High School Life of a Fudanshi

High School Life of a Fudanshi

Saturday, June 18, 2016 / No Comments

Have you tried buying something ecchi before? The heat on your cheeks, fast heartbeat, awkward eye contact. Well, Sakaguchi knows. Except he's buying BL ヾ(o✪‿✪o)ｼ

First things first, this isn't Boys Love. Well, it focuses on the topic though. This is a humorous manga about BL! I smiled the whole time reading it. A fudanshi is not so different from being a fujoshi. I can relate! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و

The main character, Sakaguchi, looks at the world around him the way fujoshi look at manga, with BL eyes.

He has a BL sensor!

The manga also dips a little into transvestism and crossdressing (although Sakaguchi is unaware of that second one).

By the way, he and his best friend Nakamura are really close too... *wriggles eyebrows* I'm kidding, Nakamura feels straighter than a flag pole to me. Speaking of Nakamura, I really like him!

Despite having no interest in BL, he entertains Sakaguchi's BL talk for hours, and (unwillingly) acts as a shield for Nakamura to spy on people.

Nakamura's verbal vomit after mulling over the plot of a BL Sakaguchi shared.

He even sits through Sakaguchi's fantasizing.

When Nakamura asked why not go to a boy's school which would be better for *ahem* Sakaguchi's interests, Sakaguchi says he likes the forbidden feeling of BL in a mixed school! "Even with girls surrounding me, I chose a boy" kind of feeling... Sakaguchi is scary Σ(゜ロ゜;)

However, Nakamura draws the line at accompanying Sakaguchi to buy BL.

Actually, Nakamura draws the line at Twitter as well.

But before long, Sakaguchi finds a kindred spirit! A *drumroll please* fujoshi!

Illegal transactions aside, Sakaguchi bought BL doujin of Nakamura and a senpai?! (((╹д╹;)))

This is bad, how is Sakaguchi going to explain himself! Who drew the doujin! For more, please check out Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu yourself!

Written by Nana

Review: Mobile RPG Tales of Link & Collab with Brave Frontier

Review: Mobile RPG Tales of Link & Collab with Brave Frontier

Thursday, June 16, 2016 / No Comments

Two years on from my review on Brave Frontier (shameless plug here), it’s kinda lost its shine. What revives it – for me at least – is when new evolution tiers or collaborations are released.

The latest? A crossover event with fellow mobile game Tales of Link, created by Bandai Namco Entertainment. For a limited time, players can obtain special, cross-platform, playable characters, through a series of multiple collaborative in-game events.

Special characters. Cross-platforms. Limited time only. Oh, yesss.

  

Recognise any "Tales of " characters here?

Best known for its “Tales of” franchise, Bandai Namco’s been in business for 20 years, releasing over 16 million copies of games in over 100 countries, spawning multiple game titles and related media built upon the Tales multiverse. A little like Final Fantasy. Just when you think it’s over…here comes another one.

Given I’m too cheap to shell out money for game consoles, my only understanding of “Tales of” was Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, released on PlayStation Portable, donated by a kind soul. Beyond that, I’ve watched their anime titles: Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Vesperia.

In a way, Tales of Link is similar to Radiant Mythology, just developed for the mobile platform. It’s free to download, but offers in-app purchases, as most mobile games do – suck you in, enchant you, and then slowly pick at the numbers of your credit card till there’s nothing left.

It heavily emphasises on crossover appearances of characters from past games in the series, while relying on a tried and tested plot formula. “Oh, great and merciful amnesiac hero, please save us! You’re our only hope! We offer you a whiny sidekick, an overstuffed plush mascot and the rustiest sword in our inventory, and pray you deliver us from evil!”

Or, as marketed on Google Play,

‘TALES OF LINK is set in a world protected by the “Seal of the Holy Shrine.” When the seal to the heavenly world is suddenly broken, the “Seed of Ruin" is unleashed, scattering demons across the land. These demons bring inevitable disaster and threaten to inflict war and suffering on the world, and it’s up to you to stop them!’

Jokes aside, Tales of Link is ridiculously enjoyable. So enjoyable that it was almost too good to be true. To make a fair assessment, I played this game for at least a week before writing this review.

It's painfully difficult to swipe and take a screenshot at the same time.

Rather than a turn-based sequence, or a console-style system, you attack via a matching formula. It’s a vicious game of Tic-tac-toe, where you literally “link” characters to perform attacks or healing combos.

It combines a surprisingly idiot-proof gameplay, a low learning curve that even the most baseless of users can appreciate, and stunningly quirky visual designs. The game loads quickly, with little lag time. Given that my phone heats up significantly and drains battery life during high usage, Tales of Link barely raised the temperature – or my temper.

So the smartphon is a holy relic in Tales of Link, huh?
Then again, I've seen people turn very holy when their phone batteries go flat.

The story dialogue is witty (with a good mix of smart one-liners and heavy-handed end-of-the-world moaning), and the anime-style scenes load quickly without making me want to immediately skip it – something that Brave Frontier has never been able to achieve. Honestly, if you commission a storywriter to spend that much effort writing plot dialogues, the least you could do is build a platform where it can be appreciated.

As a current Brave Frontier player, I received this special unit in Tales of Link

The bad: Tales of Link is a very young game. Its international release was in the first quarter of 2016, with an install rate of 100,000 - 500,000 on Android – to compare, Brave Frontier claims to have a download rate of over 30 million. Dedicated or sponsored wikis, if they exist, are woefully inadequate, which makes strategising painful guesswork.

As part of the collaboration, Brave Frontier players will be able to receive Tales of Link characters via vortex dungeons.

Those unfamiliar with the Tales franchise might also not fully appreciate the games, or its characters. Even so, it’s easy enough to pick up. If you’re looking for an RPG game that’s casual enough to pass the time, but won’t drain your brain cell, then Tales of Link might just be for you. Have fun swiping!

Note: the collaboration between Tales of Link and Brave Frontier will end on 26 June.

Written by Edmund

Yami Shibai: Kami

Yami Shibai: Kami

Wednesday, June 15, 2016 / No Comments

An acquaintance had once told me of a hair-raising experience that she had while clocking late hours at work. As always, her position as an elementary school teacher would demand quite considerably of her to put in extra for the curriculum and her students. Hence, she would easily get engrossed in her duties that anything around her seemed nondescript. However, that one night had turned her life around. As she related her story to me, I could sense a heightened fear lurking about. Just what had been so frightening that made her a different person overnight?

"Hair," her voice had trembled. But I realised that there was a subtle pun to that as well, since in Japanese the word 'kami' could refer to either hair or paper. That night saw her putting together study materials for her students. The singular light from the teachers' office had stood out effortlessly as complete darkness settled in around the school premises. Some more time had passed, and she finally heaved a sigh of relief. The notes were done, and all that remained was the photocopying. She set the printer in place, and test-copied the document. What came out of the out-tray however baffled her.  

The photocopy had a few thin lines of black across the page, yet they weren't ink smudges or anything like that. The black lines were clean though somewhat jagged. Naturally, she reached for the lid to check for any problem with the equipment. A horrific sight greeted her as the lid opened; it was the head of a woman with long, dishevelled hair just beneath the scanner! Nonetheless, she had dismissed that as an illusion since she had been overworking and such. She didn't think any more to it, and just wanted to finish her work for the night.

Quite unfortunately, that little mishap was only the beginning of her gradually manifesting fear. Even though she had been conscious enough to derive that there shouldn't be anybody else in the school building late in the night, she didn't think that there could be a supernatural presence around. After all, working late was considered part of her life, and nothing peculiar had occurred until that very night. Eventually, she returned to her photocopying, only to be thrown back by increasingly bizarre occurrences. At the last straw, she simply reopened the lid, and this time she no longer thought that she had been imagining things.

On top of the scanner laid many strands of long hair, and as if on cue the hair began to slip downwards into one of the side compartments. Terrified but still determined to resolve the erratic machine, she bravely bent down to where all that hair had gone into, and opened forcefully. Nothing. There was nothing at all. How strange. In the end, she still wondered if all of that were merely due to work exhaustion, and then proceeded to close down the lid. She screamed.

She didn't say what happened after that, but from the uneasiness that had been showing on her face, I thought that it would be wise not to probe anything.

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪  

Of Rockman, Inafune Kenji and the release date of Mighty No. 9

Of Rockman, Inafune Kenji and the release date of Mighty No. 9

Monday, June 13, 2016 / No Comments

Today I will cover another all-time gaming favourite, the Rockman series. Now Rockman is still the title in Japanese, but they could not use that name in the west, since this was already taken. So they had to use Mega Man instead. Capcom somehow always runs into naming problems.

Rockman started on the Famicon in 1987. And the man at the helm was actually Kitamura Akira. There was no such thing as glamorous as game creator back then. He was credited as Planner. Inafune Kenji, credited with being the Rockman creator, was actually just a graphic designer, and he had joined Capcom only that year. His notable character was Adon, from Street Fighter. The static pixel for Rock was actually created by A.K. Inafune only worked on translating those to in-game pixels. The colour blue was chosen for Rock because Famicon only had 56 colours, and most were blue tinted. They were also heavily influenced by Mario. 

While sales for Rockman was decent, they were not outstanding, but they were confident and managed to persuade Capcom to release a sequel. 

Rockman 2 was released the following year, and was a huge hit in both Japan and North America. 2 was regarded as the best sequel, and this started the Rockman boom.

Kitamura resigned after 2, as he felt stifled by Capcom, and 3 was a rushed project, with Inafune having to step up as the creator instead. Inafune expressed regrets about 3, saying the game was not ready but "the company said we need to release it". He was not as enthusiastic about 3 as much as 1 or 2.

The Super Famicon was then launched and Capcom wanted to make a new Rockman on it. Rockman X was actually where Inafune took full control of the franchise, as Zero was completely his own. He got another guy to design the main character, Rock, with Zero as the second playable after you clear the game once. Capcom refused to let him use Zero, they wanted the same Rock as before.This has been the format from then on. In between X 1-5 he also created Rockman Dash, which was 3D, but it didn't sell as well. 

Inafune took on several major roles apart from Rockman as well. He did Onimusha, Dead Rising 1&2, and rose through the ranks to finally become the global head of production in April 2010. However he resigned 6 months later in October to "start his life over". This led to his Kickstarter project, Mighty No.9, finally to be released on June 2016. The image on top is the alternate character Ray. I will do an article once a review is available.

Written by Don

Figure Unboxing and Review: Nendoroid Shimamura Uzuki (Good Smile Company)

Figure Unboxing and Review: Nendoroid Shimamura Uzuki (Good Smile Company)

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To All,

Finally we are proceeding back to some Nendoroid reviews. I don't have that many Nendoroids, so you might notice an overwhelming number of scales and prize figures posted by me in comparison. Anyway, now that I have cleared enough space to display more Nendoroids, it's time to review!

Here's an image of the three schoolgirl Nendoroids I have, all with their respective fearful expression! For more information on Chitoge and Onodera Nendoroid, please refer to their respective links. 

With us today, we have the ever-sweet Shimamu from the popular series IDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls with her charming smile! The series follows the various girls from their amateur stages until they become full-fledged idols! This is definitely not a series to miss, but more about how awesome this series is would be a story for another day.

Packaging

Packaging has 2 parts for me, the box (and the design) as well as the blister.

First, let's examine Shimamu's box. It's a standard Nendoroid box, sturdy enough to hold the Nendoroid's weight. Likewise, it is well-taped at both ends, which reduces the chance of her parts dropping out of the box even if her blister opens during transport.

Design-wise, Shimamu's box is filled with shades of pink, which I'm glad for because that's the color which represents her the best. Other than her personally which matches this sweet pink, Shimamu is also a "cute" idol (I'm making reference to Deresute, a smartphone game for Cinderella girls).

Here's a shot of Shimamu in her blister, featuring all her parts. As seen, she comes with little accessories -- just a school bag and a flower to clutch in her hand. Furthermore, the flower is combined with the hand as well so you that reduces her pose-abilty. Shimamu comes with a bunch of arms, a total of three face-plates, two straight legs and one leg that's bent at approximately 90 degrees.

Base

As a standard Nendoroid base, there's no issue or anything with her base itself. On it's own, with Shimamu's head off, the stand is quite easy to get into the hole in her back. Unfortunately, unlike most long-haired Nendoroids, Shimamu's hair doesn't part at the back to allow the stand to go in between, making things a bit difficult at times to put her stand in while her head is still intact.

Posing and Assembly

This is Shimamu, straight out of the box. There is nothing special about her default faceplate as it's just a normal cheerful expression we find on numerous other Nendoroids. If anything, I do adore the crossed arms behind her back. This is a part that's missing on most other Nendoroids!

Next up, I tried posing her in her peace pose with her signature large smile that's been said to melt even the coldest of hearts. Matched with her bent leg, this pose makes it seem like Shimamu has just jumped out from, your computer screen, all prepared to cheer you up and on for today!

Here's Shimamu again, now equipped with her fearful expression. The squiggly lines in her eyes and the tears at the corners are really cute and bring this expression to life so easily! When I use this expression together with her bag and flower accessories, it make her look like she was caught plucking a flower on her way to school! It makes me want to pat her and tell her it's alright ^^;

Do note that Shimamu's side-ponytail has a joint where you can change it for different nuances.

Sculpting and Painting

Let's use this chance to look at this face-plate and her uniform! The blush lines are really subtle here and don't overwhelm her expression. In fact, they enhance it and makes Shimamu looks much miore genuine. A happy Shimamu is a good Shimamu.

Next, the uniform. The stark contrast between her blue vest with both her ribbon and the brown blazer makes her look much more detailed.As it is a small portion of the figure, the blue isn't too attention-grabbing as well. However, I'm not impressed by the color choice for the blazer's buttons. Green, especially this shade, on a brown blazer just doesn't look appealing to me. Not to mention that the buttons are a little too big as well, although I understand to make them any smaller would be difficult (but Good Smile Company has been doing many much smaller buttons in recent years, so they don't have the excuse that they can't do it).

From this picture, I'll like to point out three things: the flower, her hair seam and her bag. The flower has crisp painting and lines -- there's no paint leakage of yellow to white. That's quite impressive, seeing how small the details on the flower can be. Her hair seam is obvious, but also well hidden. What I mean by this contradictory phrase is that though the seam is perfectly visible, it does not appear out of place. Lastly, the small red cartoonish ribbon on her school bag really adds a nice touch to it.

A zoom-in on the bag shows that it's rather detailed. All the zipper lines and compartments are realistic and individually sculpted out. I especially appreciate the zipper lines on the top as they are visible when you have it displayed.

Her shoes are not just a flat brown either. Small ribbon-like structures are actually sculpted onto them, though it seems like my camera has failed its mission in this context.

Shimamu's hair is carefully sculpted. Each bunch of hair fits in with the rest and no single strand looks out of place. The flow of hair to her ponytail is amazing. The creases make it look like the hair is tightly tied, which makes the way it holds itself up at the side of her head more realistic.

Enjoyment

Shimamu is one of the characters in Cinderella Girls which had the most character development. She had fears to face, ran away from them, then finally faced and conquered them. This Nendoroid doesn't have any parts to depict her relentless internal struggle, but they bring out her idol side -- filled with all her cute cheery goodness that makes her an appealing idol that all would strive to become.

From Your Fellow Collector,

Reina-rin

Yami Shibai

Yami Shibai

Sunday, June 12, 2016 / No Comments

While on my way home one late afternoon, a distant calling of an old man encircled a handful of people near the neighbourhood park. It was nearly five o'clock, and the children were just on their way to their favourite past-time. The old man gradually came into everybody's view, also eager to begin his favourite part of the evening. A little theatre had been set up right in the middle of the park. The words 'Yami Shibai' were boldly printed across the paper screen. It was the theatre of darkness, a world filled with hair-raising, spine-chilling stories. I decided to stop for a breather, and join in the anticipation.

The stories were brief, yet enough to keep anybody with a short attention span focused. I discovered that the old man had been telling those children scary stories at the park for a rather long time. I hadn't realise it before, since I was fairly new to the neighbourhood. The storytelling was done in the style of paper puppetry, which added some fresh appeal that had been missing in many other stories. The characters and backdrops were reminiscent of the good old days when grandfathers and grandmothers would gather their grandchildren for story time.

Since they were scary stories, naturally I became more excited and craved for even more. The first offering told of a young man who had just moved into a new apartment. He saw something peculiar stuck on the high ceiling. Upon a closer look, he realised that it was a paper talisman. Irritated, the man tore away the offensive object. From afar at the opposite apartment building, a creepy woman had been staring at his actions. The man was a little freaked out by that brief moment, but decided to ignore it anyway.

The next day, after a failed attempt to ask his friend for help in unpacking, the man returned home only to find yet another paper talisman stuck on the same place. Frustrated, he removed it right away. Suddenly, the creepy woman from the opposite building sprang up at him. Apparently, she had broken into his house which explained the slight confusion when the man wanted to unlock the door. Soon, the police were alerted, and the creepy woman was arrested. Her facial expression from the back of the patrol car sent a shiver down the man's bones.  

Of course, the story didn't end there. When the man eventually returned to the apartment, thinking that he would at long last have some peace and quiet, an even more horrific sight greeted him. Beneath the table stuck a whole bunch of paper talismans, one over another. The man had completely lost it this time. What awaited him in the end was something that he wished wasn't real. Unfortunately, it was. The story ended with the voice of the old man: Oshimai. Walking home had never felt so exciting before.

Eccentrically Yours.

Written by J.Fluffysheep ♪