big bad birtha's suggestion box 2: secret passions unveiled

[McSweeney]

I just read a doujin where Homura drops one more plot twist on ol' Football Head. "Satisfying mens' lust ... is one of a puella magi's jobs".

Yep, faceless men certainly looks like the way to go. Who actually wants to see that violin player who's kind of a douche get any action?

[Talon87]

Agreed. But lol ... congrats on making the first post for Page 100, Mcsweeney! What a post it was though.

The plot twist you mentioned in your doujin (who's the author? what's the title?) is one I expect we'll see a lot of authors do. It's probably the easiest one to write and the one which comes to mind most naturally for a lot of hentai circles. "Just say that it's part of their job." That's something that they're already used to doing for tons of hentai featuring ...

• nuns and priestesses ("become the pariah of society!")
• exorcists ("exorcise evil ... by having sex with it, lol")
• queens and princesses ("your duty to the kingdom, Highness, is to have sex with every able-bodied man in the land")

and so on. Adding "magical girls" to the list is just something new but, thanks to Madoka already breaking down the barriers, it should jump immediately to mind for a lot of guys.

I think the witch-tentacle monster one I keep talking about (and which Erect Sawaru's already made good on) is probably going to be the runner-up. It might be the most common, who knows. Only time will tell.

KateKyo Hitman Reborn:
Through episode 018 (a Valentine's Day episode). Still not liking this. ^^; Feel like I'm MASSIVELY wasting my free time with this one. But, in the words of Lambo (a character in the show), I'll が・ま・ん (endure, hold it in, bear it). I still haven't given up hope, Muyo. Here's hoping the show really turns things around come episode 21. We'll see!

[unownmew]

I thought your little story was very cute Talon, thanks for sharing. I much prefer the cute stories to lusty and busty.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

unknownmew, you recently saw Blood+ IIRC, you might be interested in the Blood-C anime, with is the newest installment in the series.

It's unownmew, unown as in the alphabeta pokemon "unown"
(I know it's tricky, so I'm not mad, I guess it's more of pet peeve/personality tick, like "Captain Jack Sparrow")

Anyway, if that really is an installment for the series, I will definitely watch it. Unfortunately, you got me hyped, and I when I checked it out, the characters, nothing looked familiar, so, was quite a letdown. Granted, I can't read Japanese, so, if someone could read the website and set the information straight for me, I'd appreciate it (Please Talon? ).
Either way it looks interesting, and since it seems to be made by the same studio, installment or not, I'll probably watch it.

Thanks for the anime listings Talon, I'm definitely looking forward to
Blood C, and Kiss x Sis Ova 5. It will certainly be interesting to see the Hakuouki Hekketsu-Roku OVA as well, I'm curious on what they will do with it.

[Doppleganger]

OTL

Sorry, sometimes there's a major disconnect between my eyes, brain, and fingers. Though I can say I'm pretty neutral to however I'm called - Dopple, Doppel or DCD. :p

...

I finished Kikokugai. Brief review -

Kikokugai - The Cyber Slayer is a tale of revenge. In a futuristic Shanghai, an ancient martial arts master has returned from the grave to murder those who destroyed and defiled that which was precious to him. It is an early work by Nitro+ and Urobuchi Gen, with imput from age and 0verflow.

Like Saya no Uta, the themes/ideas of the game take focus over the characters. But unlike Saya, some effort was put into the setting and atmosphere. It's a bit better than bare bones.

Ultimately, though, the novel is a quite predictable. There are some interesting fights, but they're pretty typical of what one sees in martial arts stories. I never really felt much tension from them because the main guy Taoluo was dying from the very beginning.

However, the core narrative is strong and focused, so I can't discount it. Overall, a decent science fiction story, and one that explores an idea presented in Muv-Luv Alternative. The H scenes are surprisingly sparse, and they're all of the same girl.

Also BBB, I guess I exaggerated about the Daibanchou stuff. There was technically only one scene.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by unownmew

I much prefer the cute stories to lusty and busty.

Nah, I prefer realistic stories with a touch of darkness and a physically well-developed woman. If I have to settle for a cute story, I'll pick the combo package (cute -and- "lusty and busty") over the cute-only package any day of the week.

For instance, I read just such a story the other day ...

Some pictures follow, so I'll put this in the spoiler tag. Yuki, let us know if this allows you to load pages quicker while on 56k. If it doesn't make any difference, then n/m.

Spoiler: show

Called "Minamo Aggressive!" (Minamo's the name of the main character in the story), it was a chapter in the tankoubon Junjou Hatsujouki ("Pure/Innocent Estrus") by the artist Knuckle Curve. (Pixiv account here. NSFW! 18+!) In this story, Hayase Minamo and her girlfriends at school are looking at a photo of some guy's dick on Minamo's cell phone. The other girls are impressed by the size of the dick but Minamo scoffs and says that a dick like this isn't worthy of her virginity. After all, she tells them, you only get to lose your virginity once in life -- so it better count! Then another girl, Watarai Chihaya, walks over and shows them a picture of her brother's dick on her cell phone. It's HUGE! And Minamo? She's fallen in love. XD

"Won't you please introduce me to your brother? *drool*"

Minamo begs Chihaya to introduce her to her brother. So she does. (She's a pretty apathetic one, this Chihaya. She knows what's up. And no sooner does Minamo glomp Kyouichi than does Chihaya make a quick exit to allegedly get some snacks for their guest. lol)

GLOMP!

Suffice to say, this one comes on pretty strong. She's my kind of girl! (Fiesty tiger!) She's also got that adorable-in-comics, creepy-irl stalker thing going on. She won't take no for an answer. No matter what Kyouichi tries, Minamo is determined to win his heart -- and his cock. XD

The story finishes with this cel:

"I'll neeeeeeeeever let you run away!"

Now that's what I call adorable and a sexy busty girl who wants it and wants it bad.


EDIT: For the record, Doppel, if you told me you didn't like being called Doppel, I'd quit. It was just something I did way back to sort of voice my *HARUMPH!* observation that you'd made a typo. But then it evolved into your nickname between us. And I liked that. But if you ever asked me to cut it out, or if you told me it was bothering you, I would. Same goes for you, Lil' Blue / Yuki.

[lilboocorsola]

Don't worry about posting pictures. I turn images off when I'm at home anyway. If I want to load something I just right-click and show.

You can call me whatever you want. Back in my early forum days I used to insist on being called "Blue", but of course no one did upon first meeting so "Lilblue" or "LBC" became default. Only unownmew and a few other old friends of mine still know me by that name.

That said, you may switch over to Yuki if you wish. I'll probably change back to lilbluecorsola someday though, perhaps if I ever get de-modded. I just wanted a cool new username and color like Loki's to show off. XD Nah, jk. I've always wanted to try out this name. Still, I'll forever identify myself on Pokémon forums as simply "that girl obsessed with shiny blue Corsola". Hence the same post color.

(Alternatively, you could try your hand at coming up with your own nickname for me too. Heck, Muyo sometimes calls me DAC: "Diminutive Aquatic Corsola".)

Still no ML progress. Was trying to coax unownmew to join the brigade, so I'm stalling a bit more in case he wants to try and catch up.

I also watched HanaIro ep6 today. Totally called the love triangle.

[Doppleganger]

Yeah that how I feel about it, and I like it like that. I'd actually prefer BPK and Morg to call me DCD, since they know me from BMG. Technically so does Mozz, but he forgets from time to time and the only time I interacted with him was when I first tried to break into BMG's ASBL. I like to refer to people by the first SN I know them by (Mcsweeney = Big Pimp Krillin), hence when I use "Talon" mentally it's a truncated form of "Arizona Talon" rather than "Talon87".

Oh man, memory avenue. Kasumi, EK, /m\, Kurai, Meg...what happened to all of you? And why are 4/5 names girls? o_o

[lilboocorsola]

Out of curiosity, is DCD an abbreviation? What's it stand for?

I've also wondered where are all the girls on this forum. >>; ^^;

[Doppleganger]

It stands for Dark Chromium Dragonite, which was my screen-name on Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden back in 2000. The reason I picked Doppleganger for UPN was because Archaic, who either banned me from BMG or encouraged Chaka to do it for him, was active on this forum and I didn't want to get auto-banned by him. I was very into Baldur's Gate and the Doppleganger monster, which had the ability to morph into beings or objects, gave me a steady stream of grief throughout the story. So as if to hint at the disguise, I also peppered my speech with a hissing gimmick, which the game monsters also had. It helped that my friend Hissing "Hiss" Arbok (a.k.a. EternalChaos or "EC") officially introduced me to UPN.

I've always been a fan of anagrams, word-play or hints. Like, the name I created for "M@lintex T3rek" was "T3rrence K!rchhoff M@ltese". Unfortunately, this could get me in trouble, as I recently learned I might someday get mistaken by the FBI for an infamous cyber-terrorist called Malik "Dex" Tariq.

[big bad birtha]

Originally Posted by unownmew

I much prefer the cute stories to lusty and busty.

If you want cute H stories, Google Inuboshi. They're about as cute and sweet as it gets. That's if you can ignore/enjoy a little/a lot of depravity. I think you might be able to appreciate it though.

While I'm on the subject, I just finished my first rewatch of Strawberry Marshmallow. It's just as amazing as it was the first time I watched it. As a comedy, this show is great. Definitely one of the best slice of life comedies I've watched.

[Doppleganger]

Today is the first of three big days, so I won't be on hardly at all.

Just popping in to say I think I'll finally start Fire Emblem after exams, and I got to Battle 5 in the Muv-Luv Altered Fable game Get Raped by the BETA on Very Easy. This game is HARD, harder than Sengoku Rance and maybe even Battletoads. The difficulty settings are:

Very Easy
Easy
Normal
Hard
Very Hard
Hell
Real

Where "Real" is supposed to simulate the actual combat conditions of Muv-Luv Alternative. The level of difficulty is shocking. The first three levels are like cake, but then the fourth depicts an overwhelming onslaught during a surprise attack. It's nightmarish, and has taken my like three weeks to beat this one level.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by unownmew

Anyway, if that really is an installment for the series, I will definitely watch it. Unfortunately, you got me hyped, and I when I checked it out, the characters, nothing looked familiar, so, was quite a letdown. Granted, I can't read Japanese, so, if someone could read the website and set the information straight for me, I'd appreciate it (Please Talon? ).
Either way it looks interesting, and since it seems to be made by the same studio, installment or not, I'll probably watch it.

It has less to do with speaking Japanese and more to do with knowing the franchise. I know next to nothing about Blood+ so reading the Story page raised more questions than it provided answers. So I had to head on over to Wikipedia and do my homework: and in the process of doing so, I found the answer to your question anyway.

Blood: the Last Vampire
Blood+
Blood-C

It looks like someone named Production I.G. made a popular movie in 2000 called Blood: the Last Vampire. A spin-off was made in 2005 that you fell in love with called Blood+. According to Wiki, and I quote, "Blood+ was inspired by the 2000 anime film Blood: The Last Vampire; however, there are only a few allusions and basic elements from the film." It sounds like Blood+ is as much a retelling of Blood: the Last Vampire as The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker is a retelling of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. (Hint: it's not.) It's more the case that they're completely different stories but they happen to have for shits and giggles some of the most important characters bearing the same names (e.g. Saya in the film, Otonashi Saya in the first anime).

And it looks like Blood-C is going to continue that trend. Just as Code Geass was "CLAMP meets mecha meets Sunrise screenplay," it looks like Blood-C is supposed to be "CLAMP meets vampires meets CLAMP screenplay." Basically, CLAMP fans are supposed to be titillated that CLAMP is doing a dark gritty vampire thing (SURPRISE! They're totally cashing in on Twilight fangirlism ) while Blood+ fans are supposed to be excited, I guess =\, that they get to see a re-envisioning of their favorite anime but with CLAMP character designs and a different, CLAMP-thought-up plot.

Back to the Japanese website then. If you go to the Story section, which was where I started before saying "Shit, I don't know this franchise, let's go to Wikipedia and look stuff up" , you'll notice that they talk about the franchise's history up top and then ... surprise ... they reveal that this new anime was originally conceived of as BLOOD X CLAMP. "What would happen if we took the Blood universe but CLAMP-ified the character designs? :3" And then, thinking themselves both cute and clever, they changed the name from Blood x Clamp to Blood-C. (GET IT? GET!? THE C STANDS FOR CLAMP!!!! [/sarcastic excitement])

Back to us and speculation. I would think that this anime should interest you if:
a) you like CLAMP's more action-packed, gritty stories (X, Tokyo Babylon, ... X, Tokyo Babylon )
b) you like vampires regardless

If you don't like either of those things and it was something else which drew you in to Blood+, then you might be disappointed by this. From what little I know of Blood+ from an enthusiastic friend irl, it's a pretty fucked-up-at-times show with a psychotic sister character who murders, dismembers, etc all manner of things or people. I don't think you should expect that from Blood-C. Expect instead a ton of bishies (hell, you can already see some of them on the Character page), some sympathizable vampires, etc. Basically, expect X meets Twilight. I loved X. I've never seen nor have any desire to see Twilight. I will probably not be watching Blood-C with you guys this summer. (Loved Dracula. And my vampire fandom ends right there. )

[Talon87]

THE iDOLM@STER:
Oh boy, this isn't good ...

1) Have listened to the Idolmaster song "Go My Way!" from the second PV for the 2011 anime like 10 times already today. @_@
2) Actually thought that of all the girls in the PV for the upcoming anime, Iori's bit looked the cutest. (Oh God no. Not the bitch. Not the flat-chested loli bitch. No. Nooooooooooo! ;_;)
3) I find myself wanting to look for Idolmaster fanart and trying to learn about who these girls are. (NO! THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HERE! HERE AND NO FURTHER! [/Picard])

Y'know something, though. I've been thinking ... Idolmaster fans and Touhou fans, at their core, have a big something in common. They're both big fans of a franchise which is about an armada of girls of different looks and personalities. Now granted, I haven't seen all that much Idolmaster fanart outside of the occasional doujinshi whereas I have seen a shitton of Touhou fanart and doujinshi over the years, but that may be for other reasons. All I know is, it seems to me like Touhou fans and Idolmaster fans ought to have a lot of overlap, i.e. a fan of one should easily be able to become a fan of the other. Touhou basically says "armada of cute magical being girls in a secluded village" whereas Idolmaster says "armada of cute human girls who dream of becoming Japan's next top pop idol". If you basically spun a Touhou spin-off game as "What if the Touhous decided to form a pop idol group?", you'd have the Idolmaster. Vice versa, if the idols in Idolmaster suddenly became spirits of the forest and the afterlife and whatnot -- fairies, shinigami, dimension witches, moon rabbits, and so on -- then you'd have Touhou Pop Idol.

What do you think, Doppel and bbb? Am I talking ignorant nonsense? Or do you guys think what I'm saying makes sense?

Btw, Doppel ... what's the word on your Idolmaster 2 game? Is it ever going to come out? Where is it in development? Are they sticking to their guns with the boy band, the time skip, all that stuff? Or do you think they're going to backpedal any in response to the negative vocal fan outcries?

[big bad birtha]

I don't see why the fanbases wouldn't overlap. I don't know enough about Idolm@ster to really tell what about it catches people, but I'm under the impression that it's because of the interesting characters mixed with catchy songs and dance routines. Touhou is almost purely based on the interesting characters. I'm sure two character loving fanbases would have no problem overlapping.

Oh damn, Iori is in her Idolm@ster 2 form in the anime, which is a huge plus. She looks so much better in that form than she does in the first game. She basically looks older in Idolm@ster 2, which strangely does alot of good for her appearance. You won't hear me say a character looks better when they're older much more than this though!

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

THE iDOLM@STER:
Oh boy, this isn't good ...

1) Have listened to the Idolmaster song "Go My Way!" from the second PV for the 2011 anime like 10 times already today. @_@

That's my favourite song!

Though "Colours", "Blessed Birthday", "Kiramekirari" and "The World is All One" give it a run for its money, "Go My Way" is my mind is the signature song of the IM@S franchise.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Y'know something, though. I've been thinking ... Idolmaster fans and Touhou fans, at their core, have a big something in common. They're both big fans of a franchise which is about an armada of girls of different looks and personalities. Now granted, I haven't seen all that much Idolmaster fanart outside of the occasional doujinshi whereas I have seen a shitton of Touhou fanart and doujinshi over the years, but that may be for other reasons. All I know is, it seems to me like Touhou fans and Idolmaster fans ought to have a lot of overlap, i.e. a fan of one should easily be able to become a fan of the other. Touhou basically says "armada of cute magical being girls in a secluded village" whereas Idolmaster says "armada of cute human girls who dream of becoming Japan's next top pop idol". If you basically spun a Touhou spin-off game as "What if the Touhous decided to form a pop idol group?", you'd have the Idolmaster. Vice versa, if the idols in Idolmaster suddenly became spirits of the forest and the afterlife and whatnot -- fairies, shinigami, dimension witches, moon rabbits, and so on -- then you'd have Touhou Pop Idol.

What do you think, Doppel and bbb? Am I talking ignorant nonsense? Or do you guys think what I'm saying makes sense?

What you say is funny, because as BBB has expressed uncertainty at what make IM@S popular, I'm equally unsure of what makes Touhou popular. I like the games, but aside from some certain inside jokes, the popularity of the characters beyond the games boggles my mind. Most of the personalities seem to have developed outside of ZUN's control, so it's an odd countenance.

You should really check out BBB's "Carlito" video, though. I think it's proof positive that one can combine Touhou + dancing and be a fun watch.

Also Talon, I forgot to mention this earlier, but thanks for the help with the rUGP menu.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Btw, Doppel ... what's the word on your Idolmaster 2 game? Is it ever going to come out? Where is it in development? Are they sticking to their guns with the boy band, the time skip, all that stuff? Or do you think they're going to backpedal any in response to the negative vocal fan outcries?

It's out and it's awesome.

Fan rancor? What fan rancor? All those burning hearts were extinguished by the love of young, impressionable idols!

[Talon87]

How are you playing it? Don't you need a Japanese Xbox 360? Don't you also need an English patch? Do you have both? Or are you just saying it's awesome based off of word of mouth and/or YouTube videos?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

That's my favourite song!

Though "Colours", "Blessed Birthday", "Kiramekirari" and "The World is All One" give it a run for its money, "Go My Way" is my mind is the signature song of the IM@S franchise.

That's what someone else said on that video: that Go My Way is the franchise's theme song. "やっぱアイマスといえばこの曲！^^" he said. ("Yup, when you talk Idolmaster, this song!" Doesn't quite translate into English since they differentiate between "when you talk" and "when you think" and we don't. And of course the hanging subject in the independent clause with the you-should-understand-me-telepathically predicate omitted. We'd normally say "When you think Idolmaster, you think of this song" for something like this.)

I don't remember what the first Idolmaster songs I heard were, but the first one to leave a positive impression and stick behind was Danketsu. It's just a fun pop-rap hybrid with an unforgivingly speedy tempo, and it introduces you to each of the girls in turn. That might still be my favorite of the few I've heard.

I listened to Colorful Days earlier today. It's an okay song, but I confess I really love the part where they sing their image colors starting at around 3:15. LOL @ "Normal Green", though. Poor Ritsuko, saddled with the awkward-sounding lyric. ("Fresh Green" actually perfectly fits the yellow-green color Miki's always wearing.) I like the positive みんな綺麗だね minna kirei da ne. I also like how it's ambiguous: they could either be saying that "we're all pretty," meaning the 765 team, or they could be saying "everybody's pretty," meaning every human is pretty. (I take it to mean the first since they're singing about their own image colors, but I can easily see how the second might be the underlying message.) Was this the song you meant when you said "Colours"? 'Cause I tried searching for Idolmaster songs named "Colors" or "Colours" and got nothing.

I went ahead and listened to those other songs you recommended just now. Not for me ^^;, but they weren't bad. I just prefer the other ones (Colorful Days, Go My Way, and Danketsu).

Heeeeeeeeeey, and I see that there's your proof for Idolmaster 2 being out already. What a surprise. I thought I'd have heard more hubbub from you about it (a) here in this thread and (b) in your official topic thread!

[McSweeney]

The plot twist you mentioned in your doujin (who's the author? what's the title?)

"Ryoujoku Shoujo Madoka Homura" by Mokusei Zaijuu. I still haven't read one starring my beloved Kyoko yet. I did see one with her on the cover, but I didn't read it, because colour doujins gross me out for some reason.

Also, I found a random Kaiji reference in a K-on! doujin I read today.



Maybe I'll talk about this some more later because it's an interesting doujin.

[Talon87]

Read through it real fast. Awww at the end where Homura says "あれじゃあただの魔法少女じゃなくて　肉便器じゃない". ("She's not just some magical girl, she's a cum dump, is she not?") Poor Madoka. And then Madoka says 私も。。。マミさんみたいな。。。立派な魔法少女になれたかな。。。("I wonder ... if I was able to become ... a wonderful magical girl just like Mami-san.")

There's a weird typo though on Page 23 unless I'm missing something. Kyuubei calls Homura ほむら (Homura) on that top-most cel to the right with text in it, but go to the middle-most cel in the 2nd-from-the-bottom row on the same page and he appears to call her ほのか (Honoka). Weird.

[McSweeney]

Guess he forgot that Honoka was a different magical girl he made a contract with in a different show (Pretty Cure).

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

How are you playing it? Don't you need a Japanese Xbox 360? Don't you also need an English patch? Do you have both? Or are you just saying it's awesome based off of word of mouth and/or YouTube videos?

Xbox 360, BUT the PSP version of IM@S1 is being translated online, and Haruka's route is already done.

For now, we must settle for videos.

Originally Posted by Talon87

That's what someone else said on that video: that Go My Way is the franchise's theme song. "やっぱアイマスといえばこの曲！^^" he said. ("Yup, when you talk Idolmaster, this song!" Doesn't quite translate into English since they differentiate between "when you talk" and "when you think" and we don't. And of course the hanging subject in the independent clause with the you-should-understand-me-telepathically predicate omitted. We'd normally say "When you think Idolmaster, you think of this song" for something like this.)

I went ahead and listened to those other songs you recommended just now. Not for me ^^;, but they weren't bad. I just prefer the other ones (Colorful Days, Go My Way, and Danketsu).

I can't blame you, while I like those songs (especially "Kiramekirari" when sung by Chihaya in a wedding dress) they're not up to the godly standard of "Go My Way" (which is incidentally Yayoi's image song) and "Danketsu", which didn't appear in the original game.

I can't stress enough that the singer is important for certain songs. Most characters are at their strongest with their image songs, and even the weakest singer is good in a group (I haven't heard a poor All Stars song yet). A song I really wanted to recommend that I neglected in my earlier post was "Aoi Tori", Chihaya's image song. It is not only hauntingly beautiful, its lyrics directly reflect on Chihaya herself. She is the "blue bird" who soars above all others, but being isolated by her talent makes her lonely. Part of the lyrics I think emphasizes giving up love to pursue one's art, but over the course of the first game Chihaya struggles with this ideal (reflecting a certain someone becoming the central pillar of support in her troubled life) and at one point drops "Aoi Tori" as her signature song because it is too painful to sing.

Speaking of which, Talon - I have a torrent for lossless IM@S tracks, you have to use Monkey's Audio to convert them and it's a huge torrent, but I would be more than happy to pull certain tracks if you want to hear them. Just give me the Japanese name of it and who you want to sing it and I should be able to find it.

Originally Posted by Talon87

I listened to Colorful Days earlier today. It's an okay song, but I confess I really love the part where they sing their image colors starting at around 3:15. LOL @ "Normal Green", though. Poor Ritsuko, saddled with the awkward-sounding lyric. ("Fresh Green" actually perfectly fits the yellow-green color Miki's always wearing.) I like the positive みんな綺麗だね minna kirei da ne. I also like how it's ambiguous: they could either be saying that "we're all pretty," meaning the 765 team, or they could be saying "everybody's pretty," meaning every human is pretty. (I take it to mean the first since they're singing about their own image colors, but I can easily see how the second might be the underlying message.) Was this the song you meant when you said "Colours"? 'Cause I tried searching for Idolmaster songs named "Colors" or "Colours" and got nothing.

That's it. It's been a while since I've listened to the IM@S tracks (once I got "Muv-Luv" I've been listening to that pretty and "Asu e no Houkou" much every chance I got) and confused it with Geass' OP song.

The trio of Chihaya, Ami and Haruka strike a good balance for "Colourful Days" but the best version is again the All Stars. When I get home I'm going to post Haruka's rendition of "Kanashimi yo Konnichi wa"

Oh man, I love Minami Kuribayashi's voice but what I wouldn't give for "Muv-Luv" to be sung by Asami Imai! ;_;

Originally Posted by Talon87

Heeeeeeeeeey, and I see that there's your proof for Idolmaster 2 being out already. What a surprise. I thought I'd have heard more hubbub from you about it (a) here in this thread and (b) in your official topic thread!

Muv-Luv put a stop to my IM@S craze, even when McMasters flipped out over it earlier in the year, I was so entrenched in ML I stopped watching my videos. It didn't help that YouTube enacted a policy whereby I had to sign into a GoogleAccount to view my own gosh darn channel (meaning what I was doing before - maintaining a separate, troll account on YouTube while retaining simultaneous access to my GoogleAccount) was no longer possible. :/

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Speaking of which, Talon - I have a torrent for lossless IM@S tracks, you have to use Monkey's Audio to convert them and it's a huge torrent, but I would be more than happy to pull certain tracks if you want to hear them. Just give me the Japanese name of it and who you want to sing it and I should be able to find it.

I'm alright, thanks. ^^; I don't tend to like FLACs or lossless audio files since (1) they're enormous, (2) I don't hear much improvement in quality between 128 and 192 kbps and I hear no difference at all from 192 on up, and (3) they can sometimes be obtuse to handle, as in this case. I also don't know what I'd want to ask you for. I know I prefer the 10/11/12/13-girl ensembles to the 3/2/1-girl pieces just because I like the idea of Idolmaster being a happy family group and, truth be told, there are very few actual singing voices from the bunch that I like so, when you break 'em down into smaller groups, the sorest thumbs really stand out. But even then I don't know which performances I'd want to ask you for. I don't know if the 12-girl version of Song A is better than the 10-girl version. Do I like this tempo or that tempo? Do I like this enunciation or that enunciation? So on and so forth. It's more hassle for you than it's worth at this time to ask me to ask you to cherrypick what I like. Maybe later this summer, especially if they do TV versions of the game's songs and I fall in love with certain ones.

It's funny that you should mention the wedding dress Chihaya video since before your post that was the very version I watched. (It was her, Azusa, and I want to say Miki but it might have been somebody else in the third dress.) I thought it was very weird: wedding dresses are supposed to be elegant but the song and the dance moves were anything but, with Chihaya standing in an upside down field goal post-style position (you know, like this). It just looked very awkward. I felt like the dresses kept detracting from the performance rather than adding to it. Obviously I understand why he wanted them to wear wedding gowns (a 'cause they're very pretty costumes and b 'cause MAI WAIFUS), but it just didn't fit the song, I felt.

KateKyo Hitman Reborn:
Through Episode 27 of this series. I will probably drop it very soon. While it did improve upon reaching Episode 20, there were plenty of moans and groans waiting in store for me during this "epic" story arc (eps 20-26), and in the end I can safely say that this series just isn't for me. You have to have a certain mindset and a certain kind of taste to like this show. I don't have that. Better luck next UPNer, Muyo. ^^; But hey: can't say I didn't try it. (I think I was more than patient, watching this many episodes.) And who knows: maybe I'm not dropping it forever. Maybe I'll pick it back up again some day. But for now, I think I'd rather watch Gintama.

[Doppleganger]

I'll do some poking around. I honestly haven't looked at all the files because of the size. When I originally got this torrent, it was to challenge the power of my PC, but now that it's loading up...

While I'm here, the videos as promised

Aoi Tori full version (Chihaya, vocal only)
Kanashimi yo Konnichi wa (Haruka, voice + dance)

I actually wrote a scenario for "Kanashimi yo Konnichi wa" but it's probably been lost to time.

[McSweeney]

The reason I picked Doppleganger for UPN was because Archaic, who either banned me from BMG or encouraged Chaka to do it for him, was active on this forum and I didn't want to get auto-banned by him. I was very into Baldur's Gate and the Doppleganger monster, which had the ability to morph into beings or objects, gave me a steady stream of grief throughout the story. So as if to hint at the disguise, I also peppered my speech with a hissing gimmick, which the game monsters also had.

Didn't you also have a gimmick where you'd steal the avatar and signature of other users, thus becoming a doppleganger that way? I seem to recall falling victim to that myself.

I don't know much about this Idolm@ster business, but I once saw a YouTube video that had Iori performing a song that was, near as I could tell, about a mysterious stranger visiting her in the middle of the night and satisfying all of her sexual desires. That was a major WTF for me.

[Talon87]

That would be a major WTF for me as well, lol. Do you think you could find the video? Or is it completely lost to time? I'd be interested to see what the song lyrics were. I just watched the first half of "Here We Go!" on Youtube, as it's supposed to be one of her character songs, and I didn't see anything there other than "always by my side" and "wake up" that would have even come close to evoking the sort of imagery you described. The song was pretty much a "please support me" song. Fits her character to a tee, I guess. Was it this one, which says it's the ending theme song to Zero no Tsukaima? That one has some kinda creepy lyrics for a little girl to be singing, but again, nothing about a bedroom intruder.

Doppel, you linked the Maison Ikkoku OP twice. You didn't link Aoi Tori.

[McSweeney]

At last! It's not the same chick but whatever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICSk1...eature=related

Sounds like it could be like AC/DC's "Big Balls" in having double meaning.