Alfin: Umbrio Version

Kotobukiya’s latest figure is the umbrio version of Alfin from DS RPG Shining Force Feather, which came out in February this year. The character art from the game is by Ito Noizi, of UnisonShift fame, and the resemblance shows through in the figure. The estimated release date of this 1/8 scale figure (190mm tall) is in March. Price is 8190 yen. I really like the facial features and hair. There sure are a lot of roses, although I think it’s a little excessive, and I would’ve preferred the dress to be a bit different. However, overall it’s a good figure.

AmiAmi product page

Spreading the Gift of Imouto LOVE

Only one new game announced this week: Chien’s RGH ~Koi to Hero to Gakuen to~. There will be a lot more next week, including one from FAVORITE (Hoshimemo FD?). Release dates have been set for the following games:

Shapeshifter – January 29th
Hinomaru – February 25th

Shirokuma Bell Stars has been delayed to December 11th. Why don’t they just release it on Christmas Day? Cure Mate Club has been moved back to March 26th.

Great news coming from MoonStone, via Akiba Blog. The iPhone app for Gift had been available in Japanese for almost a year (I had mentioned it on a post last November). Now there’s an English version out too! The translations are so-so, but it’d be better than what you’d get with online translators. You can buy the app for $9.99 USD. If I had an iPhone, I’d definitely try it out. Speaking of Gift, I really should finish that. >_>

As part of the 500k hit and comiket 77 selection celebration for Sonata’s imouto fan site ONE NIGHT DREAM, there are two polls up: favorite imouto and imouto trait. Obviously, I’m voting for Sana, but I really should play through Yaya (Clover Point), Sora (Yosuga no Sora) and Mai (Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro na) since I’ve heard nothing but good things about them. I was torn between ‘onii-chan LOVE’ and ‘jealousy’ for the imouto trait poll. While I love bracon imouto (Sana, Ai, Kotori), I think that jealousy and not wanting others to take away their onii-chan is the defining trait of any imouto route. That’s why imouto such as Koisora’s Mikoto and DCII’s Yume are so appealing.

For IchaPri!, the winning situation for Tsubaki and Yuzuna is public 3P dressed in china dresses. This week is Sumireko and Futaba. Choices are nurse 3P in the school infirmary, 3P in the gym storage room and exhibitionism wearing a half-coat only in the shopping area. The last one is leading with almost 90% of the votes.

Tamahime won the Sugarcoat Freaks chara poll. She’s an ojou-sama who poses as the protagonist’s imouto. SCORE is holding a chara poll for Zettai Maou until November 27th. You can vote 3 times a day. There’s so many characters…

TECH GIAN Brilliant will cover all 215 eroge released in the first half of 2009 in 2 DVDs and 1 CD, with HD demo movies, trials, wallpapers, songs, walkthroughs and CGs. It’s a good catalogue for only 2400 yen.

CIRCUS held another event as part of their 10th anniversary, “CIRCUS no Nanika”. It was basically a lot of postcards of their games, plus some other stuff. Here’s to another 10 years! ^o^

Gift has a giant Marisa doll (70cm tall) on sale this December. The price is gigantic too at 29800 yen. If you want something a little bit smaller, why not check out Rin and Len. They look so huggable!

On the same topic of Touhou, Griffon is releasing 1/8 scale figures of Flandre and Alice in February.

CharaAni has a bunch of mini figures from To Aru Majutsu no Index coming out in March. My favorite is Kuroko; That face just never gets old.

SKYTUBE’s 1/6 scale figure of Haruka from Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (February, 14490 yen) doesn’t really look like her…

There’s dual CDs that came out on November 4th featuring collaborations by Niconico songwriters and singers. I love the cover art by Kogado Studio artist Shiro.

Have some tea with Azunyan.

The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi will premiere on February 6th. I’d rather watch the Nanoha movie.

Check out Tete’s independent anime short “Fumiko no Kokuhaku”. Nicely done.

Dream Party Osaka 2009 Fall is this Sunday. Should be more of the same stuff as last month in Tokyo.

The OP for Love Death 4 is out and it’s obvious what the focus is.

Kiss to Maou to Darjeeling Review

Sarasa has finally arrived and I for one could not be happier! That is until I actually played the game. Not to say Kiss to Maou to Darjeeling (Dear god that is a long name, KissMaou it is from now on) is a terrible game but on the whole it simply lacks the sophistication a game of this type should have, and we have come to expect. Regardless of the disappointment I felt after playing there are still a few things to like about the game.

Grinning Over Imoutos

Play videos for Imouto Smile are up on Citron Soft’s site. There’s a video of the trial play and also a normal scene and H scene for each of the 6 imouto. It seems that the lucky protagonist will be referred to as onii-chan, nii-san, nii-sama and… nii-nii. I’m having flashbacks of Satoko from Higurashi. After listening to Akiho, I’m convinced she’s the second coming of Chinami.

Cotton Soft will be announcing their 5th game soon. SAGA PLANETS will have some merchandise for their next game (in 2010) on sale at Dream Party Osaka this Fall.

Remember all that ruckus a few months back? Illusion has unblocked foreign IPs.

I forgot to mention that the Moege Award 2009 results were announced at Dream Party Tokyo. The winner was Shin Koihime Musou (BaseSon), followed by Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai! (Minato Soft), Twinkle Crusaders (Lillian), Baldr Sky Dive1 “LostMemory” (GIGA) and 77 ~And two stars meet again~ (Whirlpool).

Lump of Sugar is holding a chara poll for all characters from Nursery Rhyme, Itsuka Todoku Ano Sora ni and Tayutama. Mashiro is currently leading; chibi Mashiro is too cute. The second Sakura Tale chara poll will run till December 31st. Mikage won the first one.

The winning H scene for Sakura and Koyuri in IchaPri! is poolside 3H. The currently running poll is for Tsubaki and Yuzuna. Choices are office cosplay 3P, china dress 3P in public or Tsubaki getting punished by Yuzuna and her onii-chan at school. I guess I’ll go with the china dress…

Japan won RWC2009, followed by the Philippines and Thailand. iRO managed to place 4th. Korea fell in the second round even though it had a bye, probably because of the mechanics change and 3rd class implementation. Dengeki has full coverage of the event: rounds 1&2, semifinals and finals. I’m quite surprised that iRO actually did pretty well… then I heard the team was pretty much all Pinoy.

Max Factory made quite the revealing figure for ToHeart2’s Tamaki. This 1/6 PVC figure will be out in April at 8800 yen. Akiba Hobby has a review up for it. I really don’t like how the hands were crafted.

Saki DVD vol7 comes with a Yumi x Momoko dakimakura cover. Not so stealthy there, Momo.

Busy week for me. Only played 15 mins of Mashifoni… Sakuno… （･∀･）ﾆﾔﾆﾔ

My boyfriend is the president. This brings new meaning to political affairs.

Princess Kurimu

♥ 「世界一の生徒会長」　桜野くりむ ♥
♥ Sakurano Kurimu – Best Student Council President in the World ♥

Inspired by フィン’s MAD for Toradora’s Ami, めでぃあさん created a Kurimu MAD using 転少女’s rendition of ryo’s Miku original “World is Mine”. Even though her voice is not exactly the same as Kurimu’s, with a bit too much low intonation, it’s pretty close. In terms of the animation, I thought it fit extremely well with the lyrics. Then again, there’s nothing I can say against a flood of moe Kurimu pics.

Beware of Chizuru. こっちのが危ないわよ！

As One Story Ends, Another Begins

CIRCUS held a mini live in Shibuya on November 1st as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations. Guests included yozuca* and CooRie. During this event, they announced their plans for upcoming games. It was also broadcasted live on Niconico and reported on by MOON PHASE.

Dream Party Tokyo 2009 Fall

Dream Party (Doripa) Tokyo 2009 Fall took place on October 25th at Tokyo Big Sight. A similar event will be held in Osaka on November 15th. Almost all major eroge companies took part, so almost 3/4 of the event was age restricted ^^;; Anyways, I’ve compiled some pictures from the event. Links are available at the end of the post if you wish to see more. Enjoy!

November 2009 Eroge Releases

Aside from the highly anticipated 2nd Baldr Sky game and Akatsuki Works Hibiki’s debut work Shiden, there are not many games this month. Personally, I’ll be busy with Suzunone Seven! -Sweet Lovers’ Concerto- and seeing if Imouto Smile lives up to my expectations. If you decide to skip a month to catch up on your backlog (including last month’s stash), this is the best time to do so.

All in all a lackluster month, probably due to everyone gearing up to vacuum the money out of your wallets for Christmas. That aside there are a few potential diamonds in the rough for this month which make up for the rest.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Hmm… now that I think about it, why is it happy? Isn’t Halloween supposed to be scary? Zen thinks that it should be called ‘crappy american cosplay day’. Well, whatever floats your boat.

As usual, a special banner (lovable Kaede) is up for the occasion. A new one will be up tomorrow, along with the November releases. If you plan to dress up and go trick or treating tonight, have lots of fun and get lots of yummy candy ^^

きひひひひひ

Return of the Lolipedofin

Newly announced games this week are:

ABHAR – Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete
BasiL – Rebirth ~Kioku e Tsumugu Rinbukyoku
Concerto – Oborokomachi
Lapis Lazuli – Areas ~Koisuru Otome no 3H~
Lime – Petapeta
Nel – Narikiri Ba-Couple (January 29th)
Shallot – Happy Wardrobe
Sprite – Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate

Concerto, Shallot and Sprite are all new companies. I’ll be keeping my eye on Sprite since their art is very pretty. Shallot is a sister company of the AkabeeSoft2 brand. Rebirth will be a full game of Rondo -O-va-chua- from Mogitate BasiL!. August will be also be announcing a new game later this winter.

TailWind/TailSkid announced that they were closing earlier this week. While I didn’t play their games, Trample on Schatten!! did get some good reviews.

Release dates have been set for the following games:

Ohimesama wa Banterareo – January 22nd
Kagura Gakuenki – January 29th
Oni Mari. – January 29th
Puara! – January 29th
Tenkuu no Yumina FD – January 29th

BaseSon’s Shin Koihime Musou Desktop Mascot ~Itsudemo Issho~ package will be coming out on December 25th.

TSUKASA’s EternalSky has been delayed a month to December 18th. The November list is looking very empty.

Since a lot of chara polls wrapped up this week, I’ll just quickly list them.

Coμ – Yoruko
Hapitora – Aina
Hime x Hime – Nanami
Imouto Smile – Shiki

Akatsuki Works Hibiki is holding a chara poll for upcoming game Shiden until November 14th. MOONSTONE Cherry is holding H scene polls for IchaPri!. The current one is Sakura and Koyuri (until November 4th). NekoNekoSoft is accepting suggestions for the Sorairo fandisk on their BBS. I just want more Ai-chan!!!

Suzunone Seven! will be ported to PS2 in March by Alchemist as Suzunone Seven! ~Rebirth knot~. There will be two new heroines introduced. Alchemist is also releasing a new game called No Fate! -only the power of will- for the PSP and Xbox 360. It comes out February 25th.

Good Smile Company is releasing a pair of figures for the Nanoha movie in January. First up is a mini Nanoha nendoroid for 3500 yen. The second is a Fate figma for 2800 yen, although it’s by Max Factory and the quality isn’t that good. Nanoha is adorable though ><b

A closer look at the mini Higurashi figures from Takara Tomy Arts that are part of the promotion for Higurashi Daybreak Portable MEGA Edition for the PSP. They cost 300 yen each and there’s rare versions too!

It seems like mini figures are really popular. Bandai Collectors has some really cute K-ON! figures for 500 yen each. The stand at the back looks awkward, but it’s fine from the front. My favs are Yui (stage ver), Azunyan and Ui. MOVIC is also releasing a 1/8 scale PVC original costume Mio figure. It’ll be out in January with a 7140 yen price tag. I like the design; they made good use of that zettai ryouiki.

Kotobukiya’s latest figure is a 1/10 scale PVC of Charlotte from Quartett!, an eroge by little witch which came out a few years ago. The design is relatively simple and the 3990 yen price tag reflects that. It’ll be out in February. They are also releasing a 1/8 scale PVC figure of my favorite character from Koihime Musou – ‘hawawa strategist’ Shuri! It’ll be out on February 28th at 5040 yen. She comes with her signature fan and you could take her beret off if you want (although why would you!?) はわわ！

The latest collaborations at ai Sp@ce are with NekoNekoSoft (Sorairo) and BaseSon (Koihime Musou – Shuri outfit). They keep on partnering with titles I like, but unfortunately it’s basically just a dress-up game. And they want you have to pay for it.

The GungHo Festival 2009 will be running this Sunday in Yokohama and it’s free to enter if you’re in the area. Flagship titles Ragnarok Online, Emil Chronicle Online and Grandia will be represented. The main event is the Ragnarok World Championship 2009 (RWC2009) which is held in Japan this year after being held in South Korea and the Philippines in past years. I’m not sure if any of my ex-guildies will be there, but good luck to the iRO contingent. They’ll need it.

In case you didn’t know how to masturbate…

Innovation at its best.

It took a while, but the company site listing has been updated. Please feel free to use this as a resource.

I hope you’re all having fun with this month’s releases. I’ll probably be starting up Shuffle! Essence+ in a few days. Wait for me, Daisy! November is looking really light, so you’ll have plenty of time to work on your backlogs ^^

Reimu & Marisa Mameshiki Figures

Liquid Stone recently started up their Mameshiki series for figures. This line of figures are high quality PVC which are chibified (1:2.5 proportion). Just like figmas, you can move them around so you can pose them anyway you like. The first two figures are Kirisame Marisa and Hakurei Reimu from Touhou. Release date will be in Spring 2010. Price isn’t known yet, but preorders start up on AmiAmi tomorrow. I really love the proportion; it makes them look so cute! The poses can be quite dynamic and the balancing is well done. It’s Liquid Stone’s first foray into making sd figma-style figures, but I think this is quite successful.

Liquid Stone product page
AmiAmi blog entry

Nendoroid Ritsu

The third member of the K-ON! nendoroid series from Good Smile Company is Ritsu! Release date is in February 2010, with a price tag of 4000 yen. She comes with the drum set, as well two additional faces (flustered and pained). You can also take her hairband off if you wish. Ritsu isn’t my one of my fav chars in the series, but this figure has more options than Mio and Yui.

Good Smile Company product page
Mika-tan blog

Dream Party: Aim for the Harem Route!

Dream Party 2009 Tokyo will be held this Sunday at the Tokyo Big Sight, with almost all companies attending it. There was a lot of news in the eroge world this week as companies prepare for this major event.

From this month’s issue of TECH GIAN comes a bunch of new game announcements. The main one (as Kres had already pointed out) is the RPG fandisk Tenkuu no Yumina -ForeverDreams-, with Nayuta as the main heroine. It’s scheduled for a winter 2010 release. Other games are:

AXL – AXL006 (no title yet)
LOVERSOUL – Green Strawberry
PeasSoft – Ama Ane (Spring 2010)

There’s also a mysterious game titled Taiyou no Ko, featuring staff from AkabeeSoft2, GIGA, CandySoft, among others. More news on this will come out in 2 months.

Windmill will also announce a new game next month. Lime plans to reveal their next game at Dream Party.

New release dates this week include:

Fake Azure Arcology – December 17th
Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~ – December 25th
Hana to Otome ni Shukufuku o Royal Bouquet – January 29th
RUNE LORD – January 29th
Yunibaru! Paranormal Girls Strike!! – January 29th
KOI-LABO. – February 26th

The following games have been delayed:

Natsuiro Penguin – November 27th
Manaka de Ikuno!! – December 18th
PARA-SOL – February 19th
se.Kirara – March 26th

φâge opened the official site for Shapeshifter. It’s quite a change from their previous work, Owaranaki Natsu Towa Naru Shirabe. Taking a look at the seiyuu… isn’t this basically the same cast!?

There’s a seiyuu change for Erika in D.C.II Fall in Love. She is now voiced by Tamiyasu Tomoe instead of Ishikawa Yoshiko.

The last part of Leaf’s Manaka de Ikuno!! fandisk is Mananatsu, a 3D after story for ToHeart2’s Manaka. Iincho’s so cute >_<

Navel blocked foreign IPs for all of one day. Wonder what that was about. Anyways, there will be 12 endings for SHUFFLE! Essence+ and some routes (like Daisy’s) will not be open at the very beginning. Rumors has it there’s a bonus if you finish the entire game.

For Accany and Algester: The trial for Innocent Grey’s Caucasus is now available. Enjoy! For Hemi-tan: One part of Alice 2010 fandisk is something called Haruka vs Escalayer. Interested?

More info about the story for Citron Soft’s Imouto Smile has come out. Some rich kid who lives alone sees a cute girl outside and thinks that it would be nice if she were his little sister, and then she comes to his door and announces that she is. What? I didn’t expect much of a plot, but this is pretty bad. Looking at the H scene dialogue, it seems more like a nukige than one based on a story. I’m highly disappointed since I wanted a good story with lots of imouto meromero.

If I wanted to play a nukige, it’d be MoonStone Cherry’s IchaPri!. They recently added a special page detailing all the H stuff. There’s plenty of 3P and even a harem route. Sugisaki would be happy.

Miru won the second &LOVE chara poll. You can download a commemorative wallpaper off Comet’s site.

The chara poll for Tropical Kiss has started up with Matsuri and Hotaru currently in the lead. You can vote once per day until November 5th. There’s also a chara poll for Sugarcoat Freaks, although it doesn’t seem like there’s an end date. I guess it’s until the release date on December 18th. Green Strawberry also has a chara poll even though it was just announced. It runs until November 9th. Sakurako is really cute ^^

Battler won the first chara poll on 07th Expansion for Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru. Beatrice placed second. In announcing the results on the blog, Ryukishi07 also broke news that long-time 07th Expansion staff member and close friend BT-san passed away due to illness. His post was really touching. RIP.

Studio Ryokucha has an interesting poll running on their Koiiro Sora Moyou blog. If you could change your past, to which point in time would you return to? Personally, I would repeat my high school days and then complete university again, but without falling into the trap known as MMOs. Of course, that depends on if you retain your memories so you don’t make the same mistakes. Hindsight is always 20/20.

It’s the 10th anniversary for NekoNekoSoft (although they took a 3 year break in the middle) and they will hold a poll regarding the Sorairo fandisk next week. I’m almost done Ai’s world in Sorairo and I really loved Ai’s route. Kenji and Ai are the best siblings ever!

Latest goodies from Good Smile Company are charms of the really cute Pylori Miku and Pylori Rin and cathead Toet. These 30mm tall charms come out in January, at a price of 500 yen each. Their latest PVC figure is Hayakawa Yuzuko from Yuzuko Peppermint. It comes out in March at a price of 9800 yen, with a drama CD and booklet. I haven’t heard of this manga before. The chain and movement is nice, but I don’t like the blue/white hair. The next nendoroid is Magical Marine Pixel Mari-tan’s Jiei-tan, scheduled for March at 4500 yen for the special edition (3500 yen for normal).

Kotobukiya’s latest Strike Witches figure is of Lynette Bishop, with a January released date and a price tag of 7140 yen. I’m still not fond of those legs.

There will be a Saber figma packaged with the upcoming PSP game Fate/Extra. Looks ok, but not the best Saber figure out there.

The OP for Higurashi Daybreak Portable Mega Edition is out. Hauuu~ Chibi charas are adorable!

Currently running anime that now have console games include: Sora no Otoshimono (PSP) and Seitokai no Ichizon (DS). I wonder if SoraOto will be a flying game. Please make Sei☆Zon a VN!!!

Speaking of SoraOto, people were so moved by the 2nd episode’s ED that they tried it out. Beautiful.

Dengeki Moeou releases an illustration collection every season and the theme for this winter is bandages (ばんそうこう). Mini-figures of the To Aru Majutsu no Index cast will accompany the upcoming issues of Dengeki Daioh.

“Nakeru! Bishoujo Game Goroku” (1260 yen) by PHP Kenkyuusho offers famous quotations from nakige (games that make you cry). key’s works are definitely included, along with Da Capo, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Fate/stay night (although this isn’t really a nakige), Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku o and Kazoku Keikaku. Samples can be seen off Akiba Blog. I’ve always loved nakige for their stories. A ranking on Niconico listed AIR as the top nakige as of July 2007. What do you think is the best one now?

Majisuki and Sakura Sakura have visual fan books coming up. I still find them a bit on the expensive side.

Pizza Hut supports Railgun. I’m very interested in that double roll.

I laughed at George not being on the cover of his own Umineko character album. The guy can’t catch any breaks.

PonyCanyon released a sound CD called NaviKano ~Omukae ni Kichatta~, where you can choose between a ladylike osananajimi or a tomboyish imouto to be your raburabu guide as you journey from the Tokyo Big Sight to Shinbashi station. The tracks are coordinated with the stations on the Yurikamome. This is a brilliant idea.

Really really cute Yunocchi USB bundled with the Hidamari Sketch x365 Special DVD.

I know I’ve mentioned Kagabuu before, but I find it too funny not to post more pictures of her.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, I’m quite busy IRL. I’ll try to keep the weekly news on Friday, but there might be times when it’s pushed back to Saturday or Sunday.

Saimoe 2009 Winner

Congratulations to Taiga, winner of Saimoe 2009.

Sorairo Fandisk in the Works

HOOK is planning to release a short FairlyLife fandisk Yorikorimakuri at Comiket 77 this December. In their latest 4koma, NekoNekoSoft has also declared that they’re working on a Sorairo fandisk.

The following games have release dates set:

Hoshi Uta ~Starlight Serenade~ – December 25th
CureFull! – January 29th
Harukazedori ni, Tomarigiri o. 2nd Story – January 29th
id -Rebirth Session- – January 29th
Mahonyo! – January 29th

Skyprythem was pushed back one week to October 30th.

The OP to eufonie’s Hidamari Basket is up and I’m already quite looking forward to the game, especially Kasuga’s route.

SMEE has started up the Love Delation! chara poll. It lasts till November 20th. Nanaka placed first in the Nega0 after release chara poll. There’s a commemorative wallpaper available for download. The total vote count seems pretty low.

I recently read a review of light novel Dekotsun off JITSU’s blog. Oh man, Kokoa is so adorable and their relationships sounds as beautiful as Kenji and Ai’s in Sorairo. I should pick this up next time I buy manga.

There’s lots of hype about the upcoming PS3 game Ar Tonelico 3. It hits shelves January 28th.

The Fate series now has a PSP game with the introduction of Fate/Extra.

ALTER is releasing a 1/7 scale PVC figure of Shamal from Nanoha StrikerS. She comes with puppy Zafila. Release date is March 2010 and it’ll cost a whopping 10290 yen.

Orchid Seed will release a 1/7 scale PVC figure of Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica’s Corticarte in January 2010. Standing around 22cm tall, it’ll cost 7800 yen.

Kaito nuigurumi from Gift actually looks pretty nice. It has a November release date and a 3675 yen price tag.

It seems that mini-figurines of the student council girls from Seitokai no Ichizon in bloomers will be made by Fujimi Shobou. They’ll tentatively come out in May 2010, with a total cost of 2980 yen. I hope they look nice. Kurimu~

No webclap responses this time around. It’s been a hectic week for me.

For some reason, CandySoft made a dance for the TsuyoKiss series. It’s actually pretty well done.