Cyrillej1

I think it might be hard to have a true platonic friendship if either one finds the other 'attractive'/date-able. Then add feelings of closeness, and it's bound to make one or the other think of possibilities (unless for some reason, it can't happen, ex: already in a relationship, not right time to get involved, etc). I think a friendship between a boy-girl is possible, but either you never find each other attractive enough in the first place to be date-able and stays that way, or later on own up to the feelings of attraction but choose to move past it so you can maintain the friendship the way it is.

Seems like we do~, I used Touma with the tank & archer first.. but then I switched over to Cyrille and used the two little mages. Which was your favorite Ar Tonelico? My favorite was the first one, and I liked Misha. It got me interested because it had something similar to a dating system to get closer to the girls, and also some funny/weird innuendos, lol. I like that kind of moe stuff though ;o The one thing that bothered me a bit about the first game was that it almost had no interactions between the two girls like they didn't try to get to know eachother and become closer, so Ar Tonelico2 was better in that aspect. I never finished Ar Tonelico3 because, frankly did not like the battle system.. it was a bit boring to press a single button the whole time and wait for song charge.

Exa~ctly, I think that's how I got burnt out on it too, because I spent too much time doing dungeon fights and exploring instead of going straight for the storyline. My Cyrille character is so overpowered now, all I do is run around with a firewall around me and all the monsters drop on contact... lol. I think a few weeks ago, I tried continuing it, and the same thing happened again, haha. I get addicted to the monster smashing & exploring and then I get bored.. baad. Not to mention, I get sort of obsessed with equipment customizing... too many loots drop! My perfectionism gets in the way of my gaming sometimes.

Lol, it's true I have the avatar but I actually haven't completed the game yet. xD I just kind of dropped it for some reason, but not because I didn't like it. Probably got interested in others at the time.

1) Xenogears (PS1) Still is my number1 favorite even after I've played so many others growing up. I really liked the fighting system, characters, and complicated/weird storyline.. played it over about 4x. 2) Xenoblade (Wii) I felt totally immersed in it and the world felt so huge to me. It was fun exploring and I enjoyed the fighting style, equipment change, and characters/story. I had over 100hours gameplay in it.. that's how addicted I was. I tried to do all sidequests, and kill all the rare monsters. 3) Dragon Age (I & Origin-PS3, II-PS3) 4) Fire Emblem (Genealogy of the Holy War -SNES, The Sword of Flame -GBA, Path of Radiance -Gamecube, Radiant Dawn-Wii, Awakening-3DS) 5) Suikoden (I-PS1, II-PS1, III-PS2, V-PS2) 6) Corpse Party (Blood Covered-PSP, Book of Shadows-PSP) 7) Persona (3 FES-PS2, 4-PS2) Danganronpa (PSvita) 9) 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (DS) & Zero's Escape: Virtues Last Reward (3DS) 10) Fatal Frame (I-PS2, II-PS2, III-PS2) Honorable Mention - Arc The Lad: Twilight of the Spirits (PS2) This game seems to be quite overlooked, but I personally thought it was really awesome. I loved the tactical fighting style, and the characters made the story very enjoyable. Ahh but I like so many more like the Star Ocean series, Ar Tonelico series, Tales series, Atelier series, Final Fantasy series, Legend of Heroes series, etc.. too many.

Almost sounds like me! Anyways, welcome to the forums, and enjoy your stay!~

yay, another japanese learner -high fives!- welcome~

It's okay, I was stalkerish for a long while before I joined too~ Welcome and enjoy!

Hi Simon, hope you enjoy it here ^^

Hi Bay, welcome to the forums! ~

Hello, welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy it here.

Hi, welcome to the forum I like your avatar pic. It's pretty!

Yay someone recognized where the wallpaper was from! I really like your desktops, especially because the green pops out and the girl looks cute too

Here's mine~

The ending of Code Geass made me cry... bawling. But I think the most memorable tearful ending I seen was from Full Moon wo Sagashite. It's been a long time, but it was very heartfelt that I still recall it being the best. (Even though I don't remember the ending clearly anymore, I can still remember the feeling I had).

I saw that as well.. I have no idea what it's about though except it's linked to the xblaze fighting games? I may get it just to support more visual novel-like games coming here. I've kinda wondered.. why do they have Otome visual novels like Hakouki, and Sweet Fuse.. but no novel games geared towards males? I know there are some that have gameplay in it such as Atelier Tonelico, and such.. but none that are pure novel games. Unless I've missed them?

going through this thread... gaaahhh cuteness overload -explodes-

9/10 I love the color green, and she's very cute! not sure what that swirly thing is though xD -oops i posted the same time as astro, lol- I give astro a 7/10, just because I'm not a big fan of the color red.. The girl looks kinda cool and mysterious though!

Can't...wait.. for.. this.. to.. come.. out... ahhhh! I wonder if the singer is the same for the openings of the previous Corpse Party games. I really like all the openings/songs. I'm glad this game seems to go back to playing the character and in 3D! I didn't really like the 1st person view for the 2nd game...

I started out trying to self-study.. bought myself these books book (Genki I & Genki II) -holy crap they are so cheap now - I didn't go through it all, but the layout was easy to understand and gave me a basic understanding... I personally think they are pretty good. It starts with a simple story/dialogue, then a list of vocabulary, and grammar points that were used. Once you learn the grammar/vocabulary, you can reread the story and it will make sense if you learned it correctly. There are a few kanji in the back of the book that you can learn, but there is Furigana to help if you haven't learned them yet. Each section will also have practice sections. The only problem I think is that the grammar examples may be very limited (sometimes only 1 or 2 sentence example on how to use them). Later on, I did take an actual class in Basic/Elementary Japanese during college.. the books we used were (Nakama 1a\1b & Nakama 2). I realized my self-study wasn't sufficient enough in my speaking. So I highly recommend that if you self-study, at least have a native japanese speaker to correct your speech and practice with, or listen to audio CDs of how things are supposed to be said. That kind of stuff can be hard to pick up if just solely relying on reading the grammar book. I think the Nakama series was a bit more complicated to learn from, especially without an instructor to explain but it seemed to have more examples. The setup layout was similar to the Genki series. Note: from my experience taking a japanese class will not automatically make you become good at speaking/reading once you complete the class. If you want to get good, a lot of time you will have to study on your own, especially the Kanji if you want to be able to read. They go over it in class but not in detail. The class mostly helped me practice speaking, and use correct grammar when talking with others. It was helpful to have someone correct me when I used/said something wrong. But as far as reading with kanji well & methods on how to memorize them, that's mostly something you have to work on yourself. The Anki flashcards really helped me personally when studying Kanji. I made up little stories for each Kanji, sometimes making them really ridiculous so I could remember them. Just have to find your own way to help review Kanji. I found it best to learn vocabulary along with a new Kanji, instead of learning them on their own. And if you've built up on Kanji, you'll start to notice how much easier it can be to memorize vocabulary (won't seem like bunch of mumbo jumbo all sounding alike anymore). So by learning Kanji, it'll definitely help learn some vocabulary and retain its meaning (even ones you haven't seen before). uhh.. sorry if that was long. Just wanted to give an idea of how I personally started if it could help. I think the Genki Books would be good for a beginner (there is about ~400 kanji that can be learned from the Genki series).. I've also heard good things about the Elementary Dictionary Grammar book (but haven't used it personally). I definitely recommend using Anki for review since it helps keep all your cards organized (it will grow huge). Oh as for a Kanji book, I recently found the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary .. and it's very nice. Has all the jouyou kanji in it as well as many vocabulary examples, and no romanji. Those Japanese books can get pricey though.. So here's also a free site with grammar lessons which seems quite popular - Tae-Kim's Grammar Guide.

The last game I finished was Danganronpa (PSvita), and almost done with Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God (PSvita). I also bought a couple games on psn when they had a big japanese rpgs special sale.. Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, and Time & Eternity for PS3. But I haven't really played them yet. I also recently bought Mugen Souls for PS3. I've been wanting to buy Monster Monpiece that just came out for the PSvita... There's also Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC coming out on the PC that I want to get coming out soon.... I'm sooo looking forward to it! -excitement!- Gahh, too many games that I want to play but haven't really gotten around to it. I kind of have a bad habit of collecting rpg games that look interesting

It's probably not the first anime I saw, but the one that got me really interested in watching other anime was Record of Loddoss Wars... and I've been in love with kingdom type anime ever since. But I guess I was already into that sort of stuff because of constantly watching Hong Kong movies too, lol. I looovvveeedd Deedlit. Liking RoLW also influenced my interests in RPGs.. or it could have been the other way around. I can't even remember what the first manga I read was.... I don't think I even read manga until way later because I didn't know about it. Found out people could read ahead of the anime, like Naruto.. and that's what I started to do too.. that's when I found other stuff I could read. -ooh I think I remember now- I had borrowed a Chobits manga from a friend, and really enjoyed it. That's when I became aware about them. I didn't know about reading them online until Naruto- I just loved the stories and characters in anime. As a lover of fantasy genre, anime had so many good/deep stories that fit with my interests. Some of the first animes that got me totally hooked were Record of Loddoss Wars (which I rented from a movie store), and shows that used to play on tv like Escaflowne, Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, DBZ, etc. Even though some people may consider anime as childish cartoons, I knew that wasn't really true because the stories could be so meaningful/amazing even adults could enjoy/learn from it. I guess being a video gamer also ties with being interested in anime since they can be similar (story-telling).

Ahh, thank you very much Astro!!! -hugs- It's similar to what I had translated, but wanted to make sure it was right. Oh, thank you @Mephisto too I didn't see yours until later after xD.

I've been going over this sentence... but just having trouble with it. It just sounds kind of strange to me, so I wanted to check. Main character (observation): 見た目の幼さと対照的な冷めた瞳に引きつけられる。 Here's the scene if it may help make more sense (some spoilers) Thanks!

So cute~. Now I'm curious about this Nico Yazawa character -has to look up the anime!- Welcome to the forums!