Playing a Bishoujo Game is Futility Project: To Heart 2 edition

bluemist’s Ultimate “Playing a Bishoujo Game is Futility” Project

To Heart 2

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Let’s just end this once and for all!

What are you trying to do here?
I will attempt the impossible by playing through a bishoujo game… in Japanese.

Are you suicidal?
This is just because of the extreme urge to somehow play a popular bishoujo game.

You won’t understand it at all!
Yes I know. For one, To Heart 2 is a Visual Novel. It has TONS of text which I won’t understand whe way I am now.

But because this is an attempt at futility, I have some tricks up my sleeve:
– I have a walkthrough.
– I have 5% knowledge of conversational Japanese.

Using the walkthrough, I’ll be able to get a proper ending with a specific girl… if I follow directions right.

And using my 5% Japanese words, vocabulary and sentence understanding, I may be able to understand the story.

This is ridiculous. You won’t understand the story without the text. Besides, the player is YOU. You are supposed to be talking, but the talk is only through the text. The girls and other people may be talking to you through voice-overs, but that means you are getting half the conversation only.
Yes I will get half the story that way.

Enough self-talk. Let’s see where this goes.

You will find my introduction and updates through the URL:
http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/toheart2/

Anime On Location

Of course, not all places in anime worlds are virtual. Some of them are artistic renditions of real places in Japan, others are completely based upon the place.

This post is a collective of links and images which feature some locations in Japan which have been rendered in animation through various anime productions.

This is gonna be an ongoing collective so if anyone wants to contribute other material related to this, just comment in this post. Please do also contact me if some of the links are already down.

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Locations of NANA
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Nana Navigator Nana (arrgh ok, the Nana anime navigator who happens to be named Nana too) reports about Jackson Hole, the cafe that some characters of the [Nana->] series hang out in. This is actually a real cafe in Japan, with the same design. I capped some shots of it.

Locations of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
http://haruhi.sonnabakana.com/file.html
http://kanai.dw.land.to/location/haruhi.htm
Nice comparison shots from the Suzumiya Haruhi anime and the real deal.

Locations of Ichigo Mashimaro
http://www2.wbs.ne.jp/~misscast/location/ichigo_marsh/marshmallow.html
Interesting stuff. The manga settings were derived from these places, so hopefully they would be rendered in the new anime as well.

Locations of Kamichu!
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sgtpepper/20050711/p1
Pretty nice, a couple of comparison shots of the town of Kamichu.

Locations of Mahou Sensei Negima
http://forums.animeblogger.net/viewtopic.php?t=99
Maestro4k has some interesting shots over at the forums, real places where Negima’s Mahora Gakuen locations are seemingly inspired from. Look at the Library Island, it looks very similar.

Locations of Futakoi Alternative
http://www3.plala.or.jp/happyhobby/2koi/2koi.htm
This town seems to be called Nikotama. Looks… desolated. How did the guy take pictures of the streets without any people in sight? Probably early morning.

Locations of Uta~Kata
http://matthew.animeblogger.net/archives/2004/12/07/utakatas_setting.php
http://www22.ocn.ne.jp/~autumn/tabi_utakata.html
It is said that Uta~Kata takes place in Kamakura. Matthew has some pictures up, while the Japanese link shows more pictures of Kamakura, with matching Ichika and Manatsu figures showing up sometimes.

Locations of Initial D
http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~eg9/gallery.htm
The tracks on Initial D are amazingly based on real-life mountain passes in Japan. If you do get to Japan and drive these mountains, don’t even dare to try driving like Takumi. Just enjoy the view.

Locations of Onegai Teacher/Onegai Twins
http://www.eonet.ne.jp/~smith/article/log/20030825.htm
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~kazeyama/one2sato/one2sato.htm
These two sites compare real-life counterparts with the corresponding animated backgrounds. The resemblance is absolutely impressive.

Locations of Love Hina
http://www.geocities.com/myksvoll/photo1.htm
This is a nice page about real-life locations used in Love Hina, including an actual Hinata Sou.

Locations of Air
http://htc.moon.st/ota/05041601.html
http://tarax.flop.jp/alive/log/000660.html#more
I found this interesting site which features the real-life locations for the bishoujo game and anime Air. Those Misuzu and Minagi dolls will guide you through the places, with the corresponding screenshots for the animes. The site also seems to feature other locations for bishoujo games like Fate/Stay Night, so check them out as well. The second link goes to the same location, this time… a real-life Misuzu acts out scenes from Air?? Find out how they did it…

Shibuya
Shibuya is a popular shopping and entertainment district. It is where lots of gals hang out and shop around. It’s the perfect setting for the anime Super GALS! Kotobuki Ran.

Shibuya 109
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A popular building for those fashionistas…

Hachiko Park
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A park with a dog statue named Hachiko. Hachiko was regarded as Japan’s most faithful dog because it patiently waited outside Shibuya station for its owner every day, even years after its owner died.

Tokyo Big Sight
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The Tokyo International Exhibition Center, more known as Tokyo Big Sight, is Japan’s largest exhibition and convention center. For otakus, this means a haven of comic and anime-related conventions being held there, the most popular being Comic Market.
Anime:
Comic Party
Comic Party Revolution
Genshiken

Kyoto
Kyoto, being one of the most popular tourist destinations, would obviously be used by countless other anime series. Whenever there is a field trip in an anime, Kyoto is a preferred tourist spot.

Kiyomizu temple
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Kiyomizu is a popular temple in Kyoto because of its great height and view.
Anime:
Love Hina
Mahou Sensei Negima
Sensei no Ojikan

Sasuke = Anakin

Well, this season is supposed to be Star Wars season, and I’m supposed to stop watching anime for a while because of all the hype (ex. rewatching the rest of the old and new trilogy), but oh well…

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What made Sasuke and Anakin similar?
– They’re sorta chosen ones.
– They’re cool-looking, in that fangirls may react the same way once he appears on-screen. (kyaa Sasuke! kyaa Hayden!)
– They’re powerful in the worlds of their own respective franchises.
– They took the path to darkness.

However, the circumstances to which they took the dark path are somewhat different.
– Sasuke wants more power to avenge the death of his family and the rest of Uchiha, by killing his own brother.
– Anakin wants more power to somehow save his wife Padme from his nightmares of her dying at child birth.

Sasuke wants revenge but Anakin simply wants her loved ones to live. So, does that give Anakin enough reason to turn over to the dark side of the Force? Does that make Sasuke only purely evil? Not quite.
– While Sasuke’s intentions seem unjustifiable, he still tries to make good on the rest, like not killing Naruto, or not sacrificing the lives of other people in achieving his goals.
– Over the course of Anakin becoming Darth Vader, he grows from being merely protective of Padme to being extremely delusional of his newfound power, to the point that the dark side has consumed him. He even forgot his original intention of saving Padme’s life at one point, and many lives were sacrificed in achieving his goals.

So, what hope is left of these two dark heroes?
– Well, we haven’t seen too much Sasuke lately, but we still know there is good in him. Hopefully Naruto will bring him back and snap him out of his avenger mode.
– Well, if you have seen the old trilogy of Star Wars, you would know the answer to this. Let’s just say that good is still in Anakin/Darth Vader.

To Heart ~Remember my Memories~

To Heart ~Remember my Memories~

I love the [To Heart->] anime. I love that anime so much, that I really wished nothing will get wrong about the new series which is called To Heart ~Remember my Memories~.

Alas, I was wrong.

Being an anime-only fan of To Heart, I can already expect that I may not deserve to say bad things about To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ (hereby named as To Heart R for clarity), clearly because I haven’t even played the entire game nor understood it fully. For the bishoujo game players, To Heart R is a big treat. They get to see the new stories that happen after the original game. To Heart R is not a direct sequel of To Heart, and because of this, I am trying hard to separate them.

Technically, it’s an absolute shame. The art and animation levels are more of a stock market from the first 2/3 of this series. Sometimes good, sometimes horrible. I know that the producers of this anime are trying to make an accurate art rendition of To Heart using the original game’s character designs, and that’s fine with me. However, the massive and radical differences of the designs between each episode really make me sick. The same character in ep. 1 may not ever look the same in other episodes. Thankfully, the latter part of the series have gotten it right, which makes you wonder why they didn’t do it that way from the first time through. Yup, even before Mahou Sensei Negima, anime like To Heart R is already suffering from varying sakuga levels.

The story is, for me, something up for debate. On one hand, it was nice that they had a full forward story approach, as opposed to the filler-ish nature of the first series. On the other hand, one can argue that the series has been too focused on Multi. Multi’s plotlines run deep through every single episode of To Heart R, in that you may think they are really leaving Akari behind, despite her being the main girl. For fans of the iconic HMX-12 robot, To Heart R is a dream come true. For non-fans of Multi, To Heart R became too unfair to the other characters.

The biggest complaint I had with To Heart R is of one character itself, and that’s Hiroyuki. This is really the biggest disappointment that made me want to ask if his attitude is really that way in the original game. To Heart R’s Hiroyuki is the most insensitive, indecisive, and inconsistent bishoujo male lead I’ve ever seen. It’s an extreme reverse to To Heart’s Hiroyuki, the bored but kind male lead. There is a reason for the girls to love Hiroyuki of the original To Heart, because he is really kind and helpful to all of them. To Heart R’s Hiroyuki, yea sure he’s kind too, but I really can’t see it that way. For one, his “cruelty level” to a person is proportional to how close the person is to him. It means that he is somewhat mean to Masashi and Shiho, and to the worst extent, he is really mean to Akari. He is also hot-headed, and shouts a lot, especially when things don’t go his way. He is impolite to the elders he talks to throughout this series.

I really wonder how the To Heart R Hiroyuki made 3 girls in love with him. Yes folks, 3 people confessed to him in this series, as opposed to 0 in the first. And I really hate how he handled their broken hearts. We all know Akari is the main girl, and Hiroyuki is destined to be with Akari. But those 2 other poor girls got the no answer while Hiroyuki is still confused about his priorities, and Akari is being jealous. Therefore, the 2 busted girls didn’t have the chance to to make themselves worthy of Hiroyuki’s affection at all.

I want to say something good this time about To Heart R. Well, the OP and ED are really good. The OP reminds me of classic bishoujo game music, while the ED is a new rendition of a popular To Heart song. There are also multiple cameos of characters from the new bishoujo game To Heart 2, which I liked very much. The voice cast is almost the same as the first series, which is one of the best ingredient of this anime. Back in 1999, many of those seiyuu are already relatively popular. In 2004, the same seiyuu cast made To Heart R one of the most spectacular lineup of voice talents in recent history. I never thought I could see [Yui Horie->horie-yui] and Ayako Kawasumi together in an anime again.

I really want to say many more things about To Heart R, but you may be bored about this absolutely biased rant. Sorry that I am biased towards the original To Heart anime, but that’s my true and honest opinion. To Heart R is actually an ok anime, but because of so many reasons, I can’t find myself to liking it.

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This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Musical Surprise

There are some times when you feel awesomely about an anime character. Mostly, you feel awe when some shounen character makes some cool new action moves.

Me? I feel awe whenever I see an anime character play a musical instrument.

It’s just my own outlook, but whenever an anime character know some musical expertise, I feel like they put themselves out of character for a little while, and it’s cool. More especially, if I never saw that coming.

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 5:

This is Souju in an entirely different aura. This scene of her playing a guitar seems so unbelievably sentimental. You can imagine how Alternative this anime is. One day they run around, do spying, cooking, and cosplaying gothlolis. Then here is Souju, playing guitar. According to the episode, the song is Daisy Fitzgerald’s Unitable Dream. Although I swore I have heard that kind of guitar pattern before, I never knew whether it was a rendition or an original. All I would realize is that in our real world, a novelist named F. Scott Fitzgerald had written a novel called The Great Gatsby, in which one of the main characters was apparently named Daisy.

Taken from Mahoraba 20:

Now this is the surprise. Momono, yup that rowdy girl who drinks beer everyday… a pianist! And hear this… Sayoko, the incompetent and slow mother… a violinist! They played a classical music combo for a school festival… and they are nothing short of amazing! I could still understand Momono, having that sweet soft side at one point of the series, but heck Sayoko. She would have made a living with those l33t violin skillz! What a waste of talent.

It was pretty hard to get the name of their musical piece. Only by watching the scene n times did I realize that the announcer did state the name of the score. But it was pretty hard to make out because while the announcer was speaking, Mahiru’s genki maid was shouting! What did I get? Something that sounds like “Medilsohn”, “violin” and a number “64”. Thanks to [Bagle->]’s amazing search capabilities (hehe), I got directed to the real score… Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64!! Yay me!

Futagozuka

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 8


More curses references from the first Futakoi. Remember Billy the goat? Yea, he was a great goat, he always fights with the lousy main guy of the first anime series.

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 6 and Futakoi 1

Apparently, Futakoi Alternative took funny reference to the first Futakoi series by leaving this special bit by Lulu and Lala:

And:

The original Futagozuka (Twins Mound) as shown in Futakoi:

Futago Hime dances

Sorry I’m not too good at making animated gifs. These images are quite big…

Anyway, Fain and Rein… dance! They dance a lot, but actually they’re not good at it. They even trip and fall in dance parties! Well, at least they have these. Weird, but still cute, dances that they know best. Now, start the dancing revolution!

More dances at [Futago Hime dances 2->]


The iya-iya dance!!! (Episode 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 13, 15)
iyaiyaiyaaaaan~~, iyaiyaaaan~~
Continue reading Futago Hime dances

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