The reason there hasn’t been updates for the past few days is because I’ve been redesigning my room aka a lot of furniture moving about, so I am dead tired.

Sorta like this, except less loli and more manly muscle aches.

Normal service will be resumed in a day or two after my muscle aches go away and I have enough attention span to stare at the screen to type up a post.

I’m not surprised if you all haven’t heard of this game before, because I have to admit that it isn’t too popular over here in the west. This game is the third installment in the  “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi” (絶体絶命都市) series, or I believe it is also known as “Disaster Report”.

The basis of this game is that the protagonist is trapped in torn up city due to a natural disaster, and you have to navigate the protagonist along with people you meet along the way out of harm’s way.

The third game, named “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 3: Kowareyuku Machi no Kanojo no Uta” (絶体絶命都市3 -壊れゆく街と彼女の歌-), the end part of the title roughly translates to “The broken city and the girl’s song”. In this particular game, you can play as either Kousaka Naoki or Makimura Rina. The choice itself doesn’t affect the story much, it’s just a preference.

The male protagonist: Kousaka Naoki

The one in pink, female protagonist: Makimura Rina

I’ll try not to spoil the story of this game too much as this game is pretty much 70% story and 30% gameplay, so I’ll try my best at giving a clear view of the game while keeping it spoiler-free. The game starts off where the protagonist is on the bus going to this city on an island called “Central Island” for his/her new university life, when suddenly a great earthquake strikes while the bus is in the tunnel. As the protagonist navigates his way around the tunnel, he/she discovers Honjou Saki.

As you progress through the story, it turns out Honjou Saki was formerly a nurse at the “Central Island Hospital”. However, she quit to persue her dream as an artist. I know I said I didn’t want to ruin the story, but why did I put this bit in here? Simply because the song that she sings inside the game is too awesome for me to not mention.

Turns out this song is sang by Iida Mai, called Kimi no Tonari Ni (Which translates to something like: Right beside you.). I personally haven’t heard of this artist’s name, but her singing is definitely not bad and the song lyrics as well as melody fits into the game superbly.

For most part of the gameplay, you are running from falling buildings, bridges falling apart, or like the screenshot above, cars falling from after quakes. The HP bar is pretty self explainatory, but a keen eye gamer will notice that there is also a guage with “ST” written on it. That is your stress gauge; the stress guage takes priority over the stress guage.

Basically, as stress accumulates, your HP bar gets pushed down. Stress itself won’t kill you, but if you let the stress guage fill up entirely, it also means your HP guage only has a tiny bit left. Meaning a small fall or trip can kill your character. What’s more is that when the stress guage fills up all the way, your character will start wobbling, walk slowly, and have blurry vision. So it’s in your best interest to keep the stress guage as low as possible.

From time to time, there will be cutscenes with dialogues between the main character and Saki. Like a visual novels, these conversations will give you choices to choose what the protagonist decide to say. Some choices raise the affinity with Saki, and some lowers it. These choices will decide Saki’s reation toward you as the game progress, and ultimately decides one of the nine endings you can get. Yes, you read correctly, 9 endings.

If you wonder…The choices listed in the screenshots are as following. “What’s that song you just sang?” “Your singing is good.” “You are humming quite carefreely.” “It hurts my ears.” “It hurts my ears, and your face hurts my eyes!” “No, it’s nothing much…”

As well, throughout the game, you’ll pick up various items to use as your compass. Some of which are pretty normal and some are simply ridiculous (such as a stick of shish kabob). Aside from compass, you will also find various costume. Most of which are even more ridiculous than the compasses you find (like a cowboy suit or a swallow tail tuxedo). I’d love to give you a screenshot of it, but I can’t find a screenshot online and I have no idea how to cap screenshots from my PSP.

There is also a multiplayer mode for this game, where you can use ad-hoc and play with up to 4 players. Stages you can use in multiplayer are unlocked as you progress through the single player mode. I wish I could give you more details on the multiplayer mode, but I have no friends to play with. (Sad, I know.)

Overall, if you look at this as a game, you’ll find that it lacks a bit in gameplay as one playthrough is only about 3 – 5 hours. However, I am completely dumbfounded by the amazing character and story developement, as well as the mood it gives in those 3 – 5 hours.

I’m not sure if this game will ever be brought over in English, but if it does, I definitely recommend it. Or if you are well versed in Japanese, you can find: the trial version on playstation network, the actual game, or the theme song album here.

I’m sure the song “Cruel Angel Thesis” is no stranger to any anime fans out there, so I’m not going to bother explaining much about this song except that this famous song was the opening to the famous anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion” and it’s sung by Takahashi Yoko.

As many might already know, Gainax doesn’t like to let this famous anime die and is still producing new stuff off this franchise. A new addition to the long line of franchise is the new remix single to the famous theme song, “Cruel Angel Thesis 2009 Version”.

Aside from the actual theme song, I’m sold on the rest.

This single has 6 tracks on it, two of them being remix of opening theme and the ending theme respectively, and the 3rd track is a new song currently unknown whether or not it will be featured in the new film or not. The rest of the tracks are just off vocals of them.

So let’s take a look at these tracks one by one.

1. Cruel Angel Thesis 2009 Version – As I said before, I was sold on every other song but this remix. The problem with this track is that, it has so much unnecessary addition to a song that was already made classic to the point it sounded so crowded and confusing.

2. Fly Me To The Moon 2009 Version – Welcome to the fourteen billionth remix of the same song, but that’s not exactly a bad thing either if every single one of them sounded as good as this one. This version of the song reminds me a bit of a track on Eva’s OST called “Fly me to the moon (Touch by the Muse Mix). There’s a bit of a capella going on and it sounds very refreshing on top of the usual soothingness coming from this song.

3. One Little Wish – The only new song in this single, and as I stated before, I’m not sure if this is going to be featured in any of the “Rebuilds of Evangelion”. However, what I can tell you is that this song is pretty damn good. With the other two tracks being remixes, this song is a no non-sense ballad. Soothing and calming, this song is probably the best on the whole single CD.

You can buy the single here.

Pic not related.

As I’ve explained in the ‘about‘ page, I am really prone to health issues. The other day I had this huge reaction to a vaccine shot and made my arm swell up like a balloon so I had to take some allergy meds to calm it down. The problem is that I had a fever, so I had to take tylonel as well.

Turns out the allergy meds had an ingredient that was the same as tylonel, so I was overdozing on acetaminophen for 3 days straight.

While I was playing a visual novel the other day, I was thinking…”Do you really want that happening?”…I don’t think so.

You sure you want this happening to you?

Think about it for a second, what if all your family live overseas, and suddenly a number of girls start living at your place due to various reasons? While that sounds like a paradise of some sort, thinking into details that our beloved anime doesn’t show us will proof to be a lot more of a hassle aside from the comedic moments like running into a naked girl in the shower.

Many of us have habits and things we do with in our own quiet little space, some of them we don’t mind other people seeing, but most of them we do. I know what some of you are thinking right now, but this isn’t just about the stiff tissues. What I’m talking about is, the very fine details in life that one another would do without others buggering down. Remember, they aren’t your family members, you are naturally going to feel more reserved around them. What if you really had some stomach problems and stank up the washroom? That’s going to be embarassing as hell, especially when you think about the fact that you are now a guy alone with 3 or 4 girls in the same house.

There are sides one would not show to other people beside their own family members, let’s take my family for example. My brother loves to burp all over the place, my mom is horrendous for leaving random object at random places in the house, and my dad has it the worst; he loves sitting there picking is nose, farting, or peeling off dry dead skin from his heels and just leaving a pile of it on the sofa. Those are the kind of things we are talking about, the small habits that we do unconsiously. Although we know that it is bad, but we can’t help but do it. The least we want is to not have people that are supposed to be strangers or could be candidate girlfriend/boyfriend to know about it.

Anyone who pays attention to the news about the otaku culture or any other blog that deals such might have already heard the old news about feminist group named “Equality Now” succeeded in bringing down a rape simulator game “Rapelay” by Illusion soft.

The group sprang into action after a UK newspaper uncovered this “shocking” and “horrifying” game on a slow news day. One MP of UK actually said the following, It is intolerable that anyone would purchase a game that simulates the criminal offence of rape.”

…Right…

The article on “Equality Now” ‘s page states suggests that there is a direct link between the game-play of which the player molests a girl on the train has to do with actual molestation happening in real life. Basically, if you play the game, you are going to be a train molester. Which would make Japan have the highest sexual crime rate in the world…oh wait, they don’t.

Under such success, the group now suggests that they should actually have the power to control what Japan’s porn industry produces as it will eventually flow into worldwide and ‘poison’ every citizen that comes in contact with it, making each of them a sexual offender. Funny how there’s only 0.017 rape per 1000 people in Japan and not 0.142 per 1000 in UK or 0.30 per 1000 in the all ‘free country’ USA where this saintly group is trying to push its baseless idealism on other countries.

With UK’s media being the trigger that lead to the US feminist group bringing more “female equality” into world, it might be worth mentioning that a recent law in UK states that state-funded corporations will have to hire more blacks, homosexuals and women to “reflect the make-up of the UK population”. Meaning that programs that only feature male hosts might be in the line of fire as BBC is also state-funded. Also, judging from that, a law to bring more golfers, STD patients, and women with mustaches will probably soon come into place.

Seriously, I am a bit fed up with this crap. Bringing the word “equality” into things that really about equality, if not the exact opposite of equality. In the “Rapelay” case, what the hell are they on about? Japan, as we all know, probably has more porn than half the world combined and yet their rape rates aren’t through the roof. UK with its stuck up laws is almost 10 times as bad as Japan and USA is about 20 times. To begin with, people who play these games are going to become a rapist is an absurd idea in the first place. People who will break the law and become a rapist will do so with or without helping from the game; and people who aren’t going to become rapist aren’t going to become rapist no matter how many rape games they play. Rather, why would rapist even play these games if they are going to actually rape someone in real life anyways? There is nothing wrong with having a medium that does things that one can’t do in the real world.  This feminist group needs to seperate fact from fiction, more so reality from virtual reality. These girls being raped in “rapelay” are polygons and scripts. Turn your goddamn focus on female that are actually being rape instead of fictional ones, holy crap!

On the same scale, UK’s new law about having to hire black, homosexuals and females. Heck, isn’t this law being patronizing, sexist and racists as it is? It is putting people in groups that employers have to employ, and that’s quite discriminating.

Phew, a heavy first post not counting that introductory one. That’s it for now before I explode into a million pieces from rage!

In any case, just as the title of the blog suggests, this blog is about Nis’ random rants and rambling as a self-proclaimed otaku of all sorts. If I actually keep up, it’ll most likely have me talking about anison, anime, seiyuu and most likely about the ridiculous amount of visual novels I play. Don’t worry, I won’t post any NSFW images without warning.

If anyone even reads this blog and got questions about it, feel free to email Nis161@gmail.com or Wakasa.Ayamachi@gmail.com.

PS: It’ll take a long while for me to get everything set up or if I decide to keep on posting…