Category: Not Porn Games
Privatter’s getting kind of annoying for this so I thought I’d actually use my blog. I’ve installed a spoiler hiding plugin so anything related to material from the novel for eps 4+ should be [ads_blur_spoiler color_blur=”#000000″]tagged/hidden[/ads_blur_spoiler], but if you’re extremely spoiler-phobic I would recommend not reading this post because my speculation is going to be colored by knowledge from the novels regardless. A lot of this is just reiterated or copied and edited from my Twitter musings and privatter speculation posts btw.
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In a similar spirit to the Reo and Mabu Twitter Archive I put together, I thought it might be useful to collect the text crawls from Sara’s program in one place for easy reference.
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Because I keep writing dumb Twitter threads with miscellaneous thoughts about Ikuhara’s upcoming anime project, Sarazanmai, at 4 a.m. I figured maybe it was time for a blog post collecting all the promotional material that’s out so far so I stop repeating myself.
Leave a CommentSo, I was digging around for some background research on another thing when I stumbled upon the Bandai Namco Online staff introduction page for IDOLiSH7’s producer––whose name I really hope I’m reading right––Negishi Ayaka. Her little introduction story (while definitely a bit of PR for Bandai––so you probably want to take some of the glowing praise for the company with a grain of salt) was actually pretty interesting (and rather sweet) so I thought I’d share it. This profile’s from like early 2016? I believe. The page isn’t dated but she mentions ~6 months since the game’s launch. Also I left off the schedule thing at the bottom because, well the details aren’t that interesting aside from some tough days ending at nearly midnight (ouch!) Anyway, enjoy:
Sometimes you have to be strict with the projects you’ve brought to life because you love them, just like a parent might.
It was a project I’d pitched back when I was an intern.
When you hear the word “producer”, you probably imagine something pretty strict and formal, right? And you might even think that the job––with all the project management, proposal drafting, and organizational tasks––sounds pretty difficult. But I’ll let you in on a little secret about being a producer: you age and job history have very little to do with any of it. Just a few years ago, I was only an intern (lol). I joined the company as an intern in 2013 and only became a full employee in 2015, and I, of all people, am in charge of the property IDOLiSH7. Well, here’s funny thing about that project: I pitched it back when I was just an intern.
Now I’m learning the job with my senior colleagues and the other people I work with supporting me. So, really, despite the image the job has, a producer isn’t so much the top person in charge as just another role in the process. The job covers a pretty broad range of tasks, but my first step toward my current position was presenting my own project proposal at one of our bi-yearly project pitch meetings while I was still training as an assistant under one of my senior colleagues. At the meeting where it all started, they grilled me about not only what made the game concept interesting, but also who the players would be, how much return on investment we could expect, and how production would actually be executed. But the most critical thing they wanted to know was whether I had the passion and dedication to the project to be up to the task. I was assigned to manage the project when it was picked up, and my next step was getting a team together to make it a reality. Naturally, not every project gets picked up, but anyone has a chance to make their idea happen as long as it’s interesting. Our company plays fair like that. I actually applied to become an intern outside of the recruiting period too… But I was so enthusiastic about working here they accepted me anyway. Basically, it’s what’s inside that counts––your ideas, your passion, all that. Whether you’re talking about people or project pitches, that’s what’s really important.
I love the franchise and its fans more than anyone.
So, I pitched IDOLiSH7 in 2014. At the time, there weren’t a lot of apps in that particular market aimed at women, but the market was showing signs of expanding in that direction, so I thought it was a strong opportunity to pursue. While I was working on research, I noticed that even though women would play music games targeted at men, they were often too self-conscious about the location to actually go to an arcade.
And that’s when I thought about the idea of crossing a smartphone music game with idols targeted at women. I had all sorts of ideas for the story and characters too––like a story with an almost shonen-manga-esque quality to it about helping these boys who all are working hard to achieve their dreams as they grow closer as a group, and how each of the idols would have unique backgrounds, along with some tear-jerker moments for good measure. Unique characters are key for a rich story, but just making all the characters multi-dimensional doesn’t make for an interesting story. I can still remember all the days I spent worrying about striking the right balance like it was yesterday. But the other thing, of course, is that as a producer you can’t just think about what you would want in a product, but figure out what the market wants. Like whether to include romantic elements or not, and the possibility of some small detail of a character’s background or the story could put fans off. With IDOLiSH7 the theme we focused on was the idea of rooting for an underdog. The idols’ earnest pursuit of their dreams was more important than romance.
Now I’m at the stage where I need to anticipate trends and manage the product with that in mind. This is one of the harder aspects of being a producer. No matter how much you love your own project, you always have to take care not to let yourself turn into a fan. I want the fans to enjoy the game more than anyone else in the world. I guess I must’ve had the right idea because we’ve received such warm messages from fans in the six months or so since the game launched. And to our surprise even other elements of the company have come to care for our project. That really made me happy. I hope to continue developing the game to reach even more people with it.
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So, if you’ve been following my Twitter you might have noticed I’ve been working on a costume for the last couple months. It’s not actually 100% complete and I’m not totally happy with it, but I wanted to do a writeup on some of the stuff I did with it and what worked/didn’t.
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I’ve actually been reading manga lately so I thought I should blog about it. Let’s start with the stuff that isn’t porn!
ヲタクに恋は難しい (Love Ain’t Easy for Nerds)
by ふじた (Fujita)
A funny and sweet romantic comedy about nerds who work in an office together. I bet you’re thinking it’s a four panel series but it’s not! ( ; ﾟДﾟ)
I really don’t know what else to say about it other than it’s legit v. cute and funny. A lot of really on-point jokes about cosplay too (well at least in my experience, lol). I think it won one of the interesting-manga ranking things last year? So it better get a goddamn anime.
弟の夫 (My Brother’s Husband)
by 田亀源五郎 (Tagame Gengoroh)
Tagame’s super adorable all-ages (only all-ages?) general-audience sorta edutainment manga about gay issues in Japan.
Having only been familiar with Tagame’s hardcore porn stuff, seeing him tackle something so sweet and innocent (though he does some cute/funny porn too) is pretty weird! But he’s good at it! You definitely get a bit of the afterschool-special vibe from it at points, but I mean, that’s kinda what it’s doing (er, that is to say it’s meant to be educational too), so I don’t see it as a particular negative.
Anyway, glad it finally got licensed because it’s cute as hell (though the JP is simple enough that it might be a good babby’s first manga in Japanese choice if you’re looking for something like that).
さびしすぎてレズ風俗に行きましたレポ
(The Private Report on My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness)
by 永田カビ(Nagata Kabi)
Other people have talked about this one better than I have, but it’s a very earnest and personal piece about the author’s struggles with her anxiety issues, sexuality, and figuring out what she wants out of life. Hard to read at points because she gets very real about her problems.
Now I can’t actually remember if this got licensed or if it was just scanlations that were going around. It was licensed! Neat. Either way it’s a good read.
とつくにの少女 (The Girl from the Other Side)
by ながべ (Nagabe)
I forget how I found out about this one. I think someone might have RT’d a promo for the second volume onto my TL and I grabbed the Kindle version on a whim because it looked so pretty.
I was not disappointed! Nagabe has such a unique aesthetic and a really masterful approach to like… dramatic timing? with paneling. The whole thing feels very cinematic or maybe theatrical/stagey (in a good way) might be a better way to put it. Like while I was reading it it almost felt like a weird little black and white movie or a stage play. Each volume isn’t all that long and doesn’t have a lot of text but something about the way it’s paced just makes you slow down and take your time to appreciate it. It’s like the perfect thing to read on a rainy afternoon.
The story’s a very simple set up (although we still don’t really know a lot about what’s really going on!) with, for the most part, only two characters: the doctor (er, he’s only ever called “sensei” so that might not be the ideal way to handle that but idk) and the little girl, Shiva. The doctor doesn’t even really know who he is anymore thanks to the effects of the curse and struggles with how best to care for and protect little Shiva who he can’t even touch. A lot of the best moments (well, imo at least) are these beats of introspection with the doctor struggling to find the right words to say to Shiva.
Anyway, idk what else to say about this one really other than it’s beautiful and I want more people to read it. I believe it was licensed recentlyish and is supposed to be out in English sometime early next year, though there is not really very much text at all (what text there is is quite simple), so if you’re a novice Japanese reader you might consider checking it out now.
魔法使いの嫁 (The Ancient Magus’ Bride)
by ヤマザキコレ (Yamazaki Kore)
This was being advertised with とつくにの少女 because they run in the same online magazine and are from the same publisher.
Honestly, I binge read the six volumes that are out in like a day or two and now I don’t entirely remember what happened (oops). But Elias is v. kawaii and Chise is p. cool too. I hope it gets a full anime adaptation eventually because that would be neat.
iirc this is already licensed and nearly caught up too? Elias nendo is out this month btw.
I also started reading Innocent at some point, but I paused at some point and forgot what was going on so I really gotta get back to that.
Onto the trashy porno section of this post!
ボコり愛男子 (Bokori-ai Danshi)
by a bunch of different people (it’s an anthology)
Well, like I said it’s an anthology. Picked it up on a whim because of some of the names in the author list and the title/cover. Shockingly not disappointing for a random pickup (I have the worst luck with that usually but nothing I randomly grabbed in this batch was bad!). I’m liking most of the random shit I’ve picked up from BABY.
It’s basically exactly what it says it is, stories about dudes who fight and fall in love/bang. Not that porn heavy, but the humor was very to my taste so I don’t care. Any of BABY’s anthologies seem like a pretty safe bet if the title sounds interesting to you.
攻め食い男子(Seme-gui Danshi)
by various (it’s an anthology)
Another BABY anthology. p. similar to ボコり愛男子 in that it’s exactly what it says it is: an anthology of stories about guys who think they should be a top in a relationship but getting the tables turned on them. As you might expect with a premise like that it’s more porn heavy.
Anyway, if that premise sounds appealing to you I don’t think any of the stories in here are disappointing so yeah.
ヤリチン☆ビッチ部 (Yarichin☆Bitch-bu)
by おげれつたなか (Ogeretsu Tanaka)
A raunchy porno comedy that runs for free on Pixiv. The print edition covers the first five chapters and features more polished artwork (most noticeable in the backgrounds). On the downside it’s more heavily censored. Not really to the point of being horrifically distracting but, man, fuck lightsaber dongs.
For example (this one isn’t that egregious really but for reference):
愛しのセンチメートル (Itoshi no CM)
by イゴ彦 (Igohiko)
The main story is about a dude who’s preoccupied with the idea of finding a guy with the perfect size dick because of something preposterous his dad said to him. And there are… two (fuck I’m too lazy to pick it up again) other one shots in there (one of which is in 攻め食い男子).
Anyway porn + dumb premise = my jam, so I enjoyed it!
グルメのふくらみ (Gourmet no Fukurami – or as Verde suggested for a TL “Engorged” lol)
by 赤星ジェイク (Akahoshi Jake)
It’s a story about a guy who pops a boner every time he eats high calorie food and it’s ruining his life. He ends up in a compromising position with the grandson of the CEO of the company he works for and things get complicated from there!
I kinda wish there was more because it was very funny and had good porn lol. Wanna look up more by 赤星ジェイク now.
I had a couple other things in the porn pile but I haven’t finished reading/re-reading them so perhaps I will add to this post later. [EDIT] Some more stuff:
したがりな俺たちの、きのう今日あした (Shitagarina Oretachi no, Kinou Kyou Ashita)
by 松本ノダ (Matsumoto Noda)
I actually had bought this and a bunch of other stuff by 松本ノダ in digital a while back (I can’t quite remember what prompted it, I probably stumbled on one of them on sadpanda and wanted to throw money at the artist), but I remembered it being good and figured I might as well pick it up in physical too.
Anyway, after re-reading it I didn’t remember wrong, it was good. If you like cute shit with lots of porn I’d strongly recommend this one––it’s basically about two dumb guys who are really into each other and horny all the time but they’re still in high school so they don’t have a lot of privacy! I like Matsumoto’s art a lot too. It’s pretty loose and sketchy at points, but I like that their bodies have a real sense of like weight and dimension and “fleshiness” idk how to put it really (it has a lot of the same qualities I like about Hamashima’s art). Good faces too, that’s always important imo.
Anyway, idk what it looks like on Kindle but they tend to censor more heavily so if you wanna pick it up in digital grab it on like ebook Japan or elsewhere.
ともだちがおかず (Tomodachi ga Okazu)
also by 松本ノダ (Matsumoto Noda)
Unlike したがりな俺たち this one’s basically just a series of oneshots. The book’s titled for the first one (which has a different title itself) about a guy going through his day having progressively more wild sex fantasy day dreams about one of his friends––often while talking to him even!
Also good would recommend.
ようこそニューワールド (Yokoso New World)
by コモトミ裕間 (Komotomi Yuma)
This was probably my least favorite book I picked up in this batch, also a total random pickup based on the cover/publisher. Definitely wasn’t bad though. 3 of the chapters in this one appear in other BABY anthologies (well two were in the two I bought and I’m like absolutely positive the weird box-man one is in the masked-men anthology despite not having read that yet). Nice art, good faces. The lead story was a little eh (also only shibari in the first chapter despite putting it on the cover?!).
My favorite story was definitely the box man one because it was so bonkers.
おれ、被害者 (I Am A Victim)
by 木村ヒデサト (Kimura Hidesato)
I thoroughly enjoyed this one (although there’s some serious mood whiplash in the middle because it’s all bonkers fucked up porn and then suddenly a bait-and-switch serious story about child abuse!). It’s a series of oneshots about varying degrees of fucked up relationships. The titular short is the last one about a high school teacher who’s angry with his lot in life as an unpopular loser so he kidnaps a hot dude who has it all and they end up boning.
I think my favorite one was the first one, よろこびの先輩, though. It’s about a highly dysfunctional relationship between two college dudes, one of whom lives in a literal trash heap of an apartment and has a fetish for choking his partner during sex and the other who claims to only feel a begrudging attachment to trash man because he’s so helpless and could not survive on his own. The big dramatic reveal at the end is trash man confessing that he fell in love with the other guy when he drunk puked all over him one night after they went drinking and the other guy admitting that he really likes trash man’s smile when he’s choking him (also he’s developed a taste for erotic asphyxiation).
I like the art a lot and Kimura’s weird sense of humor around intriguingly fucked up relationships.
Anyway that covers it for this batch of stuff.
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