Is It Me Or Do Otome Games Have An Unhealthy Relationship With Brothers?

I love otome games, and I’ll sing their praises to anyone willing to sit still long enough, but even I can admit that they have their flaws. The portrayal of the MCs is one of the biggest complaints folks have about otome games, since most are little more than blank slate self insert characters. But, fans and critics alike have been beating that dead horse for years now and I’ve said my piece about otome heroines quite a few times in the past, so I wanted to talk about something different: brothers. 

I’ve been sitting on this for awhile now, but I never really knew how to go about talking about otome games and their complicated relationship with siblings, specifically brothers. Now, otome games aren’t the only medium to toe the incest line, especially when there are anime like Oreimo floating around… But, over the years I’ve noticed that there are quite a few otome games that either flat out focus on romancing siblings or slip it in as a “secret” ending and I haven’t really seen many people talking about it.

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D.N. Angel is the Reason I have Commitment Issues with Ongoing Series

So, it was recently brought to my attention that Yukiru Sugisaki would start reviving her long running fantasy romance manga series D.N. Angel this year. This is the first mention of anything new from the series since the author went on hiatus 8 YEARS AGO! Yes, you read that right, it has been 8 years since the release of volume 15 back in 2011 and what’s worse, this isn’t even the first time the series has been on hiatus and I’m pretty damn sure it won’t be the last… so, forgive me if I’m not shouting from the rooftops at the announcement that the series is finally back from the dead.

Some context… 

D.N. Angel follows Daisuke Niwa a 13 year old boy who is descended from a long line of phantom thieves. Daisuke is kinda shy and pretty average, despite having been put through a rigorous training regimen by his mother and grandfather. Other than that life is pretty normal! On his 14th birthday he finally plucks up the courage to confess to the girl of his dreams, Risa Harada, but homegirl turns him down hard! Full of teen angst and fueld by his broken heart, Daisuke goes home to mope a bit, thats when he gets hit with magical puberty. His body transforms into that of the handsome phantom thief Dark Mousy (my first anime crush). Daisuke freaks the fuck out, thankfully his mom is around to explain that the transformation is completely normal, having affected all of the Niwa men for generations. The change she explains is triggered by the host’s romantic feelings of love, and will keep happening until Daisuke finds someone who can love him and Dark. The rest of the story focuses on Daisuke’s attempts to balance his normal life with that of his secret phantom thief alter ego. To make matters worse, Dark has his own consciousness within Daisuke which often gets him into trouble as they both struggle to coexist. Then Daisuke goes and falls in love with Risa’s twin sister, Riku who absolutely hates Dark after he stole her first kiss… yeah, and I thought I had problems…

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[Melanin Monday] So Is It Just Me or Did They Kill A Lot of Black Folks in Infinity War?!: A Rant

If you happened to stumble upon this post by accident, this will be the last spoiler warning before I start my rant… I will not apologize to anyone that knowingly reads beyond this point and gets spoiled for Infinity War, that’s on you boo.\

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So I joined droves of moviegoers in seeing one of the most anticipated superhero films to come out this year, Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War. Ten years of planning and 19 films have lead to this sort of final act in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved Infinity War, it had everything I could ask for in a superhero film: all the heroes (minus Hawkeye and AntMan, they got put on the bus for this one), action, suspense, witty banter, and one of the biggest emotional sucker punches so far this year. It was an almost perfect film and I applaud Marvel (read: Disney) for pulling it off, if you’d asked me back in 2004 if I thought Marvel would have the monopoly on superhero films, I’d have probably laughed in your face and bopped you on the head with my homemade wand and pulled off on the Hogwarts Express back to Harry Potter-ville.

*** Infinity War Spoilers***

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Why Are All the Black People Slaves?!: A Short Rant about Taarradhin

I was originally going to post this as part of my Melanin Monday segment, but, WordPress decided that my original post was a bit too radical and saw fit to DELETE EVERYTHING I WROTE! But, thankfully despite that I was able to salvage most of it with the help of WP’s nifty ‘History’ feature, so, it wasn’t a total loss…

I want to first clarify that this is not a review, but a critique of Cyanide Tea’s decision to create a game that featured characters of color, specifically Black and brown skinned characters, as slaves in a game that allows the player to romance said slaves. Let me say that again, THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF Taarradhin! I will write a proper review some time in the near future, but this post, is most certainly not a review, so if you are expecting a review, come back later. For everyone else, the opinions reflected in this post are my own, so, if you are uncomfortable with discussions of race or slavery, you might want to check out one of my other game reviews or discussion pieces

Before I start this rant, I want to give you guys a bit of background about Taarradhin.

Taarradhin is a Pay-What-You-Want original English language visual novel (OELVN) from Cyanide Tea (Lorelei and Auro-Cyanide). The game was created for NaNoReNo 2014 and features two potential love interests (GxG and GxB) with five endings. It’s a rather short game taking between 30 mins to an hour to complete.

Synopsis

A seven-year drought plagues the entire region surrounding the country of Nishtif, leading people to wonder if their goddess Scheknt has abandoned them. In contrast, young noblewoman Neqtia has lived a comfortable life insulated from hardship and suffering. One of the poorer surrounding countries, Djedi, sends their usual tribute of natural resources and livestock to Nishtif in exchange for the larger country’s aid and protection. Rumors that two attractive slaves are among the cargo intrigue Neqtia. What lies in store for her after the slaves are brought to live at her family estate…?

Official Description

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Melanin Monday: Why We Need Quality Representation- A Short Rant

Hey Hey Heroes, Travelers, and Wandering NPCs, it’s Black History Month once again and with it comes the revival of Melanin Monday, the post series where I talk about the representation of Black and brown characters in pop culture. While I mainly focus on the nerdier side of the pop culture spectrum, from time to time I will cover more personal posts about my experiences as a Black nerd.

This started as part of Black History Month 2017, but you guys liked it so much that I decided to keep it going, albeit rather sporadically. However, for the month of February I will try to post one of these every Monday.

This week I didn’t really have anything planned since this post coincides with my OWLS Blog Tour post, and I am notorious for waiting until the last minute to do anything… So rather than focus on a particular form of media, I’m just going to talk about the importance of representation in general… as a rant.

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Mystic Messenger Bans and the Petition

Edit (9/25): I have been receiving a large number of comments from players that are receiving bans for reasons other than turning back the time on their devices. If you feel that you have been wrongfully banned, contact Cheritz directly and submit an official report on the issue through: help@cheritz.com!

Edit 9/24: The petition was removed from Change.org due to negative backlash on twitter. The creator posted an explanation on Instagram, but it has since been removed

*Cheritz has lifted bans on all wrongfully banned accounts, read the full post, HERE!*

I really thought that I was done writing about Mystic Messenger, but the recent update has many in the fandom up in arms and I think it’s time I gave opinion on the matter.

I do not stand behind that silly Petition, in fact, I think the whole thing is utterly ridiculous! For those who don’t know, Cheritz just released an update that changed some things about the Mystic Messenger experience:

  1. Players that were/are resetting their device times to replay missed chats will now have their accounts PERMANENTLY BANNED!
  2. Max Speed in chats will now be reserved for VIP members only. VIP membership can be  purchased from Cheritz, HERE.
  3. Cheritz will also be restricting the number of save files players can use for free.
  4. Finally, 5 HOURGLASSES will be used every time players load a save file!

First, I see absolutely nothing wrong with these updates. Cheritz is still a relatively small developer and they spent a lot of time and money to make this game a reality. So, it only makes sense that they would try to recoup some of their investments. Developing a game, especially a voiced game requires a considerable amount of money and time. And the fact that Cheritz decided to make the game a free to play app is very generous on their part! So when I saw that some angry fan went out and created petitions against Cheritz on Change.org, I was a little pissed off and here’s why…

*This post is my opinion and it’s cool if you don’t agree with it, I am open to hearing what everyone has to say, but I WILL NOT TOLERATE any personal attacks. Do not use my comments section to attack anyone, be sure to keep all discussions tame.

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Dangerous Relationship Kei Toyonaga Review

Dangerous Relationship is a celebrity dating otome game published by Dogenzaka Labs for PC and Switch. Kei Toyonaga is a rising actor, who is known in the industry for his mercurial temperament and womanizing ways. As a reviewer I always try to find at least one redeeming quality about every game. But, I had a really hard time finding anything good about Kei’s route in Dangerous Relationship.

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Look at that smug face
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Books to Film

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*So you may notice this has absolutely nothing to do with otome/otoge…sorry…maybe the next post…*

why not

Ahem…so…

I love movies…I love books…hell, I even love movies based on books….But with that said, it is a fact that few things translate perfectly across media. They can get close to the original source, but nine times out of ten, they just don’t match up. Don’t get me wrong not all movies based on books are crap, some are far better than their book counterpart (I’m having a hard time thinking of any right now…but I’m sure they exist). The Harry Potter movies, while not as awesome as the books, definitely did a good job at channeling the magic.  But, more times than not a director will take some liberties when translating a beloved story to the big screen.

For true fans of a work film adaptions may seem like a watered down or diet version of their book sources. But in their defense movies have to contend with time and audience attention. I for one am not willing allot more than two hours on a movie…anything longer than that better be damn good! The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit Trilogies are the exception…and even then I had to fight the urge to take a nap!

I have seen my share of duds… some movie adaptions have made me cringe, cry, and just walk out of a theater in frustration (and with ticket prices at $13, that says a lot). But there have been others that so perfectly captured my image of the characters and story that I could have sworn the director had been peeking into my imagination. But then there are some adaptations are so different that its hard to find the connection to the source material.

So let’s all, Not judge books by their movies!

Irony…

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“It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.”

-Bridget Jones

Like when your boyfriend of five years breaks up with you, just when everyone you know is getting married or engaged. I mean come on, if I had a dollar for all the engagement notifications on my Facebook timeline…let’s just say I’d never have to budget my otome/otoge spending ever again…

cash

It’s like the universe has a series of checks and balances that always manages to produce the worst possible outcome at the worst possible time…eerie! So lets make the best of a crappy situation…

My list of my Top 10 Fictional Men!

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My So Called Life…

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So this semester the professors have turned it up to 11 with the amount of work they want! One professor has assigned THREE papers within a week of each other and they are all due sometime at the end of the month!

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Yeah I feel ya Bro!

I mean come on, can I finish the first paper BEFORE you give me another one?!? And that’s just one class! I’m taking four (for grad school that’s a lot).

Then there is work..Let’s not get started on the personal hell that place is, but it pays the rent and supports my habit…so that is an inevitability…

poor

So where am I going with this?

Nowhere really…I just wanted to rant! But I suppose if I had to come up with something on the pop fly, it would be that:

I may be slow about posting for a little bit, at least until I get my assignments started. In the event that I do post something there is a strong possibility that I will be procrastinating on some paper or another or clearing out my drafts.

snorlax used motivation
All rights on that to TomLedin!!!

Here’s the link to the shirt: https://www.teepublic.com/show/7037-snorlax-used-motivation