#one where well-known female seiyuu voice the characters

[golvio]

IIRC this clip was voiced by the voice actors who play Majima and Kiryuu in the Yakuza series.

Reblog the versions of the Pop Team Epic clips with the deep voices, you fucking cowards.

[bowcrazy]

Tsurune Character Songs Album Review

We had a lot of thoughts about these songs while working with the lyrics, so we decided to do a mini album review! Please enjoy listening to each songs as we reflect on the lyrics and composition~

Up Stairs

Mod Yumi: A very gentle, comforting song, as expected from a Minato/Seiya duet. The composers did an excellent job capturing the feeling of nostalgia; this somehow feels like a song I've known and loved for years. The lyrics are perfect--I love the references to the bridge scene from s1 ep10. The line "I had a place where my heart could relax" is so precious <3 Overall, I don't think it's the strongest song on the album, but it's definitely one of my top faves!

Mod Optimus Prime: A heartfelt way to start off the album! It's very sweet and mellow, which of course really fits the fact that, y'know, the song is about Minato and Seiya's relationship! It's more or less just a straight callback to all of season one, but it's really touching how (both literally and figuratively) they come together at the end there.

Crossover

Mod Yumi: This song is so excessively dramatic and I kinda love it?? It does NOT sound like a song that ties into a soothing, chill slice of life archery anime and I am here for it. But I'm also weak for synth horns; give me a cheesy overexuberant fake brass section and I'm sold. Bonus points for all of the archery references and unnecessarily homoerotic lyrics. (And special shoutout to Mod Optimus Prime, our resident FukuJun stan, for helping me with the color codes because I was completely lost lmao)

Mod Optimus Prime: Probably the character duo song with the most...attitude to it? And sass, which of course, fits these two incredibly troublesome boys. To me, it's almost like the two are having a back-and-forth with each other while also brazenly admitting to each other just how tangled up they are—admittedly a reoccurring theme for the duet songs, but that doesn't make it any less cute, I think!

Ari no Mama de

Mod Yumi: Very cute and wholesome, doesn't really do it for me in terms of composition though. I do think this is the most well-acted song on the album. Having heard both of these seiyuu sing as other characters (notably Suzuki Ryouta as Bisco from Sabikui Bisco and Yano Shougo as Mafuyu from Given), I was blown away by how different they both managed to sound! Changing your voice to that extent while singing is not an easy thing to do. I was also tickled by the fact that they both noticeably sang less well than I know they're both capable of singing, because it suited the characters better to do so. Listening to this song, you wouldn't think either of these singers are particularly talented, but that fact is proof in and of itself that they ARE talented. Mad respect for the skill displayed here!

Mod Optimus Prime: Unsurprisingly, sunshine boy Ryouhei and the other local cheery boy have an easygoing and slow duet! I can't really say too much aside from the fact that the lyrics are both just really cute and earnest—you can see Ryouhei's influence here, haha.

Growing Up

Mod Yumi: Very cute, very catchy! I enjoy this song a lot. As a side note, I find it interesting that besides Minato, Nanao is the only character to be featured in two songs. One of the things I like about Nanao is that he's characterized mainly through his relationships with other characters. Sometimes when we see this happening it's more to do with lazy character writing (and lbr, it usually happens with female characters). But in this case, it actually builds our understanding of the character, rather than just casting him into the side character role of 'only here to develop the MCs'. To me it's always felt like he's the most put-together of the team, watching over everyone else and giving them a nudge in the right direction, while blending in so effortlessly they don't suspect a thing, like the social chameleon he is. Oops, this just turned into me gushing about Tsurune character writing lol. The song's nice idk what else to tell ya

Mod Optimus Prime: Also yet another honest song—a rare thing for Kacchan! It's obviously about Kaito and Nanao's close friendship and the further development during season two, so it's fitting we also get to see more of Nanao's (somewhat hidden) stubborn side here. Not to meme here, but really shows how their relationship fits the, "the more things change, the more things stay the same," aka them supporting ("protecting") each other through thick and thin.

Gekkou

Mod Yumi: I'm not the biggest fan of the composition of this song. I can't put my finger on why, but the main melody isn't working for me (and doesn't work great for Asashin's voice either tbh). That said, the backing track lives rent free in my head, I'm OBSESSED. And I love the dreamy feel of the lyrics! Whereas the others feel more like a dialogue between the singers, this one feels like a poem. The ethereal quality of the music and the lyrics draws me back to Masa-san's introduction, when he was a cryptid/ghost (lmao) appearing in the dead of night to guide Minato back to archery

Mod Optimus Prime: I've only heard Asanuma Shintarou (Masaki's VA) sing in a higher register, so this was both surprising and pleasant—it's quite soothing to hear! It's also fitting that the only Real Adult™️ with bounds of experience compared to these young'uns gets a really poetic and dramatic song with, of course, lots of moon references.

Kyoumei

Mod Yumi: THIS IS THE BEST ONE. This song is a legit bop omg. Leave it to luck life to give us a character song that exceeds typical character songs! I also love the meaning of the lyrics; it almost feels like a new angle on the Shuu/Minato relationship in a way? Of course we know their history and their affectionate rivalry, but we don't really see either of them putting into words how they feel about each other (especially Shuu-- I had to laugh at the line "we didn't need mundane words"; like no dude we could actually use a few more words from you, given your track record of communicating approximately 7% of your thoughts smh). This song puts into words how much they mean to each other and how, despite their complicated history and rivalry, they still care about each other.

Mod Optimus Prime: Luck Life actually composed this song, which really shows in the style (that catchy guitar, anyone?)! I adore the constant references to "sounds"—while a bit cheesy and on those nose, of course, it fits these two to a T and calls back to that season one finale. Again, not that any of the songs are really subtle, but "We might be apart, but I believe we'll someday return / So we didn't need mundane words" really just sums up their unique friendship/rivalry. Also, love how the two only sing together at the end: really fits with the song's whole message/theme about the two being separated, but eventually reuniting! How sweet.

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 9: Samurai Warriors 2

Samurai Warriors 2 (戦国無双2) Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PC Release dates: Japan: 24 February 2006 (PS2), 17 August 2006 (Xbox 360), 11 July 2008 (PC) USA: 19 September 2006 (PS2), 19 September 2006 (Xbox 360), 27 June 2008 (PC) Europe: 22 September 2006 (PS2), 22 September 2006 (Xbox 360), 27 June 2008 (PC)

For years, what I knew about this game and the Samurai Warriors series in general came from the Warriors Orochi games. I didn't know a lot about the figures or battles of Sengoku era Japan unless I researched it on Wikipedia or eventually played the games.

While writing my personal project in 2014, the order of adapted battles in the story for that year went as follows: Mikatagahara, Odawara, Nagashino, Shizugatake, Okehazama, Komaki-Nagakute, Sekigahara, Ōsaka and Honnōji. If I had a more proper understanding of the game and the era, I probably would have done those things in order, but then again I'm just making up my story and not entirely adapting history.

Like how Dynasty Warriors 5 was made more historical than previous games, Samurai Warriors 2 was the equivalent for its series. This game goes past Nobunaga's era to focus on Hideyoshi's unification of the land and the Battle of Sekigahara, introducing characters associated with said battles. The visuals are made golden to contrast the darker colours of the previous game.

Let's get into the guts of it right after the break.

Samurai Warriors 2

Starting off with the characters now, and one thing to note is that the character lineups are not consistent between games as characters have been cut and reintroduced as the series goes on. As such, Goemon Ishikawa, Kunoichi and Yoshimoto Imagawa have been cut from this game, but their images can still be seen in Sugoroku and the Battle of Okehazama is still mentioned at the start of the Story Mode for related officers.

Okuni and Ranmaru Mori are still in this game, but they have no Story Modes. Okuni is unlocked by winning a game of Sugoroku while Ranmaru is unlocked by playing the first two Mitsuhide and Ranmaru's Requests in Survival Mode. Their fourth (and later fifth) weapons are also unlocked in Survival Mode as well.

Here are the new characters debuting in this game:

Ieyasu Tokugawa (PC'd)

Mitsunari Ishida

Nagamasa Azai (PC'd)

Sakon Shima

Yoshihiro Shimazu

Ginchiyo Tachibana

Kanetsugu Naoe

Nene

Kotarō Fūma

Musashi Miyamoto

Kojirō Sasaki (NPC)

Katsuie Shibata (NPC)

As listed above, Ieyasu Tokugawa and Nagamasa Azai are now made into playable characters, with Nagamasa's seiyuu changing from Takayuki Sasada in 1 to Hiroshi Kamiya from this game onwards. Nene essentially replaces Kunoichi's role as a female shinobi in this game. Yoshihiro and Ginchiyo's introduction also marks the introduction of the clans of Kyūshū, most notably the Shimazu and the Tachibana (through the Ōtomo clan). Katsuie Shibata and Kojirō Sasaki are the new NPCs appearing in this game; they can be unlocked as bodyguards for 6,400 gold in the shop after clearing a mission in Survival Mode. The narrator in the Japanese dub has been changed to Daisuke Gōri, who also voices Shingen Takeda.

Hideyoshi Hashiba is now known as Hideyoshi Toyotomi from this game onwards, with his seiyuu changing from Munehiro Tokita to Hideo Ishikawa. Historically, the name Toyotomi was granted to Hideyoshi and his clan by the Emperor in 1586. In this game, Hideyoshi's surname is never mentioned and he is only known by his former name when he's an ally or enemy before the Conquest of Kyūshū (Shikoku in XL); when you play as him, he will always be known by his new name no matter what battle you play. Later games would make the distinction clearer and more accurate, with Hideyoshi being known under Hashiba or Toyotomi depending on what year the battle took place (except for the stages where he wasn't originally featured in 3 in which case is is always known under Toyotomi).

Story Mode is made up of five (individualised) stages per character (no splitting paths or special conditions) with an extra Gaiden/Dream stage after completing the first five. Ieyasu and Mitsunari, being the leading figures at the Battle of Sekigahara, get a sixth story stage. For Kenshin, Oichi, Magoichi, Mitsunari and Yoshihiro, their Dream stages are unlocked after also fully clearing the Story Modes for Shingen, Nō, Masamune, Kanetsugu and Yukimura. The stages Village Rescue (set in Saika) and Pirate Hunt (set at Ōsaka Bay) are used as filler stages for 10 characters (including Kojirō in XL).

Free Mode is streamlined from how it was in the first game; each (or rather, most) battles have only two sides to play as and they utilise one character's version of each battle from Story Mode (with some exceptions depending on who you play as). Reused stages and Dream stages are excluded in this mode. One thing you will notice is that Odawara Castle has two versions for the west and east sides, though I wish they didn't name both versions as Siege of Odawara Castle (小田原城攻略戦) even though it is technically correct. All battles are one part only (thank god), with castles being incorporated seamlessly onto the maps.

Although battle objectives/missions still exist, battles are not entirely defined by them, meaning that objectives only trigger when you approach certain areas or officers. Also, for the first time, there are no subofficers listed in the officer/Unit Info list, meaning that player characters are listed individually in the list. If you're not a listed officer in the battle, you are shown at the bottom of the list, which is still better than being listed under the commander as "Player 1" or "Player 2". Third-party armies are now displayed in a separate list to the enemy army so more than 12 enemy units can be placed on the map.

Speaking of missions and Odawara, the west map features a mission where you have to defend a siege ramp. The siege ramp in that stage has got to be the weakest siege ramp ever because every enemy that comes near it will try to attack it and it gets destroyed if you leave it alone for more than 30 seconds. The Battle of Chencang in DW5 was less intense in comparison.

Survival Mode continues from the last game. Instead of offering two (or three) modes to choose from, you're given four missions to choose, some of them free and some of them paid. Each mission has five floors and you have the option to save after each one. In the free missions, you have Search for a Hero (強き者求む) which is just randomised missions, or the request storylines from Ranmaru, Mitsuhide and Keiji which cover you for the first 50 floors.

Once you get to that point, you're able to skip up to floor 51 on a new playthrough by paying a fee. The game goes up to floor 100 but you can continue on if you want to. Floor 71 has missions to unlock two rare horses, Persian Mare and Moon Child (Hoshōtsukige/放生月毛). Floor 76 has missions to unlock Katsuie and Kojirō. Also on floor 71 along with 86 and 96 are missions to unlock three Level 4 skills, but you need to have your character's respective Level 3 skills before attempting to unlock them otherwise you're just wasting your time. The good thing is that once you've done this for one character, you don't have to do this again for everyone else. When you get those Level 3 skills, you can just buy the Level 4 skills at the shop.

Sugoroku is a unique mode in that it's a Monopoly-esque game unlike the traditional Japanese board games. You play with four opponents (human or CPU) and the overall objective is to be the first player to achieve a particular gold amount set at the beginning (from 5,000 to 50,000 gold). You can choose between a small map covering only Honshū or a large map covering all of Japan.

As you go around the board, your focus is to obtain three flags scattered randomly on the map and return to home base to move up a rank. While you do this, you buy unoccupied territories to claim rent from the other players and take occupied territories by challenging their owners in one of six different challenges (provided without a separate Challenge Mode).

If you land on a shrine, you'll get to roll two dice to determine what happens to you; you might earn gold, increase land prices (fucking Asian real estate developers lol), take another turn with one or two dice, lose gold, teleport to another square or make things happen to everyone. If you roll a double here, you're taken to achieve a goal in a challenge; completing it will give you 100 gold, but failing it will cause that reward to be rolled over for the next double roll challenge. The weird thing about the shrine dice rolls is that it's hard to determine which die will determine which category or challenge until they land and rearrange themselves (ie, if die 1 lands on the right and it decides the left number, vice versa with die 2). If they made it so you roll one die at a time or made both dice different colours, then you could have a better idea of what to expect.

This game does take some time to play, even for a 5,000 gold target. The bad thing about this is that you can't save and move onto something different, even in a single player game, but that's what emulators are thankfully good for. At the end of the game, you get about 12.5% of your final gold total to use in the rest of the game, which is just paltry for the effort required to play it. I'll come back to gold earnings later.

In battle, Special Skills are a new mechanic introduced in this game, triggered by pressing R1, then pressing either Square or Triangle. This functionality replaces ranged attacks from the first game. With the introduction of Special Skills, a very small number of characters are able to summon horses, those characters being Yukimura and Keiji (and later Toshiie in XL). If you ask me, it is a bit unfair that only three characters can summon their horses, but rest assured that this does get fixed in future titles.

Two new moveset types have also been introduced for characters in addition to the Charge Attack moveset from the last game, namely the Normal Attack moveset and Special Skill movesets. Some characters from the last game retain their Charge Attack moveset while others have their attacks reassigned for the Normal Attack moveset or nerfed for the Special Skill moveset. For the Normal Attack moveset, Normal Attacks go up to N12 while Charge Attacks go up to C8 and are single-tiered. For the Special Skill moveset, it remains similar to the Charge Attack moveset except the Charge Attacks are only double-tiered, but both Special Skills are triple-tiered.

The Musou bar is upgradable to three levels, with the maximum reached by the time you reach the maximum level of 50. You can unleash a Musou Attack as long as the first section of the bar is filled, meaning that you can only manually charge it up to that point (but let's face it, who does that anyway). The first and second level Musous only affect the colour of the finishing shockwave (from blue to green) while the third level Musou adds a secondary effect depending on the character (while also changing the finishing shockwave to yellow). The same applies to the True Musou Attack as well.

Holding down the Circle button on horseback no longer swings your weapon like it did in the last game and DW, but you can still perform Normal and Charge Attacks while charging around. This game would begin a trend of horseback Musous just being bland rampages.

The right analog stick can now be used to rotate the camera, something that would be included in future Warriors games from this point forward.

Between battles, you will be able to access the shop to upgrade your weapons and skills. The shop is run by Saya, the master's daughter from the first game's New Officer Mode (who also slaps Magoichi in the first movie of his Story Mode). She will continue to make appearances as the shopkeeper in future games.

Four levels of weapons continue to be offered from the previous game. Weapons can have up to eight slots for attributes (going up to level 20 in a similar manner to DW5) and they can also have an element that is activated when you have one level filled in the Musou Gauge. The Dark element from the last game has been replaced with the Wind and Demon/Death elements. You can upgrade your weapon with a random ability for the price of 100n + 400, where n is the number of times you've upgraded your weapon. There is a chance that you may get a duplicate attribute; the stats do stack but you can have a maximum of 3 copies for that particular attribute.

Skills are a new mechanic that replaces the item system from the first game. Characters can learn skills by buying them in the shop, levelling up or stealing (or rather, learning in the English version) from enemy officers. Excluding rare skills, you'd be looking at spending 81,600 gold to buy all non-rare skills up to level 3, then another 30,000 gold to get the three level 4 skills. Rare skills can be learnt on Hard difficulty and above by defeating certain playable officers. When your character reaches a certain level (in a multiple of 10), they will learn a quasi-unique Self Skill. Skills can be turned on and off before starting a battle.

Bodyguards are also reduced to being a single officer instead of a group of four soldiers (also similar to DW5). They can be levelled up to a maximum level of 20. There are 10 classes of bodyguards and you can keep up to 8 of them (out of a total of 54), but if you were to hire everyone, you'd be looking at spending 153,900 gold. Once again, bodyguards only have voice lines when they are killed.

My main gripe about this game are the costs to purchase things in the shop when compared to the amount of money earned each battle. Amongst the collectible items in the game, you can collect up to 100 gold at a time, with level 4 Greed giving you a multiplier of 1.8 for a total of 180 gold. Given how much things in the shop cost, you can only really afford to do so much before you run out of money. Compound that with the fact that there are 26 playable characters in this game (32 with Xtreme Legends) and it does take a while for you to get your character decently powered-up. Of course, if you've spent a lot of time on this game (particularly 18 years ago when this game was first released) then this will be nothing to you, but this is coming from me who's only been playing it for two years in the hope of eventually reviewing it.

New Officer Mode has been removed in this game, but the closest thing to playing the CAW sword, spear and naginata movesets, along with the movesets of various troop types, is by using one of Nene's Special Skills, which can make her disguise herself as a nearby soldier or officer.

No new voice lines have been recorded for Survival Mode (like with the last game), so the only voices you'll be hearing are those that were already in the rest of the game. Some lines have been recorded for player characters in Sugoroku, but I'm not sure if they were also heard in other areas of the game. This can't be traced back to lazy localisation (we haven't even got to that point yet) because I've been playing this in Japanese and I've experienced the same thing, though I suppose if the lines were voiced in the Japanese version and not the English then this issue wouldn't have stood out that much and I probably wouldn't have noticed it when I did.

Now let's talk about the English localisation of this game and hmm... are those the English voice actors being credited in the credits? Breaking with what should be tradition for Warriors games, the localisation for this game was done in Canada, the actors provided by Total Casting and the dubbing produced by Agile Sound, both being subsidiaries of Montreal-based Agile Entertainment. No justification is given as to why Koei decided to use another company instead of Voicegroup for localisation, but a lot of fans I've seen do seem to like the English dub for this game. As someone who came to this series after playing Warriors Orochi however, I honestly can't get used to it as it sounds kind of bland in some places, but hey, I guess that's my toxic nostalgia talking. Looking forward though, I can see how some character lines from this game inspired those in Warriors Orochi.

For the first time, the PC port of SW2 does not have any enhancements like DW4 Hyper or DW5 Special. Once again, given the timing of that release, the lack of Xtreme Legends features in PC ports continues to confound and infuriate.

Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends

Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends (戦国無双2 猛将伝) Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 Release dates: Japan: 23 August 2007 (PS2), 14 April 2008 (Xbox 360) USA: 18 March 2008 (PS2), 16 April 2008 (Xbox 360) Europe: 28 March 2008 (PS2), 16 April 2008 (Xbox 360)

Uniquely, the Xtreme Legends expansion for SW2 was released after its Empires spinoff, explaining the nearly 18-month gap between the vanilla game and the expansion as opposed to the 6 month gap in the case of DW4 and 5. At least DW3XL came out nearly a year after its vanilla release.

This game also marks the first time that (the full content of) an Xtreme Legends expansion is made available on a non-Sony console. With the Xbox Live Marketplace being the first digital game distribution shopfront of its kind, SW2XL was made available on the Xbox 360 as DLC in April 2008, it being compatible with both the physical and digital versions of the vanilla game. Such a shame it's no longer available for purchase now that the marketplace closed down at the end of July 2024.

In Japan, the DLC release was a month after a physical version was sold on 19 March 2008 in the form of a "with Xtreme Legends" Complete Edition. This also begins a confusing tradition of Complete Edition games being released alongside Xtreme Legends expansions exclusively in Japan. Such a thing wouldn't happen in the West until DW8.

Some PS2 players have reported issues with this game, particularly those with older "fat" models and Slim models, due to the game being on a dual layer DVD-9 disc and the laser reader sometimes having issues with it.

5 new playable characters make their debut in this game:

Toshiie Maeda

Motochika Chōsokabe

Gracia

Kojirō Sasaki

Katsuie Shibata

Kojirō and Katsuie were previously made playable in Empires, but this game gives them new unique weapons. Motochika's introduction introduces the Chōsokabe clan of the Shikoku region as well. Gracia, the daughter of Mitsuhide Akechi also known as Tama(ko), is never named by any of the characters in any game she appears in. Granted, Gracia is her Catholic name and she wasn't baptised until 1587 when Hideyoshi was conquering Kyūshū, but it's kind of weird to have characters refer to her as "Mitsuhide's daughter" or something vague.

Yoshimoto Imagawa makes a return in the expansion after being cut from the vanilla game. As such, Okehazama returns as a stage in this game and a new stage, Shikoku, is introduced.

Toshiie Maeda is an example of a generic officer being upgraded to a playable character in the expansion. However, the extent of how he is upgraded when seems to vary. See, the assumption is that when a generic officer is made playable in an expansion, that officer's appearance in other stages is upgraded to their playable appearance (which does happen in later games). In the case of Toshiie in this game, some of his appearances are straight-up upgrades, but in some stages he is replaced by another generic Oda officer like Nagahide Niwa, Nagayoshi Mori or Nagachika Kanamori. This happens regardless of whether Toshiie was an allied or enemy officer in the vanilla game.

So yeah, all the Xtreme Legends trimmings are there, from Story Modes for the new characters, Novice and Expert difficulties to fifth weapons for all characters, including Ranmaru and Okuni which once again, are only unlockable in Survival Mode. Levels are increased to 70 for player characters and 30 for bodyguards.

In regards to Musou Mode, the final cutscene movie of Toshiie's Musou Mode has been changed in Western releases for the Xbox 360 and the European release for the PS2, but it is intact in the US release for the PS2 and all Japanese releases. The original cutscene shows Toshiie, in grief over Katsuie's death, punching out Hideyoshi while proclaiming his new duty to watch over him and share the burden he bears. In the changed versions, the cutscene was changed to be a shortened replay of Katsuie's final cutscene where he farewells Toshiie before resigning himself to his fate inside a burning Kitanoshō Castle. I presume this decision was made for censorship reasons due to violence, which is kind of weird considering the nature of this game and the fact that Toshiie gets punched himself in earlier cutscene movies.

New charge attacks are introduced for all characters, namely the C5 for the Charge Attack and Special Skill movesets and the C9 for Normal Attack movesets. They are all single tier and some of those attacks may also incorporate elements of their Special Skills.

Two new sections have been added to the shop. When your character reaches level 19, Special Skills will be available for purchase, but note that buying one only buys it for that character and not everyone else. To buy all 15 Special Skills you'd be looking at spending 417,000 gold per character. If you don't want to spend that much, then take note that some characters' Self Skills are the same as Special Skills such as Finesse/Spring, Resist/Balance, Omniscience/Awareness, Pressure/Repel and Resist/Confidence. Only one Special or Self Skill can be equipped on a character.

The other new section in the shop is Orb Synthesis. Using orbs, you can directly add attributes of +20 to your weapon or even change your weapon's element, even for fourth and fifth weapons and weapons with no attribute slots. Orbs are mostly obtained through Mercenary Mode, but in rare cases they can also be found in Story and Free Modes (though I suppose the chances are higher on harder difficulties). The cost to do this is x*y where 0 < x < 9 for the number of slots and y < 5 for the weapon level, which potentially makes it more expensive than when . Weapons without attribute slots (usually initial weapons) are treated as if they had one and fifth weapons are charged the same as fourth weapons. The maximum limit of three copies per attribute still applies.

Mercenary Mode is the new unique mode added to this game. It serves as a great grinding mode for experience, gold and orbs, plus this is arguably easier than Xtreme Mode in DW4XL and 5XL, probably because it carries over your gold and character stats from the rest of the game.

After selecting your character, you can choose from three battles that all have different objectives and handicaps, such as starting with low health, multiplied damage or nullified guarding. You earn gems after each battle and as rewards for completing special missions.

Guards can also be hired between battles for 10 gems each. You can deploy two guards at a time with an additional three in reserve. After playing or deploying a character for a certain amount of turns (certain rewards can reduce this), they are able to be levelled up, granting them an additional skill. Skills include automatically opening gates when approaching them, using some of your Musou gauge to create a barrier, earning an extra gem every 50 KOs and nullifying enemy quagmires (giggity)/birdlimes/tar traps, poison attacks and fire attacks. Skills apply from both the player character and the guards deployed, so it's a good idea to ensure you have as many bases covered as you can.

As you play battles with clans, they will give you rewards the more you play with them. When you play 7 battles under the same clan, you will be offered to join them as a retainer for 50 gems. Once you do, no other clan will give you rewards while the clan you joined will continue giving you rewards the more battles you play under them.

Special events will appear in the menu throughout your playthrough. Some of these may be rewards from various people, requests for assistance that unlock special missions, or offerings that unlock Precious Swords. I'm not sure if those missions expire, but if you're aiming for the second ending, then it's a good idea to complete them as soon as you have the gems for them.

There are two ways to clear Mercenary Mode. The first way is to join a clan and fight another 7 battles under them for a total of 14, at which point you can fight a battle to unite the land and clear the mode. The second way is to collect all ten Precious Swords and unlock a battle for supremacy, where you will have to fight three officers in hyper mode to clear the battle. This battle doesn't happen until you reach battle 100 because of how the Precious Swords are collected and there's nothing special after that. As such, there is no reason to replay with the second way other than to get the associated achievements/trophies because the first way is faster.

Like with Survival Mode in the vanilla game, no new voice lines have been recorded for Mercenary Mode. Is it so much to ask for consistency?

Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends HD Edition (Sengoku Musou 2 with Moushouden HD Ver.)

Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends HD Edition (戦国無双2 with 猛将伝 HD Ver.) Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita Release dates: Japan: 24 October 2013

This is the version of the game I've been playing for the purposes of this review. Why did I pick this version for it? Well, I was able to get most of the Samurai Warriors games on the PS3 anyway, so why not get this version of SW2 and make RPCS3 my Samurai Warriors hub? Sure, I could play the Xbox 360 version for a widescreen experience that's closer to the original PS2 release, but why the hell should I go to the effort of setting up Xenia for it when I could just get this?

In 2013, Koei (Tecmo) rereleased SW2XL alongside Empires in an HD Edition for the PS3 and PS Vita. Both games are sold separately on the PlayStation Store, but on the PS3, they can be bundled into a single digital package or a physical disc, meaning that when you launch the game, you are greeted with a launcher that allows you to select between the two games. This also allows you to switch between the games by going back out of the main menu and into the launcher without having to change discs or exit to the Home Screen/XMB. Save data and trophies remain separate between the two games.

The main enhancement of the HD version is that this version takes advantage of the PS3's capabilities to deliver improved graphics and more enemies on screen. Apparently this version also makes use of the AI engine from the next game, Samurai Warriors 3, and while I haven't seen any Japanese sources to confirm this, I can say that you do get a bit of that feeling, particularly in Empires. All modes and characters are available from the start.

With this game also being available on the Vita, ad-hoc multiplayer gameplay is available (Sugoroku only allows you to have two players playing wirelessly against two CPU players). Cross-save functionality is also available between the PS3 and Vita through the PlayStation Network. This would also become a thing for later games, although in general, I wish Sony made it so that save files can easily be copied between different consoles, like the PS3 and Vita via USB, without necessarily having to be logged into the PSN. However, this would essentially require companies like Sony to believe in the philosophy of free and open source software (FOSS).

If there's one thing I could say about this port, it would be, WHY WASN'T THIS PORT RELEASED TO THE WEST? The localisation already exists, so it would be easy to publish a localised port of a remastered game. Considering what happened with the Western release of Samurai Warriors 3, this game could have been an easy cash grab to make up for it while also being a nostalgia trip for people who played the game on the PS2 or Xbox 360. Koei (Tecmo) aren't the only main factor in this as Sony also plays a factor in the decision to publish games and ports. This is something I'll come back to when we cover Warriors Orochi Z.

Rant: Why I play in Japanese/MobileJOY

Before I started this retrospective, I stated that I would be playing the Japanese or Asian versions of the games over the English versions where possible. There are multiple reasons for this.

Firstly, there are some games and ports that were only available in Japan/Asia, such as SW2XLHD, SW3Z and WOZ. Secondly, and this ties into the first reason, I don't want to waste time setting up and going between other emulators (like Dolphin for SW3 on the Wii or Cemu for WO3 Hyper on the Wii U) to play the games in English. As it is, I'm already playing Xtreme Legends expansions on one console per game to save time and effort.

Thirdly, and this reason is more for the later games, I play Japanese/Asian versions because I'm disappointed with Koei Tecmo's treatment of localisations, not just with the lack of English dubbing, but their translation decisions and errors. "But Azuma, translation errors existed in earlier games as well!" Yes, I know and I have noticed them despite their rarity, but I'm bringing this to the forefront because of Koei Tecmo's complacency to these incomplete localisations and apathy to their Western fanbase in regards to this. I'll talk more about this when we get to Warriors Orochi 3.

The main exception to this rule mostly involve games that I already have on portable consoles, like the first few Warriors PSP games. Playing older games in Japanese is mostly for consistency with later games. In the case of the PC games, it's a mixed bag. I already had DW8XL and DW8E in English and I recently downloaded the Chinese versions for them, DW6 and WOZ are in Chinese and the other games have language options which I might utilise, but for the most part I play in Japanese or Chinese.

Now in regards to playing with the Japanese version, you might notice a section in Camp or Options called MobileJOY (like how the "import" function is also known as MIXJOY). Basically what it involves is that you go onto Koei's Musou Mobile website (with your phone) and enter the code on the screen, then it will give you a password that you put onto the screen to unlock the bonuses, which typically involve in-game items. Some games also have additional tie-ins to GREE's 100-man-nin collaboration series, such as with Samurai Warriors 3 Empires where you can unlock characters and rare items in its 100-man-nin counterpart, and in turn, you can unlock special buildings from that game in this one.

The Musou Mobile service, and with it MobileJOY, was discontinued in March 2020. Presuming that the password is generated by the game every time it is booted or you go into the MobileJOY page, that means that the game would also have the password to unlock the bonuses, so technically all that is needed would be the formula to cracking the code. But it doesn't seem to unlock anything special so maybe that's why people don't seem to want to bother with it.

In spite of Koei's decision to use a Canadian company to localise this game (and one from Quebec no less), Samurai Warriors 2 was the certified hood classic that defined the childhoods of its fans just as Dynasty Warriors 5 defined those of others including myself. It apparently had such an impact that it got Koei to get off their asses and release its Xtreme Legends expansion on the Xbox 360 before later remastering an already HD-capable release to the PS3 and PS Vita seven years after its original release. If SW1 is comparable to DW3 and DW4, then SW2 is comparable to DW5, something that would be cemented in a later crossover spinoff series.

Empires is up next for review followed by Katana, those being the spinoffs for SW2.

[always-wizu-you]

Today I wanna talk about how WITH's role, as characters and as their seiyuu, is pretty inseparable. (Warning: it's gonna be very long.)

When it comes to idol anime (or any anime that has performing bits really), there are two approaches that the production team usually take:

Have two different people to do the voice act and performing bit, or

Cast one person to do both

For series that focuses on stage performances/concerts (like Prism and LL), they usually use the second approach. It's nothing new, but PriPara is a bit more unique because they extend this to the stage plays as well.

When an anime series got adapted into stage play, it's very rare to find the seiyuu plays their character. But when PriPara makes stage play adaptation, the main casts are played by the seiyuu themselves. I'm not that big into stage plays so I can't give any accountable opinion on this matter, but to me, this makes the characters feel more... authentic, for a lack of better words. The seiyuu also gets more opportunity to build their characters. This is especially true for WITH.

We all know that WITH is just a group of side characters, and there's nothing much about them in the main media (Idol Time anime). This can't be helped since the anime is created to focus on Yui's story after all. But thanks to their banger song, they gained enough popularity to be invited to Pretty Series concerts, and eventually got their own separate events. And this is where it starts.

Unlike the girls, who have their character settings fleshed out in the anime, WITH seiyuu have to fill in so many gaps for their solo events. This allows them to play their character more freely, and even suggest their ideas to the directors. Since the boys barely had anything set in stone, it wasn't that hard to get the approval. Of course, not all of these ideas are used as canon material (like the mascots that I've talked about). However, some of it does ended up being used; for example, the story of Koyoi's past.

In their first solo event, WITH's seiyuu were asked to draw an outfit for their character. Reiou (Koyoi's seiyuu) drew Koyoi in a ninja thief suit, and explained that "this is when he was more wild in the past".

Yup, this is the birth of Koyoi's past story. Reiou came up with how Koyoi was known as "Avocado School's rampage machine gun" in his rebellious era back in middle school, as a joke. This joke sticks to the whole production team, so much that it ended up being used in their audio drama, and later being made as the base for WITH Stage plot.

Seichi and Kobatatsu also have some influences to WITH's canon, but Reiou's more recognizable, perhaps because he's an aspiring mangaka and has a knack for building character settings. The birth of DARK NIGHTMARE was also indirectly thanks to him, since Koyoi's rebellious past gave the production team an idea for his past acquaintances. He actually contributed so much to WITH concept and stage plot that I'm gonna need a full separate post to list them all. He's even nicknamed "the ghost director of WITH".

Aside from their inputs to the story, the three of them also put so much efforts into bringing the characters to life. They practiced so much to the point that they're able to sing and dance just like real JP idols, even though they're voice actors. I know it's not that special for female seiyuu nowadays, but that's not the case with male seiyuu. And the reason for that is because all three of them always went above and beyond what's expected from them. On their first event, they revealed that some of the songs they performed actually weren't required to have choreography (e.g. Tick Tock Magical Idol Time and Make It!), but they still decided to do it and had Kobatatsu taught the other two some of the moves.

Those efforts weren't in vain, because WITH now has so many fans who are/were also JP boygroup fans, and many of them said that "WITH's performance quality is on par with real idols, it's really good". This was also what drawn me to them at first, their performance is just that good. I'll link some below.

So yeah, thanks to all their efforts on performing and contributions in building the characters, you really can't easily swap them for any other seiyuu/actors. The chemistry between all three of them is also really great and it's fun to watch them fool around on Twitter and events. Those are the reasons why so many people love them, even though they don't have that many contents compared to other characters in the series (at least in the anime). And if you never watched their performances or stage plays, give it a chance! You might like it, or even fall for them haha.

[fdotaku]

The History and Evolution of Msize

I'm going to talk in detail about the most famous femdom game maker among enthusiasts, Msize, which is a one-man doujin circle run by a man named Riumu.

In June of this year, an Msize game was translated into English for the first time ever, to positive reception: Steps to Love AKA Koibumi. It seems like the perfect time to take a look at where Msize came from. In fact, even people who've known about Msize for years will surely learn some stuff they didn't know before from this article.

History: 2D Femdom Before Msize

In the 1990s, there were no real femdom-themed games. The Japanese erotic game industry was still a relatively small market, and there were few to no doujin games before free or cheap engines like KiriKiri which came out around the turn of the century. If you wanted femdom, you mostly found it as scattered lezdom scenes in works like the PC-98 Raidy series.

In the early '00s, more games with femdom content started to crop up, but many were still a mix of different fetishes. 2000's Bible Black and 2002's Discipline were perhaps the most popular games among femdom fans at the time they came out, for their sexy art and nice femdom scenes, but even they could still be considered a mix of femdom, maledom, and consensual/vanilla scenes.

At the time, Riumu was just a high school student, and he used a different handle for doujin activities.

History: Riumu's Inspirations, and Msize's First Game

Back around the year 2000, when Key's first game Kanon became a hit, an artist who picked the handle Riumu was a fan of it too. He formed a one-man doujin circle called Msize, as both the writer, artist, and engine scripter. For those who don't know, a circle is a unit of one or more people who engage in coordinated creative activities as hobbyists, such as creating manga or games; Msize refers to the circle, and Riumu refers to the person.

Anyway, Riumu first showed up at winter Comiket under the label of Msize in 2002 and sold a doujin manga called Seme Kanon where Kanon's heroine Nayuki lovingly bullies Yuuichi. Back then, it was clear to see that his art style was strongly influenced by Key's artist Hinoue Itaru, as well. From then on, Msize was present at every Comiket and put out a new manga through summer of 2004, for a total of 4 manga.

Msize's fifth work overall but first game, Ijimete Maniac, was made with the free VN engine LiveMaker and came out in summer 2005, both physically and for download on DLsite. (As a bonus, the digital edition of Seme Kanon was included too.) It was pure femdom, had kinky/extreme scenes that were rare to see elsewhere, the art style was beautiful, and above all it delivered the kind of romance that serious femdom fans appreciate--in which the heroine truly stands superior to the male lead, and he finds happiness and fulfillment in his position of subservience to her. Compared to today's VNs, IjiMani only had 680x480 resolution and no voices, but it still quickly achieved recognition among femdom fans, and showed that Msize's written prose was in no way inferior to his art. ...What I consider the first real pure non-hobbyist/corporate femdom games, Mugen Kairou and Shoujo Rensa, didn't even come out until later that same year!

History: Msize, Femdom Game Circle

Msize's second game, Chou Shiritsu! Onnanoko-sama Gakuen, was a lot more ambitious than the first one, with more heroines, a complex setting, a better resolution, an OP theme, and a lengthy trial release (stylized as a promo for the game's female supremacist elite school) that ended up integrated into the main game later. At the same time, he was able to leverage a personal connection to let talented seiyuu from an agency voice his heroines. This kind of voice acting is rare to find in doujin works, especially femdom games; they truly brought the characters to life. In fact, the main heroine of this game was voiced by Kono Kanami, someone who went on to voice the matriarch of 2011's famous femdom game Starless, Mamiya Marie. Onnanoko-sama Gakuen marked the start of Msize's games all having a reputation for excellent voice acting.

In the term period between Msize's first and third game, the circle sold two new manga. However, ever since the third game, Ikisugi! M Lesson came out in 2009, Msize has not sold any more manga. Thus, Msize has been cemented as primarily a femdom game circle. The fifth game that was released in summer 2011, Isu ni Natta Yuusha, was a short RPG released for free; otherwise, every one of the games has only cost about 2000 yen, and although the number of base CGs differs somewhat between them, I'd say the value exceeds the price. I just roughly counted more than 30 base CGs in the most recent 2019 game Akujo no Eikan, which would at least correspond to the "low price" (~3000 yen) category in the corporate eroge industry, when compared purely by that metric. All of this adds to Msize's stellar reputation.

Msize's fifth to eight games were released in 2012, 2015, 2017, and 2019, always in the summer, just like his preceding four. Over time across these eight games, his art has improved dramatically, the resolution has increased from 640x480 to 1280x720, and he's experimented with a wide variety of heroines besides just the schoolgirls of his first two. His ninth game will likely be released in 2022.

While he only sells games, it's worth noting that he has posted standalone art, short CG stories, and occasionally even illustrated short stories on his blog. The short stories are namely Girl Boxing Club 1 in March 2014, Baseball Girl and White-Muddled Nine in August 2016, and The Hero Defeated by a Village Girl in May 2018. That last one actually has a fan translation!

Evolution: Msize's Online Presence

The internet has evolved, and with it how Riumu and Msize connects to people. Before launching his first game, Riumu's main online presence had been on an oekaki BBS, which is an online bulletin board where people share their art semi-anonymously. He also posted sketches, colored art, and (starting in late 2005) blog entries on his circle's first website that was hosted on Sakura Internet's servers, which were home to many other circles at the time. Over the years, he revamped the site to look much more modern, and moved his blog offsite to sblo.jp.

In late 2013, he again moved from sblo.jp to a DLsite blog although the sblo.jp blog is still online. He posted his art and stories there for 6 years, but unfortunately, fate forced him to move once again; DLsite retired its blog hosting amid its push to encourage creators to join its crowdfunding site Ci-en. Since early 2020, his blog can be found on FC2's servers. Since FC2 supports backdating, his posts go all the way back to 2013, at which point they're all the same date, because that's the date he copied over his posts from sblo.jp to the DLsite blog. He has made the FC2 blog his official circle site as well: his site on Sakura Internet's servers doesn't contain new content anymore, just a bunch of his older art.

From what I can tell, Riumu hasn't sold his works in person at Comiket for over a decade now. He used the online shop Comic Toranoana to sell the package editions of his games in the past; currently only his most recent 3 games have their package editions available for purchase on the site, but the download editions are still available for all his games. In the past couple of years, Riumu hasn't blogged much, but there's no mistaking that Msize is currently a circle which relies on the internet.

Evolution: Fetishes in Msize's Games

Feet: What's probably changed the least among Msize's works is the focus on feet as a gateway to femdom. (Note that in Japanese, the common word for feet--ashi--also refers to the entire leg!) The male lead is fascinated by a heroine's legs, and has a strong subconscious urge to get off to them, a desire to worship them or be crushed beneath them, and so on. The heroine, on the other hand, also has at least a latent awareness of the power of her own sexuality, and begins to tease and humiliate him with her feet, with their relationship quickly evolving as a result. For the record, the most foot-focused Msize game heroines are probably Ijimete Maniac's Haruno, M Lesson's Maki, Koibumi's Sachiko, and Jukuatsu's Chieko; as you can see, they typically have the role of "main heroine" in the game.

Scent, Body Hair, Farts, Piss, Scat: Riumu has also not been afraid to expand into more visceral fetishes. Scent-focused ones include sweaty feet and armpits, along with farting scenes. Several of his games have even contained "golden showers" (piss) and scat. To offer the first clear evolution in Msize's works: although there was at least 1 scat scene in each of Msize's first four games (plenty in 2010's fourth game, Hentai Seiheki Dominance) there hasn't been any since then. I'm personally not sure if it's because Riumu "got it all out of his system" with that last game, or whether regulations on doujin games have tightened. At one point I know he was releasing separate patches to uncensor scat.

Heroine Trends: Msize's central heroines tend to be the orthodox type, long-haired childhood friends who are popular at school and have kind demeanors, which is easy to understand when you consider his appreciation for Nayuki from Kanon. His loli heroines tend to possess the so-called "cruelty of children" which refers to the fact that children can be very naive about the moral consequences of what they do, and thus act extremely heartless toward others; these girls tend to engage in ballbusting and anal insertions, abuse the protagonist in groups, treat him like their toy, and typically bully a broad number of people on the side since they have no compunctions to make them hold back.

Evolution: Themes in Msize's Games

More abstractly, Riumu's games have always presented a certain shared setting. He depicts a world in which female supremacy--specifically, the worship of women by men (for their inner fulfillment) combined with the control of men by women (for their amusement, because men need them, and for their own inner fulfillment)--exists at an instinctual level within humans. Not all men or women realize it, but those who do are happy. But actually, in Msize's first game, and to an extent his third and fourth games, these ideas weren't yet firmly cemented into his works.

The first game Ijimete Maniac in particular is a clear pure love story. It's my favorite game from a romance perspective, in fact. I loved the cheesy scene at the end of Suzune's route where he yells out embarrasing things to cheer her on, I loved the subtle unspoken feelings of Haruno's route, and I even appreciated the short epilogue in Arika's route where you see what she looks like years later and sense a hint of her changed personality (Arika sequel route when, Riumu??). The third game M Lesson (in translation currently) and the fourth game Hentai Seiheki Dominance, which are connected to each other--the latter continues from the former's "bad end" with one of the heroines--certainly have somewhat less romantic routes, but are still overall focused on the university student protagonist finding his path in life, with love on the table, and at least one marriage. (By my estimates, Riumu was probably a university student himself during the development of M Lesson.)

But Msize's second game, Onnanoko-sama Gakuen, present a different worldview. It's an explicitly sci-fi setting, unique among his games, in which women have secretly demonstrated their superiority to men since ancient times, and this is the natural order. No longer is interest in femdom something that might depend on an individual's inclinations; it's coded into human genetics.

And so while M Lesson's duology could still be considered a relatively traditional "coming of age" story where the male lead comes to understand his sexuality and finds someone to connect with, starting from the fifth game Koibumi, there's less of a focus on traditional romance and more of a focus on the male lead and the heroines becoming aware of their "true" ideal relationship which was foreshadowed in Onnanoko-sama Gakuen. I'm not saying these games aren't romantic, mind you; Koibumi is very concerned with the characters' feelings. But the dynamic between the male lead and Sachiko feels different than it felt with Haruno or Maki.

Starting from Koibumi, every Msize plot has a romance that proceeds like this: the central heroine and the male lead start to engage in sexual acts, usually centered around her feet, in which he cums but isn't able to put his dick in her (or even see her naked, probably). He's quickly engrossed in how amazing this makes him feel, but after a little while, his insecurities rise to the surface. He wonders whether he should trust her with his money or his love, when she doesn't "need" him and when he's paranoid there are other men; or he feels like these fetish acts are too weird, and has the urge to show her that "he's a man" and have normal sex with her. As a result, he acts tough, or even outright tramples on her good intentions, and maybe even hurts her feelings. Now, here is the moment of truth: will he have the courage to shrug off his worries about how society will see him, recognize that he should accept his masochism and put his trust in her to control him, and submit to her authority for their mutual happiness? Or will he choose not to, which leads to a bad end or otherwise would end his chances with her? I consider this dramatic inner conflict of the male lead to lie at the heart of Koibumi, Jukuatsu, Koifem, and Akujo no Eikan.

I'm not saying there isn't some variation of this plot element in Msize's earlier games, but from Koibumi onward, it feels like the core of the main romance; that's what their relationship is founded upon. Femdom is the proper final evolution of love between men and women. It's notable that there are no more wedding dresses, even in a work with a deeply romantic premise like Koifem; traditional romantic tropes have a reduced presence. So it's clear to me that Riumu refined his vision of femdom romance around the time he put out Koibumi.

Conclusion: Expectations for the Future of Msize

If you weren't familiar with Msize before, I hope this article helped pique your interest in the circle. And if you already were a fan, you probably have a question like this: what more can we expect from Riumu?

For many years now, there have been two things we could concretely expect from Msize: Riumu's occasional (normally several times a year) blog posts with art and/or stories, and a new game that's sold about every 2 years on the first day of summer Comiket. But according to Riumu, he's been busy lately; that would explain why he hasn't posted any standalone art since November 2020, and there was also a whole 9 month space between that contribution and the one before it. Furthermore, his most recent game has had its development stretched out past 2 years, which hasn't happened since 2014 with Jukuatsu. We can probably expect his next game to come out next summer. If you haven't seen it yet, he shared a teaser of the game last May: it's untitled, and the basic premise is that the male lead is dominated by his blood-related mother and his childhood friend.

If you want to know the latest info about Riumu's progress, the best way to find it is to look at his most recent post, click on the title to view the post along with its comments, and look for Riumu's personal comments. Riumu in Japanese is りうむ, so to find posts made by him, Ctrl+F for "りうむ URL" and then look at the comment text that's directly above the lines that match.

For sure, Msize is a labor of love, and it'd be hard to expect Riumu to pace himself any faster. Like most doujin game makers, he's someone with a day job. My impression is that he likely draws from his bubbles of inspiration in his free time to first slowly construct a femdom scenario he likes, then draws the art for it, then scripts it with LiveMaker and sells it. Most likely, based on his life situation, it would be hard to expect him to return to 1 game per year like when he was younger. And sure, if he quit his day job, he could probably make a living just on Msize sales, but I doubt that's what he wants for himself, and the quality of his works would probably decrease if he had to force out yearly or monthly content instead of letting his inspiration drive him.

I've often talked to other fans about our hopes and expectations for what kind of game we want Riumu to make. After all, Riumu is a true artist who constantly tries to come up with new femdom dynamics in his games, so there's no way to know what he'll come up with next. Even the format of his games isn't set in stone; Akujo no Eikan was his first kinetic novel and first game with multiple male protagonists. Anyway, each fan has their own favorite femdom situations Msize hasn't made a game from yet, or past Msize games which they loved so they want to see more of the same.

We can speculate based on past trends, though. To start, Msize clearly has a bias toward high school girls, as well as high school settings. Same for experienced adult women. Loli characters are rarer, but there tends to be one if the game is more centered around a "theme" than around a heroine, i.e. when there are 3+ routes/heroines. Plots tend to be relatively grounded modern day settings too, although Onnanoko-sama Gakuen and parts of Jukuatsu were an exception. And of course, the short free game Isu ni Natta Yuusha is an exception too.

Above all though, there are hints which stare us in the face: the art and short stories that Riumu shares on his blog. In May and August of 2016, while Koifem was in development, Riumu posted a short CG set and then a short story. Both of them are about boys' sports clubs in a subservient position. The first CG set in particular depicts a kouhai manager who looks very familiar, doesn't she? And the short story is about the downfall of a boys' baseball club, courtesy of the girls' softball club. Of course, Riumu was busy working on Koifem at the time, but after that, he started development on Akujo no Eikan, which clearly shares the same inspiration as these short works. For other examples, the winter 2002 doujin “Iu Koto Kiite yo!! Onii-chan” featured a loli named Arika, and then the exact same heroine (face and name) showed up in mid-2005's Ijimete Maniac. And these two CG sets, which were drawn during development of Jukuatsu, seem to foreshadow Koifem.

With all this in mind, it's natural to wonder if Riumu's inspiration related to the female supremacist kingdom Aphrodia will ever become a game, since he depicted it in his art three times between January 2014 and December 2018. The "Hero Defeated by a Village Girl" short story from May 2018 is another fantasy premise which could potentially reappear as a game one day. That said, some settings just tend to be more strenuous to write for some writers. It's perhaps telling that Isu ni Natta Yuusha ended up being so short and shallow; Riumu is clearly most comfortable with school-related settings. Personally though, I'd love it if this android could be an Msize game heroine one day.

You can also look forward to fan translations of Msize games. While femdom games are still a niche that's too small to justify the expenses for most localization companies, mortalvyses stepped up and translated Steps to Love (Koibumi) and has already translated part of M Lesson. New translator pixvoliv has also said they are translating Jukuatsu.

Bonus: #hentai-femdom's Msize Heroine Fan Popularity Tiers

Earlier this year, I shared on Discord a TierMaker that a friend helped me make. Myself included, six cool people offered their opinion on which Msize heroines they loved the most. Today, I've finally calculated the mean average for each heroine (weighed with S tier as 500 points, A tier as 400 points, all the way down to D tier). Behold!

Click it to see the full size version. I think this result is quite fair, don't you? The most popular heroines are Manami (450), Suzune (400), and Sachiko (400). To display these results, I roughly settled on S tier as 400+ average, A tier as 300+ average, and so on. Ordered from left to right by most to least points. However, I sometimes used my personal judgment to decide the tier for heroines on the border (such as 400 or 200 average). The sample size was only 6, after all; I feel like that can excuse some minor manipulation of the way results are presented.

By the way, I accidentally neglected to include Kanako and Mayu, who are friends of Arika from Ijimete Maniac, in the tier choices. I know that at least one person would have put Kanako in the S tier, if I'd remembered.

Side Talk

I haven’t seemed as active on this blog lately because I’ve been preparing to revamp it, and the preparation for that has eaten up tons of time over the course of months. I’m at the point where I’m cutting corners so I can try to wrap it up in early 2022.

2021, huh... It was another pandemic year, more or less. And as I anticipated, a lot happened in terms of 2D femdom. The commercial version of Incubus Quest came out, and it felt more like “serious” femdom than so many other doujin femdom RPGs that are all about arbitrary reverse rape, but at the same time it failed to deliver a deep experience of submission. Too many heroines, too little depth. Mistresses join and leave your party at your free discretion without a word, and do or say nothing when they’re with you unless you specifically prompt them to. Still, between this and finally playing Pandora no Mori, I have renewed hope for the potential of Japanese femdom RPGs. Oh, I never got around to playing Sakusei Byoutou, but mortalvyses did! A sequel is also in the works, presumably continuing the plot of the original doujin series.

We recently finally got confirmation that doskoinpo is making a game, due to be released in a couple of days. He joined DLsite’s Ci-en and Pixiv Fanbox a few months ago, and his most recent CG set has only been distributed there, in two parts. I deeply appreciated the style of his two most recent CG sets, which conveys the narrative through the inner thoughts of the male lead... the endings have been letdowns, though. And sadly, the trial version of his upcoming game has very buggy scripting. I hope he fixes it for the full release.

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Why You Should Watch SKET Dance

Why You Should Watch SKET Dance

If I were to tell you what I took away from SKET Dance from old lessons to new, I would say that it said something along the lines of this:

“You are not the mistakes you made in the past. You are not defined the person you were before. If anything, the past is something that you cannot change, but you can surpass those regrets and try to change for the better. Trauma is something that cannot be left behind, but it can get better, especially when you are surrounded by the right people and support. Helping people doesn’t always change the world, but it can change the world of that person and maybe even yours.”

That cheesy quote took a while to write (so did this whole post), but that’s because I wanted to get it right. I wasn’t even sure where to start with this post of sorts.

I will warn ahead of time that if you aren’t familiar with anime, SKET Dance might be an overreach. It does have some references that are niche, and it has a lot of “manzai” (tsukkomi/boke) jokes with tons of mentions. There is fanservice, but no more than you’d see in some of the other series that were released under Shonen Jump. Sometimes the humour and everything can be a little cringy, but I think that’s a given with the fact that you are watching anime.

(This is spoiler-free, gluten-free, no trans fat, and took me too much time.)

Story

I get that it’s like Gintama, but I wouldn’t say it’s a “poor man’s Gintama”. Instead, take it for what it is. It’s like comparing a younger sibling to the older sibling. You’re not letting SketDan shine on its own, and it deserves to.

SketDan has a really simplistic story. It’s about a school club that wants to help people. There is no big war, massive battles, or over-the-top villain that needs to be crushed. I can’t say that it’s episodic, but it definitely leans towards the more “slice-of-life” approach. It has its own arcs that come one after another in good bits and pieces. This series balances itself so well with its drama and comedy. The backstories were done so well, and they didn’t even get to all of them! In fact, one of the best ones was left just in the manga.

The story is made by the characters. It doesn’t rely on the environment or the world around them. Instead, the world to them are the people they are surrounded by. No aliens, samurai, ninjas, or great big event, it’s just them, their high school, and their unconventional club.

Characters

This has got to go down as one of the best ensemble trios in anime. All of them do get their time to develop, and they balance each other out so well. You’d think these characters were friends for their entire lives. I can’t even say who’s the best because I think they’re all the best!

Bossun is a sensitive guy who’s insecure about being the main character of this series (yes, he does mention that). He doesn’t have any spectacular “Shonen Jump” skills. He has no “bankai”, “rasengan”, or “Kamehameha”. He has a hat and goggles. His power is concentration. These are completely valid reasons to be worried about your character status because, on the surface, Bossun sounds downright pathetic (and he knows it). But through the story, you get to see why he’s actually one of the best main characters out there (even if the cast doesn’t want to acknowledge it).

Himeko is one of the coolest characters in this series. I haven’t seen a weapon of that kind… ever. She isn’t afraid to slap the stuff out of anyone and will do anything for a friend. I don’t want to get into her character too much due to spoilers, but it’s revealed early on that she is quite legendary. She’s quite important for the humour of this story. It’s often brought up that she’s the “tsukkomi” (the one who responds to the “boke” stupid).

Last but not least of the great trio, we have Switch. This is probably the character I was most blindsided by. Even though I knew his backstory beforehand (nobody stops me from clicking from “show spoiler” button, it’s quite a problem). He’s the local otaku and database. And he’s probably the most observant. Even though he never “talks”, he’s one of the funniest characters in the series even when he isn’t in the limelight. I legally cannot dig into more about his character due to spoilers. You really need to see it for yourself.

The supporting cast is nothing to put aside either. A lot of them become more and more important as time passes, and the roles they play soon play right into the main plot of the story. We’ve got someone who speaks in “yabasu”, a ghostly occult member, a samurai, a captain, a tsundere, a visual kei star who doesn’t speak in any actual language, a 1.8m tall woman who can literally murder you with a slap, a voice actress idol movie star, and a teacher who makes drugs and bombs. That doesn’t even touch on the student counsel. Anyways, discovering these characters is part of the charm.

Art

There are too many good faces in this anime. While the art isn’t always consistent, it’s never “bad”.

The faces in this anime are on-par with other comedy anime. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Music

*downloads all the music*

I’m going to pretend like I haven’t listened to some of these on repeat since I finished the anime. Not all anime will literally have a designated band that are made after the characters. That was a really nice touch. There are a ton of special insert songs that go with certain arcs too.

SKET Dance is like any other anime in a way. It benefits from having a good OST. A good OST will add to the story. It will add to the anime, and it will convey all the right feelings. It helps with the comedy, the drama, and the random “what am I watching” moments.

Seiyuu

I wanted to save this category for last. This anime actually changed the way that I look at all the main seiyuu of this anime. It’s not that often that the Vomics (voice acted comics) have the same cast as the anime. They fit their characters so well, and I really can’t express that enough. I associate their voices with their character. It’s like how you can look at a picture of your favourite character and remember exactly what they sound like (or maybe that’s just me).

I haven’t actually heard a lot of lead roles by Hiroyuki Yoshino because he has such a uniquely odd voice. I think the last anime I watched where he actually played the protagonist was Kekkaishi which was quite a while ago. He did well for that role too. Another anime where he played one of the main characters was in Hai to Gensou no Grimgar which didn’t have a very enjoyable cast compared to other anime including SKET Dance (but still worth checking out if you like tamer isekai). I’ve also seen him play a suave character, but I actually skipped most of his lines going, “Not this again.” Present Mic is a character that he seems to be popular for, but those specific niche characters didn’t give him nearly the range that Bossun did. From the moments we were laughing with him and at him to the serious moments that really made me go quiet, it felt like he was truly the character.

Ryouko Shiraishi is such an underrated seiyuu. She admits that she doesn’t have a very cutesy voice, and due to that, the number of female characters she can play goes down, but I wouldn’t dismiss how great she is. For one, she’s really good at the Kansai dialect. Second, she plays a lot of younger male characters. She makes Himeko really cute but also really tough and spunky. She carries a lot of the humour as the reactor “tsukkomi”. And if you’ve watched Demon Slayer, she plays one of the demons and is so good at it. I really like her unique voice because it deviates from the norm just like Himeko’s character.

Gintoki—I mean Tomokazu Sugita is great as Switch, and even though sometimes we forget that he’s a legitimate voice actor who can actually voice act and not just scream on command. Of course, he’s funny. That goes without saying. Almost all of his well-known characters are known for being funny. Even the guy in real life is really funny. I’m not sure how much explanation would be needed for him.

Summary

Overall, I had such a good time with this anime. It made me laugh, feel the feels, and really smile (I mean the type that people really ask you what the heck you’re watching because you’re smiling like you just watched someone you hate fall down the stairs). It reminded me of what I liked from comedy anime, but it also reminded me what I like about anime that take it to basics with just its characters. Actions and battles are good once in a while, but the characters are the heart, soul, and being of this anime. If you’re looking for a good laugh or smile with a ton of gags and jokes with a great ensemble cast, look no further! SKET Dance is here!

I’m going to recommend this anime to anyone who has read this, @azroazizah​, @brettyblease​, @tsukiomoon​, and anyone else who likes those Shonen Jump shenanigans.

P.S. It is totally worth picking up the manga after watching the anime.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Meet the Stars of Princess Connect Re:Dive

  Going into Princess Connect! Re:Dive, I knew little about it other than the fact that it was an adaptation of a mobile game. That didn’t bode well; my experiences with video game adaptations have been less than positive.

  Imagine my surprise, then, when it turned out to be hilarious. When a pair of ridiculous-looking wolves started dragging off our protagonist, I completely lost it. I found myself constantly laughing at the KONOSUBA-esque humor — it was only much later that I’d learn that Princess Connect and KONOSUBA shared the same director. It was also well-animated and delivered some impressive-looking action scenes and spell effects.

  At the end of the day, however, this is a comedy anime through and through. And comedy anime live and die on the basis of their voice acting. Unsurprising, then, that Princess Connect features an all-star voice cast, with the actors from the mobile game reprising their roles in the anime. Let’s take a look at some of the talented voice actors that bring the characters of Princess Connect, both the game and the anime, to life.

Pecorine (M·A·O)

    Mao Ichimichi, also known as M·A·O, is probably better known for her non-anime roles — she started off her career in tokusatsu (live-action often with heavy special effects), most notably playing Luka Millfy in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. She later ventured into anime voice acting. She voices the cheerful and energetic (and perpetually hungry) Pecorine in Princess Connect. She has also voiced Iris in Fire Force, Luluco in Space Patrol Luluco, Hondomachi in ID:Invaded, Vorona in Durarara, Bela in Bem, and Remi Ayasaki in the currently-airing Horimiya.

Kokkoro (Miku Ito)

    This isn’t the first time Miku Ito has played a character named Kokoro, having played the character of the same name in the BanG Dream! franchise. Her most well-known role is probably that of her own namesake: Miku from The Quintessential Quintuplets. Her other roles include Shimamura from Adachi and Shimamura, Ann Akagi from Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (in which she starred alongside fellow Princess Connect actor M·A·O), and Nana Mifune in Gleipnir.

Karyl (Rika Tachibana)

    Rika Tachibana has an extensive voice acting career in video games, featuring in such titles as Granblue Fantasy, Magia Record, The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Street Fighter V, and of course Princess Connect, where she plays Karyl. Tachibana’s anime voice acting roles include Sae Kobayakawa from The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Reiko from Shomin Sample, Naruse from The Island of Giant Insects — in which she starred alongside ... you guessed it ... M·A·O — and African Wild Dog from Kemono Friends.

Yuuki (Atsushi Abe)

    Our main protagonist Yuuki may not say much, but Atsushi Abe manages to make whatever little he says absolutely hilarious. Abe garnered widespread recognition for his role as Touma Kamijou in A Certain Magical Index and its spinoffs. His other roles include Moritaka Mashiro in Bakuman, Koichi Sakakibara in Another, Takashi in B Gata H Kei, Akiyuki in Xam’d: Lost Memories, Soya in Planet With, Inojin Yamanaka in Boruto, and Sougo in IDOLISH7.

Kaiser Insight (Shouta Aoi)

    It is not uncommon for female voice actors to voice male roles, especially younger characters. But male voice actors voicing female roles? Extremely rare. Shouta Aoi’s unique, “angelic” voice allows him to do so, with him voicing main Princess Connect villain Kaiser Insight. Aoi is better known as a singer, but he made his voice acting breakthrough as Ai Mikaze in Uta no Prince-sama. Since then, he has voiced Hideaki Tojo in Ace of the Diamond, Licht in The Royal Tutor, and will voice Subaru in the upcoming adaptation of Tokyo Babylon.

  Maho (Maaya Uchida)

  Maho is considered by the other Princess Connect characters to be slightly delusional, so of course she is voiced by Maaya Uchida, best-known as the voice of out-of-touch characters like Rikka from Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions and Ranko Kanzaki from The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls. Her non-delusional roles include Yoshioka from Blue Spring Ride, Norman from The Promised Neverland, Yuki Yoshino from Food Wars, and Catarina Claes from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom.

  Miyako (Sora Amamiya)

    I mentioned earlier how Princess Connect feels incredibly KONOSUBA-esque, both in its setting and its sense of humor. Makes perfect sense, then, for it to feature the voice of Sora Amamiya, known for voicing “useless” goddess Aqua from KONOSUBA. Amamiya’s other notable roles include Elizabeth from The Seven Deadly Sins, Touka from Tokyo Ghoul, Akame from Akame ga Kill, Kaori from One Week Friends, Isla from Plastic Memories, and Asseylum from Aldnoah.Zero.

  Hiyori (Nao Toyama)

  Nao Toyama played her first major role as Kanon Nakagawa in The World God Only Knows, which kickstarted her music career. Many people also know her as Yui Yuigahama in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, or Chitoge Kirisaki in Nisekoi. However, the role for which I personally recognise her the most is as the quiet Rin Shima in Laid-Back Camp. Other major roles include Karen in KINMOZA!, Ruka in Rent-a-Girlfriend, and Nozomi in Sound! Euphonium.

  Suzume (Aoi Yuki)

    Aoi Yuki has been earning plaudits this season for her energetic portrayal of the titular spider in So I’m a Spider, So What? Yuki has had many significant voice roles over the years, including Madoka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Tanya in Saga of Tanya the Evil, Froppy in My Hero Academia, Tamaki in Fire Force, Diane in The Seven Deadly Sins, and Mami in Rent-a-Girlfriend.

Rei (Saori Hayami)

  Saori Hayami is one of the most in-demand voice actors of recent times. She is known for portraying Yukino Yukinoshita in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and received considerable praise for her performance as Shoko Nishimiya in A Silent Voice. Her other notable roles include Shirayuki in Snow White with the Red Hair, Shinobu in Demon Slayer, Tsuruko in AnoHana: The Flower We Saw That Day, Yumeko Jabami in Kakegurui, and Himawari in Boruto.

  Jun (Ayako Kawasumi)

    Jun is a classic knight in metal armor. And who better to voice a knight than Ayako Kawasumi, best known as the voice of Saber in various installments of the Fate franchise. Kawasumi is also a talented pianist, which explains her role as Nodame in Nodame Cantabile. Some of her other major roles include Fuu in Samurai Champloo, Erina Pendleton in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Alice in Pandora Hearts, Melfina in Outlaw Star, Natsuki in Initial D, and Lafiel in Crest of the Stars.

Io (Shizuka Ito)

  Shizuka Ito won a “Best Actress in Supporting Roles” award at the 10th Seiyuu Awards for her performances as Meiko Shiraki in Prison School and Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon Crystal. Some of her other major performances are as Himawari in xxxHolic, Ran in Texhnolyze, Kaori Kanzaki in A Certain Magical Index, Boota and Darry in Gurren Lagann, Yayoi in Psycho-Pass, Rei Hasekura in Maria Watches Over Us, and Hinagiku in Hayate the Combat Butler.

Yui (Risa Taneda)

  Risa Taneda is undoubtedly best known for her roles as Erina Nakiri in Food Wars and Kaori Miyazono in Your Lie in April. But to me, she will always be Saki from Shin Sekai Yori, where she delivered an excellent performance spanning many ages, and performed the first ending song too. Taneda’s other significant roles include Rize in Is the Order a Rabbit?, Mirai in Beyond the Boundary, Yukina in Strike the Blood, Ai Mizuno in Zombie Land Saga, Xenovia in High School DxD, and Yukari in YUYUSHIKI.

Labyrista (Miyuki Sawashiro)

    Miyuki Sawashiro is one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. She first came to prominence as the voice of Puchiko in Di Gi Charat; she famously reprised the role in the English dub of Leave it to Piyoko, becoming the first anime voice actor to voice the same character in both sub and dub. A few of Sawashiro’s other major roles include Kurapika in Hunter x Hunter, Celty Sturluson in Durarara, Bishamon in Noragami, Fujiko Mine in recent installments of Lupin the Third, and Kanbaru in the Monogatari series.

Aoi (Kana Hanazawa)

    Kana Hanazawa needs no introduction, being one of the most popular voice actors of our times. She rose to popularity as Nadeko in Bakemonogatari and its sequels, performing the iconic opening song “Renai Circulation.” Some of her other anime roles include Akane from Psycho-Pass, Mayuri from Steins;Gate, Angel from Angel Beats, Kosaki Onodera from Nisekoi, Hinata Kawamoto from March Comes in Like a Lion, Kuroneko from Oreimo, and Ichika from The Quintessential Quintuplets.  

Who is your favorite Princess Connect voice actor? Let us know in the comments!

  By: Manas B. Sharma

[vulpiximisa]

here is a post of Why I Like Nanamaru Sanbatsu which may or may not also be a Reasons Why You Should Watch Nanamaru Sanbatsu but it’s not made with the intent of persuasion and more of me just gushing over things because this isn’t spoiler friendly

1) Niche Sport

I’m not a stranger to “Sport but it doesn’t involve Ball or Sweat”. That’s a lie, the players sweat a lot in Chihayafuru. The fact that Sasaijma (and then another character in the later chapters in the manga) refer to Karuta is a reason enough to pick up the series. Hikaru no Go was one of my earlier sports anime as well. It’s not like I was a fan of Go or Karuta either but the way the characters wholeheartedly loved what they were doing (and competitively), it made me love it as well. The same definitely goes for Quiz Bowl. While the two I listed were something I completely had no clue how the rules go, Quiz Bowl is a bit more obvious so it’s easier to get into.

(kinda hate these promo pics because there looks like so many fcking charas but really you just need to remember like 5 of them)

2) Nerdy Protag in a Sports anime

Actually coming from YowaPeda, Crunchyroll recommended this amongst other things. YowaPeda did the trope a lot better, given that you’d never associate an Otaku with Biking while a Bookworm being associated with Quiz Bowl does not seem unheard of. But the idea of a nerdy protagonist in a competitive sport was still an allure. 

And oops, I think Koshiyama is a cutie so there’s a huge bias towards that. The fact that Horie Shun who voices Enta Jinnai from Sarazanmai voices Koshiyama Shiki gave me a laugh and he actually fits his role very well. Further emphasizes his cuteness without Enta’s weird gay crush lol

3) Ishikawa Kaito

I’m not above watching anime for seiyuu reasons alone but I actually went in blind with this series and to my surprise one of my favs was in it. I’d known Kaito mostly for Kageyama Tobio first, but he’s gone through so many other roles that I enjoy (Kaki from Pokemon SM, Iida from BokuHero, Mimura Subaru from 2.43) and I’ve watched a lot of seiyuu events/radios with him so I’m just a big fan of him in general. Dunno if I should have just merged this point with the next but-

4) Mikuriya Chisato

Kaito has The Range and can do whatever role he wants (I’m most impressed by his role as Alan from BNA) but I think I have a weakness for when he’s slightly an asshole. Mikuriya gave off the generic rival trope, which he kind of is. I got some Subaru vibes from him as well. I don’t know if he’s canonically handsome, but yes I think he’s very good looking for an anime character. Plus the fact that he’s The Cool Guy but is participating in such a sport as Quiz Bowl. AND the moe gap that is his feminine sounding first name and the possibility that he might also actually be an otaku is 👌👌👌👌

My friend had tagged something with him as “Chazz Princeton with a haircut” and while Not Entirely, he is the “We are not friends, we are rivals but I interact and help you enough that we are practically friends but i will continue to deny it” and I love that trope. The way he’s so not interested in Gorls or Nonsense reminds me of Manga Manjoume, though nowhere as serious because he is not above nonsense himself.

5) Fukami Mari

The moment she was introduced, I had very low expectations for her. Of course she is the one that drags Koshiyama into the Quiz Bowl world BUT she doesn’t fall into the trope of “Female is very good at The Thing, BUT Newbie Male MC does it better than her almost immediately”. I’m so glad for that because as you go on with the series, she is very much an entire character and not just a female support cast. 

She loves Quiz Bowl but she’s not the best or even very good at it. Her childhood friend from another school (which I was 75% betting that it was going to be a male and a potential love interest) turned out to be a female friend. Instead of “cat fight”, they are still very amicable towards each other and support each other but also acknowledge each other as rivals. The fact that Yuki had only started Quiz Bowl because of Mari but liked it enough to continue on by herself, I think that’s really great. 

The anime doesn’t get to it, but she confronts her brother about why he quit Quiz Bowl and challenges him. She has her own goals and ambitions and you see her working on it. She also has her strengths and weaknesses and is a vital addition to the Buzou Quiz Team. Fukami Mari is A Good Girl and I won’t tolerate any slander towards her. The way the beginning of the series sexuallizes her via putting her and Koshiyama into generic anime situations is so uncomfortable but I’m glad they move past that later.

Also since their group isn’t technically a Club (?) Mari isn’t just Female Manager. A plus to Quiz Bowl being Co-Ed sport.

6) Quiz Questions

I like trivia. It’s a little harder to guess the questions along with the anime because you’d have to pause all the time and half the time the contestants are going to buzz in early before you hear the entire question. Unfortunately, unless you actually are a fan of random knowledge or a huge nerd, the questions might actually be hard as well. I literally only knew about 3 questions asked in the entire series and its the anime/manga related ones lol. Still, I enjoyed seeing the characters draw their conclusions and to know what each character’s strong and weak points were. (Mikuriya using Math to calculate the Day of the Week from the past was 😚👌)

7) Side Characters

The first one I’m thinking is obviously Sonohara Akira. The moment of his first appearance, I had a hunch that it wasn’t exactly as it looked. He’s a little schemer but he has his own code of ethics, so he’s not all that bad. (Also hes A Gamer, so Relatable.) The fact that he’s related to Sonohara of Asagaoka makes it all the more interesting because they're’ so different. The way everyone reacts to him is so interesting because he doesn’t take it seriously while everyone else does. My favorite interactions with him aside from the Akiba Squad are the ones with Ookura. (I actually prefer to ship them over Niina/Akira lol)

Sasajima, mysterious Quiz Master with a past related to Fukami’s brother, who used to go to the Prestigious Quiz King School. Character wise, he doesn’t seem interesting but I love his idea of what a Quiz Bowl should be. My favorite parts of a series is when they love the thing they do, and that having fun is what is the most important. Of course you have to be fairly good at the thing first to be able to enjoy yourself freely but he never brags and is a supportive senpai.

Jinko. She’s cute. That’s good enough for me lol. I guess her Electronics Thing is also pretty cool. I like seeing the Sasajimas interact.

8) Ship

Okay, well, its obvious where I fall here. I don’t remember the last time I’ve watched such a generic sport series with a one on one protag vs rival. I’m not above shipping the “obvious/main” ship, as SasuNaru and Edgewright are some of my ships. However I didn’t ship Akira/Hikaru and I don’t ship KageHina but I do ship something like Manjoume/Judai and if asked MakoHaru vs RinHaru, I’d pick the latter, so it might just be a matter of tastes and I won’t fall immediately into every “rival” ship.

So why would I ship Mikuriya/Koshiyama? Because I love it when the Cool Guy falls for the Nerd and EXTRA POINTS if the Cool Guy is also secretly a nerd too. When I mean secretly a nerd, I don’t mean Mikuriya being on quiz bowl but that he might be a closet Otaku. (ImaSaka is everything about this trope.) 

Anyway, they are the main two rivals in the series, so of course they acknowledge each other. Koshiyama took it so dramatically but in the past, nobody cared about his presence, let alone think that he’s a Threat. Mikuriya is a Hot Shot and thinks he’s better than everyone but this newb with potential beat him one time (unofficially) so he’s automatically curious. 

Even though it is Hot Blooded Competition, Mikuriya always seems to encourage and cheer Koshiyama on (in his own rival-y way of course) whenever he feels down about not being strong enough to compete with him. (When they were lining up for the Third round at Asagaoka) Even when Koshiyama lost, after Mikuriya had a huge handicap, Mikuriya tells him he’ll take him on anytime. The fact that he wants to do Quiz Bowl with (against) him, is practically Sports Anime confession. “I won’t wait for you, Git Gud” “Okay I will Git Gud so we can fight again” *Fist Bump* What are you guys doing.

It might just be the art style but there is a copious amount of blushing happening every time the two interact. Also that height difference!! Mikuriya is 172 while Koshiyama is 153, I fucking love it. 

Uhhhh that’s about it. I would like to gush more but there’s only a few chapters of the manga that’s been fan translated and it’s not even half of what’s actually out there. (I think the manga is complete by now?) There’s only one anime season of the series, and I doubt there’s going to be more so RIP me.

[mythgirlimagines]

Well, now that Tuesday is here, it’s time for a brand new talentswap! Give a soft hello to Myth, the Former Ultimate Essayist!

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BACKSTORY AND TALENT

Because of a combination of a weak body and her already existing scoliosis, this Myth spent most of her childhood bedridden and isolated from the world. With her frail body, Myth turned to reading and studying as her only two modes of entertainment. Myth was practically homeschooled, and from there Myth found her talent in writing. Although she is an expert in writing short stories, her true expertise lies in her essays that span a bunch of topics, ranging from science to history to even pop culture. Once her family raised enough money to get her scoliosis surgery, Myth was ready to attend Hope’s Peak and won’t let back pain stop her. When she graduated, Myth then was given the option to chaperone the Ultimates and Jr. Ultimates, and that is how our story begins!

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RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Romantic

A high-school celebrity thanks to their boyish charm and their lovable rogue personality, Wyre is well-known for being able to charm anyone, male or female, and Myth is most definitely is no exception to this rule. In fact, Myth has been Wyre‘s favorite flirting and teasing target ever since they first met in Hope‘s Peak, and Wyre has been Myth’s first-ever friend since. This hopeless bisexual just couldn’t handle the rugged muscles or the bad boy attitude of her  tomboyish charmer of a BFF. Myth is currently working on an essay to confess her feelings for Wyre. 

Outfit: Neatly-combed pixie cut, black blazer over a messily buttoned white shirt, tan pants, black loafers, glasses, necklace, and bracelet from original design.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Voice Actress

Famous for her wide range of voices and her typecasting into villainous or demonic characters, Anon Scar chose to embrace the archetype of her usual characters and put on her classic “Demon of Tounges” act that roped her tons of fans in the seiyuu fan community. When Myth first met Scar, she was scared off by the voice actress‘s deep voice and hammy performances. From there, Scar knew to tone down her theatrics around Myth and soon Myth saw Scar for who she truly is: a kindhearted and almost maternal teenager. 

Outfit: Shoulder-length hair, a black ski cap with a skull on the front, black headphones with a microphone on the right ear, a black and white striped sweater, black fingerless gloves, scarf, skirt, stockings, and boots from original design. 

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Personal Assistant

In order to support both his parents and his little brother, Fusion had to take several odd jobs, ranging from a waiter to a cashier to even a court stenographer, resulting in him gathering an entire arsenal of skills and the title of Ultimate Personal Assistant. Despite his frightening height, Fusion’s kindhearted, reliable, and paternal nature made Myth warm up to him very easily. If Myth is ever in pain and needs her medication and comfort items, Fusion always has what she needs stashed somewhere on his body. Myth is still wondering to this day, where exactly does Fusion keep those things?

Outfit: Afro tied into a long and puffy ponytail with a red hair tie, blue and yellow vest over a red dress shirt and a yellow bow tie, white gloves, glasses, pants, and shoes from original design. 

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Procrastinator

Getting picked on at school for her bookish, nerdy personality and her natural genius, Fusion II reinvented herself with a flippant, bad-girl personality, who couldn’t care less about her studies. Despite not caring about academics, Fusion II’s grades are still the top of her school. While originally scared of Fusion II, due to her punk fashion and delinquent personality, Myth’s fear of Fusion II diminished when Myth caught her reading one of her essays in the library, proving that she is still a massive bookworm and a nerd, much to the procrastinator’s dismay.

Outfit: Blue streaks in her ruffled up hair, black spiked headband, dark blue denim jacket with golden spikes on the shoulder, black fingerless gloves, dark blue skirt with a tattered edge, tall spiky metal boots that add 4 inches onto her height, sunglasses, t-shirt and choker from original design.

Just Anon, Ultimate Poet

Despite what his adorable pastel fashion sense, innocent talent, and his calming hypnotic poetry would suggest, in reality, Janon has a foul mouth and an equally foul attitude and wants nothing more than to lie in bed all day without people bothering him. Myth can relate to that big time, alongside having a talent relating to writing, which makes Myth one of the few people who Janon is able to open up to. Sometimes, Myth and Janon organise ”nap nests“ (aka. piles and piles of blankets and pillows) and exchange what they have written together. 

Outfit: An oversized pink turtleneck sweater with a bunny on the front that covers his mouth and hands, formal wear from original design.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Speedreader

Despite Sparkle’s loud and dramatic personality being more suited towards a performance themed talent, Sparkle’s true expertise lies in reading at extremely high speeds. Sparkle and Myth’s shared interest in reading made them very close friends, despite their contrasting personalities. At some time in their friendship, Myth has been christened ”THE SPECTACULAR AND SPEEDY SPARKLE’S SIMULTANEOUSLY SPECTACULAR STOPWATCHKEEPER!”, for Myth regularly times Sparkle and gives Sparkle brand new material to read. 

Outfit: A blue vest over a white dress shirt, a red and orange tarten skirt, glasses, paldrons, cape, stockings, and boots from original design.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Ornithologist

Two great, but cursed, scientific minds, this freakish duo have took the world by storm with their “Future Avian Overlords” conspiracy theories. No matter how improbable the theory, Egg manages to point out real life aspects about the world around us, thanks to their twin, that supports the theory. But ever since Egg spread the theory that birds were just drones to Wet Sock, their relationship hasn’t been the same since. The twins scare the ever-living stuffing out of Myth, every time one of them decides to open their mouth, and Wyre regularly has to discipline them with violence for scaring her friend. 

Outfits: Dark brown sleeveless parkas over tan t-shirts, brown pants and brown boots, Egg has an alien pin and Wet Sock has a feather pin, glasses from original design. 

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Surgeon

Hailed by the medical world as a child prodigy, Curious’s steady and disciplined attitude made him a natural at surgery, despite their age and height. Having interacted with surgeons ever since she was little, Myth always felt at ease when around Curious. As a matter of fact, Myth met Curious before just before they attended Hope’s Peak Junior High, at one of the hospitals they volunteered at. Curious’s polite and charitable nature makes them a perfect companion for the timid Myth. In their off time, Myth likes to give Curious some of her short stories to read. 

Outfit: Hair in a small ponytail, mint green surgery scrubs and facemask, black pants, blue and white loafers.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Ice Skater

Myth actually saw Nerd’s performances on TV a couple of times and he was absolutely graceful and stunning on the ice. She may have a bit of a celebrity crush on him. But when she attended the Kibo-Con along with him, Myth caught wind of Nerd’s true personality: vulgar, surly, and loud-mouthed. But ever since Nerd met this tiny and timid essayist, his protective instincts have just flared up. Wyre knows about Myth’s little celebrity crush and Nerd’s little thing for Myth and is constantly coming up with schemes to choose her over the rude ice skater. 

Outfit: Hair combed over his right eye, a black, white, red and blue hoodie, black pants and red and white sneakers.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate VS Debater

Myth thought that she was the timidest person in the Kibo-Con roster. But ever since she met Eldritch, Myth may have some competition in the timidity category. Despite his confidence and boldness on the debate podium, when put in any other situation, Eldritch starts shaking in his boots and thinking up the worst possible scenario for every occasion. Despite Myth’s kindhearted and honest nature, Eldritch seems to think that Myth’s timidity is just a facade and that she will pull out a weapon from underneath her hoodie and assassinate him. 

Outfit: Neatly combed shoulder-length hair, red suit with a maroon tie, orange pants and black boots.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Astronomer

Despite her athletic, energetic, and childish demeanor, Dream is regarded as a veritable scientific genius in the study of the vast vacuum of space, to the point of having a star cluster named after her volleyball team. Needless to say, someone like Dream wasn’t what Myth had in mind when she heard she was going to be chaperoning the Ultimate Astronomer. At first, Myth wasn’t able to keep up with Dream’s energetic and outgoing attitude. But as time went on, Myth now looks forward to her relaxing weekly stargazing with Dream. 

Outfit: Star barettes, a galaxy-printed version of her original shirt, skirt, shorts and shoes from original design.

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Paleontologist

Despite Iris’s klutziness and almost stupidly optimistic outlook on life, Iris is a verified genius when it comes to paleontology, often being cited in academic journals and discovering a couple of new paleontologic species. Iris claims that she studies paleontology because she wants to show people that the world is just awesome, no matter the time period. Myth admires Iris’s optimistic outlook on life, and wishes to learn all about Iris’s philosophy and way of life, and Iris is happy to teach Myth the ways of the Iris. Maybe Iris’s philosophy could be just the confidence boost that she needs. 

Outfit: Cracked glasses, a green dinosaur hoodie over a brown dress with fossil designs all over, brown steel-toed boots, bandages all over her body from various freak accidents at digs. 

Purple Anon, Ultimate Puzzle Solver

Ever since Purple solved a highly-difficult puzzle as a toddler, Purple managed to dominate every single puzzle that the high-tech research lab threw at her. With an unparalleled aptitude for solving all sorts of puzzles, Purple specializes in ciphers and word puzzles. Because of their intellectual yet timid natures, Purple and Myth get along very well. Because of Myth’s talent, she has no problem at all, when it comes to understanding Purple’s cryptic speech patterns and vocabulary. They regularly exchange mental stimulation with each other in the forms of scientific essays and puzzles. 

Outfit: A white sweater with a cipher puzzle of her name on the front, a skirt colored like a Rubix cube, stockings and shoes from original design.

This series will be a bisexual harem series centering around five Anons fighting for the affections of the timid essayist who just wants them all to get along.

———————————————–

PERSONALITY

Because of her socially-isolated backstory, Essayist!Myth is supremely timid and often lets Wyre do the talking for her. Her time at Hope’s Peak raised her self-esteem and made her a bit more confident, but she is still painfully shy and socially-anxious. That being said, Essayist!Myth is really intelligent thanks to her hobby of reading and studying, and often finds solace with other intellectually minded Anons. Essayist!Myth isn’t at all skilled in the prospect of romance, which makes her a disaster bi, as opposed to the confident bi-ness of Romantic!Myth.

———————————————–

APPEARANCE

Essayist!Myth has long brown hair with two pink barettes that goes over her right eye and reading glasses. She wears a pink hoodie with a bisexual pride badge yellow zipper and flowers on each pocket. Myth wears the purple skirt, black stockings and pink Mary Janes from her original design. 

———————————————–

Let me know what you think of this series and this talentswap! If any of you have any headcanons for this AU, feel free to let me know!

-Fusion Anon

---

I have been known to write an essay or two, especially one on Strawberry Shortcake lol

[hyoubusqueenofespers-moved]

Here is the self ship fan kid I have with lovely husband, Kyousuke Hyoubu ❤️💕💖!

-

“Don’t underestimate this fiery princess!”

𝑫𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒒𝒖𝒆 𝑯𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒖 (ドミニク 兵部 京介, Hyoubu Dominique), or Domi, is an executive and weapons expert of P.A.N.D.R.A. She is also a heiress to P.A.N.D.R.A and espers in the Future.

She is the adopted daughter of Kyousuke Hyoubu and Azusa Hyoubu.

Biographical Information

Name: Dominique Hyoubu

Nicknames:

Domi (by Kyousuke Hyoubu and Azusa Hyoubu)

Mafia Princess

Alias:

Princess of Pyromania (Future Alias)

Princess (by Hyoubu and members of PANDRA)

Princess of P.A.N.D.R.A (by Hyoubu and PANDRA)

Princess of Espers (by Hyoubu and PANDRA)

Personal Information

Status: Alive

Age:

14 (Elementary Arc)

17 (Middle School Arc)

19 (High School Arc)

Birthday: October 31st, 1996

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Height: 5’6”/167 cm

Race: Level 6 Esper

• Nationality: Japanese-French

* Sexuality: Demiromantic Lesbian

• Hometown:

* ?, Japan

Occupation:

- P.A.N.D.R.A Executive (currently)

- P.A.N.D.R.A Weapons Expert (currently)

- Heiress of P.A.N.D.R.A and Espers (currently)

Appearance

Dominique is a girl of average height with a dark complexion, black hair, and heterochromia eyes (red and blue).

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Blue and Red

Personality

Dominique has a personality that greatly encompasses both of her fathers, Kyousuke Hyoubu and Azusa Hyoubu, Dominique has Azusa’s polite, playfulness, well-mannered demeanor, loyalty, and intelligence and strategic mind yet also has Hyoubu’s strong charisma, confidence, cunningness, ambition, competitiveness, and tends to acts like a whimsical child sometimes. She is very lady-like and is usually calm and collected. Though she is lady-like, she isn’t afraid to tease/taunt her enemies from time to time, mocking them and talking to them witty comebacks, making her seem rather sassy. Dominique also takes huge pride in her abilities, especially with her powers and likes to boast about her strength.

Due to Dominique being predicted to become the princess of Espers as well as her parents treating her like royalty, Dominique believes she’s a princess herself and has an oujodere complex. Dominique is treated lavishly by her dads, as she can be seen often wearing very expensive business suits and being able to eat daily at fine dining/expensive restaurants. By other PANDRA members,Dominique is very often always called Princess. Dominique appears to amused with living in such a luxurious lifestyle.

Dominique is very ambitious and competitive, who takes great interest in helping her dads into creating their esper kingdom with her dads as kings, doing anything to achieve this kings and appears to hate losing.

Dominique is very close to Hyoubu and Azusa; loving them to bits; and says they are the very first people she met who loved and accepted her for who she is, mentioning that even though both of her dads are world renowned criminals, Dominique mentions that they only shown compassion and concern for her. She also states that it was thanks to her dads where she grows to love her esper powers by teaching her how to master them and fight with the use of ESP.

Like her fathers, Dominique takes an immense dislike towards the enemies of espers. She also isn’t afraid to resorting to violent means if she suspects anyone attempting to hurt her family.

Likes:

✓ Fine Dining

✓ Fatty Tuna

✓ Chess

✓ Books

✓ Board Games

✓ Milk

✓ Formal Clothes

✓ Board Games

✓ Being Called Princess

✓ Fencing

Dislikes:

✗ Fast Food

✗ Non Formal Wear

✗ The Cold

Hobbies: Playing Chess, Doing Puzzles, Reading Books, and Doing Fencing.

Background

Dominique used to be a human without esper powers and was from a family who greatly despised ESP and espers. However, at age four-five, Dominique’s powers awakened that brought trouble for her family, with her pyrokinesis nearly killing them and destroying her former home. Knowing that Dominique is now an esper, they decide to reject her from the family and put her up for adoption.

Due to this, Dominique felt strong guilt for having esper powers and started to deeply hate herself. Soon, Hyoubu and Azusa, hearing about this incident and both wanting to raise a family together, would adopt the young Dominique. With Hyoubu and Azusa displaying themselves to only being positive and loving parents to her as well as showing her how to use her esper powers and being with PANDRA who accepted her being an esper, Dominique overcomes her guilt of having supernatural abilities growing to love her powers and starts overcome her self hatred.

Future Dominique Predictions

1. Dominique is known as the Princess of Pyromania and is said to be the princess of Espers during the war.

2. Leading up to the large scale esper vs human conflict; Hyoubu and Azusa assigned a large number of bodyguards to watch over her on a distant private island owned by PANDRA where they can be out of the fighting range. Hyoubu, before he leaves with Azusa into battle, tells her that once the war is over, him and Azusa will return to pick her up. Hyoubu mentions that he has gotten her a lifetime supply of food, water, clothes, etc. for her so they don’t have to worry about leaving her temporary home. Before Hyoubu leaves, he kisses her forehead and promises that he’ll return to see “His Princess” with his “His King” (Azusa).

3. Despite not participating in the war, Dominique can be seen supporting the Espers during the war and is cheering on her dads win so they can finally live their lives as Kings of Espers.

Powers & Abilities

Pyrokinesis: Dominique is a highly skilled pyrokinetic which caused her to become known as the Princess of Pyromania, as she can combust beings/matter into flames within her range, solidify flames, incinerate beings/matter within her range, solidify flames being able to form flames into objects and creatures, infuse fire onto objects he touches, increase the power of fire, create bursting powerful explosions of flames, manipulate the heat of flames being able to increase or decrease it, induce flaming burns by igniting the body parts of a person, and can turn herself into flames.

Psychometry: Dominique is able to use psychometry being able to gain certain, usually immediate, information from objects, people, and/or animals by simply touching them. She can gain information such as a person’s name, abilities, age, height, occupation, and even their physical or mental condition. If she touches an object, she can gain the remaining thoughts and information of the person who last used the object as well as the object’s information. It is likely that Dominique can gain any information by touch but needs to know what she’s looking for in order to find that information. She can use psychometry to proficiently wield weapons such as her cane sword and throwing cards, with 100% accuracy and in the hand to hand combat situations, if she touches an opponent; can learn her opponent’s pressure point. Dominique uses psychometry in an offensive style like Shiho Sannomiya.

Teleportation: Dominique is able to use teleportation to move beings and objects from one place to another as well as create teleportation portals. So far, she’s shown to be able to partially teleport part of her own body to another location while still being connected to it, teleport beings and objects into a target as well teleport objects into another object, teleport an attack back to the target, divert the location of a subject’s teleportation, even swap locations with others using teleportation, and is able to sense other teleporters being able to predict where the opponent will appear next even when blindfolded.

Hypnosis: Dominique can use hypnosis to create illusions. Much like Azusa, Dominique uses her illusion based powers to disguise as people and even fool her enemies during combat.

Cane Sword. Dominique’s main weapon of choice is a sword cane with a handle with a handle of a real diamond.

Lip Gloss Gun: Dominique can use a lip gloss gun that can shoot bullets or poisonous needles.

Throwing Cards: Dominique can proficiently wield throwing cards.

Matches: Dominique can use matches as a lethal weapon, combining it with her pyrokinesis for a deadly attack.

Lighter: Dominique uses her lighter like how she does with her matches.

Weapons Expert: Dominique is quite knowledgeable on weaponry and is seen wielding them skillfully.

Martial Arts: Dominique is quite skilled in various forms of martial arts.

Relationships

Family:

* Kyousuke Hyoubu (Foster Father)

* Azusa Hyoubu (Foster Father)

* Yugiri (Young Sister Figure)

* Fujiko Tsubomi (Half Aunt)

* PANDRA (Views As Family)

Friends:

• WIP

Neutral/Acquittances:

• WIP

Enemies:

• WIP

Other

Voice Actor/Seiyuu: Shizuka Ito

Ship: None

Trivia

1. Dominique is a skilled chess player, even being able to beat Hyoubu in a game.

2. Dominique is named after the Vanitas No Carte character, Dominique De Sade.

3. Like her father, Azusa. Dominique takes on his classy formal style when it comes to clothes.

4. Hyoubu has bought a throne for Dominique when she becomes the Princess of Espers.

5. Often seen with a playful grin or smug smirk.

6. Popular with the ladies of PANDRA.

-

That’s about it on our daughter! There is something about Hyoubu and imagining him being such a good dad!

[medea10]

My Review of Fruits Basket (2019): 1st Season

[tomboyjessie13-artblog]

Neashi Tamiki, regarded as The Fifth Pierrot, was an Islander who once lived in the Destiny Islands. Awakening in Twilight Town in the wake of the Heartless Attack, the girl was reborn as a Nobody with no memory of her past life. She later became involved in numerous incidents and conflicts regarding Organization XIII's Project; "[Project: Pere Noel]". After graduation, she later entered the Organization as their 15th Member, Shenxai, the Capricious Artist.

~Information Bio~ Name(English Translation): Neashi Tamiki Hiragana: なし=たみき Romaji: Nashi=Tamiki Other Names: Princess/Oujo-Chan(Xigbar's pet name), The Fifth Pierrot(Pere Noel's code name), Number XV(Rank), Shenxai(Nobody name), The Capricious Artist(Organization title). Age: 16(KH1 to Early-358/2 Days), 17(Mid-358/2 Days to KH3), 18(Post KH3) Gender: Female Sexual Orientation: Heteroflexible Race: Islander(Asian decent) Hair Color: Green Eye Color: Dark Teal Weapon: Halberd(Naginata, later Guandao) Element: Paint Lesser Nobodies: Pictomancer Occupation: Human(Formerly/Post-KH2), Nobody/Vessel(Slain in KH2) Affiliations: Destiny Islands(homeworld; formerly/Post-KH2), Twilight Town(Formally), The World that Never Was(Slain in KH2)*The Pere Noel Project(Graduated), Organization XIII(Slain in KH2). Alignment: True Neutral Inspiration: Me, Elluka Clockworker and Chirclatia, Platonic, Lemy Abelard, and Seong Mi-na ~Neashi's Theme~  Sunday Afternoon at Tamagawa River by Guitar ~Headcanon voices~ Japanese Seiyuu: Nana Mizuki Voice Actress: Caitlin Glass ============================================================== ~Personality and Traits~ "I can't believe I'm doing this again, "They" will pay for this humiliation." -Neashi's vendetta against "First Santa Clause" Neashi was a hardworking and creative individual and a thief, determined to become a well-known artist. Coinciding with her artistic lifestyle, she acts as a critic, particularly for anything related to art such as painting and catering, having such great taste within the creative world, though is still practicing to become better in her skills. Neashi is often relaxed and confident, but a little childish, occasionally teasing her peers to provoke them. In Addition, she had a tendency to mood swing. Xigbar often instigates her and she usually vented her anger toward him by attacking the Nobody. When faced with stressful situations, she'll try to escape if not fight back. She would also delay her heists or her missions' completion should her life be at risk. Although confident in her abilities as a Thief and a Fighter, she was against killing and refused to murder anyone; especially Sorcerers and stronger Organization members, knowing the crime would risk her being hunted down and executed, occasionally, however, she would threaten to end Xigbar's life if given the choice to cripple the Organization or to finally get him off her back, making her a hypocrite. Neashi also has a personal grudge against "Mr. Pere Noel", the founder of the "Pere Noel Project", vowing to get her hands on them for using her to do their dirty work. Neashi isn't very open with showing affection, often acting apathetic and sarcastic, even berating Demyx for his laziness, this was mostly due to her Trauma and [Mr. Pere Noel]'s manipulation, causing her to have some difficulties in forming relationships. Despite this and the fact she's a Nobody, she has a soft side, caring for the children of Twilight Town, including her youngest partner Nemu, and the friends she does trust to ease their misfortune as best she can, even going as far as to dedicate her thievery into making money to help them or bring back rare items. Having a liking for boyish things like combat and swordplay, Neashi fully embraced her Tomboyish lifestyle. Despite this, she does have a small liking for feminine things such as dresses, though doesn't do them very often. She does, however, make a few exceptions during certain occasions such as light makeup and accessories. She also acts stern at times, such as when she is doing house work or her missions for the Organization. Despite that, she does have fun and enjoys relaxing. Unbeknownst to most of her peers, she has a fear of thunder and lightning as a result of her PTSD(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Having witnessed her parents's death in a thunderstorm two months prior to the islands being destroyed by the Heartless. Becoming depressed, withdrawn, broken, and amnesic. Having lost her memories of her friends, relatives, and deceased family as a result of it, even after becoming a Nobody, her trauma is still caked into her mind, and any lightning based triggers such as a simple thunder spell will cause her the to suffer from an attack of PTSD before fainting, then waking up with no recollection of the attack. As Neashi begins to remember most of her past life, the more self aware she became, and as a result she became slightly depressed due to the pain in her past life, although still retains most of her outward personality as an attempt to hide it. The only ones who know of this was Demyx, Roxas, Xion, Nemu, Dimitri, and later Xigbar. When working for the Organization as Shenxai, she began to present herself as intimidating to her foes and the denizens of light outside the Castle That Never Was so no one would take advantage of her. When off the clock however, she's actually pretty chill and whimsical, albeit apathetic due to her depression. Thereby was more excepting about her demise because of it. Eventually before said demise, she began to realize the true horrors the Organization is causing regarding Kingdom Hearts and Sora and Kairi, as such she rejected her previous desire for revenge against [Mr. Pere Noel] and embraced her newfound desire for freedom and safety for herself, her young comrade Nemu, and her childhood friends. After becoming a Somebody again, she regains all her memories of her childhood and teen years prior to her trauma, in addition to finally regaining a heart and all of her human emotions. But while she was at first genuinely happy upon gaining a heart and her freedom, she became even more emotionally temperamental and visibly stressed due to her experience in both Pere Noel and Organization XIII, thus became very paranoid and anxious around any mentions of either groups and it's former members, in addition to becoming suspicious as to why the Organization had became Somebodies without the use of Kingdom Hearts. But at the same time she had became more worrisome about her friends, having to chase after Braig to "save him" from Master Xehanort and apologizing to Kairi for leaving her behind, meaning that she now acknowledges her friend's well-being or frustrations. ============================================================== Skills and Talents Despite coming from the life of a simple Islander, Neashi was able to have some success as a thief and fit well into the lifestyle and work required in Twilight Town. Although working alone, Neashi's connections to Pere Noel and the Organization allowed her to be well informed on her targets and more easily break into homes and avoid their inhabitants. Due to being a Nobody, Neashi was also resistant to being attacked by both powerful and lesser Nobodies by smell, also given the ability to control her own Dusks. In spite of that, she herself is also rendered helpless to the Darkness if not wearing the clothes made from the same material that makes up the Organization's standard attire. When fighting, she shows great skill with the naginata in both athleticism and grace. However, there are times where she does mess up and ends up either stabbing herself or stabbing someone important. Given the power of paint and thinner, she'll manipulate them in hopes of killing and/or trapping Heartless with them. She's weak against fire and lightning magic but can withstand ice. Outside of weaponry, she is skilled in martial arts such as physical combat, which can only be used in self defense. She also trains herself in Parkour to make her escapes from the police during her heists easier, in addition to making herself healthy. Neashi is shown to have a skill in drawing in any forms of media from sketching to painting. She can also cook for herself, be it microwavable to home cooked delicacies. Despite that, she does have trouble making homemade Sea-Salt Ice Cream, for she usually makes it either way too Salty than it's attended amount and/or give it an inappropriate color scheme. Naturally, as a Nobody and later a Organization member, Neashi can command the lesser Nobodies and use Dark Corridors at will. ============================================================== Character Connections Braig: An apprentice guard from Radiant Garden and Neashi's first friend, the memories of him were tragically forgotten when she grew older and became a Nobody. She met this capricious man at a young age after being transported from her world to his, he didn't think much of her at first but later grown fond of the child and vice versa, but they were later forced to part ways by Master Xehanort to avoid confusion from the public and to prevent the girl from foiling his plans, this resulted in her having trust issues. Like his Nobody, he's shown to act as a father-figure to Neashi in place of her birth parents. She was later horrified to learn that he and Xigbar are the same person and is working for the 13 Seekers of Darkness. Xigbar/Fourth Shadow: Neashi's Mentor from the Pere Noel Project, "Adopted Parent", and later her partner, she first met him in a Nobody territory under "Mr. Pere Noel's" last order. Though completely unaware of the Freeshooter being Braig's Nobody, her resurrecting memories allowed her to recognize his Somebody's scent thus earning his trust, though not fully. Despite that, they always get into fights both verbal and physical even threatening death on each other albeit, for naught, she is also often annoyed by his constant teasing, joking, and pranking, and is very aggravated with him making her do his errands such as buying him alcohol. Like his Somebody, he's shown to act as a father-figure to Neashi in place of her birth parents. He soon finds out that Neashi is starting to grow depressed, thus ruling her out as a potential vessel. She was later horrified to learn that he and Braig are the same person and is working for the 13 Seekers of Darkness. Dimitri: One of her former employers during her previous heists and later partner for the Pere Noel Project, she was first hired by this man due to her multiple thefts, and ever so often she would get ripped off and blackmailed by him, often getting half of the profit than she wanted. They were both surprised when they discovered that both of them are in the Project together, both being monitored by Xigbar as Second Dealer and Fifth Pierrot, and even worse being relocated to her apartment as a way to keep an eye on him. She is often disgusted with his greed and philandering with multiple lovers and wishes that she doesn't become one of his women. He's one of the few individuals who is aware of Neashi's growing depression and the first person to discover she had PTSD. Nemu: Her young neighbor and later partner for the Pere Noel Project, she was quite surprised to learn that someone their age was part of the Project as its Third Sleep Bringer, also being monitored by Xigbar. She also expressed both amazement when she saw how intelligent they were, hence satisfying her wonder as to why they're in the Project, though is often disturbed by their lack of communication, leading her to wonder if they had Mutism, regardless, she was able to bond with the young Nobody, even acting like a older sister to them. They lived in a studio apartment a few floors underneath Neashi's two bedroom one. They're one of the few individuals who is aware of Neashi's growing depression. Even though she became aware of Nemu's past life, she exonerated the child of their misdeeds due to their past abuse and manipulation. Sora: An Islander from the Destiny Islands and Neashi's childhood friend, he's also the reason she became a Nobody due to his influence. She first met the young boy after Master Xehanort sent her home, She was resistant at first but later developed a close bond with the boy, even becoming a sister-figure to him. She gives both him and Riku a few pointers in fighting growing up. Sadly, the memories of him were tragically forgotten after witnessing her parents' death 2 months prior to the Islands being destroyed. When she met him again, she only sees him as a ploy to the Organization, but feels like she knows him due to his resurging memories, thereby doesn't really show herself as a threat to him in particular. Riku: An Islander from the Destiny Islands and Neashi's childhood friend. She first met him after meeting Sora, she gives both him and Sora a few pointers in fighting growing up, she sees potential and trust in Riku thus becoming good friends. However, the memories of him were tragically forgotten after witnessing her parents' death 2 months prior to the Islands being destroyed. She eventually met with him again as a Nobody, under the impression that he was an Organization Impostor, she was taken aback when she saw his face however, feeling like she saw him before. Kairi: An Islander from the Destiny Islands and Neashi's childhood friend. Though never first met at Radiant Garden, she later meets her on the Islands and developed a close bond with her. However, the memories of her were tragically forgotten after witnessing her parents' death 2 months prior to the Islands being destroyed. When she was visiting the Islands one day, she accidentally ran into Kairi, but eventually became good friends(again) despite being a Nobody. Neashi was surprised to learn that she was one of the Seven Princesses of Heart and became genuinely horrified when Saix kidnapped her just to use her to anger Sora. ???/Mr. Pere Noel: Her Employer from the Pere Noel Project and later her target of Vengeance. She was first hacked by the mysterious person one day and was forced into the Project as "The Fifth Pierrot." She eventually grew to despise them after receiving many heists that almost got her killed and/or caught, she willingly stayed in Pere Noel in hopes to one day meet and punish them. She was though certain that the Organization's Leader is him due to Pere Noel being a funded Project by Organization XIII. Eventually she gave up on seeking revenge against him in place of wanting to escape due to discovering the horrors the Organization is creating. Demyx: A member of Organization XIII and later her friend and partner. She first met the young Nocturne after confronting Xigbar sometime afterward, at first she thought of him as an idiot and berating him for his laziness, even during their first mission together in the Organization, but later grows fond of the Nobody's company, even allowing him to hide in her apartment from Saix and stating that he's more tolerable to be with than Xigbar, although she doesn't show it and is quite irritated with his cowardice behavior. They also express their same interests for Music and Games, and he's one of the few individuals who is aware of Neashi's growing depression, proving his belief that Nobodies do have hearts. Eventually due to their closeness, they ended up having a secret relationship with him, but it was mostly on and off due to the Organization's rules, despite this however, she was genuinely regretful of his demise. Character Trivia ~ She's the only character known for having green hair. ~ She currently has 6 piercings on her face and ears. 4 thick rings(2 on her bottom lip and 1 on each ear lobe). And 2 thin rings on the helix part of her right ear. ~ Her Naginata fighting style is similar to that of Seong Mi-na from Soul Caliber. ~ Pere Noel is French for "Father Christmas" or "Santa Clause", the program is based on the fictional criminal organization under the same name from the Evillious Chronicles during the Sloth/Pierrot and Greed/Wrath arcs.

[burnouts3s3]

Kill la Kill IF, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.) Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Publisher: Arc System Works Developer: A+ Games Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP): 59.99 USD How much I paid: 49.94 USD (I got a pre-order discount) Number of Playable Characters: 8; Satsuki, Ryuko, Nui, Houka, Ira, Uzu, Nonon and Ragyo (Satsuki and Ryuko have 2 variations). Number of Stages: 6 Rated: M for Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Suggestive Themes and Violence Nudity: Lots and lots of cleavage and side boob. Characters usually dressed down to bikinis and thongs when disrobed. No visible female nipples. Can I play offline: Yes How long I played: 4 Hours. 2 hours to complete Satsuki's perspective on Story mode and 2 to complete Ryuko's. Microtransactions: None so far. What I played on: My Nintendo Switch. Performance Issues: When the Switch is docked, the performance 'mostly' runs smoothly, albiet shows the soft textures up front. When in handheld mode, the framerate sinks like a rock and becomes stitled. One instance of the game pausing for one moment before resuming. Lenghty loading screens whether docked or on handheld mode. And of course, no anime game is complete without its most famous feature, missynced lip flaps. Dual Audio: Yes. Both English and Japanese voices are available. English Cast: Erica Mendez as Ryuuko Matoi, Carrie Keranen as Satsuki Kiryuuin, Matthew Mercer as Aikuro Mikisugi, Patrick Seitz as Ira Gamagori, Stephanie Sheh as Nui Harime, Christine Marie Cabanos as Mako Mankanshoku, Kaiji Tang as Tsumugu Kinagase, Grant George as Uzu Sanageyama, Romi Pak as Ragyo Kiryuuin, David Vincent as Senketsu, Sarah Anne Williams as Nonon Jakuzure, Steve Staley as Hoka Inumata and Todd Haberkorn as Shiro Iori My Personal Biases: I recently watched Kill la Kill and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I thought it was a good show. My Verdict: Even fans aren't going to be satisfied with this package. With an anemic roster, few stages and a battle system where you fight the camera more than you fight your opponent, Kill la Kill: IF is wasted potential. Even the amusing cutscenes can't save this piece of junk. Wait for a sale. Kill la Kill IF, a review

It's strange that after 5 years of one of the most beautifully animated action shows that we finally now get a release of Kill la Kill IF. Based on the popular anime, will the game do its original source material justice? Let's find out in this review! For those of you who aren't familiar, Honnouji Academy is a fictional high school situated in Tokyo Bay, Japan on the island of Honnō City. The school is dominated by its fearsome student council led by their president Satsuki Kiryuin. Its students wear Goku Uniforms, which give their wearers superhuman abilities because they are constructed with a special material known as Life Fibers. Vagrant transfer student Ryuko Matoi, who wields a scissor-shaped longsword that can cut Goku Uniforms, challenges the council as she searches for her father's killer. Although she is initially easily defeated by Takaharu Fukuroda, she finds a sentient sailor uniform that she names Senketsu, a Kamui which is completely made of Life Fibers and transforms her so that she can face Kiryuin and her trials and obstacles. Kill la Kill IF is a filler story set in the anime's canon storyline. Gone are the various side characters and multiple developments throughout the story and instead speeds through to the main battles and opponents. Set as an arena fighting game, players control one of the characters found in the show and use their unique abilities to whittle the enemy's lifebar to zero. Each character is given access to a melee attack, a ranged attack and a grab which breaks the opponent's guard. Overtime, a player's SP bar builds up. 2 out of the 4 bars can be used for a special attack or to unleash bloody valor, a rock paper scissors mechanic to gain boosts such as attack or health. Losing the battle results in damage while winning continuously allows you to unleash a final ultimate attack. The issues become evident right from the start. Despite Studio Trigger, the animator of the series, supervising, the game's engine just cannot live up to the 2D anime that told the original story so well. While the art direction certainly lives up to the original with its use of contrasting colors and unique aesthetic, the actual animation itself remains stilted and choppy, even on the best of machines. While the animators are able to work around this (Mako's scenes continue to be the highlight of the franchise), you can't help but feel the 3D counterpart is struggling to match up what Trigger mastered in 2D animation. You better get used to the visuals. In order to unlock any of the other modes, you'll have to play the MANDATORY story and watch the stilted cutscenes (which you can skip, Thank God). Because who wouldn't want a story mode that has cutscenes that are longer than the actual gameplay? After all, it isn't like someone won't upload those cutscenes up to Youtube and you can watch them for free... Wait... And that's not even mentioning the numerous loading screens that come between every other cutscene and before the gameplay starts. I don't know if the loading screens are shorter on more powerful consoles and PCs, but they were certainly a slog on the Nintendo Switch. So, if you're in the market for a game with little gameplay, lengthy cutscenes and lots and lots of loading screens, have I got a game for you. Most matches are set between an individual opponent and involve whittling down the foe's health bar to claim victory. However, certain modes allow multiple opponents to face off against each other, either in battle royale or with pairing into teams. Half the time, the game plays like a Musou or Open world beat em up where in the player character must defeat multiple enemies on screen. Sometimes it's rogue Covers, sentient uniforms and other times its Nui clones. With no camera control and no ability to lock on to individual opponents, you'll often miss your intended target and end up hitting a new enemy instead. Story mode, even on its easiest difficulty, opts to pad out the game by giving certain enemies so much health, it takes forever to shrink it down to zero. Forget the sword sponges throughout the game; half the time the camera can't keep up and my poor player character is out of frame because of all the enemies are upfront while said PC is all the way in the back. In addition to the story, there's also Online matchmaking, survival challenge in which you play AI opponents in a row and Covers Challenge, in which the game becomes a full Musou and you must defeat all foes in the arena. All the original voice actors from the anime's dub cast have returned. Erica Mendez as Ryuuko Matoi and Carrie Keranen as Satsuki Kiryuuin give the same respect to the source material as did the Japanese Seiyuu and it's always fun to hear Patrick Seitz, Grant George, Stephanie Sheh, Todd Haberkorn, Matt Mercer and Steve Staley again.   If you dislike the voices, the game comes with Dual Audio and you can switch to the original Japanese. CAVEAT: What a waste! How did such a great property get saddled with such a lousy adaptation? Kill la Kill (the anime) still holds up as a show even 5 years after its release. It's too bad all that potential is made into a cashgrab of a game. With its limited roster, wonky camera, and lack of stages, even diehard Kill la Kill fans should wait for a sale while watching the cutscenes on Youtube. It's too bad. For just a brief moment, I did see the makings of a good game. The only reason this anime adaptation doesn't take home the award of "Most squandered potential of an anime property" is because Jump Force came out earlier this year. Verdict: Rental or wait for a sale. Or just watch the anime again.

[skirak]

The Ultimate Introduction to Hosoya Yoshimasa Part 1 [Everything you should know about Hosoya Yoshimasa #3]

37th Birthday Special

10 February, the ultimate day as a certain baby turns 37. Time really flies... I still remember creating posts for his 36th bday last year in my main account @akaskira

This is taken from a Chinese source: PukiWiki 

Translated by me!

Introduction

Source: 新R25 Interview (Japanese)

Hosoya Yoshimasa [細谷佳正]

Born 10 February, 1982 in Onomichi, Hiroshima.

Height of 175 cm (5 feet 7), Blood Type B

Left hander.

Was a member of Mausu Promotion till 1 July 2014 and has been Freelance since.

Nicknames include Yosshi (used by Ono Yuuki), Posoya-kun (used by Sugita Tomokazu)

Called Hosoyan by fans and Hikasa Yoko

According to himself, has rarely been given nicknames.

Favourite food includes sea urchin. Likes to drink but doesn’t smoke.

Likes ghost story and horror movies but gets scared as hell in haunted houses (click for link!)

Probably can see ghosts - many colleagues have heard real ghost experiences from him.

Okamoto Nobuhiko once said he wanted to go to haunted house most with Hosoya as his reaction is interesting

In the world of Male seiyuu Singers, he is considered to be of mid-high ranking.

Used to do busking and released his own songs.

Sang albums for character Shiraishi Kuranosuke in “Prince of Tennis”

The first album “Medicine or...?” got 7th in Most Daily Played and 10th in Most Weekly Played. The second album “Poision” achieved 3rd in Daily and 6th in Weekly [Oricon Style]

CD or LIVE, his performance is worth a praise. His condition has been good since his first performance, “Prince of Tennis Hundred Song Marathon”. He then received praise for his singing plus dancing in FESTA 2009, and also is the first from Prince of Tennis to have his very own solo concert and album in 2010.

Doesn’t really sing as his characters, so the songs you hear are all his own style.

Seiyuu with the same experiences as him include Tsubasa Yonaga, Kaji Yuuki, Okamoto Nobuhiko etc.

One of Mima Masafumi (Director of audiography)’s favourite seiyuu. It’s like wherever there’s Mima there’s Hosoya

Experiences

High School 

Used to be in fencing and acting clubs, and quit fencing for acting.

Was in a leader position in acting, but didn’t know whether to pursue it.

After that, watched “Martian Succesor Nadesico: The Motion Picture - Prince of Darkness” recommenced by a friend and decided to be a seiyuu as he was inspired by Yamadera Koichi’s character.

Voiced in the remake Space Battleship Yamato 2199 as Katou Saburou, fulfilling his dream of voicing with Yamadera.

Achieved Best Supporting Character Awards in 2014 and 2016 tho he has no luck in MC

Characteristics

Has a natural mid-range voice, therefore often gets cool / calm Sports Captain roles. To other people, Hosoya can also be seen as a man who’s calm with few words.

Because he started as acting in Western works, he’s better at “natural calmness” performances rather than exaggerated.

Mostly voices young characters from straightforward to cold ones. Also can voice as some bad “Uncle” (Ixion Saga DT as Pet)

Basically after Takamatsu Shinji’s (animator) favourtism, his image has disappeared (this is a compliment)

Maybe because Hosoya’s tone is a little plain (Hey!!) he rarely voices as MC but as supporting roles (MC’s friends etc)

For some reason, always voice some “big Brother” characters and recently, 80% of his roles are muscular guys

Accepted more roles as he grew popular.

Voiced as an insane character in a game “Princess Arthur” and received praise for it.

Before that, also voiced incanely in “Edel Blume” but the game wasn’t good so it wasn’t popular

Common traits of his characters: glasses, prideful, disses, dialect.

Real person is a helpless dork which is totally different from his characters, so may surprise people who don’t know him well.

Started by dubbing in Western shows / movies, so isn’t known in ACG (Animation, Comic, Game) community until his role as Shiraishi.

One of the few who dubs a lot in both ACG and Western films, where he voices in almost every season.

Often receives dialect roles (Osaka, Fukui, Hiroshima etc). Says that his voice is like a plain Ochazuke (rice with tea).

Has very few R18 works.

In BLCD, only appeared for a passerby and never a seme/uke role.

With the exception of Miyano Mamoru and Irino Miyu who both have acting backgrounds, Hosoya being famous even without a R18 character is considered as really special.

People may mistake Hosoya as voicing in more shoujo themed anime due to his popularity with women and large variety, but he actually focuses more on dub and shonen works.

Hosoya EVERYWHERE

In 2016 October, he accepted roles from 12 more works out of his normal ones, and with different varieties as well.

Probably because of overperformance, he hurt his throat and took a break from 23 April 2017 to August 2017.

Personality

Speciality: plays guitar and likes shooting

Is bad at technology so doesn’t have Twitter or personal blog (except link)

Known as the most woman-like male seiyuu.

Ogata Megumi: “Among male and female seiyuu, the one with most girl powers is Hosoya Yoshimasa.”

Actually also wants to be popular so often asks tips from other male seiyuu

A member of Mizuki Nana’s female team

Proved by a lot of people that he loves to talk about love.

Self-claimed masochist. Is actually also very masochistic

Gets nervous easily and sweats a lot. When he’s nervous, he always speak incoherently / stammers so he’s often teased by others.

Always at the bottom of the food pyramid.

In Free, was bullied by “predators” Miyano Mamoru and Suzuki Tatsuhisa.

Nobunaga Shimazaki: “Sorry—”

Hosoya: “We’re not gonna lose like this!!”

Masafumi Mima: “In Knb, 50% of seiyuu were new and perhaps to calm their berves they decided to tease someone. That someone is Hosoya. Even though he’s the captain, his reaction when bullied is priceless.”

Known as the natural dork, which often comes into topic when he’s not around.

Has a weird way of thinking sometimes.

Often leaves audience and cast speechless (and is usually made fun of later), but can tell he means what he says, and usually still has a good relationship with others.

Likes to not look at the camera in pictures, affecting people around him. Fans have also started to imitate it.

Easy to go along with and humble.

Often calls person with “san” behind and uses respectful language (formal)

Depending on atmosphere, he does call people by their first name and vice versa.

People he calls first names include Ono Kenshou, Osaka Ryota, Ishikawa Kaito etc.

“Will go crazy in unreasonable situations” - Hikasa Yoko

Too many sports roles. Fans often say he can “hold an Olympic on his own” and those roles are still renewing.

Some include tennis, Basketball, baseball, soccer, Volleyball, piano, drums, judo, karuta, Swimming, rugby, ice skating.

Fans often check if he’s voicing in new sports anime - and it’s a common habit.

Seems to also notice himself and talks about doing them sometimes.

Relationships

Male Magnet.

Attracts both senpai and junior’s appreciation.

Accidentally stepped into a gay bar and was almost harassed.

Even Fukuyama Jun, who doesn’t work with him much, would mention him from time to time.

Kamiya Hiroshi: “He’s a good kid who’s too serious.”

Has many hidden fans in the industry. Ishikawa Kaito has played his songs directly from his phone before.

Others

Likes girls who’s younger but mature big Sister type omg that’s me

Seems to like... boobs, D-cup in particular.

Had a defect where he was born with six fingers on his right hand but had the extra surgically removed.

Was a fan of the manga “Ushio and Taro” so was very happy when he voiced Akiba Nagare in it.

To be continued

I’ve kind of run out of space so I’m going to do a separate post later. For now, I’m so glad I decided to rewatch anime or I wouldn’t have found out about this adorable dork who made me who I am. I just came back from Japan after studying there for about 4 months, and it had just been the best knowing we were in the same country, breathing the same air, almost living in the same city. 

While I didn’t manage to go to a Hosoyan event, I would definitely go at least once just to “meet” and see him live. 

I love him with all my heart and wish him the best in everything.

[firebirdtransam68]

Which Work Am I A Bigger Fan Of?  I Cannot Choose!

I have two works that I really like, and they are Transformers and Sonic The Hedgehog.  Both enhanced my creativity, and I grew up with Transformers (the live-action films, anyway; but I got into G1 when I got into the 1980′s); they have extraterrestrials that are allies or enemies with humans (and they have anti-heroes as well (I’m looking at you, Armada Starscream and Shadow The Hedgehog)); and they have English and Japanese versions of their own media (the original Unicron Trilogy and Sonic X are all anime series in which the Japanese versions with English subtitles are better than the English dubs).  I have been fans of both works for a couple years (I saw Transformers first, and then Sonic The Hedgehog).

However, I am debating whether I like one more than the other; I believe I am, but I am going to differentiate between these two works to see for myself.  Here it goes; I am going to start with Transformers, first.

The first Transformers work I saw was the first live-action film directed by Michael Bay.  It looked very realistic, and the graphics were nice.  I saw two more live-action films, and they were okay, but the third film went downhill, especially since they killed off some of my favorite characters from there (especially Ironhide; I really liked that black truck, and Sentinel killed him).  I don’t remember when I saw the 1986 film, but it is one of these factors that got me into the 1980′s (among The Transformers, in which that animated film was based on).  I started to prefer G1 over Bayformers since their styles looked fantastic, and it is also how I got a little into Mecha anime (Golion/Dairugger/Voltron got me even more into Japanese anime).  

I then looked to see if there are any other Mecha shows I would watch, and I remembered fans talking about Transformers Armada, and I searched via Anime News Network; when I saw that Ironhide was in there, as well as Starscream, I got the urge to watch it.  I saw all 52 episodes of the show (called Micron Legend) with English subtitles, and I was hooked into it.  Micron Legend became even more of my favorite Transformers work than even G1 because of many G1 callbacks, certain soundtracks that sounded 1980′s, and many complex characters from both sides.  I then saw another show, in which it is called Energon (actually, it was Superlink), and I got as much hooked as I did with the other show, despite some flaws such as not giving certain characters enough screen time.  I was upset when the characters from Micron Legend got killed off (especially Ironhide/Demolishor), but was amazed at some new characters, especially those that were based off of their G1 counterparts, such as Inferno, Lazerwave (homage to G1 Shockwave), Wheeljack, Springer, and Omega Supreme.  I saw Galaxy Force (original version of Cybertron) once, and lost interest, despite some interesting characters such as Soundwave and Chromia (Thunderblast).  Similarly, Headmasters made me lose interest, since some of the characters were really bland, and they were lacking some character development in some of the Transformers (and even humans).

Since the first Bayformers film was the one I liked a lot, I didn’t want to watch anymore live-action films until 2018, in which the Bumblebee film debuted.  I was skeptical at first, until I got the chance to saw it; it was fantastic; the film was set in 1987, and it had many themes and styles of the 1980′s, and it stayed true to the G1 continuity (besides Micron Legend, Superlink, and Galaxy Force).  And the villains were phenomenal, especially Shatter (ROTF Alice didn’t give me enough excitement for a believably evil Decepticon who is female (or at least feminine), she was too bland, in my opinion).  And don’t forget the music, especially when Stan Bush’s song appeared in one scene where Bumblebee was encouraging his human friend, Charlie Watson, to dive off a cliff (which is safe, and has water).

Now let’s go with Sonic The Hedgehog.  I have noticed some people playing the games, and I never got the hold of it until I noticed that there was an anime show based on the games (especially the Adventure series), and I decided to give it a watch.  The anime was Sonic X, and it was in Japanese with English subtitles.  I was blown away because of Sonic’s tendency to break the fourth wall and throw in English here and there, the graphics which looked similar to Micron Legend in many angles, one original character with his many racing supercars (Sam Speed), contains Mecha (usually by Dr. Eggman), the soundtrack, and, of course, Shadow The Hedgehog (the first time I understood that character was in this show).  Also, the anime had many callbacks from the previous games (1991-2003; 2003 was when Sonic X was first broadcasted); and the Metarex saga gave me a feel from the part where Unicron debuted in Micron Legend.

One of my cousins have many different Sonic games, since he is a huge fan of them.  He had spin-off games as well; one of them was Shadow’s own game.  The first time I took interest was when I heard some fans talk about him using guns; at first, I thought it was a joke, until I saw for myself.  Many die-hard Sonic fans don’t like the 2005 game, but I certainly liked it, especially after I saw Sonic X; it was dark and edgy, yes, but it also gave the main character more depth and characterization, he can use firearms if he chooses to, and drives vehicles such as motorcycles and cars; I even have the option to play it in English or Japanese (of course with English subtitles for both).

I also did some reviews for three Sonic TV shows during the 1990′s.  Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog came to mind, especially this one episode, Zoobotnik, in which it featured a villainess, Katella The Huntress, who is the most underrated Sonic character of all time.  I found her costume appealing (including the circlet she wears on her forehead), and I found it amusing to see her with Dr. Robotnik/Eggman (I believe this is the only time I will ship Eggman with anyone else; besides Sera/Sara from the OVA, of course).  The English shows were not as appealing, but at least I got some insight after watching a few episodes.

I think I like both works because they are related in many ways, even though the Transformers originated in the 1980′s, and Sonic The Hedgehog originated in the 1990′s, among many other differences.  I really like extraterrestrial characters, but I also like Mecha robots (especially sentient robots).  Maybe I like Transformers even more than Sonic The Hedgehog.

Another thing these two have in common is their voice actors, who appeared in both works; seiyuu are more prominent.  Here is a list of English voice actors first, and then I will go with the Japanese voices:

English

- Charlie Adler (Silverbolt in The Transformers (1984-1987), and Starscream in the live-action films (2007-2011); Snively in Sonic SatAM)

- Jim Cummings (Afterburner, Rippersnapper, and a Sharkticon in The Transformers (1984-1987); Dr. Robotnik in Sonic SatAM)

- Frank Welker (Megatron, Soundwave, Skywarp, Rumble, Frenzy, Trailbreaker, Wheelie, many other Decepticons in G1 (Megatron is the most well-known in other works); SWATbots in Sonic SatAM)

- Rob Paulson (Haywire, Air Raid, and Slingshot in The Transformers (1984-1987); Antoine Depardieu in Sonic SatAM)

- Cree Summer (Blackarachnia in Transformers: Animated; Dulcy The Dragon in Sonic SatAM)

- Michael Bell (Swoop, Sideswipe, Bombshell, Brainstorm, First Aid, and Scrapper in The Transformers (1984-1987); Naugus in Sonic SatAM)

- Kath Soucie (Professor Princess, and Trisha in Transformers: Animated; Sally Acorn, and NICOLE in Sonic SatAM)

- Jason Marsden (Cade Burns in Transformers: Rescue Bots; Dirk in Sonic SatAM)

- Gary Chalk (Optimus Prime in Beast Wars and Armada; Grounder in AOSTH, Dr. Robotnik in Sonic Underground)

- Ian James Corlett (Cheetor, Maximal/Sentinel, and Sea Clamp in Beast Wars; Coconuts in AOSTH)

- Scott McNeil (Dinobot, Rattrap, Silverbolt, Dinobot II, Waspinator in Beast Wars, Jetfire and Omega Supreme in the Transformers Unicron Trilogy (2002-2006); MacHopper in AOSTH)

- French Tickner (Bulkhead in Transformers: Energon; Dr. Warpnik, Big Griz, and Professor Von Schlemmer in AOSTH)

- Venus Terzo (Blackarachnia in Beast Wars; Breezie in AOSTH)

- Samuel Vincent (Sideswipe in Transformers: Armada; Sonic’s singing voice in Sonic Underground)

- Kathleen Barr (Botanica in Beast Wars; Momma Robotnik, Katella The Huntress, additional voices in AOSTH)

- Brad Swaile (Kicker Jones in Transformers: Energon; additional voices in AOSTH)

- Matt Hill (Carlos Lopez and Ironhide in the Transformers Unicron Trilogy; Max in Sonic Underground)

- Brian Drummond (Jetstorm in Beast Machines, Blurr in Transformers: Armada, Shockblast in Transformers: Energon, Jetfire in Transformers: Cybertron; Knuckles The Echidna in Sonic Underground)

- Terry Klassen (High Wire, Sixshot, Skyblast, Brimstone, Tim Hanson, and Mr. Stanton in the Transformers Unicron Trilogy (2002-2006); Doctor Brandon Quark, additional voices in AOSTH)

- Maurice LeMarche (Six-Gun in The Transformers (1984-1987); Uncle Chuck, Sleet, Oracle Of Delphius, additional voices in Sonic Underground)

- Tabitha St. Germain (Alexis Thi Dang in Transformers: Armada; Sally Acorn in Sonic Christmas Blast (1996) from AOSTH)

- Cathy Weseluck (Boy at carnival in Transformers: Armada; additional voices in AOSTH and Sonic Underground)

- Lacey Chabert (Dani Burns in Transformers: Rescue Bots; Princess Elise III in Sonic The Hedgehog (2006))

- Roger Craig Smith (Jetstorm, Slipstream, Airazor, Blastwave, and Mayor Mayhem in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Sonic The Hedgehog in the Sonic games (2010-present) and Sonic Boom)

- Kirk Thornton (Dr. Onishi in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2001-2002), and Shadelock in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Shadow The Hedgehog and Orbot in the Sonic games (2010-present) and Sonic Boom))

- Travis Willingham (Sideswipe in War For Cybertron, Fall Of Cybertron and Rise Of The Dark Spot, and Motormaster and Menasor in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Knuckles The Echidna in the Sonic games (2010-present) and Sonic Boom, Storm The Albatross in Sonic Free Riders (2010), and Zavok in Sonic Lost World (2011))

- Colleen O’Shaughnessey (Jenny in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2001-2002); Miles “Tails” Prower, Zooey, Chumley, and Belinda in Sonic Boom, and Charmy Bee in the Sonic games (2010-present))

- Michael Yurchak (Zorillor in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Jet The Hawk in the Sonic games (2010-present))

- Keith Silverstein (Rumble and Frenzy in War For Cybertron, and Blast Off in Fall Of Cybertron and Rise Of The Dark Spark; Vector The Crocodile in the Sonic games (2010-present))

- Troy Baker (Jetfire in War For Cybertron, and Kickback in Fall Of Cybertron and Rise Of The Dark Spark; Espio The Chameleon in the Sonic games (2010-present))

- Wally Wingert (Mirage and Side Burn in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2001-2002); Cubot in the Sonic games (2010-present) and Sonic Boom))

- Sam Riegel (Starscream in War For Cybertron, Fall Of Cybertron, and Rise Of The Dark Spark, and Snarl in Fall Of Cybertron; Zor in Sonic Lost World)

- Liam O’Brien (Underbite and Kickback in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017), and Air Raid and Cyclonus in War For Cybertron; Zazz in Sonic Lost World, and Infinite The Jackal in Sonic Forces)

Japanese

- Kappei Yamaguchi (Rattrap in Beast Wars and Transformers: Animated; Sonic The Hedgehog in AOSTH and SatAM)

- Masashi Ebara (Skywarp, Spike Witwicky, Brawl, Ratchet, Teletraan-I, Steeljaw, Long Haul, Smokescreen, Blitzwing, and many others in G1; Erazor Djinn in Sonic And The Secret Rings)

- Ken Yamaguchi (Blurr in G1, Arblus, Rumble, Slag and Sharkticons in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), Blitzwing, Broadside, Dirge, Silverbolt, Golder, Hot Spot, Cloudracker, Lazerbeak, Ratbat, Superion, Rewind and Slugslinger in Transformers: Headmasters (1987-1988), Hydra and Darkwings in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (1988-1989); Decoe and Nelson Thorndyke in Sonic X)

- Akimitsu Takase (Blowpipe, Fastlane, Hot Rod, Freeway, and Monzo in The Transformers (Rebirth); the President’s aide in Sonic The Hedgehog (OVA))

- Ken Narita (Caliburst, Cerebros, Stylor, Cloudracker, Triggerhappy, and Sureshot in Transformers: Headmasters (1987-1988); Black Narcissus in Sonic X)

- Banjou Ginga (Ultra Magnus in Transformers: Scramble City (1986) and Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Scorponok/Mega Zarak in Transformers: Headmasters (1987-1988), Black Zarak in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (1988-1989), one of the Primes in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009); GUN Commander in Shadow The Hedgehog (2005))

- Masaharu Sato (Alpha Trion, First Aid, Bee Drone, Grotusque, Hook, Grimlock, Scourge, Kaen, Punch/Counterpunch, Skydive, Sureshot and Tantrum in Transformers: Headmasters (1987-1988), Gilmer and Leftfoot in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (1988-1989), Perceptor, Frank, and Mayor Burns in Transformers: Victory (1989); Dr. Eggman in SegaSonic The Hedgehog (1993))

- Hochu Otsuka (Ultra Magnus, Crosshairs, Wingspan, Big Serow, Freeway, Ratbat and Abel in Transformers: Headmasters (1987-1988), Ranger in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (1988-1989), and Guyhawk in Transformers: Victory (1989); Red Pine in Sonic X)

- Takeshi Kusao (Clouder in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (1988-1989); Sonic The Hedgehog in Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car (1991), SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter Galaxy Patrol (1993), and SegaSonic The Hedgehog(1993))

- Hinako Yoshino (Pipo in Transformers: Victory (1989); Ray The Flying Squirrel in SegaSonic The Hedgehog(1993))

- Chafurin (Cicadacon in Beast Wars, General Bryce in Transformers: Prime (2010-2013), Octopunch in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Old Man Owl in Sonic The Hedgehog (OVA), Zomom in Sonic Lost World)

- Wataru Takagi (Cheetor in Beast Wars, Glenn Whitmann in Transformers (2007), Jetstorm and Safeguard in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Jazz in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Cubot in the Sonic series (2010-present))

- Nobutoshi Canna (Nightscream and Oracle in Beast Machines, Inferno, Lazerwave and Sixshot in Transformers: Superlink, Swindle in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009); Knuckles The Echidna in the Sonic series (1998-present) and Sonic X)

- Mitsuo Iwata (Silverbolt in Beast Wars, Roadbuster in Transformers: Superlink, Wreck-Gar in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Hardshell in Transformers: Prime (2010-2013), Blurr in Transformers: Cyberverse (2018-present); Orbot in the Sonic series (2008-present))

- Toru Okawa (Optimus Prime/Convoy and Scourge in Transformers: Micron Legend, Ratchet and Porter C. Powell in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Simacore in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Pachacamac in Sonic Adventure (1998))

- Koji Yusa (Ironhide and Thrust in Transformers: Micron Legend, Ironhide/Irontread and Wing Dagger/Wing Saber in Transformers: Superlink, Prowl in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009); Shadow The Hedgehog)

- Daisuke Kishio (Kicker Jones in Transformers: Superlink, Bumblebee in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Quillfire in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Jet The Hawk in the Sonic games (2005-present))

- Kenta Miyake (Landmine and Omega Supreme in Transformers: Superlink, Bulkhead, Alpha Trion and Blackout in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Shockwave in Transformers: Prime (2010-2013), Razorpaw in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Vector The Crocodile in the Sonic games (2003-present) and Sonic X)

- Katsuyuki Konishi (Optimus Prime/Grand Convoy and Overdrive in Transformers: Superlink, Angry Archer and Spike Witwicky in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009); Lucas in Sonic X)

- Joji Nakata (Megatron in Transformers: Galaxy Force; E-102 Gamma in Sonic Adventure, Zavok in the Sonic games (2013-present), Dark Oak in Sonic X)

- Kotaro Nakamura (Megatron in the Transformers live-action films (2007-2011); Dr. Eggman in the Sonic games (2015-present))

- Kenji Nomura (Jetfire in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009), Hardcore Eddie in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011), William Fowler in Transformers: Prime (2010-2013); Storm The Albatross in the Sonic games (2005-present))

- Takashi Nagasako (Issac Sumdac, Snarl and Brawn in Transformers: Animated (2007-2009), Bulkhead in Transformers: Prime (2010-2013); Big The Cat in the Sonic games (2004-present))

- Sanae Kobayashi (Carly Spencer in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011); Chris Thorndyke in Sonic X)

- Yuki Tai (Wheeljack and Makeshift in Transformers: Prime (2010-2013); Zor in Sonic Lost World, Leon in Sonic X)

- Yutaka Aoyama (Dutch in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011), Nightstrike in Transformers: Robots In Disguise (2014-2017); Zazz in Sonic Lost World)

- Ryuzaburo Otomo (Galvatron in Transformers: Age Of Extinction (2014); Black Doom in Shadow The Hedgehog (2005))

- Yutaka Nakano (Harold Attinger in Transformers: Age Of Extinction (2014); the President in Shadow The Hedgehog (2005))

- Aoi Yuki (Windblade in Transformers: Cyberverse, and Shatter in Bumblebee (2018); Sticks The Jungle Badger in Sonic Boom, and the female Avatar in Sonic Forces)

Like I said, Sonic and Transformers have a lot in common, but they are unique in their own ways.  Maybe I like Transformers the most because it was from the 1980′s (which, by the way, is my favorite decade).  I wasn’t too much of a 1990′s fan, but I did like Sonic, which originated in the 1990′s.  So, I suppose Transformers is the winner, and Sonic The Hedgehog is in second place.

Well, that is all I will be saying for now.  I will be posting more soon, but I have other things to do, as well.  Stay tuned for more posts.

This is FirebirdTransAm68 signing out.

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Seiyuu Challenge #20

20. A seiyuu you don’t like as much as others do?

Since people might not want to hear any hate about their favourite seiyuu, I won’t be tagging the seiyuu in this post. I will only put the “30 question seiyuu challenge” tag. I’ll also be tagging a role from them that I didn’t like, but in Namikawa’s case, there wasn’t one, so I just went with whatever. For Hirakawa’s case, I just put School Days because it makes me laugh. Kokoro Scandal people also got their own characters.

Keep in mind, maybe my opinions on these people might change!

Even though I rip at some of the decisions they made in real life, that’s only because I find it hard to separate a person from their craft. I stopped listening to an artist after I heard they performed for Trump. Even though Tatsu said some questionable stuff, I forgave that and didn’t put him on the list because I figured that maybe it was a slip-up or something since it was radio. Plus, the staff picked the topic. I’m still disappointed about it though. Akaskira basically put it better than I did. I think we were the only two who thought, “Huh... that’s a bit bad, don’t you think?”

Daisuke Hirakawa

[Don’t worry buddy, she’s just coming to hug you! Promise!]

I haven’t heard him much. I’ve heard him voice acting Hakuryuu’s brother as he perishes in a fire (RIP) and some teacher. Oh, and SCHOOL DAYS! WE ALWAYS FORGET THAT HE DID SCHOOL DAYS BUT CHANGED HIS NAME FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.

Daisuke Namikawa

[Hirakawa and Namikawa have a one kanji difference in their full names, and Hirakawa’s School Days character is a cheater while Namikawa is an alleged one in real life!]

This one is far pettier than one may realize. I have nothing against his acting. In fact, he’s quite a talented person. He can sing and act, but this one is more about the *ahem* personal issues.

Basically, he allegedly cheated in 2004 when he got married in 2001. He cheated with a teenage girl who worked at his former agency. According to an interview, this relationship had gone on until “recently” (when it came to the surface in July 2017).

Regarding the allegation, Namikawa said, "I am surprised by this situation, but going forward I will be all the more devoted in order to recover everyone's trust." Oricon News spoke to his agency, but the agency said with apologies that it could not answer questions about the situation.

To me, cheating is one of the lowest things you can do to your partner, and if you do such a thing, you should have a good excuse. But with a teenage girl? Come on. At the start of the relationship, he was 28. He should’ve known better.

As much as I want to separate artists from their craft, I find it hard sometimes. Female seiyuu have been ruined over far little, but he even has his own agency and is still put of Kiramune and everything. I feel like he suffered little for what he did. That’s why I sometimes watch live things with other seiyuu, but when he comes on screen, I can’t help but wonder why he even exists there. I know he has been acting since age 8, but a guy who has an on and off relationship with a woman outside of his marriage for over a decade is a nope for me.

[Source: Anime News Network]

Takuma Terashima

Similar to the last one, I have nothing against him as an actor or as a singer. It’s because he was a key player in the whole Kokoro Connect scandal. He narrated and took part in a rookie seiyuu’s humiliation. He said on a radio show that he enjoyed watching a person crumble before his eyes like that. I find that disgusting especially since he was considered a friend by that rookie.

Hisako Kanemoto

I haven’t seen her in much, and I’m not sure if I want to now. I know she’s talented and can voice children well, but she took part in that Kokoro Connect scandal too. She was doing the punishment game where she electrocuted the guy, and she openly mocked and shamed the guy. That’s not okay. As much as I would’ve wanted to watch more of her works, I no longer view her as a person that I would want to look out for in terms of work.

Morikubo Showtaro

Okay, from here on out I promise to make it less personal!

I mostly like him for the impressions that other people do of him. The only role I’ve liked from him is Shikamaru Nara. I think he was the best for that role, but he hasn’t impressed me with anything else.

Takuya Eguchi

I don’t know. I just don’t like his voice all that much. I tried watching Ore Monogatari and found it to be a bit too much. Same with Oda Nobuna no Yabou.

Satomi Arai

I swear, if I hear a fricking “Onee-sama” one more time, I will snap that character’s neck like a twig, and I only watched one episode of To Aru Railgun or whatever. Holy crap that character’s annoying. I don’t deny that she deserves the award for that role. A character that can annoy me into not watching something takes talent.

Ayana Taketatsu

She’s most famous for her role in Oreimo (an anime that I would never watch or discuss), and the incest doesn’t even stop there; her other famous role is Kirito’s cousin from the first SAO. I don’t look for her roles because they’re usually annoying lolis and other questionable characters. I’m hoping K-On can change my mind though.