Tuesday 4 December 2007

Love Potion Number 9

Okay so maybe not a post every night but still more EXCITING THINGS to come.

Until then I'm going on a massive digression with the first regular Tuesday post and talking about Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy 7 for those not familiar with it is a computer game. You can find out more than you could ever possibly want to know about it here.

However all you really need to know is this. Final Fantasy is not like normal series of computer games, rather than Final Fantasy 7 being a sequel to 6, 5, 4 and eventually just Final Fantasy each new Final Fantasy game is a wholly unique game. It shares some elements with earlier entries in the series but creates its own fantasy world.

FF7 for some reason became massively more popular than any version of the game before or since, to the extent that it's had numerous spin offs and sequels in its own right that aren't technically FF games, its own film (Final Fantasy: Advent Children) and an absolute metric fuckton of merchandising.

The reason this is all pertinent is that this year is the 10th anniversary of the release of FF7. So what says you and I but in Japan to the gaming culture this is a HUGE event. There are new games (FF7: Crisis Core) a new film (Last Order: Final Fantasy 7) re-releases of nearly all the older games, new toys, new merchandise and generally its a big excuse to shift a lot of Final Fantasy 7 crap.

Including my favourite piece of video game merchandise ever.



Look, look it's a "potion" from final Fantasy 7. Potions were just stuff you could buy that replenished health but now YOU CAN DRINK ONE!! Yay! I love this kind of tie-in, stuff plastered with likenesses is one thing but taking a fictional world object and making a real version of it is always fun. So even though I'm not a big FF7 fan (my personal fave is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance) I just had to get this.






The can is pretty nice actually, the print is lovely and clear and the CGI artwork is quite attractive. All in all much classier than a cheap tie-in needed to be.




While I came for the potion most fans will undoubtedly be after the toy included with the can. Now I know full well I'm a grown man and so shouldn't be buying toys, even cool looking ones but honestly, no word of a lie, toys are considered quite cool here. No I'm being quite serious. I know an upmarket women's shoe shop in Sannomiya which proudly displays quite a large set of Ultraman figurines in the window. Toys just don't have the stigma they do in the West as being just for kids(and lets not get started on the porno statuettes). So while I'm not a toy collector I have picked up the odd thing.

So lets see what I got.



AWESOME! Vincent Valentine easily the coolest looking figure in the set. Gotta love the Cerberus statue he's perched on. Plus I love a skinny gunslinger in a tattered red cloak. It worked for Trigun after all.



As for the drink itself. Well it's green, fitting considering the in game potions were green, but never a good sign. It smells alarmingly like the chemical flavour from my childhood known as "bubblegum". A flavour that always annoyed me as a kid because, well bubblegum itself is flavoured. Bubblegum can't be a flavour when it comes in many flavours. That's like having an ice cream flavour or a soup flavour. Nonetheless bubblegum pop was its own flavour. Sort of horribly chemical stuff with a vague sense of fruit but mostly just horrible saccharine sweetener.

So it smells of bubblegum.....how's it taste?



Ah.... of bubblegum.


And now for no reason here's a picture of famous Japanese transvestite Gackt dressed as Vincent Valentine. Enjoy.

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