This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie & Cassie Preserved An Anime Soundtrack!
• TSF Showcase 2024-18 Idol Pretender by Haruse Hiroki
• Burn It All, Square Enix! Burn It All! (Square Enix Cancels Multiple Game Projects)
• Sony’s First-Party PSN Records Leaked (The Insomniac Leaks Keeps on Giving)
• Miscellaneous Ramblings From a Tired Madwoman (Political Nonsense Natalie Wrote At 2 AM)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Natalie & Cassie Preserved An Anime Soundtrack!

So, two big things happened this week. First, I FINALLY finished the editing process for Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 Acts 1 and 2. Good for me. 

But the more important thing I did was, with the help of Disc Ripper Cassie, extract and preserve the soundtrack for the 1999 anime series, Space Pirate Mito. Specifically, only the two anime season soundtracks, representing over two hours of music that, as far as I could tell, was not preserved online, at all.

I am still waiting on Cassie to get me the scans of the CDs, but I uploaded the season one and season two soundtracks to Archive.org. I also plan on doing YouTube uploads, but I want to use high resolution cover scans for the video portion. When will that be? Dunno. Cassie would need to hook up her scanner. In the meantime, if you want to spread the files around, go nuts. It’s not like anybody is selling it outside of 25-year-old stock and personal collection items.

The first soundtrack wasn’t hard to find on CD. I was able to find a new copy floating around eBay. But it took me hours to find a copy of the second season soundtrack, and I was only able to snag it through Yahoo! Auctions. I also thought about ordering some of the drama CDs, but… I don’t know Japanese, so I would only be able to get a limited level of enjoyment out of this. But the soundtracks? Nah, I can enjoy those forever, and they’re pretty darn good. A bit jumbled up and curiously arranged— but that’s true for a lot of soundtracks to be honest.

Now, I was originally going to publish a review of both seasons of Space Pirate Mito to go along with this occasion. …But I would need to rewatch all 26 episodes to do a proper review. The show’s truthfully a 7/10, but it’s filled with such great ideas and concepts that, if I watched it as a kid, I would have made some BIG changes to foundational elements of The Saga of Dawn and Dusk. Maxxie would own the Space Pirate Mito IP instead of KO Beast. Because this show has a TSF’d protagonist, bodysuits, possession, ramen TF, glorious spaceships, a 12,000-year-old loli mom, animal people aplenty, and buck wild alien designs.

You can actually watch it on Youtube where Sony subsidiary Nozomi Entertainment has posted all episodes. Including the dub of the first season. Well, at least in the US. But hey, that’s what VPNs are for—

Akumako: “Oh shit, she took a sponsorship deal!”

No sponsor in the world would, or should, trust me to do my own ad read, and I have only monetized my work to the extent of, like, $20. And that was only because Amazon wants to maintain an eBook monopoly.

What I was going to say is… just get the password manager Dashlane. It costs $60/year, it’s a near necessity for me with how much logging in I need to do for work, and comes with a VPN. Is it a good one? Probably not great, but I have not had any problems with it. Unlike BitDefender—

Akumako: “More like ShitDefender!”

—Which has the same problem as most anti-virus software I’ve used. It works best when you don’t notice it and it just protects you. It hates when I download certain things from GitHub, because of false positives on virus scans, it is super suspicious of non secure URLs, when… many of them are totally legit, just a bit old. And it eats RAM like a gluttonous harlot. This thing can eat a full gig of RAM just from idling. Not even doing a scan or anything. I hate it, but I need it for work. And don’t tell me ‘I don’t need an antivirus in the current year because of Windows Defender.’ ‘Cos you’re a bitch. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Cap!

Akumako: “Natalie, bad! No baking beef with your elders!”

They’re just a year older than me… and 42 days. Or 407 days if you fancy bein’ a li’l fucker.

Akumako: “Natalie, no, bad, no roasting beef with your superiors.”

…Well, shit, I can’t argue with that. 

So, anyway, give the Space Pirate Mito soundtrack a listen. You don’t even need to know the anime. Just jam out and keep the files circulated.

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TSF Showcase 2024-18
Idol Pretender by Haruse Hiroki

Coming in as a request from Natalie.TF contributor Cassie, Idol Pretender was a short-lived 15 chapter monthly comic that began in 2011. It was among one of the few fully translated multi-volume TSF manga series that received a semi-timely fan translation during that era, and one that I have the vague memories of reading a decade ago. I remember reading it, just not having any opinion on it, so let’s see how well this work has fared.

The premise itself is pretty straightforward. Etia Chinami is a high schooler who wishes to become a man among men in order to attract the most popular girl at school, Yuika Kitano. After roughing up some people to look tough, Chinami meets up with their bishonen buddy, Keisuke Oguri, who suggests they take some medicine for a spontaneous illness. Chinami does, downing what looks to be an fist-sized bottle of pills, before passing out. Waking up, they find their body completely transformed, with long hair, soft features, and huge boobs.

After the requisite freakout, Oguri returns to explain that Chinami took the wrong medicine. What they actually took was a “magic potion” Oguri bought from Amazom called Godlike Beauty DX, assuming that it was a beauty enhancement supplement. Naturally, the solution would just be to buy more, but the medicine costs 300 million yen for each bottle. Which is 342,739,380 yen in today’s money and, due to current exchange rates, $2,166,044.33 USD. How did Oguri buy this in the first place? He got lucky in the stock market, of course.

With Chinami stuck like this, the only plausible way out of this is for Chinami and Oguri to take on the stock market together in order to get rich and, eventually, save the economy itself! …Wait, no, that’s the plot of World End Economica. The plot of Idol Pretender is that Chinami needs to become an idol in order to make enough cash to get more of this miracle drug.

Oguri, being a skilled crossdresser and overall lover of beauty, positions himself as Chinami’s manager and begins pushing them through the ringer immediately. Chinami panics though,  fleeing their shared home and venturing out into the city, where they meet with Yukia, who rescues Chinami and even gives them a bath. You know, something totally normal for teenage girls to do. Yukia gives Chinami a pep talk, reminds them that she loves manly men, and fills Chinami with determination. 

Chinami returns to Oguri and begins their off-screen idol boot camp before it’s time for Chinami to make their debut at an amateur idol competition. …Where they also run into Yukia again, as she is a fellow aspiring idol. Chinami fumbles their way through things, but before the competition can end, a thug with a knife shows up and grabs Yukia. Chinami, not willing to let his wannabe girlfriend get shoved around like this, delivers a swift high kick to the man, sending him flying off the page, and loosening her bikini bottom in the process. Fortunately, just like in Boku Tamasaburo, idol judges just love wardrobe malfunctions, meaning Chinami is awarded the title and a 300,000 yen cash prize, a resounding 0.1% of their goal.

This display emboldens Oguri, showing both his talent’s cuteness and determination. Causes mental damage to Chinami as they are left needing to balance their fragmenting identity. And fills Yukia with explicitly romantic feelings for Chinami. Thus bringing the first chapter to an end.

…Yeah, this comic front loads a lot, but its beats are pretty straightforward. A tough guy who is forced into being a cute girl, and in order to regain his masculinity he needs to develop the rigid feminine sensibilities of an idol. With every chapter, Chinami’s male persona fades, their female persona grows, and these opposing parts of their psyche clash as Chinami is forced to ask themselves myriad pertinent questions. What do they truly want? Who are they at this moment in time? Do they actually enjoy being an idol? If the costs to become a man are so severe, if they require sacrificing what one has built up by living as a woman, is it really worth it? 

As an internal conflict for a TSF protagonist… I think this is a very strong one. Identity is messy, it fluctuates based on context, experience, and the actions one is required to perform. Identity is something fluid, ever-changing, ever-evolving, and this fixation helps ground what is otherwise a very silly, comedic, and exaggerated series. I think Chinami is a good protagonist, and one whose clinging to masculinity can be read in multiple ways. Are they truly determined to be a man among men, and has this been a lifelong goal? Or is that something born out of insecurity and uncertainty? Their stated reason was to impress Yukia after all.

Applying a transgender lens over their character… it’s actually not too different from what a significant number of trans women have done. A lot have tried to make masculinity work for them by pursuing bodybuilding, sports, military careers, or taken the advice of masculinity gurus and grifters. You’d think that wouldn’t be the case, but some people are very stubborn when it comes to their identity, because without it… what even are you?

Hopping over to chapter two, things begin with a great example of Chinami’s wavering identity as they find themself at odds with their transformed body. Wanting to explore it, feel their breasts, and masturbate, while still being bound by chivalrous tendencies they internalized during their male upbringing. They want to save themself for Yukia, brand this conflicting feeling as shameful, and when overwhelmed, they begin cartoonishly bashing their head against a wall. 

The core of this chapter begins with Chinami being sent to a photoshoot in Okinawa… despite having just made their idol debut. Whatever, it’s a good enough excuse for summer vibes and girls in swimsuits. Naturally, Yukia is also here, and serves as Chinami’s hotel roommate during their stay. …Which is at least structurally similar to the Mali trip from Boku Tamasaburo, that happened right after its idol contest. Coincidence? …Probably!

Chinami gets frazzled by sharing a room with his crush, and gets further frazzled when Yukia asks them if they and Oguri are in a romantic relationship. Chinami naturally denies this, blowing up in an exaggerated way that will become their signature reaction to any romantic acquisition. And as this conversation progresses, Yukia gets drunk on a can of beer she mistakenly grabs, and proceeds to flop onto Chinami, about to ask if they love her. This marks the first of a recurring gag with Yukia and… it gets funnier every time.

Things then shift over to Chinami and the girls on the beach, modeling for a scuzzy erotic photographer. Being thrust into this so quickly is too much for Chinami, who is reluctant about sexualizing their new body. However, sexualization is one of the five elements of idoling, and, after getting in some shots of Yukia, they relent, doing whatever the photographer requests, even taking off their top. This shocks Yukia and pisses off Oguri, who chides the photographer for failing to capture beauty the right way. His words aren’t that deep, but the gesture continues to push the romantic angle of this romantic comedy series.

Chapter three kicks off with the introduction of what is clearly meant to be a core theme of Idol Pretender. The regularly recited idea that “gender doesn’t matter” when it comes to love. Which sometimes means sex, and sometimes means gender, because confusion around those terms is baked into the TSF/TG community. You can’t even trust the translators to get it right all the time.

It’s actually a pretty progressive stance for a comic from 2011 to have, and speaks volumes about Hiroki’s desires with this series. He clearly wanted to make something that explores a wide range of sexualities and identities as Chinami gets deeper into this world of idols and meets more people who are in frictional states like them. However, its execution and handling of this concept leaves something to be desired, and I think you’ll see why as I go on.

After the introduction, the chapter sees Chinami compete in another rising idol program, this one being a variety show called Fresh Pudding. The actual mechanics of this variety show aren’t important— it has a game where girls dress up in swimsuits and try to pop balloons with their asses, enough said. What is important is the introduction of the next character, Aoi Subaru. Another idol rival for Chinami who spends the entire show testing their resolve by being a nuisance. Causing wardrobe malfunctions, lacing hot sauce into their food, nearly killing Chinami with a… ceramic flan prop, the usual.

However, Aoi begins to respect Chinami after they try to save her from falling down a flight of stairs and confesses that ‘she’s a guy.’ Which… is a revelation worthy of a diversion. 

During the late 2000s and early 2010s, the understanding of trans issues and trans people in Japan was… not great. A lot of characters reflect this, as creators were hesitant to commit to outright declare certain characters as trans or accurately portray those that fit the bill. The biggest examples are probably Naoto Shirogane, Luka Urushibara, and Chihiro Fujisaki. Characters who were not written to be trans, but who feature enough ‘transgender traits’ to have sparked over a decade of debate about their trans-ness.

With Aoi Subaru though… they wear dresses every day, present as female professionally, wear a padded bikini at the beach, are referred to using female pronouns by the narration, and are never seen wearing even androgynous clothing. I could see how some people would moon logic their way into seeing them as ‘just a femboy.’ But as a trans girl, I know a trans girl when I see one, and Aoi’s a trans girl, plain and simple.

Now is she a good depiction? Well, she’s a stalker who develops the gimmick of putting GPS transmitters on Chinami, and that’s no good, even if it’s just for comedy and plot convenience purposes. But she’s also someone who highly values femininity, human beauty, and dedicates herself to overcoming the way she was born to achieve peak cuteness by becoming an idol. Meaning she’s determined, hard-working, and despite being a bit aggressive in her debut role, she softens up as she shifts from rival to friend. For a product of her time and considering the context… yeah, this get’s my trans seal of trans approval.

So, how does Chinami react to learning that Aoi is trans? By reassuring her, accepting her, and being so kind that Aoi falls for them. Aoi, in return, throws herself at Chinami in a hug, only for Yukia to walk in and quickly misinterpret things. Because harsh immediate judgements are easier than asking questions and discussing things with people, and make for better drama.

Now that most of the cast has been assembled, chapter four has the luxury of mostly being zaniness that shows how Chinami, Oguri, Yukia, and Aoi work as a unit. After repenting for the events of chapter three, Oguri points out that Chinami’s boobs have gotten bigger, meaning it’s time for the requisite bra shopping scene. Following an awkward run-in with Aoi, Chinami reconnects with Yukia, and the two head to the mall to buy bras, which is where things start getting… sapphic. This has been built up to until now, but watching Yukia fawn over Chinami as they put on a bra-based fashion show, and asking “do you think two girls being together could actually work out” just seals it!

However, the confession and reciprocation scene is cut short— get used to that happening constantly— leading Chinami and Yukia to venture through the parking lot, where they get nabbed by a creep. Not the same creep from chapter one, but a zealous fan of Chinami who wants to rape her, because that’s something women of all walks of stardom must deal with. Chinami tries to act tough, but they are far enough from the person they were in chapter 1 that they get kidnapped. Things look dicey for a moment, only for Oguri to come to rescue Chinami, like a shining knight. A move that firmly established this character dynamic into a full-blown love quadrangle, and one that is quite explicit about its relations, literally ending with the characters restating their romantic pursuits.

The next chapter begins with a bit of an update to Chinami’s idol situation, namely that they are making good money doing this, which Orugi has spent on a swanky apartment that Chinami moves into. 

…This is the point in the comic where I realized just how loosely defined the setting is. Chinami never goes back to school after their transformation. Oguri seemingly drops out to focus on this idol management full time. The two were ‘roommates’ from the start, yet their living situation is never clarified. Are they dorm mates? If so, how can they keep ditching school? And where are their parents in all of this? Also, this apartment just confuses me. The cast barely spends any time in there after they rent it, the layout seems to shift with every rendition, and it is referred to as their ‘office.’ When it’s a luxury apartment.

It’s all a bit of needless preamble, as the real nugget of information here is when Chinami points out how they are living together despite, physically, being a boy and a girl. Orugi’s response to this is to claim he has no interest in Chinami, “absolutely none! Not even a little bit!!!” And to further hammer that home, he outright tells Chinami to go pursue someone else. This is, pretty transparently, the author reaffirming their readers that this comic will be gay. And chapter five is, indeed, very gay.

Yukia and Chinami are paired up as idols yet again, this time for a photo shoot at an onsen in Hokkaido. They pose together, wear yukatas, and most importantly share a bath together where Yukia basically confesses to Chinami. Except they’re both thick-skulled airheads, so neither of them rush toward the ending. It’s sweet, adorable, and silly fun like everything else. …And then they get attacked by a bear! They run away, fall down a mountain together, Chinami carries Yukia after she gets a sprained ankle, and they find a cabin to stay in. A cabin with booze, so Yukia winds up getting drunk again, dry humps Chinami, and says the love word. But for those who do not believe in vino veritas in case that wasn’t clear enough, Yuki kisses Chinami after they get rescued.

Honestly, this is probably my favorite chapter of the bunch, as it is so direct and shameless in what it is and wants to be. A comic about cute girls, getting into silly sapphic situations, confessing their feelings for each other while doing borderline ecchi things, without ever crossing the line. The random bear attack, melodramatic escape into a log cabin— the gayest of houses— and the wardrobe shifting fun of a hot spring, it’s all great!

Chapter six is similarly another vessel of hi-jinks above all else, as Chinami sees Oguri drop the mugshot of a beautiful woman, and starts getting fiercely paranoid. Sure, Oguri said that he wasn’t interested in them, but… Chinami just cares about their friend and who they’re dating, alright? Chinami lets the word get out to Yukia and Aoi, and the three band together for a tailing mission, where they all dress up in adorable disguises and follow Oguri as he visits increasingly suspicious spots.

From meetings to dress shops to a hotel to meeting up with a different girl than the one in the photo. The evidence seems damning, Chinami’s heart breaks, leading Yukia and Aoi to swear revenge. They venture to the final destination, the Tokyo Big Sight, and… you can probably guess the twist from that alone. It’s Comiket season, the three cuties get thrown into cosplay against their will, and just when the fans start overwhelming them, they are saved by a tall beautiful maid. …Who’s revealed to be the legendary cross-player, the Seeker of Beauty, Lord Oguri! 

It’s such a corny premise, lifted right out of the sitcom playbook, but it captures the strengths of Hiroki as a comedy writer, as a drawer of adorable girls, and of the cast of exaggerated characters he created. However, even this ends with another reminder of the burgeoning romantic tensions, with Yukia declaring that Chinami will be “head over heels” for her after she launches her next attack. …A line that I want you to keep in mind… because she never actually does this.

Instead, chapter seven sees Chinami making their next big break by getting the role of the heroine in a TV series, where the male lead is played by rising superstar Rintarou Takizawa. From the minute Rintarou appears in the comic… it’s clear they’re just a girl crossdressing as a handsome boy. The ponytail, soft face, baggy clothes. And pretty much the entire chapter is built around that build up and reveal.  hinami is gung-ho about a nude scene, because they are bold enough to do that at this point, Rintarou, or rather just Rin, is not. After a trip into a decorative pond, her sarashi comes off and undergoes such a drastic change in proportions I’d believe they had a Ranma thing going on. 

Now, unlike the very queer cast or Idol Pretender, Rin is pretty much just a straight girl. She is only crossdressing for her acting job, as that is the only way she can pay off her family debt. Which… I understand it as being a sort of parallel to Chinami, but it doesn’t really work. She’s just another girl thrown into a trio of cuties, and is mostly there to serve as a romantic rival who’s interested in Oguri, rather than Chinami. She is given a utilitarian role in that sense… but her character just does not seem to fit in with the rest. She doesn’t really add much beyond being… the clumsy one, and after this chapter, she is never seen crossdressing again.

Chapter eight is all about Chinami trying to set up Rin with Oguri, mostly to curb their own romantic feelings for Oguri, because this comic has a monogamous, traditional, view of relationships. It’s a pretty simple, yet silly and fun, chapter about the two trying to make cookies together. With Chinami, the boy-girl trying to become a boy-boy, making perfect cookies on try one, and Rin being a disaster in the kitchen. Also, Rin molests Chinami in the bath and needs to have Yukia dress her, because she forgot how girls worked, I guess.

Chinami lets Rin go out to confess to Oguri in public, but as she waits to see this scene play out, like a weirdo, Yukia starts filling their pretty little head with FUD and… I do not understand this scene. Yukia’s last appearance saw her promise to do something to make Chinami fall for her. Yukia has done nothing since then, and now she is going against her stated goal, when she should be trying to get Chinami to fall for her. I understand that Yukia might care more about someone she loves being happy than being with them, but… she needs to pick one. Does she want to be the aggressive lover who swoops Chinami off her feet, or help nourish Chinami pursue what she wants above all else?

Regardless of her plot-driven reason, Chinami stops the confession and… the story starts running headfirst into the romantic conflict. This has been something present as a background element for the entire series. But for the remaining 7 chapters of the series, it is the foreground conflict.

Romance isn’t really my forte, and a lot of the reason why has to do with how the conflict so often rooted in bad communication and misunderstanding. There are good reasons why someone would be uncertain or frazzled about love and romance. It is hard for people to comprehend their own feelings, to verbalize them into words, and the concept of attraction is driven by so many factors that it can be hard for one to identify love. And if they are teenagers? Crank that up to 12. 

However, a lot of writers stretch things out, refuse to have characters change or confess their feelings, and become steeped in antiquated ideas that… just make romance harder. The fixation at doing the best thing at the best time. The fixation on a monogamous and chaste relationship. And the very idea of a romantic rivalry. 

When romantic conflicts work, I think they work best as a background element or if the story is less about romance and more about the development of a relationship. It is important to show the characters interact, collaborate, and work together, to be friends before lovers. Otherwise… you just know they’re not going to connect in five years.

This constant romantic back-and-forth conflict usurps the goal of Chinami becoming the best idol to get crazy cash. The entire idol angle becomes an afterthought.. The script is still interspersed with high energy comedic hi-jinks, but it takes so many chapters to get to the end that it feels like the story is abiding by a mandate. And when it gets there… it ends in the lamest possible way.

Having said that, I’m not even sure where to begin with the remainder of these chapters. They all feel like the writer spinning the wheels, extending a love story longer in order to continue feeding the audience adorable gay cuties. Things happen, there is some build up, but you can pretty much jump from chapter 8 to chapter 12 page 7 to 25, then resume chapter 14 when Rin shows up again. I don’t want to say that five of the seven remaining chapters are filler… but whatever cute moments they have are bogged down by how the writer is clearly stalling for time. 

Chapter 9 is just the template for the rest of the comic, as Chinami runs away from her problems, fleeing to Kyoto, and when her friends tag behind her, she runs away from them. They try to give her a pep talk, she runs some more, and keeps getting marred in indecision and worry.

Chapter 10 sees them travel internationally, which features more confessions to Chinami, Oguri being a thick-headed man who cannot read the room, and plenty of swimsuit shenanigans. It also introduces a subplot as Yukia checks Chinami’s passport, and sees it labeling them as male. 

Chapter 11 is built around Yukia and Chinami going out on a date after Oguri struggles to understand that Chinami loves him. Honestly, it’s my favorite chapter in this latter half of the story, as it is just cute girls doing cute things for the first half before Chinami and Yukia go out for dinner, where Yukia gets drunk again. She becomes overtly sexual, starts actively trying to get Chinami to fall for her, and does just enough to make you think their relationship will change… before everything is interrupted by a fire! The office building is burning, Chinami tries to escort her date out, only to get injured, leaving drunken berserker Yukia to carry Chinami out, kicking down doors and doing a proper princess carry. Also, Yukia then inspects Chinami’s crotch to confirm she’s a girl. Which would be messed up… if it weren’t so cute.

Chapter 12 has two main hooks. The first is Rin declaring war over Oguri’s heart after coming out as a woman on national TV. But that core element is book ended with the introduction of a God of Beauty DX bottle that Chinami finds for 390 yen— that’s $2.82 in today’s USD, which Chinami refuses to take. This is partially due to their growing love for Oguri, partially due to how they would be throwing away their relationships, and partially because Chinami… is just a trans girl. A stubborn one, but that’s par for the course for most trans folks. However, she does wind up tripping and swallowing some of the pills, transforming her into… a littler girl. I think she’s supposed to be 8 or so.

Chapter 13 sees age regressed Chinami go on an aquarium date with Oguri, where he confesses to loving Chinami. …Not the age regressed chibi Chinami, the regular sized girl one. It’s all meant to be cute antics, but I just view this 12 hour transformation gimmick as an excuse to draw a cute child. A way for Chinami to get into Oguri’s mind, because she won’t be honest with her. Yet he will be honest with a random child who claims to be Chinami’s friend. …Yeah, that’s a telltale sign that two people should not get together. If it is easier for one of them to speak to a total stranger than their partner-to-be.

Chapter 14 sees everybody in the main group learn that Chinami used to be a boy, and they’re all pretty cool with it, having internalized the theme that “gender doesn’t matter.” Also, Oguri saves Chinami from a car, but she doesn’t confess right then and there, even though that’s one of the top ten times to confess to someone. Right after they save you from death or injury.

Chapter 15 sees Yukia and Aoi helping Chinami prepare for her confession, even though she just rejected Yukia last chapter and Aoi never had a chance. It’s one last gasp of cuteness as the girls make Chinami look like 300 million yen and Rin peaces out into the sunset. Then, when the two are finally together, once Chinami and Oguri are together on a rooftop— one of the worst places to confess because of the wind— Chinami smooches this dumbass.

From there, the series just… ends. Oguri does not reciprocate Chinami’s feelings with an “I love you” of his own. Instead, things fade out, and fade back in on Chinami on the cover of a magazine. That’s it, and all that’s left is a simple 8 page Valentine’s chapter.

…Well, that ending sucks. There is no true falling action, no resolution, just a kiss, and bam, show’s over kids, get out! It’s such a bad, unfulfilling way to end a love story like this. I don’t feel like I know how these two will work as a couple, and I don’t know what becomes of their lives after this. If the creator really wants to end things on an open note then… why bother with this at all? This comic is full of queer ships, and while a deliberately open ending where nobody gets together is weird… it’s better than waffling around a confession for so many damn chapters only to do… nothing beyond that. I don’t really care that things ended on a heteronormative note, I just wanted them to end on a good note.

Idol Pretender is a… frustrating series for me. It does so much so well, yet completely botches its conclusion and manages to make a 3 volume manga feel both bloated and rushed. 

It has excellent cute and cuddly vibes, an adorable art style that is consistently delightful and expressive, and a cast that is queer as heck. Complete with a dissociative magically transformed trans protagonist and a regular old trans girl. When it is on a roll, when it is choosing to just tell a story about its cast getting into some manner of mischief, it’s great. When it’s trying to be a love story, it has no damn direction or clue on what it wants to do. And the ending… feels rushed despite an obscene amount of build up..

It all makes me wonder what happened behind the scenes. If the series got extended by a few more months and was supposed to end with chapter 12 or something. But no matter the reason, the end result is what it is. Wonderfully fun, a bit ahead of its time, but loses direction in the end.

I’d like to say something like how this was Haruse Hiroki’s first lead, or highlight how he moved on to some other TSF project. But he started publishing works at least five years before Idol Pretender, and is still making series to this day, without a speck of TSF in sight. …Except for this one request. Meaning that… this was pretty much their only foray into the genre, and I think that’s crummy. I would like to see them tackle a similar idea again, as they have the drive and skills needed to tell a good TSF story… or at least start one.

In summation, would I recommend Idol Pretender? …Yeah, I guess so. It’s still mostly fun and good, and that counts for something.

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Burn It All, Square Enix! Burn It All!
(Square Enix Cancels Multiple Game Projects)

For as much as I poop-talk Square Enix, I appreciate how diverse their portfolio of games has truly been. I think their approach of having big tentpole titles with smaller niche offerings is pretty much the ideal way to go about running things as a publisher. Most resources might be allocated to big AAA titles, but there is still room for developers to work on more games, experiment with more ideas, and keep more series alive. I mean, what other AAA studio would bother with titles like SaGa: Emerald Beyond, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Harvestella, The Diofield Chronicle, the Voice of Cards trilogy, NEO: The World Ends With You, Star Ocean: The Divine Force, or Balan Wonderworld? …Besides Bandai Namco, who will just do whatever.

However, the problem with these smaller titles is… they still need to be good, still need to have some appeal, and need to balance their budget with scope, audience, and marketing efforts. Game development is a rough business, and no title is a surefire success. However… anybody with half a hamburger in their noggin can tell you that while you should always diversify your investments, too much diversity can harm any business venture, as focus is vital.

Unfortunately, Microsoft subsidiary Activision Blizzard has popularized the ‘goliath approach’ of game development, where everything is built around a few tentpole titles, and everything needs to be a perpetual live service. This is a terrible strategy that breeds creative atrophy, customer fatigue, over-saturation, and… I’m just going to point at Overwatch 2 and say that.

The story here is that Square Enix announced a truly staggering extraordinary loss of 22.1 billion yen, or $140.5 million USD. With the loss stemming from the cancellation of various game projects. 

Now, the big question here is… how many projects were canceled as part of this initiative? Game development budgets run the spectrum, cost of living in Japan can be pretty cheap, especially outside of Tokyo, so the per-person costs are pretty low. If these are all lower budget niche offerings, then I could see this covering up to a dozen different games, all canceled at once, but it’s also possible that Square Enix was working on a AAA scale project that got the axe after $40 million had been poured into it. Which is just insane to me, but that wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened. 

In October 2018, Square Enix canceled The Dawn of the Future DLC for Final Fantasy XV, netting a $33 million loss (over $40 million in modern dollars), and fired Hajime Tabata from Luminous Studios. A studio that was given to him for finally shipping a decade-long problem child of a game. I still don’t know what kind of beef went down there. 

I think this will begin a dour era for Square Enix, where they double down on successful IPs, greenlight very few, if any, new IPs, and fan out their release window with bare-bones remasters. …Gosh, I hope they remaster Final Fantasy XIII: The Claire Farron saga. It’d give me an excuse to finally write that god awful eclair TF story idea I had seven years ago.

Now, I am not well-versed enough in Square Enix’s financials, but I believe that the reason for this shift cannot just be attributed to their smaller console offerings. Because they have been throwing good money after bad for years with their live service duds. I don’t know how much they lost with their live service games that only last a year, Babylon’s Fall, or Foamstars. But I know that they didn’t have healthy playerbases, and without a healthy playerbase, live services stop making money.

I agree that Square Enix needed to refocus their ventures and change how they promoted and advertised their smaller projects. But middle shelf games are an important part of the industry and… the game industry has been trying to snuff them out for almost 20 years now. One by one, publisher by publisher, until all that is left are bloated AAA titles and disparate indie games vying for attention in a cutthroat market. 

In the end… I guess Stephanie Sterling is right yet again. Game publishers don’t just want some of the money, they want all of the money. …Though, you could just replace game publishers with corporations and capitalists and the statement will still carry the same weight.

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Sony’s First-Party PSN Records Leaked
(The Insomniac Leaks Keeps on Giving)

The December 2023 Insomniac leak has done a lot to harm the studio and has caused many a headache for the people working there and at Sony. However, I am something of a data junkie, and I like it when game publishers let data loose for people to look over it. And there are few nuggets of data more succulent than lifetime revenue figures for over 500 games… based on their PSN earnings, not their physical sales.

This image contains a list of the lifetime revenue and downloads of over 500 Sony published titles, as of June 11, 2023. It’s a great insight into how much money Sony’s more recent offerings have brought in. It, basically, shows how much revenue many of the highest profile PS1 classics brought in, which ranges from modest to negligible money. And it also shows the way customer trends shifted over to digital purchases time during the PS3 and PS4 generation, with several PS3 games that sold over a million units only showing less than a million in digital revenue.

There are a lot of interesting soundbites to dig into here, such as how Vib-ribbon, a title that was shouted out during an E3 event, only sold 25,601 copies, because it came out for the PS3 on October 7, 2014. When nobody was buying old PS1 games, because they wouldn’t carry over to the PS4! (Side bar, but I just remembered that the PS4 could not play CDs, when Sony co-developed the format.)

Now, I should also note that this data might not be wholly accurate. Who knows who at Sony is pulling this data, and if it was manually extracted, when do you think the last time they updated Brightis was? It might not be perfect… but damn it, it’s better than what we had before!

I would post a spreadsheet in order to make this data more widely available to people, but it is surprisingly difficult to convert a screenshot of a spreadsheet into a spreadsheet. This, again, is the type of bullshit I would like AI to take care of. So I spent an hour trying to get one to convert it and… they just couldn’t do it.

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Miscellaneous Ramblings From a Tired Madwoman
(Political Nonsense Natalie Wrote At 2 AM)

…Okay, that is just too short a modern Rundown. So… what else do I have on my mind this week? Well, I’ve been listening to a lot more video essays in the background while I was making header images— which is dumb, because I should just rent audiobooks on Libby! And there were two topics that I ran into that just… set me off.

The first one was a video essay on the America loneliness epidemic, trying to map out the timeline of events, and it cited that the beginning of the issue stemmed from the 1970s. Specifically, due to how divided America was during that time. The Baby Boomers came into their own. The Civil Rights movement divided and radicalized a bunch of the country. Faith in the government was in the toilet after political assassinations, Nixon, and Vietnam. The economy was undergoing rampant inflation and saving money became nigh impossible. The rise in television changed the way Americans took in information. Those are my reasons, not necessarily those cited in the essay.

Now, the 70s was a transitory phase for the greater American zeitgeist, so it makes sense to view it as a starting position when trying to understand any social issue. However, this video later goes on to present the loneliness epidemic as more of an economic issue. More people are in economically unstable positions, which affects their mood and ability to connect with people, and comfort with socialization. Because people are working more, they lack the energy to pursue relationships and feel lonely as a result. Without disposable income, it is expensive or difficult for people to go out and do things with others. Financial stability and comfort with one’s future makes people, generally, happier, and more inclined to form connections with others.

Presenting the loneliness epidemic as an economic issue… makes a lot of sense to me. …However, by presenting it as that, we need to go back and ask if people felt more lonely during past times of economic hardships, and if not, then what is different about now compared to then. So, let’s jump before the 70s. Were people in America in a good state financially prior to WWII? …No, definitely not!

During the 18th century, most people in America were… poor. They were just getting by, working the land, building infrastructure, or working factory jobs that destroyed their bodies, lungs, and mental faculties. People back then were bloody miserable unless they were born into wealth, were incredibly skilled, or got extremely lucky.

And during The Great Depression… you cannot convince me that things were ‘just different’ back then, or lacked an individualistic mindset. Because when people are struggling to find food, when they have no job, they are going to be lonely and miserable. It was called The Great Depression, and most Americans were depressed during it. And when people are depressed, they’re also lonely!

Meanwhile, the 1950s were a period of economic boom for America, because Europe was bombed to shit, but the country was not bereft of problems. People tend to forget this, but the 1950s were only a great time for certain demographics. Companies were making bank building homes. Banks were making bread by giving out mortgages and business loans. And working age Whites were buying homes and cars aplenty. But there was still poverty. There were still people struggling. And because of how sanitized the culture of the time was, people who did not fit the mold were made to feel like shit. 

The actual cause of the loneliness epidemic is… just late-stage capitalism. It’s lazy, tired, and basic like something-something-something, but that is the case. Which begs the question of how to fix it, and the answer is to pursue a radicalism well beyond the Overton Window.

The actual cure to the loneliness epidemic is… universal housing. Universal basic income. And government hosted or subsidized community events that encourage members of communities to get together and socialize for activities, without needing to spend any, or much, money. Which itself requires both designated places for people to access, and methods of people getting to said places. Such as public transportation, walkable neighborhoods, and safe ways to bike across the settlement. The answer to most problems in this fucking country is the same fucking thing!

While individual responsibility is all well and good, actual change is initiated via action, and if a few million people need to die to initiate the change… then I guess that’s just the cost of progress. Besides, with the uptick in the birth rate from this shift, those lost lives will be replaced real-real quick. 

…When I say shit like that, I start thinking that the political spectrum is actually a circle, or sphere if you want to think three dimensionally. Or maybe I’m just tacking on garbage, thinking it is a ‘logical extension of the presented ideology.’

Okay, topic two of what I wanted to discuss is… media literacy. Or rather discourse about media literacy, because that’s how the internet works for me. I do not actually see the stuff people are complaining about. I just see people complaining about other people complaining.

Anyway, something I regularly see echoed are claims of ‘the death of media literacy’ or labeling a ‘community’ as ‘media illiterate.’ A sentiment that implies a decline in a collective knowledge and understanding, a dumbing of age if you will. An irrefutable decline and indication of the looming extinction of the human race.

Self-congratulatory hyperbole aside, this is a stance that I find to be misdirected on a conceptual level. For as long as people have been a thing, there have been stupid people. People who just do not understand things, do not care to learn, and are content with what currently resides in their head, and reject anything else. This is true for 1984, 2024, and for a few… thousand years before that. 

Back when TV ‘unified’ ‘America,’ do you think everybody had the media literacy needed to say something meaningful about things they enjoyed or disliked? Do you think that the 100 million people who watched the finale of MASH in 1983 all had good takes? No. There were bound to be plenty of dumb, reductive, and short-sighted takes, because when you get that many people to talk about one thing, you will get a lot of garbage. 

Okay, but why exactly don’t people remember these bad takes, these past instances of media illiteracy? Because the way people interact, the way they share their interests in things, is dramatically different these days. In the era of yore, most media discussion was verbal, face-to-face, involving friends or acquaintances. The only people who really wrote about it were newspaper staff, professional critics, and miscellaneous writers. Who were sometimes literate, sometimes illiterate.

Now though? Most discourse is written. On social media, on Discord servers, on subreddits, in Youtube comments, or blogs if you’re some antiquated freak of nature. The writing typically does not have much thought put into it, it is not structured or proofread in detail, and is often provocative/hyperbolic strictly for the purpose of engagement. And because algorithms run everything, a lot of people get spat in the face with this spicy discourse. And I do not understand how that happens.

Akumako: “That’s because you view most of the internet as a read-only interface, ya dummy.”

…That is the correct way to do things, and if I had my way, posting things on the internet would cost money. It basically already does for me and Natalie.TF.

Akumako: “…Okay, Grandma’s got a gasket loose. Let’s bring you to bed and hopefully you’ll fix yourself by tomorrow morning.”

Though, I should at least give a cursory shout out to things like zines, BBS’s, and boutique niche publishers whose works were only distributed by mail. This was back when the USPS was in its peak condition, back when post offices doubled as banks, which they always should have! Yes, a savings account will always be better, but America is full of rural environments that lack adequate access to banking, and while it is possible to do most of it digitally these days, the lack of access to cash is still a—

Akumako: “Malaya, grab your mace! We’re going to need to bring her to bed the HARD way!”

You cannot silence me! I have seen the light of the unknown, gleaned the cube of the divine, and know the truth as manifested by the—

[THE REMAINDER OF THIS SEGMENT HAS BEEN REDACTED FOR THE SANCTITY OF THE GREAT NATION. GLORY TO THE ZIL DYNASTY.]

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Progress Report 2024-05-05

I forget if I ever shared this before, but this is a piece of Press-Switch fan art that I requested from ONATaRT several years ago. Honestly, I should have been more proactive with my requests, but I always felt bad taking up slots for other people. I know I had over a hundred dollars in unused tokens by the time his Patreon got shut down, but I just never bothered pursuing it as he made interacting with him such a pain. I get why he moved to hosting images on Discord, but downloading images from Discord is PAINFUL when trying to do things in bulk. 

A shame too, as I really do love their artwork. I’m still repping my ONAT profile pic, and I’m not gonna change that. I mean, it’s a smiling brown-skinned girl with blue eyes. It’s perfect.

2024-04-28: I DID IT! I finally finished editing VD2.0 Acts 1 and 2! Edited 18,000 words, and then took it breezy. Meaning I went through the TSF Showcase subject and wrote 900 words.

2024-04-29: Polished off the TSF Showcase draft with another 3,800 words. Then I picked out the 26 images, because I would just play PokéRogue if I didn’t keep these devilish fingers in their bindings.

2024-04-30: Started work on the header images. Created drafts for the first two chapter headers for VD2.0 and prepared part of the cover image. Also wrote 1,100 words for the Rundown.

2024-05-01: Made 7 header images for VD2.0. Would’ve done more, but I got SICK of art-ing around. Wrote 1,400 words of incoherent ramblings.

2024-05-02: Got sidetracked, only made 4 header images today. Edited this Rundown.

2024-05-03: Made another 6 header images, reaching the halfway point! Would have done more, but after making the TransSex versions of the main cast, I was frankly sick of image creation. At this rate, I’ll be 100% done before May 12th!

2024-05-04: Saturday is my chore day (insert Chore Boy reference here), but I managed to get another 4 header images done. meaning I just need to finish the cover, 10 chapters, and two act headers. …I have zero clue how I will handle the act headers. But I will want to use a 180 by 320 canvas for those. Not the usual 90 by 160. Also, I tend to do ALL the header images for a project, then do a review of them, then convert them from pdn files, and finally upscale them to 1920×1080.

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Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp
Acts 1 and 2 Progress Report:

Current Word Count: ~372,000

Estimated Word Count: ~372,000

Words Edited: ~372,000

Total Chapters: 33

Chapters Edited: 33

Header Images Made: 23

Header Images Needed: 36

Days Until Deadline: 25