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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Merchants and Spices and Wolves (oh my!) I caught up on some anime viewing over the weekend, taking in the first five episodes of Spice and Wolf along with the first episode of Macross Frontier and the final two episodes of the Marimite OVA. I held off watching Spice and Wolf initially as I didn't think the Kuroda Kazuya designs were a good match for the original novel's Ayakura Juu illustrations (I think the strong resemblance to his work for Kaibutsu Oujo originally threw me off), but after watching a few episodes I warmed to his interpretation of Horo (Lawrence could still use some work, in my opinion). I'm enjoying the show, though the addition of Chloe feels contrived to create a plot arc that fits in the 12 episodes (+1 OVA episode) it's been allotted. I think it's the kind of show that should be given room to breathe and expand over a good 26 episodes, and the conflict that has materialized out of nowhere feels forced - just let it flow, and feel more like the OP and ED. I'd say they're the best of the season if I had anything to compare it too; is there anything else worth watching this season? Catching up on some older material I finally watched the last two installments of the five episode Marimite OVA series (nominally dubbed "season 3"). They were fun, especially episode four (gakuran Sachiko-sama banzai~!), although they didn't quite pack the punch of some of the material in earlier seasons; I'm looking forward to the promised season four TV anime, that should bring us back into exciting territory - will Yoshino find her soeur? Will Yumi choose drill or denpa? What will become of Sachiko and Rei following their graduation? I can't wait. :3 Macross Frontier was gruesome, in that I shudder to imagine what dark rituals must have been performed to raise the budget necessary to pull that episode together. I haven't seen anime that cinematic in a long time, and am having trouble believing that it's actually a TV series... I'm sure subsequent episodes won't be as flashy as the pilot, but man, that was all kinds of crazy awesome. I'm not convinced that squeezable, squeaky cell phones are the wave of the future, though. I'm planning a look ahead at the shows coming up this spring from a character design perspective, so I'll be revisiting the topic of Macross F again soon. Hard Core Vibes Following Zepy's scoop over at Canned Dogs that Core Magazine was offering to send free copies of their eromanga out to blogs to review for a six month period, I said what the hell and applied. Their Megastore Comics imprint has produced a consistent line of quality releases over the past few years with a ratio of hits to misses more favorable than just about any other eromanga publisher; I don't think it could be too painful to be obligated to review their books, and it would provide the impetus needed to continue the Eromanga Toshokan column. Here's hoping. :3 Oretachi Utawarerumono A big translation release from the English language visual novel fan scene came over the weekend in the form of a full English patch for the PC DVD version of Aquaplus/Leaf's Utawarerumono. It was produced by mirror moon, the same group that released a Tsukihime patch last year, and while listed officially as an open beta it appears to be free of serious bugs. Discussion of the release can be found here; the patch-compatible DVD version of the game can be bought here and here. Futaket 4 Circle Applications Open The official site for futanari-themed doujin convention Futaket has been updated with further information on the fourth iteration of the event, scheduled to take place on May 4th. As of last Friday the planning committee is now taking online applications for circle participation, and paper applications have also been distributed to Toranoana and Melon Books stores around the country. I'm definitely planning to apply, though I had a circle space at Sunshine Creation 38 last Sunday and wasn't able to make the event so I'm not sure how this one will fare either. orz In a final note, HD's server was down for several hours over the weekend for a server move. Should announce these things before they happen, but someone around here is forgetful...
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Great work, guys! It’s always a great pleasure to have a new translated visual novel to play - this one appeals to the RPG nerd in me too! So I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks out to Ryuusoul and the rest of the Utawarerumono team. Your efforts are certainly appreciated.
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Sawashiro Miyuki 沢城みゆき has joined the Theatre Gekidango (Theatre劇団子) comedy troupe. The group performs live and creates video comedy sketches that are shown on TV.Miyukichi (her nickname) performed in their Harukanaru Yama de Yahoho 遥かなる山でヤッホッホ (I think that means something like "Off to the Distant Mountains, Yohoho!") last November.The show was also broadcast on Sky Perfect satellite TV for several days in January."Gekidango" is a play on words, involving gekidan ("theatre group") and dango (a kind of sweet dumpling). Viewers of Clannad will be familiar with the dango, which is featured in the ED.The group's irreverent comedy style reminds me a bit of Saturday Night Live, Second City, or even Monte Python. One of the group's members, 31-year-old Takahashi Kazumi, says her rebellious period hasn't ended yet -- and will never end. I think that's the group's style. You can see a sample of their work (without Miyukichi) on YouTube. That sample doesn't require much Japanese. Other samples require more.One of the group's recent podcasts is a welcome party for Miyukichi and another new member, Shiraishi Yuuka.Miyukichi is one of the top actors among current seiyuu. She got her first role as Petit Charat at 13 in the public audition for Di Gi Charat. You can see a video of those auditions on YouTube (part 1, part 2).At 22, she has already played in over 75 anime series, including such roles as big sister Iina in Kokoro Toshokan (when she was 16), Mint Blancmange in Galaxy Angel, Shinku in Rozen Maiden, Ibara-hime in Otogizushi Akazukin, Aruruu in Utawarerumono, Claire in Red Garden, Reika in Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, and Hagino in Blue Drop. Not to mention large numbers of OVAs, movies, dubbing, drama CDs and music CDs.There is an excellent video compendium of her roles on YouTube.She is known as a quiet and serious person, who is always studying something, from swimming to story-telling to cooking. She is now a university student as well as a working seiyuu.She is also known as someone who does not hesitate to correct other people's mistakes, even people who are older than she is. I think there may be a lot of herself in Shinku.The pictures here come from her page on a Theater Gekidango fansite. Fans have commented about this last picture (right) that it shows Miyukichi's tongue is extremely long. All the better to create the amazing range of voices you can hear in the video compendium of her roles.
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Sunday is upon us once again. Well, actually, it’s almost past here, but whatever. I guess I’ll make this “random stuff not worth it’s own post” post a weekly thing for the time being. Which leads us to Utawarerumono. I can’t really say that I made many mental note whilst watching the series - just about [...]
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I’m glad that I watched these five episodes before jumping to conclusions on Utawarerumono because there’s a lot surrounding the show’s premise and origins that doesn’t bode well. For one thing, it is an adapation of a bishoujo computer game: a recent trend in the anime industry that I can’t say I’m overly keen on. [...]
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Two big announcements from the AQUAPLUS Festa 2007 event held today…
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The trailer for Utawarerumono Bluray box is now on VAP’s official website. Check it out here Sadly, there is no download ver in 1920
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Via the Dakimakura Integrated Research Institute: Goods maker Machi Chara updated yesterday with the newest installments in its hug pillow line, four entries in a new format they're calling "mini mini makura". All are 40 x 12 cm in size, come with pillow stuffing built in, and are set to retail on December 28th at 2,415 yen. The four items in the mini makura lineup are Eruru and Aruru from Utawarerumono, and Konomi and Tama-nee from the To Heart 2 OVA. Pictures below:
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Source: GA & Utawarerumono official website It’s official, the release date for the Blu-ray disc box (Limited Edition) for Utawarerumono will be out on the 23rd Jan 2008 at a price of 52,500 yen (exclude shipping). The Blu-ray disc set will contains 4 volumes of dual layered (50GB each) BD-roms that spans the entire 26 episodes of [...]
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