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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

Kami no Rhapsody: First Completion

First, I should say that the last part of this game was actually worthy of Eushully in terms of dramatic flair. For those who probably think I was bashing this game out of hand, let me also say that there were lots of hints of what is best about Eushully. There are great characters/companions, some truly excellent character interactions, and even a few really stand-out scenes scattered throughout the first three fourths of the game... but the problem is that they are spaced out with a ridiculo
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Junjou Karen Freaks

Junjou Karen Freaks is based in a future world where all the mysterious creatures of human mythology have turned out to be real, and, after some twists and turns, have begun to coexist peacefully with humanity as part of a larger society.  The protagonist, Mikitaka, is the child of two 'diplomats' who work at trying to bring together the many races, and he lives alone together with his cousin oneechan Shizumi.  Suddenly, one day their osananajimi Yuuka appears before them as a ghost, they meet t
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June Release Issues

I'm going to be blunt... I won't be playing any more of June's releases for a while.  My reasons?  I have several. 1)  My phys copy of Haruoto isn't set to arrive until mid-September, so I can't play it right now. 2)  Aiao keeps pressing my pet peeves, but I'm feeling more irritable than I really should, indicating that I simply won't be able to rate it fairly.   Problems with Aiao I've mentioned this in the past, but I intensely dislike pop culture and the entertainment busi
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July 2017 Release Megapost (also completion of June)

Fuyu Uso Fuyu Uso is the fourth and final game in Campus’s ‘Lies’ series, based in a mammoth school with a hidden population of magical beings. As a bit of a recap, the protagonist of this story, Sakurai Souichirou gained the power as a young child to sense the lies of others through a magical tool within his body called ‘Red Line’. In the game, this shows as lines of dialog literally being highlighted in red when a person is lying (at the precise part of the dialog they are lying). As
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JRPG: Tales of Zestiria [UPDATED/EDITED]

With Tales of Berseria coming out today, I pulled Zestiria out of my long backlog last week and began playing it.  I've been playing the Tales series since Tales of Destiny came out for the PSX in the nineties, and I've played most of the mainline series, though I regretted it in some cases.  To be blunt, Tales of Vesperia is still the last truly great Tales game, even after playing this one.  However, my conclusions will probably differ somewhat from the reviews out there on the net, which
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JRPG: Tales of Berseria

It has been a while since I bought a new jrpg and played it all the way through in under six months...  To be blunt, most new jrpgs just aren't worth finishing these days.  I gave up on Atelier shortly after Mana Khemia, Square hasn't produced anything interesting in ten years (for a story-addict), and most of the best old series are dead or in semi-permanent hiatus stasis.  Before this, I played Zestiria, and if you read my comments on it, I mostly liked it, though there were some aspects
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JRPG: Nier Automata

The Nier/Drakengard series is one of the single weirdest series out there.  It's games range from DW-style man vs armies  with dragon flight simulation elements to heavy action-rpgs like the Nier games.  The Nier series originates with one of Drakengard's endings, where the protagonist and his dragon get thrown into another dimension and end up getting impaled on the Tokyo Tower after having it out with the JSDF.  This leads to the events of Nier, a thousand years later.  The original Nier'
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JRPG: I am Setsuna

Yes, I went ahead and played this, having pre-ordered it on Steam. I've been pumping about three hours a day into it since it came out and my final level for my main party was 47 (which seems to be low, but that is apparently because people go for the 'beat the boss without weakening him first' trophy, pfft).  This is a game designed to bring nostalgia to the minds of those who are fans of the SNES and PS1 eras, and in that sense, it definitely succeeds.  It utilizes a battle system copied from
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JRPG: Growlanser IV

The Growlanser series is one of those weird, hardly known jrpg series that died out after the ps2 era (mostly because its gameplay was too traditional, but also because the transition to 2.5D sprites failed so miserably in V and VI, along with the derivative, predictable story).  However, before its death, it produced four first-class games, three of them linked in a single chronology.  IV, also known as Wayfarer of Time, is the exception in the series as a whole, being the only entirely standal
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JRPG

JRPG: Saga Frontier Remastered

Saga Frontier is one of the most oddball rpgs to have been released on the ps1, and the ps1 was long considered the 'era of classics' for all jrpg-dom, with remakes of the earlier major names and innumerable newer classics being released for the system.  The Saga series in general is something of an acquired taste, due to the sheer opaqueness of the leveling mechanics and odd, often nonsensical experimentation with random game elements.   In terms of game mechanics, Saga Frontier is easily
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Clephas in JRPG

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JRPG series: Shin Megami Tensei

I've been friendly with the Shin Megami Tensei series for over twenty years now, since the release of the incredibly crappy localization of the original Persona on the ps1 (believe me, it is one of the worst localizations of all time).  That said, I saw the series as just a darker than normal jrpg series... until I played SMT: Nocturne for the PS2. Nocturne is frequently referred to, both seriously and derisively, as 'Pokemon with demons and a cohesive story'.  Seriously.  While the Persona
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Japanese Ghosts, spirits, oni, etc: A bit of a crash course

First, the simple basis for understanding the way Japanese think about the supernatural. Simply put, Shinto, which was the country's official religion and is the religion that originated there, is an animistic faith, with a strong tendency toward the personification of nature and objects. Second, Buddhism was the dominant faith in Japan for centuries, when the various shogunates tried to weaken the Emperor's power by strengthening the influence of Buddhism as a rival faith. Why is this rel
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Izuna Zanshinken: Character portraits

Izuna Zanshinken is a VN put out by Akatsuki Works Black back in 2011.  It is a super-violent chuunige with a vigilante assassin called Musumi Kotarou at its center.  The game is split into two main parts... the common route and the heroine routes, which are accessed at a click of the mouse (convenient).  Save for the end of each heroine route, choices are mostly a matter of seeing different scenes or the same scenes from another perspective.  Each route is split into chapters, each with a defin
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Izuna Zanshinken Analysis [SPOILERS]

For the sake of those who haven't played the game and don't want to be spoiled, I will endeavor to keep the worst spoilers in a spoiler box, but since I can't speak of what I want to speak of without spoiling things, I'm going to say right here that if you read any further, I will spoil things for you to some degree.         First, it needs to be said that I usually present Izuna Zanshinken in a way geared to take the interest of someone without extensive experience of V
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Issues when Reviewing/Commenting on stuff you like and stuff you don't

Something I'm sure people have noticed in my posts in this blog is that I almost invariably compare VNs I'm reading on to either a genre standard or a similar VN in the past.  To be blunt, this is a shortcut, as it is incredibly tedious to write out an extensive analysis of a genre-typical something that is only minutely different from a hundred other VNs of the same type.  Comparisons provide a frame of reference, giving the readers a chance to figure out what they can expect based on prev
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Issues for VN of the Month

As the title says, there are some issues for March's VN of the Month... namely the fact that there are too many releases, lol.  After playing 3 VNs, I've  played less than half of the releases for March. This means that I'm going to have to prioritize.  Now, in this case the obvious cuts are going to be the gameplay VNs.  I'm going to avoid them this time around, simply because neither of them looks like anything special anyway.  I'm also tempted to avoid Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu.  T
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Island

Now... I've already commented on this VN elsewhere, at least to a point.  So, I'll just do a quick recap of my initial feelings on this VN.  I'll go ahead and get the negative out of the way first. First, the common, Sara, and Karen routes... as I've said elsewhere, these routes exist solely to give you certain information that adds depth to the story of Rinne and Setsuna.  So, lolicons and fans of heroines like Karen, you are wasting your time if you go into this VN if you are expecting so
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Isekai Mono: 'Otherworld travels' as a genre

Traveling to other worlds is so common a plot element in otaku media that it has actually become a fantasy sub-genre in and of itself.  This is actually one of my favorite plot elements... if it isn't screwed up magnificently (like in RE:Zero) by putting the wrong sort of person into the mess. The first otaku media that hit me with this was The Vision of Escaflowne, followed by Fushigi Yuugi.  The latter isn't one of my favorite anime, but I did like it up to a point.  The former is one of
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Inochi no Spare

*weeps hopelessly, his face a mess with tears and other fluids* Inochi no Spare is an utsuge, produced by Akabeisoft3, the conglomerate company made from all of Akabeisoft2's subsidiaries except Akatsuki Works.  I'll be blunt, I didn't know what to think going into this.  It was blatantly an utsuge, right from the beginning... and one that is merciless in its descriptions of the characters' suffering. The disease in question is called Oumon Disease (fictional), which manifests initiall
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Impressions: Soushin no Ars Magna

To be clear, I dropped this game today after about nine hours of playtime, mostly because I wasn't getting any joy out of it.  That's not to say the story wasn't interesting, but... Anyway, Soushin no Ars Magna is the most recent release from Ninetail, the rpg-focused sister brand of Dual Tail, the makers of the Venus Blood series... and it shows.   This game reuses a modified version of the gameplay from Venus Blood Brave, which was a more dungeon-exploration oriented game than previo
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Ikusa Megami series... my thoughts

The Ikusa Megami series is easily one of the best rpg series out there, as far as plot goes, including the more than two hundred jrpgs I played during my younger years.  I'm saying this right off the bat, simply because it needs to be said.  Ikusa Megami Zero is an example of the best of what can be done when a visual novel is fused with a traditional turn-based jrpg, and Verita is a nice sequel to it.  I frankly consider Ikusa Megami Zero to be right up there with Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VI
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Iinkai no Antihero ~IINCHO-Re.co~

Ok, I know some of you are going to wonder why I bothered with this game.  As the remake of Iinchou wa Shounin-sezu, this game exists as a reboot of a game that wasn't interesting in the first place.  So, why did I decide to play this, despite having stopped VN of the Month?  Pure perversity and contrariness, probably. The big problem with this game, saying it outright from the first, is that it uses a style that has more or less vanished due to its massive unpopularity with the target audi
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Ichibun no Ni Koigokoro and VN of the Month, August 2016

Ugh... can you say kusoge out loud twenty times fast?  I'm sorry, but it has been a while since I played a VN that was this awful outright.  It had all the elements, setting-wise, that a good story VN should have... a protagonist who gave up high school to work to support his sisters, twin sister heroines (yay for incest), a generally capable protagonist, a hikikomori neighbor heroine, and a lot of hints of potential story points that could have been used to enhance the paths. Unfortunately
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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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How to know if you have a true favorite VN

People who drop themselves into the abyss of otaku media tend to have their sense for things dull over time.  Action scenes don't excite like they used to, rom-coms aren't as funny, ecchi isn't as hot, and only the densest stories succeed in scratching the itch.  This is what I (and some others) call becoming a 'jaded veteran otaku'.  Jaded veteran otakus often become 'genre specialists' (meaning they only play one type of game, watch one type of anime, and/or refuse to play specific types), and
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