天下制覇

 

Seriously, Japan. Formatting really isn’t that hard.

I really meant to do this yesterday but… I didn’t. Oh well.

Random Thoughts:

Fairly uneventful and info dump heavy, so let’s talk about sex! As I mentioned previously, sex is something that is almost invariably painful in VNs, especially to translate. Especially in the first person as well, although that seems from the little western erotica I’ve encountered to be fairly common. There’s something about what’s supposed to be a passionate, emotional act, and then draining all passion and emotion out of it with wordy, overwrought, lengthy, and perhaps the greatest sin, repetitive nonsense that has never worked for me, and it gets even worse when you’re stuck slowing down and writing it yourself. Taking five minutes to describe how you’ve lost control and are giving in to your animal lusts or whatever is counterproductive. It’s not just what you say, but how you say it. MDKB was the worst of the lot by a long shot. Every single scene was basically the same and they all simply dragged on at excruciating length.

There does sort of seem to be a critical mass at some point though where you have a good (or decent enough) writer having to write enough sex that it goes from obligatory to them actually trying to differentiate it and use it to round out the characters and relationships. It’s one of the stronger parts of SHChara’s games since they’re all chock full of the damn stuff. Sure as hell didn’t happen with MDKB, which, line for line, has about as much sex as BB does, although then again, what counts as ‘sex’ to SHChara often contains none. However, the vast majority of the scenes tend to be really short and more focused on interaction between the parties than copy pasting the same mechanical actions you can get anywhere and the sex is often barely an afterthought or simply an excuse for why they’re talking. I saw that a little bit in Daibanchou too, but to a lesser extent, and it was obvious in certain cases (Sae’s especially) when a much weaker writer was working on it and our old friend repetition took over.

Or maybe that’s just Stockholm Syndrome after 5,000+ lines of sex speaking.

Our Story So Far:

We’re so excited to see our new transfer student that we tackle her and start ranting about our dream and beg her to be our heroine. She agrees. We celebrate because she’s the first of 1,000 to say yes. She starts calling herself the princess of light, which explains a lot. The rest of the harem is upset. She also blurts out that they kissed, upsetting the harem further and making them demand to be kissed as well.

Unsurprisingly, we sucked in her magic, but apparently that was romantic somehow. The harem continues squabbling, so Kururu tries to set Ringo on fire, but her magic mojo’s gone limp. Kururu ‘confesses’ that she’s a magic girl from the magic world, here to fight rampaging magimon. Christ. This is one of those “it’s so stupid, it MUST be a parody” moments, I think, especially the part where it really isn’t. We delcare that we have never turned our back on our destiny and have another fugue/formatting moment. It bears mentioning that they’re chanting “He-Hero” here, in case you thought they at least knew how to pronounce “hero” correctly. She agrees and declares it’s her destiny to be our heroine.

She drags us away and apologizes for messing up amnesia magic. Apparently, there was bad history in the past with humans and witches and a rule of magic land is that they’re not allowed to associate plus memory erasing when seen. Without her magic, she can’t go back though, so all rules are off apparently. She warns us of the dangers of fighting and that we could die, but we gallantly say we’ll do it. At some point we’re going to have to start breaking some hearts though. A little later at lunch, we end up getting an infodump from a cat. Basically, majimon come out at night because they’re dark element. Turns out to be her familiar, Michele, aka Mike (Mi-ke) which is another dumb pun (三毛猫 – mikeneko – tortoise-shell cat). Eventually, it hands over a magic bead thingy called a crystia that lets people talk with spirits.

Kururu has her own called a prettia which she turns into a staff and then uses to transform. We can’t help but notice that she’s completely naked when she transforms as well, though she seems blissfully unaware. Weirdly, transforming backward is instant. We beg her to transform again and she does so, but Angry Red interrupts our fun. The cat says we should prove magic exists and that we can use Blondie’s magic, so of course, we create some wind and recycle a panty shot. We sexually harass her a few more times to prove we’re really doing it and it’s not just happenstance. Blondie is being an enabler and tells us to flip up Angry Red’s skirt. Wet Towel’s not amused and forbids any more magic. We promise to stop sexually harassing her. She says we’ll discuss it later.

After class, Blondie’s starstruck by the concept of free time and clubs. The cat’s not amused and reminds us of our duty. It wants to see the sword we used. We’ve given it a name covering multiple lines, but Masamune for short. Apparently it absorbs magic and is why we sucked in her magic. She offers to kiss us again to test that theory. It’s just a little peck though, also, it doesn’t do jack. At any rate, we can reflect and absorb magic with it apparently. For some reason, we feel the need to have an official club, so we start the Magical Girl Association and decide to recruit. Gee, I wonder who will join.

   

We need a qualified candidate to use a magic gizmo, so female, really wants to use magic, and is brave enough to fight with us. We volunteer Ringo. She declines. Kururu convinces her to think about it and hands over the crystia. She flees to the pool where we dare not follow because bathing suits. Blondie laments having not other suitable candidates in front of Wet Towel, who apparently can’t believe it.

  

We decide to practice magic, so Mike transforms into some kind of monster rabbit and we suffer through a tutorial and then have to put our learning to practical use. And then a second time to record it because it put itself into a stun chain the first time and died in ~3 turns. Basically, each character can act once. Masaki’s special and automatically wins if he acts on a turn where the enemy casts a spell, but ‘loses’ (does nothing and I think spoils your combo) if he tries to reflect while they’re stunned or charging. Kururu’s special too and can use any element (the RPS cycle is given on screen). Like all the mages, she can cast either little magic (1 card) or big magic (2 card). The enemy AP is the maximum number of actions it can take, but they necessarily take all of them. eg 2 AP and 2 blue cards in their action queue can mean they’re using 2 little magics, or 1 big magic. Getting hit with little magic while you’re charging doesn’t cancel it, but it does ruin your combo, do damage, and basically reduce it to little magic.

 

Wet Towel is annoyed that we trashed the room while tutorializing. Apparently we accidentally took over the Crossword Club’s room. After dinner, we consider jerking off, but Blondie interrupts us. She explains that there are no magical guys because… it’s another damn pun (é–“ç”· – maotoko – a man who a woman cheats with). We sneak out to go on patrol and run headlong into Wet Towel, who was lying in wait. She agrees to let us if she can chaperone. We almost immediately run into Angry Red, who screams rape. We tease her about her fear of ghosts.

She catapults us into the fountain, so we decide to call it a night. Blondie insists on taking a bath with us to make up for getting us in trouble. Note that she doesn’t take no for an answer, whether we tell her no or not. She tries to comfort us for our small breasts and is shocked by the existence of penises. I guess then I’m not sure how magical girls reproduce either. Yada yada yada, we’re apparently less a human and more a yogurt dispenser, so after a Brooklyn Handshake and a couple rounds of omelet du frottage, she’s covered in gelato and passed out. Angry Red catches us dragging her out of the bathroom, but storms away without us knowing. And that bit of self-debasement is a good halfwayish spot in the chapter to say that’s more than enough.