Dakimakura Collection 1

First up is Kanu/Aisha from Shin Koihime Musou which was included with a volume of Dengeki Festival. My gut is telling me it was vol 15 but I cba checking it up. It is quite a cheaply made dakimakura, as evidenced by how creased it remains and how reflective of the camera flash (and all light in general) it is. The material feels quite close to that of bootleg dakimakura (Peach Skin) and has absolutely no "stretch" or "give" to it at all. This is also the only dakimakura I have without a zipper, the bottom is just open for sliding in a pillow and there's nothing to seal it afterwards. There's no issues with image quality on it though, it's very crisp and clear, the myriad white spots on the close up pictures are simply a result of the material reflecting the camera flash. Being a magazine "freebie", there is only one side on it as seems to always be the case. Future Dengeki Festival dakimakura changed material types to a much nicer softer one somewhat akin to Cospa's smooth knit though slightly rougher to the touch.

Kanu being my favourite koihime musou character, I was very happy with just this one for a long time, but eventually was tempted down the slippery slope and began to gather more of my ongoing collection.

Chara Ani's strike witches line of dakimakura uses "Polyester Suede" as their material type. As you can see, it creases very easily and they don't go away without a proper ironing. They also don't have very much in the way of give/stretchiness but are a bit better than the Kanu dakimakura. Overall I didn't much like the material of these ones, though their more recent one of Yui from Angel Beats (to appear in a later post) was a much nicer fabric. Hopefully they stick with that from now on and forget about using polyester suede ever again. Despite the not ideal fabric, these are quite nice dakimakura since they got some really good images of the strike witches girls for them.

Back side.

Sendo Erika from the eroge Fortune Arterial (as opposed to the anime Fortune Arterial). As with the above Kanu one, the level of detail on images of characters from eroge tends to be a lot higher than for anime characters, since anime character designs are always simplified out of necessity for animation costs. If you are aiming to get a nice dakimakura, the most detail and beautiful images will be ones of game/doujin characters rather than of anime ones. This one I picked up at Comiket 79, though I believe it was a resale of a dakimakura originally released at an earlier comiket. The material is soft and nice, probably a good quality smooth knit. Smooth knit in general has reasonable stretch and feels pretty soft to the touch.

Back side. This one ended up rather blurry :( But since the close ups are clear I'll likely leave it as is.

Illustrated by Mahiru Izumi (who also goes by the name Mahirutei I think - he did the Queen's Gate: Shiranui Mai book amongst many other things). This is part of the Dakisuke line of original character dakimakura by an assortment of artists. The material is 2-way Tricot, but while it definitely has the stretchiness of 2 way tricot, it's a lot rougher to the touch than any other 2-way I have. In general though, 2-way tricot and roica are the nicest materials by far, and really worth the extra expense if the option is available for them.

Back side.

The shading of her bikini bottom is not consistent with that of her pelvic region. Once seen it cannot be unseen and bothers me to no end ;( though it's still quite a nice image regardless.

That's it for now, tune in next time for more dakimakura photos!