Hamburgers Are Incapable Of Conveying The Majesty Of Space.

[rionaleonhart]

Rei's partner Tem and I have an arrangement: whenever Tem visits, the two of us will play weird videogames about murder together.

Tem: Riona! Tomorrow, there will be murder.
Riona: Absolutely.
Rei: You can't say things like that!
Riona: We just did.
Tem: What are you going to do to stop us? Murder us? That would just be playing straight into our hands.

In weird-videogames-about-murder news, I'm surprised and delighted by the announcement of a sequel to AI: The Somnium Files! That's actually the game that kicked off this tradition; Tem and I tend to be awake before anyone else in the house, so we'd hang out and play it in the mornings. Looking forward to more of this absolute nonsense.


Of course, I'm also still playing Persona 5 Royal. Here's my latest batch of notes.

Can't believe I almost turned down Ryuji's invitation to see a film in order to hang out with a politician. I need to get my priorities straight. Boyfriend time is more important than spending my time as efficiently as possible.

'With Ryuji next to me, the movie was almost as fresh as the first time I saw it.' Aww!

Takemi calls me 'good boy'. She remains terrifying and I'm into it.

I keep going 'oh, I'm still at the beginning of the game, I'm only two Palaces in, Makoto hasn't joined my team yet, I've barely started,' and then I catch sight of the game clock and realise I've been playing for over thirty hours.

I love that Makoto prepared for spying on us by reading detective novels.

There's a whole new shopping district to explore in Royal! Ryuji's hanging out with me and commenting on everything I look at! I got a bravery bonus for sitting on a display sofa for ages! This is delightful.

'I keep forgettin', but your glasses are fake, huh?' WHAT, I REJECT THIS NEW CANON, OF COURSE THE PROTAGONIST NEEDS HIS GLASSES, HOW DARE YOU. Yes, I know he doesn't wear glasses in Palaces, but obviously he's got a corrective magical mask.

(pict informs me that 'the protagonist doesn't actually need glasses' was already canon in the original game, which I am also choosing to ignore.)

It's strange how rarely we see characters who canonically have vision problems, given how common vision problems are in real life.

Also puzzled by Akechi later going 'oh, so those glasses are just for the aesthetic?' in response to 'I see a lot of things'. Maybe I see a lot of things because I am wearing my glasses, Akechi. From two paces, I can barely tell whether someone has eyes; with my glasses on, I can see individual hairs on their head. The fact that I can't see things without assistance doesn't mean I can't ever see things; that's what glasses are for!

This darts date with Ryuji is very cute.

'I feel like I understand something better after pairing up with Ryuji!' You bet, Rei.

Caroline calling the waitress over with 'Hey! Person!' is sort of incredible.

I scored 69 points in a round of darts and got the message 'NICE ONE'. It was the first time I'd seen that message, so I didn't realise until I got a similar score later that it had just been a coincidence.

Comments

[pict]

The glasses being fake has always been canon, though - he only starts wearing them when he's exiled to Tokyo and he ditches them when he moves back home. He doesn't have a vision problem, the glasses are just a visual metaphor for him curtailing the rebellious aspect of his personality as he tries to have a No Trouble Year.

It's strange how rarely we see characters who canonically have vision problems, given how common vision problems are in real life.

This is such a good point though. Especially in anime, and anime-inspired media; I can't think of a single example of a character what wears glasses if they're not leaning into the nerdier tropes. I mean, I guess post-timeskip Kanji from P4G? And, uh, Katherine from Catherine. It's more common in western live action, I think - I could name at least four characters. Maybe five!




... this is a terrible comment. In my defense, it is 3AM.

[rionaleonhart]

I choose to disregard your first paragraph. It's my canon now.

I can think of a few anime characters - Hughes of Fullmetal Alchemist, Soichiro of Death Note, Satoshi of DN Angel - but certainly not many. My instinct's actually the opposite of yours; I tend to expect to see bespectacled characters more often in anime (which has the 'LIGHT DRAMATICALLY REFLECTING OFF SOMEONE'S GLASSES' trope) than in Western live-action (where you have to worry about making sure the cameras can't be seen reflected in the glasses).

[pict]

It's my canon now.

You know what? Good. I certainly do not want it. Bye, P5R. Riona is your owner now. Get out of my house. ♥

[(Anonymous)]

Seems to be a good year or two for sequels. NEO TWEWY is out this month too, which I've pre-ordered - I'm not playing the demo or watching a trailer so am doing my best to play it "blind" (in the non-glasses sense). :P

You're right about presence of glasses in media, especially Japanese media. I wonder if people are more likely to wear contacts/have laser eye surgery etc in, say, Japan which might reflect it, or if it's just simply that wearing glasses isn't "idealised".

I've been playing a number of games I've picked up in Steam sales:

-Lacuna, a really cool point and click adventure game about a detective that I really enjoyed. I liked that the detective work made you think and it's presented in an interesting way.

-Eliza, which I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. I keep getting distracted with playing the card game which I'm far more invested in than the story, lol. The meta story with the main character is fairly interesting, but given you have no choice in the therapy sessions and are clicking a single option it almost feels anti-game at times... which I guess is partly the idea, that the player character has no agency in those situations?

-Unheard, a game where there's barely any graphics except floor plans. It's a listening game. You follow people (literally identical circular blobs) around a scene, have to correctly identify them via voice/conversation (no subs available), and answer some questions. There are always multiple characters - up to about 16 in one of them - who all tend to be running around often having simultaneous conversations, so you might be following a ten minute stretch of time, but hsving to keep revisit to hear different facets of what is going on. I really liked it.

-The Sexy Brutale - only just started this one. I somehow have to prevent lots of people being murdered through the power of time travel and need to map where characters are/what's going on in the plot.

-timydamonkey

[rionaleonhart]

I actually got this comment while I was playing the NEO TWEWY demo! I'm pleased to report that it still seems like a very weird game.

I feel the lack of bespectacled characters is an issue with media in general, not just media from Japan; I was very excited as a short-sighted kid when I discovered Harry Potter! I think wearing glasses is actually very common in Japan, although, when trying to find statistics, I found some news stories from 2019 about some Japanese employers banning glasses for female employees (??????).

I've played The Sexy Brutale, and it was an interesting game; I hope you enjoy it! These other games sound pretty interesting, too.

[(Anonymous)]

I actually got this comment while I was playing the NEO TWEWY demo! I'm pleased to report that it still seems like a very weird game.

Sounds good to me! I hope the translation is as fun and lively.

I'll be honest: I feel like I don't watch enough Western media to notice, and I don't picture characters in books, so never tend to notice, haha.

Oh, obviously I also finished YTTD part 3.1 recently too (I assume you know that's come out; but in case you don't, it has!).

[rionaleonhart]

It's definitely lively! (And still trying hilariously hard to be cool, which delights me.) Although one character said 'galaxy brain' at least four times across the span of the demo and I wish he'd stop.

I've played the new Your Turn to Die chapter, yes! Some great development for Q-taro, I thought.

[graveexcitement]

i'm excited by the AI: The Somnium Files sequel! (i finally played AITSF like 7 months ago, at my brother's urging.) Mizuki being the protagonist seems like it'll be fun! (my brother thinks Uchikoshi's strength is in standalone games rather than sequels, but i suppose we'll see whether AI: Nirvana will be good.)

[rionaleonhart]

Mizuki's my favourite character, so I'm thrilled by the opportunity to play as her! Although I also really liked her dynamic with Date, and I suspect we're not going to see much of that if, as Uchikoshi has said, Nirvana Initiative doesn't have any spoilers for the original game.

I wasn't a huge fan of Virtue's Last Reward but loved Zero Time Dilemma, so I'll be interested to see whether my opinion on this Uchikoshi sequel also wildly contradicts everyone else's.

[graveexcitement]

yeah i'm definitely excited to play as Mizuki!

i'd say i liked VLR more than ZTD, but i love 999 a lot more than either. i feel like 999 nailed it, and VLR and ZTD both had issues/elements that made them miss the mark a little (for me personally! def subjective.)

[samuraiter]

*hums the Big Bang Burger theme*

[rionaleonhart]

For some reason, when I try to think of what the Big Bang Burger theme sounds like, I just get the Magic Roundabout theme stuck in my head.

[lokifan]

Rei: You can't say things like that!
Riona: We just did.
Tem: What are you going to do to stop us? Murder us? That would just be playing straight into our hands.

LMAO.

Yeah, everybody has glasses in real life! It's probably partly for filming reasons in live action, but even in anime and books and stuff you only see it occasionally for a Clever Person (or sometimes an elderly one). I remember back in the day Harry Potter being discussed in the States as a nerdy character when he... very clearly isn't, and I think that was just the glasses.

[rionaleonhart]

It's probably partly for filming reasons in live action, but even in anime and books and stuff you only see it occasionally for a Clever Person (or sometimes an elderly one).

It's so strange! Such a common thing in real life, but so rare in fictional characters.

Wow, yes, Harry Potter isn't a nerdy character at all. Just an ordinary schoolkid who has strengths and weaknesses, subjects he's interested in, subjects he isn't; he gets his homework done, but he's not that serious about studying. It's interesting that his design led people to read in characteristics that weren't there.