Shop Spotlight: Doujin Binsen Japanese Fan Stationery

Welcome to another Shop Spotlight, where we feature some of the fun collectibles available at www.avaneshop.com. Hopefully you'll find the next piece for your collection or a great gift for a friend.

Today we're going to focus on items which aren't really well known or well collected in the west, Doujin Binsen. Often times the same circles and fan artists who make full doujinshi also make specialty stationery with unique art. This stationery is produced in very small quantities and sold at conventions like Comiket. Since they're made in such small batches, with most designs you're likely to only see them once, making them a unique collectible. Much like pencil boards, while they can be used for their intended purpose (usually one side or section has lines for writing) most people collect them in presentation books, effectively making your own one of a kind art book.

We carry a variety of Binsen based on popular anime, manga and games. Most we have as only a single sheet for collectors but with a few we have multiple sheets available if you want to send your closest friends a note on some unique Sailor Moon stationery.

Here's a few of our favorite designs:

Final Fantasy Sephiroth by Dark Ocean. This is a gorgeous design of one of the most beloved villains in the history of the Final Fantasy Franchise. This is a single sided long sheet and frankly would be terrible for writing a letter. It is however pretty fabulous for looking at if you're Sephiroth fan. We only have this single sheet, and for $4 Sephiroth can be making your collection a little sexier.

Pokemon Binsen by 200l Spring and Esorogoto. This is a double sided sheet with a full color side and a side with a few Pokemon and blank space for writing. This one has a particularly adorable umbreon and pikachu. Amusingly, Onyx at the top looks as though he's photo bombing. Most amusingly though is probably the misspelling of "PocketMonstars" A very unique $4 piece for your Pokemon collection.

 

Howl's Moving Castle Binsen by what seems to be a combination of 4 circles/artists. Really great illustration of several incarnations of  Howl on the display side and on the other side there's a few lines for writing and a super cute Sophie. Unlike most of our binsen we have several sheets of this design, but it's still sold   by sheet $2 each.

Sailor Moon Binsen by Azuma Higashino. We have a couple of different Sailor Moon designs but this one is our favorite. This is double sided, the display side has Uranus and Neptune and back side was a few writing lines and a cute image of Usagi and Rei. This has a nice monochromatic color scheme, green on the Uranus and Neptune, red for the Usagi and Rei  side. We have a couple of sheets $4 each.

Xenosaga Binsen by Dark Ocean. This is a single sheet design so the back is blank. Really pretty full color art on this sheet, some bending on the corners, but otherwise a beautiful unique collectible. Only one sheet available for $3.



We have a wide variety stationery available on the site more doujin sheets in a variety of styles as well as some more conventional sets and a few Furoku sets. Plenty of pretty paper for collecting or writing. There is sure to be something perfect for your collection.

~Stephanie


Don't forget to stop by our shop:

NaBloWriMo, it's like a Tonberry

It's November 1st the first exciting day of the first year of NaBloWriMo and NaNoWriMo if you're way cooler than we are and doing that.

I thought I'd start off with the sort of entry I started off this blog intending to make. An entry that helps us chronicle our large and often silly collection of geeky items ( Hence the subtitle a collection of geekery) and is hopefully helpful and/or entertaining to others who share our interests.

So I'm going to focus on one of the most recent additions to our collections, a plush Tonberry.

We generally avoid plushies, but just couldn't resist this one, I personally am an especially big fan of his little fishy tail.

Tonberries have been present in some form since Final Fantasy 5 (initially known as dingleberries or Pugs in the NA releases), but my first experience with a Tonberry came in Final Fantasy 7. I was making my way to the final battle in the Northern Cave, I'd been playing for I'd guess around an hour since the last save point when a Tonberry popped up. First I was confused.

This thing is so tiny and cute! What's it doing down here? All these other monsters are huge and terrible. Hee Hee look at his little knife, and that cute little star.*

*As though facing a tonberry completely obliviously isn't bad enough, this was a MASTER Tonberry as well.

So I attacked and it counterattacked the party with "everyone's grudge", it hurt of course, but it wasn't totally life threatening especially given the ridiculously high level we were all on. So I healed up and kept attacking and he kept counter attacking, while slowly moving forward.

I wonder why it's moving. Ha! It feel down, That's so cute!

This line of thinking continued until it made it to one of my party members (Cloud probably) and used "Chef's Knife"

Hee Hee, Doink! Even it's attacks are cu... HEY WTF! CLOUD'S DEAD! THAT REALLY HURT

I foolishly convinced myself that chefs knife was probably something like 1000 needles, it hurt the crap out of you, but you could handle it assuming the rest of the party was in good shape. Besides it was small and cute how many hit points could it really have left? I'd been pummeling it for at least a dozen turns now and unleashed a few limit breaks. I could handle this...

Later, staring at the game over screen.

F@$#$%*^% !!!!! I haven't saved in soo long, how could something so cute be so awful!

I think this little tale makes an excellent analogy for doing NaBloWriMo for me. Right now, it seems fun and easy and totally conquerable. However, I'm betting that by months end I'm going to be wondering why I didn't just turn and run as soon as I saw it. Luckily, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a chef's knife, so I may just make it out OK this time.

~Stephanie