corwinr's Blog

October 2nd, 2010

My Item Shop Tale

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In an age where games with highly polished graphics and DEEP plot dictate the market mostly, came one of the games which didn't meet both of those requirements and gained instant popularity (in some circles at least). Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is a highly addictive game developed originally by EasyGameStation and released in English by Carpe Fulgur. I am still surprised it took me like two weeks or so to start writing about this nice game.

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Capitalism, ho! One of the trademark catchphrases from the game

At first glance it becomes obvious why the game became popular among certain masses, the cute anime styled characters and graphics. So what's the deal with the game? It's a JRPG game divided in two segments, one of them where the main character Recette has to keep an item shop in business to pay off the large debt her father left her. Almost anything can be sold in the shop from minor food items like candy to treasures made of gold or super ordinary fancy weapons and armor. There's a huge variety of items really, and as you progress as a merchant and buy (yes you even buy things from people) or sell items your merchant level which is highly beneficial to you as the game goes on providing many additions from shop expansion, fusing items and much more.

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Nagi <3

The basic way to obtain items for your shop is to buy them in the local merchant guild and market but there are other ways too. As I've mentioned before you can buy items from people and fuse them, fusing two items can provide you with very good items which you can sell at a high price. As Recette's merchant level goes up so does the possibility of fusing a bigger variety of items. There's alsp another way of obtaining items which introduces the second segment of the game which is basically a classical dungeon crawling rpg.

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Since my friend was lazy to get me screeshots how the dungeons looks like and me even more for not doing it myself there will be only pictures of how the characters are cute and I'll just brag about my merchant level derp

Since Recette is like 10 years old she can't go herself killing monsters and facing danger so the player hire adventurers which do the job. All adventurers are characters which are unlocked by some events in town or you meet them adventuring through the dungeons and you have to fight some of them to gain their favor. Even then, they have to visit your shop so you can receive their Adventurers Guld Card which allows you to hire them. The adventurers also possess an experience level which logically you increase by killing monsters you face in the dungeon while questing. There is a variety of adventurers and they each have unique fighting styles/techniques and equipment. You can equip them with your own items while adventuring and the developers added an interesting detail which allows adventurers to have the items which they buy from your shop as their default equipment.

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A joke about religion, in my loli capitalism game!?

There's also some side story beside the main one where your only objective is to pay of the debt which is monstrous as the first few week go by. After finishing the maing game you continue on in Endless Mode where all profit you make remains your only and some pretty neat extra stuff get available, like extra dungeons, items and even one of the adventurers who you can't obtain unless beating the main game. Also some game modes like survival and new game + become available but in my opinion those are more for perfectionists than for casual gamers, still that gives the game a high replay value.

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What the- You do realize this is a G rated game...

One the of the things people may find bothersome (beside the moeness of the characters) is the super silly dialogues. Phrases like "Yayifications" "Stained Glass Yayness" and such are oftenly used and frankly they made me laugh and it made the game more enjoyable. There's also the fact that only a small number of different monsters can be found, I'd say around 10 types or so and as the dungeons get harder they only change color and get enhanced stats. Though if you take in consideration that the whole game is only 500 mb or so, you can't help but admire how the game developers fused all that into this small package.

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Griff is not amused by your moe phrases

Personally I really liked this game, it certainly isn't the best game I ever played but it was very enjoyable. I still have to level up my merchant level (currently on 26) and obtain some of the ultimate weapons/armor for the adventurers but it's nothing to be in a rush about. A recommendation for all anime/JRPG fans to at least try and play it, it's very simple (you basically use only directional buttons and a couple of more and it's playable on the joypad) yet so addictive.

September 9th, 2010

Sexy gals with fungi, Females violating men and much more

So it's been a week now since I wrote something here and it's been a pretty much slow week if I may say so. I've been planning on watching some movies in tribute to the late Satoshi Kon but somehow I watched some totally unrelated movies... One of them being Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for the first time even and some OVAs which were mostly side story material related to some stuff I've watched earlier. Let's get to business then.

Only Yesterday

One of the who Ghibli movies which I watched and was pleasantly surprised by them considering I'm not much of an Ghibli fan and their movies boring me in most cases.

This movie involves a 27 year old OL getting a vacation and going to the countryside so she can be a village girl and do agriculture like the rest of the folks do there. As someone who actually lives in a village I have to say that the idea of "town folks" coming to a village except to kick back and relax is just plain silly. Working in the fields and such is mostly abhorred by city people, there are exceptions but this just as well be only me ranting how people from cities look down and with stereotypes on people who live in villages.

Things that really surprised me (except the fact that I actually liked the movie) were the landscape and the music. Some of the landscapes really reminded me of the nature and surroundings where I live and a region in my country calleed Šumadija. The funny part was the music and the OST overall which was composed of several Serbian folklore songs where some of them were even performed authentically by a chorus.

Overall the movie was solid, they overdid the part with Taeko's flashbacks a bit and that probably didn't allow much development in the present time but all in all it was ok.

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No sexy pic for this one, instead here's a moe Taeko pic

To Love-Ru OVA

I'd be lying if I said To Love-Ru was one of my favorite shows but like all the other ecchi/comedy/"romance" shows it has some appeal. The ecchi part was like in the TV series, pretty much light and more focused on the comedy part than the erotic concept even though it had it's fair share of nudity involved. There were some new characters introduced (Lala's younger twin sisters Momo and Nana) and there was little added to the story of the TV show.

Some moments in the OVA were pretty boring but the good part about it was there was more Mikan :3 and even Golden Darkness had her fair share of screen time though not as much a I'd like :/.

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Fusion HA! The best scene in the whole OVA

Rito was teh biggest pimp yet again and even though he was annoying for the most part of the episodes he remains elusive in that aspect to the main character of the next OVA I'm going to talk about...

Kanokon OVA aka Kanokon ~Manatsu no Dai Shanikusai~

I guess most people know or have heard about this TV show. So I'll be blunt about it. It sucks. It's somewhat of an sequel to the TV show but it has really small to offer, even in comparison to To Love-Ru. Before I watched these OVAs I was thinking what TV version of them I enjoyed more, since I didn't find a clear answer I decided to do a bit of reminding what I liked and didn't watching the OVA's. And I did remember.

The main character Kouta is a high schooler who is actually a 10 year old kid, make that a 8 year old kid. You can't expect a mature or developed main character in this kind of show but common, this guy acts like a baby. I like Noto Mamiko voice roles but when she actually voices a female character, her voicing a shota is just :/.

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Decided to go for the least revealing pic, the official cover...

This kinda reminded me of the Ladies Versus Butlers specials which have even more nudity but somehow they aren't as tasteless as Kanokon is.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

This was by far the most pleasant surprise as I said before in the previous week of my anime watching. Most people praise Ghibli movies and I know they possess quality it's just that they are not my cup of tea. Nausicaa was different.

In the post-apocalyptic world people have survived somehow but still haven't learned their lesson from the past as they continue to harm each other and the nature. In the dark times such as these there are rarely such strong and enthusiastic characters such as Nausicaa. I laughed a bit when I remembered a somewhat similar story in Chrome Shelled Regios where the world was also destroyed by giant bugs, though unlike in Regios where there are a lot of mysteries surrounding them, the bugs in this case are the guardians of nature.

Nausicaa is a really strong character, there's rarely such a strong character and I'm not talking about those "badass girls" who go dere dere over some dork, this is real strength of character I'm talking about, to pull out something you believe in no matter the price.

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Hey there Nausicaa, looking pretty sexy eh?

I'll prorobably check out the manga since the movie covers some 2 volumes of it and the setting really seemed intriguing.

Utawarerumono OVA/Picture Drama

With the 3rd episode of the OVA and the picture drama comes an end to the wonderful franchise that Utawarerumono is. As me not being quite a fantasy fan or not being a fantasy fan at all better to say Utawarerumono is one of the best representatives (beside Scrapped Princess) of this genre in my opinion.

The material show in the OVA and picture dramas had a pure side story character. Some of the events were shown partly in the game (like the first episode with Urutoriy finding a baby) with the lack of H scenes naturally.

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Hakuoro was quite a stud in the games, now the girls come back for payback violating him with onions!

There wasn't much action except the "fight" with Urutoriy and Touka's one-sided win against the forest/mountain guardian. For people who liked the daily life aspect of Utawarerumono and the franchise in general the OVA might turn out to be quite a pleasant watch, the 3rd picture drama was a bit of an letdown since I expected a bit more of Karura's history revealed but you can't have everything I guess （￣へ￣）

So that's it more or less, I should mention maybe the 2nd Break Blade movie since it's pretty decent but I'll give it a wider coverage for the first half of the 6 movies once the 3rd one is out. For now I'll just post a reason (at least one of them) why people should watch Break Blade

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So that would be it for today, I guess I'll go and continue watching Higashi no Eden until some work rises up, since it's one of those super popular shows which I didn't watch yet.

August 26th, 2010

New entry, Fall season preview and other stuff

So I haven't been writing anything lately on my little blog, one of the reasons is that I'm busy (excuses excuses) and/or waste my time socializing with people whether that be in real life activities or IRC/MSN w/e. I also waste a good ammount of time watching anime, earlier some time ago I decided to pick up on One Piece again since my brother nagged me a bit about it and we made some good progress watching almost 300 episodes or so. Given that and the ongoing shows I follow from this season, I had very little time for older finished anime.

So about the next season of anime, there was this little "incident" if I may call it so involving troll charts for the fall or autumn (which is rarely used by most MAL users it seems) season. The first time that gave suspicion is that the charts came unusually early, almost the same time as the summer season started. Even if you leave that aside, the content of those charts was rather intriguing.

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One of the troll charts in question, some of the shows like Claymore, Baccano and such really do get your attention eh

The result of those charts is obvious, some people got overly enthusiastic, others got less and all of them got disappointed when they found out or confirmed that the charts are fake. Personally I held very little or better say almost none hope for the charts to be real. Some of them contained sequels of Full Metal Panic!, Skip Beat, Berserk and so on... In the same season? How many people would actually buy that?

And now for the real fall chart which appeared on Chartfag's blog. There is a little number of things that can be taken as a constant when it comes to anime info outside of official circles and sites like MAL, AniDB, ANN and such (even they make mistakes sometimes >.>), but one thing is for sure, when a chart appears on Chartfag's blog page you know it's not a fake and those shows will be aired unless they get delayed or canceled. Now for the real chart.

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The difference is quite obvious it seems

So what do i plan on following? Luckily, most of the shows from this season won't have more than 12, 13 episodes and be prolonged into the next one which was a bit of a problem for me with 5 or 6 shows still being aired from the spring season.

Must watch:

Bakuman - Since mist people say this show will be somewhat of an spectacle and the manga has the same author as Death Note this must be checked out. Also J.C. Staff is my fav studio beside Shaft so it's automatically auto-watch mode ON for me.

Arakawa Under the Bridge 2 - Loved the first season + Shaft. M U S T.

Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru - I always hada a thing for shows involving maids even though some of them were really khm not so good to say and it's done by Shaft. I expect this to be something like Natsu no Arashi! without the time traveling shenanigans.

A Certain Magical Index 2 - The first season was very enjoyable in my opinion and a pleasant change of pace for a shounen show even though it still had some cliche moments like Touma wanting to be friends with people only after they've met and such. J.C. Staff.

The World God Only Knows - Wanted to check out this manga for some time now but then suddenly the anime got confirmed and so I'll go with the anime first. Concept seems to be a bit original, emphasizing on the bit part.

Sora no Otoshimono 2 - The first season turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me since I was expecting it to be a disaster. Besides the flying pantsu and similar antics it had to offer a bit more. The way the first season ended the sequel was imminent so they gave it a green light.

My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute - I know... This will probably turn out to be one of the more hated shows of the season, being a light novel adaption it has an equal hit/miss chance so we'll see. I hope the sister will really turn out to be that cute @_@.

Will watch most likely:

Star Driver: Radiant Takuto - Since seeing how this show will have awesome staff working on it it looks like good for checking out. The only thing that bothers me about it is the Xam'd: Lost Memories vibe I'm getting from it, the same studio is involved also. I realize most people liked Xam'd but I wasn't one of them, tastes do differ indeed but I'll check it out probably.

Otome Youkai Zakuro - I don't know what to make out of this one, J.C. Staff is doing the show but the combination of Youkai and Nazi style dressed soldiers on the cover leaves me in confusion. "Don't judge the book by it's cover", so I'll go with it and try it out.

Psychic Dective Yakumo - This will probably be more targeted at the female part of the audience with bishies and Daisuke Ono voicing the male lead so there's not much to add I guess. It will be worth checking it out for the mystery aspect and maybe the art but Bee Train is working on it so that has to be taken into consideration...

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt - Staff from TTGL working on something that looks like the Powerpuff Girls meant for an more adult audience with a lot of violence and sexual references, now that's interesting. I don't fancy most Gainax projects even though I've liked TTGL but I hope this one will end up being a smashing hit. I didn't put it as a must watch because depending on how well it goes I may end up archiving and watching it after the show ends.

Maybe yes, maybe not:

Tantei Opera Mikly Holmes - Four girls aspiring to be detectives in a city with phantom thieves? A better look at the girls in question gives an impression that this one will be as dangerous and violent as the crew of Shukufuku no Campanella is with their quest solving. It is a J.C. Staff show so I'll check it out if it doesn't turn out to be a total disaster.

MM!- A meh sounding light novel adaption, not so much interested atm but who knows?

Fortune Arterial: Red Promise - VN adaptations have a lesser chance of success than light novel adaptations and this one seems not to have anything spectacular or innovative to offer. It may turn out to be at least decent so it's a maybe.

To LOVE-Ru 2 - Watched the first season and wasn't too impressed to say even for a fanservice show. Golden Darkness and Mikan were cute (NOT IN A SEXUAL WAY JUST SO IT SHOULD BE KNOWN) and the other girls were fine too, if I get around watching the OVA before the 2nd season starts I may follow it as an ongoing.

Just No

Ironman - With all due respect to the comic fans and people who are fans of the cartoon adaptations in question, anime adaptations of American comics will most likely turn out to be horrible or below average. Even if taken into consideration that Madhouse will be doing the project it probably doesn't help. Look at Heroman, Bones is an awesome studio but it turned out to be lame.

Togainu no Chi - I've had my fair share of BL with Uraboku and I must say that even Code Geass and Clamp shows had more gay love that this, so I'll leave this for people more interested in shows of this nature.

I haven't watched the first seasons of Hakuouki and Tegami Bachi so they weren't mentioned for obvious reasons. Also some of the not mentioned shows from the chart either didn't catch enough attention from my side or I didn't have something smart to say about them.

I'll probably write more ofter than in the previous month, some of the entries will probably include my impressions on the shows I finish or mid-summer season impressions, still haven't decided firmly about what exactly though.

Here's a Reimu service pic if someone actually bothered reading this post

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July 20th, 2010

My Touhou fandom

So apparently some of the people I know these days are being shocked by me liking Touhou and material related to it, be it official or fan made. Is that so much surprising? I mean I've been a weeaboo fan of anime, manga and Japanese related stuff for some time now. There are like 50 million people more or less who are active Touhou fans (I don't know where I got this number but it's probably based on some statistics or legit surveys w/e), me being one of them isn't that much a surprise considering how awesome this franchise is.

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This is how people get addicted to Touhou games it seems.

To be honest I didn't get in the whole Touhou business because of the games at first. Several times when I've been searching for wallpapers on various image sites and the tag Touhou got my attention soon. I knew it wasn't from anime or particular manga (didn't read any Touhou doujins at that time) but it was very popular despite that fact. So I've been lurking a bit around and found out it's related to a game of danmaku shooters or shmups as some call them. Later I watched some music videos like Bad Apple and decided to download he games and check for myself if the hype is worth.



Bad Apple is probably the most popular Touhou video in existence

I was a bit surprised at first when I saw how the characters look like in the game, their profiles portraits were not as good as the fan art I've seen and I began wondering if the games are worth it's while. I was wrong, the setting was very interesting, intriguing characters, music was awesome too and those couple of lines you have dialogue with each boss hooked me on the franchise.

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I was staring for hours on the screen like Kaguya and Eirin

Beside the things I mentioned one of the more appealing aspects of the games is probably the fact that the cast all female except for one guy (if I'm not mistaken) and his appearance is quite rare with not much importance. There's really a lot of fan material regarding relationships between those characters, needless to say a whole lot of them are yuri with explicit material so for those who don't like shoujo-ai or yuri this will probably not be their cup of tea. Also there's the fact that except the human characters most of them are really old being demons, vampires, ghosts etc. and there's a certain number of loli looking characters that fall into that category which probably some people find alluring. I'd be lying if I'd say I don't find some of them cute myself, not in a way of sexual preference though.

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Flandre is indeed legal being 500 years old and all that but her personality may be a bit of a problem

Many people probably said this but the hype about Touhou isn't that big because of the game itself as is it is becaose of the various spin-off/tribute fan material related to it. Sure, you play the games, like them (or not) and want to play the rest of them, but the thing that probably got most people in favor of it is the art, music arranges, fan games and such.

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A cute maid that controls time? Count me in!

Being a Touhou fan a year or so already I think it was not a bad decision at all to sart liking it, I'm not yet a skilled player like some people out there passing completing only two extra stages on Normal (in EoSD and PCB) but here's still room for improvement. I've also tried playing the fighting games since I completed the story mode for all characters and that was a fun but not so pleasant experience (at least on my side XD). Hoping there will be more game continuations in the future and the man we need to thank this for is the creator of the games ZUN who has outdone himself creating these marvelous games.

July 18th, 2010

QUALITY in the anime I watch

Anime Relations: Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Lately it seems that some (if not most) of the animation studios cut on the animation, is it because of the low budget they have (most people would count Shaft as an example of that) or is it because they want to polish their DVD/BD releases and earn more money we will never know. That may not be such a big deal if it's not noticeable but what if it you suddenly start to notice?

The other day I was ranting as usual about Amagami having lazy and poor animation I also mentioned in a conversation I had on IRC how studio J.C.Staff provides solid entertainment and has a standard for solid animation. Later on that that day when I watched the new episode of Kaichou wa Maid-sama I wanted to eat my own words for that...

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What is this I don't even

Since Kaichou wa Maid-sama got it's anime adaptation it was well accepted and it has risen in popularity not just on MAL. Seeing how a simple formula can work wonders when it comes to entertainment it still feels that at least the basic things like animation and music should be worked on a bit harder if the story is not rich in detail.

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Even Aoi-chan is in pain because of the large quantity of detailed art

If the show is mostly liked by people, give it a little more effort and it will surely be even more accepted by the general audience, it should be obvious that the merchandise will sell even better as fans gain more satisfaction and enjoyment from watching the show.

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I sure hope it won't be me next time

July 16th, 2010

The Famous Spoiler Button

The famous spoiler button I had on my profile for a long time got it's well deserved retirement