i was drunk one night and bid on a pretty worn and used japanese tamagotchi v4/entama. it was cheap but i bid an extra 5$ so i think i overbid a bit, but that's okay because it's too late now lmao. it's been sitting in bubble wrap till i felt like restoring it - like today!

i didn't get a good picture of the back but it had some pretty deep scratches and DIRT. LOTS OF DIRT!! it was pretty gross lmao. im glad i took the whole thing apart. i scrubbed it down with soapy water and lots of q-tips, toothpicks, an old toothbrush, then some polywatch and a microfiber to polish off whatever scratches i could. i'm almost out of polywatch now!! lmao. i wasn't able to get all the dinks and doinks polished away but that's fine. i put some cute washi tape over the back to hide most of it.

I was afraid to separate the speaker from the shell completely, so i tried very carefully to polywatch the shell and not snap any wires or get water on the circuit 😂

i also don't have the proper screwdrivers for the japanese-type screws, but i was able to take out all the screws with the tiniest phillips head and im hoping i didn't further strip them. fingers crossed for their cursed future 🙏

getting the rusted o-ring off was very stressful, my pliers kept slipping and i was afraid i would crack the plastic. the metal was tough to pull apart :'( it was also one of the hardest spots to clean, SPECIALLY on the shell with the circuits attached, cause i didn't wanna roughhouse it too much. its still a bit gross but in the REALLY hard to see spots :') alas, i put everything back together and threw in a new battery.

I feel a lot less icky handling this thing now. i ordered replacement keychains on etsy so it was ready to go! eventually i want to touch up the paint job too. i don't mind used up tamas like these because i feel less bad about taking it with me or banging it up myself, lol. and GOD does it look much nicer now!!