Harvest Moon combining the best of two genres

When I was a kid, I was greatly attracted to such simulation games like those released by Maxis in particular come to mind first. Later I moved on to other things like date simulation games and more recently Idolm@ster. Japan, as a whole, seems to prefer these simulation games more than any kind of genre. Japan has games that where you play the role of a doctor, lawyer, cook, among other professions in some games. Raising simulations are also pretty popular where for example you play the role of a father and have to raise a daughter to possibly make something of herself, or maybe you’re a horse breeder and you have to raise the best race horse. It’s these kinds of games that Japan develops that I am very much interested in but rarely is there really a market for it in America. Although, one franchise has seemed to do something right and has caught on pretty well since its humble beginnings on the SNES. I am talking about the Harvest Moon series.

Kurenai – I DO NOT WANT this ending

Fun Fact: This is actually my fourth attempt at watching Kurenai. Every time I’ve tried watching this show I would stop and forget about it just because I would soon get busy with other things. Least I was able to finish it this time.

Yeah, Kurenai is an awesome watch all until the end. Love the characters, music, and despite being a little QUALITY at times, the animation works. Kurenai is totally ruined by the last 10 minutes. When I was watching, I started to realize how it was going to end. I proceeded to shout “DO NOT WANT!” soon after. I mean, how does it go from car chases to some what awesome fight scenes to ultimate fail. COME ON! I wanted Murasaki to continue living with Shinkurou so I could have a second season filled with more fun adventures. What is this bullshit? Isn’t the Kurenai novel STILL going on here in Japan? How could they just end the anime so there is probably no possible way to make a season 2? That reminds me, I want my Baccano season 2. Come on Brains Base. Stop making shit and get back to making more Baccano. But, looking at it in a more positive fashion, a studio sometimes has to make shit to make the good stuff too. NOTE: This logic doesn’t apply to GONZO because they’ve only made shit.

Also, I like how they explain Shinkurou’s horn thing in like the last 10 minutes of the show. I mean, I’ve waited the entire show for them to explain this, and not to mention I wanted him to start using it and killing shit, but NOOOOOO. They just explain it in a few short seconds and tie it all up with a bow and that is that. Also, it goes from trying to convince the dad to let Murasaki go, to a stabbing, to more convincing again. It seemed kinda random. I liked those last fight scenes but they just seemed kinda tacked on at the end and maybe could have been sooner. Still, the whole breaking away from Benika’s techniques to defeat Murasaki’s brother and that other lady who was never explained, Lin, was good.

Murasaki is definitely the best part of Kurenai when it comes to characters and not because I am some kind of lolicon or anything like that. She gives all the other characters their chance to shine. Although, I think Yayoi, and Benika also had their moments. Murasaki is just amusing and despite being only seven years old she is rather mature and grown up which is really, REALLY unrealistic, but adds for humor because there is still much she doesn’t know of in the world because she was held up inside a building for her entire life up to the point before Benika took her out of the Inner Sanctuary.

I am a little disappointed that there wasn’t more interaction between Shinkurou and Murasaki. I mean, Murasaki really got used to life outside the Inner Sanctuary fast. Stuff like going to the bath house where Shinkurou reprimanded Murasaki, and the stuff at the school was lovely, and hilarious. There wasn’t enough moments like that it felt like. I definitely thought there might be more tension and fighting between the two of them, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of that.

Ok. Ok. The ending wasn’t that bad, but I was just disappointed with it. It was a good ending just not the one I wanted, and I’m sure we’ve all experienced that feeling. Still, Kurenai is a good watch and I would recommend checking it out if you’re looking for something fun which lacks the whole bright ADD animation used often in anime today.

A 12 year anime fan speaks – His road to fandom Part 3

When is the Nanoha movie being released? I hope I can see it while I am still in Japan

Finally the third part in a brief run down of my fandom is here. Parts 1, 1.5 and 2 can be read here here and here. My senior year of high school is still something I consider my golden age when it comes to liking anime. Too much awesome was watched in one year.

Full Moon wo Sagashite (TV) Excellent
Elfen Lied (TV) Excellent
Cardcaptor Sakura (TV) Masterpiece
Haibane Renmei (TV) Masterpiece
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (TV) Excellent
Air (TV) Masterpiece
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (TV) Excellent
Genshiken (TV) Excellent
Now and Then, Here and There (TV) Masterpiece
Infinite Ryvius (TV) Excellent
Read or Die (OAV) Masterpiece
Paranoia Agent (TV) Masterpiece
Kino’s Journey (TV) Masterpiece
Gungrave (TV) Excellent

Were just the more highly rated ones I watched but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy some of the others. It was a very good year for me. I was really into anime and I was starting to realize that this is the kind of person I am, and I shouldn’t look down on myself because of that but I should instead embrace it more and have fun with it. This is what I learned from Genshiken among other things, and from there I started my first steps into buying figures and anime merchandise, and a lot of it can be seen in this entry.

Genshiken played a big role in helping me accept my hobbies.

The first time I really considered myself a fan of anime amazingly was at this time. Before that I always thought I was somewhat a casual fan but now I really wanted to jump into the culture and be one of those people. I had been searching for my identity my previous three years in high school by trying to be like my friends and getting into the same things as them to fit in, but that wasn’t me. I wasn’t being who I really was. So I gave up the black nail polish and metal music for regular clothes and Yukari Tamura songs.

It was at this time I was fully into using torrents and I knew how to work them more or less. It was also this year that I found out about a place only called The Box and maybe TT on the Gamefaqs boards. I never knew what these places were until someone told me online, and from there I was able to get all the old series that I always wanted to see but never got a chance to. This is basically why there is such a huge number of shows watched in this time frame because I was just watching one show after another and there really wasn’t a time I wasn’t downloading a series.

Gaming wise, during my junior year I had bought Tokimeki Memorial 2 from Himeyasoft. It was actually a tough game for a date sim oddly enough, but once I understood the system and everything it got better. I still remember getting Homura’s ending first out of all the girls. Why I have no idea because I don’t like girls like her but it was just real easy to get her ending in the end. Haha. The second girl I went for was Sakura-chan who is the shy captain of the baseball team who eventually transfers schools mid way in the game. She was more my type but in the end, I really ended up like Kotoko more and you can read about it here. Tokimemo 2 is a great game if you like date sims.

I also had gotten Pia Carrot 2.5 for the Dreamcast a summer before that and that was pretty enjoyable even though I had no idea what was going on. I could probably understand it better now. Also, my senior year was the first time I really stepped into the eroge scene. I was never too into the stuff even though I liked the CGs and what not.

During my senior year, I had gotten into a flash game called Nanaca Crash. The flash game looked harmless enough and I found it was based on a game called Cross Channel which happens to be the name of this blog. I couldn’t tell you much about Cross Channel a side from that I know it must be a good game and from the bits and pieces I could understand I liked. I also love the soundtrack and the end theme Crossing which I translated.

Ultimately, what is important though is that because of playing these import games and others I started to really get interested in wanting to understand Japanese and wanting to help others who like these kinds of things too but don’t understand them. You can read more of it here.

This golden age sadly came to an end once I entered my freshmen year of college. It was a rough time for me personally, and I had some emotional ups and downs. I can’t even really recall half the shows I watched then because it really felt like I forced myself to watch anime. There was a fair number of shows that I liked and didn’t like but still watched anyway. But the feelings I had for anime during my senior year are the feelings I keep trying to relive, but can never attain.

I love glasses – Do you like glasses?

Glasses + pantyhose = WIN

Glasses girls is really an old school anime fetish of mine which I really don’t find myself liking too much anymore since no one really wears glasses in anime and real life. So I have kind of moved it aside for other fetishes like cross dressing boys. But back in the day (Read: It was the late 90s.) it was a big thing. Glasses usually symbolized a female character who was smart, clumsy, shy or a combination of all three. There were a great deal of female glasses girls that I liked back then namely Mio Kisaragi from TokiMemo that still remains one of my favorites even today. Today, glasses girls are rather rare but they do appear, but usually don’t fit into my very narrow tastes. Glasses is something I find myself liking if it is in combination with something else like a shy personality, pantyhose, the adult or teacher role and among other things, which I will probably cover in my next poll of the month.

So last weekend I had a blast from the past. I went to Wonder Goo and like most weekends I get this urge to just go and spend money on manga and other such goodies. I stumbled upon a one shot volume called Glasses Girls by Tobi. He has another one shot volume that caught my eye first actually. I believe it was called Maid and Glasses, which was basically about maids who all wear glasses. Glasses Girls deals with just eight one shot stories about girls who all where glasses They all seem to deal with relationships in some way. The first story alone starts out with a guy that likes this girl but he hates that she wears glasses. I’ve only read two out of the eight stories in it and I enjoyed them. The one was about a guy that tries to get close to this girl that works at a glasses store, and this other one was about a girl who feels a little anxious about being with her recent boyfriend. I found both to be cute.

Japanese wise I think the grammar is pretty standard in this manga, and there are parts I don’t understand too well because I just don’t get colloquial Japanese that well, but like I said it is pretty standard and even I get the jist of things. Kanji wise I found myself looking up less Kanji than I have to when I try to read High School of the Dead. It shouldn’t be too bad because there is furigana provided so you can just look up the Kanji via a word processor, Jim Breen, or even a dictionary.

Coming to Japan, I have definitely realized that manga is an unexplored venue for me, and I would really like to explore more of its goodness in the future but for now I am limited to what I can read with my current abilities or rather disabilities because I don’t understand Japanese at all, which has been the running gag for me all semester so far. I like to set the bar low.

From the perspective of a troll – If that is what they call me anymore

The only anime related thing about this entry. Matsurika <3

“Hello my name is Bryan I go to such and such college in Pennsylvania. My major is Japanese, and hobbies… Well, I like trolling…” Is what I said during the self introduction for my Intermediate Translation class. The people in my radius got it but as you got further out there were a lot of confused looks and blank stares. Recently, I have gotten back into trolling, but not on the forums, rather in real life. Trolling is something I have always done starting when I was young, but I never had a word for it.

Kurenai, why you do dis?

Oh, why do you do this to me Kurenai? This is something you absolutely mustn’t do and you did it. Up until now I wasn’t even trying to think that this was some kind of lolicon story or whatever, and more like yeah this guy is just protecting a seven year old girl. Nothing more nothing less. But, this has ruined that and I cannot think otherwise about Murasaki and Shinkurou now. They’re lovers and eventually Shinkurou will raep Murasaki. Argh!

Regardless, Kurenai has turned into a great show. Probably will end up as an 8/10 or something.

Tsukasa Hiiragi – A character I didn’t like until Lucky Star was over

She’s so cute~

It’s been about a year since I watched the Lucky Star anime, and despite hating the show with a passion and not really understanding the popularity behind it all it wasn’t until after the show’s run that I ended up liking a particular character. I think it is quite rare and unusual to end up liking a character after the show is over because then there really isn’t any new material to see your favorite character in unless you just watch the show over again, I guess, or read the manga if there is one. The particular character in question from Lucky Star is of course Tsukasa Hiiragi.

I’m not sure what exactly first drew me to Tsukasa-chan. I think my trolling the /a/ board had a hand in it after a while because I would troll using her image and some text. Anyway, Tsukasa and I are perfect for each other because we’re both kind and good-natured but horribly clumsy (borderline retarded). Also, we both have a hard time following complex discussions. When I got my first cellphone about a year ago I had the same exact cellphone experience that she had. No lie. I have no idea how to use a cellphone other than for calling people. And, as a guy who wouldn’t want a girlfriend like Tsukasa? She’s real cute, and she definitely needs someone to watch over and protect her because she isn’t going to have her older sister by her side for the rest of her life.

Do you have any experiences of finding you liked a character all along after a show has finished its run?

My love for Japanese is relative to how much I love anime among other things

I am tired as I write this entry.

This is so typical of people who like anime and study Japanese but oh well this has been on my mind in the past few days. To recap I have been in Japan for about six months now, and last semester a lot of my lack of liking Japanese came from the fact I was having culture shock and just not really understanding the world around me. I hated Japan on and off. Also, I really didn’t seem all that motivated to learn and would spend more time hanging around with other people in the dorms. I seemed to have had a slight disinterest in anime even though I was really still consuming the media as if trying to hang on to the hobby desperately. Maybe it was more like my heart just wasn’t there.

New Idolm@ster SP details – But I figured this would be playable too

Well, some new Idolm@ster SP details have been coming out. In the recent Dengeki Playstation magazine, which had a ton of awesome coverage on some other upcoming PSP games like Harvest Moon, it has been revealed that there is going to be this office mode where you can also call the idols from 961 Productions. I haven’t really read the whole article which is just a page long, but I probably should with these kinds of entries but I could always just give a summary of what this mode is like. I wonder if this is the last bit of revealed news too because the game is released next month and most of February issues are out now. I guess there could always be a lot of coverage on it in March’s magazines. Looking forward to that since all I seem to read here is gaming and anime magazines.

Anyway, there are 3 rival characters added just for the PSP version of Idolm@ster named Ganaha Hibiki, Hoshii Miki, and Shijou Takane. In this Office mode you can communicate with them, and do the audition thing versus the computer. You have 17 songs + downloadable content, and you have access to accessories which also has downloable content. But what you cannot do is produce such as through free produce, and story produce. I wonder how hard it will be for me to access this downloadable content when I go back to America?

Nothing big I guess. I had a feeling a mode like this or SOMETHING would be available because why invent new characters only to have them JUST be rivals and not playable? I’m honestly surprised they didn’t save this for some kind of super deluxe special release. I guess they were honest when they said they wanted to make sure they were making a great product for the fans so they pushed it back 3 weeks.

Kurenai 06 – Haha, funny stuff

Whoa, what a hilarious episode. It was a little QUALITY but I really think the plot revolving around the characters doing a musical for a festival and the surprise ending really made up for it. The interaction between the characters was great. Yamie asking Yayoi for singing lessons, and Yuuno being completely horrible at singing, but making passes at an oblivious Shinkurou. Not to mention just seeing the cast bicker about their singing abilities and just putting on a musical in general was amusing. Kurenai reminds me just how much I miss Ryoko Shintani as Milfeulle from Galaxy Angel. Watching the next season is probably on the horizon at this rate. This episode really had me laughing a lot towards the end, and that is always good. Episodes like this really add flavor to a show and in turn making it memorable.

I’m also having a hard time deciding which girl I like more. Ginko or Yuuno. Ginko wears glasses and is more reserved and knowledgeable. Also plays the childhood friend role. Yuuno has sex appeal, is more outgoing, cheerful and a complete slut that knows deadly martial arts. Tough decision. I’d probably just pick both.