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About this blog

This is a blog primarily focusing on but not limited to VNs.  It is primarily designed to express my opinion on otaku media (jrpgs, anime, manga, LNs, VNs, etc), individual VNs, and otaku community issues.   Most of the posts are related to my VN of the Month and Random VN columns, originally started in threads in the forums. 

As of March of 2017, I'm also looking for people to help with VN of the Month.

Entries in this blog

Semiramis no Tenbin: Why I love it.

I get people asking me all the time why I like this VN so much, and indeed, there is a lot about this VN that makes it a somewhat eclectic choice. The only thing that is even remotely moe is the basic visuals, and the arcs of the story range from the shocking to the creepy. First, the biggest reason is quite simple... Kamio Ami. It is really rare for a heroine to so completely shatter pre-existing standards of what a VN/anime/manga heroine should be. Ami is the single most pragmatic, cold
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A prior Word: VN of the Month June 2015

There is a pretty good chance there won't be a VN of the month for June, simply because there aren't enough VNs coming out to make it a competition. As far as I can tell, there is only one not-nukige coming out for certain tonight (in our time) and it doesn't look like it will be one that is worthy of the VN of the Month, from the looks of it. I will still play and mini-review it, but please forgive me if you don't see a lot of new posts for the next month or so.
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Rose Guns Days

First, I want to say thank you to those who patiently listened as I whined and complained about this VN as I played it. I should also explain what I was complaining about first, so that people don't get the impression that this is an awful VN, just because I have complaints about it. I'll place this in spoilers for people who don't care about my whining. Second, I should say that I have a firm belief that Ryukishi's VNs make better anime than they do VNs, because his scenario design is
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Venus Blood Series, In order from Abyss to Hypno

A Universal Issue Tentacle sex and rape are the two big downers to this series. For a series with such good writing, it is amazing how quickly it becomes repetitive once h-scenes get into the picture. On the bright side, corrupting the heroines in Empire, Frontier, and Hypno almost always has immensely hilarious results after the mindbreak. It is kind of irritating that you pretty much have to mindbreak them to get the really good strategic skills, though. Abyss To be honest, this is
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Venus Blood Empire

Yes, I went and played a game in this series, mostly because Sanahtlig is an old friend and I didn't want to keep brushing him off. In fact, I'm marathonning this series starting with this game. First, an initial umbrella statement... this would have been a first-class story (though flawed) if it weren't for the massive amounts of tentacle rape and choukyou. Am I serious? Yeah. Despite everything, the base story is actually really good. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the gamepla
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Rensou Relation and VN of the Month Announcement

This is the newest title from Lump of Sugar, and as is typical of their recent productions, it has a needlessly complicated system for story progression that would have driven me insane inside ten minutes if I hadn't dled the patch that removes the gimmicks from their site. From what I've heard, LoS finally heard the screaming of their fans, that they didn't want anything to do with the pointless gimmicks that plagued Unmei Senjou no Phi and Magical Charming. Kind of sad that it took them a f
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Ayakashi Contract: Final Part

Haruka Haruka is the traditional 'older woman' heroine that used to be included in just about every VN, as a token to those who preferred that type. Of course, they don't come out and say how much older she is, but considering that she was in her teens when Tsumugi was a toddler... Anyway, she is a spiritualist/youkai hunter who comes to the town with the intention of hunting down a man-eater that is supposedly hidden in the populace. She gets wrapped up in the events of the main story in
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Ayakashi Contract Part 1: Common and Minagi

Before I start this, I should probably explain the company known as AXL to the newbies. AXL, which is known for Shugotate, as well as a number of other high-quality VNs, is an 'old-hand' company that was started pretty soon after the turn of the century. They developed an extremely beautiful art style, as well as a penchant for high-quality fantasy and romance stories. The thing most people will notice upon playing any two AXL games is that the art-style is exactly the same... it still possesses
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VNs: A Veteran's Opinion

I'm not going to argue about what defines a VN here. To be blunt, the fights over that issue - which were fairly pointless - were bad enough in the forums. That said, I am going to explain why VN terms tend to be so fuzzy and hard/impossible to pin down. 1. We are basically defining a medium that is new to us (new being a relative term, lol). 2. Pseudo-Japanisms like charage, moege, nakige, etc. are generalized terms that represent a certain type of structure and purpose to individual VNs. F
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Mousou Complete

Ok... there really isn't much to say on this VN, because it is ridiculously low-budget/low-quality. That isn't to say that it doesn't show moments of brilliance... it is just that the pacing is so terrible it is like the story got tossed into a high-speed blender before being pulled out and taped back together... with a lot of missing pieces. I'm not fond of pointless ichaicha, but when all the heroine routes but one feel so truncated you feel like they might as well not even exist... well, y
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Sumire

Wow. This is definitely a case of not being able to judge a book by its cover... or by its summary, either. I don't think I've encountered a VN with as much emotional impact as this one since Houkago no Futekikakusha, last summer. Sumire is by Nekoneko Soft, one of the oldest existing VN brands... They are one of the 'founding names' of the moege umbrella genre, while also producing more serious works through their subsidiaries, such as Cotton Soft (of Reconquista and Owaru Sekai to Birthday
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Love, Vampire Flowers Final

As mentioned above, this VN is a mass of wasted potential. Yes, there are really good points... but between those good points is an interminable amount of pretty much pointless ichaicha, slice-of-life, and a number of other things that made me want to scream. First, neither Lisa's nor Koharu's routes escaped the trap of mediocrity that Chris and Rie's were taken by. Sadly, both routes are fairly standard charage romance with predictable turns of events... so predictable I fell asleep during
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Love, Vampire Flowers Part 1

Love, Vampire Flowers was one of the VNs I have been looking forward to, if only because Lovesick Puppies (by the same company) was such a hidden gem at the time. I won't say this approaches Lovesick Puppies for impact, because it doesn't. In comparison, it begins much more slowly and the problems tend to be more of the 'classic charage' type (well, the heroines' ones anyway). The big draw of this is that the protagonist is about as psychologically mature as you could hope for from a 'good g
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A Bit of News for Old Hands

Just a bit of warning for those who are using really old versions of Translation Aggregator... to be blunt, they don't work with the current version of Windows 7 or 8. To be more specific, the way the old versions use the dictionaries causes a bug where the application no longer pastes the clipboard contents. I hadn't updated mine since the 2012 update, so I was really surprised when, after I updated my Windows (on both my work and personal computers) that TA stopped working. I figured out wh
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18

Koitama

I picked this one as my second game for VN of the Month May for a very simple reason... this company's previous works(1/2 Summer and Timepiece Ensemble) were overall enjoyable/emotionally powerful and I was hoping for a repeat of the experience. I'll be honest and say outright that it is nowhere near either of those two for sheer emotional impact, but I did find it more interesting in some ways, intellectually. First, the basic setting is pretty interesting. The VN takes place in a school wit
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Pure X Connect: A few thoughts before I play it

To be honest, if something more interesting is up before I start this, I'll probably play that... why? Simple, you can name the protagonist, which is enough of a downer for me that I seriously want to avoid this if I can. Setting that aside... this looks to be a fairly standard charage, though the protagonist isn't - for once - a high school student (instead a college student). A big downside of what I read on the title was that it seemed like the protag is a total dimwit, even by VN standa
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Hyakugojuunenme no Mahoutsukai

I'm going to be blunt, I wasn't really up for playing this in the first place, and as a result, my opinion of this VN is probably quite a bit lower than it actually deserves... but at the same time, it is probably a bit more realistic than those who are tricked by the pretty pictures. I mostly picked this one up to satisfy those who are curious and because it is technically a May release. From a writing standpoint, this VN is about average, as moege go. There is nothing really special about
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2

Chrono Belt

Why should you play Chrono Belt, fans of Ayakashibito and Bullet Butlers? This is your reason. Do you really need another? But seriously, this fight is told entirely from Kuki's point of view, and as a result it is suitably awesome. Rather than doing it in order, I went ahead and did the Kuki-viewpoint segment first solely so I could re-experience the awesomeness that is Kuki Youkou. Anyway, Chrono Belt isn't so much a fandisc as a true-ending crossover of both games. Basically,
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Bullet Butlers: Final

Final Having finished this VN for the second time, there were a number of things I took notice of in a different way from the first time through... but perhaps the biggest one is simply that I was surprised at how many of the most important details I remembered. I had to laugh when I realized I'd subconsciously solved the riddle of the path themes in my first read through, and they came back almost immediately after I entered them. First, with Valeria's path, it is straight-and-narrow love
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Bullet Butlers - a character portrait: Selma Fortenmeyer

Selma Fortenmeyer For various reasons, it isn't possible to tell the story of Bullet Butlers without telling the story of Selma Fortenmeyer, Rick's master. Selma is the true/central heroine of Bullet Butlers and the focus of most of the conflict in the VN, in the sense that she sparks most of the disasters and victories by her very existence and her position. Her growth as a character is easily the most powerful and obvious in the story, and it really is an incredible degree of growth. To
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Bullet Butlers: Intro

Bullet Butlers: An Introduction Bullet Butlers has one of the more interesting fantasy settings that I've seen in a VN. Think film noir combined with elves, lizardmen, orcs, and magic and you won't be far off. The guy you see above is Rick Arrowsmith, the protagonist of the story and butler to one of the potential heirs of the draconic Mystic One (spiritual - not necessarily physical - descendants of the heroes who defeated the Undead King who serve as symbols of God's favor). Now, Bulle
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Evenicle Final: A Conclusion

Hmm... I pretty much hit what I didn't like about the story and gameplay in the other posts, so I'll try to outline what is likeable about the game as a whole. 1) The game uses a skit system similar to the Tales games, letting you have short silly conversations at certain points on the map. 2) The variety of skills available - once you've filled them out a bit - is actually really good. By the end of the game, I had a way to deal effectively with just about any situation, without brute force
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Evenicle Part 3: Plot in general

A few thoughts on the plot, so far. I've reached the sixth chapter (there are a total of seven), and one thing I've noticed is that this story basically follows the 'theory' of jrpg plot development to the letter (well, the cannibalism, rape, and general horrors are a bit beyond the pale of what is normal, lol). Basically, they give you a world that is somehow 'odd' or feels 'wrong' but is nonetheless more or less peaceful... then they give you the seeds of strife. As a matter of course, I
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Evenicle Part 2: Technical issues

Yes, I said my next post would be the end of this game, but the game is surprisingly long... especially considering the obscenely high encounter rate on the world map and the fact that if you don't keep your levels up (level 10 at least at the end of chapter 1, 20 at the end of 2, etc) you really are screwed. If nothing else, you won't be able to keep ahead of the regenerative abilities each chapter's main boss (except 1's) seems to possess. The reason for this? Primarily it is the cost of he
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Evenicle Part 1

Ok, this is the first part of my words on Evenicle, which will be the last VN I play from April's releases. I am only playing this one because it was specifically requested by several people, and to be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it. I am not a fan of the Rance series or Alice Soft in general, because their VNs' plots just aren't that interesting, generally. The ratio of goofy to serious is generally too slanted in the goofy direction, so I tend to get bored about halfway through.
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