I spent this afternoon observing tj han, figurine collector and critic, at work. As you may know if you read his blog RIUVA, tj han has a habit of taking pictures of his figurine purchases from every possible angle and comment about every minute defect that may or may not exist (“zomg her hair is 1mm too long! BLASPHEMY!”).

The National Museum
The National Museum, part of our proud heritage

I am of course just kidding, but basically tj han spends a good deal of time looking for locations to take those pictures for his and your lewd viewing pleasures. Well I was present for a rare chance to observe the master at work in front of the National Museum today (uh…yeah) and here are the pictures!

I almost missed tj han because he didn’t know that I was going; I thought that I had told him about it but apparently I didn’t. Anyway, he had already collected his latest purchases and was wandering around the area looking for a backdrop to work his magic on by the time I got there.

tj han at work

With 200+ SGD worth of purchases in hand, he got to work immediately. The spot choosen was the National Museum of Singapore for its semi-unique Victorian look in the middle of a whole bunch of greyish buildings that all look the same, except maybe the Singapore Management University which was just opposite the road, but it didin’t look cool enough, or whatever.

tj han at work

The subjects of today’s photoshoot were the two 1/8 Karakuri Circus figurines from Megahouse’s Excellent Model series. Apparently Karakuri Circus is a manga series. And apparently tj han has not read a single volume of it. Okay… <_< Moving on…

Now because the museum is located right in front of a somewhat busy road in the middle of the city and because it is a tourist attaction of sorts (though I question the sanity of the tourists), there were quite a few passer-bys. I tried to dissociate myself from tj han by standing an inconspicuous distance away, but alas my Ghost in the Shell T-shirt probably gave me away.

tj han at work

The cool thing was that everytime the traffic light just down the road turned red, a whole bunch of cars and double-decker buses stopped RIGHT IN FRONT of the museum, giving the drivers and pasengers a front row view of tj han as he did his thing. It was fortunate that no traffic accident resulted from this road-side distraction.

tj han at work

While tj han was working on the second figurine, a small camera crew arrived and set up on the lawn in front of the museum, probably preparing to shoot footages for some crappy low budget documentary about Singapore to be used to coerce foreign tourists into coming to this god forsaken place.

You can’t really see from the picture because it was taken with a crappy NEC phone camera but that guy at the back had one of those huge video cameras that probably cost the same as a few warehouses of anime figurines. Side note: NEC should commit seppuku and stop making “phones”.

But anyway, it seemed like tj han was blocking those nice-looking people! Oh noz! Tj han did what real hardcore enthusiasts do: he ignored them completely and slowly finished taking upskirt pictures of the whip-wielding nurse girl from a few dozen more angles before packing up in a calm and collected manner as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

We went to Kinokuniya after this, where tj han spent the rest of his remaining money and now has 13 SGD left to survive the next ten days. I collected some orders (maybe another entry about that later).

On the way home, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten to take a few dozen shots of the two figurines together! OH NOZ! Apparently he would be doing it another time (possibly as we speak).

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a hardcore figurine collector! mabushisugi~~~

On another note, I was surprised that no one came out to question our suspicious activities. We could have been terrorists! Alas, this shows how vunerable Singapore is… lmao. XD I kid, I kid.

For the figurine pictures, wait for tj han to update RIUVA.

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