The problem with anime references or puns is that they usually fall apart quite miserably when you attempt to throw two or more of them together. It’s the sheer futility of making a Yoko Kanno reference in a Nanoha post title (a Venn diagram would easily illustrate the naivete behind this), or stringing together similarities between a not-so-popular mahou shoujo anime and an extremely famous shounen one (on top of a Narnia parallel) that leaves much to be desired, but I try anyway. If you manage to catch both references in the post title, well, consider yourself to have otaku street cred.

if recent episodes are anything to go by, he’s getting there

I’ve always loved Honey & Clover for being emotionally honest. The concept of the term “emotional honesty”, if it doesn’t exist in some capacity out there already, would be defined as the ability of the viewer to connect with the range of emotions portrayed by the character(s) on-screen — due to how the emotions portrayed are genuine and indeed representative of real life in some capacity.

Choosing to justify a critique of eroge after watching two Key adaptations seems like a reasonable decision to me, and here’s why: Kanon and Air have been held in high regard as the basic of basics, something no self-respecting otaku should go without watching in their lifetime. They are arguably the most well-known and popular of eroges, having met with critical and commercial success; more importantly, the focus isn’t about the sex alone.

I finished Air. After watching two out of four key Key works I feel a take on the genre would be appropriate so watch out for a hopefully extensive critique on the visual novel as a genre in the next two, three, maybe five days — in addition to that, I should be reading Planetarian after my exams (I keep on thinking “Planetes” for some reason) and I can’t wait for Clannad to air next season, if everything goes as planned.

the summer specials obviously weren’t about fanservice.

I insist on coming clean about this: till a week ago I was one of those elitist bastards who wouldn’t touch eroge adaptations even if you paid me. Well, alright, maybe I would, but I always had a prejudice against them. Point being? The concept of eroges/visual novels/dating sims didn’t appeal to me at all. To put it crudely, they always seemed to me like a Japanese amalgam of Choose Your Own Adventure and Mills & Boon. It was that bad.

The logic behind the aversion? Pretty simple — it was how sex and a decent story were mutually exclusive. Or how the sex always came first and the story second. Oh, don’t tell me — they made the story first and then tried to cram in the sex later. I can imagine it already, some overweight, middle-aged salaryman looking over the shoulder of his Chinese sweatshop programmer, going “What do you MEAN they can’t have sex now?” Assuming then, that the eroge is in all respects created from the ground up with equal allowance to both sex and story doesn’t make it any better — just less pathetic, like comparing a home-made porno to a professional one.