There is no way my post title is so long. Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, or OreImo as it is commonly abbreviated, is an interesting twist of the quintessential tsundere anime genre popularized by titles such as Shakugan no Shana and Zero no Tsukaima.

And beyond that, it, like Genshiken, is a testament to the subculture that has sprung up around bishoujo anime and games.

Despite its suspicious title (“There is no way my sister is this cute”), OreImo, at least the anime adaptation, is not about incest. There is certainly some suggestive tension between Kyousuke Kousaka and his tsundere sister Kirino Kousaka that does not usually exist between siblings, but arguably the masterful execution keeps it within tastefully platonic limits.

This can be disappointing if you walk into it hoping for another Koi Kaze, but on some level the setup is oddly appropriate given the personalities of the two main characters and the theme of the story. Nevertheless, the show does contain enough emotionally-charged moments to make the viewer blush excitedly like a giddy school girl.

Kirino Kousaka is a typical teenage girl who hates her brother Kyousuke Kousaka. But one day, Kyousuke accidentally discovers that Kirino is actually a huge closet otaku who has a pile of eroge tall enough to touch the ceiling hidden in her otaku closet and an ironic fetish for little sisters. Kirino, who has thus far kept her double life secret from even her closest friend, is initially horrified but slowly realizes that having someone share her secret may not be such a bad thing. With Kyousuke’s help, Kirino gradually overcomes her self-loathing and decides to be more honest with her passions (perhaps in more than one way). Of course, with Kyousuke around to help her buy 18+ eroge, she also descends farther into oblivion… めでたしめでたし。

That stack of games cost a few thousand dollars

As with any anime dealing with otaku, things get really meta. There are many allusions and references to real-life anime and game titles and Kirino’s many dilemmas (usually, which girl to kouryaku first) probably strike a chord with many of the show’s viewers. Every commercial break eyecatch contains a imouto-themed parody of an actual anime or game and every episode has a unique ED song along with a unique illustration provided by a well-known doujin or eroge artist. As with Genshiken, it gives you a very warm and fuzzy feeling inside to know that this perverted little niche has grown to become a substantial subcultural force of its own.

Eyecatch

Kirino practising sexual grooming on virtual lolis

In a way, OreImo is really just Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, except that Haruhi is Kyon’s little sister and she likes to play pornographic games about little sisters instead of searching for UFOs or aliens. Haruhi herself has some maniac tendencies (e.g. making Mikuru dress up as a bunny girl to provide fan service) that endear her to the audience’s inner selves. Kirino takes that concept one step further by being a full-blown closet otaku. And like Kyon, Kyousuke gets to clean up her mess afterwards behind the scenes.

@_@

To be honest, while combining Haruhi and Genshiken does make for an interesting concept as it is, the real draw of OreImo for me is the complicated relationship between Kyousuke and Kirino. There’s a popular saying in Japanese, tomodachi ijou koibito miman 友達以上恋人未満 (more than friends, less than lovers), which on a side note actually has an eroge named after it. You can probably call Kyousuke and Kirino kyoudai ijou koibito miman 兄妹以上恋人未満 (more than siblings, less than lovers).

Kirino cries knowing that she can never be with her brother…

Even though Kirino fits the typical tsundere heroine archetype that has proliferated throughout the industry over the years as part of its moétification, and even though Kyousuke is more or less an exact replica of Kyon, the fact that they are siblings serves as an insurmountable absolute barrier against potential developments. All tsundere characters have their barriers (e.g. the master-servant relationship seen in Zero no Tsukaima) to prevent the relationship from escalating beyond the status quo until the season finale, but the one between Kirino and Kyousuke is real and indestructible. There isn’t even the usual wriggle room of “siblings unrelated by blood”.

There is no way my family has so many different hair colours

Having not read the novels, I spent most of the 12 episodes wondering how the show intends to give a satisfactory ending to the web that it has weaved. An actual incestuous ending would be, in my opinion, oddly out of place — too straightforward and simple for a story that so carefully dances around the issue. And yet, a tsundere setup without a teredere ending just feels wrong. This sense of dilemma, I feel, is where OreImo truly differentiates itself. Wherein most works of similar genre a happy ending is predictable and welcomed, in OreImo it is uncertain and emotionally complicated.

Indeed, I personally find that OreImo’s “Good Ending” is the non-controversial compromise that is decent but somewhat hollow. Perhaps this is why OreImo will have 4 extra DVD episodes that will form 2 alternate endings to the series. Will I be condemned if I say that I am looking forward to the “True Ending”?

^_^

>:(

Ahh… Toranoana at Akiba. Nostalgic.

Kirino’s awesomely psychotic best friend

There is no way my otaku meta-anime doesn’t feature a Comiket episode

This proves it. Kirino is Konata!

Kuroneko, cat-eared dweller of the eternal darkness

Mutually-Assured Tsundere

KIRA☆

Also looking forward to the OreImo PSP game… >_>

It’s me. I’m still alive. This is not a Beowulf cluster of Linux PS3s that accidentally gained sentience in a freak thunderstorm and subsequently infiltrated the server that hosts this blog. In any case, this is (or has been) my first weekend out from boot camp and, as promised, here’s my article for the week.

I’m finally writing my Comiket article, two and a half months post incident. It’s an internet miracle.

Although this article is so late that it should given birth to two sets of octuplets by now, the delay also presented me with the opportunity to bring further introspection to the topic due to the obscene amount of time I spent staring blankly at the various concrete features that make up the pristine scenery surrounding my company line. Also, I happened to read Stalingrad by Antony Beevor while cleaning my SAR 21 rifle in camp and found it relevant to the horrors of Comiket.

Introduction

Comiket is a twice annual event that celebrates the pinnacle of moé civilization, but it is also a merciless war zone where participants fight to fuel their primal desires. Comiket old timers earn their limited edition goods just as soldiers earn their Purple Hearts: though sweat and blood (although the ratio of sweat to blood differ slightly in each case). And as time passes and the glory of the past fades into the distant memories, both the lifelong otaku and the grizzled war veteran come to the startling realization that those badges of achievements they proudly display in their bookshelves are really just cheap trinkets made in China.

Planning

Planning is an important for a successful Comiket raid, just as in any wartime operation. The first step is battle intelligence, which comes in form convenient form of the official Comiket catalogue. It provides all the necessary timings and locations you need to know, albeit in a somewhat confusing and unfriendly manner.

Catalogue on the extreme right

Of course, planning is not foolproof and reality doesn’t always play nice. As can be observed from Hitler’s mistake in his obsessive micromanagement of the Sixth Army, detailed plans that look good on paper can be completely worthless when that battalion of elite infantry on your strategic war map turned out to be a handful of Romanians with pack mules.

In the same manner, just because you have marked out and memorized the optimal routes to get yourself from booth to booth at Comiket doesn’t mean that you will actually get to buy everything you want. Sometimes it’s just impossible to get through the crowd, sometimes the doujinshi you want sells out, and sometimes the queues are just insanely long. Sticking to a plan carved in stone is dumb.

Staging

Getting to the battleground and supplying your troops is just as challenging as figuring out the best way to kill your enemies. Hardcore Comiket goers camp overnight to secure their places (it is a myth that overnight camping is not allowed at Comiket) while others take the first train there. The most important precaution for participants is to ensure that you have a proper bag that can be used to hold your expensive porn purchases without crushing them. If you end up carrying your loot in bits and pieces, you will end up moving from booth to booth at a much slower rate.

Spot the unprepared guy

Your bag should be larger than you think you require, because Comiket is always full of unexpected booby traps that suck away your money. The Germans thought the Eastern Front was going to take a few weeks and ended up staying for two winters without any winter supplies before being encircled in the kessel of their final doom.

Battle

As you queue up around the perimeters of Tokyo Big Sight and go through last-minute checks of your equipment, mentally prepare yourself for the adrenaline rush of zero hour. When the gates open, it’s like a tamer version of the Soviet landing ships hitting the Volva’s western bank. People wearing Comiket armbands can be found every few steps directing the flow of human into and through the convention halls and ensuring that no one disrupts the preplanned pathways by taking shortcuts, just as the Soviet commissars watched over the herds of conscripts and prepared to shoot any potential deserters.

“Go comrade!”

As a participant, there is only one way forward in this initial mad rush. Everyone tries to maintain a half-run walk so as to maximize speed without breaking the rules against running, and the sheer number of people around you means that it is highly impossible for you to steer yourself freely. It gets better later in the day as the number of combatants moving about drops.

Queuing and moving from booth to booth is a treacherous process that cannot be described with words alone. Proper meals are out of the question as the dining facilities in the area are overwhelmed by the demand. Much as how real wars consist of weeks of tedious marches and tasteless bread before the soldier dies from a stray bullet to the head within the first five minutes of a chaotic battle or perhaps capturing an objective or two if he’s lucky, the majority of Comiket experiences consist of standing in line for hours for a few seconds of gratification as you are finally relieved of your money. Just pray that the booth doesn’t run out of stocks just before your turn.

Loot!

Eventually, the war toll adds up. In late afternoon, the convention halls become noticeably quieter and rows of war casualties line the empty spaces next to walkways. Those who failed to secure their coveted merchandises look tired and dejected, while the victors proudly showcase their hard-earned loot.

But unlike Stalingrad, for Comiket there’s always next year.

There are more to write about, but unfortunately I shall have to cut things short. In a few hours, I will be on my way back to camp to resume my patient wait for the next weekend while I perform the menial mind-numbing duties of a lowly recruit and live in the constant fear that my brain is slowly disintegrating from the lack of cognitive stimulus.

I’m finally back in Singapore. It’s really hot even in my air-conditioned room. Gah. But anyway, here’s my damage report for Comiket 75. I didn’t buy much. Really.

Basically I had only three things on my wishlist for Comiket: Heart Work, Afterschool of the 5th Year (5年目の放課後), and T2 ART WORKS.

Coincidentally, the three circles have their booths on different days, so I ended up queuing for one item a day, a rather relaxed and stress-free arrangement that meant that I did not have to do any overnight queuing or prior planning.

5年目の放課後

Day 1 was Gonenme no Houkago (or as the circle translates it “Afterschool of the 5th Year”). It is a relatively obscure circle probably best known online for its drunken Haruhi illustration. I wrote a post on 5年目の放課後 before.

Their C75 release information can be found on the blog. It’s basically a coloured illustration book, a monochrome ero-sketch book, and a mini poster.

Heart Work

Day 2’s queuing was for Heart Work, Hiro Suzuhira‘s one-person doujin publication. It is a compilation of her recent illustrations and sketches.

Heart Work release for C75

She is probably best known for her character designs in various Navel games such as Shuffle! (Asa, Nerine, Sage) and Soul Link. She often collaborates with her good friend Aoi Nishimata, whose doujin publication is called JOKER TYPE and who designed the other half of the Shuffle! cast (the crappier half that includes Kaede).

Incidentally, the illustrations found in the recently-desecrated Akikan! novel series are among some of Hiro’s older works. They still look better than the anime.

Heart Work phone card

Hiro is my hero(ine).

T2 ART WORKS

The final day of Comiket brought T2 ART WORKS, the awesome release from Tony Taka. His latest release (NSFW) is Clannad-centric with a fulfilling dosage of Tomoyo, hands down the best character in an otherwise overrated generic Key franchise. *Ducks for cover*

Tomoyo megane moe

Tony is probably one of the most successful doujin artists and runs a rather commercialized operation. Personally, I don’t really care about the distinctions between indie and mainstream as long as the art/song is good, but a direct result of Tony’s popularity is that his releases are more costly than most.

Back and front covers of the doujinshi (NSFW but too late)

He also sells his own product sets that change in design every Comiket but are generally the same things. I bought them last year too.

Goodie bag content

In fact, these Comiket-exclusive goods are basically the only reason why you would want to queue for T2. The doujinshi itself is always available brand new from any Toranoana outlet, albeit for 50 yen more due to tax. In fact, I picked up his C74 release (Macross F) at the Akihabara branch. The goodie bags on the other hand can only be found in collector stores at jacked up prices after the event.

Others

Those were my planned purchases. Now for the rest of the random splurges that are the natural consequences of wandering around the Comiket event halls filled with shiny stuff.

Bought for the cover art

Kyonko

Doujin Little Busters! calendar

Rather nice art

Although I’m not really a LB fan

My only purchases from the commercial booths

And some other stuff I won’t go into details about… *cough*

And finally, what might arguably be my most awesome Comiket purchase ever…

IKINOKORITAI!!!

P.S. I have multiple copies of T2 and Heart Work releases… (When you’ve already queued for 2 hours, you might as well.) I wonder what I should do with them.

The three-day long holy celebration of otakuism that is the Winter Comic Market came to a close yesterday. This is my second Comiket, and probably the last one in a long time. I am still in Japan right now, so I may not have time to blog about the last three days in greater details until I get back, but here are the cosplay photos for now.

I did not take any pictures of the event other than the cosplay this time. However, since Comiket mostly consists of the same old huge crowds and long queues, you can take a look at last year’s pictures for that purpose.

I have to say that with the freshness gone, Comiket is basically one huge shopping experience — extremely chaotic and yet simultaneously subtle compared to a real anime convention loaded with constant entertainment and shiny objects. That said, the cosplay never gets old.

The good thing about Winter Comiket is that the stench of bodily fluids is minimal and queuing for two to three hours to get your hands on a few pages of hardcore pornography is probably a whole lot more bearable than in summer (or so I imagine). The bad thing is that cosplay pictures look like crap because the sun is always at an inconvenient angle.

Of course I could easily solve this problem by investing in a proper external flash for my DSLR, but I prefer to blame the climate and planetary alignments when things go wrong. (Also, solar flares wiped my hard disk.)

Since whining doesn’t solve my problem, mostly due to the unsympathetic laws of physics, you guys will just have to deal with the unfortunate fact that a great number of cosplayers appearing in this post have empty voids of pitch darkness in place of their eyes.

Like

This

And as a bonus, sometimes the entire face is black (not being racist)

I’m sure you are terribly annoyed by my constant monologue interrupting the flow of pictures, so I shall stop. Enjoy.

Actually it’s quite amazing how Japanese girls seem to be immune to the winter chill. Oh right, sorry. I’ll shut up now.

The next post will be out some time next year. In the mean time, you can check out my C73 coverage from last year. It’s about the same.

On another note, during the time it took for me to queue for various reasons during three days of Comiket, I collected all eleven Crystals in Dissidia. Japan is the undisputed global leader when it comes to forming and managing long queues.

Because Japanese are completely asinine about getting their photos taken, and because the Comiket committee has my URL and I don’t want to get blacklisted, I went through the trouble of mosaicking all the faces.

The Queues

Queuing is Japan’s national pastime. In fact, you can say that going to Disneyland in Japan is about the same as going to Comiket. It all boils down to about two hours of queuing for a few seconds of gratification. Unless you go for the rides that no one wants to touch with a 10-metre pole, like “It’s a Small World”.

End of the line for T2 Art Works

Almost there!

The queues for popular booths are so long that the end of the line is generally in a totally different part of Japan from the actual location of the booth. This makes it a huge challenge for people who are rushing to queue for goods that are limited in numbers. Finding the booth itself is easy if you follow the maps, but by the time you get there the queue is already in Hokkaido. You have to anticipate where the queue will be by the time you arrive and head for the queue instead of the booth.

It’s like that Space Invaders episode in Futurama: shoot where he is going to be instead of where he was.

At the end of every queue is a guy holding a sign with the booth number that says 最後尾 to tell you that it’s the end of the line for that circle. Usually the guy holding it is the last person in the queue, so it’s common courtesy for you to take over by saying “mochimasu” if you join the queue.

The Booths

Did I mention how asinine Japanese are about photos? I did? Well I’m going to say it again: Japanese are completely asinine about photos. Despite having a press pass, I have to ask permission from every single booth that I want to take pictures of. This quickly bored me, so I ended up taking very few pictures. I don’t even know why they bother to give out press passes.

Interestingly, most people are more willing to have their pictures taken if you tell them that you are from overseas. According to the two cosplayers above, it’s because they don’t want to be recognized by their friends.

This appears to be some 3D game with characters from CLANNAD, D.C. and SHUFFLE!

Nice boat.

The 0verflow guys asked me for my website before letting me take a picture. I gave them my name card. Woot. 0verflow has my name card now! Anyway their C73 stuff wasn’t very interesting so I didn’t buy anything.

You can find more pictures of the commercial booths over at Danny Choo’s C73 coverage.

The Crowd

For some reason, I took a ton of picture of random crowds. I guess it’s because I was always rushing to my next destination and there wasn’t much else to take on the way.

The Location

See the orange cones? That’s where the Type-Moon queue was

The Cosplay

Canon 400D’s internal flash can only sync at a maximum shutter speed of 1/200, making it way too slow to take anything in direct sunlight without serious overexposure, so I had to make do without flash. The resulting pictures are terrible due to the shadows casted by the the setting sun. Oh well.

Thanks to the uneven lighting, everything is either overexposed or underexposed. I really need to get a proper flash.

You can find much better cosplay pictures from C73 on Moeyo!.

The Misc

The press gets a pink armband; Comiket staff gets a red one

Please rise for the Welsh anthem

It’s Shingo!

A bunch of Australians who were holding Shingo’s book

There were fewer Caucasian foreigners at Comiket than I had expected. I counted three or four groups in total after wandering around for the entire day. I bumped into a group from a Canadian radio station and talked to them for a bit. I think they were quite freaked out by a random Asian boy walking up to them and interrogating them in English. Ops.

There were plenty of Chinese around, in fact, quite a number of doujin circles were Chinese. But since we Asians pretty much look the same it’s kind of hard to keep count.

The Conclusion

Comiket was pretty fun, but I think all that queuing took a few years off my life span. I think I’m going to need a long rest…

This Comiket coverage was made possible by Danny Choo and Akihabara News.

I spent less than expected at Comiket, probably because I already bought a ton of random doujinshi from specialty stores. Some pictures are NSFW. (Basically the T2 Art Works stuff.)

T2 Art Works, the famous Tony Taka’s (aka Takayuki Tanaka) doujin circle, was selling goodie bags for ï¿¥3000. It contains a clear file, a calendar and a pencil board.

I also bought four copies of his latest release, Kiteru yo! Takeuchi-kun. (Based on Bamboo Blade.)

Kyoto Animation was selling some goodie bags from their current flagship titles. I will be reselling one Haruhi bag (I have extra) and one Clannad bag (I don’t like it that much).

They both come with a 2008 calendar and a phone card each. In addition, the Haruhi one comes with a A3 clear poster and the Clannad one comes with three bookmarks that are kind of lame when compared to Haruhi’s terrific poster. I will probably be selling them through KKnM, so you will need to be in Singapore to buy them.

This is a bag made by some booth that was selling Miku doujinshi. The doujinshi is pretty bad but the bag is cool. I think it was the only reason why so many people were queuing for that booth.

I got this for ï¿¥3500. It’s a 100% hand-drawn fan art of Yuki. It’s quite awesome, but I would’ve preferred Haruhi. The artist also drew Tomoyo and Kotomi (from Clannad) and Tsukasa and Kagami (from Lucky Star) in the same style, but I decided to pass.

I also bought Arisa Mizuhara’s latest cosplay collection CD-ROM. If you have never heard of her before, you need to check out her gallery. She’s basically my all-time favourite cosplayer.

The best part is that I met her in person at her booth! I managed to get a picture too by waving my press pass around. Huge thanks to Danny Choo and Akihabara News for the pass.

The CD-ROM is somewhat expensive at ï¿¥2000 for eight galleries of photos, but it’s extremely awesome. You can find a list of all her past releases on her website. There was actually a Singaporean trading company selling her photo collections at Cosfest, but I forgot its name.

On hindsight, I should have gotten her to autograph my copy of the CD-ROM… Damn.

I managed to obtain one of the forty copies of Cradle’s Re:frain that were on sale. The press has a seperate queue that is super short and located right beside the entrance to East Hall 1, so I got in quite early. I met and spoke with the duo behind Cradle, but unfortunately they were camera shy and declined my request for a picture. :(

KEI is the artist behind the official art for Crypton’s VOCALOID2 software series. I bought four copies of his new VOCALOID illustration compilation and one copy of his second artwork collection (which I sold to my friend).

I didn’t really bother to queue for any commercial booths, but HOOK’s HoneyComing merchandises looked pretty, so I spent about one hour queuing to get Asahi’s phone card set and Clarissa’s microfibre towel set (not pictured above). I seem to be the only person that I personally know who actually liked this game, but oh well.

My personal favourite purchase is Hiro Suzuhira’s latest HEART-WORK release. She is one of my favourite illustrators ever because of her works in the SHUFFLE! bishoujo game franchise (SHUFFLE!, Tick! Tack! and Really? Really!), specifically Nerine, Asa and Sage.

It has Hiro’s trademark design and Miku. What more can one ask for?

HEART-WORK’s booth was also selling a very beautiful Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Lin phone card set and a HEART-WORK collaboration calendar.

I queued over two hours for HEART-WORK’s booth. It was worth it. T_T <– Tears of joy.

I’ll talk more about the entire event itself in a later post. Really tired now. And, uh, an early Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございまãï¼ I’m watching Kouhaku on NHK right now.

I will be posting a more detailed report only after I return from Japan, mainly because I don’t have a lot of photos yet and I will only be able to take more tomorrow. (Photography is technically prohibited in all areas except the designated cosplay zone.)

Toyosu (豊洲) Station on the Yurikamome Line.

Comiket is held at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center, more commonly known as the Big Sight, or “that pyramid thing”. The nearest train station is Kokusai-tenjij-seimon (国際展示場正門) on the Yurikamome monorail that goes around Odaiba.

On the night before Comiket Day 1, we took the last train to Ariake to camp overnight. According to various online sources, overnight queuing for Comiket is prohibited by the organizers. From Wikipedia:

Lining up for hours before the convention is forbidden, as pre-convention “parties” have drawn complaints from local residents in previous years.

We found out that this is all a huge lie perpetuated to fool the naive. By the time we arrived at Ariake, the queue had already reached there, stretching about 500m from the steps leading up to the Big Sight.

It was frigging cold. The temperature was close to zero, it was windy and on top of that it started to rain too. Many people took shelter in the nearby Family Mart and those guys probably make a ton of money selling gloves and hot food stuff.

People arriving by cars and taxis (after the last train)

Tents set up by the police for logistics

There were already hundreds, if not thousands, of people queuing up at 1am in the morning. The event officially starts at 10am.

After a long wait, the organizers slowly directed the queue onto the clear elevated area in front of the trademark inverted pyramid. This formed the front of the main line for the regular participants.

20-minute queues to buy things from Family Mart or visit the washroom

The people at the start of the queue came well-prepared

This is madness

That’s LianYL standing there in white

It rained through the night

I managed to get some sleep (about 2-3 hours) in a sheltered area under the inverted pyramid. We were not prepared for this at all and didn’t bring any foldable stools or picnic sheets, so I made do with a 500-yen poncho from 7-Eleven. Did I mention that it was fricking cold and the ground was all wet?

The initial rush is crazy, especially for the commercial booths. How crazy? Let’s just say that if you happen to drop your camera, you’ll never see it again.

The main queue is divided into two separate queues, one for the doujinshi halls and one for the cosplay area and the commercial hall. The doujinshi queue is then split into three queues, one for West Halls, one for East Halls 1-3 and one for East Halls 4-6.

Comiket can be basically summed up as one huge queuing event. Popular commercial booths, such as Key and Type-Moon, can stretch to over 3-hours long.

The Japanese have basically perfected the art of queue management. Instead of forming long and chaotic queues inside the convention area, blocking everyone’s paths and encouraging queue-cutting, the queues are divided into more manageable segments. Only the front-most segment queues in front of the booth itself. The rest queue outside, where there are additional signboards to indicate where the end of the queue is and what the queue is for. One (or more) staff member will regularly come to bring the first ten or so people in the queue outside to join the small queue inside the convention hall. Popular booths have external queues that are so long that they have to be subdivided into even smaller mini queues.

This is why you’ll often see signs that tell you that it’s not the end of the line, even though it looks like one. Kyo-ani’s line actually stretched one entire round around the commercial booth. Type-Moon and a few other popular studios have special queuing zones in a parking lot nearby.

Popular doujinshi groups can be almost just as bad. I queued two hours for Hiro Suzuhira’s latest releases (pictures when I get home and finish unpacking). I also queued one hour for ５年目の放課後, the artist who drew the blushing Haruhi on my old banner, only to have stocks run out with just seven people left in the queue in front of me. :(

I took a few cosplay shots today, but it started to rain (again) and the cosplayers all left. It’s crazy what these girls wear in near-zero temperature…

Comiket has over half a million participants in three days. I estimate that about 5% of them (including circle participants and event organizers) cosplay while they are there. That’s a lot of cosplayers to take pictures of, and not much time to do so due to all the queuing that needs to be done.

Anyway, I should have some better pictures to show for my next Comiket post. I’m getting a press pass tomorrow that allows me to take pictures anywhere (and enter the venue early via a special express queue to boot). I don’t have to try to hide my DSLR anymore! Yay!

I have not yet decided on how to spend the rest of the days, but Akihabara is definitely in the itinerary. Possibly Nakano too. I will probably spend at least one or two days going to some weird and hilarious destinations but it’s all top secret kinsoku jikou until (and if) it actually happens.

And of course, I am looking forward to meeting some familiar folks in person for the first time. Ah, the wonders of the internet.

I wasn’t expecting much from a doujin game, but Yuuetsu has surprisingly high production value. The game is fully-voiced and the art, especially the background art, approaches commercial level (then again, most commercial AVGs aren’t that high quality either).

The game is very short, but you can tell that quite a lot of thought has been put into the script. Most of the dialogues are very appropriate and feel like they could have come from the novel itself. The grammatical quirks that each character has are all preserved faithfully and it really helps to make the game feel like the original.

Basically the story is about Haruhi winning free onsen tickets in a lucky draw and the whole SOS-dan going on an onsen trip. I think you can imagine the rest…

Personally I quite like the in-game art, especially event CGs for Mikuru and Haruhi such as the two below. Well there are plenty of ero-scenes too but they seem to be of a lower quality than the non-ero CGs. Maybe it’s just that the flaws in the art are amplified when you remove the clothes, or maybe the artist just can’t draw H.

Voice-acting is really, really good for a doujin game. I can’t stress this enough. Although I won’t say that they sound just like the original cast, the seiyuu do a superb job of imitating the style of each character according to the anime adaptation. The only problem I have with the voice-acting is that the seiyuu for Tsuruya sounds like she’s trying too hard…

…and Itsuki is gay. Gay as in not happy or lame, but homosexual. I’m pretty sure there’s yaoi somewhere but I shall not confirm that.

Music-wise, the game consists mostly of remixed tracks from the TV series. They could have been better but they do the job so I’m not complaining.

The ending was kind of abrupt but Haruhi’s tsundere-ness towards the end was the win. ^_^ Taken from the manual that came with the game:

Ｑ　なんかハルヒがただのツンデレキャラなんでããŒã€‚
Q. Why does Haruhi seem just like a generic tsundere character?

Ａ　作者の妄想でãã€‚お察しください。
A. Please respect the author’s fantasies.

Oh oh oh! Here’s another funny one:

Ｑ　俺のみくるんは、あんな積極的な子じゃない！！１１！
Q. My precious Mikuru isn’t that kind of girl!!11!

Ａ　俺のみくるんは誘い受けだと言ってるじゃないでãã‹ï¼ï¼ï¼
A. Didn’t I say that my Mikuru is a sasoi-uke!!!

For those of you who do not know what’s a sasoi-uke, maybe it’s for the best…

I end this review here with screenshots from the ending sequence.

Top right corner: 410,000 people over 3 days!? The massive gathering at this summer event.
Left: This person in the queue…
Bottom: …has been queuing since 5 am.

Same as above.

Top right: A hot summer of “Comiket”. A gathering of 410,000 people from all over the nation.
Left: An attendee.
Bottom: “What is does Comic Market mean to you?” “It’s what I live for.”

And the most WTF of them all…
Bottom: A mother taking leave from work to buy things for her daughter who is having tuition.

Wow. Japanese mothers are so cool that they take leaves to buy yaoi pr0n for their daughters. o_O Either that or she’s actually buying it for herself… DUN DUN DUN!!! I think one can write a few thousand words worth of social commentary base on this picture alone. Seriously. Only in Japan folks.

And for those of you who are wondering why they don’t queue overnight, well I can assure you that it’s not because they are not hardcore enough; it’s against the rules to do so. Comiket bouncers are kowai… I’d imagine.

Now back to refreshing Heisei Democracy…