to unseal or not to unseal?
03.28 ~ 2006 
oceanus - hiroyuki odahi everyone!
over the years i've accumulated a lot of different sealed items - retro games, eroge, and pc software. for the majority of my collector life i've kept everything sealed, but lately i've been opening things more and more. for those of you who are into collecting older memorabilia, i'm sure you're no stranger to that horrible musty smell that often plagues a lot of older merch. i used to think it was due to improper storage, but i'm not so sure anymore. a lot of my items that show no signs of improper storage from the previous owner still have that smell. i recently opened some sealed eroge from 2008 and the smell was an instant KO. i almost keeled over and died right there. everything was in perfect condition visually, but it reeked like it'd been sitting at the bottom of a damp well for the past 18 years. after more than 2 weeks of airing everything out, the smell has gotten about 80% better but still remains. i wanted to make this post to ask if anyone has any idea why this happens and if it's just an unfortunate consequence of aging. i'd like to think not, since some of my sealed stuff from '98~99 has no smell at all. plastic seems to fare way better than cardboard, which is the worst offender, followed by paper. book paper seems to do especially bad. a lot of the comic anthologies & light novels i own smell so bad i had to banish them to a shelf in the corner of my room so that their stink can't infect anything else.
lately i've grown conflicted on whether or not to unseal things. on one hand i want to help preserve a piece of history in its original state, but i also can't help but wonder if having that smell contained in shrink wrap will just help to degrade the item over time. and not just the packaging, but it might also be doing something bad to the software inside. i don't care at all for the monetary value aspect - everything i collect is solely for me to enjoy, and i don't plan on selling anything. i'm going to keep my beloved possessions until i die. but i want to enjoy them for as long as i can, so now i'm plagued with the 'to unseal or not to unseal' question. i'll be keeping everything that smells ok sealed, but i'm not sure about the rest.
it's pretty stressful, because i want to hand off my things to other otaku after i die, in the best condition possible. ever since i was a kid i've always been really neurotic about caring for my things. not just so i can enjoy them for as long as i possibly can, but also because as an otaku & collector, you have a silent duty to protect things of the past that will be passed on into the future. doujin, eroge, pc software, retro games - things that can never be made in their original state ever again after the creators pass on or the means of production end. even if you're going to keep it forever, we all die someday, and everything will eventually end up in the hands of another. it's like when you see someone's entire life in a shop in akiba, and you think "damn, what otaku died?" someone else after you will pick those things up, enjoy them, wonder about who owned them before, and maybe thank you in their head for taking care of them. maybe this is just a me thing, but when i buy something that's 20+ years old from a proxy and it arrives in mint condition as if it's never been touched by human hands before, i silently commend the previous owner. it's like a passing of the torch. i can feel how much they cherished it, and it makes me happy.
okay, end of rant... seriously though, if anyone has any idea how to prevent things from getting that smell or know how it happens (other than damp conditions) please feel free to reach out to me! leave a comment on my guestbook or something. and in the meantime, i'll sit on my hands to stop myself from unsealing anything else.
2006 ~ 01.01 keep hope alive - toshiaki otsubo hello everyone - happy 2026! 
2025 seems to have been a rough year for a lot of people, me included. most of my time was spent doing nothing of note - my chronic illness flared up pretty much every month, leaving me devoid of energy (and time, while recovering). i spent the final month and a half of the year fighting a viral illness + several infections which landed me in the ER a few times. that time passed by in a blur, and now here i am in the new year. during that time i lost 10 pounds from being sick and ceased feeling like myself. my stomach is now recovered enough to enjoy coffee again. that first sip felt almost as good as tasting it for the first time!
suffice to say i didn't reach any of my creative goals this year. one of them was to revamp this site and add the things i've been planning to for ages. this was put to a halt not just because of my health, but also because of my nonexistent coding know-how. i opened this site way back in 2017 and never thought i'd still be updating it all these years later. i didn't know how to code (and still don't), so i just looked for whatever html/css i needed on the web and pasted it in the editor while crossing my fingers. never did i think anyone would actually visit my site, or that i would meet so many amazing people on here. due to the state of the internet nowadays, neocities is one of the last places left that brings me serenity. it somehow feels cut off from the rest of the web, like a small island in the middle of the ocean. my plan for 2025 was to grow my website alongside myself and nurture this space, but every time i tried to code anything even a little advanced, i'd get stuck due to not knowing how to actually make it work. i'm really envious of people who are proficient in coding and view it as second nature - it's really impressive. i tend to see people say it's easier than it looks and that eventually it just "clicks", but that hasn't been my experience. i know it's unproductive to beat myself up too much... but i wish i didn't have such a horrible propensity for anything to do with math and numbers!
this site is something i cherish deeply, and i feel like it's grown alongside me all these years. it's hard to explain, but after nearly a decade it really does feel like a part of me and somewhere i can express my true self. i don't want to see it wither away. there are so many things i want to share with the world, even if nobody's listening. often i feel limited by my own abilities, but humans have endless opportunity to grow. despite the roadblocks, i do want to keep trying. i'm going to spend some time learning html/css from the beginning, and hopefully i can make some good progress this year, even if it's small. i'm young, too - there's plenty of time. even if it takes til i'm 80 to do everything i want with my site~
wishing everyone good health and a happy new year!
2005 ~ 01.26 JOHNNY'S - racing lagoon OSTgot the last part for my pc in the mail today! this is going to be the first time in my life having a proper windows pc of my own. i'm really excited but nervous to build it, i'm probably gonna to put it off for a few days haha... in the meantime i need to pick up a cute side table for it~
started muv-luv extra and have been enjoying it immensely! it has all the things i love - fei-yen, the dreamcast, the ps2, initial d, and most important of all, yakisoba-pan (drool) it's too early for me to be attached to anyone in the main cast quite yet. usually when i don't have an attachment to any of the characters it's a slog to get through a game, but extra has been so fun that it hasn't been a problem so far. i think i'll always associate muv-luv with january since the weather in-game is the exact same as it has been outside lately. very snowy! every time i hang out with the cast it feels like we're chilling in my hometown. the SOL has been very fun and i'm not sure why so many people skip extra and go straight for unlimited. so far, extra has been a very warming, comfortable experience.
i hope you all are doing well out there. i've been wanting to start an online diary for years, but i find writing difficult (i'm a little shy as well) so it took a while to start. i've had this webpage since 2017, which is over 7 years ago now (a little hard to believe). many people have come and gone, and i've somehow achieved 200,000+ views and many wonderful comments in my guestbook. the messages people leave behind have given me a lot of strength, and i re-read them often. i don't view my site as particularly interesting, as it was originally supposed to be a sort of personal haven for myself... in the future, i hope people are able to take something personal away or find comfort from this little space on the world wide web.
