It has been a while. I must apologize for my lack of updates in so very long but unfortunately I had some personal issues to attend to.
I am glad to tell you I have still been actively collecting Suikoden merch in my time off so I have a lot to update you with. I won't show everything I've collected though, as I should keep some things for future posts :P.
Anywho, today we would like to show you some Suikoden autographed merchandise we have seen over the years. There isn't much, however, and unfortunately nothing from the creator himself, Yoshitaka Murayama :(. But we can still hope to see something from him in the future!
The first thing we have is something I have already shown here, the autographed poster of Suikoden V. I have already talked about it here. But i'll give a slight description again :). It was given to 108 lucky winners (6 of them actually received 3 different posters all autographed, but I have yet to see that unfortunately) after entering a draw on King Blog before the release of Suikoden V. They were sent this poster autographed by Takahiro Sakiyama (Director of Suikoden V), Norikazu Miura (Composer/Sound Producer of Suikoden V, Sound Director of Rhapsodia/Suikoden Tactics), and Hideki "King" Tanaka (King Blog author/Art Director of Suikoden V). It also came with a letter of Authenticity to validate it was official.
Up next is an autographed Suikoden Tierkreis postcard set. This was received by someone at an event in 2007 (the seller told me he received it either at E3 2007 or TGS 2007) during an interview with the Tierkreis Team. It is autographed by: Kometa Osamu (Director of Tierkreis), Masayuki Saruta (Producer of Tierkreis), and Hori Mino (Sound Director of Tierkreis). I love how they seem to include the Sound Directors in these autographs! It shows that they also place a lot of focus and passion on the sound design and music of Suikoden, which is an area that can easily be overlooked in video games (and other forms of media) but in my opinion is one of the most essential for creating the mood and atmosphere.
Lastly I saved the best for last, something which both Nan and I cast our eyes on seperately and unknowingly entered a bidding war against each other on (something that has been known to happen in the past :P). Hahaha. It was a bit of a funny story as I came home from work to find that I won the bid by my maximum bid only. One more Euro/Dollar and I would have lost that :P. The even more funny thing was that when I checked my email after that, I saw Nan had emailed me telling me she lost the bid on something very cool. I immediately knew what it was :P. I'm very sorry Nan! At least we know this went to one of us and is in a good home! After we both discovered we were bidding against each other, Nan evily laughed and told me at least she made me spend more money so she can win the next one (since i'll have no money) hahaha. *Evil stare*.
After looking at this though I think it's easy to see why we both really wanted it. It is an autographed Suikoden IV Limited Artbook. It is the limited artbook which came with the Suikoden IV Konamistyle Limited Edition in Japan. The artbook itself isn't all that rare if you know where to look, however something inside of this one is special :). It was autographed by the Suikoden IV director herself, Junko Kawano!! The seller told me he was working at a press conference in Japan where Ms. Junko Kawano was present. He got to interview her (lucky guy!) with a translator. He said she was unbelievably nice and humble. At the end of the interview she pulled out this artbook and drew a picture of Lazlo and autographed it for him, as a gift for the interview. I wish I could draw like this :P.
There was another autographed item that Nan and I have both seen. Unfortunately then I wasn't so into autographed things and none of us purchased it (I think I would now as i'd love to collect more autographed suikoden merch). It was an autographed Suikoden V Hand Mirror, like the one below. I think it was autographed by Takahiro Sakiyama, the Director of Suikoden V, however I can't remember exactly, maybe Nan remembers better! It was on auction for the longest time (at least 6 months) but nobody seemed to purchase it which was strange as it wasn't too expensive either (I think 2000yen). It isn't there anymore however, maybe someone finally did purchase it or the seller gave up. Hopefully we see it again! Unfortunately I can't seem to find the picture of it (i'm sure I saved it :() Maybe Nan has one? For now I'll just give a picture of the original hand mirror item itself without the autograph:
The one last thing I want to show was something I didn't think or know existed until about 2 weeks ago when I saw it for auction (actually I wasn't even searching for Suikoden at the time, this was a complete coincidence that I found it). It isn't anything autographed but I just received it in the mail today and thought i'd share it with you. It is a very interesting item and in fact it even surprised me more when it came in the mail. From the ebay picture I thought it was going to be a normal sized thing but when I saw the package I knew something wasn't right. I took it out and was shocked to see how huge this thing was!! It is a Suikoden III Store display box that was given to stores in the US to promote the game. I pictured the original Suikoden III game beside it just to show the scale of this thing! Hope you like it!
Well that's all for today. As I said I want to show you my updated collection in the near future, I just need time to sort it all out and get some pictures!
Thank you guys!
P.S. I just want to say to everyone in Japan that our hearts are with you after the travesty that happened last week. It was devastating news and we hope your friends and family are safe! My best friend's family lives in Tokyo and I am happy to hear they are safe and well. <333
