June Favourites

June has definitely been the fastest month of 2023 as I felt like I blinked and missed the entire thing. It feels like we were only just at the beginning and now it's the 3rd of July. June was a crazy month weather wise here with lots of rain and storms. There was an intense cold front which was horrible as I cannot stand the cold weather and having to wear thermals constantly. The rain hasn't been bad the last few days however it is going all next week. Anyway here is a cute pic of Pudge at his birthday this month in my Animal Crossing town. Too adorable!!!

Gaming

There was a good sale recently on the e-shop so I picked up some new titles. Mainly puzzle games as that is my favourite genre on the switch. I did get Pixel Paint 2 as I loved the first one except it doesn't work well with a stylus. So disappointing as the game is a billion times better using the stylus to colour. Whenever I try to use the stylus like I would in the first game, it just moves the screen around. So I haven't played that one much as colouring using the joy-cons is so boring and tedious. Also picked up the Island Cities game which is the sequel to Island Farmer. Another great game on the console and I've almost finished the Cities one already. A sequel Pretty Princess Party was released and it made me remember that I actually brought the first one and forgot. So silly and I cannot believe I hadn't played it until now. Only played a small bit as I've been busy and it is quite fun. Very cute and the mini games are exciting.

Books

Thought I would bring in a new section to the monthly favourites as all I tend to do nowadays read. Lately I've been kind of bored with Youtube so I decided to try out listening to an audiobook. I've always stayed away from them as I thought they would be difficult to follow and remind me of podcasts which my brain doesn't like listening to. So far I've listened to three Agatha Christie books and I'm hooked! I'm a big fan of mystery stories and these are enjoyable to play in the background whilst I do stuff. Plus I can add the reading stats to my Goodreads and Storygraph apps with the later having some great audiobook tracking.

Music

Has anyone else been watching Queendom Puzzle? I wasn't too sure about following it at first because I didn't enjoy Girls Planet 999. But some of the girls on the show are from my favourites groups so I tuned into the first episode. Now I'm hooked and have been taking part in the voting. Juri from Rocket Punch is my number one pick then I've been voting for Yeonhee as well.

TWICE 5th Mini Album What Is Love? - Album Review (B Version)

Ok who doesn't love the amount of inclusions you get in TWICE releases!? Just look at this all this cute stuff their What Is Love? mini album comes with! That is what I will be reviewing today as I thought it was time to post some mini albums from TWICE. This is a group that I have a few pieces from and they always look rather lovely on the shelf. The shop I ordered this from was sent a random version and I ended up with the B version. I quite like the cover of the A version but hey I'm happy with whatever just because it's TWICE!

What Is Love? is the fifth mini album from Korean girl group TWICE who we all know by now cause they are megastars. The mini album was released on April 10th 2018 and came in two versions: A and B. I purchased my copy through JB Hi-Fi as a special order and received it in a timely manner. It is always so fun opening a TWICE album to see what extras you get. What Is Love? comes with the following contents:

• CD - 6 track mini album (Random 1 out of 9 member plates)
• Photobook
• Photocards (Random 5 out of 90)
• Scratch card (Random 1 out of 9)
• Clear postcard (Random 1 out of 9)
• Random sticker (Random 1 out of 9)
• Lyrics booklet

April Favourites

The month of May snuck up on me and I completely didn't realise that April was over. May also started at the perfect time with it falling on a Monday which is the start of a new week for me. Haven't had a chance to get on my computer to blog until today so apologies for the late monthly favourites. A few weeks ago I went and saw the new Mario Bros movie which was fun! I'm a fan of Illumination movies in general so I quite enjoyed it. Toad was the best part of the movie and it would've been a billion times better if Wario or Waluigi made an appearance. I assume they are saving them for the sequels which I also hope Toadette appears as she is one of my faves. Went to San Churros afterwards as I was excited about getting my favourite toasty from them only to discover they had changed their menu :( I got a different toasty instead but it was nowhere near as good as the egg and bacon one.

Also came across this Pusheen Pop Vinyl which is rather bizarre. It is noted as a scented pop and it is indeed scented however it is a weird scent. Like a dull strawberry or scented sticker. I have a scented Polly Pocket from 1995 that has held onto its scent and smells way better than this. Anyway it is super cute and weird. I adore Pusheen merchandise so I had to get this one for my collection.

Gaming

Haven't been playing much besides jigsaw and pixel art games this month. That is pretty much all I use my switch for nowadays however I do have some games on pre-order. The next instalment in the Little Friends series is coming out in August and it is themed on a tropical island. It is called Puppy Island and looks adorable!!! Also pre-order the We Love Katamari remaster for the switch as I loved the first one and was surprised to see the second one get an actual physical release. I'm not too fond of buying physical games as I don't like storing them but it's cheaper to buy the physical one compared to digital. I don't think Little Friends is even listed on the eShop yet as I couldn't find it the other day when I looked.

Music

So I finally caved and got the TWICE album I had on order. Luckily my account had held the cheap price that the album was when I ordered it so it cost less than I was expecting. I ended up only getting the BE version as that had the best photobook in my opinion. Lots of lovely photocards as expected for TWICE and I was blessed with the members I got. I've become quite a fan of Dahyun lately so I was excited to receive her photocard.

TWICE Happy Happy - Single Review (Regular CD Only)

First music review of 2022 is TWICE's HAPPY HAPPY single! I've had these images saved on my computer for a while so I thought it would be a nice start to the year. I'm aiming to get more CD reviews posted on Marzipan Wonderland this year and it would be great to add more links to reviews in my end of year collection round-up. Let's get straight into it then!

HAPPY HAPPY is Korean girl group TWICE's fourth Japanese single and was released on July 17th 2019. The single was released in fourth editions: Limited Edition A CD+DVD, Limited Edition B CD+DVD, Regular CD Edition and a limited ONCE JAPAN Fanclub CD Edition. I brought the Regular CD Edition from a seller on Yahoo Auctions along with the Breakthrough single (which I have reviewed here!). Those two singles were released quite close together so it was easy to find them in a listing together. The copy of HAPPY HAPPY that I received came with the following contents:

• CD - 4 track single
• Jewel Case
• Lyrics Booklet
• OBI
• Photocard (10 to collect)
• IC Card Sticker

Loving the design of this single and it is a nice contrast to the Breakthrough design. The two singles have similar designs but feature the girls in both dark and fun concepts. The front cover of the single has the girls hanging out on a beach style backdrop with some delicious looking icecreams. The back cover is rather boring compared to the front but I've come to expect this from releases nowadays. No one puts effort into album designs much anymore. At least the fern looks nice and having the text rotated in a different direction is a fun touch.

K-Pop Haul - TWICE & Oh My Girl

My first K-Pop haul for 2021 is here! I've been taking a break from buying albums recently due to shipping costs and storage constraints. As my co-worker loves to say 'treat yo self!' so I decided to do just that and ordered some albums! I got these as imports through JB HiFi and it only took a few weeks for them to come in. I wasn't able to purchase them due to lockdowns which is understandable because safety is important. I picked them up recently and it was exciting to open all the goodies! The three releases I got are TWICE's 5th and 8th Mini Albums and Oh My Girl's 3rd Mini Album.

Never thought I would own so many TWICE releases! Like years ago when they first debuted, I enjoyed their songs but wasn't a group I thought about collecting. Their releases are quite easy to get hold of so it was only time. I already have a few mini's and Japanese singles from the group but wanted to build on my collection. I really wanted to get Yes or Yes but it wasn't available for order. So I went with some other mini albums that I enjoyed. You don't get to pick which version you get through JB HiFi as the supplier sends a random one. The first TWICE release I got was their 8th Mini Album Feel Special. Originally I wasn't planning on getting this one but after doing some research, I quite liked the album design so I decided to get it for my collection. I got given version B which is my favourite of the three as I love the outfits. A very early 2000's feel because I remember having clothes like this back then. Photocards galore which is typical of TWICE and you get some member specific items. I'm happy to get any member of the group as they are all so beautiful. Love that you get 6 photocards as my new photocard album which I posted about here has exactly 6 slots on each page. Now Feel Special can have it's own special page!

TWICE Haul!

Received a rather exciting package this week full of K-Pop goodies! Finally caved in and brought a photo album for my photocards. I got bored of them just sitting in a box so I picked up one off Aliexpress. Whilst I was purchasing it, I decided to grab a some other items from the seller and they are all TWICE themed! Here's a quick look at all the items!

The main part of this order was the photo album and I went with the standard sized album which holds 240 cards. It's designed for the normal Korean sized photo cards and only a few of Japanese ones fitted. So I shall have to get a bigger album for all my Japanese cards which is mostly Afterschool as I have heaps of those. When I put my photocards into the album, I left gaps so I could see the back artwork of the cards. It looks lovely and looks great when I have a few cards from a set! I'm not a photocard collector and I've manage to acquire quite a few over the years. Here are some photos of some random pages in my album with the Dreamnote and Momoland pages being my favourites.

Japanese Crayon Pop photocards

Back artwork of Nature & Dreamnote photocards

Dreamnote photocards from Dream:like & Dream:us

i.o.i & Nature photocards

K-Pop Haul - TWICE, BLACKPINK, MOMOLAND & DreamNote

Rounded up all my recent K-Pop purchases for a haul post! I brought these gems over the course of the last few months and thought I had a good amount to share on the blog. All of these CD's were brought from JBHIFI apart from DreamNote which I got from eBay. Here are all the beauties that I added to my collection!

First up is TWICE's 9th Mini Album 'More & More' in the B Version. Both this and the MOMOLAND album were special order items from JBHIFI, so the version you get is entirely random. I'm always happy with TWICE releases though as they have stunning photobooks and a wealth of photocards! The for the CD, I got Sana's which is gorgeous and I've included a photo of all the photocards I got. Can't believe this release had 100 photocards you could get! I can't imagine the pain collectors have to go through to get their faves.

Now onto DreamNote's 2nd Single 'Dream:us' which I brought from Korea on eBay. I'd been looking at getting this single for a while as I love the aesthetics and concept of the single design. I already had DreamNote's first single 'Dreamlike' which is another beautifully designed single. Plus I really like the songs on this single and look at how many photocards you get! Seems there are 22 to collect for this single and you get 4 each time, so it wouldn't take too long to collect them if there's a few fans around. I'm not sure if DreamNote is popular or not, I think they are cute and like buying their releases to support them.

Back to the JBHIFI purchases with MOMOLAND's special album 'Starry Night'. It seems like forever since I brought a new MOMOLAND release. It's weird to think I used to collect them all the time and then just stopped. I think once Daisy left and the group lost momentum, I kinda lost interest in getting their releases before others. Starry Night is a nice release and has some lovely photos of the girls. And it's nice to see a different shaped MOMOLAND Korean release for once after those giant albums we had for a while. I got a Nancy photocard which is great as I don't have too many of hers but I would've loved to have gotten Ahin's as I usually got hers.

Got two more BLACKPINK items for the collection! Amazingly I have quite a few releases from this group which is mainly because it's the only girl group JBHIFI stocks on a regular basis. I pre-ordered the 'How You Like That' single and you get quite a few posters with this release! This single is huge and is by far the tallest K-Pop release I own. The photobook is quite nice but not my favourite from the group. The other BLACKPINK release I got is the standard version of their first album 'The Album'. I did originally want to get one of the other versions when they first announced them but each album was $99 at the store. So I decided to pass as you can get them way cheaper online and it would've an expensive exercise to collect all the versions. Lucky for me, a standard CD only version was released shortly after and I even got it during the 20% music sale so it was even cheaper!

Seems my photocard box is getting quite full! It's pretty much reached the top after this haul. I just use this mirror jewellery box to store any photocards that will fit. I have more around the place that are too large and I usually keep those with their corresponding releases. I'm not planning on buying anymore Asian pop CD's in the next few months so at least it won't over flow soon.

Zenmarket Haul - AKB48, Apink, T-ARA, TWICE & S.O.A.P

Finally have some spare time after the busy retail Christmas season AND the post-Christmas sale season. I'm am so happy that everything has finally quietened down and it's not crazy hectic anymore. So it's time to post my recent haul from Zenmarket! I got these items back in December and I did a big order as I wanted to save on shipping. Luckily the 2 - 4 day shipping was only 300JPY more than the 3 month shipping! Zenmarket is currently not offering the usual DHL cheaper option that I normally use so it was tricky to calculate postage costs in my head. But when it came to the selection when the package was created, the DHL Express was the most suitable option so I went with that. Packaging was great and weighed just under 2kg. Anyway enough about boring logistics, let's take a look at the items!

I brought a bunch of releases that had been high priority on my wishlist for a while now and some were ones that are harder to come across. The main artist of this haul is AKB48 which I got 9 CD's of! I'm absoutely mad trying to start an AKB48 collection :P There's just so many to collect! The rest of the CD's are a mixture of K-Pop artists and one special Western release.

First up is the gem of my AKB48 collection so far! One of my favourite AKB48 A-sides is ハート・エレキ Heart Ereki and I searched all over Yahoo Auctions for a complete set of the single. Sure that was an easy task however so many listings didn't include the OBI :( I eventually found this set for 500JPY that had all the OBI's included! Yay! I'm in love with the concept of this single and all the versions look great together. I quite like the AKB48 version system as you get different songs on each version which is good value in my opinion. It's always annoying needing a certain version to complete a set and the content is the same as other versions. My favourite B-side is on Type B of this single which is 君だけにChu!Chu!Chu! by the Tentoumu Chu! sub-unit. This song is so adorable and I love all the songs by this unit. I wish they had actual singles or albums.

ハート・エレキ Heart Ereki Type A, Type K, Type B, Type 4 & Theatre Edition

Next up is a bunch of AKB48 albums and best albums. The ones I brought are  神曲たち Kamikyokutachi Theatre Edition, ここにいたこと Koko ni Ita Koto Theatre Edition, SET LIST〜グレイテストソングス〜完全盤〜 and 次の足跡 Tsugi no Ashiato Type B 2CD Regular Edition. I'm not sure which one is my favorite so far as I love them all! It took some searching for 次の足跡 Tsugi no Ashiato as I specifically wanted Type B and not many sellers were selling it with the OBI. Eventually found a random listing with nothing listed in the description so I took a chance and brought it! Item turned out great and it even came with a photo of a member (I'm not too sure who it is as I only really know certain early generation members).

TWICE - Breakthrough Review (Regular CD Edition)

It's been forever and an eternity, but I have finally got a new computer! My old one completely died on me to the point where it couldn't open pictures anymore. I've got a nice new one now so I can post a bit more now. Luckily I had all my blog pictures back up on a hard drive so they were easy to move over. I thought today I would post a music review as it has been a while since my last one. If only I had more hours in the day to post endless music reviews as I'd love to do that. However with work and being tired after work, it's not that easy. Anyway today's post is about TWICE's Japanese single Breakthrough!

Breakthrough is TWICE's fifth Japanese single and was released in July 2019. The single was released in four editions: Limited Edition A CD+DVD, Limited Edition CD+DVD, Regular CD Edition and ONCE JAPAN CD Edition. I brought the Regular CD Edition from Yahoo Auctions direct from Japan. The Regular CD Edition includes the following contents:

• CD- 4 track single
• Lyrics booklet
• Jewel case
• OBI Strip
• 1 of 10 Photocards

I brought this single in a set along with their other Japanese single HAPPY HAPPY and I love the contrasting concepts for these two singles. Breakthrough has that classic girl crush that everyone is so hot on in K-Pop in recent years whereas HAPPY HAPPY is more on the cute and summer concept. All four editions of the single have the same concept and there is a beautiful 80's inspired aesthetic as the background for the single designs. This was the first physical Japanese single I brought of the group and honestly the design of the single was the main draw point for me. The front of the Regular Edition has a group shot and the back contains an image of the palm tree which is featured as the backdrop in the group image. The track listing and credit information are listed on the back as well.

Inside the jewel case, there is more gorgeous flora inspired 80's aesthetic to admire. I love the design of this CD as it matches the concept of the single and goes outside the standard box of just having the group or song title. I'm so over boring CD artwork and if you've read my other reviews, you'd get why I go crazy for interesting designs. I know some people are over 80's inspired stuff in K-Pop and J-Pop but I'm all for it! Those songs are often my favourite and the concepts are a breath of fresh air compared to the same cargo pants and crop top look I see a lot with some groups.

JB Hi-Fi Haul - Blackpink, Girls Generation & TWICE

Over the last few months, I've picked up a few K-Pop releases at a local entertainment retailer here in Australia. JB Hi-Fi has starting stocking a small range of Korean releases this year due to the popularity of the genre in the west. It's mainly boy groups honestly as all I really see are BTS and GOT7 in most stores. Blackpink is the only girl group I've seen the most so I brought all their releases I could source as well as some TWICE and Girls Generation which I had to order in.

First off is TWICE's 7th Mini Album - Fancy You which I got in Type C as it was only available as a random cover. Would've loved to have gotten all three versions but I don't think the supplier was thinking the same as me and all the copies that my store got in were all Type C. I can totally see why people like collection TWICE releases as you get so many goodies! I love the range of photocards and whilst I'm not a huge collector, it was amazing getting five cards in one mini album. The main one I wanted to get was a Jihyo card which I did happen to get so yay. The Fancy You mini album is huge and I was quite surprised at how large the photobook is. I have to store it with my Japanese magazines and books as it won't fit in my usual K-pop storage area.

Zenmarket Haul - Goodies Galore!

A few weeks ago, I received an order from Zenmarket that I was excited about. I mean I'm always excited about getting parcels in the post, but this particular order from Zenmarket was special as I managed to track down a number of rare items I had been looking to add to my collection. Let's get straight into it!

First off is this amazing find of Pungdeng-E's mini albums that are hard to come across. The seller was selling both of these as a set which was amazing! The mini albums are known as 1st Album - 풍뎅이 풍뎅이 Go! Pungeng-E Pungdeng-E Go! and 2nd Album - 액션 풍뎅이 Action Pungdeng-E Go! This group always makes me laugh with their mismatched numbering system with their releases. These are mini albums I'm pretty sure as you only get three songs and the instrumentals. There is actually only four songs between these two releases because two songs from the 1st one get repeated on the second one. I think Pungdeng-E is coming for Crayon Pop's record of making me buy Bar Bar Bar a billion times. I'm over the moon about adding these to my Pungdeng-E collection and it's even more special considering the group might be wrapping up soon with their recently announced hiatus.

2nd Album - 액션 풍뎅이 Action Pungdeng-E Go! and 1st Album - 풍뎅이 풍뎅이 Go! Pungeng-E Pungdeng-E Go!

2nd Album - 액션 풍뎅이 Action Pungdeng-E Go!

Next up is the PCSC Edition A of ラリルレ RaRiRuRe from Crayon Pop which is the accompany edition to Type B which I found last month! It was a miracle to find both PCSC editions so close to each other and I even got a photocard with it! I already had Ellin's photocard from my Limited Edition CD+DVD of ラリルレ RaRiRuRe but this one has her in a different pose. I never knew there was another set of photocards at all. I can never seem to find Geummi when it comes to photocards which sucks because I want one of hers.

ラリルレ RaRiRuRe PCSC Edition A