Sunday, May 12, 2013

So we're back.

Ladies and gents. Mostly gents.


With my job allowing me the time to do pretty much whatever I want, I've become more and more inclined to rediscover blogging. As a result, in the upcoming weeks I'll be creating a new vlog version of my previously postponed blog reviews and whatnot.

This post serves as very little other than an introduction to that, so look forward to it!

-Kageryu

Sunday, February 24, 2013

I wish I could quit you!

It has been a year hasn't it!?

For those that don't know, I have been hard at work writing the script for an up and coming visual novel, and in said endevor, I have done...pretty much everything else too.

I've been working on this fucking thing for years and years and year, and I finally have some semblance of progress to show for it. Allow me to illustrate.

 Here we have just a few members of the cast, drawn by an artist that is bleeding me of every available penny I have. We've literally been through five or six different artists, and she's the only one who has stuck with my constant bickering and yelling at her, so she must be a keeper.

By the way, I'm aware the Arabic under Mahdokht's name doesn't translate directly to what her western name says. This is intentional.

Those fancy with visual novels will notice I went for a grungy, dirty look, similar to the character designs in Steins;Gate. This is also intentional.

 Every game needs a title screen, and you'll notice my favorite colors are red and black. It's simple and to the point, not much to be said here. Note that in addition to the standard gallery option there's also an Armory, and Encyclopedia section as well. Unfortunately I do not have previews of this to show you right now as we're having trouble getting them to work.


In game screenshot! I suffered a bit of a brain fart when spelling Sample, I know, bear with me. It's 3:11PM and I'm not feeling well. (Since I work graveyard think of that as 3:11AM for a normal person.

And finally, a screenshot of the Gallery. The gallery is divided by character, route, and generic CGs. It also links to the Armory, and encyclopedia articles for the subsequent characters including full stats. Think what Fate gives you, but on steroids.

Kasumi's full specs are....

Name: Kasumi Tachibana
Age: 25
Birthdate: July 3rd, 1986
Nationality: Japanese
Height/Weight: 5'8"/155lbs
Physical Stats:
  • Strength
    • Grade: 18
  • Agility
    • Grade: 19
  • Dexterity
    • Grade: 17
  • Constitution
    • Grade: 17
  • Wisdom
    • Grade: 16
  • Intelligence
    • Grade: 15
  • Charisma
    • Grade: 17
  • Luck
    • Grade: 15
  • Mana Pool
    • Grade: 25,000
Magical Stats
  • Pyromancy
    • Grade: 5
  • Aeromancy
    • Grade: 6
  • Hydromancy
    • Grade: 0
  • Geomancy
    • Grade: 0
  • Chronomancy
    • Grade: 0
  • Sigilmancy
    • Grade: 6
  • Diomancy
    • Grade: 2
  • Nigromancy
    • Grade: 0
Skill Grades
  • Unarmed
    • Rank: A
  • Sword
    • Rank: A
  • Dagger
    • Rank: B
  • Spear
    • Rank: B
  • Bow
    • Rank: B
  • Pistol
    • Rank: C
  • Rifle
    • Rank: D
  • Explosives
    • Rank: A
  • Heavy Weapons
    • Rank: E
Magical Skill Grades
  • Potency
    • Rank: B
  • Proficiency
    • Rank: C
  • Accuracy
    • Rank: B
  • Endurance
    • Rank: C
  • Spirit
    • Rank: A
Tactical Skill Grades
  • Strategy
    • Rank: A+
  • Cunning
    • Rank: B+
  • Resourcefulness
    • Rank: A+
Qualities
  • Natural Talent (Agility)
    • Some people are just born with it. (+5 to 1 stat or +1 Rank to 1 skill)
  • Genius (Unarmed, Agility, Sword)
    • Some people just get it. (+5 to 3 stats or +1 to 3 skills)
  • Family Lineage
    •  Where you come from matters. (+1 Rank to Family Skills)
  • Yamato Nadeshiko
    •  What all women yearn to be. (Grants Kanzenchouaku)
  • Recognized Scent (Edelweiss)
    • Character has a preferred perfume or scent.
Autism? Sure. But they all have meanings and the ranks actually matter in determining the outcome of conflicts in the story.

Anyway-- that's all for me! Let me know what you guys think of the screenshots, and any other input. Always happy to get feedback.

Toots!
 -Kageryu

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

New Paths, New Horizons!

Folks, I have resumed a steady blog flow at a new blog as a guest writer. You can now find me at Josh's Random Blog

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Ding! Published author.

Completely indie and not on any bestseller listing mind you but hey, we all gotta start somewhere right?

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/140557

I've wanted to be an author for as long as I could masturbate, not that they're related, and although it's a small novella, it feels good to finally be making strides towards my goal of sitting in my house and writing all day so I don't have to leave. VW48E to bring the cost down to a mere .99c, granted I don't really mind if you pirate it, if you think it's worth pirating.

To anyone interested, use coupon code VW48E to bring the cost down to a mere .99c, granted I don't really mind if you pirate it, if you think it's worth pirating.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Plans for the Future

Readers,

So, in my continuing effort to do new and radical things in the pursuit of individual enlightenment, I've decided something.

When I was younger and in school, I used to walk around in the middle of the night. To what end, I didn't know. I'd go past friend's houses, knowing they were asleep, I'd retrace the steps of my childhood through the cover of night, eventually coming to find myself dissatisfied by never finding anything.

I was looking for something, what that might have been I didn't know, but I did know that when I finally did come across it, I would know.

So, I find myself here, preparing to return to the same grinding of my soul and youth into a dusty pool that I know as money.

I sell my soul, in exchange for normality. I sell my heart, in exchange for the promise that I will see tomorrow.

No more.

I've decided to cast aside this life of mediocrity and cloudy mass of days, months, and years, broken up only by the toying fiction that my life has purpose like this. I've decided to travel.

It's...a little mind-blowing. My plans are simple really, get a plane ticket, some survival gear, land in a foreign culture and start walking. Hop from foreign country to foreign country, until eventually I find myself somewhere I don't have to look for anymore. Japan first, then maybe South Korea, Russia, Taiwan, or Thailand. China. India. Vietnam, Istanbul, Europe, Africa, South America, the East Coast, Canada, Mexico, back to Japan, hell, anywhere is fine really.

I will keep this up a little while longer, and then life will begin to unfold for me, finally. Twenty-one years lost in the cloud of society searching for something, and I finally feel like I'm on the brink of my ultimate discovery. Money is a tool of society, I will abandon this society and it's rules and take to find my own path.

Asia exists because I've seen it in a book, seen pictures on TV and the internet, and heard about it through the news. This is the same for all things I know about the world, but I am hereby done thinking in such a immature method. I will confirm that these things exist by stepping on them and holding them in my hands. Nothing exists until one confirms it for themselves. I will live by that ideal in just a few months.

Watch over me, comrades and friends. We may not meet again in the near future, but I will carry with me memories of you in my journey.

Regards,
Kageryu

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Kara no Kyoukai - Blu-ray Box Set Feature Presentation

I mean what I say and I say what I mean. I got it. I didn't get it just for myself, I got it for all of us, since we can't all afford a $400 box set.

As I recently moved, I decided to set up a Kara no Kyoukai shrine next to my chair at my desk.

Each disc has it's corresponding Takeuchi drawing on it, excuse my shitty cell phone camera, they're actually really, really high quality.

An eighth special disc includes the OVA epilogue, Kara no Kyoukai Remix, and a special program recapping films 1-6 in preparation for the seventh film.

It comes with two books, each with a soft velvet cover and silver writing.

As great as the actual movies are, the box set really shines in the Visual Chronicle.

A collection of visuals by Takeuchi and Tomonori Sudou, each more beautiful than the next.

For the most part, there's two versions of each picture, I'll only be showing a handful of them, but they're all stunning.




The Visual Chronicle also comes with several interviews from Takeuchi, Sudou, and Takeuchi, Nasu, and Maaya Sakamoto. They're fascinating to read.


God I love Azaka. It explains why I also love Akiha.



Excuse all the glaring, it's my stupid lamp's fault. This picture is interesting because it's done in the new cell-shaded style Type-Moon did for Actress Again.


Sudou honestly isn't my favorite artist, and the whole change in art direction for the Kara no Kyoukai films never did really sit well with me, but whatever. It turned out for the best.

Fuckin' love Azaka~!

Everything comes packed in a neat black box with silver writing and this image on the front, small black ribbons allow you to tie it shut.

Exclusive to the US release is this translation booklet for the visual chronicle, the discs themselves come with both English and Japanese subtitles, as well as the little pre-movie shorts with Neko Arc and the puppets.
---

Fortunately, the translation is pretty solid, they translated Chokushi no Magan as Mystic Eyes of Death Perception which shows they at least paid attention to the preconceived expectations of what Kara no Kyoukai is to international fans and what it means in having a solid translation. I personally prefer Dirty Red over Disgraced Scarlet, however.

In other news, now that I'm finally settled in at my new apartment, I'm going to try and post a lot more. I'm really sorry about the downtime guys, but things should have a bit of normality now.

-Kageryu

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Nothing in Particular - Christmas

I hate Christmas.

I grew up in an underprivledged family with less than stellar parents, and while I like to think they tried their best to give my brother and I a better life, I know in reality that they could have tried a lot better. That said, and that being the case, I always hated Christmas because I never fit into the mold of the perfect American dream.

We never did the presents thing. No caroling. No dinner with family and friends, while in later years I would try those things, they never took with me and I always saw them as a bother. Maybe I just get overly negative around this time of the year, or maybe I'm just some kind of a hater, but even as I grew older and more mature, began to worry about myself less and start working towards the better of others, I found it hard to put much effort out this past month.

That said, this year has been particularly bad.

I say I'm an athiest, and while logically, I don't think there's a God, I find it really hard to simply accept the fact that within a 24 hour period, things go from great, to horrible, especially when I finally face the music, accept responsibility for something I had been putting off, and for all intents and purposes, finally show some balls and take my due.

Why is it that when I finally move towards being the bigger man, so many things around me come crashing down? I need to know, if there is a God, I need to know what his logic is because I simply don't understand it.

If there is any kind of a lesson to be learned, it's that the bad guys win, and the good guys eat shit sandwiches, I can't let myself believe that that's true, and thus why I don't believe there is a God.

With that, I come back to Christmas. While many see Christmas as the season of giving, now that it's soon to be yesterday, all that good will is about to vanish with the course of time, to arise next year, but only until the clock strikes midnight and December 25th becomes the 26th.

People act in good will because they seek a self-gratification, and Christmas does nothing but give them a timeline for that. I don't care what you do, if you lift someone up with a show of helpfulness, only to drop them at the stroke of midnight, then that doesn't make you a good person.

...I guess I don't believe in the goodness in people anymore. I know I'm a good person. Yes, I like to troll people and make them angry, that's fun to me, but I don't think I'm capable of being truly cold and heartless to someone, no, I do far too much inner observation to be capable of such blind cruelty.

I'm a good person, I work towards the better of others in the grand scale of things, and under any circumstance I can be relied upon. These are truths I strive to keep even in the most dire of circumstances, but I don't think there are any people worth being good to.

With that said, I come to the ultimate conclusion of this Christmas day rant.

Throughout my life, I have observed others from a distance, even if I was standing next to them as they enjoyed my company, I stood in the distance, floating above, watching the scene with distanced eyes and a distanced heart. Someone will read this that knows me personally and as they do I want you to ask yourself this. Have you ever asked yourself why I never take pictures? Why I never invite others to my home, and why most people don't even know where I live? Why I only recently reactivated my cell phone and why when others would go out and have fun in social galas, I often chose to stay home or at the very least, was always quick to go home once the festivities were over?

I have spent my entire life observing others, and it is this very methodology and psychological status that has allowed me to grace by the perils and madness of the real world.

I've often thought of myself as being two separate people sharing the same body, but I realize it's more of a puppeteer and a doll, but with 2010 coming to a quick close, I felt it important to gather myself in at least some medium, to express to the world in some way the chaos that swirls in my own head as two very different people fight over the path leading towards my future.

I...honestly don't know where I'll be tomorrow, or next year, at this point I feel like I'm waiting for something just on the horizon, what that may be I have yet to find out but if it doesn't come soon then I fear I may fall to the demons that are chewing away at what little sanity I may have left.

-Kageryu