LemiusK

Just for that quote, welcome to the ignore list. I warned you. You can quote me however you want now, I don't give a shit. Not going to read your posts from now on. If any one else has something more meaningful to add, feel free. Otherwise, my ignore list is always open for troublemakers.

Could you explain this rather inappropriate response? Honestly. I wish people wouldn't quote me at all if they're going to give me pointless replies like that. Saves me the trouble of clicking the notification. Really ticks me off. Just ignore my post if you're gonna reply like that again, m'kay?

Hitman 2's not that bad after all. It still lags as much as my grandma, but I got it to function somehow when I tuned the resolution down to 1280x720 (along with setting the graphics quality to "low", of course). It's not bad, completing one assassination challenge/achievement after another. Gives me a sense of accomplishment, succeeding in these wide variety of kills. I kinda like that there's the addition of special cinematic cutscenes for unique kills too, even if that adds more lag on my system. Still should've just bought the Standard or at least the Silver Edition though. The Gold Edition was too pricey, and not that worth the price tag, in hindsight.

More h-scenes in "The Labyrinth of Grisaia". Honestly not surprised anymore that there's a buttload of ecchi, but man, most of the so-called "sex scenes" here are blatant rape. It's the kind of stuff that the feminist media would have a field day over, plastering the net with headlines like "That scene in Labyrinth was blatantly rape, and we should call it what it is." People would normally shun such products too, like how "Big Bang Theory" was frowned upon for its sexist undertones, or how "Goldeneye" was called out on its controversial Pussy Galore scene in retrospect. But because this is Japan and a visual novel, it gets a free pass, and both Grisaia and Labyrinth still received much popularity and acclaim all over the world. It's the "normal" kind of thing you'd see in ecchi, after all.

My new wallpaper from Fate/hollow ataraxia. Some of the wallpapers from the VN look like amateur fanart rather than official artwork, even this Saber one. But hey, it's free wallpaper.

Well, well, well, looks like all of the sales I mentioned in this post (where I said I would sell my 3DS, PS4 dualshock-4 controller, and Corpse Party: Blood Drive, to make up for the money I lost buying Hitman 2) went off without a hitch, and I just made back a good amount of $190 altogether. That's almost 150% of the original price I paid for Hitman 2: Gold Edition. So, looks like there's nothing to worry about after all. Wahaha! Maybe I should sell back the otome Vita games I bought too once I'm done with them, make back the money I spent and buy more Vita visual novels! Wahaha! It's a perfect plan!

I think it has more to do with the copyright issues of Spidey and Sony. Sony is only lending Spidey to Marvel temporarily, so to get him over to Netflix is a whole other hurdle altogether. We don't even know if Spidey can make it to Avengers 5 or Spider-Man Homecoming 3 or not. So yeah, it's more like Sony doesn't know how to have fun, or rather, Amy Pascal, the current Chairwoman of Sony Pictures, constantly pawing her money-grubbing paws over her precious golden goose. lol If Disney/Marvel ever buy the rights to Spidey back, they should make a villain based on her.

I wanted Spidey to appear in Daredevil for a long time too. lol I hate the "boundaries" between the TV Marvel, the Netflix Marvel, and MCU Marvel. Spidey in a Daredevil show would be a perfect fit, since he's also an urban street-level hero like DD. I haven't followed Agents of SHIELD for a long time but, I liked Chloe Bennet from that show. She's cute. Never got to follow the show 'till the point where she became Quake though. The writing for AoS wasn't the strongest... lol Got too bored, even with all the event tie-ins. They really need to cross over with the major players like Thor or Hulk. I know it's because they don't have the budget for it, but look at Netflix! Budget's no excuse!

I knew beforehand that a lot of things about this sequel would not match the level of epicness we had for Infinity War, because that movie really set the bar really, really high. It's just difficult to expect the follow-up to be as epic, especially with that ambitious ending IW had. So "Endgame" being a mediocre title wasn't really upsetting for me. I did kinda wanted it to be "Avengers: Annihilation" though, with the Marvel villain, Annihilus showing up. It's the title people previously speculated it would be. It sounded like a cooler title too. But I guess it's good that he didn't appear, since having another villain thrown into the mix would probably screw up the plot. lol And when you really think about it, having the title being "Endgame" and then having several characters die for real in this movie... it makes the title that much sadder...

I think the part that really broke me (and probably the millions of other people who also cried) was the "I don't want to go." lol It's like, we were already understanding the fact that people were dying at that moment, but that line, that single line just shook me to another level of shock. I remember sitting at the end credits being stunned for five minutes, not being able to believe what had just occurred. Big brass balls, Marvel had, to pull off such an ending. We know they would come back but, it's still a very risky move. It's not really easy to leave people with an effective cliffhanger because you'll have a lot to clean up in the follow-up. I hope that if he does go away, I get to cry for him like I did for Spidey. Hope he gets to meet Peggy again for that one last dance.

Yeah, definitely. I would much rather not have Captain Marvel either, especially if she's gonna play a big part in saving everyone, making everyone else look helpless in comparison. I have nothing against feminism, but such superficial and forced feminism for the sake of feminism not only hurts the story, it's also detrimental to the feminist movement too. But putting aside the potential deus ex machina, I think it's too soon to tell, and even Black Panther didn't really play that huge of a role in Infinity War, despite his movie coming out just months before IW. I don't think Marvel's gonna f*** it up with this one, especially if we're gonna be saying goodbye to most of the characters here; Marvel would have taken that into account. It does feel weird to have her around a farewell party, but hopefully, her role would be small enough not to become a distraction.

That's right. The title of Avengers 4 has finally been released... alongside its official trailer. A very morbid, somber trailer. Sigh. And so, here we are. With nothing but our wit and our will to save the world. I kinda knew that the trailer's gonna be morbid, but damn, the feels. I got a bad feeling that Cap's gonna bite it this time, considering how Evans' contract is almost up. Sigh... It's been a good ride, Cap. It's kinda appropriate that the trailer doesn't have as flashy or epic of an atmosphere as the Infinity War trailer. The melancholic tone really fits. Things are going to come to an end here. Some characters probably won't return, period... including Stan Lee, with his final cameo. R. I. P. Hawkeye looks absolutely badass. I already knew he was coming back after his strange absence, and I'm glad he's back, but damn... he looks rather jaded and mortified. I have a feeling his family was one of those "snap" victims. He's looking vengeful, even. Alright, forget about Captain Marvel. BRING ME AVENGERS 4! lol May 3rd is a long wait... but I read that the release date has been pushed A WEEK EARLIER! April 26th, baby! Nice, nice, though I hope that this earlier release applies to my country too. April 26th is actually not too long after Captain Marvel (March 8th), and it's kinda like how Infinity War's release date was that close to Black Panther's release too. Anyway, big hype everywhere! Probably gonna post my review here on Day One of release date!

Well, sorry if you feel that way. "Mood" and "tone in speech" are both rather difficult contexts to comprehend in text form, almost impossible even. You can't really judge whether someone's in a foul mood or not from the way he writes. I remember that I tend to add a lot of emoticons because I was worried that people might think I wasn't joking or was in a bad mood. But then, one of my friends called me out on that and said it was, and I quote, "fucking annoying and makes you look like a retard." Yeah. Needless to say, I didn't speak to him again from then. Back on topic. Yeah, I know what you mean. As someone who often talks about narrow-mindedness, I am at least open enough to appreciate that there's a decent story to be found even among superfluous sex scenes. It's just... I really hate filler. And this might be narrow-minded of me, but for me, to define a "masterpiece," I usually need to consider its flaws and impurities. Filler material is an impurity. For me, a "masterpiece" of a story needs to have everything in it contribute to a significant part of the plot. Red herrings are fine, since they act as an element of deceiving the reader for a greater purpose... but h-scenes, they are like you said, fanservice material. Food for the crotch. Even if they were intended to carry a greater purpose like @Ren'ai Arrow described, displaying the love and affection the girl has for the protagonist, too much of something still feels like filler. "Less is more," as they say in writing 101. Unfortunately, most h-scenes are just that dragged out for the purpose of fulfilling customer satisfaction. But to be honest, I don't really care, in spite of what I said above. I just wanted to get my thoughts out on the pointlessness of h-scenes and their value in a story, but I think even with these "impurities," I don't really care enough to restrict the label of "masterpiece" from eroges. I'm not that uptight. It is annoying, and I do find myself bored by them, but I guess it all comes down to a case-by-case basis after all is said and done. If the story's good enough, I might hardly care at all. I'll just say this at least, that you make a really good point here: "sell and shove them in where they don't belong." I don't like feeling like I'm being sold a product I never wanted in the first place. If I bought a VN because I expected a good story, I expect that I'm paying for 100% story, not 80% story and 20% fap material that I didn't want. So it does feel annoying that way, like I'm buying an extra hental DLC that I don't want.

Well, that's all well and good, but it certainly changes my perspective of VNs now, and not in a positive way. If the hentai scenes are as hollow as you've described, and these companies are only adding them because they're catering to the rather niche demographic of eroge players, then it also explains why h-scenes are so superficial, adding nothing of value to the story. Kinda makes me glad I skipped just about all of them, save maybe the one or two exceptions that actually have some valuable story content, but again, disappointed. Kinda cheapens the value of VNs with h-scenes, makes them look like glorified porn games with decent plot. I mean, not that I'm one to criticize porn games, since I do have my share of nukiges, but the thing is, I'm usually not proud of my fapping to these games and similar pornographic content, and frankly embarrassed by it. I see it as a human need, but not a very respectable one. So yes, I think "respect" is a good word to use here. A loss of "respect" for VNs and what they are, catering to these base needs of human nature for profit. Certainly doesn't make them as appealing anymore. Definitely more laughable if someone decides to call one of these a "masterpiece."

Well, your explanation doesn't explain why VAs are so willing to voice serious stories if they're equally embarrassed about sex and porn then. You seem to be talking about eroge players, but what "the OP" was actually talking about was the VAs, not the players. You missed my point and went a little off-topic a little there. This post - ironically enough since I had previously put him on ignore - at least answered my question, albeit to a small extent. Thanks. But it still makes me curious about their voicing sessions. I mean, this is all making voicing porn sound like something that's forced out of circumstances, AKA money. I guess you could compare it to the likes of certain actors/actresses in America who give a decent performance in movies, but were really only doing so for a quick paycheck. So I guess it makes sense that money could be enough to persuade these talents to phone in a decent enough performance, in spite of their embarrassment. But are they unhappy about their jobs? What about VAs who return for sequels, like Kara no Shoujo Episode 2? Do they just think, "Hm, I'm disgusted by my job, but I'm going to need more money anyway, so might as well." Because if the next highly-acclaimed VN I'm reading like G-Senjou no Maou is being voiced by a bunch of actors and actresses who only lent their voices out of obligation to earn money... that does put an interesting spin of perspective on my playthrough. Certainly does make the VN industry sound almost shady and not that different from the porn industry, where certain porn stars also acted out of obligation for the paycheck.

Yeah, you summed up what I was thinking writing this blog entry. It's that very different perspective in what a porn scene should be, and I just get the feeling that Japanese people might actually be more passionate and serious about sex scenes, while the more westernized viewers might think of it as something frivolous or for the sole purpose of masturbation, hardly romantic at all. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Japanese people are like that. I've read articles that they have embraced sex as something more sacred than our westernized views, so it's not surprising if they associate "love" and "love-making" with "porn" much more easily. Still, it just goes to show that there's still a lot more about the Japanese culture, anime, and VNs that the rest of the world still needs time to comprehend. It's just that fundamentally different in ideology.

Yeah, I did have a hunch it was along the lines of something like that, considering that the more popular Steins;Gate and Fate/Stay Night either didn't have any sex scenes or, in the latter case, voiced sex scenes. Grisaia was relatively obscure compared to those two. Well, it makes more sense now. Still, it's kinda funny, people being asked to voice porn games with serious plot. It's just hard to imagine, considering most American porn stars aren't really talented actresses in the first place. Sure, it's just voicing but... it's just an amusing image, voice actresses asked to act and moan. Obscure eroge actresses or not, they do still offer a decent amount of acting skill in eroge games. It's not something half-assed like in a nukige, where you could tell that the actress barely put in any amount of effort at all. You get stuff like G-Senjou no Maou or even School Days, where a certain amount of convincing emotional voice-acting is required. I guess it's because I've associated "porn" and "sex" with the more westernized kind of ideas and images that went with those keywords, so it's rather difficult for me to take "porn with serious plot" seriously. Whenever I see a "serious" VN like Kara no Shoujo suddenly pull up a h-scene on me with all the moaning that accompanies it, it's just hard to take it seriously and throws me off the story. It feels like unnecessary filler and could have easily been trimmed down to tighten the plot. So it only makes me wonder what eroge actresses must be thinking. Are they comfortable with it? Or do they simply not care? With many "eroges" having serious acting, you could hardly sum it down to companies hiring half-talented actresses for sex scenes that could easily be acted out by porn stars. Then again, on the other hand, I guess you could also say that Japanese people take their sex scenes seriously, and they put in that much effort to ensure the love-making scenes contain that much passion and believability. It's something that I could picture Japanese people thinking.

Two years ago, Warner Brothers released an adaptation of their highly controversial graphic novel, "The Killing Joke", and there was an additional scene previously non-existing in the book: Batigirl fucking Batman. Yeah, fucking Batman. Let's just call it what it is. Of course, with the kind of relationship both characters previously had towards each other (a father and daughter kind), the Internet went crazy. America went crazy. It was treated as disgusting and highly inappropriate. The film received mixed reviews and was harshly criticized. Fast-forward to 2018, when I posted my thoughts regarding Swan Song and its unnecessary sex scene. And that got me thinking about the voice-acting process... What if Tara Strong (voice of Barbara Gordon in the aforementioned film) was asked to similarly voiced a sex scene like that? Think about it. Think about the reactions of American voice actresses. "What is this? I didn't sign up for pornography." And yet, thousands of Japanese VAs have willingly put so much effort into voicing cringeworthy sex scenes for very serious stories like "The Fruit of Grisaia" or "G-Senjou no Maou". It's rather interesting how the two culture treats sex as a taboo (or not). I've always known Japan was more promiscuous when it comes to sex, being rather open-minded to it. But this comparison got me wondering about the kind of thoughts VAs must be having voicing serious dramas while still being asked to moan in orgasm. Must be an interesting voicing session. Edit: 10 minutes after writing this, I stumbled onto another sex scene in Kara no Shoujo. It's as if you'll accidentally trip into a sex scene just wandering around Japan.

Lead us not into temptation, as they say. ...annnnd I fell into it. Bought Hitman 2. Furthermore, it's the Gold Edition, costing $129. Sigh. Kinda regretted it after a few hours of gameplay. I mean, it's a great game but... it feels kinda... empty, compared to the visual novels I could have bought. All the great exploration of this sandbox game can't make up for the richness of good storytelling of visual novels. Can't refund it, of course, since it's been more than two hours. But I kinda expected this to happen. I've always been impulsive, not to mention that I'm the sort who would buy things to make myself feel better, only to have buyer's remorse soon after. That's kinda what happened last night, why I changed my mind and bought this game, to make myself feel better. And also because I thought it might have been time to move on from visual novels from now on. But Hitman 2 turned out to be a lot more stale than I expected. Its gameplay of allowing you to execute kills through multiple methods was fun enough... for a while. But it's just about as fun as solving a puzzle box through multiple methods. There's no substance to the puzzle box. It's a puzzle box, and you solve it. That's it. There's no story, no characters that would comfort you. It doesn't care if it makes you happy or sad because it's not a story that would make you happy or sad - it's a puzzle box. You solve it and you another brain, that's it. Anyway, I'm sure there are tons of other people out there who love this game and find my complaints stupid or whatever. Doesn't really matter anymore, does it? Money's gone, money's gone... Gonna look into selling my 3DS (and my Pokemon Moon game) to make up for the loss. Hope I could at least get back $100 since the screen's full of blemishes.

lol It's not just you. I make quite the king of lazy bum myself. Can't tell you how many times I stopped reading a VN in the middle of the route because my mind starts wandering somewhere else, and I ended up switching to either another VN or just YouTube-surfing. I think I have a really bad attention problem, not being able to sit still for a long period of time. Well, to be frank with you, even with my somewhat adequate knowledge of Chinese characters, there are still many complex Chinese words out there that I don't know the meaning of. It's actually hardly a surprise why people have trouble learning kanji, when I think about the more complicated Chinese words that aren't used in everyday conversations. Give me words that we use everyday and of course I would be able to recognize them easily. But if it's something more specific, especially those dealing with folklore like plotge often like to use, then I'll probably take as much time as any average westerner to learn kanji as well, especially if I have to learn the different nuance kanji have from Chinese words. That said, it is nice to hear that you could simply learn kanas under a full afternoon. That does seem to solve half of my problems learning Japanese. Despite what I said above about kanji, if I could get a basic grasp of just the everyday characters Japanese use alone, then I could read at least half of the untranslated VNs out there. So yeah, it's definitely a tempting prospect that makes me want to jump in and start learning now. On the other hand, I think it really takes practice in conversations for you to fully grasp a language. The only reason I'm able to use English as fluently as I can today is because it's a necessity, and because I've been using it for such a long time. And even then, my English is still hardly perfect. So when it comes to Japanese, to find a proper partner to have a Japanese conversation... that can be a daunting task in itself.

Yes, that thought did occur to me. Quite a number of kanji characters are actually easier to understand for me, that is correct. The only real problem I have with are the katakana and hiragana. I tried giving them a shot with basic Japanese lessons but... man, it's a real pain. It's like learning third-grade math all over again. My memory just isn't what it used to be, so to memorize those different strokes and what they mean... practically impossible for me. I fell asleep quickly every time.

Well, not forget, just agreeing with her viewpoint.

Well, "literal" or not wasn't the issue; just "looking loli-ish" would be bad business alone, since it attracts unwanted lawsuits.