Welcome to Tsunami Channel
Menu
Comic Strips
04/07 ExCoKo #416
10/05 ExCoKo #417
10/07 ExCoKo #418
10/12 ExCoKo #419
11/07 ExCoKo #420
11/09 ExCoKo #421
11/11 ExCoKo #422
11/16 ExCoKo #423
11/18 ExCoKo #424
11/20 ExCoKo #425
11/21 ExCoKo #426
11/23 ExCoKo #427
11/25 ExCoKo #428
12/26 ExCoKo #429
12/28 ExCoKo #430
01/13 ExCoKo #431
01/16 ExCoKo #432
01/18 ExCoKo #433
01/20 ExCoKo #434
01/23 ExCoKo #435
01/25 ExCoKo #436
Monday, November 21, 2005
| First| Prev | Next |Last |

Experimental Comic Kotone #426 "Prelude #9"
(Story Arc: Prelude)

Comic Strip

| First| Prev | Next |Last |

"Prelude #9" by Akira
(2005-11-21)

Sorry for the delay (10 hours). Today's strip took more than I expected for several reasons:

  • It's one of the most crucial parts of Laika's story arch and I didn't want to ruin with a rushed work.
  • I usually don't write a script beforehand (This could be the cause of all the sufferings -_-;). I come up with the dialogs after I finished inking the page. There are well drawn portions which I don't want to ruin by speech bubbles, and there are bad ones which I really want to hide.
  • There are a couple of settings I haven't decided yet (geez...). Today's dialog had some facts which make these settings fixed. This strip was "the point of no return" for me.

Pencil drawing itself didn't take that much (like 3 hours as usual), but coming up with the layout and dialogs were very difficult (close to 2-3 hours). Inking took total of 1 hour and the final touch up (screen tones + refining) took more than expected (like 1.5 - 2 hours) because of that Laika's black hair... I was working on this from Saturday, but ended up uploading on Tuesday morning in Japan time... -_-; Now I have to prepare for Wednesday's comic... (sigh) ;_;

Please write your comment to this strip at pOnju forum

Tuesday, November 22, 2005
"Games" by Konstantin
(2005-11-22)

Backlog Today I thought I'd go through my to-play stack of renai games. As you can see, it's rather sizeable, courtesy of a shopping spree through Akihabara with some rather enthusiastic encouragement from Akira. ^^ Here are the games, in no particular order:

Green ?`?H?????X?N???[???` (18+) - I'll admit that my interest in the game was sparked by the beautiful, animated, and oh so ero picture gallery rips that have been circulating on the newsgroups for the past few years. To my delight, though, the game was not a brainless pr0nfest and turned out to be a cute (if somewhat cliched) story of a floundering high school movie club making a last-ditch attempt at making a film. Game gets automatic bonus sympathy and nostalgia points from me, considering that I spent my high school years as an editor for my high school's movie magazine.

Air - I wanted to play through this ever since I saw Piro rant about it over at Megatokyo, and have been slowly but surely making my way through the story over the past couple of years. The language is not too hard, though due to the fact that I got the PS2 version (voicing does wonders for wrestling with kanji) I don't have access to my trusty JWPce and its myriad look-up tools. The game is wonderful and managed to touch me in spite of my vocabulary level (though having to dig through a paper dictionary in the middle of heart-rending scenes can be somewhat frustrating).

Kanon - Loved the Kanon anime, and Air has turned me into a drooling Key fanboy. Haven't tried playing it yet, keeping it for when I finally finish Air.

Sakura ???? - Yes, I failed my save vs. shiny! and splurged on the complete Sakura Wars box set (and that's considering that I didn't own a Dreamcast at the time). Some day I should hook up the modded Dreamcast I ended up getting on eBay, and see if this series is really as good as everyone says it is.

Comic Party - Since I already committed myself to the Dreamcast with the Sakura Wars box set, I decided to snag ComiPa while I was at it. I'm a big fan of the anime, and have been meaning to try the game for years. In theory there was also a PC version, but it suffered from the same problem as the Key games: the PC versions have H content but no voicing, while the console versions are cleaned up but almost fully voiced. All things considered, sloth tends to triumph over lust, and I invariably go for the version that lets me save the trouble of looking up kanji (at least in dialogue).

Fate/stay night (18+) - Heard many good things about the game, and decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, just the prologue was enough to send me fleeing in terror. I heard that the writer tended to be a bit wordy, but the language in this game beats the crap out of my meager vocabulary, and then kicks it when it's down. Kinda sad too, since the art is as pretty as I heard it was.

?N???]???i?? (18+) - Been meaning to check out the Kimi ga Nozomu Eien game ever since I saw the anime. From what I've heard, the anime is a severely cleaned up version of the game, but that just makes me more curious. Just what unspeakable vileness does the greenhead nurse dish out that got the entire fan community so traumatized? (something tells me that, vocabulary willing, I'll live to regret my curiosity)

Da Capo (18+) - The art looked very pretty, and I wanted to see what all the buzz was about. Plus Circus actually voices the PC versions of its game, so it's win/win as far as I am concerned.

???? (18+) - The one episode that I've seen of the OAV based on this game has intrigued me quite a bit. Otherwise it's pretty much the same as above. Nanao Naru's character designs are just too cute.

So that's pretty much all the Japanese games I've got queued up. Between my glacial reading speed and my Warcraft addiction, something tells me that queue will take quite a while to process.

Please write your comment to this strip at pOnju forum