Month: December 2024

My Best Girls 3×3

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Inter-holiday shenanigans

Once again, I open the door to personal opinions, not about a particular series, but on a series of characters who’ve won me over. Observe!

From left to right going down, we have Kagura, Konata, Izumi, Miyuki Kobayakawa, Asa Mitaka, Lady Rias Gremory, Minami Fuyuki, Tohka Yatogami, Anna Nishikinomiya, and Asuka Langley Soryu. There’s a runner-up who doesn’t fit into a 3×3 and would thus make this into a Top 10 List. I’ll introduce her at the end, so while you’re reading this, have fun guessing who the tenth inductee is. Here’s a hint: she’s covered head-to-toe in scars.

Now the breakdown:

Kagura (Azumanga Daioh) 2002

Physically, Kagura has what I like most: tan, tomboy, athletic. Personality-wise, she proves that she deserves to be a knucklehead alongside Tomo and Osaka, as their combined IQs makes up a toddler’s smallest shoe size. But with the three of them getting one-shotted by Stephen Hawking before he has time to think, what does Kagura bring out that I like so much? She’s not a bad sport and a good friend. Not the most effective at times, but she’s got the spirit to help out. Definitely the energy to; on a scale of Osaka to Tomo with Osaka being low-speed and Tomo being Speed Racer, Kagura is a NASCAR driver: she can get her engines primed and ready, but knows better than to overload them.

She’s also more introspective and self-aware than that other scoundrel she spends time with.

Credit: u/crawllinback2you1, r/azudaioh

Kagura’s moments of brilliance and reliability come from helping her friends for the most part. My favorite has to come from when Sakaki was in danger once again from the alley fiend Kamineko until Kagura applied a tender touch. Yay! Only to go overboard and antagonize the rest of the harmless kittens. Damn… Well, her heart was in the right place. Also, r/azudaioh, and r/AzumangaPosting are the two golden sources of Azumanga memes. Only the fanbase could carry a 20-year-old 4-panel series to newer heights, further bolstered by Kiyohiko Azuma’s impeccable comedic style.

Kagura > Tomo. Signed, a Kagura enjoyer.

Now, onto Dollar Store Haruhi Suzumiya:

Konata Izumi (Lucky Star) 2007

The Suzumiya thing ain’t a joke, it’s the focal point of one of the OVAs. She’s the otaku that would take over any other series where being an otaku is what it’s all about, like, say, Genshiken. Lucky Star is a show that is about three things: jack f[door slams]king shit. The characters talk about nothing important, they’re not fantastical; they’re you and me. They do regular things that we all do, and ask all the important questions our society dares not answer: How do you eat a chocolate cornet?

Channel: Crunchyroll Dubs

It’s a good time all around.

I would never say that Konata is the main element in Lucky Star because that’s not true. The entire cast shines mainly by bouncing off of each other quite well, but what makes Konata my favorite is that she’s so chill. She has few worries, doesn’t do well academically, but could give you all the anime recs you could ever ask for, some of which may come from her own dad’s collection, and that last part I personally find relatable. My mom was a young adult when Dragon Ball came to the west and my late uncle grew up with Speed Racer. Like Konata, I’m a born weeb. It was the only path I could walk on. And the one thing the series shares with Azumanga Daioh is that the fanbase is also carrying it to new heights.

Credit: baalbuddy

Merciful heavens! What a crossover!

Number 3:

Miyuki Kobayakawa (You’re Under Arrest) 1994-97; 2007-08

Before we dissect Officer Kobayakawa as a character, I want to spend a few moments analyzing the character design. She doesn’t stand out as much visually compared to Tsujimoto or Nikaido or even Nakajima when they’re all in uniform, but the few scenes where she’s off-duty, she’s a very stylish woman. Her outfits are simple, practical, and efficient. They match her kind and book-smart personality. Kobayakawa doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve like her wingwoman Tsujimoto; if Tsujimoto is the brawn, Kobayakawa is absolutely the brains.

An intellectual with impeccable observational skills, she’s a great policewoman and a great friend to all her co-workers. Now if she could just tell Nakajima how she feels already.

The entire precinct wants to greenlight their wedding ceremony already, they’re just maddeningly patient for their own good.

Numbuh 4:

Asa Mitaka (Chainsaw Man) 2018*

*The manga debuted in 2018, and MAPPA is supposed to be animating the second season… Gotta wait and see what the cooks are cooking.

I’ll be honest, I originally wasn’t that sold on Chainsaw Man as seen by this post I made last year. I still stand by my opinions that it’s what Black Torch could’ve been if it hugged the dark atmosphere tighter than a fussy mom, but learning at the time what was the craziest moment in the manga (later surpassed because Fujimoto’s life is Anti-chill), I decided to continue the manga from where the anime left off and my original assessment might not have been as fair. It still reeks of Black Torch’s ashes, but its still in serialization.

Maybe next time, Takaki-san…

Asa stars in the second part of the manga after spoilers. Wants to be seen as regular, but her own mindset gets in the way. Things happen after an encounter with the Justice Devil. Asa is possessed by the War Devil, who talks to her through hallucinations, and grants her the ability to make a weapon out of anything she touches. So far, I interpret that as “anything” not “anyone” due in part to this moment in the manga:

Yoru is probably dumber than we think.

I’m still playing catch-ups with the manga, so I’m not sure how much more Asa has learned of her abilities. For her personality, ignoring all the autistic femcel memes (hilarious as they are), Asa’s complicated but like any naïve youngster, she can’t help but be a slave to her own assumptions, about herself, about her peers, about Denji and the rest of the cast. You could brush the rest of humanity over with this paintbrush of sorts, but personally the phrase “stranger things have happened” would be a good one for her to learn.

And she does show a willingness to learn, even if her teachers and mentors are all s[seagull calls]t. Not just that their teachings are bad, but more so that some of the best lessons she takes come from general assholes. Something something, do as I say, not as I do moments. Blah blah blah…

If it sounds like I’m being light on her compared to another character, well she really can’t help but be a dumb, inexperienced kid. The Chainsaw Man world may be Satan’s best joke, but it’s still worth exploring more than just her corner of Japan. Hell, some wacky omake or OVA could put her and Denji in Hawaii or something. For what I like most about her, her arc is an interesting one to watch. From easy-pickings to “I wasn’t asking,” coupled with Yoru the built-in double act since Denji, Nayuta, and Fami aren’t always available to annoy her.

The middle one goes last. The real 5th one:

Minami Fuyuki (Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable) 2024

The gyaru front is bringing us several surprises, and it seems to have been doing so for quite some time. I’ve talked about gyaru animanga before, and I’m destined to continue to do so for as long as we get more and more series. I don’t remember what attracted me to Hokkaido Gals, but I’m certain it was either 2022 or ’23 as I was halfway through the manga by the time the anime was announced.

Fuyuki may be the face of the series, and I definitely see the appeal of Sayuri and Natsukawa-senpai. But what I really like about Fuyuki is that she has such an attractive personality. She’s fun to be around, a kind, party girl who likes fashion and her native Hokkaido climate. She’s no genius, but like Kagura she has her heart in the right place. Also the dub gave her a Minnesotan accent that blew me backwards at first, but grew on me. I’m pretty sure most anime do this to emphasize different Japanese accents and dialects to unfamiliar ears (see Ayumu “Osaka” Kasuga for more details), but if you ask me, the “rural/hick” label is thrown around too broadly. I don’t know if Japan does it themselves or if the localizers do, but anyone who’s not from Tokyo or Kyoto automatically gets the equivalent of a funny cowboy accent for some reason. Guess it’ll make sense when I’m reincarnated as a Kansan, but what can you do?

The sixth:

Tohka Yatogami (Date a Live) 2013-24

Official art could’ve been used, but this Nendoroid caught my eye and was too adorable to ignore.

One of the many faces of the series itself, Tohka was the first spirit introduced from the spatial quakes and the one that holds onto Shido probably tighter and for longer than the other girls. She’s got the strength of 15 buffalo and the personality of a puppy. Happy Tohka lights the room, sad Tohka plunges it into vantablack, angry Tohka gives us the world from the mid-2000s animation Skyland; she’s also on the ditzy side admittedly, but she doesn’t carry a lot ill will in her heart. Looking back now, she makes me think of Shikimori from her series. 10/10, ready to throw down for her man, perhaps even save him from getting Isekai’d. Beware her strength though, the girl could bench press Fukuoka Tower without limits.

七番目：

Anna Nishikinomiya (Shimoneta) 2015

I held back on the crazy waifus by flooding this one with girls that you could hang out and be best buds with before getting a chance to romance them (thus it is the correct way to do things). But here, I’ll give out a yandere.

Anna Nishikinomiya is the Student Council President, so pure of heart, she can’t see anything wrong with a lewd painting of a woman with a toadstool in between her perky boobs. One day, she is accidentally kissed, and develops a MIGHTY NEED to milk Tanukichi dry and empty.

If it wasn’t for Tanukichi’s support system of daring and curious classmates, he would’ve been toast.

Anna would be on a sex offender registry in another world with a bevy of sex-related crimes under her belt. Maybe in jail she continually obsesses over Tanukichi, busts herself out, and goes on a manhunt for Tanukichi’s treasured meat. And if it sounds like I’m joking, consider that she’s got the added bonus of athleticism and youth. Being a high school student means her body has yet to betray her due to the passage of time.

After not thinking about the series for years, I initially would’ve tried to drive her back as though I was shielding myself with a crucifix in the face of a vampire. But looking back, for therapy’s sake, poor Anna needs to f[aanh!]k for public health and safety. Forget protecting her from danger; Tanukichi and admittedly a majority of the whole student body needs protection from her, especially the girls. She nearly surgically removed Ayame’s jugular with her eyes clothes, heaven protect the girl who accidentally bumps into him. That’s a funeral no parent wants to fund.

As for her pursuits, well, she’s so thirsty, Tanukichi’s bodily fluids are her new favorite drink. She’s so horny, Aphrodite wants her to calm down. She has a built-in Tanukichi seeker that zeroes in on him from anywhere in the world. Cursed to conflate love with lust, she could use a talk about consent, perhaps hidden behind a video about tea. She’s a highlight in the series and a great example of why policing morality is bad. I’m not sure if Ayame’s method of speaking in lewd is a better alternative, but if we’re using measuring sticks, Ayame’s much tamer and she won’t stop ’til everyone’s vocabulary is unfiltered… or at least adjusted to reflect how people would actually talk if not societally enforced to walk on eggshells. I don’t like to use this, but we’ll have to consult Saki Kasukabe.

Maybe it’s the way I was raised or what I’ve been led to believe, but even talking about intimate things in mixed company is too much for me. Maybe it’ll change?

Acht:

Asuka Langley Soryu (Neon Genesis Evangelion) 1995-96

The tsundere to the stars, the one who kicks Shinji because she believes every man should be manly (when he’s in a “born to malewife, forced to Shonen MC” situation), this hafu representation of two of the Axis powers is broken psychologically.

Credit: Khyleri

r/EvangelionMemes is too strong sometimes.

Asuka Langley Soryu started out as the newest member of the team, and she’s sassy, brash, determined to be the best like no one ever was, and probably (read: definitely) wants to be dominated. I wouldn’t harp like an angel, but the more she bullies Shinji, the more I get the feeling that she wants him to slap her. Toxic? Kinky? Attention-seeking? Well, I say it’s a mix of all three. The Evangelion-themed forums have been debating that for about 30 years (yes, the 1990s are now 30 years ago people) and I’ll leave it to you to decide what’s right because either Hideaki Anno is really tight-lipped or no one is taking him seriously despite creating the f[explosion]king franchise in the first place, goddammit.

Whatever the case, Asuka’s cuter when she’s trying to impress Shinji. There aren’t a lot of moments of that and I really wish there were. If they were better at communication, then maybe the AsuShin crowd would get their vindication. Stick it to all the other shippers in the process. Then again, the series’ setting doesn’t allow for such a thing. The situation is so dire, we need kids to pilot mechas and destroy angels like this.

Biblically accurate angels.

The saddest part about Eva is that the average person didn’t understand that it was an anti-war series. I’m not into mecha and I can see that.

Now the best for last. The darling heiress to the House of Gremory, represented by the Chess king piece, she begins with a harem and then joins one herself, sweet as candy, kindest devil in all of hell, ladies and gentlemen give it up for Rias Gremory!!!

She walked past him, enswathed by her vermilion hair. She glanced at him on the ground and returned a smile and a wink, then continued on towards the school building. The crimson-haired beauty with the teal eyes was known as Rias Gremory. The most beautiful girl in the school, with the most attractive personality. She’s kind and heartwarming, welcoming any newcomers to the Occult Research Club with open arms, even the pervert who was caught ogling her earlier: Issei Hyodo.

Not my best writing, but I think it gets my point across: Rias Gremory is a good woman and an ideal partner. Being the face of a series that uses tits the same way Mario uses mushrooms, her moments of “Issei’s so cute/undress me, you son of a-” are normally saved for downtime. But it still makes an important part of the plot at ridiculous times. I’ll never forget when in the anime, Issei was made the star of a children’s program because the entire gimmick was touching boobs gave him a power-up. Let him cop a feel and all of a sudden he’s Popeye.

Rias isn’t just a pretty face and nice body. She’s kind, she’s caring, she’s considerate, and she’s cute when she gets jealous that the other girls have an interest in Issei. She’s also mature enough to negotiate with the other girls in this matter. And the most logical conclusion is to share him with Asia. Even the queen has her moments, and that’s why Rias is my Number 1.

As for the tenth who couldn’t fit into this 3×3, if you’ve exhausted your time trying to narrow it down, you may now rest. It’s Balalaika from Black Lagoon.

I’m gonna say it. Balalaika is much better than Revy.

So that’s my 3×3 as of the end of 2024, maybe I’ll update it for 2025, there’s more anime coming out next year, so the well’s never dry.

The Suffering: A Forgotten Horror TPS

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Even Midway can take a break from fighting games

What I’m about to bring you is a video game series that is completely out of season and extraordinary mainly because of the team that developed it: The Suffering and its sequel Ties That Bind.

Yeah, I wasn’t kidding about it being a Midway game.

Released in 2004, The Suffering is set on a former POW island, now a regular civilian-operated prison under the control of the Maryland state prison system, and one with a nasty history. Think of the reputation of Andersonville prison camp or a few historical British or continental European prisons; the age-old “scrubbing a turd doesn’t make it not a turd” approach to refurbishing a place as accursed as this.

The protagonist is Torque and he’s on death row for brutally murdering his wife and two sons. Just one problem, he can’t recall ever doing such a thing, but not much can be done as he’s set to walk the green mile… or he would be if s[metal clanging]t didn’t turn sideways. Not ten minutes into his cell with fellow death row inmates–an Aryan Nations member, a pedophile, and a man convicted of an unspecified heinous crime (for giggles, let’s say he’s perma-banned from 15 states)–the prison island releases the Devil’s cologne and a legion of monsters, possibly created from the mummified remains of those who were executed return to exact their revenge on everything and everyone on the island, because no one can have s[gunshots]t in Baltimore. Not even The Wire.

These supernatural hybrid undead creatures hastily held together by nails, duct tape, and rusty scalpels prances about killing anything that breathes, doesn’t even have to move. The first victims are the prison guards, whom we see in the game don’t have the prisoners’ best interests at heart. Even those with a slated release date get stepped on. Next are the prisoners, and all of Torque’s cellies get sashimied. The rest of the prisoners aren’t as lucky but with law and order sliced and stabbed and even shot at, there’s a chance for the inmates to make their escape and Torque is of the same mindset, though he also spends his escape piecing together the course of events that put him on death row.

The horror elements of the game do wonders for the action and action is how the game was advertised. Critics at the time tried to compare it to Silent Hill or Resident Evil and the Wikipedia page states that that doesn’t work because the game is more “action-horror” than “survival-horror.” I’m not above making the comparison considering the game sets itself up for it, releasing at or around the same time as some of these; then again, the game’s reputation and comparison to other games weren’t why I chose to emulate it.

Its sequel, Ties That Bind, has a demo in the game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, following on from Deception’s Area 51 demo.

Maybe I’ll emulate this one. Maybe not. Who knows?

The game’s designer, Richard Rouse III, made it clear as crystal in interviews that survival isn’t the focus of the game. Action is, since Torque, despite being a silent protagonist, feels like a twisted version of Ashley J. Williams from the Evil Dead movies. I haven’t finished the first game and I’ve only played the demo for the sequel (many years ago, I might add so what I’m about to say next may be inaccurate), but I believe both games give you a variety of weapons to use. So far, I’ve got a shiv and a revolver in my current run through of the first game. Different weapons will work on different enemies and truth be told, looking at the enemy variety necessitates a semi-strategic approach.

The lore plays a huge part in the enemies that pop up. Contributing to this carnval of carnage and misery, the fictional history of the prison reveals a diverse range of creative execution methods from hanging to firing squad to even lethal injection. The enemies’ appearance is a reflection of many of these and I’ve found that fighting them with the most applicable weapons in accordance to how they died. The ones who died by firing squad are weakest against a gun. What kind? The revolver you pick up off a prison guard is sufficient enough. Sorta like how in Max Payne 1 every cutscene shows Max with his work weapon, even if you shot everyone with the Dual Ingrams.

Interestingly enough, Torque shares the same healing method as Max Payne, the painkiller.

The game also features a moral choice system that gives way to three openings, each influenced by player actions and a trio of spirits who haunt the prison. The three Ghosts of Prison’s Past are a doctor named Killjoy, a former executioner named Hermes Haight, and an executed prisoner named Horace Gauge. Killjoy ran the insane asylum in the 1920s and naturally his ghost wants to comb through Torque’s quirks, discover why he does what he does. Hermes the executioner has killed a handful of inmates in his nearly 30 years at the prison before taking his last victim: himself. To him, Torque is gonna free the beast and he is gonna like it! Lastly, Horace, is himself a prisoner who was also put to death for killing his lover during a conjugal visit, something he blamed on the evil atmosphere of the island. He maintained the regret and professed his innocence up until boarding the Ol’ Sparky Express, and from beyond the grave he believes he has a kinship with Torque, spending his afterlife convincing Torque that he’s not a bad guy. All three work together to influence Torque from within his mind and even drive him to transform into a grotesque Lovecraftian creature, though this transformation is wholly psychological.

The themes exhibited by these three ghosts harkens to a brief health lesson I got from my high school English class on personality traits as explained by famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud: the id, the ego, and the superego. The shortest explanation of that is the id is the force behind your desires, no matter how wicked; the superego is the force that houses your principles, even the naïve thoughts you had as a child; and the ego where reality keeps these ambitions and ideals in your head where they belong. Gauge is the closest to the superego, Hermes is the literal id, and Dr. Killjoy is the ego.

Not a bad video game overall, it did a lot of neat things, some new things and even makes good use of its moral choice system. It screws with canon a little though I’ve yet to discover by how much come the second game. Now that all the good is out the way, let’s discuss the bad.

The 2000s weren’t a good era for Midway. The YouTube channel Matt McMuscles explains in his Wha Happun? series that the good idea fairy invaded the Midway offices and greenlit yearly releases, ramping up in 2004 with this game and Mortal Kombat: Deception and ending around 2008 when the bankruptcy rumors were turning into reality. Here’s a video he did on The Suffering:

Channel: Matt McMuscles

Focusing on Midway’s darling franchise of Mortal Kombat, the magnum opus became a cultural phenomenon in the early 1990s when those arcade cabinets were first hooked up and internal troubles had been slowly boiling since at least 1997 when MK4 didn’t live up to it’s proposed potential. Coupled with that specific game’s subpar induction of 3D technology and it would take a while for Midway to recover from such an embarrassment. Failed spinoffs from Ed Boon and John Tobias’ side, the company drowning in debt to pay off pre-existing debt, and a few small gems buried under layers of s[cow moos]t, it was reported that Midway’s prestige as one of the Top 5 video game developers in 2000 dropped to Top 20 in just a few years. But as we know, it came back like a phoenix with help from Warner Bros. and is f[pimp slap]king with timelines once again.

The anonymous editors of the Wikipedia page for the 1992 game must not have been happy to specify which game having been rebooted a second time.

For what it’s worth, The Suffering is a victim of time, in that better timing could’ve helped it escape cult status, same for the second game. Executive shenanigans also hurt it severely as a yearly release was Midway’s answer to its financial woes. The “Band-Aid on a gunshot wound” approach to solving the issue, and one that if rumors are true, are looking to roost in Ubisoft’s nest. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you–I haven’t played a Ubisoft game in years and I know I’m sleeping on a library of peak.

Let’s rewrite history a bit: The Suffering releases to such fanfare in 2004 and gets a sequel in 2005. Does it escape cult status? From within Midway, sure. From within the horror genre, not really. It would still have to fight against Konami, Capcom, and Tecmo’s Fatal Frame for attention, and what Raccoon City, New England and Project Zero do that The Suffering didn’t (or probably couldn’t) was have a voiced protagonist. This is what tears me up a bit; on the one hand, a silent protagonist can have character without a tongue, if analyses of Claude from GTA III can attest, but on the other hand, the era the game released in would’ve had more reverence for a protagonist who can voice their opinions. Midway may not have been as ambitious with casting at the time like RockStar was, but even an up and coming voice actor with an impressive range or future could’ve done wonders to guide us further into Torque’s mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I like that the lore of the island speaks for the game itself, but a silent protagonist with a backstory this heavy sells itself so depressingly short that it would need to wait some time before it can ride anything worth its salt at Disney World or Six Flags.

You could argue that it would rob the game of the mystery of the fate of Torque’s family, but it’s not like we’ve never had amnesiac protagonists before and a lot of them are pretty bad ass. Lest we forget:

And his animated forms have always had a beautifully raspy voice to carry those raw, unfiltered emotions. Sure, the cartoons have to be censored because the real Wolverine reeks of other people’s blood, but I’ll take the sacrifice for peak storytelling.

We don’t necessarily need a remake of The Suffering, but a game that does something similar or perfects what it did could be bless us in the future.

If I have time to do so, before the New Year, I’ll do something I’ve never done before and breakdown a 3×3 of my favorite anime characters. I’m still on leave as of writing so I’ll have time to push that out and even a New Year’s Day review of this blog. Anime was king for me this year.

Hashire Sori Yo…

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Kaze no you ni/Tsukimi hara wo/Padoru Padoru!

This would’ve come out on Friday, but I had to pack my two bookbags for the holidays. Thought I was gonna look a gift of two weeks* of holiday leave in the mouth? (Actually, 11 days, but I also have a 4-day pass.)

Veteran weebs know what the image above means. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, and everything else Christmas-y. The holidays are a lot of things: great, awful, a mixed bag, an empty bag, and a bunch of other stuff. While this post is gonna be a happy holidays to all, it’s also gonna be a setup for a New Year’s reflection of this blog as well as a look back at the content I’ve written for this year and the content that was released, continued, suspended, or discontinued. Hitting the ground in 2025 with memories and goals. Knowing me, I may entertain theories with plausibility or significant evidence, but for most things I tend to stick with the facts. You’ll almost never hear or see me make a genuine guarantee unless it’s in my notes or I have evidence and research.

Now I do have plans in my notes to review my content for 2024, but that’s a January thing, and seeing as it’s a day before I return to duty, it’ll either be delayed or published ahead of schedule. Preferably the latter so I can focus on packing up, and New Year’s Eve or Day would be perfect ideally. For a look into the future though, of all the animanga I’ve viewed or games I’ve played, a fair few favorites stand out that have wide fanfare, but I’ve either admired out of respect for the reputation or not directly engaged in myself. Others I plan on writing about after a thorough amount of time. For example, I have a decent amount of time on my emulator with the original Yakuza game, though most fans would implore newcomers to try the Kiwami updates instead.

Still, a plus for Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku is that it’s generally easy to get into and the number of games released since 2005 gives newcomers a backlog to play catch-ups should they choose. And I do choose that method, real life responsibilities and desires would be damned, but being a responsible adult comes first.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are series I’ve encountered through osmosis. Memes, lore dumps, wikis, explorations; individual fans have tried to explain and recommend their own series, but from the outside looking in, I feel about it the same I feel about the Dune series, best explained with this meme.

Credit: u/netotz, r/dunememes

The series’ in question that I’m referring to are Senran Kagura, Fate, and Idolmaster. Each of these has a large following, both foreign and domestic, but my previous attempts to jump into the deeper lore and find a starting point has been met with mixed results. From easiest to hardest to understand, it’s SK, Idolmaster, and Fate. And I’ll start with SK.

The series’ Wikipedia page describes it as a multimedia franchise spearheaded by none other than Kenichiro Takaki, launched in Japan in 2011 with developers Tamsoft and Marvelous. The first game in the series released domestically is translated with the subtitle “Portrait of Girls” and was ported in 2013 with the subtitle Burst. So that’s simple, boot up an emulator or track down a still working 3DS or similar handheld and get some gameplay in, right? Wrong…

Opening up a can of worms called backwards compatibility and legalese, there’s a myriad of reasons why that’s not the most feasible way to do it for most. Of course, any potato computer can run a 3DS emulator–I did it myself to play Kirby: Planet Robobot and Triple Deluxe for old times’ sake–but the difference between eastern and western developers shows in the pudding. Eastern game devs will gladly re-release and remake old games for new hardware, such as the aforementioned Kiwami remakes of the old Yakuza PS2 games, whereas western devs can’t or won’t re-release remakes. Unless it’s Naughty Dog patting themselves too hard on the back with The Last of Us.

Narcissism is calling a PS4 port a remaster, when it was only a one-year release difference.

What I’ve noticed with eastern and specifically Japanese creators is that they’re accommodating enough to make their products available to all, though from what I’ve seen it can get hectic sometimes. If done poorly, a series can have numerous remakes or remasters or be disappeared and reintroduced, such was the case with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Domestically, there weren’t many problems with manga releases, but western distributors either got a bad hand or dealt a bad hand with all the bravado and overconfidence that killed Macbeth. Long ago and today, it was considered sinful by the fandom to skip parts and lo and behold Viz Media was the one to ruin it in the mid-1990s. The approach was sound, but the execution necessitated the cancellation and re-release of a western release. To play devil’s advocate, Araki’s playlist disguised as a manga makes things difficult for copyright reasons, but it’s a miracle it was able to work so well, even if it took a quarter century to reach this goal.

25 years, people, 25 years. That’s how long it took for the first volume of Phantom Blood to get a successful anime adaptation. And the series had been through OVAs and a lost movie. If it was released contemporarily, we’d be halfway through a JoJolion adaptation with rumors of a JoJoLands adaptation getting a greenlight for Q3 2026.

For Senran Kagura, the source of confusion can come from the names they have, especially overseas. This itself isn’t a new concept, going back decades with international releases of Japanese anything, games notably; sorta like how Earthbound outside of Japan is known as Mother (which is its own wormhole of naming and releases). Couple SK with a limited anime adaptation in 2018, an OVA, and several spinoff games and it can seem like a lot to catch up to. I’m only one mission into Shinovi Versus thus far and I have an extended topic discussion lined up for February. This time, I’m going to try my best to get through Shinovi Versus and at least start another game in the series. So, does SK have a tricky starting point? Yes, but personally I found it easier than the next one I’ve been trying to find a starting point for: Idolmaster.

What makes this one trickier is that it didn’t start off with a console release, but with an arcade release in 2005, later ported in 2007 to the Xbox 360 in Japan. Clearly, it was successful to get a franchise of its own, but from what I’ve heard, Xbox and Microsoft don’t enjoy wide popularity in the Land of the Rising Sun. Sony and Panasonic have a wider reach on their native soil, but this series’ Wikipedia claims Xbox Live had better hardware. Who else but a computer company to push the limits, right?

So much for Sony, I suppose? The Wikipedia also suggests that that was just a test with subsequent releases getting PlayStation or mobile releases. Though over the course of 11 years, there’s been many releases. Again, spinoffs are no issue, but the volume of them in games like these makes finding the origin point tougher than it needs to be, especially when they’re neither conventionally named nor released in the right order for an international audience. Circling back to the Earthbound series, even if it’s true that the fanbase isn’t big enough to warrant a wide release, the small headcount was dedicated enough to translate the series themselves.

But the blame for that can’t always fall on the devs; copyright law is no joke no matter what part of the world you’re in. It’s part of the reason JoJo’s was so hard to introduce to the west. Let’s award the Benefit of Doubt in general cases and say that if it wasn’t for the corps of copyright and lawsuits, more players would play more games, no matter how obscure they are to the general populace. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s a monolith of a series that has one hell of a reputation. Starting as a visual novel, getting two separate anime adaptations (the latter made to correct the former’s mistakes), and spawning a franchise with more twists and turns than M. Night Shyamalan and Christopher Nolan could think of. Pretzels look at the timeline and think, “Holy knots, guy! The f[crunch]k am I lookin’ at?!” Of course, I’m talking about the Fate franchise.

The emperor of long and convoluted timelines, and the source of upwards of 35 to 40% of all anime-based memes, it started with a visual novel in 2004 and hasn’t stopped running. Even if you messed up the train tracks ahead, the Fate Express continues on through the power of fandom and fanservice. This passage from the associated Wikipedia page says as much:

I’ve wanted to get into Fate for a few years now, but its reputation has held me back from taking the plunge. Also being a seasoned weeb myself, I know how hideous fandoms can get (see the My Hero Academia fanbase for more details, and cleanse yourself afterwards. IYKYK). Thankfully, there’s not much in the way of ugliness for the Fate series, but to quote a Welsh monke, “if Dragon Ball fans are the ghetto, Fate fans are the crack dealers.” Some of the more vocally dedicated types will stop at damn near nothing until every newcomer lives and dies by Fate and has immersed themselves in all the VNs, anime, movies, games, and other merch that a franchise this influential can spawn.

Channel: Trash Taste Highlights

With just this video, I don’t really need to elaborate further. Someone will tell me that Fate is easier to get into than I fear, and I guess I can take their word on that being blinder than Kenshi from Mortal Kombat or Toph Beifong in this regard, but what would help is if there was someone out there who will meet normies and newcomers with some interest at the halfway point instead of leaving us to fight off a pack of wolves with a stick and a book of pressed 4- and 5-leaf clovers. You can expect to see more in-depth opinions about all of these in a post about s[horse neighing] not (yet) reviewed after the New Year.

Going through my notes whilst finishing this up, I realize some stuff should’ve been up at least a week before I thought they’d be (this post included), but life and work had gotten in the way. The holidays aren’t gonna make that any easier for the last few topics, but I’ve been beating the odds for as long as I can remember and come hell or high water, I’m gonna make this work. Figuring it all out will have to come later.

Before I part, why don’t I give you a channel recommendation for the Holidays? Behold, Geopold!

https://www.youtube.com/@Geopoldd/videos

Not dissimilar from Gattsu, Geopold is another YouTube channel that introduces different parts of the world by way of the power of internet memes. Describing himself as “Birmingham’s Travel Agent,” going off of that alone, he’s confident that that he’s well-traveled enough to give an unbiased opinion about the places he’s– okay, I’m joking, he’s gonna meme these places off the map, and keep mememing them. Now that travel agent thing may be a joke, and if that’s what you’re looking for than stop where you are, have a drink of your choosing (Kirin or Asahi for me) and watch him grossly oversimplify white people… or the state of Florida…

The next topic (fingers crossed, it’ll be out by Friday or Saturday night) will be an out of season third-person shooter game that only eight people remember.

If you’re at all curious about the plot, here’s a small hint: the Maryland prison system has been better, all things considered.

Ananta: Anime GTA?

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We’re getting anime GTA before GTA 6!

If it releases before GTA 6 does (and some outlets seem to suggest this as the case), the opening joke will become more prophetic than I meant it to. Anime and the Grand Theft Auto series aren’t too things that always mix themselves, but talking to any gamer or anime fan, you may find that they’re the same people. One of them is writing this blog right now! Matter of fact, GTA Online has a few cars that can be customized with anime liveries. You can have your very own Itasha of the GTA anime parody Princess Robot Bubblegum.

For some reason, I was more embarrassed of this than I was of High School DxD, and that series proudly shows boobs and ass in nearly every scene!

But to get away from a parody of an East Asian medium present in a game developed by Northern Englishmen and Scots, let’s go to an upcoming game whose development team is in East Asia and is drawing comparisons to a game developed by Northern Brits.

Announced in August 2023 under the working title Project Mugen, Ananta is described as a fantasy urban RPG open-world, not dissimilar from Zenless Zone Zero but with much more to do gameplay-wise. Driving, city exploration, minigames, and Spider-Man’s wrists.

Not much is known about the plot as of writing, but the associated Wikipedia page (which will definitely be updated post-release and interviews) explains that its protagonists are paranormal investigators with some kind of extrasensory perception (ESP). These abilities are being used to fight against the main antagonistic force known as Chaos.

Channel: Mugen Official

I haven’t the slightest idea who specifically asked for this, but I want to buy them a present. A six-foot tall cake with a stripper or porn star of their choosing.

It’ll be hard to see this as a gacha game with how it looks and what it’s supposed to have, being an amalgamation of GTA, Honkai: Star Rail, Spider-Man for PS4, and Zenless Zone Zero, with a dash of Mob Psycho 100. Write what you know, learn more so you can know more, write even more. It’s also worth making the distinction between the devs of this game and Mihoyo. They’re another Chinese company based in Hangzhou called Naked Rain. Due to the whales that coalesce around paid DLC and many gacha games, they most likely do have the capacity and resources to make a game like this, but they’re not. ZZZ comes close and it’s still not a 1 to 1.

Ananta’s trailer seems to promise the ability to drive around the city, or, according to the Wikipedia, cities with planned updates. A game with multiple cities. It might be due to the resources needed to include multiple cities, but I would love it if more games had more maps to explore without locking it behind an expansion pack, DLC, or any other paywall. Even a loading screen would be serviceable, to me at least. It’s what made Midnight Club 3 and the old Need for Speed games so memorable and exciting.

Also, I have to circle back to GTA for a rant. Liberty City, Vice City, Los Santos: the big three stand-ins for NYC, Miami, and Los Angeles and victims of the RockStar game design of “take well-known big city and make it an island.” There’s a few theories floating around that the reason for this is a great big satire on the old “self-absorbed Americans live in their own world” stereotype and to be honest, I’d say the joke is quite old. It may have worked before, but with GTA: San Andreas having stand-ins for Vegas and Frisco as Las Venturas and San Fierro respectively as well as an area that can be viewed as the rural part of NorCal, there’s evidence from RockStar that they can and could (read: should) make a multi-city game. Or frankenstein their three cities together. Multiple fan artists have done it in the years since.

Source: sengin*

* The source for that map is hard to find seeing as it’s nearly 10 years old. Nevertheless, we have a good base, even if conceptual in design. There was also Ubisoft’s The Crew which had a truncated map of the lower 48, and most MMORPGs to go off of for a true open-world GTA-esque game. Come on, RockStar, give us what we really want.

Sorry, back on topic. Ananta is available for pre-registration so you can be among the first get it once it’s available. And you can bet you’re bottom dollar, I’ve already pre-registered and I’ll definitely be one of the first to play it as soon as I acquire the yottabytes necessary to house them all. Maybe I should make a rant of modern gaming, there’s enough material online for me to use as examples… as well as anecdotes and memes of people moving files around for storage; a story I know all too well.

It’s easy to say that I’m excited for Ananta and want it to succeed. That kind of goes without saying, gacha games are plenty successful as shown by Mihoyo’s output and I don’t just mean the whales funding it better than any Wall Street investor. But I’m going to take a page from the Det. Cole Phelps Institute and match that excitement with some skepticism. No assumptions, wait for more trailers and information to be revealed, look into some theories, and most importantly, prioritize the facts. To quote the God of War:

  1. Expect the worst;
  2. Assume nothing, and;
  3. Always anticipate [danger]

Credit: alexloai64

A series of great quotes to follow, not just in a hack-n-slash god-pulverizing simulator, and something I’ll keep in mind whilst eagerly awaiting more updates on Ananta/Mugen.

My First Gyaru Anime

Tiberius3 Comments

This may or may not ring some bells

A while ago, I stated that the YouTuber Knowing Better claimed that Hollywood has a greater influence on the military than you’d believe. Sticking with that logic, based on my observations, I want to say that it’s a bit similar in Japan. Stories get told and retold and inspire mangaka to start putting pen to panel. In this context, the subject is that of subcultures. If you’re familiar with western culture, you’re familiar with some age-old subcultures: the goths, the jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, the emos, the preps, and the townies–all of which can be found in RockStar’s hidden gem Bully.

You already know I recommend the s[marbles falling]t out of this.

In Japan, there are several other subcultures that have come and gone over the years: bosozoku (motorcycle enthusiasts), delinquents (bancho/sukeban), otaku (nerds but extra), and the topic of this post: gyaru.

I’ve talked before about gyaru/gal animanga, including one that got an adaptation this year. Now, we’re taking a look at another gyaru-centric series: My First Girlfriend is a Gal (alternative title: Hajimete no Gal).

Another relic from my community college days, I was made aware of it from a WatchMojo Top 10 list on the worst girlfriends in anime voiced by Todd Haberkorn when they kept him locked away in their basement. Don’t worry, it was more of a mancave; think of it like the Scandinavian approach to imprisonment.

In that list, one of the characters from the anime, deuteragonist and love interest, Yukana Yame, made the list for essentially leading the protagonist, Junichi Hashiba, on. Not an unfair or untrue assessment, but when I had a look, I felt that there was more to it than that. But I’m somersaulting over a battleship here, let’s build up.

Typical romcom anime, a trio of dudes have a conversation describing perverted and sexual things about the girls in their class. One such girl makes the topic of conversation and on a dare, Junichi is challenged to ask her out on a date. Scummy. And Yukana entertains it. Also scummy. Honestly, I remember being that horny both at that age and when I watched this series, and I did watch it from beginning to end, mainly because of the eye candy.

These days, the terminally online “crusaders” would cry fowl at a busty teenage girl, but this is where I play the hypocrisy card as just about every single one of us knew or knows someone whose bodies developed that fast. I definitely did. What the hell happened to “no bodyshaming?” Hmmm? But f[anime girl moaning]k it.

Now that I look back on it, with the experience I’ve gained (mostly from observing other relationships flop around my single ass), never mind a bond formed by ignorance, this is a bond formed by deception. They didn’t even start out taking each other seriously; Junichi was expecting the hardest rejection while Yukana initially planned on milking him dry without using her hands. I’m very sorry about that; it’ll happen again.

But to play Saul Goodman and defend these clients, there is some character development for them both. They hang out more often, and Junichi gradually adheres to the lessons imparted to us by history’s greatest philosophers: the Spice Girls

♫ If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends ♫

And Yukana’s BFFs include but are not limited to Ranko Honjo, a contendor for the Bimbo Olympics who wants to f[snaps fingers]k both Junichi and Yukana (most likely at the same time); Yui Kashi, a Twitch streamer whose desire is to wrap everyone around her finger (she ain’t beating Makima, just saying); Nene Fujinoki, Junichi’s childhood friend and one of the bustiest lolis I’ve ever seen until Ilulu (also the subject of a specific character’s troubling fetish; more to follow later); and a few others who, although reportedly got more love in the anime than the manga, not enough to make a big enough impact over the course of 10 episodes.

Even though it doesn’t really start out with the best of intentions, the character development does leave them marginally better than when they began. Junichi stops letting his penis think for him the more he learns about Yukana and her… well, it’s not a harem, but she functionally has more women than Junichi will hope to have. Out-rizzed by your own girl…

Fortunately, you know who to turn to whenever you want a threesome.

If Yukana was ever the subject of salacious rumors, her behavior on screen discredits such slander. Like Junichi, it’s highly suggested that not only is she too a virgin, she may be even more nervous about her first time than Junichi is. The gyaru aesthetic is all for show and tell, as in she’s showing her friends and the audience while telling us that she just likes pretty things. But that’s a given.

Conversely, to use the teachings of Lao Zi, within this light side is a bit of a dark side. I mentioned earlier that one of Junichi’s friends, Minoru Kobayakawa, has a troublingly illegal fetish that conjures up the message of the Oingo Boingo song Little Girls. Not lolis or short girls, young girls. He does nothing to hide it in the anime (no clue if its subdued in the manga) and will remind you what his ideal type is. He’s a disturbingly honest Harvey Weinstein sans the influence of Hollywood kickbacks.

The series plays it off as a joke which is probably lost on me since I cringed every time Minoru made an appearance. All things considered, the other Minoru from My Hero Academia was divisive in his own right, but probably shouldn’t have had as much hate directed towards him as this Minoru. Inappropriate and depraved, at least he eyed up adults.

Also, he gets humbled at every turn so whatever debt he owes, he’s overpaid it.

The other Minoru… one of the other guys said it best when he claimed he’d end up on the sex offender registry. Don’t take this as a dissuasion or an argument against watching the anime; this is still a recommendation, just keep in mind that this troubling aspect is in the show. It’s a short viewing, 10 episodes and an OVA that I haven’t seen myself. And of course, you have the choice of sitting through ads like a trooper and joining the dark side and becoming a pirate. The side effect of the latter choice is fighting Luffy.