CocoSori 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid - Single Review (Type A Edition)

 A while back when I posted my giant Zenmarket haul, I managed to get my hands on the Type A edition of CocoSori's Japanese single 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid. I did a review of the Type B edition last year which you can read here! The editions are quite similar so this review will be quite short as I've covered most of the stuff in the Type B edition review.

CocoSori 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid - Type A Edition

愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid was released by duo CocoSori in August 2016. The single was released exclusively by Tower Records in Japan and was only available through their online or physical store. The single came in two editions: Type A and Type B. Type A only came with the title song 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid and the instrumental. Type B included 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid and the original Korean version of the girls Korean single Exquisite. I got Type A for my collection and it was on sale on the Tower Records online store when I brought it. Type A comes with the following content:

• CD - 2 Track album
• Jewel case
• Lyrics booklet
• Promotional Flyer

The single has a beautiful sea/beach inspired design which is gorgeous and features the girls in different outfits to the Type B edition. The back has the track listing and information about the single which is mostly about social media links.

The interior of the single is stunning with some cute photos of Coco and Sori. The CD features another gorgeous design just like the Type B edition. Honestly this one Japanese single the group released has one of the best single designs I've seen from groups. The CD actually has a image on it rather than a standard pattern and the photos are of high quality. You also get a little promotional flyer about the events the girls held in Japan. Quite an old flyer considering I brought my single in 2019 years after the single was released and the group disbanded not a while ago too.

Mega Zenmarket Haul!

So I brought a few things off Zenmarket recently. Well more than a few actually. I swear this site will drown me in CD's eventually. Managed to tick a large number of releases off my wishlist with this order. All these items came from Yahoo Auctions, Bookoff and Tower Records. Some are brand new and others are used. Here's all the CD's I brought in this order which boy was an effort to ship here. Never going to ship this many CD's ever again as the shipping wasn't the cheapest thing. It always reminds me of that joke from the Australia episode of the Simpsons where the guy goes '900 Hundred dollary doos?!?' That's my thought whenever I see shipping costs to Australia haha. There was so many CD's I had trouble trying to get them all into frame. But I did save a lot of money buying these CD's as some were quite rare and expensive when they first came out. I'll list all the titles in later paragraphs because the list is quite long.

First off is the albums from KARA who I'm trying to complete my collection of. These are all new additions to my collection apart from The First Bloooooming which I already own. Finally got my hands on the Type B of Fantastic Girls which was something I was after last year. And got a copy of the Japan Tour Special Edition of Super Girl which I didn't have! It doesn't have a super amount of new content compared to the first editions of the album but the cover is pink! Here's the list of the KARA albums:

• The First Bloooooming
• 1st Mini Album
• Super Girl Japan Tour Special Edition - CD+DVD
• Girls Forever - CD+DVD
• Girls Forever - CD Only First Press
• Girls Forever - CD+PHOTOBOOK
• Fantastic Girls - Type B CD+DVD

Next is the KARA singles because they wouldn't all fit in the same photo as the albums. I've always loved the single designs of KARA's Japanese singles and I quite like how they are all standard jewel case releases so I can store them all together. Electric Boy would have to be my favourite design out of the bunch. A few doubles here with the singles which I'll just sell for cheap. I already got three of these last year off Zenmarket. A nice surprised was from the seller I brought the next set from included Ji Young's version of French Kiss which I wasn't expecting. I was over the moon to see if included with the set as I was planning on collecting it and it was brand new too. Here's the list of the KARA singles:

• Electric Boy - Limited Edition A CD+DVD
• Electric Boy - Limited Edition B CD+PHOTOBOOK
• Electric Boy - Limited Edition C CD Only First Press
• Speed Up/Girls Power - Type A CD+DVD
• Speed Up/Girls Power - Type B CD+DVD
• Speed Up/Girls Power - Type C CD Only First Press
• Bye Bye Happy Days! - Type A CD+DVD
• Bye Bye Happy Days! - Type B CD+DVD
• Bye Bye Happy Days! - Type C CD Only First Press
• Thank You Summer Love - Limited CD+DVD
• Thank You Summer Love - CD Only First Press
• French Kiss - Limited CD+DVD
• French Kiss - Limited CD+DVD Ji Young Version

My K-Pop Collection 2018

The other week I posted my J-Pop Collection for 2018 so it's now time for my K-Pop Collection for 2018! I only brought a few new additions for my K-Pop collection this year as I was focusing more on Japanese releases. Most of the new K-Pop albums and singles I got this year were releases from 2018 and others were cheap ones I came across. Just like with my J-Pop collection post, I'll be listing everything at the end as well as any reviews I have posted of the albums and singles. So here's a picture of all my K-Pop albums and singles and boy was it a pain to get them to sit up for this. I think next time I'll have to find somewhere bigger for the photo or take separate ones as K-Pop releases are much larger than standard jewel cases.

First off is something I haven't posted about on Marzipan Wonderland yet. Last month I brought a Crayon Pop single that I had been wanting for ages. It's the groups 4th single Bar Bar Bar and it's hard to come by. Most copies I usually see were quite pricey however I got this one for 950JPY from Japan. So excited to add this to my Crayon Pop collection as they are one of my favourite groups. No other additions to my Korean Crayon Pop collection so here's a quick picture of all the releases together.

The one I.O.I release I was missing from my collection was re-issued earlier this year so I picked it up for my collection. The mini-album I got was Miss Me? which is the groups second physical release. I think Chrysalis still has my favourite packaging out of the three but it's the hardest to store for me. I always have it standing up because it's difficult to put in my bookshelf on it's side with other albums.

Added a new group to my collection this year and that was WJSN! I've always kinda been interested in the group but not on a serious level. I got the groups 1st Album Happy Moment as a random buy into town one day and the Dream Your Dream mini album was a purchase from Japan. I mainly picked it up as it was incredibly cheap and I was interested in collecting the groups releases. I've actually ordered their first mini album Would You Like? and it should be here next month.

CocoSori 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid - Single Review (Type B Edition)

Quirky K-Pop group CocoSori have only released one Japanese single, but it is one amazing single! The girls released their debut Japanese single 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid in 2016. I have a copy of the single so I thought I'd do a quick review of it.

愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid

愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid was released by duo CocoSori in August 2016. The single was released exclusively by Tower Records in Japan and was only available through their online or physical store. The single came in two editions: Type A and Type B. Type A only came with the title song 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid and the instrumental. Type B included 愛しのマーメイド Itoshi no Mermaid and the original Korean version of the girls Korean single Exquisite. I got a copy of Type B of the single and boy was it difficult to get hold of. Originally I ordered it through YesAsia as they had is listed as for sale. My order got cancelled so I switched to Type A, but that got cancelled again. Turns out they never actually had it for sale and it was only available through Tower Records at the time. Luckily I knew someone who lived in Japan and they brought a copy of the single for me which was absolutely lovely.

The single comes in a jewel case and only comes with the CD and a lyrics booklet. No OBI or photobook in either type of the single. The design of the single is beautiful and has a seaside theme to the photos. The CocoSori logo is printed in the group's style from that time period (the logo was changed for the Mi Amor comeback). The front and back covers feature stunning photos of Coco and Sori as does the interior of the CD case. The actual CD has a picture of the girls strolling along the beach. This is one of the more unique CD designs I've seen from K-Pop and J-Pop ones.

CocoSori Mini Album Vol.2 Mi Amor - Album Review

One of my favourite K-Pop groups CocoSori brought out an exciting new single recently and now it's time for a review of the mini album that was released for the single. The title of album is Mini Album Vol.2 - Mi Amor and was released in Feburary 2018.

Mi Amor Front Cover

The album only comes in one version and the single was funded through the crowd funding website Kickstarter. There was quite a few tiers you could support starting from 3000JPY (about $36AUD) which is pricer than most basic tiers in other Kickstarters I have seen. There was even tiers for 300,000JPY (a crazy $3669AUD!!) which included the latex outfit from one of the girls from their Dark Circle song. I didn't support the Kickstarter myself, but it achieved a total of over 2 million JPY which is amazing!

The Mi Amor album is about the size of a standard DVD case but not as wide. I like this size of K-Pop albums as they are easy to store and give the appearance of a book which I quite like. The Mini Album includes the following contents:

• CD- 6 Track Album
• Photobook - 20 Pages
• Photo Postcard - Random from 2 designs.

Interior of album with photo postcard.

The design of the album has a beautiful red and white aethestic to it to fit in with the latin feel of the Mi Amor song. The album is quite sturdy which I always appreciate and the CD sits in a proper CD holder unlike most K-Pop albums which just have the CD stuck on a felt circle thing. It is better for international shipping as well as it helps hold the CD in place during shipment. There's nothing worse than receiving a package to find the CD has been rolling around in the album the whole time.

Mi Amor - Back Cover.

Mi Amor - CD Case.

The photo book is gorgeous! Even though it's only 20 pages, there are some stunning photos inside and the photo book is well presented. The lyrics are included for all the songs on the album and the lyrics are written in both Korean and Japanese. I like how the girls cater to their Japanese fan base as well as their Korean one. I feel they could be incredibly successful in Japan if they focused on it and released songs like Orange Caramel's Japanese tracks. A list of thank yous and production notes are also included. Here are some photos of most of the pages in the photo book.

YesAsia Haul - MOMOLAND & CocoSori Mini Albums

Received a package from YesAsia recently which had two new k-pop albums I had ordered. The main reason for this order was for CocoSori's new mini album Mi Amor which is gorgeous. I will post a more detailed review of the album soon, but for now I'll just post a photo so you can enjoy the beauty of the album. The other album I received was MOMOLAND's recent one Great! I was excited to receive this as it's my first MOMOLAND album and I love the concept the group has for this mini album. I've been on the fence for a while about getting into the group but since I heard their latest song Bbbom Bboom, I've become a fan! Like the CocoSori album, I'll be posting a more detail review at a future date of Great!

CocoSori's Mi Amor & MOMOLAND's Great!

The albums had photo cards in them and I was super lucky to receive the CocoSori one I wanted. I was hoping to get the red dress one as the other one was similar to the cover photo and I wanted to get something different. You can see in the photo that it is quite big for a photo card! With the MOMOLAND album, I got the photo cards of Yeonwoo and Daisy. I was excited for Daisy as she has been one of my faves in the group. JooE is my bias in the group because who cannot love her for her craziness and humour.

Interior of Mi Amor with the photocard.

Photocards from the Great! album.

February Favourites

Another month has passed again and it seems 2018 is going too fast! As usual, I spelt February wrong in the title of this post. It's just one of those words I can never spell. Anyway, I didn't get up too much this month but here's my Feb Favourites!

Gaming
This month I've been playing Style Boutique 3 quite a lot (what a surprise) and I've been focusing on collecting all the clothing and accessory items. It's going quite well and I've a sizeable dent in the collection. Thankfully there is no storage limit at the boutique so that makes it much easier to not have to delete items for room like you had to do in previous games. In my game currently, I've just hit the start of spring and there was some new items to collect for the new season. I found summer was quite difficult as there was a lot of season specific items like bikini tops and sandals. So those took out a large chunk of money. At one point I was down to $25,000 but luckily now I've climbed back past $150,000. Trying to save up a lot to buy all the most expensive items like Enid Chen and Purple Moon soon.

Best sales day ever!

Music
This month I discovered some amazing songs. I know I'm late to the party, but Momoland's Bboom Bboom is one of the best K-Pop songs I've heard for years! I'd been following the group a while ago and I was interested in becoming a fan and this new album finally hooked me in! I love Bboom Bboom as it reminds me of classic Crayon Pop songs and I'm a sucker for quirky concepts. I've ordered the Great album so that will be exciting when it arrives.

One of my favourite groups CocoSori finally had a comeback with Mi Amor. It's a nice latin feel track with a great instrumental. I enjoy the song, but I wish CocoSori had stuck with their quirky image. I guess they went with the generic sound to try to appeal to a wider audience but I've seen a lot of fans aren't happy with it and the album isn't selling well. I've ordered the album so it should be good when it rocks up as I'm waiting to see the photo book. For some reason, blogger won't link to the MV of Mi Amor so here is the dance version. The MV version is available on youtube so just search it up if you are interested.

Lastly the queen of trot delivered another hit recently! Hong Jin Young brought out a new song titled Goodbye and I loved it from the first listen. I've always been a huge fan of hers and her singing is just beautiful. Plus she streams on twitch which is always hiralious.

Art 
A while ago I brought this book called How to Draw Almost Everyday by Chika Mayata. The book illustrates and provides instructions on how to draw simple and cute drawings every day of the year. I've been working through it since the start of the year and it's been great so far. I will post a review of it sometime in the future.

Sewing
Started a new sewing project this month which is a jacket. I've never made a jacket before so it should be interesting. I'm using this beautiful Japanese style vintage fabric that a friend gave me with the Simplicity 8418 in style A. I'm making it without the motifs on the back part of the jacket.

   

My K-Pop Collection 2017

During 2017, I focused mainly on building up my Japanese Pop collection and didn't really work much on my Korean Pop collection in terms of physical albums. I did purchased a lot of digital albums this year from a variety of groups. This post will only look at my current physical album collection though. Here is a photo of all my albums which are a lovely selection of crazy sizes.

The albums in my collection include:

• Crayon Pop - Evolution Pop_Vol.1
• I.O.I - Mini Album Volume 1 - Chrysalis (Special Edition)
• T-ARA - Mini Album Volume 11 - So Good
• Strawberry Milk - The 1st Mini Album 
• Crayon Pop - 2015 Mini Album Volume 2 - FM
• Orange Caramel - The Fourth Single - My Copycat/Do It Like Me
• Orange Caramel - The Third Single - Catallena
• I.O.I - Single Album - Whatta Man
• Crayon Pop - Single Album - Uh-Ee
• Hong Jin Young - Mini Album Vol 2 - The Most Beautiful Moment In Life
• AOA - Vol 1 - Angel's Knock (Taiwan Version A)
• April - Single Album Vol 1 - Boing Boing
• Red Velvet - Vol 1 - The Red
• Girls Generation - 2011 Girls Generation Tour (2CD + Photobook)
  
• Crayon Pop - Mini Album - Streets Go Disco (Australian Version)
• Girls Generation - The Boys (US Version)

Crayon Pop makes up the largest part of my collection as they were one of my favourite groups whilst they were still together as a five-member group. Nowadays they don't release anything, so I haven't had anything new to add to my collection. The Evolution Pop album I ordered from KpopMart which I had never used before. I enjoyed getting the free poster, but I was surprised the order reached me as the box was badly beaten up when I received it. I also found (and I know other fans found it as well) that the product was faulty and the CD's weren't held in place well. I easily fixed mine but I heard you could've sent it back or something. I was lucky enough to get the Australian version of Streets Go Disco a few years ago when the group had a deal to sell the album at a local music store chain. The one thing that I don't like about the Crayon Pop albums is the fact they don't come with photocards (the ones I have didn't come with any). FM would've been an amazing album to have photo cards for!

Crayon Pop collection

Orange Caramel is another favourite group of mine and I'm so disappointed that they no longer promote as a group. Cmon on Pledis, just announce that After School and Orange Caramel are disbanded already and put me out of my misery!! Anyway I only have two physical Korean albums from the group and I would collect more if they weren't ridiculously overpriced. One day I like to get the rest of their Korean singles and albums, but for now I'll just stick with the digital versions.

Orange Caramel collection

My J-Pop Collection 2017

This year I added quite a few new albums and singles to my Japanese Pop collection. 2017 was the year I started getting into collecting albums from E-girls and Dream Ami. This month I finally got the last Dream Ami single I was missing to complete my singles collection! Besides those artists, I got a few new albums from some of my favourite groups such as After School and KARA. I got very lucky and managed to get a set of Girls Talk and two Super Girl albums extremely cheap from a seller in Japan. I was so happy when I found them as they are hard to come across, especially the limited edition ones. Here is a photo of my J-Pop collection at the end of 2017. These are all the physical single and albums I have, I have a lot of musically digitally as well.

The albums in my collection include:

• KARA - Girls Talk - Type C (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Super Girl - Type C (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Super Girl - Type A CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Girls Forever - Type A CD+DVD (Taiwan Edition)
• KARA - Best Girls - Type C 2CD's (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Mamma Mia! - Type A CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Girl's Story - CD+DVD (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Bang! - Type C CD Only
• AFTERSCHOOL - Diva - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Heaven - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Lady Luck/Dilly Dally - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition
• AFTERSCHOOL - Dress To Kill - CD+DVD+Photobook (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - RaRiRuRe - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Dancing All Night - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Crayon Pop - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Pop!Pop!Pop! - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• AOA - Runway - Type C CD+DVD (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu  - PAMYUPAMYU Revolution (Hong Kong Edition)
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Pika Pika Fantajin (Australian Edition)
• CocoSori - Itoshi no Mermaid - Type B
• Pungdeng-E - Pungdeng-E 1st Japanese Album Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa
• Orange Caramel - Lipstick/Lum no Love Song - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• Orange Caramel - ORANGE CARAMEL - CD+DVD (Hong Kong Edition)
• Orange Caramel - Yasashii Akuma - CD+Photobook (Taiwan Edition)
• E-girls - Lesson 1 - CD+DVD+Photobook (Taiwan Limited Edition)
• E-girls - E.G. Time - CD+DVD (Taiwan Edition)
• Dream Ami - Dress wo Nuida Cinderella - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Try Everything - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Lovefool - Sukidatte Itte - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Hayaku Aitai - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Kimi no Tonari - CD Only

Kara makes up the largest part of my collection and they were the first k-pop group I got into many years ago when I first started listening to the genre. I'm hoping to collect the last album I'm missing which is Fantastic Girls next year. I have a number of After School and Orange Caramel (After School's subunit) singles and albums, but I have some more in digital form and haven't got the physical ones yet. Dress To Kill was a great buy that I found this year. I brought the Taiwan edition which was about $40 cheaper than the Japan edition of the exact same CD+DVD+Photobook edition.

KARA Collection

AFTERSCHOOL Collection

Orange Caramel Collection

When buying J-Pop singles, I usually get the CD Only edition as it comes with the instrumentals and occasionally bonus tracks. Plus they are always the cheaper edition to buy. With albums, I try to get the DVD edition and occasionally the photobook as well if it comes in the same edition. However these editions often are extremely expensive or out of print. I often buy the Taiwan edition of albums as it is a cheaper price than the Japanese versions and comes with the same content (sometimes more!). I recently got the Taiwan edition of the E-girls album Lesson 1 and it was a good buy as it came with the CD plus a DVD of the music videos and a 64 page photobook. I also have the Taiwan edition of E.G. Time which came with the CD and DVD of the music videos. This year I managed to collect all the singles from Dream Ami who is my favourite solo artist. The covers of her singles are just gorgeous, I just can't pick which one is my number one favourite. I did not buy her recent album though as it was quite expensive for how many songs I didn't own (was only missing four which were new ones), so I just brought the seperate songs on iTunes. I'm hoping maybe one day to find the CD+DVD+Photobook edition cheap second hand if I ever go to Japan.