IOSYS – Touhou Kasokusouchi

I’m not going to be the first one to say this, but IOSYS is running out of ideas. After making five albums it really isn’t such a surprise either, but IOSYS’s newest album, Touhou Kasokusouchi, is easily their weakest Touhou arrange album so far.

This time there are plenty of instrumental songs as well. Too bad they’re all pretty much the worst tracks on the album. Most of vocal tracks are generic J-Pop with few exceptations that stand out because of this. Also, there are lots of track from Mountain of Faith and I’m not really into the game and haven’t had time to get familiar with the soundtrack yet.

Anyways, let’s take a look at brighter side of this album:

1. 讃えよ我を、祀れ奇跡を (Give Praise Unto Me, and Celebrate My Miracles)
One of the few more rock-ish tracks of Touhou Kasokusouchi. I can’t really remember the original at all, but I like this track.

2. きゅうり味のビールを飲めばいいよ！ (Just Drink Cucumber Beer!)
Candid Friend is pretty much the only MoF-track I really love. IOSYS’s version of this track is simply “So moe! I’m gonna die!”-ish and easily the best track of this album.

8. 運命狂サディスティック (Fate-Maniac Sadistic)
Another track with cute vocals. The fast pace is nice as well. Nothing special otherwise.

11. アリス→デレ (Alice→Dere)
Going for maximum cutesy seems to be what associates the tracks I picked, except for the first one. It’s a good track compared to the rest of tracks on this album, but not that great considering how good the previous albums of IOSYS have been.

Touhou Kasokusouchi is not a bad album, but compared to IOSYS’s other Touhou arrange albums, it’s easily the least creative and the least solid entirety. Let’s say it like this: if I were to compile an album with the best tracks of IOSYS, most tracks would be from Tsuki Tourou, Otome Bayashi and Suisui Suusuu, some from Kaze Sakura Utage and Eijanho and the only track I’d pick from this album would be the 2nd track.

Don’t expect Touhou Kasokusouchi to be great like Tsuki Tourou, Otome Bayashi and Suisui Suusuu or you’re gonna be disappointed big time. The only must-hear on this album would be the 2nd track and the standout tracks I metioned might be worth listening, but they’re nothing awesome.

Genshiken 2 – Episode 12 (spoilers)

When they said that the end would be incomplete, I got really worried as I realized there’s only one episode left and still more than two volumes of the manga to cover. The first Genshiken anime was incomplete as well and now it seems like the same thing is going to happen again.

In this episode, Sasahara is still having trouble getting a job. He gets really annoyed and grumpy because of constantly failing. At some point he tries to get any job avaible, but fails getting them as well. Then Sasahara finds an advertisement for manga editing. He goes to the interview and finally succeeds and gets the job. He phones Ogiue to tell her that he got the job. All the members of Genshiken congratulate Sasahara and there’s some discussion with clips from the near future.

To be honest, though there are still plenty of issues unsolved and two more volumes to animate, the ending isn’t really that incomplete at all. The 2nd season began with Genshiken making their own doujinshi with Sasahara as the coordinator of the project. Now Sasahara has used the experiences gained from that time to get the job he wanted. I think that the circle has been closed and it’s a complete ending for the 2nd season of Genshiken.

Yes, a complete ending for the 2nd season of Genshiken, but not complete ending for Genshiken quite yet. There’s still lots of original content left. Not only OVA series, but with this much stuff left, they could make a third season of Genshiken. I bet they’re going to keep the fans in suspense for a couple of years or so and then reveal their plans for third and final season of Genshiken.

I really enjoyed the second season of Genshiken. I rarely watch animes based on mangas I’m already familiar with ’cause anime-adaptions are usually inferior to the original. This is where Genshiken is different from the rest. The anime has lots of new content, call it filler if you wish, but it’s really good stuff. Let’s take the fifth episode for example. In the manga, Ogiue’s fantasies were visualized in one panel, but in the anime they could use a lot more time on her fantasies. Because of that, it was one of the most hilarious episodes I’ve ever seen. Another good example would be the 4th episode, a complete rewrite of Ohno and Tanaka’s relationship.

In short, Genshiken is one of those series where you don’t choose manga or anime; you just have to experience them both!

Moetan – Episode 6

I decided to watch this episode to find out why it was banned from broadcasting. To be honest, I don’t think it’s that different from the other episodes. Mayby there was slightly more nudity, few more panty shots and some more innuendo, but nothing taboo breaking. The reason for the ban was probably a scene where Mio was shown completely nude. Since she is still minor, I can sort of see why they didn’t want to broadcast it.

In my opinion, Moetan is one of the most hypocritical animes I’ve ever watched. Just by claiming that the characters are (almost) adults, you can show them naked and get away with it no matter how young they look. Not that I mind really. There should be more animes like this, but with better plots.

As for the story of this episode, it’s nothing special. Mio wins two tickets to an zoological park. But she doesn’t feel like going so she gives them to Nao-kun and Ink. The two go to the park and Ink gets lost, but finds Nao-kun after searching for him. Ofcourse all the compulsory elements of a Moetan-episode such as the Akiba otaku, transformation scenes and so on are present in this episode.

Had they cencored the scene where Mio was shown naked, I wouldn’t see any reason why this episode couldn’t have been broadcast. Then again, because it wasn’t broadcast, a lot of people, who wouldn’t have watched it otherwise, became curious and wanted to see this episode. At least that’s why I wanted to see this episode. Quite a clever marketing trick for the Moetan DVDs.

Genshiken 2 – Episode 11

Ogiue and Sasahara go to Comi-Fes to sell Ogiue’s doujinshi. The scene where Ogiue stares at Sasahara’s face was executed perfectly! After Comi-Fes they go to a bath house for a party and say goodbye to Angela and Sue, who’re going to go back to the States.

Well, this one went quite faithfully to the original with some new content and few changes. First of all, Yabusaki and co. makes their appearance once again, nothing new there.

Ohno cosplays Yoko instead of Tifa. Tifa is one of those classic characters who never gets old, mainly because Square has been making all kinds of sequals and spin-offs of FFVII, but I’m sure Tifa still has lots of sworn fans from the days when FFVII was published for the first time. I like both those characters pretty much equally and they’re both big-breasted fanservice characters, so the change isn’t that big really. I wonder which I just angered more, fans of FFVII or fans of Gurren Lagann…

Also, they decided to have Madarame drop by Ogiue’s booth and have him see “that spread” from Ogiue’s doujinshi. I don’t really get why they changed it to involve Madarame as well. Both he and Sasahare did serve as the inspiration for Ogiue’s doujinshi, but I don’ think this change was necessary.

And the next episode will be the last one. To be honest, there’s still so much content left that it’s not going to be possible to fit it all in a single episode. Most likely there’s going to be another series of OVA episodes. I hope they’re not in QUALITY animation this time.

Dragonaut – Episode 11

Toa is captured by Gillard Army and taken to Mars. Another dragon from Thanatos has arrived to the Earth.

That’s pretty much all about this episode. There was some fanservice, quite a lot of QUALITY animation and a little plot development.

“wet herself”

Lately, “wet herself” has been one of the most popular search engine terms, that people have used to find Otaku no Ken. If you’re one of those people, did you find what you were looking for? Or mayby something completely different?

Anyways, have a nice day, y’all!

Genshiken 2 – Episode 10

This is the episode where Angela and Sue, Ohno’s friends from the USA, come to Japan for Comi-Fes. There was lots of interesting new content, mostly involving Angela and Sue, that made this episode really great.

I was really surprised how well Angela could speak English. Her pronunciation was really good, way better than mine (note: English isn’t my native language, that would be Finnish). Madarame on the other hand is so poor at English it’s really pathetic. Then again, whenever I have to speak English, all I can say is “yes”, “no”, “thank you” and some similiar phrases, so I’m not really one to comment on anyone’s poor English.

Sue looked sorta creepy in the anime at some scenes. When I first saw her in the inside cover of vol. 7, I thought she’s really cute. I guess it’s cause she has sort of unique charm to her and that just didn’t transfer to the anime properly. She was funny in the anime, though, but not as cute as she was in the manga.

Dragonaut – Episode 10

Gio and Widow have been isolated to Tartarus island and are to be diposed of because Gio isn’t following Kazuki’s orders and Machina’s master is already dead. Jin is told that when Toa saved him two years ago, they peformed Resonance and thus Jin is her master. Toa escapes and tries to get the dragon eggs ISDA is posessing, but she is stopped by Amadeus and Kasuga Nozaki and captured again. Akira and Machina help Jin escape because they believe he and Toa could change the way people think about humans and dragons coexisting. While prof. Yuuri is transporting Toa to Tartarus, Gillard army attacks and is planning to take Toa for themselves.

I guess this episode was better than the last few episodes, but there wasn’t much action this time. There was lots of fanservice, though.

Genshiken 2 – Episode 9 (spoilers)

This episode is pretty much an adaption of chapter 39 with some new scenes to add depth to Sasahara’s job hunting. In the manga, only one of Sasahara’s job interview’s was shown – the one where he succeeds. In this episode, two interviews are shown – two interviews he fails. I think this makes the show a little more realistic, since you usually won’t get the job that easily, though Sasahara was having hard times in the manga as well, but showing how he fails makes it easier to understand.

The highlight of this episode was Saki’s dream where Kousaka tells Saki that as long as he has eroges, he doesn’t need real women. This scene is sort of continued when Kousaka tells everyone that he got a job at eroge-making company and will be working at their office pulling all-nighters beginning today. It’s like a nightmare come true for poor Saki.

I was awaiting for Keiko, Sasahara’s little sister, to make her 2nd season debut in this episode, but for some reason, Kuchi was made to act out her role, which is suggesting that there is something between Sasahara and Ogiue. Sure it’s nice that Kuchiki is given more dialogue, but I think Keiko is a good minor character and should have at least some kind of appearance in the 2nd season.

I liked this episode. The serious parts about Sasahara’s job interviews and the lighter parts about Saki’s troubles with Kousaka were adapted well to fit in single episode. The contrast between the mood of this parts is huge, but because of placing the first interview right to the beginning, the second to the very end and everything else between them worked really well. I also digged the instrumental ending ’cause it fit the mood of this episode.

GrimGrimoire

Vanillaware is probably still rather unknown game developer, but they’ve already proved themselves very talented and creative game developers with GrimGrimoire and Odin Sphere. This is a (late) review of the former.

First of all, the game has the logo of Nippon Ichi America (Koei, in Europe, but Koei is known for publishing NI games in PAL-region) printed in the front, which is why many people associate this game with NI’s Tactical RPGs, but this association couldn’t probably be more off. GrimGrimoire has only little, or possibly nothing, to do with NI’s games. It’s all just a cunning marketing trick, so don’t let it fool you.

So, if GrimGrimoire isn’t anything like NI’s games, what is it like? The first thing that comes to my mind would be Age of Empires, which GrimGrimoire actually is comparable to. Instead of building town centres and barrackses, you cast runes that can summon familiars and can be leveled up for power ups and other features. Basically, that’s exactly like AoE, only GrimGrimoire doesn’t have near as much depth and strategic planning as needed in AoE.

However, (semi-)real-time strategy is something different from the usual turn-based Japanese TRPGs. Though I wouldn’t call GrimGrimoire TRPG or any kind of role-playing game to begin with. For example, the story completely linear. You watch some cutscenes, extremely well done cutscenes mind, and then you fight. This is repeated from the beginning to the end, you can’t affect the progress of story at all, though only few TRPGs actually let you affect the story a lot. Also, there is no leveling up of any sort, except leveling runes up in the battle, but that’s different. You gain more runes, familiars, power ups and abilities as the game progresses, but you can’t affect this yourself in any way. I actually find this rather pleasant change, because it takes away the need to level up you characters strong enough to progress. This time, strategy is the key to the victory.

I probably should take a more accurate look on the gameplay. Casting runes, summoning familiars and leveling up runes (this gives you access to new familiars, abilities and power ups) costs mana. Mana can be mined with certain familiars from crystals. First, familiars gather the mana from the crystal, take it back to the rune and then you can use it however you please.

There are four different magic schools: Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy. Glamour means elves, fairies and spirits of the nature. Necromancy commands the spirits of the dead. Sorcery controls creatures of demonic nature. Alchemy can be used to create homunculi, golems and chimeras. Each school has their own ablities, strengths and weaknesses. You can have runes from every school at the same time, but you can focus only on few if you wish. The balance of the game is pretty average. There aren’t any unbeatable god tier familiars, but there are some rather overpowered ones such as dragons and chimeras, but they have their own severe weaknesses as well.

There are totally 50 missions of which half are story missions and the rest optional missions. The story missions are rather easy, but the optional extra missions offer more challenging missions for advanced players. But to be honest, completing all the extra missions isn’t very hard nor time consuming. However, after completing them all, a new level of difficulty is unlocked, but I haven’t had the time to try it out properly yet.

I guess that’s enough for the gameplay, so let’s take a look at other qualities that make this a good game. The graphics are really beautiful! They’re extremely detailed and realistic 2D graphics. Like I already said, the cutscenes look awesome and the graphics aren’t any worse in the battles. All the familiars have been well drawn and animated smoothly. The only complaint would be the backgrounds in the battles, which aren’t only repetive, but there is only one background that’s used in every battle. A little change would be nice, but this game is already pretty enough and I don’t really mind.

The story is kind of a letdown. A lot of people compare it Harry Potter, but I’m not familiar with the series, so no comment on that. The main character, Lillet, is a young apprentice magician and admitted to study magic in the Tower of Silver Star. Play the game to learn more, but like I said, the story isn’t very interesting.

GrimGrimoire might not be the most interesting game storywise nor the best real-time strategy there is, but it’s worth trying if the idea of an RTS with some elements from Japanese TRPGs sounds interesting. Not a must-have, though, but a decent game worth playing through.