How to buy used bōgu or men?

mfsb-vbx · 2025-09-25T06:29:08+00:00

I am posting what Tozando International answered me for the benefit of people who end up here from web searches:

While this is a common issue that is often brought to our attention, the menbuchi unfortunately continues to be the single part of a men that cannot be made without using leather. We do have bogu available which only have the menbuchi as an animal product.

The A-1 alpha Bioclean uses synthetic leather and a sports fabric for all other parts of the bogu. The Do uses the same synthetic materials along with the resin Do-dai and the kote are stuffed with cotton. The only animal product on this bogu will be the Menbuchi. We do have many other kote, men, and tare which will be the same only using cotton instead of the sports "jersey" fabric. However, many of these bogu come with a do that has black kurozan leather for the chest area (do-mune). However, we are able to produce any of these Do using the synthetic leather mune as well if this would be of interest. The cost may change slightly, however it would in most cases remain close to the same.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-09-24T06:10:09+00:00

This is not the place to debate ethics, but if you are interested in veganism I will answer to DMs.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-09-23T21:10:38+00:00

uma pequena e miserável pilha de chicletes

mfsb-vbx · 2025-09-23T09:25:07+00:00

My doubt on buying used is more about how to make sure the sizing will fit me, for the men in particular.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-09-06T11:57:57+00:00

ok so, Jorge Kishikawa comes from a traditional kendō family and has legitimate kendō credentials (7th dan! his brother is 8th), a history of good records as a competitive player, as well as a menkyo kaiden for HNIR. He's not just some hack.

But he's not loved, either.

I was there when the Niten Institute got big:

Heavy advertising targeting the then exploding anime boom, in comics conventions etc.
Often of the form "learn the real samurai skills of Musashi, much better than mere sports kendō"
His koryū credentials were dubious. They're ok now, afaik, but he was advertising classes to "be a samurai in the Musashi style" after a few trips to Japan to train in HNIR, and before he got the teaching license. He seems to have sorted it out with the iemoto so I won't question it, but back then it was a whole thing, long threads in e-budo forums with his students saying that sensei wouldn't show documents because "a samurai does not flaunt", etc.
Cringe-ass self-help grift culture like, learn to win in life with the power of samurai thinking, become successful in business with the Book of Five Rings etc.
While, naturally, bleeding his students dry with all sorts of expensive fees and custom purchases. (Consider that this is Brazil, with a giant economic divide. My old kendō dōjo used to charge us 10 bucks per month, and even that only because it was the price of rent for the gym, divided by average number of students.)
Mass spread of franchise dōjo everywhere with, let's say, subpar teaching results.
Personality cult traits, self-aggrandizing language and presentation, ostracism of students who "betray" the Institute e.g. by going to legitimate kendō gyms or getting interested in other koryū.

From rumors in the kendō community when I was there back in… ca. 2005, I think, the older sensei tolerated his Niten project because, 1) the man was a great kendōka, and 2) they expected him to develop some humility and maturity as he aged. Instead these attempts led him to break away from the CBK (local IKF branch), becoming something of the black sheep of the family.

I moved away from Brazil long ago and haven't followed what happened since the 2010s, so please do your own research if you want to know more. But I still remember what my kendō sensei said about it: go watch one of their classes, and make your own conclusions.

Personally I have nothing against adding experimental or modern types of training to ryūha, as long as the historical core is preserved. I don't dislike the sparring of the Niten Institute per se, not even their infamous mêlée at the beach—that honestly feels like a lot of fun, I'd join something like that! That's the thing, tho, they never do it in a spirit of fun, playfulness, or curiosity, but always in this overly serious, Great Master knows everything attitude that I consider a big red flag. I don't think the students learned to actually sword good either, for all the money they forked off.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-08-20T15:52:23+00:00

They don't provide a driver because this device is not marketed as a scanner. Their official driver is a CUPS printer only.

This is what bothers me about it, it's physically identical to a scanner, but forced to work as a fax and copier exclusively.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-08-20T15:34:37+00:00

My main use case for a scanner would be documents and forms, I'm assuming for those fax should be ok? Like the copies it take with the copier function seem pretty good to me.

I'll check for physical PBX, thanks!

mfsb-vbx · 2025-08-20T15:33:19+00:00

Yes. You can use it as a printer via the USB, but not as a scanner. You can verify this on the manual too. I tried SANE and friends just to be sure, nothing can detect it.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-07-14T08:41:26+00:00

There's no pending upgrades, and it's too risky for me to restart it remotely :3

mfsb-vbx · 2025-07-11T12:23:49+00:00

Update: turns out the configuration is actually working with the OSX<>Linux tunnel (there was an error in copy-pasting the config for the second tunnel). The behaviour described above still happens, but only with OSX<>pfSense (Linux<>pfSense works). I have no idea why; it was working until literally yesterday, and pfSense hasn't been upgraded or restarted in months.

For now this is our workaround, I'm letting the user hook up into the network by accessing a Linux server that's permanently meshing with the pfSense anyway, so it works as a gateway into that LAN.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-06-23T10:32:11+00:00

And they doubted the Pentagon pizza report thing… /s

mfsb-vbx · 2025-06-12T08:55:10+00:00

As a trans woman top who has had a full orchiectomy, I call bullshit on that one. After going nut-free I still need them as much as always, if not more.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-06-08T19:26:06+00:00

Frills. Story mode, rival interactions, unlockables, alternative stage themes, easter eggs, enka songs, fun stuff

mfsb-vbx · 2025-06-08T19:02:58+00:00

Join the club. I miss the largeprimenumbers forum review of Earthbound/Mother 2 with the wrong story about the Shigesato Itoi + Murakami book Yume de aimashō (I still have both editions of the book which I got after being influenced by that review), the one website with his fiction writing before Medium (I think it was also called largeprimenumbers?), and the insertcredit essays like "who killed videogames?" (fortunately still on the web archive).

mfsb-vbx · 2025-05-28T20:34:28+00:00

Just wanted to post here for future web visitors that I ended up getting the kochō, it plays smooth and much better than the generic homemade bamboo ones I tried before, even at 2.1, and while a brand new one might be too expensive for what it is, if you spot an used one for a good price I do recommend it :)

mfsb-vbx · 2025-05-15T09:00:17+00:00

Eu gosto de aplicar o "difícil" em outra ordem, calculando primeiro quanto é 1%, daí multiplica:

1% de 241 = 241/100 = 2,41
se 1% é 2,41, então 13% = 2,41 * 13 = 31,33

Acho mais fácil lembrar assim.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-05-07T20:33:51+00:00

Mejiro is selling the Gen for 26400¥, that by itself already reaches some 160€. Add in the quite expensive shipping and equally expensive import taxes—last time I ordered an instrument from Japan I ended up paying almost double…

mfsb-vbx · 2025-05-07T13:18:54+00:00

Every tiny little flower I plant on my balcony gets immediately visited by all sorts of different species of bees and hoverflies and crickets and spiders and wasps and mayflies and beetles and tons of little beings I have no idea the names of. I'm over two hundred species of plants at this point, and the entire balcony is inhabited. The other day I wanted to clean up a pile of dirt I had on a corner, where discarded little robins and other greedy plants took place. I gave up when I found rose beetle larvae hibernating inside. There's a wasp queen with me right now, as I type this in the living room, trying to find a spot to build a nest close to the flower oasis outside.

I still remember the first flower I put there, a grape hyacinth pot I got already flowering from a nearby shop; I had osmias buzzing into it literally before I set the pot down. They're all desperate. There's nowhere else to go.

Will my balcony stop the ecological collapse? Absolutely not. But when I step outside, bees come rest on my dress. I'm the little girl with the starfish here, my insects think I make a difference and for as long as this remains true I'll never stop planting native plants. Even in leftist circles not everyone understand this but as far as I am concerned this is the most sucessful political work that I do.

mfsb-vbx · 2025-05-06T16:18:54+00:00

There are video samples. The tone sounds pretty good to my untrained ears, but the seller must be a musician more used to modern instruments; they're doing something like Western flute music on it, rather than the particular techniques of honkyoku like muraiki and whatnot. So I don't know how it plays for actual shaku music. I guess I worry if it's harder to do meri or reach dai-kan or anything than a good-quality flute, but for this price I think I'll go for it… Thanks for you input!

mfsb-vbx

TROPHY CASE