Music of the Month; Dare ni demo aru ashita

It’s been some time I last sat down to type things down, but all things must come to an end and other things begin from it. The month’s break came in good use, I would’ve otherwise found myself a kind of nervous wreck you see some people being, burning themselves down for no good reason. I know too many people who have taken the world’s burden unto themselves, and when their strength hasn’t been enough and they’ve exahusted themselves, burning the sheer will to go on with anything, it’ll only hurt them and everyone around them. Purchasing my own place to live in, moving all the furniture and collections, then trying to arrange them into their proper places all the while purchasing necessities (like a new bed because the old one literally blew itself apart when I loosened some screws) and then living more than two months on a razor’s edge regarding my job, something that in earnest is still a thing, I’m sure you can tell that I didn’t need any extra weight on my back. We’re not going to back to normal schedule just yet, however, as I’ll have to prioritise work and things with this new-old house, both of which are delivering constant headaches. There are no plans, but I have some ideas and seedlings that I want to type about, but hopefully, our favourite Digimon blogger A9, or The Doc, will get his promised Star Trek post done at some point to cover my ass a little bit.

 

As for what’s been happening with the month, there hasn’t really been any time for me to keep up with events. However, I did notice that Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, or Rumbling Hearts, Visual Novel has been confirmed for an English language release. While I’d like to say I have been waiting for this VN to be translated like the rising moon, I have to admit that the time has passed for me. My currently longest, and one of the oldest, post is all about one specific route of the VN, the one that is probably “canon.” I put quotes there, as it’s really best to think KGNE as its own thing from Muv-Luv despite the two sharing overall continuity and were designed to be counterparts. Alas, their history is not exactly that. The two work are very different and the strings the play and the beats they hit are very different, and ultimately I would argue that their audiences are different. Sure, VN fans will eat anything semi-decent they’ll get their hands on, but KGNE is in its own league. It’s often cited to coin the term tsundere, though that’s not exactly correct. The reviews and articles of the time did call it the first nakige for ‘crying game’. KGNE‘s story beats hit points where you find yourself for numerous reasons, tearing up. Be it because something lovely and touching is happening, or because or something massively horrifying hit your way. From what I’ve read, it was also one of the first numbers of VN titles that, in its own way, legitimised the format for the common consumers. Sure, VNs had seen ports to home consoles well before KGNE hit the scene. yet this one didn’t just get ported to Dreamcast and Playstation 2, but also probably is still one of the handful few VNs that have properly well made animated adaptation. The now-busted podcast we had in Muv-Luv Kickstarter’s wake had a special episode just for KGNE and it’s one of the few things I would recommend anyone to listen to just because there are three other guys that aren’t me discussing the series. The show wasn’t just a hit in Japan, it was for a time a popular culture landmark and the work that defined âge as a development studio as well as setting them a benchmark all of their works would be compared to in the future, whatever they may be. It’s a work âge can’t surpass with Muv-Luv. They would need to create something new, something that wouldn’t have the baggage and expectations of a whole franchise and do it as if their life depended on it. Muv-Luv Alternative is damn close to this. I’ve heard that thematically Leaf’s White Album 2 has similar overall thematics, and to quote anon late 2014 It does Kimi ga Nozomu Eien better. Dunno, would be good Japanese practise, I’d guess.

 

I don’t know how many VN companies would do board games based on a family restaurant and side-characters working in said restaurant. I’d really want that Sky Temple tea set though, it exists out there somewhere

Anyway, KGNE is one of those titles that probably will feel old to VN readers due to its age. The medium has changed in subtle ways since 2001. Many things it does in writing probably will be seen archaic and somewhat driven to the ground, but that’s where perspective has to play a part. This is a thing that I had a discussion with few friends recently, with some of them being VN readers. A point was raised that even taking into ML‘s Kickstarter into account, translating KGNE now is rather late. It being removed from its frame of time will necessitate the aforementioned perspective, but most people won’t do that. They’ll go in expecting something grand and world-shaking. If you come from ML or numerous other hard-hitting VNs, there’s bound to be something to disappoint you. It’s very nature as a grounded slice of life, or This is true life as one of the taglines for the English anime release went, isn’t exactly something that seems popular or wanted nowadays. It has no fantastical elements to it to speak of. In business sense, KGNE doesn’t lend itself for sequels or franchising, which is really a plus from an individual point of view. It’s a single work that tops what it does. You don’t need anything more. The story starts and ends here, and that’s great.

Timing has never been âge’s strengths, and they’ve often kept pushing titles back due to delays of some kind, which ultimately kills interest, even among fans. The core build-in audience âge has, of course, is their main audience, with people who are nostalgic for the anime in the Western front being their second target. I can’t keep track how many times I’ve seen someone mentioning they’ve watched the show ages ago when they were a kid or something similar, showcasing interest to explore that original work.  While âge fans will know how KGNE is tied to Muv-Luv, I would consider it a misstep if that was the main point in the advertisement. Sure, that’s probably the easiest way go with it, yet that’ll build the image that these being tied tightly together means you can’t really enjoy one without the other. Separation is needed to deliver the best possible impact between the two IPs. A triple combo of presenting KGNE VN as a defining work of the company and massively classic piece of work in the medium would be the first hit, followed by striking nostalgia people feel toward the anime still by pulling in some recognisable bits and bobs, then followed by connecting it to Muv-Luv indirectly. KGNE has to be allowed to breathe by itself. I just hope it’s not too late. âge knows how to heat the flames in the forge when it comes to the fans, but the steel tends to cool down or burn out in the forge if left unattended, ultimately flame itself burning through all that coal.

 

If you’ve never seen AyuMayu Theatre, I would urge you to track it down and watch it

Coming Soon? I doubt, unless 2030 is soon for you

I’m glad KGNE is finally getting that English translation. It is a work I do think should be available for everyone. In the same breath, I must mention that I do consider every single sex scene in the work to be of importance. It’s part of the way the story is structured, and one of or two truly feel like traditional VN design where porn was a must. I do think the same way about Muv-Luv‘s scenes, mind you, though only a handful of them are truly necessary and highly important. Funny that really, all of them involve Sumika. Nevertheless. the translation also has to impeccible, but knowing how much love is involved with everything, I’ll show faith in proper handling of the work.

 

With âge intending to remake Kimi ga Nozomu Eien sometime in the future, I can’t help but I have to consider this to be the right step. Re-introduce the work to the Western audience, maybe try to get some kind of deal with whoever has the English license at the moment to release the Blu-Ray pack to strike gold with that nostalgia even more. With Sayori of Nekopara fame working on the KGNE Remake, I have to admit having no interest in it at the moment. Kimi ga Nozomu Eien Latest Edition was an expansion of the original for modern hardware all the while including new routes from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien Special Fandisc. Even after the Remake/Reboot, whichever they want to call in the end, Latest Edition will stay the definitive version of the original Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and should be considered as. âge doing the reboot means they have an insanely difficult task to surpass the original in every possible way, something I can’t believe they would be able to do. Perhaps a miracle will happen and I’ll be applauding it the finest piece of âge’s history. That’ll remain to be seen.

Latest, the most definitive, Edition

 

 

Short synopsis on âge’s 20th Anniversary stream 2019.10.22

âge’s 20th Anniversary stream announcements were more or less what I expected. All of my three predictions were met, but let’s cover the what happened in the stream itself.

Before the main event started, a fan of Muv-Luv Alternative Strike Frontier appeared on the stage alongside with âge’s staff to showcase his sequel idea. The game looked like a Diablo clone with RTS elements. Overall, it would make an interesting doujinshi game, or even a nice mobile phone game, something that wouldn’t take too much of your time. The game would consist of strategy phase and an action stage. Nothing much else was shown outside a small proof-of-concept gameplay, as he fan found making a video too gruesome.

The first real part really was covering the twenty years of âge, with jokes about how everything turned to Muv-Luv at the turn of the decade. Pretty much everything after Muv-Luv Alternative became just Muv-Luv and no new IPs were created. There’s nothing much to be said.

The whole chart be available later in their website

After this some lingering issues were covered. Mobile and tablet version of Kickstarted Muv-Luv is still in works, but they don’t have any dates set. The final The Day After still in works, Kouki jokes that it’ll never come out, but he wants to push it out, finalise it even if it means that it has no animations to speak of. Koki is also adamant on pushing out a new issue of Agekunohate, their official fan book for their fanclub, though it it will be digital only. I find this sad.

Some people really want this

What should be noted that Tororo, the producer of VN studio Circus, made a revelation by taking his shirt off, revealing âge’s shirt with the announcement that he enters âge as Muv-Luv’s general producer. Guessing he has been the guy in charge of having those numerous Da Capo and âge character visual cross overs we’ve got now and then.

 

We’ve known few years now that Kimi ga Nozomu Eien remake has been in works. We got further confirmation on it, though there is no set budget, date and even the showcased logo and subtitle Reboot are preliminary. What we should be expecting from it is expanded story, at least, and some other elements that wasn’t elaborated on.  This was my first bet, as it was a confirmed thing already.

 

The next long bit was the panelists and some visiting people giving their own history with âge and telling their story with the company and how it has impacted their lives. Hajime Isayama appeared via screen to retell how Muv-Luv Alternative impacted his  life and inspired Attack on Titan. He read it through in two days.

Both Koda Kumi and Hironoby Kageyama appeared after him. Koda Kumi told how much she appreciated working on Over the Top for Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse opening theme after she was getting back into music business, and Kageyama mentioned how working with âge further pushed them into the limelight with their collaborations. Similarly Granrodeo made their appearance and iterated much of the same points.

The next guess that hit my mark was some sort of spin-off title, mobage or similar. Currently titled as Project Mikhail would hit this mark, and was presented as straight up 3D action for Android and Steam. It would use subscription model, instead of pay-2-win or gacha. Rather than just describe it, have some footage they showcased.

Relatively simple, but there is potential. It will be released in Japanese, English and Chinese. Yoshiki Kashitani, the game’s director, has worked on such games as SD Gundam Gundam Wars, Final Fantasy XIII, Front Mission 4, Online and 5, Ogre Battle 64, Vagrant Story and numerous others. The game is intended for 2021 release.

 

My third guess was that we’d finally see a sequel to Muv-Luv Alternative that doesn’t take place in EXTRAverse. This has been hinted multiple times over, and both Exogularity books have hinted to what sort of direction it will be in.

 

The above screenshots are image boards, they are not representation of the final product or what will be in there, just the image, motifs, themes and intentions. Considering Yoshimune Kouki uses Turn A Gundam‘s Black Hisatory, the past Gundam series as sort of amalgamation timeline, as an example what he wants to do. I would assume him mentioning the multiple timelines that exist in Muv-Luv would be brought together, and considering Strike Frontier‘s unproduced second season intended to bring the BETA into the EXTRAverse, Muv-Luv Integrate would move toward that direction. If you look at some of the shots there, you can see people turned into BETA mutates, certain kind of fissures existing on the ground that are too smooth for natural ones. This is just me guessing the dark, maybe I’m far off. Probably am. There is no set date, things are still early in development and writing, and pretty much everything is mostly showcase of it could be like this. Don’t raise your hopes, yet.

What you should raise your hopes was something that was greenlit some time ago, that was showcased to the live audience and stream viewers could only hear sound of

Muv-Luv Alternative in Animation.

Images courtesy of Urahichi, yuganikoimas_hs and wizism.

If all goes well, we should be having more streams in the future as well as more Comiket stuff. Here’s for twenty more years.

You can watch the stream interpreted in English here in or in Japanese here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music of the Month; ななこSOS

Time to let out some steam. Month’s first post is, after all, a chance for random ramblings.

Unsurprisingly, due last week’s subject with sadpanda and the historical context of lolita complex in Japanese media history, few people asked if I had certain preferences, to put it diplomatically. Perhaps in the classical sense of having some infatuation with a cute character, but that’s more or less normal. People fall in love with inanimate objects almost as easily as they do in real people, or if life has shown that people are untrustworthy, the opposite seems to hold. In the modern, twisted sense? No. Then why would I spend any time on the subject than what I already have? It is solely historical interest. You know that one image macros, the one which shows how manly Japanese cartoons used to be, how adult and serious, and the Now shows nothing but cute stuff and shows with comparatively vapid content. Despite that image being a joke, it did launch an interest how true it really was. Reading history bit by bit via firsthand sources and consuming the media itself.

From someone who used to read history as a hobby, looking back at how consuming the media of old rather than just reading about it. Media can always be consumed, but events themselves can never be. However, much like when you’ve read enough history from multiple points of views, you begin to understand how everything tends to affects something, how events proceed from one to another. The similar effects can be said about media culture, where if you consume enough media of certain region, not just one kind but all kinds, you realise how much everything has worked in symbiosis, how cultural and historical trends in the media has raised its influential head here and there. It just has to be from relatively long period of time and understand the underlying trends. For example, just looking at the 1980’s anime scene with its OVAs and groundbreaking television shows is hard to understand without first without first looking at massive sub-cultural phenomena in the 1970’s like Captain Harlock, Mobile Suit Gundam and Urusei Yatsura. Those are major names, but only selected few with direct influences with 1980’s scene. Of course, the whole lolita complex, or culture of cute, should be taken into account as it was everywhere. If you go few posts back, I cover this a bit more there. Though I have raised myself a question that I have to find an answer to; where does Japan’s lolita complex, moe and culture of cute have original roots in? This requires some investigating.

To tell you the truth, I have been wanting to discuss this matter on the blog for a long, long time. However, due to difficulty and touchy nature of the subject due to its modern connotations, I have simply pushed it back and back again. I’ve talked about Comic Lemon People and series within in a lot, but never directly addressed it simply because there was never really a good angle to approach it with, and it seemed like time has made it ever touchier. However, Exhentai’s death (and rebirth) gave the perfect angle with archiving and its historical value, an angle I’ll probably stick with in the future when and if talking about the subject. On a side note, the alternative music just to continue with theme would’ve been this song.

In other news, Muv-Luv photonfloers* got released on Steam, so if you’re inclined to continue reading Muv-Luv related media in English, you might want to check it out. It is currently in sale at ~20 bucks, which isn’t a bad price overall when compared to the hundred bucks plus I paid for the PS3 limited edition. photonmelodies♮ is currently at works, and while we could discuss whether or not it was the right choice to call Before the Shimmering Time Ends as Alterd Fable, I should make note that the fandom kept calling the story by the collection’s name almost a solid decade, and âge themselves ultimately adopted that moniker for it as well. While I will keep referring it as Before the Shimmering Time Ends for the sake of accuracy and Altered Fable will refer to the collection. This really is like taking just Muv-Luv Unlimited from Muv-Luv and call it Muv-Luv. [5.8. Edit] I’ll be damned, the official title will be Altered Fable: A Shimmering Shard of Spacetime. I can live with that, and it caters to both people who simply use Altered Fable and autistic nitpickers like me. Sure, it may not be a direct translation, but keeps the original’s spirit with it as the first direct continuation to Final Extra.

Seeing this is port of the PS3 titles, I’d also urge you to get your hands on the original PC release to experience the minigames in their full, bloody glory as well as have the erotica included. I do still erotica in Muv-Luv to be relatively essential to characterisation and showing humane bonding between characters, but your taste probably varies and many VN enthusiasts would rather push a pillow in porn’s face. Then again, VNs themselves are a media slowly withering into a smaller and smaller niche with each passing year, so perhaps it doesn’t do all that well to forget one of the paramount aspects Japanese PC adventure gaming and Visual novels have carried with them. I’d hate to see a beloved media being reduced to mere pebbles, but the fandom could be proud that the things they love now has little to no smut. What a waste.

While I’m plugging titles with cute girls who get fucked, I might as well throw this Kickstarter in your face; Daily life with Konko, or as the devs decided to translate it, Your Waifu Foxgirl Konko. I’m not terrible keen on this translated title, as it tries too hard, almost trying to hit the Internet’s meme nerve. Why would I give a look at something like this? Truth to be told, I’d rather not say, but might as well; the Japanese version of the game helped get over few dark months earlier this year. While I won’t be getting into any details about that human relationship, having something that wasn’t cold and dead like the winter outside kept me floating. There’s a trial that run in a browser on there, though it does raise some issues with the translation. Teacher is left as Shisho, and whole stroking someone’s head isn’t really sexual, leaving the command as just Stroke does strike a bit hammy. The title really isn’t meant to be played hours on end, but little bit each day. Something to wind down a bit, let things slow down and your worries to fall out. The demo’s also lacking any music, and is far too short to give any proper idea how it works, but its something. It does pretty terrible works at depicting the actual gameplay really. Then again, don’t take my word for it. The Japanese fans funded Live2D version of the game on Campfire recently, with yours truly taking part in it as well via proxy, and Megamisoft didn’t just achieve its goal; they made five and half times as much money they aimed at. The Otaku crowd is crazy, sure. However, I do consider this title to be good therapy in the hectic lifestyle we have. Its good to stop, sit down, and a good cup of tea and pat a foxgirl’s head.

While I’m being straight with you, it wasn’t close that this post wasn’t made. Few days ago, I was more or less through with this. I intended to abandon the blog as is, but nevertheless came back to it. I’ll have to make some hard life choices pretty much right now, and most of it is about what I want to spend time on. Blogging takes surprisingly large amount of time, especially when I’m trying to follow multiple possibly interesting news and stories alongside what might happen with some franchises. It eats time, time that I could use for something else like being outside or practicing drawing. I have come to a point where blogging in itself doesn’t bring anything to the table anymore, unless I am to slightly change how I approach. Less commentary, news and popular culture discussion, more personal stuff and things surrounding them. Perhaps you’ve noticed that design comparisons and reviews have effectively stopped and that’s the reason; they just take so much time and are mentally exhausting. A Youtuber friend named Terry advised me to get a Patreon and see if that would give any reason to move forwards, but I haven’t made it public; I know it would yield no real funding to purchase a domain name or towards unique redesign of the and items to review. However, I’m not shutting that out from the equation, but I’d need a real reason to use it. As for the blog, I’ll still aim to continue for few more years despite the admitted drop in quality and content. Ten years isn’t far away at this point, and It’d be shame just to quite when a decade’s almost full.

By the time you’re reading this, my short vacation is over and I’ve returned to work. Sadly, I managed to get jack shit done during this time due to friends having their vacation at different times, so we had to juggle stuff a lot. Vacation seems to be busier and more hectic than work itself.

Music of the Month; Awakening After 1000 Years

I hope you had a good change of year, and that your first dream of the year was pleasant.

As I’ve mentioned each month for the past year, maintaining the blog in its current pace has become more difficult as life has taken its toll on it.  Thus, I’ve made the unpleasant choice to change how often the blog gets an entry; from now on, weekend (Sunday) posts are the only I can guarantee staying where they are, though the time they go online will go online will most likely fluctuate. Wednesday posts will be there if there is time to type them down, if there is interesting enough topics and if I have energy for it. In exchange, I’ll be looking more into long form posts when a subject so demands. This means the commentary posts will probably be shorter, but perhaps at the same time more to the point. In best case scenario, this means more shorter posts in bursts while I’m working on something else, but don’t count on this to any extent. The work I do is taxing on both physical and mental facilities. There are other projects elsewhere that I must give more attention to as well, namely continuing scanning of materials for archival, both donated and old materials that have been on the backburner for a long time. I’ve been asked to do an entry on scanning, and I’ll probably do that sometime this year.

I will also begin listing blog entries on Minds. While Twitter’s all nice and that, I intend to start updating things into Minds that don’t make a good blog, and probably will see more personal takes on things rather than from the blogger persona I utilise here.

Speaking of this year, I’ve come up some plans what to cover, though take all of what stands here with extremely small grain of salt. tl;dr version would be The blog’s post schedule will become more erratic and update schedules are thrown out of the window.

A Comic Lemon People retrospective has been in my mind for some, with examples and concentration on its golden era of the early and mid 1980’s, before the content changed in terms of quality , and then how ultimately the changes in the 1990’s landscape didn’t have enough room for it any further. While we are talking about a magazine that was drawn pornography in most cases, the stories, settings and cultural zeitgeist the magazine represented had an incredible impact on the Japanese popular culture to the point that the contents of Lemon People seem almost quaint nowadays as even the most standard evening show or comic aimed at teenage audience has rougher and more explicit content. While I have physical examples to take advantage, they can be used to infer events only so far. Actual research will be slow and painful, as there are very little English sources, and the few I’ve read throughout the years, have more or less died out due lack of maintenance. This one will take some time to get even started, and in the end might end up being just a showcase of what sort of magazine was rather than its publication history and difficulties.

The Themes of Godzilla post will get expanded. I’ve missed many chances to add Shin Godzilla at the end, but considering that post in itself was made to celebrate its upcoming original theatrical, it’d be only natural that it would be missing from there.  However, I wish to expand on the later entries as well, and make the post more robust overall, covering the movies in slightly more depth and expanding each entry rather than relying on few sentences to carry out what I’m trying to say. Personally, I consider that post to be relatively important, especially when we consider how much the Showa era directors put themselves into these movies and their thematic motifs. Well, at least before the late 1970’s. Antuarlly, this requires me to rewatch all of the movies again, so this project will be long-term and probably won’t be finished for some time.

If there’s going to be anything âge related this year is completely up to them. I haven’t been able to do some of the Tactical Surface Fighters comparisons thanks to lacking image materials, which in truth I have but not in a handy format, but the planned final entries from the original /m/ threads will be carried out. As for the rest, hell if I know if I’m being blunt. âge has not really said anything out in public about anything, but it’s clear that they’re working on something. That Kimi ga Nozomu Eien remake using Sayori of Nekopara fame as lead illustrator is coming up, which is something I have personally no interest in solely based on the style and visual design. It’ll be used as a comparison fodder down the line. However, considering âge has published nothing of worth for the last decade or so, with Total Eclipse enjoying marginal success at best and Schwarzesmarken being a total bombs with extreme lack of sales, it’s no surprise Avex managed to buy them from Acid and ixtl going through rebranding to become anchor. âge and ixtl have a history if mismanaging their projects, Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative being one of them, I’ve got little to no faith on whatever comes out.

âge held a poll aimed at the Japanese fans a month or two back, and it would seem that they are leaning on creating a new mobile game, which honestly doesn’t serve the franchise jack shit. The brand doesn’t lend itself well to the mobile game format, despite Strike Frontier attempting to solve the issue of every character in the BETAverse we cared about to a large extend being dead. A New Beginning from Exogularity magazines shows âge using clones to bring these characters back, which is a cop-out and shows how the staff is in a corner. All the new characters they’ve introduced in other works have been more or less unpopular, and as characters from side stories, they have no real base to stand on. While exploring the setting and expanding the history is all good and nice, it should have been clear that if they were to continue with the franchise, they should’ve continued onward with new characters in similar fashion how Muv-Luv continues off from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, and how that continued off from Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu, by using the same setting and having some relation to the previous characters. Muv-Luv Alternative 2 could’ve showcased us a group that came after Valkyries, showcasing us  the impact their deed had, have certain major characters become a large part of the story in surprising ways and continue naturally from that. Bringing back Sumika, Meiya and the rest as clones or alternative universe selves is just bad form and lousy writing. Now, âge/anchor has lost their chances, the iron’s cold again. They need a popular animated series, a completely new entry into the franchise and shitloads of support to stay properly relevant. Be it as a VN corporation (which have gone down in numbers in recent years) or as a branch of Avex that push out Muv-Luv products to keep themselves from going the way of Hudson.

As the last thing, I’ve been interesting in seeing what makes the Senran Kagura series tick for me. While I still refuse to call myself a fan, you’ve seen the series pop in my Top 5 lists during these last few years, and considering I’ve been buying the games, I’m more and more interested to see for myself what it really is that keeps me with the franchise. No, it’s not the ninja tits. My first reaction to the game series was that it was nothing but titty service to the otaku masses, which it honestly is, but then somehow down the line the games’ play snatched me in. This Senran Kagura introspective will be small and relatively short, as I doubt people are interesting in reading what a personal view on the series is.

I’d also like to more controller reviews, but I haven’t come across many interesting ones as of late.

Enjoy your early year, by the time you’re reading this post I am already at work.

On the differences in brain functions between humans, 00 Unit and the BETA

It’s more or less safe to say that Muv-Luv does not represent real sciences very well as a franchise. Yoshimune Kouki has mentioned in few occasions that because a lot of things are imaginary, like giant robots, it is impossible to come up certain reasons or numbers for them, like the maximum speed of as a Tactical Surface Fighter. What sort of material super carbon is another, but these are more or less things that don’t ultimately matter on the grand scale. They exist for the setting and requires the suspension of disbelief. However, there are number of things that simply don’t jive with. A personal favourite to point out is the use of Mohs hardness to describe how hard BETA shielding structures are. Mohs 15 indicates that the substance is loads harder than diamond in that diamond can’t scratch it, but it can scratch diamond. That’s all there is to it. It does not describe toughness, and in Mohs scale, and as an overall general rule, the harder something is, the more brittle it is. This is straight up screw up, especially considering Mohs is mostly used for minerals only. It would have served the setting better if something like Rockwell hardness scale would have been used.

Similarly, a major cornerstone in the story is parallel computing in order to create full-body prosthesis with whole brain emulation. WHB is an assumption due to how it practically works, but this sidesteps another issue with the fiction. The fiction assumes that human brains and a computer’s central processing unit work the same or very similar way. This is an assumption made by AI researchers like Alan Turing that still persist. In reality, human brain and any computer work wholly differently, and even assuming that the brain ‘computes’ would be wrong. The assumption is that the human brain does the same work as the computer in fewer steps because brain cells work in parallel. A computer may be able to calculate mathematical equations faster than the human mind, but it will take longer to recognize a picture of a cat, because it has to refer to a library of and compare against that. An idea is that if it takes brains only ten steps to do the work, computers can shorten the steps by paralleling the computing ten times. This doesn’t actually lower the amount of steps, it simply means those hundred steps are made in parallel. The comparison however is not apt.

At its base, human brain uses memories as its base. High-school biology already taught us how there are different levels of memory, from sensory memory all the way to procedural and episodic memories. We gain experience as we grow up, and our brains refer to the memories each time we act upon something. The more you catch a ball, the more memories of catching the ball you gain. However, you don’t catch the ball the same way every time, as the brain is plastic; it changes how your arm positions itself as the ball comes in different ways. It does not analyse the angle of the ball, the speed of it, or its change in position in relation to you in time, but it refers to the last time you caught a ball. The more memories, i.e. experience, you gain in catching the ball, the better the brain is able to predict how to catch the ball. This is the cornerstone in human intelligence, where the human brain is able to successfully predict reality based on memory and acts upon it.

While other animals are able to predict as well, the sheer structural difference between other animals and humans lays in the function of the neocortex, which has the most layers in the animal kingdom. While other animals are a cortex, only humans are able to predict to the amount of creating writing and language in an intelligent fashion and build structures that allow us to travel into space. There is no true central unit that processes a core bulk of the input the brain gets from the senses. The brain is extremely plastic, and no area in the brain wants to be left unused. A blind person’s brain uses the area that would otherwise be wired to sight to something else, like reading Braille. This plasticity also means that you could re-wire brain to different senses, and due to how the neocortex has a common key “code” how to handle the input, different sections of the brain could analyse different inputs we usually key to them. A famous example from 2001 is the blind climber climbing Mount Everest by using BrainPort, a device that allows blind people to see via their tongue. All the brain has to learn is to interpret the sensation on the tongue as images, and with brain’s plasticity, it can do just that. This is due to the brain working under patterns and recognising them. : – ) looks like a smiling face to us, despite being only a series of three different marks. However, we recognise the colon as the eyes, the hyphen as a nose and the bracket as a smile because the brain is trained memories to recognise faces in this pattern. It can vary wildly, but this is the core reason we see faces everywhere. The brain loves patterns, and this has allowed humanity to create systems such as language to prosper further.

How does this relate to Muv-Luv? In my previous post about artificial intelligence in Muv-Luv, I sidestepped the reality of issues altogether. It was more or less assuming and explaining how things might work within the setting rather than taking things at face value, as there is not much meat to them as they are. The G Material based artificial brain 00 Unit uses is rather directly a consequence of parallel computing, but there is no deeper explanation given how it works or how the donor brain was adapted or modelled. Fans can come up explanations and expand on the topics, like how I’ve mentioned the concept of 00 Unit’s brain being effectively whole brain emulation. However, this introduces a conflict; if the artificial brain is a physical one-to-one emulation of the donor brain, then why is there need for parallel computing? The idea does not work against the fiction as its laid out. It exists solely because the theory of computers being able to match human brain if they had parallel computing, and thus maybe give way to general or superintelligence. I could theorise that parallel computing was not used to create the artificial brain itself, but used elsewhere in 00 Unit’s artificial body in order to keep the signals body movements in accordance to the brain’s signals, but this fails on the account that computer hardware is superior to brain wiring already, has been for few decades now. What comes to humans naturally is incredibly hard for computers due to the sheer amount of coding required. As 00 Unit goes, the fiction shows that the artificial brain uses parallel computing in order to run Kagami Sumika’s personality and is required to be powered on all the time. Why this is the case is a good question, something that’s more for drama rather than practical reasons. Whether or not this plot point will be repeated in future, when more 00 Units exists, is an open question.

The main point of making a 00 Unit is to make a being with zero carbon marks, zero life signs as we determine them. 00 Unit has demonstrated full-scale human ability in being as plastic, something that the BETA are not.

The BETA function has biological computers. The fact that they are made of what seems like flesh is largely inconsequential. Because the fiction assumes the similarity between human brain and CPU, it should be safe to assume that the creators of BETA (Siliconians or The Creators, reader’s pick in naming) have naturally formed what resemble our CPUs as their brain. Hence, BETA being posed against all CPU carrying devices and recognising 00 Unit as life. To step into theory zone, this seems to indicate that the Creators themselves are no plastic beings and are extremely rigid. They may have superior speed in thought and solving problems, but they’re unable to conform in a way human mind can. If the assumption wasn’t that CPUs and brains have similar core function, it’d be safe to say that they lack the human intelligence to predict.

The BETA themselves are not life. They are machines in flesh, lacking anything that makes core functions of life. They do not have self-preservation and they do not breed, they are machines to be used and discarded when needed, and manufactured rather than bred and born. I would argue that no BETA is sentient. Outside the Superordinate, the BETA behaviour is completely mechanical. Superordinate too only follows its programming and is not plastic in its functions or behaviour, unable to change its programming without having a direct input from a silicon based life. The BETA have a central processing unit rather than a brain.

This should colour the nature of their behaviour in proper light. Just like a computer, the BETA follow coded functions given to them. They are rigid beings unable to change them. Only when in a situation where Superordinate has direct input, in case of being bombed to hell or gains silicon based information via the Reactor network or otherwise, it is capable of changing its own or the rest of BETA behaviour. However, it should be noted that what Superordinate has done is not plastic nor did it devise something new. The tactics the BETA used in Yokohama to flank the base’s defences was based on human tactics know to 00 Unit, and the creation of Super Heavy Laser Class is based on available BETA building blocks, though it is more probable that it existed as a concept already set in its programmed memory. The way it could learn a human language and communication again is based on information the Superordinate was able to gain from 00 Unit.

The Superordinate is classed as Heavy Brain Class and described as a biological quantum computer. It would be safe to assume that it has a far larger series of cortices than the human brain does, but laid out in a completely different manner. Despite being carbon based, the chances are that it is more similar to 00 Unit’s artificial G Materials based brain rather than human brain are high. As I’ve argued before, the BETA’s most dangerous weapon has always been their superintelligence in Superordinate, but the sheer rigidness BETA programming has prevented any extensive use of it, only showcasing some glimpses of it here and there, like rolling out Laser Class early in a Hive’s development to function as anti-air weaponry. If used to any significant degree, the BETA would have eradicated all life from Earth in far shorter time than anyone could have guessed. Just to reiterate, the BETA are presented to the reader as biological computers, which has been wrongly interpreted as an invading life form.

Muv-Luv is not a hard science fiction series. Some would even argue that it’s fantasy, much like how Star Wars is fantasy due to Force. The ideas and concepts discussed here are mostly for interest, with some criticism and argumentation throw in there. However, most of the concepts, like brain and CPU being alike, have dropped in favour within the last decade by large margins, which makes the story show its age. However, the story does sidestep most of the grudges by simply not expanding or explaining the matters in clear-cut manners, mostly due to there being no explanation overall. These can be, and probably should be, rectified at a later date, but that most likely won’t happen. A fan theorising and creating possible explanations for the authors like the I’ve been for two posts now does not really showcase where the story’s main emphasize is, and that’s in the characters. The rest surrounding them is more or less framework and setting in service of them.

Muv-Luv: What is Exogularity?

Hoo boys, bronchitis is such fun. Every time I get it, the worse it hits. Please take care of your health, dear reader.

 

To save you time;

What Exogularity is; a source booklet series.

What Exogularity is not; name for a story or a setting within Muv-Luv franchise.

This should be relatively straightforward post, but considering the Muv-Luv fandom has a history if mislabeling titles with something else, with Before the Shimmering Time Ends constantly being referred as Altered Fable because Altered Fable is the name of the compilation disc it comes on, it’s no wonder the lack of language skills and information easily translates misconceptions that spread far and wide. Misconceptions, like with AF, that just can’t be uprooted anymore for whatever reasons.

Here’s Altered Fable’s main menu, with Before the Shimmering Time Ends being highlighted just under the disc’s title. Notice all the other good stuff that’s on Altered Fable

Exogularity is essentially rebranded Lunatic Dawn. Lunatic Dawn were a series of booklets or mooks self-published by âge at their Comic Market stands. LDs (not the confused with Laserdiscs in this context) have been collected into three larger books titled Allied Strike. Since 2017, Exogularity has taken LD‘s place as official source material for fans. If you consider this, both LD and Exogularity can be taken as sort of additions to Muv-Luv Alternative Intergral Works, which served as the core backbone for the Codex.

Sometimes Lunatic Dawns came with a name, like LD3  was titled Code: Rebellion. LD7 had a full title of Muv-Luv Alternative Lunatic Dawn 7 Total Eclipse, which is boring and unimaginative, but somehow fitting for Total Eclipse materials.

So, what can you exactly find in Lunatic Dawn? Each LD contains their own special illustrations, colour or not, with line arts of Declassified Tactical Surface Fighters. For example, LD3  showcased the Rafale and gave a blurp about it.

 

 

These books also consisted of staff interviews, rough sketches and designs, rough animation boards, jokes, short stories and such. At times, LDs covered future subjects or touched on titles in-development, though that was more what Agekunohate, âge’s official fan book, as for in general. Essentially, all these are major parts of the hype engine directed at the fans rather than any part of the larger public. It must be said, âge has some stupidly dedicated fans across the globe.

So, in what way is Exogularity rebranded Lunatic Dawn? Let’s take a look at contents of the first volume.

The first thirteen pages cover content regarding Strike Frontier, the mobile game DMM ran. The second part, starting from page 14 begin to cover plans for stories that would take place after Muv-Luv Alternative‘s, events. As these are merely plans and drafts, outlines at best, and should be taken as grain of salt to showcase that might come out in the future. Nothing is definitive before the actual product announcements and titles are rolling out, and knowing âge/anchor that’ll take some time.

That is not to say there is no validity here, as the first volume states, these are the Horizon of the next attempt. The depths of its creations. The latest material of âge. What we can assume with the first volume is framework, from posthuman characters to new generations of TSFs, from Operation Olympus and Moon War II to BETA striking back and TSF-like BETA being a thing, to the whole New Beginning with the idea of humanity going out there in space to meet the BETA creators with warp-capable TSF.

The tagline for the booklet is All converge points, and a new beginning. While we can overanalyse this and pull stuff from our collective asses, it would seem that âge/anchor are intending to do a sort of re-launch of the franchise. After Muv-Luv Alternative, âge/anchor (then ixtl) really haven’t managed to roll out anything that would’ve broken the bank. Total Eclipse as a side story failed rather hard, Schwarzesmarken tanked even worse. The Day After didn’t really see success in Japan and currently is left as is. Whether or not it’ll be collected in the future with some sort of definitive end is anyone’s guess, but seeing this is the timeline Takeru cancels with Alternative‘s events, the ending itself is more or less a moot point. Some would even argue that TDA in itself was a useless story.

If you look at most English-language resources for Muv-Luv, like the Wiki, they’re mostly lacking in mentioning any of the Strike Frontier stuff when it comes to Exogularity Vol.1. This is because nobody has cared a bit about the Strike Frontier stuff, it really was rather unpopular in overall terms. The second volume, published in the upcoming Comiket #94, is supposed to concentrate more on cut Strike Frontier content, and content that they never had the chance to put in the game. Whether or not it’ll have anything on the numerous post-Alternative settings Vol.1t touched upon is currently unknown.

But you know what I don’t see people talk about too often? The storyboards at the back of the first volume where we have Meiya-lookalike fighting one of those BETA-TSFs.

Also no post this weekend, and even this is two days late because I’ve been mostly sleeping or coughing my lungs out. Stay healthy and eat your veggies, kids.

Goodbye ixtl, welcome anchor

On July 6th, âge announced that ixtl, the company that was put up in 2011 to manage their copyrights and IPs, has now been renamed as anchor. Their website has also been revised accordingly. It would seem that anchor’s role is not just to manage âge’s rights, but also to design stories, i.e. story content creation of sorts. XR experience can be loosely equated to VR and other experiences that might come in future, e.g. themed hotel room or such.

This comes in the wake of Avex Pictures acquiring ixtl in 2017, ixtl having a survey for international and Japanese consumers what they’d like to see from them as well as Avex and Graphinica announcing they have established Flagship line, a company to produce goods, such as animation, games and VR titles.

Perhaps most importantly, anchor’s site specifically teases a new project coming soon, there is already something in the works. Considering Avex Pictures took notice of the million dollar Kickstarter, renewed interest to revamp a company branding and other changes, it should not be too hard to guess what they’re ramping up to.

Banning Adult Oriented material, again

Lewgamer has a nice article with sources and citations on Valve threading to take down on adult games on Steam, give it a look before we go further.

The whole issue really is all about having erotica CG within the titles. Doesn’t matter if its just left in the code, if its junk data somehow and completely inaccessible by normal means. If it is there, it counts. Sounds extremely pathetic and funny, but that is the reality. The case this is most compared to, going as far Steam’s own representative doing it as well, is the Hot Coffee case. In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas exists a disabled minigame where the player character can bang their chosen girlfriend character. The reason why it was left in the game’s code is because the assets were used elsewhere as well.

This basically set the tone that if a software has any sort of pornographic content inside the code or assets, it’s automatically Adult Only, which further means certain shops will not carry it and places like Australia most likely will instantly ban it.

I also recall something about Valve considering on banning titles that have censorship removing patches from other sites, be it via addition of the content or unlocking. However, I found no solid sources on this, so take this as a rumour at best.

With most visual novels having some level of erotica in them at least, Valve’s probably going to gun them down if this keeps going. This also means that even Muv-Luv‘s Steam releases are under threat in the worst case scenario. Considering Manga-Gamer had their title with “earnest and tasteful exploration of sexuality” is about to get the boot, pretty much anything goes.

This is one man’s crusade, though what Valve is doing here is covering their own asses for the worst case scenario for them. They don’t give a damn about the consumer or developer end due to their monopoly. Games with pornographic content is mere blip on the radar for them, the revenue Valve gains from them is microscopic for them. Worse, they’re a public corporation, and having erotica or pornography on their service in any form is often seen as a sort of stain. This probably also leads to some problems, just like how Steam’s terms of service had to be revised from “purchasing games” to “subscriptions” circa 2012, when Court of Justice of European Union decreed that it publishers can’t oppose of resale of used licenses. EULA ties you to nothing. However, publisher have more leverage if you don’t purchase anything from them, just subscribe to their product.

Valve, of course, never had clear rulings on the issue. They’ve been jumping back and forth regarding adult oriented material on their service in order not to even recognize the topic properly due to the stigma pornographic content still carries with it despite the fact that it’s all virtual.

The discussion about what constitutes as porn and what doesn’t should be made, but it doesn’t matter to Valve. Their view is pretty clear on the issue, even if they aren’t. If it has any kind of sexually explicit content under any kind of depiction, it is counted as porn. There is no room for nuances on the topic, which only tells how puritanical this issue is.

It is unfortunate that things have done this way, as this will probably cause further issues down the line for anyone willing to entertain the idea of having a more sexual title on Steam. It’s a slippery slope we’re in for here. There are numerous solutions, like moving these titles to Nutaku, but that also means raving Steam fans wouldn’t follow in suit.

Mature sexual content, be it pornography, erotica or whatever else similar will always limit your audience to adults and people who aren’t living in a medieval level culture. The approach of simply trying to clean it away is not the right step by any means and it will be met with opposition. However, what Valve could do here is to open a specific section for Adult Only audience, both expanding their market and guaranteeing that places competitors like GOG wouldn’t be tempted to open this sort of targeted service. Then again, this would encourage further competition, so perhaps it would be a chance for them. Muv-Luv on GOG would remove any of my reasons to use Steam.

What is the consumer to do here, if they oppose booting titles off Steam if they contain adult material? Wallet voting by purchasing these products, making your voice hard on social media and elsewhere at their representatives and showcasing support to devs who are inclining towards censoring their products.

I guess this is as good time as any to remind my readers that corporations are there to make money and keep their investors happy. That’s their main goal, and sometimes it is more favourable to enforce certain image and lack of products that could be harmful somehow to the younger audiences.

Funny that, this is pretty in-line with how the US is seen by most Europeans; a place where over-the-top and accurate depictions of hyper violence is awright, but a bare breast will make everyone flip their shit.

Plane elements in Tactical Surface Fighters; F-18E/F Super Hornet

The F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet was an upgrade to the single seat F/A-18C/D line of Hornets. It all goes back to the YF-17 test fighter in the 1970’s, on which the base F/A-18 Hornet is derived from. This base F/A-18 Hornet is a twin engine multi-mission aircraft designed around leading-edge extensions with digital fly-by-wire controls, with single-slotted flaps and ailerons over the whole span of the trapezoidal wings. This, alongside with canted vertical stabilisers give the Hornet an excellent high angle of attack, which was tested by NASA’s High Alpha Research Vehicle. All in all, an aggressive fighter, if needed.

Originally, the Hornet was to have two variants, an attacker and a fighter. However, these were merged into one craft via the Hornet’s multi-function displays, which allows the pilot to change to attack or fighter mode, or both, making the Hornet a proper multi-role fighter. This proved to be valuable asset in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, where operational commanders had large flexibility within scenarios and were able to adjust to situations with a single aircraft in the air.

The C/D version, the which Super Hornet is an upgrade on, has two variants; C being single seat and D being two-seat. D is more a training variant, while the proper mission-ready D’s second seat is reserved for Weapons and Sensors officer to assist the pilot. As such, it mostly served as U.S. Marine Corps’ night attack and Forward Air Controller.

Overall, the C and D models are block upgrades made to the Hornet in 1987, incorporating upgraded radar and avionics, ability to carry newer and larger variety of missiles and got neat little things like self-projection hammer and a synthetic aperture ground mapping radar. It also got a new ejection seat, the Martin-Baker NACES. 1989 models also had improved night attack abilities with Hughes AN/AAR-50 thermal navigation pods, good ol’ night vision goggles and two full colour MFD’s. An upgrade set that overall increases the effectiveness of the fighter.

The F/18-E/F upgrades were based on this, but where much larger in scale. While avionics, ejection seat and such things from the previous upgrades stayed largely the same, including the computer software, the Super Hornet is about twenty percent larger, has both heavier empty and maximum weights. Due to it carrying 33% more fuel internally, its mission range is 41% higher as well. All this meant that the catapults and arresting systems on the naval vessels had to be set differently for Super Hornets. Unlike the Hornet, Super Hornet was also designed  to for aerial fueling, extending its airtime even further.

The larger frame of the Super Hornet comes from its longer fuselage and increased win area. The oval shaped intake ramps of the Hornet were switched for rectangular intakes, which also also slightly larger. Despite the larger size, the General Electric F414 engines give the Super Hornet 35% additional trust compared to Hornet’s F404 engines. The fuselage was not designed for stealth, but the overall design was to reduce ballistic weaknesses and emphasize the use of existing electronic warfare with innovative tactics its flip-of-the-switch multi-role function allowed.

The fuselage is also considerably smoother than its predecessors, as Super Hornet saw extensive use of panel joint serration and edge alignment to eliminate unnecessary surface joint gaps and resonant cavities. These help to reflect waves away from the craft, and with smaller frontal cross-section than its predecessors, the Super Hornet is hard to pick up by radar. F-22 and F-35 would totally eclipse it with their stealth technology.

The F/A-18E/F saw its first action in 2002 during Operation Southern Watch in Iraq as a bomber . After that, the Super Hornet has been flying every sort of mission, from escorting to  close air support. For the U.S. Navy, they’ve proven a competent and effective fighter, which has made it a possible candidate for multiple countries for adoption. The Royal Australian Air Force acquired 24 Super Hornets in 2007, which was a controversial order due argument made that Super Hornet was inferior to the MiG-29 and Su-30 in the South East Asia. The first RAAF Super Hornet arrived in 2009, with the rest coming later down the line.  Numerous other potential operators are about, including Canada to replace their CF-18 Hornets, Finland to replace their F/A-18 Hornets under HX Fighter Program, Poland to modernise their defence in 2021 and to have something to replace their Su-22M4 fleet, with few others in the line. Numerous bids for Super Hornet has failed across the years.

The difference between E and F variants are, as you’d expect, is that E is a single-seat variant while F is a two-seat variant.

And as usual, the image board original

The history of BETAverse Hornet and Super Hornet are very similar to the real world counterpart. Based on YF-17 from the Lightweight TSF Program, McDaell Doglam refined the fighter into a multi-purpose surface fighter for the U.S. Navy to use. While the F-14 Tomcat was still around, the Hornet began replacing them as U.S. Navy’s mainline surface fighter due to its lower maintenance and better cost-to-performance ratio. This mean that a Hornet had a longer fieldtime compared to the Tomcat, just like with the real world fighter. All in all, the BETAverse Hornet follows the history of the actual Hornet very closely.

The same can be said for the Super Hornet. With the all the upgrades made to the F-18E/F Super Hornet, it’s effectively a 2.5th generation TSF and fights in the same league as the SU-34 Terminator. Shoulders saw expanded thrusters, head section gained upgraded avionics and sensors and lower body overall was increased in order to expand operating time. The Super Hornet has similar performance to F-15E Strike Eagle, but at a lower cost, making it U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ flagship and mainline machine, which got exported to place like Australia. E and F variations have the same seat arrangement as the real fighter.

As for its armaments, the Super Hornet doesn’t exactly have a wide variety to choose from. The American Assault Cannon of choice, the AMWS-21 Combat System, is the standard long-range combat goes by. As a special option inherited from the Hornet is the MGM-140 ATACMS missile container system, which has a neat radar unit on it to help guidance. Luckily, the Super Hornet as CIWS-1A Close Combat Knife over the terrible CIWS-1B.

As for the design, the Super Hornet really goes its way to incorporate some of the fighter elements into the TSF, but due to the size of the shoulders and knees, you don’t recognize it as a Hornet of any sort from the first view. This is due to its front silhouette being too large, whereas the Hornet and Super Hornet were designed to have less bulk. The colour is adopted from a real life Super Hornet, as pictured above.

Super Hornet had that smooth surface going on for it, and the TSF version of it almost seems to use this. However, the torso’s many segments, and hanging bits on the skirt armour and slightly excessive raised levels on the arms tell that this wasn’t a main concern. Even Tomcat seems to have smoother surface than the Super Hornet. However, it must be mentioned that the skirt armour does relay some of the fuselage’s smooth look, but that’s about it. Not that TSFs have to concern with stealth when it comes to fighting the BETA, but it’s rather important when fighting other TSFs.

The Jump unit is a truncated and deformed version of the fighter, with the nose cut off. Nothing too special overall, though it is slightly bulky.

Where the Super Hornet made its name for the fans was during the events in The Day After timeline, where it serves as the primary American TSF. Especially notable is how twelve  Super Hornets defended USS John F. Kennedy against a sea of BETA in 2nd of July, 2004. Notable is also their use during the Defence of Seattle and during following events.

Music of the Month; Radio Allergy

Welcome to 2018. I hope you’ll have fun. All things considered, last year wasn’t all that bad.

Looking down the year, and how I failed miserably to keep up a theme during last twelve months, I won’t be doing a monthly themed posts for now. Partially because single posts seem to do so much better when they’re not tied to anything. However, the usual stuff will return in more or less the same shape; Muv-Luv‘s TSF comparisons I’ve yet to cover (there are still few of them on the table), Guilty Gear character design comparisons (those always seem to do rather well) and the occasional mecha design thing, which will have no running theme or the like. Unless someone just pops in and gives me twelve points per theme to talk about. These aren’t New Year’s resolutions, I made none this year, but these are something you can look forwards.

However, looking at the reviews I’ve done, with some feedback from a poll I did a month back or so, it would seem that there is some demand for game reviews. However, these won’t be taking any precedence over other stuff (I still aim to do weird peripheral or other reviews if I can),  but I will review the more esoteric titles that may not see Western releases, like the upcoming A Certain Magical Virtual On. I actually got into the A Certain Magical Index/ Scientific Railgun series because of this upcoming Virtual On crossover, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised on its quality. I had a chance to try and observe how I went from not giving a single damn about the license to actively looking forward how things get combined. That’s a post on its own.

You may have noticed that the Top 5 of 2017 was filled with modern games as opposed to NES or SNES games, and I kinda expect this sort of trend to continue, at least for the first half of the year. There are numerous games coming out this year that I am interested in, and that new VO title really is the one I’m looking for the most. It should give me some material to discuss the differences in the series overall, as I aim to gain the PS2 SEGA Ages release of the first game as well as Virtual On Force. I guess that’s a series of posts on itself, and now that I think about it, I should start writing this series this month, so I can write about A Certain Magical Virtual On right after Oratorio Tangram, as that seems to be the most popular and well-known title in the series. Marz is pretty terrible, but just how terrible? Well, we’ll see.

Which leads to something I’ve been considering doing for a while now; moving slightly away from the writer persona while doing these posts and aiming to do few more personal things… like what I just said about the A Certain X series. That is not to say it’s being abandoned, but long time readers know how I’ve lamented the fact that me and the writer persona have become more or less the same thing. I probably will add a new tag to denote which post has been written from which point of view, but they should be clear. For example, if I were to write how hardback books are superior to paperbacks, that’s a completely subjective view and lacks the writer persona’s view. Whether or not this will cause the quality of the blog drop is another thing entirely, but it’s not like this blog has high standards to begin with, right? Not that these would become the main thing on the blog. Knowing me, I won’t even go through with this at all, but at least its out there.

As for the Digimon design evolution post that was supposed to come up last year, A9Doc hasn’t gotten around finishing it yet, probably due to sheer amount of examples and other stuff that he needs to go over and double-check. I should do one of these as well at some point, the subject is what I should decide on. The Metal Gear  posts are a great example of this sort of thing, so something similar that has a single running object being updated would be great. Something like the design evolution of Pikachu, if it wasn’t something bigger fans have already covered.

As for Muv-Luv, well, there really isn’t anything to go by. With ixtl taking charge of the Kickstarter, backers and fans can only cross their fingers and hope that nothing gets screwed up. I haven’t found enough good sources to comment on whether or not avex pictures acquiring ixtl/âge will be a good thing on the long run, but I’d argue we’ve already seen large shifts within ixtl, with things being rather silent, Kickstarter being taken over (I keep using taken over, because I guarantee you a company like Degica didn’t want to see others meddling in their affairs, even when ixtl is the rights owner) and the lacking news and such. Not that I can blame anyone in charge of these, Japanese corporate politics are such horseshit at times.

As for personal things that might matter for the blog, in some two to three months I’ll be finalising my career change, if all things go as they should. Due to me and my personal life not actually mattering jack shit, all I’ll be saying that depending on the workload and hours I’ll be putting into it, posts may decrease or increase. I keep saying variations of this, because things haven’t been exactly stable for me for number of years now, but maybe this year I’ll be able to have a job that doesn’t require me to screw with the timetables

All that said, have a good one and enjoy your day.