Kono mi ni kaete mo...
Well, like appaku , my JLPT grows ever closer. All the hotels in London are booked up in the area of SOAS, so I'm having to stay across the city, but at least it's booked now and I can stop thinking about doing it. And at least I'm not scared of the tube system. Plus, coincidentally I've actually been to the exam location before, so hopefully I might actually manage to find it.
Where SOAS's actual campus is remains a mystery, but seemingly one I don't need to worry too much about.
In light of my fast approaching examination, I have obviously been studying my grammar and kanji very hard...
By...erm...playing HaruToki 2 on the PSP.
This probably earns the prize for longest ever time playing one neoroma game, because I got it and began it over two years ago now and I'm still not at the end yet. I have got as far as Chapter Four though, this time...which is something of an amazement in itself because up to now I'd only reached about chapter two.
I'm on the Mikado (Chi) path, which was sort of deliberate and sort of accidental. My very first foray into this game was on the Ten/In path and so when I decided to play it properly instead of looking at the pretty pictures, I thought to try it from the other side.
I'm also trying to do it with minimal help from online guides or anything of that nature, which means many random happenings.
My guys at present seem to be Yasutsugu and Katsuzane. I was trying to get Akifumi's events too, but I ran out of time to get his third event so he'll have to wait until another time. Randomly Yoritada keeps showing up (I didn't know you could get events with Ten Hachiyou on the Chi path, but he seems determined to have events, so...fine...) and Akuram, him too. I haven't even tried to get to know Akuram or gone looking for him, yet I'm somewhat suspicious that I've managed to finish three Akuram events since the last one he spoke to me and he had a pretty little still picture too. That's sort of ironic since I never did manage to get Akuram in the Hachiyou Shou game for HaruToki 1. Maybe I'm just a century too late...
As for Yasutsugu and Katsuzane...
Even though he looks so much like Yasuaki, I don't ever think of Yasutsugu being the same. I can't really pinpoint why, because he was created, he's about 90 years old and he remembers Yasuaki as almost his 'brother' or something (think of it like Jet and JD in NeoAnge, I guess??) I think there's just something about him that's different. He was the first character I met on restarting the game, so I've stuck with him. He seems generally nicer to Motomi than Yasuaki was to Eisen in the original game - though Motomi does like looking like a damsel in distress at the least thing, and that's also quite amusing. Either way, I've three Yasutsugu events finished and he's still babbling about being the Miko's tool, so...I wonder what the fourth will bring.
Katsuzane was accidental. I don't like Tenma all that much in the original series, and I'd heard people say Katsuzane was exactly like Tenma.
Absolutely. Totally. Without a doubt. NOT.
Tenma's inner angst comprises him worrying about his missing sister and his being in love with Akane although Akane might be in love with anyone else.
In contrast, Katsuzane has more or less abandoned his sister to her crazy Kokuryuu path because he wants to save Kyou and takes it seriously. Also, he has this very neat little backstory with Isato (whose mother was Katsuzane's wetnurse) and a fire in which the two boys were trapped. Inori went to get help and help came from the Taira estate, but they only saved Katsuzane and left everyone else to burn. This turned Isato against the nobility, made Katsuzane and Isato more distant from each other and, most significantly, made Katsuzane feel that his life was saved at the expense of everyone else, just because he was nobility. Consequently he too is acting outside of his Clan and his noble blood. He had a great long soulsearching conversation with Karin on his third event about not wanting to give up and whether it was okay to not want to give up because there didn't seem a point in not giving up or...something. Very emotional O.o. But tbh it added a whole depth to Katsuzane's character that...I don't think Tenma really has. Maybe it's just my latent Heike love coming through early, though. Also he's an archer, too - I have a thing about bows and arrows O.o.
In any case, Katsuzane >Tenma.
Right now I'm stuck on some Byakko-related quest. I have no idea, to be quite honest, what Yukitaka and Hisui are meant to find/do/bring before meeting the Myouou and gaining the seal or how they're meant to do it. That makes life somewhat interesting, and in the meantime, Yoritada's turned up again....
I rewatched Shiroki Ryuu no Miko as well over the last few days (no subs, that makes it listening practice) and I really like it as an OVA but it always makes me wish for a longer series. Especially now knowing the story between Isato and Katsuzane, but also the one between Kazuhito and the impossibly nice yet impossible to hate Akifumi. Showing Yoritada's angsting about having to kill Karin to fulfil his duty is nice but...there's potential for more too.
I maintain that the characters from 2 are not simply copies of the ones from 1, even if they are not as exciting and dazzling as the ones from 3. And if I didn't keep losing my power cable to charge my psp, I'd probably have finished at least one route by now...
If nothing else, HaruToki is EXCELLENT for learning/remembering keigo. Between FujiHime and YukariHime, I've learnt an awful lot more from HaruToki than I've learnt from my grammar book and that has to be good, right??
Where SOAS's actual campus is remains a mystery, but seemingly one I don't need to worry too much about.
In light of my fast approaching examination, I have obviously been studying my grammar and kanji very hard...
By...erm...playing HaruToki 2 on the PSP.
This probably earns the prize for longest ever time playing one neoroma game, because I got it and began it over two years ago now and I'm still not at the end yet. I have got as far as Chapter Four though, this time...which is something of an amazement in itself because up to now I'd only reached about chapter two.
I'm on the Mikado (Chi) path, which was sort of deliberate and sort of accidental. My very first foray into this game was on the Ten/In path and so when I decided to play it properly instead of looking at the pretty pictures, I thought to try it from the other side.
I'm also trying to do it with minimal help from online guides or anything of that nature, which means many random happenings.
My guys at present seem to be Yasutsugu and Katsuzane. I was trying to get Akifumi's events too, but I ran out of time to get his third event so he'll have to wait until another time. Randomly Yoritada keeps showing up (I didn't know you could get events with Ten Hachiyou on the Chi path, but he seems determined to have events, so...fine...) and Akuram, him too. I haven't even tried to get to know Akuram or gone looking for him, yet I'm somewhat suspicious that I've managed to finish three Akuram events since the last one he spoke to me and he had a pretty little still picture too. That's sort of ironic since I never did manage to get Akuram in the Hachiyou Shou game for HaruToki 1. Maybe I'm just a century too late...
As for Yasutsugu and Katsuzane...
Even though he looks so much like Yasuaki, I don't ever think of Yasutsugu being the same. I can't really pinpoint why, because he was created, he's about 90 years old and he remembers Yasuaki as almost his 'brother' or something (think of it like Jet and JD in NeoAnge, I guess??) I think there's just something about him that's different. He was the first character I met on restarting the game, so I've stuck with him. He seems generally nicer to Motomi than Yasuaki was to Eisen in the original game - though Motomi does like looking like a damsel in distress at the least thing, and that's also quite amusing. Either way, I've three Yasutsugu events finished and he's still babbling about being the Miko's tool, so...I wonder what the fourth will bring.
Katsuzane was accidental. I don't like Tenma all that much in the original series, and I'd heard people say Katsuzane was exactly like Tenma.
Absolutely. Totally. Without a doubt. NOT.
Tenma's inner angst comprises him worrying about his missing sister and his being in love with Akane although Akane might be in love with anyone else.
In contrast, Katsuzane has more or less abandoned his sister to her crazy Kokuryuu path because he wants to save Kyou and takes it seriously. Also, he has this very neat little backstory with Isato (whose mother was Katsuzane's wetnurse) and a fire in which the two boys were trapped. Inori went to get help and help came from the Taira estate, but they only saved Katsuzane and left everyone else to burn. This turned Isato against the nobility, made Katsuzane and Isato more distant from each other and, most significantly, made Katsuzane feel that his life was saved at the expense of everyone else, just because he was nobility. Consequently he too is acting outside of his Clan and his noble blood. He had a great long soulsearching conversation with Karin on his third event about not wanting to give up and whether it was okay to not want to give up because there didn't seem a point in not giving up or...something. Very emotional O.o. But tbh it added a whole depth to Katsuzane's character that...I don't think Tenma really has. Maybe it's just my latent Heike love coming through early, though. Also he's an archer, too - I have a thing about bows and arrows O.o.
In any case, Katsuzane >Tenma.
Right now I'm stuck on some Byakko-related quest. I have no idea, to be quite honest, what Yukitaka and Hisui are meant to find/do/bring before meeting the Myouou and gaining the seal or how they're meant to do it. That makes life somewhat interesting, and in the meantime, Yoritada's turned up again....
I rewatched Shiroki Ryuu no Miko as well over the last few days (no subs, that makes it listening practice) and I really like it as an OVA but it always makes me wish for a longer series. Especially now knowing the story between Isato and Katsuzane, but also the one between Kazuhito and the impossibly nice yet impossible to hate Akifumi. Showing Yoritada's angsting about having to kill Karin to fulfil his duty is nice but...there's potential for more too.
I maintain that the characters from 2 are not simply copies of the ones from 1, even if they are not as exciting and dazzling as the ones from 3. And if I didn't keep losing my power cable to charge my psp, I'd probably have finished at least one route by now...
If nothing else, HaruToki is EXCELLENT for learning/remembering keigo. Between FujiHime and YukariHime, I've learnt an awful lot more from HaruToki than I've learnt from my grammar book and that has to be good, right??