…outright awful. Seriously, these last few episodes have been particularly a mess. Everything feels like an exaggerated version of the jokes from the original series. I was facepalming so hard when they turned Kei into this manly jock dude. See, the whole point was that Kei was supposed to look androgynous from the beginning, so that’s why he was able to crossdress and all. But no, even if it doesn’t make any sense let’s just make him an aniki because the fact that Sawaki kissed a man (played by an actress) is just oh so funny (and that’s why we prolonged this joke over the course of two episodes). Also, it seemed as if they couldn’t decided whether to include Sawaki’s plot device about how he couldn’t see bacteria anymore this week or not, since every single time somebody brought it up they’d get interrupted by one of characters with another stupid gag. Sigh.

Oh well. I can’t really say I’m in the least bit surprised though, given how pretty much every manga-to-drama adaptation ends up following the same route (I’m looking at you, Otomen).

Click on image to visit artist’s profile.

Well, the last few episodes didn’t make much sense, but reading people’s comments does explain some things. Still, the ending wasn’t all that emotional to me, and Kanade just isn’t main heroine material IMO. Speaking of Kanade, most of the time she felt like she was the animation staff’s puppet in the sense that her character changed depending on what they wanted to do with the show. When they needed an antagonist, they made her act all cool and mysterious. When they wanted to have an action filler episode, they made her create all these evil clones out of nowhere. When they wanted to have an emotional story surrounding her, they made her act all cute and innocent so the farewell scene had more impact on the viewer.

Whatever. At least the OST was kinda good, so I might get it once it comes out. In other news, Kud Wafter just got released and, while I can’t comment much on Kud’s character since I just began playing Little Busters! and I haven’t finished any of the routes yet, watching the OP video convinces me this is nothing more than an excuse for loli porn so I’m not interested in the least bit. If anything, I just want to play the Rewrite demo that comes with it.

Click on image to visit artist’s profile.

You know there’s something seriously wrong when you can’t even tell which genre is the show you just finished watching supposed to be.

I mean, you can’t even call this a mystery. There was nothing ever to solve. Everything you had to know was exposed redundantly in the first few episodes. “There were werewolves roaming around, Nemuru killed those who couldn’t hold it in, Sakaki was the evil guy, etc” and that was it. There was absolutely nothing beyond that. So maybe you could say it was a thriller or an action series, but that’d be stretching things a bit too much… and it’s not like the show did a great job being any of those either.

I know I can’t really judge the source material this anime is based on since I haven’t played the VN, but… eh, it probably wasn’t all that different. The Higurashi anime was good enough on its own. Umineko’s adaptation was mediocre, but at least you could easily tell it was just an unfortunate case of wasted potential. But this… I can’t really see how Ryuukishi’s writing style could have made it any better.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted something in my blog, so I figured I’d write a review of EP6 which I just played recently. I remember I started blogging the anime a while ago, but after a few episodes in I sorta quit because I had gotten pissed off with both the fanbase and the quality of the adaptation. But let’s not talk about the anime, shall we! This post is about the sound novel after all.

Dawn of the Golden Witch focuses on Battler as the new GM for Beato’s game, as well as the relationships of George/Shannon and Jessica/Kanon. Unlike EP2 which also put great focus on the these pairings, this time Ryuukishi took an slightly more serious and ‘cruel’ approach to their love stories. Ange also makes a comeback as the shrine maiden who reads the story of EP6 to a new fantasy character called Featherine.

So, where to start? I admit I was a bit disappointed with the way the young couples got portrayed in this episode. I expected this to be all cute and innocent just like in Turn of the Golden witch, so it was quite a shock when the trial started and George & co. began carrying out the first twilight. Also, the whole “only one of us can fulfill their dream of love” between Shannon and Kanon was pretty depressing, mainly because it extremely hinted at Shkannontrice being true, which is a theory I’m not quite fond of.

As for the rest of EP6, I actually liked the stuff with the two Beatos, and Battler’s logic error was an interesting conflict for the episode. This game also had a rather happy ending, so it was a very nice change from the previous games’ troll finales. However, I gotta admit I wasn’t too satisfied with Ange’s role here. All of a sudden, she’s brought back, makes a short commentary here and there, only to be tossed away once more in the end. Poor girl.

New characters this time include the witch Featherine/Hachijou, who doesn’t do that much other than share her thoughts with Ange but she might take an even more active role in EP7, and the love demon duo Zepar and Furfur, who were pretty entertaining characters overall.

Of course, most of the old cast is back, with Erika maintaining her role as the current antagonist of the game. Just when you think Ryuukishi is gonna make you feel sorry for her and it looks like she might actually redeem herself,  she goes and do stuff like destroying a certain child’s fantasy… and cutting people’s heads so there wouldn’t be any doubt as to whether they are dead or not, while she knows they’re actually alive and just pretending to have been murdered.

…Yeah, I’m serious. It’s true. Erika’s a horrible, horrible human being.

Anyway, as far as mistery goes, we don’t get that many answers this time around either, but we’re still given a few hints. First, the 1st twilight victims were all playing dead just like in EP5, so I think they might be trying to hint at something with this. Second, there’s a flashback where it shows Beato talking with Battler on the island, so he might have met her before after all. Then, there’s the whole Shkannontrice thing that’s implied through the whole episode, and with “Including Erika, there are only 17 people.” in red, I’m not sure what to think anymore.

My favorite part of this episode has to be the music. I was kinda disappointed with EP5′s BGMs since most of them were pretty techno-ish and they didn’t have enough stuff from dai, so I’m glad there’s a bit more variety this time around. Some of favorite tracks include Alive, My dear, Life and both ED themes.

Overall, I wouldn’t say Dawn of the golden Witch manages to surpass any of my previous favorite episodes from the series. In terms of music, yeah I’d rank it pretty highly but that’s it. Most of my complaints probably come from the fact that some parts tend to drag out a bit too much. It’s especially annoying when you can already predict what’s going to happen after a certain scene, so you just have to sit there until they finally show the outcome. Battler’s attitude towards Beatrice at the beginning was also sorta upsetting at first, and it seems to have annoyed a few other readers as well, but everything got resolved in the end so I personally don’t care anymore.

Don’t worry though, I’m not saying this was a bad episode at all. Just like every other chapter in the series, I greatly enjoyed this one and I’m already looking forward to EP7 (even though it’ll be a while until it gets released).

Mirai has recently updated their website with the official site for their new 18+ otome game project titled Tsundere *S Otome, which is getting released sometime next year. At the moment, only the character page is up so we don’t know much about this game other than the fact that the female protagonist might be some kind of tsuntsun gal.

Mirai’s most recent game Sumire no Tsubomi was such a big disappointment (at least for me anyway), so that’s why I’m hoping this one will be somewhat closer to some of their previous titles.