First Impressions Of Earth

Space reserved for practical reasons.

This may very well be yet another year plagued by various delays, but at least some things are coming through. After the Try to be Brave/Weed Spirit and Little Monster EPs, I wasn't too sure what to expect out of Back-alley Spiders. In the end though it seems that not much has changed, a2c still plays really well and TERRA still can't really sing. On the other hand, Kindred Spirits Guitar Arrange Version is fairly intriguing in terms of how much restraint Godspeed and the others are showing throughout the album.

Eight Days A Week

Another year of flatness. Another year of transistor glamour. Another year of KKE.

Do You Remember Love?

In spite of my reduced activity in Lemuria of phosphorescent, I managed to achieve the title of God Slayer just before the release of 天秤のLa DEA。~戦女神MEMORIA~. There's no connection between the two games whatsoever, but I feel like my life is now complete.

Eriri is going to crash and burn in the next volume, isn't she?

Here I thought 冴えない彼女の育て方 was just going to be fairly uneventful albeit harmlessly fun, but Maruto sure showed me that it's quite not the case. While the latest volume can be seen as a nice gesture from Maruto to fans of Eriri, Megumi distancing herself from Tomoya and the rest of their doujin circle ends the story on a rather solemn note. The worst part is probably the fact that the next volume is going to be a series of short stories, because the editor asked Maruto to buy some time before the anime airs. Really now? It's pretty hard to imagine that they won't butcher Kurehito's fluid art style, which had drawn me in well before I knew of Maruto's involvement. I'm such a sucker.

For those unfamiliar with the series, 冴えない彼女の育て方 is authored by Fumiaki Maruto, a veteran scenario writer who is probably best known for penning White Album 2 these days, and illustrated by Kurehito Misaki. The story follows Tomoya Aki, an otaku whose chance encounter with a beautiful girl during the spring break inspires him to make a doujin game with a heroine based on the girl. A month later, Tomoya finds out that the girl is actually his classmate Megumi Katou, an ordinary girl with no notable features. Joining Tomoya on his project are his childhood friend and doujin artist Eriri Spencer Sawamura, his senior and popular light novel writer Utaha Kasumigaoka, and his cousin Michiru Hyoudou who is the vocalist and guitarist of icy tail. Together they form the doujin circle Blessing Software and youthful shenanigans ensue. Currently they are working hard to finish up their game before the Winter Comiket deadline.

Consequence Of Chaos

The month has just started but it already feels like a repeat of last April.

It's not everyday that I get to open the post with a wide image, even if it's not particularly relevant. I'm not going to overload anyone with information so here's Date A Live ~Heroines Strategy Program~ in your friendly neighbourhood format. Or you can always go seven times bigger and get the original lossless files here instead. Putting it all together took a lot longer than I had anticipated.

Despite 130 pages or so of delicious artworks by Tsunako, Hyperdimesion Neptunia Re;Birth 1&2 The Complete Guide + Visual Collection isn't too great. A good number of the illustrations included in the book have already been published some time ago anyway, which is a little disappointing to be honest. The complete guide which takes up half of the book feels a bit like an afterthought and likely won't be especially helpful to most people. Nevertheless, it's nice to finally have various store exclusive illustrations in clean high resolution.

Born Under A Bad Sign

There should be an achievement for beating the final boss in Drag-on Dragoon 3 with eyes closed. Three's DLC scenario was definitely not what I had in mind though.

Honestly this isn't what I had planned to do but the latest volume of Date A Live is quite amusing for all the wrong reasons. So here it goes. The illustration scans are here.

Origami Tobiichi

The prologue. Origami Tobiichi hadn't always been "special". She was certainly smart, and did well in academics and sports, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. At most it was just something that her parents could be proud of in parent-teacher interviews. She was good at mathematics but struggled with Japanese; she enjoyed gratin but disliked celery; and her dream was to be a cute bride (Origami please). The young Origami thought that the lovely world would go on forever. But the summer five years ago changed everything.

Well I don't think I need to reiterate the incident five years ago. Origami found her parents alive and was about to reach out to her father before something akin to bright light suddenly descended from the sky and blew her away. What remained of her parents were nothing more than small fragments. It was at that moment Origami swore that she would take revenge on the mysterious girl who killed her parents.

Origami was taken in by her aunt, who was once affiliated with AST. Through her aunt, Origami learnt about Spirits, and decided to train herself to be strong enough so that she can avenge her parents. She no longer had any weak subjects in school, and food became mere nutrients. Her dream had changed to "killing that Spirit" as well, and I don't know which one is worse. Although Origami's mind was set and she pushed herself hard to achieve her goals, there were moments that she could set her mind at ease thanks to Shidou. Her feelings for him is closer to some form of emotional dependence than love. It was through Shidou that she managed to retain a sense of herself. So even if it was because of Shidou that she ended up being hunted by AST, she did not hate him once. She joined AST to fight against Spirits, but she could not defeat them with the Realizers she had. She needed more power, so she joined DEM where she obtained cutting-edge equipment and the body for it.

The Target is Shidou

Or alternatively, and perhaps more literally, Shidou the Targeted.

A pleasant fragrance invades Shidou in his sleep. He stretches, the back of his hand meeting something warm and soft, followed by a quiet moan. Realizing that something is amiss, Shidou wakes up to find Natsumi, in her adult form, sitting next to him on his bed. Natsumi greets the startled Shidou, who has quickly backed away from her. Shidou is surprised to see Natsumi in this form, but Kotori enters the room and beats him up before he could figure out what's going on.

Kotori explains to Shidou that while Natsumi's powers have been sealed successfully, her mental strength is extremely weak and her emotions are quite unstable. As a result, her powers manifest much more easily than Tohka and the other Spirits'. Kotori tries to lecture Natsumi but they end up insulting each other about their bust sizes.

Mugino, is that you? Kotori gets caught up in the moment and remarks that even if Natsumi has a nice body after transformation, her real body is shorter and smaller than Kotori's. The remark apparently upsets Natsumi so much that she starts crying. Kotori is forced to eat her own words and admits that she is more of a shorty than Natsumi, only to realize that Natsumi has tricked her. Natsumi runs away and Kotori goes after her. As peacefulness returns to his room, Shidou decides to clean himself up.