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School Shock is now up for review, as my present to you for the start of the new year. If you recall my previous post, I awarded this series the series of the year award. SO I will now review it, as it was series of the year 2011 and this is now 2012. Not only will I praise what I found in it to make it deserving of such an award, but I will also NOT gloss over the issues it has. Call it tough love.

Plot: Well, it is a bit of a rip-off or every mecha manga and anime ever created, in that it takes place in the future and involves some sort of new super-weapon developed in secret by the countries of the world. Except in this case, it takes place in the NEAR future, 2017 to be precise, and the super weapons are cyborg girls who fly around with robotic insectesque abdomens attached to them. Although an actual bipedal/humanoid mecha does make an appearance at several points, it isn’t the focus of the series.

Read the rest of this entry →

Alright, a review of Boku No Futatsu No Tsubasa.Translated into English, the title means ‘My Two Wings’which I will use to refer to the series from now on, as the untranslated title is like a tongue twister for your keyboard.

Actually, how is My Two Wings even related in any way to the story? Answer: it isn’t.

Right, let’s start by looking at what it gets classified as, and then explain why most of them are wrong. People classify it as: adult, comedy, ecchi, gender bender, harem, mature, romance, school life, sci-fi, seinen and yuri.

Right, first, the plot. The story is about a girl? guy? all of the above who moves to a new high school with her cousin (the main female character.) From there,they pursue all those things you see in high school manga, such as love and romance and relationships. And like every high school manga, there is sadness and breakups and cheating and such.

Of course, My Two Wings has to take those all the way to eleven and have a student cheating on his girlfriend with a teacher and other situations like that. Is it trying to be shocking? Is it merely trying to outdo other mangas? In either case, it does neither of those.

And of course, as the main character is gender wise all of the above, that needs to be played up for comedy, especially in the relationship area, as love hotels are to this school what pocky is to, well, most any other school life manga. Read the rest of this entry →

Alright, let’s talk a little about a game that has yet to be released. Sonicomi, or Sonico Communications, is a game based off a drawing.

I am not joking about that. Nitro+ has hosted their ‘Nitro Super Sonic’event yearly since 2000, and Sonico started out as a nameless girl drawn as a promotional poster for Nitro Super Sonic 2007.

Somehow, that nameless girl caught the hearts of a lot of people who saw her, and quickly became a favorite for fanart. None of which is really SFW.

She is now calles Super Sonico after the event she advertised for, and the entire game is basically to appeal to her fans. there are already artbooks and figures of her available for purchase, most of which are NSFW, and as such, will not be linked.

And, with a recent update from the DannyChoo network, their mascot Mirai will be appearing in the game.

Mascots of a popular website, NSFW fanart of a person, everything so far appears to be catering to the fans, so my cynicism is at DEFCON 5 and ready for the release of the game. All of those things spell out trouble.

But I can’t say anything until I have played it, as I am not a loser fanboy, but an amateur reviewer (the difference between amateur and professional is an amateur makes less than half their income from something. Fun fact of the day.)

There are so many photos that are safe for work that I will not be posting them up. However, I will give a couple links to websites that discuss it and the one has the PV for the game.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978467914

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/25830/SoniComi.html

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/25947/Sonico+and+Mirai.html

Read through those before continuing on. Read them? Good.

This brings me to why I gave it an award for may innovate, may be awful. Look at the PV-unlike every other game I can think of, she MOVES. Deus Makina Demonbane has animated scenes, but the rest of the time, everything is the typical paper cutout character.

Not only does she move, but you can interact with her. It isn’t just click an option when prompted, you can select to make a choice, then hold her hand or something. Until now, there has been no game that has provided this unprecedented level of interaction in a VN. Interaction is a critical part of games-It’s why many VNs and dating sims can be hard to run through in one go. Sure, they may take less time than reading the book or books, but the tactile interaction is gone, replaced with a click every line of dialogue or action.

And, back to the PV for a moment. Notice how, instead of taking a jump pose, she actually DOES the physical action of a jump.

Consider this for a moment: most all VNs have little interaction beyond click a choice when prompted. They have a little less holding out interest than those Goosebumps choose-your-own-adventure books. Now, consider one of the recently made great games, Mass Effect. You can pursue a relationship, but the game requires interaction with other elements, people, or events to progress along a path. Every VN says ‘you decide to walk to the park. What will you do next? (choose one.)’

Mass Effect requires you to travel to the park physically. You interact with the environment and other characters not part of the relationship. You build up  greater understanding of the character by your actions and the reactions of others around you.

I am by no means saying that VNs should abandon what they are and try to ape Mass Effect. But I will state my theory-Interaction in a VN, eroge, H game, dating sim, etc will make it a more liked experience and a more memorable one when compared to a standard VN.

To talk about another game real quick, that theory is why I would actually like to play Gun-Katana, despite it being an H game. It is interactive. You as the player hold conversations and ‘conversations’but at other times, you have to go out and take an action by DOING said action, not clicking a choice. Suddenly, advancement in the story relies on skill. If you need to do X thing at Y level, and only do it at N level, then you won’t progress along the same story path that someone who did it at Z level will have.

And that is what I HOPE Sonicomi will do: blend together interaction and story in a way that will be worth playing. Interaction in the form of animated, moving, 3d-esque characters and interacting with them by doing an action, and interacting with other characters and your environment as well. They have a much greater palette to tell their story by, I hope it makes Sonicomi the needed Vista Service Pack, not the one that breaks all your programs.

To prove through (circumstantial) evidence that interaction coupled with story make a very engrossing and potentially powerful storytelling tool, this preview is a week late because I spent that time playing through the Korean made MMO Vindictus. It has a very well done and rather dark story, yet it is highly interactive. Maybe I will actually review it someday.

For those who may be interested in Sonicomi and don’t already know, her SFW website is located here: http://supersonico.jp/sonicomi/

There is a trial version available for download, and a twitter feed if you care.

Okay, I finally will discuss this topic. I had been really hoping to put it off due to its controversial nature and the fact that there are points I could rant on and on about.

To ease my burden, prevent myself from ranting, and to really cover the bases, I suggest you, dear reader, watch the Extra Credits episode in Piracy.

First, they do an amazing job of discussing the topic. Yes, they are a games show. Just listen, then come back and continue reading this.

First off, that video was related. Scans are, in essence, piracy. You are taking work that doesn’t belong to you thanks to the action of another party putting said work up for free on the internet.

Let’s talk differences. Most games that get put up for piracy are usually games that have absolutely awful DRM. And, as the video said, the pirated basically offer a free version without the bugs and DRM. Basically, why buy when you can get the better version for nothing? Now, scans (and fansubs, by extension) are still piracy. So, let’s really examine how they are different. Most scans and fansubs are shows released in Japan, and that will either make it to English speaking markets ‘eventually’or never. Most fansubs are up shortly after the show airs-which is a lot faster than many streaming sites will have it. Why pay a monthly fee for a streaming site when you can watch the same show with subs for free only hours after it airs, instead of a couple weeks (at the worst.)

In short, fansubs and scans are a faster way of getting media, and in some cases, the only way.

So, why not just go with subs and scans? Well, fansubs and scans are usually of poor quality. International Copyright Law is also a bit of an interested party here. Pirating games may be a federal crime if you pirate games from a U.S. company. But scans are different-they violate an international law. You get prosecuted under terms set forth in international treaties, and will pay a very hefty fine and jail time, assuming someone does something. Scans and subs are also inconsistent and poorly translated.

Okazu had an article on translating manga and anime, I suggest you read it.

Read it? Okay, basically, you need an experienced team of people to make a good translation. They aren’t cheap. In addition, am official release is in line with what the author envisions for the series. Meaning, the character names will be how the author feels best, the items, plot points, places, etc are all as close as possible to how the author wrote, or their intentions of, the origional series.

Now, my opinion. I agree with Extra Credits. I myself have written a few short stories, and I am working on a game. I don’t speak Japanese, nor Chinese, nor Vietnamese, nor Korean. If I actually finish that game, yes, I would like to make money off of it.

But, I can’t translate it, not can I afford translators. I would rather people download it and play it then them not having access to it. Same goes for manga-especially older manga-there simply may be no other way to access a good work.

Which is the problem-many worthwhile manags and animes will never see an English release. Which is rather unfortunate, as many are as I just said, worthwhile. Maybe not the greatest, but certainly worht reading, and worth buying.

TO sum up, scans and fansubs are in some cases the only option for what you want to read. I just find a chapter of Fuusuke on the manga reader app on Android. It was a scan. If you would like to object to that fact, tell me where I can actually buy a manga written in the 1960′s. It wasn’t very good, but it was the only way I could find it. And believe me, I searched for it. I would rather buy than scan or fansub. And I have read other scan series, which I will precede to discuss below (the mini-reviews!)

I also have somehting I suggest you do after this section, so please bear with me. And if you do look at any of those, or even if you don’t, please take said action and have friends take said action.

The Series:

#1: Super-Dreadnought Girl 4946-an amusing series about a giant girl who fights monsters, many of which are also giant. It is a silly story with some romance thrown in, and worthreading

#2: Sora No Otoshimo-this series does have many fans, although I personally detest it. But, some elements are things many others will be fans of, so I suggest at least taking a look

#3: Boku No Futatsu No Tsubasa-it is adult, and ecchi, but not fully H. A mature person who is under 18 could handle it. basically, there is a main character who is different, because she is a H manga fetish character alien-human mix, who then proceeds to try to find love and friends. It is worth reading, due to the fact the author did take a fetish character and make a very good manga out of them that isn’t fetishy (well, the ecchi moments might be a little bit) overall

#4: School Shock-I was rather surprised by this one. I wasn’t too sure about it, due to it being mecha and all. But it provides a very unique new twist on the mecha genre, which lovers of giant robots will hate, but everyone else will see actually does a good job of being mecha(nical.) It actually manages to take all the good elements of Evangelion, and wrap them up in a new story that also manages to have none of the bad of Evangelion. Plus, it is a little bit harder sci-fi (mohs scale of sci-fi hardness) and it doesn’t seem to violate the square/cube law. Being a series with few chapters, we will see where it goes, but at the moment, it is quite good. perhaps it may even be the next Evangelion. None of the over the top characters that people hated, none of the things one would call faults. Yet. It is in its infancy, so we will have to wait and see if it can develop the plot depth and grey on grey morality and intrigue that Evangelion managed. I highly recommend it (despite one little bit I count rant about for a couple paragraphs.)

Well, I don’t think I made it to obvious which of those I found to be my favorite.

They are all manga that are worth reading (for most), yet as of now, have no plans for an English release.

So, here is what I request of you, and what I do myself when I find a good manga series that is only in scans due to no english version planned. Write a letter or send an email to the company that publishes/owns the manga.

Say you loved it as a scan, kindly request they put it into english, and offer to buy it if they do. then, if they eventually do, carry out your word and buy it.

Look, if a fraction of the people who read scans or watched fansubs took a moment to send in a letter saying ‘This series is great. Please make it available in my country. If you do, I’ll gladly buy it. Heck, I’d pre-order it.’

Afternote: I am wrapping up my reviews for this year, as winter is moving into where I live, which results in bad storms, several feet of snow, power loss lasting up to a week, and tree limbs (and entire trees) falling.

I cannot guarantee how much I can review for your benefit through the rest of this year, dear reader, so I will most likely award some awards to some good and some bad series in my next post and call it an end for 2011, unless I can get more reviews posted.

I mentioned four series above, and gave a short little tidbit about them. If you would like me to actually do a full review when I can manage, please say so.