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The only downside of that bunny outfit is that other than the colors and a few minor details it looks the same as the ones other girls wear, that’s why she was the only one I dressed up in it, to make it more special. Also, she might be the only one who’d be fine walking in it ha-ha. Hmm, I’ll let myself think about it a little further. Maybe Lapis would be fine with it too. Elaine? Nah - she almost died out of embarrassment during her motorbike competition against Shizuna in swimsuits on Nemeth island in Kuro II. Agnes… Perhaps she’d wear it if she was certain it would earn her some points from Van and her classmates/father/other people who know her wouldn’t be around. Feri could wear it too, I guess, since she’s a little bit naive about these matters, but afterwards Hasan would kill Van. Judith - only due to some goofy incident or due to work. Risette and Towa… Honestly, I have no idea. What do you think? Altina would be surely against wearing it, unless she’d think about it the same way as Agnes above. Fie and Renne could totally wear it and Nadia would probably love it and try to make Swin a happier guy this way. So it looks like my initial assumption was wrong! Btw, I really like that Shizuna’s bunny ears have a little snowflake on one of them, it’s very cute in my opinion.

It is indeed the best.

Man, I fell in love with Shizuna in 2022, but if I had to wait for Kuro’s official release I’d only properly meet her in 2024! Just crazy. But speaking about the Sky remake, as my salt levels about Kai release decrease, I’m becoming more interested in it than I was before.
By the way, I recently noticed that I typically call games this way: either Sora or Sky for the Liberl arc games, Cold Steel and Hajimari for the Erebonia arc, Kuro and Kai for Calvard arc and Zero & Ao for Crossbell games. I never use Reverie and Daybreak, whereas “Sen” mostly for some technical stuff. How is it for you?

Thank you, hopefully things will sort themselves out eventually, although ideally I’d prefer to live in a country where “nothing happens” and just focus on the little things that make life enjoyable, but it’s a tall order. Well regardless of that wish, I hope that you’ll be finding yourself in a comfortable place in life too.

He-he, thanks. Sometimes I wonder how many other people there are who are as crazy as I am and who are the characters who made them lose their souls to.

True, Falcom doesn’t care about spoilers at all. Maybe they don’t feel it’s important enough? Still though, I think it is better to go into the series blind, so newcomers should probably be recommended to avoid visiting Falcom-related sites, videos. etc.

The anime I was about to mention is
In a way, the fact that NISA publishes the Japanese version of the game on PC makes it less prone to potential cuts/censorship. They can lie to the English speaking customers and Falcom all they want about the state of their translation, but removing/changing things that can be easily seen without the language barrier is a different story.

One of my friends suggested that imgur mods could’ve think that there is a paizuri happening on the Olivia portrait, even though it’s not a dick, but rather an empty space between her arm and breast. Who knows. At least they didn’t delete my Kiseki favorites picture.

It’s called POCO F6. Before I got this phone I never heard about this brand. But all in all I’m pretty satisfied with it, especially compared to my previous one. My only complaint is that it has too many apps pre-installed.
Here are some examples of Brown Dust II stuff: one, two, three. The first Brown Dust, which I’ve also played before (it was called Brave Nine in English for some reason), wasn’t that lewd. And you know, while I’m fine with that level of “ecchiness” overall and it’s actually quite interesting to see what the developers will think of next, I wouldn’t want something like Kiseki to go into that direction. What it has now is my ideal - it’s beautiful, not one bit prude, but also not too sexual. “Golden mean” of sorts.
I also re-installed GFL2 to play the half anniversary event and here are some highlights of this experience:
- I lost the guild I created because apparently when the guild master is inactive for 7 days he gets demoted to a normal member and another member becomes the guild master. Not going to lie, even though it's such a minor thing and I'm not even playing the game "seriously", it still annoyed me.
- I got lucky with my pulls. With gacha it often feels that when you are active it gives you terrible luck, but when you don't care about it it gives you good luck.
- I think the latest character is very nice and since she has the same seiyuu as Towa, maybe you’ll find her trailer interesting to watch. Design-wise she reminds me of Altina a bit, though.


A major plot reveal Falcom could pull off that would surprise me but still feel fitting… Mmm, given the information we have now, especially after Kai, I’m honestly not sure. Kai, especially its ending, had some developments on the same level as CSI, but I was mostly surprised by acts of individuals, rather than major world-related reveals. I’m actually very interested to know what you will think of the ending.

Now that I think about it further, perhaps for some people enjoyment comes from hating something and tearing it down. In that case, there’s probably no cure for their rants.

Hopefully there were no road incidents around the school due to the peculiar location it was built at. Although I guess there were some safety measures erected around the school grounds to avoid students going to the highway?
Eh, I could reach any part of my town on foot and it had only ~300k people living in it, so it was relatively small. It was better than the one I live in right now and it was actually relatively good in terms of aesthetics, nature and maybe quality of people compared to most other towns/cities I know. It doesn’t seem likely that I’ll be able to visit it again in the near future though and since my apartment got hit it’s not like there’s much for me to return to.
Lol, now that you made me think about it, I realized that I probably had no lunch at all and only eaten at home, so before I went to school and after I got home. We had some awful food sold in our school cafeteria, but I rarely bought it (tbh I don’t recall having pocket money often in the first place) and unlike Japanese students in anime I had no bento either.

Kiseki fighting game, huh… I’m not a fan of this genre, couldn’t get into it no matter how many times I tried (I did play MKII, III and 9 as well as Guilty Gear, Samurai Shodown and DoA though), but maybe I’d be more interested in it if it had the characters I know and love.

You know how Falcom sometimes has to make up situations for characters to fight even though there is no real reason for that to happen? Well, that part with Rixia was one of those. It’s just that this one in particular didn’t sit right with me for some reason. But yeah I agree, in Kuro she didn’t do much other than bringing some development to Judith. On the bright side of things though, Kai made me appreciate Elaine more than before.
In Grim Garten the characters I’ve been using the most were Shizuna (obviously), Rean, Van, Crow, Elaine and Bergard. And while we’re talking about parties, while replaying Kuro II I realized that Kincaid might be one of my favorite party members because of his turn-transfer skill ha-ha. With him on the team I can make Shizuna act even more often!

I wonder if Duvalie’s swimsuit is a result of her own tastes and preferences or just something that Falcom gave her without much thought?
I like Josette’s CS look more than her Sky look, but they’re not that different. She’s so clumsy btw.

Yeah, nowadays it looks like even AAA(A) studios can suffer big losses due to bad reputation, so it’s even more reason for niche developers to care about not alienating their customers. But as for Falcom, I doubt they even know about this situation with NISA. When it comes to Steam, for example, reviews are great because to make one you first need to buy the game, which is what those who hate NISA won’t do in the first place. I have no idea why can’t Falcom self-publish their games worldwide when even indie developers can.

In the VN I’ve been reading recently, one character said something like “she looks like yamato nadeshiko” and it was translated as "she looks like someone right out of a painting". This is yet another example of the translators thinking their readers are incapable of doing a little research or their reluctance to put effort into conveying the nuance of what is being said. In the grand scheme of things, this sentence didn’t affect anything, but it still irked me a bit even though it wasn’t done out of malice on the translator’s side. What NISA does, however, is pure arrogance and no matter how much time passes I am still annoyed by what they’re doing to something that is so precious to me. With dialects and unusual patterns of speech yeah, I agree - translator notes would be the best, but if that is not an option, then it would be preferable to have neutral language used in translation instead - it will lose nuance, but with incorrect translation (e.g. Kansai to Southern American) it will lose nuance AND add an extra layer of mistranslation.

Hmmmmm… Does iDOLM@STER count as an anime adaptation of a video-game? If yes, then I think it is definitely the best since it’s one of my favorite anime. However, I have no idea whether it followed the story of the original games or not since I haven’t played them. Speaking of Persona 4 though, my other friend told me that apparently there is going to be a remake of it, are you going to play it?

True, and given Van’s personality and their trusting relationship he’d be a better fit to Agnes than any of her peers anyway.

This makes me wonder, are your siblings into anime & video-games too, or do they mostly have other interests?

Got it. In that case, if I ever buy a property on U.S. soil and have a kid, I’ll be better prepared! XD

From what I remember, most school fights I’ve witnessed were very one-sided, e.g. one guy laying on the floor, and another sitting on top of him hitting him in the face with fists. But unlike what you’re describing, I don’t remember teachers ever interfering since they were rarely around and I’m not sure if we had the security guards at all. I guess it’s just one more difference between our schools. But you know, it’s kind of amazing how vividly you remember your school days.

Yeah, that’s how I look at Falcom aesthetics too. Here’s another example - from what I know, most games with high budget typically use facial motion capture, i.e. they basically record a real human and then use that data with the character's face. Meanwhile what Falcom has is simple presets that change the shape and position of eyes, brow and mouth - this is (allegedly) cheaper to make, but I still find it very charming. In some way it’s even better because you have an input from the character’s model creator rather than the actor.

MangaGamer, if I’m not mistaken. However, like I’ve said, the games aren’t voiced, so I’m only talking about the quality of the text, I’m in no position to compare the quality of translation in relation to the original script since I haven't seen or heard it. Speaking of Rance though, another its game was released in English a day or two ago and it’s kind of sad they aren’t available on Steam - I feel like this series loses A LOT of money due to its inability to be published on that platform.

Oh, in that case you’re going to love how in Kai Grendel can have 4 attacks instead of just 3 by boosting two times :D And SU is super cool & strong too, it changes animations a bit. SU/Burning Heart debuff removal can be attributed to Rean and Lloyd getting stronger over the course of the series, which is an awesome little detail.

I use either Civitai or Tensor.
- To generate art you need to click on the “create” button and input the information there.
- First, you need to find a checkpoint you’d like to use (it’s basically a style of what you’re going to generate). It’s under “basic model” on Tensor and “model” on Civitai. The one I use most of the time is WAI-NSFW-illustrious-SDXL.
- Second, you might need to find the LoRAs you want to use and add them too. LoRAs are models that help you generate specific characters, poses, clothes, etc.; just follow the instructions on each of them.
- Third, you need to add prompts; to start, you can open any image that was generated with the checkpoint you’re trying to use and copy it from there.
And that’s pretty much it. If you'll end up having questions I can try answering them, but I'm not a "professional" at this so my knowledge is rather limited.
Apparently, you can make much better stuff locally if you have a strong GPU, but it can take some time making things work whereas this sites have everything you need.

The irony though is that I love Shizuna much more than Kiseki, but she wouldn't exist if it weren't for it so it's almost like a twisted "chicken or the egg" dilemma. Yeah man, can't wait to see your list, I wonder what kind of system or reasoning you're going to use for it. As you can see, I had to cheat a little by adding slots for Ouroboros, the Church and the Bracer guild :P It would be criminal of me not to include Sara somewhere. The funny thing about Rixia is that she overcame Tio at some point as my favorite Crossbell girl (I think it was during Hajimari), but as time passed, Tio is still going strong, whereas she left the favorites list. That said, I still like her.
I can't wait to see other Class VII members after they grew up and have their visuals updated. Who do you think we'll get to see next? I think maybe Gaius?
If Falcom makes Millium into a very beautiful young lady Rean is going to regret leaving her to Jusis... Just kidding, given his personality there's 0 chance of this happening.

Fate vs Kiseki
Protagonist: Kiseki
Antagonist: Kiseki
Side cast: Kiseki
Best story: Kiseki
Pacing: Kiseki
Character Development: Kiseki
Backstories: Kiseki
Character Designs: Kiseki
Arcs: Kiseki
Peaks: Kiseki
Writing: Kiseki
Theme: Kiseki
Plot twists: Kiseki
Fights/Drama: Kiseki
Music: Kiseki
That was easy.

Renne vs Shinoa
Introduction: Tie
Design: Renne (I like her CS/Hajimari look the most)
Backstory: Renne
Personal Enjoyment: Renne
Peaks: Renne
Dynamics: Renne
Writing: Renne
Story: Renne
Complexity: Renne
Relatability: Not sure
Development: Renne
Dialogues: Renne
Well...

For you let's go with Towa vs Altina and surprise surprise - Dr. Stone vs Re:Zero.

So you like the mom more than the daughter, hehe.

To be honest, if it were up to me, I wouldn't localize names of the games at all. Even though something like "Trails in the Sky" is a decent translation, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a game called "Sora no Kiseki" in English and this practice would protect against cases of badly localized names. Also, this is just my personal nitpick, but I don't like how English titles have different words used in them, e.g. "in the", "of", "to", "through", etc. whereas in Japanese it's smooth "no" every time. Speaking of NISA though, apparently they're going with "Trails beyond the Horizon" and the game is going to be released this year. It sounds a little bit better than "Trails through Daybreak", but I don't like it either, it is bland and there is already a popular game series called Horizon. Not to mention, they cut the "Farewell, O Zemuria" part the same way they cut "Crimson Sin".

Thank you again for the encouragement. One thing I can say for sure is that even with my current humble level of Japanese, my learning sessions helped me to improve my understanding of the language by a lot. On the other hand though it made me even more aware of the mistranslations happening everywhere so I'm still at a "curse" level of knowledge - when you're able to notice the issues, but are unable to fully understand things fully raw.
By the way, while replaying Kuro II and collecting lines I noticed that in the previous playthrough I missed Shizuna's scene for the Mishy quest - the one that was about his fan who hated his new design and wanted to sabotage the show of the "fake" version. When I played previously, I chose to scold the culprit and it triggered Elaine's dialogue instead. This time I chose to threaten him and that's what Shizuna did.

Rean's relatability comes from 2 things, I think.
- The intricacy, depth and length of his story which lets you to basically live through his life.
- His personality traits (e.g. genuine politeness, wholesome cheesiness, inner struggles, etc.) being directly relatable.

True, shame on me for forgetting about KeA! Hearing this about Tio stings a bit because when I've been playing through Crossbell games she was the one who I chose ha-ha...

Hmm, I guess I agree - for Kuro it's the characters, character interactions and the visuals. And you know, after making my list of favorite OST per game, I'm not even sure any arc is much better than the others. That "The Height of Majesty" track in Kai possibly hyped me more than any other energetic song in the series, so I can't call Crossbell arc weaker than the others in the music department.

Chiharu is always on point!
Estelle is getting ready for remake.
Lucrezia trying to compete against Rixia. Sadly for her though, I'm immune to seduction.

Hmm, what is the most weird to me about the VA changes is that they had fully voiced games already and could've reused the assets, but instead they decided to redo the whole thing while the mainline games have ~80-90% of its dialogue unvoiced? (Yes, this is my salt levels rising again lol). I don't know if it'll be for better or worse, but this will make original games and the remakes feel very different to each other.

That's nice, I want more information like that.

That bunny suit also happens to be perfect for playing basketball. And also for fishing.
That said, I’ve been using her jacketless casual Kuro II look the most again. It's very special.
Well, 2-3 months isn’t that long all things considered. People who waited for the official English release are playing Kuro II only now, for example… Which is kind of ridiculous when I think about it. I guess NISA needs time to “properly” vandalize the script. But yes, I’m very glad that I managed to play Kai so soon. The uncertainty about the near future is eating me from inside more and more so it’s nice that I played through the game before things got worse (honestly, however, I need to get a grip - I feel somewhat pathetic because of worrying so much). Hopefully things will get resolved favorably for me and when Kai II gets released I won’t be in such a hurry.
What is pretty cool about me logging and then studying Shizuna’s lines is that it makes me remember the scenes she participated in much better. For example, even though I’ve played Liberl arc 2 times, I don’t remember a lot of dialogues from it, but since I’ve been repeating Kuro I lines over and over they are solid in my memory. It will take me some time before I start studying the ones from Kai, though, first I have to go through Kuro II, which I’m currently doing bit by bit while replaying the game on NISA’s port.
They’d either skip it or make up something random and dull.
Given that I might be biased for obvious reasons you should take my praise with a grain of salt ha-ha. I’m super intrigued to know if you’re going to agree with my evaluation of it or not.
Yep, sometimes such little details can end up as unexpected spoilers, but don’t worry, it didn’t really ruin anything for me. Speaking of spoilers, when I’ve been making the new infographic about my favorites which I posted in the new thread where I pinged you, the reason I listed Crow as Siegfried was to avoid spoiling the fact that he is alive to those who haven’t played CSIII yet. Although, I’m not sure how helpful it is. Not to mention, if someone visits Falcom official sites, merch shops or fan communities, it’s already out in the open.
I think the difference between Shizuna’s and Rean’s ways of handling their swords might be attributed to the fact that when it comes to fighting she is generally very playful about it, whereas he is serious and very earnest.
Here’s a funny example of similarities in their animations:

Considering that many harem anime have a protagonist who stays indecisive, like you’ve mentioned, but ends up picking one of the girls in the end anyway, Monogatari way of handling romance is more “fair” so to say since it’s being upfront with the viewer from the earlier stage of the story development. Among the opposite examples, there was an anime I really liked… Wait. I decided to check if you’ve seen the finale of it, and apparently you haven't yet, so I’ll shut up about it for now. Anyway, the point is, it’s kind of disappointing when the girl you’re rooting for is losing in these harem stories even though unlike Monogatari there is no canon ship for most of the series.

I feel like Altina would be even more against this than Rixia, Emma and Elie combined. And someone like Estelle would hit the one who suggested such a competition with her stick.

As it turns out, that outfit, as well as that lewd Renne one, that were absent in CLE’s version of Kuro II ended up included in NISA’s port. I have no idea what is going on with licensing for these games.
Man, that’s annoying. I recently opened my thread about Shizuna and most of the pictures there were dead and only revived after some refreshing. I tried to go back to using imgur instead of imgbb but encountered the very issue that made me give up on this site the last time - less than 24 hours after uploading passed they’ve deleted one of the images for “breaking their community guidelines”. And the image that was problematic according to them? This one: Also, since I was unexpectedly gifted a new smartphone recently, I ended up installing some of the gachas even though I thought I’m done with them… What an ironic twist of fate. So I decided to continue playing Brown Dust II which I tried on PC some time ago but dropped due to login issues. I think it might be one of the lewdest gacha games I’ve seen. The quality of the game is great, though. At least compared to other gacha competitors, so it’s not super-praise.

There are many games that are actually “games within games” but for Zemuria to end up like that would undermine the absolutely spectacular worldbuilding that was developed over the course of 13 games (so far).
I think I’ve already mentioned somewhere that I start every day by praying to Shizuna. How many people irl pray to Aidios? Probably zero. Checkmate!

Not necessarily cool, but it is now easier to see him as a fine human with a particular role in the story and with his own connections to others rather than just a guy with a big laser.

Yep, that’s how it usually is. “Oh no, this anime is so problematic and disgusting…” then stop watching it, why is it so difficult? Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt - perhaps they’re watching it because they’re just “curious” about how things will go, it still doesn’t justify that amount of hatred. For example, there are a couple of VNs I’ve finished reading despite finding many of the things described/illustrated there very nasty and I can say that I didn’t like them because of that, however - why’d I go on some hate tirade about it? After all, it was my decision to finish them despite seeing where it goes but my curiosity got the better of me. And in the end, even though I didn’t like it, someone did put a considerable effort into writing and illustrating that stuff. I just find focusing on hating things counter-productive. I’d rather obsess over the things I like.

Hmm, is a highway a road with a lot of car traffic and the lack of frequent traffic lights (so basically a road where cars go at high speed)? If yes, it's an interesting choice to build a school at such a location. I don’t think my town had such roads inside of it at all. The one where I live now has roads everywhere though and it’s kind of terrible aesthetically, not to mention that the whole city is pretty much concrete jungles (it has some nice parks, historic spots, etc. but that’s a small fraction compared to these living spaces).
That’s because in our schools most students typically end up with the same classmates from the first grade and up to graduation. I switched classes two times though.

Okay, so here’s my wishing list:
- ASMR with Shizuna.
- A Souls-Like Kiseki game (for example, make Rean/Estelle the default protagonist and add others via DLCs).
- A music album with Shizuna’s song (Uchida Maaya is very good at singing, so it would work wonderfully).
- A visual novel where you get to romance Kiseki girls.
- Some kind of editor/studio where you can play with characters’ models.
Now let’s read yours :P

Nah, don’t worry - Rixia is still as good as she was before, although she was indeed a part of the scene that irked me a bit - which is surprising, because I don’t remember anything like that happening for me in other Kiseki games (when you finish playing the game, try to guess which one it was). That said, it’s not the reason why I said that about her. I just compared her to others and didn’t feel the same excitement I felt about her in Ao and Hajimari. Also, I never even used her in Grim Garten XD. When I have Shizuna on my team, all my attention goes to her, so it’s impossible for other girls to be considered viable party members with just feminine charm alone. They gotta bring something noteworthy to the table.

I wonder if Falcom is going to do something with Kloe going further. Same with Claire and some other characters. To be fair, however, they don’t seem to have much reason to appear in the latest games.
Duvalie: CSIV > Seifuku > Swimsuit > CSIII; tell me if I forgot any of her outfits.

Even if Falcom doesn’t care about the quality of localization per se, they should abandon NISA for the fact that they are actively antagonistic towards the playerbase. From my understanding, A LOT of people avoid purchasing NISA’s ports because they hate them and not many bother purchasing CLE’s instead because the fact that you have to use patches to play is insulting to many. Not to mention, if you lose the patch or it becomes unusable for some reason then you won’t be able to play the game at all. In my opinion, goodwill of the customer base is very important to relatively small companies like Falcom, so they should pick their panthers more carefully.

This is something I dislike about the localizations in general. I play Japanese games and want to immerse myself in Japanese culture the way it was intended for the Japanese audience. If I wanted to immerse myself in American culture, I’d play, watch or read what was made by Americans instead (which I sometimes do). One of the most prominent examples is the way Kansai dialect is often localized as Southern American English. How does it make sense? Just because both are non-standard Japanese/English doesn’t make them interchangeable.

Interestingly, anime being adapted into video-game doesn’t work either, or maybe they’re just lacking in the quality department - I’m not sure. I’ve seen plenty of games based on popular anime, but they weren’t to my liking at all; also, the majority of them end up being in the fighting genre ha-ha.
The weird thing about those complaints is that such people are unable to understand context since they’re basing their judgement on some arbitrary checkboxes instead. They see Van x Agnes as bad based on it, even though in reality Van didn’t make even a single move on her and it’s perfectly natural/realistic for a girl in her situation to have romantic feelings for him. And even if they do end up together it's not like there is a gigantic age gap between them and Agnes is almost an adult anyway.

Welp, we seem to be living in “interesting times”, but hopefully global affairs won’t escalate into something even more atrocious.

Hmm, for some reason I feel like if I was living with siblings and they were listening to music that would annoy me as hell because I prefer quiet XD Sometimes I even jokingly think to myself that I’m a “perfect neighbor” since I use headphones all the time. Grisaia is great, has one of the best protagonists out there - one of those Visual Novels where the male lead is cooler than all the heroines lol.

I think fishing is typically a male-dominated hobby, so your little sister sounds like a cool person. If she’s proficient at it, then even more so.

Are police officers even allowed to initiate conversations with kids on private property? I think I’d be very annoyed if some random man was bothering my son without me knowing about it. But if the robbery incident was real I guess he was just doing his job. All in all though it wasn’t such a bad event overall considering it was police-related.

When it comes to aesthetics, I think the most important thing is what kind of feelings you are experiencing when you look at something. So even though other games might have more realistic and detailed graphics, to me personally they can’t be compared to the majesty of what Falcom is making.

Speaking of Rance, another of its games is going to be released in English this month, so I’ll probably end up playing it. Even though I like the series, I’m not motivated enough to play it in Japanese lol. Also, unlike what NISA makes, I was never annoyed by its translation. To be completely fair, however, Rance has no voice acting in most of its games, so detecting mistranslations on the fly is impossible so who knows how the things really are. At the very least the English text itself isn't weird or annoying in any way.

Well, I suppose when people decide to hate something they will make up any reasons to justify their opinion even if those reasons are weird or plainly wrong. I think I’ve already mentioned this before, but there are not many characters in Kiseki that I dislike and even with someone like Angelica it’s not hatred but rather “lack of enjoyment of seeing her”. And personally, considering the unbelievable influence Shizuna had on me, I find it inconceivable for her to be a “bad character”, although I admit this is very subjective.
Speaking of Grendel though I’m actually not a fan of how powerful he is gameplay-wise. He typically does the same amount of damage as the rest of the team combined (or even more) and many boss fights are balanced around him. Even Lloyd’s self-buffs or Rean’s SU wasn’t as OP.

Yep, that was clever disguise on Gerard’s. The bastard was also very stylish btw :D Although his demonic form looked very silly in comparison.

Okay, I’ll send some of it to you in Discord. I need to get a better GPU to make better stuff on my own though because currently I have to rely on online services and options there are very limited.

The Kiseki thread I promised you to make is now live and as you can see for the favorites image I decided to go with my slot-based system instead of a tier-list or sorter results. I think this way it’s easier to digest than looking through hundreds of portraits ha-ha. If you have time, I hope you’ll make something similar too (doesn’t necessary have to be in the visual format, just plain text would be fine as well). Also in regards to my list, in the end I had to cut Rixia and Altina out of it :( When I’ve been playing Kai it became evident to me that I’m enjoying Crow much more than Altina.
Thanks to Class VII Thors is one of the most prominent groups on the entire continent. In a way, I feel like they’re comparable to Bracer Guild, Ouroboros, etc.
You mean Jusis and Millium? With how things were portrayed in the games it felt to me like it was heavily going into the direction of the canon ship. Moreover, I think among the main characters Millium was the only girl who didn’t have possible romantic encounters with Rean. Heck, even Claire had some romantic moments with him, even though it didn’t lead anywhere, but there was nothing like that with Millum as opposed to her close relationship with Jusis.

Yep, Fate is just too big to compete with.

Umineko vs Higurashi
Protagonist: tie (I think Battler is objectively better, but I enjoyed Keiichi slightly more).
Antagonist: tie (depends on the arc).
Side cast: tie (considering how involved everyone is in the story, I’m not sure if it’s viable to call them side characters).
Best story: Higurashi
Pacing: Higurashi
Character Development: tie
Backstories: Umineko
Character Designs: tie (Higurashi is cuter, but Umineko is cooler)
Arcs: Higurashi
Peaks: Higurashi
Writing: Higurashi
Theme: Tie
Plot twists: Umineko
Fights/Drama: Tie
Music: Umineko
3-5 in favor of Higurashi, tons of ties though.

Oh no, Estelle loses once again! Wonder if things will change after FC’s remake.
Introduction: Altina
Design: Atlina
Backstory: Altina
Personal Enjoyment: tie
Peaks: Rena
Dynamics: Rena
Writing: Rena
Story: tie
Complexity: tie
Relatability: Altina
Development: Altina
Dialogues: Rena
4-4 - a tie, huh?

I think I posted somewhere my list of GFs, but I'm not sure if I can find it now. Oh, here it is: Hakari > Hahari > Karane > Shizuka > Nano > Kusuri. Does it align with your opinion or nah?

Trails through Daybreak III? Somehow I feel like they’ll make something even worse. I still can’t comprehend why they couldn't at least use the word “Dawn” instead of Daybreak. Were they that insecure that fans who made TL called the game Trails before Dawn and wanted to make something different?

Thanks for the compliment, man, it is really nice to sometimes read that my efforts are appreciated, although there are people who managed to get fluent in the language while I’m still stuck with limited knowledge so what I did isn’t that impressive all things considered. Honestly, learning English was much easier for me.

Among these fanarts I like the one with Fie the most. Man, she really became such a beauty compared to how she looked in CSI.

For the Cold Steel arc, my favorite aspect would likely be experiencing the world and its characters through Rean’s eyes. Among all protagonists, I find him to be the most “relatable”.

Woah, Lloyd’s and Rixia’s baby? You’re looking far into the future here… Although, now that I think about it, if they started dating after Ao, they could have already had a kid.
What if I say Tio? Tbh, when such questions pop up I instantly think about the other girl who would end up losing, i.e. let’s say I say I prefer Rixia, then what will come of Elie - will she have to end up with some random or be alone for the rest of her life? And vice versa. But for now I’ll answer Rixia for my subjective reasons.

I'm finally done with Kuro no Kiseki I! Here you can take a look at what I've been mentioning all this time when I've been saying I'm studying Shizuna's lines. It was a little annoying I had to cut the whole message into two parts, though.

Thank you, I’m glad to have you as a friend too.
Given all my excitement around Kai, I was anticipating your reply even more eagerly than usual ha-ha. And that bunny outfit, man, it’s so cute and elegant, I’ve been using it a lot, but only on Shizuna.
Speaking of Kai, I think a decent TL should be finished in a period of two or maybe three months, that’s based on the work that has already been completed by the fans, so hopefully you won’t have to wait too long.
As for me, I managed to make the game run with all the DLCs and its long loading times aside, the game runs very smoothly, even better than NISA’s Kuro I, which was a better port than CLE’s. So it turns out my fears about not being able to run the game were unfounded, but in my defence those system requirements were misleading.
I also managed to get my hands on the entire game’s script which I combined in a single txt file with the help of a python script. Long story short, I have two copies of the game installed, one with MTL + manual TL (parts that were already translated by fans) and another with Japanese dialogues and English interface.
- I played the majority of the game with MTL. It’s not very good (still better than it was on day 1), messes up names and often fails to understand who is talking to/about whom, however, you can still understand what is being talked about, and for voiced scenes it’s not an issue at all.
- Those parts of the game that have Shizuna in it I play in Japanese. Given my skill level I have to alt-tab to my txt file all the time, I press ctrl+f to find the lines I need and help myself understand things I still don’t know with other tools. It’s a little of a “hype killer” to play it this way, but I’d rather do this than rely on MTL (or worse - official localization) when it comes to my Goddess, and I’m planning to study her lines anyway so I’ve been logging them in my spreadsheet while doing all this.
But speaking of translation, here’s one of the peculiar things I noticed while playing the game in Japanese: one character said - “did you notice that we (members of certain organization) use 愉しむ instead of 楽しむ?”. Both words mean “to enjoy” and are pronounced exactly the same (tanoshimu), so you can only notice the difference in text - and one of the characters even replies something like “I don’t understand what you’re saying??” while the other says “that’s just too meta” (essentially a 4th wall breaking joke). How do you even translate something like this? If I had an English patch turned on at that moment I’d totally miss this.
Since you haven’t started playing it I won’t be spoiling you anything, so I’ll just say that this game is a masterpiece. Well, every Kiseki game is a masterpiece, but this one is just on another level. Honestly, it might’ve killed my desire to replay previous arcs sometime - it’s just so good.
On a separate note, your remark about Kai 2 sort of spoiled me the fact that this arc won’t end with just 3 games :P For some reason, I expected it to conclude everything related to Calvard. And yeah, I’ve already finished the game. Now I’ll go back to studying Shizuna’s Kuro I lines - I got sidetracked, but there is very little left, so I should finish it soon; afterwards I’ll have to start studying her Kuro II lines.
A somewhat random commentary, but I find it very funny that Shizuna holds her large sword in one hand whereas Rean holds his shorter one in two hands. It was really nice to see how similar their certain animations and skills are, really drives home the fact that they have the same master.

Renai Circulation is probably the most popular one, I heard it long before seeing it in the anime. I don’t know which one is my favorite, maybe Kogarashi Sentiment? Looks like we both have Shinobu as number one for Monogatari, well deserved I guess. As for the harem question, then personally I don’t think it leans into the harem category. The protagonist has always been very clear about having romantic feelings for Hitagi specifically, it’s not even subtle. How about you, what do you think about this?

Imagine if a Keijo-like event was in one of Kiseki events ha-ha; I wonder how the girls would react to it. Surprisingly, I can see Aurelia being fine with something like this if there was a compelling reason to participate, she’s a very confident woman after all. Sara would be clumsy and embarrassed about it, but would join too? Elie would definitely be against it and even against others participating in it. But hey, it’s not all about size, skill and dexterity also matter.

Honestly, even without the DLCs the amount of costumes in Kai is crazy good. Falcom even added other race queen versions which existed but weren’t previously available, so for example for Shizuna it’s this one: When I saw its design long ago I really wanted to play with it so it’s amazing to finally be able to! That said, after trying Rixia’s costume for her, I didn’t like it as much. It’s kind of… Too Rixia-like. But this is funny: By the way, let me know if the images I send to you aren’t working. imgBB fails quite often for some reason. I'd use imgur, but it has a history of deleting the images, and another service I use decreases the quality of the images I upload.
Wholesomeness is relative I guess :P I’d call Shizuna’s bunny outfit pretty graceful and wholesome, for example. I think it's like "moe gap", but a gap between hotness and wholesomeness.
As for gachas, welp, I think I’m officially done with all of them with the exception of that Kiseki one. I still have it installed just in case they add Shizuna, which is unlikely to happen but still. GFL2 tired me out surprisingly quickly.

I simply stopped using that site at some point, that’s all. I don’t even remember which email I used for it, but even if I could access it I wouldn’t want to mix it with the new things I’m listening to.
Aidios is a developer of the game’s world, and Grandmaster is her self-insert character, how does that sound? Would be pretty terrible. But anyway, whether Aidios and Grandmaster are related or not is irrelevant because a certain silver-haired girl resides on Zemurian soil and as far as divinity goes, she easily beats them both.

Maybe that laser weapon is super heavy and you need to be very strong physically to wield it properly, so the “strongest jaeger in history” means “jaeger who lifts the heaviest weights” ha-ha. Jokes aside, some moments in Kai made me like him more.

Avoiding content that doesn’t suit your preferences seems like such an obvious thing, so people who engage in stuff they supposedly hate are likely doing it because they are attention seekers, whether they realize it or not.

Your school seems to be around the same size as the one I was in, but unlike your high school, ours had students of all grades, so we had 1st graders and 11th graders together. That said, 1-3 graders typically didn’t mix with the upperclassmen and had classes in different parts of school. That is to say, you probably had more students of the same age as you there even if the overall number of students was likely the same. Also, there seem to be a lot of cars in your photos, we’ve already discussed it before, but for us cars were luxurious so not many people drove them so this scenery is a little unusual.

Just bonding together in some ways. Something like Rean teasing “small” Roselia, then she transforms into her adult form and starts revenge-teasing. There is a lot of potential there. Yes, Kiseki already has the best artworks there is, so if a visual novel based on it would have the same style it would be a sight to behold. Alternatively, they could simply do the same routes on the game’s engine with their awesome 3D models. Yeah, this would likely be even better.

Yes, it is crazy how there are so many issues in the world and these guys crusade against the beauty of all things. Something that makes the lives of people actually better. It’s not like attractive fictional characters can harm anyone.

Actually, I have some bad news about Rixia. Kai completely changed the way I look at most characters in the series and I feel like if I ever make another sorter/tier list, she’ll end up way lower than previously. It would probably be a male dominated list with Shizuna at the top lol.
For Kloe, hmm, I had to check up wiki to remind myself what she used to wear. 3rd/azure > CS4 > FC. Also, what is this?

Yep, Touhou has a lot of different characters especially if you combine things like official manga.

Well, since I managed to play the game after all I’m not as salty anymore, but it is still annoying I have to do so much manual tweaking just to get the game run in Japanese, let alone that MTL stuff could’ve been avoided if only Falcom worked with people who are actually professional and/or passionate about the series instead of those ghouls at NISA.

Indeed, it was Trails in the Database. Thankfully, that python script I mentioned above combined with another one someone else made makes this irrelevant since with the power of ctrl+f I can search whatever I need in a convenient way on my own.
One of my friends recently told me that NISA “translated” MVP as “EOTM” which I had to ask him what it even is, and apparently it’s “employee of the month”. Thing is, acts in Kuro aren’t month-long, so it doesn’t make any sense; it also sounds terrible.

Books in general tend to be better than their adaptations so it’s not surprising you, as a fan of Harry Potter, wouldn’t enjoy them. Light novels and visual novels are exactly the same in this regard. Heck, even video-games are - people often want to see an anime adaptation of their favorite video-games and I don’t understand why. It could be good if it’s some kind of spin-off thing, but adapting a video-game, which relies on player’s input and gameplay bits, is impossible.
No no, you don’t get it, the world might be in danger, but Van isn’t allowed to breathe the same air as Agnes as long as she’s not 20 y.o.!

You’re right, setting precedent is usually how things start to get worse. We had a “January 6 type of event” two decades ago which resulted in the election results annulment and another guy winning because of that, and since then things were getting progressively worse.
If I were an American citizen, I’d be pretty annoyed by all this talk about tariffs. It almost seems like the new administration wants to impose them on everyone and everything. It kind of amazes me that a lot of people apparently think that tariffs are being paid for by manufacturers/distributors instead of consumers.
It seems like in recent years I’ve been hearing about aircraft crashes more and more, I don’t know if it’s because of the internet amplifying news or there is some kind of issue with modern planes/air control.

Oh, I know that song. Actually, I had a Britney Spears CD when I was a kid lol. First time watching the video, though.
This Grisaia episode almost feels like Hentai ha-ha. It made me think that I really need to finish reading those parts of the Grisaia series that I haven’t touched yet.

Fishing with family and relatives seems like a nice way to spend time. Or fishing in general - I never tried to, but our favorite game series made me very curious about it. Can you fish, by the way?
Man, I hate car honking sounds. My ears are too sensitive and they'd be in pain for the rest of the day after an incident like that. But you seem to be unlucky when it comes to encountering annoying people. Well, thankfully nothing serious happened that day and it’s just a memory now.

The technological leaps in this series are a pleasant sight to behold and experience. From chibis to 3D models, then to CSIII updated graphics, then to amazing Kuro, and now to Kai which somehow managed to be even better than Kuro. The models are the same, but the animations are just… Wow.

Well, Rance (the series) is just as old as Eiyuu Densetsu. In fact, both started in the same year - 1989 XD. Considering Rance’s influence in the visual novel world, it is believed that if it wasn’t for it a lot of VN masterpieces wouldn’t exist; also, I’ve read that the author of Mushoku Tensei stated that it was one of his sources of inspiration.
In this particular game there is a civil war going on, there is a very corrupted country that oppresses its people and Rance’s side fights against it (he is there for his own reasons though). I think that kid’s sister was a very compelling antagonist. Another example of her brutality was when she demanded rebels to surrender and ordered her troops to burn down one of their own villages she was supposed to protect; one of her subordinates asked “are we really going to do it?” and she replied “threats don’t mean shit if you don’t prove you’re willing to do it”. If I remember it right, they later blamed rebels for that to damage their reputation among the people. While the act itself was despicable, it was a great portrayal of such a conflict.
Rean is 100% a better person. What I was wondering about was the fact that a lot of people seem to complain about Rean being goody two shoes, but at the same time would likely complain about a selfish protagonist like Rance too.
Ehh, wouldn't mentioning the things that happen in Subahibi spoil its story for you?

That’s why even though the last game I played with official EN localization was Cold Steel IV, I still can’t tolerate NISA’s vandalism since it damages the series and its legacy. People who played with official localization and those who didn’t experienced different characters. When even MTL is closer to the original JP dialogues it says a lot.
Eh, I can’t even get angry at people like that. To be unable to comprehend Shizuna’s beautiful visage and what lies beyond it is something I can describe as lamentable. Her power is just one part of her. Even if she was the weakest character in the whole series strength-wise, she’d still retain her unique personality, the way she looks at the world with eyes full of pure curiosity, the way she makes every scene she is a part of more joyful, etc.
A lot of characters typically treat her like a bothersome woman and she has to impose herself on others because they often try to brush her off, as far as I know, that’s not exactly how Mary Sues are presented. As for the argument about unearned strength, the fact that the player doesn’t get to see her past and the way she attained her current mastery in the same detail as it was for Rean doesn’t mean much. There are dozens of powerful characters in the series like that. Heck, one can argue that Van’s Grendel fits this description more.

Welp, I returned to my previous design. Mostly because I wanted to use new profile pictures (I made more than 1k screenshots of Shizuna again...)

Yep, Falcom really knows how to hide antagonists among the NPCs players interact normally.

You remember my past experiences with learning drawing, right? Well, I’ve been AI generating images since January and the process is completely different, so I don’t think both can be truly compared. Both involve creativity (even for AI you have to think about the scene, expressions, poses, colors, angles, etc.) but AI generating lacks the passion you typically pour into your strokes when you draw and when you finish the work the emotional response is weaker. Still, the technology is promising and even now is a decent substitute to those who can’t draw themselves and/or unable to pay to commission art. You still need a lot of patience to get the results you want, however, from ~1000 images I got only 20 I was partially satisfied with. Want to take a look?
I wouldn’t want to play video-games with AI generated artwork though. Same with writing.

The problem with the sorter is that the overall number of matches is too large and most people don’t bother looking in the middle of the list anyway. I think something like top-20 would be better.
Are you putting Emma and Machias together because both wear eyeglasses? :P I think Elliot and Laura danced together during the event in the imperial palace.
Damn, that’s a cute art.

I finished Ys I & II, The Ark of Napishtim and The Oath in Felghana, so there are some games I need to play through before I meet Dana. Maybe I need to make a mod that replaces Adol’s chibi with Shizuna’s, that will motivate me to continue playing the series sooner lol.

Some of this stuff is listed on vndb character pages, so it’s convenient this way.
She’s already flawless.

The difficulty in Kai was quite good, there were a few half hour long fights I lost and had to start from the beginning, so the time you spend watching craft animations really builds up.

One is ~ an hour away from me, the other is several hours away but sometimes visits this city. 2 hours seems like a lot of time, but it wouldn’t be an issue for occasional meetups.

Hmm, somehow it’s unexpected seeing you rank Lelouch above Frieren. And after reading this I also realized I don’t remember their respective OSTs much. 7 to 6 is a cool result, though. Highlights well that both are your favorites.

Fate vs Magi is a little bit difficult since Fate has a lot of entries in it, but I’ll try.

Fate vs Magi:
Protagonist: Tie
Antagonist: Tie
Side cast: Tie
Best story: Fate/Zero
Pacing: Magi
Character Development: Tie
Backstories: Tie
Character Designs: Fate
Arcs: Fate
Peaks: Fate
Writing: Tie
Theme: -
Plot twists: Tie
Fights/Drama: Fate
Music: Fate
So it’s 6 to 1.

Seems like Lloyd and Rean had a close battle. I wonder if your opinion will change after you play Kai?

Roxy vs Frieren
Introduction: Roxy
Design: Roxy
Backstory: Frieren
Personal Enjoyment: Roxy
Peaks: Tie
Dynamics: Tie
Writing: Tie
Story: Roxy
Complexity: Tie
Relatability: Mmm… Somehow, this one is difficult.
Development: Roxy
Dialogues: Tie
Conclusion: 5 to 1 in Roxy's favor.

And for you… Estelle vs Vladilena.

100 GFs was pretty fun overall, and even a bit unorthodox considering how the story involved Hahari - I didn’t expect such a development. About Dandadan, by intro do you mean the opening or the beginning of the series? If it’s OP, then I didn’t like it much, if it’s about the beginning - well, I think it’s a good sign that stuff like that is still being aired in the modern era. But considering tha stuff that I read/saw/played it wasn't shocking haha.
I never watched Holo’s anime, neither the original nor the remake, but appearance-wise I don’t think she looks very interesting. Even among fox-girls someone like Akagi from Azur Lane is more alluring in my opinion.

Man, CSIII-Hajimari was such an upgrade to CSI-II, but compared to Kuro their models don’t look as awe-inspiring.

I don’t like drawing parallels to the real world, but considering where I lived most of my life the plight of Crossbell people is partially relatable to me, so yeah the geopolitical situation of a small country influenced by its bigger neighbors was conveyed really well. My favorite aspect about it though… Perhaps, the small scale of things. Erebonia, Calvard and to a much lesser degree Liberl are big countries and the events that happen in them occur far away from each other, whereas in Crossbell everything is very close. You can pretty much walk to every location on the feet of the characters you're controlling.

That’s what I thought. If the company and/or its employees conduct this sort of mental gymnastics to avoid words like cute and maiden, can you imagine what else they are mistranslating besides them? Those guys are essentially getting paid to do a translation that is less correct and overall inferior to than that of a machine. It’s crazy how there is no quality standard in this industry.

Yeah, I can’t wait to discuss Kai with you, it’s an awesome game and I’m sure you’re going to love it.

Mmm, I perceive the characters as a single entity so it’s difficult to compare them to their past/future selves. That said, it’s interesting that Van is the only one who is in the S tier for you while having multiple entries as opposed to Estelle, Lloyd and Rean.

Funny that you mention this because I’ve been thinking about it recently too, although I didn’t make a detailed list like you. Did it take a lot of time to remember and organize it? I think you can technically list Joerg as the father of Lapis. And since Rufus sees Giliath as his father, maybe it would be applicable to Altina and Millium… Or not. Unlike him, I don’t remember them being sentimental about their boss, but seeing those N/As is kind of sad. Also, didn’t Aaron’s dad appear in Kuro II?

I wanted to surprise you and send a reply the next day after your message but ended up being too engrossed in Kai.

Okay, I give up.
I managed to use JP script & tables, but
- DLCs don't work. If I try to use Japanese DLC table file, then they aren't perceived as "bought". If I use Korean DLC table with other Japanese tables, then DLCs appear, but textures aren't getting applied, so when you equip a costume it displays a default outfit instead.
- The images are still in Korean (e.g. character names in menus).
- The worst of all: old Kuro tools don't work with script files, so I can't extract them to access JP dialogues.
I guess I'll just wait for someone who is more knowledgeable about these things to make it playable.
Man, being Kiseki fan is suffering.

Sorry for spamming so many messages in a row, but there have been some updates on Kai since it released today and I want to share some thoughts about it.
The main one is this:
I could probably buy myself a new GPU with all that money.
Realistically speaking, the only "must have" there for me is Shizuna's bunny outfit (I don't use the powerups anyway and recolors generally look bad), but still this price tag is kind of crazy.
The good thing is that Shizuna's Yin outfit did make it to the PC release, but in a little bit of a foul way - basically either you buy the game ASAP or it will be forever inaccessible once the time-limited offer is over.
Not sure what is going on with the game itself. Apparently, unlike Kuro I and Kuro II it's decrypted by default so it's easier to mod, but they also removed Japanese fonts and textures so the game crashes if you try to use them, although I heard it is fixed by using the fonts/textures from PS4 version, which I don't have yet. Not sure yet if I'm going to buy it in the next two weeks or wait for a better deal on the seven seas given those prices and the lack of JP or ENG interface. Moreover, still not sure if the game will even work on my machine.

Update: well, I downloaded a seven seas version and it does launch, hurray. However:
- The loading times are super long.
- The game runs in a really bad resolution, but since it's in Korean I can't understand what menu option do so I'm unable to figure out whether my card is incapable of decent graphic settings or is it fixable in the options.
- Without EN MTL or JP it's unplayable anyway.

Update 2: yep, managed to find better graphic settings and the game does seem to work fine on my GPU even though their system requirements page says otherwise, one of the issues is that crafts and arts are super fast for some reason, but it might be because they've been reworked for a swifter gameplay or something. Another issue is that somehow CLE managed to make mouse controls even worse than they were in their Kuro and Kuro II ports.

Some troublesome news for me from Kai page on Steam:
The one I have is GTX 1650 4GB, so it is very likely that the game will lag a lot or won't run at all. It would be very strange, considering that it is a game that works on PS4, but given that Kuro II did lag for me due to the port being unoptimized, it seems likely. The fact that I had a much better PC back at home which is now lost because of the events outside of my control make me somewhat bitter. Well, hopefully I'll at least be able to run it on the lowest settings or maybe if I use lower resolution... It'll suck if I won't be able to run it at all because I'm super pumped play either with AT translation or in Japanese even if it takes me 10000 hours to complete.

I have a new question for you, by the way. What is your opinion on AI generated images?

Also, here are some cool artworks for the MiSide game I mentioned in my previous message:
This game really impressed me.

Just noticed that CLE's Kai is going to be released on January 22. It's actually much sooner than I expected, here's hoping that everything goes well with modding it.

btw, one of the arguments barbarians who butcher localizations typically use is "literal translation doesn't sound natural in English" and then they make something like this:
As a native English speaker, which sounds more natural to you? Man, we're at a point when "cute girls" have to be censored, it's pure insanity.

As promised, I’m almost done with Monogatari, although it did take a lot of time to reach this point. The only part I haven’t watched yet is Off & Monster Season, but I think I’ll pick it up later. Overall, my opinion about the series improved compared to how it was when I had only Bakemonogatari and a few other entries under my belt. That said, the enjoyment was varying - whereas some episodes were very interesting, some weren’t as engaging. I think the best part of the series is its music and those awesome openings - all are so different and unique. Still not a fan of the abstract backgrounds Monogatari has (it makes the world feel a little bit empty outside of main characters), but otherwise I appreciated the quality of dialogue and animation. As for the girls, my top five is probably as follows:
1: Shinobu
2: Mayoi
3: Yotsugi
4: Karen
5: Tsubasa
What is your opinion on it?

Keijo is fairly unique. Basically, it’s a sport where the girls stand atop platforms floating in a pool and they need to knock their opponents off them using their breasts or butts. So as you can imagine it leads to a lot of interesting scenes happening.

It’s a shame the second season never happened. Hmm… How do you think our Kiseki girls would perform in such a sport? I suppose Rixia would be the absolute champion, given the caliber of her “weapons” as well as her agility thanks to being Yin.

So I guess Falcom didn’t add Moon Princess outfit in Kai, then? That’s too bad. But yeah, I really like how it looks. It’s both sexy and cute and kind of wholesome at the same time.
That shooting part is actually from the event-only mode, the main game is a turn-based tactical game where you control 4-5 units.
I pulled this character and her weapon, by the way. As far as luck is concerned, those pulls went really bad. What do you think of her? She’s a huge tsundere and existed for a long time (she was in the original GFL game that launched many years ago).

I see you reposted some muscular Laura and Elaine there :P… The main page (discover) has a lot of political stuff though, similar to Imgur and Reddit’s “popular” tab. Last.fm is mainly for “scrobbling” (keeping track of) music you listen to, so if you don’t use plugins for that it won’t have much value for you. I think I mentioned before that I had another acc there from 2008, but I decided not to revive it. Not even sure if I’ll be able to restore the password.

Man, I feel personally insulted by that definition.

Yeah, Japanese VAs are insanely professional. People who play Japanese games or watch anime with dub really miss out a lot, not to mention I strictly believe that a character is supposed to have only one voice. Changing it is the same as changing a character's visual design, personality or story - it’s no longer the same character.

I had a thought that Grandmaster might be Aidios. Even the way she looked on glass in churches looked a bit similar, but if it’s true it would be a bit messed up considering the stuff her organization commits against the people of Zemuria from time to time, although I guess most of them operate freely on their own so you can’t put all blame on her. Regardless of this theory, she’s also cute-looking hehe.
No way Demon Gerard is stronger than any version of McBurn haha. As for Kasim, he’s rather unlikeable in general (not to the same degree as Angelica though) because he’s always talking people down and has a “no fun allowed” personality, which doesn’t combine well with his lack of style when it comes to fighting. However, I like the energy on this artwork of his and Ferri’s family in Kuro I ending. Maybe he actually acts like a good brother/son in normal situations. I wonder how he would fight without his laser though. I think the problem with Judith's strength is that unlike Rixia we haven’t seen the path she lived through with our own eyes and to be honest she never appeared menacing - just as a pervert-looking goofball haha.

When it comes to crusade against fan-service it’s essentially angry kids stepping on sandcastles others have built because the very notion of someone else having fun is intolerable to them. The same thing can be seen on anime forums with people complaining about it all the time - like, if a little of female (drawn) skin or texture of panties is so appalling to them, why can’t they just watch something else? Even if you exclude anime completely, there are thousands of live action movies and non-Japanese animation out there.

If you do decide to show photos of your school (or anything else) I think it’d be better to do it via discord. No reason to post private information in a public space :P

When Monogatari girls cut their hair it was such a travesty, everyone started to look worse than before in my opinion. I’m not sure if Emma is prettier than Black Hanekawa (I think she’s the hottest one among Monogatari girls), but she’s definitely prettier than normal Hanekawa. Rean and Roselia need some spin-off game or novel where they’d spend some quality time together. Emma? Vita? Pff, gotta aim for the leader of the clan. Man, imagine a visual novel in which you can romance any Kiseki girl you want with tons of cool CGs.

Ever heard people complaining that attractive female characters look “unrealistic”? Isn’t it funny that it doesn’t bother them that the same characters wield impossibly heavy weapons and perform feats that defy physics? And when it comes to anime characters they also don’t have noses and their eyes are several times bigger than the ones real humans have. I think it’s fair to call such people beauty haters.

Yep.
You know, given Rixia’s in-lore popularity, I think it’s strange we haven’t seen a quest with some NPC fan who is madly in love with her trying to get closer to her.
I really love the combination of sailor school uniform and gothic vibes Renne’s CSIV look has, and that miniskirt adds playfulness to the overall image without cheapening its class in any way; I think it’s very unique this way.
Towa: Qipao > CSIII > CSI > Kuro > Swimsuit.

Yeah, there is always something new to watch, read and play. You could only focus on the stuff that already exists and still be nowhere close to completing everything years later.

Dio and Sakuya are from different worlds so it would be impossible to figure out who is stronger between them. Even in their own series power levels are as incomprehensible as in Kiseki.
If you’re interested in the others, you can check some of the Touhou characters on this Lost Word page. The game itself isn’t any good (it’s a gacha), but the art is nice. Just click on the portrait to get a bigger image.

Some other good news - JP script was ripped from Kai’s PS4 version, so (M)TL can be done based on it. As a matter of fact, I’ve already downloaded the script x) It’s useless at this point, however and I’ve never tried modding CLE’s version anyway.
Hmm, I’m not sure - do they call it eiyuu densetsu or kiseki in Japan? When Kiseki ends, they can make a new Legend of Heroes series (or make remakes of Dragon Slayer and other games), so dropping it altogether isn’t a good move in my opinion. And I’m still super salty they are releasing English FC remake earlier than Kai.

Man, some time ago I found a site that has Kiseki script easily accessible and I started using it instead of the game’s files because it’s more convenient for me this way. However, a few days ago they added NISA’s script for Kuro I and ruined everything, i.e. I’m trying to read stuff in Japanese and English besides it defeats the purpose. However, I ended up noticing some of the NISA’s English lines and they’re expectedly terrible. For example, they translated Van’s simple “oi oi” to “Holy shit!”. It’s like there is no limit to how lowbrow their writing can get.

I saw a “funny” (not really) meme recently where it was stated that since ~2011 the wealth of some billionaires increased hundredfold, whereas minimum wage stayed the same (it was about U.S., so $7.25). Realistically though, if you have to work just to survive, there's no way you’re going to “make something of yourself”.
Yeah, one might think that with all the technological advances food and housing would be easily accessible, at least in the most developed countries, but despite heavy taxation there are still many homeless people as well as those who commit suicides because of financial insecurities and no hope for the future. If anything, it looks like the world is “progressing” into some kind of digital neo-feudalism.

I kind of liked the Prisoner of Azkaban movie when I was a kid, but overall I was never a fan of Harry Potter. I know a few people around my age who were, however, some loved the movies, some the books. I watched a new film recently, actually, but it’s not related to this series. It’s called Dirty Dancing, maybe you know this one? I think it was quite good. Dancing here can give those Kpop stars a run for their money haha.
I saw people calling this ship grooming lol, even though Van never even made any moves on Agnes. How do they expect him to communicate with her? “Sorry lady, ask me again about your genesis problem when you turn 18; or better yet - ask someone your age to help you. Goodbye”. Crazy.
There is one other cynical thing I can say about the Van x Elaine and Van x Agnes situation. Elaine sort of ruined Van’s life (it was her dad, but still), whereas Agnes saved him from darkness x)

Eh, you know what, I'll just say a few things on the matter here. The main reason I wanted to move this part of the conversation to a private place was because I thought about bringing up some sensitive things about my own country since it relates to the election stuff and democratic processes, but maybe I'll talk about it some other time if you're still interested by then.
For now, the main reasons I think trump won are:
- In a two party system, when things aren't going well, people are likely to vote against the party of the current government.
- The main flaw of most democracies: politicians aren't legally obliged to fulfill their campaign promises. Trump promised a lot of things to many different people (e.g. lower grocery prices, stop the war in Europe on day 1, etc.) and now that he has been elected it doesn't really matter whether he will do what he promised or not.
- From what I can tell, the campaign of the Democratic Party was terrible: no proper primaries, Biden dropping out too late in the race, the main message - “vote for us or Trump will become a dictator and take away all your rights and democracy will end” (I might be mistaken, but that’s how it was seen from the outside) - isn’t what I’d consider a winning strategy. You have to motivate people to vote for you, not against your opponent; otherwise many won't even bother to show up on election day. For example, looking at Democratic platform, they promised to cut taxes for middle-class and low-income Americans - but this wasn’t talked much as opposed to discussing how bad the opponent is.
- People are seemingly tired from "identity politics" and Democrats tend to focus on it too much.
Ultimately, though, it doesn't seem like either party is really opposing each other. Whether it's blue or red in power, those politicians don't lose much - they get richer either way. The worst thing about this election is probably the way Trump was sentenced to "unconditional discharge" for his crimes alongside Biden pardoning his son after repeatedly promising that he wouldn't. How can someone trust the legal system again after all this?
By the way, what is your opinion on taking Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal? Seems like people have been talking a lot about these topics in recent days.
Also, I hope you’re doing okay and those horrible fires I’ve been hearing about haven’t impacted you in any way.

I got a live version of a Mariah Carey song, was it the only one you sent?
She reminded me of Amuro Namie a bit in that video.

What a sad and disturbing story. It really sucks that things like this happen even though they're not necessary. Must be really stressful to live in a place where something always happens. Aside from the war stuff, the only similar thing I can remember happening near my home was when a pawnshop was attacked by people armed with AK-47s, but I don't even know if the attackers were arrested or not in the end.

Nah, I don't see Muv-Luv overcoming Kiseki for you. Even if you end up really loving it initially, Kiseki is much longer and still not finished and it's difficult to compete against that.

I remember reading a lot of complaints about CSI-II 3D models, but I can't relate to that. I think they were nice and heck, I love Laura's CSI-II model more than the one we got in III. I can't explain why, but I think there's something about it that makes it more charming. Or maybe it's just nostalgia within me talking instead of reason and logic. It's undeniable though that the quality dramatically increased from CSI-II era to CSIII-Hajimari era and now to Kuro-Kai era.

One would think that the best way to protect the brand of a payment processor is to avoid meddling in the affairs of your customers, but what do I know? The thing is, all that stuff is legal in the U.S. too, which is where both VISA and MasterCard are based, so some kind of hidden intent has to exist for them to do all this stuff.
Yep, it still doesn't work. So Gdrive it is. Or I can try to search it on torrents.

I tried installing those models and... Some of them work as intended, but others look a little bit different to how they appear on those screenshots. Weird.
Elie needs to wait until she gets into the recent Kiseki game or maybe a Zero/Ao remake.

The real number is much higher than 35, actually. For example, for Utawarerumono it's 3 different VNs, for Rance 7, etc. I made a post about the latter recently, by the way, buuut... Since you dislike Elaina, I have a feeling you won't appreciate Rance as a character. He does whatever he wants most of the time, kills without remorse, assaults women, etc. Recently, I finished playing the 9's game and want to share one of the scenes with you. So in short:
- There is war going on and Rance's party has a kid in it who is actually a spy.
- The kid tried to steal something important, but failed and ran away back to his cruel sister who is one of the generals on the opposing side.
- That sister scolds him for failing the mission and gives him a bomb, saying that "you should at least take the enemy with you".
- The kid goes back to Rance's party and pretends that he wants them to forgive him, etc. while planning to detonate the bomb.
- Rance's rival (sort of) Rick who is an amazing swordsman takes the bait and here's what happens next:
So as you can see, he's a pretty unique protagonist. I wonder if those who hate Rean for being too selfless would be able to stomach a guy like that XD.
As for SubaHibi, it was great for the most part, but I didn't enjoy its resolution much. Most of its releases are censored and those censored scenes, even though they’re pretty disturbing, are important to the story so the only way to play it correctly is probably through the seven seas.

Female Goku, huh? Well I guess we and those who say this played a different game, then… Which isn’t even an exaggeration, considering that characters in NISA’s script are vastly different to how they are in the original script.

Well for this layout you just have to cut one image into two pieces, so nothing too difficult or time-consuming. The only issue is to find an appropriate picture.

Given how important Laura was before Shizuna dethroned her I think it would be unfair of me to put her on the same tier as other characters and Rean simply rules - I don’t need to think much to tell who my favorite protagonist is. Jessica is sort of Laura-mini lol. Joachim was a cool antagonist, very comfy and menacing at the same time. He’s not as cool as Weissmann, but still good in my opinion. Most Crossbell antagonists were really great.
Oh no… Poor Emma. I hope she won’t read our chat or she might get depressed.

Yeah, Laura with her kabedon was very powerful and Altina’s was the cutest confession.

Imagine what AI technology will be like in 10 years from now on. If it will be able to generate both the art and the story, then it will imply a lot of crazy things for the future. Then again, I don’t think it will endanger really creative people because at the end of the day a machine can only mimic humans, it can’t do what it wasn’t taught to do.
I meant Tamase Miki, she’s just as small as Towa is, although she obviously doesn’t have the same cake as Towa got in Kuro.
The situation for Kevin might change post Kai since he’s one of the protagonists in it. Is that Sorter is even being used anymore? The last time I posted it on MAL only 2 people posted their results.
Other than Rean, the only guys who would make sense in this scenario are other class VII classmates, but all of them are already gunning for other NPC girls, so… Yeah.

Okay okay, I’m going to change my username here to “EstelleSucks”, are you satisfied?? Just kidding, no way I’m changing my name haha.

Sites like Anilist let you add many more favorites, but with MAL’s interface the number of slots doesn’t really matter. When I open someone’s profile who has 20 favorites per row I never bother to manually click through them.
Also, large lists have one other issue related to sensory overload because when someone looks through it he doesn’t pay much attention to individual pieces of the whole picture. For example, if you open my profile, you’ll definitely remember who my only favorite is, but if you open the profile of someone who has 20 items per row (so 100 total), it’s unlikely you’ll pay much attention to it.
I’m still yet to meet Dana, shame on me.

Oh you, loli lover :P
If we go by my VN favorite girls:
- Meiya is 164 cm, with big breasts.
- Mikazuki is 169 cm, with medium breasts.
- Haru is ??? cm, with medium breasts.
- Shion is ??? cm (I think she was one of the tallest among the Higurashi girls), medium breasts.
- I remember Kanae to be quite tall, but the exact height isn’t specified, but her breasts are big.
- Muramasa is ??? cm, with medium breasts.
- Mitsumi is 162 cm, with big breasts.
- Yumiko is 163 cm, with big breasts.
- Saya is short and almost flat.
All in all, it probably doesn’t matter much. If Shizuna was flat or short it wouldn’t impact on the way I look at her, although her current form is definitely the pinnacle of beauty to me.

I have many weird habits tbh, e.g. not skipping Shizuna’s S-craft animation even when I grind.

Musse is really unlucky, in a way. Her “seductress” type doesn’t have a lot of advantages when the target of her advances is surrounded by other girls who are arguably much more charming than her 24/7.

It’s kind of funny that both our nominees lost to the same opponent (Holo). Almost with the same results too (32 to 22 and 31 to 22). But yeah, the first one in early 2022, so three years ago. That time I nominated Laura and she lost to Hitagi.
If you like Lelouch, it’s possible you would like Reinhard from LotGH too; they are somewhat similar but obviously not identical. What about C.C. and Li Xingke?

Our scores are very different, but I don’t think it reflects our levels of socialization correctly - we’re probably very close in the way we live. Even the friends I mentioned are from one of my online communities who happen to live nearby, it would be like if we lived in the same state and decided to hang out. I don’t even know what happened to my classmates after graduation, and I had ~90 of them while switching classes.

Kondo seems to be very involved in the project, so that’s great. Hopefully things will stay the same for our beloved Falcom. And also hopefully they’ll ditch NISA and find a decent translation team lol.

Oh no, Shin brutally knocked out Lloyd, Rean, Van and Estelle… Well, looks like Kiseki won hard for you the same way it won for me against Muv-Luv. Just goes to show how good it is.

Mushoku vs Umineko
Protagonist: tie
Antagonist: Umineko
Side cast: Mushoku
Best story: Umineko (MT anime is not finished yet though).
Pacing: Mushoku
Character Development: Mushoku
Backstories: Umineko
Character Designs: Mushoku
Arcs: Mushoku
Peaks: tie
Writing: tie
Theme: Umineko
Plot twists: tie
Fights/Drama: tie
Music: Umineko has one of the best OSTs out there.
This one was a little bit harder.

How about Frieren vs Code Geass?

Rean vs Van
Introduction: Van
Design: Rean
Backstory: Rean
Personal Enjoyment: Rean
Peaks: Rean
Dynamics: Rean
Writing: Rean
Story: Rean
Complexity: Rean
Relatability: Rean
Development: Rean
Dialogues: Rean
Conclusion: I’m sorry Van, Rean totally outclassed you…
I’m giving you the Rean vs Lloyd matchup :P

Why is she so tired and what is that party for, I wonder?

My favorite Sky aspect is definitely its coziness. That’s one of the reasons why I’m (allegedly) one of the few people on this planet who likes FC more than SC. For the most part, it was simply a charming, cute journey of two youths exploring the world. Characters and music were obviously a part of this - can’t have a proper journey without both after all ha-ha.

Kusuriya S2, Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon S2 (one of my favorite anime, hopefully it won’t be ruined by its sequel), 100 GFs S2, Hanako Kun S2, S-Rank Monster, Übel Blatt, Unnamed Memory S2, Sentai Red S2.

Seems like a good idea. While tracking anime is easy thanks to MAL, I wouldn’t be able to recall when I played/read most other things because I’m not tracking it anywhere. Maybe I’ll make something similar too. Oshi no Ko 7/10? That’s a bit surprising, but I guess that’s because of some manga developments I’m not aware of yet (pls no spoilers). Dandadan was pretty good, if I still used scores I’d likely give it ‘8’. Do you think Holo is beautiful enough to justify her win over our nominees? :P Hestia looks badass on that vol 18 cover.
Mm… Recommendation from me? Then I suggest checking out MiSide. I played it just yesterday, it’s a 4-hour long story, so it's pretty easy to digest. I had a feeling it might end up being just a memey game, but it was truly one of a kind experiences for me.

Have you ever played NationStates? It's an old, satirical nation simulation browser game. Recently, I started playing it actively again. It's quite simple for the most part:
- You receive some issues per day and decide how to deal with them.
- Based on your decisions, the policies and stats of your nation change.
Example of an issue:

Example of stats:

Example of policies:

There are also trading cards and many other stuff. Some people try to play this "seriously" by mimicking their own political beliefs, some try to roleplay (this is me), some just pick options for fun.

Hehe, the feeling is totally mutual :)

Yup, moreover it's a Uchida Maaya's role.

Happy New Year!

May all your goals and wishes be fulfilled!

Also, here are some random screenshots from not so random anime:

No Japanese text again.

Thank you, Merry Christmas to you too.

I decided to look into it and apparently it's from Free! I've been seeing it here and there but never gave it a try and judging by character cast and the cover art I'm not very likely to enjoy it. Something like Keijo is typically more to my liking.

Some examples of the outfits this Kiseki gacha has:

Most of them are likely reused (and animated) assets from Akatsuki. It’s a bit of a shame this game is such a low quality product all things considered. There is almost nothing to do and the story is pretty much nonexistent. In related news: even though I wanted to avoid starting a new gacha game, I caved in and installed GFL2 after it was globally released. This game is gorgeous:
+ It has one of the best character models I’ve seen.
+ There are many fun interactions you can have with the characters.
+ The story is decent.
+ Gameplay is kinda fun.
+ Only the girls among the playable characters.
+ The best “starters” of all the gacha I’ve tried to date (Groza was one of my favorite characters in GFL1 and they made her one of the main ones here).
- The challenge, ultimately, is a stat check. If your characters are leveled and geared properly it’ll be a breeze to clear things, if not - you’ll struggle.
- Gacha itself is based on the Genshin model which is terrible.
- As always, I’m unable to pay to get some nice things.
Here are some screenshots:

Same thing here. Some meetings can’t be forgotten.
Okay, I made a new Last.fm acc and a Bluesky one - not sure, however, that I will be using it. However, if the worst happens, it can serve as a separate method of contact.

By the way, Girls’ Frontline 2 didn’t allow me to make a “Shizuna” name because apparently “Shiz” is an offensive word lol.

Who knows, perhaps Shizuna was a Chunibyo when she was younger… After all, it’s usually a trait that is exhibited by teen characters, whereas she’s already 23-24. All the roles you listed are great.

Hmm, we didn’t get to see much of Grandmaster but it is fair to assume she’s the strongest. SSS tier makes sense, but it is kind of funny that both versions of McBurn are here, even though his demon form is supposed to be more powerful than his normal form - it’s just that you can't put him on the same level as grandmaster but at the same time can’t downgrade his normal self to the lower tier either. And funnily, even though demonic Gerard is supposed to be a force to be reckoned with, somehow I can’t put him on the same level as other beasts in this tier. SS tier made me think that given his reputation, Kasim is underwhelming. Despite being “the strongest jaeger in history” he really lacks in the style department - so far he hasn’t been showing much other than swinging and firing that big weapon around. Sigmund, Randy, Shizuna, Fie, Sara and many other jaegers are way cooler. Arioch, I think, can be a tier higher. He’s a pretty imposing dude with a very important role in the past and has those powerful artifacts to boot. Also, poor Estelle, Lloyd and Van - can’t reach Rean and Kevin. Rutger would probably be at least as powerful as Randy, I think, even though we didn’t get to see much of his fighting style outside of piloting the divine knight. Judith is two whole tiers below Rixia, it’s still crazy for me to think she’s supposed to be an equal to Rixia. I’d put Shirley a tier higher as well and definitely Sara - I don’t think she’s weaker than Laura, Elaine etc. Can’t say much about the rest, it’s quite amazing you had enough patience to sort so many characters, especially given how little information there is about some of them.

Yep, a picture mode like the one in GFL2 I showed you above - that would be totally awesome. Although making unique animations and poses would require a lot of work, but a normal model viewer requires none of that - just the will of the developer and publisher. I feel like most developers are just afraid of making upskirt angles possible because that would cause a controversy (even though no one is forcing anyone to look from such angles).

He-he, thanks for the compliments, although like I’ve said I stopped my modding endeavors since then.

Those Youtube thumbnails can be really annoying. I know it’s nothing criminal, but when someone finishes the story and uploads some spoilerish screenshot as a thumbnail I think it’s poor manners.
Man, to this day I still haven’t seen even a single 3D printer yet, your schools appear so high tech to me ha-ha.

True, Emma and Hanekawa are very similar, although more visually than personality-wise. Also, Alisa got Hanekawa’s voice. I wish Roselia had more involvement with Rean.
Luck is also a skill. Hmm…

The day before you were born,
The hero’s older brother,
Used his 4th voice,
To make your favorite.

Answer:

Most people find beauty attractive and sexiness is just one form of it, so no wonder Gotch is so successful in-lore. What is strange, however, is how many real people nowadays try to fight beauty and introduce mediocrity/ugliness instead. I checked some designs for new video-game releases with realistic graphics and yeah - I don’t feel them at all.

In Kuro II Rixia even publicly danced in her Yin outfit mask-off, so with the mask alone there is no way she’d be able to hide her true identity. My guess is that it’s just a part of her Yin image, like she’s immersing herself in it or something, whereas when she takes it off she’s just Rixia.
Well, even jokes aside, I do love outfits that leave the armpit area visible. How about you?
Renne: CSIV > Kuro II > her loli outfit > Swimsuit > School Uniform.

Looking at their wiki page, they published a lot of different games, but it’s unsure where they provided translation and where they didn’t. The sad thing about this company is that I’d support them even with delayed releases as long as translation was decent and not that garbage they’re making.

I think you’re right. One objective thing I can point out about Kiseki is that tons of other games eventually fade out from my memory, but it’s very persistent. Well! I suggest we talk about this again after 10 years and try to see how many of our current favorites survive after all that time ha-ha.

This might be the first time I’m hearing about Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai. Oh, it’s a visual novel adaptation, no wonder I didn’t watch it - I usually avoid them after all. The character design is pretty though. As for logging the dates I disagree - it takes only two extra clicks :P
I hate doing most things on the phone and coding stuff would be one of the worst experiences on it.

Well, it’s a youtube channel with only one video and I probably won’t even be able to login to it anymore, so it’s not a big deal ha-ha. I never played Galactica, but yeah, most bullet hell games are similar in nature, I think. Sakuya is great, although I’m not sure how I feel about her abilities being a reference to JoJo’s Dio. I saw tons of great fanart with her. Honestly she’s super stylish.
Yeah, ZUN did everything himself and also allows fans not only to make their own games but also legally sell them - that’s why the guy is so respected by those who know about him. Those greedy corporations have a lot to learn from him when it comes to making sure your franchise gets big and becomes a legend.
The sixth game is the first one that was made for Windows, 1-5 games were made for PC-98 and as far as I know they’re not even fully canonical.
Fanart of some of my favorite characters:

The thing with media preservation is that it’s the opposite of what the companies want. They want you to buy their new stuff and in an ironic way the old stuff is competing with it. So I can totally imagine greedy corporations legally attacking fans who might try to preserve or improve things the same way NISA attacked Zerofield. I wonder, if you live in a “third world country” that doesn’t care about Copyright laws, would it be possible to do this stuff without fearing for retaliation from corporations or not?

Still no news for a Kai PC port, but FC PC/EN remake was already announced. It makes me feel salty. I’m not even hyped about the remake in the first place. It's a good thing that it is being made, but what I want is Kai, not it.

The main argument the defenders of terrible localizations have is that “literal translation doesn’t sound natural in English”. First of all, it sounds perfectly fine to me (in fact, much more natural than whatever cringe NISA is making all the time) and secondly - it’s not an excuse to intentionally MISTRANSLATE stuff. Conveying the meaning of what is being said is the MAIN job of a translator. If they can’t even do it right, then they suck at their job. It’s like ordering authentic Japanese sushi and getting a McDonald's Big Mac instead because the waiter likes it more and thought it’s a better choice. Another thing is that those who defend these practices generally don’t care about the quality of the translation in the first place and would be fine with whatever the localizer feeds them - and that’s a big issue because it lowers the (already low) industry standard.

Honestly, I wouldn’t even call what is happening in most countries “the survival of the fittest”. More like “the survival of those who have wealthy relatives or friends” lol. The fact that in many countries governments are run by geriatric circuses doesn’t help either. It’s only the “plebs” who have to compete against each other after all.

I’d say the attitude towards individual lives in our countries seem to be very different overall. From my understanding, if someone were to get injured or died in school, workplace, military, etc. in the U.S. it would be a huge deal and at the very least involve monetary compensation for the affected, but here it usually gets swept under the rug. For one thing - people are generally unwilling to sue or bring attention to their situations, and for another - the system is against the little man anyway. I and my other friend sometimes joke about how if people from the U.S. or Western Europe lived here for some months or years, they’d start appreciating what they have back at home much more ha-ha.
Eh, with my watching speed it’s unlikely for me to pick up those movies. It took me 2 months to finish Owarimonogatari and I haven’t been watching anything else besides it. Was the Gatsby movie better than the book or the opposite? I generally like books more than their movie adaptations. Watching Chainsaw man with the classmates seems like a good time tbh, but only if the classmates in question are the people you are in a good relationship with. For example, if you, me and some of our mutual friends on MAL were in the same class it could be fun haha.
Yep, the convenience of having a smartphone in your pocket doesn’t offset the fact that you can’t afford your own house and have to work paycheck to paycheck while having a non-zero chance of being assaulted by some random person. With lesson prices gym membership is a good example too. When I was ~13, you could pay ~$12.5 for a monthly gym membership AND a fitness trainer would coach you for free every day you come. Now it’s ~$20-50 for ONE training session with a trainer, so obviously only the rich can afford it.
I guess it was embarrassing for you to see your sister laughing in the audience. I don’t have much experience with performing before an audience, so I don’t know how it would feel.

If you said this on Twitter, I bet you’d be called all kinds of words for not denying the Agnes option ha-ha. One of the reasons I like the Van x Agnes pairing is that she was the one who totally changed his life, wouldn’t you agree? Before meeting her, he was depressed, a bit unsocial, etc. but because of her he met tons of new people and changed for the better. Well, it’s entirely possible that nothing will get answered in Kai too on that front.

Your own house and a relatively small town seems like a huge upgrade to what you previously had in the capital of your state, especially if it didn’t impact your parents’ earnings. I regret a bit that my parents had to sell their house in Crimea (it was on the hill so it was pretty cool) because I needed foot surgery and care I told you about previously and so we had to move to another town.

Hey, hang in there, man. I’m obviously an outsider so I only know about the political climate of your country from the stuff I read and hear on the internet, but from what I understand, there are many reasons for that outcome. If you want to talk about it, I can expand my thoughts on this further, but I’d have to transfer this part of the conversation to our discord chat because I’d rather not post it in a publicly available space.

The funny thing is that you can get stuck in traffic while using public transport too. It’s obviously not an issue with trains, but I remember wasting 2 hours in a jam while taking the bus from one city to another. I almost missed the time I had to be there.
If you have Gmail you just put “google drive” in Google Search and open it. You should have 15 GB worth of space there and can upload/share whatever you want. Btw, just to be safe, I always use fake names.


Yeah, nowadays I understand most of the songs I hear. My parents even ask me sometimes to figure out what the song’s name based on the lyrics.
Well, ZUN did make all of his music on his own and he wasn’t rich… I don’t think adding vocals would somehow make it much more expensive. The real issue is having the talent and dedicating enough time for it. Nowadays you can even compose on your PC without much other hardware.

The cousin I mentioned before practiced MMA for many years, had tons of medals and was a very good fighter overall, but even he preferred to avoid confrontation with strangers. So what does it tell about the people who don’t have fighting experience at all? It just isn’t worth it. The things are different when you have problems with people you are forced to spend time with e.g. classmates. If you let them pick on you unpunished, they’ll be emboldened to continue to do so again and again. However, if they are much stronger and/or numerous, it doesn’t matter how you react - the bullying might become even worse if you try to defend yourself. So it’s just a terrible situation all around and there is no easy solution to it.
True, you can put more clothes on you to protect yourself from the cold, but you can’t take any clothes off when you’re already semi-naked during the hot summer lol.
Judging by my peers, young people seem to be less interested in alcohol and tobacco than previous generations, so maybe things are getting better on this front. I think it is caused by the fact that people have other ways to distract themselves, mainly the internet and video-games. Even though it sounds unlikely, I think people get addicted to alcohol/tobacco because they have nothing better to do for the most part. That and because of socialization, I guess, which isn’t as required in the modern world as it was in the past.

Wow, no wonder the parents didn’t want to let their children be without supervision with things like that occurring, and thank goodness the suspect in question didn’t try to do anything violent. I think your mother made the right call to warn your father not to pursue him, it could’ve been very dangerous.

I do love Muv-Luv a lot. I think it’s a fantastically crafted story with very lovable characters (especially Meiya and Takeru), perfectly suitable OST, etc. but it doesn’t enter my mind as often as Kiseki-related thoughts. It’s similar to something like Sekiro in that regard.

Imagine if we were in the 13th game of the series and Estelle was still the sole protagonist because Falcom was afraid of “betraying” the Sky players. I don’t think it would be good for the series ha-ha. Same if they didn’t switch to 3D models/view starting CSI. But yeah, some people aren’t that interested in gameplay/character interactions and just want to see how the story progresses - this is definitely not something I can relate to. People who care only about the story and at the same time are fine with botched translations are probably the most weird ones, tbh.

It really annoys me how VISA/MasterCard have been attacking Japanese niche developers/artists recently with their crusade against whatever they don’t like. They only have one job - processing payments - and yet they still decide to try controlling over what is being produced.
Strange, that link doesn’t open either with or without the VPN.

When it comes to figures, I think the status of the protagonist becomes less important than within the game itself. For example, even though I do love Rean a lot, I’d rather buy figures of all the other female characters I like before getting his figure.
Well, realistically me going back now wouldn’t achieve the goal of getting a figure anyway. My apartment is destroyed and I’d likely get in real trouble/die before getting it lol… Most of my male friends/relatives left the country too and aren’t planning to go back unless they are forced to. I appreciate you worrying about me though, thank you.

Here are some Koikatsu examples from pixiv:
These models are supposedly free.

The one who uses the tachi is Meiya :P Umineko is glorious, but also is a bit messy and less comfy than Higurashi. Also, unlike Umineko, Higurashi is genuinely scary at times. I added my VN list in English btw, so you can check it if you want. That’s Meiya on the banner btw and recently I upgraded Rance to a number one VN guy. I have a feeling you won't like him though.

One of the weirdest things about people complaining about Rean and Lloyd being “harem protagonists” is that they call it unrealistic, whereas in real life 20% of guys/girls get all the attention of the rest of the 80%. And Rean and Lloyd are 1000 times better than those 20%.

Hey, you never know how Alfin might turn up in the future. Maybe she’ll give Rixia a run for her money XD A busty blond empress would certainly be loved by her subjects.
Emile is sexy and Sakura is cute too, so that protag has a good selection of girls.

There was a cute moment in Kuro I when Van and the team try to negotiate with Shizuna to join hands, she agrees, then Kurogane appears and voices disagreement, Bergard then says it’s not a place for a servant to question his master’s decisions, but she tells that she doesn’t mind and that she’s always being scolded anyway, than adding to Kurogane that if he’s against the alliance she’s fine to cancel it. I like moments like this one because it shows the sweeter side of Shizuna and that she appreciates those who are under her, so she’s not just a battle maniac I saw some people claim.

Let’s hope that when they make a new post-kuro engine they won’t be decreasing the bust sizes :P
Three sizes is probably difficult to make for all the characters, but there is no excuse to not include the heights… Or at least birthday dates.

Oh, now I remember something like this about Elaina (I almost typed Elaine out of habit lol). Wasn’t there a lot of discussion about that episode when the anime was airing? It wasn’t commendable, but it didn’t really bother me. If I remember her personality right, she was generally egotistical and self-important, so acting that way made sense.

Then I’ll make such a thread if I get the time, then I’ll ping you there so be ready hehe.

IIRC my older half-brother (the one that hates me for no reason) is a few cm shorter than me too ha-ha. I remember reading about younger people being taller than the previous generations on average, but I don’t know if it’s true.
You reminded me that I still didn’t get to use Blender… This would be the easiest way to check the heights of the characters if we manage to extract their models and place them side by side.

As you can see, I murdered my profile and went for a simplistic layout, so if the ones we previously discussed won’t work this is an option for you too. In my case, I think the previous one was cooler and unique, but this one is kind of relaxing, so I’m fine with it.

Maaan, figuring out this tier list took sooo much time. No matter how I try to place the characters, I can’t get the result I’m satisfied with. For one thing, there are many characters I don’t remember that well or can’t properly evaluate, and for another - I can’t draw proper lines between the tiers lol. For example, I remember that I really liked Zeit when I was playing the Crossbell arc, but I don’t remember why exactly. I really need to replay it at some point, it’s the only arc that I played only once. But since I promised I’ll do the list, here it is: As for your list, hmm:
- If we consider my tiers “Shizuna”, “0” and “1” equal to your tier S, we have 11 overlaps.
- I thought Emma would be higher.
- Agnes is lower than Elaine… My day is ruined and my disappointment is immeasurable (just kidding).
- You stay true to your Anton appreciation.
- Vita is higher than I thought after your past comments about her :P

These are super sweet:

Laura’s confession was super assertive, she has definitely changed over how she acted in CSI. Altina’s was just super cute. And Sara’s - ultimate uno reverse situation.

Do you know a place where people commission stories? Like Pixiv or Skeb for art.
Well I decided to put the “Make a short story about Fie Claussell and Laura S. Arseid making out” into chatGPT and the first thing it said to me was “This content may violate our usage policies.” Isn’t it weird considering that I’m talking to a bot and no one else sees our chat? Anyway, here’s what it gave to me



The “Arseid” part at the end was weird because I don’t remember Fie ever calling her that, but it’s almost creepy how it managed to detect some of their traits (like hair color, weapons of choice, etc.) based on that short sentence I fed to it.
Towa-like character in Muv-Luv? Well, there is one girl who has a similar body type to her, but I wouldn’t call them very alike otherwise. Towa is super diligent and very composed without a darker side to her. So I’d say there isn’t such a character there.
Rean, Estelle, Van, Kevin, Lloyd, Renne - I think there is a high chance the first six spots could go to them. Protagonists have an unfair advantage because they get a lot of screen time, and Renne is just a juggernaut. Among them, only Kevin seems a bit unsteady because he was the protagonist of only one game, which many people probably haven’t even played. So all in all entering the top-10 would be a feat on its own.
The problem with Lloyd (or Rean) ending with just one of the girls means the rest are supposed to either remain forever alone or end up with some random NPC, which wouldn’t sit right with most players.

The biggest Sky hater reporting for duty... Not!

My guess is that writing overly dramatic love triangles is simply easier than a good proper romance. If you remove drama from something like "Kanojo, Okarishimasu" you'd probably cut 80% of its story.
I wouldn't mind crazy Shizuna hurting me tbh.

So did you end up contacting the DB mods about the Towa situation? I don't think they'd mind answering you as long as you're polite about it. Who are you going to replace, though? In your MAL favorite character list, I mean.

We already figured out you prefer big breasts, but how about height - do you prefer shorter or taller girls?

No, with certain exceptions, I don't use Turbo Mode in general. There was a time I tried playing Kuro with it for a bit (wanted to get through some stuff while replaying certain parts) and it really messed up my perception for a time - when I switched to normal speed, it took a few hours to stop thinking that it's slow. I want to enjoy every minute I'm spending in a Kiseki game anyway.

I've been busy with some things so my "Shizuna-learning" sessions suffered too because of this. As of right now, I did 106 lines total. I wanted to be done with Kuro I before New Year, but I probably won't end it in time.

Ash is good, but I have a soft spot for a diligent and serious Kurt, and Juna is a very good girl too. I think Altina is the only one who is really "on top of the class" for most people.

Looks like this time with the beauty contest you managed to appear quite early and even snatched Vladilena 6 minutes before my other friend tried to nominate her haha.
Hmm, can you tell me more about your opinion on Code Geass characters? Since I only watched the main TV series, let's limit it to them, otherwise I won't be able to fully grasp everything.

Cute ass.
Nice armpits.
Cool back.
Gorgeous swimsuits.
This reminds me that the friend I mentioned before (the one who dropped Hajimari) doesn't like Rixia's Yin outfit, the reason is that "it covers too much" XD.

My choice is Class VII too. Mostly for the same reasons as yours, but also because it has Rean who, if needed, would even sacrifice himself to safe the day to the disappointment of everyone who loves and cares about him.

Sure thing. Whatever you link me - I'll gladly do. Unless it's something dangerous, of course...
Here's my Hikikomori result:
I think it would be better if it had more questions because most of these 25 were the opposites of the same thing (e.g. one question is "i enjoy being around people" and the other "i'd rather be alone").
I think if I answered this 5 years ago, I'd get a higher score. I think I didn't get a high score because I tend to socialize a lot online, whereas the last time I met with my friends offline was more than a year ago.

It's probably a difficult task for Kondo to talk about those numbers because you might plan one thing but get something different during the development phase. For example, Sky FC and SC were supposed to be one game, but because there were sooo much stuff in it, they decided to make two games instead. I say it's good that they're not rushing. I also don't get why people complain Falcom """milks""" Kiseki by making "too many games". Every game they release is great, so what's the problem?

Let's see.
Protagonist : Rean > Takeru > Other Kiseki protagonists; the reason I put Takeru so high is because the development he gets is insane, but I still think Rean's journey is more impactful, so Kiseki wins.
Antagonists : Kiseki (I won't say why because it could spoil things about Muv-Luv for you).
Side cast : Kiseki due to their sheer number alone.
Best story : mmm... this one is difficult. Muv-Luv might be a little better put together and touch more difficult subjects, but in my opinion Kiseki wins due to its worldbuilding and how it manages to remain continuous over 2 decades.
Pacing : When it comes to pacing, I have a simple formula: if it's good, then the longer it is, the better; it it's bad then the shorter it is, the better; if it's good but might become worse due to long parts, then it should be shorter. Both Muv-Luv and Kiseki are a joy every minute you interact with them and Kiseki is much longer overall, so it wins.
Character Development: equal.
Backstories: Kiseki.
Character Designs: Definitely Kiseki.
Arcs : Kiseki.
Peaks: might be Muv-Luv.
Writing: impossible to compare since both are translated from another language and sadly both official translations aren't good. I'd say it's XSEED > whoever translated Muv-Luv > NISA.
Theme: not sure.
Plot twists : Muv-Luv.
Fights/Drama: Muv-Luv.
Music: Kiseki.
Conclusion: 8:3 in Kiseki's favor.

For you, let's go with Kiseki and 86.

Don't worry about it. I wanted to reply sooner, but was unable to too. Sometimes things just get in the way.

(I don't know what anime this is from, but I think it represents everything well XD)
That Noelle is from the Kiseki gacha that was released this spring. I’m unaware whether it’s Akatsuki’s reused asset or a new drawing. There’s also this Halloween Olivier:
Busybodies don’t need a good reason to make things harder for others unfortunately. I’ll try making a bluesky account some time later. One handle I wanted to use wasn’t available and another one was too long, so I’ll have to think about another one.

As long as you’re happy and don’t regret your choices that is all that matters. But if you do build a family, don’t forget about your friend here :D

Nah, it’s all up to the publisher. If Falcom wanted to commission Judith ASRM, she’d probably do it even if Rias one didn’t exist. Aside from ASRMs, “talking” records also exist. For example, I have some with Kanzaki Ranko.
(A reminder that she’s voiced by Uchida Maaya). They are ~7-30 min audio files where she just talks, although she sounds very different compared to Shizuna despite having the same seiyuu, probably because Ranko is supposed to be 10 years younger and also is a huge chunibyo (after I showed a friend of mine some Shizuna's lines from Kuro, he jokingly called her chunibyo too, but that's not true...). While I’m at it, I’ll send you a few Ranko’s songs if you don’t mind (one of them, Nation Blue, has several idols singing, but it’s a banger so I included it too). It’d be a pain to look for them on Youtube with how things are. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve already shown you the hacking to the gate cover, so I’ll skip it.

I think it could be interesting to take a look at your power scaling list, so go ahead and show it to me please. The problem I see with the mod you mention is that official models likely don’t have anything under the clothes, so the modder would have to make things up. Also, I like the idea of it being a mystery, something you can only wonder about. One thing I would definitely want to have, however, is some kind of convenient model viewer, i.e. a tool that would allow you to use the camera freely and let you select expressions and poses you want. The one in the game is better than nothing, but it is very limited - you can’t even appreciate the model from below. For example, are you aware of how beautiful the soles of Shizuna’s shoes are? (Open the full image to get a better view).
I think you can only notice this either by accident or if you make thousands of screenshots of the same character like me because with in-game model viewer there is no way to see this.

On the topic of mods, however… Well, I wasted 2 entire days trying to make a mod for Kuro I and it yielded almost no results. And by two days I don’t mean “1 hour today and maybe 2 tomorrow”, nah - I spent around 20 hours total on this.
What I wanted is to make Shizuna playable from the start, while removing all other characters from the party. This way it could’ve been a fun way to replay the game again as it would increase the overall challenge since I’d be playing with just one character and I’d be playing with my precious Shizuna all the time - as far as mods go, what more is there for me to ask for? But alas… For what’s it worth, however:
- I managed to make her appear here near Montmart.

- I even added two lines of text when you interact with her and one of them is voiced.

- I was also able to remove Van and Agnes:

- However, I stuck during the very first battle:

- The reason for that is because (I think) the game tries to interact with Van to unlock the usage of crafts and if that script isn’t triggered, monsters are immortal, so the battle can’t be ended.
- Another issue is the fact that in every dialogue the game tries to interact with the characters who are present, so in case with my mod NPCs end up talking to themselves (their dialogue progresses as normal, but there are no Van/Agnes models or text boxes).

So in the end I gave up and tried to at least make her playable normally (so starting with the 1 level, basic equipment, etc.) and even that didn’t work out because the game treats her like a guest character, so you can’t edit her inventory in-game. Basically, I can edit her equipment in the game’s files, but not while I’m playing the game, which defeats the purpose of the mod. So I guess I can add this experience to the ever growing list of things I failed at, as pathetic as it sounds.

The only saving grace here is that editing text is relatively simple, here’s an example:

So at the very least I can do some tweaks when necessary, e.g.:
- Make the dialogue in Japanese and interface in English.
- Change the fonts (while I do think that Kuro’s Japanese fonts are very beautiful, it is even more difficult to read than normal Japanese fonts).
- If I start to play Kai with MTL (or worse…), I’d prefer to at least keep Shizuna’s dialogue and other bits in Japanese. My only concern here is that it’s impossible to change the text for the specific character in one go, I’d have to manually edit many different files, which can spoil things.

That said, for now I want to forget about modding altogether. These two days really tired me out and made me think that getting into coding might not be for me after all lol.

Maybe it’s a good thing Youtube is blocked here, so the chance of randomly getting spoiled by titles and thumbnails is lower lol.
Hmm, do your libraries have non-standard printers? Most normal ones I know can only print basic stuff like A4. What I meant is taking an artwork you really like and printing it on… I’m not sure, 600mm x 1000mm glossy paper or something like this. Then you could put it into some gorgeous picture frame, maybe even add glass over it for preservation purposes, and display it somewhere in your room.

True, the similarities between Rufus/C and Code Geass are noticeable. Well, pretty much anything made by humans is done based on ideas of other humans, so it’s not surprising that certain authors would be inspired by works they love.
Heh, your adoration with Roxy is apparent, so that prediction wasn’t very difficult to make. Okay, let’s try another one. It starts from your profile and leads elsewhere.

The one who lived for over the thousand years,
And comes from the Land of the Rising Sun,
Her most famous personas assemble,
And the truth comes forth from where the 3rd one traveled from,
There, a seventh soul contains a fragment of what is dear to your friend.

Answer:

Director Gotch knows what he’s doing…
How do you feel about the Calvardian version of Mishy, by the way? When I’ve been doing this quest in Kuro II, I really felt for Mishy fans in Calvard who didn’t like how he was localized.

More than anything else, masks cover the eyes, which are the most prominent feature of most characters. Rixia, for example, looks much prettier without the Yin mask. I wonder how Feri will be like when she grows up. I think she’s going to be very different to Fie, especially personality-wise.
For Risette… Kai > Race Queen > Swimsuit > Kuro I > Casual.

Until you pointed it out, I didn’t know there was a relation between Love Live and NISA either… XD
I didn’t expect you’re going to like LL songs this much, but I’m glad you did. Here’s some LL art just because:

I think that nostalgic feeling can be applied to many things, not just first experience with MAL or web in general. For example, when I was a kid, I could get excited about 95% of games I tried, but nowadays I don’t care about 95% of them. Although, it is also possible that many modern games, while more numerous, aren’t that good on their own compared to the older times when every other game was a hit. I don’t know man, Kiseki is the only series I truly care about at this point. There are obviously also some others I like (e.g. Sekiro, Touhou, etc.), but I don’t get thrilled about many other releases. It’s just “whatever, I can have a much better time learning Shizuna’s lines or something like that”. Maybe I’m just getting old.

When you start watching non-seasonal anime, do you try to finish it before getting to another one or not? There were times it took me more than a year to finish certain anime XD. But yeah, logging the dates is great for the list. Some users don’t do it and I wonder how do they even navigate through it.
Did you have to mess with the layout’s code to make it work? Then I guess it was similar to my struggles with Kuro modding lol. But hey, at least you managed to make it work and it does look good, so mission accomplished.

I think celebrating with family is nice, especially if there is no bad blood between its members. When I was younger, there was a much bigger net of family members and relatives around, but nowadays it’s just me and my parents, who haven’t talked to each other for more than a year. I also have a cousin, but he works as a trucker in Europe, so we can’t realistically meet unless this whole thing is over. Oh, and I also have a half-brother, but he hated me since the day I was born so we don't interact with each other. Some weird sense of jealousy towards a younger sibling (he hates his another half-brother who has 0 relation to me just as much), I don’t really get it. It's very different to how sibling relationships are usually portrayed in fiction, especially anime.
But depending on the circumstances I think spending the day alone can also be nice.

Gameplay-wise Touhou is a bullet hell. I can’t remember if I showed you it before, but I’ll link it just in case - the only video I ever uploaded on Youtube was, in fact, my playthrough of my first Extra stage. Story-wise it’s about a shrine maiden and some other girls who have to solve incidents occurring in Gensokyo (game’s setting) caused by yokai and other unique creatures. I think the most awesome thing about Touhou is that mainline games were created by a single person - he made an engine, illustrations, spires, levels, etc. and more than anything - composed great music which became a thing of its own. There was a time I saw a torrent with more than 1 terabyte of fanmade music that was based on Touhou’s creator’s compositions. The fastest way to understand it is to simply try one of the games, you can either buy one of them on Steam for $14.99 (?) or… Well, you know. I think it's best to start from the 6th game, which is Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but it’s not on Steam.
Yeah, for example one of the Steam achievements in Kuro is to defeat 1000 enemies, which I did during the third chapter. Should’ve made it at least 5000 instead so the players like me who enjoy replaying the game could have something to look forward to ha-ha. Or why is the achievement “reach lvl 3 of law/gray/chaos” instead of lvl 5?

I wonder how often the name “Shizuna” appears throughout our conversation… It’s entirely possible it has reached 1000 times by now. Lol.

With digital stuff things can actually be even worse. Today I’ve read an article about a Dragon Age remaster being almost impossible to make because not many people who still work at its studio know how the old engine even works. Add to it the fact that there also might be a software/hardware incompatibility and then gets even more complicated. So… Not sure where I want to lead this thought, I don’t even care about this series, I just want my favorite things to be safe from getting lost one way or another :(

I didn’t follow the announcement dates, so I don’t know, but if we go by release dates:
Kuro no Kiseki:
PS: September 30, 2021
PC: 27 Jul, 2022
Kuro no Kiseki II:
PS: September 29, 2022
PC: 25 Jan, 2023
So 4-9 months if I’m not mistaking anything. Kai is supposed to be bigger, however, and we don’t know what kind of other issues might be at play. We’d also need to get our hands on a patch somehow. Things would be so much easier if JP text wasn’t cut from the CLE’s version smh.

Apparently, NISA translated Tycoon as generic “Tyrant”. That despite the fact that Taikun is a term that does exist in the English language and in JP it uses the same kanji both in-game and in that wiki article. One might think it’s not that important, but it makes me think - after Beauty’s Blade and Tyrant what else have they “translated”? I’m so glad the last time I had displeasure of playing with their “translation” was Cold Steel IV. That said, even if Falcom does decide to make their own translation, it won’t mean much if they end up hiring the same people who are currently working for NISA. What I would prefer if Japanese games were translated to English by Japanese who know English and aren’t obsessed with changing things. Also, I’m not even sure Falcom is aware that there is a problem with their NISA’s English TL at all.
Yeah, wait for them to discover what happened to Renne before she joined the Society.

Yep, this is all very true, unfortunate and sad. That said, I don’t know what the solution to that problematic cycle would be. I guess not making people so poor would be a start, but beyond that things get complicated. It’s not like you can throw money at the problem and it will be fixed overnight - we’ve already talked about the inefficiency of school curriculums and there is nothing to suggest any other government program would fare better unless there are competent, diligent and honest people maintaining it across the board. So I guess the first step would be to "fix" the culture somehow. With the dog eat dog mentality nothing will ever be improved regardless of the proposed solutions.

Imagine being a parent and receiving an ~$2000.00 invoice because your kid broke something at school, it would suck haha. I don’t remember me or any of my classmates getting extra chores, suspension or expulsions due to our behavior. Even those guys who broke another guy’s leg didn’t get in trouble. All in all, it seems like your schools are more involved in the lives of their students than here. Although honestly, I’m not sure if it’s still true to this day - I’ve graduated long ago, after all, and it’s entirely possible things changed for all the wrong reasons (so instead of maintaining student’s wellbeing, schools bother and monitor them due to indoctrination reasons).
Okay, I checked the movies you listed. Lorax - ❌, Coco - ❌, Titanic - ✔️, The Great Gatsby - ❌, Saving Private Ryan - ✔️, The Lion King - ✔️, Dead Poets Society - ❌. Checkmark - what I’ve seen, cross mark - what I haven’t. I think it would be cool to include some anime in schools, but when I consider it would be in dub, then it doesn’t seem like a good idea anymore…
It’s so weird when people who are probably only good at one thing (e.g. German) get so condescending to the ones they try to teach. Meanwhile, she probably asks her son or a nephew or whatever to help her with any issues she has with her PC, phone, etc. or whenever she needs to move some furniture.
The ironic thing is that I don’t think kids “have it easier” these days. Everyone is poorer, there is more social turmoil, etc. which seems to be a global phenomenon. To be fair, I’m not sure how things are in some of the Asian (as far as I know many Chinese live better nowadays than before), African and South American countries, but that’s the feeling I’m getting from Europe and North America. And at the very least, “back in my day” the internet was freer, there was no war, etc. XD
Well, it was a military class, so the weapon talk was a normal thing. If anything, I’d expect your schools to have a similar class, i.e. gun safety course or something like that, given that you are more likely to have to deal with them than people here.
Oh, being in a choir class seems like a great way to figure out whether you have a talent for singing and develop it. I sometimes wondered whether I’m capable of singing or not, but there is no way to figure it out - I don’t want to bother the neighbors and I don’t think karaoke bars like the ones in Japan exist here; taking lessons is stupidly expensive too, 1 hour costs the same as a daily pay at a full time job, maybe even more than that. But yeah, that teacher of yours is weird. Maybe there was some kind of misunderstanding? If not, then that was a petty and unprofessional thing for her to do.
That Algebra teacher either had a very unique sense of humor or very unique fetishes lol.

I’m really interested to know what will happen with Van and Agnes/Elaine relationship in the future. They both seem to have feelings for him, whereas all the other girls don't seem like it. Between the two, I’m on team Agnes. How about you?

It’s possible that the size of the city plays a role in how safe/unsafe the place is for kids. My town had ~300k people living in it, so while it wasn’t exactly small, it was small enough for even kids to know most of it. Then again, I guess we were lucky things like kidnappings weren’t happening. With so little supervision, criminals could’ve easily done it. That said, even besides delinquents, there were also football hooligans and skinheads around, it’s just that there was no reason for them to bother kids for the most part. Or maybe we were just lucky to not get in trouble with them.
Isn’t it weird how we just talked about the tariffs and now I hear the future administration of your country is planning to increase/add them? Reading the internet, it’s crazy how people across the globe react to what’s been happening there. Just recently my father complained that in the USSR times no one here cared about American politics, and now they influence us even more than our local elections haha, although admittedly in our case it’s not because of tariffs, immigration or anything like that. Well, hopefully nothing major happens, both inside and outside your nation.
To be honest I’m not a fan of buses and public transport in general. Even living in a city where it’s widely available, user-friendly and mostly punctual I’d still prefer to get around by car. At the very least I wouldn’t have to feel like a fish in the barrel and worry about getting some kind of virus from other people. That said, getting stuck in traffic probably sucks too.

Welp, now even the site I used to download videos by posting links there is dead, as well as all other alternatives. So if you want to share some music with me (or something else), you’ll have to upload it somewhere :(. Discord doesn’t allow files bigger than 10mb as far as I remember and it would be too slow with vpn anyway, so maybe google drive would work?
My English wasn’t as good as it is now when I first listened to “Bye Bye Bye”, so I was immune to the earworm :P Actually, understanding songs was probably the hardest part. For some reason, comprehending them is much more difficult than regular speech.
Yep, Nox Arcana is very atmospheric and it explores all kinds of different themes. I used to like listening to them while writing fantasy stuff.
Blutengel lyrics is probably something I would come up with if I were a singer-songwriter lol. Since we’ve already touched the topic of singing, it’s actually one of the things I’d like to do if I had an opportunity to do so - produce a song, but first I’d have to learn singing.

Punching people isn’t the answer. It might make sense if he was an everyday bully in order to make him stop, but when it comes to strangers I think it’s always best to disengage. Even when they’re in the wrong, you never know how they will react and maybe he had a knife or a gun on him, etc. It sucks to be embarrassed and experience injustice, but it’s better than ending up wounded or dead because of something meaningless in the grand scheme of things like this. Man, I hate snow and cold in general. It can be cool (pun not intended) in some places, but here it’s nothing but trouble, not to mention snow here is always colored yellow and brown because of the dog owners.
So I imagine if I entered the bus in the US and nonchalantly took a seat without asking anybody the same way I do it here it would shock the passengers xD.
Wow, what an incident… It’s great that no one was hurt and there was no property damage, but it always sucks to get involved in something bothersome due to the actions of someone else, especially if it’s a total stranger. I wonder what compelled that driver to get behind the wheel while drunk - was he just irresponsible or something happened that made him do this even knowing the risks? Then again, drunk people don’t have good judgment, so it’s probably simply that. To be honest, I’ve drunk just around 10 liters of alcohol in my entire life, so I’m not very well versed in how it affects the mind and the body.
What are the other two incidents?

Yep, I remember your situation with Persona 3, and as for Danganronpa… I think it’s a great series, however, it doesn’t reach deep emotional levels. I had a blast with all three games, but after some years passed by, I didn’t care much about it, e.g. yes I like Monokuma, Celestia, Kyoko etc. and the story is fun, but nothing “left a mark on me” so to speak. Honestly though, even though there are plenty of games I love (mostly those I included in the “favorite media” list when we talked about it before), Kiseki is likely the only thing that has a “special special” place in my heart.

New protagonists and new cast has always been a thing, so maybe they’re Cold Steel only players or something like that. As for my friend, he wasn’t enthusiastic about the “Cold Steel 5” and didn’t like the idea of playing through the reverie corridor. But yeah, I can’t see why somebody would be disappointed with Kuro’s gameplay, it still has (improved) turn based combat which everyone knows and loves AND real time combat which helps to make exploring the levels more fun.

I have no idea… But censorship, regardless of its form, really annoys me. So much for the freedom of expression when even the visual books have to be censored in order to be sold.
Hmm, I don’t remember that scene, maybe I missed it? So all I can do is wonder what kind of things Amane was doing to Kazuki…

The solution for that kind of thing would be to make an extra 18+ setting for those who don’t mind nudity, but want to avoid more explicit stuff. Such a setting for guro already exists, so I don’t see why it can’t for sexual stuff, after all showing nipples isn’t the same as what else you can find with 18+ artworks turned on in the site settings.

People who are sick or tend to get sick take them quite often because blood can show if something is wrong with your body and what medications you should take. ALLEGEDLY. I’m not entirely confident in medical institutions here and the science behind them. I had vaccines against measles and some other things, but never against the flu. When I come to take a blood test I always fear the nurse will infect me with HIV or something else due to their irresponsibility and how the clinics are run.

Unfortunately, the greater the passion, the more stressful some things related to it are. When I saw this announcement my body temperature instantly went up for a few minutes lol. While I’m absolutely delighted at the thought of purchasing it when it releases, I’m equally terrified at the prospects of not being able to get it due to how problematic and difficult the paying/shipping situation is for me. The easiest solution is to go back home and order it from there (surprisingly, Amiami and HLJ are still delivering to a war torn country), but then I'll be forced into the military and die/get maimed. As insane as it sounds, if I fail to get it due to reasons beyond my control, I’ll probably be more frustrated than when my home got hit by bombs.

Was there a specific reason you weren’t a fan of Nadeko before?

Have you heard of Koikatsu? It’s a porn game that has thousands of characters made by modders, some even get paid to make them based on popular characters and in-game you can do various things to them. It’s not exactly what I have in mind, however.
But yeah, it really sucks that we don’t have some kind of useful skill through which we could convey our passions.
I don’t think it’s silly. Most of the people believe in something that was invented by someone else and base their outlook on life on it, be it religious dogmas, scientific theories or in this case fictional stories.
In my opinion, Higurashi is more interesting than Umineko, but the order isn’t super important. My favorites are Beatrice and Kinzo, buuut explaining why could possibly spoil things, so I won’t. With Muv-Luv it’s easier - Meiya is my favorite female character of all VNs and Takeru is one of the best protagonists out there. Want to know some random thing I discovered while learning Japanese? His surname 白銀 (Shirogane) uses the same kanji as Shizuna’s title, e.g. 白銀の剣聖 (Shirogane no Kensei - Divine Blade of Silver), 白銀の姫 (Shirogane no Hime - Silver Princess).

From where I’m standing, it’s unimaginable to get burnt out of something that you absolutely love doing. The only obstacles I see are real-life issues and responsibilities which suck away your time and may prevent you from fully enjoying yourself. Well, it’s pleasurable just to “be” inside the beautiful world of Zemuria, so it’s always interesting what NPCs have to say.
If you have your old save files, you can even see the exact days when you were playing each game. I ended up overwriting some of mine, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to get all of the dates. Did NISA change something about the Geofront TL?
If I were Elise, I’d have feelings for Rean too, so her character totally makes sense haha.

That Claire does look like a refined girl hmm… Maybe Alfin will look like that when she’s older? They have similar eye and hair color. Based on this art, she’s approximately as big as Rixia. Judging on your top-3 hottest girls, you seem to really love them big haha. The nurse seems cute too. What about the other girls from Hundred?

The irony is that Shizuna likes to avoid Kurogane because he bothers her to properly fulfill her duties.
I wonder, will they increase them for Emma and others or not? Only time will tell. I just hope that they won’t do the opposite in some of the future games.
Those three sizes are often very strange. For example, look at this character from the Taimanin series: 1, 2, 3 and it says she’s 87/60/90.

Yeah, Rixia was only 17 in Zero/Ao, same as Class VII in CSI and II; same with Estelle in Sky. So Kuro was the first game that introduced so many “adults”.
Given that Shizuna is 23 in Kuro I and 24 in Kuro II, and we meet her in late Autumn, whereas the second game starts in the late february, she was likely born in Winter. I’d be very embarrassed if it was mentioned somewhere and I somehow missed it. On the other hand I’d be very happy if I shared the same day with her haha. And I think it’s possible to know Aaron’s birthday since it was mentioned he turned 20 after chapter 3 in Kuro I.
Oh, I've actually watched Majo no Tabitabi. Can’t say I’m a fan of Elaina, but I’m not a hater either. What made you feel this way towards her?
You made me check which characters were born on Feb 5: Makoto (Danganronpa), Sasaki Isaburo (Gintama), Emma Verde (Love Live)... And that’s probably all the ones I’m familiar with.

I wonder how people would react if Randy actually tried to hit on Tio… Then again, the gap between Van and Agnes is even bigger.
Do you think making a thread about sharing Kiseki experiences/journey would make sense?

Oh no, not the imperial system… I always get confused when I see feet and inches, but I guess the same might be for you in regards to the metric system. I think I could reach Bergard if I didn’t have scoliosis and if my right leg wasn’t 2 cm shorter than my left lol. Here heights are often measured in hospitals, schools so most people know their parameters. Altina probably got taller since Cold Steel/Hajimari, so that means by now she’d be taller than Towa.

It depends on what theme you want to go with. For example, you could make a Rixia-styled profile layout and those two placeholders would look like this: Good, then. I’ll be awaiting your new glorious profile some time in the future :P

Well… For protagonists we have Rean and for female characters there is Shizuna. It’s a tough world out there for our little Estelle. Lloyd deserves more appreciation.
By tier-lists, do you mean like the one you did for the breast sizes? In that case, no. You can send me the link alongside with your own results and I’ll send you mine in return. I don’t know what I’m going to do with lower tiers though. Just don’t include new Kai characters there.


This is honestly great stuff.


I wonder how many Cold Steel players find this relatable. You know, I can’t remember if I saw the Juna confession in-game or not. I 100% did Laura, Sara and Altina, but not sure about the others. It’s been several years since I played CSIV after all. Regardless, that fanfic went in the direction I didn’t expect with Altina and Juna confessing to each other, although I’ll confess that I didn’t read the entire thing. At least it seemed to be on the wholesome side of things. One thing I thought about while reading it, though, is that writing skills are a bit underrated on the market… Ehh, what I mean is that when someone looks at the artwork, it’s easy to say whether it’s professionally drawn or not regardless of whether you like the art style or not. With writing you’d need to read the whole thing and analyze some bits to give a proper evaluation. And unlike fanart, I doubt there is a huge demand for commissioning stories (or maybe I’m unaware of sites like this existing). Ironically, both are equally endangered by the rise of AI. Actually, I wonder what type of story something like chatGPT will generate if I ask it?

Hmm, Celia looks cute. She appears very young but is a teacher so I suppose comparison to Towa is fair. Poor Yuna, you praised one of her sisters for looks and the other for personality, but nothing about her :P
A shame they skipped a volume, SoL stuff is always welcome in my book.

If Falcom made a series-wide popularity poll that would include both the Japanese and Global players, what place do you think Rixia would end up at? A similar question for other characters.
If we ever get to see a closure on Lloyd’s romance, I think it will only happen near the series’ end. By that point Falcom could possibly add different endings depending on the player’s preferences, but I doubt they’d go for a harem route.
Yeah, Towa is stacked in different place than Rixia XD
That’s why when you made your breast size tier list I told you to put Shizuna a tier higher haha.

Aesthetics-wise I’m not a fan of Schera and Luciola. Even if we just look at Sky’s roster, I think Anelace is a stronger contender. Well, Erebonia is a big country, so it makes sense. Tbh the situation might look a bit different if we went by actual countries instead of arcs since many of the characters appear/live in places where they're not necessarily from. Nahhh, Sky is great. Just not as great as the other arcs :P I’m still amazed at what Kuro did to me. When Cold Steel IV ended I thought I’ll never experience something as inspiring as it, and here we are.

Love triangles suck because:
- The drama is guaranteed.
- Someone is going to lose and/or be annoying.
- It will be dragged out.
In harems it’s at least possible for every participant to end up happy (like in that fanfic you sent me). But still, my preference is the yin and yang situation where both romantic partners love each other equally and are parts of the same whole. I even find things like yandere very appealing romantically even though in real life it could get annoying/scary. I just think it depends on who the yandere is. If it’s someone you’d absolutely adore, then everything would become tolerable.

Hmm, hmm, hmm… Maybe I should watch S2 Frieren on-going too?.. But unlike you, I don’t know what’s it about, so maybe it’s not the best idea…

Does Towa appear in this manga, by the way? Kiseki characters in the database are based on it after all. Speaking of which, I wanted to read it, but I haven’t found it ANYWHERE other than Amazon and I wouldn’t be able to purchase it even if I wanted to.
You can check DB mods here.

Heh, not bad. Which one of these Muv-Luv Kiseki artworks do you like the most?
Yeah, those suits are very intriguing… I doubt they’d be appreciated by the average anime fans here on MAL though.
Looking at your screenshots, I’m really curious how tall Laura really is. Well, she does wear the same swimsuit as Shizuna, so maybe she’s 170 cm too ha-ha.

My first playthrough was 93 hours, I think. I don’t know why the second one is almost 20 hours longer.
Elaine’s disappearance proceeds just as in all other routes unfortunately. You know, technically these routes replaced romantic choices of the past games :D.

The main reason I don’t want to know anything about Kai is spoilers, but feeling jelly because of not being able to play it is a minor reason too I suppose. It’s like being extremely hungry and listening to someone about how tasty their recent meal was.

That part took me two hours on breaking it down and learning but much longer if we consider I’ve added its parts to my Anki deck to repeat them later and also been rereading it from time to time. I’ve progressed a bit further and typed & learned even more of them, currently on 52 lines total, however the “reciting” part got a bit more difficult. Honestly it’s very motivating exploring Shizuna’s personality this way. There are some things which are impossible to convey through translation even if it’s perfectly accurate.

I’m currently on the Sodachi arc. It has a lot of math. I wouldn’t say I’m breezing through Monogatari, however… In the past, I’d be done with the whole series in a couple of days :(
Yeah, Wiz is also much more well endowed haha.

Ehhh, since I don’t interact with the Falcom community at large (I don’t read its reddit sub, 4chan thread, twitter posts, discord channel, etc.) it’s impossible for me to tell what’s overrated or underrated. As someone whose brain looks like this I’d probably name some random dialogue you get to read while clicking on her when you meet her in town, e.g. during the Almata game when she looks around the antique shop - I doubt many people talk about these. To be fair to myself, however, it’s not only extreme bias at play - she genuinely makes every scene she’s a part of super fun or entertaining in some other way.
The one with Ash was great though, the same can be said about the Rean/Ash relationship in general. Sara would be proud of how great of a mentor he became.

Akane got some serious boost this season, that’s for sure. I think Kana currently is the weakest among the main three girls. Whenever I post a new contest, I hope that you will appear soon, but it doesn’t happen :( Maybe it’s due to different time zones? Riho’s great, definitely the best in her anime. I haven’t watched this season of Code Geass, btw, so I don’t know much about Catherine other than the fact that one of the users used to have her on his avatar haha. Was this season good?
Alya and Makeine girls will have another chance when their respective second seasons roll in.

I was under the impression that 3&9 happened around the time Van picked them up, but it’s been so long since I’ve read them that I can’t say for sure.