Random Works: Just an update to the blog

Just checking to make sure whether you're really alive or not.

… to prove that I’m very, very alive right now. Just that I feel not bothered to do any updates to the blog since the past few… err, weeks maybe.

Autumn 2008 Wrap-ups: Toradora!, Index, and Clannad After Story

So I have finished watching these three anime, although I’m too lazy to wonder whether OVAs will be out or not. But what’s finished is finished, time to wrap ‘em all up and anticipate the next season coming. And it’ll be brief.

Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus

And so I randomly lurked and posted around the Net and find this neat stuff for a… um, freak like me…

An interesting find.

There you go. Title is: Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus.

So, what is this shit?

Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus is, a game, obviously. And it’s for the Nintendo DS (WHY!!!!?? I WANT IT TO BE IN PSP! But it’s fine by me though). Now what is it all about? It tells of our hero (he’s unnamed, so if you guys get the game, PUT ANY NAME YOU WISH FOR HIM! By the way, he’s designed by Kuroboshi Kouhaku, Kino no Tabi’s illustrator) who, along with his childhood friend Kizuna Kasugai (illustrated by Noizi Itou. This Kizuna girl is a novel freak XD), attends a fictional high school called Dengeki Academy (school name is obviously because of the game title).

From left to right: Our unnamed Hero and Kizuna Kasugai.

One day he accidentally discovers rumors of a ghost which have been appearing late at night in the schools recently. Although he’s actually uninterested in so-called ghost stuff he actually uses the story as an excuse on a night where he attempted sneaking into the school. But somehow Kizuna discovers him (I think that’s what happened, I never had a chance to take a personal insight of how the storyline goes) and when she heard that our Hero here is going to look for the ghost, she with her craze for the supernatural intended to follow along with him. And so they went for a lookout for the said ghost…

They searched until they came to a bench in front of their campus’s store, and from there they got to the door of the store and opened it. In the darkness they saw a silhouette of someone moving inside there. After a hard time trying to pierce the darkness with a normal eyesight our Hero found out that the silhouette is eating something like a Meronpan and deducts that this is the ghost that people that the people have been talking about…

And the ghost is, when we speak of Meronpan it’s of course…

Hero: “ZOMGWTFLOLBBQ!?” Kizuna: “OMG IT’S SHANA~~!!!11one” *fangirl mode ON* Shana: “*munch munch munch* LOLWUT? *realizes who discovered her inside* O HAI.”

YES! IT’S SHANA.

And from Shana they discovered that there has been some shit going on that makes the novel worlds and the real world to become interconnected towards each other enabling people from each realm to cross over to another and so. Apart from that, they discovered that this is the works of an evil organization called Zetsumu whose aim is “to snatch away the smiles from every person”. So along with Shana and several other heroines from the other 7 novels involved (I am not sure but from what I hear it’s not going to be only 8 as how the main site indicated, but somehow dozens of them from the novels), our Hero and Kizuna began assisting them in their quest to combat Zetsumu’s evil aims.

So THIS is what you’ll be fighting for… I mean, not achieving what you see in this pic. THE GAME IS ABOUT PREVENTING THIS! Recognize the silhouettes? If you do then get ready to play Hero-kun.

That’s how the story goes.

Character page from the game’s official website. And who do we see here…? It’s Shana (Shakugan no Shana), Kino (Kino no Tabi), Kana Iriya (Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu), Index (To Aru Majutsu no Index), Dokuro-chan (Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan), Aisaka Taiga (Toradora!), Nogizaka Haruka (Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu), and Minakami Misao (Asura Cryin’).

At first I thought the game will be turn-based, but it’s not. You have some combos to perform with each character you use and every single one of them will have their specific weapons and/or abilities to fight against enemies (So you guys think Haruka can’t fight. Remember ‘o’ remember, that she can, just look at the earlier parts of Nogizaka Haruka series), and from what I see from sample screenshots our Hero can also jump into the fight, although I am not sure what he can do.

Screenshots? Ask and I will give. (Oh snap this is going to take me hell of a time doing this!!!)

I chatted with a particular friend about this and his comments were: “This game… urg. For the promos, looks like as if the original illustrations were copypasta’d into it, doesn’t show any interaction between the characters… and the in-game graphics looks like… I’m having some RPG Maker flashbacks here, no offense. I’m not a graphic whore and knowing the game’s platform is for an NDS I couldn’t expect much, but still… the graphics looks like the old SNES, they could’ve done better. And if only the illustrators for the series go into a collabro doing one single promo poster for the game maybe I’ll have a different impression on the game itself.”

“I actually hate water but I like swimming.”

I don’t have any positive or negative views on the game myself, as I set myself to being neutral until I manage to get my own hands on it and try out the game myself. Seeing that this is the first ever crossover I’ve ever heard – well, not the first time hearing “crossover” in general but if it’s these novels – THEN THAT’S MY FIRST TIME EVER. I wonder how each character will interact with each other and what will the storyline’s outcome be (MOST IMPORTANT!).

I do hope there’ll be a brand new promotional picture showing the characters interacting with each other, though. But, as far as I recall there’s one or two fanarts depicting the game itself…

Okay end of story. It took quite a long time for me to write this one whole article about a simple game…

Sources: Wikipedia, GameWatch Japan, Official Game Site

Links: Wikipedia Entry | GameWatch Japan | Official Game Site |

Trailer (I just got this so yeah sorry):

Every sources I use here is copyrighted to their respective orders. (I’m too tired to cite source names any more!!!)

Fall 2008 Anime: First Impressions (Update no. 1)

I promised myself some review stuff in my own blog and here I go as another stuff I promised myself.

So I picked up lots of new series and, much to my rejoice, there’s much to enjoy since Summer 2008 which only got me following up 2 series (at first it was 3 with Sekirei included but later I dropped it before I discovered the might of my main campus’s own Internet. Still, I left it dropped). And here’s my piece of mind for these series:

Toradora!: They stayed true to the novels (sorry earlier that was a mistake), however it seems that they’re rushing it a bit. Art style isn’t so satisfactory but isn’t a pain in the eyes to see. And Kugimiya Rie as Taiga complements Rie’s Round Table of Loli-ish Tsundere which is now occupied by the likes of Nagi (Hayate no Gotoku), Shana (Shakugan no Shana) and Louise (Zero no Tsukaima) and such, although this time Taiga is actually more towards of a dojikko (clumsy girl) than a tsundere.

Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka: With loads of famous VA I don’t know what the studio is thinking. However it managed to please me nevertheless; or is it that I’m such a sucker for a visual-novel-into-anime adaptations, moreover a harem one at that? And again, Rie is our star playing Yuuhi Katagiri, a yet another tsundere although she turned into one quite late in the first episode unlike the others who’re already a natural tsundere.

Kannagi: Awesome Nagi is awesome. At first I simply put my lowest expectations for the anime, but seeing the first episode I think I got to slap myself for not acknowledging how good it was. Long live Nagi-sama! Oh, by the way Nagi’s starred by Haruka Tomatsu, who sings the OP and ED as well as (formerly) Lala’s voice in To-LOVE-Ru.

Shikabane Hime Aka: I was actually looking for some “psychological chemistry of boy and girl” (romance of course) between the two main characters, and although hopes were faint I don’t blame the story for it’s main themes were supposed to be what it is meant to be: you see a zombie girl being “killed” first before she gets back from the dead killing her “murderers” with a dual machine gun. Wait, what? DUAL MACHINE GUNS? Oh yeah, dual MAC-11 for the win.

To Aru Majutsu no Index: Again another underestimation from me. First episode was awesome, and man I can’t have Komoe-sensei, Index and Misaka out of my heads. Especially Komoe-sensei. Argh, her cuteness and the whole anime itself killed my will to drop the series

Yozakura Quartet: Plus this, I think I may have misunderestimated the coming of this season’s titles a bit too much. I usually pass over the OP since I don’t like waiting for the OP to end, however, the BGM used for this anime is… I LOVE GUITARS ROCKIN’ ‘EM HARD, PERIOD. And this is what held this anime special to me. I don’t quite favor the art style for both the anime and manga (possibly another reason I stayed away from this series at first, apart from the title which makes this anime sound as if it’s about a group of four playing violin/cello/etc together in an orchestra band) but later everything I looked as bad vanished when I evaluated my overall first impressions for this series, just like that. And the initial information I first gathered for this anime… man I WAS TRICKED! Akina does seem to not have any power but that’s actually a facade. And currently there’s no “chemistry” I can hope yet for this anime although there’s hope for it (HELL YEA). So this definitely goes into my watchlist. Yeah!