Category: Visual Novels

Ongoing Investigations: Case #073

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On the advice of Sheentaku I decided to give  Baka to Test to Shokanju a chance since he said it seemed right up my alley.  I can’t say that the Internet has utterly figured me out just yet. The premise is that after students take the entrance exam for Fumizuki Academy the score get get places them in classes A though F. The lower the class your are in the worse the facilitates are with the A class having the newest fanciest of everything and the F class has everything that is about to collapse. The classes can use an RPG battle system to defeat other classes and switch rooms with them. So the F class declares war on the rest of the school with the two main characters being their trump cards. Akihisa Yoshii, the main guy is a punching bag for Minami Shimada the tomboy is is clearly in love with him. Mizuki Himeji, the main girl is just sort of a genius Hyatt but not any more interesting than that. The trap, the pervert, and the rest of the school seemed standard character types. Yuuji Sakamoto looks like me might be interesting but I am sure they will under use him. Also Minami was way too violent for no reason for me to get into her character. I never disliked any part of the show unlike say The Familiar of Zero but it also never drew me in or made me laugh.

This past weekend with some friends in toe I went to the Tatsunoko VS. Capcom event being held at Nintendo World in NYC. Usually at these little gatherings you can get a copy of the game early, but not so this time around. Though you could win a copy by beating out everyone else in the game tournament. Of which there were tons, or atleast I think there were, maybe they were all just in line for the autograph and poster as seen above. In any case, talk about packed! Luckily we caught glimpses of the game as we were waiting in line. I am happy to report many people playing as Joe the Condor (as they should be!) who is basically the reason I want to play this game myself. Actually I was happy to see everyone really playing an array of the hefty cast. I did get to play for a minute at the end where I doubled up with Joe the Condor and Viewtiful Joe and promptly got trounced by Gold Lightan! Looking forward to this release so I can try again.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #072

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Ah, Tachikoma, how I longed to have you for my own for so long. Okay, so he is a little far from having the real deal, but I’ll take what I can get. He is die-cast metal, I was a bit worried there would be a balance issue what with that huge back end, but no problem! The articulation in his legs is good and his feet and hands are fully poseable. As you can see his crouching position is quite nice. However, his arms don’t fair as well. If I try to give him a sort of excited yatta Tachi pose, they don’t really reach high enough and tend to pop off. But overall he is a good size and detailed making him one of the best I’ve seen avaliable. He also comes with software that allows his to say phrases and light-up and move a little. Though the CD is for Japanese PC only (which of course you can get around).

I recently got a copy of Stolen Hearts by Miku Sakamoto from CMX. Shinobu Okuma is a super short girl who accidentally spills milk all over an expensive kimono that the frightening Koguma brought to school with him. He shames her into working at his grandmother’s kimono shop where she slowly sees that he’s a sensitive guy and not the wannabe Yakuza everyone thinks he is. It is a cute story. I was a bit surprised that by the end of the first chapter Shinobu and Koguma are a couple. Part of me wonders if this was supposed to just be a one shot story that was popular enough to get turned into a series. The first chapter could so easily be self-contained. The characters are solid and entertaining. Everything works really well when Shinobu and Koguma are interacting. My main problem is the story tends to lean on shojo tropes too much and whenever it does so it is at its weakest. The story really shines when its characters are doing something a little outside the mold. It’s a fun read but it is not going to win over any new fans to the genre. I did find the teen rating on the back quite curious. This manga is super chaste. Maybe it gets racier down the line but so far the most anyone does is some hand holding. The only fan service is traditional Japanese clothing service.

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Visual Novel Logos Part 2: Bloggers just wanna have fun!

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We return for round two of our analysis of the commonalities of  visual novel logo designs. Last time we looked at the similarities of crying girl games. This time we are looking at fun/comedic bishojo visual novels. This was the second type of logo that stood out just as strongly as the sad girls in snow games. They too have this distinct easily recognizable formula to their logo design that instantly tells you what sort of game you are picking up before you see anything else.

What originally struck me about bishojo game logos was that even though they are marketed for guys, the logos are distinctly what you would image seeing for elementary/middle school girls or you could even image them being drawn by said young girls. This sent me on a quest to compare the two.

These are the happy fun visual novels usually based around comedy. Unlike the crying girl games which are supposed to invoke a feeling of the beauty of sadness these games are supposed to be an energetic tribute to hot girls. And having sex with said hot girls. The lettering of the logo is always big and bold with rainbow colored letters. There is then a subtitle with smaller uniformly colored text but if tends to be just as neon crayon colored as the title itself. The lettering seems to bounce around. Although how asymmetrical it is varies from logo to logo. There is usually a colorful abstract shape in the background and/or mascot along side everything else. The Shuffle! logo is a perfect example with it’s pastel rainbow colored logo, colorful whirlpool in the background and it’s uniformed colored arrow and much less rainbow colored subtitle. Overall I feel that the logo is supposed to invoke a lighthearted festival feeling. They are meant to invoke a fun, energetic, humorous feel. I have to agree 100% with what Narutaki said about the designs looking like they were draw by an artistically talented elementary school student or at least something aimed at said student.

You can click the image above to show more logos and also see a comparison to logos made with young girls as the target audience, more on that in a few. What hits you first when looking at these bishojo game logos side by side is the overall color palette which immediately brings out a light-hearted feel and removes even a remote possibility of worries (unless you’re worried about having too many girls to choose from). Even without the mascot or icon that many like to add in to these designs, there is a sense of fun and energy present. The actual type can vary but it always has a boldness to it and the use of a double stroke, usually a white or light thick stroke around the type followed by a black or dark thin stroke. The color palette here is bright, but when looking at the logos for young girls, you can see they are in the same vein but tend to be more saturated. The visual novel logos are actually more feminine, more girly than the ones actually aimed at girls. If I may be philosophical for a minute, it’s like the difference between what girls are like and what guys think girls are like. But commonalities should be clear including the boldness, the off kilter line of type, and the use of strokes. They actually evoke the same feelings (well, minus all that fan-service)!

I am once again curious if other people agree with our observations or have other good examples to add to our case files. The next one should wrap this series up unless someone wants to provide some examples for different distinct genre design. Please look forward to our next visual novel logo article.

Visual Novel Logos: Part 1 Part 3