Tag: visual novel

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.

The Tale of a Needy Streamer [Overload]

TiberiusLeave a comment

My opinions on VNs rear their ugly head again

A few weeks before my second attempt to Army, I wrote about my opinions on visual novels, with the overall consensus being lukewarm above all else. A good VN can stay as long as it wants, but I don’t actively make a beeline to find them all, no matter how great the art style may be. For the topic of this post, I had bought another VN during my time in AIT on sale, and one of my roommates (who’s an even bigger weeb than myself, he’ll talk you to death about Konosuba or Hatsune Miku), had recommended the video game Needy Streamer Overload.

I placated him by “promising” and dismissing future playthroughs and I couldn’t see myself continuing forward for several reasons. Not limited to my play style as I have expressed some VNs do go on to have great legacies like Fate, Clannad, or Steins;Gate. This one specifically carried darker undertones, which I’m not against, but it varies depending on certain things. Maybe I’m just being arbitrary but the juxtaposition of cute and creepy in this one makes me a little uneasy. It’s a bit like the talking pie from that one episode of Regular Show. Like a doll possessed by the spirit of some little girl that drowned.

Now, watching and keeping up with thriller series Mysterious Disappearances would make you think I have no problem with scary stories like this, but with a series written around urban legends and folktales, some of which are plausible but not guaranteed, only a fool would try to take those seriously.

But what turned me off of Necessity Streamer Maximum would be because how real the concept is. It’s basically about a depressed, near-suicidal adolescent girl putting on a show for a legion of faceless fans across the globe, acting in an erratic and unpredictable manner as part of her schtick.

Yes, I know, I practically slandered VTubers, but in another post I assure you that I have no real problem with VTubers, following a few myself when the time allows for it. That said, my description in the above paragraph shows the types of VTubers I have a preference for. Sus-commentary is fine, everyone says weird s[8-bit soundbite]t from time to time, though only a few of us have the courage [read: foolishness] to monetize it. Personalities are also fine, look up any celebrity’s on-screen vs off-screen behavior and you may be shocked at what you found, like Marilyn Monroe being an intellectual cursed by the Hollywood cretins to play the blonde bimbo.

Screaming one’s lungs out certainly has an audience and I was among those, but in the years’ since, I can’t go back to that. There’s a meme of a guy tearfully gunning down something he loved because it grew increasingly annoying, and it sounds like I’m phrasing it that way, but it’s more the process of growing up. Some things you just outgrow and can’t really enjoy anymore. It stopped being entertainment by the time I was 19 and my 26th birthday is at the end of next month. So specifically with entertainment, while I don’t see myself outgrowing the analytical like, for instance, documentaries, the random humor that emerged in the late 2000s and 2010s especially on YouTube isn’t for me anymore. And personally, I had trouble watching Pipkin Pippa. Someone will try to convince me that she has less intense content, and I appreciate the body of water you’re allowing me to drink from, but the horse isn’t guaranteed to even take a sip.

This meme is the point of this post, the crux in the custard, the proof in the pudding, the facts in the fondue (hungry yet?). I know people who stuck it out with unstable people and got severely burned as a result, not to mention the numerous stories I’ve read of how bad things have gotten for some people and hypotheticals of how much worse it could get, so sorry if I’m a bit suspicious about what can and does happen in real life. You know how you view a piece of media and the antagonist is memorable because of how they can mirror some actual people past and present? It’s a bit like that.

Now I’m fully aware that this isn’t 100%, though the potential is what keeps me at arms length at times. This part is gonna get slightly personal; everyone has their problems that they’re trying to work out or live with and it’s something I commend, but my opinion changes for those who swear to whomever they call god that there’s not one thing wrong with how they live, even more so if they’re highly reactive. These types of people are easy to avoid on the street or whatever, but what about if you work with them? Or live with them? You don’t need me to say that life with a person who dwells in misery and is overly generous with their suffering is zero fun.

For Neediest VTuber Maximum Overdrive, it reminds me a lot of what I want to see less of in my future. Not by a giant margin, though it would get a bit depressing for me if the background art was a physically broken home. Then there’s the main character herself. It’s been a while so I don’t remember what her real name was supposed to be, but the alias she puts on is “OMGkawaiiAngel” or just K-Angel for short. The game’s Steam page describes her as a girl with an unsatisfiable lust for attention, which brings me to something else I want to see less of as I age. I’m always happy to help wherever and however I can, but I can’t stomach habitual linecrossing. Kindness is no weakness, but we often find ourselves sharing that philosophy with those who think otherwise.

Back on topic: Notice Me Senpai Simulator is perhaps a comprehensive look into mental illness that most internet forums like to meme away. A look I’m definitely not qualified to discuss in length, so here’s a video I found that explains the “I Can Fix Her” situation.

Credit: BoolioGalaxy

What is it exactly? A look at one of entertainment’s dark sides? An analysis of monetizing what’s left of one’s conscience? An extreme example of things going wrong? A combination of any one of these? Or none of the above because it’s just a game? I honestly wish I could break from this streak of cop-out answers, but if it’s any consolation, it looks like there’s a bunch of nuanced answers to Feed My Attention-Seeking Behavior, Nimrod.

Subscribers will remember the time from when I recommended the darkly comical episodic series The Casket of Drew and Ash and might be confused or call tu quoque for recommending that series and being uneasy about this one. But to reiterate and emphasize, that game had comedic elements of a classic black comedy. It elicits multiple emotions as you go along, whereas Hey, All You People, Won’t You Listen to Me? is darkly comical if you cross out -ly comical.

Rather than subscribe to the stereotypical dark atmosphere that accompanied horror movies of old, the disturbing part about this is that not only could it happen in real life, it probably is and few may even realize it, or they do and it feeds into the appeal of the yandere in anime.

Everyone likes a well-written archetype, but I found that Why Haven’t You Called Me Mommy Yet? does its job a bit too well. I’m no stranger to these sorts of things, I admit I’ve had dreams before where an unstable woman loves me unconditionally (so long as I keep my eyes on her and not any other owner of a second X-chromosome) but thank Rias it was just a dream. Joker isn’t crazy enough to fight the IRS and I’m 95% sure that I’m not mad enough to live this life:

Credit: kukuri ito

On a final note, if you’re keeping in the back of your head that this game was recommended by my roommate back in AIT, then congrats on your impeccable memory, have a trophy and some cheese popcorn. You’ve earned it. He was honest with me about his life and all things considered, it makes sense that this would be more his speed than mine. Don’t worry though, we’re all living our best lives. I’ve always wanted to see even a part of Texas, and that guy is currently living it up in the Hotel California Germany.

I have a recommendation this week, it’s Gattsu

https://www.youtube.com/@Gattsu

A Georgian YouTuber, his early work specialized in analyzing music, but nowadays he looks in-depth at the world, namely the western world, Russia, and the Caucasus region. If you’re sick to death of criticism of America and Britain in the west, let this guy’s honorary American card masquerading as a video convince you that he’s worth the watch. The man does his research in a variety of topics, which shows proficiency I say. Gotta know what you’re talking about before you take the piss out of it, am I right?

When Psychotic Siblings Follow Their Most Intrusive Thoughts

Tiberius1 Comment

“Dysfunctional” implies that there was a solid function to begin with.

Before we start, I wanna say that I had planned originally on comparing and contrasting the Black Mass novel with its movie adaptation, but I couldn’t. Too much time had passed since I read the book or watched the movie, and assuming my memories aren’t that crooked and misshapen, there weren’t many comparisons to make between them. The book mentioned horseracing and bookmaking, but not Whitey Bulger’s son, Douglas while the movie did mention his son whilst omitting the horseracing aspect, though both did mention the Winter Hill Gang’s involvement in the assassination of World Jai Alai owner Roger Wheeler in 1981. Maybe I do have a comparison to make, but then again, I’d have to reread the book (or go over the footnotes) or watch the movie again.

So instead, I’m going to write about a point-and-click mental horror game about a pair of siblings and the dark world they call home.

Brought to us by the minds at Nemlei and Kit9 Studio, it’s an episodic psychological horror game that takes us into the minds and lives of the Graves siblings, Andrew and Ashley. They’re essentially trapped in a condemned building with a few other people who are all monitored by very uncharitable wardens who feign kindness for the cameras, but are content letting them starve for months on end. As of writing, there’s only two episodes with a third and fourth one coming out later this year and sometime in 2025 respectively.

I’m halfway done with the second episode, but I’ve seen enough Coffin of Andy and Leyley memes online to see where the story ends up.

It’s probably been spoiled to death since release, but I’ll be light on the details about the two episodes. The first one has the two going to drastic measures first to feed themselves (understandable, all things considered; months without food is hell), and then to get out alive. The second one involves them going on the run and taking their revenge against their parents for what they did to them. It’s an interesting carnival of horrors that feels like it’d fit with any given horror film franchise. You can pick your favorites, I’m going with Halloween… coupled the original The Hills Have Eyes.

As far as characters go, the attractive quality of the game’s writing leads me to believe that some of the characters are loosely based on real people. Focusing only on the titular characters this time (because I don’t want online discourse regarding their parents to color my own observations), Andrew and Ashley Graves are an interesting pair.

Yeah, let’s take the kid gloves off for this one. They’re a very disturbed pair of individuals in a world so black, Deimos retired and gave the position of God of Terror to someone else. As noted by the screenshot above, Ashley is marketed as the more disturbed of the two with her wicked and unorthodox ideas. Based on my observations, this is definitely in line and an accurate description of her character.

Most of her ideas she writes off as mischief and childish whimsy, but her callousness is reflected in her devil-may-care attitude and her lack of concern for the consequences of her actions. She knows she’s doing wrong, but she does it anyway, and the flashback scenes show that she hasn’t changed at all. As a matter of fact, her manipulative personality is why her brother is hopelessly attached to her, yet she doesn’t have absolute control over the guy. To pull from a box of nerdy, lines on maps enjoyer things to say, the power dynamic they share makes me think of the Investiture Controversy, where medieval German nobility kept attempting to buy favors for themselves in the Catholic Church, the papacy included. If that interests you, look to this video for a few more (oversimplified) details:

Channel: Oversimplified

Basically, what I’m saying is that there’s an illusion of power between them. Both of them think they’re stuck with each other, but honestly, they don’t have to be with each other… or rather, they wouldn’t have to be if Ashley wasn’t so clingy. Does that mean Andrew is a better person? Nope.

Also in reference to the screenshot from above, he’s subject to his sister throwing her weight around. Canonically, he has no problem talking to girls, having had romantic interests in other women and even an ex-girlfriends in both high school and college, but the more I think about his past relationships the more evident it becomes that he’s using them to hide from his sister. Not that there’s no genuine romance between Andrew and his lovers, and while not saying it’s not normal to cycle through dates in your lifetime, but the armchair therapist in me sees a MIGHTY NEED to be away from Ashley, even slightly.

Thinking about it even more, the two may share the same problem Zuko and Azula from Avatar have. Andrew doesn’t want to cause anyone any trouble, but Ashley couldn’t care less. Observe this meme from r/TheLastAirbender

It may be a joke, but look at all the scenes in the show that display or mention them and this becomes disturbingly closer to the truth than you’d like to admit, though in regards to the game, it’s worse since everyone has issues.

Having said all that, it’s not all doom, gloom and things go boom. One of the tags listed on Steam for the game is dark comedy. This part also shines in the game as the dark elements are campy. Dark and probable as it may be, it doesn’t really stop the game from being ridiculous at times. When I say you can compare it to some aspect of an old horror movie, I was not exaggerating. Michael Myers shrugging off six bullets is ridiculous; Jason Voorhees bouncing back up from life-threatening injury is very ridiculous; and the antics the siblings find themselves in is absurdly comical at times, you can’t help but wonder sometimes. The writers put a lot of care into making the game what it is and seem to be hard at work still drafting up the script of the final two episodes.

Obviously, a property this popular has its naysayers and harassers, neither of which deserve even a sliver of my attention, but on the “positive” attention the game has received, online forums, especially the game’s associated subreddit. Due to a scene in the second episode, the fanbase has run wild with fanart of the siblings in action. Again, being light on the details because I recommend this game and think going in blind is a sound approach, but IYKYK.

If in fact, you do know, then you also already know about the millions of other copy-pasted fan art of different sibling characters in the art style. This kinda leaves me divided, on the one hand, I commend the talent; but on the other hand,

And this is coming from a guy who has seen both Shimoneta and Highschool DxD yonks ago, both of which I plan on writing about in a future double bill. It was a certain aspect that kept me from playing it for the longest, but for curiosity’s sake (and to snub the naysayers and doombringers) I bit the bullet and I recommend a play through of your own.

For this YouTube recommendation, I present an up and coming Canadian YouTuber known as Art Chad.

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

At over 82,000 subscribers and counting, Art Chad is a channel run by a young man who asks a lot of important questions about modern topics and issues in our society and attempts to answer them from as broad and unbiased a viewpoint as he can. Often with the tone of one who wishes to make a better world for this generation and its succeeding ones a la Superman, or in a gradual yet noticeable approach instead of the ad hoc, hasty changes we’ve grown accustomed to. The link to his channel is up above.