The title is misleading however, as my case in point is actually in manga. So is this picture.

There are a good number of people in the aniblogosphere (god, using that term feels weird) whom I respect quite a bit. One of those people is Owen / Saturnine. Around a year ago, he recommended (placed a link to Amazon) Solanin which I ended up buying on impulse when I saw it on the bookstore’s shelves. It now sits proudly near front-and-center of my bookshelf, and gets a quick read-through whenever I get all sentimental and stuff. Thing is, something’s always on the back of my mind – I cannot for the love of god, figure out the subtext.

This has been a problem of mine; I see myself as a pretty straightforward guy, and when it comes to things like these, I fail horribly at reading in between the lines. Same goes with Darker then BLACK’s first season. But you know what, I enjoyed the hell out of those two media. They’re way up there alongside ARIA and Yotsuba and Mushishi as some of the best stuff I’ve read or watched. However, I can’t help but feel that I’m always going to be missing the better half of the goodness of the media until I piece together all the motifs and symbols and deeper subtext, and that I’m going to be relying on other people to break things down for me.

Though in the end, we’ve all got a myriad ways of appreciating things, and as long as we enjoyed the work, where’s the wrong in that?

PS: Oh, and before I forget, here’s a nice short by the same author.

On Kobato. – the writeup on bianki’s post here suits it well. While I am a bit fond of shoujo – and this is very shoujo, in comparison with a lot of other shows – I hate it when the female lead’s a dumb moeblob. Heck, Ioryogi strikes me as a funner character. The first episode was bearable, but I don’t know if I’ll go on any further. Though I would like some of that Kobato Stew.

A continuation of the last season, Shin Koihime†Musou is well, pretty much the same as before. Except unlike the more entertaining hijinks of the first season, they decided to make the episode about a topic rather done to death – using true/personal names to address each other. As moritheil wrote – “While this might be instructive to five-year-olds, it’s just not that appealing to someone who already understands the distinction.” In other words, more food jokes + SD + yuri please.

Kämpfer is like Sekirei iwth a transgender and multiple personalities AND yuri. However the problem I had with Sekirei, is the same as this – the plot. I’m just not fond of a girls-fighting-each-other-for-no-particular-slash-specified-reason sorta show, which is exactly what these two are. On the other hand, the character designs are a little to my taste and animation is still of decent quality (unlike Seven Arcs non-DVD QUALITY), so I think I can stick around with this a little longer.

As a final word on things – I’m still a little hesitant to echo bianki’s words of “Fall Fail”. I’ll keep up watching as many (good?) shows as possible and see what sort of gold surfaces from the horrible, muddy rivers.

image not related. Co2A is godly awesome, however.

Lately I’ve been playing Emil Chonicle Online (Zeroblade 45/43 Archer) and it’s been such a massive timesink that I haven’t even had the time to think about things, let alone write about them. Combining this with school, I basically don’t allot the time I ought to for this place. And let’s not even get to the eroge (almost all of which I’ve yet to play). And to make matters worse (and better, simultaneously), IIDX 16 EMPRESS CS has just been released, so I should be getting it, oh, end of the week; I’ll pretty much be playing it nonstop for weeks or months.

But I’m not gonna jump the gun and declare hiatus right here and now, but I suppose the few regular readers of this place (are there even any? lol) ought to know that the posting frequency will be drooping pretty drastically – not that it can go much lower though! I’ve still got a list of things in the back of my head I’ve got to ramble on, like the rest of the Fall season, and the other big thing I’m obligated to talk about: Onani Master Kurosawa, which was actually moving enough to cause some internal change in me. And then some.

So I guess that’s about it.

Given its clear-cut distinction about its target audience (that is to say, people who understand these jokes – otaku being a large percentage of this), the number of people who could possibly enjoy this show is marginally low (in comparison to other shows that have more mass appeal). I guess you could equate it to masturbation (in a figurative sense, of course) – no meaning, no hidden intention. Just mindless fun and pleasuring oneself. I mean, it’s a show about nothing but jokes on otaku-related works and terms. It’s as meta as an anime could be, really. Whoever said Bakemonogatari was a circle-jerk of a show made for otaku can eat their words – SeiZon is miles ahead in terms of this distinction. This sort of show was made for otaku, period.

However, those people who do fall within its target market may quite enjoy it – as I have. This may sound awfully elitist, but the way the show works, it’s almost like it panders to the people knowledgable about its jokes and references – namely, us. It’s just like going to an IRC channel and watching the people randomly talk about anime; you laugh at some of the jabs and some others just fly right by you. Since the show is essentially a mini-dump of jokes, gags, and references on current shows and other media, I doubt it’s one of those things that people who don’t already know what the show’s talking about will enjoy it.

I hesitate to get pretentious and call it a brilliant social commentary on the current state of otaku media affairs; it could be, but I can’t quite find the words to fully describe how exactly it could. What I can say about it is that for those who like a little bit of pandering for their otaku selves, it won’t fail to satisfy. And I’m quite satisfied, even for just a little while.

Side Note: I was supposed to toss in a nice header image, but fail uni internet won’t let me upload anything. orz

AKA: 幼なじみは大統領. I was supposed to write a kinda long post and all, but I got lazy. Yeah.

(image-heavy post follows)

It’s a damn fun game, I gotta say.  I mean, good lord, the premise is as follows:

December 20XX A.D. On that day, Nippon was annihilated.

An alien race finds the Voyager probe and traces back the coordinates of Earth. One of their spaceships crash-lands into the middle of Nippon (新本, not 日本), right onto the diet building, pretty much killing all the political leaders.

Next door is…?

To rectify this situation, they grab a random person and make her the president of the country. That random person happens to be your childhood friend, whose house has been turned into the White Snow House, while you and your friends become the vice-president, information officer, and chief of staff. And then the entire human race is brainwashed into thinking this is all a matter of fact, except you and the Rusian [sic] president know the truth. Somehow. ALSO LOLI ALIENS AND JET PACKS AND HOT RUSIAN [sic] PRESIDENTS AND TALKING PANDAS AND CRAZY KGB MAIDS BLARGHASMDFRIMNASDMDGJCLZFLL (paraphrased)

Never a dull moment here- the game throws a ton of jokes and puns and references and meta-jokes. Plus the main character is a nice guy who loves to seku-hara everyone. All of the characters are quite fun to be with; no particularly annoying characterizations or voices or stuff. And there’s not a single tsundere! (two childhood friends – one older sister-type, one dojikko type – one moemoe cute girl, one shy spaceship girl, one loli alien, one crazy KGB maid, still another to come, but I have no idea if she’ll have a route or anything). ALSO TIME FOR A SCREENSHOT DUMP.

That was the newly developed “YOU WA SHOCK gun”. It probably won’t kill, but cause the other party to collapse.

For the details, read the Readme!

I may only be this tall, but I am indeed a woman. All characters that appear in this game are 18 and up!

Yes, we cum!

FINALLY, ILINA IS THE MOE-EST MOE MOE PRESIDENT EVER. PLEASE TAKE ME BACK TO RUSIA WITH YOU.

ぜひ、お願いします！

SO MOEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~~~~!!

Also if the Philippines had a competent moe president, we’d pretty much skyrocket in terms of progress and development. /politicks.

Re: ghostlightning

While he finds a select number of anime difficult to write about – just about all of them in the list, I would consider to be classics – I find writing about anything to be hard. For some reason, I cannot put out a fully cohesive thought on anything without some sort of rubric or idea of what to write about at all, which is why most of my anime-centric posts end up being simply superficial impression-type posts that display just my surface thoughts on the show. I could have as much difficulty writing about ARIA or Macross (not that I’ve watched the latter) as I do about Saki.
I’ve found that just about everything I try to write up about a show ends up having no actual substance, really. Most posts that turn out as having some substance usually are very emotionally driven (as opposed to analytically driven – I’ll get to this in a subsequent post).
Often a good idea is to go on hiatus for a few months and gain some new perspectives, but I don’t think I’m ready to let go yet – I have a post or two that need typing out before I take my leave of absence from this place.

I don’t remember having read anything about this in recent history, but it feels like a topic that’s been discussed so much before that I feel like I’m beating a dead horse now. Anyway.

There are, I think, two types of shows (and similarly, two ways of watching) – ones that you enjoy, and ones that you appreciate.

Enjoyable shows are often influenced by trends and are marketed towards a more specific, often niche market. Sad to say, but these can account for a large number of today’s shows. Just about every eroge-based show can fall under this category. These are based on trends – what’s in at the moment. Take for example, the huge flood of eroge-based shows with a tsundere character a few years ago. Nowadays, you’ve got shows featuring cool-dere’s, yandere’s, and who knows what others there are. It’s always an easy thing to watch this sort of show rather than what one would consider a “better” show – a guilty pleasure if you will. It’s a fun ride while it lasts, but you can toss it away like a used condom once you’re finished with it. A large number of these shows are also used as simple marketing ploys to get you to buy stuff. They butter up characters to endear themselves to the viewers as much as possible so that you feel compelled to act upon the show by buying stuff. Ultimately, these are like the fluffy meringues of the anime world. Fun to eat, but then there’s not much substance in them at all.

On the other hand, appreciable shows seem to have a few key characteristics. Whenever one appreciates a series, it often turns out to be one of those classic shows that stand the test of time. That is to say, unlike enjoyment-type shows, you could grab two people in two completely different generations, have them watch the same show, and both come out like they loved the thing. Despite trends constantly shifting and fluctuating, these greatness of these kinds of shows never waver. I will hold back from making too many examples as I’ve yet to watch a decent of these, but one can probably count a number of movies like Grave of the Fireflies, 5cm Per Second, Spirited Away, and things like that.
Another factor that I think distinguishes these from other shows is that they all incite, to varying degree, some self-reflection. These are the shows that make you think, rather than act (with your wallet). More often than not, these are, strangely, what people find hard to write about because there’s so many things to talk about that you find it hard to put all of your thoughts and emotions of it into a single train of thought.

Despite the idea I’m putting out that these two are mutually exclusive categories, the typical case is that it’s very subjective, depending on the viewer’s point of view on whether a show is considered appreciable or enjoyable, or in many cases – both. Take for example, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. This is, for me, an appreciable show, but by no means an enjoyable one. To be honest, I find it a very taxing show to watch – not because it’s boring or anything, but because it’s such a heavy load on the mind and on the emotions. Each episode that I watch often leaves me in a slightly morose state because of the overall atmosphere or aura that the show projects. (in contrast, a show like Koihime Musou has an overall light mood because it’s such a simple sort of show for me; hot girls in skimpy outfits go somewhere and do stuff, happy end). Others may view the matter of TM8.0 differently; they might actually enjoy the overall feeling of the show, and therefore find it both appreciable, and enjoyable as well.

I think it boils down to a give-and-take sort of relationship. Enjoyables are there to be watched, and discarded later on. Little investment is required of the viewer, except a half-hour of his life. On the other hand, appreciable shows often tend to ask more of the viewer – more time, more attention, more thought on the matter, but the rewards are much greater as well.

Of course I could just be trying to over-categorize an already too-niche medium. In which case you can forget all this tripe and move on.

PS: the images have nothing to do with the post; just into djmax technika at the moment.

This is, perhaps, one of the best examples I could give when talking about the literary merits of an eroge. Although you could technically do without the ero, leaving just the ge, I think… it feels a little more proper with the former, given Taichi’s character. But man, Romeo, were he to do literature on a different medium, would probably succeed.

On the plot. It stays in the background for some time, until the final few routes. Until then, the characters are constantly at the forefront of the whole kaboodle. And indeed they are very interesting characters. None of them are ever flat or one-sided. There’s a totally different side to them that you only truly see as you progress, and because the way the game flows, you see multiple iterations of them, and the contrasts between side A and side B (and side C) are just downright incredible. And the game doesn’t really dwell on the setting; it’s more used as a springboard for the characters to strut their stuff – all done very well.

To be frank, I found Ever17’s plot to be more interesting, but when it comes to characters, C†C wins hands down. But then Ever17 puts emphasis on the plot while C†C puts emphasis on the characters! So yeah.

Anyway, on the plot – it was quite engaging when it got into high gear, but never explained in detail. That is to say, unlike Ever17 where they give you little hints here and there, then drop the bomb right at the end, C†C just stops at the hints, leaving the reader to piece together the bits of information scattered in the dialogue/monologue.

Some people said Tanaka Romeo’s writing was pretty tough, and that they were pretty off-put by all the off-topic side-comments and jokes. I actually liked it; it feels like an even more casual form of prose, which constantly keeps the tone light in all the right scenes, but he can shift tones and moods to darker, more serious ones very well with just a couple of lines.

Art was pretty good, for such an antiquated (okay, not really) game. The style was reminiscent of someone, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I noticed it was Matsuryu’s stuff. The eyes and the nicely defined anatomy give it away.

Music wasn’t anything memorable, but the light-toned stuff was quite enjoyable to listen to on loop. Voices weren’t super incredible or anything, but there’s no painfully annoying ones either. And Sakuraba’s voice sounds a lot like Koyasu Takehito. His voice is far too distinct for me not to recognize. Or maybe it’s just me.

Okay, bad points. Just one, really.  This isn’t really a “branching” sort of eroge. That is to say, despite choices, you’re pretty much forced to go on a single track, and  it time-loops back if you screw up, which is to say, there are no “bad-ends”. Just one “end”, which you will, provided you actually complete the segments without looping forever, reach at some point in time. In other words, it’s more like a kinetic novel with choices, contradictory as that sounds.

Yeah, so in short, it’s a pretty good game. And the patch has an all-ages version too, for all those who are pure of heart. No excuses. Play it. Youko is watching you.

I went to (investigate) the Power Plant. No, not those smoke-spewing dumps that could kill birds passing by in one fell swoop. Power Plant was a mall, situated in the front of a river, whose pollution levels were high enough to merit a national-level program to clean up the damned thing. At the same time, it was plopped right beside upper-class condominiums and facilities. Almost like putting a mall in a subdivision.

Well, so about the place. It had all the brand-name stores at the very forefront of its wallet-piercing spear – Gucci, Armani, Dolce&Gabbana, and… some other stuff I forgot (READ: I don’t shop there). Yeah, so they were there. On the third floor was a certain bookstore, which had a certainly decent stock of manga. I don’t buy there often, but I’ll be damned – they have 6 shelves worth of graphical novelities. Mostly shit, but it still counts. And then tucked away near the cinemas is a little audio store with goods costing more than the yearly salaries of 5 average people from this poor, pitiful country combined. But those weren’t what I came for.

I came for a certain arcade game – beatmania IIDX. And I played it. Goddamn, that was good stuff.

As I was going back out to make the long, horrible commute under the drab, sorrowful weather with clouds in Shades of Grey (GET IT!?), The Clear Blue Sky started playing on my portable MP3 player – which most certainly was not of fruity or improperly capitalized origins.

Open the doors and voila! First thing I see is the clear blue sky. What a coincidence! I thought.

“What a coincidence! (I have of speaking out my thoughts)”

People looked at me weird, and I didn’t really give a damn. I proceeded to merilly skip down the crossing, despite cars rushing through. Screw you cars, the pedestrian is king! I thought of shooting the bird at the cars, but I didn’t want to die getting slammed by the front face of a Toyota (everyone uses Toyotas here, damned Japanophiles. Oh wait-).

Anyway, about the clear blue sky; both the song and the situation. Thinking of the former had me then thinking about the video, which then made me remember how I screwed up because the video was distracting, which then made me think of the girl in the video, and then I ended up remembering my childhood friend from that (I have a weird thought process).

She was… hm, how do I describe her?

She was an happy-go-lucky sort of girl, but she had a tendency to zone out. Sometimes had a habit of just staring at a wall for long periods of time (her record is an hour, 24). Slightly clumsy, and had a habit of almost-tripping on everything. The thing that really set her apart is how she always had this off-blond hair. Almost golden in appearance. And she had the cutest goddamned voice, like they do in animu.

Apparently, both her parents’ parents were quite the playful couples before marriage. Playful as in, they had affairs and kids before marriage (and that they did all sorts of weird fetish plays. Probably). As a result, her mother and father were children “outside the family”, as they called it. Bastard kids, in short.

Anyway, we met when we were around 5, 6 years old. All the time in the world to make good friends with someone of the opposite sex. And in fact, we did. We stuck together all the damned time. We knew each other like the fronts of our hands (people don’t really pay much attention to the back of their hands as they do to the front). Close enough to the point where people were drawing us under the love umbrella, and she’d just blush that slight shade of pink when she saw it.

So moe.

But a year later, an incident happened. We were playing on the street when SUDDENLY A HUGE TANK APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE AND RAN HER OVER THREE TIMES WHILE SHOOTING SHELLS AT THE OTHER HOUSES (by the way it was some lunatic driving a Sherman. Don’t ask how it got there)-

Is what I’d like to say to make this all the more interesting. Except it’s not what happened. Sorry.

She moved out of town because of the economic situation and we haven’t seen each other since. No, we couldn’t exchange letters, e-mails, or SMS messages because I didn’t know her future address, we didn’t have a computer back then, and we didn’t have cellphones back then either. How convenient, I know (that was sarcasm by the way).

So we parted in a dramatic, tear-jerking 2-hour finale with an all-star cast of the local celebrities. Actually, we just said bye to each other and then she hopped on the car and left while I went back and had a delicious siesta (siesta rhymes with fiesta which equals food which means deliciousness! I’m so clever).

Wait, where were we? Oh yeah, I boarded the train headed towards Shaw Boulevard station. As I got off, a girl tripped right in front of me-

“Aahh!”

Or not. She grabbed onto the railing.

First thing I noticed, was her golden hair, and then her voice suddenly got something clicking in my head (not the Vanishing Point (GET IT!?) I was clicking open and closed the entire time. I have a lot of weird habits). I (sort of) helped her up on her feet, took one look at her face (whoa, she’s wearing glasses! meganemoe~), and said-

“Hey, are you-?”

“Oh sweet merciful heavens, is that you?”

Holy shit, what a coincidence! Also what is with that expression of hers!

“Holy shit, what a-”

“Coincidence!”

“Yeah!”

We bumped fists together. GU and BROFIST and all that. “So nice to see you again!”, she says. “I missed you so much!” Then she jumps and gives me one helluva hug. Except she’s short so she doesn’t even reach my chin on her tiptoes, which makes the thing even more moe.

“You know,” she tells me, with her face slightly downcast, “I’ve always wanted to tell you that I love you.”

That was pretty damn sudden!

She grabbed my hand, flagged a taxi and brought me straight to her place. By the way, I was still kinda stunned at the time, so she ended up pulling my wallet out to scan my train pass too. By the time I came to my senses, I was at her place, sitting on her bed. She said she loved me, and I’m pretty sure I love her too (oh goddamn, sudden development without proper background in the writing!).

She came to me, took my first kiss. French too. Oh, goodbye my dear sweet kiss-virginity. Wait, is there such a thing? Whatever. She then gave me a cup of coffee because it’d been raining ever since we got in the cab. I saw her pouring in some aphrodesiac in it earlier with my SUPER PSYCHIC MENTAL POWERS (she did it in the room next to me with the door open). I drank it anyway!

*sexual power has levelled up!*

She then said, “Can we do it?”

“Sure.”

Then we had sex.

It was good.

THEREFORE TODAY IS THE STRONGEST DAY.

AND YOU CAN ONLY HAVE THE STRONGEST ON THE STRONGEST DAY.

damn straight cirno.