2024 Retrospective

I've decided this will be the last of these retrospectives. Juraku's gained more attention, to the point that I'm getting e-mails about its content and shady ones about buying up related domains. I suppose fame comes in many forms.

Consequently, I have less to say about where it's going. You already have an idea of what this place is. I don't have to tell you that.

Shin Devil Children

This started as a short series of "post reset fiction" without a clear identity and became one of the most enjoyable bits on the website for Raindare and myself to put together. There will be more, certainly.

Heir to the Empire

Post-reset Elegy (Kai) shows up in a story that introduces the setting. Karen shows up, before we even knew that there was a new Princess Maker game with Karen in progress. I'm pretty happy with how this fight scene turned out, fairly effective at telling a story beyond dialogue.

Grocery Run

Raindare's contribution, building on the idea of what were the mothers like. We had a small idea of what Tsubomi's personality is from the manga. Here she leads a story that goes on without clear end with the three Kai children, in amusing fashion.

The Nature of Things

All the other mains of Devil Children Red and Black show up to tell a small story in retrospect. Asmodeus is still absent at the moment, but don't worry. He'll be back. Of all characters, it was a little hard to bring him back in a setting where the Devil Children cast are in their late teens.

Dark Entries

The first Mirai-centered story building on her character from Red Book. Loads of game, manga, White Book (game) and D-Children anime references here. My only disappointment was how the fight ended, which I chalk up to being sick at the time and just wanting to close out the story one weekend.

The Other Way of Stopping

A short story that fell out of a draft of First Floor Metaphor, as certain cues didn't make sense to put into the bigger story. This one hints a bit at a new outfit for Setsuna that I tried requesting a fan artist to finish up from a sketch they shared on Pixiv, but they weren't interested in receiving a Skeb request for certain types of fan works. I respect that attitude.

First Floor Metaphor

The last story I had planned before making a call whether to continue this series. It started from the premise "Setsuna has a bad day", before figuring out how to work the Seto concept in, and what Nagahisa would be like in latter days. This take on Nagahisa comes from a fan fiction by Kerorin that cast him as a boy haunted by his past actions. Mecchiyama is an actual Atlus-focused Vtuber who was happy to share Gyouza's redesign to her fans. The designs for Davi and Yuuta come from drafts on Hideaki Fujii's white board for his DMM-published original manga that either didn't make it or were significantly altered to become the finished product. Tao's appearance in this story is a fusion of one of Fujii's favorite iDOLM@STER characters and the draft design for Kinsho, which had a more male appearance than the final.

Through the Circle

Raindare's second contribution is another Mirai story, itching at portals and whatever happened to Makai. We've decided that Veil is a cat, which makes her pretty easy to write compared to some of the other characters.

Violet

A Halloween story that got most of its feet in American Thanksgiving of that year. More fun character developments immediately follow First Floor Metaphor, expanding the world view for things to come...

Still Pending

Black Matrix character design materials have been scanned, but summaries and uploads have been delayed on account of Sbin Devil Children taking most of my hobby time. That goes for the original game, Cross, and Double O.

Along the same lines, I have prepared a decent queue of material for the original Majin Tensei (aka Majiten), mostly around the first of the games. There aren't as many interesting insights to share about that series relative to the heart and soul visible from Black Matrix, though there was enough of a marketing push to have Atlus' then head of marketing expouse upon Majin Tensei's hopes and goals in the games magazines of its time.

The Wizardry series fell back on our radar as Raindare has found the first version of Wizardry IV that we both enjoy. That's the arrange version on the "New Age of Llylgamyn" remake for the PlayStation, which has additional story and a tremendous number of quality of life changes. This might lead to a screenshot LP or a summary. Yes, we are aware that the KMT II screenshot LP stalled. Raindare has been busy with other affairs.

We've also found Game Studio's old index of essays around certain localization choices made to bring Wizardry to Japan. This will be worth chipping away at for some obvious bits, like the eternal debate over whether the Sword of Cuisinart should be a cool sword or a literal blender sword.

Find Yourself Starting Back

The next months will be interesting as Raindare and myself look towards relocation and continuing our business in another country.

It's another small burden, but it might pay off. Who can say?