I have a few dumb things to say/ask about this whole VD fandom thing.

1. While this is cool news and all, I do have to wonder how reliable 4chan of all places is. Are there are any, you know, more reliable sources? It does seem pretty interesting, and I would like to read more about this phenomenon.

There's this bit from an interview with Lady Lady seiyuus

--Besides that, what else do you find to be impressive from Valkyrie Drive

O: I heard that this show have quite a lot of female fans too, so I was pretty surprised.

A: I have received letter from viewers that know me and watched Valkyrie Drive. There’s also plenty of female fans among them. They’d said things like “I love Mirei-san and Mamori-chan combination” or “I love Lady Lady”. No matter how you see it this show is definitely intended for male demographic, but in Valkyrie Drive, not only you can see a friendship between girls, they also depicted a romance between them. So perhaps female viewers found this approach to be refreshing and that’s what draws them to this show.

And it was mentioned a few times by the anime's director on his twitter. I have scans from all the interviews with the staff as well so if anyone fluent in Japanese wants to give it a look, just say the word.

Also NinaRyo being a huge yuri fan nowadays is easy to confirm simply by looking at her twitter feed.

1. Maybe the devs will learn from this and include even more yuri in the sequel?? I never played the first one 'cause I'm too poor to afford it, but I heard it's mostly subtext. Now, as I said, I haven't played it, so I'm probably wrong, but, still, the more yuri the better.

The game is actually pretty blatant. Like half of the cast have their love for another of the girls being the driving force behind their acts. By the way, the game is now available on Steam where is considerably cheaper than the Vita release.

1. I wonder if the sequel will be any different to accommodate for the unexpected female fandom. I mean, I think this proves more than anything else that women can enjoy ecchi-filled games, action games, and ecchi-filled action games just as much as men can but you never know what the dumbasses in charge will do.

As long Kaneko and Takaki remain in charge, seems like a safe bet they would try to capitalize on the series popularity with women. Both of them seemed to enjoy engaging with the fans over twitter, Kaneko in particular. There's also how he's directing a romantic anime during this season that is quite frankly, very odd given his previous work.

1. I got to say that I couldn't stand Valkyrie Drive... the anime, that is (apparently, that's Mermaid, I thought the game was Mermaid, but, nope, it's Bhikkuni). Soul Eater was one of the first manga I ever read, if not the first, so I was pretty excited for Soul Eater... WITH LESBIANSSS. Alas, the first episode just had a bunch of prolonged, unnecessary sex scenes and very little action that was poorly animated to boot. None of the characters really struck me as particularly interesting either. I mean, I thought the love-fueled transformations or whatever would involve saucy kisses, not... full-on sex scenes. Now that the anime's over (well, been over... for like a year and a half), I have to ask: is it worth watching?

As Nevri says. the anime has enough substance to stand on its own beyond the fanservice (in fact most of its female fans simply love to pieces the characters) unlike other series. --I'm looking at you, Seven Sins.

Personally I thought it was pretty well animated and enjoyed the fighting scenes quite a bit.

On a related note, I'm more tolerant of oversexualized BS in games though... but only if the game in question is actually a good game. I hear Bhikkuni's not a bad hack-and-slash game, so maybe I should just cough up the money to buy it at some point

Bhikkhini is hands down, Takaki's best game to date. And is considerably tamer for his recent standards.

Lmao deflowered?
So VD's got an unexpected fandom? :9

Yeah, everyone on the staff was baffled that most of the fans were women.

Poor NinaRyo

Torino is getting a figure.

I didn't see that one coming

http://figurenews.blog.jp/archives/50461677.html

Final version of the new pages

https://twitter.com/Chocobaguette/status/889590768905707520

I wasn't talking about modelling on that post but about the whole "get Mimika into a party with other child models" bit

See, I can roll with the angle of this is just a cute romance story between a child and a teenager and paid no mind to the implications said story has laid on its own setting. The problem comes when the author choose to introduce a character that one way or another brings those implications front and center in such a way that they become impossible to ignore. Of course this can be clarified down the line but at the present conjuncture there's not a lot interpretations one can make about Ririha's character and all of them are unsettling.

Your triggered selves are not the intended audience. The author doesn't even know this is read outside Japan. No real person, or even actual children are depicted in this manga.

Get over it.

Oh and I trust you're aware of the way the modelling industry is in Japan, yes? Japanese readers will have an even easier time than me to make similar readings of Ririha's character.

last edited at Jul 23, 2017 3:28PM

Did you forget the bit where Ririha invites Mimika to a party with the express goal of introducing Mimika to all the elementary school models?

last edited at Jul 23, 2017 10:53AM

All of those points you mention is precisely what makes obvious that Yuzumori is confusing her longing for companionship and fill the void left by her absent mother for actual romantic feelings for Mimika. Mimika is in fact aware of this.

The reason why it's "dumb drama" is because that drama never felt natural. They always felt like an obvious attempt by the author to give them a reason to interact with each other and it just didn't flow well.

That is the whole point. Mei is so emotionally stunted that she doesn't understand her own feelings (and even less someone else's) unless she's explicitly told what is happening.

The series has been getting A LOT better and I think part of that is because Saburouta has been improving her storywriting the past couple of years. I reread the whole series and I still think that the Matsuri arc is the worst arc ever because of how stupid it was. It still doesn't really make sense to me and I never was able to understand Matsuri's intention behind the whole thing.

Matsuri is an immature child that didn't accepted Yuzu had moved on and find a new life outside her, while at the same time, she helps to shed light on Yuzu's past. Is pretty straightforward.

And then that was followed up with the Sara arc, which was not AS bad, but honestly a waste of time. Saburouta really didn't need to immediately introduce MORE new characters just to get Yuzu to spring into action so the drama felt really overdone since we just finished a "stupid drama" arc.

The sisters were introduced as a foil for Yuzu and Mei and they weren't meant to make Yuzu spring into action but Mei.

So there were like around 10 really bad chapters that took place over 2 YEARS in real time, so it's not hard to see why it really soured a lot of people's opinion of the series and made a lot of people drop it. We get the reason why those chapters exist in the story, but that doesn't discredit the fact that they were just bad chapters.

Put the blame on Yuri Hime being bimonthly then.

If you think there's actual, 100% romantic love from Yuzumori to Mimika, then no. I guess we don't

last edited at Jul 22, 2017 2:58PM

But Mei and Yuzu growing and learning from each other stems from the "dumb" drama?

I mean, that's unrelated to the child model thing. And the idolization her classmates indulge in isn't too out of character imo.

Idolization is not bad by itself because yeah, is a perfectly normal way kids act at that age. The issue comes on the way is contextualized by Ririha's behavior. If she weren't so devoted to the gig (think on Hina's reaction to her own modelling career) it wouldn't be as jarring.

Also, I dunno if you recall being a child but when I was one there were a lot of kids who tried to fake as tho they had more experience with things than they did or knew more than they did or were more mature than they were. I don't think Ririha has any intention of taking things to a sexual level. Her seduction is just emphasizing her cuteness after all. To her understanding a lolicon may just be an older person who is attracted to kids, without any awareness of all the gross awfulness that may entail.

You're right and Ririha probably isn't trying to take things that far but again, the issue is that she is weaponizing her age to led Mimika stray. That conveys a degree of awareness that gets unsettling when is paired with the way the series has treated being a lolicon so far

Like, if I was going to say they're acting old for their age I'd probably say they're acting more like sixth graders than fourth graders but that's it really. In fact I'd probably go as far as to say Ririha acts more her age than Yuzumori?

Acting more like her age would mean she's closer to Kanna's "rival" than to Veronica trying to steal Archie from Betty.

Yuzumori actually acts like one would expect a child in her circumstances to act. Even her affection to Mimika comes off more like her seeing Mimika as an older sister or a foster mother than anything romantic.

At no point any adult has been shown in that manga. Your issues about sexualization, or whatever, are clearly not addressed in the "world" the author created and are clearly irrelevant. The author isn't writing hentai or a social comment. They are just writing a romantic comedy where some characters are 4th graders.

Stop inserting reality and your triggers in my age gap yuri manga.

You can't use this argument either because Yuzumori and Mimika's relationship isn't happening within a void ala Majyo to Houki to Kurobuchi Megane where being a lolicon was a total joke and there were no real conflict over it. Here the issue is treated more seriously and the conflict over being one is fundamental part of Mimika's character. Plus you have other characters reacting negatively at Mimika's urges. Hell, Mimika is a compelling protagonist because she is aware of her urges and does the best thing for Yuzumori regardless of them.

Yeah, but Yuzumori has been shown to be a naive and relatively pure affection stemming from the lack of attention she gets from her family. Ririha on the other hand is not acting like a child but rather like a tiny teenager, that is what makes it so unsettling for me.

last edited at Jul 22, 2017 2:21AM

It's really only an issue if they're sexualized. The magazine in the manga is aimed towards kids her own age so I don't really see the issue. Similar to child actors.

When was the last time you opened a clothing magazine ? 'cause it's pretty comon to have boys and girls of any ages wearing some clothing to advertise them. As other said, it's usually casual poses, nothing "dangerous". XD

so yeah, it's not exactly something specific to japan and I don't really see the issue with a model her age as long as it's not "risqué" work.

That argument doesn't hold water when Ririha is not only well aware of the existence of lolicons but she actively tries to use her own (or perceived at least) sex appeal to win Mimika's favor. To not mention the idolization her classmates indulge in.

The author has added more pages on the /u/ thread for the series. LL finally makes an appearance.

Ok, this is getting real weird, mainly because the whole thing of fashion model children. Like, what the fuck Japan.

That was a fun series. Although if I have to be honest, I enjoyed the credit pages as much as I did the series itself. Kepp up the amazing work Stan.

For some reason I can totally see Matsuri as the kind of girl that is all dominant on daily life but a total sub in the bedroom

Matsuri, really, really wants to get together with Harumin, eh?

Probably? I don't read Destructoid either but found the controversy on twitter

last edited at Jul 8, 2017 1:48PM

Welp, finally Destructoid decided to step up and make the usual smearing piece against the game.

Terrible as this might be, I have to admit to be kind a heartwarming to see people who identify themselves as lesbians defending the game.

While you are known in the West for creating Senran Kagura, you also made Half-Minute Hero and the Japan-only music game IA/VT. What other kinds of games do you want to create?

I want to continue the Senran Kagura and Valkyrie Drive series. Recently, I had my first child and now that I have a child of my own maybe now it is time I want to challenge myself to make a family oriented game.

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/06/28/senran-kagura-creator-uppers-localization-hd-rumble-new-studio/#DIBeHZgiiIi2SoJZ.99

YES

Valkyrie Drive is top 15 of best selling titles worldwide on Steam

Bhikkhuni is out on Steam now!