ZARD (Izumi Sakai)

Singer Izumi Sakai has died after sustaining head injuries in a fall from the edge of a hospital building in Tokyo, her management agency has announced. Sakai, a member of the popular group ZARD, was 40.

Sakai fell about three meters from the slope outside Keio University Hospital in Tokyo’s Shinjuku-ku, apparently after coming back from a walk. The slope was slippery due to rain.

I blame this on global warming. ;_; I really, really love her song “Dakishimeteite” which was used as an insert song in Tokimeki Memorial 3 for PS2. Just listen to it for yourself:

May she rest in peace… :( Her beauty voice will live on in my WinAMP playlist. T_T

[ Source: Mainichi Daily News ]

After watching the first episode, I’m happy to say that Tokimeki Memorial ～Only Love～ is not at all the cheap game advertisement I thought it would be! Recommended viewing for TokiMemo fans! Sayuri ftw!

Summary and screenshots after the jump~

Riku Aoba is a new transfer student at a private school that gives its students plenty of personal freedom with hilarious results. He ends up in the same class as Sayuri Amamiya, the school idol and the cover girl of Tokimeki Memorial Online. On the first day of school, he gets set up by the student council president, Haru Sakurai, and ends up having to run for his life from the entire male population of the school…

Long story short: Riku’s life is saved by a little yellow furball thingy that is supposedly a chick(?). Watch the first episode if you want to know just WTF is up with the kemonomimi on everyone’s head…

I have to say that I was not expecting much from this series at all, so I am quite pleasantly surprised to find the first episode to pretty decent. WAAAAAAAAY better than the horror that is Lovely Idol episode 1… (Let’s not speak of that again)

Some days ago, I was reading through the MegaTokyo forum and came across a thread on the original Tokimeki Memorial (TokiMemo) being ported to the PSP. (clicky if you don’t know what is it)

“That reminds me… I never did manage to get Kasumi’s end in TokiMemo 2…”

I posted a few replies and forgot about the whole thing.

Hikari-chan~

So there I was today, watching the mythical second episode of the two-part OVA based on the original game. It was crap. The producers obviously didn’t want to show the player’s character onscreen because he represented the player and didn’t have an official character design nor voice-over. So the OVA ends up having the girls taking turns to appear onscreen and pretty much nothing else happens. But I still kept watching.

“That reminds me…again… I never did manage to get Kasumi’s end in TokiMemo 2…”

I tried to forget about the whole thing once again. I finished the OVA and closed the folder.

“Don’t even think about it! My PlayStation is probably buried under a ton of game discs and magazines in some well-hidden corner of the storeroom right now. I will never find it!” I told myself.

Suddenly, my Winamp started to play “Going on!” by Bullet 77. The lead vocal of Bullet 77 was Junko Noda. Hikari Hinomoto, the female lead of TokiMemo 2, was Junko’s debuting role.

It was too much for me to bear. TokiMemo 2 was located just beside me, in a stack of mostly-PC games. I tooked the jewel cases out of their cardboard cover and looked through their contents. All five discs, the manual and even that tiny slip of paper that wraps over the spine of the case were present.

It’s no fancy limited edition, but it’s mine. I made up my mind. I walked to the storeroom and flicked the light switch. The room was full of boxes from when we moved in this year. I had no idea where to start. I started moving the boxes out one by one. I found a huge stack of PC Gamer magazines (which spell “PC GAMER” when you put their spines side by side), my old Tamiya models, a few issues of Newtype USA (which I no longer buy), a huge box of pirated PC and PS1 games and even my Sega Dreamcast. But the PlayStation was nowhere to be seen. I tried plugging in my Dreamcast, but the controller no longer responds and the disc drive failed to read every disc I tried. (I wonder if anyone still repairs these things?) Setting the Dreamcast aside, I once again wandered into the depths of the storeroom.

And there it was. Hidden underneath the bag which contained the Dreamcast was my PlayStation. I jumped for joy. I was so happy I could kiss the PS1 if it weren’t covered with enough dust to choke a grown man.

So anyway, to cut the story short here, I cleaned it thoroughly, plugged it into my TV and placed the first disc of TokiMemo into the top-loading drive. I pushed the power button and prayed, glancing nervously at my deceased Dreamcast. It booted. I watched the opening video. Twice. Ah… memories. The controller’s directional pad wasn’t working, which caused me to panick for a bit until I switched to my backup controller and it worked fine. I don’t like the colour on this one, but at least it works.

Fear my 14″ Sony Trinitron TV!

I checked my saved games. They’re all there. God bless Sony engineering. Although it doesn’t really matter since I intend on restarting the game anyway, it’s nice that I still have access to the extras I unlocked through Hikari’s path.

Hikari-chan~~~

Don’t you just love a story with a happy ending? ;_;

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure I have the EVS append discs for TokiMemo 2 somewhere on my harddisks…