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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

Japanese literature

Blessing from the Goddess and Transfer to Another World

This particular WN falls into a particular sub-genre of isekai where the protagonist is cast out of a group of people summoned as heroes to another world.  This particular genre began to become popular with Shield Hero, but it has evolved significantly since then.   In this WN, the protagonist is summoned along with eight hundred other people from the same school and is one of two people who are not granted a gift from the goddess.  As a result, he is cast out of the castle and driven from
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Clephas in Japanese literature

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Blade x Bullet - Kinrin no Soleil

Blade x Bullet is the latest in the Soleil series (search my blog, I played all but the most recent previous entry in a marathon a few months ago).  This series is based off of a series of parallel worlds that proceeded from the end of Ragnarok, the last battle of the Norse gods.  Some of those worlds are similar to our own, others are of a greater technology, and others are worlds of magic.  The world in this VN is in the midst of its own apocalypse, mechanical monsters from the sky invulnerabl
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Bansenjin: Final

To be honest, except for the end of the VN, this one is fairly disappointing. It was like they mixed a fandisc with a real sequel... there is way too much slice-of-life mixed into the VN, and the fact that they reused the Hajun concept again (anyone who plays this after having played Dies Irae and KKK will understand what I'm saying) was immensely irritating. I mean, the biggest complaint every last person who played the original had was that it was too much of a Dies Irae imitation, without t
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Bansenjin so far

I'll be frank, Soushuu Senshinkan Gakuen Bansenjin feels more and more like a 'worthless sequel' the more I read. I don't say that out of cruelty but simply because I have no attachment left to the characters from the original, except a general feeling of 'that story was over, for god's sake move on!'. Some people already know my feelings about sequels in chuunige VNs, and Masada is particularly bad when it comes to returning characters. One of the problems is that Masada tends to actually compl
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Baldr Heart

Now, for those who are wondering, the reason I chose to play Baldr Heart first is fairly simple... it is the VN most anticipated this month, at least by the people I talk to.   Baldr Heart is the fourth game (if you count the Skydive and Zero games as a single game each) in the 'primary series' started with Baldr Force.  This series follows the evolving interrelations between humans, the net, extreme VR, and AIs, storywise.  The gameplay in all the games is a relatively fast-paced battle mech ac
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Baldr Force Exe: As promised

Well... first, I should say that Baldr Force EXE was the thirty-fifth untranslated VN I played. At the time, I didn't have a controller, and I ended up suffering from horrible wrist pain from playing using the keyboard. So my first piece of advice to anyone trying to play this game is to get a controller (most are compatible) that you are comfortable using. This shares basic gameplay with Baldr Skydive, though that game's battle system is quite a bit more advanced. As such, feel free to sear
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Baldr Bullet Revellion...

I'm going to be blunt... this game is badly overrated on vndb. I was - quite frankly - amazed at how poorly the story was told... it was like looking at a bunch of disorganized pictures set on a wall and trying to make an actual story out of them. The protagonist is your classic cipher for the reader, and the female characters basically exist to have random sex with the protagonist. The actual battle system is nowhere near as refined as it was even in Force, despite the fact that Revellion is a
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Baldr Bringer (dropped)

Understand, I loved the Baldr series, before Heart... even Heart still retained a lot of what was great about the series, though it placed too much emphasis on the less interesting elements.  The Baldr series is literally Giga's only good IP, and as such, it is the only reason I even bother with this company. Unfortunately, it looks like Giga has set out to destroy its costly but greatest IP, ending it on a sour note. Baldr Bringer, from what I have played of it, has very little story
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Bakumatsu Jinchuu Houkoku Resshiden Miburo

This is the third game in the series that began with Chuusingura (please don't judge that particular work by the utterly shitty translation).  I do highly recommend that you play both Chuusingura and Bushi no Kodou before you play this game, because it is necessary to fully understand some of the events that occur (particularly in the true Hijikata ending). First, a bit of background about the Bakumatsu period.  Essentially, after Admiral Perry forced open Japan with the threat of his canno
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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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AXL: The same characters... but they feel new!!!

AXL is a really weird company.  I don't mean that as an insult.  AXL produces VNs with very little variation in quality, consistently producing stories and characters that are fun to read about...  However, when I take a step back and really think about it, their characters are the same between products, right down to the voices and (to an extent) their appearance. AXL is probably the only VN company out there that hasn't radically changed its visual style in the past ten years... in f
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Aristear Remain

This VN is based a few thousand years after Tou no Shita no Exercitus, and without the background knowledge of that VN, it is a bit hard to get into the details of this one.  Unlike that game, this one has no gameplay and is instead a kinetic novel in the 'standard chuunige' style... which basically means that it isn't a high-detail wordsmith and CG artist's playground like the stuff by Light and Nitroplus.  Sadly, since this VN's setting had some nice potential to make such a game in. I'm
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April Release: Yuusha to Maou to, Majo no Cafe [EDITED]

Now, considering that all the games Mint Cube made up until now were kusoge (personal experience speaking here), I didn't expect to be especially impressed by this game.  Thankfully, I was surprised a little by how this game turned out.  In the world of this VN, the light and darkness, embodied in the Maou and Hero, fought one another ten years before... and no one knows the outcome.  Since then, the world has settled into a relative state of peace. This game focuses on the amnesiac Tarou,
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April Release: Tenpure!! (EDITED)

First, I'll say that this game is pretty much based on the concept of using the concept of templates and archetypes in the story.  The protagonist bumps into a girl with toast in her mouth, gets woken up by an osananajimi, catches a maid falling from the sky, is frequently scolded by a fake-prude iinchou, and he even has an ojousama fall in love with him at first sight. Now, the attempt to turn all the classic template happenings of a moege/charage into a joke sort of falls flat in this gam
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April Release: Nyan to Suteki na Natsuiro Days

Yay!  Two catgirl harems in one month!!!  lol Anyway, this is the newest game by Moonstone's crappy subsidiary, Moonstone Honey.  It is a straight-out catgirl harem moege from beginning to end... which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The game is set on an island that has been completely built up with leisure facilities of various types (amusement park, pool, beach, a mall, etc), and the protagonist is a young man in his early twenties who is given a chance to take charge of resurrecting the
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April Release: Koneko Neko Neko

Yes, I did this game first.  This is one of those games that is a bit hard to define.  It is part moege, part nukige and part charage... and part surrealist story.  It is about cats being reborn as humans being reborn as cats being reborn as humans (it gets ridiculously complex, to the point where there is no point in keeping track).  There also isn't a whole lot to say about this game... it is mostly at-home SOL, h-scenes, and reminiscence of past lives.  As a VN, it is a bit hard to read
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April Release: 9 -Nine- Sorairo Sorauta Soranooto

This is the second game in the 9 -nine- series, a half-chuunige series that began last year.  For my comments on the first game, look below.   I'm going to be blunt... all my complaints about the previous game in the series still apply here.  While a little more information is revealed in the second game than the first, and two of the characters (Haruka and Sora) come to life a great deal more than in the first game, it has to be said that the sense that I should have waited for all t
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Aoi Tori

Aoi Tori is Purple Soft's latest project, a VN based in a girls' school in the mountains, where the protagonist, a priest (I'm assuming Episcopalian/Anglican for various reasons), goes to school as an exception, as he cannot live outside of the school without being taken by demons. Ritsu, the protagonist, possesses the power to take others' negative emotions, thus enhancing their feelings of happiness and joy, and this power works best when he has sex with them.  Now, given that he is a you
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Anti-Feminism in VNs

I'm an obsessive VN player, and I doubt there are many here who could match my experience. However, there is one issue I've more or less deliberately closed my eyes to when it comes to VNs... and that is the sheer amount of anti-feminist propaganda inserted into untranslated Japanese VNs in general. There are a number of major, really obvious examples of this, and I'll go ahead and describe them for you. 1. The 'female teacher who never gets married because she acts too much like a guy' arche
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Anniversary 2017

Well, the fourth anniversary of my VN of the Month series of posts is coming in another week or so... and to be honest, I'm a bit amazed at how long I've kept this going.  Four years of playing most of the non-nukige VNs that came out each month, writing something on them, then picking one to be VN of the Month (or not, if none met my standards)... to be honest, my opinion hasn't changed much since the last time this time of year came around.  VN of the Month is one of the single most grueling t
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VNs

Anime Review: Fate Grand Order Camelot

Fate/Grand Order is the name of the mobile game/visual novel/card battle game that has become synonymous with the Nasuverse over the last seven years or so.  For those unfamiliar with the game, I'll go ahead and describe the flow of events that lead up to this particular chapter-turned-anime in the spoiler box below. In the game, Camelot is considered to be the first 'serious' chapter and the one with perhaps the deepest link to the other Fate/Stay Night series in spirit (considering the
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Clephas in VNs

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Angenehm Platz -Kleiner Garten Sie Erstellen-

... well, I guess I was wrong.  They do still make pure moege.  The only problem with this is that 'pure moege=kusoge' these days, so I honestly can't see a reason to be happy about that.  This VN was written partly by the same guy who wrote Flyable Heart, and it is by a company (Hexenhaus) that has a fondness for producing moe-based VNs focused on eating establishments of some sort (this case, a Cafe Club at a school).  I'll be perfectly honest... this VN starts out with all the elements n
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Anekouji Naoko to Gin'iro no Shinigami part 2: Naoko and Harem

Naoko Naoko is the protagonist's adopted big sister. She has an extremely straightforward personality, and she tends to spoil the protagonist rotten while thinking she's doing the reverse. Unfortunately, her path, like Kirsti's, is lacking in the kind of ending drama that tended to characterize Minato's two big hits. I don't know whether they did it deliberately or not, but the path left me feeling unsatisfied, despite the fact that the VN as a whole is at least moderately amusing. Ha
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Anekouji Naoko to Gin'iro no Shinigami part 1: Common and Kirsti

A few words before I dig into the common route. Minato-soft is known primarily for its comedy/drama large-scale charages, Majikoi and Tsujidou-san. These two are characterized by a unique style of characterization that goes more for comic relief than is standard with most VN-makers, as well as a tendency toward over-powered heroines who can take on the world by themselves (all three main heroines of Tsujidou, Momoka in Majikoi, and Kirsti in this one). This one is no exception, so those who play
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