Today is a first, since I will talk about Grisaia no Kajitsu a VN from 2010, made by Frontwing,  who got an anime adaption recently, but this was a bit rushed and strange, like most 12/13 episode long VN adaptions, it only showed a glimpse of this awesome game.

https://youtu.be/fLJ3eY-hfc4

A VN is a visual novel, pictures and text are combined into a game. Choosing different answers and sometimes minigames decide about the route the player takes. One route is often dedicated to a certain girl which was introduced during the intro phase.

I npticed the VN, as it was mentioned by fellow blogger and twitter buddy Kai.

Until then I mainly played older VN’s from before 2010, Grisaia is newer and literally made me jawdrop as I saw the elaborate opening. The artwork is pretty much top notch, also in dialog mode everything is a feast for the eye. All artworks are illustrated by Shū Hirose.

best girl (´ ▽｀).。ｏ♡

In Grisaia no Kajitsu we take the role of Kazami Yuuji, a boy with a twisted past and a military background, compared to other VN heroes, he has more depth, through certain philosophical monolouges we learn quite a lot about him, he’s quite eccentric and shows a twisted humor. His smartass act in the beginning is slightly annoying at times, but I got used to it fast.

Due to special circumstances Yuuji Kazami transfers to Mihama Academy, to finallly start a normal school life. It turns out that this school is only partially normal it’s a special school for teenagers with special circumstances. Next to Kazami there are only five female students enrolled. The game has a ridiculous long intro, though I love this part about the game, we slowly get to know each girl before making crucial decisions wrapped up in humoristic communications and highschool life comedy, the chemistry between all characters is very well done and entertaining and we follow Kazami through a quite nice school environment.

these chibi scenes are hilarious

Actually there are five main plot lines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each heroine. Everyone of these lovely girls appear very normal at first look except Michiru XD, nevertheless every girl has psychologic issues that we discover in each route.

The writer of this story took great care to make these issues comprehensible for the audience, though the backstories often feel a bit extreme, heartwrenching and disturbing, don’t worry no one gets raped or physically tormented, their scars are all on a psychologic base.

Every route is diversified and shows us something new, though some routes are more outstanding than others. The most tantalizing routes are Makina’s and Amane’s. Yumiko’s, Sachi’s and Michiru’s routes are more something for the heart. Kazami often takes the role of the narrator, but sometimes the narrative perspective is switched to one of the girls.

In the route of Makina we learn a lot about military, self defence and the scary pontential of japanese comglomerates and how to have a foul mouth. Makina is the loli type, cute, mishievous and full of energy, I love the way she laughs.

The route of Amane shows us what happens when humans find themself in extreme situations Amane is a naughty girl, but also a very sincere person, taking care of others is a habit of her. This route also considering the end was my favorite.

In the route of Yumiko we learn how bad a family can be, even when they are rich. Yumiko is a stoic person that always tries to keep her distance from others. It’s a cute arc actually.

The Sachi route shows what happens when you don’t listen to your parents, this was the most shocking arc for me, I was like “Nooo, what just happened!” It also has a touching route. Sachi always dresses as maid and enjoys to make errands and maid like things with a smile.

The route of Michiru is a bit mixed up many things were happening. Michiru always acts somewhat silly and dumb, anyway she is among my favorite characters of the game, her outfit is always really chic and she’s a really sweet, cuddly girl.

The VN obviously has ero scenes, but you will have to play a lot more until you see them. It actually aren’t that many scenes, but they often have a two round pattern.
Sometimes it felt a bit unnecessary, maybe the author wanted to brag about his stamina XD

Every girl also has an optional bad ending, when you make a wrong choice, I played two of them, but they were quite scary and disturbing, The Good End stories are already sad enough.

Pro

– Illustration style, character design, simply beautiful
– OST is just great
– great comedy
– elaborate long routes
– a capable alter ego
– characters, all heroines are enchanting

Cons

– No route about princibal Tachibana, for me it was love on first sight, but you can only date the schoolgirls.

– After playing all routes the sex scenes get a bit annoying with the same sound effects.
It was always the same patten with Kazami’s sadistic teasing and the girls getting flustered.

I enjoyed this big budget VN a lot, might be easily my most favorite one until now. Visual appeal and an elaborate plot go hand in hand. I consider the long routes as something very positive, even though it took me 1 and a half year to finish all the routes, (I have to admit that I took a few longer breaks ^^) The deep atmosphere in this whole Visual Novel is a great experience.

Another good thing of Grisaia no Kajitsu is that with the phylosphic and psychologic elements you can learn something about yourself.

Have you played the game yet? if so do you have a favorite route?
If not there will be a legally translated version soon.

I recently received a certain artbook from one of my favorite artist on deviantart gueuzav (Xa), he’s a french illustrator since 8 years and his style somehow combines the western comic look with anime. He also was the head designer of the MMORPG’s games DOFUS and Wakfu which I haven’t played so far. The book contains a varity of nice Illustrations which show original and game related characters. Im a fan of his characterdesigns and the vivid coloring.

You would actually think that ordering things from France would be less difficult than ordering stuff from Japan, especially when you are living in a country next to France, but I was wrong.
It took me some time to find out that the artbook was exclusively sold at ankama-shop, after a long time of shipment I finally received my copy. The book was sold for 24,90€ + 10,00€ shipping. It has a matte softcover and contains 128 colored pages and is written in french and english language. Its measurements are 21 x 29.7 cm.

Lets start with the pictures, this one below is the cover of the book, a very detailed illustration.

I like the way the artist draws his female characters, the faces are always quite cute with big eyes and strong face expressions. The shape of their body’s is always very feminine and attractive, nice legs and thigs for example. Page 5 and 7 show two of my favorite drawings of him, the flower costume girl looks just great with all the details on her clothes. There are so much more nice character illustrations inside this artbook, but I’ll show you just a small selection.

Aside from the trouble with the ordering process Im very satisfied with the visual appealing artbook. There are much more nice sketches and Illustrations inside this artbook, but I couldn’t scan all of them. If you would like to see more, just take a look at his deviantART Gallery.

I have another Soniko merchandise related post for you, this time Soniko sings a few songs for us. This CD is called SONICONICOROCK Tribute To VOCALOID – Initially Pressed Limited Gorgeous Edition. As the name implies Soniko is performing some popular songs of Vocaloids. Don’t misunderstand Soniko is none of these synthesizer singers, since the Sonicomi game promotion started, she has a real voice, which is given to her by Ayano Yamamoto.

To tell you the truth I mainly bought this CD, because I liked the cover and another reason was that it is a limited item with some small nice extras included, AmiAmi also added a postcard for purchasing this CD. The included extras are a metal keystrap, a telephone card (my second Soniko telephonecard, lucky!), and a small illustration booklet. You know what this means?

 SCANNER TIME!!!

I don’t know many vocaloid songs, but I guess most of the songs were already sung by vocaloids, I could find a few of the songs on youtube, anyway the following titles are included.

As I inserted the CD I was quite surprised that the songs sounded that good, she has no exceptional strong voice but I really like the tone of it and it works well with the music. Im really enjoying this CD. To give you a little impression about how Soniko sounds, I will show you a few of my favorite songs.

However here you can see the advertisement which features all the included songs in short

httpvh://youtu.be/xb7XQvrpcVk

Aria

httpvh://youtu.be/NMENS3J91UA

Soar

httpvh://youtu.be/D61a0xvn9oM

Twinkle

httpvh://youtu.be/zDlJqNZ6osE

Dear (From Sonico to You)

httpvh://youtu.be/S3YY-1toMh0

HAPPY SYNTHESIZER (ハッピーシンセサイザ)

httpvh://youtu.be/tiQoVgr1GpE

The CD has a good mix of songs, most of them have a Rock/Pop touch, befitting to the girl with the electric guitar, there are a few ballads, a few faster songs and a few dance hall songs, the less artificial voice makes the songs better in my opinion. I expected nothing but now I keep playing the songs like there is no tomorrow. The songs turned out so nice, the box is pretty and so Im glad that I ordered this Initially Pressed Limited Gorgeous Edition. I paid 2800 Yen for the limited edition which is already sold out, but the regular release for 2200 Yen is on backorder 

]]> http://wieselhead.de/featured/soniconicorock-tribute-to-vocaloid-cd/feed/ 9 12479 http://wieselhead.de/other-reviews/sonicomi-art-book-normal-edition-review/ http://wieselhead.de/other-reviews/sonicomi-art-book-normal-edition-review/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:25:13 +0000 http://wieselhead.de/?p=11539

The enchanting Soniko, mascot from Nitro+ gaines more and more popularity these days, she also received an own artbook treatment recently. This Sonicomi Art Book was published by Softbank creative and the release date was in the middle of December 2011.

It was sold in two version, there was the Sonicomi Art Book Premium Box which included an extra towel and a CD that included a few bonus outfits for the Sonicomi game for around 5524 Yen and the normal version which came without any extras had a price of 2800 Yen. At first I somehow wasn’t that interested in getting the book, but in the end I tried to get one copy of it.
I was able to find one of the last copies at cdjapan, at that time I thought there was just one version of the book, but it turned out as a misunderstanding, so there were no extras for me

Anyway, it turned out as a very nice artbook, but first lets talk about the technical aspects, the book has a glossy cover and consist of 144 A4 pages. The illustrations are high quality prints.
With a size of 30 x 21.5 x 3.6 cm and a weight of 1014 gramm it’s one of the bigger artbooks.

The illustrations aren’t all of the ecchi kind, its balance between cute and sexy pictures, most of it are illustrations from Tsuji Santa, but there are also some render prints from the game engine.

Scanning the pictures takes less effort than do a photo of the pages, therefore I activated my badass scanner once more, to show you some of the nice illustrations of the Sonicomi Art Book.

Even without extras Im very satisfied with this artbook, the book as well as the prints have a very good quality, it’s first class Soniko merchandise of high valence. The illustrations vary from cute and innocent to quite ecchi ones, but there are no nude or hentai like illustrations included.

Unfortunately both versions of the artbook are already sold out, but I hope you liked this little artbook review. I already have another artbook of an french artist up my sleeve, Stay tuned ^^.

Hi mina-san today I have a new post about the Sonicomi Game, after I already showed you the insides of the limited edition box, this time I will talk about the Game itself. I already finished one of the 16 Endings, so I can give you a few infos, pictures and whatever about the gameplay and the setting, even though I couldn’t understand everything so far.

Preperations

Sonicomi is a japanese game and these guys from there won’t make it too easy for Gaijin like us. Before installing the game you have to set the locale setting of your OS to japan first.

Under Windows 7 it should work like this

So now one last step in advance, install the SdActi authentification tool and type in the code written on the SdActi manual. Now the Game can be installed and should start without problems.

Yeah I have triple core XD

Menue

The menu has a nice design and allows a smooth navigation, at first there are three main options, after you cleared one ending two new options will be unlocked, Free Mode and Clear List.

In Free Mode you can take pictures of Sonikowithout time limit or blinking Hud signs, you can dress her the way you want and can use every set you’ve unlocked in the Game.

There is side menu which lets you choose between different posing options, they differ from set to set and you can also trigger certain reactions of Soniko. In this mode the pictures you take are stored on your pc in 560×420 pixels. Clear List is just an overview about the endings you’ve cleared, there are 16 possible endings you also get an overview about the cleared client requests.

Setting

if you give the right answers Soniko goes doki doki

The player takes the role of Cameraman-san, like Producer-san in Idolmaster ^^. The player first gets in contact with Soniko on a concert during a failed stage dive of her.We talk a bit with her and say goodbye. The next day we see Soniko again as our model for the shooting. After that her manager is impressed by our job and Cameraman-san end up as Soniko’s official photograph.

The character of Soniko which most of you might know as Nitro+ mascot or just as illustration is very well fleshed out in the Game; she is cute, kind, a bit shy, sometimes insecure, but she’s also a very happy person. Soniko isn’t portrayed as a dumb sex bomb, she seems to have a real personality. Her voice is given to her by Ayano Yamamoto, a quite unique and cute voice

There are also other characters like Soniko’s devilish manager, her hot idol rival, Angie Gravite, the clients and so on. There’s also a guest appearance of Danny Choo’s Mirai.

Unlike in most visual novels, the Soniko character is rendered in 3D, while other characters remain 2D. Thx to 3D Soniko can show emotions in a more detailed way, she has lots of different face expression, expressive gestics and a certain body language. The backgrounds are 2 and 3D.

The Game centers around gaining Soniko’s trust and maybe her love as well as supporting her in becoming a fully fledged gravure idol. On several ocassions you can talk with Soniko by choosing one sentences on the screen, you have to click one of the sentences within the time limit.
There are also rare occassion where you can touch Soniko, you can click the spot where you want to touch, I don’t think she would like it, if you suddenly touch her boobs, not that I’ve tried it ^^.

The routes in Sonicomi are decided by the answers, actions and decisions you choose,the style of the outfits you give to Soniko are very important as well as the succes in the photomissions.

Photomissions

The action part of Sonicomi are the photomissions, where you do shootings with Soniko for several clients, the missions are divided into selecting the location, choosing a matching outfit for the clients request and doing the shooting. There are many different clothes and accessoires you can choose from in many colors and designs and more stuff can be unlocked during the game.

this menue shows your overall style that you achieved from your choice of outfits in the photomissions, the style decides about the routes you take

example 01- photomission

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QdEfoMermU

example 02 – dressing up

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ7XdMjR5fQ

Soniko shows different reactions to your choice of outfits and helps you with choosing the right outfit, when she jumps in the air and raises her hands you did a good choice and can go straight to the shooting. The controls are similar to an egoshooter, you can move with the WASD keys and aim with the mouse, with the space key you can crouch and with X and C you can rotate the camera and a few more keys, in the mission you’ll probably be too busy too use all these keys.
The ENTER key is helpful when too many targets appear at the same time. It will clear all the targets at once, however you can use this key as long as camera symbols (D) remain in the bar.

You have to hit all the circles within the time limit, for getting better scores you should wait until the circles turn pink. When the stamina rows (A) turn pink you have to hit the right mouse button, a menue appears, where you can scroll with the mousewheel, motivating Soniko can be done by selecting the speech bubble, everytime you do this the motivation meter (B) goes up.

When it is full Soniko goes into action mode and strikes more dynamic poses which give you more chances to improve your score. You can even give her a short break to recharge her energy meter (C), which is neccesary during most shootings, without energy the shooting will be over. With another option you can let Soniko change her pose, from standing to sitting and lying down.

When the shooting is over you can see how you performed and how accurate your chosen oufit was, you can score SS, S, A, B, C, and D. D is pretty bad and will always give you a Bad Ending, it can be quite frustrating when you fail like this and it makes Soniko sad

Graphics & Sound

The visual appearance in this Game is a mix of 2D and 3D, during normal story Soniko is always 3D, the other characters are just 2D. In the photomissions everything is 3D. Soniko has some kind of cell shading and her motions are very refined, so she proably was rendered via motion capturing. The physix engine is responsible for the flow of her hair and the breast movement.

Sonicomi also makes use of effects like HDR, depth of field, soft focus and 8x anti aliasing. The effects are adjustable in different steps, surprisingly my machine can handle it at high quality.
The Game has a nice look, but there are a few flaws, the objects in the photomissions would look better with more detailed textures and also a few more polygons would have been nice, since some things appear quite chunky in the sets of the photomissions. Sometimes there are also a few clipping errors where Soniko’s body and her clothes intersect in a strange way.

The Soundtrack is cool, especially the theme song and the BGM, as I already said Soniko has a cute voice, but it’s a shame that the other characters have no voice.

Summary

Sonicomi is a nice Game and Nitro+ did a good job in giving their mascot a cute and likeable personality, in fact she is totally enchanting ^^. The story(at least what I understand from it) is nice and with 16 possible endings this Game offers a lot of playtime, even though I always ended with the same end so far, it’s quite tricky. The action part called photomission is fun and a curse at the same time, dressing Soniko in different fashion styles is fun even if you are restricted by the wishes of the clients and by Soniko’s reactions, quite a picky little girl ^^.

New clothes can be unlocked during the Game, there are a lot of different clothes and accesoires. The curse side is that the controls are not very precise during the photoshoot, maybe my mouse or I are at fault but sometimes it’s frustrating if you merely missed a target circle and the combo is corrupted, in my opinion the mouse aiming is a bit laggy. Another point of critic are the few save points in the Game, you can’t save before important decisions and you can’t save a certain outfit you’ve put on Soniko, the Game just allows you to save before a photomission and shortly after a photomission in most other visual novels you can save wherever you want.

I guess I couldn’t understand everything about the Game, because I can’t read a single japanese sign and AGTH won’t work so far, but that should be my impressions about Sonicomi from what I’ve understand, thx to years of watching anime I can at least understand some words Soniko says. Anyway the Game can be a lot of fun because of the interaction with the cute 3d Soniko.

If you have any questions about the Gameplay or the Game itself, feel free to ask me ^^

A trial version can be found here, for the 2.0 Version you also have to change your locale.

Sonicomi was made by Nitro+, the Sonicomi limited edition was available for 6,460 Yen and is already sold out as well as the normal version, thx to EMS shipping I received my copy last week.

Front and Back

The Game comes in a nice looking carton inside are the DVD with the Game, a five track Drama CD with the adventures of Soniko and her band Galaxy One, the manual for the Game, the manual for the copy protection system, many slips of paper, a guitar pleg, a card for the Nitro+ cardgame Card Masters/Dominion a picture frame like thing with a picture of Soniko inside which says “Our Memories – You and Soniko” XD Im a big Soniko fan, but Im not that obsessed with her character.

Booklet

There’s also a small book inside which has some Informations about Soniko and with illustrations from the game and illustrations from several artists. This is probably the nicest extra of this limited edition. I activated my badasss scanner to show you a few examples of the pages.

I scanned a few more of the Game Box contents, the manual cover, the front illustration picture which was attached to the box and the sheet with mixed illustrations of the cute Soniko.

Manual

medium size picture

Mixed Illustrations

It was the first time that I’ve ordered a japanese Game, well I somehow expected a bit more stuff to be included in this limited edition, maybe a poster, some stickers or something like that.
On the other hand, the Drama CD is very entertaining and funny, the box is nice and the game is working after some serious cursing of mine “Fuuu!” and it is quite entertaining to play the game.
I will write about my impressions of the Sonicomi gameplay in a different post, so stay tuned.

Magazine photography isn’t really my kind of sport, but theres always a first time for everything.

Some of the available outfits for Soniko in the game

The high gloss magazine contains informations about Soniko, the Sonicomi game, about all the merchandise and whatnot, on 47 colored pages everything is written in japanese. I would have liked to read the interview with Soniko’s voice actress Ayano Yamamoto, but since Im totally unable to read kanji, Im doomed just to look at colored pages ;p

Oh there are also a few polished artworks from inside the Game engine.

Merchandise, Merchandise, Merchandise

[singlepic id=971 w=320 h=240 float=none] [singlepic id=975 w=320 h=240 float=none] [singlepic id=976 w=320 h=240 float=none] [singlepic id=977 w=320 h=240 float=none]

Included in this magazine is a DVD-Rom with the Sonicomi Game Trial version, its nearly the same thing I’ve talked in my Sonicomi trial version impressions post, but Soniko has a different outfit in this trial version. Also a nice folded poster in B2 format was included.

This poster was my personal highlight in this magazine. I liked it so much that I’ve bought a non reflective glass frame to hang it on the wall. I love the illustration from Tsuji Santa with the attractive and cute looking Soniko, the contrast between her pink hair, the slightly tanned skin and the green couch looks damn nice. From close view the bend marks or folds are not so nice, but it can’t be helped. Maybe the folds will vanish a bit after it stayed in the frame some time.

The next Soniko related post will probably be about the limited edition of the Sonicomi Game which will be released on September 30th apparently it was delayed to November 25th.
Im curious which goodies will be inside. Maybe I’ll buy this upcoming artbook here as well XD

I’ve ordered the limited edition of the Super Sonico Game “Sonicomi” which is produced by Nitro+, the player takes the role of a professional photographer who supports Soniko with her starting gravure idol career and getting closer to her, the game will be out on September 30th.

A few days ago a free trial version of the game was released and I didn’t hesitate to download it.

On the start screen the animated Soniko is humming the official title song “Superorbital” of her game and gives us a warm welcome afterwards. In this trial version you have the choice between taking a peek in the story mode or just play the photoshoot mission. Aside from the normal visual novel options, like screen size or voice volume, there are also a few options for the 3D, like auto setup, frame rate, anti aliasing, soft focus, effect quality, HDR and Depth of field.

Story Mode

In the story our alter ego is a professional photograph. We have a job today and are taking pictures at a concert of a certain band, in the audience we see Soniko for the first time, later that night we get closer to her as she bumped into us after a failed stagedive and falls unconscious.
Of course we help her and start a conversation with Soniko who became a bit flustered after waking up. After thanking us for the help she leaves to enjoy the rest of the concert.

Soniko left quite an impressions on our alter ego, she even appeared in his dream, but then the alarm clock disturbs his sweet dream. And so we head off to work, outside of the office we notice Soniko. No time for a chat, we’re already late at work. It turns out that the model for today is Soniko, who is going to start her gravure idol career. Soniko tries to act cheerful and energetic, but she seems to be very nervous about her first real photoshoot, so we have to motivate her.

Now Soniko is emotionally ready and the first photoshoot mission starts, but at first you have to prepare her outfit, the location and the topic of the shooting are predetermined by the customer.

After the shooting there is a final conversation with Soniko and the boss and here the trial ends.

Photoshoot mission

As mentioned before there is a single photoshoot mission next to the story mode.

This part is really fun you have a few clothes to make an outfit for Soniko, in the final version there will be a wider range of clothes, but the selection in the trial shows the possibilities in the game very well. You can choose between a shirt, t shirts, short trousers, skirt, stockings, socks, bare legs with shoes or without shoes and so on. Theres also an option for accessoires like a hat, glasses and a bag. You can combine the clothes the way you want and see how Soniko looks in them, she strikes different poses on the right side of the screen.

Afterwards you can check if your chosen outfit matches with the wishes of the customer.
When you are ready hit the button at the bottom and the photoshooting starts.

The mouse movement gets more limited during the photoshoot, to change your position you have to use the WASD buttons of your keyboard. There is a time limit and the angles you have to hit are shown via blue circles, for this you’ll get ratings from bad to perfect. After the shooting Soniko is exhausted from all her posing hahaha,via right mouse button you can access a few motivational options like talking to her or giving her some water to expand your time limit.

This trial version of Sonicomi was very entertaining and Im somehow happy that I’ve ordered the limited edition of the full Game, I hope there will be a few nice goodies included in this edition.
The 3D Soniko is very cute with her voice and the body language, nice motion capturing here.
During the photoshoot missions the game makes good use of the advanced 3D effects like HDR and Depth of field, the Soniko model looks really pretty that way, no she isn’t fat *punch* XD

Even though most of the text is written in japanese and I can’t read a single letter, I could understand a few words Soniko were saying, I hope AGTH will work with the final game

From my impression I think that the photoshootings will be more or less tame, maybe if you come closer to Soniko you can expect some more explicit scenes when you meet her privately.

If you would like to try the Sonicomi trial version, just follow this link, click on the “ダウンロード” behind one of the links and it should start downloading the 495mb. Make sure that you have installed the latest grapic driver for your video card and have the latest version Direct X installed.

Hi my dear anime friends I took my time in finishing this post^^
The short running anime shows in this springseason and also the shows I’ve mentioned in the
My Anime Springseason watch list post have come to an end and today I will show you my impressions about the shows I’ve watched in this post. Of course this impressions are just my humble opinion, but please bear with it and don’t feel offended by some bashing :D.

here I tried myself in creating anchor link like links, in case you don’t want to read about every show I’ve listed just click on the title your interested in.

Here are the shows I’ve watched

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
Astarotte no Omocha!
Dog Days
Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II
Moshidora
Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai

Maybe I will make a post about the long running anime shows like Ao no Exorcist, Hanasaku Iroha and Steins;Gate which I’ve also picked in the springseason when they are finished.

This 11 episode long show with the incredible long name is a slice of life, growing up drama with some small comedy parts. It was made by the studio A-1 Pictures who also made such very nice shows like Ookiku Furikabutte and Kannagi.

This show is about a group of childhood friends who broke apart because Menma the link of the group died in an accident. A few years later the ghost of Menma appears before Jintan the former leader of the childhood friends and starts to live at his house. She wants him to grant her a wish, but she forgot what kind of wish it was. After two tragic events in his past; the death of his mother and the death of Menma, he became a really messed up guy, without any motivations or friends, who is absent from school for a while. The ghost Menma is the complete opposite of him, she is always in high spirits, hyper and is acting a bit naive and childish from time to time.

The characters are very well developed, and have their own motivations well, Jintan doesn’t really have any motivation :p. There are more likeable characters like Anjou and Poppo and the snotty acting ones like Tsurumi and Yukiatsu. Near the end all of them can overcome their selfish problems and conflicts to work together to help the ghost of Menma in fullfilling her wish.

At first I was a bit skeptical about the short length of just 11 episode, but these doubts were totally ungrounded, this show shines with it’s well paced episodes and a consistent way of storytelling. This great show has a touching ending, I won’t spoiler too much, but you should prepare some tissues before watching the last two episodes.

A 12 episode long show from Diomedea, which is known for cute anime like Nanatsuiro Drops and Shinryaku! Ika Musume.

Astarotte (nicknamed Lotte) is a succubus princess, who doesn’t know her father and rarely sees her mother, which is the Queen in the world of Alfheimr. So the princess lives alone with their different servants.

Lotte is close to developing her wings, when that happens she has to suck off a male or her development will take a wrong turn. She also has to create her personal harem for this mentioned purpose, the problem is that Astarotte hates men. As things progress her custodian Judith summons a man from earth called Naoya who now has to work in Lotte’s harem. He also is allowed to bring his daughter Asuha along who always forgets to wear her underwear.

I think the discription sounds borderline in a quite misleading way, but believe me or not this is a tame show, there are no indecent loli scences which might creep you out. This show is labeled as ecchi, but we see very little direct fanservice, most of the fanservice comes from the outfits.

We follow Naoya how he gets used to live in the new world and slowly gains Lotte’s trust.
The environment reminded me a bit of Zero no Tsukaima and a bit of Hayate the combat butler. Naoya isn’t especially strong his real strength is his emphatism, he treats Lotte in a kind way and acts as some kind of father for her, because of him she regains her happiness. Soon the some kind of messed up family situation which also includes Naoya is revealed in the show.

Overall the show appears like a cute and lighthearted show about family with really funny comedy and some emotional parts, in fact it is very heartwarming and touching sometimes. Aside from that I also liked the darker moments of this show where Naoya was in the predicament between the purpose he should fullfill and the father-like feelings he has for Lotte. The animation style of this show looks nice and colorful, the characterdesign is cute and appealing. This show features many talented voice actors like my two favorites Tamura, Yukari as Asuha and Kugimiya, Rie as Lotte. It’s quite a joy the hear the two of them acting together.

Dog Days is a 13 episode long fantasy adventure anime made by Studio Seven Arcs who made all the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha seasons and the two Sekirei seasons.

The story plays in the world of Flonyard and begins with the kingdom of Biscotti at the brink of defeat by the kingdom of Gallette. The princess of Biscotti, Millhiore wants to summon a hero who can save the kingdom and turn the tables in the battle. So a hero from earth is summoned, the athletic high school boy Shinku, after being summoned without warning, the cute and well mannered princess gives him a short talk about the world of Flonyard before sending him to the frontline.

We learn that war in this world is totally different from the wars we know, because of magic barriers around the battlefield nobody gets hurt or dies, instead they turn into animal shaped balls for a short time. The wars are held between the different kingdoms for competing with each other and to entertain the people in Flonyard. Among the regular troops there are a few well trained soldiers who are able to use large “Nanoha like” magical attacks with their weapons.

Unfortunately the princess forgot one little thing about summoning, after being summoned the hero can’t return to his homeworld anymore. But the researchers under the lead of chief researcher Ricotta Elmar are working hard to find a solution for this problem.

Aside from being competitive or a misleaded motivation like the best friend of princess Millhiore, Leonmitchelli. There are no real villains in Dog Days, the show is mainly cute, funny, slightly dramatic and a bit heartwarming. Well Dog Days is a bit corny sometimes and has a few slow parts at the beginning, but it is a really entertaining adventure anime.

The characters in this show are interesting and help to create a lively setting. Except Shinku all the characters have animal ears; bunny, cat and dog ears are presented. A big bonus point for me were the female animal eared characters they look so damn cute, Eclair with her droopy ears or the fox eared Yukikaze, but especially the enchanting Princesss is such a cute and friendly person. The scenes where she acts as a happy dog and wags with her tail are just adorable.

The animation quality looks quite good, and delivers an appealing characterdesign, smooth animations and also a nice lookng environment. This anime offers some fanservice here and there, bouncing oppai, the princess in the bath(Yeah!), or damaged clothes it isn’t irritating it mainly gives you some good laughs. Speaking of that the comedy moments are also quite good.

What I really liked was that the anime took the effort after the big climax to create a good, heartwarming and satisfying end with a chance for a 2nd season. I would like to see that.

This 12 episode long show was made by one of my favorite studios Shaft who also made the great Bakemonogatari, Pani Poni Dash and Arakawa Under the Bridge.

The story centers about Makoto, a boy who is trying to live his life to the fullest and likes to count his adolescence points, when he makes good or bad experiences, a good experience for him would be a date with a girl and a bad experience would be being molested by his aunt.

Makoto used to live on the countryside, but transfers to the city where his very attractive, but also weird aunt Meme lives. Meme is 39 but has a body of a 20 year old woman, her youthful charm and the upbeat personality are really enchanting. Meme loves to tease Makoto by claiming that he sniffs at her underwear or bed matress because he has an aunt fetish in fact it looks more like Meme has a Makoto fetish XD

Meme has a daughter named Erio, who also lives in the house. Erio thinks that she is an alien, she talks about weird stuff and is rolled in a matress. Her mother ignores her most of the time because she don’t know how to deal with her daughter after her personality changed to such extremes. Somehow Erio finds a liking to Makoto and they are spending some time together.

The new classmates of Makoto are also more of the weird kind, but they are cool and funny.
One is Ryuuko, a petite and cute girl with an energetic personality, she likes Makoto a lot and is always jealous torwards Erio. The other classmate Maekawa is a tall and pretty girl, she a very cool and laid back personality, she also likes Makoto a lot, but can hide it better than Ryuuko.

After Makoto understands the whole family situation he is able to change Erio a bit to the better and that leads to a better mother daughter relationship between Meme and Erio. In terms of story there honestly isn’t much more going on, we follow Makoto’s daily life where he hangs out with Erio or his adorable female friends Maekawa and Ryuuko. But this show was really my taste, it offers a funny setting with interesting characters, entertaining dialogs and lots of eyecandy.

This anime offers great animation art style, the characterdesign looks fantastic, the faces and bodies of the characters are very detailed especially the female characters look simply beautiful.
Also the opening Theme is so great, it is so catchy and energetic that I ordered the cd.
If you like weird comedy’s from Shaft with great animations you can’t go wrong with this show.

This 12 episode long show is a visual novel adaption made by studio Dogakobo who made shows like Shin Koihime†Musou and Myself ; Yourself, which I’ve never seen to be honest.

The story centers around Kazuma who returns to the small town where he grew up, along with his small and a little bit sick brother Ayumu, no! this is not the gay version of Yosuga no Sora.

We follow Kazuma and his friends through their everyday live and random events who center around the different girls. It is a harem anime but we only have three real love interests, the airhead, the tsundere and the shy one, the other girls are only used as supportive characters.

There are given several hints about which girl Kazuma might choose in the end, but until episode 10th episode it is quite open. A nice change in comparison with other visual novel adaptions of that kind is, that the male character rejected two of the three love interest during the show.

I was a bit surprised about the choice of Kazuma, but overall the show ended in a satifying. Unfortunately Kazuma’s little brother Ayumu got no girlfriend in this show like I had expected beforehand. Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi is a lighthearted harem comedy. It is a bit simple and more generic, but for me it was at least entertaining. Also the animation quality looked quite good in the environment department and the characterdesign was very cute and appealing.

This 12 episode long show was produced by the studios Geneon and Manglobe, who also made shows like Black Lagoon, Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan and Samurai Champloo.

This anime is the sequel of Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai, in case you don’t know whats the show about, here comes a short summary; Keima is a passionate dating sim player and because of his website he is known as the god of conquest of dating sims, through a misunderstanding he has to help the clumsy, cute but airheaded shinigami Elsie with her task of catching loose souls of demons which escaped from hell and possesed girls who are depressed somehow. At first Keima isn’t interested in getting involved with girls in real life, but he can’t refuse to help Elsie with her task, otherwise both will be killed by the chokers around their necks.

So he helps her with the task and has to think about a way to win the hearts of the girls, so that they can be freed from the loose souls. To infiltrate the house of Keima and his mother Elsie claims that she is the illegitimate daughter of Keima’s dad, which causes quite a ruckus especially for the dad XD

Keima is an excessive game otaku, so you would expect that he can’t get in touch with girls at all, but our Keima is quite handsome and intelligent. His experience with dating sims turns out as surprisingly helpful in real life. Albeit it is funny to see how Keima breaks out of his usual behavior of ignoring other people when he deals with the problems of the different girls.

In season 1 Keima and Elsie were not the best team, but they could catch quite a number of loose souls. Even though their work is far from done yet. In the second season a new shinigami named Haqua appears, a previous classmate of Elsie. She seems to be more capable than her, but she sucks at real combat. In season 2 Keima also has to win the hearts of a few posessed girls, all the different chapters are very interesting, diversified and also show a little bit of depth.

In terms of Comedy Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II is funnier than in season 1 when Keima looses his temper or runs into trouble because of Elsie. Also the animation art of Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II is very nice, there is an appealing characterdesign not exactly as pretty as in Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, but it looks great in both shows.

This 10 episode long show was made by Production IG who made Seirei no Moribito and Kimi ni Todoke. This show was aired 10 days in a row, so it was the first finished show from that season.

At first I thought it was a fun show about teenager who play baseball but it soon turned out to be different. Minami‘s friend Yuuki is very sick and has to stay in hospital for quite a while. Unfortunately Yuuki used to be the manager of the high school baseball team, as the good friend Minami is, she fills in for Yuuki, even if she doesn’t reallly like baseball. To be a good manager she wants to get a book about baseball management, but she somehow bought the wrong book, business management instead of baseball management, but because Minami is short on money she keeps the book.The book turned out to be a good help for the baseball team the changes are indenyable and so they keep on winning and are even aiming for the high school nationals.

At some points this anime feels a bit dry, and the baseball scenes aren’t as thrilling as in Ookiku Furikabutte for example, but the true potential lies in the drama part of Moshidora. At first Minami gives her all to win the matches for Yuuki’s sake, but soon Minami gets obsessed with winning for her own sake. Yuuki and Minami get into an arrgument someday because their motivations for being the team manager and about playing baseball are quite different now. Its very interesting to see these two different viewpoints. The end was touching and left a big impact on me *sob*

The animation style was clean but not that attractive as other shows from Production IG. For only 10 episodes the portraying of the characters from the team is good, but in comparison with Minami and Yuuki they are just simple sidecharacters, you can’t expect more in 10 episodes.
When you want to see a baseball anime this show, but it is a very well made drama anime.

This was my biggest disappointment in this animeseason, I won’t hold back my anger, man what a waste of time. This 12 episode long show is an adaption from the visual novel game made by Navel. The anime was produced by studio Nomad who also made the nice Yokuwakaru Gendaimahou and Kämpfer. hahaha Kämpfer was nearly as worse as Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai.

Well this show isn’t bad because of the idea behind it, the story sounds quite interesting. Because of a dramatic experience in his life Haneda Takashi escaped from reality and created multiple personalities and he ended up in the abyss where he sits in front of a tv and switches through the life of his alter egos. All personalities of him have their own daily life, friends and acquaintances which is quite entertaining, but unfortunately that couldn’t save this show.
This show also has a lot of censored fanservice maybe to cover the flaws of this adaption XD

Another thing that bothered me were the female characters, I disliked nearly all the girls in the show, they had such annoying voices and the personalities of them were mainly superficial.
At least the male characters had better developed personalities. Hayato for example was really cool with his foul language and also Shuusuke was a funny guy. Unfortunately the show is way too short to deal with the plot of the adaption in a satisfying way and it seems that not much effort was put into the storytelling. I don’t like the mix of serious plot with nonsense comedy.

It seems like Nomad sucks at more complex stories even Xebec could have done a better job with that adaption. Most of the show felt scatterbrained and was done in a halfassed way, I really regret that I’ve watched this show until the end. If you want a less biased opinion about this show please pay a visit at Nopy’s blog and read his Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai review.

So now I wrote about all the short running shows of the Anime Springseason 2011, I’ve watched. For me it was an interesting Anime Season I was mainly satisfied with the shows I’ve picked.
My favorite short running shows were:

– Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
– Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
– Dog Days.

Also the other shows were good, Astarotte no Omocha! was very cute and Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II was entertaining and cool, only Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai was a show I shouldn’t have watched. What I liked the most were the longrunning shows that have started in that season.
I like those longer shows a bit more, because of the very detailed and livelier settings.
These shows really implicate you in the world of the anime and there is time for deeper character development and for building up the relationships between the characters.

I’d like to know about your favorites in this Anime Springseason 2011.
Maybe you’ve also watched a nice show that I’ve missed for some reason.

Oh I’ve forgotten the poll orz
[poll id=”2″]

Hi Min’na san (I always wanted to write this line)

Today I want to show you how to give your PVC figures a new look.

Everything started with my Arisa figure from Yamato, I got bored from
her normal sailor uniform top, so I thought about a way to give her a new look
I stumbled over a shirt on ebay which looked as if it could fit so I gave it a try
Surprisingly the shirt nearly fitted perfectly, I said nearly =D
Luckily my Mom is good at seeing so I let her handle the fine tuning,
So the sleeves got shortened as well as the top itself.
Because Arisa’s arms and head can be taken off it wasn’t that difficult to
put the shirt on her.

I think its a nice idea when you get bored from the outfit of your figure
or like to cover up some of your ero figures to give them a more modest look. =D

The clothes from AZONE EX CUTE line have a big assortment of nice real fibre clothes.

These clothes are intended to fit for 1/6 scaled dolls, but in generally they also fit on
1/6 , 1/7 and non scale PVC figures around 20 cm in height.

On these dolls these clothes are looking very girly, which maybe isn’t everybody’s
cup of tea, but in my opinion they look also very good on more adult looking figures.

The tops, shirts and skirts are tight enough to fit on 1/7 scaled figures,pullovers are
a bit wide so I would only recommend to use them only for 1/6 scaled figures.

The clothes normally have touch fasteners or zippers which are helpful when
putting the clothes on the figure.
Unfortunately not every figure is able to wear real fibre clothes.

May it be that the arms are too close to the body, the head is too big and so on.
It works best when the figure have a cast off feature or havn’t much clothes at all.
It is also good when body parts like the head, the upper bodys or the arms can
be seperated from the body, it makes things  a lot easier.

This idea with the clothes worked so well with Arisa that I dressed up some more figures.

The second figure I dressed up was my Tenchi-san, she’s a non scale figure her size is
something between 1/6 and 1/7, I began to hate her cheap looking transparent black top
after some time., so I bought a blue striped hoody with a zipper for her.
I took off the wings first , then the head, taking off the plastic top was a bit difficult.
In the end the hoody jacket fitted perfectly on myTenchi-san’s body.

The latest Figure  for which I bought clothes was Seena Kanon, autumm was coming
and I couldn’t let her stand on my desk with just a bikini.
Because her arms are stuck together I(my Mom) had to cut off the shoulder
to put the shirt over her shoulders.
The wrinkles at the side could look better, but Im satisfied with it.
Putting on the shirt wasn’t difficult, because Seena can be seperated at her
bustline so changing the skirt was pretty easy, the skirt fits perfectly and wasn’t in need for modifiing.

So that’s all for today.
Whats your opinion? Do you think its a nice idea or does it seem to be a bit creepy to you?

See you next time =)