Plk_Lesiak

Lemma Soft Forums is probably the first stop for anything VN related. Beyond that... Word of mouth above all? Asking other VN devs and artists you reach out to for recommendations is sometimes the best bet at finding someone available and with appropriate skillset, particularly when looking for something relatively niche (and VN art involves some rare skills beyond just being good at drawing anime characters). Edit: As to where to find devs to talk to... Apart Lemma Soft, probably discord channels are the best place? LoveVN (https://twitter.com/lovevndev) is one example, but I'm sure there's a lot more. I'm just not that much in-the-loop anymore.

This might be common knowledge, but while I was aware of VN adaptations being generally cursed, I had no idea to what extent that's true. It turns out that among top 5 worst rated anime in history, two places are taken by none other than Idea Factory and two OVA that promote some very original, totally not Evangelion rip-off PS2 VNs. Mars of Destruction and Skelter Heaven. And what treats they are, so perfect in presenting virtues of VNs to broader world: alien-fighting high school girls, male protagonists perfectly devoid of unnecessary features such as personality, extremely awkward and inappropriate romance scenarios... I can't imagine how VNs never went mainstream with such profound promotional material. ^^ Anyway, I created this shitpost of a thread to see whether anyone knows something about how these abominations came to be, or anything else about their history? They are so hilariously misguided, I can't really wrap my mind around what the people making (and funding) them thought... Particularly when they didn't stop immediately after the first disaster (although to be fair, Mars of Destruction is so edgy and over-the-top gory it's unintentionally hilarious, Skelter Heaven less so, but people still find humour in how atrocious it is). Also, I'll probably want to catch up to all the other masterpieces of Satou Yoshiteru and share my impressions... Truly an Uwe Boll-level genius, shame he doesn't transform Idea Factory VNs into real art to this day.

So, recently my GF showed me a short psychological survey about imagination and ability to visualize things in your mind. I took it and it seems like I'm in bottom 15-20% of population when it comes to those... Which explains quite a lot when it goes to my pretty ambivalent experience with reading books and the way I enjoy anime and VNs to a much larger degree. My brain is just really, really crappy at transforming words and ideas into images without some reference material at hand...

Oh, well, I personally like all kinds of artstyles, although if you'd ask me for my favourites, they'd likely turn out to not be non-anime, but more stylized/unconventional spins on anime art... Like Steins;Gate for example. The point being, I'm a weeb, I like anime-style things and most people that will ever look at a visual novel for more than 5 seconds are either like me or Japanese. From their very beginnings, Japanese VNs had a pretty strong connections to anime and they are made primarily for Japanese readers, who seem to be pretty conservative with their tastes. Non-JP VNs are made primarily for weebs, often very explicitly copying Japanese media to appeal to Western otaku. While writing about VNs I always advocated for non-JP devs to avoid being copycats, but mostly in the sense of creating their own narratives and experimenting with style. I don't think rejecting anime art is needed that much, the thing you should probably try to avoid is being generic and uninspired, which a lot of VNs (from all sources) are. Plus VNs, no matter who makes them, are currently offering very thin profit margins, sadly making anything more than mild experimentation quite a big risk. You can make a non-anime one, but unless you absolutely nail the presentation, it might very easily appeal to no one – the weebs or JP otakus won't like the departure from what they usually enjoy and the broader audience still won't find your "waifu power point presentation" interesting enough to check out. Thus, I don't think VNs can really free themselves from anime art, or have much reason to do so. They won't get meainstream any time soon, considering they didn't already and the younger generations generally have the attention spans of gerbils.

Is it legal to praise Crunchyroll on the internet? Not only is their library in my region steadily improving, they also cut the subscription costs heavily for regions without access to their full catalogue. I don't feel bad about giving them money for the first time in years... Anyway, got through some fun stuff lately! Continuing with Studio Ghibli, I've seen the legendary My Neighbour Totoro and while I understand it's a kids' movie, boy was it not for me in any way. It was mostly just two small girls screeching in headacke-inducing manner and a tiny bit of whimsical fantasy stuff that didn't amount to much overall. A beautiful thing visually-speaking and the main themes were nice, but while I'm very tolerant to narrative emptiness, this movie was a narrative void for most of the time and managed to tire me out in record time (it's actually short, especially if you exclude the OP and ED songs, but did so little in its runtime it was kind of sad...). 6,5/10? On the other hand, Princess Mononoke is a genuine masterpiece. Miyazaki definitely has his taste for environmentalist messages, but I really loved how it was delivered here, without demonizing either side or providing some overly-convenient resolution. It's also way more focused and intense than all of the Ghibli films I've seen so far, beautifully balancing the personal journey of Ashitaka and the grand conflict he's trying to mediate in. The environments and music are also spectacular, obviously not on Spirited Away or Hawl's Castle levels of refinement, but incredible for its time. With no nostalgia for Ghibli movies, this is the one that fully convinced me that Miyazaki's fame is not just all hype - basically flawless, considering what can be done with this formula. 10/10 Coming back to modern stuff, I've dug out an obscure fantasy show that really fits my tastes... At least in theory. Banished from the Hero's Party is basically all ingredients I love mixed in a very sloppy fashion. A story of two outcasts once involved in the god-chosen hero's quest to save the world, but now pushed aside and trying to find a place for themselves at the fringes of the civilized world. The protagonist is Hero's older brother, who fell behind the rest for the party in martial prowess and was convinced to leave, faking his death. On his exile he's reunited with a Princess of a militaristic kingdom, who once fought alongside the hero's party, but was forced to leave her country due to a succession dispute, becoming an adventurer. Determined to leave their pasts behind and create a new, quiet life, they try to settle down, but their pasts slowly catch up to them... The whole thing is mostly a slow-burn romance story set in a fantasy world with bullshit RPG rules... But in abstraction, I love pretty much every idea and major plot element behind it. It even manages to build up and resolve a really complex conflict around the hero within 13 episodes, without really feeling rushed or creating too many obvious plotholes. It's just... Not that well written on scene-to-scene basis. The dialogue is clunky, the romance overly juvenile for who the main characters are... It just always slips away from being that perfect chill fantasy series I'm always looking for. Still, it's IMO quite underrated - 7/10. Than, Moonlit Fantasy is such a weird, contradictory spin on isekai. Basically a combination of Konosuba (a protagonist rudely dismissed by a Goddess and cursed to be a pariah among other humans) and the Slime anime (building a nation of non-humans on the fringes of civilized world), but one that transforms from near pure comedy at first to VERY REAL at the end of the season. It might seem weird/impossible to justify on paper, but it's a really interesting form of story progression. The protagonist's journey starts whimsical and chaotic, with his incredible powers kind of auto-piloting him through various challenges... But than, as he gains influence and builds a domain of his own, he's tragically reminded of the responsibilities he bears. It all begins as a farce, as it looks ridiculous and random from his perspective, but the show is shockingly consistent in building up towards something, unlike most cheap isekais that kind of just flow pointlessly - it matures in tone as the protagonist himself is forced to mature to build a future for himself and those that rely on him. I thought it would just be a parody series after the first episode, but the story turned out quite solid by the end and I'm really interested in what the second season is going to show, as the foundation set here is really good and the source material seems highly-rated. 8/10

I think this is from a Western tour of some sorts? It seems like Yagami is one of those rare Japanese musicians that worked with Western producers and toured outside of Japan early on... And maybe I'm off, but it's hard for me to see a reason anyone would televise this, it's probably some kind of VHS or Laserdisc rip? It just circulates without context on YouTube.

Not sure I'd go that far, but the third episode was a major step up. The whole eating memories part creates a very interesting dynamic between the two girls and the protagonist, probably won't be utilized well enough to not make them all annoying AF any more, but there's some potential. In unrelated matters, with the third episode Lycoris Recoil really starts to feel like a yuri to my warped brain, but I know I'll only get disappointed if I get my hopes up... :< It should be pretty cool either way though.

Looks like Junko Yagami is one hell of a live performer. :3

There's so many ways in which one can read this statement. xD Though, holy crap, Engage Kiss is near-unwatchable even by my standards. Not sure if I can do the whole season. Overlord seems like more Overlord though, so I'm happy with it, and Lycoris Recoil is really interesting... Very weird/crazy play on anime cliches, with those high school secret agents, and will probably show a lot more sci-fi stuff than the opening episodes suggest, to explain the weird power levels. It's also an original, so for once it can't be spoiled or predicted very easily. Oh, while I'm not much of a Monogatari fanatic, I think the series peaked at Second Season in a major way. Kind of worth it to fight the initial irritation for that (although I'm very much not a fan of some of the later stuff, Kizumonogatari movies in particular). And the connections with Yokufashi seem a bit superficial, mostly some stylistic choices. That story seems a lot more straightforward and slice-of-life focused... And just night-time Japan vibes. :3

Plus summer months were always pretty quiet around here, so the extra deadness of the site is somewhat expected.

The first episode of Yofukashi no Uta was pretty much all I was hoping for. It's quirky, with a bit of Monogatari vibes, but way less horny and more cute/comedic. The dynamic between the protagonist and Nazuna is really fun and Nazuna herself is kind of an adorable dork behind the "cool vampire" facade. Plus the whole affirmation of the night theme... Lovely. ^^ Also, a possibly interesting note for @Mr Poltroon... The protagonist starts as more or less aromantic (very explicitly stating he "doesn't understand that stuff"), not sure how this changes later on, but I wouldn't expect real romance to show up very soon. :3

Oy, maybe it's an overkill to create a thread over mostly one show, but I think we're getting something quite unique this season. By that I mean Yofukashi no Uta, which seems to be mostly slice-of-life, borderline-affirmative vampire story? Is that allowed in Japanese media, vampires that aren't self-hating monsters? Exploration of the night world that is driven by wanderlust rather than horror? I don't even know how to process this. Oh, right, there's Overlord IV too. Those two should be enough to keep my will to live relatively high this season. Also, second season of Highschool of the Elite will probably be really good, but I still have to catch up on the first one...

Call me a hipster, but I'm often quite amazed with how good indie JP music can be, up to most obscure artists... At least when it goes to electronic pop, they seem to be in a league of their own. ^^

Honestly... All those games will run on a potato, anything with 3050ti should be able to max them out. On the other hand, if you're actually aiming for a 14 inch model, you're going to pay a pretty high premium for potability. Same goes for OLED screen... Especially with anime-style games, which probably won't benefit that much from the better contrast/deeper blacks. And to be honest, I only see OLED laptops with glossy coatings, even when they do not have touchscreens. That sounds awful for a gaming machine, but maybe I'm missing something? I surely wouldn't pay a premium for a non-matte screen, but also I never even considered an OLED monitor or laptop before.

Hey, I've got to watch a few interesting ones while dying from the absolute insane heat that came to Poland right now. Finally, I've started catching up on Studio Ghibli movies, starting with Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. Was pretty surprised with how whimsical and meandering Miyazaki's movies can be – it's a very different vibe than what I'm used to with serialized anime and movies that tie into those. There's a lot of beauty and wonder in those worlds, but not necessarily much "worldbuilding" or solid plotlines. More symbolism/alegorical stuff than just stories, which I guess put those two closer to classic fairy tales than to what anime usually is today. Also, it was interesting to see what a harrowing anti-war movie Howl's Castle was, with the motiff of chaotic lashing out against the injustice of it all. Easy to see how it was inspired by the Iraq War, I remember quite well the feeling of horror and powerlessness while my country jumped into the US' bandwagon back then. What seems a bit weird to me is to see how many people miss the fact that the whole story feeds into those themes, the absurdity of war and saving your own humanity in the face of conflict you are powerless to stop. Both movies are 9/10 for me, masterpieces mostly in the visuals/craftsmanship department, with actual storylines being on the weaker side, but overall very compelling. Than, going back to trash-tier stuff... Wataten. The "creepy lolicon onee-san crushes on a 10-year old girl" show. I skipped on it when it aired, as the concept seemed irredeemable, but then saw relatively positive reviews, and... Well, it's not that bad, to be honest. It's definitely a show about a lolicon, and she is very much a creep, but the way the series handles the underage characters is surprisingly not lolicon bait. Pretty much devoid of fanservice and constantly calling out how inappropriate the main character's behavior is. The comedy it also quite solid, with gags being creative and not becoming overly formulaic throughout the season. Honestly, it's way better than it had any right to be. Still a bit creepy though and labeling it as yuri kind of made it feel worse than it was (there is some very subtle subtext between the girls, but the "main" romance is so one-sided and farcical, the categorization hardly applies). 7,5/10? And ending with something recent, Don't Hurt Me, My Healer!... Is actually a decent gag comedy, that got me curious for receiving absolutely HOSTILE reception at first. It seems if someone doesn't like this kind of humour, it really rubs them the wrong way. It's a story about a dark elven "healer" who forms a party with a trash-tier warrior to mercilessly troll both him and everyone they meet along the way. It's kind of dumb, but also kind of brilliant – a pairing of a Don Kichot-like loser high on heroic tales and a borderline-malicious weirdo, in a world that mostly moved past the conflicts they could be useful for. Monsters just mind their own business, quests are trivial, and Karla, the "healer", usually seems to be the most dangerous thing around. Apparently "useless" at first, over time she's shows to be pretty powerful with different kinds of magic, including healing spells. She just can't be bothered to use any of it properly... Because where's the fun in that? Overall, a decent, absurd gag comedy with a tendency to subvert fantasy tropes in a fun way. 7/10

Riiiight, I think it was more what you told about the anime that made me feel I shouldn't watch it. Subtle differences. :3 Anyway, managed to catch up on some more of my watch-to list over the last week (including a bit of binging over the weekend) and none of it was trash! How weird. So, a very positive surprise was I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying, a comedy short about a young marriage between an otaku and a normie. You wouldn't expect an anime with 3 minute, gag-filled episodes to have much substance, but damn, it's such an on-point portrayal of young adult relationships. And on top of that, it's really good at tackling adult themes, including sex, in an unpretentious way. It's already refreshing to see a series that escapes the eternal high school drama hell, but even more fun to see a comedy created obviously for mature audiences (in the sense of relating to their life experiences, not being explicit in any way). You can finish both seasons in under two hours, but it condenses a lot of enjoyment within that runtime. 8/10. Restaurant to Another World 2 is, well... More Restaurant to Another World. Wholesome food porn mixed with fantasy, purely episodic, relaxed and inescapably making you hungry with every eating scene. It looks even better than the prequel and, despite of what I just said, manages to slowly build up its lore into a more cohesive vision of the fantasy world the restaurant is connected to, and does a bit more with interactions between patrons. What it culminates with, I won't spoil, but it's obviously wholesome and pleasant. If you're looking for low-stakes chill, definitely another 8/10. And then, Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Season 2... I think deep inside I was a bit scared of watching this one, pushing it for later all the time, as the first season is one of my most beloved pieces of anime. The second season is still REALLY GOOD and in some ways it improves on the original, but I'm slightly conflicted about it. For the positives, it tones down the fanservice a bit, especially the cursed Lucoa/Shouta sexual harassment "gags" and delves a lot deeper into the backstory of Tohru and her world. The problem is, it adds things like massive retrospective arc between Tohru and Elma, showing a very complex and deep relationship between them... But it's on the level that is a bit hard to reconcile with what the show offered earlier and the tone of the comedic interactions. Same goes for what we learn about Tohru herself... It's something that makes sense "on paper", but not something I fully buy after what we learned from her behaviour so far. It very much feels like things the writer of the source material came up with on the fly, rather than properly foreshadowed character development. And of course, the yuri stays just as vague and one-sided as ever (with obligatory arc teasing some development and bailing on it at the end of the season, as apparently every anime has to outside of those 4-5 actual yuri ones in existence). And as the last nitpick, I don't think this season had truly epic, hard-hitting moments, on the level of the fight between Tohru and her father. It's even more of whimsical slice-of-life series, but on the other hand, still a fantastic one, with on-point comedy and wonderful relaxation factor. 9/10. Also, little dragon Tohru just melted my heart and there's no coming back from that:

That's indeed not a great source of comfy vibes... It's good that Leadale's author had enough reason to couple the time skip with relevant characters being of the long-lived races. And you reminded me of the Average Abilities show that Poltroon recommended me to skip... From what I heard that might be an actual case of this brand of isekai being more annoying than relaxing.

I think at this point wholesome isekais with female protagonists are their own, major sub-genre and I'm haven't encountered one bad enough to not be enjoyable to me. It's just distilled relaxation, and there seems to be a decent market for them, considering some shows like Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear even get multiple seasons. At the same time, the absolute freakin' flood of isekais of all kind is a thing, so I understand why people get so sick of them and bash every show that doesn't introduce something fresh. Aye, and funnily enough, I haven't really seen many opinions claiming the anime is a bad adaptation, apart from it having low production quality. The main criticisms sound... quite petty? Like, overfocusing on the visuals and clear inspirations from other series and only vaguely addressing the actual content. Once more, maybe it's a loud minority of people really fed up with iterative isekais? I sympathise, but in this case the bashing feels a bit misguided.

So, I was mostly cut from internet for a bit, but I've got some series downloaded on my tablet and ended up watching some... Interesting stuff. First, The Irregular at Magic High School... What in the actual f***. I just can't get over how much this series destroys itself with its OP protagonist. Who (warning: SPOILERS!) starts as unassuming badass (more or less a Yuuji from Grisaia kind of character), but is quickly revealed to be: - A master-class martial artist, - World's best magic engineer, - Literally immortal, - Literally able to make and unmake things at will(!!!!), - Able to heal and resurrect people with minor limitations, - A living tactical nuke. So, this literal living god is shunned by his magical clan because... He's not a "real" mage. Still, his power level manages to kill all tension and cohesion in the story, as there's no challenge that... Well, would actually be a challenge for him, and there's no stakes because he can repair anything. What a freakin' mess, wasting a ton of actually cool ideas and world-building (even if the latter is often done with awkward info-dumps). Also, the incest... Is so uncomfortable that it even makes a degenerate such as myself feel distaste. With protag's powers scaled down, it would actually be pretty cool visual novel material, as a VN could do something meaningful with the imouto character and other heroines (who are, admittedly, mostly quite badass)... But as anime it's honestly atrocious. Although, I guess it looked and sounded good enough to keep me entertained at the very shallow levels. 6/10? Speaking of shallow entertainment. I also checked two isekais I wanted to watch, A Farawar Paladin an In the Land of Leadale. The Paladin show got some really bad rap, but I feel a need to defend it to some extent. It's cheaply-produced and iterative, but there are details about it that I really, really like. It's an isekai with no romance or harem, where the protagonist becomes a champion and devoted follower of a mostly-neglected deity. Maybe I'm easily amused, but the way his motivations are presented (having vague memories of dying as a hikikomori and desperately trying to make this new life meaningful – and this really plays into his decisions, like rejecting the immortality of undeath) and some of the characters he meets really left me with an impression. For example, the Bishop, head of the church in the city the protag visits mid-season... He is presented as this boorish tyrant, considered corrupt and power hungry, in contrast to his deputy. However, his first interaction with the main character suggests that there's more to his... And later he has a pretty brilliant dialogue about why he doesn't use divine blessings in public. This is NOT the kind of writing I usually see in crappy isekais. I mean, the show is still quite full of cliches and rather heavy-handed drama, but it's not trash despite of what many reviews would suggest. 7/10 Leadale... Is much less surprising, but I also think it's a bit underrated. It's a feel-good, "finding family in another world" kind of show and... Well, it just delivers. It also treats the fantasy setting in a way I enjoy, for example showing the protagonist confronting with the fact that the world she messes with is no longer just a game and her actions has very real - and deadly - consequences. There's also the pretty weird idea that the protag starts the story already having NPC children (now all holding important position withing the world) she has to deal with. It's shallow and meandering, more or less as you would expect from this brand of isekai, but outside of the children characters being too one-note I can't see a reason to hate it. If you don't mind these "pointless" power fantasies, you'll get exactly what you're singed up for – and I imagine the weak reception it got is mostly due to general isekai attrition. 7/10 if you're the intended audience. Now, I think I'll catch up with the second season of Restaurant to Another World, it's probably not healthy to just live off of amusing trash...

So, signifying my return to life after a few months of physical and emotional misery (yay!), I've starting watching bottom-tier anime again. My first choice randomly became Monster Girl Doctor, which I downloaded before the anime-watching-break to my CR app and hey, it was way less terrible than I expected! As far as harem trash can be my guilty pleasure, it can become so juvenile and shallow that it gets irritating even as brainless time waster. This anime kept a surprisingly good balance of things: episodes that focus on medical cases rather than fanservice overload, heroines with decently defined personalities and standing in the show's world... We even don't focus on the cookie-cutter protag that much, with girls interacting with each other in meaningful ways and regularly getting some spotlight. More than that, there's some passable worldbuilding involving the city where humans and monsters live together after a long war between them, and there's a really good variety of non-human races represented. Of course, it's still trash-tier (including cheap visuals and forgettable music) and can get obnoxious with its harem tropes, but I was surprised how the show maintained a nice, relaxing tone and decent pacing all throughout. Even the protagonist himself, as bland as he is, is less a clueless moron and more just too dedicated to his work to give much attention to the affection he gets. It's these kind of nuances that make the difference between unwatchable trash and arguably-enjoyable trash to me. :3 The final verdict is something like... 6,5/10? Quite watchable trash indeed! Next I wanted to check out The Faraway Paladin, another show I downloaded and never got to watch. I initially heard some good things about it, but it apparently went downhill in a drastic fashion... I'm discussing internally whether it's a good reason to not watch it or exactly the reason to watch it ASAP.

Funnily enough, I think I initially bounced off The World God Only Knows, as the initial episodes didn't showcase the show's strengths that well... The main reason I eventually got into it and discovered the emotional rollercoaster that followed (particularly in season 3) was my irrational completionist impulse. I just don't abandon shows, they only go on long hiatuses.

Grisaia immidiately comes to mind. The protagonist doesn't get flustered much, to say the least. I'm less positive about those, but I'd speculate that protagonists of Majikoi and Fureraba are more on the pervert/proactive side of things (and now I've checked, the VNDB tags seem to agree with me). With the first game being a bit more in-depth and second more or less pure comedy, but both well-written and with strong focus on the characters.