My current start up screen for Katawa Shoujo. You get one image for every chapter you begin.

Well hello there dearest people who read my articles, somehow I find myself here again. As usual it’s been forever since the last article but it’s a routine by now so let’s skip the apologies.
Today’s article will be on a rather popular visual novel that generated quite the fan base in the recent years so you might have already heard of it. It is a free work by Four Leaf Studios titled ‘Katawa Shoujo’, which more or less translates to ‘Disability Girls’.

While Katawa Shoujo certainly is set in a world full of physically disabled people(even your protagonist is disabled!), the plot itself doesn’t really center itself around them(except perhaps one route in particular). On the contrary the characters tend to not be held back much due to their disabilities, probably to send a message that even disabled people can live normal lives.
So for those skeptical of the tales that could possibly come from a setting like this can rest easy, it is no more inferior when compared to other mediocre novels out there. At the very least I certainly did feel contented from reading it.

Protagonist + Heroines – 1 Semi Heroine

Introduction:
Katawa Shoujo takes place almost entirely in a place called Yamaku High School – a school for disable children located somewhere in Japan. The story begins with Hisao – the main character receiving a confession from a girl that he has a crush on. Everything was fine and dandy but then his heart just got a little too excited and he suffered some sort of a heart attack.

That triggered a series of events over a duration of a few months which he then discovers that his condition is genetic, that he has to take slightly lesser than five million different pills a day to keep his body alive and that he can never go back to living his old life.
But most importantly that is why he eventually got transferred over to Yamaku High School where the plot takes place. Katawa Shoujo being the galge/eroge it is, has it’s main attractions being it’s heroines.

The story then branches off from the prologue into one of the five routes depending on your choices and who you decide to hit on  get to know. You could also show indifference to the girls and go down another route that will totally lead to > Somewhat a spoiler. So far I only completed three out of the five routes and I don’t really plan on clearing the other two so I don’t know how they are, though the public opinion seems to suggest that they are better than the others.

The characters:

First off is my personal favourite, the high class lady character Lilly Satou.
Lilly possess a mixture of Scottish and Japanese blood hence her foreigner looks(height, blonde hair and blue eyes etc). Having not seen the colors of the World even once since she was born blind, Lilly enjoys the pleasures of the World with her remaining but enhanced senses(Which is she quite proud of).

Being a caring, responsible and friendly person, she is naturally the class representative of her class. She is also the best/only friend/caretaker of the shy and introvert Hanako. Her demeanor and hobbies befitting her high class image naturally turns up to be something related to tea. Therefore her character is a professional in the tea field and is somehow always drinking tea(at least until she discovers something more addictive later on).

The general feel of her route is very relaxing. Spending time with Lilly feels slow and comfortable, just like the very image of ‘taking it easy’. Its a rather refreshing take compared to the common heroines which you usually  just find yourself/protagonist being dragged along with the girl’s whim and playing to her tune. There is no awkwardness even though some scenes are just basically spending time together in silence as compared to the usual action packed series of events in other novels that lasts till the characters part.

Then we have Rin Tezuka, the artist with no hands. A child born with severe physical defects that robbed her of her arms so she does everything with her feet.
A philosopher at heart, Rin tends to talk a lot about the concepts of man, the universe and other abstract subjects that just makes no sense to the people around her. She has a mild sense of humor/sarcasm and is a rather interesting person but I suppose weird/strange describes her better. She is somewhat good friends with Emi.

Hanako Ikezawa is the the last of the three heroines whose routes I have cleared. Traumatized by events that happened in her past, Hanako is an awkward and withdrawn girl. She spends most of her time orbiting around her best and only friend Lilly, that and haunting the library reading books.

The school student council president Shizune Hakamichi is a strong willed and forceful person despite being both deaf and mute. She also happens to be your class representative. She is good friends with a girl called Misha who acts as her translator to converse with others. Seems to have some relations of sorts with Lilly.

This is Misha. Wahahahaha!

Finally the last of the heroines, Emi Ibarazaki is embodiment of the traditional idea of a crippled person.
Due to reasons unknown to me Emi has her legs amputated below the knee but that did not stop her from being one of the fastest energy ball around town.
She is the cheerful happy go lucky character who always seems to be having fun. She is ‘paired’ up with Rin because each possesses something the other lacks.

Sound and Art:
Being the largely unfunded freeware it is Katawa Shoujo’s art and sound feels fairly simplistic.
Most of the backgrounds seems to be a blurred out and ‘fictionized’ versions of locations and objects in reality, somewhat similar to that of Umineko no Naku koro ni.
The music that accompanies it is also light and unmemorable.
Do not misunderstand though it certainly isn’t bad because of it’s simplicity, in fact it suits the story pretty well, creating a gentle and soothing environment.
With that I will end this article here. Those who are interested can get the game from this link.
And for those who aren’t, still just go take a look, I certainly enjoyed reading it at the very least.

Lastly, before I leave I would like to apologize for this mess of an article. I wrote it over a span of three months in which I constantly lost track of what I wanted to write, hence the various differing tones and length of each section. I will try to make my next article more coherent and pleasant to read.

Thank you and see you again~

After almost a year, a new version!

For an explanation of what this map is, please refer to: http://blog.midnightinsomnia.com/touhou-daydream-breaker/

Download: DDL(Singapore Server) / Mediafire / puush

Sound/Model pack (6.2/2.1) : http://www.mediafire.com/?9f2z9bqz24zhx5t

Please note that this is not a complete translation. There will be many abilities missing, but any that have not changed since B72 will be included. Items are mostly translated, and most of the script translations still remain.

If you want something translated, please post in the comments and it will be noted.

I’m not the author you’re looking for. But here’s a Comiket post anyway!

Comiket started off with around 600 attendees back in 1975. 37 years later, you are now looking at an event which holds over 500,000 people over the span of 3 days. You’re probably thinking, “Good golly that is a lot of people!”

That is, unless you’ve been immersing yourself in Japanese subculture. In which case, it’s something you’d have seen coming. We’d be on the same boat then!

And thank god we are.

So you’ve watched Lucky Star, Welcome to the NHK,  YuruYuri, Genshiken, Hayate no Gotoku and whichever anime that has a Comiket episode to steel yourself for the inevitable queues. But nothing has quite prepared you for this:

Let’s not get started on how cold it is.

Pulling a number off the top of my head, I’d say that the people queuing before the event starts would number to 6,000 people. How did I come up with such a guesstimate? The pre-event queues are split into groups of about yee big (see below). Unfortunately, having spent 8 hours sitting in the cold, one tends not to bother counting how many such groups there are. But for the sake of magically coming up with numbers, let’s multiply 600 by 10 and voila! 6,000 will be our lucky number.

Taken on 9:27am 29 Dec 2012. Comiket Day 1. Never again.

As you enter the foyer, the group splits up. Some head east (doujin circles, etc). You go west (corporate booths, mainly) where you get put into another queue. Not long after, an announcement can be heard, signalling the start of Comiket and the crowds give an applause. Eventually you’re in the building and, because you didn’t plan your Comiket trip properly like you should, you have no idea where you want to go so you just go whichever way to avoid halting the mass behind you. You start being given brochures, files, maybe a bag or two. You stop to take a blurry photo as you don’t have time to stand still. After making a quick round, making stops at stores that interest you, you decide to move on from the corporate booth hall.

At this point, you see a guy outside the hall with a neat looking pixiv bag and asked him where the booth was. He pointed at a vague direction but you didn’t want to stall him so you go back in and asked an information booth. For the sake of the bag, you buy an artbook and an Ib calendar. You love artbooks! It is then you stumble upon the purpose of your life for that one day – to protect the oversized bag from a turbulent flow of people.

I consider myself one of the earliest to enter the hall. Several thousand people will eventually flood inwards.

Here’s the thing about the crowds – they have a mind of their own. The guy behind you didn’t push you, it was the result of small little nudges propagating from everyone behind. Your pixiv bag got caught between two people moving in different directions, it’s not that they wanted to ruin it, you just weren’t looking after it well enough. You hold a grudge anyway. You wake up. This is not the Japan you’ve grown accustomed to during your time here. This is a battlefield.

So you head outside to collect yourself, and make your belongings more crowdproof. Then you head back in, but not before you see a number of relatively small queues outside. “What are they for?” you wonder to yourself because they sure aren’t the queues to enter the building. Besides, there’s a scattered line of people entering the hall. You notice there isn’t even a queue to enter the building anymore! The time was, what? 10:30am? A mere 30 minutes after the start of the event and there’s no longer a queue to enter the building? That’s pretty amazing! You walk back in slightly in awe.

Then it hits you. You look for the ‘End of queue’ signs near booths. You see signs resembling it, but upon closer inspection, thanks to your knowledge Chinese and Japanese, you find the word ‘Not’ appended to the signs. No wonder the lines to seemingly popular booths aren’t so big – they’re fragmented into smaller queues outside the hall!

You nope your way out towards the east wing. You weren’t all that interested in what the corporate booths had to offer anyway. Plus you already have some sweet loot, you assure yourself. How long would the queues have taken, though? They might be really quick and efficient. After all, this is Japan. On the other hand, it feels like a waste queuing with so many things left to see! Besides, you can’t turn back because, after all that thinking while being part of the moving crowd, you’re find yourself standing on one of the many downward escalators!

You see no way to turn back. Oh well, onward ho! You walk across the galleria, into a huge hall of people who are transitioning from hall to hall, in to out. You see a restaurant or two, a convenience store, a… Comiket souvenir store? Let’s check that out tomorrow, the mascot is really cute!

You are finally at the doujin alleys. Woo! You stroll around. Yaoi. You stroll around more. More yaoi. Regular yaoi. Avengers yaoi. Sherlock yaoi. Harry Potter yaoi. Doctor Who yaoi. Assassins’ Creed yaoi. Top Gear yaoi. Yaoi between political figures of Russia. Of course! Today was day 1. Notoriously known to many as yaoi/BL day. [Author's note : If you've arrived here from googling one of those terms, I'm sorry. You won't find any here.]

Did you just spend 9 hours waiting in the freezing outdoors for highly anticipated booths (which you weren’t all too interested in) and yaoi manga (you’re not into those either… right?)?! Yes. At this point you learn something yet again – Comiket catalogs help a bit with planning! You should’ve followed delyssen’s advice to take a look at the catalog.

Also, as a side note, there’s information booths in the doujin area and they can help you with a fair bit of things! If you can’t speak Japanese well, you could try your luck with English, doesn’t really hurt. But they have a nice list of booths AND, AND THE MOST IMPORTANT : you can ask them where you can find booths focusing on so-and-so series. So list down more obscure series you might wanna check out, then ask the info booths. Some of those booths appear on Day 1 even though they’re not BL at all. e.g. KPop, ARIA, Last Exile…

Oh well. That was a shame. Tomorrow will be a better day. BUT WAIT, it’s only noontime. You could go for lunch. Maybe the corporate booths are a bit emptier now. You’re sure you forgot something important you’ve yet to see in Comiket. Oh well, let’s settle for heading back to the West hall to check out the corporate booths again. And surely enough, after some walking, you find out how to get back up there. Of course, like all things Comiket, it involved a queue.

Nope.

This time, said queue was heaps longer than you’ve seen so far, so you nope the hell out of there. You then find yourself at one of the many cosplay areas in the convention. Hooray! Cosplayers! You can’t believe this slipped your mind – after all, they’ve been walking around everywhere. You must’ve gotten used to them during your time in Comiket. You really want to take photos but you don’t know how. Do you ask? Do you just jump in and take photos as you please? The latter doesn’t sound very nice.

You opt to follow by example. You eventually figure out some basic ways to ask for photos. “Shashin onegaishimasu” seems to be the most common. Let’s go with that.

It’s like you found a new magic spell which costs no mana. You keep using it. Sometimes you get ignored because there’s too many photographers saying the same thing. You take it as a queue that it’s okay to proceed and click away. It turned out to be a pretty good day. You’re thankful the first day of C83 didn’t already drain your wallet, you found some of the weirdest things people make BL out of and last but definitely not least, you got to take photos of amazing cosplayers! Tomorrow will definitely be a better day.

End note: I somehow ended up writing this post in second person. Weird. Hopefully, it’s not too hard to follow. I’ll probably put up a summary of things I’ve learnt from attending C83 as a how-to-Comiket post or something, I don’t know (I’m worse than delyssen in getting myself to do things, really.) What follows this is a bunch of photos (mostly cosplay) I took from C83 Day 1!

Ariake TFT Hall:

Here’s extra info for those of you really into cosplay. After you’re done with exploring Comiket for the day, head over to the Ariake TFT and proceed to the TFT Hall. There’s signs outside Big Sight saying where it is, but if you’re not too sure, ask someone like Comiket staff or security guards where it is. You could ask passers-by too. They won’t bite! You will come across a huge line but that’s for people wanting to go into the Yurikamome subway line. You can skip that line. Once you get to TFT Hall, what goes on there is a more exclusive cosplay event. The catch is, it costs 3k yen to enter which is NZ$45 at the time. Or 2k yen (NZ$30) if you’re a cosplayer. There’s amazing cosplayers and photographers there. You  might wanna drag a Japanese speaking friend along, though as communication might be hard. There were a couple reasons I didn’t enter. Firstly, I was dead tired as a result of the first week in Japan prior to Comiket. Also, I had a Galaxy S2 camera whereas a good amount of people in there had DSLRs or something so I thought it would be a waste. Next time, baby. I got a Lumix now and Imma be ready for ya.

This guy… I think he was listening to Comiket staff walkie talkies.

That queue is headed to the east hall doujin alley. This is where we split off.

The queue we got placed in after splitting up. Right outside the corporate booths hall.

Badass, right here.

According to the little poster on her skirt, she has a booth up on Day 3.

Himemiya Mahore

Ariake TFT Hall

Blood donation drive. I think you get some Nanoha poster for doing it. I don’t like Nanoha.

One of kanabun’s older works, a short little mini-album with only three tracks. Features some nice minimalist electronica, something you’ll enjoy if you like ambient-ish music!

If you’re familiar with my past reviews of kanabun’s work, you’ll know that he produces an interesting blend of Experimental and Electronica, often resulting in tracks that are just a little bit too loud and striking to be considered Ambient, but still very minimal.

I’m quite fond of it myself, being a fan of Ambient music. Sadly, most people don’t like Ambient music so he’s remained relatively obscure. If you don’t like that kind of music, you should probably just listen to Track 2 on this album, Holiday, and call it quits. Or, you could stick around! Maybe you’ll end up liking Ambient music – it’s really nice and makes for good mood music!

This album is relatively obscure – being rather old and by a little-known circle, I would be surprised if there were still any physical copies for sale. I only know about it because someone sent me a copy, and it’s not listed on KPDRecords’ discography.

Circle Name: KPDRecords
Album Name: good morning for bad holiday
Website: http://gmfbh.is-mine.net/

1. kanabun – Curtain

   An interesting minimalistic track, with a very haunting melody. There’s a definite sense of melancholy throughout this track, with a soft piano building up an eerie atmosphere. The few synthesizers in the background add kanabun’s signature electronic touch to the track, making this a hybrid Ambient/Electronica track. I rather enjoyed this one, it’s quite slow but builds up nicely and is definitely a good track to wind down to.

   

2. kanabun – holiday

   The main track of the album, with a cheerful sound to it. It carries over the main chords from Curtain, which adds a wonderful sense of continuity to the album. Despite the cheerful sounding synthesizer, it still has a touch of melancholy to it, almost as if there’s a sense of longing throughout. There’s a good build-up throughout the track, and once again it has a wonderful atmosphere to it.

   I imagine different people would feel different emotions from this track – I feel like it speaks directly to your heart, and draws on yourself to fill it up. Quite a wonderful job in doing that.

   

3. kanabun – Scenery

   The only track with vocals, albeit quite faint and indistinct. Hatsune Miku provides the vocals, but they’re rather muddy and indistinct. It sounds like it would have been better with someone such as Chie Fukami providing the vocals, Hatsune Miku’s voice doesn’t fit and it’s not manipulated very well. The instrumentals are mostly a repeat showcase of elements from track 1 and 2, and definitely builds nicely on what’s been accomplished so far.

   The vocals simply don’t suit it though, which subtracts from the enjoyment of the song. The ending is also a fantastic cop-out, using a simple fade instead of having any interesting elements at all. What a shame, this could have been pretty good.

Overall, not a spectacular album, but one that demonstrates good atmosphere. I’d say it’s worth listening to once if you have any interest in Electronic, Ambient or Minimalist music. It’s a different experience from the mainstream electronic albums that everyone loves, which makes it all the more interesting.

I quite like how most of kanabun’s albums manage to be so emotional with so little. Minimalistic music is not easy to create, and involves careful planning throughout the album. A simple misstep, such as in the last track of this album’s vocals, can completely destroy the mood and make the difference between a good album and a mediocre one.

Of course, I can’t go an entire kanabun review without mentioning Ruxia. kanabun’s work with ruxia remains some of his best, although they’re not in KPDRecords’ usual style. It’s just very good, and you should totally click those links and listen to some of it.

If you’d like to buy this album, I have no clue where you could get it. I think it’s out of print? I’m not sure. KPDRecords’ website is horrible unless you run Japanese locale and I’m too lazy to switch, so I have no idea if it’s being sold there. Oh well.

Alstroemeria Records’ C82 release, featuring lots of electronic music and female vocals!

I’m sure by now everyone knows what Alstroemeria Records does, but if you need a refresher take a look at the previous album review I did.

This album features a nice mix of vocalists: Sakaue Nachi, Ayakura Mei, Takanashi Toriko, mican* and ayame. I’ve heard all of these before besides Takanashi Toriko, most of them are pretty good. I didn’t really like ayame’s previous work very much, but we’ll see how she does in this album.

Sadly there’s no guest arrangement by Nhato; His previous track in Killed Dancehall was one of the highlights. Hopefully he’ll make another appearance on Alstroemeria Records soon.

Unlike the DANCEHALL albums, this album doesn’t have all tracks mixed into each other. That’s kind of a shame, for reasons I’ll explain at the end.

Image taken from micancoro’s twitter

Circle Name: Alstroemeria Records
Album Name: THE WORLD DESTINATION
Website: http://alst.net/2012/08/09/arcd0038-the-world-destination/

1. Masayoshi Minoshima – THE WORLD DESTINATION

   The album’s titular track. This is an original composition by Minoshima, which is always interesting to hear. I wouldn’t normally approve of Minoshima making a dubstep track, but this track does well as an introduction to the album and sets up the next track’s mood nicely.

2. 坂上なち – WORLD’S END

   A much more Minoshima-esque track, this retreats back into the his electro-house experience. Sakaue Nachi does pretty well on vocals, but the instruments seem to overwhelm her at times. The track’s structure is also rather inconsistent, resulting in quite a confused-sounding track – not what I’d expect from Minoshima. It’s also a very familiar track, a bit too similar to what we’ve heard before on KILLED DANCEHALL or ABANDONED DANCEHALL.

   At least the drop isn’t bad, huh?

   

3. 綾倉盟 – CRIMSON DEAD

   This time the track strikes a much better balance between the vocals and instruments, both seeming to come together as one. Ayakura provides absolutely lovely vocals here, providing some much-needed emotion and energy. The instruments are also arranged much better, complementing the vocals while not being overpowering. It’s a bit of a mess at times, still, but much better than the previous track. The composition is also hugely improved, but nothing spectacular at all.

4. タカナシトリコ – IN THE FLICKERING

   First track of the album that I actually like. Toriko does an excellent job on the vocals, providing a very light feel to the song that contrasts nicely with the instrumentals while also being strong enough to stand her own in the loud symphony of different electronic sounds. She’s quite good actually, I look forward to hearing more of her vocals. It feels like this track has a bit of dubstep wubwubwub mixed into it, which is probably because of the drop near the start – it sounds very much like a fusion between Electro/House/Dubstep. Quite good, would recommend listening to it.

   

5. mican* – INNOCENT TREASURES

   A rather interesting introduction to the song, a pity that I can’t say the same for the rest of it. Mican’s try their best here, but there’s not much substance to it beyond what you hear in the first 10 seconds – the instrumentals simply become a backdrop for Mican’s vocals, with haphazard breaks and build-ups scattered throughout.

   Mican does do a pretty darned good job of carrying the song though. An instrumental-only version of this would be pretty horrible.

6. ayame – YOU’RE MINE

   Another track with a rather interesting introduction, although thankfully the rest of the song isn’t like INNOCENT TREASURES. There’s a nice structure to the track that places the focus on ayame’s vocals, while not expecting her to be the sole savior of the song. The instrumentals in this one are quite strong and interesting, while ayame’s vocals do an excellent job of providing the hook for this song. The result is extremely catchy and loop-able, much like a pop song.

   Sadly, it’s a bit too long and same-y after a while, making for a dull track overall apart from the chorus.

   

7. 小さな欲望の星空 – STARLIGHT DESIRE

   An instrumental track! I don’t think this is arranged by Minoshima, so I have no clue where or what this is from. It’s relatively interesting, with a very EDM-ish style, but there’s not much that would keep me listening for long. The melody is arranged quite well to make something that sounds pretty original, but it’s not exactly earth-shattering work here. One of those tracks that you’ll forget about after a while.

8. Masayoshi Minoshima – FALL OUT

   The last track of the album, another instrumental original composition by Minoshima. I’m always fond of those. Much slower paced than the other tracks we’ve got so far, and functions quite nicely as an outro to the album. It’s got quite a relaxing sound for an electro house track, so props to Minoshima for managing to pull that off. Not bad, but still just filler quality.

It’s a shame that these tracks aren’t mixed together like they are on the DANCEHALL albums. It really makes this album sound like a collection of singles rather than something that was thought out from beginning to end, and there’s a certain lack of cohesion between the tracks.

The mood itself from track to track is pretty consistent, which is usually how I gauge whether an album is constructed well, but that might have been an accident since most EDM/Electro House/Dubstep tracks are going to have the same feel to it, with the build-up/anthem/break-down approach. Each track of the album already has all of those elements, so it doesn’t matter if the album as a whole is arranged with thought.

Still, this album isn’t exactly bad despite how I feel about it. It’s just not quite up to the quality I’d expect from Alstroemeria Records – their previous works could easily have been commercial releases from major labels. While this isn’t quite up to that standard, it’s still better than the vast majority of doujin music out there.

If you’d like to buy this album, you’d better be living in Japan or something. White Canvas and Manadrake are the only two online doujin stores (excluding circle-run ones like Diverse Systems’) I know of that deliver overseas, and coincidentally they both don’t stock this album while Toranoana, Melonbooks and D-STAGE, shops that don’t deliver overseas, all have it.

I’ve been busy with RL stuff once again so I haven’t had the time to write much. I’ll try to post an album review this month, but I won’t be able to promise anything.

On a plus note, I’ll be travelling to this year’s Winter Comiket, so I’ll write up a report about what it’s like to attend, what you should do to prepare for attending something like that etc.. It’ll be fun, probably!

Current project statuses after the jump.

Translation Projects:

Independent Maps:

Other Writing-Related Stuff:

Some Things You Might Like:

SDMD is the only really active translation project for now since translating its a breeze (Chinese is my 2nd language), which means I can do it quickly. It also helps that there’s no new releases for that, so I don’t have to update it!

Well, that’s it for this update, see you in a few weeks!

An interesting little album with a mix of vocal and off-vocal tracks. Has a touch of post-rock to it, and a very space-y feel to it – if you like slow, rock-style songs with emotional vocals, you’re in for a treat.

Sadly, I don’t know much about this circle so I’ll just comment briefly on the album’s style. It’s a very slow-paced album, sometimes agonizingly slow, but there are some gems scattered throughout. Annabel and Kazuhiro Abe provide the vocals for this album – you may have heard Annabel’s work, but I have no idea who Kazuhiro Abe is. The arrangers/composers are Shin Sheena and enso, both of whom I have never heard of before.

This album seems pretty obscure; I only know it exists it was recommended to me (for reviewing).

Six months later, I’m finally reviewing it!

Circle Name: Laqshe
Album Name: rewinder
Website: http://laqshe.net/2012m3s.htm

1. Annabel – eclosion

   A rather promising start to the album, full of energy and spirit. This track has a very upbeat feel to it with lots of light guitar playing and an excellent range of sounds mingled together to make for a very lively track – yet, there’s still a touch of melancholy in it. Annabel’s vocals put the finishing touch on it with a very wistful performance. Definitely a track worth listening to, and one of the highlights of the album.

2. Shin Sheena – when i dive

   Dialing the melancholy up to 11, this is quite a depressing track. It’s an interesting change from the previous track and serves nicely as a refresher, preparing you for the next track quite excellently. I wouldn’t recommend that you listen to this on its’ own though, it lacks substance and would get repetitive pretty quickly.

   

3. Kazuhiro Abe – 氷の灯

   Another rather emotional track, with a very slow paced rock feel to it and more wistful vocals. I really like Kazuhiro Abe’s vocals on this one, she really brings the song to life with her singing. The instrumentals also pair well with her voice and accentuate every aspect of the song, with the end result being a track that I can loop for hours on end. My favourite of the album.

4. Annabel – lit up

   Yet another melancholic track, except by this point it’s stopped being cool and just started being tiresome. The vocals are once again fairly wistful, but one can only appreciate so much wistfulness in a single sitting. To her credit, Annabel’s vocals are excellent once again, but the track itself is nothing special and I wouldn’t recommend it.

   

5. Kazuhiro Abe – 微風

   This is much more cheerful than the previous track, but that’s not exactly a great achievement. There’s a smattering of male vocals through this, which makes no sense since Kazuhiro Abe is credited as the vocals on this one. Unless S/he’s extremely good at doing a falsetto voice and did that for the entirety of track #3. I’m not sure if I want to know.

   This track – it’s okay, just… okay.

6. enso – clear

   Finally, a nice breather from all the melancholic tracks! This is a neat little instrumental that helps to even out the mood and ends the album on a decent enough note, but sadly there’s nothing terribly interesting about this – it sounds very generic, and could have been made by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Decent as a space filler, not great as a track.

   

7. Kensei Ogata – eclosion (Kensei Ogata mix)

   I have no idea who this is, but he makes a pretty nice remix. It’s essentially an extremely post-rock version of eclosion, and that’s kind of nice in a way. It would definitely get tiring to listen to after a while though – the instrumentals are blaringly loud and it’s taxing on the ears after the first minute or so.

   Still, it’s a nice touch and an interesting take on an excellent track. Would recommend it if you enjoyed eclosion at all.

Well, there’s that! It’s not a particularly great album, but there’s some interesting things in there so that’s nice. I particularly enjoy #3, but I don’t know what’s up with Kazuhiro Abe’s vocals in #5, that’s just weird.

If you want to buy this album, tough luck – it’s not available anywhere.

I finally return with a new album review! Lots of light pop-ish songs mixed in with some Vocal Trance stuff, this album has a wide appeal and will definitely be interesting for most people.

Poplica has always been one of my favourite artists – in fact, the very first review on this website was a Poplica album! Needless to say, I’m very excited to review this.

Poptrick is the first album released by Poplica without Syrufit’s assistance, and is definitely a marked departure from his previous albums. This time it’s much more along the lines of CYTOKINE’s current offerings, with a lot of electro and pop-like elements. There’s still a bit of Poplica’s old sound in there, but it’s almost completely different from Replica.

Still, change isn’t always bad, right?

Picture of something from Poplica’s Twitter

Circle Name: Poplica*
Album Name: Poptrick
Website: http://poplica.info

1. Poplica* – Poptrick

   An… interesting start to the album, with some haunting vocals and a very light windchime-like sound in the background. Sets the mood for the album I guess, but is somewhat creepy too.

2. 綾倉盟 – farewell

   Ayakura’s sole track of the album, and it’s not bad at all. I always like hearing her on vocals, she usually does a good job these days. It has a very light overall tone to it, but doesn’t stand out particularly well until the second half where Poplica’s signature D&B/dubstep influence comes in. Not too bad, but nothing special either.

   

3. めらみぽっぷ – Zillion Lights

   Never heard of this vocalist before, but she has an interesting voice. This track has a very upbeat feel overall, and feels like it would fit a Mahou Shoujou show very well, perhaps as an insert song during the last boss fight where the heroine beats the big baddie. With a large laser. While shouting “STARLIGHT BREAKER”.

   It’s pretty decent actually, but gets a bit repetitive towards the end. Would have liked to see more development and maybe some different sounds after a bit.

4. itori – Paint it for

   Another unknown vocalist, this time one whose name reminds me of Guilty Crown more than anything. Her voice is rather coarse and mature, which suits this song I guess. The song itself is rather reminiscent of CYTOKINE’s work – I wouldn’t have guessed it was Poplica arranging this. It’s pretty decent, but once again nothing to go crazy over.

   

5. 723,fi-fy – wish to the moon

   Featuring not one, but two unknown vocalists, this song has double the vocals for double the power! The two vocalists actually sound pretty good, but I have no idea which is which since I’ve never heard any of them before. It’s incessantly cheerful and happy sounding, so if that’s your thing you’re in luck! Quite a nice song, this is actually my favourite from the album.

6. spctrm – Ambigu

   One of Poplica’s signature touches, an instrumental track in the middle of the album. Strangely enough, this time it isn’t Poplica doing the arrangement for this song, but instead someone called spctrm. This track has quite a bit of an oriental touch to it, quite a departure from previous albums where we usually got a slow trance-esque track to break the modd a bit. Still, it’s an interesting change and definitely helps even out the album. Not bad at all, not bad at all.

   

7. 市松椿 – Resolution

   Quite a spectacular track, this one! Tsubaki does a wonderful job on the vocals, managing to draw out the emotion of Remilia’s theme while not being overbearing. Poplica’s dubstep influence in this contrasts nicely with the previous track, resulting in a heightened experience. The pacing is also just nice with a nice amount of build-ups and breaks scattered throughout, stopping it from becoming too overbearing. My only complaint is that it’s a bit short at 3:36; it would have been even better if it were a bit more fleshed out in some parts. Quite a good one, this.

8. 真崎エリカ — be with you

   Yet another vocalist that I don’t recognize, I must be getting old or something. I’m a bit confused by the choice of tone in this song, it’s a very light song that’s reminiscent of eroge OP/insert songs, which makes no sense coming off of the previous track. It’s not bad once it gets going though, albeit with a large amount of anime-style vocals and instrumentals that don’t feel nearly as fulfilling as Resolution. Overwhelmingly average and not outstanding in any way.

   

9. 市松椿 — Rapture – Taishi Remix

   Suddenly, a ten minute track! I haven’t heard the original track for this song, but this is quite a nice vocal trance-y remix. It makes me miss the old days when Syrufit and Alstroemeria Records would produce music like this, music that’s becoming increasingly hard to find as Electro and Dubstep and etc. take the spotlight these days. This is quite a nice song by itself, but it doesn’t really fit in the album – it’s weird to have a 10-minute track when the rest of your tracks average 4. Still, not bad as a closer I guess.

Well, that was pretty nice! I’m always glad to hear new Poplica albums – they’re usually the first thing I get when I’m looking for new music! Poplica’s style is really quite interesting, he always changes it up a bit with every new album. Sadly, I don’t really like J-Pop that much so the more J-Pop influenced tracks in this album aren’t good for me, but I’m sure lots of other people would appreciate it.

If you’re interested in picking this up, you’ll have to go through a proxy service of some sort. It’s available on a bunch of online doujin goods shops, but none of them ship overseas (Why no white-cavnas ;_;). Shop list can be found on the album’s website.

Various bugfixes, and that new boss was actually added this time!

A model pack is required to view allied models. The Complete installer below has both the MAP file and the MODEL PACK.

Complete Download : DDL (Singapore Server) / puu.sh (USA) / Mediafire

Instructions

• Place the map file in your Warcraft 3 Map folder
• Run the installer file.
  1. Select your language
  2. Select your Warcraft III folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Warcraft III)
• Congratulations! You now have everything working properly.

Want to help with development?

The author is looking for artists to produce a minimap preview image and a loading screen image.

The minimap preview image should ideally be around 128×128 and in TGA format, while the loading screen image should be 1024×768. If you wish to help, please contact the author at the email address below:

Patchlog:

System Fixes

• Map Replaced (?)
• Selection System fixes
• Fixed a bug where innate could not be levelled when is between 50~150.
• Hero Attack to Heavy Armor damage changed from 1.00 -> 0.75
• Hero Attack to Hero Armor damage changed from 0.75 -> 0.9
• Siege Attack to Hero Armor damage changed from 0.50 -> 1.25
• Piercing Attack to Hero Armor damage changed from 0.50 -> 1.00
• Piercing Attack to Light Armor damage changed from 2.00 -> 1.50
• Piercing Attack to Heavy Armor damage changed from 1.00 -> 0.80
• Items no longer consume mana.

BOSS changes

• Added a new BOSS, Moriya Suwako.
• Cirno has been strengthened.

Izayoi Sakuya

• Damage type has been changed to Piercing.
• Attack range increased to 550.

Hong Meiling

• Qi Consumption changed
• Qi Sign “Earth & Sky Dragon Kick” temporarily unavailable
• Colorful Flower “Rainbow-Colored Tai Ji Quan” temporarily unavailable
• Qi Sign “Star Pulse Shot” INT damage reduced.
• Qi Sign “Fierce Tiger’s Inner Strength” cooldown reduced.
• Flaming Strike “Great Roc’s Fist” usage modified.

Marisa

• Love Sign “Master Spark”
  • Cooldown 65->58/54/50
  • Damage Multiplier (of mana) 75%/150%/225% ->80%/160%/240%
• Comet “Blazing Star” description error fixed.
  • Cooldown 55/50/45->54/51/48
  • Damage Multiplier (of INT) 3.5/7/10.5 -> 3.0/6.0/9.0

Patchouli Knowledge

• Fixed a bug with innate not being learnt properly.
• Mind Magic “Magic Reincarnation” now affects allied units.

Remilia Scarlet

• Scarlet Sign “Red the Nightless Castle” bug fixed.
• Night Sign 「Demon King Cradle」 bug fixed.

Flandre Scarlet

• Secret Barrage “And Then Will There Be None?” attacks reduced from 7 -> 4

Hinanai Tenshi

• Base attackspeed reduced
• Heaven Sign “Sword of Divine Justice” effect strengthened.
• Weather “Scarlet Weather Persuasion” cooldown and mana cost reduced.
• Keystone “Sky’s Spiritual Stone” cooldown, delay and duration reduced.
• Temperament “State of Enlightenment” formula changed.

Nagae Iku

• Base attackspeed reduced

Ibuki Suika

• Oni Sign “Massacre on Mt.Ooe” extra damage chance reduced.

If anything appears to be untranslated, please drop a comment below and I will take note of it for next version. AAAAAND I’m back to playing TERA and spending all my money on Steam sales, bye!