On HakoMari v4

The cover.

Hi there twitties. It’s unfinished business time: since I recently gave the third volume of HakoMari a spin, it makes sense to also read the fourth one, as they form a two-parter. So, here we go. It won’t be a long post, though.

On HakoMari v3

The cover.

Hi twitties. It’s time to come back to everybody’s favorite light novel series, One Trendy Storytelling Trick a Volume. And by that I mean HakoMari – Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria. So I hear this one (and the fourth volume, with which it forms a whole) is a battle royale story. Nice. And, judging by the illustrations, it looks like Oomine Daiya will be playing a bigger role in it. About time this mysterious white-haired badass was rolled out onto the stage. He’s been emitting vaguely sociopathic vibes in vain since the first volume. I must say though, I approached this 190 page-long booklet with plenty of scepticism. If it’s another Battle Royale clone, it had better done something to differentiate itself from a numerous crowd of examples of this genre. Volume One was a thrilling read, but was it that different from any other loop-mono? I dunno about that.

On Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo

The absolute climax of the game.

Year 1990. Nintendo puts out a game titled “Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken” for the NES Famicom. Considered a medieval spinoff of Famicom Wars at the time, it was later called the originator of a new genre of video games, a genre I love the crap out of, the SRPG. Long live Fire Emblem and its divorced biological father, Kaga Shouzou. At the time, it must have been seen as a good, revolutionary game. But if you ask me, a 21st century human, it’s nigh-unplayable, just like most NES games, especially of the RPG-like kind. Too klunky to deal with. Fortunately, there is a way to enjoy this historical artifact in a more user-friendly environment. Mere four years after the original FE1 was released, the game got remade. Enter Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo (translated as “The Mystery of the Emblem” or “The Riddle of the Crest“) for the Super Famicom, also known as FE3. The game consists of two “books”, around twenty chapters each: the first one is more-or-less the same as Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken, while the second is entirely new content, never seen before 1994.

During my Fire Emblem-playing heyday, I’d wanted to beat this bad boy, but every attempt at playing FE3 ended in a surrender on my part, very early into the game. The reason being: my Japanese wasn’t even close to being good enough. I remember trying to read the intro about Anri the hero and despairing. I understood nothing. Okay, understood the first two characters in that chunk of text: ああ. Until the original FE was remade for the third time as a DS game in 2008, there was no way around the problem for me… unless you count translation patches made by amateurs. Those, however, would translate the game only to a tiny extent. It wasn’t even worth trying them out. So I gave up on FE3 for a long time, carefully hoping that I will be able to play the game in Japanese at some point.

Far future, year 2017. Bednorz returned to demand a rematch, his runemastery more potent than ever before… For he does not resign, he only puts things on hold. I won that long-ass fight relatively recently, in late 2019, so I’d better write down my impressions while they’re still fresh.

Return to Babylon

fun show

Hi there. Yes, it’s time to get back to Babylon – the recently concluded TV anime based on a novel series by Nozaki Mado, everybody’s favorite non-ending wizard who you might remember from Seikai Suru Kado. For those who don’t know: I’ve written about its first volume. Babylon TV, one of those precious Twin Engine productions, had a bit of a weird release schedule. The first three episodes (covering volume one of the novel) came out all at once in early October, while the last, twelvth episode was released at the end of January. You could consider it a Fall 2019 anime then. I guess. Something’s telling me such shenanigans will be happening more and more from now on… But that’s a topic for another story. I’ll try to make this post short, please bear with me.

On Mavar Nendaiki

The cover.

Right now, when I google “Mavar Nendaiki” (not マヴァール年代記), I get exactly *two* results. Looks like a task for Bednorz and his Weeablogue.

Mavar Nendaiki (The Annals of Mavar) is a historical novel set in a fictional land (kakuu rekishi shousetsu) by Tanaka Yoshiki. It originally was a series of three volumes, later gathered into a single book – only the first edition (started in 1988) consisted of separate volumes. You might have heard about Arslan or some other less known works by Tanaka-sensei, the creator of LoGH. But probably not this one. It’s rather obscure. How obscure? You see, my original intention was to pirate it. Except, I only was able to obtain the second and third volume. I found a way around it, however. I also found the “Mavar Nendaiki cassette-book” uploaded on Niconico. What is a “cassette-book”, you ask? It’s a strange hybrid of an audiobook and an audiodrama, with major voice actors of the late eighties reading out a little play summarizing the novel, available on tape. So, the plan was to consume the first volume in the form of this strange radio play thingy and to read the rest in form of pirated ebooks. But then, I listened through the cassette-book and said… Aah, screw it. I’ll just buy the damn thing. And so I did – I used a proxy service to buy a used copy off Yahoo Auctions. The book itself cost me 200 JPY – much less than expected. If you wanna win, you gotta play it smart. Since Tanaka-sensei prefers basing his fictional worlds off real ones, the Empire of Mavar is based on medieval Hungary. If “Mavar” brings “Magyar” to your mind… yes, it should. Or at least the proper nouns are based on Hungary. Tanaka-sensei seems to think he’s adding “local flavor” to his fantasy novels, but I’m afraid that’s not enough for Mavar Nendaiki to feel “Hungarian”. It has next to nothing to do with Hungary, which is kind of a missed opportunity. Anyway, “Magyarorszag” is the only Hungarian word I know. Or wait, I know “Lengyelorszag” too.