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pokeninja90

I'm a blerd who just so happens to love anime, manga, and games (especially Pokemon and Otome Games).

Therapy Game Vol. 1 – BL Manga Review

By pokeninja90 on July 23, 2020 • ( 1 Comment )

I couldn’t help myself. After reading Secret XXX, I was eager to read more works by Meguru Hinohara and lucky for me I had volume 1 of her spin-off series Therapy Game sitting pretty at the top of my TBR pile. I planned on waiting until volume 2 was released to review the series, but September 8th is just a little too far off for my tastes, so I succumbed to the siren call and read the entire volume in one sitting… and I didn’t think it was possible, but Hinohara really outdid herself!

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This is the moment I knew I was gonna love this manga! #therapygame #manga #boyslove #blmanga #meguruhinohara

A post shared by Naja B. (@blerdyotome) on Jul 17, 2020 at 4:34am PDT

Therapy Game is a spin-off of Meguru Hinohara’s debut boys love manga Secret XXX, this time around the story focuses not on Shohei and Mito, but on their brothers, Shizuma and Minato—both of whom appeared as side characters in the prequel series. Shizuma was relegated to a background role in Secret XXX, but we spent quite a bit of time with Minato, so I was eager to see him stepping into a more prominent role in this series.

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Melanin Monday – ‘Xenopathy’

By pokeninja90 on July 20, 2020 • ( 1 Comment )

=Hey Blerdy Tribe, it’s Melanin Monday here on Blerdy Otome and that means I’m spotlighting another Melanin Friendly Game! For those of you just joining the party—every Monday I spotlight games that feature black and brown characters for anyone looking for titles with just a bit more representation. As a blerd and a gamer, I am always on the lookout for representation in my games. This is largely a personal project for me—there are almost no “diverse game” tags on major game sites—so, it can be pretty difficult find games with characters of color… unless you already know where to look.

This week, I’m spotlighting the sci-fi mystery visual novel, Xenopathy from Marine Dateologist, a collaborative team made up of indie developers PMscenarios, Bob Conway, and SoulofEA. The game was originally created over two months as part of the 2018 Yaoi Game Jam, and currently only the first part is available. Xenopathy is described as a hybrid romance-mystery, taking place in the future, where humanity has taken to the stars. There they encounter the Ishin, a race of alien symbiotes who can temporarily share a body with a willing host. In the game you play as one of these symbiotes—their first host is a shy bio-engineer named Axton, who is hoping his new alien companion can help give him the courage he needs to confess to his crush. Things don’t go as planned and when the alien bonds with their second host, this time with more darker intentions.

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Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice Episode 1 – Anime First Impressions

By pokeninja90 on July 16, 2020 • ( 1 Comment )

Hey, hey Blerdy Tribe, the first episode of the anime adaptation of Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice just dropped on Crunchyroll and I wanted to share my thoughts. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice is a female oriented mobile game developed by Chinese game developer Elex in 2017.

Mr. Love gives you the opportunity to text, chat and even call the main characters while developing your own career as a media producer. In the game you play as a media producer trying to save your failing production company—fantasy and romance collide as you become involved with four men, each with a secret of their own. With each new episode you uncover the truth behind the mystery, unveiling an immersive story.

Full disclosure, I downloaded the app and played maybe 2 episodes and then dropped the game (because I can’t keep up with mobile games), soI have a very basic knowledge of the game and it’s premise—so what I’m saying is I’m no expert on Mr. Love. I went into this first episode practically blind, so forgive me in advanced if I bring up something that is explained in the game.

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Secret XXX – BL Manga Review

By pokeninja90 on July 15, 2020 • ( 2 Comments )

Being stuck at home for what is going on five months has been great for my TBR list (my gaming backlog not so much), so I’ve been on a bit of a manga buying spree. Granted almost all of my new buys have been BL manga, but lets chock that up to the boom in legitimate boys love releases and not on my status as a self-proclaimed fujoshi.

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Finally read through my copy of Secret XXX and it was so cute 😊 Between the bunnies and and Shohei, I dunno which was more adorable! This was my first Meguru Hinohara series but I'm glad I picked it up (I'll be starting Therapy Game next)Big thanks to @sublimemanga for bringing us this series uncensored!! #secretxxx #meguruhinohara #boyslove #bl #manga

A post shared by Naja B. (@blerdyotome) on Jul 15, 2020 at 6:43am PDT

During one of my more recent hauls I snagged a copy of Secret XXX by Meguru Hinohara and I’m going to keep it real with you guys, I have never read anything else by this author. In fact, I wasn’t even planning on buying Secret XXX, the manga I actually wanted to buy was volume 1 of her ongoing series, Therapy Game—which I totally bought btw. It was only after I hit the order button that I discovered that Therapy Game is a spin off of Secret XXX, and not wanting to miss out on any details, I placed a second order and I am so glad I did! I wasn’t familiar with Meguru Hinohara’s works before this, so I had no idea what to expect from this one volume story—what I got was a cute story that was equal parts sweet and spicy.

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Confessions of an Otome Gamer: Otome Game Fans are REAL Gamers

By pokeninja90 on July 14, 2020 • ( 3 Comments )

So, when I wrote my anime gatekeeping essay, I was actually attempting to write about gatekeeping in the games community. But, I ended up running super long with the intro and rather than writing a ridiculously long post on gatekeeping, I decided to split the difference and write two separate posts. However, don’t get it twisted, gatekeeping in the gaming community is something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a VERY long time, I just wanted to be sure that when I finally penned this post, that I didn’t devolve into incoherent ranting. I try to keep things classy here.

So, for those of you that don’t know, “gatekeeping” is what happens when elitism, entitlement, and privilege are allowed to run unchecked, resulting in a select group of individuals taking it upon themselves to preserve the sanctity of a particular “thing” by regulating what is and isn’t acceptable. Like bouncers who keep unwanted individuals from entering an establishment, gatekeepers act as the buffer between true fans of a medium and the uninformed masses. Gatekeepers see themselves as true fans, working tirelessly to ensure that the sanctity of their media isn’t tarnished by those they deem unworthy. The problem is that these individuals take things to the extreme, devaluing anyone and anything that doesn’t align with their “vision” of what a true fan should be… and it is this behavior that creates a lot of unnecessary negativity.

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