Kawaii characters: Kuromi

I decided to resurrect this little series of mine about kawaii characters! 

If you are a long-time reader of mine, you might remember I did an entry about Kiiroitori some years ago! I guess the point of this series was so reveal the backstories and information about kawaii characters that might fall in the shadow of the most popular ones (like Hello Kitty, My Melody and the like). Also, if you are into kawaii stuff, knowing more about it is never wrong, right? 

Well, today I will inform you about the 
ever mischievous rival of My Melody, namely: 

Kuromi!

Profile:

• Name: Kuromi
  
• Birthday: October 31 (Halloween).
• Personality: Although she looks punky she acts very girlish and she loves handsome guys.
• Hobby: She enjoys writing in her diary. These days, she's into romance stories.
• Favorite colors: Black and Hot Pink.
• Favorite food: Shallots, all kinds of meat, and in recent Kuromi merchandise cherries have been shown. 
   

Kuromi looks like the "evil-version" of My Melody, like you could imagine those "nice angels" and "evil angels" on someones shoulder! However, even though Kuromi is the rival of My Melody, her reason for not liking her is pretty silly. Kuromi loves writing in her diary, and once, according to history, My Melody swiped a page from her diary to wipe Piano the Sheeps nose, and since then Kuromi has furiously recorded every "miss-doing" My Melody has ever caused her. The problem is ,though, that My Melody is most often oblivious to Kuromis reasons to be angry, and most of the incidents are just accidents built on missunderstandings and the like. *sigh* it´s a though world, ey?
My Melody is actually quite into the idea of befriending Kuromi, she doesn´t understand the wrong-doings she causes her at all!

Well, something else that is interesting about Kuromi is that she has a devils-tail and that is her weak point! If anyone were to step on it, she would pass out! Also, sources have it that the pink skull on her cap changes it´s expression according to her mood!

Something I surely didn´t know before I checked her out more, was that she appears in an anime beside My Melody, called "Onegai My Melody"! (This is certainly on my to-watch list!). There she is the leader of a though biker-gang, with 5 members. Those are :

• Nyanmi, the purple cat
• Wanmi, the orange dog
• Konmi, the white fox
• Chumi, the grey and white rat

They all wear black and drive around in a menacing fashion!

Now, there isn´t too much else I can say without spoiling further into her anime-apperance, so I´ll leave that up to you to find out  ;-) 

Are you a Kuromi fan?

Here are some nice Kuromi things I found that you can get online!

It´s always great to expand that kawaii-character collection <3

Kuromi pillow-case

Kuromi and my melody soap-dispensers set

 Kuromi totebag

Kuromi handmade iphone 6 case

Kuromi jewelry box

Well, that´s it for now! I hope you enjoyed a brief introduction to the diverse and adorable character of  Kuromi! ^^ It was really interesting to get to know more about this character! She is quite underappreciated in my opinion! Did you enjoy the entry?

Please let me know what kawaii character you think I should write about next,
in the comments below! ^^ Thank you for reading!

ღ School Idol festival: Love Live! game! ღ

I have wanted to make this little post about a game-app that I have been really into on my iphone lately. First of all I can mention how surprised I was to find a japanese game like this for international usage! It was acctually by discovering the game that I got into the anime it is based on! I guess it´s been some months now since I started playing, but I am still into it, and I know a lot of others like it too, so I thought "hey, why not share it even more people?".
So there you go, a small review coming up of:

Love Live! School Idol Festival

First of all, if you are familiar with the anime series Love Live!, these characters will look familiar to you! They are the exact same as from the show, and they even have the same voices when they speak!

This game is a typical "tap-tap" game, as one of my classmates informed me they were called, meaning that it is a rythmic tapping game, that allows you to tap the beat while you listen to a song! If it sounds weird when described, just think about how the classical game "guitar hero" works.

When you first get started with the game, you have to choose a "leader" for your "main-team". I was really nervous about doing this, because I thought it might mean that this was my permanent leader! Don´t worry too much about it though, because it´s possible to change the characters position around.

The point of the game is to make an idol group consisting of 9 members that you level up and raise to stardom! You can level your main status as well as the characters own status.

The game interface is quite easy to understand. Here is the "home" page:

I took this from my own phone, so you can easily see how the english interface is.
The EXP up on top shows how far I´ve got to go to level-up my over-all level. And the LP on the side shows how much "stamina" I have to play games. Each gameplay takes a certain amount. You can fill up your LP either by waiting for it to do so automatically (but that takes some time) or you could use hearts. Hearts can be bought at the "shop" for a certain amount of real money, and sometimes you get them in the gameplay also, but I´ll leave that for you to find out ;-)

At first when I started out I was really nervous about not getting the whole "build a good team" thing. The game is made up like a "fantasy-card-game-look-alike" when it comes to the characters. Whenever you play a song, afterwards, depending on your score, you get new recruits that you can choose from to put into your team! 

 

You always need to have atleast 9 members to have a usable team, and you can make up to 5 teams in total. As well as using the hearts for getting back your LP, you can also use it to "recruit special 

members". The "special members" are all different versions of the main 9 girls from the actual anime.

"Regular scouting" is for getting the same kind of characters you could get when just playing the game, so it only demands something called "friend-points" also something you get while playing and interacting with other players. You will get more into that part once you get started. 

The "cards" come in loads of different versions. If you happen to get two of the same kind, you can put them together and thereby "idolize" them. When you do, they get into a special outfit and their abilities grow accordingly, as well as their highest level. These special ones help you get higher scores! The character-card above, that I found online, is such an example! The regular ones usually just wear school uniforms or very simple clothing. As well as idolizing, you can ofcourse level each character up! To do so, you need to "practice" them. You can use other members that you have collected when playing songs or actively scouted for practice, but remember
that if you use a member for this purpose, the character will dissapear.
Therefore it´s a good idea to only use the ones you don´t want to keep. 

All your character cards can be found in your "club member list". The ones currently in a team will be marked, and you also get a "warning" if you accidentally choose a member that is currently in a team, for practicing!

 

You get a tracklist when you play. It looks something like this.

The scores you get in each song is reflected in the trophies on top of each song. As you can see there is different "levels" all of the songs, from "easy" to "hard"! in the corner up there you can also see a button that says "b-sides". If you click it, you will find special songs that change every few days. In this category, you also find the "expert" level of gameplay, which is the hardest level.

Lastly, 

I thought I´d show you some actualy gameplay, so that you kind of get the idea of how it works. 

This is a song played in "hard mode" from the "B-sides"
that I found on youtube.

Well! As a last little treat, I thought I´d list my top 5 favourite tunes to play!

1.  Cutie Panther
2. Snow Halation
3. Shiranai Love * Oshiete Love 
4. After school navigators
5. Donna Toki mo Zutto 

 

 

 

Do you play Love Live! School Idol festival?
What is your favourite song? 

I hope you liked this little review/info-post about this game! It is really fun and quite addicting once you get into it, but I´d really reccomend it if you are into J-pop and cute anime. You can get it for both apple and android products in their respective stores!
Let me know what you think in the comments below! ^^

Hope you enjoyed this entry<3

Sweet tips + art update

Hey!

Today I wanted to make a small update with some art I have made recently, 

and also a recommendation for you all! ^0^

I´ve quickly mentioned it before, but recently I have been reeeeeally into reading a manga called 

Yumeiro Patissiere

It´s about a girl named Ichigo, who loves eating cakes and sweet treats, and she has a very refined taste for them. One day she is picked out to start at a school for confections and baking, 

so she can learn more about making cakes! ^^

There she meets others who likes baking, and she also meets the sweets spirits. The sweets spirits are small, fairy-like creatures that has been sent to earth from the sweets kingdom to learn about making sweets and cakes! So, they have to choose a human to be their partner. 

Ichigo meets a sweets spirit called "Vanilla" (whose speciality is vanilla flavoured things)

 and they become great friends <3

After a while she figures out some of the others also have sweets spirits, and they all have specialities they are good at (and their names usually give them away ;-3 ) 

I love this manga because it features gorgeous shoujo art, and tons of details just drowned in cuteness ;v; Seriously, even though either Ichigo or any of the others are lolitas, 

they dress in super frilly clothing with tons of adorable alice-like details, 

bows, buttons, frills, lace, pintucks and sparkly little gems all over the place. So If, you are looking for a cute comic to read, that can fit with your sweet image, or just to please your kawaii-craving soul, look no further, this is it! It is an incredibly cute story, filled with all the most delicious and dreamy treats you could ever imagine ( new ones in every chapter!),  combined with adorable fashion and wonderfully sweet shoujo faces (enormous glittery eyes anyone???) and elaborate cute hairstyles. Forever a favourite in my heart, now that I´ve found it. I wish to purchase the actual manga books as soon as I can afford it, and I will try to watch the anime series as well. For now, I´ve just got to settle with reading it online as it updates >.<"

Since I completely fell in love with this series, I couldn´t stand not making any kind of fan art to show my appreciation of it, and thus.... these two pictures where made :3 

This drawing I made about 1-2 weeks ago, using paint tool sai ^^ I am very pleased with the result, and I think it is the prettiest digital drawing I´ve ever made ;v; 

So I am actually quite proud of it, and not afraid to say so! 

It is Vanilla-chan, Ichigos sweets spirit! ^0^ I really love her design, so I just had to draw her! She has the cutest hairstyle, don´t you think? I had no idea what to put in the background, so I made some bows, and cakes (first time drawing digital food like this!).... I am sorry the cherry pie looks a bit derp, it´s my first time drawing it >.< I like how the cookie came out though! It looks like it has actual texture and everything :D yay!

 I also find it hard to draw gold, so the spoon might look a bit funny :-/... All in all though, I am really happy with it! ^0^ I hope you guys like it also! Please let me know what you think <3 

The second fanart picture I made, I finished only today! 

I have promised myself to draw more male characters this year, because I am quite bad at male anatomy and such >.< But I really like how (some of) this came out! I only used my own hands as reference, live-acting the poses, not even taking pictures while I drew ^0^

This is Kashino! One of the "sweets princes" that Ichigo befriends at the school. He is actually not the kind of guy to smile, but I wanted to make him look happy for once ^^ His sweets spirit is called Chocolate, so you can guess her speciality ;-3 hehe... 

The story of this picture is that Kashino just made that delicious café latte, mocca and physalis cake (with pocky topping) and he is letting us know that he couldn´t have done it without the help of his wonderful fairy friend, Chocolate ^^ hihi <333 

I made this only using photoshop for the colouring, so I know it´s not as good as the previous one... I really wanna become good at using photoshop also though, 

so I need to practice even though it´s kinda tedious at times >.<"""""

The one thing I see that is really off in this picture, is his shoulders... but I find it very hard drawing shoulders underneath clothing like that, so I guess that´s just something I´ll have to practice... 

Please let me know what you think of this one also!

So yeah, If you feel as enchanted about this adorable manga series as I do,

 and just wanna get to reading it straight away you can do so 

HERE

I, for one, can´t wait for the next updated chapter ;v;

 It fills me with fuzzy warm feelings when I read it.

Do you make fanart of things you like?

I hope you enjoyed todays cuteness tip, and artupdate!
Tuning out from kawaii-land, until next time, with more cute everyday life

Kawaii characters: Kiiroitori

Hellooo 

You all know about the massivly popular character Rilakkuma, 

and perhaps also his white female counterpart, Korilakkuma, too?

  I am a very big fan of both of them, especially Korilakkuma!

 Like, I think I could very well fill my room

 with korillakkuma stuff and be as happy as ever...

Well, in this entry, I´d like to talk about the third wheel on the ever so sucessfull bike, 

the little yellow character that often falls into the shadows of the other two.

 You know who I´m talking about, the one

 that most people (that I have talked to) don´t even know the name of! 

The bird Kiiroitori

picture from google

The word "Kiiroitori" means "yellow bird" in japanese. To further explain

 the story behind "Kiiro", you must go back to the origin of Rilakkuma.

 The story has it, that Rilakkuma just appeared one day, quite mysteriously, in the female office worker Kauro´s apartment. Rilakkumas name comes from the words "relax" and "kuma"

 (which means bear in japanese) being pulled together. Rilakkuma is essentially a very 

relaxed bear that has lazy and laid-back attitude. Korilakkuma has a "ko" in her name, 

to let people know that she is in fact a girl. Her biggest pleasure is to be mischievous, 

and play practical jokes on Rilakkuma.

Now,  Kiiroitori is a little bird that lives in Kauro´s house, being her pet chicken.

 He used to only live in a birdcage, but now he sneaks out 

to scold Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma for their lazy or mischiveous attitudes.

 His character as a bird is that of a cleaning, hard-working tsukkomi.

 A tsukommi is the character in a story that is smarter and more logical, and often 

criticises the others for making mistakes. Basically, he´s totally opposite from how Rilakkuma is. Sometimes he gets kind of sad, because he´s affraid he scolds them to much,

 so, pretty much he is a good guy deep down :3

picture from google

The reason I chose to write a bit about Kiiroitori today,

 is because I find that I have become more and more obsessed 

with this character. I think its kind of sad that he often gets ignored,

 atleast in the western population of the world...

 I adore that little round fluffball so much, 

I wanna buy loads of Kiiroitori merchandise =v= hohoho 

A good thing about being a fan of Kiiroitori internationally though,

 is that he is a relativly "unknown" character. Like earlier mentioned, not many 

seems to know his name, and he isn´t exactly the one flung all over peoples bedrooms

 when you search for kawaii things on tumblr either, so...

If you are after getting some things to show your appreciation 

of this highly underrated character, you can, in other words, get it quite cheaply! ^^

 lets fill our house with kawaii things 8D

Here is some awsome warps for 

Kiiroitori fans!

Get this medium sized Kiiroitori plush at EBAY for only 31$

 picture from ebay.

That is almost a 20$ difference to many of the Rilakkuma or Korilakkuma plushies they sell on Ebay...

Personally, I have fallen madly in love with these adorable little slippers, that I just HAVE to order 

as soon as I get the funds for that kind of things =v= 

Get your pair HERE for 24$

 picture from ebay.

And, you know that adorable Rilakkuma tote that is shaped like Rilakkumas head? 

The one that everyone seems to have ? 

Well, they acctually made one for Kiiroitori also ^^

 It has such a happy yellow colour! love it!<3

You can get it HERE for 20$ 

 picture from ebay

If you want something more discreet, there is tons of adorable keychains out there 

for you to pick from. "Kiiro" happens to be a very small character, so its quite natural

 to make so many tiny items of him x3 hehe

Also, for a even more subtle way of showing your affection, 

you could buy some really cute stickers! You probably won´t find sticker sheets 

containing only Kiiroitori stickers, but if you buy some of the kind with mixed characters, 

you will get quite a few of them eventually. Stickers is also a lovely way of 

decorating your letters, if you have a penpal.

 I love adding stickers to the letters I write <3 

Also, you could even get a Rilakkuma letter set, where you would 

probably find some designs involving "mr. fluffyball" :3 hihi

What do you think of Kiiroitori ?

Help spread the word of this cute little fellow around ^0^

 Kiiroitori needs love also! :---)

I hope you guys found some new Kawaii inspiration in this little info text. 

The next big holiday coming up is easter after all,

 so why not get a little head start? 

"Kiiro" is a chicken after all...

 I love learning about new kawaii characters, 

the producers make the cutest background story for them :3

 It keeps it exciting!

I hope to write soon again!

 And I hope you enjoyed

 this little obsession post x3 hehe