Posts Tagged “Review”
Because the anime comes out this fall~ ^o^

Fate/zero is the prequel to the popular visual-novel and anime Fate/stay night, taking place ten years prior with Emiya Kiritsugu, Shirou’s adoptive father, as the leading role in yet another holy grail war, a seven-way battle royale between mages and their summoned heroic spirits. It is a action-packed, thrilling adventure, propelled forward by the tremendous ideological conflicts between its carefully-sculpted cast of characters. Written by Urobuchi Gen (main writer for Madoka and Nitro+ works), Fate/zero not only makes a fantastic addition to the existing FSN saga by enhancing many of its key yet once glanced-over details, but also breathes life into its own set of characters and conflicts, unique enough to stand out as more than just a ‘derivative work’. Read the rest of this entry »
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A story of unrelenting revenge, heartfelt redemption, and everlasting love after ten years of agony…

G-Senjou no Maou [Lit: The Devil on G-string] is an Akabeisoft2 visual novel released in 2008. Made by the creators of Sharin no Kuni (my favorite), the acclaimed G-senjou with its combination of a suspenseful criminal schemes & detective mind games, brilliantly-executed character drama, an awesome & well-developed core cast, and one of the best story finales ever. For fans of non-generic visual novels who enjoy either a mystery thriller or a wonderful romance/drama, this is definitely a must-play~ (Much thanks to TLwiki for their wonderful Christmas present to the community) Read the rest of this entry »
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Combine cultural references imported from across Asia, a duality-world built of Shamanistic inpiration, and a focused cast of realistically developed characters— what comes out is a vividly imaginative fantasy adventure that falls only one aspect short of ‘epic’.

Originating from a children’s fantasy novel series by Uehashi Nahoko and directed by the Kamiyama Kenji (GITS:SAC, Eden of the East), Seirei no Moribito is easily amongst the best fantasy anime series of recent years with its Ghibli-esque high production values and character-driven storytelling. But at the same time, its performance was notably constrained by the target demographic of its source material, for the potential of its fantastic world was never properly brought out. Read the rest of this entry »
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“This game is insane… I don’t mean insanely good or insanely bad, but that it leads to insanity.”

Remember 11: The Age of Infinity was developed by KID in 2004; it’s the last title in the Infinity series, which includes Never 7 and the hugely-popular Ever 17. It’s a mystery thriller visual novel that’s compared with the likes of When They Cry series at times. The story is fast-paced and addictive. The strange ‘body-displacing’ phenomenon will suck you in quickly and boggle your mind. But it’s also rather short— I got both good endings and most of the informative bad endings in just ~15 hours of game time; also unfortunately, the ending to Remember11 is extremely unsatisfying, and although amazing in its own rite, the limited revelations certainly don’t match up to its predecessor Ever17. Nevertheless, much thanks to its translation staff over at TLWiki. Read the rest of this entry »
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Took too long to finish this book; despite the foreshadowing, this volume isn’t anything like the movie’s events.
[takatsuki]
Bungaku Shoujo [Literature Girl; I don’t like Yen Press’ localized Book Girl title either] takes its theme very seriously, with each volume of this ongoing serialization paralleling one particularly famous piece of literature. The expositionary first volume correlates to the second best-selling novel in Japan: Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human. As the two titles would suggest, Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime is a dramatic story about self-destructive individuals who had lost faith in their very own humanity and thus, life itself.
Some people are inherently flawed; no matter what they do, they cannot be saved.
But is that really the case? Read the rest of this entry »
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[Yoshino]
On the surface, Natsume Yuujinchou seemed merely a supernatural slice-of-life series about the daily life of a timid boy. Natsume Takashi may have inherited both the ability to see Ayakashi (spirits of Japanese folklore) and his grandmother Reiko’s powerful Book of Friends, but his life was hardly the adventurous one Reiko once led and appeared to lack the overarching plot we expect of main protagonists — except Natsume’s journey through fantasy was not a simple physical one, but a spiritual trip which encompassed many of the most fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy. Read the rest of this entry »
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It’s unfair to classify Hourou Musuko as merely a genderbender. Where the average merely uses gender identity as a plot device, Hourou Musuko addresses it seriously, realistically, as a coming-of-age topic; and that made all the difference — enough to enter its upcoming adaptation as the Winter 2011 Noitamina slot anime~
[CH65 fan-art, by KL]
Written by Shimura Takako (Aoi Hana), Hourou Musuko follows the story of Nitori Shuichi, a feminine boy with a serious case of confused gender identity. Yet as he meets other friends, including ‘Takatsuki-kun’, a boyish girl who wishes she was born a man, Yuki, a gorgeous post-surgery trans-woman, and Makoto, a boy who is confused between transexualism and homosexuality, Shuichi’s desires of wanting to become a girl slowly blossoms, all at the same time as he undergoes puberty, falls in adolescent love, and watches horrifically as his own body mature into that of a man. Read the rest of this entry »
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How many times could you keep trying to solve the same problem? living through the same events, the same day? Would 27,755 times prove too much?
“Kazuki Hoshino… I’m here to break you.” said the new girl who couldn’t take it anymore as she introduced herself, once again.

Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria (lit: Box of Void and Maria of Zero), or Hakomari as the title is way too long, is a mystery light novel series by Eiji Mikage. It’s rather hard to explain Hakomari, since it doesn’t fit into the murder mystery genre at all and can only be partially described as a supernatural mystery. If anything, Hakomari is a dramatic slice-of-life mystery, and the oxymoronic description should give one a hint of just how unique it is. Read the rest of this entry »
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