Hey, kittens and all you beautiful MC’s! It’s time for another Otome Merch Review, and today, I’ll be showcasing the cutest and fluffiest Piofiore Pet Series Standees fan merch by the artist “Squishylama”.

I caught my eyes on these standees a month ago when I came across Squishylama’s Etsy store, and I knew I had to get my hands on a full-set right away! There aren’t a lot of fan-made otome merch outside of Japan, so finding these rare gems really gets me all pumped up! Before we head into the review, let’s first get to know the artist and creator behind these adorable Piofiore Standees.

💟 GET TO KNOW SQUISHYLAMA

Squishylama is a fluffy simp Llama that resides in Singapore.

“I am a hobby anime artist who draws multi-fandom art. I started off drawing in general… (mostly horses lol) at a young age. One day my classmate looked at me and said “why don’t you try drawing anime for your stories?” and POOF… that was my origin story spiraling into full weab-mode. I’ve always loved art, gaming, and story-making and I want to do more of that in the future if time permits me as I also hold a main full-time job as well.”

💟 MINI INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST

What are your hobbies?
“Various mediums of art including painting realism animals or tattoo designs. My favorite type of art, of course, is digital anime art where I also write my own stories and definitely hope to make a comic one day. Aside from that, I love gaming, not just otome games although that is what I’m most into at the moment and will be for a foreseeable long time.” (laughs).

Experience as an Artist/Merch Creator
“This was actually my first ever merch project where I stocked up on physical units. Last year in 2021, I did a Kickstarter for Genshin impact standees, however, I was not able to get enough support before the campaign ended. From there I took a step back and decided to take a break and came back with a different approach where I just decided to go for it and order in a small stock (which is the fan merch you’re seeing now). Before making merch I would take in art commissions often as I had more time back then as that was the period before I got my full-time job.”

What got you into Otome Games?
“I played my first otome game way back in 2013. It was Hakuoki on the 3ds and I LOVED IT! At that time I was at the peak of my weabness so I wasn’t just focused on otome games but more so anime in general, and I didn’t have many consoles nor a good PC back them. So time skip to 2021, where I was playing Fire Emblem Three Houses, and I felt like I needed more romance in the character interactions (laughs).

I also remembered seeing Cafe Enchante in passing, and I thought the art was really nice but was hesitant to pick up the title at first as it’s been 8 years since I played my last otome game. In the end, I went for it and I loved it so much that I immediately went to search for more otome titles. I was looking up recommendations online, and that’s actually how I found Otome Kitten. (laughs) I basically camped at this site’s Nintendo Switch game list, read all their reviews for the games, and piled my current library of otome games based on that list. (laughs) So currently my otome game backlog is packed and I’m taking my time to clear them. I enjoy and appreciate the hot 2D men brain rot though!”

Future Plans as an Artist, Merch Creator
“I have so many projects I want to be doing for all the games I’ve played so far including games outside the Otome genre, like Rune Factory. My next focus will be on art prints (both of existing otome art I’ve done and future prints I have in the works). Though I already have plans to create another line of standees for Cupid parasite and probably some meme stickers as that game has so much crackhead energy, I love it! My goal is to produce at least 1 piece of fan merch for every otome game I’ve played so far and it may not always be the full cast of love interests as I have the constraints of time, unfortunately.”

💟 WHERE TO FIND SQUISHYLAMA

Etsy Store | Twitter | Instagram | Pixiv | Reddit

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ITEMS IN SQUISHYLAMA’S STORE

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UNBOXING THE STANDEES

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REVIEW

First of all, these designs are super cute & fun! A chibi cat boy Dante is something I never thought I’d need in my fangirl life! 😆 All of the Piofiore boys are just too adorable, and the added cute paws in the BG accentuates the play of colors in these chibis! Since the designs are printed back to back, it doesn’t matter which angle you want to display them. The acrylics were also of good quality, and they are very thick (double board). 

What surprised me the most were the size. They are enormous! Bigger than Otomate’s acrylic tokutens even! (See pic below)

I’m all for bigger standees as I want them to stand out when I place them on my acrylic racks, so this is a plus. I wish there was a Lili standee as well in the set. I love my otome game heroines a lot (they’re all my precious daughters), and I enjoy collecting heroine merch as much as I enjoy collecting LI (and Douma) merch! (cackles)

As for the shipping, since this was shipped overseas (using Singpost), it took around two weeks to arrive in the US, and this is probably due to COVID-related delays when it comes to international shipments. By default, the standard shipping fee for the standees is $6.75 (untracked). There is an option to add tracked shipping as an upgrade to your order though. I also like that the items were shipped with adhesives attached to them. This is in order to protect the acrylics from having unnecessary scratches while in transit.

**If you’re curious what these standees look like up-close, watch my unboxing video above!

I am absolutely happy and very satisfied with this purchase, so I’m recommending this merch to all Piofiore fans, esp. if you’re someone like me who loves collecting (and hoarding lol)  otome game merch. Definitely grab one of these precious Piofiore standees while supplies last!

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