Whilst I was out in Japan, I kept an eye out for the release of the new Kagami Hiiragi Figma - luckily, she was released the day before we flew back! I already had the original Kagami Figma in winter uniform but decided to get this because of the extra Misao head it comes with.

This version of Kagami comes with the summer uniform, where the original came with the winter uniform. It's inevitable that some parts are from the same moulds - legs, shoes, skirts, hair and torso all look the same. As a result it's lucky that Good Smile Company did a great job first time round, although it would be nice to see some different pig-tails at least. Colour scheme is changed to blue and white for the winter uniform, along with grey knee socks.

Finish and quality are good as is typical of Figmas. There are only a few small niggles - the white striping on the skirt isn't quite as good as other Lucky Star Figmas, the yellow on the neck bow looks a bit glossy and some slight roughness on her left sleeve. On the up side, there is less flash present compared to the original Kagami especially around the hair and fringe.

Kagami comes with 3 faces (excluding Misao) - a soft smile, a typically tsundere complaining face and a blank face you can decorate to your heart's content. The tsundere face is a welcome addition as the faces with the original Kagami didn't seem to quite fit the nature of Kagami that we saw in the Lucky Star TV series.

Of course one of the key features of this Figma is that it comes with the Misao head. I'm sure there is an avid Misao following out there and if so I'm a part of it! Some might see it as an opportunity to exploit the customer base by bundling it only with a full Figma. It would be nice to buy it seperately, but personally I'm glad to be able to get Misao at all as there's very little in the way of figures for her.

Kagami comes with a set of 8 additional hands in a variety of gestures. These are stored on a plastic holder so that they don't get lost easily. The plastic holder is common across the Figma range and as with others that I've used, the hands always seem a tight fit into the holder. If you're removing and inserting hands often into the holder I advise doing so slowly and carefully as it feels as if it could be quite easy to snap a hand joint. However, it feels easier pushing them into and pulling them out of the arms than on some other Figmas.

The poseable stand is another common item across the Figma series and again serves it's purpose quite well. It's not quite fluid enough to move when posing Kagami herself, so you'll need to hold and adjust the stand itself to get just the right height.

For storage you get a plastic sealable bag printed with the Figma logo. Although I store all my Nendoroid parts in compartmentalised boxes, it'd be nice to get these bags with the Nendoroid series as well.

Whether or not you decide to buy this version of Kagami depends on the kind of collector you are. If you collect a lot of Figmas or Lucky Star figures then chances are you'll have the original Kagami already. If you're a very casual collector and don't have Kagami then you might only want to buy one version. This version comes with more appropriate faces, the Misao head and of course a different uniform. On the other side of the coin, the older Kagami might be harder to find but it'll also probably be cheaper. Regardless of the motivation behind a decision, one thing is for sure - if you do buy her, you'll be getting a great figure.

I've spent the weekend in London primarily to go to Animeleague Club London (ALCL) that took place on the 14th November. With the loss of the London Anime Club, Animeleague has stepped in to fill the gap and put on it's own spin on the idea of a club. Animeleague does a number of other events, ranging from small meetups of members across the country to an annual convention, Alcon, that takes place in Leicester. With Animeleague Club London, the idea seems to be to take the atmosphere and events of a convention and shrink it down into a one day club.

ALCL took place at the America Square Slug & Lettuce, a stone's throw away from Tower Hill underground station. It appears to be a fairly quiet area of London at the weekend and not too hard to get to - unless you're affected by any of the tube closures going on at the moment. The venue itself is well sized for a club with a comfortable feel to it.

There were a number of different areas set up along with associated activities. Video gaming occupied the area towards the front of the first room, with a chillout area and Artist's Alley straddeling the main bar. At the back of the first room was the area for panels, such as Akemi Solloway's Japanese lessons. There was also an additional room which housed anime screenings and the ever-popular dealer's room, which made way later on to become the dance floor.

There were a variety of different consoles on offer in the video gaming section. This area was really popular and was quite difficult to move around most of the day - seats were really close together so there wasn't much room for passageway. I didn't do any gaming apart from Street Fighter, which really showed up how little I game these days!

The Artist's Alley was a good place to chill out, with paper and pencils available to draw. It's always great to see some good quality work at these events - there's some real talent out there. Just a shame I forgot to collect mine and my girlfriend's work, as we'd both done variations on Asuka from Evangelion.

The panels area didn't get visited much by myself - I was kept occupied by the other sections, such as the dealer's room! I managed to get in the queue for the dealers room at a decent opportunity, as some people were queuing for about 40 minutes to get in. The area for dealers was relatively small compared to other events I've been to. This isn't a fault of the club, as there's only a limited space in the Slug & Lettuce. Still, there was a reasonable variety of different things on offer from familiar dealers, from DVDs to manga to figures. It'd be nice to see different dealers at future ALCLs - perhaps they could rotate attendance between themselves.

There were a few anime screenings on - wasn't sure of some of what I watched (a baseball show) but Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) piqued our interest and will make it onto my growing 'to watch' list. The area also provided an ideal place to crash out for a bit whilst we regained our energy.

Attendance was really good and it's brilliant to see a decent turnout for a brand new event. There were much more people around for the first half of the event, from noon until about 6pm. After that, people seemed to thin out. It's hard to pin it down to a single factor but I suspect tiredness, lack of funds (after spending in the dealers room!), being in the same space for a long period of time and a lack of special events later on possibly resulted in this. We still partied on to the end - somebody had to provide the life and the soul of the party! We did have a small but good group of people right to the end.

So, what could be improved? There were a few hiccups along the way: televisions were late arriving (through no fault of ALCL), a few events dropped off the programme such as the DDR tournament and P*ss Artist (both of which I was looking forward to), there didn't seem to be enough power leads to run everything at the same time and problems with the audio later on meant the music wasn't as great as it could have been.

Hopefully ALCL improve these things for the next time it runs. It might also be prudent to promote it as two different events from the start - a club that runs during the afternoon and a party that runs during the evening. It could hopefully attract the two different clientles needed to get the best attendance for both parts.

So is it worth going to in future? If you don't live too far from London then it's certainly worth a try if you haven't gone already - anime events are always fun and it's great to talk to new peope, which is why I'm addicted to them. Those coming from further afield however might be better off saving their money for Alcon - which has a similar atmosphere in a much larger space over more days and the bonus of accommodation to crash at right on campus.

Finally, apologies for the lack of pictures - I was so distracted during the event that it didn't cross my mind! If anybody has pictures that they'd be willing to have put up here, I'll collate them all into a single post and include a link to your website. You can get in touch via Twitter or my Facebook.

I've now been back nearly a week now from my latest holiday to Japan and as I look back at it now, it's a good opportunity to share the experience.

Those who have followed my blog will have known that although this isn't my first visit to Japan, it's the first that isn't part of a package and was organised completely between those that went on it. Three other people went, whom I'd met on the last trip and made friends with – including my girlfriend. After the last trip we were keen to go again and jumped at the opportunity.

Flights and hotels were all booked in advance. Flights were with Japan Airlines and accommodation was split between the Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku in Tokyo and the Toyoko Inn in Kyoto. The only thing we didn't have in advance was an itinerary. We did have an idea of the things we wanted to do between us and not being stuck to an itinerary meant that we were free to do things and explore at our own pace.

The flight itself is about 12 hours, but by the time I travelled to Heathrow airport (having nearly missed my coach thanks to the motorway being closed) and then from Narita airport to the hotel in Japan it works out to almost a full day of constant travelling. One needs to be well prepared and well entertained for such a long journey – or at least, able to sleep on airplanes! Watching Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone and Summer Wars helped pass the time on the flight, although I was saddened not to see more animé available.

We arrived at the hotel mid-afternoon on Saturday 16^th (Japan time) after catching the Narita Express to Shinjuku which was pretty much direct from the airport to near the hotel. We didn't do much that day – we were far too tired from travelling – but we did look around Shinjuku in the evening. Adjusting to the time difference was tricky, as for the first few days we ended up waking up far too early and resorting to watching TV.

On the Sunday we went to Harajuku and Yoyogi park. One of the highlights for us wasn't the outrageous fashions on display or walking around the park – it was the visit to Daiso, a large ¥100 store. It's hard to appreciate until you actually look around. There's some good quality and useful stuff there – even better when it works out to 70p an item even with the poor exchange rate. I picked up a few things including a sleeping mask, camera tripod and DSi protector.

There was more to explore of course and we also went to Kiddy Land (a large toy store) and the Volks shop, tucked out of the way. Dolfies are extremely nice but also extremely expensive – would love to have one but can't really justify the expense at the moment.

We were fortunate to have some great weather which made walking around Yoyogi park pleasant. I even managed to fulfil a lifetime ambition – doing the Hare Hare Yukai dance in Japan! And not just by myself either – with a group of Japanese otaku who I spotted practicing. I think they were slightly bemused but it was fun. I felt sorry for the poor person who came up to me enthusiastically afterwards and tried talking to me in Japanese. I wish my language ability was better!

The evening was spent eating out at the Isetan department store in Shinjuku. There's a variety of restaurants on the top floor and although we went for a more budget choice, it was still very good quality. Both the girlfriend and I had tonkatsu (pork in breadcrumbs), omlette and rice for about ¥1100 each. You'd be hard pushed to eat out for less in the UK.

I'll be covering the rest of the holiday in future articles, rather than try to cover it all in one massive article. If you want to know when a new article is uploaded, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or follow my updates on Twitter. I'll be covering our visits to the Ghibli museum, Akihabara, Odaiba, Kyoto and Osaka in future. Keep tuned!