu Masks are pretty ubiquitous all over Asia during cold and flu season,  but they're usually the white variety or occasionally have a little pattern on them. This one lets you have all the Princess Chibiusa in the middle of your face which is a little weird. It's a child sized mask, a very small child sized mask, so we can't just put it on and show you how strange looking it is.

On the upside it's got a princess Chibiusa on it and there aren't many items which feature her. It's pretty unique too, we've only seen 3 of these. It's probably a good thing though a sea of these things would be creepy.

~Stephanie

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