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The dating sim game is one of those quintessential staples of otaku culture. Equal parts visual novel, choose-your-own adventure, “sims” style simulation, and harem anime, this style of game basically puts you, the (usually) male protagonist, in various situations with a variety of (usually) females, and your job is to talk to (or otherwise interact with) them as you go through your (virtual) daily life. By making the right conversational/action choices, you can raise a character’s “love meter,” eventually causing them to “date” you (at which point, congratulations! A Winner is You!). If you fail to accomplish this within the proscribed time limit, then… oh well, better luck next time! Many of these titles do in fact include salacious content, but there are many titles that don’t. (Also some games are released in both “explicit” and “tame” versions.)
Most of these games are of course produced in Japan, and remain largely unknown to a non-Japanese audience. In recent times however a few companies have arisen that license many of the more popular titles and translate and release them for western audiences. Some of the more well known of these include JAST USA, Aksys, and MangaGamer. And, like the anime and manga worlds, there are quite a few unofficial fan translations out there as well. There are a very few non-Japanese developed games in this category, but the love-sim industry remains largely Japanese-dominated.
Well one company is hoping to change that. Okashi Studios, founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, has been working these past five years to bring to market one of the first full-fledged American-made commercial dating sims — and their efforts are finally available for public viewing. Shira Oka: Second Chances puts you in the role of someone who has been given the chance to go back in time and relive their past. Will you make the most of your life? Will you end up with the girl of your dreams? Only time will tell. The game is, of course, filled with the traditional assortment of female character types, and has the typical anime art style. The game also gives you an interesting mix of traits that you can alter for character customization. And all of this is backed by an impressive roster of American voice talent.
Unfortunately the game isn’t complete yet (they’ve been in development since 2005). However, playable demos are now available! Grab ’em today for Windows (alternate download site) and Mac (alternate download site). (Good on them for supporting Mac right out of the gate!) (UPDATE: The download is also available via BitTorrent.) The company hopes that this will spur on the development and growth of the American bishoujo industry.
You can also take a look at the promo video below the cut, and find many other videos (including some gameplay examples) on their YouTube channel.
We here at Otaku no Podcast are committed to openness and transparency. To this end I am starting a new series of periodic reports where we will inform you, the listening/viewing audience, exactly how much we’ve made off this website, and how it’s going to use.
This site (and associated podcast) is very much a labor of love for me. (Plus it gives me the excuse to play with geeky things like microphones, web server software, etc.) And, to be brutally honest, it costs me a fair amount to run. The server costs me $60/month (although since I also run my personal email and website, as well as several friends’ websites off of it, it’s not fair to associate that entire cost with Otaku – if I had to divvy it up, I’d say Otaku’s share is maybe $20-30 per month). There’s also domain renewal fees, which are about $30 per year. (ICANN, the domain registrar, is in the process of raising their rates, so I don’t have an exact figure for this) Of course, since this is my personal hobby, I don’t mind paying for it. Still, I’m not the sort to turn away any assistance, and to that end we have two money-making methods in place here. (Although, “money making” is a relative term – as you’ll soon see, we’re not exactly talking gobs of money here…) Read below for the current state of things, and how the funds will be used.
I really, really hate the vuvuzela. The noise that those cursed “instruments” make sounds to me like a cross between a pair of yaks mating, and a pair of yaks dying an excruciatingly painful death. As I wrote previously, those abominations were all over the LA Convention Center during Anime Expo, and it seemed to me that practically every few seconds, the center was filled with that abominable noise. Really distracting, and even worse, a potential medical liability for those especially close to the offensive noisemaker.
Now before you soccer (or football, as it’s known in places outside of the US) fans get your knickers in a bunch, fear not. I have absolutely no problem with the vuvuzela, in its proper context — i.e. during the World Cup. What I don’t agree with, however, is its use outside of said venue — more specifically, at Anime Expo (really, any anime convention). Because the correlation factor between anime conventions and the World Cup is precisely 0.00. (yes, even if you’re cosplaying as someone from Captain Tsubasa. There ain’t no vuvuzelas in that work…)
Well, great news for all you Baltimoreans: in a shocking display of sanity and common sense, Otakon has banned the vuvuzela. Their announcement on the matter is short and sweet:
Absolutely no vuvuzelas or similar loud noisemakers are permitted within Otakon. Vuvuzelas and other noisemakers within convention buildings are subject to confiscation. Blowing a vuvuzela or similar noisemaker may lead to ejection from the convention.
Angel Beats! is one of the more interesting anime to come out of the Spring 2010 anime lineup. The story (and screenplay) was conceived and written by Jun Maeda, one of the cofounders of Key, the visual novel company famous for such works as Kanon, Air, and Clannad, many of which were later adapted into successful anime series. (Kanon, in particular, is a fantastically moving piece and is one of my all-time favorites). However, unlike these, Angel Beats! is not based on a visual novel, but is an original creation.
While it doesn’t come close to Kanon or Clannad in terms of story and character depth — part of this is no doubt because Angel Beats! was only given a 13-episode run — it was still interesting and enjoyable. A full review is forthcoming.
One of the more unusual character in the series is TK, a strange guy who tends to bust out some flashy dance moves at random times, and speaks in a weird mix of nonsensical Japanese and English phrases. But his antics are always humorous and he seems to be a fan favorite, as evidenced by the many pages and videos devoted to him that can be found across the intarwebs. One video in particular aims to collect all of the “TK moments” sprinkled throughout the series and present them back to back.
Can the universe handle this overwhelming level of TK-ness compressed into a single point in space-time? Check out the video to find out. And definitely check out Angel Beats! – I sorely hope that this thing gets properly licensed soon.
Yeah, I know, you might be thinking “wtf? two Cool Finds of the Day” But this is just too cool to pass up…
I love K-ON!. I admit this proudly and with no hesitation. And if you want to diss me for it, or think less of me as a person because of it, then you can just suck it. Yes, dammit, it’s moeblob at it’s finest. No, there isn’t any Grand Overarching Plot(TM) to the thing. (Hello? McFly? It’s a slice of life…) And no, I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the known universe. But, gosh darnit, it’s FUN. And it actually contains some decent music pieces. And, if anecdotal evidence (and a search of the YouTubes) is to be believed, it’s spurring people on to discover the joys of music (or pick up an instrument that they had let languish for a while). Which makes K-ON! “OK-ON!” in my book. (Yes, I know, lame pun.)
One YouTuber in particular is having a grand old time with K-ON!’s music. Meet Senri Kawaguchi, professional drummer, who started playing at the tender age of five. And, by the way folks, she’s only 13 years old now!!! (What were YOU doing when you were 13?) I wrote about her previously, back when I happened across her stunning rendition of “Don’t say ‘lazy’.” Well, she’s been busy since then, cranking out renditions of many other K-ON! themes and insert songs.
Like I said before, I really doubt Ritsu herself could do any better. As one YouTube commenter put it, it would be a travesty if they ever decided to make a live action K-ON! and didn’t cast Ms. Kawaguchi in the role of Ritsu.
Below you can enjoy a clip of her drumming along to “Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss,” one of my favorite songs from the series. You can watch her other videos (K-ON! inspired or otherwise) at her YouTube channel, or find out more about her (if you read Japanese… if not, perhaps The Fish might help) at her official website. She’s also got a Facebook fan page, which, thankfully, is (at least mostly) in English.
Welcome to Cool Finds, a new category/segment/whatever where I will be bringing cool anime or manga related things I happen to find in my journeys around the interwebs. Could be a website dedicated to a certain series/character, a video, a game, whatever. Either way, I’m sure you’ll like it. So enjoy!
Vocaloid is a pretty amazing piece of vocal synthesizer software developed by Yamaha of Japan. By supplying it with lyrics and a melody, you can have it synthesize the singing of said lyrics, using your choice of a variety of voices, both male and female, based on samples taken from actual voice actors/actresses and singers. The result sound surprisingly good. Compare this to the good old US of A’s entry into this space, the hilariously bad Microsoft Songsmith. (Don’t believe me about the hilariously bad part? Then take a look at this. Or this. Or even this.) (Yes, I know, Songsmith doesn’t do exactly what Vocaloid does. With Songsmith, you sing the lyrics, and it’ll create a melody around them. But the concept is similar enough that I think it applies here. Besides, my blog, my rules.) Anyway, the Vocaloid software is so popular that the Japanese have even created anime-ish representations of the various voices, as they are wont to do. One of the most popular is Hatsune Miku, who is so popular that she has “released” not only quite a few albums featuring her singing, but is featured in several games as well.
Anyway, a popular pastime among some otaku is apparently to take popular music, be it anime theme songs, Jpop songs, etc., and substitute in Vocaloid-created vocals instead of the original vocals. Well, one otaku took this one step further. He or she took K-ON!’s opening theme, “Cagayake! Girls” and Vocaloided (is that a verb? If not I declare that it should be) the lyrics using Hatsune Miku’s voice. But they didn’t stop there, oh no! They went on to create a new version of the K-ON! opening animation, featuring the Vocaloid characters instead of the usual cast. The animation is spot-on accurate to the original. They even did a good job (IMHO) in matching the various Vocaloids to whatever K-ON! character they were replacing. I cannot imagine how much effort this took.
Ah, summertime. Vacation. The beach. Girls in swimsuits. Fireworks. Matsuri. Watermelon eating contests. Barbecues. The chirping of cicadas. (if you’re in the right part of the world that is, and you’re at the right time in their life cycle.) Oh, and yet another crop of anime to feast your eyes upon. Yay!
Once again, Japanator comes through with another one of their fantastic 30,000 foot overviews of the coming anime landscape. Same routine as before – capsule description, studio and key staff involved, air date, and a shiny happy picture for you to look at. You can read all about it in their four part overview – part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.
Did you have so much fun at Anime Expo this year that you’ve resolved to definitely attend next year, come hell or high water? Or maybe you couldn’t make it this year because of financial reasons, but really want to try and go next year? Or maybe you’re a tightwad and want to try and save as much money as possible? (hey, gotta set aside as much as you can to buy anime after all…)
Well, if you act quickly, you can pre-register now for a full 4-day pass, for the amazingly low price of $45! Considering that this year’s regular pre-reg price for a 4-day pass was $75, and at-the-door pricing was a whopping $85, that’s quite a savings. But you only have until this Friday, July 9 to get this special pricing. So hurry up and reg, why don’tcha?! (Operators are standing by…)
Next year’s AX is sure to be even more awesome than usual, because it’s their 20th anniversary! Who knows what cool guests and other surprises they’ll pull out for this special occasion? I for one am dying to find out. The next 365 days are going to be unbearable…
I write this from our tiny hotel room at the Kawada, on the eve of AX Day 4, after an enforced 4 hour-ish nap. Anime Expo 2010 was another phenomenal event. Some among our panelists will disagree (and I’m sure they’ll elaborate during our inevitable Panel Review of Doom, which we’ll try to get to within the next week or two). Me, I still think AX has a place in the grand scheme of things, and I’ll keep on going. (But then again, I don’t mind the crowds, which I think is their main complaint with AX).
What I did have issue with is the sudden fee hikes. Pre-reg was a whopping $75 per this year, and while I don’t specifically recall last year’s pricing, I think that this year the increase was rather sharp and sudden. The general tone of the event was “nickel and dime.” People staying at con hotels were no longer given complimentary event tickets and were forced to purchase tickets to the events that they wanted to go to. They once again charged for shuttle service (although they did throw in free shuttle service as a last minute gesture to 4-day attendees, which I thought was a nice gesture.) The Meet the Guests reception tickets took a sharp increase ($50 as opposed to somewhere around $25-30 last year); I also hear that they cheaped out on the food. What did it for me was them charging $1.99 for the iPhone app. Good on them for making an iPhone app — and a fantastic app it was — as well as the SCHED system, which was quite usable from most other smartphones; but charging $1.99 for it along with all the other price hikes seemed a bit crass to me.
Speaking of shuttles, because of an incident that happened (more on that later) we were unable to use the shuttles for the majority of our stay; however according to friends, apparently the shuttles were once again running late fairly regularly. Also, honestly, some of those buses should really be put out to pasture. Seriously.
The staff, on the whole, was friendly and largely knew what they were doing; on those occasions when they didn’t, they went out of their way to work with us to find the solution to our problem. Their one weak point is still in the disabled services department. It was a challenge finding exactly where to go, and then trekking halfway across the convention center to get there. They should really integrate disabled services as part of the standard registration process. Also some staff were confused as to the meaning of the “priority access” badge inserts that us disabled attendees received. We were turned away from and/or denied priority seating at a few events because of this confusion. Fortunately once additional staffers who knew what was going on arrived, we were seated without further delay. I believe these may be the same as the “AX Premier” badges, so perhaps those people had trouble as well.
However, we did have issue with the convention center staff. Oh, the ones we interacted with were friendly enough. Our problem was that there just weren’t enough of them. Specifically security. This is thanks to some serious budget cuts at the LACC. As a result there was quite a bit of horsing around going on, which can be very dangerous, especially around stairs and elevators and the like. Sadly, this resulted in one of our panelists receiving a rather serious injury. Nothing permanent, thankfully, but it still involved a rather expensive and nasty trip to the hospital on the wrong side of town…
Another thing we had issue with… What the frak is it with the vuvuzelas? They were EVERYWHERE, and practically every 30 seconds I was hearing that most abhorrent noise that sounds like a cross between a pair of yaks in heat, and a pair of yaks dying an excruciatingly painful death. Super annoying! I seriously wanted to run up to every vuvuzela wielder, yank it out of their hands, and shove the thing… right up a very dark and personal space, if you catch my drift. This is frakkin’ Anime Expo, NOT the World Cup. And unless you’re cosplaying someone from Captain Tsubasa, they have no place here. Hell, even if you were cosplaying as someone from that series, I still think they’re inappropriate, because I don’t ever recall seeing them there. Gahhhh!!!!
This year marks the return of the Nokia Theater as the venue for the main events (AMV, Masquerade, and concerts). This was fantastic, as the Nokia Theater has excellent stadium-style sloped seating (makes taking pictures that much easier, less of a chance of someone’s head getting in your way), and their sound and video system is phenomenal. In 2008 (the last time Nokia Theater was used) we had some trouble with the staff not knowing at which events photography was allowed at — we were harassed for taking pictures at Masquerade. We also had trouble with getting disabled assistance and bag check. Not this year. The Nokia Center staff conducted themselves with professionalism and courtesy, and we weren’t hassled at all over photography or any other issue.
The events themselves were terrific. Each year I am constantly amazed at the creativity and talent of the AMV creators and the cosplayers. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the AMVs — we arrived after registration and badge pickup were closed for the day; however they rescreened all the videos on Saturday, and barring a minor technical glitch or two, it went off smoothly. Masquerade also went smoothly, and actually started more or less on time (shocking, I know). This year, rather than that same old masquerade host (whose jokes were honestly getting a wee bit old) Masquerade was hosted by a trio of MC’s. They handled their job admirably, although the female MC was a bit ditzy for my taste
However, the highlight for me has to be Friday’s concert featuring Megumi Nakajima and May’n. Fans of Macross Frontier will know these two names; Megumi Nakajima is the voice actress who provided both the speaking and singing voices for Ranka Lee , and May’n provided the singing voice for Sheryl Nome. I recently had the pleasure of watching Frontier (I wrote about previously) and the music from this show really stood out in my mind. Seeing these two perform on stage was a real treat. They performed many of the songs featured in Frontier, including a really rousing rendition of “Lion” (my favorite opening theme from the series), a heartfelt acoustic version of “Diamond Crevasse,” and a truly moving performance of the haunting Vajra theme “Aimo.” Sadly we missed the first half of the concert, but the part we did see was incredible. Japanator has a great writeup, including some awesome pictures.
Oh yeah, there was that little matter of my two panels. They went off beautifully. Tech staff was extremely helpful and got us set up in a jiffy for both talks. And — THERE WERE PEOPLE!!! This especially shocked me at the 9 AM panel – with such an early schedule, on a Sunday morning, on lastday, and after a Saturday night’s drunken debauchery, I was expecting a rather miserable turnout. I was pleasantly surprised. There were at least 20 at the morning talk, and I’d say at least 50 at the afternoon talk. Everyone I talked to found the information extremely useful and they had some great questions. To those of you who attended, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. The notes from the podcasting panel are already up; I’m still working on the photography panel notes (give me a few days – I still have to recover from AX) but they should be online by the end of the week.
What will probably take me a bit longer are pictures. I shot over 2,000 pictures around the convention and at Masquerade. (no, unfortunately I didn’t shoot OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND…) Those will take quite a while to properly edit. In the meantime, Japanator has started posting some of theirs (and awesome ones at that), which you can feast your eyes on here and here. (EDIT 2010-07-05: And here, and here as well.) (EDIT 2010-07-06: Last two AX cosplay photo galleries from Japanator are finally up here and here.) ANN has their own cosplay photo gallery, as well as a gallery of photos taken in the exhibit hall (dealer’s room) and around various parts of the con in general.
What will also take me a fair amount of time to digest is the news coming out of AX. I simply did not have the energy to attend every panel I wanted to. As I get the time, and as the fog of tiredness gradually lifts from my brain, I’ll go through the news items and latest releases and blog about the ones that interest me, adding my own spin on things; but in the meantime you can feel free to check out ANN’s and Japanator’s coverage of all things AX.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll crawl back into my cave and hibernate for a few more months…
B Gata H Kei is one of the titles that’s part of the Spring 2010 anime lineup I wrote about a while ago. I honestly didn’t really have any interest in following the series, but for the hell of it, downloaded one episode. Then downloaded the next one when it came out. And so on. While it’s by no means a masterpiece, it still has its moments and remains entertaining and, erm, tittilating as well. The story follows the, ahem, “exploits” of high school student Yamada, whose goal in life is to, ahem, “score” with 100 “sex buddies” (most of the fansub groups have chosen to use a somewhat ruder phrase). For her first conquest, she sets her sights on poor hapless Takashi Kosuda, a shy and inept everyman. Still, for such a salacious sounding topic, there is (in this humble blogger’s opinion) relatively little hanky-panky going on, especially when compared to another member in the Spring 2010 lineup — more on that later. Instead the anime chooses to focus more on the romantic comedy aspect of things.
Still, it would seem that even the mere notion of such a plot line is too hot to handle for some. The anime’s production committee recently posted a report to B Gata H Kei’s official website stating that they have received multiple threatening letters, asking for changes in the anime’s content and presentation, lest unspecified harmful things happen to the studio and/or writers. The production committee has chosen to brazenly ignore these threats and have notified local authorities.
What I want to know is why these warriors of virtue have chosen to single out B Gata, when there is much more salacious material out there. I’m not even talking hentai, I’m talking another series in the Spring 2010 lineup: Kiss x sis. There’s much more naughtiness going on here than B Gata. (Choco Banana, anyone?) In fact I’m surprised that this isn’t even listed as downright hentai. There have been episodes of KxS that have made me blush and feel uncomfortable — and believe me, I’m not exactly the prudish sort. (Of course, I can’t help but keep watching either…)
Of course, for all we know, maybe these defenders of morality have also contacted the Kiss x sis staff, who have chosen to remain silent and ignore these whiners as they should.
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I write this from our tiny hotel room at the Kawada, on the eve of AX Day 4, after an enforced 4 hour-ish nap. Anime Expo 2010 was another phenomenal event. Some among our panelists will disagree (and I’m sure they’ll elaborate during our inevitable Panel Review of Doom, which we’ll try to get to within the next week or two). Me, I still think AX has a place in the grand scheme of things, and I’ll keep on going. (But then again, I don’t mind the crowds, which I think is their main complaint with AX).
