#ohju

Early in December 2023, one of my favorite artists posted that she was going to be selling a 2024 daily calendar for the 30th anniversary of Final Fantasy VI.

I was so excited for this that I immediately went through the processes of setting up a shipping account for purchasing items from Japan to be shipped to the US.

The calendar arrived last week and I'm ecstatic. For lots of reasons. I don't even know where to start.

First, let me say that this artist - whose handle is Ohju (おじゅ), and whose store name is Ouka (追歌) - is an absolutely delightful and generous person. It's because of her help that I was able to learn how to set up the process of shipping to the US. She's fielded some of my weird (but hopefully respectful) questions, and has overall just been extremely kind and patient when she didn't need to be. A very sincere and appreciative どうもありがとうございます to her. ❤️

Okay, the next amazing thing is that she sent me more than just the calendar. In fact, the package I received included the following items that I was not expecting:

3 postcards (one of which is a GORGEOUS illustration of Hydaelyn from FFXIV)

3 sheets of stickers

1 sheet of stamps

4 sheets of stationary

A mini zine she made named Relic Hearts that features illustrations of various FF6 accessories (this is akin to her amazing art depicting FF6 weapons for SWORDTEMBER 2020)

A handwritten envelope with a handwritten note inside it. HANDWRITTEN, people! That's a touch of love right there!

Here are some pictures of these delightful extras. The first picture is how everything was packaged when it arrived.

(I didn't realize until later that my dog can be seen in the picture below. Whoops! 😂)

Here are a couple of pages from the Relic Hearts zine:

To reiterate, these are all things that were sent in addition to the calendar, which I haven't even talked about yet. I was truly blown away and became giddy like a child, like they were a bunch of surprise birthday gifts. THANK YOU for all these extras, Ohju-san! 🤩

So - the calendar itself. The first part is a 36-page booklet that contains empty spaces labeled with a month and day. The second part is a small, prism-shaped desk display containing seven sets of peelable stickers. The stickers are similarly labeled with a month and day, and the idea is that each day you peel off the current day's sticker and put it in the matching space in the booklet.

Her illustration on this depicts the process much more clearly than my bumbling text.

The dates in the empty spaces in the booklet are sometimes sequential, but sometimes not, so you can't always predict how the stickers are going to line up.

Each page in the calendar also contains some reflections and thoughts from Ohju-san herself about FF6, detailing some of her own history with the game as well as some of her own headcanons.

The calendar doesn't "start" until April 1st, 2024, so for now I'm just holding onto everything. I'm honestly a little scared to even use it; everything is so beautiful that part of me wants to just preserve it in its packaging forever. But that's not what Ohju-san intended, so come April 1st, I'll peel my first sticker to put into the booklet, and will then have another 364 days to look forward to.

Finally, a few other artists also contributed pieces to the calendar. I haven't seen any of their pieces yet, but six pages of the calendar are dedicated for their stickers, so I know which dates will be theirs.

I'm intentionally limiting the pictures I post in order to respect Ohju-san and the other artists' work. But here are a few pictures of the calendar materials.

There's even a guide sheet for where everything goes, just in case you get lost (which I absolutely will).

Anyway, this is one of the most amazing collections of fan merchandise I've ever seen. I'm extremely grateful to Ohju-san, and I can't wait to start using this calendar.

Please check out all her other artwork. Honestly, everything is stunning. She can be found:

https://narche.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/ojup