“Tomodachi ijou, koibito miman” — more than friends, less than lovers — is a pretty common phrase in Japanese, and a handy way of describing a vague sort of romantic relationship. Most people know what it means: the two of you are past being friends but haven’t quite reached lovers yet. And of course, once you do reach “lovers,” there’s the same kind of transitional gap before you become an actual married couple, so you’d figure “more than lovers, less than married” ought to exist too. Which is why SMEE went and used that exact name for their recent fandisc: “Sugar*Style: Koibito Ijou, Fuufu Miman.” It fits what the fandisc actually is, honestly — most of it is afterstory, so naturally it’s all stuff that happens after they’ve become a couple.

As the Japanese visual novel industry keeps sliding downhill, more and more people have set their sights on Steam, looking to break into overseas markets. The first to take the plunge was probably WillPlus, with If My Heart Had Wings, but that game caught a ton of criticism, because to satisfy Steam’s review requirements and appeal to Western players, it got heavily cut and altered—lots of the porn was removed, and the story itself even ended up different from the original. That move got a ton of pushback and criticism from weeaboos; some people even made “restore the original” patches to make the game look less “sanitized.” Oh, right—maybe some of you don’t know what a weeaboo is. According to the internet: “Weeaboo is a mostly derogatory slang term for a Western person who is obsessed with Japanese culture.” In Chinese it’s even simpler: weeaboo = the otaku of the Western races.

その昔、深野市には、外つ国から来た魔法使いが住んでいたという もちろん、それを本気にするものは少ない。 けど、もし旅人がこの地を訪れたなら、きっと平地にはない異郷の香りを嗅ぐことだろう。 ここは、かつてヒトとヒトならざる者が共に暮らしたと伝わる幽玄の地。 四方を山に囲まれ、独自の自然観をはぐくんできた深野の町には どこか、そんなこともあるかもしれないと信じたくなる霊気が漂っている。 They say that long, long ago, a witch from a foreign land lived in Fukano City. Of course, hardly anyone takes that rumor seriously. But any traveler who visits will surely catch a whiff of something foreign, different from the usual. This is a legendary place of mystery, where humans and all sorts of non-human beings live together. In this small town of Fukano, surrounded by mountains on all sides and nurturing its own unique natural scenery, a faint spiritual presence drifts about, and there exist things that may or may not be there—yet you can’t help but believe in them… This passage isn’t something I wrote — it’s from the game Tamayura Mirai (タマユラミライ). If you’ve played it, the words will be burned into your memory, because the game repeats them at least 20 times. If you haven’t played it and plan to, then once you’re done you’ll probably be able to recite it from memory just like I can… Before I get into Tamanura Mirai (タマユラミライ), let’s talk about something else first — something game-related, of course. I know none of you want to read those intros that have nothing to do with the game, so I’ll skip them.

No idea how many years ago, there was a novel-based anime called Humanity Has Declined (人類は衰退しました). The premise: humanity has declined for unknown reasons, the world is overrun by “fairies,” and the female protagonist, a human, observes and interacts with them. Your standard anecdotal setup. I never read the original, so I can only talk about the anime, and honestly the anime was pretty good. After watching it I was left with three impressions: fun, sci-fi, and what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch. That last one sticks with you the most. You always get the sense the show is “hinting” at or “allegorizing” something, but you can never find the exact parallel, so it’s hard to pin down the author’s stance or viewpoint, what the story is trying to say, blah blah blah. But that’s exactly the appeal of Humanity Has Declined—if it stated its position too clearly, it’d feel like force-feeding you opinions, and it’d be harder to provoke thought. That half-hidden, “still holding the pipa behind the curtain” feeling is just right. And what’s worth noting: the author of Humanity Has Declined is Tanaka Romeo. This was the first and only time I’d encountered his work. I had no interest in what he wrote afterward and didn’t follow him much. Then a while back, a game called Waka-sama no Zasu Sekai (和香様の座する世界) came out, and I saw that familiar name in the script credits again: Tanaka Romeo. And it reminded me of Humanity Has Declined.

From what I can dig up, the earliest visual novel goes back to 1982 — roughly 30-odd years of history at this point. Over that long haul, under the core premise of “attract male players with cute girls,” the art and styles have changed again and again, and the elements have piled up, but one thing has never changed: the big-breasted character always shows up. You could say that for today’s eroge, “no CV? Fine. No OP? Fine. No systems? Fine. But no big breasts? Unthinkable.” Big breasts have become the last-resort trump card for plenty of visual novel makers on the verge of going under, as if whipping out the big-breast element alone will bring them back from the dead. So what exactly is the appeal of big breasts? Why must a visual novel have a big-breasted character? Today let’s grab a recently released game and spend 7-plus-7 minutes figuring out why.

One When I was little, I knew some friends. All kinds of friends. Since we were young, we inevitably talked about the future, and we’d talk about what kind of dreams we had. Apart from listing various vague professions, I noticed none of us had anything particularly “positive” to say about our dreams. How should I put it—a lot of our dreams were things like “endless money, endless snacks,” really simple, low-tier ideas, plus that kingly aura of “rule the world, rule the universe.” One buddy of mine told me back then: my dream is to “destroy the Earth.” When I asked why, he said: “I just wanna see what happens when the Earth blows up.” Sure, different people have different dreams, but I can confirm not one person’s dream was “to protect world peace.” Everyone wanted to be the hegemon—the one who destroys world peace. When I grew up and saw “man’s nature is good at birth,” I always felt it was self-deception.

A while back I bought a discounted Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 tablet on eBay to replace my Mi Pad 4 and 360 N7. Its job is watching videos and gaming, plus whatever else comes up. The reasons were simple, just three: The Mi Pad 4 has a “screen gets hot and touch stops responding” problem, so it can’t game The 360 phone games fine but the screen is harsh on the eyes, and the system is basically abandoned after launch Neither of them supports stereo sound for videos — both are single-speaker Don’t ask why I didn’t get an iPad. I don’t use Apple, so Samsung was the only option — it’s the highest-performance Android tablet out there right now. Eventually I searched Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 on eBay and found a US V version with a 4G module, model T837V. Got it for just over 3000 yuan. I’ve used it for almost a month now, so I can share my impressions.

I really don’t get what Palette is doing. Why did they have to chop the 9-nine series into pieces like this? And not just chop it up—release the pieces so damn slowly. Two years ago we got 9-nine- Kokonotsu Kokonoka Kokonoiro, last year Sorairo Sorauta Soranooto, and this year Haruiro Harukoi Harunokaze. The Chinese title translates to something like “Spring Colors, Spring Love, Spring Wind.”

Last year there was one insanely good game I recommended hard: Haruoto Alice＊Gram. This year it got a sequel, Hakuai Sakura＊Gram. After finishing it I looked up at the stars and felt a whole lot of ripples in my chest. People always call Japan the “Warring States period of eroge” — every company dives into the fray, blood and guts everywhere, trying every trick in the book to survive and sell copies, and still taking heavy casualties. While every other studio was racking its brains over how to make otaku open their wallets, the great Nanawind did not let me down. Hakuai Sakura＊Gram is a satisfying answer sheet. An eroge has to sell to survive, and Hakuai Sakura＊Gram is a runaway commercial success. Hell, it’s a textbook success.

Lately a lot of eroge makers give off the vibe that they’re about to go under… Alcot, for instance. Aside from peddling expired pillows and illustrations on Twitter every day, you barely see them do anything. I remember last year they put out what they called a proper game, 将軍様はお年頃, and then basically nothing for almost a year. Just when we figured they were about to croak… Alcot announced a new release! And then I look closer and holy shit, the new release is a fandisc. Honestly I’m so sick of fandiscs filling my screen I could puke, but it seems like a lot of studios can’t manage new titles anymore and just repackage old stuff to scrape by. Whatever. If Alcot’s done for, might as well see them off. Alcot’s new release is called 将軍様はお年頃 ふぁんでぃすく -御三家だヨ！ 全員集合. Long as hell and contains zero information… the name itself looks cheap, like a little flyer ad. Fine, fine. Don’t speak ill of the dying. Let’s just look at the game.