I just purchased Calico and began playing it over the weekend. Calico is a cute anime style Cat cafe game. The gameplay is simple and relaxing. You collect cute animals and run errands for towns folk while baking cute treats to sell in your cafe. You can also buy and unlock new recipes, new furniture, and new outfits.
What I love most about this game is how inclusive it truly is. You can be fat, slim, short, tall, black white, or green, or yellow, red, pink, whatever. You can have long hair, short hair, curly hair, straight hair, bangs, no bangs, side bangs, etc. I mean my character looks almost exactly like me in real life. And within game, the NPCs are various body/skintone types too. read more
Anime got started back in the 1980s. 40 years ago! All that time ago many anime never left its home country of Japan. Or when it did get released in North America it was heavily edited – removing entire episodes and altering characters and stories – such as with the localization of Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon was recently remade with Crystal, and an all new dub of the 90s version that was more faithful to the source material. This got me thinking… what long – almost forgotten – anime needs either a reboot – or just a release to DVD because it was never released or released and now impossible to find unless you’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars.read more
I just finished watching all 12 episodes of Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-Kun. I can’t remember who recommended that I watch this, a year or more ago, and I just now got around to it.
My overall feeling is it’s a cute and short kind of mindless fun comedy anime, with a little bit of romance that never ever really ever goes anywhere.
It is left with a little bit of an open ending. This post might have spoilers.
Here’s a quick spoiler free score card before I dive into the reasons for my score.read more
The sequel to KLab’s smash hit Love Live School Idol Festival, Love Live All Stars takes it to the next level with fully animated Live2D characters that dance around on the screen.
Like its predecessor, Love Live School Idol Festival, Love Live All Stars is a card collecting rhythm game with cute anime girls to collect.
The new installment in Love Live has a few key differences from the original, most notably is the animation. There’s also costumes you can unlock for your girls to wear and a new voltage gameplay system that allows you to score more points.read more
I recently received Starlight Stage A Pop Idol Card Game from RightStuf. RightStuf is one of the oldest and largest distributors of Otaku merchandise in the US. Check out their website at www.RightStuf.com for everything from anime, manga, action figures, Japanese candy, games, and more.
I decided to purchase Starlight Stage because I’m a fan of mobile idol games and idol anime such as Love Live, Utapri, Bang Dream, Ensemble Stars, and yes, Idol M@ster.
I do not know for sure if this board game is based on Idol M@ster but I suspect it is, since one of the early and most popular Idol M@ster mobile games is titled Idol M@ster Starlight Stage. For whatever reason though, if it is in fact at all related, they stripped it of the Idol M@ster title and just dubbed it Starlight Stage. Either way, related or not, if you love the mobile games or anime idol games, you’ll love Starlight Stage Card Game by Japanime Games.read more
A Doki Doki Representative reached out to me and offered me a choice of Doki Doki, Japan Crate, or Gacha Gacha Crate to review for my audience at Geeky Sweetie. I had subscribed to Doki Doki a few years ago and I was curious if it had improved any since then. So I selected to receive Doki Doki Crate. It just arrived the other day and I have mixed feelings about this crate.
If you like what you see here, you can sign up to receive this May Sweet Dreams Crate on Doki Doki’s website at https://japancrate.com/dokidoki
As always, it was packed super well. The entire crate was stuffed full of kawaii cute items. The crate itself is bright pink and always includes a full color booklet showing the items inside the crate, and showing the lucky crate that one subscriber receives each month. Also if you share photos of your crate on social media you might be featured in the book next month and receive a special item as a thank you.
I’m sure most of you have seen the official Doki Doki promo movie for this Month’s Crate. It has a Slumber Party theme and is packed full of cute items that you might need for your next slumber party.
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Let Kirby join your dreams with one of these adorable night lamps & sleep masks! Kirby & Waddle Dee will help guide you to the land of dreams for some good Z’s. Both Kirby Lamp & Sleep Mask are featured in May’s Crate! Get yours now, link in bio. . . . . . #Kirby #WaddleDee #DreamLand #SleepMask #Lamp #Kawaii #Cute #SweetDreams #Nightlight #Adorable
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The Kirby lamp and Kirby eye mask were my favorite parts of May’s Doki Doki Crate. They were super cute. I wish I would have gotten the pink Kirby lamp but the blue/white one is cute too! I feel like the lamp alone is well worth the costs of the subscription box itself. It’s fairly large and gives off a lot of light.
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A Kirby Lamp, Kirby Sleep Mask, and a plushie comfy shark are all coming in May’s Crate to help you have sweet dreams! Get your crate today, link in bio. . . . . . #Kirby #Kawaii #Shark #BabyShark #Plushie #Plush #Lamp #Adorableread more
I am really into Idol M@ster Shiny Colors. Unlike other Idol M@ster Mobile Games or Love Live or Bang Dream, Idol M@ster Shiny Colors is not a rhythm game. Idol M@ster Shiny Colors is a simulation game. You are a producer and “hire” idols to work in your studio. You draw the idols from gacha.
Please note – I did not realize this when I played, but on your first 10 play gacha, you get UNLIMITED REROLLS by pushing the YELLOW BUTTON on the left. Once you are happy with your cards press the PINK button on the right. I didn’t know, I pushed the pink button and I only had one SSR. I have been thinking about starting over (and still might) but I think I had some pre-registration bonuses and other things I don’t want to lose by restarting the game. So definitely do not push the Pink button until you have the cards you want.
Collecting and dressing girls is the main appeal of the game. But what do you do once you have a team of idol girls? You can plan their schedule – like a true sim game. You can have them practice, give interviews, or other activities to promote their stats.
The stats also can be increased in a final-fantasy-style skill tree system where you spend skill points to unlock stat-bonuses like +20 vocals, +30 dance, +20 vitality, etc. Depending what “path” you take in the skill tree your girls will develop in different ways.
You have one main girl, and several other backup idols. The main girl is the one to gain from this skill tree system.
Performing a live show is quite different from other mobile idol games. It’s more almost like an RPG battle. You tap a girl’s face below the stage and then tap a “skill” along the left such as vocal, dance, etc. Then a colored bar will appear on the screen, try to time it right and tap the screen when the needle on the bar is in the white color. White will give you the highest bonus. Purple the least, and yellow a medium boost. You can also “link” your girls’ actions to perform together in one attack. On the right hand side of the screen are some other bubbles. i think, but could be wrong since I do not read Japanese, but think that you are competing against other idols, and as you perform these skills you can defeat the idols to the right hand side. But if you miss, you will notice your own idols on the left dropping off the screen. Once all the idols either on left or right are gone, the performance ends.
The artwork in the game is very kawaii, and SSR and higher cards have movie animations, both when retrieving from the Gacha and also when performing a live show. All of the idols are animated with Live 2D which brings the characters to life on your screen. Many of the cards have “multiple characters” on one card, and when performing a live show, or meeting the idols out in town, you may see special scenes featuring the characters all together.
The voice acting and music is also top notch as you would expect from an idol game.
Replay value is high due to limited time events that offer rewards such as gacha tickets and gems.
My only complaint is a lot of the gacha are for paid gems only. However, the gems are fairly cheap, you can get a few hundred gems for under $10 – I haven’t bought any yet.
Will we see Idol M@ster Shiny Colors get an English release? Probably not. They tried years ago to release some Idol M@ster games in English and it flopped – however, they wanted $65 for a mobile game – And worst of all, after it flopped, they pulled it down and even if you had paid for it you could no longer play it!!! I wish they would try again but with some of their “FREE” mobile games, either Shiny Colors, Theater Days, or Cinderella Girls. — But my hope is slim… However there are 2 things that give me a little bit of hope. 1.) They seem to understand that there may be English speaking players playing Shiny Colors, when the visual novel aspects come up and the choices appear, they show in English an emoji and English words that say “Perfect” “Good” “Normal” so even if you can’t read the choices you can pick the best response still. And when purchasing diamonds, the currency is shown in US Dollars, not in Yen, which is odd. I’ve literally never seen that ever before in any Japanese games. Which is a nice touch so I don’t have to try to convert it, if I ever decide to buy diamonds. And 2.) I have hope because we are getting more and more and more English idol games, with the upcoming Revue Starlight Re LIVE, or last year’s Bang Dream Girl’s Band Party and Utapri, or the ever popular Love Live School Idol Festival, we continue to receive more and more games in this genre, but we have yet to receive any of the free Idol M@ster games… Shiny Colors is only a few weeks old in Japan, maybe in a year or two we could hope to see an English release? But it is still fairly easy to play even in Japanese. But it would be nice to be able to enjoy the story! I’d be more likely to buy paid gems if the game was in English.
Scorecard:
Overall Score 70/80 88% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls”
Geeky: 5/5 – collect virtual waifus. very geeky. And simulation aspects set this game apart from other idol games.
Sweetie: 5/5 – the girls are adorable
Gameplay: 10/10 – finally a true simulation game, similar to Princess Maker or Tokimeki Memorial, you schedule your idol’s activities and watch their stats grow. I enjoy this much more than just a tappy tap rhythm game. Your girls develop in different ways based on your choices and I love that.
Story: 0/10 – I can’t read Japanese so this may not be a “fair score” but until an English version exists I can’t judge the storyline.
Characters: 10/10 – cute, gorgeous artwork, huge diversity of girls.
Artwork: 10/10 – cute, live 2D, SSR and higher cards have full movie animation sequences.
Voice Acting: 10/10 – all of the girls sound so cute.
Music: 10/10 – of course a game about idols is going to have catchy and cute music.
Replay Value: 10/10 – Lots of events, they give a lot of SR tickets and free Gems and the fact that this is a simulation game also adds replay value because the girls change based on decisions you make.
Overall Score 70/80 88% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls”
Revue Starlight Re LIVE is an idol simulation game based on the popular anime Revue Starlight. The game uses Live 2D technology to bring the anime characters to life. You can pre-register now for the English release at the Pre-Registration website at https://www.en.revuestarlight-relive.com/preregistration/
They are running an event for Pre-Registration where they will give out rare girls based on the number of users who pre-register. So get all of your friends to join so we can all benefit from more Waifus.
The game and anime story follows a group of 9 girls all competing for the center stage, the shining star, lead performer role. The girls who were once friends now find themselves as rivals.
Not many details are available on the pre-registration site, but I expect an experience similar to Love Live School Idol, Bang! Dream Girl’s Band Party, or Idol M@ster.
A game where you collect cute girls, level them up, add them to your team, and play a rhythm game in solo or multiplayer game modes while enjoying a simple slice of life story.
Although the gameplay may be simple, the allure of collecting rare and time-limited girls will keep players coming back.
Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists Ateliers Of The New World
Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists Ateliers Of The New World is a brand new game by Koei Tecmo Games to celebrate 20 years of the series. Wow has it been that long already? I still remember the first 2 games way back when. And you know what else I remember, a little-known Nintnedo DS offshoot game in the Atelier Series called Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island which came out about 10 years ago.
So why Am I mentioning Atelier Annie? Because, if you’ve ever played it, then you know what to expect from Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists. Both games are unlike any of the rest of the Atelier Games, and instead put you in a role of managing a city and completing missions to advance.
Nelke has some really negative reviews – at least on Steam, but I purchased Nelke anyways, on a hunch it’d be like Atelier Annie, and you know what, I’m not disappointed. If you liked Annie, you’ll like Nelke. Conversely, if you hated Annie, you’ll hate Nelke, and if you’ve never played either game, well there’s only one way to find out then, and that’s by giving it a go for yourself.
The reviews on steam are complaining how different Nelke is — and to some — how boring it is… But honestly Atelier Annie was one of my favorites in the series. I loved the humorous story / humorous main character, and yes, I enjoyed the more “Sim Like” gameplay of building a city.
Nelke is not without flaws however; Unlike Annie, it lacks the humor and charm, and feels a bit dry and dull so far in the story. I’m 4 hours in at this point… which brings to another flaw, in that 4 hours in, I’m still in the tutorial… This game is very very very linear in the tutorial… Like almost everything will be on lockdown… for a long while… expect your first 8+ hours to be linear AF….
After that though there really is a TON of stuff to do in this game. It is NOT boring at all. You can craft items, gather materials, build new buildings, talk to your villagers, discover new recipes, sell items in your shops, and invest in new routes and tools to use in your adventures. There are simplistic turn based combats and different characters to recruit to your village.
You have to complete some required, and other optional tasks within a set number of days within the game. This can make it difficult and frustrating, so save often and in multiple save slots to try to minimize time lost if you miss a goal.
The game either runs slow on my laptop, or just is really slow by design, to the point where its a little frustrating. It may just be my laptop though and can probably be improved if I adjust some settings.
The main complaint a lot of people have is that while exploring you do nothing but watch your characters walk by on the screen. They will converse, gather items, and occasionally run into random enemy encounters. The battles are also slow and tedious. I do agree with these basic gameplay flaws. However, they don’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the other aspects of city building and mission completing and watching my city grow and evolve based on my decisions and choices made in where to invest and what to build next, etc.
The graphics are insanely adorable as always with the Atelier series.
Unlike a lot of the other games in the Atelier Universe, this one does not have English voice acting. I do like to have the original voice actors, but I also sometimes like to have an English cast too. I was disappointed they didn’t offer both.
I assume replay value is high because each city you build will be pretty unique and you will attract different stores, different npcs, and different quests based on how your city is developing.
All and all I’d rate the score card like this:
Title: Nelke & The Legendary Alchemists – Ateliers Of The New World –
Platform – (for this review The PC version was used.) It’s also available on PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Where to Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FMZZYK1?tag=amz-mkt-chr-us-20&ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-org00-win10-other-nomod-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-5&ref=aa_scomp
Geeky: 3/5 – Points for bringing back some of the popular characters from this series over the past 20 years.
Sweetie: 5/5 – For the casual gameplay and kawaii art
Overall: 53/70 78% C+ “Good Game For Girls”
Gameplay: 7/10 – I do love the sim aspects, having been a huge fan of Atelier Annie (easily one of my top 3 games in the Atelier universe). But I do agree that the game is slow and the wait for the payoff/reward is pretty steep. The game also doesn’t run great, can’t tell if it’s just my PC though maybe.
Story: 3/10 – I’m not loving the story, or lack there of. I’m 4 hours in and there’s not much of any story to be found; it does keep hinting at solving a mystery about a fruit from a legendary tree. But compared to other Atelier games the story feels less engaging so far.
Characters: 10/10 – I love seeing popular characters from the Atelier games return all in a brand new game. I also love the new characters that were created just for this game.
Voice Acting: 7/10 – The original Japanese voice cast does a great job and sounds super cute, but where’s the dual English voice acting? A bit disappointing especially for a 20th anniversary edition, you’d think they would have put a little more time and effort into the localization on this one. It feels cheap and rushed to not have both to choose from.
Music: 10/10 – Always love the music in the Atelier games, and Nelke doesn’t disappoint here either.
Replay Value: 8/10 – I think replay value will be very high, but I’m not looking forward to dredging through 5+ hours of linear handheld tutorials each time.
Overall: 53/70 78% C+ “Good Game For Girls”
Overall I would recommend this game to anyone who does not mind slower paced casual simulation games, or to anyone who remembers playing Atelier Annie on the DS. I like Atelier Annie a lil bit more because of the humorous story; but Nelke’s story may pick up and become more interesting. I may come in eventually and update my review scores if I find the story to improve as I get further into the game. Gameplay wise though it is almost identical to Atelier Annie, so if that’s your thing, be sure to check Nelke out.
VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF THE SHOJO MANGA SERIES THE YOUNG MASTER’S REVENGE
Plans For Revenge Go Awry In This Romantic Comedy From The Creator Of METEOR PRINCE
San Francisco, CA, February 21, 2018 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media),a premier company in the fields of publishing, animation distribution, and global entertainment licensing, delivers the print and digital release of THE YOUNG MASTER’S REVENGE on March 6th.
The series, by creator Meca Tanaka, is rated ‘T’ for Teens and will be published under the SHOJO BEAT imprint. Meca Tanaka is also the creator of the acclaimed shojo manga series METEOR PRINCE (also published by VIZ Media).read more
Title: Pop in Q Length: (approx) 1.5 hours, feature length film.
I hear there is a 2nd film in production as well that will finish telling the story. *hint: Keep watching after the credits of the first movie* Genre: Shoujo, Magical Girl, Fantasy, Idol, Musical, Slice of Life, Drama Studio: Toei Annimation Release Date: December, 2016
Score Card:
Geeky 1/5 – There is a bit of action later in the film, also some nostalgia to anyone who grew up watching shows like Digimon. But largely, this is pure shoujo aimed at very young girls. Afterall the girls themselves are middleschool students in this film.
Sweetie: 5/5 – This anime is utterly adorable!!! The Popin look like Sanrio characters. The girls are young and have round faces and big eyes. The music is catchy. Idol culture is always kawaii AF. The backgrounds have a nice painterly style. And the story actually has some depth to it, especially towards the end and the small preview of the next film.
Story 9/10 The story is basically the same as nearly every shoujo series. Which isn’t a bad thing. A group of young girls who don’t believe in themselves (or other people), come together, find their own inner strength, and learn to trust each other and work together. The basic plot of Pop in Q surrounds 5 girls each with different regrets as they prepare to graduate from middle school. They escape to the magic world where they meet the Popins, loveable cute mascots who are responsible for the flow of time. The girls do not want to return to their own world until tragedy threatens both worlds and forces the girls to make some difficult decisions.
Characters: 10/10 – 10 out of 10 just for how cute they are. Plus I like how every girl is given ample screen time and has a rich back story. This reminded me a lot of sailor moon or magic knights rayearth, or to a lesser degree card captor sakura. It also has a hint of love live or aikatsu stars because of the idol elements. But the cutest thing of all are the Poppins!
Artwork: 4/5 I deducted 1 point because some of the 3D scenes are not animated that well. However, the character designs are so cute. The 2D parts are adorable, and the background environments have this lovely painterly style with heavy brush strokes. This creates a beautiful storybook like feeling.
Voice Acting: 4/5 – The voice acting is cute and suits each of the girls. The poppins also have cute voices. Only reason I didn’t give it a 5 was that it wasn’t that memorable.
Music: 5/5 – There are tons of vocal tracks, obviously as music plays a central role to this story. Luckily all of the music is quite catchy. I also liked the instrumental tracks, especially highlighting some sad and touching moments.
Imagine Figure Skater Nintendo DS Otome Olympic Ice Skating Game
With the 2018 Winter Olympics well under way, I’ve been thinking a lot about games and anime (such as Yuri on Ice which I reviewed here) that showcases the dedication that a skater must possess. I remembered fondly an NDS game from “a few” years ago that I played that allowed you to take on the life of a professional skater, competing in various events, training, dating, and dealing with drama.
This game, as it turns out, was Imagine: Figure Skater for the Nintendo DS. The game first came out in 2008 (at least in North America), making it “retro” by my definition (I consider anything greater than 10 years old to be retro.) I’m thinking about digging out my cartridge and playing it again this weekend. I’ve also been thinking about rewatching Yuri!! on Ice.
First, you might look at the box art for this game, and think it is for little girls. — Not true! The original boxart in Japan was much better – featuring anime style artwork. Why they went with a photograph of an iceskater on the US version, I dunno. They should have aimed it at anime/otome fans, but this was 10 years ago, before otome games had much foothold in the US.
There’s also apparently a sequel to this game, called Imagine: Ice Champions. I have not played the sequel yet, but Gamestop has it for just $1.59.read more
Bushiroad is bringing us yet another great anime rhythm game.
From the creators of Love Live School Idol Festival, and hot on the heels of the recent announcement of Klab’s English localization of Utapri Utano Princesama Shining Live, Bushiroads has recently announced plans to localize BanG Dream Girls Band Party.
Not only are we getting the mobile game, but also English versions of the Weib Schwarz card decks:
[RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT]
The girls from the upcoming mobile game “BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!” are joining the Weiß Schwarz stage! Featuring the vibrant scenes from the mobile game!
OPPOSITES ATTRACT IN THE NEW SHOJO MANGA SERIES TAKANE & HANA
New Romantic Comedy Series TAKANE & HANA Debuts in Print And Digital Editions This February
San Francisco, CA, January 24, 2018 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media),a premier company in the fields of publishing, animation distribution, and global entertainment licensing, delivers a fun new romantic comedy with the release of TAKANE & HANA on February 6th.
The series, by creator Yuki Shiwasu, is rated ‘T’ for Teens and will be published under the SHOJO BEAT imprint. Volume 1 carries a print MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN. TAKANE & HANA also launches digitallyvia viz.com and the VIZ Manga App, as well as from the Nook, Kobo, Kindle, iBooks, comiXology, and Google Play stores. Future volumes of the series will be published in English by VIZ Media on a bi-monthly basis.read more
