Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

Since I've started posting all of my ridiculously long backlog of stuff to post here, I've received no more requests. Toward this end, I've started moving it from here to here, where it's easier to organize into separate pages so you can find anything specific if necessary. For my first chunk, I made a page for the kansō, so if there's a title there that actually interests you, you can ask for it. Even this section is still ridiculously long, so I'm considering partitioning further. The problem with that is, of course, that I don't have a good way to decide what subcategories to make. I've often used in which medium the work is, but should I base it on which medium it was originally (as I do with my image files) or which medium I've personally perused, and what about posts that include works from different media? I've also considered the yuri factor, which is the only relatively concrete criterion I know that may be related to whether or not any of the people here would be interested in reading, but I'm not sure what categories to make on that scale (perhaps something about whether they're actual romantic feelings, whether the main character is the recipient or holder, et cetera), and again, it might be difficult to categorize posts about multiple works. Of course, the other categories of posts would be even more difficult, as you probably can't even tell what I'm talkin' 'bout from my notes.

Meanwhile, my procrastination on what I actually did have requested has reached epic proportions. I looked up the stuff for the next post long ago, but I just haven't gotten around to allocating a block of time to type the massive wad of text. That's the story of pretty much everything in my backlog, of course.

We were hiding out in some Japanese school.

I remember almost nothing from this one, but it was a combination of Raki☆Sta (particularly the bit starting here) and another school series. (It's been so long, I've forgotten what the latter was.) I've never even read or watched the former, but it's one of the ones blitzcon told me he was going to show me long, long ago (but not early enough that I could actually get the videos), so I've been breaking my usual rule in its case. Consequently, most of my knowledge of it is from Ms.?† Maitake's illustrations and comics (although I haven't actually been reading the posts since I haven't even started the series yet), which is undoubtedly skewing my preconceptions of its content.

†You may remember that I fouled up a while back and that I later decided not to worry about it. I neglected to mention that Ms.? Maitake replied the very next day and pointed out that it was clearly stated on the site that duplicating things without permission was prohibited, which rather scuppered a post I'd made.

Meanwhile, when I contacted her/him to ask whether I could post direct links to individual posts, I decided to ask about her/his gender so I could address her/him less awkwardly, but she/he declined to say. (Japanese writers/illustrators sometimes take PNs that would suggest genders different from their own, but I've never seen anything proving that any have made false claims about this. Then again, nor do I have any proof that any Japanese comic writer/illustrator has ever been captured on camera (with the exception of Akamatsu, whose mug I do not fondly remember seeing, particularly considering that he's actually married to a lady who's more than 13 years his junior now), so that's hard to say with certainty, either. You can take this into account for my generalizations in the next paragraph.) I would tend to assume that she/he's a man like me due to the demographics (?) of what she/he seems to find interesting, but that's a bit of a disservice to Ms. Hayashiya, Ms. oneirotsai, and many others. Of course, in English, there aren't any honorifics‡ except title prefixes, so it doesn't make much difference; in Japanese, I've just been using speech patterns somewhere in-between.

I do find it interesting that I see ladies who draw stuff aimed at male audiences all the time (with Ms. Takahashi being the classic example), but never confirmed examples of men drawing stuff for ladies. (The fact that ladies draw lots of yuri, yet I never hear about men drawing much yaoi, is less surprising.) The closest I've seen is Fujieda, who has been suppressing his style (judging by Iono Sama Fanatics, his only independent work I've read) in various YuriHime Comics mooks (and of course the compilations), but although they always use feminine second-person pronouns, the content of even the main series is more moe than shōjo, so he's still a bit short of Jack Nicholson.

‡In my research for Projects Abdiel and Homuncupunk, I was surprised to find that in modern English, the one language I've encountered that has almost no ways of showing respect, we have retained the plural/formal singular objective from the early modern variety as our sole (before conjugation) second-person pronoun.

When I first saw this, I assumed from the single star and the color scheme that he was drawing a comparison to other red republics, such as Union of Soviet Socialist and People's of China (in which case I'd point out that communism sounds good to me if it's what it takes to have freedom of religion), but it turns out that it's actually the California state flag. Now I don't see if he's actually saying anything, other than fact. Still, this did lead me to read a couple of other things that I had missed before on the same page (locally):

1. The First Amendment was quoted directly. Other than the fact that it's a crudely written run-on sentence, it brought to my attention the fact that I'm not clear on how the wording works. It says that "Congress shall" not do these things, but does that protect us from laws on regional levels, or regulations for individual institutions (like public schools) as well? Obviously, it should, but there are plenty of people who claim that we should always follow what the Constitution says, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.

2. Good point. It's important to be able to see who the bigots are.

On the original topic again, I noticed something not quite accurate about Ms. Morishima's comments in her first Yuri-Yuri Kembunroku about YURICON, where she was excited thinking "if ○○ and ×× went to America, they could get married!?" or some such. The problem is that such a marriage would only be valid in the place where it's legalized. According to my research, the only place where they say it's valid globally is Canada, and I don't see what difference it makes, since it would be odd if a place where it was illegal would recognize marriages granted by some other country. Of course, the point is rather moot, since Ms. Morishima is (as usual) talking about yuri; fictional characters don't need real-life legal status. I can only assume that no First-World country will stop you from having ceremonies and vows, although some people there will grumble about them.

When thinking about 4th Edition for a later post, I happened to run across this. When I found it, it was at 355 posts and counting, so I'm too lazy to read it all, but the first page linked this. DM has been linking this wiki quite a bit lately, but apparently he only uses reputable sections, because the first paragraph here makes me say "What the hell?" The talk page points out that defining this as an individual phenomenon is pretty arbitrary and that this is encouraged here, but the first sentence, as far as I can tell, completely fabricates a new definition for a Japanese word. . . .

Continuing from before:

1. In a way, I've actually been following the mook for years before it was created. . . .

2. Ms. Hayashiya says that the first edition (?) of the latest dmara CD will contain bonus tracks, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to put one in next month—anyone else want in? Still, I haven't been able to find any information on this on the official site, amazon, or TORANOANA, so I don't know the details. I assume that I just have to buy it before the first production run runs out or something.

Meanwhile, we'll see if I ever get around to posting about the current order either. . . .

Although Wikipedia has an entire article on wasei Eigo, the opposite (which is more significant to English-speakers) is not discussed in a centralized place. Some of them are included in this really long list, but it doesn't mention the one that I find most dangerous. This is noted briefly, however, in the article I've been avoiding, but they don't say anything about the actual movement; it's implied that it's just an insult.

Also significantly, it says that Japanese lesbians refer to themselves as "les." I'd heard that this was a pejorative, which is presumably why I have never seen it used self-referentially in lesbian media, only in yuri. I have something more to mention related to that in relation to another kansō, if I ever get around to it.

Although I don't comment on journals of people I don't know, I do read them regularly (except the parts about cooking). The former (along with her posts on lililicious and daily_yuri, where I don't even read the comments anymore because of the negative ones) is an excellent source of all sorts of yuri- and lesbianism-related information. (Although I didn't need the part about Hiper Radio!! because she told me about her source (which has RSS), it was good to hear about the fact that only a very small part of the audio file was relevant—and which part that is.) The latter contains interesting essays on the travails of an artist. Although I avoid art like the plague, I think this sort of thing is relevant to anyone in a creative field.

The few things I have in common with these people also mean that they occasionally remind me about things that I've forgotten, such as:

*I should reread the good parts of Lens no Mukō sometime. Apparently I don't remember much of anything about it. I'm very bad about remembering details (particularly in such non-flashy stories as these) from only going through them once. That was the reason that draskireis threatened to kill me once. . . .

*There was a regular character named "Redd Herring" in A PUP NAMED Scooby-Doo. As you may have noticed, I have a reason for the name for almost every character I create (both because I'm bad at making them up and because I love allusions and trivia), but rarely in such a heavy-handed (?) manner. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that almost everything I ever make bottoms out at PG-13.

My readership appears to be at an all-time high (apparently at least two regulars!), but I've accumulated quite a lot of stuff during its absence, to say nothing of my sloth and the fact that I've built up a lot of new things due to year's-end-and-beginning splurging. So, I'd like to see if you have any requests or suggestions. What I've got in the works is as follows:

( Ridiculously long notes )

So, to work through my backlogs, here are more thoughts about some visual novels I've played:

Note: From what I've seen, Japanese use the English "heroine" to refer to the chief protagonist ("shujinkō")'s female love interest even if the protagonist is also a lady. (This is especially prominent in ones where you choose a scenario based on one in particular.) Since you won't know which character is which unless you know the games, I'm using this system for brevity and clarity.

Kurenai-Doki no Uta, Chapter 1 (Atelier of Chiharu): I've posted about Chapter 0 here and here. Sadly, I never got through this chapter. Although it is some interesting stuff, including commentary on societies both mortal and keyō and how life is after giving up one's humanity, the fact that I no longer have the patience to wade through large chunks of text was my undoing. The fact that the protagonist and heroine don't look like they're going to be getting back together anytime soon (which is just as well, since I've learned not to post on daily_yuri) doesn't help. According to the circle's page, it's currently on hiatus but planned to go up to Chapter 9, and considering that 0 and 1 each take umpteen hours (perhaps a single-digit number for fluent readers), there's a long way yet before a conclusion. I also didn't reach any suggestion of why this one was rated "18 and up," but with the story focusing on two guest characters (one male), I didn't have particularly high hopes about that, either. Chapter 0 already showed the internal organs of a human who'd been cut in half despite being "all ages," so I can only imagine what sorts of things would require such ratings (as usual for Japanese stuff).

Natsu no Hi no Resonance (Saitō Kagura): I was alerted to this one here. Fortunately, it's not nearly as long and meandering, so I was able to sit through it. The central theme is a weird techno-fantasy anomaly that's never really explained, but, like in a recent review, that's not the point. It's not a happy end, of course, and as with Yami-Bō （う～、思い出したくないな）, people on daily_yuri are complaining about something that I didn't see, which means either that the translator assumed something I didn't, or that I just missed it. I was more bothered by troubles with the game engine, such as the facts that you can't turn down the ridiculously loud sound effects and that you can't use "skip" because there aren't any choices to stop (so you have to make sure to save). It would also have been nice if there were a few CG events (full-screen set pieces), but that's not a big deal. This is also one of the rare occurrences of a lady who uses the first-person pronoun "boku" just because she's cute and energetic, not because she's boyish as is much more common.

Aoi Shiro Taiken-ban (SUCCESS): I mentioned this one back here. Although the game is for PS2, they were kind enough to provide a downloadable playable demo (downloadable here) for PC. Of course, before that, they released the OP (also downloadable from the same page), which is a good preview. Apparently, there will still be some blood-sucking, but from this sample, it appears to be only a 1:2 ratio to kissing, so that ought to be good enough for me. There's also an obvious water theme, but that's not enough to put me off.

Anyway, this is a commercial product with full voice, so it's a lot easier reading than the other two. One related interesting element is that you can choose a voice to tell you about the options in the main menu (although only the protagonist's is available in the demo). The game itself is the usual combination of (1) generic backgrounds with character images showing their current emotions/etc. and (2) CG events with at most slight changes when people move, but both are much more dynamic, with sprites moving around at different distances and the camera zooming and panning to whichever part of a set-piece is currently being described.

In terms of actual characters, I get the sense that the protagonist's voice seems more mature than you generally hear for a second-year high-school student (equivalent of an American junior). It's not like she sounds like an old lady or anything, just more serene, or something. I guess that's to show that she's an assiduous sort of person. It's also interesting to see how one of the main heroines reacts from the standpoint where I know about her feelings (from here*), but the protagonist apparently doesn't. Meanwhile, someone from the second page of characters steals a lot of scenes because of her extremely extroverted nature, but I think most (if not all) of the first page has a destiny advantage over her in terms of long-term plot.

*We only get the description of their meeting second-hand, so I'm not sure how the protagonist saved her from a boring speech with hime-sama dakko. . . . I also find it amusing that the other heroine refers to the object of her affection as her "daughter," as in Ōran Kōkō Host Club.

Despite the fact that the story centers on a girls' school kendō club and the swordswomen they encounter on their getaway, there haven't been any with badass speech patterns so far, but I imagine I won't be disappointed by the heartless swordswoman and the oni queen (a spoiler, yes, but c'mon, they tell the story about the eye in the first scene, so anyone who even starts it can guess just as well as I did). Speaking of the latter, I think I heard that the name "Kohaku" is traditionally paired with "Hisui" like in Tsuki-Hime, but it apparently isn't this time unless that's the name of one of the others in a previous life. Meanwhile, all of the students are from the first two school years, despite the fact that this doesn't appear to have the necessity of keeping them for a series as in HAYA-BLA. There's also a male character who's rather sparkly (and I'm not talkin' 'bout the top of his head), but I doubt he'll be much of a problem, as he seems to be a nice guy and doesn't appear in the video.

All in all, I'm quite expectant about the last one, even if it will set me back quite a chunk of change. . . .

For some reason, I've been going through my old downloaded videos that I hadn't gotten around to watching yet, as well as viewing some new ones flagged by Ms.? yuri_amagasa. One of the perks of doing this is that I can post the good bits on daily_yuri, which, unlike posting here, usually results in actual communication between at least two different people. What I've had has been something of a mixed bag, but nothing I've regretted watching.

However, this reminded me that one of the other things I hadn't watched was the rest of the MariMite OVAs. OVAs tend to be difficult, as I tend to lose track due to the long time between releases of individual episodes. If memory serves, the last one I happened to watch was the episode where it showed at the end that Ms. Hosokawa would be featured in the next one. As ever, I'm too lazy to read novels, but from the various fanzines I've perused, she stands out as quite a lovely character. I know all the new underclassmen have to call the quintessential everywoman "Yumi-sama", but Ms. Hosokawa really means it. (We don't need to think about our tsun-dere friend with the annoying hairstyle.) Upon a bit of research (which I had to do to find her surname, as the like isn't often heard in the series), it turns out she's also played by Ms. Koshimizu Ami, whom I remember from half a dozen other 21st-century animated series (although she only played a yuri character in one of those).

And what reminded me about that? Ironically enough, it was the bad news about Ms. Fukuzawa's choice of petite soeur. (It was a long time coming, but I have to admit that it was never likely that such a major character would lose just because I didn't like her as much—much like our problem back here.) I'll just have to try not to think about that when I watch the rest.

I know there's only one person here who gives a damn, but I have an unusual history with MariMite. My first encounter with the series came back in '04, the very first time in my life that I actually went out and ordered comics for a reason—including the first volumes of Yuri Shimai and Yuri Tengoku. These were also the only fanzines by other than the original creators for which I have ever paid, because jpqueen had not yet pointed out the fact that they were such. (In retrospect, one of them actually has a story that sends an interesting message about Ms. Hosokawa, even though she only appears on one page—the one right after the spread (sorry) in the upper right.) From these two anthologies, I managed to piece together a vague idea of what the hell the series was, and was ready with Azureus when the animation came out. It was much later, through daily_yuri, that I happened to come into contact with Ms. mizuno_youko and her massive archive of fanzines.

Personally, MariMite is a bit laid-back for my tastes (and has those damned sailor uniforms that are supposedly the archetype for "rich girl" schools), but, as noted in that issue of Yuri Shimai, it's something of a bible for the community, so it's essentially a must-read/-see/-something (or preferably more than one of the above). I've included at least one tasteless reference in my own projects, too. . . . Still, it's better than certain ripoffs with large amounts of added unpleasantness.

Meanwhile, I would be remiss to let this go without talking about one or two language elements that I've been wanting to mention for some time. As you can no doubt guess from the title (which I haven't bothered to list in full in this entire post) and the fact that it's set in a mission school, loanwords like "Maria" and "rosario" (no, not the guy from DRAGON HALF) are key plot points. The fact that these are the Portuguese versions is presumably a holdover from the Jesuits (remember the orange-robed dudes from SHŌGUN?). It may seem odd that a Catholic school is the setting for the (arguably) biggest yuri phenomenon in history, but the Japanese aren't terribly strict about religion these days (although I hear the purges of the Buddhists in the 19th century were motivation enough for one puny monk to become the third toughest of the Juppon-Gatana), as illustrated by their assertion that there's no need to be a follower of an Abrahamic religion to attend a Catholic school. I also find it somewhat odd that, in some cases, a gift of an image of a dying naked guy is a symbol of sisterly love. Well, at least the Vatican no longer preaches the policy that wearing a rosary around your neck is disrespectful.

As usual, I'm getting caught up in planning all sorts of things without actually following through with much of any of them. This can be easily illustrated by my notes on future LJ posts:

[A 計劃]
Differences (AI, Soldier; humans: everyman or individual?; neutral or chaotic?)
Lanky
RAGNAROCK CITY (reproduction)
Zodiac (Srutt 13th, doesn't like rat and water, does like Third Trine, dodecagram; too many?)

[Élitism（仮）]
Able Learner, Diverse Background, Educated/Well Read, Skill Focus, other skill-bonus feats
Scouts (expert, warrior if not elf or gnoll but wants bows; Guerrilla Scout, Guerrilla Warrior)
Mix-and-match (expert for ninja/ranger/rogue/scout, warrior for barbarian/fighter/ranger/samurai)
Equipment packages

[Incest（仮）]
...

[Index Astartes: Storm-Daemons]
Mk1 for Scouts
Mk2 loincloths
Belief of not showing face similar to Redemption, but not belief of recruits, as original homeworld lost
Rearming priorities
Segmentum Tempestus

[感想（仮）]
BLEACH 10–17, 19–20 (100; ____-Fung; bomb)
Comic YuriHime VOL.8 (different cover; sefrie; Aoi Shiro; Sudō fight!; nice new serials (Suō-chan desu wa); first yuri?; S and Selection? (Eiki cover!))
Diamond9! (Fourth batter?; doping; odd premise; fickle Yuzuriha)
Gakuen Like Love life (white uniforms and colored pants)
GUNSMITH CATS BURST 3 (to Hollywood, or not to Hollywood; Kyōto dialect)
Hatsukoi no Kyōyū (oops)
Irregular Webcomic (T. rex; ridiculous variety of LEGO; brown hair?; have some minis; http://irregularwebcomic.net/1246.html; goofy expressions; http://irregularwebcomic.net/1502.html)
Legostar Galactica (couldn't wade through bad punctuation, etc.)
Machi-Kado Hana-Dayori (...)
MY OTOME Zwei 2 (Ishigami(n); Ms. Marguerite ↓; Ms. Himeno very changed; Ms. Wang back; Ms. Hallard)
PILGRIM JA:GER 2–6 (ridiculous numbers of characters; famous historical personages; reason for cross-dressing?; Buonarotti and Pufau)
Saint October 1 (more tarot, Arcna City; nothing special; comics better)
Sakura no Kiwa 3 (laid-back)
SCAPE-GOD (weird but oddly meaningful?; secrets of Bush admin; gozu/mezu)

[こいつに教えてもらった]
...

[南斗の拳]
Ambidexterity
Chinese ("Auntie")
Dexterity
Gluttony
Hate hate hate hate
Hayashiya, Nanase, Sakura, Morinaga, Reynolds, Akamatsu
Impulse buy/can't resist a deal
Make JEOPARDY!, not WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Michael Corleone, Alfredo Pacino
Not metrosexual—can't stand housework
Wisdom

[Second Son of Soong]
Camera
Corporal punishment
Quest limit
Tauren ranged weapons
The trouble with travels

[Soft Town]
History: Chosen for metaphysical, not geographical features; If you want it done right, get a dwarf to do it—thus now their home in exile (Barzak, Glorgyth, Nuradann)
Demographics: Humans (mostly Imperial), orcs (mostly half-), halflings (mostly lightfoot), dwarves (mostly hill), gnomes (mostly rock), elves (mostly half-), planetouched (apparently mostly aasimars)
Religions: Ambi?theos, Pantheos Dexter, Pantheos Sinister, Bolero, Ured (agreement with Pantheos church not to convert living citizens), halfling pantheon, gnome pantheon; other Demiurge-associated deities and Atheos persecuted by Pantheos Dexter; Hezrack and orc pantheon in Scarborough; dwarf and elf pantheons outside city limits
The Market: Biggest neighborhood, home to most business, halflings, Wakers, gnomes; Maester Munster
The Old City: Mausolea, run by dwarves of Ured (rumored Barakkh too), could substitute for duergar mummy crypt; ironically, mostly human construction, but dwarves rebuild collapses in their own style, clan graves in most heavily rebuilt area (from disaster?); poor all in one mound
Scarborough: Half-orcs can get pre-confirmed passage from courts; otherwise, often harassed by gate guards; most buildings connected; sewer entrances to Old City bricked up; gangs replace tribes; wererats
The Triangle Palace: Embassies (dwarven king now living there)
The Guild of the Black Hand: Based in Scarborough, but has other locations, particularly in Old City; Orcs & Humans (some halflings, but few dwarves/elves/gnomes/goblinoids); leader unknown, but enforcers Maim and Rend legendary; assassins form highest tier; rumored to also have labyrinthine training/execution area with minotaurs; devotees to Pantheos Sinister, Ambi?theos, Bolero, Hezrack
Albert's Locks: Heavy garrison
The Emerald Crown: Structures not tolerated; also royal hunting grounds
The Killing Field: Orcs not near here due to low ground

["Strange" Is a Relative Term（仮）]
Multimedia
Text editing/capitalization
Noses!
Sound effects

Any requests?

Well, here's a brief digest on the developments since my last kansō post:

※When looking up tags, I found comments that suggest that Ichigo mashimaro and Joshikōsei get better later. I might reconsider those, but . . .

※Ms. mizuno_youko was kind enough to introduce me to a yuri blog. I can see why this is her main source—Just from a couple of hours' perusal, I've added another 12 series/one-shots to my Wish List. One is something I had ruled out earlier—There's plenty of kissing and snuggling, but the characters go about it in such a matter-of-fact way that it just doesn't seem right. But based on this review, I decided to give it another try. Another is one I got on recommendations before, but I ruled it out because I apparently misconstrued the sex of one of the main characters.[*] I'd never even heard of the other 10. Now that she mentions it, I really should have found out about this before, as it's on Lililicious's links page. I'll have to take a look at those other ones, too.

※This post introduced me to this kick-ass site. There are only two problems I see. First, they only have mainstream stuff. Oh well, I'm still happy to have a reunion with a couple of old friends, and not to have to buy the continuation of one on which I won't comment for at least another two posts. More importantly, they use direct downloads, which means it's dreadfully slow even if I'm not using the bandwidth for anything else. One volume takes significantly longer than the three hours I'm supposed to be on the computer each day. This site alone may be enough to warrant downloading a download accelerator/resumer. Does anyone recommend one in particular?

[*Edit [2007.11.20]: No, actually, it turns out that I misconstrued the fact that he was a main character.