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Nosebleed

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  1. Yes
    Nosebleed got a reaction from Yule for a blog entry, Hyouka Was A Mistake   
    I can sense the raging fanboys as I type the title of this entry, but it's one I promised to do for a while and since I haven't posted anything on this blog in forever, I thought this would be a great way to come back.

    So what is wrong with Hyouka? Well, in my opinion, pretty much everything.

    I always manage to get myself caught up in one-sided discussion with people defending this anime, and no matter how many good and some even valid points those people make, I simply can not for the life of me understand how Hyouka can even be considered above average.

    Let's discuss the first problem I have with Hyouka: The Mysteries.

    "Oh boy he's just going to rant about how the mysteries were unimportant isn't he?"

    Well, not quite, I understood from the get go this anime was not trying to put forward some kind of deep detective charade and that the mysteries were meant to be simplistic and, for the most part, fairly minimalistic.

    The problem I have with the mystery elements in this show is that none of them really matter for anything.
    I don't get any sense of accomplishment from seeing the characters solve the already miniscule mysteries that they manage to come across. The characters are always triggered by silly stuff and then turn everything into a detective style, clue gathering and crime solving type of mystery, only to solve it and be done with it. The mysteries are, for the most part, unrelated to the plot (or lack thereof) and don't provide any fun addition to the show, they just feel like pointless ways to drag out and pad a way for a really uninteresting adventure.

    You can say all you want about the goal of the show being "simple mystery solving" or whatever, but that doesn't take away the fact that the mysteries, on top of being minimalistic and boring, don't add any value to the plot and are, quite frankly, really unoriginal and boring, which makes for an overall negative watching experience.

    Moving on to the second problem I have with this anime: The characters

    I absolutely hated almost every single character in Hyouka.

    This is the part where it comes more down to personal preferences, but I'll still speak my mind on it.

    Chitanda Eru made me want to commit suicide. Her whole character is based off of this retarded gimmick of wanting to solve mysteries for no reason. It's like she's brain dead and all she can say is "I'm curious!". Her character is annoying, doesn't do much for the most part, and just feels like a really sorry excuse for a main heroine of a show. She wasn't fun to watch, I just wanted her to disappear for most part of the show so I wouldn't have to deal with this utter BS.

    But what this gimmick really ruins is essentially the show's main gimmick: simple mysteries

    You see, simple mysteries can be cool and all, but not when all your main character does is look for the most fucking pointless mystery she can find, and then drag the entire cast with her in order to solve the absolutely tedious mystery. This, in my opinion, is this show's major downfall.

    Chitanda Eru was a mistake.

    This is how it felt hearing Chitanda say "I'm curious!"




    She's a hollow shell of a heroine and god forbid the person who thought she was a good character comes up with more stories like this.

    Moving on, the other two (almost side) characters: Satoshi and Mayaka

    God, these two made me want to shove forks in my eyes so I wouldn't have to continue watching this appalling show.

    Satoshi is by far one of the worst main/side characters I have ever seen, his entire premise for acting the way he does is that he feels inferior to the protagonist. And he makes sure you know this EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
    He never acts on his own accord, he makes himself inferior on purpose and overall he needlessly becomes a hindrance and a nuisance for no apparent reason other than being an edgy emo teenager.
    And what's worse, he never evolves from this. He stays like this throughout the whole show. I don't even know who thought this was a good idea.

    The last main character I didn't like, Mayaka, is the lesser bad of the main ones. While I was profoundly annoyed by her being hung over such a horrible crush like Satoshi, at the very least I could concede that she was slightly more proactive than him.
    Still though, just like her crush, Mayaka often spent her time mopping around and acting like an edgy emo teenager because we all know being a teenager really is tough.

    The sole saving grace of the plot, the protagonist Oreki, really can't salvage the whole show, but I will grant that he's the only character with meaningful and interesting development as he goes from being one of those uninterested types to a more proactive character that's interested in stuff (probably affected by the Chitanda virus).
    Still though, I find Oreki's character slightly bland as, just like every other character in the show, his sole gimmick is being OP at logic. Which, at the very least, is a good thing to be OP at, but other than that he's not really that interesting to watch as he mostly just gets dragged around by people.
    But since he's the most intuitive of the group, I'll say that he's the sole character I kind of liked in the show.

    Moving on to the third and last problem I have with this show: The pacing and the story

    When you have a 22 episode show, you have to make sure you maintain a good pacing and have an engaging story so your viewers really want to stick with you until the end. Sadly, Hyouka fails on this aspect as well.

    The uninteresting and unengaging mysteries and the generally slow paced and easygoing story only add up to an ultimately boring viewing experience that never managed to make me want to keep watching, but rather it made me feel like I was forcing myself to press on to see if ultimately there would be something worth praising at the end of the tunnel.
    Spoiler alert: there wasn't.

    Hyouka is a show with basically no plot, and shows with no plots are something I'm known to like even, but when you have no plot, you need good characterization, you need your characters to be engaging and make things happen, and Hyouka fails on pretty much every aspect of this, making for one of the worst anime experiences I've had.

    This anime might have been produced with a big budget (based Unlimited KyoAni Works), but if you have a bad source material, no matter how much you sugarcoat it, no matter how many directing tricks you use, it just doesn't work, and Hyouka will always be living proof of it.

    To those of you who defend Hyouka, I'm sorry, you're allowed to like this anime, really, I understand all the trickery that went behind in making it, I just think that it's ultimately really non engaging and boring and overall a sugercoated turd that I can not wrap my head around no matter how many times I watch it.

    Just ask yourself this: Do you find an anime based on pointless mysteries that are constantly forced upon you by an annoying teen girl that constantly shouts "I'm curious!" to be fun?
    If you do, I guess I have nothing to say to you.
    If you don't, then I hope you understand why I don't like Hyouka as well.
  2. Thanks
    Nosebleed got a reaction from marioforever97 for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  3. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, *cries* Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru   
    ... I'm going to be blunt.  It has been a while (think 2014) since any company has produced a nakige that compares to this one.  The characters, their backgrounds, their personalities, and the setting all come together to form a story of deep affection, pain, and tears that had me crying more than a dozen times throughout the VN.
    In terms of heroines, this VN's imoutos are the best.  Shinobu is the twisted, obsessive half-yandere, super-capable imouto who adores her niisan (with good reason).  Tsubasa is the honest, affectionate, straightforward imouto who is incapable of hiding anything.  While the other two heroines kind of pale compared to those two, their routes are another story entirely.
    I'm going to be straight... there are no bad or under-developed paths in this VN.  The characters' emotional and real-life (to them) struggles are intense, engrossing, and emotional.  Neneko's and Yuuka's paths are cases of the 'paths surpassing the heroines', a phenomenon that has become sadly rare in recent years, as writing quality has fallen drastically in the charage 'genre'. 
    Technically, Tsubasa's is the true route, but none of the routes were neglected in favor of hers, though I could have wished for an epilogue based a few years later for Shinobu's path (a matter of personal taste).  This is a mark of the skill of the writer and the person who designed the scenario, as the fact is that in most cases where there is a true or central heroine, the other heroines tend to be neglected, at least in my experience.
    The protagonist in this story will probably get mixed reactions out of people, if only because he is a bit angsty, especially when issues of parents come up.  He has good reason, as he is a victim of child abuse (he doesn't hide this, and it is revealed within the first half-hour of reading).  At heart, he is a good person, but he is very exclusive in the people he cares about and insanely protective of those chosen few.  His obsession with his role as a big brother causes some big problems in Shinobu's route, but that is mostly because he is very hard-headed and straight-laced... the type of guy who makes a vow to himself and never breaks it, even in the particulars.
    Story-wise... this is classic non-Key nakige fare.  The protagonist deals with his own issues (to varying degrees) while doing his best for the heroines, the troubles and drama along the way designed to drag the tears out of you, though it all ends happily eventually.  I was particularly touched by the healing that occurs in the protagonist in Tsubasa and Neneko's endings (through different methods), and I, for once, wasn't frustrated with the protagonist and heroine's struggles in Shinobu's path. 
    None of the characters' struggles felt forced or unnatural, the way many charage make them seem, which was impressive in and of itself.
    Overall, this is a first-class addition to anyone's nakige collection, and it is definitely going to be stiff competition for my VN of the Month for May.  I wept, I laughed, and I suffered along with the characters and out of sympathy for them.  I come out of this VN glad that I played it, a rare experience for a person who is as jaded as I am when it comes to VNs.
  4. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to Ariurotl for a blog entry, If You Liked It, You Shoulda Clicked on It: HunieCam Studio   
    I won't lie, I enjoyed HuniePop. It was a fun little Bejeweled clone + vestigial eroge + cynical message about base human nature. It was fun to play, fun to replay and even fun to try and 100%-complete. Fun, fun, fun.
    The developer's second game is, in many ways, an entirely different animal, at least as far as gameplay and graphics are concerned. Sex scenes are gone, the art style is markedly different, and the genre is probably best-described as a real-time click-happy time management game. In HunieCam Studio, the player takes control of a camwhore operation and has to keep it running by recruiting and managing up to 18 different girls (including the entire "basic" cast of HuniePop, complete with shamelessly reused voice assets).
    After employing girls, you can have them perform various activities, the most important of which are (obviously) camming, which earns you money, and posing for dirty photoshoots, which earns you fans. More fans = more money earned from subsequent cam sessions. Fans themselves are attracted to particular fetishes (teen, latina, etc etc), and when a girl performs a photoshoot, she earns new fans based on fetishes she satisfies. Similarly, only fans attracted to a particular fetish will watch the cam session. Each girl starts with two distinct fetishes (distributed in such way that no two girls share both) and can acquire more by means of accessories that you can procure from the adult shop. Each girl also has two skill attributes that can be trained. Talent increases money earned from camming, while Style gets her more fans from the photoshoots. It's all rather straightforward.
    Other activities girls can perform include shopping for alcohol or cigarettes (some girls drink and/or smoke, and you have to keep the supply up or they'll get stressed), performing at the strip club (which increases Talent), shopping for clothes (which increases Style), recruiting new girls at the model agency, browsing the adult shop (which lets you pick up one of six random accessories upon completion), relaxing at the spa in order to remove stress, and... visiting a hotel for some "private time" with rich clients. Yes, you can actually be a pimp in this game. I wonder if Steam folks are even aware of that.
    All of this happens in nigh-unpausable real time. I mean, sure, you can pause easily by bringing up various management screens, but it's not the kind of game that lends itself to tinkering with things at your leisure. Virtually every resource you earn (money, fans, booze, even friggin' skill points) must also be manually extracted from corresponding buildings by rapidly clicking them (or, mercifully, by clicking and holding LMB). The process can be automated via upgrades, but even then resources trickle very slowly when you're not actively extracting them, and since you can't manually extract them from multiple buildings simultaneously, you're forced to prioritize. Furthermore, you can speed up any current activity using the same method, but ain't nobody got time for that when you're busy gathering the money. All in all, I more or less hated the gameplay in HunieCam Studio. It's simultaneously stressful and boring (I didn't even know that was possible), and all novelty wears off within half an hour, leaving nothing but grind to look forward to. Once you get to 4-5 employed girls, the game turns into the proverbial equivalent of herding cats.
    Moreover, some elements of the gameplay system are a bit... illogical. For example, since fans are attracted to a fetish (and NOT to a particular girl), you can have a girl with maxed-out Style do all the photoshoots, and have another girl with maxed-out Talent (and same fetish) do all cam sessions. I'm not an expert at this sort of thing ((c) Kazami Yuuji), but wouldn't at least some of those imaginary people want to see a cam show starring the girl they've actually seen in photos, rather than some other girl who also happens to have Huge Tits or Thick Ass? Not to mention that the above approach is actually more efficient for the player, in terms of both income and time management. Girls' salaries increase exponentially with each skill point earned, and it makes very little sense to level one girl in both Style and Talent. After all, she can't be in two places at the same time, and two girls trained in Talent or Style, respectively, will earn you the same amount of money or fans (and their combined salaries will be lower), with the added bonus of, y'know, being able to do two things instead of one. The game makes specialization in a narrow range of fetishes much more appealing than diversification, but purposefully inhibits your initial ability to specialize. This is solved by hiring girls with matching fetishes (as I said above, no two girls have two identical fetishes, so there is some recruiting strategy involved) and equipping them with identical accessories, thus giving them more matching fetishes. So yes, specialization in both skills and fetishes is the best way to play...
    But why would you do that to yourself? Once you get the message, check out all the bios (some of them are admittedly funny), listen to girls' soundbites the first few times and click on things for a while, HunieCam Studio has nothing more to offer you. Now, I hear you can unlock outfits and hairstyles in a similar vein to HuniePop, but I couldn't even get that far. At some point it became clear to me that I'm wasting my fucking time, which is a minor miracle considering how much of said time I generally waste on games without stumbling upon the above realization.
    Maybe I'm just not the kind of person that gets hooked on a game like HunieCam Studio, that is a definite possibility. So, you know, I wouldn't advise against buying it. Hell, I had my share of mild chuckles over the course of 2 hours I spent in it. Maybe I'll even go back and resume managing my collection of DFCs (it's one of the easier fetishes to build around, what with two girls who don't demand a lot of money and can be specialized... I wanted to build around fiery latinas at first (cause, you know, thatsmyfetish.gif), but the goddamn Brazilian chick with pre-maxed skills drove me to bankruptcy, so there's that). But the bottom line is, the gameplay is just not very fun unless you're a grind monkey addicted to floating numbers. 'Tis a shame.
  5. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from akaritan for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  6. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Clephas' basic advice to untranslated beginners   
    Since I get asked questions constantly on this subject, I'll go ahead and list a few pieces of advice I felt apply to most beginners.
     
    1) Use translation aggregator and a text hooker, even if you feel like you should be getting out your kanji dictionary, out of a sense of self-reliance. I'll be blunt, it is hard to enjoy something if you have to refer to a kanji dictionary for every other non-particle word. I am sometimes stunned at people bragging about spending 100 hours on an 8 hour moege because they chose not to use a text hooker. That is not an efficient way of using your time, even if you want to learn kanji. It is actually more efficient time-wise to do kanji exercises separately and read your VNs with a text hooker (you'll still be done with both in half the time it would have taken for you to read it using a kanji dictionary).
     
    2) There are two methods you can choose to start your untranslated career... you can start off easy and work your way up, or you can smash your head into the walls of text of the harder VNs out there. I chose the latter, and most people choose the former. The walls of text method has the advantage of jump-starting your learning... but in exchange, you'll probably end up sleeping more to let you process all the new information you've gathered and you'll get frustrated more often. If you want to use the former method, I made a list here sometime ago ( http://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/3493-for-love-of-vns-for-beginners/ ).
     
    3) jparser in Translation aggregator isn't perfect, nor is Mecab. They are tools to give you a chance to parse the kanji faster, rather than a translation tool. However, there is a good side-benefit to the frequently weird choices of furigana they make... and that is that you'll naturally learn the path to understanding kanji puns without having to look them up later, and it will become ever more easy to dissect more difficult words even without the tools later on.
     
    4) In the end, mastering reading untranslated VNs is an uphill battle for most people. Don't expect yourself or everything you use to be perfect from the beginning, as the very idea is absurd. You'll run into stumbling blocks constantly, and you'll worry endlessly about whether you really understood that last line for most of your first hundred VNs or so.
     
    5) If you read slowly in your native language, you will also read slowly in Japanese. Reading is reading, and it is a skill honed by a simple process of practice, practice, practice that never ends. Yes, learning to read fast in your own language will help you learn to read fast in Japanese once you've gotten to a certain level. If you are barely competent in your own language, I'll be frank in saying that this isn't for you, not to be mean but because it is the same skill, regardless of the details.
     
    6) Last of all, I'd suggest hitting a wide variety of genres early on, not just your favorite ones. Why? Because that sense of wonder and love for VNs is only going to last through your first twenty-five to forty VNs, and once you've gotten past that point, it is going to be harder and harder to grow beyond your limits on your own.
  7. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, VN Image Editing: Retouching Images with 8-Bit Transparency   
    And now a little something for all you image editors out there. (If you don't speak Photoshop, just keep walking; there's nothing for you here.)
    Some visual novels make image edits simple — the UI is mostly flat colors, 90º angles, and 1-bit transparencies. Easy peasy. Meanwhile, some more recent VNs like to store all their UI elements as semi-transparent overlays with full 8-bit alpha channels. If you've ever tried editing these, you know what a pain they can be.
    And so, I came to love a command I've never had to use before in all my years with Photoshop — namely because if there's a transparency on something, I'm usually the one who put it there in the first place.
    Ready? Tattoo this on your arm: Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency
    Let's look at one possible scenario where it might come into play: Text on paper.

    At first glance, doesn't seem like it would be too hard, right? Then you get it into Photoshop and realize it's a mix of transparent elements and fully opaque type.

    If you just grabbed the rubber stamp tool and tried cloning out the text right now, you'd end up with something like this.

    That's because your cloning source is semi-transparent. The trick here is to separate out the 8-bit alpha channel from the source image so you have an entirely opaque image. So with the source layer selected, choose Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency, temporarily disable the resulting layer mask, and you get something like this.

    From there, it's just a standard retouching job. Once you clone out the type as best you can, you're ready to add new text from your TL team. (In this case, since the type and paper are at two different levels of transparency, you'd also need to do a quick cleanup on the layer mask. If you look closely at the mask thumbnail, you can see the type as pure white on a 60% gray. Just paint over that part of the mask with more 60% gray and you'll be good to go.)

    Enable the layer mask again, export as a file with 8-bit alpha support (a PNG, most likely) and you're done. This was a fairly straightforward example, of course, but the basics remain the same no matter how complex the retouching job.
    Now rinse and repeat 500 more times with all the rest of the game files. Aren't you glad you decided to take up image editing?
  8. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from Tenkuru for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  9. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from AaronIsCrunchy for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  10. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from Kosakyun for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  11. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from rainsismyfav for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  12. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from suikashoujo for a blog entry, Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako Is The Best Thing Ever Made   
    So I just spent 50 minutes of my day watching this. Trying to process what I just watched is hard, there's just so much information to take in. I watched it alongside OriginalRen, SuikaShoujo and The Major, yet despite our best efforts, our brains simply were no match for the depth and intricacy this anime provides.

    I'll try to give you a feel, a small sample of what it feels like to watch "Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako", but I truly believe that the only real way to appreciate this show is to just watch it yourself.

    So first off we have our heroine Hinako. Hinako really likes to sleep. Her main trait as a character is not being able to fix the strap on her shirt.



    As you can see from this cleverly crafted angle, this entire anime is told in first person perspective. But we're just scratching the surface of how thick the plot really gets.

    After Hinako changes clothes, covering your face so you don't see her changing, even though she just ends up sleeping in her underwear anyway, she goes to sleep.

    And thus, our sleep adventure begins!





    That is the face of pure bliss.



    Here we have some amazing shots that truly depict the wonders of a 2D girl sleeping.





    A real good close up of the heroine, it's almost like she's breathing on you





    In this shot here, you can see Hinako's breasts changing sizes, giving us a clear reason why Hinako just can not get the left strap of her shirt to stay in place, her left breast simply doesn't have as much mass.






    This shot here is a classic. The subtle twitch Hinako's leg makes each time really provides livelyness to her sleep, making you feel like you're sleeping right next to her.







    10 minutes in and the anime really ramps it up by having Hinako turn to the other side. In my opinion this was one of their best moves yet.







    Here we get a first glimpse of Hinako's windowsill which displays a clock and a vase with a plant. This is a very intringuing as the clock displays no numbers, a fact that will become really important later on so make sure you keep it in mind.







    Another very rare shot of Hinako's armpit, one of my personal favorites if I daresay so myself. The disproportionally sized breasts really help elevate that armpit.







    18 minutes in and the biggest game changer yet, Hinako makes use of one of her pillows! We can neither confirm nor deny if there's any significance behind this pose and the pillow's peculiar shape.







    And just 30 seconds later we are shown Hinako's sleep eating abilities.







    This is one of the rarest shots in the whole story, at the 22:22 minute mark, Hinako dangles her arm from the bed. What a delightful display of character.







    And this 24 minute mark is the crucial turning point where we have a clear view of Hinako's room and lo and behold, nobody is sleeping next side her, even though we're supposed to be there, what could this possibly mean!?







    At the 26 minute mark, Hinako has a dream about the moment we confessed to her and she gladly accepted our feelings. While the dream itself lasted a mere 10 seconds, I could really feel a deep emotional connection with Hinako's character just from watching her sleep for the past 26 minutes.







    And in the next minute, Hinako wakes up. I'm sure we were thinking the same thing, and that is how much we love each other. Hinako, being the amazing girlfriend she is, sings us a lullaby with really inspiring lyrics such as "Go to sleep, go to sleep on Hinako's chest" which have the result of making her fall asleep.







    At the 30 minute mark, Hinako has yet another dream, this time about when she was training hard to lose weight, she even gives us advice on how to be BIG like Hinako.







    And now, the biggest game changer yet, Hinako falls off her bed! My heart could barely take it, seeing Hinako fall on the floor after 30 minutes of sleeping really came out of nowhere, this anime sure knows how to tug on your heart strings.







    And now starts the most romantic scene in an anime I have ever seen.








    What a straightforward approach. Hinako tops all those tsunderes in generic romcoms, you don't get this level of romance too often.








    Of course we have a really deep connection with Hinako, and she reassures us of that by returning our feelings (even though we didn't really say anything, I'm sure our feelings got acress).



    I had to hold back my emotions over how realistic everything got, the intense urge to kiss my screen really started to come out.








    *doki doki*





    Hinako wastes no time though, she knows what her main goal is, this woman has her priorities set straights, that's why right after this she once again heads to bed and instantly falls asleep. Pro sleepers really are something else.







    But the thrilling ride isn't over yet, can you believe they still have more in store? This time, Hinako invites us to sleep on the same bed as her. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The anime really makes this a realistic experience by tilting the camera 90 degrees. It truly felt like I was right next to Hinako.







    [immersion intensifies]








    35 minutes in, Hinako does yet another unpredictable thing, she decides to get a night snack. Gosh, this anime really doesn't hold back on the plot twists.







    Brushing your teeth is important too. Even if you didn't eat anything. Deep.







    Once again, after falling asleep, Hinako falls on the floor. This time facing the other way, I liked that change of pace, this anime really knows when to spice it up.







    She doesn't forget her girlfriend duties though and reminds us we are also an entity, a sentient being, and thus we need sleep as well. Notice how her strap keeps sagging lower and lower, symbolizing we're reaching the end of our journey.







    After she falls asleep, Hinako has one last dream. In this one though, she ended up getting fat due to eating so many snacks. I'm sure she'll resume her training the next day!







    And now, after a whole 40 minutes of Hinako sleeping, morning comes, and this is where the plot really thickens!




    You see, after this, Hinako sleeps with us again, twice, do you not see what this means!?




    This whole time, we've actually been trapped in a dream world, but not just that, we were trapped in a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, inside a dream world, and we weren't a human being either, we were a ghost that posessed random objects around Hinako's room in order to try to wake her from the dream by looking at her body from several different angles. Remember the clock I mentioned at the beginning? What was missing? Pointers! That's because in this dream world, there's no time flow! We've been stuck sleeping with Hinako over and over, that's why she always wears the same outfit when she sleeps.







    I could barely see this coming, it came by so fast my brain just had no time to process it.




    This anime is a deconstruction of the human psyche, one that if you're not paying attention to, you will miss its profound message, the 50 minute length time really manages to portray to intricacies of the brain by having the same still shots over and over again across the timeline, you really feel like you're diving into Hinaki's profound sleepiness and tracing its patterns.




    The emotional bonds you manage to form with Hinako as you watch her sleep from every possible angle really make this a standout from the crowd. You can not get this deep level of characterization anywhere else.



    It brought me to tears as my eyes were strained while I wtched 50 minutes of a girl sleeping on a bed, making me empathize with her.




    The story sucks you in, almost making you fall asleep just like Hinako.



    This 16 year old girl who can't put on a shirt strap properly is the apogee of all female characters. If you haven't used the term "waifu" now, I'm sure this anime will change your mind.




    Issho ni Sleeping: Sleeping with Hinako is, without a doubt, the best anime ever made.





  13. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to sanahtlig for a blog entry, "For sale in Japan only": A Japanese developer's perspective on the eroge embargo   
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





    I wrote previously about a display bug in Dual Tail's strategy eroge Venus Blood -Hypno- that prevented interface text from displaying correctly in non-Japanese Windows. Fan hacker binaryfail generously donated a patch that fixes the issue. I sent this patch to Ninetail (parent company of Dual Tail) via Twitter, requesting that they include the fix on their official support page. Project manager and game designer Keimaru responded to me in broken English. His response, edited by me, is as follows.

    Original:




    I thanked him and went my way. A commentator on Reddit later informed me that Keimaru had posted a much longer comment in Japanese. This comment showed such sincere and thoughtful consideration of the issue, from a Japanese developer's standpoint, that I decided it needed to be relayed to the English audience.

    Japanese eroge developers are well known for their reluctance to get involved with the Western market. Packaging and splash screens prominently declare "For sale in Japan only". Westerners tend to dismiss this policy as apathy for foreign fans, even regarding the practice with contempt as just another manifestation of Japanese isolationism and xenophobia. When eroge companies block foreign IPs, they automatically assume that the company has closed its doors to Western release (despite abundant evidence to the contrary). "The companies are just being xenophobic," they say with bitter contempt. "Might as well just fan translate their titles, since they'll never officially release their games in English. They don't want dirty gaijin playing their games."

    It's about time that we get the other side of this story. And who better to deliver it than a prominent and well-loved Japanese developer--one puzzling over how to respond to a bug that prevents foreign fans from playing his games? I provide my translation of Keimaru's Twitter comments below. I regret that my translation skills could not fully convey the honest simplicity of the original message, but I did my best to at least get across the ideas and intent.
    I don't know about you, but Ninetail just earned one new (very loud) fan. For an example of one of Ninetail's outstanding games, see my Venus Blood -Gaia- review! (NSFW version, SFW mirror)

    Special thanks to those of the Fuwanovel community who provided feedback on the translation, especially Majikoi fan translator dowolf.
  14. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from Ene for a blog entry, Pupa Was A (Colossal) Mistake   
    This was a really tough thing for me to witness because I really like the original Pupa manga. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it had some decent dark and psychological themes and an interesting pair of siblings as main characters. It's a horror story about some of the more grotesque things you could write about, a story about a sister who's forced to literally eat her brother in order to survive and they cope with it as well as the mad experiments going on in the background.

    But this anime... this anime managed to suck every ounce of life out of Pupa. This is not just a "bad" adaptation, it wasn't just your typical "oh it left out some important bits" or "the pacing was kind of bad", this adaptation, can not even be considered an adaptation of the original Pupa manga. This anime right here is an insult to all adaptations in existence.

    I was really excited when this was first annouced, but that excitement didn't last long as it dawned on me that the anime would have an episode length of 3 minutes. At this point is where essentially all of my red flags went off and the prospect of Pupa having a successful adaptation was basically already ruined. I tried to think of any possible way they could successfully pull it off, but I just couldn't think of any. And sure enough, as soon as the first episode of Pupa aired, I knew that I was in for one of the worst rides of my life.

    Anime isn't famous for having good horror shows. The amount of really good horror anime in existence can likely be counted by the amount of fingers one has, and Pupa already started off with the wrong foot by censoring the living hell out of every single meaningful shot. I'm not one to advocate that gore and violence is what makes horror, it's definitely not, but in the case of Pupa, the core of the story lies in the grotesque and brutal violence of a lot of scenes, and by censoring all of them with huge black bars, you're already taking away any "wow" factor the show might have had.
    And if you're wondering how ridiculous the censoring got at points, just look at this:








    A man holding a knife!? That's heinous! Censor this madness right now!


    But don't worry, I re-watched the series in blu-ray just for the sake of getting the most out of it, and even then, it still utterly fails to transmit all the grotesque scenes and all the violence the original manga had.
    All the entrails are sloppily drawn, nothing feels vivid or impactful, the "gore" consists mostly of ludicrous amounts of blood gushing out of people for no apparent reason.
    So even in the gore department, this series fails.
    The one thing they could have at least gotten right, they utterly fail at, and after a horrid 2 first episodes, watching the rest of Pupa was like dragging my dead body across a floor made out of sand paper.

    Let's quickly go over how the show adapted the story:

    Yume and Utsutsu go home together one day and Yume is turned into a monster and it's revealed she has been infected with the Pupa virus. This virus grants the host with regenerative abilities, but in return, they cause insatiable hunger.
    Yume kills her brother by stabbing him but in a sudden twist he comes back and we discover he also has been infected by the virus and can regenerate himself. Though for some reason he doesn't have the hunger thing.

    Our Onii-chan vows to protect Yume by letting her eat him whenever she's hungry and the anime turns these scenes into laughable moments by having random cheerful music play in the background as Yume eats away Utsutsu's body. This does nothing good for the show and just removes any and all kind of meaningful impact the scenes might have otherwise have.

    We have some flashbacks to the siblings' past where it's revealed Yume's mother had the virus inside her and that's supposedly how Yume got it. We see Yume as a child eating a bird and being stabbed by her own mother, only to then be revived by the virus, this in turn caused her mother to lose most of her sanity.
    We also learn that the siblings had a rough past with a really abusive dad, but the show really fails at portraying what is one of the most important plot points of the manga, and that is Utsutsu's dad and his tendency to be violent towards him. Not to mention his role in the story development itself. But I wouldn't expect anything less from such a crappy show.

    Our siblings get taken away by some random organization we never heard of (10/10 context!) and Utsutsu gets experimented on for some reason. Yume manages to break free using her monster powers and Utsutsu escapes with her, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies.

    After this, the anime pretty much ends with Yume once again eating away at her brother and the credits rolling.

    Sounded fun right? No? Hmm, I wonder what might have been missing... Oh wait, every fucking thing was missing.
    This show provides absolutely zero context for why most of the events are happening.

    One of the main villains, a scientist called Maria is introduced early on as some sort of mastermind behind things, and at one point they even mention she's going to impregnate herself using Utsutsu's sperm and Yume's egg cells in an attempt to give birth to another monster, and we even see her with a pregnant belly! But what happens after that? NOTHING. Absolutely fucking nothing.
    We never see or hear from this lady again, we're just supposed to accept she disappears I guess. But if you're going to make her disappear, why introduce her in the first place??

    But that's not all, Utsutsu's father, who even appears on the very first manga chapter, is rarely shown in the anime, and he has a very present role as he's the motivation behind a lot of Utsutsu's reasoning and he's also the one who gave him all his scars, but the anime doesn't even bother to explain anything related to it.

    In the episode where we learn about Yume's backstory, her mother seems to be an important character and we even see her in the present day talking to their father. And then they never appear again! Ever!
    Why are you showing your viewers things that won't matter later on?

    Lastly, when Utsutsu and Yume get kidnapped, not only do they make everything look ridiculously stupid by having Yume and Utsutsu, two people who have regenerative abilities, lose in a fight against one single guy with a pocket knife.
    I mean, who looked at this show and thought "let's make a series about two siblings with a weird virus in them and then never utilize the virus in any of the scenes where it could have been useful".
    We also never know who the organization that kidnapped them is or why they're doing what they're doing, we're just shown, and very briefly so, some of the torture they're performing on Utsutsu, but most of the actual gorey scenes are never actually shown.

    It's like they decided to make a horror and then strip it of any scenes that might make a horror show good in the first place.
    Couplethis with terrible and incosistent writing and you got yourself a big pile of crap. Or in Pupa's case, a small pile of crap, because this anime only lasts for a whole 30 minutes if you combine all the episodes, so at least it's not like your eyes will be subject to the atrocities this show has for long.

    And after all the completely random nonsensical events I just described above, this anime has the audacity to have one extra episode at the end with absolutely no connection to the previous episodes whatsoever. This last episode is just a cheerful scene with Yume and Utsutsu going shopping for a new teddy bear for Yume. What's the point of it? Give me consolation after all the shit I've had to deal with when watching the show? Because if that was the intention, I'm sorry to say it only prolongued the suffering.
    It's like the final nail in the coffin before this series is buried for eternity to never be seen again.
    And let's not forget the god awful product placement, because don't think I didn't see that, then again it was hard to miss given how out of place it looks compared to the rest of the shot:







    Yeah, letting a child read Pupa, a manga full of gore and violence.



    10/10 product placement


    To wrap this up and so people stop asking me to watch this show, Pupa is a complete and utter mess with no sense of direction, no writing consistency, bad dialogue, bad art direction, bad gore, bad story, bad everything.

    This show does not have a sole redeeming factor, not even for the lovers of pure gore, I do not think it is physically possible for someone to watch Pupa and think "huh, that was cool". You would have to stretch it, and I mean really stretch it, just to call Pupa "average".

    The other shows I've ranted about before this don't even come close to the level of garbage that is Pupa.

    Do not watch this. I repeat, do not watch this, you will lose brain cells at a 10 times faster ratio in the 30 minutes you'll spend watching this show. Please, I'm caring for your health here, do not dare to touch this show with a 10 ft pole.

    If you're curious about Pupa in the slightest, at least do yourself a huge favor and read the manga, because at least that's tolerable and knows what it's doing, but for the love of everything, do not lay eyes upon this monstrosity of an "anime".

    Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spray lemon juice in my eyes and pretend Pupa, just like the Tsukihime anime, never existed.
  15. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from EldritchCherub for a blog entry, Pupa Was A (Colossal) Mistake   
    This was a really tough thing for me to witness because I really like the original Pupa manga. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it had some decent dark and psychological themes and an interesting pair of siblings as main characters. It's a horror story about some of the more grotesque things you could write about, a story about a sister who's forced to literally eat her brother in order to survive and they cope with it as well as the mad experiments going on in the background.

    But this anime... this anime managed to suck every ounce of life out of Pupa. This is not just a "bad" adaptation, it wasn't just your typical "oh it left out some important bits" or "the pacing was kind of bad", this adaptation, can not even be considered an adaptation of the original Pupa manga. This anime right here is an insult to all adaptations in existence.

    I was really excited when this was first annouced, but that excitement didn't last long as it dawned on me that the anime would have an episode length of 3 minutes. At this point is where essentially all of my red flags went off and the prospect of Pupa having a successful adaptation was basically already ruined. I tried to think of any possible way they could successfully pull it off, but I just couldn't think of any. And sure enough, as soon as the first episode of Pupa aired, I knew that I was in for one of the worst rides of my life.

    Anime isn't famous for having good horror shows. The amount of really good horror anime in existence can likely be counted by the amount of fingers one has, and Pupa already started off with the wrong foot by censoring the living hell out of every single meaningful shot. I'm not one to advocate that gore and violence is what makes horror, it's definitely not, but in the case of Pupa, the core of the story lies in the grotesque and brutal violence of a lot of scenes, and by censoring all of them with huge black bars, you're already taking away any "wow" factor the show might have had.
    And if you're wondering how ridiculous the censoring got at points, just look at this:








    A man holding a knife!? That's heinous! Censor this madness right now!


    But don't worry, I re-watched the series in blu-ray just for the sake of getting the most out of it, and even then, it still utterly fails to transmit all the grotesque scenes and all the violence the original manga had.
    All the entrails are sloppily drawn, nothing feels vivid or impactful, the "gore" consists mostly of ludicrous amounts of blood gushing out of people for no apparent reason.
    So even in the gore department, this series fails.
    The one thing they could have at least gotten right, they utterly fail at, and after a horrid 2 first episodes, watching the rest of Pupa was like dragging my dead body across a floor made out of sand paper.

    Let's quickly go over how the show adapted the story:

    Yume and Utsutsu go home together one day and Yume is turned into a monster and it's revealed she has been infected with the Pupa virus. This virus grants the host with regenerative abilities, but in return, they cause insatiable hunger.
    Yume kills her brother by stabbing him but in a sudden twist he comes back and we discover he also has been infected by the virus and can regenerate himself. Though for some reason he doesn't have the hunger thing.

    Our Onii-chan vows to protect Yume by letting her eat him whenever she's hungry and the anime turns these scenes into laughable moments by having random cheerful music play in the background as Yume eats away Utsutsu's body. This does nothing good for the show and just removes any and all kind of meaningful impact the scenes might have otherwise have.

    We have some flashbacks to the siblings' past where it's revealed Yume's mother had the virus inside her and that's supposedly how Yume got it. We see Yume as a child eating a bird and being stabbed by her own mother, only to then be revived by the virus, this in turn caused her mother to lose most of her sanity.
    We also learn that the siblings had a rough past with a really abusive dad, but the show really fails at portraying what is one of the most important plot points of the manga, and that is Utsutsu's dad and his tendency to be violent towards him. Not to mention his role in the story development itself. But I wouldn't expect anything less from such a crappy show.

    Our siblings get taken away by some random organization we never heard of (10/10 context!) and Utsutsu gets experimented on for some reason. Yume manages to break free using her monster powers and Utsutsu escapes with her, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies.

    After this, the anime pretty much ends with Yume once again eating away at her brother and the credits rolling.

    Sounded fun right? No? Hmm, I wonder what might have been missing... Oh wait, every fucking thing was missing.
    This show provides absolutely zero context for why most of the events are happening.

    One of the main villains, a scientist called Maria is introduced early on as some sort of mastermind behind things, and at one point they even mention she's going to impregnate herself using Utsutsu's sperm and Yume's egg cells in an attempt to give birth to another monster, and we even see her with a pregnant belly! But what happens after that? NOTHING. Absolutely fucking nothing.
    We never see or hear from this lady again, we're just supposed to accept she disappears I guess. But if you're going to make her disappear, why introduce her in the first place??

    But that's not all, Utsutsu's father, who even appears on the very first manga chapter, is rarely shown in the anime, and he has a very present role as he's the motivation behind a lot of Utsutsu's reasoning and he's also the one who gave him all his scars, but the anime doesn't even bother to explain anything related to it.

    In the episode where we learn about Yume's backstory, her mother seems to be an important character and we even see her in the present day talking to their father. And then they never appear again! Ever!
    Why are you showing your viewers things that won't matter later on?

    Lastly, when Utsutsu and Yume get kidnapped, not only do they make everything look ridiculously stupid by having Yume and Utsutsu, two people who have regenerative abilities, lose in a fight against one single guy with a pocket knife.
    I mean, who looked at this show and thought "let's make a series about two siblings with a weird virus in them and then never utilize the virus in any of the scenes where it could have been useful".
    We also never know who the organization that kidnapped them is or why they're doing what they're doing, we're just shown, and very briefly so, some of the torture they're performing on Utsutsu, but most of the actual gorey scenes are never actually shown.

    It's like they decided to make a horror and then strip it of any scenes that might make a horror show good in the first place.
    Couplethis with terrible and incosistent writing and you got yourself a big pile of crap. Or in Pupa's case, a small pile of crap, because this anime only lasts for a whole 30 minutes if you combine all the episodes, so at least it's not like your eyes will be subject to the atrocities this show has for long.

    And after all the completely random nonsensical events I just described above, this anime has the audacity to have one extra episode at the end with absolutely no connection to the previous episodes whatsoever. This last episode is just a cheerful scene with Yume and Utsutsu going shopping for a new teddy bear for Yume. What's the point of it? Give me consolation after all the shit I've had to deal with when watching the show? Because if that was the intention, I'm sorry to say it only prolongued the suffering.
    It's like the final nail in the coffin before this series is buried for eternity to never be seen again.
    And let's not forget the god awful product placement, because don't think I didn't see that, then again it was hard to miss given how out of place it looks compared to the rest of the shot:







    Yeah, letting a child read Pupa, a manga full of gore and violence.



    10/10 product placement


    To wrap this up and so people stop asking me to watch this show, Pupa is a complete and utter mess with no sense of direction, no writing consistency, bad dialogue, bad art direction, bad gore, bad story, bad everything.

    This show does not have a sole redeeming factor, not even for the lovers of pure gore, I do not think it is physically possible for someone to watch Pupa and think "huh, that was cool". You would have to stretch it, and I mean really stretch it, just to call Pupa "average".

    The other shows I've ranted about before this don't even come close to the level of garbage that is Pupa.

    Do not watch this. I repeat, do not watch this, you will lose brain cells at a 10 times faster ratio in the 30 minutes you'll spend watching this show. Please, I'm caring for your health here, do not dare to touch this show with a 10 ft pole.

    If you're curious about Pupa in the slightest, at least do yourself a huge favor and read the manga, because at least that's tolerable and knows what it's doing, but for the love of everything, do not lay eyes upon this monstrosity of an "anime".

    Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spray lemon juice in my eyes and pretend Pupa, just like the Tsukihime anime, never existed.
  16. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from rainsismyfav for a blog entry, Pupa Was A (Colossal) Mistake   
    This was a really tough thing for me to witness because I really like the original Pupa manga. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it had some decent dark and psychological themes and an interesting pair of siblings as main characters. It's a horror story about some of the more grotesque things you could write about, a story about a sister who's forced to literally eat her brother in order to survive and they cope with it as well as the mad experiments going on in the background.

    But this anime... this anime managed to suck every ounce of life out of Pupa. This is not just a "bad" adaptation, it wasn't just your typical "oh it left out some important bits" or "the pacing was kind of bad", this adaptation, can not even be considered an adaptation of the original Pupa manga. This anime right here is an insult to all adaptations in existence.

    I was really excited when this was first annouced, but that excitement didn't last long as it dawned on me that the anime would have an episode length of 3 minutes. At this point is where essentially all of my red flags went off and the prospect of Pupa having a successful adaptation was basically already ruined. I tried to think of any possible way they could successfully pull it off, but I just couldn't think of any. And sure enough, as soon as the first episode of Pupa aired, I knew that I was in for one of the worst rides of my life.

    Anime isn't famous for having good horror shows. The amount of really good horror anime in existence can likely be counted by the amount of fingers one has, and Pupa already started off with the wrong foot by censoring the living hell out of every single meaningful shot. I'm not one to advocate that gore and violence is what makes horror, it's definitely not, but in the case of Pupa, the core of the story lies in the grotesque and brutal violence of a lot of scenes, and by censoring all of them with huge black bars, you're already taking away any "wow" factor the show might have had.
    And if you're wondering how ridiculous the censoring got at points, just look at this:








    A man holding a knife!? That's heinous! Censor this madness right now!


    But don't worry, I re-watched the series in blu-ray just for the sake of getting the most out of it, and even then, it still utterly fails to transmit all the grotesque scenes and all the violence the original manga had.
    All the entrails are sloppily drawn, nothing feels vivid or impactful, the "gore" consists mostly of ludicrous amounts of blood gushing out of people for no apparent reason.
    So even in the gore department, this series fails.
    The one thing they could have at least gotten right, they utterly fail at, and after a horrid 2 first episodes, watching the rest of Pupa was like dragging my dead body across a floor made out of sand paper.

    Let's quickly go over how the show adapted the story:

    Yume and Utsutsu go home together one day and Yume is turned into a monster and it's revealed she has been infected with the Pupa virus. This virus grants the host with regenerative abilities, but in return, they cause insatiable hunger.
    Yume kills her brother by stabbing him but in a sudden twist he comes back and we discover he also has been infected by the virus and can regenerate himself. Though for some reason he doesn't have the hunger thing.

    Our Onii-chan vows to protect Yume by letting her eat him whenever she's hungry and the anime turns these scenes into laughable moments by having random cheerful music play in the background as Yume eats away Utsutsu's body. This does nothing good for the show and just removes any and all kind of meaningful impact the scenes might have otherwise have.

    We have some flashbacks to the siblings' past where it's revealed Yume's mother had the virus inside her and that's supposedly how Yume got it. We see Yume as a child eating a bird and being stabbed by her own mother, only to then be revived by the virus, this in turn caused her mother to lose most of her sanity.
    We also learn that the siblings had a rough past with a really abusive dad, but the show really fails at portraying what is one of the most important plot points of the manga, and that is Utsutsu's dad and his tendency to be violent towards him. Not to mention his role in the story development itself. But I wouldn't expect anything less from such a crappy show.

    Our siblings get taken away by some random organization we never heard of (10/10 context!) and Utsutsu gets experimented on for some reason. Yume manages to break free using her monster powers and Utsutsu escapes with her, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies.

    After this, the anime pretty much ends with Yume once again eating away at her brother and the credits rolling.

    Sounded fun right? No? Hmm, I wonder what might have been missing... Oh wait, every fucking thing was missing.
    This show provides absolutely zero context for why most of the events are happening.

    One of the main villains, a scientist called Maria is introduced early on as some sort of mastermind behind things, and at one point they even mention she's going to impregnate herself using Utsutsu's sperm and Yume's egg cells in an attempt to give birth to another monster, and we even see her with a pregnant belly! But what happens after that? NOTHING. Absolutely fucking nothing.
    We never see or hear from this lady again, we're just supposed to accept she disappears I guess. But if you're going to make her disappear, why introduce her in the first place??

    But that's not all, Utsutsu's father, who even appears on the very first manga chapter, is rarely shown in the anime, and he has a very present role as he's the motivation behind a lot of Utsutsu's reasoning and he's also the one who gave him all his scars, but the anime doesn't even bother to explain anything related to it.

    In the episode where we learn about Yume's backstory, her mother seems to be an important character and we even see her in the present day talking to their father. And then they never appear again! Ever!
    Why are you showing your viewers things that won't matter later on?

    Lastly, when Utsutsu and Yume get kidnapped, not only do they make everything look ridiculously stupid by having Yume and Utsutsu, two people who have regenerative abilities, lose in a fight against one single guy with a pocket knife.
    I mean, who looked at this show and thought "let's make a series about two siblings with a weird virus in them and then never utilize the virus in any of the scenes where it could have been useful".
    We also never know who the organization that kidnapped them is or why they're doing what they're doing, we're just shown, and very briefly so, some of the torture they're performing on Utsutsu, but most of the actual gorey scenes are never actually shown.

    It's like they decided to make a horror and then strip it of any scenes that might make a horror show good in the first place.
    Couplethis with terrible and incosistent writing and you got yourself a big pile of crap. Or in Pupa's case, a small pile of crap, because this anime only lasts for a whole 30 minutes if you combine all the episodes, so at least it's not like your eyes will be subject to the atrocities this show has for long.

    And after all the completely random nonsensical events I just described above, this anime has the audacity to have one extra episode at the end with absolutely no connection to the previous episodes whatsoever. This last episode is just a cheerful scene with Yume and Utsutsu going shopping for a new teddy bear for Yume. What's the point of it? Give me consolation after all the shit I've had to deal with when watching the show? Because if that was the intention, I'm sorry to say it only prolongued the suffering.
    It's like the final nail in the coffin before this series is buried for eternity to never be seen again.
    And let's not forget the god awful product placement, because don't think I didn't see that, then again it was hard to miss given how out of place it looks compared to the rest of the shot:







    Yeah, letting a child read Pupa, a manga full of gore and violence.



    10/10 product placement


    To wrap this up and so people stop asking me to watch this show, Pupa is a complete and utter mess with no sense of direction, no writing consistency, bad dialogue, bad art direction, bad gore, bad story, bad everything.

    This show does not have a sole redeeming factor, not even for the lovers of pure gore, I do not think it is physically possible for someone to watch Pupa and think "huh, that was cool". You would have to stretch it, and I mean really stretch it, just to call Pupa "average".

    The other shows I've ranted about before this don't even come close to the level of garbage that is Pupa.

    Do not watch this. I repeat, do not watch this, you will lose brain cells at a 10 times faster ratio in the 30 minutes you'll spend watching this show. Please, I'm caring for your health here, do not dare to touch this show with a 10 ft pole.

    If you're curious about Pupa in the slightest, at least do yourself a huge favor and read the manga, because at least that's tolerable and knows what it's doing, but for the love of everything, do not lay eyes upon this monstrosity of an "anime".

    Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spray lemon juice in my eyes and pretend Pupa, just like the Tsukihime anime, never existed.
  17. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to FidgetQueen for a blog entry, Fuwalegends~The Tale of Whore: The Fuwan Who Couldn't Even   
    Once upon a time, in the magical land of Fuwa, there lived a troll named Whore. Whore was the ugliest troll in Fuwa. He was so ugly that no person alive would ever come near him. Now, this would of course make Whore very hungry, for he could never catch a meal. He always felt jealousy towards Nosebleed, the handsomest Prince of the land, son of Queen Aeru and King Tay. Whore, devoured by envy and hunger, set out on a journey to find Nosebleed and make him his first meal in a century.

    Whore, had at last found where Nosebleed lived. In a strong desire to get revenge on Nosebleed for being born beautiful, he sent letters to the nobles of Fuwa. These letters reported that Nosebleed assaulted one of the lolis of Loli Mountian. This was against the law of Fuwa, as the loli's were highly valued and respected by all who lived in Fuwa, as the moé ones. However, he forgot about Sir Steve, the protector of loli's who never missed a single assaulter. Sir Steve would know if Nosebleed truly did this, as he was blessed with the power to send out a million eyes to watch over the loli's and alert him of any trouble.

    When this plan failed, Nosebleed approached Whore, and banished him to 4-chan where he would have to live among those even uglier than himself. They say, Whore will make a return 1,000 years later to have another shot at revenge.
  18. Like
    Nosebleed got a reaction from Helvetica Standard for a blog entry, Hyouka Was A Mistake   
    I can sense the raging fanboys as I type the title of this entry, but it's one I promised to do for a while and since I haven't posted anything on this blog in forever, I thought this would be a great way to come back.

    So what is wrong with Hyouka? Well, in my opinion, pretty much everything.

    I always manage to get myself caught up in one-sided discussion with people defending this anime, and no matter how many good and some even valid points those people make, I simply can not for the life of me understand how Hyouka can even be considered above average.

    Let's discuss the first problem I have with Hyouka: The Mysteries.

    "Oh boy he's just going to rant about how the mysteries were unimportant isn't he?"

    Well, not quite, I understood from the get go this anime was not trying to put forward some kind of deep detective charade and that the mysteries were meant to be simplistic and, for the most part, fairly minimalistic.

    The problem I have with the mystery elements in this show is that none of them really matter for anything.
    I don't get any sense of accomplishment from seeing the characters solve the already miniscule mysteries that they manage to come across. The characters are always triggered by silly stuff and then turn everything into a detective style, clue gathering and crime solving type of mystery, only to solve it and be done with it. The mysteries are, for the most part, unrelated to the plot (or lack thereof) and don't provide any fun addition to the show, they just feel like pointless ways to drag out and pad a way for a really uninteresting adventure.

    You can say all you want about the goal of the show being "simple mystery solving" or whatever, but that doesn't take away the fact that the mysteries, on top of being minimalistic and boring, don't add any value to the plot and are, quite frankly, really unoriginal and boring, which makes for an overall negative watching experience.

    Moving on to the second problem I have with this anime: The characters

    I absolutely hated almost every single character in Hyouka.

    This is the part where it comes more down to personal preferences, but I'll still speak my mind on it.

    Chitanda Eru made me want to commit suicide. Her whole character is based off of this retarded gimmick of wanting to solve mysteries for no reason. It's like she's brain dead and all she can say is "I'm curious!". Her character is annoying, doesn't do much for the most part, and just feels like a really sorry excuse for a main heroine of a show. She wasn't fun to watch, I just wanted her to disappear for most part of the show so I wouldn't have to deal with this utter BS.

    But what this gimmick really ruins is essentially the show's main gimmick: simple mysteries

    You see, simple mysteries can be cool and all, but not when all your main character does is look for the most fucking pointless mystery she can find, and then drag the entire cast with her in order to solve the absolutely tedious mystery. This, in my opinion, is this show's major downfall.

    Chitanda Eru was a mistake.

    This is how it felt hearing Chitanda say "I'm curious!"




    She's a hollow shell of a heroine and god forbid the person who thought she was a good character comes up with more stories like this.

    Moving on, the other two (almost side) characters: Satoshi and Mayaka

    God, these two made me want to shove forks in my eyes so I wouldn't have to continue watching this appalling show.

    Satoshi is by far one of the worst main/side characters I have ever seen, his entire premise for acting the way he does is that he feels inferior to the protagonist. And he makes sure you know this EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
    He never acts on his own accord, he makes himself inferior on purpose and overall he needlessly becomes a hindrance and a nuisance for no apparent reason other than being an edgy emo teenager.
    And what's worse, he never evolves from this. He stays like this throughout the whole show. I don't even know who thought this was a good idea.

    The last main character I didn't like, Mayaka, is the lesser bad of the main ones. While I was profoundly annoyed by her being hung over such a horrible crush like Satoshi, at the very least I could concede that she was slightly more proactive than him.
    Still though, just like her crush, Mayaka often spent her time mopping around and acting like an edgy emo teenager because we all know being a teenager really is tough.

    The sole saving grace of the plot, the protagonist Oreki, really can't salvage the whole show, but I will grant that he's the only character with meaningful and interesting development as he goes from being one of those uninterested types to a more proactive character that's interested in stuff (probably affected by the Chitanda virus).
    Still though, I find Oreki's character slightly bland as, just like every other character in the show, his sole gimmick is being OP at logic. Which, at the very least, is a good thing to be OP at, but other than that he's not really that interesting to watch as he mostly just gets dragged around by people.
    But since he's the most intuitive of the group, I'll say that he's the sole character I kind of liked in the show.

    Moving on to the third and last problem I have with this show: The pacing and the story

    When you have a 22 episode show, you have to make sure you maintain a good pacing and have an engaging story so your viewers really want to stick with you until the end. Sadly, Hyouka fails on this aspect as well.

    The uninteresting and unengaging mysteries and the generally slow paced and easygoing story only add up to an ultimately boring viewing experience that never managed to make me want to keep watching, but rather it made me feel like I was forcing myself to press on to see if ultimately there would be something worth praising at the end of the tunnel.
    Spoiler alert: there wasn't.

    Hyouka is a show with basically no plot, and shows with no plots are something I'm known to like even, but when you have no plot, you need good characterization, you need your characters to be engaging and make things happen, and Hyouka fails on pretty much every aspect of this, making for one of the worst anime experiences I've had.

    This anime might have been produced with a big budget (based Unlimited KyoAni Works), but if you have a bad source material, no matter how much you sugarcoat it, no matter how many directing tricks you use, it just doesn't work, and Hyouka will always be living proof of it.

    To those of you who defend Hyouka, I'm sorry, you're allowed to like this anime, really, I understand all the trickery that went behind in making it, I just think that it's ultimately really non engaging and boring and overall a sugercoated turd that I can not wrap my head around no matter how many times I watch it.

    Just ask yourself this: Do you find an anime based on pointless mysteries that are constantly forced upon you by an annoying teen girl that constantly shouts "I'm curious!" to be fun?
    If you do, I guess I have nothing to say to you.
    If you don't, then I hope you understand why I don't like Hyouka as well.
  19. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to sanahtlig for a blog entry, Regarding demands for fan translation project quality standards   
    Recently, a spirited argument erupted in the Monobeno -Happy End- project thread regarding the perceived poor quality of translation samples. As this a topic of general controversy in the fan translation scene, I decided it might be worth addressing on a general level to those who might not care about this particular title. Please don't take this post as an invitation to reignite controversy in that thread; post your comments here instead.
     
    Fan translation is as much about the journey as the destination. While the audience may only care about the final product, for the translator the journey may be even more important. This is an opportunity for a translator to improve both his Japanese skills and his English skills. As much as he's doing it for you, he's doing it for himself. I don't understand why anyone would think that fan translators have an obligation to provide a quality product, and that the audience should have an expectation of a quality product. All fan translations should be treated as being of suspect quality until proven otherwise. That's really all there is to it. If you're unhappy with the final product, don't play it. A game like Monobeno will never ever get licensed in English, so it's not like a substandard fan project would be ruining our chance at a professional translation (as might be the case with other titles).
     
    So before you complain about projects that don't meet your quality standards, remember that no one deserves a quality product for free, and that fan translators have just as much of a right to benefit from a project as their audience. Maybe if there were a better resource for tracking translation quality across different releases we wouldn't even be having these arguments. And maybe if the more skilled fan translators simply took pride in the quality of their own work, and weren't so preoccupied with the attention other groups were getting, there wouldn't be so much bickering going on.
     
    [This is a repost of my response in that thread edited for a general audience]
  20. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to LinovaA for a blog entry, All Hail Scottsune   
    Hey guys, Lino here. So today, I think we need to take a moment and appreciate perhaps the most valuable member of the community. Scottsune Miku.

    If you don't already know Scott, then you need to hurry and get good, for Scott is all that makes the world live and breathe. Once the holder of the highest stat in every stat here on Fuwa, Scott is our idol and leader and we must all aspire to be like him. Leader of the greatest company in the world, he brings us songs sung by the character, Hatsune Miku.

    But don't take my word for it, here is an introductory video to everything that is Scottsune.




    And remember fellow Fuwans... have some fun with Miku~


    There also seems to be a religion surrounding Scott 'round here, not that a pleb like me knows anything.
  21. Like
    Nosebleed reacted to Rose for a blog entry, Threads you should check out - Week #2   
    The following list only contains threads made from March 22 to March 28, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it



    If you don't know how the list works, please check the project
    thread.






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