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.

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.

Amazon Japan Haul - MOMOLAND, Girls' Generation & Books

This is the first order I've received from Amazon Japan for a fair while and it probably will be the last for a long time. This is because the government is bringing in new GST restrictions for online stores and Amazon has decided to cut Australia from using their overseas site. Not entirely sure what will happen on July 1st when the changes come in effect, but as soon as I heard the news last month I placed an order straight away on Amazon Japan for some items I was after. So here are the items I received in my recent order! 

I got a Chara Parfait キャラぱふぇゲーム magazine which is the 2018 Winter Special released in December last year. The main reason I got this magazine was for the ガールズモード 4 Girls Mode 4 content, but you also got a cute Sumikko Gurashi playing cards set. The cards come in a nice steel case which I haven't set up yet, they're still in the cardboard box. I'll blog about the ガールズモード 4 pages on here soon as there are some great pictures of the game in the magazine. I have an older issue of the Chara Parfait magazine which was devoted to ガールズモード  3 Girls Mode 3 and I've written a detail blog post about that here!

Sumikko Gurashi playing cards.

ガールズモード 4 pictures of brand representatives.

Picked up this adorable needle felting book because I wanted to learn how to make animals. Also mainly because it has the cutest Shiba Inu's in it and I need to know how to make like a million of them.

The next item was kind of a random purchase as I originally wasn't planning on getting it. Since Amazon is changing soon, I thought I'd look through for any cheap items I could add to my order. When I was going through artists that I'm looking to collect albums of, this Girls' Generation single came up for only 300JPY. It was on sale from about 2000JPY and no clue why it was so cheap. So I thought why not for only 300JPY plus 300JPY shipment fee per item.

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