Category Archives: Bishoujo Gaming

March 1, 2011

Jealousy’s Ugly Heads Aren’t So Ugly

By omo

If not for being announced on the same day as each other, I would not have compared Catherine with School Days. In some ways they are two very different but two remarkably similar games, so the comparison do stick.

On one hand, School Days is a fairly novel game from 6 years ago that took the anime and visual novel media one step closer to each other; much of the first chapter of the game is actual animation. It’s also remarkable for the large number of well-portrayed endings the player can end up with, and a large number of them aren’t exactly what we call “happy” endings. The combination was pretty sensational in an otherwise relatively more-of-the-same genre of bishoujo games with adult content. That is, of course, on top of the slightly different take on the renai motif that is closer to Jersey Shore than the experience of some fantasy animu transfer student who forgot he has a cousin that he is now going to live with, or something.

On the other hand, Catherine, to borrow words from others, is the adult-erotic version of Q*bert. But more specifically, Atlus’s chic-cool Persona team pulls out the stops to make a thriller game based on a man’s instinct to run away from commitment in a relationship? Fielding top seiyuu and animation from Production IG, much of the game take place animated and in a narrative style, like some modern bishoujo games. I think the marketing for the game speaks oodles about why I think Catherine is highly comparable to School Days in terms of using jealousy as a driver, as protagonist Vincent (Kouichi Yamadera…he even looks the role) has to choose between Katherine with a K (Kotono Mitsuishi) or Catherine with a C (Miyuki Sawashiro), while trying to not get killed by either of them, or the mysterious dreams he is having.

Oh, yeah, people die in these games. People meaning possibly you, the protagonist/player. Here’s another bit of similarity for you.

I think it’s safe to say that I am excited about both games coming over and being ported into English. I’m still kind of hung up about buying games with pornographic content, so I’m sitting on the fence for School Days. Isn’t it weird that the game full of high school kids is the one with all the explicit sex? And it isn’t like Vincent doesn’t get any; Catherine’s portrayal of sex is, perhaps, a little more mature and  little more appropriate for a game about a 30-something trying to straighten out his love life? Or maybe it is a little more appropriate for a game being sold to a bunch of 30-something herbivore men? But then again, like myself, the two demographics probably overlap somewhat, despite the entirely opposing approaches to the appeal of realism.

Leave a comment | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, Catherine, Modern Visual Culture, School Days

January 3, 2011

Kirakira, Take 2

By omo

I picked up the all-age, physical copy of Kirakira over the con season last year; it isn’t until the holiday break that I had made some real progress on the game. And considering it has been an iOS game since late 2009 and available legit on PC even earlier than that, I’m really behind the ball here. I’ve played a couple hours here and there before then, but the going was slow and while it was interesting it wasn’t very engaging as well. It’s like reading a book; it’s a good way to kill an hour before hitting the sack after a long day.

For a relatively new operation like MangaGamer I think Kirakira is the right kind of title to push. It’s got a layer of meta that will appeal to people who are familiar with rock music. Kind of like Japanese guys in their 30s or 40s? What’s more that layer of meta is appreciated but not necessary to enjoy the game. Like its pretentious namesake and title graphics, it’s about the sort of serious retrospection about a youth you probably have never had, a story pieced together as artifact trying to appear as natural.

I suppose this is why This Is Spinal Tap exists. That said, I enjoyed Kirakira (how do you properly spell it anyways?) pretty much the whole way, although I’m not at 100% yet, still only 70% or so done with the whole game. But once you get one of the proper ending, you probably aren’t missing too much. A large portion of the game was spent in the first chapter, which is almost the same for any route you will take. And the first chapter was probably already enough of a story to be standalone.

On a related note, Carpe Fulgar announces that they steamrolled Recettear over 100,000 (or over 9,000 if you wish) and considering only the best “indie” games move that many units in Japan (albeit at much higher MSRP), I think this is pretty awesome. Look at how much Recettear moved over at one of the more popular Japanese download store: ~1400 units seems actually a good number (for over the course of a year, and that’s a year after it was first released), considering the size of Japanese gamers that do DDL games are pretty niche. But still, I’d be surprised if total Recettear Japanese language version moved over 10,000 units counting event sales, mail order and digital… It’s good news for ECS, who most probably made more money through that than its Japanese market on the title. The rest is hunting the sweet spot on supply and demand…

This is suppose to be a mini-review on Kirakira, so I’ll just end with this (not counting route-specifics):

  1. Mika
  2. Tomo
  3. Sarina
  4. That guy (post-op)
  5. Chie
  6. Yuko (Maybe I’ll play Curtain Call afterwards)
  7. Kirari
  8. Mai & Miyuki
  9. Everybody else, and even Shikako-chan, lols.

Leave a comment | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Franchises, KiraKira, Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

December 30, 2007

How to Build Your Own Euphoric Field

By omo

Yes, ef – a Tale of Memories is awesome. Yes, I think it is a masterpiece. Yes, I think you should watch ef. No, I don’t think you’ll enjoy it (most of you anyways). Yes, I know I am elitist. Someone once said that all the visual tricks for the show is akin to putting lipstick on a pig, but sometimes shows like ef expose who are really the pigs around here. Oink! And yes, you should watch ef anyways and decide for yourself. Yes I could be wrong!

Kiss me baby one more time?

So. How do you build your own euphoric field? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can either read some of those nice episode summary blogs or just watch the anime (I recommend this, as always). If that doesn’t help, well, I’m sure you’re not alone. Think of it as a top 10 list about ef, in no particular order.

1. Expect opposition. The road to life is narrow and treacherous. But like many other things in life that’s hard to do, it’s also worth doing. Like cheering for a show that most people probably won’t get or enjoy. Or better yet, making one of such.

2. Use your head. Even if you appeal to the most basic of instincts and emotions, it is still not going to make you better than the next guy or the guy before who also appeal to the most basic of instincts and emotions. Masterful storytellers weave coherent, internally consistent and effective narratives. ef is, for the most part, just that. Sometimes it takes time for ef to do its thing, but all signs point to that the people behind it thought it through, and spend the time putting it together.

3. Plant a secret message in your episode titles. I mean, com’on, this guy obviously never looked it up on ANN, right?

4. Have a ball. Having fun is always a prerequisite to greatness. Sometimes it’s not so fun, but all the more to keep this one in mind.

5. Open your mind’s eye. Perhaps miracles are, as Menclave puts it, “inevitabilities and accidents, and what you’re going to do.” But for a people blind to their dreams and visions, they need all the help they can get. As clichés go, believing is seeing. Kuze puts it forth pointedly. All it takes is a gust of wind to change fate.

6. Repetition is the real test. Fact is most people (myself included) just don’t have the time to watch new shows and find time to rewatch old shows all the time. Most of my experience with a show happens inside my head or when I talk about it with someone, long after I’ve finished watching it. What a good show does is, well, what Renji does with Chihiro. I have to like to recall that show. It has to leave an impact. It has to withstand repetition, both in viewing (and ef does this well; watching it twice is almost necessary to understanding it fully) and being able to withstand analysis. Plus, of course, all that fuzzy warm feeling you have associated with something rushing back each time you remember the realization of a wish engraved into memories you don’t want to forget. That leads to…

7. Intercorse is good when you make it meaningful. It is pretty tough if you want to try to forget about meaningful sex the day after.

8. Cheer. Praise is an instinct, and it should be kept as an instinct. Not empty, calculated praise but genuine and heartfelt appreciation of something worth sharing with each other. The word cheer seems to be a little down to earth and gets the idea across a little better I think. Regarding to this anime, though, it’s exactly the sort of shows I watch and follow anime for. It’s edgy, it’s flawed, but the humanity shines through. All the while it’s entertaining and emotionally charged. The fact that it’s clever is just icing on the cake.

9. Field questions. Give answers with comment and suggestions. Pingback and trackbacks. Good o’ electronic mail. The postal service. Digital or analog telephony. Community and communicate have the same word root for some unknown reason that I cannot even begin to fathom. Right.

10. Stop being lazy–don’t do what I do.

I’ll just repeat myself slightly and say that like what X-Men the movie did to the comic book adaptation industry in Hollywood, finally we got one right in the eroge visual novel adaptation side of things. I’m not so much afraid that new shows following the same footsteps will get it wrong as much as just having that kind of production happen at all. Even among eroge, the ef game (soon games?) is peculiar. But without failures there cannot be successors, as ef itself only followed countless others that fell in the wake of the late-night otaku TV war. So, bring it on please!

4 comments | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, ef, Modern Visual Culture

April 9, 2007

In the Stillness, There Is Big Hair

By omo

While I am no less vulnerable against the sensual, frilly designs sported by Touka Gettan and Carnelian’s usual fare, I am very sensitive about hair.

Witches of the West

In brief, most anime character designs rely on hair as the primary distinguishable trait. If you’re a Touhou fan, you might notice this is a very visible trend for the mass number of Touhou characters. It just sort of bothers and intrigues me that the same works for Carnelian’s characters. I guess that is why I’m still watching the darn show. (Well, I suppose all the fanservice does help.)

The similarity doesn’t stop there. The frilly tresses and flowing bangs and the curious headgear on top of the mystical, miko-ish motifs. In fact, aside from the fan-injected nature of the characters themselves, I can see how even the feel of Touka Gettan can translate into a Touhou anime.

So… yea. This is what I’d like to see if there’s ever a Touhou anime. Somehow I get the feeling it might not be such the case for the various Touhou anime projects.

7 comments | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, Modern Visual Culture, Touka Gettan

January 1, 2007

How to Bukkake the Moon – Tsukihime Edition

By omo

Maybe Onegai Twins is just a tribute to Tsukihime? The drama between Kohaku/Hisui and Akiha, and the drama between Arc and Ciel… It’s just so memorable.

Onegai Twins (DMP version)

Kinoko Nasu’s popular smash hit is a tour de force in a lot of ways. It’s sort of like eating a burger the proper way, and you’re not sure if your body agrees with some of the burger’s content.

But having said that, I downed the game in its entirety over the course of a week. It was a lot of fun and somehow I gotten to like Shiki a lot. I think, in all things, having some kind of significant attachment to the main character really helps the reader. It is probably the best thing about Tsukihime. (And probably the largest flaw with Shingetsutan Tsukihime.)

But starting out the new year about a porn game, sadly, is not how I’d like it. And as much as some of us may deny the erotic aspect of the game (in honest), Arc is still pretty hot. Perhaps my biggest complaint of the game, then, is that there’s just way too much pornographic material in the story. And I think a lot of it is excessive. It’s to the degree that after I was through with my second major ero scene I was holding down the fast forward button. Come to think of it, nearly all of the ero scenes were excessive and can be either simply cut, or worked around with the same effect. To be honest there were only a couple more enticing in-game scenes than the 6 different faces of Hisui, and that sort of stuff is just more amusing and morally sensible. In other words, I was just skipping 80% or more of the erotic content just fine, and to me they’re just excessive baggage of the genre norm for these kinds of games. Boooooring. Honestly I’d rather be more bothered if the porn part of the game was better, and as much as it may be something that I initially expected, I was pretty quick to resign to a more morally sound position.
What is more disturbing than the tender loving care Shiki Tohno dispenses to his nonlinear harem is the psychotic violence described in Tsukihime. It didn’t agree with me, but I see why it’s there and the point it makes. It’s pretty interesting because as much as it’s easy to bring about disturbing, snuff-like violence, it’s another to do so by making you feel it. Doubly so with just words. Tsukihime has little visual violence, and those moments aren’t the ones I’m talking about. I’m partly impressed but also kind of put off because a lot of it is not exactly directly related to the story it tries to tell, either.

I think the primary Tsukihime schtick is basking us with ambiance and then it paints our minds with careful, concise statements about whatever Kinoko Nasu wants to talk about. As a result a huge amount of the story is dedicated to painting that ambiance. it’s like drowning your resin kit with a sea of primer, only to put three dots on it with your paintbrush. Mmm, hairless naked figurines? It’s not the most masterful in the execution, but it isn’t terrible. A little blunt, but it gets the point across well. Well, it’s really blunt. For example:

The torrent breaks through.

Spinning. Spinning. Spinning spinning the world is spinning.

Sun and moon. Female and lion. Angel and pollution. Colliding uphill paths. Broken hourglass. Upwards falling sand. Shattered window and a door without a handle. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness.

* * *

I’m getting crushed.

Melting wall. Solvable meaning. Self who can explain. Smoothness of changable permeability. Transitioning time. Observation life and execution function. A pinky-less hand. Headless eyes. Rolling carpet. Once. Twice. Three Times. 777 cages. Burst balloon. Unfulfillable promise. Unprotectable law. Death contract. Poison and honey. Red and afterbirth. Murcury lamp and bug light. Light refracting to countless dimensions. Swimming fish, singing at the ocean bottom. Tools, tools, tools. Towards endlessly reproducing stars without meaning, without will. Better than wishes. Another only me. Unraveling deep sea. Contradictory that appears from microscopic organisms. Detailed view of a quark. Rejection of everything. Formless form. An embryo within a hearse. I curse and celebrate their existence.

* * *

“What, is this—-”

Cessation is disregard. The bleeding earth. Trade your blood for poison and you will attain immortality. Rose. Rose. Rose. Rose. Your splendor will not last forever. The way to reach Lohan’s temple, eat this bread. Spreading defilement. The April that’s farther than May, the reversal of limbs, awaken in the shrine of balance beyond the dual serpent and scorpion. The skin of rotten fruit. Burned puppet of celluloid. The cannabis of Legion. Grinding and friction. Sun and Moon. Colliding uphill paths. Female and lions. Broken hourglass. Spiraling clouds. I am unparalleled. Upwards falling sand. Eight years ago. Killed. Killed. Killed. Killed.Killed. Killed. Killed. Killed.Killed. You. Killed!

One thing Tsukihime does, like many other complex, multi-pathing kinetic/visual novels, (well) is having a couple major story lines and then fill those out with character story lines, each filling in the gap the other missed. What makes Tsukihime marvelous in this aspect is that its two main stories “near side of the moon” and “far side of the moon” complemented each other very well. I sort of think that the “far side of the moon” was really a story about Kohaku, but they realized how it’s very useful by forcing her story to be unlocked last, it gives Hisui and Akiha’s stories much more “oomph.” It’s a bit of a cheat, I guess, but it’s to good effect. Well, I suppose “well” is kind of relative too, given the fairly lean connection between the major story lines.

I shouldn’t play favorites, but it’s so fun to do it with this game–pretty much everyone’s story are fairly good. One personal favorite part about Tsukihime was that the whole Arcueid-cide aspect came about very well. In fact I think overall Arc’s story is probably my favorite because it is a hair’s breadth away from invoking a Jesus allegory with a straight face. An allegory in the line of Aslan in C.S. Lewis’ famous book about a wardrobe. And it’s subtly wonderful in that how the story BEGINS with it. It’s probably not a common way to look at this story, but I think it pans out in full.

There was a lot of thought that went into Tsukihime, I get the feeling. If a visual novel is the paradigm of excess in a text-narrative world, then Tsukihime loaded this visual novel up with a lot of excessive text, true to the nature of the medium. Excess in words, in feelings, in the relationships and what’s unnecessary but yet so vital to the entire experience. What’s more, it carries the weight, look and feel of a doujin production. It’s a game not for the squirmish, but if you’re adventurous and open minded, this is one hella of a ride.

Flawed, but not fatal; highly recommended.

For reference, I played the game using my copy of Tsukihime from Tsukibako, and used the ONScripter adaptation in English from Mirror Moon. Make sure you use the latest version! The translation, as a post script, is adequate but leaves a lot to be desired; but don’t let that turn you away from this landmark piece of gaming history. For post-post script, a shoutout to chendo and a certain friend in Japan who made this experience possible.

Leave a comment | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, Tsukihime