It’s time for your neighborhood blog yurifan to write another article again! It’s been quite some time since I’ve done anything here, but hey, someone gave me a subject so I might as well follow up on it! Today, I’ll be talking about a circle that I’m particularly familiar with and by familiar, I mean I know I’ve read several of their doujins. I’m so great at this. Anyway, the subject of this article is going to be the wonderful yuri group, 434NotFound (also known as Isya (pronounced Ai-sha what)).
Thankfully, unlike another group that I didn’t do any research on before writing an article on it (*cough*RIRIADOLL*cough*), 434NotFound doesn’t have a giant stockpile of boys banging boys hidden in its archives. Instead, you’re pretty much bound to find Umineko no Naku Koro Ni 4koma comedies and yuri stories along with so much Pretty Cure. Holy shit there’s a lot of Pretty Cure. Actually, the Pretty Cure thing seems to be their recent thing and by their, I pretty much mean Isya since she seems the only member of the circle (I can’t read moonspeak that well). Back to the point. Like I said, the early doujins are mostly Umineko and then Isya moved onto Pretty Cure, although it seems to be mostly Hibiki x Kanade and recently, there’s been doujins of Smile Pretty Cure coming out.
Truth be told, while I like their material (how can I not), I’m not actually that big of a fan of the art style. Much prefer Energia’s or Momoya Chika’s than 434NotFound’s, but I really shouldn’t complain. It’s pretty much just my own opinion and Isya’s art isn’t bad by a longshot. Isya prefers a more…thinner face, I guess? It’s more angled than rounded, so it makes it look thin, but she also keeps the big anime eyes as well as giving the characters a more realistic proportion instead of the sorta-SDish forms that Momoya Chika uses. It also has a tendency to look a little flat, if that makes any sense. As an example, look below at the cover picture for one of 434NotFound’s recent releases, Princess x Princess (which, by the way, is scanlated, so go ahead and read it).
Anyway, enough of the art style critique that I am in no way qualified to give. Let’s move onto the material part of it. Depending on what series you’re looking at, you’re going to get WILDLY different doujins. The Umineko doujins (the ones I’ve read, at least) are pretty much all romantic comedies with 4-koma panels splashed in. Emphasis on the comedy. They’re light-hearted, goofy as hell, and also make contain penis. In that there are actually dudes hanging around, although there isn’t any straight boning. It’s pretty much all goofy lesbian antics, which is always great as well.
But when you get to the Pretty Cure doujins. WHOA. SO MUCH LESBIAN BANGING. Apparently being a magical girl requires tons of sex, because that’s what you’re going to get with 434NotFound’s Pretty Cure doujins. There’s also some drama sprinkled in. I’m not sure what caused this sort of 180 spin, but all of the ones I’ve read are all super porny and (mostly) drama. Which is kind of jarring when you’re going from an Umineko doujin straight to a PC one. I guess Isya wants to cater to all comers?
For more lesbian banging, click here!
All in all, though, they’re all pure love sort of deals and frankly, that’s some of the best stuff out there. 434NotFound is probably not one of my favorite doujin groups out there, but it definitely ranks high and I’d suggest reading their work. The Umineko doujins will at least make you snicker and hey, if you just want a ton of smut, their Pretty Cure will definitely deliver.
By the way, Isya really loves herself some Hibiki x Kanade. You’re going to get that the most. Tsundere lesbian sex, top score.
We at Hendane deeply apologize to the citizens of Quebec and surrounding areas to inform you that we will be unable to make it to Otakuthon in Montreal, Quebec. The reasons for this are several, but the major ones are due to the cost and amount of time it will take to ship our product from the United States to Canada.
Because of this, we will offer a discount to anyone with a Quebec driver’s license a 10% discount on all products between now and until the end of New York Comic Con at any show we attend. We apologize again for anyone who was looking forward to see us there.
Before I ship off to Baltimore, I wanted to tell everyone going to Otakon just what to expect!
We have Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, and Mahou Tsukai no Yoru for a Type-Moon Extravaganza! Speaking of visual novels, we also have Minatosoft’s Majiokoi S and Alicesoft’s Daiteikoku!
The very rare Grief Syndrome game has once again graced our presence!
Also two very nice C-Clay’s wallscrolls of Aya and Marisa for the Touhou fans out there!
As usual, we’ll have lots of new hentai and yaoi from all of you rfavorite circles as well, so look forward to it! For you yuri fans, we have a small collection of the Sono Hanabira series as well! We’ll be at booth E-05, E-07, E-09!
I had meant to make a post about this but then life hit me like a truck full of doujinshi.
Actually I just got hit by a truck full of doujinshi.
Okay, it was a car. Details.
Anyways, we’re open again! Please check it out! As a warning, I’ll be gone from Tuesday night (the 24th) to probably Monday (the 30th) so any orders made between those time frames will be delayed unless I kick my roomate into doing them. Which I may do. Thanks again for visiting!
Not at all stolen borrowed from the official site.
Ether Vapor, by Circle Edelweiss and brought over to us by the fine folks at Nyu Media, is a game that I have a fair bit of history with. Back in the day, as it were, I applied for a job doing basically this, but for console games. My interviewer set me with a simple task, and that was to review a game I was familiar with and, given what I knew at the time, I did one for the original release of Ether Vapor. I never really thought I’d be here doing it all again, but life is funny like that.
Okay, maybe a little.
Right, onto the game itself. Ether Vapor, as far as doujin games goes, is quite focused in what it does and does it well. Veterans from the Thunder Force series of ship-based shooters will be right at home with Ether Vapor. Presenting an impressive display of visuals paired with extremely solid gameplay and vividly emotional music, Ether Vapor is quite a gem as far as doujin games go. Within the span of the first stage, you’re quickly brought into the action while enemies come in very specific patterns allowing you to learn your weapons and when they best apply. Then, as a bit of a breather from the action, you’re thrown into an Itano circus (Macross homages will always be a soft spot for me) of barrage-fired missiles that can’t actually hit you, but you can shoot them down regardless while your ship dramatically swoops through the sky for bonus points. It’s things like this that really set apart Ether Vapor from a lot of other bullet hell games, and keeps even the casual player enjoying what the game has to offer as you play.
They *are* nice screenshots.
The gameplay itself is straightforward, allowing you three weapons and a charged shot unique to each. You have your standard straight shot, a spread shot, and my favorite, homing lasers. While many situations call for the strategic use of different weapons, there’s really very little stopping you from using only one weapon, which makes for interesting solo-weapon runs (though you will need the spread shot charge at some point). As you progress (or don’t progress, even) you will unlock the ability to carry more shields (lives) and use more credits, and allow the setting of when you gain extends (extra lives) at certain point benchmarks in the style of a true arcade game. The music is 100% on theme and amazing, and frankly if I could just get CDs of Naru’s other work, I would totally buy them. The way especially the first stage’s music flows really gives the player the feeling of flying freely through the sky. It’s great for cruising down the highway too, which I recommend wholeheartedly (at acceptable speed levels).
As for Nyu Media’s role in the game, the translation is good. I mean, I’ll be frank, it’s not exactly a visual novel, but the characters keep their quirks (Daniel’s the best dude, just sayin’) and speech flows fluidly. When I first played Remaster and it probed my region settings (and subsequently gave me a whole bunch of nothing for text) I knew something was up. Glad to see that they got it, as their previous games were all pretty well done in my book. I am also glad that they got the Remaster version instead of having to put out the original first. The original version is very much the exact same game, so it’s still great, but the graphics retain the grainy polygons of the bygone PSX-era of video games. You can catch a comparison in the video below at about 45 seconds in.
Graciously provided by Edelweiss’s Nal.
So hey, cheers to Nyu Media and I look forward to their Fairy Bloom Freesia release!
