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Finished Kasumi's route in Dies Irae. I should probably first say that this is not the first VN by Masada I've read. I've read Senshinkan before, and that left me with pretty mixed feelings on the author. I consider myself a fan of chuuni, and the darker (even edgier) the story is the more I'm likely to enjoy it. As such, I was pretty excited when I read Senshinkan at first - Masada's works put on the airs of extremely edgy chuuni... but unfortunately, that is all they seem to do, as on the core they're nothing more but extremely cliched shounen. I was baffled by the stark contrast between the grimdark text and the "Friendship power!" kind of story in Senshinkan, but I just chalked it up to the main theme, given the main character's disposition towards virtues. I did like the story (there was some impressive layering going on), the (villain) characters, but I did have my doubts with the actual chuuni, getting bored to death with never-ending re-matches. As such, I was more scared of Dies Irae than excited, really. I did want to read it, but I was worried that it might be exactly what I disliked about Senshinkan - but in the end, curiosity won over, and the hyper-edgy Nazi aesthetic made me pick up the game. And, to put it shortly... I was right to be worried. The prologue didn't sell me on the VN, in fact, it almost made me drop it. It was full of Masada's flashiness for the sake of flashiness, with action scenes serving no other purpose but to show you how damn cool everything is... only I didn't buy it. When I read chuuni, I want infodumps. I want battles that get their rules laid down and thoroughly explained, and have crazy things happening according to these rules. While Masada does this sometimes (Senshinkan had some scenes like that, albeit not many), the prologue exemplified everything I dislike about his writing of fight scenes. It's like he is trying to convince you how amazing everything is with words alone, without actually giving you any reason to be impressed in the first place. It all comes across as pretty... flat. Luckily enough, the VN turned around immediately as the actual story started. Crazy pseudo-philosophy dialogues, edgy protagonist with clearly defined character that promised an interesting and entertaining point of view, some nice twists, it was great! And then... then the shounen tournament arc happened. The main character that was supposed to be unique, as the VN and the villains would want you to believe, quickly devolved into an insufferably cliched shounen protagonist. I won't go into any details to avoid spoilers, but the amount of shounen cliches in this route was driving me against the wall. What was even worse was Masada's attempt at being clever and self-aware - but making fun of things like friendship power and relying on it only seconds later doesn't make it any better, it makes it downright obnoxious. The actual chuuni was probably by far the biggest disappointment. The only fight scene that was actually exciting was the very first encounter, after that it just got boring. Masada just sticks to describing cool things for the most part, so there's not much to enjoy about the scenes other than mindlessly going with it - it's not like any of it really matters, because the main character just wins by some bullshit every single time in a true shounen fashion, and to make things even worse almost none of the wins even feel deserved. I get that this is the first route, but watching the main character fall for the same shit over and over and in the end be unable to do anything cool at all in a story about crazy battles isn't fun whatsoever - at least there are better characters than him that make the battle scenes at least somewhat exciting. Anyway, it's not like I hated the whole thing. I enjoyed the characters (maybe except Ren... and Kasumi, to some extent, even though I wanted to like her), I liked the story that got hinted at (as I mentioned above, the first half of the common route actually got me really hyped, hopefully there is more of that kind of stuff here), and I liked the route ending. At the very least the last battle was pretty cool, and so was the way it turned out. I can only hope that the VN gets better from now on, but so far, I'm not impressed. There are people who say this? The Umineko "fanbase" really is the worst. Never before have I seen a story where so many people would ignore almost half of it just to make themselves feel smart via pathetic theory-crafting that just picks the convenient parts and dismisses the rest. It's even sadder that this is happening to Umineko of all things, considering its subject matter. I'm glad you were able to get something out of these two episodes; after all, Umineko is trying to get across a message, and the last two episodes are crucial for that. Any "fans" looking on it strictly as a mystery story are not only doing the story huge disservice, but probably can't read at all in the first place.

Holy Shit, I almost forgot, lol. IT'S CHOKE FULL OF REQUESTS You should be able to send it now. As for the songs, no idea. I spam the quickest ones atm

After another quick look through my list I have a few suggestions. Firstly is Honey and Clover: Really really funny show with decent romance throughout. Also freaking cute. https://myanimelist.net/anime/16/Hachimitsu_to_Clover Next up is Touch: It is a long baseball related series with a constant look at romance throughout. Seeing that you liked Cross Game, this would be right up your alley. Though I must say, it is quite long. https://myanimelist.net/anime/1065/Touch Third up is Genshiken: This doesn't have romance as it's main focus, but with various characters, including the MC there is romance throughout. Lots of great comedy too and it's setting is college so a little more mature-themed in a way. https://myanimelist.net/anime/240/Genshiken Fourth up is Skip Beat: Really, really funny show about a girl who decides she wants to be an actress. Solid romance and just...it's damn funny. https://myanimelist.net/anime/4722/Skip_Beat I would again like to re-rec Baby Steps: It may be a sports anime, but the romantic undertones are there throughout with bits of comedy thrown in. Hopefully something here catches your fancy.

Glad you enjoyed it. Bakuman is a great anime. I'll see if I can dig up something else for ya.

@skrewball717 Bakuman was excellent. I loved it to bits. I found the heroes shouting ganbarimasu was a little too frequent but apart from that the pacing, characters and story were great. I loved the way it ended with tension on each episode like a sport anime and had that quality that made it hard to not keep watching. I loved the fact that I got 75 episodes of something so enjoyable to watch too in this world of short series. And I really loved Saori Hayami as the heroine even though she was not really a lead character compared to the others - she's one of my all time favourite VAs and her climactic scene was awesome.The ending was beautiful too. Definitely one I'll rewatch with my wife; I'm sure she'll love it too. 9/10

Ahem. Added Bakuman

I'm probably satisfied for a good while Next goal: tricolor URs of every girl jk I'll go homeless if I attempt that ~~ Wtf, that Valentine's Mari is actually the one I wanted instead of the Yukata one

Well, it is currently R$90, so you'll probably want to wait for a sale. In my opinion, Air is way better than Kanon, and if I were to choose now (after reading both), I'd leave the best for the end. However, Kanon is not bad at all. Like Decay said, there is literally no connection between games, besides some few references (I only remember Air's toy dinosaur appearing in Kotori's shirt in Rewrite), so any order is fine (or no order at all).

Links to the trial version: here, here and here. Full downloadable version can be bought here (NSFW). You can also search through japanese Amazon for cheaper bargains, including possible PE's. Support the creators and industry, don't pirate shit. If you don't have money, go get a job. It's not that hard.

I recently finished Kanojyo-tachi no Ryuugi. Going into the VN, I somehow mixed up this title with another VN, Yuri Kago no Naka, and thought it was going to be a hyper-chuuni novel. Well, it definitely wasn't that, but it was pretty good anyways. The VN starts out with the MC returning to old home where he sees his older twin sisters for the first time in five years. He is pretty miffed when his older sister Tobari ignores him completely. Especially since he (MC's name is Kotarou) holds a bit of an inferiority complex towards her. She does recruit him to the theatre club in order to perform at the upcoming school festival. He's going to be playing the main heroine alongside her as the hero. Yep, it's a VN with crossdressing. The MC is voiced, too (hooray!) I found the BGM well-fitted for each of the scenes. It looks like they paid attention there. Was really impressed by the voice acting for Tobari, Akane, and Suzutsuki. The early dialogue had a bit of characterization, but the voice acting really gave it life. Though when I saw Seseri's (blue-haired hopelessly genki-naive type) character I cringed at the thought of having to bear with her for the rest of the VN. I really liked Suzutsuki's (Pink-haired girl) route who I played first. Her route was super short (literally 6-7 scenes!!!), but it had this amazing atmosphere. She ends up being my favourite girl. Next I played Seseri's route, which mostly boring. Then was Akane (the older twin sister). Her route wasn't extensive like I thought it was, but it does provide some important facts about the sisters and their family. After that I skipped the other two minor heriones and went for the Tobari's route, the true herione's. While doing her route, I still found the events seems pretty underwhelming (just seemed like Kotarou arguing a lot with Tobari). But then the latter part of her route comes, and it's pretty good. At the end of the route there's this big perspective change which pretty much is the culmination of the entire route. It was amazing the first time, but it took me a second read to connect the pieces. Now I finally get why everyone on erogegamescape keeps saying the game exists for the sake of Tobari. Basically the whole game is revolving about Kotarou's (the MC) and Tobari's relationship (or apparent lack of one), and her mental state. It's kind of an unexpected work (old, heavy character-focus, and yet not being about the normal romance progressions), but the cg, music, voice acting, and characters are all quite good. Would recommend to someone who wants to read a character-focused story and doesn't mind the crossdressing, the unusual combination of elements, or the short length. As a side note, I think the crossdressing was more to allow Akari and Tobari to exhibit some S-traits during the sex scenes. The sex scenes are generally pretty mild, but the thing is, Kotarou is actually in the M position a lot of the time, which makes it feel more 'out there' than most crossdressing vns. I dunno. Kotarou's not bad relatively speaking, but some of the stuff made me groan a bit inside.

isn't it harder to find VNs without Tsundere?