alpacaman

Finally finished it. Episode 8 actually was my least favourite one because It will probably take some time before all my thoughts on Umineko have settled enough for me to write something coherent on the actual plot and themes of the story so i'll just continue rambling about other random stuff: I would love to see Erika as Super High School Level Detective in a Danganronpa game. Each one of those has one student in an antagonistic role and she would be absolutely perfect for it. Is "Ange" a real name or nickname in any European language or is it just the way you would shorten Angelica/Angelika/Angelique in Japanese? On a similar note I think Krauss' name should probably be translated as Klaus since Krauss is a surname. And I can recommend visiting Bernkastel(-Kues) to anyone who wants to go on vacation in Germany. It's a beautiful old town in a winegrowing area close to the border to Luxembourg (which is also worth a visit if you can stomach paying 10€ and above for an iced coffee in the centre of its capital). So next up is... I still don't really know. Probably Symphonic Rain.

As long as there are no baseball matches, corrupt politicians and/or a childhood friend the protagonist has forgotten about, you're lacking in the anime trope department. I'm only a few hours of reading time away from finishing Umineko and I'm dissapointed they haven't added any new characters to the cast so far. I counted up to somewhere beyond fifty who have a sprite in episode 5 or 6 but stopped when it got too confusing because I didn't know if I should count certain characters several times or not. Other than that Umineko is obviously superb. I might even say it's one of the best things ever (*magical screeching sound*).

Root Double has some pacing issues but it's full of plot twists and bad endings.

I recently discovered City Pop, the music genre of the Japanese economic boom in the late 70s and 80s. It's a fascinating mix of disco, funk, jazz fusion, soul and synth pop. I chose this particular song because it's the earliest mention of the phrase "Tuturu" I know.

That's why I said I'm guessing. I'm not blameing anyone for Sony's changes in policy. Sony executives probably wouldn't have made this choice if they didn't think it would benefit the company financially in the long term.

That's true, it's just a sub-discussion that came up when somebody asked why violence and sexual content are treated so differently. Nobody except the executives can say for sure. My guess would be that banning sexual content makes it easier to reach into growing markets like China that have pretty strict censorship laws. The Japanese market is probably shrinking considering Japan's economic and demographic development and in other parts of the world the share of potential customers you scare away from buying your consoles buy announcing you don't allow bare breasts on your platforms anymore should be pretty small.

Of course most companies aren't religious. They still have to appeal to local sensitivities and try to avoid public outcries since both affect their image and sales.

I watched my favourite football club grind an undeserved victory after penalties against a lower division team today. I've had my share of horror for the day.

You're right. Societal norms would be the more fitting term. Facebook, PayPal and so on have similar terms of service despite US laws not forcing them to. I guess it's a mix of them being scared of conservative lobby groups protesting and also not wanting to censor stuff individually for countries where certain content actually is illegal since it's too much work.

I think it's more about traditions in Christian countries than about what the Bible says (I don't know how it is in other religions). Being opposed to free sexuality originally comes from it being an effective protection against diseases and many religions just put their spiritual justification on top of that later on, often leading to a dynamic that became more and more repressive. There just isn't a similar tradition with violence. You could even say that violence served as a means to show your manlihood despite restrictive sexual morals and many countries have an affinity to violence ingrained in their national folklore, especially the USA with its Revolutionary War and Civil War, the Wild West and so on. And with the USA still being the most important market for any kind of media it's logical that producers try to comply with US laws first.

Umineko uses the episodic format very well imo, but it's probably true that most releases probably don't. The important thing for a good episodic VN is that each episode tells a complete story while adding to the overarching plot. Just introducing the setting and characters and then having a cliffhanger at the end is something you don't want to read let alone pay for when you know you have to wait several months for the next bit of the story.

I finished Umineko episode 3 and Battler describes just how I feel about the plot ("Dammit! More weird things are happening!") and the mystery ("...I...I-I don't have a clue what's going on anymore...!"). In other words, the whole VN is amazing. I know they are completely different but somehow Umineko constantly reminds me of Twin Peaks in the way everything is always kept kind of vague and further obscured by tons of weird stuff happening that probably adds nothing to solving the mystery but is very entertaining nonetheless. I also picked up some Kate Bush vibes but maybe that's just because the OP sounds a lot like her music. I still have a few thoughts on what's happening:

You need to buy Umineko anyway, so I would suggest trying the first chapter the first episode the way Mangagamer released it. The real mysteries and character development don't start until later so you still can pick the patch when it's completed. I would argue that in Umineko the soundtrack is so present that you don't really need voice acting. It's similar to The House in Fata Morgana in that regard (although most tracks are instrumentals).

The patch adds voice acting, a polished UI and edits a few parts of the translation as well, as far as I know. The PC release obviously is inferior to the PS3 release, but imo it's not something worth waiting for as it's still completely serviceable.

According to the stats from the TL-homepage Coda has 24.5k lines of text comparing to 10.8k in Opening Chapter and 35.3k in Closing Chapter.

Hatoful Boyfriend has a Yandere character who is pretty important for the "true route". His methods are rather drastic, but the VN itself is not graphic. I don't know if you're in the mood for dating pigeons though.

It covers the same story as the first season (the second season adapts the VN S;G 0) but it goes into more detail when it comes to the science and the characters. The greatest sin the anime committed was cutting out 4°C If want to continue reading free VNs at first I would recommend Lucid 9.

Thanks for searching anyway!

Does anyone have a link?

Depicting rape or intercourse between minors isn't illegal in general, but it is in pornography (at least in Germany, 3 minutes google search told me it's more or less the same in Norway, but I could be wrong). It's still stupid imo that drawn or written depictions are treated the same as photographic ones, but the laws themselves aren't that ambiguous. By judicial standards GoT isn't porn (in almost any country) so its depiction of sexual violence is legal in any country without strict censorship laws. Back to topic: I don't own any physical copies for the same reasons as everyone else.

There's this cheaply produced animated movie about the sinking of the Titanic where an evil whaling magnate allies with the sharks to sink the Titanic and something something PROFIT. I don't know why I always think about that movie when someone's talking about MuvLuv Alternative.

After some hardware troubles I finally got around to reading Umineko. I finished ep 1 and read the first few hours of ep 2 and really got hooked on the weird school festival song. It's really promising so far although I have no idea what direction the story is going to take fill eight 15 hour volumes, considering All the praise Umineko gets for it's soundtrack is well deserved. While none of the tracks really stuck to me so far (except for the one mentioned above) I don't think I've read another VN where the soundtrack sets the mood for the scenes as well as this one. Is it just me, or does House in Fata Morgana seem heavily influenced by Umineko? I'm no expert on Japanese scary stories so it's possible that this just is the way artists there tell western-style horror tales, but to me the aesthetics in both titles just seem very similar.

Kajitsu is not very subtle about Yuuji being broken, so I guessed. But he still has a very dominant personality which imo isn't a good match with someone as fragile as these girls, especially if he should get unstable at some point. Many of the means Yuuji uses to help the girls would be considered abuse if his plans didn't (sometimes magically) work out, and I guess at least the girls would consider their relationships romantic. I tried to ignore the romance in Makina's route and didn't draw conclusions about the other routes' relationships from it because I knew it was going to be weird from the beginning. But still, from all the knowledge I have of the characters and the plot I can't imagine any couplesque relationship between Yuuji and one of the heroines that wouldn't result in him completely dominating the relationship. But as I said, I'm basing this opinion only on the main and Makina route and the anime, so the character routes in the VN (and the sequels) might add some nuance. All the sprites are ugly, but Maria looks like someone going through that part of puberty where everyone looks kind of gross, not like a nine year old girl. Her whole way of talking like a three year old only makes it worse. In a different setting she would make a great gnome or something like that while the others would at least pass as hobbits.

It's not that I didn't like the comedy and SoL in general (I mean the TV programs are great and the writers are really good at doing physical humor), it's more about how it's going nowhere but still constantly reminds you that something darker is going on. And every time the story hints at something, the next scene is going to be about something completely different. Instead of Yuuji's inner monologue the writers could have put in "and now for something completely different". I can just go by the route plots as presented by the anime, but my problem wasn't with the backstories feeling pointless but more with the fact that they were presented as some mystery although they were just character exposition. About the romance: I expected the loli route romance to not be very believable, but I can't imagine super soldier Yuuji having a healthy romantic relationship with any of these mentally broken girls. Maybe I really should read another route and see if I'm wrong. But at the moment I'm still tired of SoL. I think the little girl is evil. Just look at her original sprite, it's terrifying! (I just started chapter 1)