I counted it up: I played 64 galge this year. For comparison, 2016 was 77 and 2015 was 80, so it’s trending exactly the way I figured it would. Fewer games every year, which is solid proof my life is getting fuller. Not many, sure, but I did get through most of the big releases, and honestly the year as a whole left me disappointed. For one thing, a bunch of the big studios put out nothing. Even the old moege factories were quiet. Yuzusoft had no new game, SAGA PLANETS is releasing at the end of the month—I’m enjoying what I’ve played of it so far, but I haven’t finished, so it misses the cut. Most of what I did play was fan discs. Fan discs, more fan discs, and “fake fan discs” wearing a “second installment” label. Strip out those sequel cash-grabs and what’s left is moege and landmines. I thought about it for a whole day and barely scraped together a list. It’s a pretty personal one. Use it as a reference if you want. (Ranked in order)

It’s CD show-off time again. I bought quite a lot this time, and it’s been a while.

I only signed up out of boredom, and then I actually got invited. I’d almost forgotten about it, glanced at my phone and remembered, so I hopped on my bike and went.

When I was a kid, my father would rigorously review my homework—essays above all. By “review” I mean I had to show him my essays first, he’d give suggestions for revision, and only once he was satisfied and I’d done enough editing could I hand it in. Pretty unreasonable, right? A very paternalistic approach, right? But every coin has two sides—luckily my father happened to be a decent writer himself, so a lot of his feedback was actually useful. The thing I remember most is what he said about narrative essays. Sometimes he’d flat-out call my writing “boring”—meaning it gave you no desire to keep reading. “You should give your story ups and downs, maybe even suspense, so people will want to keep going.” “But the thing I’m writing about was just boring.” I think it was about giving up my seat to an old lady—“A Meaningful Event.” “You can arrange the story a bit—like, you give up your seat but she flat-out refuses to sit at first, and only later explains she thinks she’s not that old yet, or something…” “But that’s just making stuff up…” “And giving up your seat isn’t making stuff up? Have you ever actually given up your seat?” “…………”

One regret of mine: the game Mahoutsukai no Yoru never got an OST release. Sure, you can extract the OGG files from the game, but those aren’t lossless—I actually ripped a set myself, just couldn’t be bothered to type in the names for the tags. I kept thinking an OST would come out eventually, and, well, you know how it goes. Years pass, the next game is about to launch, and the previous game’s OST is still nowhere. The composer is Meto. This isn’t the first time he’s worked with the writer Rukuru, if I remember right—Unmei Yohou wo Oshirase Shimasu had BGM by him too, so did Mahoutsukai no Yoru, and the composer for Suisou Ginka no Istoria, out next month, is him again. I don’t know if they’re doing it on purpose or what, but none of the games Rukuru and his crew work on ever get an OST release. Even Unmei Yohou wo Oshirase Shimasu was originally supposed to include an OST with the special edition, and then right before release they just… cut it. And Suisou Ginka no Istoria is only getting the theme song Azurite no Hitsugi as a bonus. So I poked around Meto’s personal site out of curiosity and found he’s been composing music on his own all along, and he sells CDs of his own work right there. So I picked up the package versions to show some support. (A few CDs in there are just gate-crashing, please ignore them.)

I found this album completely by accident. A while back I followed a link recommended by the socialite Fubuki Hoshino on Google Plus, ended up wandering around SoundCloud, and discovered a whole new world. SoundCloud really does have a lot of musicians active on it — though of course there are even more music fans. Plenty of remixers and musicians choose to release their work on SoundCloud. Most of it, well… personally I think it’s pretty slapdash, but at the same time there are quite a few tracks with something going for them too. Most of the remixes and original tracks on SoundCloud are electronically produced music — not everyone can afford to put a band together, after all. That means the music there tends to have a strong beat and a thick electronic flavor. Once you accept that premise it’s actually pretty catchy. I personally found some interesting tracks, like this one by aiobahn — the latest, 永久の宴, is quite distinctive and leans into a flavor that suits Western tastes. Western listeners call that move where the chorus suddenly drops in a massive bassline to deepen the rhythmic drive Drop the beat. If you look closely you can see in the comments on 永久の宴 just how satisfied the Westerners are with that beat drop… Of course, SoundCloud isn’t only this boom-tish music. There’s some more Japanese-leaning stuff too, though most of it is still electronic. A few doujin circles attach SoundCloud preview links to their promo pages — that’s another route in. And that’s where I found this little album, ゆのみっくにお茶して…

As someone who’s already “retired” from the audiophile hobby, I’m not really interested in mysticism anymore. Mostly I just look for songs to listen to—following arrangers, following singers, seeing which singers look good… oh, I mean sing well. I used to use the Dunu DN20000J as my retirement IEM, but lately my tastes have gotten a bit heavier. That IEM, well… you know how it is. Back then I fell for the bullshit those KOLs were peddling, chasing after “female poison” and transparency. Who’d have thought I’d end up liking EDM and Hip-Hop? And even when it’s not EDM or Hip-Hop, ordinary pop just lacks something through the Dunu… So in the end, I guess I just prefer that dynamic driver feel? Finally I saw the JVC FX1200 on sale for JD Double Eleven, so I just bought it. As the flagship of dynamic drivers, I figured I’d experience its charm.

“So… you like music?” When I told the blind-date woman—God knows which number by now—about the only hobby I can actually bring up, I finally got something slightly more positive than the usual “oh.” “Yeah, a lot.” As I said it, my head was full of the line from an eroge: “はい、大好きです。”

Getting a car is just the beginning… beginning of what? The beginning of buy, buy, buy! Because the Honda Vezel wasn’t easy to get and there weren’t many discounts, just being able to buy one with a small discount was already good enough. Can’t expect them to throw anything in, so I had to buy seat cushions and the rest myself. Good thing Taobao is pretty much universal—got all of that sorted fast. Of course, as a nerd who likes building computers, what I care about more is other stuff.

I do have a Sony ZX1, but it broke a few days ago… Okay, actually it got rained on and water got inside, so I played dumb and sent it to after-sales. They could tell it was water damage, but in the end they decided to honor the warranty anyway. “The motherboard has to be ordered, no idea when it’ll be fixed. We’ll call you when it arrives.” That’s what the repair center told me… So I found a new excuse to spend money: I bought an iPod Classic 160G on Taobao (now eBay). No idea if it’s new or not, but it looks pretty new. I’m not asking much from this thing, cheap is good enough. I’m not an Apple cultist, I hate iTunes, and all my music is FLAC, so I decided to flash the freshly-arrived iPod Classic with Rockbox for more freedom and format support. This is what it looks like after flashing.