February Newsletter

February Magic Events
All our regular weekly events will proceed into January with some new additions. Bargain Drafts for $10 on remain on Tuesdays at6pm, $5 Standard at it's new home on Saturday at 3pm and FNM draft for $15 on Friday at 6pm. In addition, we will now continue to run Commander events starting at 2 pm on Sunday, until we close at 6. Next weekend, the 11th, is Aether Revolt Game day, which will be a standard event with additional prizes, including a playmat featuring Ajani! After the event we will also be drafting the peasant cube again, so stick around! The last Saturday of the month (the 25th) we will be having a Modern event instead of Standard, so if you're looking to jam some Modern that will be your chance! We've started a new sealed league for Aether Revolt, officially it started this week but there's still plenty of time to join! The only buy in is the 3 packs to start! Speaking of which, we are now running a little sale, so whenever you buy 3 packs of Magic Boosters, they're only 11 dollars! 


On Tuesday February 28th we will have our monthly Flashback Draft, this month I'm extra excited, we're doing Khans of Tarkir! It will be a little more expensive because of the set ($15 dollars) but it is a super cool set with a lot of fantastic cards, and I hope you'll come. Finally, on Wednesday the 15th we will be drafting Eternal Masters, with a $25 dollar buy in. This is all the Eternal Masters I have, so if you want to have a chance to draft the set don't miss out! 

In upcoming release news, Modern Masters 2017 is right around the counter, and we will be stocking a very limited amount on the shelves. If you want to pre-order a booster box come in and let us know!

Anime Night Viewing Schedule: 

A quick note about the schedule this month, our viewing got off track after Gundam Wing, so we're going to be airing last month's stuff this month!

2/11: Sakura Taisen: The Movie @ 8pm
2/18: Mai Hime @ 7:30pm
2/25: Record of Lodoss War @ 7:30

Other Events
This month we will be hosting a Gundam build night on the 18th and board game night starting at 6:00 on the 25th

New Manga and DVD/Blu-Ray Releases January
This month the manga keeps on coming, this month a bunch of first volumes that we picked up hit, including Fire Force (from the creator of Soul Eater) Big Order (from the creator of Future Diary) and also the hard-cover editions of the Ghost in the Shell manga. This month we also picked up new volumes of My Hero Academia and One-Punch Man, as well as Kuma Miko!


This month in DVDs we picked up Soul Eater NOT!, Last Exile, Genshiken Second Generation, the Sakura Wars movie and the 0080 Gundam release!

Speaking of Gundam... AGAIN

Merchandise Restocks and New Releases
January continued the awesome showing in Gunpla sales, and I couldn't be happier about that! As a consequence, I'll likely be doing a restock order again at the end of the month, to fill out our UC selections and also to restock the Iron-Blooded Orphan kits at last! In the meantime I have some sweet P-Bandai limited edition kits I managed to get my hands on.


In other news, all those Figmas and Nendos have arrived, including the new Zero-Suit Samus, Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth and Yukiko from Persona 4 Figmas, and Nendoroids of Korra from Avatar, Rem from Re:Zero, Elise from Fire Emblem: Fates, Akuma Homura from Madoka and Sinon from Sword Art Online II. These are obviously very limited stocks, so if you want them come get them! We also got a ton of new blind boxes in, including more Hatsune Miku and Love Live figures, as well as some cute cats that will probably all be gone by the time I send this. 

We also got in some prize figures and Beach Queens for some of the Love Live girls, so come in to check it out! 

In more delicious news, we restocked a bunch of snacks this month, so stop in for Pocky, bread, and my new favorite, the BIG THUNDER III, which is some sort of delicious chocolate cookie bar. Come buy them before I eat them all.

Now how about a recommendation!

​Akiba Recommendations

This month I'm going to talk about anime, and I figured hey, I'm always talking about Gundam so why don't we talk about that really super sad Gundam OVA we got in this week? That's right, it's Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, a story about regular people drawn into an ongoing war, and the fallout left in the wake as friends are forced into battle against one another, due to their obligations. 


War in the Pocket takes place during the One-Year War, the conflict that is the central backdrop of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Unlike that series however, and many others, War in the Pocket is a side-story (being only six episodes long) centering around a Zeon Commando team sent to destroy or capture a prototype federation mobile suit, which is hiding within a neutral space colony. More than the conflict between the two main political entities of the series, this OVA is a story about individuals and their experiences as they are caught up in a larger conflict. The main POV character is a 10 year old boy living in the colony, which has up to that point remained untouched by the war. The colony is further imperiled by the Zeon's planning of a nuclear strike, unless the last commando can destroy the prototype Gundam.

Like many Gundam Stories (and I guess really mecha series in general) War in the Pocket is about how ultimately there are decent people on all sides of the conflict, and that ultimately they become casualties of events beyond their control. While there is obviously a military conflict happening in this show, the focus is really on the three main characters, the 10 year old Al, who is a bystander to the conflict, the last surviving Zeon commando Bernard Wiseman, and the Gundam's test pilot Christina Mackenzie.

In addition to being a pretty gripping character narrative, War in the Pocket is notable for not including any Newtypes (a feature also of 08th MS team and Stardust Memory, two of my other favorite UC Gundam series) instead focusing on regular pilots with exceptional talents (rather than psychic space jedi in robots) I don't have as much of a problem with Newtypes as some others, but I still generally enjoy shows that are about robots and people, rather than space mysticism. 


Anyway, if you are interested in smaller scale stories and big scale robots, I can definitely recommend you check this one out! We will probably be watching it during this month's gundam night!

If you're looking for a manga suggesting, I would definitely suggest My Neighbor Seki! My Neighbor Seki is a relatively straightforward, no frills story about a kid who sits in the back of the classroom and does distractingly weird things during class, disrupting the girl who sits next to him. It sounds absurd, and it absolutely is, but it's also hilariously weird, without being over the top wacky. It's not a Yonkoma (4-panel gag manga), but it absolutely reads like one, except the lack of structure allows My Neighbor Seki to parody other genres as it sees fit. My Neighbor Seki is relatively plotless, like so many slice of life comedy mangas, so you can pick up a volume whenever you need a good laugh and revisit your favorite scenes of Seki doing weird things in the back of the classroom. If you're looking for some light, and hilarious, manga reading, I would absolutely suggest you pick up a volume of My Neighbor Seki!