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).

Random CD Haul

Something new on the blog today as I thought I would post a random CD haul of all the ones I've been picking up randomly over the last few months. Only two Japanese albums in this haul and the rest are western artists. I found all these albums at a few different stores which I'll mention in more detail later on. Here is the random CD haul for the first part of the year!

First off is an album that is very special to me as I came across it by luck. Found it in a selection of albums at JB Hi-Fi on clearance and I was so excited as I didn't think a copy could be found at JB's anymore! It is Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's KKP Best from a few years back and contains all her best hits. The album is the standard regular edition and comes with a cardboard OBI strip which I've never seen before.

Next up is a bunch of albums I found at Op-Shop stores which are what we call thrift or charity shops here in Australia. I love going through the CD's and DVD's at Op-Shops to find treasures or just see what everyone has been donating. You can always notice a trend by seeing what artists have to most donated or similar artists you see at different shops. In my recent visits, the trend has been One Direction and Enya CD's. Like I saw stacks of One Direction at four different Op-Shops! Anyway onto what I brought. First is Bardot's second album Play It Like That which was a good find! Bardot was a pop group created from a TV show called Popstars in the early 2000's and had the hit song Poison which is one of my faves. Would love to find their first album one day as well but I got this one as it has the songs I Need Somebody and ASAP which are bops. Picked up some Britney Spear's releases that I didn't have because I love a bit of Britney. Had a good laugh at the BIG W price tag still stuck to the Circus CD and makes me remember when I used to go to BIG W back in the day to buy all my So Fresh CDs each season. The CD+DVD edition of the Spice Girl's Greatest Hits was another find and I only picked this up for the DVD really which has the music videos. Still have my original SPICE and SPICEWORLD albums from when they came out and still listen to them now. Lastly was a spectacular find which is The Hives' Your New Favourite Band album. Shocked to see this as you rarely see The Hives things anywhere especially an older one like that. The Opshop where I found this had a lot of early 2000's punk stuff so it was probably from the person that donated all of those.

January Favourites

I feel like nothing happened this month because I was sick for most of it and could barely post on here. There is a bunch of posts lined up that I need to finish and post, but at least I finally got the Streetflow Guide up this month for the Style Boutique series. I will be posting some more glam/flirty and sporty item guides either next month or in March. Now onto the favourites for January!

Gaming
Finally brought a Nintendo Switch this month as I'm getting hyped for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It looks super cute so far and I'm interested to see how much customisation is allowed with things such as landscaping and furniture. Also the character designs look great and we are getting much cuter noses for once. Been playing a mixture of games this month such as Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Sims 4 and Minecraft. Picked up Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp a bit more as the recent events have been fun and after a billion years, I decorated my campsite properly! Here's a adorable picture from my campsite!

Music
Nowadays I've been listening to random stuff in my collection usually in my car. I just put a bunch of songs on the USB and play them so I remember songs I've totally forgot about. The main songs I've been playing this month are some classics from the 1990's. Been super into the Night At The Roxbury soundtrack as it's my favourite movie and it has the best soundtrack. Also whilst having a 90's/early 2000's binge on Youtube, I came across 'This Is How We Party' by S.O.A.P. which I had totally forgotten about since the 1990's! I've brought one of their singles off ebay so I'm excited for that to come. Totally need to do a big CD Haul post soon as I've picked up a number of albums from various stores over the recent weeks. Most are western releases so no K-Pop or J-Pop stuff apart from one Blackpink album. Yes I finally found the black version of their 1st Mini Album - Square Up at a JB Hi-Fi store! My normal store only had the pink ones but I found the black one at another store nearby. So somehow I've ended up with all of Blackpinks physical Korean mini albums, not sure how that happened as it's never been something I've intended to do. I do however enjoy their mini album designs and all the goodies you get with it.

To round off this favourites post as there isn't much else to share, I'll just post a bunch of songs I've been jamming to this month. Jeez I miss the 1990's and early 2000's when music was so much better. I just don't get the current music trends and can't really get into anything new. I'll get new stuff from my favourite bands like The Living End and Kaiser Chiefs but even with them I prefer their older stuff.