I'm back

Well, after an over a year long hiatus I'm finally back.

I was planning to make a comeback in May 11th, to make it exactly one year break, but I'm quite busy and didn't have the time until now.

To tell the truth, my otaku culture motivation is still a lot less compared when I first began this blog, and nowhere as much as it was in my consumerism peak (in the early to mid 2000's). Compared with myself 10 years ago, now I hardly watch anime (one series per season at most), almost stopped to purchase manga at all (when once I was following over 20 titles monthly), and the time I spent in videogames became less than 10 hour per week. The global economical situation doesn't help either, and the time when an euro was 170 yen was long ago...

Perhaps I must be growing too old for this, but that doesn't means that I no longer have stuff to show in this blog! In fact, the list is too large that I'm sure I'll be missing things.

I'll try to sort it by genres, the fist being:

VIDEOGAMES

The games I purchased since my last update, 15 in total.

For PC, the English version of  Saya no Uta published by Jast USA. Is my favorite VN and I was planning my purchase back when I was living in Japan but was too expensive for such a short game. I decided to buy it in English when was first announced to support western publishers when they release quality titles... they only took 2 years for an already translated and short VN...

For PS2, the regular edition of Melty Blood Actress Again. I purchased the limited edition years ago, but because the regular edition had another cover it was on my wishlist for a while.

For XBox 360, Muv-Luv Twin Pack. I was planning to purchase the PS3 release of Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative, but then I found the XBox pack with the same price for ONE of the PS3 games and includes a Figma Kagami Sumika as well. And since my XBox is my most underused console ever (purchased only to play iM@S) is a nice way to add value to it.

For the PSP, the limited box of Fate/EXTRA CCC. The game is still unwrapped, so I can't say much...

For the PS3: 428 Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de, Aquapazza, Dream C Club Complete Edipyon! and Dream C Club ZERO Special Edipyon!.
I already bought 428 for the Wii several years ago, but I was unable to play it with my unmoded PAL Wii. I was interested because of the bonus scenario written by Nasu and drawn by Takeuchi that surprisingly was the weakest scenario of the game. I really wanted to do an extensive review + summary when I just finished it (a year ago), so maybe I'll decide to do it sometime now that I'm back.
Aquapazza is a fighting game featuring Leaf/Aquaplus characters, so is like the official version of The Queen of Hearts doujin games by Watanabe Seikakusho (now French Bread). I used to like Leaf a lot and I like fighting games, so it was a no-brainer purchase.
I was interested in Dream C Club games back when was announced for the XBox, and the games where way better than I expected, if you put aside the somewhat creepy setting of a hostess club simulator. Maybe I will do a review as well...

For the PS Vita, Fate/stay night Realta Nua. With this I bought Fate/stay night for the 6th time (3 for PC: limited, regular and DVD versions and 2 for PS2: limited and budget versions) despite not having a Vita nor planing to buy one anytime soon. At least I was able to play the extra game included as a bonus, Tobitate! Chojikuu Toraburu Hanafuda Daisakusen, in the PSP.

For the PSP, the 3 versions of The Idolm@ster Shinny Festa.To tell the truth I didn't play any of them that much and the only interesting bit besides the OVAs included (that act as an opening for each game) is the brief appearance of the iM@S Cinderella Girls idols as a collectible boosts.

And finally for the NDS two games; 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Love Plus +.
I was interested in 999 mainly because the designs of Nishimura Kinu and because the writer was Uchikoshi Kotaro (writer of the excellent Ever17). I ordered it when the sequel was announced (fearing that it will became hard to find) and I ended with a reprint version. I liked a lot the whole premise and some of the fictional themes of the game, but for me the ending was a bit lacking and the "plot twist" was too similar to the Ever17 one...
And Love Plus +, that caught my attention before the release date. I've been playing this every day a bit for almost one year and it became the permanent cartridge in my NDS. My girl of choice was Manaka.

And to finalize my videogame review, last September Kubooka Toshiyuki visited Spain. He is one of my favorite character designer (I talked a bit about him in this post).

I was struggling what to bring to get it signed, and finally I decided on the first iDOLM@STER for the XBox (the cover for the second one was not made by him):

BLU-RAY & DVD

Not really that much I bought this last year, and most of it is still unopened.

-Fate Zero Blu-ray Disc Box II. Still unopened.

-TYPE MOON Fes. Blu-ray Disc Box. Also still unopened.

-Gurren Lagann Movies DVD's. Spanish edition, unopened.

-Evangelion 1.11 Blu-ray. I already bought it in DVD, but since now I have 2.22 and 3.33 in Blu-ray I bought this one in Blu-ray as well)

-Evangelion 3.33 Blu-ray. After the hype I had with the previous movie, I'm not sure if I liked this one. I need to see the last one to properly judge.

-Zettai Junpaku: Mahou Shoujo Blu-ray Disc. RAITA's self published short movie based in his original doujinshi series. Too bad is so short (less than 6 minutes), because the voice cast and the animation is great. PV below.


And that's all for today. I'll keep posting more as soon as I can.

Doujinshi loot

This is a really late review of the doujinshi received in early march:

Most of them are c79 releases from the authors I follow.

In detail:
Kikuta Kouji works (circle King Revolver): Mata Rider-san ni Nukareteru (Rider), Dopyu! to Atsumare Hana no Power (Cure Sunshine from HeartCatch PreCure!), Oppai Kikou (Selvaria from Valkyria Chronicles) and BunnyHo, featuring bunny versions of Rider and Saizaki Minori from the manga Hokenshitsu no Shinigami.

Milk Angels 1 by Kakyouin Chiroru from circle Kuro Yuki. Is the follow up of his previous titles Milk Hunters and Milk Masters, but this time moving on to the cast of Fresh Precure!

Enikki Recycle 15 compilation of A1 (Initial-G) blog entries and the bonus book Ryuugu Komachi de Dokki Doki, featuring short haired Asuza and Iori from iM@S 2 plus a 3 pages collaboration by Nekoi Mii featuring Miki.

Tsukiwani from Circle Nuruma-ya works; Dai-chan Yaku Mousou, featuring Daiyousei, Rumia and Keine and his first non-ero work Alice no Tanjoubi, starring Alice and Marisa.

T-Moon Complex EX, the latest work by Shirotsumekusa of circle Crazy Clover Club, a bonus calendar and the 4 pages omake book Arcueid Complex 0.1.

This time he didn't had enough time to do his Fate vs. Tsukihime crossover, and did a gag doujinshi of Fate/EXTRA instead. I'm glad about it, because he's much better at gag situations.

Yuzuki N' (circle Lv. X+) stuff. A doujin based in her commercial work Another World called Another Another World and the C79 releases: the Amagami books Watashi no Itoshi no Wanko-kun (featuring Ayatsuji Tsukasa and Morishima Haruka), Soen Rihoko (starring Sakurai Rihoko) and the short and Valkyria Chronicles 3 centered Omake no Rakugaki Hon.

Super Kotori Time Soushuuhen Vol. 1 from circle Konton Lady Studio. This circle is formed by two artists Tee (drawings) and DIT (story) and is focused in IDOLM@STER works. They have another circle, Chaotic Otome Studio, for their non-ero and non-IM@S works.
This is the compilation of their previous works, starring Otonashi Kotori having erotic delusions with the IM@S girls. Tee drawings are really good and his works was in my wishlist for a while, so this compilation was an instant buy.

Takemura Sessyu works from the circle Chotto Dake Aru Yo. I knew the author for his commercial work Take on Me, but it was his first IDOLM@STER doujinshi that caught my attention. Haruka to Chihaya to Producer is, as the name suggest, a competent story about Haruka, Chihaya and Producer. The girls act a bit bitchy for my tastes, but the drawings are good looking. And totally not expected, X is a futanari orgy with Ryo as the special guest. I can tolerate futa in very small doses, so I'm not sure if I want to keep buying Takemura's works...

And Mahou Shoujo Soushuuhen 2 by RAITA from circle Zettai Shoujo. I already bought the previous compilation in 2006, and I patiently awaited for this.
Mahou Shoujo is an original story about a series of magical girls fighting sex fiends. As usual, RAITA's drawings are great and keeps improving.

Sasaki, the main heroine, in her first appearance (2003).

And this is Sasaki most recent design.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 finished

Today I completely finished Valkyria Chronicles 2, after 4 months.

The main game doesn't take much time (I finished it in late September), but in the post-game you need to do A LOT of grinding in order to get all the medals. I also got all the potentials for the 62 characters available, all the titles (except for 3 that needs the multiplayer mode), all the 197 missions A ranked and with at least one of each enemy ace weapon, including the DLC ones.

That medal made me suffer a lot...

Comparing it with Valkyria Chronicles, the gameplay has been improved mostly because you can choose the leaders, the tank is much more customizable (and you can choose to not deploy it), there are 20 3rd tier classes (albeit some being way more useful than others)... However, VC1 had little to no grinding, while VC2 has way too much: you'll have to grind to get enemy ace weapons (each can have up to 3 different drops, 2 of them weapons), you'll have to farm the credits to class change each character, and the worst of it is to farm materials and weapons parts to build weapons in R&D (there are weapons parts that are dropped in only one mission, and you need to beat it over 15 times in order to get all the parts required).
At the end the game gets very repetitive and tedious, because not only you need to repeat the same missions over and over but because the non-story missions are very similar and in the same few locations...

There's also a problem with the character models. Despite the game being good looking for a PSP game, the character models uses only one male body and one female body regardless the height and weight of the character, with terrible results:

Selvaria, a busty female with a height of 175cm, shares the exact same body with Aliasse, a 150cm flat-chested loli.

The reward for all the grinding are two characters. The first one, acquired once you get 20 medals, is Juliana:

Unlocked Juliana (blue) versus Story mode Juliana (red). The pinkish shield is way more fitting for the character.

The reward for getting all the medals is Leon Hardins, the missing older brother of the main character:

Despite being the "ultimate character", is a rather mediocre lancer...

Finally, this is the top 12 in my deployment list:

Not counting the main characters Avan and Zeri, the first male character in the list is Largo, at the 23th place.

Next step: wait for the upcoming Valkyria Chronicles 3, that supposedly will fix all the bad traits of this game.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 World Artworks

Valkyria Chronicles 2 World Artworks was released a couple of weeks ago and is now in my hands.

Following the tradition set with Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks, the dust cover features a RAITA drawing with all the main characters:

The book is 304 pages long, and is heavily focused in the visuals of the game instead of the world setting like the previous one.

The contents are divided in a similar fashion. First of all there's a gallery section with original color illustrations by RAITA:

Voluptuous Juliana and Audrey.

Character section includes information for every character in the game, except the cameo ones from the first Valkyria Chronicles.

Obviously, the main characters features several more pages than the normal ones because they have more event graphics.

Also includes draft designs by RAITA. Aliasse battle suit was done with a bunny girl image in head.

More deigns. Juliana was supposed to be male at first...

And more. If is not clear yet, Juliana, Aliasse and Audrey are my favorite characters in the game..

The not main characters have two pages for each, much more than Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks, that used the same amount of pages to cover up to 6 characters.

The weapons and mechanics section includes every weapon and vehicle that appears in-game. In the photo, Audrey's Geirolul and the post-game foe Ghost Tank.

The settings for the school and the rest of the background.

The Insert Movie section consist in screen-shots from the cut scenes compared with the storyboard. I omitted the adjacent page to avoid massive spoilers..

And finally, the last part shows early designs for the class G members. In the photo, Sophia and Magari.

Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks

The other book that I purchased at beNippon was Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks, a massive 400 page artbook released last January.

The gorgeous cover illustration, featuring most of the Squad 7 members, covers all the dust jacket. The full picture can be found here.

The amount of data included is incredible. Every minimum detail is heavily explained with tons of visual data in an almost obsessive fashion... last time I saw such love in a videogame artbook was in Xenogears Perfect Works.

The book is divided in several sections: story, characters, weapons, military affairs & natural history, geography, illustrations, pre-production material and interviews.

Story explains the game plot chapter by chapter. Includes a map for each mission and the two plot related DLC are also briefly included.

In the characters section, every main character include a few pages of character bios with pictures and settings.

After the character data, there's a section of design works, with rough sketches and the great artwork of RAITA.

Some characters includes pictures from earlier pre-production stages, like Alicia...

...or Selveria, that was originally short haired.

At a point in the inital pre-production stages, Alicia was a loli.

Sadly, the non-plot related characters are included only with a brief sentence for each.


The weapons section includes an entry for each type of tank and machines. Some details are really amazing, like how to read the tank license plates info, that in the case of the Edelweiss is somewhat different because it was custom made.


Military affairs section consist mostly in entries for the weapons and uniforms. In the picture, early Imperial soldiers designs, heavily influenced in Nausicaä, carrying some weapons that were later re-used for Valkyria Chronicles 2.


Geography includes settings for the locations.

The comparatively short illustration section includes all the artwork used in advertisements and magazines.

And the last part of the book explains the initial pre-production stage of the game, when was called Gallian Panzers.

Character designs from the time: Welkin, Alicia (called Alma at that point) and a kind looking Captain Varrot.

Initially, the discriminated race was the "beast people" instead of the Darcsen. In the right part of the picture, a shockingly young Rosie and Faldio.

Overall, this artbook is really a must have for any Valkyria Chornicles fan.