Posted on by maegamisama

Yesterday I talked about starting Lovely Quest While…

Yesterday, I talked about starting Lovely Quest. While it was pretty trashy, I mentioned that sometimes trashy can be fun and entertaining. While I stick by that and intend to still go through it, I decided to take a look at some other games from the list of VNs I’ve been wanting to try.

Today, I decided to check out どうして、そんなに黒い髪が好きなの？ Which translates to “Why do you like black hair that much” The main concept is that the main character is the son of a Shinto Priest and has spent his life around women with black hair. Thus he’s developed something of a complex/fetish for women with black hair.

The premise sounds pretty silly, but as someone who also has an obsession with hair (what specifically I’ll leave to your imagination) I feel like I can relate. Not to mention, I’m also a fan of black hair

What really got me interested in it initially though was the fact that they even made a patch for it that made all the heroines hair dark black

If it applied to cgs too, I would have considered using it. Sadly it seems like it’s only valid for the sprites (also I can’t seem to find a place where I can download the patch) Sad because I actually kind of dig that black even if it’s a bit on the ridiculous side (Like I said, sometimes trashy things are fun)

Anyway, I’m about 430 lines into it, and so far I’m enjoying it way more than Lovely Quest. I might play them both in conjunction for a while to see if I can potentially do them both. If not, I have a feeling I’ll probably favor this one

Posted on by maegamisama

One thing I’ve decided to do as of…

One thing I’ve decided to do, as of late, is to stop doing Anki reviews in favor of reading more of my Japanese VNs. I forgot to mention it in my Sakura no Toki post, but it’s part of what helped me get through it. Now that I’ve finished Toki though, it’s time to find a new VN to try.

I have a long list of VNs that I’ve acquired/earmarked as future read candidates. It’s so long in fact that I’ve actually forgotten why most of them are there. Thus I had to spend some time looking at VNDB pages this afternoon in order to refresh my memory and field some potential candidates.

I’m not expecting much of the one I started reading today, Lovely Quest. I don’t want to use the word trash to describe things (especially if it’s someone’s favorite), but it falls in line with what some people would probably consider kind of trashy. Like the tropes are super blatant and it’s clear there’s like a ton of girls that have the hots for the MC. But sometimes that can be enjoyable way to take a break

Posted on by maegamisama

I finished Sakura no Toki yesterday 7 28…

I finished Sakura no Toki yesterday (7/28/2023)

If you’re looking for general impressions, I think the first 4 chapters are really solid. I also really think they did a better job with the heroine routes than in Uta (It actually feels like solid romance for Naoya) I only wish that they would have considered doing another route or two (it’s quite weird to have only two)

The fifth chapter was a bit hard to swallow, and is what caused me to stall the game for a while. While I did end up enjoying it by the end of it. It still felt the weakest part of the overall package. Chapter 6 brought a tear to my eye and a smile to my face, and probably improved the overall games score to being close to Uta (Not that I rate VNs to begin with)

I do hope SCA-DI makes a fan-disc someday that explores some of the other female characters. Not sure if they should be what-if stories with Naoya (considering some plot stuff in toki), but then again I can’t think of any male characters I’d rather see them with.

If anyone wants me to, I can write up more in-depth thoughts later.

Posted on by maegamisama

Yeah I’m making slow progress in Suikoden 4…

Yeah, I’m making slow progress in Suikoden 4, but the game has not been doing a stellar job at really making it engaging. There’s literally a segment where you wash up on a deserted island and have to spend 3 days doing chores that made me want to drop the game right there. I pray that there’s some good characters to liven up the story soon, or I’m not going to be happy

Posted on by maegamisama

I think I’m starting to remember some of…

I think I’m starting to remember some of my distaste for Suikoden IV. Everything at the start has felt really low budget (big empty areas) and the controls are just really bad (the triangle is cancel and you need to hold r1 to move fast)

What gets my the most is the story though. It’s not uncommon for the MC to go through betrayal early on, but I feel like it’s this game that takes the cake for you feeling absolutely no sympathy towards the person who betrays you. I wont spoil who that is, but I imagine anyone who starts playing the game will immediately be able to tell who it is.

Posted on by maegamisama

When it comes to Suikoden I’m a fanatic…

When it comes to Suikoden, I’m a fanatic. Played most of the games multiple times and will shill the hell out of 1,2, and 5 to whoever will listen to me. Yet for a decade plus there’s been one major blemish on my Suikoden experience. Something that might be forgivable by other Suikoden fans, but to an outsiders perspective probably looks a bit weird.

I have never finished Suikoden IV. I bought it on release and played a good deal of it, but I found myself feeling frustrated with the experience and quitting. Never to touch the game again.

Aside from terrible boat controls, I can’t, at this point, remember what it was I disliked about the game. I do know that in the years afterward fans weren’t too kind to the game as a whole either, and that is why I think they would forgive me not playing it. It’s not a game that most people must play.

However, I’m not most people. I’m a fanatic. Since Konami isn’t making any more of them (hopefully the remaster changes that) I think I owe it to the franchise to check out both IV and Tactics (I never played Tactics either but that’s due to it being connected to IV) I need to finish it before I consider playing Suikoden 1 and 2 again for the bajillionth time in the remaster (considering doing them in Japanese too) Otherwise, how can I call myself an expert of Suikoden?

One positive thing I can say is Suikoden IV has the best intro music imo (III is better for the anime cinematics)

Biggest complaint in the first hour is that the camera controls are dog shit. You can’t do anything to change them either :/

Posted on by maegamisama

On a whim the other day I checked…

On a whim, the other day I checked out the various anime channels available on free streaming platforms (roku, Plutotv, etc) I forget where, but I came across this anime called Yakitate Japan!! Despite it already being on episode 40 something, I found myself watching two episodes

I liked it so much I ended up hunting down the original series and watched the first five episodes yesterday. My initial thoughts:

It’s anime about baking bread. On paper that probably sounds pretty dull to people, but in reality it’s actually a fairly funny show. Maybe not on the levels of say Gintama or Konosuba, but it does get me to laugh out loud which is a feat

It’s weird watching from the beginning when I’ve already seen two of the episodes in the 40s. Particularly because I didn’t know who a lot of the characters were then, and finding out retrospectively is a strange feeling.

It’s also 69 episodes, which I have to obligatorily say “Nice” to.

Posted on by maegamisama

07:End of the line

This is my last monthly post for the forseeable future. From here on out I plan to do more frequent micro-blogging that talks about things I’ve been doing

The decision to start micro-blogging was something I’ve been thinking about for weeks, but the decision to stop the monthly posts was more recent. Not going to go into it other than I feel like I lost my reason for posting them to begin with. I’d also like to avoid anyone misunderstanding things from dumping my emotional baggage here.

Yeah, that’s all I really have to say about that.

Posted on by maegamisama

Sakura no Toki was my most anticipated release…

Sakura no Toki was my most anticipated release this year, and when it came out at the end of Feburary, I half expected myself to devote all my time to it until it was done. Unfortunately, that didn’t end up happening.

I was on something of a good clip until I reached Chapter 5, and from here we’re going to get into spoilers so don’t read if you have interest in ever playing this game

[spoiler]
So I really enjoyed chapters 1-3. Chapter 1 I especially really liked the dynamic between Shizuru and Reika. Chapter 2 was mostly Naoya and his students hijinx (Suzuna is my favorite of that bunch) Chapter 3 being the routes much like Uta

I was surprised to find that the only routes were Misuzu and Makoto. They’re both great (with Misuzu being the better of the two) but compared to Uta, it was pretty lacking. Though I’m guessing they didn’t want a bunch of high school heroines given Naoya’s position (as the only other females are mostly his students at this point)

Chapter 4 was excellent. It made me appreciate Kei a whole lot more than what the first game did.

Then chapter 5 happened and I started to lose some of my interest.

A main contributor to that is Naoya’s relationship to Ai in this chapter. While Ai was my favorite character in Uta, something about it doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s the situation in which they find themselves in that makes it feel wrong? I don’t know. I just feel like her h-scenes could have been a route in itself.

This being the part where Rin shows up again also doesn’t help this chapter. For those not aware, Rin is my least favorite character. In the beginning of Uta she comes off as being too dumb, and then later on she comes off as being kind of a bitch? I might have read more into some things (or misread stuff) but I just didn’t like the tonal shift she went under once she gets her painting skills back.

I don’t know. Not much was doing it for me this chapter until Nagayama Kana showed up.

Maybe it was my dislike of Rin, but despite Kana bullying her, I never felt really that negatively towards her as Naoya did. I also wasn’t upset with what she tried to do with the mural with her performance art group (even though I hate Thomas with the heat of a thousand suns) I gathered there was something more to her

Though I didn’t really put together everything until Naoya meets her again twice in Toki. Once looking at the mural and again at the bar. It’s there I started getting annoyed at Naoya’s suspicious/thickheaded nature

Her presence in this route has been part of what’s kept me reading. I actually just got done reading the part where she faces Naoya in the semifinals.. Man I hope if there’s ever a third game (or a fan-disc) that she gets a route, because I honestly think she’s perfect for Naoya. Even moreso than Misuzu (as much as I love her)

Though now that the semifinal match is over, I’m a bit worried that my enthusiasm is going to die back down a bit. I’d really like to finish this game so I can move onto something else for a bit..

It’d be nice if I knew how much was left of 5 and how long 6 will be.. I used a Youtube playthrough when I played Uta to gauge how far I was, but there doesn’t seem to be any existing ones for toki sadly

[/spoiler]

Posted on by maegamisama

For those who don’t know I’ve been rewatching…

For those who don’t know, I’ve been rewatching a lot of anime I’ve only seen dubbed in English in Japanese (with English subs) I’ve done it with Tenchi Universe, Outlaw Star, Trigun, and Cowboy Bebop. This time I set my sights on what was probably my favorite anime (post high school/early college) Yu Yu Hakusho

I just finished rewatching the entire series, and here are some of my impressions. Note that in the future, I plan to post my reactions to voices as smaller status updates rather than a longer form post like this one.

Continue reading “For those who don’t know I’ve been rewatching…” →