Use Your Illusion

Just another day. Amassing and training groups of cute girls turned out to be a lot more time-consuming and heartbreaking than I had expected. The fact that my luck seems to have gone really rotten lately only adds insult to injury. This whole experience sometimes feels more exhausting than plodding up Canton Avenue.

I'm of course talking about Lemuria of Phosphorescent, which has just celebrated its first anniversary not long ago. Frankly I don't even remember how I got into browser games, but after suffering through the monotonous Gun Blood Days, which I quit playing months before its termination of service this April, I somehow discovered Lemuria of Phosphorescent and the rest is all history now. Before I knew it, I had been playing it rather actively for more than half a year. Although at one point I was unsure if I were actually getting anywhere in the game, joining the top guild on the server had certainly cast away all my doubts and essentially motivated me to put some more effort into the game.

A few weeks ago I would have probably sneered at a team like this, but now I'm laughing at myself for spending so much time and energy putting together teams with a balanced build, which should have ideally produced Strikers who could deal, withstand and avoid damage. Sounds too good to be true? It sure is. The balanced build, while decent for early parts of the game, begins to fall short of specialized builds as with many balanced things, its weakness lies in the fact that it lacks an edge that makes it truly stand out. With this team, the idea was to ditch agility completely in favour of defence. Quite a bold decision considering that the Keyblade master Justina's skill 光滅刃 (Attack + 20%, Evasion + 24%, Shield + 50) actually meant that I could have gone for a dodge ball team instead, as the vanguard's skill affects the whole team against bosses. However, I was quite adamant on creating a team who is so tough that even the bosses struggle to scratch them, since the Shield ability can virtually reduce all damage to just 1. A normal Justina was picked specifically for her Shield ability, because her rare skill シャインズハルト (Attack + 35%, Hit + 20%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 150) is purely offence-oriented, and I wasn't too keen on making her a pure damage dealer. Shield is just too good a ability to pass on. It's such a shame that I missed out on the best meat shields so far - Mugino with her rare skill メルトダウナー (Attack + 45%, Defence + 10%, Shield + 70) and Misaka with her normal skill 砂鉄ブレード  (Attack + 35%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 100, Shield + 80).

Good Manners And Customs

While I was looking for some art books the other day, I came across the third volume of Date AST Like which I then picked up as I was mildly curious about the finer details of the Ashcroft project. There seems to be a general lack of information on the spinoff, which is not too surprising considering its focus. Since I had already touched on the story before, I figured I'd briefly run through the new volume and whatnot. Hopefully this will fix any mistake I may have made and clear things up a bit more than the last time.

Let's quickly recapitulate the major events so far. DEM develop five special CR-Units as part of a new project. Four of them are transported to the AST base in Tenguu city, while the first unit Alice is left in the care of Okamine Heavy Industries. Three former SSS members succeed in hijacking three of the Ashcroft units at the end of the first volume. The next volume begins with Mikie accidentally unlocking and equipping the fifth unit Cheshire Cat before the hijackers can get their hands on it. She later attends the demonstration of the Alice with Origami, Mana and Ryouko. The SSS trio attempt to steal the unit but Origami takes it after Mikie's father gives her the password. That about sums it up, I think. On a related note, I forgot to mention that while DEM build Realizers, the subsequent task of developing them into CR-Units are typically left to other companies.

I have said before that the Alice provides protection against other Wizards' Territory, but it actually does much more than just that. The CR-Unit specializes in the composition of Protect Territory. In practice, the unit was able to deploy a barrier so thick that neither the SSS trio nor the AST girls could break through. Furthermore, the barrier could be extended to create a boundary field. Ashley and Leo nevertheless managed to get away thanks to Origami's overconfidence, which allowed Cecil a chance for a sneak attack on Origami that weakened the barrier.

Artemisia? More like teenage Vert amirite?

Inside her solitary confinement cell, Cecil tells Mikie about her group's "stolen lover" - one of the world's five best Wizards and the top ace of the SSS - Artemisia B Ashcroft. I kind of left out details about the SSS trio and their relationship with Artemisia the last time since I mostly wanted to talk about the Ashcroft units, so here goes. Cecil is a fairly amiable girl who lost her eyesight in a spacequake prior to joining the SSS; Ashley is short, brash and a bit of a lone wolf; Leo is tall and tough-looking but she is actually a crybaby. As for their relationship with Artemisia, she's an irreplaceable friend of theirs and the glue that held the group together - a role which has since been passed down to Cecil after Artemisia's departure. Artemisia eventually left the SSS for DEM as the latter wished to study the unique properties of her Territory. She thought they were going to put her powers to saving the world, but she couldn't have been more wrong.

Disaster For Sale

There goes another year. Even though I never did have an idea of what this place really ought to be about, over the years I feel like I've strayed from its intended purpose. The start is always nice and simple, but the journey in the arbitrary utopia is a long and strange one.

So in an effort to return to the roots, let me talk about music for a bit. Amazingly enough it's almost been more than half a year since the last time I did something like this.

Guitarists On Demand, a group of young and aspiring guitarists who seem to have gathered together under the leadership of the ever proactive Godspeed, released their debut album G.O.D. (Guitarists On Demand) a few months ago. The concept behind the group appears to be bringing a new generation of guitar heroes to the scene, as they explore new forms of electric guitar music. Certainly waste no time in talking up the project, don't they? Having listened to the record extensively and played along to the tracks however, I have to say that while the album is quite good, it doesn't really live up to its hype.

Morning View

Why is Nietzsche so cute?

The Princess of Tennis

I must admit that it feels rather strange to be hearing the characters' voices in Date A Live - Rinne Utopia, as I haven't watched the anime adaptation. The game is like a bad case of déjà vu for me. Go ahead, spoil yourselves and enjoy the game CG. The quality might not be the greatest but it's a lot more complete than what you'd find elsewhere (for now). There isn't much to spoil anyway in my unprofessional opinion, the story is about as subtle as a spacequake. Although the appearance of Phantom further hints at some convoluted plan that will probably come to fruition in future volumes.

Right In Two

What's your rush now?

Casually reading Dies Irae again because I can't wait for 相州戦神館學園 八命陣 to be released sometime this year. My body will not be ready for these stylish uniforms. It's going to be interesting to see how Masada handles writing a story that takes place between modern-day Japan and a dream world called Canaan (probably something to do with it being the "Promised Land"), which is made up of eight levels with the last four set in the Meiji and Taishou periods. Personally I would have preferred it to be just set in the past, but I guess I'll be quite happy as long as I can have my Rinko. I need my fix of high-spec ojou-sama right now.

So apparently Date A Live is getting a second season. Considering that it is and has been one of Fujimi Fantasia Bunko's best sellers, another season being green-lit isn't exactly unexpected. To celebrate this monumental moment, you should've already heard this before, have some clean scans of the Volume 5 and 6 illustrations.

Nothing that you haven't seen before but hopefully the more consistent quality with fewer compression artefacts is enough to leave you satisfied. You've got the two bustiest Spirits right there.