So your main girl character is flying a single-seat plane of some kind, and you show a cockpit shot of her, with the camera low and forward, facing back. There's two messages you can send. Here's the first:

"This show will feature lots of fan service." (Aika Zero, from Studio Fantasia.)

"This show is not about pandering. We won't be doing gratuitous fan service."

Which is the message from Mouretsu Pirates.

UPDATE: Pete, that thing looks like it could make a soprano out of you.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:09 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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OK, I'm hooked. This is excellent.

There is a lot of eye-candy in this first episode, and none of it is fan service. Fact is, I don't remember any fan service at all -- and I didn't miss it.

But there's a lot of scenery porn, for example. Someone has put in a lot of thought to the back story and the setting, and it shows.

Marika is a good lead. She seems a pretty normal girl, except that she's a hot pilot. Which, it seems, runs in the family. She learns that her father was the captain of a pirate ship called the Benten-maru.

It has a neat sigil:

Why the lute?

Benten-sama is the Shinto (and Buddhist) goddess of all things which flow. That means rivers. It means speech. It also means knowledge. And it means music -- hence the lute. Benten-sama (AKA Benzaiten AKA Saraswati) is one of the great gods, the Seven Gods of Fortune. (And the other six are all considered to be male.)

If you remember the show Kamichu, there's a point at the God Con where there's a musical performance by a divine rock group. The star of that group was Benten-sama.

Anyway, Marika finds out in this episode that her father just died, two days before. She didn't know anything about her father, not even his name. And she finds out that he was the captain of a pirate ship called the Benten-maru. And that captaincy of such ships passes by dynastic descent -- which means that she's the only one who can become the new captain, because she's his only child.

By the way, they aren't really pirates. They're privateers. They are operating under a Letter of Marque, which means they have at least some cover of law. Historically speaking, there wasn't a huge difference between the two, but there were a few.

One big difference was that a privateer could use ports belonging to the government which issued the letter. Another was that privateers tended to have better ships and better equipment. For instance, Sir Francis Drake preyed upon Spanish treasure ships for a while, operating under a Letter of Marque issued by Good Queen Bess.

Anyhoo, with their captain gone, the Benten-maru will lose their letter of marque unless they can find another captain. So they're trying to recruit Marika for the job.

There's also a political backstory. Seems that this planet had a revolution against the parent planet which started the colony. The Letters of Marque were issued as part of that revolution.

The technological level of this series is way beyond Francis Drake, needless to say. Part of the eye candy is in cool cars, strange computer interfaces, and a lot of other high tech which adds a lot of verisimilitude. This isn't just futuristic in one or two ways; it's believably advanced in lots of ways.

In the cases where it isn't advanced, it's deliberate. Which is why Marika works part time as a waitress at a cafe; it's a deliberate throwback.

What apparently is the other main character of the series is a dark, quiet girl named Chiaki. Except that there seems to be a soft side to her, considering how she looked when she started eating a chocolate parfait.

For the time being she's a major mystery. Friend? Ally? Competitor? She evidently doesn't want Marika killed, but what does she want? I suspect we'll find out more in the next episode, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Any show can veer off the rails and become a disaster, but after this start, this one would have to veer a hell of a long way in order to crash. I'm very optimistic about it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:04 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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A lot less crowded at the grocery store just now than it was two weeks ago, I tell you. Much nicer (for me, though probably not for the store).

As I was checking out, the young guy ringing up my stuff complimented me on the fact that I kept all the like items together on the conveyer. It made it easier for him to ring things up.

Then he completely missed the point, by not packing like items together in the plastic bags. Reason I put things together is in hopes they'll be packed together, which makes it easier for me to load up my shopping cart for the trip home.

On the way home, just as I was wheeling into the apartment complex, a paramedic unit with its lights going pulled into the place. It ran down to the mailboxes, and they looked at something there, then backed up and went past me towards the part where I live. And I had this sudden fantasy: I'd finally get to my apartment and see that they were just coming out of it, with my dead body on a stretcher. And I'd say, "But I'm right here!" and no one would hear me, and suddenly I'd realize that I was a ghost.

Turned out they were going somewhere else, different building even. And they didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry, either.

I think I've been watching too much TV.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 12:20 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Before watching the first episode, I downloaded the first four chapters of the manga. They weren't translated, so all I could really do was to look at the pictures. And my first reaction was that it was going to be worse than Maken-ki, and that's bad indeed.

The problem was that the male protagonist is a first class jerk. That was apparent just from the images.

Anyway, so now I'm watching the first episode with subtitles. It's halfway through it and Our Hero just got killed. He's been run through with a spear, and he's laying on the ground bleeding profusely. As he dies, he thinks, "If she had to kill me, she could at least let me squeeze her tits first." That pretty much summarizes him. Even in just this first exposure, he reminds me of the guy that Lum used to zorch all the time. That guy needed zorching, and this guy needed killing. Problem is, this guy is coming back.

By the end of the show, I'm not so sure any longer. There's no way this show is going to be good. But it may not be quite the disaster that Maken-ki turned out to be. At least this one seems ready to tell some kind of story.

This was broadcast on AT-X, and there's only one censorship light-ray. Plenty of bare breasts, all through the show. For instance:

That's Rias Gremory, the demon who revived Our Hero, and who pretty much owns his soul now. They don't say that explicitly, but he belongs to her, and presumably we're going to find out later what that means.

My general rule about harem shows is that they are worth watching to the extent that guy in the middle gets a grip. That goes triple for this show. If he stops being a jerk, this show could turn out OK. If he keeps being a jerk and it's used as an excuse for various girl demons to beat the crap out of him, it's going to be a total loss.

I'll give it at least one more episode, but the odds favor this turning out to be real junk.

One down, one to go. Here's hoping that Mouretsu Pirates is at least a little better.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:18 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Just had someone send this to me. It's a trailer for the second season of Kore wa Zombie desu ka.

Looks like Haruna has her masou shoujo power back. But Ayumu also has it. Different points in the series?

Looks like there's at least two new girls in the harem. One of them is probably Sarasvati. The other looks like a schoolmate, though like as not she's actually something different and is in disguise.

And Tomonori sets a new record for gainaxing.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:39 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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One of the things I don't really like in harem shows or anime romcoms in general is the Accidental Compromising Position, where our hero stumbles or falls and lands on top of a girl (or vice versa) in some ecchi fashion, and then is seen by others.

The extreme case is probably a crotch plant, but there are many variations on the theme. I hate it for a number of reasons, but most of all because it's so blazingly unrealistic. Have you ever done such a thing yourself? Have you ever seen it happen? Have you ever even heard of it happening in real life? I haven't.

But I've seen it a thousand times in anime. Grumble. And in general, the more of that there is in a show, the less I like it.

Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi features about three of them, with two being meet-cutes. None of them are really all that ecchi -- well, except for Koyori ending up sitting on Kazuma's face. After she falls from a tree and he jumps under her to save her from injury. But she was wearing short pants, and no one saw it happen. The extreme form of crotch plant demands that the girl be wearing a skirt and white panties, and for it to happen in front of the entire school. (Who take pictures with their cell phones.)

It always makes me uncomfortable, but the good news about this series is that they front load all of that during the "new guy gets to know the town and vice versa" part, which as of the end of ep 4 is mostly over.

It could be worse. Maken-ki featured several per episode I saw, which is one of many reasons I quit watching it.

TVTropes says that Hoshizora anime is based on a "visual novel". I had been under the impression that it was an eroge, but the term "visual novel" covers a lot of territory, much of which isn't ecchi. So I wonder if I had the wrong impression about the source material? I wonder if it was really a dating  sim?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:25 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I've been seeing rainbows my whole life, but I can never remember whether red goes on the inside or the outside. When I want to know, I always have to look for a picture.

Anyway, Hoshizora's artists got it wrong.

UPDATE: Why doesn't that link work? Anyway, try it from here.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I've watched Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi once, while going through it looking for grabs for the top rotation. That there are a lot of good looking girls in it is beyond dispute -- but what would you expect from an eroge adaptation?

I was leery of it because it is an eroge adaptation, but it didn't carry the kind of narrative baggage that such shows often do. They did a pretty good job of scrubbing away the eroge stink. Still, it didn't strike me as being a particularly good show, though it wasn't a complete waste of time either.

So it's been collecting digital dust on Deneb ever since. Now it's been long enough so that a BD rip is available, and I downloaded it today.

I don't really remember anything I thought looked like removable censorship in the show, but between that possibility, and the higher resolution and quality of a BD rip compared to a broadcast version, and the fact that an OVA has since come out (which I've also downloaded) and the fact that I'm bored right now, I thought I'd try watching it again. I have no idea whether I'll finish it, or even how far I'll get, but I'll give it a shot.

UPDATE: The new season has started, but the first of the shows I'm interested in runs tomorrow, so we won't see a fansub likely until Sunday.

High School DxD broadcasts on Friday, and Mouretsu Pirates broadcasts on Saturday.

UPDATE: By the way, Sea Slugs has posted their Winter-2012 preview.

UPDATE: And despite now having a huge group of contributors, none of them are willing to blog about either of my shows. Bummer.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm a cheater. I cheat massively at Master of Magic. Since it's a single-player game, no one else is harmed by it. But I thought I ought to confess.

When I play, I set the game up to Hard, four opponents, small land size, powerful magic.

I choose a custom wizard and use Tlaloc's image, rather arbitrarily.

Setting up the wizard, I go with 4 black books, 1 red, 1 green, 1 blue. Then I add Node Mastery, Artificer, Archmage, and Alchemy. For my initial spells, I choose Ghouls, Darkness, Mana Leak.

For my race, I choose the Nomads. (Why? Nomads can build Animist's Guilds and Merchant Guilds, and I really like rangers and griffins.) And I always use the blue flag.

So far, so good. This is the point where the cheating happens:

Once I'm in the game, I save the file and then use a program called MOMSaveEditor to modify it.

I start the game with 60 casting skill. My initial mana is 5000 and my initial gold is 5000. I give myself the following spells:

KNOWN (can be cast immediately) :

Summon Champion
Call Lightning
Pathfinding
Change Terrain
Transmute
Web
Corruption
Wraiths
Shadow Demons

LEARNABLE (can eventually be researched):

Regeneration
Iron Skin
Nature's Cures
Flight
Spell Lock
Pestilence
Warp Node
WraithForm
Black Prayer

And then kick in with playing. The result is fun but not particularly challenging, which I suspect is obvious. Initial exploration is done with Shadow Demons and Wraiths, who also take out all lairs and nodes on my initial landmass. All nodes get a Ghoul as garrison.

Once things have slowed, and I have the leisure to do a big summon, I start Summon Champion. I monitor its progress and when there's only one turn to go, I save the game.

If I don't get Mortu, I reload and try again. It tosses a random number each time, so you don't necessarily get the same one. If I get Ravashack, I keep him and cast Summon Champion again.

Once I get Mortu, I create a sword for him: +3 Attack, +3 Defense, +3 To Hit, Death. Cost is 1050 mana. Then I create armor: Plate, +6 Defense, +4 Movement, +6 Resistance, Wraithform. Cost is 1950. Usually I have to do some alchemy to get enough mana for that.

Then he gets Pathfinding, and off he goes to start conquering the world. As soon as they become available, he gets Iron Skin, Regeneration, Flight, and Spell Lock. And once my bank account recovers, he gets a ring: +4 Defense, +2 To Hit, +3 Movement, +6 Resistance, cost 2375.

If I find black spell books, then I create a sword which adds Vampiric. And if I get any blue books, sometimes I create a ring that substitutes Flight for +2 To Hit.

So I'm a terrible cheater. (Or maybe it might be more correct to say that I'm really good at cheating.) But who is harmed?

I think I might try this at "Impossible" some time just to see what it's like.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 02:17 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 I never played MoM myself, but I often find that when I play strategy games where a single round lasts very long, I simply don't want to play the (usually very slow) first stage every time. Or I want to play my battles with huge armies against extremely strong AI, but I can never keep up with how fast the AI builds up its economy at the start of the game.

I also recently used a memory editing program on Terraria, because I lost my character and world files, and didn't feel like investing another 100+ hours into getting back where I was before I lost them.

So I do enjoy occassional cheating in games, but only ever in single player. At times it just makes it more enjoyable.

Posted by: Jordi Vermeulen at January 04, 2012 03:08 PM (AJZdn)

2 I used to do that a lot back in the Doom II days, just for fun, and not until I'd played the game all the way through without it.  In MOM, I tend to backup to an earlier save point if my game goes south, but that's about it for cheating.  Everything else is as the game rolls it.  And who doesn't do that?

I've been playing a lot of HOI3 lately, and in that I use one cheat code only: "noneutrality", which lowers neutrality to zero and makes it possible to declare war immediately.  Of course, other nations are still hampered, and can't declare war for a while, but I don't do it with major countries; instead I play a minor country and use the head start to build up.  The time I conquered most of the world with Czechoslovakia was pretty cool.  Currently, I'm playing the Random player mod, which creates fictionalized countries/borders, etc across the world. 

Posted by: ubu at January 04, 2012 07:30 PM (GfCSm)

3 What does "HOI" stand for?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 04, 2012 07:36 PM (+rSRq)

4 Hearts of Iron 3  Sorry, it's a WWII grand strategy game in which you can micromanage global campaigns at the divisional level, research technology, deal with internal politics and foreign policy, and managed your economy.  Not for the faint of heart, a game can take weeks to play..  I've been thinking about doing a post on it, but haven't recovered all my posting tools yet.

Posted by: ubu at January 04, 2012 07:46 PM (GfCSm)

5 Hmm, sounds almost like War in Europe.

(We used to play that at USMA in the late '70s.)

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at January 04, 2012 07:56 PM (Lbkvv)

6 Yeah, Hearts of Iron is for people who take their WW2 wargaming quite seriously. Lots of detail and, frankly, a learning curve up there with Dwarf Fortress.

Sounds like you've got the recipe for a fun romp in Master of Magic. For some games, there's very little space between "computer is smart enough I don't feel like I'm picking on special-education kids" and "computer cheats so much that taking it on from scratch is just punishing".

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at January 04, 2012 09:42 PM (pWQz4)

7 I used to play Diablo II all the time with a trainer to enable god mode, before I got into WoW.

I also had a lot of fun editing magic items to make them do ludicrous things, like the charm that gave whatever character carried it +461% experience for each kill.  Then I'd take a 1st level character, give him a weapon that could do some serious damage, and let him loose in "Hell" mode with that charm.

I'd go up 3-4-5 levels the first time I killed anything.  It was hilarious.

Posted by: atomic_fungus at January 04, 2012 09:49 PM (bRi+J)

8 ubu, that sounds rather useful--my first game, I played as the US (natch), and while I was able to pull out of the Depression, I despaired at getting anybody to attack me so that I could actually go to war.  Japan somehow shrugged off every provocation, and my pacifist citizens hog-tied me.

I finally gave up around 1946, and started over as Germany, where the only problem was in trying to grab as much land and resources as possible before the Allies wised up and declared war on me.

The one unrealistic moment came when my invasion forces broke out of Newfoundland and swept through New England and the Great Plains.  The US should have a dramatically higher partisan rating to account for the 2nd Amendment.

As for cheating in MOM, I have done some save-scumming, but I don't really bother anymore.  I can generally win with a custom wizard on Impossible/Large; if I'm going to fail, it's going to be within the first 50 turns or so, and more often than not, I'll just start over.  Ditto with MOO2; if I don't like the starting position, or space monsters/Guardian eat my scouts too soon, it's restart time.

Posted by: BigD at January 04, 2012 11:05 PM (u0/7E)

9 Yikes.  I usually play on Hard, but I don't think I've ever taken on MOM in Impossible. Well, not more than once...

Posted by: ubu at January 05, 2012 02:33 AM (GfCSm)

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Things are usually pretty slow around here. But just now there was an unexpected knock on my door. Just as I opened it, the phone started ringing.

At the door was a couple of Mormon missionaries. I told them I wasn't interested. The phone call? A robo-call from a local carpet cleaning place.

Sheesh.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 01:44 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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