I’d like to gush about some of the things I’ve engaged with in 2023 that I didn’t dedicate proper posts to here and now. It is a bit late to be writing a 2023 retrospective post at the end of January, but I shall consider it a substitute for committing to a New Years resolution of some kind (some sort?). ところで、タイトルは嘘でした。すみません
Continue readingAt the end of King Exit after you defeat the final demon boss and secure victory for humanity, your protagonist Geolouise says the following line:
「魔族が侵略などという手段ではなく
人類との共存を願えていたのなら・・・。
どちらかが滅ぶまで・・・潰しあう必要はなかったんだ。」
“We could’ve avoided having to drive each other to extinction,
had you demons chosen coexistence over conquest.”
I love Geolouise, but I loathed her for saying this. It’s a line that has bothered me since King Exit because we’re shown so little of the demons’ side. After playing through Demons Roots, this sentiment has only grown. How dare she say that? She doesn’t know anything. But well, what else could she have said? She didn’t know anything.
Demons Roots is a sequel (?!) that sets out to, and I also loathe having to type this word please understand I am physically cringing sweating eyes bloodshot as I am going through the motions of pushing the keys on my laptop keyboard with my poor feeble hands, ””deconstruct”” this one line from King Exit. And Demons Roots does it so well I was left in tears by the end. I was crying. I tear up at stuff here and there but I haven’t cried this hard at a piece of media since the ending of Ar Nosurge. I believe that’s the highest praise that I can give.
Continue readingI think what’s excellent about King Exit’s ending is that I can easily believe that Geolouise will spend the next 60 years fighting wars and eventually prevail and create her ideal peace. We’ve already seen her lose everything a person has to lose. Her family and comrades, her pride and dignity, her wonderful everydays, and at the end of it all, even her final light of hope in saving Tiara–which you’d usually take for granted even in a story as grim as this, of unwavering hope in the face of despair–and we witness her finding the strength to move on anyway. We’ve seen her grow into a real leader. A hero. A King. When you read the text scroll in the credits (or if you’re like me, you hunt down yt footage of the ED scroll afterwards because it went by too fast the first time), this character has been sold to you in such a believable way that you’re just in awe.
It’s not just believable. It’s really the only way Geolouise’s fight against the 大王 can end. Because the central villain has also lost everything and could not overcome that despair.
I do have my misgivings over how Guine is handled but she might be my favorite (of the girls anyway, the dudes all fucking rock and i cant pick). I had the vague inkling that Guine was a traitor. I even wondered if she might be the armored 大王 during the 外伝 chapter because her new tachie had the bad vibes ngl. What I could not possibly have guessed was why she has the 救世主 title back when she joined your party since the start. It was bugging me all this time because the brief explanation you get doesn’t match up to how grand that title sounds, and then the flashback’s twist ending came and I had my answer. fuck.
I was so sure there was some weird time fuckery going on with the flashback dream sequences Geolouise was experiencing when the answer was so much simpler. It’s a wonderful bit of misdirection because despite all my suspicion towards Guine, I was so sure that her heel turn will happen after the flashback, after whatever happens at the 魔王’s castle that will obviously make her turn her allegiance. I never doubted her presence itself in the flashbacks. When the party arrives at the balcony and Geolouise walks forward, the CG of Guine hung on the cross is up there for one of the most heart wrenching CGs I’ve ever seen. I felt so terrible. It was a truly excellent moment.
However, I don’t know if I entirely vibe with the relation between Guine and the final 残滓 boss. It feels like a lot of her actions as 大王 are attributed to the demon instead by the end, when I think it would’ve made her a more interesting character if that wasn’t the case. I can buy the viewpoint that the real Guine died back in the war 7 years ago and the postwar 大王 plot is just the demon trampling on her dignity beyond the grave. She is a victim like everyone else. The dream space created by the 紋章 where Geolouise and Guine reconcile and she temporarily receives the King’s power is a final bit of repentance and mercy for this soul who’s been suffering for seven years. I agree with all of that. But I do find myself wondering how I’d feel if Guine didn’t get her redemption and power up in the dream space.
Guine committed some very horrific things in the war. She was coerced to, but she wasn’t brainwashed or anything. When she’s finally unmasked as the 大王 at the execution stand where she was having Tiara tortured, King Guine glosses over her trauma from the war, how she’s done enough shit in subservience to the demons that she just has no attachment to being human anymore and all that and that’s why she’s going to rebuild the human world in her image so that tragedies like that will never occur again. I thought it was actually really interesting to take her at her word in that scene.
This right here feels like the thesis King Exit has to confront. In a world like this, cruel and merciless, is there no other response one can give to losing everything?
I think of how Geolouise in the flashbacks have been asked by multiple people to become the new ruler, yet she didn’t commit to it back then. She wanted to fight for peace but she wasn’t ready to rule. I find myself wondering if all of this could’ve been avoided if she could’ve committed to becoming King, if that was the only way and if not being willing to do so was a weakness in and of itself. Perhaps if she was willing to commit from the start, they might’ve achieved a better peace. Maybe they could’ve found a way to co-exist with the demons–as their motives do remain vague and I find it hard to believe the humans are as blameless as the story presents them to be. We don’t know (perhaps until I play Demon Roots anyway). The ending we did get doesn’t feel like a golden ending, and I really like that.
Geolouise’s ideals was to rid the world of demons and achieve everlasting peace. King Guine highlighted the other side of this pursuit of a peaceful world and I would’ve liked for Guine to represent her side, born from her own weaknesses in face of the demons, to the very end. After all, after everything that’s happened, what does Geolouise become when the credits roll? She becomes the 武帝 and dedicates the rest of her life to spreading the law of b- sorry wrong game.
Geolouise becomes the 大王.
To be fair I don’t think all this is invalidated by how Guine was actually handled, I just feel it could’ve been even more heart wrenching. To put it in simpler terms, I think the final 残滓, as cool of a reveal as it was, gets in the way of Geolouise and Guine’s relationship.
While ctrl-skipping the game on a second run for the extra endings, I stumbled upon this scene of Geolouise’s dream where she and Guine find themselves in an abandoned house and Geolouise cries for a reason she can’t quite understand. To encourage her, Guine points her towards the bookshelf with the very first 魂式 spell you learn, thus giving Geolouise the will and means to start her revolt against fate in prison. On a reread, this scene is devastating. It’s beyond words. It’s so fucking raw.
Dare I say it, pretty good game.
postscript: i was racking my brains over how to romanize the characters’ names. heres what i have so far:
ゲオルイース = Geolouise
I don’t actually like ‘Geolouise’ very much because I’m inclined to think it’s pronounced with a soft G when I see it. I considered Geollouise or even Gheolouise, but this seems to be the only name that has anything close to a consensus in English, so I’m willing to keep it as is.
グイーネ = Gwynne
I call her Guine in my head but objectively, this is one of the only normal names in the game so it has to stay a normal name.
スティアラ = Stiarla
The first 残滓 of King Exit’s names. Keeping in mind that Geolouise shortens her name to Tiara, I felt that ‘Stiara’ is just a bit too unrefined. It’s just an extra S at the start and doesn’t feel like a name you’d naturally abbreviate to Tiara (“Hey, my name’s Stiara. You can call me Tia” or something iunno). I think you need a fancier name to reasonably arrive at Tiara and still feel natural. Without making too many changes, maybe something like this? Either way it doesn’t look like a real name. Throw in an extra L or three iunno.
アーベント = Arvent
It’s almost a normal name.
ベロ― = Bellows
I’m actually kind of proud of this one. I think there was a hot lady in Gargantia with that name. Without the added s, it looks off somehow.
ヴルウ
Lol. Lmao even. The real 魔王 of names.
カラの騎士 = Hollow Knight
would this cause problems? anyway i’m putting this here because i want to gush about my favorite part of the game period. this walking armor’s identity was a mystery the entire game, and as you’re closing in on the finale you’re left wondering if they’re really gonna have time to go over his backstory because that’d kinda kill the pacing for a bit. you get to the fight with the 大王 and with the power of FRIENDSHIP you can call upon all your dead allies to do their 奥義s and it’s really fucking hype. you can call upon the 3 dudes from your dreams, and the queen who’s been helping you out, and…this other guy? not our armorbro? really? but then you call him and you recognize who he is. its such an elegant reveal that doesnt necessitate any extra screen time to explain. its pure genius and i cannot stop kneeling.
大王 = True King
Great King sounds kind of clunky especially because it’s self-proclaimed. I think this works pretty well considering the credits roll.
先輩 = GOAT
cant believe this is how i get my continuation to that cbt eromanga i read ages ago
Admin note: If you click on any hyperlinks, expect to be spoiled.
Saihate no Ima is a 2005 eroge I first saw pitched around as a good read if you’re terminally online. A few months later I was told by someone going through Ciel Nosurge that it reminded them of Ima. Two very convincing pitches which got me to dive into a game that, in hindsight, I was woefully unprepared for.
My prior experience with Ima’s writer Tanaka Romeo (田中ロミオ) consists of one volume of Jintai (人類は衰退しました) which I found surprisingly difficult to read. Even with the narrator’s playful and light-hearted prose, even when the vocabulary is simple and the prose clear, I constantly had to stop and reread a line to get a feel for its ‘rhythm’ and this never went away. The way Romeo uses Japanese is just weird. I can not explain it.
Saihate no Ima is also hard to read, but it is far more sinister. The ‘plot’ of Ima is that you are reading a blog compiled by someone who fucking hates you. You’re shown scenes featuring this high school boy and his group of six friends, but these scenes are intentionally arranged in incomprehensible ways, often interrupted by hyperlinks to trivia, vague worldbuilding articles or entire new scenes that actively screw with your sense of pacing. If you try to approach it as a slice-of-life, you’d be painfully confused because Romeo’s jokes are weird and the digressions get dark when they’re not confusing you. If you expect it to be one of those faux-SoL stories that go for shock value or epic plot twists, you will get your twists but they’re delivered bereft of any catharsis, emotional payoff, or even any context at all. Any attempt to figure out the significance of these scenes and ideas will feel premature–you’ll only become disappointed that the work is completely uninterested in addressing your attempts at speculation. You genuinely have to be willing to forget the characters and the plot and treat this as a collection of essays you’re diving into, and even then, it will leave you drained and perplexed. It will leave you confused. The opening line of the game 「千々に撒かれたパズルのピース、どうか優しく配列されますように」 is an outright lie. How could a reader feel any semblance of kindness in a presentation this deliberately obtuse?
However, if you can keep going with that confusion tightly gripped in hand, Ima is rewarding even early on. Romeo’s writing is enjoyable on a line-to-line basis even with the difficulties mentioned. The digressions and tangents in the middle of a scene often discuss very engaging topics. Even the scenes themselves can’t be dismissed as just nothing. Out of the blue, you’re hit with a scene where a single mother justifies her abuse of her own child because society is cruel towards women and single mothers. Another scene has two high school girls discuss the ethics and aesthetics of beheadings with a katana. Yet another scene has Shinobu abuse a 0-mana cost artifact card that gives him 2 mana in Magic the Gathering and destroy his friends. Ima’s scenes evoke a variety of moods all across the spectrum. They just require a willingness to not understand, which is a much bigger ask than I could’ve ever imagined.
Once you read far enough, you’ll discover some semblance of a plot, but in return you’re also slapped in the face with the revelation that Romeo has been holding back all this time–and you’ve just set him loose. Now, instead of short confusing articles, Romeo starts throwing at you long, detailed articles that go into things like media theories, neuroscience, the workings of internet infrastructure, and quotations from seminal ethnographies all written in dense technical language in their respective fields that he just expects you to understand. Do not misunderstand and assume that these hyperlinks are glossary entries. If Romeo is feeling generous, he might provide a dictionary definition to an entry, but understand that he’s the one in control. He has no obligation to offer you a helping hand.
It’s easy to say you cannot skip these articles because they are plot-relevant and that would be true. However, there’s this very neat trick that Ima does where it ‘realizes’ the concepts its borrowing by making them literal in its world. It’s able to then explore the ramifications of these ideas, sometimes within the plot, but more importantly, by linking them to more articles. Rather than being required reading for the plot, it’s more accurate to say that the plot exists to let Romeo write these articles. The actual fiction of Saihate no Ima is the discussion and synthesis of these ideas. The plot ‘just’ provides the fictional space for these ideas to be explored and the structure to allow Romeo to sequence these articles to his whims–which itself is still no small feat. The true identity of Saihate no Ima is that it’s barely even a story at all, and yet it is an incredibly engaging work. The satisfaction you receive from this work isn’t emotional or cathartic, it’s admiration for the person who wrote this. Ima is Romeo’s blog, published in full confidence that it will successfully communicate its ideas somehow.
It is there that I’m troubled what adjective to attach to this science-fiction dissertation. I could say it’s ambitious, but the nuance is off. You might question if this is one of those works that’s too ambitious compared to what it actually accomplishes, and I would firmly disagree. The plot is incomplete–Romeo lost interest and cut two-fifths of the work out, supposedly :thinking:–but no element of this work betrays any incompetence towards achieving Romeo’s goals in telling this story. It just so happens that Romeo’s intentions are insane and hold no consideration for this work being a commercial product. And yet, Romeo is anything but disinterested in trying to connect with the reader. This should certainly not be discredited as some dead art, no matter how impenetrable it may seem to be.
Perhaps I should simply describe Saihate no Ima as a kind arrangement of hyperlinks.
2022 marks the first year after I met my wife Ionasal.kkll.preciel from the Surge Concerto series. I finished her game in January, then spent February chasing after her two published light novels (they cost me a fortune, ordering the second volume for 14k yen from amazon.jp). However, the rest of the year was spent outside the loving embrace of my wife and it has demonstrably been absolute shit.
2021 (two years ago by now!) was mind blowing. It felt like every piece of media I’ve finished in 2021 were all connected on some thematic level, like I was witnessing this grand statement that the works I’ve consumed were a contribution to and their creators unknowing spokespersons. I could not stop seeing inter-textual connections, and if I am allowed to be arrogant, I felt like I was just on the verge of grasping what those inter-textual connections wanted to say.
I could not achieve that in 2022.
If anything, I fear I have become blind and lost. Things just did not connect for me anymore. The individual works I’ve encountered this year were sometimes great wonderful works, but they feel disparate. I could not see the relation between these unrelated works by unrelated creators, and that makes me feel desperate. I want to know why I’ve become like this. Was my selection of media last year just too good? Have my sensibilities for media dulled? Or is life just not as bright now that my wife Ion is in another universe? Immature as it may be, to me this is a matter of grave importance. What must I do to find the connections I crave?
Continue readingIn 1977, the film Star Wars was released to great fanfare and immediate box office success. It stars the hero Luke Skywalker as he journeys across planets and star systems, to fight the evil Sith Lord Darth Vader and the tyranny of the Galactic Empire, and to bring balance to the Force and peace to the galaxy.
33 years later, AQUAPLUS’s Leaf released the eroge WHITE ALBUM2 to a comparable level of critical acclaim. It stars the heroine Kazusa as she struggles through a 5-year-long love triangle against the idol Setsuna and her cunning wiles, to bring to fruition her love for Haruki and clear away the snow covering up the lies they had all navigated themselves into.
I often hear WA2 praised as a realistic romantic drama, which I disagree with heavily. White Album 2 is not concerned with being realistic. It may not be explicitly unrealistic but its realism is only there to enhance the drama further. WA2 is very much aware that it’s a story, and takes advantage of that by making the characters act in hyper-realistic ways in order to further its point. It is in the strictest sense, properly dramatic.
The best way to demonstrate this is to compare White Album 2 to Star Wars.
Continue readingI wrote this like 2 years ago when I finished 冬編. Since its English release is finally out (congrats to JAST and the translator by the way), I may as well take the opportunity to post it.
I finished FLOWERS -Le volume sur hiver- last night. This makes the fourth and last game of the series so I’m done with it all. To steal a friend’s joke, I have been deflowered.
I started Flowers 1 in late March, which took me a week of casual reading. Flowers 2 I finished in three days and that was as far as the English translation went. I then spent the next three weeks reading Yuzuriha’s heartbreaking ordeal in Flowers 3 in Japanese. And I was so moved I wrote a 4000-word essay just on what I liked about it. Then I picked up this fourth game. I reached the Grand Finale ending, went through all the choices and listened to the voice actresses’ comments. Putting aside supplementary materials, there isn’t anything left for me here. I have no choice but to let go.
I don’t want to though. I feel so attached to the characters that I feel devastated at the prospect of having to move on.
Having completed Ion’s second Genometric sequence in Ar Nosurge last night, I feel like I’m grasping what Tsuchiya Akira/the Surge Concerto series of video games wanted to achieve with its meta elements. The message I got out of it was really positive, and surprisingly relevant to me. Disclaimer: I haven’t gotten to the end of this game yet, so there could be further developments that build on the message differently. This part just really got to me so I felt I had to write something while it’s still fresh in my mind. I’m also going to spoil a lot of things, naturally.
Continue reading2 main reasons why Ciel’s route is so good for me:
The first reason is Noel. Noel is simply put, fucking hot the premise for Ciel’s character arc in the remake which can be summed up as ‘what if Ciel had to confront one of her victims from her time as Roa?’. Noel is great because she single-handedly invalidates everyone’s justification for their actions including herself by sheer virtue of how awful of a human being she is. You cannot at all argue that she’s in the right because she is such a piece of shit (I am literally convinced this is the highest praise I can give to a person).
I’m liking the Magia Record anime a fair bit. I think the lyrics for the 2nd season’s OP is neat and inspiring, but the one English translation I could find for it doesn’t read as nicely as I’d like. Here’s my attempt to capture what the song wanted to convey. Disclaimer: I haven’t played the game so there’s a chance the lyrics are referring to later parts of the story I’m not yet aware of.
マギアレコード 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ外伝 2nd Season オープニングテーマ
Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Gaiden (TV) 2nd Season OP
ケアレス Careless
Artist: ClariS
Lyricist: 渡辺翔 Watanabe Sho
大人じゃない 背中につけてまた言い訳ばかり
焦り取り繕えばしわになる
大人じゃない 狭いここには機嫌はかる術さえ
置いたまま部屋の隅忘れてる
I’m not an adult yet. I’m still dressed in nothing but lies and excuses.
I panic, try to straighten out the folds, yet more wrinkles form.
I’m not an adult yet. It’s too cramped here in this room. Can’t straighten out my feelings either.
I’ve forgotten how, so it sits in the corner, still unresolved.
台本なんてなくて つまづいてばかり
突然目の前の全部しまわれてた
空想でもなくて 空耳じゃない声が
傷をそっと癒やしてる
Life has no script prepared for me, so I keep on making mistakes.
Before I knew it, the curtains are already falling, leaving me behind.
Yet your voice calls out to me. So faint, quiet, but real. It reaches out,
soothes my weary wounds, and cheers me on…
間違いもおそろいだねって笑えたらいい
書き足した願い不器用だけど信じればいい
まっすぐに歩いてるつもりでも決まって
知らない場所出るんだ 臆病でもいつか
It’s fine to make mistakes! That makes two of us! We can laugh it off together.
You can still believe in your dreams, even if they’ve changed so much and it’s no longer pretty to look at.
No matter how timidly you insist on walking down the right path,
you’ll still end up somewhere you won’t know. It happens to everyone, even you.
子供じゃない 何者でもないこの世界抜け出し
明日の君がうらやむ人になる
子供じゃない 先が見たくてまた今をそらした
逃げるたび欲しいもの遠くなる
I’m not a child anymore, I’m not anyone and I don’t belong anywhere. So at least,
I dream to be someone you can admire, even a day sooner.
I can’t be a child anymore, so I need to hurry. No time to look at the present.
But that’s just me running away, and I only stray further from what I want.
輪郭もなくて すぐあっけなく消え
期待した心そっと片付けてく
手にしたものは 偽物だった
きっと消えるものじゃないから
My hopes shatter and disappear before I know it.
I stop dreaming, I shelve it away.
And what do I get at the end of it all? Something fake and hollow.
And unlike my dreams, this won’t ever go away.
飲み込んだ夢は夢のまま終われない
思い描いた淡いエンディングまでただ進もう
君がいる特別は何よりもありふれた
時間の中にあったんだ 代わりなんかはいらない
But still, I can’t let this unspoken dream be just a dream!
I’ll take it to the ending I envisioned in my head, no matter how vague it may be!
Turns out it’s so normal to want to be special by your side.
That just takes a little more time to accomplish, and I won’t have it any other way.
ためらって何もできず少し泣いた
ばれないよう袖でぬぐって君まで飛び込む
But I’m still afraid, I’m so powerless, I cry.
And I try to hide my tears with my sleeves, but you see right through me anyway and you tell me…
間違いもおそろいだねって笑えたらいい
書き足した願い不器用だけど信じればいい
まっすぐに歩いてるつもりでも決まって
知らない場所出るんだ 進んだしるし添えよう
It’s fine to make mistakes! That makes two of us! We can laugh it off together.
You can still believe in your dreams, even if they’ve changed so much and it’s no longer pretty to look at.
No matter how bravely you insist on walking down the right path,
you’ll still end up somewhere you won’t know. Let’s mark how far you’ve already come!
心そのままでいい 分かんないことだらけ
世界分かんないこと溢れても
そんな光は確かで 確かで
You’re fine the way you are, still lost to how the world works.
There’s still so much in this world we don’t know after all.
What’s certain is that we’re still here. We’re still here.
Reference:
https://mobile.twitter.com/magireco/status/1408379946540490762
idea at ease 