Tokyo Adventure: Ikebukuro

Ok, after much procrastination, I am now finally sitting down to write about my time in Japan thus far. If I haven't mentioned it in my previous posts, I am currently on a study abroad program in Kyoto for the fall semester. Our group from Colgate stopped at Tokyo for one week, and as you have guessed, that's where all the fun and silly adventures came from. The world is big, and this vague, dark and scary hole called fandom is truly bottomless.

On my second day of arrival in Japan, our group got the morning free, so I went to Ikebukuro to check out the Animate and Lashinbang shop recommended by my friend. I was stopped by a friendly police asking for my identification. It's a strange world. The train system in Tokyo is really confusing at first, since they used price instead of destination when buying tickets. There are also multiple train systems ran by different companies around Tokyo, so getting the exact station AND line is crucial for navigation. Of course they have a convenient Suica card that lets you tap and forget about buying tickets, but getting on the right track can be quite troublesome at times, if you can't or don't want to ask for directions.

Arriving at Ikebukuro around 10am, it hit me that most shops were still closed. The famous setting for Durarara!!! was not as glamorous as it looks in the night, although the street was still quite crowded and the sun was already blazing down on us pedestrians. Trusting my intuition (and not downloading the map onto my iPod), I started walking along the streets of Ikebukuro. Sure enough, after ten minutes, I arrived at a (relatively) deserted arcades, movies and shopping areas. Here and there some people were waiting in line for the shops to open. Again it hit me that waking up so early wasn't such a prudent idea. To worsen my premonition, I walked for 15 minutes without finding that Animate shop. Finally, I gave in and decide to find an internet cafe, and ended up stumbling into a small manga cafe tucked away on the second floor of a building in the side street.

My first Japanese interactions since the airport went relatively smoothly. The price was, well kinda high for what I did, 200 yen for half an hour, but if you are planning to shutting yourselves in for a few hours, or even days, the price gets lower, and it is a relatively cheap, considering the prices of other form of entertainment in Tokyo (excluding, of course, window shopping, which may not be ideal if your idea of 'malls' is Akihabara). Here's the shot of a reading room.

TV, PC, PS2, drinks and wifi

The room is quite small, just enough to have a table and a chair, and some leg room. The facilities include soft drinks, coffee and a shower. I guess you can marathon stuff like Dragon Ball or Ruroni Kenshin without breaking a sweat (thank god they have air conditioning in this blazing hell of Japan summer). I only stayed long enough to download a working map, and the journey continues. 

Even with the newly updated map data, I still couldn't find the required building. On the way I stopped at a few arcade to check out the games. They have full floors dedicated to fighting and gundam machines, with some awesome looking cabinet. A shame I didn't take any pictures of those. Speaking of arcades, I tried my hands at the Project Diva and Jubeat Copious. Eventually I got myself a profile card (that lets you save play data) for each of them. The arcade is also a reasonably cheap place to bust some stress if you have the skill. An hour would cost some 500-700 yen on music games. One thing I must mention about the arcade in Japan, they have AMAZING etiquette. There are seats for popular games, and people usually step down if they see others queuing for the machine. Took me a few minutes to realize that. Queuing is a part of the culture. 

If you are looking for used manga or light novel, Book-off is the first place you should try, before Mandrake and smaller shops. Even though I said used, the paperback sold are kept in pristine condition. Covers are clean, pages corners undamaged, and the whole book felt just like new, saved for the smell of newly printed paper. The shops has an amazing 105yen section, where you can find some popular novels and manga at a price that cannot be beaten elsewhere. (Amazon.jp has lots of used books at 1Y, but the shipping cost is around 250Y). The only thing missing is probably the feedback slips. They also have some artbook for sale at 50%-70% the original price. 

With ALL of that commotion out of the way, I reached Animate and Lashinbang some one hour and a half later, after noting the critical landmark that was the high rise road. Animate has a huge 6-storey building, while Lashibang is smaller with only two floor. 

Animate Ikebukuro

As with most other high buildings selling anime related goods, the floor are separated into Commics, Character goods, Shoujo, Shounen, DVD and CD, and Games. Some have Doujins and Adult floor as well. 

As I had a few things in mind, the trip through Animate was brief, but it was truly a sight for sore eyes. Shelves and shelves of anime goods, DVD, CD, games, manga, novels and all sort of trinkets just lie there staring at you (or being stared at, I can't tell). If people show me a picture of these stores, they have a 100-fold chances of convincing me to believe in heaven. 

Lashinbang

The neighboring Lashinbang is more of used goods and doujins. I found some 100yen light novel in their baskets and the whole collection of Toradora for only 1500 Yen. The first floor was strictly BL. That's where I first learned the lesson of looking at the customers before stepping into a shop. The second floor had some pretty figures and games. 

I forgot to mention this is probably pretty close to what they call 'Otome Road', since I found a nearby Mandrake store specializing in BL (again). A stores hidden behind a tall resident building, accessible only through a winding flight of stairs leading down from street levels. This time it took me 5 minutes of wandering before realizing the truth and hastily got out. 

Just before heading back, I wandered into the Toranoana store. Their adult floor gave me shivers at first sight. Nakige is clearly not the only genre to visual novels. I shan't entertain you with a picture of the place. 

And that pretty much sums up my misadventures in Ikebukuro. I bet there are shopping and drinking places as well, but I wasn't too interested. The first experience of Tokyo (and Japan) was quite satisfying. I will post some on Akihabara later. 

Nine months after

I am now almost at the end of my freshman year. It has been an exciting and fun-filled time. Not as much booze as I would wanted, but I am the only one to blame for that. Last week I got a prize at a Japanese speaking competition. Anime, thank you once more. You've brighten/darken up my day so many times now.

Enough of university rant. To the main topic, anime, games and the like. So of all the anime I saw last seasons, the ones I finished were Shana S, Guilty Crown, Nisemonogatari and Another. I think I will try and watch Zero no Tsukaima, for the sake of finishing it.

Shana S is satisfactory. A much awaited ending after all these years of tension building. The ending, although kind of anti-climatic, is rather conclusive and to my liking. I shan't spoil it, so let's move on. Guilty Crown is a slight disappointment, but there was good character growth and much twists in the story. Sad thing is that most of those doesn't matter at the end. And as for Nisemonogatari, what can you expect from Shaft and Nishio? Totally eccentric, humorous and some (ehem) rather amorous moments. Finally, the gem of the season, Another. So much blood. So much blood. Misaki was irresistibly cute. They manage to keep her stoic face to the end, and that is much appreciated. A dere Misaki would be heaven to watch, but hellishly detrimental to the show.

As for games, I am now playing Kamidori by Eushully. Typical JRPG, the game play was enjoyable enough, and the story is not as ridiculous as Rance (but still pretty insane, if you ask me). There's Subarashii Hibi on hiatus, and that's it for games.

I think it's Easter today. No eggs for me.

Subarashiki Hibi impression

I have been playing this game called Subarashiki Hibi for a while. It is very interesting and difficult to understand even with solid Japanese skills (heck, I had to ask my Japanese professor for help with the prologue). Let me rant a bit about this game before I am too scared to write.

I started playing visual novel with titles like Narcissu and Wind - a breath of heart. Those were nice and cute. Then I played Fate. That was pretty gory. Then I played Liar-soft games. Confusing and gory. And now I play Subarashiki Hibi. It's more terrible than anything I've ever read. It's like reading a mix of School Days and Alice in Wonderland (the later does feature prominently as a reference among a ton of other obscure references in the game). And it feels like:

Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance. Give me back my harem romance.
Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine. Anything is fine.
Anything but this. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

It's really disturbing. I am thinking twice before writing a review for this game. Still it's such a good read.
Spring break is here.

Life in the US

So the SuperBowl happened today. Giants won. I swear this is not an attempt to get more views. But what else can be a better lead into the topic of life in the US? Megaupload shutdown? May be.

As informed in the previous posts, I am now studying at Colgate University, in my second semester. An excellently wifi-covered campus in a remote town in the middle of New York (state). Academic life has not been boring, but not exciting either. Pretty much like IB without the constant motivation (nagging, or sticks-and-carrots styled speech) from the teachers. Yup, college life is so much better. So much free time and so few places to go to.

I am continuing learning Japanese. It has been exceptionally fruitful. Now I can comfortably read Mashiro iro Symphony (which is an amazingly simple and cute game that I will review someday) with the aid of agth. The speed is slow, but not many dictionary searches interruptions. I will definitely read more visual novel in the coming months.

On that note, let's talk about Little Busters!. I started reading LB as the partial patch came out and finished it recently during winter break. A typical Key story (reads: incredibly heart warming and incredibly confusing ending). I finally realizes my love for the kuu- sub archetype after seeing Mio. Couldn't resist the temptation. That and other stuffs. Let's go through the game quickly.

Firstly, the mini games. Interesting at first but quickly became time consuming and boring later. Good thing they gave a Skip option. Still, the mini games gave me unexpected laughter at times. But seriously, for a game that has to be replayed 7 times or more, these are a nuisance.
It is impossible to talk about Key without story, so yes, the story are all very standard but unresitably cute. I never get bored of these stories, no matter how many times I read them. Still, the last route provide quite a swing from the typical harem situation, which gave the final ten or so hours a sense of thrill and anticipation. It was well-worth some of the duller moments from the character routes.
Music wise, it is not as impressive as Clannad or Kanon. No real gems or anything like that. The music matches the situation and that's it.
CG? It's Key. What do you expect? By the way, LB! standard edition is H free. Good idea.

Overall, the game is an enjoyable read. Not all routes are exciting, but the final one totally made up for it. Thank you translation team for your efforts over the years.

Now a snapshot at anime in the US. Or Colgate to be specific. The community is, well, not as thriving as it was in Singapore. Still I can find people to talk to about Touhou or visual novels, which is a blessing. No peer-to-peer here, and with the recent shutdown of file hosting sites, anime has become scarcer than ever. Still, thankfully there are still sources to get my daily doses of fansubs. On that note, go watch Another. Wonderful show.

Oh, and I am going to Japan this Fall with my classmates for one semester. Gonna be pretty exciting. Now to get back to Mashiro and finish Miu's route. I will post an impression soon.

Transition, and more light novels

Soon there will be a lot of things coming my way. It's gonna be a huge transition for me. I'm heading off to the land of Anime Expo, Otakon and Crunchyroll. You probably knew it from my last post, I'm heading to the States for college. I'll probably post one about my new room and internet after I got there, now I just want to think about what has been going on the past month.

It has been relatively fruitless, no active work, no active study, no active visual novel. I took the JLPT N2 in July, and it was, well harder than the mock test I got. Still I hope I can pass it. The preparation course was certainly helpful, since I got to learn lots of grammar, which I would otherwise never touch.

After the test, I started reading light novels (raw) again, and I was able to read much, much more fluently than before. Studying really helps. I finished the left overs of my impulsive spending in Singapore: Vol 1 of Shinigami no Ballad and Hanbun Tsuki. They were both quite worth a read. That lead me to reading Shinigami no Ballad, and now I'm at Volume 4 (volume 2 is already translated). The story was quite simple, with lots of conversation and furigana, so it's very easy to understand. They are all quite tragedies (or should I say mini tragedies), since you'd probably guessed it from the name, but nevertheless I do enjoy the nakige genre. Another novel that I touched is Accel World, since I was mesmerized by the author's previous work, Sword Art Online. The concept of virtual reality still plays a prominent role in this novel as well, but there's much more interaction and interconnection between that and the real world. Too bad the protagonist is much less GAR, compared to Kirito of SAO. I finished the last parts of volume 1, after the manga and started on 2. This seems to be a promising read.

The last time I checked AnimeCalendar, I was surprised (shocked also) to discover I had been following 10 anime this season. I really had way too much free time. Now it has dropped to about 5 (I think), and hopefully when I got on campus it will stay around there.

Looking at the last post, well it is really quite prophetic. I started working as QC for a group since last week (to say it more accurately I failed the editor test). You can probably find out which group it is easily using google. It is interesting to look at subs in a whole new way, to criticize instead of enjoy. Still it was much more bearable than English A1.

So that's about it. Hope to post next time from the US.

Light novel. Yes, light novel

Reading is nice. Absorbing. Exciting. Makes me feel that I am using my time effectively.
After 2 weeks of intensive light novel reading, I completed 4 volumes of Utsuro no Hako, Zero no Maria, 3 volumes of Sword Art Online and the whole of Mimizuku to Yoru no Ou. Thank you Baka-Tsuki and all translator for having worked to provide these for the community. (being a translator for one month I realize how time consuming, tedious and commitment-required it is. Sadly I don't process the qualities to make the cut)

It starts from a recommendation on Facebook. Utsuro no Hako that is. It has a great start, which is basically slapping incomprehensible information in my face. Before that I guess there is a nice cover. The story is basically a mystery, supernatural one, with some degree of blood and gore. Now that I think about it, the story strongly reminds me of Sharin no Kuni and G Senjou no Maou's style where there's always an unexpected twist at the end.

Of course after reading the first novel I'd expect a twist at the end of the second one, but everything turns up and down and left and right and after a while, I decided to turn off my brain while reading. Not a very exciting way, but certainly an entertaining way, as I can skip some logical and inconsistencies in the various time loops (oops I'm not supposed to spoil). In the end the four volumes make a decent stop, however still leaving plenty of room for a (coming, hopefully soon) fifth one.

After going around the few reviews available on web, I decided to follow up with Sword Art Online, as one of the blog suggests to me. It is, as described on the blog, 'cliched story and characters', with typical romance/adventure/MMORPG situations. Since I am a fan of ./Hack (I wish I can get a better grasp of the canon), I don't mind any of that, and the novel really did not let me down. (no, even without chapter 16.5, it's plenty interesting). The story is predictable, but still absorbing enough to keep me reading till the end, especially Volume 3 and 4. I was practically shivering as I read the few last chapters of Volume 4. Haven't got so excited since G Senjou no Maou. Regetfully Volume 2 is not fully translated, so I'll have to wait for later.

Lastly, the just-finished Mimizuku to Yoru no Ou. It won the Dengeki Light Novel award in 2009 (the top prize, no less), and it's one volume, fully translated. The story, pretty depressing at the beginning but began to shine more and more as it progress. Honestly I don't have much of an emotional reaction after reading it, no, not a reaction at all. Sad, I think.

That's it for the translated one. I think I'll proceed to finish the Hanbun Tsuki novel that has been sitting on my shelf for more than 2 years now. It'd certainly take a long time. A long time indeed.

On a side note. Real life. I just got my US Visa. That means all procedure cleared and I'm heading to Colgate University this August. I hope the anime community there is bustling. Maybe I'll join a fansub group, who knows?

Winter holiday activities

So the winter holiday has finally started. I have dozens of essay to write for my Uni application and that makes the day damn boring. Other than that it is looking very bright. I have good stable internet and a HDTV. Oh how I love the HDTV. Just watched Nanoha Movie 1st the other day and the picture quality is superb. The sound system is terrible though, but I guess one cannot have everything one wants. The second show I watched was Animelo 2009 on DVD. After sitting for an hour skipping to songs that I know, I realized watching a concert on TV is plain dull. I might as well turn on my ipod or do a youtube search.

I picked up a translation project of Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo last week. Yes, the glorious game reviewed last post. I am currently translating from the English patch. Not the best according to my philosophy, but that'll do for now until I pick up some PROPER Japanese. Speaking of games and translation, I still got about ten translated visual novel waiting to be played. Damn those supplements.

That said, let's do a quick review of Eien no Aselia. The game came out in the middle of the year (or last year), but I was apparently too busy with IB to give it some attention until the real exam :D. It turned out to be pretty addictive, and it almost devastated my econs paper. A good combination of RPG game play and our ordinary run-of-the-mill adv. A classic of its own right.

First CG of the game. Pretty isn't it? (yeah I know it's white)

First, the adv section. The sprite and cg are...let's just say kinda old for my taste. However they are shiny in their own way (kinda like Sekien no Inganock). I expect a typical high school drama game, but thankfully Eien no Aselia gave me a wonderful surprise. After 30 minutes of 'normal daily life', you are transported to an alternate world of sword-and-magic fantasy. That's not the only good part about the storyline. This is a game where common sense matters some what, and NOT EVERYBODY speak Japanese. That's just brilliant, how you play fifteen minutes reading and listening to not-internally-contradicting gibberish, only to be relieved of their meaning in the 2nd play through.

Sorry to inform you but she is not capturable

The user interface is common and there's no problems with navigating around the game. The love and mind system is truly refreshing, since Fate Stay Night. A combination of many choices that leaves me absolutely clueless about which route I am following the first time I played. The storyline varies slightly for each route and a significant portion at the end is reserved for each heroine. The story is not like Clannad or Sharin no Kuni, but they are still touching and very vexing. Yes, if you are fighting a war, you'd face as many dilemma as the protagonist does. That makes reading the story fun and exciting, and not just simply heart-warming.

Moving on to the RPG protion. Now this is the highlight of the game. A simple system but there are plenty of rooms for strategy, and getting SS on each and every level is not easy. It took me a lot of saves to clear the game the first time. A simple turn-based system with skippable animation.

That's the command screen for you. Imagine seeing this 100-1000 times

The strategy is simple, but you need to pay attention to your enemy if you want to beat a stage, not to mention getting good ranking. The RPG does affect routing of the adv section, so you have to balance between killing that group of enemies and pairing up with your desired heroine.

The sound is definitely a plus. The battle theme and regular daily life BGM are very decent, and the emo-ish one is also superb. Not as good as clannad but I could still get this game OST. Art is as commented above. Not shining in a moe sense but very beautiful.

Last and not least, H-scene. Hey did I just say H-scene? Sorry guys there's no H-scene on this English translation. It's based on the PS2 port with added scenario, CG and sprite, but no H-scene. If you want them, go get the DVD version, untranslated, of course. Some of them are really extreme, as there was an 'evil route' removed. You have been warned.

That's it for the review. This is definitely a recommended game. I'm gonna spend this holiday finishing the rest of the 7 routes of this game. Until next time.