Starry☆Sky～in Spring～.

The game which kicks off the entire cascade of the Starry☆Sky～in (insert season here)～ series.
I played Starry☆Sky～in Summer～ before this, and as that was the 2nd game in the series, I felt that there was some background information that I was missing out on.

Spring sets the backdrop of your tenure in high school, and explains that as a special admission into what was formerly a boys'-only school, you are the first female student to be allowed to walk the corridors of the now co-ed institution.

And apparently, still the only female student.

As a result, you gain loads of (unwanted) attention from the ravenous teenage young'uns that roam the school's walls.

Enter the chasable trio, Tomoe Yoh, Nanami Kanata, and Tohzuki Suzuya.

Tomoe Yoh: CV. Midorikawa Hikaru
Part-French, part-Japanese. He is an ethereal sorta fellow - a bit out-of-sorts and strange.

Nanami Kanata: CV. Sugita Tomokazu
Hot-blooded-san, the equivalent of TMGS 1's Kazuma. Often acts before he thinks, and uses outbursts of anger to hide the true romanticist that hides within.

Tohzuki Suzuya: CV. Ono Daisuke
As grounded in reality as Tomoe has his head in the clouds. He's the peacemaker and realist of the trio. In a word - boring.

( SPOILERS ...  )

Remember this?

Tweaking of Engrish purely for the entertainment value ;D

( What shall become of it? )

Official site

I don't have a lot to say about the premise of this game, except that you are a willowy 2nd year high school student whose conquests are one of 3 guys in the archery club which you are a member of. The game centers around the stars, and since I think astrology is nonsense, including horoscopes and star signs, I ignored these parts whilst playing the game. The temptation of an 'easy' straight visual novel was too hard to resist.

The guys are, from left to right:

Kinose Azusa (CV Fukuyama Jun)
1st year and rookie of the archery club. Youthful, energetic, but gives off a feeling of self-entitlement.

Kanakubo Homare (CV Soichiro Hoshi)
3rd year and chairman of the archery club. Calm, composed, and temperate, but yet you can't help wonder if he really is that stable after all...

Miyaji Ryunnosuke (CV Kamiya Hiroshi)
In your year, and vice-chairman of the club. Strict, observant, and your self-declared rival.

( If you wish not to be SPOILED, enter not... )

Recently re-read for the 5th (or greater) time, the high school shoujo manga series, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, or Kare Kano for short. I came to know the series when I was still in high school, so it was refreshing, and brought back a lot of memories of the time. e.g. Secretly sneaking a few peeks in between studying for tests, feeling guilty after reading about how the heroine sacrificed much for her grades (fictional, but still).

Kare Kano is mainly a story about the heroine, Miyazawa Yukino, with her life before entering high school contrasted with her life after entering high school. Brought into the equation is Arima Soichiro, who starts off as her rival, turns into a confidant, and well, you know what happens in shoujo manga. There must always be a pairing. The mangaka loosely deals with their trials and tribulations, the shady Arima family background, and their growth as both individuals and as a pair. Of course, throwing in surprisingly detailed back stories to the supporting characters too.

( Of epic proportions... )

Amachi Shota. His eyes raised to meet the heroine's, softly, temptingly, unyieldingly. She could not help but shelter him under her umbrella. For but one rainy afternoon. The sweet, angelic junior.

Or so she thought.


But enough with the prose! Which so describes the first time you encounter Amachi in your second year. As a kouhai, he has to come in later, after all. It brings back memories of the first game with energizer bunny Hibiya. *shudder* Amachi is a good step up from Hibiya, who is at best creepy. The former, however, displays a sense of innocence and faultlessness for a good part of his route.

( A double-edged sword... )

Hikami is in your year in the Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Kiss/Season series. He's a quirky sort of guy, idiosyncratic, and completely obsessed with astronomy, clearly displayed by his possession of a telescope on his balcony.

Exceptionally smart (discounting the fact that if you up your stats enough, you'll be able to beat him easily in the exams by attaining 100%, although his happens for Hazuki too, even though the latter's supposedly "perfect"), Hikami's also a member of the student council. I assume he becomes the head in the latter years, because that's the way otome games flow.

You meet either automatically in 1st year, or if you decide to take the plunge and join the student council!

( Fulfilling the megane bishounen quota... )

Ah~ It's been a long time!
I have been so terribly unmotivated.

Here's a couple of CGs from the D.C. Girl's Symphony game, long overdue.

( As always, beware of the SPOILERS )



And so it ends... or begins?

My opinion of this game hasn't changed much after completing it. I'm just a little sad that there's no bonus "final completion" CG, which TMGS does have, which I have never gotten before, since my TMGS game completion leaves very much to be desired. >_<

( Aoi-senpai, Kei-san & Ryuunosuke. MAJOR SPOILERS )


I've lots of random comments to make about certain CGs in D.C. G.S., so wait for it.

OFFICIAL SITE

Time for some jibber-jabber about D.C. Girl’s Symphony. By Sanctuary. This time, not with random pictures desperately scrapped from official sites, but with ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS. I’ve been abusing the Print Screen button ever since.
Been increasingly ad-hoc about posts now. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though. Sometimes it’s good to write while you’re still obsessed about a particular series, rather than assign yourself an action, only to accomplish it when you’re dried out. Also have become increasingly informal about my language. I had a perfect vision in my mind for lovely grammar and formal language, but it’s quite a bore to write like that, especially if it overlaps with school work, which is always stiffly formal.

As for D.C. Girl’s Symphony, it surprisingly has a cast which I am unfamiliar with, except Hirakawa Daisuke, of course. New seiyuu, new seiyuu. One of the most promising is Suzuki Yuuto, one of the twins, Shinomiya Kouhei. I had to check up the JPN wiki for him, since he wasn’t that much available on English-language websites. I see that he’s also doing a character in the forthcoming, first ever sci-fi otome game, Little Anchor. He has a sweet voice, and is only 20 this year. 大ショック。



The cast. 5+1 bishounen, 1 overly helpful best friend, and 4 sides.

( In General - )

Neglect breeds contempt. And so this post is to avoid neglecting this LJ.

Disregarding my Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side series otome game introductions, I shall be jabbering about a manga today. And maybe in the future. Just to be sidetracked a bit. Shoujo/Josei manga and otome games are invariably linked, anyway. Cases in point, La Corda D'Oro, Duel Love, Heart no Kuni no Alice, Harukanaru Toki no naka de and the like. It would be interesting to do an otome game-shoujo manga coupling someday. We'll see.

On to the subject matter.

 

( Crazy For You.  )

 

Otherwise known as Himuro-sensei, or Himuro-chi in the later stages of his and the heroine’s pseudo-relationship, if you choose to address him as such.
There is a name-calling function which you may utilize at various stages in the game, usually after school and at the time when the heroine is about to go home. This function appears after she hears someone call out to her, or after she calls out to somebody, and just before the options of going home together with them, or going to a café to chat flash on the screen. Call the wrong name at the wrong relationship level, and he (or she, for you may make girl friends) will not be well pleased.

Himuro Reiichi is a stern, easily agitated, and old-fashioned homeroom teacher at Habataki High. He believes in all the traditional principles of gentleman chivalry, although not as much as his superior, the moustached principal Ikkaku Amanohashi. At first glance, he is a dull sort of man, with a snarky attitude not dissimilar to Mr. Darcy of Jane Austen’s beloved Pride and Prejudice.

( 氷室　零一 )

He is the obligatory senpai of Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 2nd Kiss/Season, and the sole character with a car. The heorine’s senior of three years, he graduated from Hanegaku the year before she entered, and thus while their paths are indirectly linked, they do not cross paths. The player meets him during the first year if she meets a stat requirement, which I cannot recall at the moment, or if she takes up a job at the Anneri Flower Shop, where Arisawa of TMGS The Original still works.

Generally speaking, he is kind, friendly, energetic, and very protective of the heroine. He strives to be a good role model to her, and gives her advice on many matters. However, his strong sense of platonic protectiveness towards her is eroded as the game progresses, and the player gets closer towards the end of the 3^rd year, and Masaki is increasingly unable to control his emotions, which he feels may obstruct the role he has taken on as her de facto onii-chan.

( 真咲 元春 )

My first otome game. I might have given you the impression that Yo-Jin-Bo was THE ONE, as it is the initial post of Dandelion Fancy, but alas, YJB is not. It was Tokimeki Girl’s Side (TMGS), which I grew to love after its weird, inter-texual association with Ouran High School Host Club and its parody, Uki Doki Memorial.

I would love to make a promise to commence a series of TMGS 1 & 2 commentaries on various characters, but I tend to play games in unanticipated, erratic spurts, usually during the school term when I am not supposed to, and so a promise like that will be futile, for it is now neither during the school term, nor within the span of an otome game binge.

I only have a single character commentary planned at the moment. Oh the laziness of thyself.

But first, a general introduction.

( ときめきメモリアルガールズサイド )

OFFICIAL SITE

There are two versions of this game. One, in the original Japanese, produced by TWOFIVE, and the other, translated into English, by the now defunct Hirameki.

I played the Hirameki translated version of the game, which put me off quite a bit due to some language issues, such as an excessive use of awkward formal English, and narration in the third-person. I peg these to translation issues, and my inclination to nit-pick on grammar. It's not that much of a big deal once you get used to it.

The game is repetitive, and a straight visual novel without any RPG elements. It must be noted, however, that only recently has it been more common for otome games to include RPG elements, such as in NeoAngelique and Real Rode. Yo-Jin-Bo is comparatively older.

The game also tends to shinny around anachronisms, inculcating all sorts of random bits into the jibber jabber that the characters partake in. Not crucial to the storyline, but a source of amusement. For some.

The anachronisms. They bugged me. I prefer consistency and relevance. Anachronisms are never so. The constant references to modern-day events and anime were entertaining, but it was highly unsettling when Einstein's Law of Relativity was mentioned. In olden-day Japan.

The CGs, so-so. Some were touching, some were not. Some were anatomically incorrect.

The seiyuu include Ishikawa Hideo, Jurouta Kosugi, Masakazu Morita, and Taniyama Kishio, familiar names in the industry.

The OP and ED songs were rather insignificant and did not make a strong impression, although they had catchy tunes and did not annoy. Non-annoyance is always a plus.

The premise was somewhat hard to swallow - you are Sayori, a girl, a member of your school's History Club, and on a archaeological expedition to dig up some artifacts from the ruins of a castle. You stumble across a green pendant that sweeps you away to time in the 1850s, where you are to change the fate of a recently deceased, bratty princess, Hatsuhime.

( 用心棒 )

This'll be a general otome game review-drabble journal. It'll encompass mainly, the otome games the author has played, and therefore will have the experience to scribble some thoughts about.

The author has no affiliation with any otome game companies.

All future entries will be the personal opinion of the author. They are not unquestionable facts. Do not be offended by them.

Feel free to challenge them.

Let's get cracking.