...is like *so* addicting! So far I've only been able to play TMGS 2nd Season through once (sorry, Yo-Jin-Bo, I had to ride a plane, so I brought my DS and got addicted...so Yo-Jin-Bo J-PS2 will be on hold for a while...). The first time I play a TMGS game I don't try for anyone, but sample everything...which made me think this time through I'm going for Wakaouji-sensei *love love* Here's a cast list:

Teru Saeki: Masakazu Morita
Katsumi Shiba: Kazuya Nakai
Itaru Hikami: Chihiro Suzuki
Kounoshin Hariya: Kenichi Suzumura
Christopher Weatherfield: Daichi Kambara
Amachi Syota: Makoto Naruse
Takafumi Wakaouji: Toshiuyuki Morikawa
Motohara Masaki: Yuuji Ueda
Kazuyuki Akagi: Kenji Nojima
Taro Majima: Kishou Taniyama
Taku Komori: Daisuke Matsubara
Tastsuko Todo: Naomi Shindou
Chiyomi Onoda: Etsuko Kozakura
Haruhi Nishimoto: Ai Maeda
Hisoka Mizushima: Yuuko Minaguchi
Himeko Hanatsubaki: Nobuko Matsuzaki
Yu Otonari: Yumiko Kobayashi
Souichi Saeki: Kouji Yada
Kid by the Sea: Satomi Koorogi
Shiho Arisawa: Yukana

Character Design: Rieko Komatsubara

Wakaouji-sensei is so cute, but still pretty manly and is visually one of the more attractive characters to me, imho. Then it's a Komori-kun and Saeki-kun. Teru-tan *heart* is so cute, too! I didn't think I'd like him, but I do...and a lot! I'm a little surprised that Shiba-kun is pretty darn attractive, too! They're all pretty cool characters, though! I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a bishounen, shota like character like Morimura. Amachi-kun doesn't really seem shota to me (Even though his first name *is* Syota.). Makoto Naruse sounds a bit like Daisuke Kishio here...if you know what I mean *wink* I'm going to have to save Teru-tan *heart* for last or something though. The guys seem to have more interesting back stories. Komori-kun wouldn't come out for me. I think I'll try for him after Wakaouji-sensei. I think Komori-kun might need a Super Renai Stalker (TM). (Haha, he was a hikki. I guessed right.)

I love cameos in games :) I already saw two in one pass through the game! One is a poster in town...and the other person appears in the sky gardens :) *squee*

Full voice is *so* nice! Good job, Konami!

The new touch system took a little getting used to, but it's pretty fun! Volcano, Wakaouji-sensei? *kya* ^///^; Oh, and gameplay is more fun in this one. There's more events even if you don't have a guy at doki doki. So far there's only one Nanpa Guy (TM) though. He's a little...lame...but...I like the point card system with buying things! Makes buying kimono and yukata *so* much easier! I haven't tried to sell any clothes back, but that's nice if you need money.

The mini games are the same as TMGS 1st Love. The chocolate one is so hard for me because I can't seem to get right and left right (as usual). This time it's helping that I've decided to think of left as "counter clockwise" and right as "clockwise"...I'm doing better and I don't have to have the instruction book out the whole time.

[spoiler] So far I found out that Terutan *heart* likes light blue and Sweet clothes. Shiba-kun likes black and Wakaouji-sama likes Elegant clothes. [/spoiler]

I didn't have to work today so I did a bit of stuff that I've been wanting to do on GameSpot.

I went ahead and added some new reviews, some old and some revamped. I was going to write a new one, but I ran out of will power.

I went and tagged some more games, adding more seiyu, script writer and artist names. I did that yesterday, too and earned myself a:

Tagger Maker
Awarded to those who've used the tagging system a good deal, enabling themselves and others to make it easier to find certain content.

emblem. Which I find I don't like as much as the first one. The last one, the King, looks pretty cool, but I don't know if there is enough about otome games for 1000 tags -_-; You see, I've tagged 739 times with 226 tags. I think tags should apply to more than one item. So I think about my tags and I change them if they don't work. Like I had "Harukanaru" as a tag for the series, but "HaruToki" is the shorthand used by fans...so I tagged all the games in the series with HauToki. So clicking that tag should bring up all the games in the series and any blogs I've written that mention the series. I tagged a lot of seiyuu names and were surprised how many games used the same seiyuu...these guys do a *lot* of work, don't they?

I also found that since I posted my walkthrough up at GameFAQs (and it shows up here, too!) on February 15th, it's gotten 132 hits...but no one's wandered over here to the old blog to say anything about it :*( But that was a *lot* more hits than I expected, so maybe I'll make a walkthrough for Yojinbo J-PS2 once I'm done playing. If by then no one says anything, maybe I'll do one more walkthrough for an otome title and then quit. *sigh* It's fun to write them, but it's a little sad that I haven't heard anything about it. But, wow...132 hits *squee* I guess some people really wanted it! I didn't think there were that many English speaking people playing the game, to tell you the truth.

But well, I'm off to play this kanji learning game for the DS...Kakitori something or other. I forgot the exact name. It just came in the mail today. I'll have to see if it's on GameSpot or not >:D

[spoiler] I'm going to use this blog entry to remind myself of how to make these things since I always seem to forget:P [/spoiler]

This is another re-edit of a review I originally posted somewhere else, under the username AoTan, of course!

Title: Yo-Jin-Bo
Maker: TWOFIVE
Platform: Win PC
Genre: Shoujo, Interactive Novel Game
Voice: Voiced, Player's character not voiced
Art: Kouji Yamashta
Scenario: Don Makkou, Ryou Mikuni, Hikaru Namiyose
Release Date: 07.29.2005
Patch: None
Official Site: http://www.twofive.co.jp/yojinbo/freude/pcside.html
Trial Version: None
Cast: Yousaburou Shiranui: Masakazu Morita, Jinnosuke Murasame: Hiroki Takahashi, Tainojyou Tsubaki: Hideo Ishikawa, Monzan Kadokura: Tetsu Ineda, Ittousai Tatsunami: Hideki Ogihara, Muneshige Tsukuba: Jyuurouta Kosugi, Hatsuhime: Nami Kurokawa, Harumoto Oono: Mitsuaki Madono, Kasumimaru Fuuma: Kishou Taniyama

Overview:
I loved playing Yo-Jin-Bo. I was a little skeptical at first, though I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was because a lot of people liked the game or had the game or whatever. Anyhoo, I liked it a lot. I think I loved it because the characters were fun...and funny. I loved all the references and parodies :) There weren't many slow parts of the game. It was all pretty interesting the whole way through. Oh, I played the original Japanese version, not the Hirameki translation.

Plot:
Sayori (your character) is a high school student who's in the history club examining the ruins of an old castle when she finds a pendant that looks like jade in the mud. Sayori takes it home, fully intending to give it to the head of the club the next day, when the pendent suspends itself in midair around the neck of a ghost princess from the past. All of a sudden, Sayori is taken to the past where she watches the princess (who's not a ghost in the past) get murdered. The next thing Sayori knows is that she is now in the princess's body and things are happening just as she'd watched them happen. Will she be able to change history and save the princess?

Gameplay:
Gameplay was a little hard initially. I'd never dealt with a timed decision branch kind of game before. It was harder to make the "right" decision with the clock ticking. Otherwise I'd say it was handled really well. I like the way the chapter titles appear before the chapters. It makes keeping track of things easier if you're going for full complete. I did notice that the decisions you'd already picked were not highlighted in another color like a lot of other games now. They did have a "Fast Forward" like option that works really well, so I didn't think replaying for full complete was really tedious (unlike some other game I can think of now). Actually I didn't use Fast Forward as much as usual because I did like hearing the sometimes corny, but amusing jokes/banter between the characters.

To be honest, Yo-Jin-Bo is a little bit cookie cutter. After two full plays of the game (maybe even after one), you'll be able to tell where the new scenes will be for each character and most of the time you're playing the same scenes to get a different ending. However, since the jokes are funny (well, at least to me), it wasn't too bad going through them again.

Settings:
Most of the basic settings were there. You are not allowed to customize the volume of each specific character...and the BGM set at minimum and Voice set at maximum still allowed the BGM to overpower the Voice sometimes. I couldn't figure out how to make "window" mode the default setting so the game always opened as full screen no matter how many times I set it to "window" mode :P

Graphics:
The art is excellent for the most part *bishounen*. I did agree with the reviews I read online though. The art is somewhat inconsistent at times. Sometimes it's gorgeous...but in a few of the CGs...well, there are major proportioning problems. If they are face to face, like her face is inches from his, then his face should not be twice the size of hers -that kind of thing. Still, most of them are gorgeous so I have to give them good points for this one. The expressions are fun to watch, too!

Sound:
The soundtrack was really good. The SFX were pretty neat –all those sword clashes were cool sounding. …but I think sometimes voice actors shouldn't sing (the voice actors sing a lot of the music in the game…sometimes the notes sounded off to me). Most of the time the BGMs were really good. I guess this is because TWOFIVE has ties with the music industry; or so I've read.

Value:
I thought Yo-Jin-Bo was a good deal. There were plenty of endings, two for each character and then the bad end where you die somewhere (this makes at least 13 that I know of). It took me a week ~ 2 weeks of play (some full days) to get all the endings, and it was fun!

Walkthroughs:
I didn't use any walkthroughs for this game, so I have none to post.

Conclusion:
I'd buy it again! …and I did. I ordered the PS2 version so that I can play the routes for Kasumimaru and Harumoto (which are not in the PC version) I'm also looking forward to the additional CGs for the kouryaku characters in the original PC version, too!

[spoiler] I also agree with a lot of other reviews on the internetz that the Yo good ending seemed a bit weak. Especially since I liked him the best and saved him for last...ouch. Still, I loved the game. I thought his CGs weren't as romantic and his back story wasn't as complete. The game never mentioned how he met the others. I mean it's pretty weird for a ninja and a farmer to hang out in that period, right? Since Yo was a ninja, why couldn't he walk down the walks or something instead of just fall in the tower scene? I don't get it. I think they must have just did Yo's route last and ran out of time or something. Then there's Jin. I kind of wondered how Jin lived and got regular clothes when he came to the future? Since he was supposed to be there for about a week before he bumped into Sayori...I suppose that's not important, but still, I can't help but be curious! Did he get a fake ID? How? How?! HOW?! I think Muneshige got the best ending. Aragooooon! Haha! I thought Ittousai was pretty cool, too. I felt bad for Kasumimaru. I mean he *ALWAYS* lost his arm no matter what. It must suck to have your arm kicked off. Hopefully they are really nice to him in the PS2 ver for his routes! [/spoiler]

Title: Jingi Naki Otome
Maker: Mirai
Platform: Win PC
Genre: Adventure, 18+
Voice: Full Voice
Art: Tami Joe
Scenario: ?
Release Date: 11.09.2007
Patch: http://www.mirai-soft.com/support/d_jingi.html
Official Site: ***Not sure I can post this***
Trial Version: Yes

Cast: Ryu Nayuta: Yuichi Nakamura, Yoshiyuki Aso: Kousuke Toriumi, Keigo Amane: Daisuke Kishio, Ichirou Mutou: Hiroyuki Yoshino, Jin Haitani: Ken Narita, Lethe: Daisuke Kishio, Taisei Kitagawa: Keiji Fujiwara, Saki Koizumi: Touko Sagara*

*I don't think this is her real name.

Overview:
I loved it. Jingi Naki Otome was really good but could be improved on because this time some of the plot lines seemed as though they were left dangling or seemed very abrupt and thus not very convincing. The characters were neat and it was easy to sympathize with them. It was interesting to see more comedy in an otome game. I think they could have wrote the comedy scenes better, but oh well. It was nice to spend some time laughing instead of crying because the poor heroine's life is so horrible and everyone around you is dying!

Plot:
Saki Koizumi is a normal, everyday kind of high school student. That is, until one day a member of the mob follows her home and tries to kidnap her—no, he's not trying to kidnap her, he wants to take her home with him (kidnap her?!) and he does. There she finds out she is the late mob boss's daughter and that the mob expects her to take his place?!

Mirai always has great storylines that really makes one sympathize with the characters. I agree with Tatsumi (author of the second guide, see below) that it seemed that some of the storylines were rather abrupt as compared to other Mirai titles. An example would be: all of a sudden Saki falls in love with the character for no reason and the game's over. There were no clues Saki was falling in love and no real reasons. She just did because she decided it and that was that. There were a few endings like that, but there were also the ones that were so good they made me cry (two of the endings made me cry this time).

Game Play:
I think game play is pretty the standard otome/bl game setup. The story goes along and the player makes decisions as to where the story should head next. There are no mini games in this game. It's a pretty straightforward adventure game.

Settings:
I think Mirai has the best game settings of all the BL/Otome games that I've played. Their "Jump/F3" setting is the best! It jumps straight to the next decision branch. It's really fast! The only thing I think it missing is a "back to last decision branch" function...but well, you can pretty much set all the normal setting (like volume, individual character volume, etc. etc.) I did think that the slow text setting was a bit too fast.

Graphics:
I love Tami Joe's art and I think the characters pretty much always look like themselves in this one. In the past, Joe Tami's characters were a little inconsistent, like sometimes they looked like someone else...but not this time! Yay! Well, one character does look different-but that character is supposed to! Her characters are so gorgeous and I love her use of color!

The backgrounds are again gorgeous and full of color. They are detailed and interesting.

Sound:
I think the voice acting was really good, but what blew me away was Mutou-sensei's voice actor, Hiroyuki Yoshino. I've never heard the "lazy character" voice done so well and convincingly! If it wasn't for Yoshino-san, then Mutou's whole plot line would have been pretty unconvincing and silly. The other voice actors did well, too. I'd say the voice acting was 100%+ in this game. It was pretty impressive.

I didn't notice anything too amazing in the BGMs to tell you the truth. They are nicer than average, but well, I wouldn't buy the soundtrack or anything. Oh, and when you install the patch that weird repetitive sound issue is resolved.

Value:
This one seemed a bit shorter than what I expected. I think maybe some of that was because I've learned more about how to play these types of games and have become a better player, though. There was a lot more repetition in this game as compared to the release prior...but most of endings are long so each play through feels like a totally different game. It's not all cookie cutter...but some of it might, kind of sort of, barely be able to be considered that way, which was a bit surprising.

Walkthroughs:
I don't know of any walkthroughs in English. These are the Japanese guides I used:

http://otome.girly.jp/jingi_otome/menu.html
http://tatumiti.blog88.fc2.com/blog-entry-694.html#more

Notes:
This is only available as an 18+ game. As of this writing, there aren't any add on disks.

Some of the scenes were a bit disturbing (mostly the writing/story, not really the art). I suppose this is only normal when basically a shoujo manga person plays one of their first couple of 18+ otome games. I guess it's the same disconnect a young reader would get when they read their first fully adult romance novel; bad stuff happens and not all people are good. Even good people with good intentions sometimes do bad things. So if you are uncomfortable with such things, I recommend that you not try for the bad routes…and most of Aso's routes.

Conclusion:
I really did love this game and I do recommend it…to anyone over 18! I can't wait until Mirai's next...or until I can get a hold of some of the earlier games.

[spoiler] Hmm...Amane-kun was the best...but his endings were pretty unsatisfying :*( They were too violent or too abrupt (Saki gets trapped in the PE Storage Room with him and he does nothing. Then all of a sudden she promises to stay with him always when she hasn't really hung out with him or anything...and that's it. No declarations of love or gradual realization of their feelings. Just that. Kind of weird.) ...and there wasn't really a very cute happy ending per se (though there were a couple of cute scenes. I like the CG where she's on the back of his bike). I wish there was a more touching, loving ending. I really liked Aso-san, but I felt the same about his endings. Aso-san really got a bad deal. He's the S chara...and boy was he weird. He was also Uke in one ending...and his uke face was the love! But I think he got a really bad deal. It would have been nice if they let Aso have a tsundere ending instead of always a kichiku or a tsuntsun no deredere ending....and wow, his seiyuu did Benkei last time...but was perfect for Aso-san, too...that's cool , but kind of strange. Ryu had the best endings. Two of them made me cry: the one where he gets shot to death defending Saki made me cry the first time...and the one where you see him in jail was a real heartbreaker, too. I have to say that Mutou-sensei was a surprise! His voice is the smex and he's really a good actor! Mutou-sensei's storylines were really weird, though. They made me lol a whole bunch though. I wanted more Mutou-sensei endings!! He's such a cute chara! I loved how everyone wanted to do stuff for him, because they thought he was so...helpless XD I thought Haitani-sensei was kind of boring though...and Kitagawa-san was pretty mean for all he was acting as a fatherly figure. I kind of thought an H scene would him in it would be wierd...but rest assured. He has endings and all, but there are no H scenes with Kitagawa-san...or Yamaki, Sumisu, or Yasu. I wouldn't have minded Yasu as the hidden end character... ...which reminds me. There aren't any hidden special anythings after you get full complete. You just get a message that says, "Congratulations! You've got all the endings."...and that's all. There aren't any special scenes that unlock or any special messages like in HnO **** I thought that was really disappointing. As for heavy scenes that might bother some people...there was a wierd SM vibrator scene *wierd* ...and some rape that's pretty mean *Uncomfortable* (and then Saki's all, "He's raping me and it hurts but I love him anyway" and I was like O_o! Impossible!) Oh, but it did bother me that you never found out why her dad played like he was dead so she had to leave the Kouougumi in the first place. Then there's a part in the beginning where you sense that your mom, who isn't blood related, knows Ryuu...how? And what happened to her real Mom? And how does Ryuu know Haitani?! Why did the leaders of the Kouougumi and Ryuurenkai fight? Since they mentioned that they made a brotherhood pact over sake...what happened to make them fall out? Why did Aso want to rebuild that part of town so bad? Unless these were answered while I was nodding off -I play games really late Anyhoo, it bugged me not to know. A lot. [/spoiler]

I fixed up an old review I posted on another site so I can post it here later...

Title: Pet Tantei Y's
Maker: AMEDEO
Platform: WIN
Genre: Shoujo, All Ages
Voice: Partial
Art: Sakura Kino****a, Kazuko Toyama
Scenario: yurie
Release Date: 12.10.2004
Patch: No
Official Site: http://kur-mar-ter.product.co.jp/amedeo/product/pdys.html
Trial Version: Demo movie only
Cast: Barius: Kenji Fujiwara, Takeru Hinata: Tetsu Shiratori, Ichirouta Moriya: Manabu Muraji, Kippei Kurahama: Kazuhiro Yamaji, Leroy Slutskaya: Takeru Shibaki, Chiyomaru Mikuriya: Reiko Tada, Seiji Sou: Shoutaro Morikubo

Overview:
In terms of otome games, this might be a pretty old game, but the characters are adorable and the story is very cute. It was totally worth playing (sometimes oldies are goodies)! Though not coded for Windows Vista, it installed and ran with no problems at all. It's kind of rare in the otome game world because it's a comedy. It's very light hearted, a perfect pick-me-up for that not-so-great day...

Plot:
Yuuka Futaba, is and average high school girl. She's supposed to spend her summer vacation at her aunt and uncle's house. Her uncle runs a pet detective agency and see Yuuka's visit as an opportunity to push their detective work on Yuuka and go off on a trip to find some mythical animal. Yuuka arrives at her aunt and uncle's house to find a gigolo robot named Bari (who thoughtfully removes his "gigolo data" for her...sanity). Bari's kind of...broken and seems like he has multiple personalities, too, but only sometimes. Bari is the one who tells her that she's going to fill in for her uncle as a pet detective, as her uncle and aunt are already gone. Thing aren't easy for Yuka, but she has Bari and her friends' help. Her first client is...

Gameplay:
You have to play each client in a loose order, but you usually get to pick from 2 or 3 clients. Each client has a full game length scenario that is completely different from all the other ones, so it's really like playing 8 games. It's not like life-death exciting (but it's really cute and funny...it actually made me laugh a few times...but you can tell it's for a younger age group but...sometimes...sometimes what Bari says is pretty...risque?)

There are a few puzzles, but they are pretty easy if you read the hints. The mini games are really cute and there's three of them. They aren't very hard either, but they are neat. After you solve a case you are given the option of a new wallpaper to use in the game, which is pretty neat, too.

Settings:
The setup was amazing! They had soooo many customizable settings! All the regular settings (Volume, text speed, window mode, etc.) plus neat ones like fonts and fades. You could even mosaic-out the cockroaches XD I'd never seen so many settings as in this game before (or now either).

Graphics:
I really liked the art. Everything was well done and nothing looked awkward. Well, actually the Surprise Character (??? is the surprise character's name for most of the game, btw.) looked a bit wierd because he was always smiling with his mouth open, but I guess there are people like that in the world, so the animals were really cute. It was definitely worth the time and money I spent on it.

Sound:
This isn't full voice. Only the main characters are voiced so it sounds kind of weird if you're not used to it. The BGMs are nice, but not anything special; they don't even stand out in my memory, but they weren't annoying either. The neat thing about this game were the voices weren't so typecast. They were really different from the smooth voices they use in most otome games. It was nice to hear a change!

Value:
I did play this game to full complete, which means I played it over and over and over. It didn't feel very repetitious for the most part. The only time it felt tedious was when I couldn't figure out how to get the good ending and I'd have to replay the same person's course over and over with slight variations (please note that I played this game when I didn't have much experience with otome games and so that was part of the reason why it was kind of difficult). It's pretty easy to get the good endings, but it was hard to get the not-so-good endings. In short, I do think I got my money's worth.

Walkthroughs:
The walkthroughs I've found and used are in Japanese. This is the best kouryaku guide I found:
http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~peche/game/pet/index.htm

This one tells you about the Easter Egg to see Leroy's Show :)
http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~gamelady/pdys/pdys_top.html

Conclusion:
It was a really, really cute and sweet game. I think maybe some people might find it a bit too "young" for them, but it's nice to see the world in black and white, where everyone is good and has good intentions. it was definitely worth the time and money I spent on it.

Spoilers>
Kya!Kya! I love Bari's scenario so much ! He's so cute ! His dad's really, really cute, too...too bad he's not a kouryaku chara. I think my favorite picture was the one when Bari was in Yuuka's bed...^///^; but then the surprised look during the birthday party scene was pretty nice, too. I think they should have given Bari more CG's than Leroy, imho. Leroy was nice...he was the token tsundere chara, I guess. I still like Bari the best ! The ??? character was okay...it's not that fun if you can't pick anything, though?

If you can't get a mini game the first time, the game makes the second chance easier in the mini games and the actual cases themselves. For the endings, it doesn't seem to matter how many times you try. The second time you go through a case a dog will tell you which answer is the correct one at the decision branches...however you don't get any help finding the "bad ends" only the good ones.

A bit OT, but I think they should have researched pet care a bit more. I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's healthy to use nailpolish remover on a dog's face...and I do know that chocolate is way poisonous for most animals ( Even so I loved it !
< Spoilers

Note: Please highlight to see the spoilers.

So anywhoo, it's been rather quiet in the world of otome gaming...at least in the states. I don't read any Japanese boards. I read a couple Japanese blogs before but not regularly, so I've decided to give a review? summation of an issue of a defunct magazine.

I don't really know why, but out of print magazines are really interesting to me. Maybe it's because I love reading about the past or maybe it's just morbid curiousity. Either way, old game magazines are really useful for newbies who like to play old games, or just older games. It's pretty neat to see "previews" of games when they were fresh off the presses...so I like to get older game magazines when I have the chance (and when they are more pleasing to my wallet!).

Game Pierce. This magazine went out of print (oop) a while ago, but I don't know exactly when to be honest (I think volume 21 was the last issue, though). It was an offshoot of a manga magazine Boy's Pierce...which is a pretty hardcore (imho) yaoi magazine. It's much harder than their June magazine (same genre, but softer). Boy's Pierce is still in print and going strong (for all I know) with their selection of manga. Since I had a feeling that Boy's Pierce is doing pretty well, I really wondered why their game magazine went oop. I think I finally understand now that I've actually got my hands on an issue.

Game Pierce Volume 20 was released on 8.01.2005. It is 152 pages long, of which 102 are full color. It's format is? was? about B5, but the measurements seem a bit off, but probably within standard. I thought this was a bit strange, but actually Binetsu Ouji's first volume was B5, too, so it must have been a more popular size for gaming mags back then? The cover looks like it's for a manga magazine. I don't even recognize which game it's for. The ads in the front cover are for games that were old when I first found out about otome and bl games...so it feels like a bit of an antique to me ^///^;

The table of contents reads as follows:

Vol.20 2005 June Contents Game Pierce*

G.P Headline

>>010 Live x Evil ~ Shakunetsu no Edema~
>>012 invisible sign -i's- Nemureru Mori
>>014 Mizu no Senritsu
>>016 Realize -Panorama Luminary-
>>017 Hotaru 3

G.P Gallery

>>114 You Higuri
>>115 Tomohisa Kai
>>116 Kazura Matsumoto
>>117 Mameyutaka Bonteji

G-Boys

>>064 Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo!!
>>065 invisible sign -i's-
>>066 **** Bokura wa, ....and he said
>>068 Hitotsu Yane Monogatari/S.S.D.S ~Setsuna no Eiyuu~
>>069 Sukinamono ha Sukidakara Shouganai!! #03 (Cell Version)
Marginal Prince ~Gekkeijyu no Oujisama~

Opening Super Special

>>018 Hanamachi Monogatari

Color Kouryakyu & Pinup

>>Zettai Fukujyuu Meirei

Feature

>>070 Go with Gorgeous Guy Anime!

G.P. Theatre

>>028 Angel's Feather ~Kuro no Zanei~
>>036 Puri Puri ~Prince x Prince~
>>044 Escape (OS version up version)
>>048 Mayohiga no Ori
>>052 Rosarium ~Tsunagareta Shounen~
>>056 Shinsengumi ~Bakumatsu Gensou Renai Kitan~
>>056 Stamp out
>>060 Trans'2 ~Boku to Atashi to Koibito to~
>>062 Ayakashi Renai Kitan ~Kamisama no Otoshi Kata~

Novel

>>103 Puri Puri ~Prince x Prince~

Popular Series Projects

>>074 Shiritsu Pierce Gakuin
>>112 Zettai Fukujyuu Meirei 4 Panel Manga
>>118 GP Gakuen Jyouhou Shouribu
>>124 Angel's Feather Production Staff Meeting
>>126 PC The First Step

G.P Kouryaku Academy

>>108 Rosarium ~Tsunagareta Shounen~
>>110 invisible sign -i's-

Things to Read

>>008 Ranking GP
>>086 GP Cafe CafeColle
>>088 Doujin Boy's Kingdom
>>128 Tokimeki GP Station
>>130 Doujin Boy's Archive
>>132 Boy's Update Files
>>133 GP Information
>>136 GP Cafe
>>141 Reader Presents
>>146 Release x Calendar
>>150 Postscript

The table of contents should give you a good idea about how much coverage they gave what. It's very colorful, so I tried to retain the colors on the page :) I think it's wierd how the cover says June, but the back says it was published in August...?

Game Pierce publishes too many CGs. I think this may be why it went out of print. There's just too many spoilers :*( Or at least it seems that way to me. It's just spoiler after spoiler of CGs... The neat thing about it is that they publish a lot of fan art from their readers. I also like the funny 4 panel comics :) The invisible sign kouryaku should come in handy :) I intend to play that some day :) It was nice to see fom of the CGs from Trans...because I was really curious about what that dress up game looked like so...

I think the most interesting part about Game Pierce was the game ranking near the front:

Count Down GP Sales Ranking Best 20 from 04/01 ~05/31/2005

1. Zettai Fukujyuu Meirei
2. Togainu no Chi (PC)
3. Sore ga Bokura no Renai Seikatsu Fan Disc (1st Edition)
4. Angel's Feather
5. Hoshi no Oujyo 3
6. Angel's Feather 18kin Add on Disk
7. S.S.D.S. ~Setsuna no Eiyuu~
8. Mayohiga no Ori
9. Shugyou Ryokou ~Koto Meiso Chizu~
10. Aritificial Mermaid ~Silver Chaos II~
11. Heartner Hearts
12. invisible sign -i's-
13. Dessert Love -Kare to no Hajimari-
14. Etoile no Houteishiki
15. Gakuen Prince Fandisk
16. Ijiri Yuugi
17. Pet Tantei Y's
18. Gakuen Heaven Okawari!
19. Rosarium -Tsunagareta Shounen-
20. Teikoku Sensenki

Yay! Pet Tantei Y's is on there... :) But wow...a lot of the games on there from 2005 are still doing really well all the way into 2008 because I can recognize some of the names.

So in short, I personally wouldn't get this magazine again because there are too many spoiler CGs in it for me. Though I would want to get the first issue and last issue...just because I'm wierd that way. It was neat to finally get to see what Game Pierce was like, though!

* Being afraid of the great ToU, I'm not going to keep the same capitalization as used in the actual Contents page...though I did use the same strange punctuation as the actual Table of Contents :)

P.S. The title of this entry was originally, "[imho] My Life as a Fountain of Snot..." and then I realized I could write about something more interesting aand maybe even useful.

So my January issue of B's Log finally came yesterday. I ordered it seamail delivery from JPQueen...and it took 8 weeks and three days O_o; Last time I ordered seamail from another store in Japan it took 5 weeks. I guess JPQueen is out in the country in Japan or something? But wow. At least it came, right :) Not sure I'm going to choose seamail for current magazines anymore. It's really sad when you get March *way* before January. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't sound so excited about things in this issue because I've already read the March issue, so this is all old news ToT. Or maybe it's not so interesting because I'm too sick to enjoy it?

In Vitamin X Evolution if you touch places on the screen they'll say different things. Isn't this kind of like TMGS 1st Love? I'm thinking this is going to be one of the standard things that happens in otome games, now, eh? They say they've had to record new voice for it, but they don't mention full voice...they do say that all the CGs have voice and every character that appears in the pictures has voice...so? I haven't played the PS2 version yet, so I don't really know if there are other characters that aren't pictured that talk or something so...anyhoo, I'm not pre-ordering this because my monies for that month went to a preorder for...

...Duel Love! This has to be the *most* talked about otome game now! *squee* It's so...edgy? Is that the right word? Groundbreaking? Scandalous? I mean in Duel Love you can:

1. Peep in on people taking showers by "blowing" away the steam.
2. Cheer your guy on.
3. Wipe the sweat off of them...

...but did you know you can also give them a massage?! Whoa. I mean this game has to get Cero F or something, right? Or is that all still considered innocent and harmless stuff? Oh and if you pre-order Duel Love it says you're supposed to get a special DVD with wallpapers, screensavers and desktop accessories. It seems like it's not just a one store special, so it must be all stores. I'm sure this is going to be the best selling otome game in March :) Haha!

The DS specific system enhancements for Love Revo don't seem very amazing to me. You can "write" your name in with the touch pen instead of "type" it in...I guess there's not many DS specific enhancements if they have to list "view things more easily with two screens" as a feature -_-; The site doesn't seem to list any DS specific enhancements either...hmm. I don't know why they made this no voice when TMGS 2nd Season is full voice and other otome game manufacturers at around the same time are porting their games to DS are going with partial voice if not full voice. I think it was a bad move on their part.

Hmm...there's lots of kouryaku (walkthroughs) in this edition (Bakumatsu Renka Karyuu Kenshiden, Jingi Naki Otome, Brothers, Kyou Kara Maou, Angel Profile). Maybe it's the same amount as usual, but it just seems a lot this time?

Oh, and they have an official notice that the Lamento Guidebook has been postphoned and they haven't given a new date for it yet :*(

And well here a translation of some of the Top Ten Lists for January:

B's Log: Top Ten Favorite Games January 2008

1. Kiniro no Corda Series
2. Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonder World~
3. Hiiro no Kakera Series
4. Harukanaru Toki no Naka de Series
5. Vitamin X
6. Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side Series
7. Otometeki Koi Kakumei LoveRevo!!
8. DEAR My SUN!! ~Musuko Ikusei Capriccio~
9. Panic Palette
10. Will O Wisp

B's Log: Top Ten Favorite Characters January 2008

1. Boris Airay
2. Len Tsukimori
3. Mahiro Atori
4. Peter White
5. Takuma Onizaki
6. Hinoe
7. Blood Dupre
8. Aoi Kaji
9. Ryoutarou Tsuchiura
10. Azuma Yunoki

Animate's Top 5 Best Selling BL & Otome Games for 10.01 ~10.31.2007

1. Bakumatsu Renka Karyuu Kenshiden Limited Edition
2. Arabians Lost ~The Engament on the Desssert~
3. Lamento ~Beyond the Void~
4. Togainu no Chi Vista Version
5. Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonder World~

My TMGS 2nd Season for DS came on Saturday! ...but I was too sick to play (someone gave me the flu for Valentine's Day :p I hope I get well enough to play soon...I mean it's like *full voice* *squee*) :*( I hope everyone who ordered one got theirs already! I wasn't too sick to poke around at the bag, though (but I was too sick to think of reading so I didn't open the book set). I thought the bag might be cheap looking, but it's really, *really* nice. It's got an outer pocket that zips, and the inner pocket in the main compartment is nice, too. It's all lined in a soft, pretty dark blue satin. The zipper pulls have pretty seashells embossed on them. The only thing I'd add would be a tab or something so you can attack a wrist strap or a shoulder strap... I guess you're supposed to keep it in some other bag. Maybe I will. I'm not quite sure yet.

Until now I'd kept my DS in a Hello Kitty bag. I keep a drawstring bag in the Hello Kitty bag with game stuff in it (like my headphones, cartridge cases, car/plane adapter). I figure the DS is too big to not notice if it fell out, but I might not notice if some of the smaller stuff fell out so I put them in the drawstring bag. I'm good at losing stuff.

So the next release I'm looking forward to is the Petit Four and Last Escort 2 one :) Only I don't know when I'm going to find time to play. Lately there's been too many cool looking otome game coming out too fast that I can't keep up. I finally got my copy of Will O Wisp LE and CHiRALmori, too. It came with TMGS 2nd Season on Sat. I still haven't finished Yo-Jin-Bo for J-PS2. I did find a couple scenes that differ from the original. It's neat looking for the new stuff.

Did you know that chewing gum with Xylitol in it helps prevent ear infections? I didn't know that. A lot of Japanese gum has Xylithol in it so I'm chewing a lot of that now since I have the flu...

I'm surprised so many people are looking at my profile! That must mean someone's reading this! Yay! It'd be nice if someone commented *hint, hint* I'm keeping this blog anonymous...so I can't tell any of my friends about it. I guess I'm a little shy about letting them know I play otome games almost all the time...well, I told them I played some...but I kept it low profile because I don't like the word "dating sim" ...and they're not *ALL* dating sims, you know! Like then all romance novels would be "dating sims" I don't like that word so I think I'm going to stop using it about now.

I kind of think it's funny how you don't have to be 18+ to buy those really explicit romance novels, but you do to buy the 18+ otome games. Some of the English romance novels I've read are way worse than the 18+ otome games I've played...and I kind of think that the otome games are way different from the 18+ bishoujo games...though to be honest, I've never played one of those so I can't really say. I think I will try playing one of those just so I can make an accurate comparison. There's one someone reviewed where the art is cute and it has an Alice in Wonderland theme :) I love everything Alice, so I think it'd be nice to play.

Gah, it says I had a "forbidden word" in my text...but I can't see the stars, so I don't know what it was :P

Yay! My walkthrough for Under the Moon ~Tsukiiro Ehon~ got accepted! Yay! Yay! I had to rewrite/reformat it *SO* many times! I can't wait to see it up on the site. I hear that takes a few days, though. Oh, it's actually on there now! Cool! *squee* It's on GameSpot now, too! *Dbl squee* Oh, but I found some typos. I better fix them :P

And I'm going to try to post some reviews for stuff today, too. Tsukiiro and Yoshi.tsune. Maybe some others I already wrote on IGN...but I have to make sure I didn't say I wouldn't post it anywhere else or something on IGN...so...,anyhoo, things are coming along nicely...

...the problem is: It's all and fine for me to make my otome game oasis here, but it's not very useful if no one reads it or uses it...hmm...maybe it'll just naturally happen over time?

Oh, and the Ijiwaru my Master trial version is out...but I'm not sure I want to play it now...then I won't be able to wait for the full game...but I'll have to. I put in my special order for it today :) I've decided to get the Messe Sanoh tokuten of a Drama CD titled, "Last Dance wa Anata to" :)