Wish You Were Here

Although it feels like there isn't much of a difference whether they are here or not, my pre-orders have finally arrived after what seemed like a few months and a little more due to unforeseen circumstances. Everything must be delayed these days. No exception.

Occasionally I wonder why I keep buying merchandise from series that I don't even follow. Along with the scantily clad Cryska Barchenowa (Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse), I've got Wakana Sakai (Tari Tari) and Ultimate Madoka nendoroids as well. Cute, if not slightly underwhelming compared with my other nendoroids for reasons I can't quite explain. I just hope Madoka doesn't suddenly fall and break one day, I can't deal with that.

Lately I've been masochistically reading quite a number of light novels, meanwhile my backlog of visual novels keeps growing at a frighteningly steady pace. Hopefully there will be a couple of actually worthwhile titles this month with the much anticipated releases of グリザイアの楽園 and レミニセンス. Although we all know what usually happens when the expectations are too high. For now I will just try to finish 僕とツンデレとハイデガー, provided that I don't get distracted by 月見月理解の探偵殺人 again. The funny thing with Heidegger, Tsundere, and Me is that I've probably spent more time reading about the gender-bent philosophers and their philosophies than the light novel itself.

My little Descartes can't be this moe! The story turns out to be a series of dreamlike meetings between famous philosophers and the protagonist - a somewhat clumsy and forgetful salaryman who feels rather lost in life. He gets hit by a car one fateful night and wakes up in a school, where he's told that he'll meet seven philosophers who are going to help him sort his life out. At the end of each chapter, there is a summary in the form of casual conversations between the main character and his junior Yuma, a girl who is a lot more than meets the eye.

The book is very dialogue heavy, so brace yourselves for paragraphs and paragraphs of the girls detailing their philosophies. I'm rather surprised but glad that there is little to no idle talk about the fact that, well, some of the greatest thinkers of our time are now cute girls. I wish I could get scolded by Descartes, she can poke me with her foil all day. Spinoza has better ideas though.

Make no mistake, this novel isn't really about cute girls doing cute lecturing. Well actually it is about that, but with a strong emphasis on the lecturing part. Heidegger, Tsundere, and Me more or less reads like an entry-level philosophy book. And because of that, there is no real plot development for the most part, but there's certainly a lot of room for philosophical discussions. Too bad no one I know is remotely into philosophy.

Touka best girl

So it's back to browser games for me. I have been playing 燐光のレムリア ~Lemuria of Phosphorescent~ for a few months now, and honestly I'm getting a little tired of it. Thankfully there are regular updates which renew my interest every now and then. There was a collaboration event a couple of months ago to promote the second season of Haiyore! Nyaruko-san. They were nice enough to give everyone a Tamao Kurei through quests, but they wouldn't let me pay for Nyaruko or Kuuko! Recently they added a new character called Emilia (more like Sword Saten if you asked me) whose sudden appearance and involvement in the story offer some new insights into the state of the Lemuria world. Of course the plot still isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Karen also best girl

The game is fairly simple and straightforward. Each player has a city (and two more as they progress) to build facilities for resources gathering and battle enhancements. The dungeons play out like your typical SRPG, with each character having a type that affects their movement and attack range. The main selling point once again, is cute girls doing cute fighting. But you are going to be disappointed if you thought you could get a party full of them straightaway. It takes a lot of time and a hell lot of luck to put together a list of strong characters. Not to mention the amount of gold that one has to spend on upgrading skills and equipments. I got lucky with the auction house a few times and managed to get the items necessary to evolve my ordinary-looking omnis (the egg-shaped creature in the logo) for pretty decent prices. Still, a long way away from getting all the characters I want.

Well I don't even know what to say about ZUN's naming sense now. And there was a time when Seiji Kikuchi didn't draw characters that looked like carbon copies of each other. How have things changed.

Talk about the lack of coherence in this blog.

Quite disturbing.