#Seiyuu Mercenary

[nikkimira2006]

So..about my Male Seiyuu BL visual novel…

I came up with the best idea ever! So, You know how Pretty Cure makes merchandise for the series (I know other anime does this too, But I’m using Pretty Cure as an example) So, I can bait unsuspecting conservative parents into buying my BL Visual Novel! But how? Snacks! Cosmetics! Dolls! Figurines! Books! CDs! And more!

[rantheon]

the bakarina anime is done! it’s just a drop in the ocean that is the otome isekai genre so these are some recs + what you need to know about them. i just listed most of my favs otherwise it’d be too long :p

in no particular order. includes some non-isekai ones too. needless to say most of these aren’t completed yet

my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom

using this to plug that there’s more bakarina content in the form of light novels, manga and 3 spin-offs

an observation record of my fiancee - a self-proclaimed villainess

told in the pov of prince cecil, whose fiancee bertia straight up tells him she’s a villainess of an otome game from her past life

if you ever wonder what jeord from bakarina might be thinking half the time, this is probably close. cecil is the same kind of prince who initially finds things bored and predictable until they met the mc

the things cecil would get up to for bertia? hoo boy

also the way the mangaka draws hair is addicting to look at

the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress

the title speaks for itself~ after remembering an otome game she played in her past life, cecil (previously cecilia) is now the one capturing the hearts of the academy ladies instead

it’s fairly new so there’s not much of it yet :c but it’s pretty interesting

the original otome game had a whole rpg combat system going on and i’m hyped to see how it’s gonna lead the story

the Angelique vibes are strong in this one

the villainess wants to marry a commoner

isabella used to play an otome game in a past life, but she was really only interested in a side character named ursch. and then one day she finds him in her mansion garden

her past life self is such a mood - i too have 100% otome games in hopes of side characters getting hidden routes but alas

definitely deserves the ‘video game’ tag. isabella can see status screens and character stats/skills etc, and all the gacha rewards and grinding transferred over after her reincarnation. she’s the isekai female protag we’ve always wanted

seriously the main ship is too op for their own good aha

deathbound duke’s daughter

in a past life, erika only managed to finish 2.5/7 scenarios of an otome game thanks to an unlucky encounter with knife-kun. with the different flags of her impending doom approaching, she takes things into her own hands years before the game events start

very fantasy-oriented (the most on this list) and pretty action-packed, once you get past the game exposition in the first 3? chapters

the world building is brilliant, from the hafan mages to the aurelian alchemists, and there’s beasts and wands and spells and dnd stuff sprinkled in

the cast has quite interesting dynamics and interwoven plotlines, and they’re all dorky in their way :>

beware of the villainess

melissa remembers a novel from her past life and desperately tries to cut off contact with the male leads, but they still make her life hell & she rages

she’s just so done with everyone and you can’t help but relate to her

definitely the funniest on this list XD melissa and her reactions takes the cake but even the shit characters are hilarious in their own way

there’s also a lot of parodies to memes etc & best of all, there’s cussing. all the shits and fucks. a whole lot of it

it’s great

death is the only ending for the villainess

penelope wakes up as the villainess from a game she’d been playing in her past life, only right now it's on the hardest difficulty where death is literally everywhere. thus she tries, well, not dying

what’s cool about this is that penelope has access to the original game system. she can see menus, choice options etc. the male leads even have affection percentages floating above their heads :> which is always cool to see (and what i’m a sucker for)

but it’s definitely one of the darker ones on this list. iirc there’s depictions of violence, abuse, drugs and then some. just a fair warning

the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin

upon realizing that she’s the villainess from a past-life otome game, mary decides to stay as one. chaos ensues

i love this manga so much, everyone is so quirky and there’s something to laugh about on almost every page. the story almost feels self-aware of itself and just lets the characters do whatever. like ride bikes

addie is so cute ;o;

it’s definitely something everyone should experience

i’m a villainess daughter so i’m going to keep the last boss

one of the finished ones!

post-annulment, aileen pulls a Lisa Tepes and asks the demon king claude to marry her. he refuses. hijinks ensues

mostly on the fantasy side, as it builds on the world of the monsters

the cast is pretty fun! aileen’s smart, funny and pretty competent in her own right. plus she and claude are positively adorable together

milady just wants to relax

post-annulment, ronia decides to open a cafe in the countryside. it later becomes the frequent hangout of a beastmen mercenary group, who are intensely feared by the townsfolk

well... beastmen. that’s all you need to know /wink

okay, that aside, it’s just as chill as the title suggests. ronia slowly makes friends she can trust, and the beastmen find a second home in the only cafe that’s willing to accept them. it’s pretty wholesome

the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food

despite actively trying to change her ‘villainess from a past-life otome game’ fate since childhood, elizabeth gets annulled, her noble title stripped, and is sent to a church in a neighboring kingdom. she enjoys it more than expected, despite the appearance of the ever watchful leonid

there’s plenty of 21st-century food like sandwiches, cotton candy leonid’s muscles <3

the entire cast is lovable, and can chris get an f for all the heart attacks leonid keep giving him

seduce the villain’s father

yereninovica (or just yerenica) realizes that she’s in the world of a novel she read in her past life, but as the aunt of said novel’s mc. after thwarting a kidnapping that’s basically the mc’s origin story, she takes it upon herself to also prevent the tragic death of emperor belgoat

a bit different since it switches the roles around (side character x side character) and goes into the “parent generation” of the original work

there’s also an interesting bit where the world seems to recognize her as a hijacker, and where that takes her, we’ll see in due time :o:

plus the way yeni habitually calls him ‘father’ cracks me up every time

transferred to another world but i’m the savior of an otome game

after a ritual gone wrong, “yamada tarou” (fake name) is stuck in the world of an otome game. the only way back is with a magical ring, normally obtained after becoming the lover of one of the male leads. he of course says no i’m going adventuring but the game doesn’t like that

it’s absolutely hilarious - the leads treat our mc like a heroine, and there’s a lot of otome tropes that are called out on/parodied. like the seiyuus’ names oh my god

tarou’s reactions are great and his appraisal skill is the funniest thing alive

endo and kobayashi’s live commentary on the villainess

in modern japan, endo and kobayashi start their playthrough of an otome game, which becomes a bit glitchy and odd. they discover that siegward, a male lead in the game, can hear what they’re saying. they use this chance to finally give lisolette a happier ending

much of the story’s focus is on the characters slowly warming up to lisolette, and a bit on endo/kobayashi’s irl relationship. despite being the primary drive of the story, lisolette herself hardly moves the plot - if you know what i mean

regardless it’s undeniably adorable

tearmoon empire

no isekai, more of time travel? chronoskimming?

mia wakes up 10 years in the past after being sentenced to death. now afraid of guillotine-kun, she strives to solve the issues in her kingdom that had previously led to her doom

a bit similar to bakarina in terms of concept: avoid death flags, unknowingly recruits the people she meets into her little saintess cult. the misinterpretation is very strong, and in brilliantly funny ways

it has really fun narration ngl especially in the light novel

of course, i’ll claim palimony!

to prepare for her annulment, yulia starts scheming recording her fiance’s meetups with the heroine to use as evidence. if you’re gonna lose a suitor, might as well get some money out of it, right? along the way she gets involved with rudonik, one of the male leads

no reincarnation. rather than an otome game, the villainess story comes from a book written by a side character, and the “heroine” just decided to play it out in real life

the cast together is a riot, and it’s entertaining to watch yulia only think in profits and every connection she can make to achieve it

the villainess’ slow prison life began with her broken engagement

no isekai, just a plain old villainess

post-annulment, rachel is sentenced to imprisonment. which she enjoys and is thoroughly, hilariously prepared for

everyone’s a little afraid of rachel and for good reason. it’s better to find out yourself through the LN or manga, but let’s just say that even the king doesn’t want to deal with her XD

the holy grail of eris

now this one is interesting, putting the villainess trope into a mystery ghost story. that said, no isekai either

our innocent heroine constance attends a party and encounters scarlet, an executed villainess from ten years ago. a body possession and some public embarrassment later, they decide to team up to solve the mystery that might be behind scarlet’s death

i mean, ghost villainess? sign me up

+ some honorable mentions

i favor the villainess (the heroine goes for the villainess- girls? girls? yes)

a bellicose lady got reincarnated (a delinquent reincarnates as a heroine; what a concept :o unfortunately there’s not a lot of english content for it yet)

it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game (i like that the mc actively makes it so that game can’t ever happen the way it should; plus, yanderes are always interesting to study)

inso’s law (modern isekai, and quite cute!)

the reincarnated young lady aims to be an adventurer / holy guardian tiger (similar to deathbound duke’s daughter in that there’s more of a focus on the fantasy aspect)

expecting to fall into ruin, i aim to become a blacksmith (so far the only one with a shounen tag that i like; its main charm is probably the cast and their interactions with each other eliza best girl)

since i’ve reincarnated as the villainess’ father i’ll shower my wife and daughter with love (big big wholesome vibes)

level 99 villainous daughter (severely op lady who takes no shit from the people looking down at her, and regularly thinks about blowing up the academy within the first 4 chapters? hell yeah)

may i please just ask one last thing? (post-annulment, the mc literally punches everyone in the room; it’s great)

this is getting long now oops

edit: i also made a visual-friendly personally-tagged-by-me bookshelf here!

[winterune]

Happy 46th Birthday, Sakurai-san!!! | 13.06.20

And so, like my other birthday commemoration posts, I’ll be listing some of my favorite Takahiro Sakurai roles here. I made this post last year, and now I’ll be revamping it :)

Cloud Strife - Final Fantasy

Sakurai is my one true Cloud. His work as this seemingly cool mercenary with a difficult past is just *sob* so good?? Especially in Remake. Like. God!! This right here is OG Cloud. Cool, standoffish, sometimes coming off as a jerk, but he’s also very awkward, doesn’t know how to deal with people, and is just an overall sweetheart?? And Sakurai nails every single line. Just take my heart, damn you T-T

Kururugi Suzaku - Code Geass

I will forever love this man. Even after all these years, my heart still hurts for him. His broken voice at the end of both seasons (his confrontation with Lelouch in the cave, then the culmination of the Zero Requiem) will forever be ingrained in my mind. 

Arataka Reigen - Mob Psycho 100

How can you not love Reigen? XD He’s a dork, but an earnest dork, who does shady things on the side and have done some questionable things, but he cares a lot about Mob and is just the perfect mentor for him. I love him?? So much?? Tbh, I didn’t expect Sakurai to voice him, but when I finally heard him, I could not imagine any other seiyuu as his voice lmao. 

Oshino Meme - Monogatari Series

This eccentric dude who lives in an abandoned building and acts as a somewhat mentor/informant to Araragi is one of the best characters in the series and I am sad that we don’t see much of him after Bakemonogatari. I miss the series. I need to continue it. 

Hayashida Takashi - 3-gatsu no Lion

Is this soft Sakurai? Somewhat soft I would say? One of his softer roles, at least. I haven’t read the manga, but the anime was amazing and though Hayashida-sensei is only a supporting role who didn’t get enough screen time, I love how he just supports Rei on the side without asking for anything. This is one admirable teacher 

Shimogamo Yasaburo - Uchouten Kazoku

Now this is soft Sakurai :3 A cute anime about the life of a tanuki family living in Kyoto. Based on a novel by the same person who wrote Tatami Galaxy. Of course it’d be good.

Matsuyuki Atsumu - AnoHana

Yukiatsu is...annoying ^^; He is obnoxious and some of his behavior triggered me. But, AnoHana is still Nagai Tatsuyuki’s best work in my opinion, and this is one of the first Sakurai role I encountered, so yeah, it’s got that nostalgic point. I didn’t like the guy, but I still liked Sakurai’s performance

Mitaka Jin - Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Sakurai’s soft ikemen voice gives me heart attacks (and now you know why Sakurai is the best version of Cloud imo because aside from the range of emotions he displays there, there’s that soft and sweet voice every time he speaks to Tifa so :3 ofc there’s also the fact that he’s also a Tifa fanboy). Not to mention that this is another masterpiece anime with a cast of characters that I love wholeheartedly. A coming-of-age slice-of-life story about high school kids trying to achieve their dreams. Between people with talent and people who works hard. Struggling against all odds. Wondering if he have what it takes. Wondering if maybe he should pursue something else. I remember relating to Jin when I first watched this - maybe because he wrote the script to Misaki’s animations. Yep, I love this anime. 

Majime Mitsuya - Fune wo Amu

This awkward, taciturn, yet endearing fellow with a love for words. You can’t help but love him. Need I reiterate? Sakurai is *chef’s kiss*

Souma Ayame - Fruits Basket

One would wonder how Sakurai would voice this loud, gaudy, obnoxious character that couldn’t stop you from laughing. Rest assured, the first time Ayame spoke, I laughed XD I love him

---

God! He is everywhere! It’s hard to pick only 10 roles T-T But anyway, these are some of my favorite Sakurai roles :D Please continue to grace us with your amazing voice work, Sakurai-san ^^ (and I just realized I didn’t put any of his villain roles here... oh well)

[micaiahsilverhairedmaiden]

This past May 4th, the "FIRE EMBLEM EXPO" was held in Japan. Among the many activities that took place there, there was an act of exhibition of seiyuus of Ike, Soren, Titania, Micaiah and Sothe, in an imaginary scenario where the characters meet accidentally.

I was looking for japanese tweets and translating them one by one, to tell you more or less how the story is going:

--- This story happens before Radiant Dawn, with young Ike (17 years old) and the mercenaries going to a festival. They decide to go to a read fortune, where Micaiah (wearing a hood) is the fortune teller working there.

Micaiah charges the future prediction at 2500 gald (And Titania is scared with the price xD), and first reads Titania's hand and talks about her family (the mercenaries) and her past as a soldier. Then is Ike turn and he asks "Will I become stronger in the future?", And Micaiah responds "Yes, especially this arm will become very strong" and apparently she even mentions that she sees a gorilla in the future xD. Then Soren becomes super jealous because Micaiah touched Ike's arm and shouts "Stop touching him! Now is my turn!", and when Micaiah reads his hand, she get all confused and surprised "You...You're the same as me!"

Then something explodes and a smoke screen appears. Sothe thought that Micaiah was being attacked by a soldier and came in to help. He took Micaiah out of that place without seeing the mercenaries faces. Then Micaiah says "I feel that we will meet those people again somewhere", Sothe: "Is it fortune?", Micaiah: "Umm... Only I feel like that". ---

Of course my translation may not be completely correct, but I compared with several versions of several people, and apparently it is a good summary of what happened :3 I'm still waiting for a translation of the Drama CD to share with you all!

[icharchivist]

hey icha whats hypmic??

Heyaaa and ooooh dear where do i even begin…..

Erg so in very short it’s a musical mixed media story that have kind of a corny set up that is mostly an excuse to have fictional male characters of different background involve themselves into rap battles? Most of its content comes from songs and drama CD, even if there are a few manga adaptation covering a couple of the drama tracks (albeit all those covered are how the teams got together and all).

In a little more depth: Basically a group of 12 Seiyuu decided to band together into a principe of rap battle, that would also give a spotlight to multiple rap artists in Japan, as they do collaboration by writting/composing the songs. All of the Seiyuu play different characters divided in 4 divisions: Buster Bros!! for Ikebukuro, Mad Trigger Crew for Yokohama, Fling Posse for Shibuya, and Matenrou for Shinjuku. Each divisions/characters have distinct styles of music or text to differenciate them.

The idea is that, after World War 3 and a lot of the population dying, weapons causing harms had been outlawed, instead remplaced by what we call Hypnosis Microphone (or Hypmic), weapons that attack the brain via its sonic vibes, thus are more powerful depending on how savy you are with words and sounds and all of that. (like i said, it’s corny, it’s really just a pretext for the battles ahah)

The Government, that is kinda shady, took hold into Chuuouku, the center of the city, and the rest of the towns are left to fend for their own, indulging in territories battles. By the time the story start, 4 teams have taken a hand into 4 divisions where they try their best to low the crime rate and make life better, this sort of stuff. Recently however, the Government decided to keep a closer eye on the Rap Battle themselves, organizing huge Event in Chuuouku for the Divisions to fight each other, and the winner can therefore have major impact on what gets developped in the city and all.

It’s also important to know that the 4 leaders of the divisions, Ichiro, Samatoki, Ramuda and Jakurai, used to be in a band together, The Dirty Dawg, and they were very close - Something ended up breaking up the band (it is unsure what it is exactly) and left them with sort of bittersweet relationship with each other as they’re now in a position where they have to fight each other.

Again though most of it is mostly a pretext for songs and character driven plotlines for those 12 to fuck shit up: 

(here a link to the translation, and here’s a link for the playlist of the songs they put on youtube - mostly previews except for the Ensemble songs - i can send the full songs/drama CDs but in private since it’s… illegal and all.You’ll find all the translations out on this website, and here you’ll find the drama tracks. And there for the solo songs only but idk how long this website will keep them up.)

(btw here’s the second ensemble song and here’s the third one - i tend to prefer them to the first one so here they are)

So like i said, corny, but character driven and i love those morons, and the songs are bangers, and i ended up loving it ways too much.

I’ll enter more in depth on the Divisions under the cut bc i do think knowing a bit the characters give a better idea but yeah kdjfhd my latest obsession rip.

If you’re reading this i’m so sorry i’m going to geek out over my 12 stupid sons.

btw (MC: ___) is their scene names, basically.

And erg while i try to avoid spoilers from the latest season, there’s a lot of “spoilers” from backstory exposition or information spreads through the drama tracks and the songs, so either just scroll to see the name and all or read at your own risks? 

Buster Bros!!! representing Ikebukuro Division - in red, Ichiro Yamada (19yo) the leader,in blue, Jiro Yamada (16yo), in yellow Saburo Yamada (14). (Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song Ikebukuro West Game Park, their second group song: Ohayo Ikebukuro!)

Ichiro, Jiro and Saburo are brothers - they are orphans (unknown why but since Ichiro rejects any fathr figure p strongly i think it’s linked to their father) and Ichiro, the eldest brother, had taken care of his two little brothers most of his life to the point of being a delicant before being recruited by the Dirty Dawg. Before the story started the boys weren’t all that close, but by now, both little brothers want to prove their worth to their eldest brothers and when the Dirty Dawg broke up and Ichiro had to figure out which team to make for the Rap Battles, both brothers offered to help. Despite both being ways too young for this they still both ended up proving themselves. They also tend to fight for their big brother’s attention a lot.

Ichiro (MC Big Brother) himself seems to be a rather warm and friendly person - he works odd jobs all around town, kind of like a mercenary but doing just… any sort of work being asked of him, just not in the illegal stuff when he can avoid it. He’s rather hot headed. He used to be very close from the Dirty Dawg who took care of him when they met, especially Samatoki, but since the band’s break up, it seems there is a particularly sour relationship with Samatoki neither of them are over with. Ichiro often disses Samatoki out of nowhere in his raps lmao. Aside from that he’s a complete geek and loves manga and anime and video game - all the stuff you’d expect.

Jiro, (MC Middle Brother) the second, tends to follow Ichiro’s path a lot, being a bit in delincance and stuff, creating himself a web of contacts. He tends to copy Ichiro in his passions in order to impress him. He’s also very social and get friends very easily. He’s constantly bickering with Saburo who seems to see their “brotherhood” as a competition. They used to be very close when they were younger but now they’re always at each other’s throat.

Saburo (MC Little Brother), the third, doesn’t really want to follow the path of his brothers but he wants to be useful in his own way. Incredibly clever, he is a very good hacker and can find information very quickly. He also has some of the sickest burn of the lot but i’m biased. Unlike Jiro, Saburo is really not social at all and has very few friends. His whole world is about being the best he can be for Ichiro.He likes things that can stimulate his brian, especially board games and the likes. 

Mad Trigger Crew, representing Yokohama Divison- Center in white, Samatoki Aohitsugi(25) the Leader - with glasses, Juuto Iruma (29), in military uniform, Riou Busujima Manson (28).(Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song: Yokohama Walker, their second group song: Dead Pools)

If The BB are linked by the fact they’re brothers, MTC is linked by being….. Involved in armed illegal activities? Samatoki is the second in command of a Yakuza family, Juuto is a corrupted cop who is close to Samatoki because of… work…. and Riou kinda ended up tagging along. Anyway they’re in charge of Yokohama which seems to be a part of the city that suffered pretty badly from the war and have high crime rates.

In more details, Samatoki (MC Mr Hardcore) is involved in the mafia. He explains in his personal song that his mother killed his abusive father before killing herself, leaving him to take care of his little sister, Nemu, which is what led him to a life of crime. His Yakuza clan seems to have a honor code though so they’re not involved in too much dirty stuff. Every sacrifice Samatoki did was for his sister. So obviously he saw a bit of himself in Ichiro when they originally met, and was one of the influencial force to keep Ichiro out of the crime life knowing pretty well where it’s headed. The Band breakup left a particularly sour taste in Samatoki’s mouth regarding Ichiro, feeling betrayed by whatever happened back then, and since then he tends to be. touchy. when it’s question of Ichiro. As in, almost caused a car crash while he wasn’t driving just thinking about Ichiro. He’s a mess. He’s also very short tempered. 

Juuto (MC 45 Rabbit) is a corrupted cop: while he works with the police and all the stuff, he has ties with Samatoki’s yakuza clan and will do shady stuff in order to maintain this alliance. Mostly blackmail, bailing Samatoki out of jail, all this sort of things. He seems to have a specific reason to accept it, a necessary evil to get rid of wickedness in the city. Juuto’s backstory was only developped in the latest drama tracks so it would count as spoilers but let’s say he has reasons to do so.He’s generally more down to earth and more tongue in cheek. He knows how to pick up people’s weaknesses let’s say.

Riou (MC Crazy M) is an army man who isn’t aware the war is over. He has been living in survival mode in the forest of Yokohama for the past few years, having also one of the prototype Hypnosis Mic, with more raw power. His hobbies is to cook from… unusual sources. Samatoki and Juuto are terrified by his cooking.  There isn’t much revealed yet about Riou’s backstory however. Juuto found out about him and put him in contact with Samatoki when it was question to develop MTC, and they have since then developped a companionship of sort.

Fling Posse, representing Shibuya Division (also they’re my favs❤ which will be obvious in two mins bc i rambled much more about them holy fuck)- In the middle with pink hair, Ramuda Amemura (24), with brown hair, Gentaro Yumeno (24), with blue hair, Dice Arisugawa (20)(Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song, Shibuya Marble Texture, their second group song: Stella (aka my most listened hypmic song that made me unhealthily obsessed with the series) )

I don’t even know where to start with them. Don’t be fooled by how cute they look, they’re the most shady group. Officially, they’ve all been recruited by Ramuda “only for the thrill of it”, “To kill boredom”, but it also happens that they are the three with the most ties to the government. But none of them tend to really talk about it. Not really. They are very “living in the present” kind of people, even if it comes with risks. Ramuda gathered them for his own agenda. Neither Gentaro nor Dice knew each other before Ramuda put them together and neither know why Ramuda gathered them aside as “for the thrill”. Gentaro however has major doubts over the kind of person Ramuda is. 

Ramuda (MC Easy R) is their leader. He is a fashion designer. He was the one who put the Dirty Dawg together back in the days, and seems to have… weird reasons to do anything he’s ever doing. Honestly i don’t know how to even touch how shady he is, but he’s all shade of shady. He will however always sound super cute. The only person he seems to not bear the sight of is Jakurai, his ex-teammate from the Dirty Dawg. They used to be very close but now things are very tense in between them, mostly with Ramuda setting as much distances as possible he can and hardly managing to remain cheerful around him. 

Gentaro (MC Phantom) is a writter and also a chronic liar. You litterally cannot trust a single thing coming out of his mouth, he’s always making something up. His personal song is supposed to talk about his past but there’s like, a big lie in the begining of it (”I was born in winter” yOU’RE BORN ON APRIL THE FIRST.). One thing that is certain about him however, is that he has a friend who is very sick and at the hospital and that it seems to be the motivation behind all of his lies, as he started to make up fictions to cheer up his friend and turned his own life into a fiction by extension. There’s more shady stuff about him and his past, i could discuss it for hours (he’s my fav kdhfd). But mostly, he’s just the kind to tease people a lot and to not really expect to have friends that stick arounds, considering himself a untrustworthy unredeemable trash. He has a weird dynamic with his own sense of self, always making up false selves. I legit could talk for hours about it kdjhfd.  He tends to over-tease Dice because Dice falls for every single of his lies, and he tends to have a soft spot for him. He’s also extremely observant since he writes story he makes up from people he observes, so he catches on stuff more easily. Gentaro’s lyrics are often more inclined toward poetry or well, work of fictions (he wrote Stella in verse and Stella is kindof a Posse!Au of how Gentaro sees the Posse. Stellaaaaaa)

Dice (MC Dead or Alive)  is… a professional disaster? Joke aside, he’s a gambler who tends to push his luck a loooot. (there’s a lot of implications about how he doesn’t have a stable place to crash in because most of his rent money go into gambling). His outlook on life are really mostly that he wants to live a life that gives him legit thrills. He hates being bored. It’s heavily implied that he comes from a rich, influencial family but threw it all away for his addiction.  The only reason he agreed to join the Posse was for the thrill the rap battles would provide. He also kinda considers himself a lowrate trash due to the lifestyle he’s living.He’s rather guilible, falling for every single of Gentaro’s lies despite how obvious they are, and gets teased a lot by both of his teammates. He’s also fiercely protective and combative. He is also the king of bad decisions and of having to drag his posse in them. (well mostly Gentaro). He’s also loves the Posse in itself and is the one who’s the most likely to brag about how great his band is. He genuinely loves his teammates and it makes me so soft,,. He’s also very perceptive, realizing very quickly when his teammates are changing their mood. And again he protecc,,

Matenrou - Representing Shinjuku DivisionCenter with purple hair: Jakurai Jinguji (35), the blond is Hifumi Izanami (29) and the gingerhead is Doppo Kannonzaka (29)(Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song, Shinjuku Style, their second group song: Papiyon that wasn’t put on youtube yet but should in a couple of weeks)

Matenrou is the band with the darkest aesthetic, protecting the Shinjuku’s division that came to be known mostly for the health problems, if i understand well also because the only functioning hospital is located there. Jakurai is a doctor and Doppo is his patient, while Hifumi is Doppo’s childhood friend and roomate. They end up tangled together after Hifumi gets threats on his life pushing Doppo to reach out for Jakurai, who took an interest on them as possible teammates when everything unfolded. 

Jakurai (MC ill-Doc) is… an interesting character i dare not to spoil the backstory of but let’s say he has some dark past. As a person however, he is fascinated by people’s psychee, how they work, what pushes them to do stuff, and is therefore attracted to “interesting people”, people that makes him want to explore human’s psychee. Back in the Dirty Dawg’s day, it was what drove Jakurai to be very interested in Ramuda…. Until he considered Ramuda’s humanity too lost to be saved after the band broke up, which Jakurai blames partially on Ramuda. Ramuda remains the only person to have ever made Jakurai lose his patience. Otherwise, Jakurai is a rather collected and a very kind man, who tries to reach out and help others when he can. But again, dark past and stuff and some shady stuff went on with Ramuda. He found an interest in Doppo and Hifumi as he got to know them and now is rather protective of the two of them, often going fishing with Hifumi and doing anything to uplift Doppo.He’s also a terrible drinker. Don’t let him drink.He has one of my favorite solo song though and he has a sort of goth existantialism vibe to him i just love. 

Hifumi (MC Gigolo) is Doppo’s childhood best friend and roomate. Now Hifumi’s story is a bit huh.. particular. When he was very young he had had a very traumatic experience with women that led him to be utterly terrified of being even nearby one. When he reached adulthood, he considered he couldn’t keep going like that and forced himself into a woman dominated space by becoming a Host, to overcome his fear. It was so hard on him however that he ended up… coping by considering that when he was wearing the Suit of the Host, he was a complete different person. Not quite split personality, but autosuggestion mostly. He gets into all sort of troubles with the suit on however. The only person he relies completely on is Doppo, whom he knows from childhood and with whom he lives. Hifumi is a good cook, and is always trying to cheer up his friend. because…

Doppo (MC Doppo) is an anxious disaster of a man. He’s your typical overworked office worker, who is handling this life pretty badly. He feels like his whole life is something he should be apologizing for, which he does all the time. He’s honestly unhealthily anxious and that’s why he is Jakurai’s patient.  He’s seriously a depressed, anxious disaster who’s only light seems to mostly be that Hifumi cheers on him all the time… when Hifumi doesn’t create a terrible situation Doppo feels like he has to apologize for. However Doppo is someone you can rely on, with a lot of frustration bottled inside him to the  point of it becoming an amazing weapon once unleashed with the rap battles. He’s very quick and ressourceful when put into extreme lifethreatening situation, which got Jakurai’s attention a lot. 

So this is the main divisions and characters. There are more developped via the drama CDs obviously, more plot and all, but that’s the gist of it. Honestly again it’s just a pretext for characters and songs that fits their characters. 

I personally never expected to care about it that much - i have friends who had been talking about it for over a year and i just knew it a bit in passing until i started to casually listen to the songs - and then i went down the rabbit hole when i ended up loving the songs too much to not care for the characters. (Stella was my breaking point though. The moment it came out I was lost. This was the moment i dedicated myself to it. I could go on a full ramble just on Stella alone.)

And yeah it kinda shows i have a major bias but my favs are truly the Posse - both as characters and as music style goes. Close second is Matenrou though i love their aesthetics.

the first battle season is over, it’s easy to know from their youtube how it unfolded ahah. The first round was BB VS MTC, the second FP VS MTR. Each rounds came with drama CD setting up the dynamics of the characters in and out of their bands, which was pretty cool. 

After the First Battle Season ended we were blessed with a drama track and song from the Dirty Dawg era which is why i cannot stop shutting the fuck up about it dkjhfd it makes me so sad to look back to how close they were and how they threw all of this away…. 

Now a new season is starting but this is where we’re missing translations so we just… wait. 

There are a few manga that covers a few of the drama tracks but not all, and there will be a mobile game soon. 

But yeah that’s. that’s basically the basis. 

And it is far too entertaining to me kdjhfd

and i probably shouldn’t have written all of that with a killer headache but i,, love they,,,

so yeah this is all there is to know. If you’ve read it this far… i admire your patience. Thank u

And take care!

[letting-them-take-liberties]

Tenka Touitsu Koi no Ran ~Shutsujin! Saika 4-ninshu~ Ohirome no Jin Event Report

True to his name, Okawa Genki was very much genki during the entire event.

Seats were amazing.

I was lucky enough to score tickets to the advance screening of AniRan Episode 1, and as always, my friend who’s not even into KoiRan joined me.

I headed to LaLaPort Toyosu, where the screening would be, really early, as I wanted to get merchandise before they run out.

An hour and a half of queuing later, I secured the things that I wanted:

On a side note, there were some people who queued for the goods who ended up spending some JPY10,000 and above for random can badges. As always, I’m never the type to gamble, so I made do with one can badge. Unfortunately, I got Shingen, and true to my word, I threw the can badge into oblivion.

Random can badges like these are the reason why Japan doesn’t need casinos as people here love to gamble and try their luck on blind packaging that may or may not contain their favorites

We had time to kill before the screening so we ended up roaming around the mall. I ended up buying a magazine about Japanese castles, which featured Shiroishi Castle.

With that done, we headed back to the cinema so that we could get inside the movie theater.

Along the way to the theater, I saw both the president and vice president of Voltage Inc. talking to the staff, which didn’t surprise me this time, as I’ve realized that this was the second time I’ve seen them attending a Voltage event (first time I saw them in public was at the Voltage Romance App 10th Anniversary Exhibit last December 2017).

At 5:30PM, the theater was full, and the viewing began.

Episode 1 Highlights:

Quartet interaction was amusing, with each of the guys having a distinct personality; they’re all easy to tell apart.

Okawa Genki (Tsubame) was very convincing as a hot-headed, hot-blooded Saika mercenary, but the animation says otherwise [more on that later]

Chidori is my spirit animal and I love him

Saizou cannot be fucking bothered to do shit

Yukimura didn’t show how hot-blooded and wild he can get, but hearing Masuda Toshiki was enough [for me at least]

Mention of Saika Magoichi and Takeda Shingen having an alliance, which is what brings the Quartet and Yukimura and Saizou together

The announcer stated that the team didn’t make it in time to edit in the ED song, so they played it after the episode was shown.

Overall impression of the whole episode:

Animation was kind of awkward, but I’m giving it a pass as Vol Pictures is new and I am assuming that they’re all still getting a feel of how to go about animating anime series

OP and ED songs were amazing; I want to hear the full version already

The budget of the episode went to the background/scenery which was both amusing and confusing at the same time; shouldn’t the focus be on the characters instead...?

Character movement was awkward, especially in the ED; I have no idea what happened.

They used the BGMs from the game, and during one scenario that had Yukimura talking, the playful BGM played in the background and it seemed very out of place because he was talking about something serious

They used the chibi art in some scenarios, which was a-okay, but I guess they did so as a filler of sorts. Animating, after all, is just difficult.

Voice acting was superb, as always. Props to the director for guiding them.

With that, we had a talk portion of the event.

Highlights:

Okawa Genki (Tsubame) couldn’t sit still so he ended up standing up the whole time despite the presence of chairs; he said he was very nervous

Komatsu Shouhei (Tobi) was too nervous as well, as he admitted that it’s his first time to attend an event like this

Ichikawa Taichi (Chidori) was rather level-headed and was using his cuteness to charm all of us into thinking that he’s so nice and pure and innocent, but he actually has haraguro and yandere tendencies

Tsubame was disappointed as he couldn’t have his hair styled the same way during his KoiRan cafe appearance; Tobi had his spiked, while Chidori effortlessly pulled off the look

Tsubame was the senpai among the three so he was taking the lead role, Tobi was at a loss on what to do (he’s reeeeeaaaaaallly not used to it), while Chidori did the straight man act.

Tsubame had to stand away from the microphone compared to the two when they did a live voice acting of their characters, as he tends to scream out loud

Nogami Shou (Hibari) wasn’t able to make it to the event, but he recorded a video for the audience and his fellow seiyuu. While the video was playing, Tsubame kept interjecting tsukkomi, which made it more hilarious.

Tobi noted that the Quartet will “not lose” to their sempai (Yukimura and Saizou’s seiyuu)

All three had no idea that they were going to do a drama CD

When Tsubame first met Tobi, immediately, the director told them to, “Go inside the recording booth and fight.” [it’s for a scene in Episode 1]

Tsubame recalled the time during his KoiRan cafe appearance that the girls were freaking out when they announced that Yukimura and Saizou would be making an anime appearance

During the time they announced their unit’s name, Tsubame wanted their team to have the name ‘Ami’ (probably a reference to the word ‘friend’ in French), but ‘Quartet’ won out because of the poll over at Twitter.

Tsubame loves to ad-lib to the point that sometimes, his fellow seiyuu get lost.

Cute moment: All three of them posed like their chibi characters at one point

Reference photo (Source):

AniRan Episode 1 will be streaming from within the KoiRan LB app this May 28, 2018.

Bonus photo:

Freebie from the screening: postcard set

[recentanimenews]

BokuBen – 01 (First Impressions) – Don’t Forget the Frustration

BokuBen or We Never Learn pulls off a fine trick; one so admirable knowing the potential underlying cynicism for its formula doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of the show. First, it draws you in with its catchy, vibrant OP, two girls as lovably drawn and animated as Trigger or Shaft fare, and brings three consummate-professional seiyuu in Shiraishi Haruka (wonderful as Asirpa in Golden Kamuy), Tomita Miyu (excellent as Abyss’ Riku) and Osaka Ryouta (from everything) to the party.

Then, once you’re at that party, you learn that the beauty is more than skin deep, and that the three main characters presented so far are richly detailed and both their dreams and motivations are clearly and strongly defined. More to the point, all three are extremely likable rootable characters, so let’s meet ’em!

Osaka’s Yuiga Nariyuki is your standard hard-working kid with a good heart. We learn his family is poor, his father deceased, and later, that he’s the man of a dilapidated house, desperate to help hold both it and the family within it together. And there’s your motivation for why he’d accept almost any condition in exchange for getting a free ride at the college affiliated with his high school.

That condition involves him having to tutor the two school geniuses, Furuhashi Fumino (Shiraishi), the “Sleeping Beauty of the Literary Forest”, and Ogata Rizu (Tomita), the “Thumbelina Supercomputer.” Those amazing nicknames are incredibly accurate in describing the two girls’ strengths, but fall far short of describing the full measure of their respective characters.

That is because Furuhashi, a genius in liberal arts, wants to go to college for science, while Rizu, a genius in science, wants to go to college for liberal arts. The scenario almost too deliciously perfect, right down to their hair and eye color resembling Eva’s Rei and Asuka.

Yuiga quickly learns that Furuhashi is as hopeless at math as Rizu is hopeless at literature, and that this will be no easy task. But the reward will be getting into college without burdening his family, which makes it worth the challenge.

At first, his frustration with their ineptitude in the fields they wish to pursue, and suggestion that they simply tutor one another, lead the girls to suspect that he’ll abandon them just like all the (numerous!) previous tutors. I mean, he’s saying the same thing they all did: stick with what you know, you’re both geniuses in that! Let your talent take you as far as it can! USE YOUR GIFTS.

But like any gift someone didn’t specifically ask for (nor had the opportunity to do so) if it’s not something they wanted, they should be free to pursue something they do.

The polite, apologetic, self-berating Furuhashi and fiery, direct, and suspicious Rizu may differ in many ways but one way in which they do not is in their steadfast determination not to take the paths of least resistance, nor let a consensus of outside voices they had no control over determine what they should be.

In their haste to take their leave of yet another tutor who doesn’t understand where they’re coming from, the girls leave their practice books behind with Yuiga, and when he finds them packed with notes proving how hard the two of them worked to understand, Yuiga proceeds to understand where they’re coming from, because it’s a place he’s been to too.

Yuiga used to suck in school, and remembered the pain and frustration of simply not understanding something, not matter how hard he tried. He’s able to empathize with them not possibly being happy if they gave up on what they wanted to do simply because what they could do was easy.

So he supplies them with advisory notes and suggests they study in the library together. I loved how he got so into his explanation of how he got them and relates to them, it sounded at first to both of them that he was confessing his love for them at the same time! Thankfully, he’s able to quickly diffuse that misunderstanding and they head to the library.

There, Yuiga learns another layer of difficulty beyond the practical matter of getting these two into the colleges of their choice—the fact that he’s a high school guy, and they’re both insanely cute high school girls. Getting his VIP recommendation and free ride doesn’t just mean making sure they succeed; he has to continue keeping his grades up.

But it’s hard to focus when, for instance, Furuhashi nods off and rests her head on his shoulder, during which he gets a whiff of her hair, or when Rizu draws in so close to show him a problem that her chest brushes against his side. Yuiga’s romantic history isn’t mentioned here (it’s likely he’s devoted all his time to studying and improving his grades), but it’s clear both of those events were probably firsts for him.

Meanwhile, Fusuhashi and Rizu remain charmingly unaware of the effect they’re inadvertently having on Yuiga. I appreciate this distinction: they’re not intentionally flirting with him, nor are they in conscious competition for him. This is all in Yuiga’s head right now. They’re both there to study. So when he starts blushing and breathing heavily, they assume he’s not feeling well due to a fever.

Yuiga’s interactions with Furuhashi and Rizu post-“confession” plumb satisfying new depths in both their character stories, both for Yuiga and me. Those new layers further explain why Furuhashi and Rizu are pursuing fields opposite their strengths, and it isn’t just for the sheer challenge.

Furuhashi wants to pursue a career in astronomy because she loves the stars and wants to have a closer connection to them, especially as one of them might be her late mother’s star. Meanwhile, Rizu’s family owns an udon restaurant, but while on break between deliveries she is playing a card game for 2-10 players…by herself. Yuiga plays her learns she sucks at it, but she still loves board and card games, and wants a career that will help her understand more about the human emotions that blend with the math to make those games special.

In both cases, Yuiga promises both he’ll support them, and again, their conversations take a turn that could be construed as romantic, only this time he isn’t being supportive to them both at the same time, like his “confession,” so each girl has more cover to express their gratitude for his continued support.

The episode closes by putting faces on the family Yuiga wants to protect: his mother, two younger sisters, and younger brother. But he’s no mercenary in this effort; and his family is no longer the one and only reason. He seems genuinely invested in working to help secure Furuhashi and Rizu’s happiness, as someone whose late father urged him to value failure, and the pain and frustration that result form it, as among the most important teachers in life.

When he’s approached by both Furuhashi and Rizu at school in front of his friends, and both of them whisper in his ear not to mention to anyone what they talked about last night, it creates a third layer to Yuiga’s increasingly complicated mission: the social aspect outside the trio’s dynamic. This is high school; rumors will spread and misconceptions will develop. How will the three of them deal? Not to mention there’s a third girl on the horizon: one who may be a genius in swimming.

I’m over 1200 words here, so I should wrap this sucker up—BokuBen had a very strong start, as I’m invested in everyone I’ve met so far. It’s a great-looking show with great-sounding seiyuu and has a very promising premise. If it can maintain the quality of its premiere, I’ll have no problem tuning in.

By: sesameacrylic

[tl-notes]

Konosuba Episode 3 Notes

You've probably seen these leaf umbrellas before. They are inspired by irl butterbur leaves (or rather, a specific, large subspecies of it that is native to northern Japan), which are fuggin huge and have long, thick (veiny) stems you can hold them with, and as such can be used as a makeshift umbrella. It’s same species of plant that they made tempura out of in noted Good-Anime-Set-In-Northern-Japan, Flying Witch.

They have an association with Koropukkur, which are kind of like fairy/dwarf/elves in Ainu folklore—their name basically translates to “the people under the [butterbur] leaves”—who are often depicted holding them.

If you hadn't noticed, all the episode names (excluding s1e1) follow the same pattern as the series title: “Kono ______ ni _______ wo”. Kono means “this,” -ni is a particle that indicates indirect object status (among several other things, it’s quite versatile), and -wo is a particle that indicates direct object status (grammatically, like subject/object/verb). So you’ve got no subject or verb, just the direct and indirect objects, which is Japanese as fuck.

As a comparatively high context language, you’re free to drop many more parts of the sentence in Japanese than you can in English. This is why you get stuff like one-word lines turning into a whole sentence in the subs sometimes. It’s also the source of a lot of Japanese humor and drama. When you’re able to leave out the subject, object, and/or verb in a sentence, it’s easy to write a dialogue where the characters think they’re talking about the same thing, but aren't (as an example).

This also makes it hell to translate sometimes, as this is often used as a tool to keep information away from characters or the audience. It’s a lot easier to write cryptic conversations when, again, you don’t need subjects or objects.

Warning Feel free to skip this entry, it's long and boring. Warning

The words used to refer to different types of employment are actually fairly well defined in Japan. The two used here are naishoku and (aru)baito, but there’s also part-time, keiyaku-shain, and sei-shain. All these are common words you’ll see when looking through job ads:

Naishoku is work you do at home, and generally pays per task done, not an hourly wage or salary. When Aqua says “I’m being paid more” she specifically says the amount she gets paid per carton has gone up.

Baito (short for arubaito, which comes from the German word for work, arbeit) is work done “on the side” of some other thing that’s your main focus. Most often, that thing is high school or college, though it can also be another job that doesn't pay as much as you’d like or doesn't give you enough hours, like a lot of artsy work (indie band, new/unpopular seiyuu/mangaka/animators/authors, etc.), or even just “looking for a ‘real’ job.” It was originally used as a code word by students, who were often forbidden from having a job. If you’ve heard the word “freeter,” it comes from “freelance arbeiter.”

Part-time (or part-timer, or just part), is basically the same thing as it is in English, except it’s almost always used to refer to women, particularly housewives who want to make a little money on the side. It doesn't have to, but the connotation is strong enough to the point you see a lot of people online asking “I'm a man, can I apply to this job that says it's looking for part-timers?”

Keiyaku-shain (contract employees) are usually full time employees but with a distinct duration to their employment contract and usually lacking in a lot of the legal protections afforded normal employees. This style of employment has become all the rage lately, as it allows employers to skirt a bunch of labor laws, and they can just renew your contract as long as they want to keep you on. It’s said this trend is the cause of a lot of the job insecurity that people say they feel when asked about why they aren't getting married or having kids. Good luck on raising that birth rate, Japan!

Sei-shain (full employees) are just that, regular employees with all the associated legal protections, of which Japan technically has a lot of. This is a pretty highly sought-after status nowadays.

This list was ordered by “generally lowest paying” to “generally highest paying.”

As you may have noticed, he says the same thing both times in the Japanese: うつなよ (utsunayo). Utsu is the verb for “to shoot/fire,” sticking “-na” at the end turns it into a strong command to not shoot, and the yo is for flavor; also just “utsuna” by itself sounds a little harsh.

Ironically, adding -na to a different conjugation of the verb instead turns it into a command TO do the thing, instead of not do it. E.g. if he’d said uchinayo instead of utsunayo it would completely reverse the meaning.

The Japanese here doesn't actually make it clear the person is male (not that it particularly matters here). For such a gendered language, it’s interesting there are so many ways to avoid bringing up the gender of whoever you’re talking about. Megumin specifically uses the word “soitsu,” which in addition to being pretty gender neutral also doesn't show any respect, which is indicative of how she feels about this guy despite his supposed greatness.

“Foresight” here in the Japanese is 千里眼 (senrigan), which is basically “thousand-ri eyes” (a ri is roughly 4 kilometres*). It seems to have originated in ancient China, as things often do, when a particular general(?) had a particularly good spy network; it was said “his eyes see for a thousand ri.” It sounds hella cool so it gets used in games/anime/manga/etc. and shit a lot as a skill name, generally for “clairvoyance” type skills.

*Amount varies by country and time period. Also it's typically written with an L when referring to the Chinese version.

Minor detail, but he specifies “on your few strengths” here too, though using a different word from the one that was translated as “few” in the previous line. There’s a long-running Japanese meme of “[it’s] important so [I/you] said it twice” (大事なことなので二回言いました) that might apply here. Given the, the uh, the circumstances.

Bit of foreshadowing/punning here. The word for “the living” is 生者, alternatively pronounced seisha, shouja, or seija. She uses seija. Seija, when using these kanji: 聖者, instead means saint/holy person.

And we see what kind of person the undead actually chase after.

Specifically he’s making the ふーん (fu-n) sound here, which when used in real life sounds like hmmm, but with more of an 'n' sound. It’s the sound people make when being told some sort of fact; depending on the tone used it either indicates “huh, that’s an interesting fact!” or “cool story bro.” All this to say I cracked up at how clearly he enunciated the f/h at the start of his ふーん.

What’s translated as “keen eyes” is actually a bit more poetic sounding: “kumori-naki manako” (曇りなき眼). It uses a fancy word for eyes (which is usually just “me” 目), and a mildly fancy way of saying “unclouded”: kumori (clouded) naki (not).

It’s also a phrase famously used in Princess Mononoke, which they are undoubtedly referencing.

He’s saying “sensei” here, which is traditionally what (generally wealthy) people would call their bodyguards back in like the Edo period. Or, more importantly, it’s what the bad rich guy says to call his strong, mercenary bodyguard after the heroes have defeated his cannon fodder lackeys in all those TV shows set in the Edo period. You’ll hear this usage in anime/manga a fair bit when the one kid loses a fight and then calls in their older, stronger (often yakuza- or gang-involved) friend.

Not that it matters, but since I'm here…: the catnip part of this was added in translation.

The last sentence of this is written like it was taken from the back of a box of medicine, and in fact the whole thing does generally sound like

a drug ad.

[entergamingxp]

Learn About the Cool Cute Cast

July 24, 2020 9:34 PM EST

Seven playable characters in Eiyuden Chronicle were detailed, but seeing the game’s legacy with Suikoden, over a hundred should be coming.

Suikoden spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle was freshly announced for a Fall 2022 release by Rabbit & Bear Studios, made by ex Suikoden and Konami developers. Most notably, some of the JRPG’s main characters, and a few locations, were detailed in the Japanese press released of the game’s reveal. We’ve translated all the profiles below, but we highly recommend you to first read the first details on Eiyuden Chronicle and comments from the ex Suikoden developers in our previous article.

Note that the profiles will probably be officially translated via the game’s Kickstarter page, going live on July 27. Some names and terms might be officially spelt differently.

  Name: Nowa Gender: male Age: 17 years old Origin: From a remote village of the Alliance Favorite food: Anything with meat Dialogue line: “Leen would always tell me to stop meddling in others’ business, but seems that’s an incurable illness. I’m going to help whether you like it or not. I don’t know if I can help, but I can’t stand there doing nothing.”

Nowa is a warrior from a remote village, he was hired by the Alliance for a joint mission with the Empire. During the mission, he ends up finding a mysterious artifact called a rune-lens.

Little did he know this event would ed up triggering the war between the Empire and the Alliance.

Later on, Nowa joins the guards of the Alliance.

Nowa is described as a reckless type of person, acting before thinking of the risks and consequences. He often meddles in other people’s business, but is still appreciated by his comrades, who know they could count on him when it matters the most.

(We don’t know who this “Leen” is yet).

Nowa is the player’s avatar, and can be renamed.

Name: Seign Kesling Gender: male Age: 18 years old Origin: An aristocratic family of the Galdean Empire Favorite food: Poached egg Dialogue line: “This world is cruel and cannot be changed with willpower alone. That’s why I swore I would never hesitate to throw away my ideals for a moment, if this would ultimately bring me closer to realizing them.”

Seign is the second son of the Kesling family. A talented young man who displayed exceptional results at the military academy. He was given command over a mission with a squadron made of mainly students, to look for rune-lenses. This is how he met the protagonist, Nowa. They became friends and told each other their hopes for the future.

His older brother was killed in battle during a rebellion in a remote region of the Empire. This event changed Seign’s life, making him learn the consequences of war.

Seign is a strategist who always sees the big picture, and as such is often misunderstood as a cold person. He keeps his emotions and passion in his heart.

Name: Melisa Gender: female Age: 16 years old Origin: The forest’s Guardians Favorite food: Herb Chicken Dialogue line: “Hahaha, I know everything about the forest. The water sources, where rabbits nest, and where the enemies would hide to ambush us”

Melisa’s family acts as the Guardians of the forest, and thus she was taught about her own mission as a Guardian very early in her childhood. She heartily smiles to her friends but turns into a true warrior when in battle. The Guardians live together with the forest, but do not reject culture and technologies from the outside world, developing independently while incorporating the good parts of said external influence. Even among the Guardians, Melisa has a very open-minded personality. She likes discovering new things, and loves anything cute.

The Guardians have been transmitting from generation to generation special technology when it comes to manipulating rune-lenses. As such, both the Alliance, whom the protagonist Nowa belongs to, and the Galdean Empire, are seeking to ally with the Guardians. Whomever the Guardians decide to stick with, this will be a major turning point in history.

Name: Marlridge Gender: male Age: 27 years old Origin: A naturalist Favorite food: Duck soup Dialogue line: ” “Let’s see, how about we just surrender? That’s the best thing we could do. …That’s not an option? Fine then, let me explain our second best option, how to win this battle.”

A young scholar specialized in natural history. He’s incredibly curious and wishes to know the reason behind Every Little Thing’s existence in the world.

He’s also a genius strategist, and will often save the protagonist and his friends thanks to his skills. However, Marlridge considers war as the most meaningless action done by mankind, and thus finds no value in his own talent as a strategist.

Name: Gaou Gender: male Age: 32 years old Origin: A warrior from a tribe of mercenaries Favorite food: Pancakes with tons of cream on top Dialogue line: “Being the leader and yet standing at the vanguard, rushing in by yourself. Anyone can tell how stupid this is. But that’s fine by me. Life is too short to always be boringly worrying about danger.”

A battlefield veteran, earning his life by participating in many battles. He was born on the battlefield, plans to fight all his life, and die on the battlefield.

The Beast tribe are considered the most ferocious warriors, as such mercenaries like him never run out of work. Mercenary contracts are made on an individual basis, so warriors from the same tribe can often end up fighting each other.

(I’m not paid enough for this, but I could still bet you my next paycheck that this guy is gonna be voiced by Tetsu Inada.)

Name: Liang Gender: female Age: 16 years old Origin: The daughter of a family of martial artists Favorite food: Ultra spicy ramen Dialogue line: ” Uuuh, I don’t really get this difficult stuff, but these random guys suddenly invaded us. So yeah! They’re bad guys!”

She left her home, angry at the Empire invading the Alliance, but didn’t think through about what she should do. She figured she’ll figure things out by reaching a big city, rushed to one, and thankfully ended up meeting the protagonist and friends.

Her family owns a dojo and puts martial arts above everything else, so she was taught how to fight by her father since her childhood. It is said she was able to jump and kick before being able to walk on her two legs.

Name: Mio Gender: female Age: 27 years old Origin: Somewhere from the far east Favorite food: Sasa dango Dialogue line: “Even if you follow a single path, you’re the one deciding where that path will lead”

A female warrior following the way of the sword. She has a stoic personality and often stays silent, only talking to challenge fellow warriors to test her skills.

Because Mio carefully picks her words, and only speaks when truly necessary, with sharp and pertinent remarks, she’s highly respected by her comrades. Sometimes she can be a bit of an airhead though.

There you have it. These are the seven characters revealed so far. Seeeing Eiyuden Chronicle is a successor to Suikoden, it’s highly likely there will be over a hundred playable characters in total. The subtitle Hundred Heroes hints at that too, as well as the screenshots revealed, included further below.

Yoshitaka Murayama is incredibly eager that he and all the others could finally announce the game, and spent some time on Twitter answering fans from all horizons. He most notably jokingly said he’ll “fight” with the rest of the team to include character portraits during dialogues.

わかりました。デザイナーと戦ってきます。 https://t.co/UL1rAApkwq

— 村山吉隆（Yoshitaka Murayama、BluemoonStudio) (@BmsMurayama) July 24, 2020

Last but not least,  some artwork for some of the locations in the game were shared.

This here is the river town of Kinsha, and the second artwork depicts a seaside cave. Again, Eiyuden Chronicle flaunts its Suikoden vibes here. Screenshots of both locations can be found further below.

Eiyuden Chronicle is scheduled to launch on PC, and home consoles if Kickstarter stretch goals are met, in Fall 2022. Meaning it’ll be launching on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch.

If you’re a seiyuu nerd and an anime otaku share your predictions as to who could voice who in the comments.

Source: Rabbit & Bear Studios

July 24, 2020 9:34 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/learn-about-the-cool-cute-cast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=learn-about-the-cool-cute-cast

[nikkimira2006]

Hey, I’m gonna make a seiyuu novel!

Meh, This will be practice, I wanted it to be inspired by Vampire Knight and Angel’s Feather

[nikkimira2006]

I always wanted to create a Seiyuu, military, vampire mahou shoujou themed Anime

So, the Seiyuu industry is cruel, especially to women, this has been a fact for years. So I wanted to create a dark seiyuu anime. Considering I’m Japanese, against the government and liked anime like Vampire Knight, Mahou Shoujou Site, HeartCatch Pretty Cure and Madoka, and Dress up games like Miracle Nikki and Shining Nikki, I have a lot of experience! Taking place in 2007.

Sakuradera Yuki is a shy first year high school student who recently transferred to Yukimori Seiyuu High School, She then meets A mysterious man (who turns out to be Namikawa Daisuke, her long lost brother) and becomes good friends with her and Kurozora Mafuyu, a calm, independent, extremely intelligent, introverted, rebellious, 3rd year high school tomboy (I made her a lot like me) in the volleyball team.

[nikkimira2006]

声優傭兵

ゲームは現在進行中で、2023年11月にリリースされる予定です!闇の声優とエレガンスの天使のコラボレーション!

韓国語のタイトル:

"아이돌 용병!"

リリース予定：2024年7月

リリースプラットフォーム：PS5

評価: 16+

台湾のリリース:

“聲優的僱傭兵”

リリース日: 2024年9月

リリースプラットフォーム：PS5

評価: 16+

英語のリリース:

“Seiyuu Mercenary: Fighting Against the Perverts!”

リリース日：2025年初頭

リリースプラットフォーム：PS5

評価: 10+

日本本土版が最初にリリースされます:

評価: 18+

リリースプラットフォーム: Windows用DVD

注：注意のために、日本語版にのみ18歳以上のセックスシーンがあり、一部の画像は英語版からも削除されます。

[otakusparkle]

Identity V x Suipara Butler's Cafe update

Live 2D animation will be available at the cafe starting from 2/20. The first 3 are, Jack the Ripper, Eli Clark the Seer, and Naib Subedar the Mercenary.

Now introducting their official Seiyuu (Voice actor) :

Jack : Furukawa Makoto

Eli : Suzumura Kenichi

Naib : Nobuhiko Okamoto

In addition, IDV Japan will held an online lottery for shikishi with autograph of each Seiyuu.

Jack : "Sorry, are you surprised ? It does a dangerous performance, but it can spice up Valentine's day"

Eli : "Hey,give it back ! You need to behave or... Ah, My bad. I'm not usually doing this but, maybe I got excited because I'm doing it in front of you"

Naib : "Just like poker, the world is risky. That's why, I, as your butler, oath to protect you"

Good luck ~

[entergamingxp]

Langrisser I & II Review — The Perfect Way to Discover a Tactical RPG Classic Series

March 11, 2020 4:00 PM EST

Langrisser I & II is a sleek, simple, and addicting tactical RPG that sucks you in, just like your own reflection on a set of big, polished shoulder guards.

Back in 1987, three years before the first Fire Emblem game, a Japanese company named Masaya launched Ethlead Senshi, a tactical RPG for Japanese PCs. The game had all the basics found in every tactical RPG nowadays such as stats, skills, and different classes of units including those of the flying and naval variety. A few more tactical RPGs later, Masaya launched Langrisser I on Megadrive in 1991, a simple, short, but addictive and intense tactical RPG, taking place in a world named Ethlead and using lore from Ethlead Senshi. Released as Warsong outside Japan, Langrisser I ended up being remade together with Langrisser II multiple times in Japan. And now, a brand new remake, Langrisser I & II is upon us on PS4, Switch, and Steam. I can tell you right now, it’s definitely the best way to experience or rediscover these classics.

“I can tell you right now, [Langrisser I & II is] definitely the best way to experience or rediscover these classics.”

Langrisser I released in Japan during a golden era where a character’s power level was directly proportional to the size of their shoulder guards. Cool elves, sexy dark elves, along with detailed magic systems and worldbuilding were the norm. Record of Lodoss War was in full bloom, and Slayers had just started. Japanese people wanted fantasy, and Langrisser I delivered. The story stars Ledin, a prince who must suddenly flee his kingdom in the face of an invasion from the empire. Together with the friends he makes along the way, he ends up retrieving the legendary sacred sword, Langrisser, in order to fight an ancient, resurrected evil threatening the world. It’s a pretty straightforward fantasy premise, and nor the characters or the story rarely get any deeper. The remake, however, has plenty of different story routes you can end up on depending on your actions during battles, allowing for a lot of replayability. One run alone won’t take you more than twelve hours to beat.

Langrisser II, seeing it’s a sequel, originally released three years later in 1994 and greatly improves on the first game’s weaknesses and has a much more memorable cast. You’ll probably encounter more story development and characterization in the first five chapters of Langrisser II than in all of your first Langrisser I run. And while the battle system didn’t change an inch, maps, battle situations, and objectives are more varied overall. Beating Langrisser II will take you longer than Langrisser I, and it has even more story route bifurcations, including hidden stages.

In both games, using the story chart, you can go back to any previously cleared story chapter, while keeping your items and levels to try out other routes. For those seeking a challenge, Langrisser I & II both include a New Game+ where you can inherit (or not) your items and levels, and choose to increase the difficulty. However, note that the story chart resets itself in New Game+, which is a choice in this remake that I cannot comprehend and is pretty annoying overall. I vividly recommend keeping a save right before your run’s final battle.

The battle system of Langrisser I & II is similar and yet extremely different than nowadays’ more popular tactical RPG series such as Intelligent System’s Fire Emblem or Bandai Namco’s Super Robot Wars. While there are various types of terrains, each granting attack or defense bonuses, there are no elevation-tied systems, nor are there differences in whether you target a unit from the front, sides, or back. There is no permadeath, either.

“The battle system is simple and yet extremely addicting, intoxicating, and never gets boring.”

In Langrisser I & II, each named character in your army is a Commander, a powerful individual who can recruit Mercenaries. The type and amount of Mercenaries a Commander can recruit will be based on their Class. Each Commander has its own Class Tree, and they can switch Classes after garnering enough Class Points, earned after each level up. While the original Langrisser I & II were pretty strict with this system, this latest remake is generous with Class Points. It also allows you to switch back a Commander to any previously unlocked Class to adapt to the situation.

Mercenary Units also each have their own strengths and weaknesses, with Infantry defeating Spearmen, Spearmen having an advantage over Cavalry, and Cavalry overwhelming Infantry. This is a simple triangle, which is complemented by many other types of units and weaknesses, such as undead monsters, marine units, archers, and magicians. As long as you properly check enemies’ stats and magic before rushing in, most Langrisser I & II maps won’t pose you too much trouble and are pretty well balanced.

During battles, Mercenaries accompany their Commander and get a significant stat boost as long as they stay inside their Commander’s Area of Command. Moreover, the more HP a Mercenary unit has, the more powerful they are. Mercenaries also recover HP when standing adjacent to their Commander. As such, the basic strategy in most of Langrisser I & II’s maps will be to stick together as you march toward enemies, using your Commanders’ offensive, healing or buffing/debuffing magic spells adequately. The last trick to it all is how all Mercenaries will disappear when their Commander is defeated. Defeating the Commander first will result in less experience and money, so you’ll be constantly thinking about whether to farm or try to remove a threat as quickly as possible. The battle system is simple and yet extremely addicting, intoxicating, and never gets boring. The games are also just the right length, to avoid being repetitive.

Mercenaries can each be moved manually, and doing so will be crucial at certain moments. However, their movements can be automated, with four different global strategies to order them, Attack, Rush Defend, and Standby. This, however, brings us to Langrisser‘s biggest flaw. While the Mercenaries’ movement process can be automated, you still have to wait for it to happen. When both your army and the enemy side each have over six Commanders, each with four or more Mercenaries units, Battle Turns in Langrisser can be really long. This is true even if you can skip the battle animations, which are represented with super cute SD versions of the Mercenaries skirmishing and also include pretty cool character artwork cut-ins. While the character movement speed on the map is quite fast, an even faster speed-up turbo function would have definitely benefited this remake. This is the main reason why I’d highly suggest playing Langrisser I & II on the Nintendo Switch for its portability over other platforms.

Langrisser I & II is fully voiced with Japanese voiceovers with a cast including popular seiyuu such as Ayane Sakura and Saori Hayami. The cast all did a great job portraying the characters and their emotions. Even the story summary between each chapter is voiced, narrated by Eri Kitamura, who also voices Langrisser‘s recurring character, Jessica. Music-wise, the rearrangements of this new remake are pretty nice overall. For veteran fans, the original Megadrive OST can be activated, bringing back the works of Hiroshi Fujioka (not to be confused with his homonym, Segata Sanshiro’s actor), Isao Mizoguchi, and Noriyuki Iwadare (nowadays highly popular outside Japan for some of the Ace Attorney games).

Langrisser I & II‘s localization is also pretty good. There are sentences where one or two minor details were left out, but that’s inherent to translating Japanese under time constraints and with few contexts. It’s not something you’ll notice anyway if you can’t understand the voiceovers, and 80% of the time, a few sentences later you get that missing detail conveyed in another form. I’d also point out that surprisingly, the game can be set to other languages; Chinese, Korean, and Japanese are all included, which is nice for those willing to practice other languages through gaming.

Lastly, I cannot speak about Langrisser without mentioning the biggest defining aspect of the franchise: its character design by Satoshi Urushihara, one of the best character designers and artists of all time. The game’s Japanese Limited Editions took full advantage of this fact. This remake also allows players to switch anytime between Satoshi Urushihara’s original designs, and brand new redesigns by Ryou Nagi, the original character designer of the Ar Tonelico series and Heavy Object.

Sadly, the new character designs by Ryou Nagi are very hit and miss and tend to remove a lot of the characters’ individuality, which is extremely weird as Ryou Nagi is usually an excellent artist. The difference in detail is like night and day when you look at the different versions of Betty, a brand new Langrisser I character created for this remake, who appears in one of the new story branches. The first Betty artwork above is the Urushihara’s version, the second one is Nagi’s version, and the third one is from the recent Langrisser Mobile, and its redesigns are much better than in this remake.

“However, you shouldn’t judge Langrisser by its cover, as it has great themes and strong female characters.”

Ryou Nagi also recently redesigned the characters for the remake YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World, and I believe this remake and both Langrisser I & II suffer from the same character design problem. This is a rather disappointing aspect of this remake, though I believe most people discovering the series or who aren’t longtime anime fans won’t even care. It’s important to note, however, that playing with the Ryou Nagi redesigns also add story event CG scenes to the game. They are numerous and pretty well drawn.

As a side note, I’d also point out that except for some of the female cast’s revealing clothes, there is virtually no sexual fan service in Langrisser I & II, whether you were looking forward to it or apprehending it. Though I’m sure the bikini armors by themselves can be off-putting for some, and I understand that. However, you shouldn’t judge Langrisser by its cover, as it has great themes and strong female characters. This is actually unsurprising when it comes to Fantasy Japanese works like these. I’d definitely recommend Record of Lodoss War, Slayers, and Langrisser I & II, to those who think that kind of Japanese stuff is inherently sexist, such as certain people at Sony of America.

Overall, this new Langrisser I & II remake is definitely the best way to get into the series and enrich your tactical RPG culture. Sure, the Sega Saturn remake’s cool anime cutscenes weren’t added in this new remake, but you can always watch them on YouTube.

The Langrisser series was pretty silent this past decade. The latest brand new game in the series, Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2015, is notorious for being particularly bad. This new Langrisser I & II remake is definitely the kind of spur the series needed, and it seems that both this remake and the previously released mobile game are setting up the foundation for a full revival. Hopefully, developers Extreme and Chara-Ani, the companies who now own Masaya, have remakes of the other Langrisser games in the works, so more around the world, myself included, can finally discover the series.

March 11, 2020 4:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/langrisser-i-ii-review-the-perfect-way-to-discover-a-tactical-rpg-classic-series/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=langrisser-i-ii-review-the-perfect-way-to-discover-a-tactical-rpg-classic-series