#kunihito

[slybluehologhost]

Throwback Thursday ＞ sweet pool Illustrated Cards [J-List Physical Release, 2018]

It's no longer Valentine's Day, but I still wanted to share the bonus cards that came with the Limited Edition release from J-List since many of them are quite shippy! In the event that tumblr compresses the hell out of them, you can also view them here.

[xmitchxx]

Okinaga family

[sachi]

☆ Alvis E. Hamilton / Lavie Head // Last Exile ☆ 1/8 / Alter ☆ September 2012 ¥9,680 ☆ Sculpt Iwamoto Kunihito Illustration Murata Range

[tecchan]

[nitrochiralbrainrot]

This is a House Husband Kitani Appreciation Zone.

[heartvisor]

every time they reflect on anything in newgenstars that ends up featuring a tiny clip from fukuide i'm always like aww get that guy off screen. don't worry about learning about him it's fine

[thekimonogallery]

Seto Inland Sea islands and the cherry blossoms of Mt. Shiude, Japan.  Photography by Kunihito Ohtsubo

[suzuran777]

Nitro Chiral April Fools’, 2005 - 2021

Nitro Chiral recently announced that they will probably not create any new content for April Fools’ in the future. I remember really looking forward to this every year, so I was a bit sad to hear that...! They mentioned that they might change this decision again some day, so we will just have to wait and see... To remember all of the fun jokes they’ve created throughout the years I wanted to make a fun compilation of all their previous April Fools’ jokes (or at least the ones I remember and took screenshots of). Maybe someone already posted something similar, but I had a lot of fun looking at these old pictures again! 

2005 Togainu no Chi 'Vischio Jack'. This was just one month after Togainu no Chi was released! Nitro Chiral’s website was filled with Arbitro’s hobbies. He announced that the next game will be called ‘Makeinu no Chi’ which means ‘blood of the losers’... The new main visual also shows all of them bleeding from their noses lol.

Some interesting new items... the Shiki body pillow?

2006 A year later Arbitro hijacked the official website once more and comments on each Lamento character. He seems to be a fan of Konoe but the others aren't his type... This blog describes it in greater detail (Japanese only). Second part of the website teases the Togainu no Chi fighting game (咎狗の血 餓狗 Mark of the Dogs). I kind of wish they really made this game because the description of it sounds fun.

2007 Lamento Love Love Gakuen, which was later made into a real drama CD also started as an April Fools' joke! Asato is Konoe’s childhood friend in this, Rai the student council president and Bardo’s a health education teacher. 

You can still listen to some of the audio clips from the original page here! The plot doesn’t seem much different than the real drama CD they ended up making later. 

2009 Nitro Chiral mentioned they couldn’t do anything for April Fools’ 2008, but they were back in 2009 with..one of the weirder ones. They posted a teaser of their new game, ‘Sweet Potchari’ which literally means ‘sweet chubby’ and as the name suggests, they posted art of all of the sweet pool characters, but this time they’re chubby.

You could check the profile description of each character and Kunihito’s description mentions that he’s very charming and “both men and women love him” lol. I unfortunately don’t have any high quality versions of these wallpapers anymore. Someone also recorded the voice lines, though listen to it at your own risk.

2010 This time Nitro Chiral announces a new project called 'YO! Akira'. It’s Togainu no Chi except all of the characters are replaced by mannequins and they’re kinda terrifying. They made videos in which they re-created part of the opening and the game, which someone actually saved and uploaded, so you can still watch it here...! The whole thing is a parody of Japanese sketch comedy series 'Oh! Mikey!!' which focuses on an American family living in Japan, but all the characters are played by mannequins.

This blog has some more pictures of what the website looked like. The day after this Nitro Chiral made a blog post about maybe spending too much time creating these April Fools’ jokes, but it seems like they had fun! They also had no idea what to do with the mannequins after this.

2012 I think they skipped 2011 because I cannot find any information about it, so let’s move on to 2012! Arbitro took over the Nitro+Chiral website again and changed it to Bitro+Chiral...

You could play this short visual novel on the website in which Arbitro introduced his new product line-up. A hataki (feather duster) shaped like Konoe’s tail, a life-sized Akira statue made of chocolate, Onnushi-sama's curry, and blue butter which is supposed to decrease you appetite so you don't have to eat anymore. After looking at these last two pictures I think I don’t feel hungry anymore...

This is also the year DRAMAtical Murder was released, so they changed the website too! Now it’s DRAMAtical Mother, which is of course referencing the Mother series (Earthbound). You can find some more screenshots and information here.

Aoba got his own Twitter account too this year, which someone also archived here! The Twitter account actually still exists but I believe they locked it after April Fools’ ended. 

2013 This year they focused on DRAMAtical Murder too! They transformed the website into Junkshop Heibon's webstore (the store Aoba works at in the game). It feels kind of nostalgic... 

That same year they also released a radio show in which Aoba and Mizuki work for Midorijima Radio Station. They invite Koujaku, Noiz, Clear, and Mink as special guests. This has been uploaded and fan translated, so I definitely recommend checking it out here! They also ended up selling this as a CD later.

2014 This is one I remember very well because I remember playing the short game they released. It's called ‘Osu-Boys!! ~Ikemen Ryoujoku ☆ Paradise~’ and it's a short visual novel which features the four protagonists, except they're all really clumsy and end up in some really embarrassing situations... I am guessing the artstyle is supposed to be similar to KyoAni’s Free! anime.

I don’t think I can show the full pictures here because the CGs of this game are quite NSFW, but you can probably still find them somewhere online. Aoba worked at an adult goods shop in this game though, nice new job (?). Unlike the browser games, this one could be downloaded, so some people probably still have it.

2015 Arbitro once again returns and opens his own 'hentai' museum.... yeah. Someone uploaded the theme song they made for the website, you can find it here. I believe it’s supposed to be a parody of ‘Atami Hihokan’ (an adult museum).

The website shows a map of the museum and its facilities, some more pictures can be found here. I think the art of the mascots is pretty cute this time...

You could also play this minigame on the website which also featured the four protagonists. There’s still a video of someone playing through the game, so definitely check it out if you’re interested. The artstyle has a bit of a retro feel.

2016 This year the website turned into the 'Raira-ryuu honpo' official homepage, an art school that specializes in the traditional art of ...boys love. All of the characters are drawn like famous Ukiyo-e paintings.

All of the ones above are Tōshūsai Sharaku paintings, so it was pretty easy to find which ones they were referencing!

They also re-drew all of the game covers too and the descriptions of the games were pretty funny. Midorijima was transformed into a big red-light district and the people who lived there were kicked out and are now living in poverty. I hope you’re surviving, Aoba...

This time there was also a flash game which could be played on the website, a shunga (erotic painting) puzzle. You can find all of these pictures here. Like the previous year they are heavily censored and not really NSFW. 

2017 This time the April Fools’ joke is a parody of 'The World of GOLDEN EGGS', a Japanese animation series set in an American-style fictional town, except this time it’s called ‘BOYs LOVE Nitro+CHiRAL’. I’m assuming most people who have been in the fandom for some time remember this one. They created a short YouTube video series and it had English subs. You can still find the videos if you look for them on YouTube so please watch them...! It’s all worth it for Konoe singing ‘I’m in Blue’ and the Rhyme fight.

Youji is always the victim of these awkward conversations... Some more pictures here! You can find the YouTube videos by just searching for the title of the series mentioned above.

2019 After 2017 they stopped updating their website on April Fools’, probably because they were busy working on Slow Damage, but in 2019 they did post some extra illustrations. Not the most happy kind of illustrations, featuring the protagonists and Naito-kun apologizing because they couldn’t do anything for April Fools’ that year...

2021 Unfortunately this is the last one! 2021 is the year Slow Damage was released, so it makes sense the final April Fools' joke focuses on them. It's called 'Warau Euphoria', which means ‘laughing euphoria’. It’s a reference to Japanese series 'The Laughing Salesman', so they're also drawn in a similar artstyle. 

The website has a warning that you need to be over 35 years old to enter instead of the usual 18+ warning lol. They also got Towa’s voice actor to record a couple of new lines on the webpage, if you click here you can still listen to a recording of it.

I’m a bit sad they might not do any of this stuff anymore in the future, but I’m also glad many people recorded videos of the old websites and minigames so we can still enjoy them even now. I couldn’t include every single screenshot in this blog post, so I tried my best to link other pages with more information.

I had a lot of fun checking out their website every year and I really appreciate the effort they put into all of this. I might update this blog with some additional info later!

[pangeen]

“ Colored carp swim Sakura river “ // Kunihito Ohtsubo

[nitrochiraldegenerate]

Sweet Pool chibi Zenya eating with Kunihito and Kitani

[influentialstreet]

After Shingetsu broke up, members of the band reunited in 1984 to create music under the project "Phonogenix" - I recently purchased this record and recorded it in audiophile quality, and did my best to clean up any pops or crackles (since this is not available digitally) Haruhiko Tsuda - LinnDrum programming, Yamaha DX7, Roland MC-4 Micro Composer Akira Hanamoto - Piano Hiroshi Ishibata - Bass Kunihito Shi-na - Guitar

[kenzietensei]

Thoughts on sweet pool

So, I installed this game on my laptop a couple years ago, and only played about an hour into it at the time. This past week I was dogsitting and my laptop was with me, so I thought to play through the various endings of sweet pool.

I'd gotten the game because I read a tumblr post about the history of omegaverse, and I thought it would be interesting to see the origin of some of those tropes. I'm not into omegaverse, though I've read one or two fics using that setup. I'm not really into BL either, and most visual novels I've played have been otome or mystery stories. Also not a fan of gore or horror! So, uh, really not the audience for this title XD

Even so, I found the game compelling and it's been rotating in my brain the last few days since I got through the whole thing. There are a couple points in which I think my perspective might be unique so I figured I'd share. Spoilers below. If you're familiar with the plot, you'd also know what content warnings might apply here, so keep that in mind too >.>

First, I wanna go over some points I haven't really seen discussed/explicated anywhere that stuck out to me!

About the parasites:

The infodump that Kitani reads mentions markmeat, which I've seen reviews refer to as the stuff Youji passes. I'm pretty certain the fleshy bits are actually the fleshseeds and the markmeat is the 'bloodlike' pheromone which seeps out of Youji's neck.

The only people who can see this stuff is supposedly hosts. If you're a host, you'll become either Osu or Mesu. But it's unclear when that transition happens. Is it like a secondary puberty? Zenya's issues have been with him a long time, but he's also an unusual case. Tetsuo has had regenerative talent from childhood. Youji's accident was several years ago, but only very recently has he begun emitting pheromones.

There are at least two other people who can see these signs of the parasite who are unaffiliated with the cult as far as we know! There are rumors going around the school of blood and guts in the chem lab, and a separate rumor about blood and guts in the boys bathroom. Both incidents come about through a male student becoming alarmed and upset upon seeing something no one else can confirm is there. If it had been the same kid, I think the rumors would go a little differently (aka such and such has gone mad, that sort of thing) so I think its fair to say that more than one boy is effected. This indicates these boys are hosts, and also that they don't know about the biological aspects, at the absolute least.

Who are these kids? Are they children who were exposed like Zenya was? If they knew about the cult, they probably wouldn't have freaked out in public, so they're uninitiated and possibly not experiencing any symptoms (IE the way Youji was?). Receiving purebreed flesh is the only way we really see discussed for becoming a host, but then how did Tetsuo develop? Do some people just inherit this from their parents?

Speaking of inheritance, Youji's situation introduces some questions too. He seems to have been physically passed along his father's parasite during the accident... like it entered his wound and this ultimately revived/remade him. Whether Youji was going to eventually develop into a host through inheriting that in a different way, had the accident never occurred, isn't discussed. In the pool, Youji can will himself to do the same for Tetsuo - so did his parasite enter Tetsuo? Taken with the state Youji is in during that epilogue, it's pretty vague what happened. But should we take that to mean that a new parasite melding into the body of a host can revive them?

We are given a decent idea of what Osu and Mesu are. But there seem to be others involved with the cult who aren't dealing with these same symptoms. Kamiya is around high school boys every day and not driving any of them mad. Kunihito couldn't see the Sodomites until after he was shot - even though his family were long time participants in the cult. Furthermore, had either of them been Osu, wouldn't they have been interested to learn of Youji the Mesu? So, are they hosts? Interestingly, there's a moment in the school with Kunihito that makes me really wonder. Kitani interacts with his boss, who is alive (even though narration from Youji earlier seemed to indicate Kunihito had died) for the moment. Then Kitani sees a wriggler entering a wound, and it seems to be attached firmly. He rips it away and shoots it, and then next thing you know, Kunihito is dead. Was that his parasite, keeping him alive, or a new Sodomite trying to enter as a parasite and then reform Kunihito's body? Did Kitani's actions here actually doom his boss?

Can you have a host and then lose it? Might Zenya's state have been fixed by removing the inner being? As a fierce believer, it's obvious why Kunihito wouldn't have opted to do that, though. But I feel like the grand ending suggests that Tetsuo has lost this aspect of himself in the epilogue. He takes a long time to heal, after all. Perhaps in wishing they could live together as humans, Youji caused their parasites to detach?

The whole situation with Youji is so bizarre. He's perpetually weak with a lung disorder, lives barely nourishing himself, and experiences numerous intense injuries over the course of like 2 weeks while undergoing debilitating physical changes. I get why, bereft of regenerative abilities, he would die at the end of the plot.

I think the violins version of Miracles May suggests Youji succeeds in saving Tetsuo at the cost of himself. And the grand ending seems to say that in rejecting the Sodomites, in not sacrificing himself for Tetsuo, Youji does not get his wish in full - he wants to live on with Tetsuo as humans, which I think only half works (Tetsuo managed to pull through after being wounded), and Tetsuo speaks his name one last time, but I don't think Youji is truly around anymore. But I feel like Tetsuo is a human at this point. And perhaps Youji died as a human, too. I just don't get why there was an attempt to cover up his passing? Like the scandal at the academy is already pretty bad, wouldn't it make enough sense to say two students stopped into the school that day and both were accosted by the yakuza and one of them perished? It seems like it's vague just to confuse the audience.

About the characters:

Was Makoto sensitive to the pheromones just cause he happened to be? Or like was it because he was attracted to men that the pheromone could harm him like that? Because I feel like either reading is supported by the text. At what point, removed from the impact of the pheromones, would Makoto regain his sanity? He seems himself when we see him in the hospital. But in his ending, a week has passed since Youji disappeared. We can't know how long it's been since only bones remain - like at what point will the Mesu pheromones no longer be present in Makoto's system? He seems to be still outside his own control at the close of his story.

On endings, it's pointed out that purebreeds can use pheromones to control even normal people. But the degree of *control* is something I wonder about. Like, Youji's pheromones elicited control over others, chaining them to a desire beyond their own sanity. But Youji isn't the one holding the leash, so to speak. Tetsuo's scent also caused this to happen to Youji. And like, the ending where they breed & the prominence of instinct in that route suggests that this final choice is something they submit to rather than a choice they make under their own rational control. So I wonder about the purebreeds ability to control others... is it an active ability, or does it elicit an instinctual response in others?

We see the lump of flesh that Kunihito worships, and from his uncle's journal we know he was once a captivating young man. But he "gave too much of himself to his followers" and now is a weakened flesh slab... Honestly this whole bit of the journal is super suspect. It's phrased like that was a thing the purebreed did of it's own volition, but I don't think we're supposed to accept that at face value. As more of it's flesh was taken, it became weaker - so weak, that members of the organization were sufficiently outside of it's "control" to act on a revolt. Up to that point, was the cult compelled to consume the purebreed's flesh, regardless of it's wishes, due to it's outrageous pheromones? Or did the purebreed willingly give of itself but go to far and tipped the balance of control outside it's own favor? Could the cult have failed at this moment, and prevented the events of the story from ever coming to pass? It seems like there are other purebreeds elsewhere in the world, though, or have been throughout history, so I don't know that the japanese branch falling would end the Sodomites' bid to live on.

Uncle Okinaga can't explain why he tried to protect the purebreed, only that he was compelled to do so in remembering the boy's smile. In one route, Kitani encounters the newborn purebreed. Is he a slave from this point on? Will Kitani end up feeding on the purebreed? It's an uncomfortable question I was left with.

Speaking of Kitani, I feel really mixed about him. On the one hand, he is sympathetic. His shit childhood leads to him forming a traumatic bond with Kunihito. This is actually one of the most upsetting moments of the game, for me! Lol moreso than the gore, tbh. He's at his lowest moment, his body is failing, and this powerful man comes and exerts that power over him through assault. Kitani's instincts take over (he struggles to live). Kunihito says, work for me, you might as well die for a purpose... It really mirrors what happens to Youji so strongly! Like, Youji's connection to Tetsuo is in many ways just the same as this - he is overpowered by Tetsuo, and in the horror of his changing biology, Youji finds that being accepted as he is to be worth the discomforting aspects of the bond. Kitani likewise accepts the worst aspects of the Okinaga family as the price for having a place and a people to belong to. It isn't a loyalty earned through goodness or affection. In the Diving Deep ending, Kitani is said to feel aimless and purposeless without his family, and it seems like he might not care about living any longer. We see in different endings Youji submit his own life to the cost of a 'higher purpose,' whether that be procreation or saving Tetsuo. Ultimately, I don't think either of these men really formed healthy attachments to others and it is worthy of sympathy.

On the other hand! Kitani has committed himself to the Okinaga family, to the point that his support of them is more instinctual than rational choice. He knows it's abnormal, but he still goes ahead and does the eyeball thing, supports Kunihito's religious fervor, never intervenes in anything they've got going on (until the point comes where outside forces - Kamiya - threaten his family). He feels horrible about hurting women and children, but he beats a high schooler on orders from Zenya, and helps Zenya kidnap Tetsuo and Youji. Like, I think he'd already looked into Youji's background at this point, so once Zenya's done with Youji for the time being, Kitani knowingly dumps this frail, frequently hospitalized boy who has just undergone a brutal beating in the trash disposal area of the house where he lives alone with no one to care for him. That is abhorrent. Then, he helps Zenya kidnap this same boy a second time, at which point the boy is kept as a sex slave. Kitani is not in the dark about this - he is an adult and knows both Kunihito and Zenya are mentally unstable, and that these actions are not only harmful or illegal, but seriously jeopardize Youji's life. And then, the real kicker? Zenya really loved it when Kitani sewed Kristi a lil yukata to match Zenya's outfit. So, Kitani dutifully makes his new pet, Youji, an outfit as well! I'm sure seeing Zenya so happy really made it all worth it, huh Kitani?

About my feelings:

So, I played this game at a point in time where I was actively on my period lol I still am right now as a matter of fact. And although I initially started it earlier before this was part of my life, in the interim time I had bariatric surgery and have developed a different relationship to food, hunger, my biology, and the often uncomfortable bowel changes that came with it.

It's horrible, but my partner didn't flinch away from the hard truths that came with major surgery. We've had to discuss diarrhea and incontinence and foul gas. Early on, there were days I thought I would die of embarrassment, but he loved me regardless. Thankfully, the biggest problems of the early days are mostly a thing of the past, but it's not something I'm liable to ever forget. I felt so bad for Youji, going through something that altered him intrinsically like that, with no one to support him. When he takes Tetsuo's actions to be unconditional acceptance of his mortifying biology, this leads Youji to bond with the man at the expense of his own being. He becomes subsumed into this bond. Had Erika's situation been different at the time, I don't think Youji would have clung to Tetsuo's lack of repulsion as if it were love.

Further, I felt a kinship to Youji's difficulty feeding himself that was absolutely absent the first time I played any of the game. Having been through a great deal of nausea, food repulsion, and experiencing my body at it's weakest, I was just as worried about his health as before but more sympathetic to the forces at play than last time.

As for the menstrual aspect, I can totally vibe with the idea that this bodily change is a repulsive, dirty, shame-inducing experience which alienates a person from their peers and from their own body. When I'm on my period, I do feel like my body is outside of my control, and knowing it's for a function (childbirth) isn't some welcome news. Like I have to put aside myself as an individual person (mind) to deal with the realities of my form (woman) for the time being, and it's jarring and uncomfortable. In this regard, I feel the reason vs instinct system is so well supported by the story's themes!

Also, uh, as someone who has experienced painful sex, anal sex, and painful anal sex in my life, the sex scenes were pretty intense to play through. Like the agony is well written and Youji's lack of consent is ever present. When he becomes aroused, it is not treated as if that is equivalent to consent, which I especially appreciated as this is something of a problem when it comes to discussing the rape of men in particular. Even when Youji is participating in sexual interaction, the way the biological aspect has been laid out, with the pheromones and everything, makes consent not really possible. While Youji comes to feel a bond with Tetsuo, it is due to their biology moreso than a romantic connection, and this seems like something borne from the need to mate rather than driven by who they are as *people.*

I do think it's interesting that this game is so focused on biological functions. The drive to breed, which in some species does indeed come at the expense of the parents' lives, is only one thread of this theme. The need to nourish oneself is definitely very present. And then digestion and expelling waste comes into play in a highly unusual way, lol. I found the mention of the myrmecoleon to be thematically resonant and perplexing at the same time. From Kamiya's comments, each half is biologically at odds with the other. I wondered how this was meant to be taken in conjunction with the story. Like, Youji doesn't eat, but he produces this new flesh and passes it - the flesh seeds are not a product of what he takes in. And it doesn't seem like not eating is enough to kill Youji based on what we see. But Kamiya's statement that maybe one end could survive if it would reject the other is kind of weird. You can read it as saying one part can survive - either the reasonable part of the being (the human) or the instinctual aspect (the parasite). There is no fusion of the two possible, no coexistence. It makes enough sense in regards to Youji, but it's a little confusing if you try to apply it to the Osu-Mesu pairing (two halves of a whole). I kind of felt that it was saying only one of the two could have their wishes fulfilled/their needs respected. Since Youji is getting raped all the time, I thought that's what Kamiya was getting at, at first. And if you take it to the breeding stuff, it is also confusing, Kamiya! What we see of their copulation, producing a purebreed is very much a matter of fusion, so it reads at odds with the myrmecoleon bit. If you see the lion and the ant as humans and Sodomites in their separate species, that's also kinda weird. I think its meant to represent that the hosts are these third kinds of beings - both ant and lion - and that their existence is at odds with both parts of their biology. It really leaves me wondering how the hosts and purebreeds thing is supposed to accomplish anything for the Sodomites. It's not clear what they're gaining from this, though it also isn't clear that any alternative is available to them. The drive to exist is strong enough that they must attempt to continue the species, no matter what indignities it requires, I guess?

Overall, I left the game feeling very unsettled (the music is SO effective, omfg) and on edge. Hopefully having written out my thoughts will help me to move on from sweet pool!! Can't really say I'm glad I played it - I was curious about how it related to omegaverse and it was indeed fascinating to see the root of those tropes being developed - but it didn't do anything for me in that doki-doki kind of way and left me more agitated than moved by its emotional stuff. I do think it was very well written, and well conceived, and well produced. I'd love to talk about it with other people, though I doubt I'd ever play it again or be likely to recommend it.

Thanks for reading this crazy long post :3

[musicjpn]

musicjpn.com に、 猫写真をgalleryしてみました😳

[sachi]

☆ Gilgamesh // Fate/Grand Order “Archer” ☆ amie x ALTAiR / 1/8 / Alter ☆ July 2023 ¥29,480 ☆ Sculpt Iwamoto Kunihito Paint Watanabe Takamasa

[sidonius5]

[kunihito-miki]