mDuo13

Since I'm currently updating this website with long-overdue changes, I might also note that I've added to my link list a friend from college, whose recently-started blog is both an entertaining read and highly indicative of his personality. It's called The Zeppelin Diaries and his tagline is, "I like my coffee black, my dames classy, and my dialogues fictitious. Updating Daily with posts about D&D and related hobbies!" If that doesn't pique your interest, maybe you should re-evaluate yourself. Taking a little inspiration from his style, I felt like commenting on RPGs. I'm currently running a game of Orpheus, a little-known spinoff RPG by White Wolf from all the way back in 2003, which puts players into the shoes of grim-present ghostbusters and part-time (or full-time!) ghosts themselves.

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Gosh, it sure is hard to blog after so much time. It's not like miniscule updates on my life are particularly interesting. I do have some thoughts I've been kicking around about the nature of social games (and why they're generally terrible) but I'm hesitant to post them out of respect for my current employer. Maybe in a little while after I've polished them up. I also have a few long posts about mahjong partially prepared but lacking in polish. (Speaking of things lacking in polish, I should probably push a review of Angel Beats! sometime, too.) But for now, I'm going to talk about music games.

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Ah, where shall I begin? Certainly not with a trite apology for not updating my blog in so long; the only one who suffers from that is me anyway. Doesn't matter whether it's because I got roped into that Twitter thing or that I've been working too much, the truth is that I made something of a fool of myself by not updating (after promising to review Saki soon, among other things) and I have to move on. So I'll spare you the details of why I felt like writing this entry (I'm not sure anyway) or the context in which I started writing it, by hand in a notebook waiting for the train to depart for work. You aren't here for those details, or at least I hope not because they're rather mundane, and I expect more from my readers. Actually, no, that's a lie, because it assumes I have readers. In any case, before I go breaking more promises, let me forewarn you that, while this is a review of Strawberry Panic, it doesn't follow the structured review format I've been using for the past several years. I won't explain what prompted me to experiment this way, but I should explain what prompted me to watch Strawberry Panic, although it is also somewhat mundane. Simply put, my friend David recommended it, and eventually I hit upon the mood and circumstances to start watching.

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For the next installment in my (perhaps poorly-named) End of Season Review Flood, I visit the OVA third season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, titled Rei. Technically it's not a part of this season (having started some time ago) but being as the last episode finally came out around the same time, I'm gonna throw it in anyway. Oh, and as an aside, I just realized that I forgot to include "viewing considerations" sections in the previous reviews of this batch, so I've gone back to add those.

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Though there was a bit of a delay, my journey to review recently-ended anime continues with CANAAN, an anime adapted from part of well-received-in-Japan-but-never-translated Wii visual novel 428. While 428 as a whole is produced by studio Chunsoft, CANAAN is based on a section within the game created by TYPE-MOON founders Kinoko Nasu and Takeuchi Takashi. As you might guess from my current website design, I've been a dedicated fan of TYPE-MOON since 2002 anime Shingetsutan Tsukihime. As such, I've been looking forward to CANAAN since it was announced, even before I had the faintest idea what it was about.

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For the second part of my anime review bonanza, I'm hitting a series I actually enjoyed: Firefox 2.0 anime Spice and Wolf II, the continuation of the surprisingly good 2008 medieval economics fantasy plus wolf-girl romance series.

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