Nestor's Cola

If there’s one particular franchise I’ve never quite had an interest in, it’s the Shuffle! Franchise. I watched the anime back in 2005 and up until the tail end when Kaede goes yandere. Suddenly it got a whole lot more interesting! Ahahaha~! Though if you were willing to sit through twenty-two episodes of doormat, tool, and generic, utilitarian plot with the consistency of runny eggs, then I suppose you deserve what you get. The anime ended as badly as you can imagine with a trite, cliché, and thoroughly un-enjoyable conclusion. This soured me on the series, on the game, and the franchise in general. That and it’s most vocal proponents are perhaps the most histrionic retards.

Mercifully, I forgot all about Shuffle. I picked up the translated game… I’m not sure why. I went on sabbatical from playing ren’ai and visual novels for a few months because I could no longer feel the magic. Anyway, I picked up the translated game the other day. I struggled with myself and decided to play it. No guts no glory, and sometimes you have to suffer so that you can ultimately appreciate something else even more.

Menus/ interface: First off, I don’t particularly like the default settings. The music was too loud, the text didn’t appear quick enough, and the menus were a bizarre and motley collection of nigh-incomprehensible sliding bars. The font was faint and barely visible. There was no cute game cursor. After spending more time than necessary configuring and customizing things to my liking, I started playing. (4/10)

Story: I want to say that the story is as bland as it was in the anime, but that would be wrong. Ultimately it’s worse. You find yourself going back over the same territory over and over again, rehashing the same plot details over and over and over, ad nauseum. Skipping text you’ve already read is a given, but I spent more time skimming through text I’d already read than actually getting to individual story. Ultimately a very bland and unrewarding experience, especially as the already-read text seems to multiply with each route completed. Whomever decided to “decensor” the game really, truly, and strongly needs to take a class on human anatomy. Barring that, they need to watch a porno. Things don’t work that way (or look that way). Story-wise, the world is flat and two-dimensional. I’ve played a variety of other games and if you took the characters away, you can see the world behind them. A strongly shining example of this is Planetarian. If you took the Junker and Hoshino Yumemi out of Planetarian, you could still see beyond them, see the city, and see the world as it was, but the world of Shuffle is simply a contrivance. Tripping flags is ridiculously easy and the choices available have no effect on the inevitable conclusion except that it locks you into a specific route. Once you’re locked in, you can skim the text, collect the ending, and move on to the next girl. Speaking of girls… (2/10)

Sia: I went through her route somewhat baffled that I was interacting more with Primula and Nerine and Kaede more than with her… up until the point that I bagged her. Her … plot twist was lackadaisical and didn’t seem to have any real tangibility. Ultimately, I didn’t like her. The only benefit to playing her route was that her voice was different than the anime and it didn’t grate as badly. I apparently didn’t have a lot to say about Sia during my playthrough; my notes seem to only mention her a few times. “Oh God Sia is stupid. She’s about as dumb as a sack of hammers. Hahaha, logic 1, girl 0.” Her ending is as baffling as it is insipid and destroyed any hope of redemption for her. (3/10)

Kaede: I played Kaede with some trepidation; To give fair credit where credit was due, I tried my best to like her, but I dislike her very strongly. My notes reflect this, at length. “She’s such a fucking tool. “I’m a gaping vagina that exists solely for the purpose of Rin-kun”  Oh fuck, there she goes again. “I have no self identity, I simply exist to be useful to you.” What the fuck girl. Oh for fucks sake girl, you’re fucking retarded. just kill yourself. God, Kaede’s obsequiesness is disgusting. Fuck, Kaede sounds a lot like Mikuru from Haruhi- Oh god, she is. No wonder I can’t stand her. I think Kaede-chan has sort of a persecution complex: she feels he should reject or punish her or take advantage of her, but he doesn’t. Of course Kaede is also a retard, so there’s that, too. I’m fairly certain that her childhood illness (lol) scrambled her brains and she was never actually able to grow up as a normal child. Maybe I’m a bit jaded and cyhnical, but she gets no sympathy or pity from me. She’s just a retard, herp derp. Oh, finally got some Kaede time. Wait, what the fuck is this shit? “I’ll hate you if you don’t”? She’s a fucking retard. And a slut. a trite, manipulative whore that needs her meatsocket to be filled in order to think she’s a verifiable human being. God, her ingratiating servility is disgusting. I want to puke twenty years of cigarette tar directly into her mouth. She’s the worst kind of woman. She takes away the entire valuation of being a man. How can a man feel like a man if he’s expected to do jack shit? “use my body, take advantage of my kindness, capitalize on my retardation but don’t love me.” God what a fucking piece of work. I was right about the persecution complex. “To serve Rin-kun is my life!” What fucking outrageous stupidity.” (1/10)

Asa: I remember I liked her in the anime, up to the end, when she just became repetitive and stupid. The game is a lot like this, but because of the story bloat and all the “skip previously read portions” I was simply marking time until I could read through her arc. She was awkward in her femininity and responded to certain inquiries like a tsundere. Certain elements of her arc (namely unnecessary bloat) kept me from liking her. When there wasn’t crap in the way of her story, her arc seemed contrived. There’s this block of time between “I’m interested in someone else” and my kiss with Asa that is completely devoid of interaction with her. From zero to hero in a couple weeks? I don’t fucking think so. Then things started balancing out and I was daring to hope, but no. crash and burn. In the final result, I was wanting a Kareha route more because she was far more entertaining. Ama and Kareha made this route shine, but unfortunately the route wasn’t about them. (4.5/10)

Nerine: Surprisingly, all throughout Sia, Kaede, and Asa’s routes, I was always sort of eyeing Nerine. When I played through her, though, my first thought was “Start a new route, skip through blue text.” The blue text being, of course, shit I’ve already read before. The blue text kept going and going and going. The game starts June 13th and her route-specific content doesn’t actually start until July 22nd, and that was a five-minute scene at the pool. Afterword she seems to display the same sniveling, cringing, eager-to-please meatsocket philosophy that Kaede seems to personify. However,  in the tiny amounts of story we get while sifting through the already-read bloat, you catch glimpses of a potentially decent character that doesn’t suffer Kaede’s crippling flaws- there’s a world of difference between sniveling servility and devotion. But because you don’t get anything you haven’t already seen until mid-august, she falls flat. Her ending drama is very much in tune with Sia’s, Kaede’s, and Asa’s- female irrationality heaped atop poor writing and straw logic. (4/10)

Primula: Throughout my playthroughs, I never once considered Primula’s route. I can appreciate judicious use of a token loli, but there was never anything through any other route that said Primula was worth pursuing in the slightest. She’s also the last route in my playthrough, so with that in mind, the deck has already been stacked against her. Primula in a school swimsuit is appropriate in her type of appeal, but it simply seems I’m being pandered to. “Here is a token loli. It’s expected you’d see her in these things and doing these things, so here she is, doing those things.” I feel patronized and insulted. She wants validation and affection, I respond by giving her penis. LOGICAL CHOICE. (2/10)

First off, all Glory to the Immortal God-Emperor, in whose name we conquer.

Secondly, Saber makes a great Space Marine. See?

In Fate Stay Night news, there’s going to be a movie on Unlimited Blade Works. It hasn’t come out yet, and won’t until January 23rd 2010, but people are already saying it sucks, it fails, and generally has already gone into the grave without ever being produced yet. Perhaps I’m optimistic, or perhaps I’m sick of the jaded cynicism that pretentious faggots put out because it makes them seem edgy or cool, but I’d rather see for myself when it comes out, rather than castigate something that hasn’t even been made yet. Additionally, I’ve been planning on writing a full review of Fate Stay Night and dissertations on each of the three arcs, but I haven’t had time. It’s coming, so please wait warmly.

Thirdly, I may actually start posting some of my older photography.

Finally (and I know you’ve been waiting for this, hahaha) I’ve come across Suigun Murakami’s F-ism volume 13. Holy shit, stop the fucking presses, amirite? Hell yeah. That shit is always awesome. This time, there’s a nun. I love nuns. Especially tied up with crosses sticking out of their butts. I am the quintessential and discerning bastard, enjoying only the finest of pleasures.

After conferring with the guy that actually owns the space I use for this wordpress, he’s installed a filter countermeasure that should deflect spam attacks with impunity.

Please wait warmly while girls are preparing; I have to go back through each and every post and enable comments again.

I don’t know what sort of expectations I had when I started Cross†Channel. Well, it’d be safe to say I didn’t actually have any to begin with. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. In fact, it was only when I started the install process (what fun! haha!) that I realized it was the inspiration for that ridiculously insipid-yet-addicting game, Nanaca Crash. Cross†Channel is excellent. Firstly, Taichi is a loon. Taichi is awesome. Totally off the hook and way out in left field, he brings this lunatic edge to the story that leaves everyone sort of… nonsensical. I think he even dropped a Fallout reference. The game has a cyclical element similar to Kagetsu Tohya that I can’t explain without spoiling.

The Girls:

I initially thought that this was going to be a simple progression of events with a bizarre protagonist, so after a brief assessment of the superficial facts, I chose a girl and moved forward with the expectation that I’d get her in the end. Well, that’s inaccurate. I was presented with the option of pursuing a girl and when presented with that choice, I rejected her. Rejecting her introduced me to Misato, the beautiful sempai. Learning about Misato was like watching a rose bloom. Every layer of gorgeous petals simply opened the way to reveal yet more beautiful petals. I fell for her instantly, and I fell hard. She’s so wonderful, so cute, so amazing. Everything she did was amazing.

I got distracted during one iteration and chased after Kiri Sakura. To be honest, I’m glad I did. She’s ridiculously fragile and complex, like a puzzle made out of spun glass. Playing through Sakura’s route was a little rough, but it was amazing. I fell so hard for her. Playing her route touched on Touko’s route as well as Youko’s route; in ways that showed me that perhaps they’re worth pursuing.

I’ve run through an iteration with Touko, and she comes off as a very bitter and cold girl; very tsun. But wow, you give her food and bam! straight to dere dere mode! She’s not particularly sophisticated, but I can appreciate her. She’s so sweet.

The Game:

Installing was a bit more difficult as it was two CDs and you have to understand the prompt to pop out the CD and pop in the new one. Other than that, no difficulty. Maneuvering around in the game is easy too. Menu and options and saves are handled by a floating menu at the top edge of the window.

Patching:

the folks over at Amaterasu have a patch that’s currently up to week three. Give it a shot.

Now that we can bring Clannad and Clannad After Story to a close, I can only feel a sense of relief. As much as I like Key, I can’t help but feel a bit resentful of their formula. “Here is something cute but ultimately useless. You love it. Watch it do cute things. You love it. Now watch us do bad things to the cute thing. Feel sad. Next week, we’ll introduce a newer, even cuter, even more useless thing that you’ll love. (uguu~)” It’s something I became only viscerally cognizant of with AIR and playing through Planetarian, It became clear to me during Kanon, and the same formula was applied to Clannad as well. Don’t get me wrong, I think Clannad would have been great if I’d never seen anything else by Key before.

In a lot of different tangental aspects, I enjoyed each series for what it was, but the main underlying formula destroyed them for me. Unfortunately by the time Clannad came around I had become calloused and cynical- their attempts to elicit an emotional response from me fell on deaf ears, and I simply watched as a dispassionate observer. There were plot elements I could appreciate and enjoy, but the foreknowledge of the inevitable result left only a tired sort of acceptance.

Final notes:

Tomoyo is fucking hot.

To combat spam, all posting auto-disables 24-48 hours after a post is submitted.

So, if you’ve got an opinion you’re just DYING to share with me, make sure you respond in that window, or you won’t be able to respond at all.

In keeping with the localization of Nitro+ games through JAST, I have removed the DDL links to the translation patches for both Chaos;head and Saya no Uta as of 7/23/2009.

Girls have prepared.

Twenty-five years ago, if I had been asked about romance, I probably would have replied “That’s icky stuff, girls are gross.” Twenty years ago, I would have said, “cards, candy, flowers” …essentially the staples of any Valentine’s Day.Fifteen years ago, I would have said the previous, but added in secluded dinners for two, fireplaces, getaways, etc.

When you get older you understand it’s not just a matter of giving of material gifts, but it’s also to a certain extent ‘being thoughtful’ and paying attention to the complex, bizarre, mostly contradictory and irrational wants and desires of your partner. And then satisfying those desires with material objects and emotional validation. Women need to be reassured that they’re still attractive. Women need to be reassured that they’re still sexy. Women need to be reassured that they’re still appreciated. Women need to be reassured that they’re still women.

You see it all in contemporary television, and if you look at it with a scrutinizing eye, you see the ever-popular scene: man forgets anniversary or birthday or valentines day or whatever, and becomes a nervous wreck buying a last-minute present that he hopes will appease the woman. Maybe my chauvinism is showing a little, but I can see that scene in dozens of different dramas and sitcoms and errata- women are being programmed to expect unnecessary amounts of gifts. Women are idols that must be sacrificed unto. Men are stupid, bumbling idiots that have to be reminded of their place: which is to say sacrificing hard-earned money and groveling at the feet of the woman in the hopes that she deigns to grant him the use of her vagina.

There are solutions, though. By not buying into the shallow, materialistic ideas of romance perpetuated by the misandric feminist movement, by not collapsing into complacency and pursuing your girl consistently, by consistently providing attention, affection and appreciation, you can avoid emasculating yourself (and your wallet) for the sake of the almighty vagina. Alternatively, the Japanese have come up with a unique solution: simply abandoning women in totality.

The guru of the 2-D love movement, Toru Honda, a 40-year-old man with a boyishly round face and puppy-dog eyes, has written half a dozen books advocating the 2-D lifestyle. A few years ago, Honda, a college dropout who worked a succession of jobs at video-game companies, began to use the Internet to urge otaku to stand with pride against good-looking men and women. His site generated enough buzz to earn him a publishing contract, and in 2005 he released a book condemning what he calls “romantic capitalism.” Honda argues that romance was marketed so excessively through B-movies, soap operas and novels during Japan’s economic bubble of the ’80s that it has become a commodity and its true value has been lost; romance is so tainted with social constructs that it can be bought by only good looks and money. According to Honda, somewhere along the way, decent men like himself lost interest in the notion entirely and turned to 2-D. “Pure love is completely gone in the real world,” Honda wrote. “As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one.” Honda insists that he’s advocating not prurience but a whole new kind of romance. If, as some researchers suggest, romantic love can be broken down into electrical impulses in the brain, then why not train the mind to simulate those signals while looking at an inanimate character?

I have to say, since watching the Evangelion series ten or more years ago, I really hated it. Couldn’t stand it.

A random bowl of bullshit and sophistry and pseudo-psychological and pseudo-religious babble revolving around a simple story of people that are ultimately and fundamentally broken? What’s to like, right? I think listening to TEN YEARS of rabid and histrionic prepubescent fanboys (and post-pubescent too!) slavering and masturbating to something that was mediocre at best has got to be the worst part of Eva- the second being the almost auto-cannibalistic release and re-release and re-re-release of “new versions”. Who here remembers the collector’s series white VHS tapes? ($30 each!) The black box DVD set? The metal black box DVD set? The White DVD pack? Gold Edition? Deluxe Edition? Deluxe edition with 30 second more footage? Deluxe Edition with Director’s cut? Platinum? Platinum thinpack? Those two things made me hate Evangelion the most. It’s an average story, overhyped and overmarketed. But in all honestly, I think that the first and second movies have redeemed the show in ways that may not necessarily be readily apparent.

I think there are certain things you can’t look at directly, at least not at first. You must first glance sideways, examine things laterally. Look at the edges. Examine principles of effect and causalities. Find trends and values and from all of the outlying data begin to coalesce the fundamental core of what you are seeking. Look at footprints, fingertips and strands of hair, only then can you dare lift your eyes and truly understand all of it. So it’s with that that I watched Evangelion 01 You are (not) alone and Evangelion 02: You can (not) advance.

There are certain things that one must think of as “necessary” when you think of the series of Rebuild movies; and most specifically, the second one.  The expectations have already been set with previews, promos and hype:

• First, that there’s a new pilot we never saw in the series. Mari. We’ve got that, and it’s fine.
• Second, that Asuka shows up, and accordingly, so does Unit 02. She has, and that’s fine.
• Angels will show up and die. Okay, we’ve got that covered.
• Gendo’s keikaku doori.
• Bizarre insertions of random religious symbology.

The lesser-known but still necessary elements, though, are the things that bring home to us the realization that while it may be done with new technology, better animation, smoother transitions, amazing music, and such and so forth, this is still, irrevocably an evangelion movie. Like Asuka’s ubiquitous ‘Anta, baka?‘. Or, perhaps Misato’s enthusiastic beer-chugging and self-satisfying war-whoop at it’s completion- I believe that details like this flesh out and draw up the phenomenon known as Evangelion.

I’m going to admit it, I’m a slut for the almost…. pornographic level of detail that goes on in the background. Buildings raising and lowering, solar panels turning to catch the rays, cars moving, clouds shifting, escalators churning away. Even in this badly captured cam, you can still see beyond the mundane and appreciate the less obvious. One of the things that’s only hinted at, viscerally, throughout the eva franchise, is just how big the complex that houses NERV and the EVAs really is. If you’re not specifically looking for it, you will miss the important detail- it’s huge. Staggeringly huge. Mind-bogglingly huge. And that’s something you can clearly grasp in the second movie.

Another detail that we’ve got to learn before we can raise our eyes to the sightline, is not something we can see, but instead we have to hear it. The music. A large part of the pacing and overall mood of all iterations of the movies and the series and such has been the music. Prior to watching Evangelion back before I got married, I had never heard so much ‘brass’ in a show. Blaring trumpets and trombones and tubas and such; Rebuild brings in new iterations of these same tracks with different instruments to create a heartfelt similar yet audibly different, experience.  That’s not to disregard the strings. Most certainly not. There are string movements in the movie that awe-inspiringly dramatic and only serve to apply elements to the story we may not immediately see if we were to look at the movie straight on.

If watching the series, simply look straight at it. There is nothing beyond the obvious. There are no magic suppositions or deeper meanings except the ones that you yourself impose. Ray Bradbury once said, “My stories are often open-ended so that the reader can draw his own conclusions.” and while you have the freedom and encouragement to seek a deeper meaning, there really isn’t. If you’re watching the Rebuild movies, don’t look at them straight on. The story hasn’t changed in new or dramatic ways- you’re not missing anything. Instead pay attention to the things you wouldn’t normally think of, and ultimately the true reward will present itself: the redemption of an otherwise shit franchise.

The past couple of days I’ve been really hammered with spam, hilarity ensued. My temporary solution is simply to turn off replies for a while.

Please wait warmly while girls are preparing.

When Tinfoil mentioned that he was looking for QC’ers for the Chaos;head RC2 patch, I went ahead and jumped on it. hanging out with them on their irc channel and listening to them talk about various problems and searching for workarounds, it really helps cement in your mind tha tthis isn’t as loose and as disorganized as many people seem to believe.

Some time ago, someone affiliated with a game translation group mentioned that wiki-driven and community-driven projects were doomed to failure, and that only dedicated groups with staff would be able to turn out any sort of … product. He went on to castigate everyone at TLWiki, wretched hive of scum and villainy, so on and so forth. Now, admittedly, I haven’t spent but one day with TLWiki, but there doesn’t seem to be the sort of disorganization, chaos, or what-have-you that he predicted.

Anyway, getting back to the central part, I’m QC’ing the RC2 with the expectation that I’ll be grammar-nazi-ing the text. this means I’ll be playing through it again, something I’ve been hesitant about doing. To be frank, I’ve been hesitant about playing any game, I’ve reached a point where a sabbatical is necessary. I love the game though, and I want to help, so it’s time I leave Elba and get back into it. I can only hope that I don’t end up returning to St. Helena to complete my exile, hahaha.

Coming back to the ren’ai/ visual novel/ eroge genre, the big thing that’s on the lips and hearts of the entire community is the rather … dramatic actions that have been going down. I can’t summarize very well- No, I can, but this sums it up succinctly, taken from sankaku complex.

An Irish rag on a slow news day picks up the story that importers have been selling Rapelay via Amazon. The theme is that the game encourages rape and is child pornography.

Amazon completely drops the product, including in Japan. Other retailers soon follow suit.

Feminist busybody group “Equality Now”, which organises spam campaigns to keep its members busy without actually having to deal with problems directly, targets the game, accusing it of human rights violations and telling the Japanese government it should be banning this sort of thing, like low crime paradises such as the UK.

The developers tell the foreign feminists to get lost.

Soon after the Rapelay developers cave in and completely remove the game from distribution.

Equality Now’s Japanese lawyer (the group has no presence in Japan) drums up anti-eroge media attention.

A Japanese diet member, an avowed feminist, picks up on the scandal and starts calling for a ban. Objections start with the opposition and minor parties and soon the ruling party jumps onto the bandwagon.

A “study group” is organised to decide how best to ban the games.

Broadcaster TBS falsely reports that the EOCS has banned the games.

The EOCS bans the games.

Personally, I think it’s a bunch of bullshit from a bunch of histrionic women that have nothing better to do than meddle in other peoples’ lives. I have low opinions of feminists as it is: a vocal group of women looking to work at cross-purposes to any other suggestion excepting their own agenda, namely that of the bitterly vengeful subjugation of the evil opressive patriarchy. A shame they can’t channel that energy towards more positive, constructive pursuits- after all, that sammich won’t make itself.

Getting back to it, though, my view is this: a woman in britainland arbitrarily decides that a fictitious game is the root of all evil, and campaigns for its removal. Any sane society would have told ‘Equality Now’ to get fucked. I’d like to point out the rough parallel Jack Thompson made with his (equally ridiculous) hate-parades on violent video games being the source of all the world’s sores. Unfortunately, Eroge makers have pretended to be good little dead goldfish and have shown their bellies, resulting in regulation and censorship on more or less, an unregulated industry. Now where will I find a game that lets me whip a pooping catgirl? Without caving to hysteria or running off the deep end, this sort of sets a dangerous precedent. After all, we’re talking about the censorship of fiction and fantasy. This is something to be concerned with.

The result of this censorship has been less than stellar. A few companies have started blocking non-japanese IP addresses. This is the wrong thing to do. It was japanese legislation, it was japanese politics, it was japanese corporate interest that censored them- however foreign fans feel the brunt. The Japanese should have told Equality Now to get fucked, get back to the kitchen, and then slapped them in the face with their right to freedom of speech. Foreign fans should not be punished because of local ineptitude. Instead, we get xenophobic statements like

Some foreigners seem to be having an antipathy against EROGE.
Therefore, We prohibited the access from foreign countries, to defend our culture.

And let’s not forget,

PLEASE PLAY THE GAME OF YOUR COUNTRY IF YOU PRAY FOR THE WORLD PEACE!:-)?

So the conclusion that can be drawn from this is… Gobots suck.