The Nest

Following her Magical Multicolor Morino post, I grabbed a couple of extra original rerelease shells and cut at their buttons to give my shell a more fun and colorful flare! A pink button to match the pink accent of the shell and the blue and yellow buttons to match the blue and yellow found in the background sheet. But what really gave it some shine is the sheet of holographic laminate I added to the background, something I was also inspired by VPQ to try as seen in this post, and something that I've made a habit of adding to nearly every one of my vintage or connection era devices ever since XD

Sad to say, this device had remained in a box for decades as I had largely lost interest in the Tamagotchi trend all the way up until 2016 when I had purchased a Sanrio M!x, and then lost interest again until I purchased a Uni in 2024. Tamagotchi is certainly going through a renaissance of sorts with the amount of promotional events and merchandise they've been putting out since the global release of the Uni, making the 2020s a very exciting time to be a fan of the franchise. I am having a Tamagotchi Renaissance of my own with the amount of customization, repair, and translation work I've been lucky enough to partake in since getting back into the hobby! I have some newfound love for my original shell as well after learning that it is a "flipped mold variant." I had shared a picture of it with VPQ during which she mentioned the phrase for the first time and explained how mine differs from the average device. Can you tell the difference between the two photos at the top of this post?

Referring to one of the vintage Japanese guidebooks we can even see where the flipped mold originated from. A text bubble from the Tenshitchi to Asobuhon (てんしっちとあそぶ本) mentions:

うずまき柄だけギザギザの形が違うゾ！ たまごっちの新色をよく見ていたらスゴイことを発見したよ！それは、うずまき柄のたまごっちだけ画面のまわりにあるギザギザの形が違うってこと。キミは気づいてたかな！？

Translated to:

The jagged pattern is different on the Spiral shell! Look closely at this new color (design) and you may discover something amazing! That is...the jagged pattern that circles around the screen of only the Spiral shell seems different. Can you tell the difference?

As explained in the guidebook, the flipped mold was meant to only be used for the Spiral shell's design but it somehow managed to breach containment. Many, many releases can be found with flipped molds if you keep an eye out. The flipped variants could be found more often in devices released for the Asian regions in wave 2 devices onward, as the Spiral shell was a wave 2 design, meaning that the wave 1 shells cannot be found with flipped molds. However, any wave of releases from regions outside of Japan can potentially be a flipped variant, which explains my P1, since they released after the original wave of Japanese P2 shells. My purple P1 is particularly special to me now after learning this, thanks to VPQ, especially due to these flipped molds being harder to find in releases from the North American and European regions. Given its special nature, I felt it even more appropriate give it some new flare and glimmer ✨ I now leave it out to hang where it happily reminds me of my Tamagotchi origins whenever I look at it 💜 (now featuring a vintage style pink Mametchi charm made by Electronic Days)