RANDOMISE:

JAST USA Anime Expo 2016 Announcements

Been watching for news from JAST USA’s Anime Expo panel on Saturday? If not, check out some of the new licenses they just announced!

Katahane - An’ calle Belle (Yuri) [18+] Developer: Longshot

Note: This is an HD remake of the original game which features a new opening video, a resolution upgrade from 800 x 600 to 1280 x 720, support for more recent OS of Windows, and a new UI design.

Eiyuu Senki (Bishoujo) [All-Ages & 18+] Developer: Tenco

Note: The all-ages will be released on Steam while the 18+ version will be sold on JAST USA’s website.

I would like to start off by saying that I absolutely loved the story of this game. It was very engaging and I enjoyed reading the whole novel. Oddly enough, the part of the game that I enjoyed the most was the kurohane part rather than shirohane. I don’t know why but I just found kurohane to be more interesting. I didn’t really care much about the shirohane pairings after I read kurohane for the first time. I love the way that the relationships were portrayed and how they changed throughout the chapter as well. The relationship between all of the characters as well as the more specific relationships between Dua and Ein, Princess Christina and Efa, and, most importantly, Coco’s relationship with each individual character. Coco, to me, is what made this visual novel enjoyable to read. She was the one who always managed to lighten up the mood and was just an overall laid back character. By the end, she also became the key to finding evidence that Ein wasn’t really a bad person, personality-wise(because she didn’t really know anything about Ein’s final plan). Basically, I think Coco is definitely the best character in the game. The most innocent and adorable doll ever. 

About my complaints about the game, most of it is related to Shirohane’s story. The whole Shirohane side of the story just never felt like it had much substance. It established that the goal of the group is to find actors in order to fulfill Rein’s condition but it didn’t feel interesting at all to me. There wasn’t really much character development to be seen in this arc either. All of the character merely revealed things about themselves but didn’t really undergo any kind of changes that I considered to be character development. I also felt that the way the game handled their changing relationships quite poorly. In all of the routes, the H-scenes that took place actually just kind of took me by surprise. It wasn’t like it just randomly happened but suddenly reading dialogue that seems like it will lead to an H-scene without proper set up just felt really forced. While Wakaba and Cero’s relationship changing from friends to lovers can be justified by their history as childhood friends, the same cannot be said about Angelina and Belle. They’ve only known each other for a very short time and the speed at which their relationship progressed was highly unnatural. While they both spent a lot of time with each other due to their roles in the play, there’s just simply no way that such strong feelings would develop in a short period of time. It felt quite weird to see an H-scene with the two of them once I realized that fact and I wished that they just either spent more time developing their relationship or just dropped the H-scenes altogether; because it really cheapened the relationship between Angelina and Belle. 

The one thing that really bothered my about the game though (this isn’t really necessarily a complaint more of my perspective on the matter) is the relationship between Princess Christina and Efa. I don’t think that their relationship was one of love. From my perspective, it was mostly Christina just throwing herself at Efa and having Efa deal with her suppressed selfishness. Acting like a princess from birth, being the only heir to the throne, and unable to act like her real self to anyone in the castle are probably the reason why she felt strong emotions toward Efa. However, the strong emotions that she felt towards Efa was not love; it was anything but love. She pushed herself onto Efa because she wanted freedom and the ability to express herself. She wanted Efa to be hers because she was the only one who she could act naturally with and Christina also sees Giselle in her as well. Efa was a victim in this relationship. She mentions that the reason why she couldn’t lie was because she didn’t know how to. This means that Efa was completely ignorant of most things about humans which means that all of the things that Christina has told her about her feelings are just her own self-serving assumptions. Christina was simply manipulating Efa through her words; telling her that what she was feeling at the time was love when it was simply the pleasure of engaging in sexual activities. In the end, Christina didn’t even die for Efa. She used her as an excuse to run away from her responsibilities and her fears. Her kingdom was headed to ruin and she has to also face the consequences of “tuning” Efa and passing more and more of her memories to her. Worst of all, she killed herself because she was afraid of being alone. It wasn’t for Efa; it was for her own self. Christina is a coward who took advantage of an innocent doll who knew nothing of the world and turned her into her own personal plaything. It wasn’t love that Christina felt. It was simply her own selfishness. It was also pitiful to watch Efa still staying true to her feelings even when she became one with Belle.

Reading J-MENT's twitter right now feels kinda bittersweet (my moon's shit so not sure about some things) >10 years ago, Katahane nearing release >CEO plays the trial, "This shit's great" >preorder numbers arrive >CEO, shocking everyone: "Welp, these numbers mean we're closing down" >company insolvent, Katahane discs almost immediately relegated to the bargain bins in stores. >come 2012, obtained rights to sell the soundtrack, released a new edition, 4k copies, for everyone who couldn't get their hands on it back then >J: "Well, that duty's fulfilled, I suppose" >2015, the remaining stock ends up at 10mile >Put it on sale, sold out in less than a fucking hour, people who didn't get it asking if there's more >"Maybe we should do a re-re-release or something?" >"On that note, 10 years have passed and people still remember it, wow." >Saw a dream that the game went on re-sale and everyone was excited and shit. >Nothing to lose, asked the rights holder about the rights >"A'ight, you can have 'em". >"Seriously?!" >So it's possible to release it now -> "What if we do a remaster version, cram lots of stuff in it and all?" >"Go ahead!" So that's how the 1280x720 remaster currently in the works came to be. And right now 10mile's CEO, who previously said at GLF that there's a "60-70%" chance of a Vita version (J: "is it okay to say that?", CEO: "Yep, it's a great fucking game, I'm sure it can sell, everyone's waiting for it"), is in talks about said version and apparently there's a fifty-fifty chance and the biggest hindrance towards a Vita version are shitty sales of the original.