Japan Envy: Monster Hunter Diary G Orange Juice

This may or may not turn into an ongoing thing, but I know a lot of bloggers out there have themed posts, so I’m going to try my hand with a series called “Japan Envy” to compile all the things that make me wish I was living in Japan. Otherwise this would just be a “hey look at this cute orange juice bottle” post (which it basically is, but I can get away with it now that I say I’m going to do it as a regular series).

Monster Hunter Diary G, aka Monhon Nikki Poka Poka Airuu Mori G, is an adorable Animal Crossing-esque Monster Hunter spin-off game featuring chibi versions of the game’s mascot, Felyne (known as Airuu in Japanese). Now, I’ve never played a Monster Hunter game, nor have I played the original Monster Hunter Diary, but I am super-duper excited about Monster Hunter Diary G‘s August release. Seeing this gets me even more excited:

source

That, my friends, is Felyne orange juice. Feast your eyes on that adorable packaging! What I wouldn’t give to be in Japan right now so I could drink cold orange juice out of a Felyne-adorned can. Now, I don’t know anything about this brand Bireley’s, but from the looks of things it appears to be regular old orange juice to me.

So, in all honesty, I could care less whether Monster Hunter Diary G is a quality game or not. I mean, I’m sure I’ll get much enjoyment out of it so long as it’s not horribly misguided. But regardless of gameplay, if it inspires adorable orange juice bottles and does crossovers with My Melody, well then by golly, it deserves my attention!

Japanese visual kei bands sing Disney songs for new album?

Yesterday, I was privy to some surprising, and slightly disturbing, news. For those of you who are unaware, ‘visual kei’ is a specific type of Japanese rock music that is characterized by the fashion the band members wear. Musically, they often sound something like a mix of glam rock, punk, and metal (thanks Wikipedia!), but more than the music itself, visual kei is defined by the flamboyant clothing, makeup, and stage personas of the members. I myself have my roots in visual kei–I appreciate the style and a number of bands that define themselves as visual kei, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m a huge, die-hard fan of the movement. My tastes run more along the lines of a certain band called Buck-Tick (a band that is actually credited as being one of the founders of the visual kei movement, but I digress).

Suffice it to say, when I heard that Disney was going to release an album called “V-ROCK Disney” in Japan, I was shocked. Disney songs sung by… visual kei bands? Alright, Japan, you’ve come up with a lot of wacky Disney crossovers that were almost universally panned when they were first announced (Kingdom Hearts, I’m looking at you), but this might be taking it a step too far. Here’s a couple of images to help illustrate Disney x visual kei for you all:

 The members of this band, Nightmare, will be singing…

 … “A Friend like Me” from Aladdin? 
Of course you can’t get a proper idea of what kind of music Nightmare does from an image, so here’s one of their more popular songs for your consideration:
Don’t get me wrong, I actually love this song (you may recognize it as the opening theme to the anime Death Note), but when I think about them doing a cover of an Aladdin song… I don’t know what to say about that. 
For anyone like myself who has a morbid curiosity in this CD, it will be released in Japan on September 7th, and shops such as CD Japan will probably stock it in the future for international buyers (it’s not listed yet, however). You can also see a full track list and bands it will feature at this Tokyo Hive article. 

Otome Game Primer

As a follow-up to my previous post on boys’ love games, I thought I’d dedicate this post to one of my favorite game genres: otome games! One of the most famous Japanese otome games, Hakuoki, is getting an English localization, and will be released in the US for the PSP sometime during quarter one 2012, so there’s never been a better time to get into the genre! For someone who never thought otome games would ever get translated, this is awesome news.

So, what are otome games? Broadly, otome games are romance, or dating, simulation games that cater towards a female audience. In these games, you control the actions of the main character, who is always female, as she navigates through the game’s narrative, making decisions along the way that will ultimately decide which male suitor she will end up with at the end of the game. If you read my BL article, the gameplay in most otome games is often very similar, but the relationships that form the plot are heterosexual, rather than homosexual.

While many otome games tend towards the visual novel side of things, with lots of text and few options to change the course of the narrative, some have more simulation elements, such as stat raising. The Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side games excel in that they provide more engagement than their visual novel counterparts, which is why I own not one but two of them for the DS. They also have a unique feature called “skinship” where you utilize the touch screen to interact with the various male characters–different types of touches in different locations (get your mind out of the gutter, this game is PG!) will elicit various reactions depending on the guy’s personality, which can be quite a bit of fun.

While unfortunately BL games seem to be neglected when it comes to English releases, otome games are slowly gaining ground. Besides the wonderful news that an official Japanese otome game will be getting a localization, there are a few independently-developed indie English otome games. One such game is called X-Note, and you can even try a demo of it on the site to get a feel of what to expect with otome games in general. It notably lacks voice acting, which provides much of the charm of the male suitors in Japanse otome games, but otherwise it seems like a very solid game with nice artwork, and at the very fine price point of only $15, anyone who has an interest in otome games should definitely consider checking it out. What’s even more impressive is that the game was created by a team of only two people! Wow!

X-note screenshot

There’s a Japanese otome game available for the iPad and iPhone as well, and it includes not only an English translation but the ability to switch between the two. This one’s only $3.99, but unfortunately I don’t have a device that can play it, so I can’t give it a try. If anyone does check it out, let me know what you think!

Heian Love for iOS

I could go on and on, but I think I’ll have to leave things here for now. Atelier Rorona, my new gaming obsession, is calling me! If you have anything in particular you’d like to know about otome or BL games that you’d like me to cover in a future post, let me know in the comments!

Introduction to Boys’ Love Games

 

I could spend a whole entry (or entries, even) explaining what boys’ love, or BL, is, but for the purpose of keeping things short I’ll provide a simple explanation: BL/yaoi/shonen-ai is a sub-genre of Japanese manga, written by women for women, that focuses on the romantic and often sexual relationships between men. The genre has expanded to games, and since I feel in the mood to talk about BL games (thanks to The Gay Gamer, who inspires many of my posts these days), that’s what I’ll be covering today. This is by no means a definitive guide or anything, I’m just getting things started.

Have you ever heard of the genre of games called “dating simulation”? If you haven’t, it’s because they are virtually non-existent in the west, due to presumed lack of interest, I would believe. They’re very popular in Japan, though, with names like Love Plus for the DS garnering all sorts of international news coverage for spurring some men to do various amusing public proclamations of their love for the game such as marrying their virtual girlfriends.

Well, just as there are dating sims for heterosexual men, so are there dating sims for women (bet you didn’t know that). Not only are there games for girls where you control a female avatar as you try to win over the love of the man of your choice, but there are also games where the main character is male. These are BL games.

Most BL characters could easily be mistaken for girls.

Most BL games are relatively explicit in nature, and are thus limited to PC-only releases due to the strict ratings system for game consoles. Nevertheless, there are a few tame BL games available for consoles, mostly the PS2 and PSP (yes, they still make plenty of PS2 games in Japan).

Perhaps the most popular BL game developer is Nitro+chiral, with titles like Lamento and Togainu no Chi garnering tons of fans in Japan. You can find censored versions of Togainu no Chi on the PSP and PS2, but Lamento (see first image) is too explicit to port, so it remains PC-only.

But never fear! There are, well, two English BL games (I was convinced there were more but as of writing this I did a 30 minute Google search and couldn’t find anything else). Absolute Obedience for the PC is one, and in my opinion, the better-looking of the two. JAST USA, the company behind the localization, is also behind the first BL game commercially available in English, Enzai. Sadly, though the company has since localized quite a number of male-oriented eroge (“erotic games”), these two titles remain the only BL they’ve released so far.

BL games are, on the whole, visual-novel style, meaning you’ll mostly be reading through dialogue and textual descriptions, occasionally being prompted to make a choice, and then for all your efforts you’ll be treated to a number of lovely CGs along the way. Characters are, on the whole, fully-voiced, and voice actors play a significant part in the popularity of the games themselves in Japan. Each game features numerous potential partners for you to choose from, some varying in difficulty as to how tough they’ll be to “get.”

In closing, I’ll confess that I’ve never really played a BL game. Sure, I know a lot about them, and I own the PS2 version of Togainu no Chi, but I haven’t played a significant amount of it. I have played the heterosexual, or otome, counterpart to BL games, where you play a female avatar who is out to find herself a male partner, simply because I quickly tire of visual novels. When I play a game, there is only so much reading I want to do! Otome games are much more interactive, for whatever reason, and offer various stat-maxing options and mini-games to keep you interested enough to play them through until the end. But I’ll save that for another post! Here, have some Togainu no Chi! Let me know who you’d go for if you were to give it a play.

Who would you pick? (image courtesy of NCSX)

Slow Monday

Today literally was slow! I made my first stew, an Irish lamb stew from Frankie magazine, which was quite simple, took 3+ hours to cook, and tastes pretty good! Not that I have many stews in my repertoire to compare it to, but it’s a start. Ok, now that I’ve got that bad pun out of the way…

In gaming news, I finally updated the eShop and downloaded my free copy of Excitebike as well as the 3D Pokedex. I’ll admit, I wasn’t that excited for Pokedex 3D (I’d rather play an actual Pokemon game then just look at 3D models of them), but I’m all for free things, so I couldn’t pass it up without checking it out. Excitebike, on the other hand, was exciting and new for me (ok, I couldn’t help it), as I’ve never played the original before. And after fooling around with it for a few minutes, I’ve gotta say, it’s quite difficult! I don’t really understand the mechanics yet, so I either go horribly slow and get bored or try to go too fast and just end up crashing and then cursing at myself for having to wait to go again.

Have you heard about the lack of a save file delete/reset option in Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D? This is another shameless plug, but just today I wrote a pretty in-depth post at VGW if you’d like to read more about it. Basically, though, as a way to combat used-game sales, Capcom decided to give players only one save file, which cannot be erased or reset, so you can only play through the game from scratch once. I personally think this is a horrible decision and will definitely deter me from buying the game in the future (though I admit I wasn’t particularly leaning towards a purchase in the first place), but what do you all think? I know used game sales can hurt the developers and publishers, but you shouldn’t punish consumers, and rather reward them to provide incentives to buy new games, such as exclusive DLC, etc.

In other news, Shaun and I saw Kung Fu Panda 2 over the weekend. I enjoyed the original well enough, but wasn’t going to see the sequel except I kept hearing rave reviews right and left that assured me it was actually better than the original. Story-wise, I’m not so sure I’m convinced it was better, but the animation was so beautiful I didn’t really care. Give me fuzzy computer animals and a peacock villain voiced by Gary Oldman and I will go home a happy woman. The fight scenes with Lord Shen, the aforementioned main villain, were mesmerizing. If you want to see some gorgeous animation, then definitely consider seeing this on the big screen (I didn’t see it in 3D so I can’t comment on that), but otherwise you may want to wait for a rental or skip it altogether.

Recent Happenings–Me at VGW and StreetPass Meets

Well, besides that book review, I’ve been a little MIA as of late, huh? Time to fix that!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m now a member of the lovely, inspiring team at www.videogamewriters.com! I’ll be covering news and some reviews, with a slight angle towards Japan-only releases and news fresh from the land of the rising sun. I believe my first review for them will actually be of Grand Knights History for the PSP in September, and I’m looking forward to it! (thanks to The Gay Gamer for making me aware of this game in the first place!) So far I’ve written a few news articles, and most notably an opinion piece on Nintendo’s decision to exclude DVD playback capabilities while pursuing possible social network connectivity in the Wii U, so if you’re at all interested, I’d love if you gave it a read! If you want to be a real pal, show your support for me and the rest of the team at Video Game Writers by following us on Facebook and/or Twitter! And I highly suggest you check out some of the other articles on the site, it really is a pleasure to read (and there was absolutely no mention of booth babes in any of their E3 coverage!).

In other news, we had another StreetPass Brisbane meetup last weekend, where one of our members was kind enough to pass on her copy of Alice in Wonderland for the DS to me! It’s one of the only movie/game tie-ins that ever looked any good to me, so I’m excited to check it out.

Another one of our members ordered the giant AR card from Nintendo Club Australia, and he brought it along to the event so that we all could take some snazzy 3D photos of giant Mii’s and Nintendo characters. We got a lot of questions and interested passers-by. Here’s what we looked like:

Nothing like a bunch of 3DS fans gathering together, I say! In fact, this Saturday has been declared 3DS StreetPass Day by none other than Nintendo, and to show StreetPass Brisbane’s support we’ll be holding an event on the day, too. I’ll be trying my hand at hosting a Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition tournament (wish me luck, I’ve never done something like this before!).

I’d love to write more but since this post is long overdue, I think I’ll leave it at that for now and save the rest for subsequent posts. I don’t like how dead things are getting around here!

Book Review: ‘Family Ties & Torn Skies’

First, let me say that I’m rather embarrassed that this review has taken me so long to finish! I was honored to receive a review copy, but unfortunately various other exciting things all happening around the same time (such as my joining the staff of the amazing gaming website, Video Game Writers! more on that later) meant that I couldn’t dedicate the time I needed to produce a good review. And, since I told myself my next post would be this book review (as motivation to finish it quickly), the result has been that this blog has had a serious lack of posts as of late. I’m terribly sorry! Now that things are settling down, you should expect to see more regular posts from me.

Without further ado, on to my very first book review!

Family Ties & Torn Skies is a collection of stories and poems from from http://tornworld.net, a comprehensive site that compiles the rich and expansive universe of Torn World, created by Ellen Million. The anthology is broken into two parts, the first half focusing on the Snow-Unicorn Riders, an isolated arctic community, and the Empire, an expansive civilization ruled by science and order. As the title suggests, the central focus of this particular collection is on family and the journey from youth to adulthood.

Reading through the various stories, I was amazed at the amount of depth and detail given to the fantastic realm of Torn World. I was particularly enchanted with the Snow-Unicorn Riders stories and their culture and customs, as they are depicted as living close to nature, and the bonds created between members of certain age-sets (groups of individuals who are of similar age and form lifelong bonds with one another) were interesting to see develop over time.

Fantasy fans should find much to like in these stories, but those looking for a lot of action might find this collection to be a little dry, as the focus really is on family and community, and as such there is often more dialogue than action (don’t expect any epic, Lord of the Rings-style battles here). That said, there is so much love and care that has gone into crafting Torn World that it is hard not to be impressed by its charm. The book is also riddled with lovely illustrations that really bring a sense of familiar warmth to the whole package.

To get started, you may consider clicking around the Torn World website to get a sense of what kind of style the book is in. There is so much free media available that it really is worth taking a look at–for example, here is a link to one of the stories included in the anthology, titled “Fala the Leader.” The site was also helpful for me as I was reading the book so that I could keep track of the characters and learn more about some of the customs and creatures mentioned. If anything, this is one of my main quibbles with the anthology–though it attempts to educate its readers on so many aspects of the world, sometimes there is so much new information that it is very difficult to keep things straight, and at times I wish things were explained a little more, as someone who wasn’t familiar with the website before picking this up.

I highly suggest you check out the site and, if you like what you see, consider supporting this immense artistic collective by purchasing Family Ties & Torn Skies. It’s available as an ebook for only $4.99, or you can preorder the hardcover anthology and get a free copy of the ebook in the meantime for $14.99. You can definitely see the passion and enthusiasm in each and every one of the contributors to this collection, and it is an enjoyable read, albeit sometimes rough around the edges. I look forward to seeing more from Torn World in the future.