Its been FOREVER again since my last update hahahaha! Nowadays when I go home after work I’m either watching TV marathon style with my boyfriend, or on days where he’s watching hockey I’m working on crafts for wedding decorations rather than screwing around online, reading manga, and playing video games. The screwing online part is when I used to make posts. So yes, unfortunately this blog is not going to have much new stuff if I need to choose between updating my blog with a post, and watching more Hunter x Hunter …you can guess what my choice is

BUT I had to share the news! We’ve just booked our honeymoon for this September and its to Japan for over two weeks! The details aren’t finalized yet but the current plan is to start off in Tokyo and then go to Hakone, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and then back to Tokyo for the last few days. We’ll be getting around using the bullet train, the current plan is to get a pass that lets us on and off as much as we want during that time period. I’m finally going to visit Akihabara, eat Takoyaki, and stay in a Japanese style inn with onsen!! Ironically for souvenirs I’m not planning to buy much along the lines of figures unless I see something really special. I already pre-order figures whenever I see something I like from home, when I’m in Japan I want my souvenirs to be something that I can’t normally get from home.

Must Do (this is a list in progress, I have a lot to research):

• Go to a maid cafe
• Go to a dessert buffet (my boyfriend fell in love with this after seeing it in Lucky Star)
• Osaka Castle
• Kyomizu-dera
• Karaoke
• Akihabara
• Eat Sushi
• Eat Ramen
• Eat Takoyaki
• Stay in a Japanese Inn and wear a yukata

Undecided:

• Tokyo Disney
• Nara/feed the deer
• Osaka Aquarium
• Fish market (in Tokyo)
• Tokyo Tower

Here are all the updates on what else I’ve been doing lately for entertaining myself. Maybe sometime I’ll post pictures of all the wedding crafts I’m doing.

Watching: 

• Anime: Finished Beezlebub (really wish this had lasted longer) and started Hunter x Hunter
• Regular Shows: Doctor Who, Grimm, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Community, Supernatural, and I just caught up in Episodes the other week.

Reading: 

• Manga: I’ve started reading Genshiken 2nd season. It’s great to see the crew again, and I do like what I’m reading, but Season 1 is still the best for me (so far).
• Books: For reading I’m doing a lot of travel guides, I have a trip to London next month that I’m planning, and after that’s done I’m jumping  straight into reading Japan guides. I have the eye witness guide and a book on etiquette, I have a feeling if for etiquette I only rely on what I see in anime…I may have some false understandings over how certain things are supposed to be done. I’m also reading Good Omens on the side, but I probably won’t pick it back up again until my flight next month.

Playing:

• Fate/Extra (PSP) is still in process I’m in the 2nd to last round on my first play-through (I selected Saber). I haven’t touched this in a few months but will finish it when I go camping again, because when I play video games at home I have a new priority…
• Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360), knowing me I probably will take 80-100 hours to finish this game. But we’ll see. I pretty much only play it when my boyfriend golfs which means next Saturday I’ll be playing it almost all day it’ll be a nice break, usually during the day on weekends it’s all errands, chores, and crafts.

Buying:

I’ve REALLY cut back on all my figures, both my current collection as well as what I pre-order. Truthfully cutting back on pre-ordering has been super easy, there just hasn’t been as many “must haves” for me, so I really haven’t had to skip anything I really wanted. Although that said I skipped over figures I thought were MUST HAVES until I saw the final prototype pics (ex: Lucy from Fairy Tail and the Hunter x Hunter boys). I feel like being more selective over the figures I pre-order is a sign of maturity…although I suppose buying figures at all is probably quite immature to most. I haven’t received a figure since December, and my current pre-orders are pictured below. My collection is slowly becoming a sausage fest! But when you love Gintama, One Piece, and Tales of Vesperia that’s just how it goes. I love figures that kind of give me the feeling that the character I’m looking at is strong/badass and I think this year’s pre-orders reflect that pretty well. But my guess is that when the new Sailor Moon anime comes out…mwahahaha, balance will be restored. I have no idea on if I’m going to only do the inner senshi or the whole crew…I have to consider shelf space I have, and what I’ll have to give up to make that space.

June

July

September

My other most recent splurge is a camcorder, I’ve always wanted one and with so many trips and events this year it seems like the right time. Plus since it takes photos my little Nikon Camera will probably only be exclusively used for figure pictures from here on out. We’ll see.

In the peaceful town of Rolent of the Liberl Kingdom, a young girl named Estelle and her friend Joshua, who had been taken in by her family years earlier, prepare to take their first steps to join the legendary guild of the Bracers. Bracers are considered the peacekeepers and protectors of order that owe allegiance to no country or government. In Liberl their guild has flourished since a brief war some ten years prior after an invasion from the Erebonian Empire to the north, and their efforts have made peace a lasting prospect.

In the course of their journey to become full-fledged Bracers, Estelle and Joshua begin to see the peace threatened by a dark side of the ruling government that plots to overthrow the Liberl queen, Alicia. Together they travel the world on their quest to become Bracers and slowly unravel the truth behind the mastermind who seeks to bring war back to their borders.

The plot reads like pretty standard stuff, if that plot doesn’t really intrigue you don’t worry about it, you still may like this game. First off I loved the positive energy in this game, the interactions and jokes between the characters always kept me in a good mood. Some of the cute character interactions even would get a smile or a chuckle out of me. I really enjoyed all the quirky characters in this game and absolutely LOVED the background characters in the towns! Each character you see on screen always has their own little story and a lot of them update their story as major events unfold. I liked talking to everyone so much that (in the smaller towns) I went around and made sure to talk to everyone twice before I left an area for good. Don’t even get me started on the chests, each chest you open will give you a funny line if you go to examine it again after it was emptied. Usually something a bit sassy or sarcastic about how you took its goods. I did like the graphics, but they’re certainly not cutting edge. The music was fine, nothing that bothered me and nothing that was so catchy that it got stuck in my head, so I didn’t really bother with the soundtrack CD that came with the game. Gotta admit…I dunno why gaming companies keep adding CDs of the soundtrack of the games as a bonus…I don’t think I’ve ever opened a single one of those CDs. What really got me addicted to this game was the battle and skill system. First off for all skills the game blatantly tells you how to achieve all spells in the game right from the start in a menu option, and I loved that, not having to look up an FAQ for reference for how to achieve all spells was really nice. The skill system works by each character has a pattern of limited slots that you can insert a spell Quartz into. As you combine different kinds of spell quartz you can create new spells. Every time I got a new Quartz I would spend some time excitedly planning the most efficient way for a character to have multiple spells and stats. The battle system had a bit of tactical strategy to it, certain attacks can only be successful if the enemy is within your range (and the same is true for enemies attacking you). I liked strategically positioning characters on the field as they performed their attacks. I’m honestly not usually the biggest tactics fan, but this setup really worked for me. I also had a lot of fun with their ultimate attacks, I liked that the points needed to perform an ultimate attack carried over from battle to battle and were an extremely necessary aspect of defeating quite a few bosses. You definitely had to pick the right times to unleash your ultimate attacks, or you paid for it later on. I also REALLY liked that the game forced me to pair up with lots of different characters and at the VERY end I got to select the ones that balanced me out best (I haven’t had a game do that so well since Dragon Quest IV).

(In case you’re interested…the team I picked to be my main characters are the ones in the screenshot below.  I had Joshua as the speediest attacker that performed element neutral magic. Estelle was a well rounded character that was a hard hitter with some of my best crowd control attack spells. Zane was my heavy hitting tank, but by the end of the game Estelle could hit almost as hard as him, but he still had the superior defense. Oliver would attack the enemies with his gun and heal the team as needed, having a back row attacker like him was incredibly useful. I tried using someone else as my healer for a while but she ended up being almost useless when she wasn’t healing because I had to bring her into close range of the enemies to perform attacks with her sword and I didn’t want to use up her magic on attack spells.)

I had so much fun with the battle system/leveling system that I didn’t really care that the main plot of the the story was a bit slow to build up. But as each new character was introduced I wondered about their back stories. And by the end of the game the main plot really tied in a lot of the stories together great, and left me satisfied with the twists that I hadn’t seen coming. And right when I was INCREDIBLY excited at all the plot developments…the game ended. This game is the first of a trilogy! And it was quite the kickoff! I’ll definitely be prioritizing playing the rest of this series if/when it makes it over here to the US. I can’t help but imagine what will happen with all my favorite characters in the next game. And perhaps I’ll get to learn more about some of the characters that we didn’t learn the whole story of. If I had a nickle for every time a game I loved was popular in Japan but not over here…it’s the story of my gaming life. So I’ll have to do what I always do, sit tight, play another game, and hope for the best that someday I can get the 2nd and 3rd installments of this game! PS – If you happen to see a review on Amazon that reads a lot like this review…yup that’s me. Wanted to declare how much I enjoyed this game and support it to the public.

Spoiler: If you’re going to play the game don’t read this…if you’re considering it…maybe skip it?

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Towards the end of the game I randomly decided to see if this series had any figures, and I was very happy to see a nendoroid of Estelle! Until I saw that her alternate pose was of her looking sad while staring at Joshua’s harmonica!! The fact that she was incredibly happy and energetic through the whole game kind of tipped me off that she and Joshua weren’t going to have a happy ending (at least in this game). And as the game reached its end, I saw a bit of subtle foreshadowing that started confirming those concerns. I was super bummed that a game that was so amazingly positive had an ending that was a bit sad. BUT its because of that ending that I’m all the more excited to play the next game! Gotta admit, this is probably the first time I can think of where a figure acted as a spoiler to a story for me (minus figures of characters that suddenly get hair cuts).

Anime Update
Sorry for taking so long to do another update! Life has been quite hectic lately with typical life obligations, but what can I say? I love boring things like fixing up things around my home, and then settling into a nice TV coma at night. Ever since I finished playing Hakuoki, my boyfriend and I have been obsessively watching GinTama for our anime series these past few months. So Gintama is where all my spare time has been going lately, blame Gintoki for capturing my heart and funny bone! We’ve also recently discovered and become addicted to the TV Series called Grimm, the series definitely has a feel of being from someone who was involved with creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer (my favorite TV Show in junior high). I may have to do a review of the Gintama anime soon, it’s a series I now consider to be one of the best shonen anime series around. Gintoki is the first hero I’ve seen that comes close to rivaling Luffy (One Piece) as my favorite. I may have to re-do my favorite Shonen characters list. After we (sadly) catch up in GinTama we’ll be moving on to Beezlebub next, not sure what’ll be after that. Otherwise the only other series on the anime front that I am continuing to keep up with are Fairy Tail, One Piece, and Sket Dance.

Figure Update
When I have solo free time I’ve been spending it taking pictures of figures I want to sell and listing them on eBay! Sales are going well, I’m happy to be cutting back on my collection. I admit I sent a few figures to the chopping block that many fans would facepalm over, but a lot of the figures I owned didn’t reflect my current tastes in anime/manga. In the old days I think I got too caught up in the enthusiasm for certain figures and let my collection be taken over by a series I REALLY liked, but weren’t one of my all time favorites *cough Haruhi*. OR I was SO in love with a show and certain characters, that my love blinded me to the flaws in the figure itself *cough Aria*. And putting a figure away into storage where it can’t be seen and appreciated just seems too sad, not to mention it takes up a lot of storage space. So I put them up on eBay and used the money to go towards other things. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not giving up on figure collecting!! I’m just in a lot more control on what I pre-order now…so in other words I can resist figures from almost anything except (GSC/Max Factory/Megahouse) One Piece, Puella Magica Madoka, Persona, GinTama, and Durarara!! Not to mention a few gorgeous Alter figures here and there. I know I know, this haul looks RIDICULOUSLY large for someone cutting back on figures. But I haven’t opened up a single figure since I started re-selling some of my collection, so you’re looking at A LOT of little hauls. Since I’m almost done with sales. the plan is to open up and display everyone soon. Although I must admit…my collection is getting quite manly, seems like most of my “must haves” are badass male characters.

Ah One Piece…I should just write a portion of my check to Eiichiro Oda (One Piece mangaka). Although I’m actually going to be passing on the rest of the figure crew from Sailing Again. I love the entire cast of One Piece. But Nami, Luffy, and Zoro are above and beyond my favorite characters. And I already have two full sets of figures of the Straw Hat crew (original and Strong World). Although I have to raise an eyebrow at the sudden boob growth Nami and Robin had in the Sailing Again story arc…I don’t know about the rest of the girls out there but I’m pretty sure they were both past the age where they could have “growth” there without gaining weight elsewhere as well. I was PARTICULARLY excited to get Perona, I became pretty fond of her during her interactions with Zoro, and I’ve always thought this was a well done figure but never seemed to be able to pre-order her at a reasonable price. I ended up finding her in stock at a store I trusted at a good price (and yes I’m aware she already has bootlegs to watch out for, this Luffy too). I’m really looking forward to the figure of Shirahoshi I pre-ordered, but otherwise none of the other new One Piece figures have caught my eye.

Video Game Update
Valkyria Chronicles was the very first video game I purchased for the PS3!!! In fact, I technically purchased it before I even owned a PS3!!! Gamestop was having a great sale on this title and I picked it up, ironically if I had waited and purchased this game when I actually started it…I would have paid the same price or less. That’s part of the reason I’ve decided to chill out on pre-ordering and buying games soon after the release date. I’m going to try and not worry about them going Out of Production and just buy them as I play them (with certain exceptions).  So I started Valkyria Chronicles to start going after my backlog pile, I had hesitated to start this game because I was a bit worried about my coordination in shooting games. Turns out you don’t really need that much coordination in shooting (or reflexes in general), just the ability to think strategically when given some time. I REALLY enjoy this game, this will be my casual video game focus for a while. Although I found that I had to replace my PS3 Controller to play this game, the one I originally got with my PS3 had an issue with the joystick that caused excessive movement. And when you only have a set distance each turn will allow a character to move, I didn’t want to deal with that frustration anymore. Afterward I’m thinking I’ll move on to Catherine…but we’ll see, the video games I choose to play are pretty spontaneous choices.

Manga/Manhwa Update
I recently re-read Oresama Teacher, I have a lot more appreciation for the series now. Perhaps the humor appealed to me more now that I undertand the characters better? Or I forgot the main underlying plot points and re-reading them helped me with my understanding of what’s currently going on. Re-reading the series has certainly raised my appreciation/affection for Takuomi, I had forgotten the small sweet moments that made the heroine even want to be around that creep. Banchou is still the best though! I read the first 11 volumes of the 13th Boy, the last volume will be available this summer. This series has beautiful art and wacky-ish  situations for a romance series, overall I give it my stamp of approval. Bunny Drop has finally changed in a way that made me realize why people kept telling me that at a certain point it can’t be compared to Yotsuba anymore. I couldn’t sit still so I read the rest of the series online…definitely very different…at first I wasn’t sure what to think, and in the end I decided that the choices the mangaka made in the series made it a lot more memorable for me. I’ve Started The Betrayal Knows My Name and Firefighter Daigo, both series have the potential to be something great. I’m already pretty sure Firefighter Daigo will have some inspirational moments that make it a manga that I won’t soon forget. And a Twitter pal has already assured me that The Betrayal Knows My Name is going to get really great, although I must admit Shonen ai is generally not afavorite genre of mine…but I don’t mind it so far. As long as a love story is done well  without being cheap, I’ll love it. I’ve also mostly caught up in Maoh: Juvenile Remix! UUUGGHHH what an emotionally painful series!!! Everything feels so hopeless and dark…but I still like it a lot and will follow it through to the end (only a few more volumes left for me). This is a series where I won’t be able to pass verdict on until I’m completely done.

Book Update
Read the first two Hunger Game books, and I’m working my way through the Repairman Jack series (currently on All the Rage). I highly recommend both series so far. The Hunger Games are the last books I’ve purchased as a hard copy. I bought a kindle to make reading at the gym easier, and I love it! It’s all digital copies from here on out! I’ve started donating and selling off my hard copies of books, gotta save on space where I can when I have thousands of manga I’m not willing to let go of lol.

I pre-ordered this game with a lot of enthusiasm!!! I was so excited! But like a dummy I didn’t realize it was for PSP, for some reason I thought they were releasing the PS3 version over here. So what does this dummy do? She goes out and buys a PSP 3000 to play it! In hindsight it may have been better to get a PS Vita and download Hakuoki when they fix all the bugs on the downloadable version. But I didn’t realize that was an option until a few hours into the game! SO what’s done is done and I’m not going to worry over it too much! I’ve been waiting years to have an otome visual novel released over here, so I’m definitely a bit positively biased in this review. But lets face it…most gamers will know right off the bat if a “Video Game” known as a “visual novel” with drama and romance is something that they’re interested in, so I probably won’t be able to sell the idea of this game to anyone who isn’t already interested. Most of the images below aren’t seen in the game, after all a lot of the fun is making a certain decision and coming across a beautiful illustration. I do however talk about all datable characters, one has to be unlocked but it’s hardly a spoiler that he is an option.

(Oh also, don’t worry I’ll be playing more games on PSP than just Hakuoki, I’ll finally be able to play Persona 1, 2, Crisis Core, and Trails in the Sky. I really enjoy Persona games and this is my opportunity to finish playing all the main releases)

Ok so, there is a whole lot of text in this game, and quite a bit of this text is describing the politics of what’s going on around in the world of Hakuoki. The first playthrough took me a while, and I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the information and names/faces/groups to try and remember. But eventually all the characters became familiar to me, along with their world. The second time around I actually read all the first few scenes again (now that I understood everything a bit better it made more sense to me). But after that 2nd read through I fast forwarded all previously read text by pressing the square button. Re-playing the game would be misery if it wasn’t for that magnificent little feature. I’ll make a decision, and follow the game through to the end, but then later I can go back to that save file and select the other answer and fast forward through any text I may have already read from when I first chose the other option. Each characters’ story arc has it’s own unique situations. Based on the main character’s decisions made throughout the story the main “villain” of each story arc seems to change, I liked that aspect a lot. The variety of stories was satisfying.  

Hakuoki also has a Quick Save and Quick Load feature that’s incredibly handy, it allows you to go back and change your response quickly without having to exit and re-enter the game’s save file. I found this feature especially handy when I decided to specifically go down a particular story path that I didn’t want to stray from. The game also saves every response you’ve selected even if you don’t save that particular game (the previously selected text becomes red the next time you encounter this question) and all gallery images and encyclopedia terms are saved as well. And now we arrive at the next feature I LOVE is the gallery! It’s so nice just to select a character and look at all of the wonderful illustration scenes you’ve seen while playing the game! It also has some bonus images that unlock. The art is gorgeous in this series, no question about that from me. I’d pay a bit of money to get an art book of all of the illustrations, and even more if it had new illustrations! Another great feature is that when you get to a character’s good ending that final chapter is automatically saved in the theatre sectioin. You can view it at any time regardless of what you have saved for games in your files. The music could have been better and more varied, but it never bothered me too much. I was most interested in was hearing the characters’ wonderful voice acting anyway. The voice acting in this series was great, they were all wonderfully chosen seiyu.

Advice on following story paths (no spoilers) – If there is a certain character whose path you want to follow, just make sure every decision you make keeps you within the same area as yourself. If everyone else is going off to have a grand adventure (but not your target) I suggest you give up on that  adventure for now and stay with your goal. This is probably common sense to most, but it took me  most of the way through my first story arc to fully recognize how this game branches out from which decisions.

I’ll talk about each character in the order of my preference. Pictured above left to right and top to bottom it’s Kazama, Shinpachi, Harada, Okita, Toshi, the heroine, Heisuke, and Saito.

 Hajime Saito
(1st Playthrough) In Picture: Bottom right corner in all black

I succesfully went down the Saito path without meaning to on my first play through, to be honest he didn’t really catch my eye initially. I was far more interested in the cheerful characters like Shinpachi (aaawww not a story option I can pursue), Okita, and Heisuke. I figured I’d get to the “stoic killer” guy at some point, but he wasn’t a priority. But I played my first game by answering all the questions  how I personally would, and it mostly put me down his path. I admit I didn’t raise his romance level all THAT high, but my decisions really didn’t appeal to anyone else (except Heisuke a bit) so he won my  first story arc experience. Once I actually entered Saito’s story path I found I liked his character a lot, both the design, the mannerisms, the illustrations, and ESPECIALLY the seiyu (Japanese voice actor)! Sometimes I stop the fast forward button (on replays) just hear him speak again. I’m particularly fond of his attack pose and battle illustrations. I’m not sure how much of my love for him is me being biased from him being the first story arc, but apparantly Saito’s my guy for Hakuoki. Kind of a big leap from wanting to go after a character like Shinpachi (In Picture: On the left with the bandana) but…it works. I’ll admit though that I think his story arc could have been a bit  better developed in terms of having a unique plot, somehow everyone else’s paths seemed to have a lot more plot twists and turns that were unique to their situation. For a lot of Saito’s path his story goes alongside Hijikata’s (the main guy), but I suppose because of his loyalty to Hijikata and the Shinsengumi it makes sense. I feel like his story arc could have used some more illustrations, but only the two favored characters in the game (Okita and Hijikata) have more than 18 illustrations.

 Soji Okita
(3rd Playthrough) In Picture: Top center facing out

I was probably the most moved by Okita’s “good ending”, it was a beautiful scene. Hell even one of his “bad endings” was really well done, I had no complaints with that bad ending until all the good guys were dead. I can’t say for sure if Okita would have been my favorite if I had played him first…it’s hard to say…he’s an appealing character and his story has a lot of interesting twists and turns. Plus the humor of the contradiction between his cheerful tone and what he says was fun. Definitely one of the best characters in the game. Unfortunately if you don’t go down his story arc he starts to disappear from the main story a bit, but that makes going down his route all the more special.

So…what we can take away from my top two choices is that when given the option I seem to desire to win the affections of the biggest killers in the group? Well after Okita and Saito, exactly who my preference is over who gets a lot more unsure, each of the rest of the story arcs had something I REALLY liked from each so it made it hard to put them in order. In this picture Saito is on the right and Okita on the left.

Sanosuke Harada
(5th Playthrough) In Picture: Bottom left corner with reddish hair

The manliest option! I’m surprised he wasn’t my favorite, he has many great qualities and scenes! I feel a bit guilty putting him at #3. I like his weapon a lot (spear) and his attack illustration is my favorite. In many ways he’s the most unique character of the Shinsengumi captains.

 Heisuke Todo
(4th Playthrough) In Picture: On the right facing outward in a black vest

Heisuke was a very likable character, the only one of the group that’s honest and upfront…although I feel like his appearance could have been designed a bit differently in a way I’d like better. Those bangs of his are a bit weird. His story was great too, it went down a path I hadn’t expected and allowed me to get to know certain characters a bit better. The sound of the voice of his seiyu brings a  smile to my face too, I can’t help but fondly think of Boss-un from Sket Dance (another character he voices) whenever he spoke.

 Chikage Kazama
(6th Playthrough) In Picture: Top left with the body facing away

Kazama’s playthrough was the shortest and simplest but I liked it a lot. Unfortunately once you start down the Kazama path you’re pretty much removed from all of the a activities of the Shinsengumi. It was a bit sad to be separated from them while they were all going through the stories I had just played through. But following Kazama’s story arc last had a lot of impact for me. I ended the game following a story that puts me on the outside of the Shinsengumi looking in, and that point of view gave me a satisfying sense of finality at the end.

Toshizo Hijikata
(2nd Playthrough) In Picture: In the center

The main guy is in last place…when having a meal I’m the type of eater that LOVES the appetizers and side dishes, and if possible will only take a few bites of the main course. So I guess I like my Otome men how I like my meals, I prefer the side dish variety personalities and eat the main course out of a sense of obligation to the meal. I don’t have many specific complaints about him, in some of his scenes I think he was by far the most beautiful attractive (the illustration of him on the Limited Edition is GREAT!) and he has a great seiyu. His character is just such a strict prissy pants to follow! But he’s got to stay true to his character as the leader, so I can’t fault him too much for that. I REALLY like him as a character…just not the main character of my story arc, I like his support in the other story arcs and kinda see him as an older brother type.

Comments on the Main Character…

So are Otome heroines typically this bland and useless? I admit I was a bit disappointed in the heroine, I thought there was a lot more she could have done in this story besides acting awkward, and getting rescued all the time. When the story first started out I thought she was doing well considering her situation, and that she would develop even more backbone because she would be within the Shinsengumi during a war. But once accepted into the Shinsengumi it seemed like she just got weaker and had to be rescued from individuals she probably could have defeated had she put some real effort in, I mean come on…you have some fighting training, is that sword at your side just for looks? I understand that the men are supposed to be in the spotlight in an Otome game, but I think the best romance stories are between two strong personalities! I don’t need her to be such a blank canvas that I can imagine myself as Chizuru (chizuru is the default name for her). Make  her someone I’m impressed with! Ok *end rant*

Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, I played it in every moment of (alone) free time since getting it. My free moments watching TV were spent watching GinTama it was a bit weird to switch back and forth between such different versions of the Shinsengumi. Should you play the game? Basically if you can handle reading a lot of text and you’re interested in otome games, I’d say go for it. Also, be warned the romance in the series isn’t the spotlight so much as the activities of the Shinsengumi themselves. I’ve never played another otome so it’s hard for me to compare but I believe this game has a lot less romance than your standard Otome game. I hope someone brings over another game like this one to the US, it’s an absolute shame we don’t have more.

Now that I’ve played and loved this game will I watch the anime? I’m tempted to but…not sure I can bring myself to watch it. Plus my experiences with otome games turned into anime have all been kinda disappointing (Haruka: Beyond the Sream of Time). Not to mention…the main character will now have a voice, not really sure I even want to hear her voice. This is part of the reason why I haven’t watched the Persona 4 anime either.

Sometimes I watch an anime because a figure I’m interested in from that series is released. And apparently other times when a manga is released based on a book series, I’ll also pick up the book series because I’m interested in the manga! Soulless: The Manga is being released by Yen Press, I saw a few preview coloured pages and became interested in the heroine. This will be a quick review on what’s been released of the books (1-4) and the manga (Volume 1) so far. So Books first and then a quick manga blurb!

*WARNING – slight spoilers (nothing too big though)*

Plot Summary/Introduction
Alexia is a child from her mother’s first marriage and is a very different individual (both in appearances and personality) from her family. On top of these differences Alexia is also a preternatural, which a human that is born without a soul. As a result of not having a soul, preternatural’s can neutralize  the abilities of the supernatural. In the past preternaturals were used as humanity’s defense against the supernatural, in “present day” Victorian England the supernatural are an accepted part of society. Humanity benefits from the supernaturals’ knowledge in technology and science (hence the steampunk advancements) and the supernatural do not have to stay in the shadows. Alexia herself was shelved as a spinster before she had a chance to debut, as a result she still lives with her family (at the old age of 26) and spends a lot of time studying. But she can’t seem to escape running into curious situations that involve the supernatural…

The Parasol Protectorate: Novels
The heroine Alexia is my favorite part of this series, I like her attitude towards the situations she’s put against, and sarcastic comments. It’s a bit fun that she happens to be my age as well, I love reading about another strong willed 26 year old spinster. I’ll admit she’s a bit naive when it comes to understanding herself, but I’ve decided that it’s a charming characteristic. She’s the first character that seems to be a tip of the hat to Elizabeth Bennet (Pride & Prejudice) that doesn’t make me want to whap her on the head. I pretty much groaned at Twilight when I read the scene where it was trying to (not so subtlety) compare its story to the classic victorian romances like Pride & Prejudice…but now I’m off topic…After Alexia, Lord Akeldama is my next favorite character, he’s described with such humor and flamboyancy that I can’t help but smile at the thought of him. I’m particularly eager to understand his past before he came to be one of the oldest rove vampires in London. I love characters that create the image of absurdity around themselves, but are actually quite intelligent and dangerous.  Also, the author does a wonderful job describing the outfits of all the individuals, they’re given just enough detail to excitedly light up my imagination without overdoing it.

Right from the start I was interested in the steampunk/supernatural world the Parasol Protectorate series takes place during.  I really like (the author) Gail Carriger’s take on various aspects of the supernatural (werewolves, vampires, and ghosts) and balancing the politics of a society that openly accepts the supernatural. I’m ESPECIALLY fascinated by how human beings become supernatural, and how they “live” afterward, but I’ll let you find out all those details for yourself. Overall I wasn’t a fan of watching as Maccon and Alexia became closer, the romance aspect of it initially bored me a bit. So after the first volume I put this series down…but I found my thoughts wandering back to this book fairly often despite my decision that I wasn’t a fan of the romance. The world itself and the absurd adventures were simply too tempting to ignore. Eventually I picked up Volume 2 and charged through everything that was released quite quickly. The romance in this series grew on me after volume 1.

I love strong minded female leads, Victorian England, and the supernatural…this series satisfies a lot of my interests. The Parasol Protectorate series is my guilty pleasure, I really enjoy the stories and would recommend it to others as a fun indulgence.

Soulless: The Manga

The manga series has a fast pace that won’t leave the reader bored. One volume of manga seems to equal a single novel, on the one hand I love that the series doesn’t move slowly, and on the other I’d prefer that the series takes its time just a tad more. Soulless: Manga choose the lesser of two evils with the pace of the manga. I only have two Complaints about the manga otherwise. Firstly, I imagine Alexia is a lot more beautiful in the novels than her harsh opinion of her appearance indicates…but the manga REALLY made her drop dead gorgeous in just about every way. I wish they had scaled back her looks a bit to match the heroine from the novels a bit more. Alexia from the novels has a bit of a plain face but a lovely curvy figure, it’s almost unbelievable that anyone that looks like the manga Alexia could be an undesirable spinster.  Complaint #2, I think all of the characters personalities came across pretty well…but somehow I don’t feel that Lord Akeldama’s character came across as well as I was hoping it would. I didn’t feel as bonded with the Lord Akeldama from the manga as much as I was with his character in the novels. But overall I think the manga was a great success, they really captured this series quite well and I look forward to future releases.

This manga is a great additionto anyone that love shoujo/supernatural series, one of the best pieces of Original English Language (OEL) manga style series around.