suikashoujo

I don't even care about the next round; I just want to know if I made it or not... eh, oh well, can't be helped. I'll be waiting for next week.

Most of my favorites have already been mentioned (Air, Full Metal Panic, To Heart, etc.- incidentally, I still have the DVD box sets for all three), but one I'm surprised I haven't seen yet is Gunslinger Girl (2003-2004). For starters, it has gorgeous art and animation, to the point where I can't really believe it's already a decade old. But what's interesting about this one- and what makes it one of my favorite anime of all time- is that while the title makes it sound like a cliche girls-with-guns show, it's actually more of a quiet, philosophical anime that happens to have really awesome action scenes throughout. It's also set in Italy, which is a definite rarity, and it has a beautiful opening song sung completely in English. I found this show years ago, and I still rewatch it every now and again.

Yep, it's an official release. I downloaded it out of curiosity, and was almost amazed at the stupidity of it. No voices, in app purchases just to progress through it... and after all that, they couldn't be bothered to include the whole game. Not surprising coming from them, but still, it's like they aren't even trying.

Between this and WIXOSS season 2, I'm looking forward to the Fall season already.

I can't think of any characters I've outright hated, but since I just finished Love Live season 2, the first truly irritating character I can think of off the top of my head is Nico Yazawa. She didn't ruin the show for me- Now that I've seen both seasons, I can safely say that Love Live is one of my top five favorite anime- but from beginning to end, she was the one character that I never warmed up to. I mean, even Eri annoyed me at first too, but eventually redeemed herself. But Nico was just annoying from beginning to end. Every time she did her little "Nico Nico Nii~" thing, I wanted to slap her, because she usually used it to get herself out of situations brought on by her being selfish or to direct everyone's attention to her, even when she didn't deserve it. Oh well, at least there are 8 other main girls.

This time I did a more traditional drawing with paper and pencil, then came up with a bit of a backstory.

Hmm, let's see... 1.Persona 4 (Haven't played Golden or Arena, so the original) 2. Tales of Phantasia 3. Persona 3 Portable 4. Guitar Hero 3 (Even if I don't hear about it much anymore, this game made up a decent chunk of my late childhood/early teens) 5.Pokemon Ruby 6. Guilty Gear X2 7. South Park: the Stick of Truth (As a South Park fan, this game was a great experience) 8. Persona Portable (The first one) 9. Misao 10. Mad Father As you can see, I haven't done a whole lot of gaming in the past few years. I blame visual novels and a lack of money.

A lot of perople have mentioned Yandere, and I think that was more of a disappointment than my earlier post about Harukoi Otome. Yandere was a game that I had been really excited for, and had downloaded the day the patch came out. (Granted I couldn't play it for a month after that because of computer troubles, but that just made me more anxious to play it). I love yandere heroines, so I thought, "great, a game all about my favorite character type." But it ended up being a waste of time. In my opinion, what makes a yandere work is the contrast between their sweet initial selves, and the reveal of their rotten cores. Basically, it's best when it's played for drama. But other than the parts that were supposed to be scary (like the door scene with the teacher, who was without a doubt the worst character in the game) the game felt more like a comedy. Like "Oh, this guy is an asshole, so watch him get chased by a bunch of sex-obsessed crazy girls!" That was it. There was no build up. The first scene was the guy randomly deciding to take his osananajimi's virginity, then acting surprised when she decided they were lovers. She was the only real yandere to begin with (masochism and cannibalism aren't enough to make a girl a yandere), and the main guy treated her so badly that I almost rooted for her more than the "poor protagonist." Granted, I'm pretty sure the game existed mainly for the sex scenes, but those weren't good either. The gore scenes were added on for shock value, and while I remember being a little unsettled by the last scene with Maika, the rest of it felt tacked on more than anything. And going back to the childhood friend, I didn't really feel bad for the protag at the end of her route. He earned what came to him there. As for the teacher, I blocked her route out because it was all kinds of terrible, so I don't remember how I felt about it. I don't know, maybe I'm just jaded or something, because even for a game built on shock value, it was just terrible, and didn't shock (or excite) me at all.

I thought I would FC Bokura wa Ima no Naka de before Wild Star, but I ended up getting Wild Star first (although even that took a lot of tries). I'm still working on Bokura. Also, I downloaded the Japanese version to play alongside the English, and I'm almost overwhelmed by how many more Normal cards there are. Some of them are cute, too, so I can't wait to see them in the English version.

Zankyou no Terror looks like it could be good, but nothing else is even remotely interesting to me. Most of it is either sequels to shows I haven't and probably won't ever watch, or shows that are so generic that they might as well be sequels to every similar show in the past few years. I might change my mind once reviews start coming in, but in the meantime, this is going to be a boring summer. At least I have a backlog to work through.

It looks like Yuuji is listed under the "Others" category on the character page: http://frontwing.jp/general_product/mgm/character/03_other.html By the way, I'm definitely checking this out. It's so ridiculous that it just might work.

I ended up doing another short comic-style thing, just because this was the best idea I had.

About 11000 points... meaning I got my SR Kotori with only a few hours left.

I got an SR in the drawing for the first time- I usually only get rares. I'm only about 3000 event points away from the UR Kotori, so I need to play a lot before the deadline.

I'm at rank 40 right now, and no, there hasn't been any new content since then. The wait is killing me...

I'm at about 4500 event points, so I expect to be doing a LOT of grinding this weekend... I need that SR Kotori in my life.

I've been playing this app obsessively since it came out, and I'm planning to start the anime tonight or tomorrow because of it. I'm probably going to create a few new teams so that I have one for each attribute, but right now I have a team built out of one of each of the members from the show (so all rares and super-rares), so it'll be sad to split them up.

I think I used a walkthrough once I got to chapter 5 in Blood Covered, just because there were so many things that were easy to miss. And I have to say, the only parts that really "scared" me were the parts when you have to run away from ghosts, just because I kept getting caught and knew what would happen if I didn't escape. The game was just unsettling, more than anything. I remember playing through the end of chapter 4 for the first time late at night in a dark room, and that... probably wasn't my best choice. Still, I feel like it was more emotional than scary overall.

I loved the Corpse Party series, personally. I got both games in English a year or two ago, and they were some of the best horror games I can remember playing. If you haven't finished Blood Covered yet, I recommend doing so. The ending is absolutely fantastic.

I have a really long list foe this topic, but if I had to pick a few: Gore Screaming Show (Black Cyc) Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (age) Clear (MOONSTONE) Euphoria (Clockup)

I almost thought I wouldn't make it...

One that I can't believe I never mentioned in my last post is Mohiro Kitoh. His art has sort of a sketchy feel to it, and it feels a bit minimalist at times, but the stories in his works are always top notch, and there's a quality to it that I've never found in another manga artist. His manga Bokurano (and what I've read of narutaru) is easily in my top five manga of all time.

So far, it would probably be Rewrite. I'm a sucker for Key's games to begin with, but Rewrite was just above and beyond what I expected.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of stuff by Denkare, who do the openings to a lot of the Black Cyc games. Specifically this song from Gore Screaming Show: There's something amazing about combining metal instrumentals and a singer with a cute voice.

All I see is a LOT of Chiral merchandise, a good amount of Sonico, and pretty much nothing for any of the games I care about. I've been looking forward to the opening of this site, so it's too bad that this is all they have...