アニ・ノート

I blame DiGiKerot. His gendoesque gaze compels me to buy IM@S merch. This time it’s the combo of COCX-35247 and LACA-5736. The former is bought without sampling first, as I swore to do previously.

It wasn’t a mistake, I’m happy to report. Master of Master turned out to be a fake “concert” with song tracks punctuated by talk segments where idols introduce themselves, announce upcoming songs, and generally kid around. Musical performances were pretty neat too (nothing new for gamers, I’m sure).

One especially curious musical number is “Danketsu” (”Unity”), where idols rap their short intorductions, some are rather goofy. Haruka says that her main quality is hair ribbon, I think. Yayoi proclaims that she’s poor but does her best, which is at least understandable.

The talk tracks weird me out somewhat, and in the same way live videos and drama CDs. Clearly I’m too used to familiar and comfortable visual language and mores. Graduation from anime didn’t come a day early, it appears.

My insatiable hunger for Idolm@ster videos led me from Youtube to Nico, where I found this fan edition:

The chick represents Kotori, the non-playable character. She is an office assistant in the 765 Studios. On the Master of Master CD, she does the Talk 02 track and “is made by audience” to sing, delivers sora, and is every bit as good as any regular employee whose job is actually to sing. I wonder if it’s a hint at goings on in Rondo-robe.

Finding what she actually looks like requires a few searches. The official site only has a smallish sprite (center). She also appears in promotional materials (left), and in figure set (right).

The only in-game screen I have is this:

It may or may not be real. Kotori says “タベ、危ない目にあってる私を、真ちゃんが助けてくれる……、夢を見たんです。うふふ……”, which is a perfect case of “know all words, cannot understand the meaning” for me. Someone has a dangerous eye, and then she saw a dream? In which Makoto saved her? Particles!

Anyway, after seeing the website “Kotorim@ster“, I have to suspect that a part of Kotori’s popularity has something to do with the office space romance.

Prosecution rests the case.

UPDATE: J.Greely e-mailed:

危ない目に会う is “to be exposed to danger; to have a dangerous experience”; I had to use my big dictionary to find it.

Now it all makes complete sense: Kotori saw a dream where Makoto rescued her.

Shin is unbelievably pervy and I feel unnerved linking to stuff like this:

Probably the best part of the interactions occurs when things get physical. You’re then allowed to touch your idol when prompted, and in case you’re wondering, yes you can actually cope a feel, although be prepared to face the consequences. For the most part, Yayoi doesn’t seem to mind having her delicious flat chests kneaded (´・ω・)つ(・(・ other than just being flustered. I just got an erection typing that out.

I suppose my problem is, I project onto the game too much and this is not the way I handle my women and/or employees IRL. I must be one of those types who go postal after playing GTA.

Anyway, it’s an incredibly useful article as far as gameplay is concerned. On the upside, I’m convinced that I can handle the required Japanese. On the downside, there’s this stuff with keeping appointments:

Lessons consist of minigames that vary in difficulty, although you may skip this process altogether by returning at a later date, after putting your PSP to sleep mode. Convenient, but unreliable, since punctuality determines the results, where being late by even a couple of seconds could determine between a good and bad outcome.

My life has too many distractions to play games like this. Heck I cannot find 15 minutes free to do levels in Kanken.

As seen at “my game news flash” (via), a gaming magazine Famitsu announced Idolm@ster Dear Stars for DS.

The whole idea seems cynical. First Idolmaster Portable, and now this. For the game defined by its exquisite 3D to be detuned progressively for the worse and worse platform… may be very shrewd! I am sure that the groping excercise is still in there. Release the VN and strategy part of the game, in poor resolution, and reap the green harvest.

As for the all-new cast, well, I don’t know what to think. Seems difficult to come up with new and appealing personality types. And their names are in English exactly why?

UPDATE: DiGiKerot noted by e-mail:

Looks like it may be a DSi native game, though, which means it’ll probably be region locked, which means I’m probably going to have to buy yet another DS.

Regions suck. And I don’t think DSi is as powerful as PSP (its screen is definitely not as good in any case).

Received an odd present in the mail today: a poster of the notorious trap and his aunt {update: cousin actually}.

Apparently it’s a centerfold from “Dengeki Maoh” vol 11 (November 2009).

A souvenir came from Japan yesterday: an odd kind of a promo book for all things IM@S, althogh most of the manga content is dedicated to “Puchi Maa”: a manga about Potemayo-type blob versions of idols coexisting with normal idols. The book includes sample strips and kickass manga-style re-imaginings of idols (the picture is of Yukiho).

Aside from managa, there’s a lot of other material, such as interview with seyuus, transcripts of radio shows, and lots of ads for things like DLC and Im@s Mobile.

My wife presented me with IM@S DS for Christmas.

The gaming Borg has never come so close.

UPDATE: Saved by my lack of Japanese, apparently. This game is exhausting.

I poked around the Internet search engines and sharing sites a bit, but had to give up. Only found a couple of interesting raws, but not specifically what I was looking for (e.g. “relations” by Chihaya etc.). The only thing I learned was that the game apparently does 720p.

A more personal approach was more productive. I managed to get in touch with the gentleman who arranged the showings at LCAD and I obtained a preliminary agreement to get his videos through a direct contact at El Paso Anime Con. It’s a longer drive than LCAD, but then the chance to taste the free air of Texas is a good perk.

Hanamaru Youchien reminds us about the visual trope of head-riding, where a cute blob rides someone’s head. By necessity, for the gag to click, the blob has to be no larger than 2 heads. Which is perhaps why ostensible “children” in the Hanamaru are so small. Funnily, I do not hear whailing about Hanamaru’s art like the one the big heads of Manabi produced!

The head-riding can be found in managa too. Here’s Chihaya being ridden by her own puchi in Puchi-ma(ster):

I think in anime Potemayo brought the blob to the forefront, and Hanamaru followed upon that, but surely the tradition should originate further back than that.

Some of the videos that I watched at LCAD were availabe as an add-on DVD for a sound release. Unfortunately, I am late to the party, and neither CDjapan not Amazon carry it anymore (Amazon offers it second-hand, but no sellers are willing to ship abroad).

Naturally, the torrent dried up too. There ever was one, from Raws-4U at Nyaa, unless we count the “Chinese ISO” torrent, which is dead too. The most hurtful thing is, it is 94% complete, with several desperate people hanging on to it, but without a seed there’s no hope to get the remainder. ;_;

The last, slim hope is for some kind of second edition, but those may be difficult to snipe: an upcoming Master Box is already sold out on preorder (it’s CD only, but an example anyway). I cannot help suspecting a ploy of artificial scarcity.