A Valentine Visual Novel, in English It's Valentine's Day, and you know what that means - a new visual novel release from Insani! I'm pretty sure that's not what it means, actually, but one hardly needs an excuse to scoop the bounty that is True Remembrance. The game is a free (non-ero) download, fully translated into English, and produced in cooperation with its original creator, Shiba Satomi. If you like beautiful stories of the visual novel variety and are looking for something to keep you company on this confectioners' holiday, why not check it out? In other English language visual novel localization news, a new site called encubed recently opened to fill the reportage vacuum left by the demise of VisualNews (though the forum still remains). Those eager for information regarding the English language VN scene, by all means peruse their fine wares! HD Revision Continues We've been busy working for the past several days behind the scenes (and sometimes in front of the scenes, resulting in occasional site scrambling) on a renovation of the HD site layout, and I'm happy to report that work is proceeding well! Thanks to the tireless efforts of Jetfuel we're shooting to have the revision complete and online by Wonder Festival, on Sunday the 24th. Queen's Blade Festival The long delayed, long-awaited Queen's Blade Yuumil combat artbook finally hit store shelves today, as did the second Bitoshi Gaiden volume (full color side story book / drama CD combo) Kodai Oujo no Sho, featuring the popular Menace as drawn by F.S and voiced by Gotou Yuuko. Akiba Blog has a preview of both books up, as does Moeyo (Bitoshi Gaiden, Yuumil). J-List is now stocking Queen's Blade items, and while these two books aren't in stock yet I'd recommend them for all your QB needs. Druaga Anime Preview Our first new look in awhile at the Druaga anime comes courtesy of the Tokyo Anime Center, who published an article last week with further information and a few new images, along with an official site update featuring sketches of the show's Ugetsu Hakua-designed characters. Despite the Gonzo production credit this is one of the shows I'm most anticipating this spring, both for the Hakua designs and direction from Chigira Kouichi, who has directed most of what the studio can claim was anything decent, and writing from Gatou Shouji, of Full Metal Panic fame. Valentine's Day Eroge Updates In honor of one of the calendar's more dubious holidays J-List is running a special promotion, for two days only, providing a discount on Bazooka Cafe (both download and package versions), applied at checkout. It's a great chance to pick up the game, and with the free included Valentine Special scenario it's never been timelier! :3 This is a game I'd heartily recommend to fans of Sumeragi Kohaku's voluptuous art, and well-endowed heroines in general. Coinciding with Valentine's Day, animated doujin game maker Tinkle Bell has provided Toranoana with a demo video for its new magnum opus, Tsukiakari no Raspberry. The video is available for download on Tora's feature page via the button marked "Free", and I'd recommend taking a look - the character designs won't be for everyone, but the animation is almost freakishly fluid in a style that seems to meld genuine 3D work with AfterEffects wizardry in a truly unsettling way - it leaves me with a Disney aftertaste, though I think that's the exaggeratedly animated facial expressions more than anything. The game boasts 4.7 GB of animation data, and will be available for purchase via download both at Tora and DLsite on March 1st. Oh - did I mention it's a futanari game, and the sequel to Tsun-Dere? Other Valentine eroge site updates include: Tailwind Saga Planets 130cm Yukari Kur-Mar-Ter Moe Tamago Propeller Etude Yuzu-soft Axl Fulltime Overdrive Sky Fish F and C Triangle Year of the Rat Bargain Sale Finally, there's a "Year of the Rat" sale going on over at Play-Asia, and they've got a lot of great figure deals on offer - many for items I've reviewed at HD in the past. The full list of discounted figures can be found here: All Bargain Figures Some of the more noteworthy discount items include: Max Factory's Shiranui Mai [HD Review] Megahouse Queen's Blade Nowa (R1 Color) Yamato Doubutsu Nee-chan Momo Kotobukiya DOAX2 Lei Fang (bikini ver.) Chrono Gate 009-1 Mylene Hoffman [HD Review] Funny Knights Cream Koro-nee Max Factory POLO System Wendy Comic GUM Ikkitousen Hakufu (maid ver., black) Millennium Iron Maiden capsule figures Kotobukiya Yamashita Shunya Shouko-san (alternate color) Orchid Seed Miraroma Seihouin Erika [HD Review] Romando Nami SOS + love play unit [HD Review] Romando Nami SOS + love play unit (special color) Griffon Queen's Blade Menace cold cast Toy'sworks Suzumiya Haruhi (gakuran ver.) [HD Review] Yamato's Tandem Twin Amethyst Yamato's Tandem Twin Wildcat Kotobukiya Utawarerumono Urutori Wafuudou Kousaka Tamaki (basketball ver.) Wave Kousaka Tamaki (bikini ver.)
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