Seeing mention of Princess Lover (and how many brain cells one put at risk for watching it) over at Steven’s resulted in my going back and watching a few episodes again. The girls were really sexy, although the maid was more cute than sexy. I also didn’t believe half of what happened — as in, it just wasn’t credible at times. In the very first episode, Teppei and Charlotte fall what appears to be hundreds of feet off a cliff and land unharmed–evidently because they fell through trees. Everyone knows that trope, right?
Well then they somehow emerge from the forest back at the top of the cliff, as evidenced by the fact that they’re pushing his motorcycle when they are met by her butler and servants. Who, I should point out, do NOT offer him a ride in return for saving Charlotte from the attackers. Seems a bit rude. (I also think it’s bizarre that her chosen mode of transport is a carriage pulled by horses, when there’s obviously a limo available.) But that’s ok, because as soon as she was gone, the motorcycle worked again. (Groan.) The intelligence never gets much better, but hey, I already said why I was watching this animé!
Later, I thought that there was something unusual about how embarrassed Teppei got when he tried to follow Sophie through the curtain into the dressing room. The girls were entirely too well dressed for him to react that strongly. Note, he did not get a nosebleed, he was just embarrassed and apologized loudly. Well, it seems that scene was significantly edited for the TV version. (NSFW!) Excuse me while I go download the DVD rips… (It’s not available in R1…. I checked.)
One thing I found out though.. there is going to be a 2-ep OVA with the first episode released on 9/17/10, focusing on Sylvie (and somewhat on Yuu, the maid). It’s definitely hentai, per the PV I found on Tokyo Toshan. ANN lists it as an alternate retelling, which might explain that while Seika appears in it as well, I didn’t see Charlotte at all. Here’s hoping it gets subbed. (Why is it the best games, the ones that spawn animés, never get imported to the U.S.? We only get the sausage-fests.)
Strictly as a matter of evaluating haremettes, Sylvie was top tier, with Charlotte failing simply on the simple-minded score…I don’t think she was really dumb, but she came across as an airhead, which I find annoying in more than small doses. Seika was the violent tsundere, which automatically DQ’d her, although in terms of business leadership, she was Teppei’s best match. As for Yuu… I just never warmed to her. She wasn’t exactly a doormat, but I always got the feeling from her that she’d hop in bed with a hearty “Yes, Master!” anytime she was asked. (Edit: She did say she’d have stripped for him any time he asked) I thought it was interesting, if a bit unbelievable, that the other girls accorded her an equal status in the “maidens’ promise” just because she had the advantage from proximity. I don’t know why it bothered me; I’m not a monarchist at heart. Yet the name of the show is Princess Lover, and here you have three “princesses” (two actual, one virtual)….and a maid. Hmmmm.
So, evaluating from personal taste, the order is Sylvie, Charlotte, Seika, Yuu.
From “best match for Teppei’s future” I see it as Seika, Sylvie, Charlotte, Yuu.
Enh. Who am I kidding? Go for the GXP ending and take ’em all.
Update: ah, the joys of an 18mbit connection from AT&T. The entire DVD series, plus both sets of shorts in only a half-hour. I’d stopped watching after episode 9, so this let me get caught back up. It never got any more intelligent. “Hey, they’re on the Hazelrink Express, which is like a mobile embassy–we can’t stop it without causing an international incident. So let’s attack it with artillery and cavalry!”
And I got the picture file from the game too. Some observations, and bear in mind it’s a hentai game before you go clicking:
Most of the picture dramas were just silly excuses to show the girls semi-or completely undressed, but the third one gave some background to Yuu; in the animé continuity, she met Teppei as a child, but he didn’t remember it. We knew she was an orphan, but it seems Teppei’s dad was a major contributor to her orphanage; this being after he left Arima Issen’s service. It seems he had been the old geezer’s head chef, and Arima’s daughter must have really liked his yakisoba, so he’d severed all ties (or vice versa) after running off to marry her. How that led to Yuu being adopted by Arima is anyone’s guess; the timeline doesn’t make much sense.
Update 2: I see Steven noted the H-OVA back in June. After looking at the PV, I can say “No, it’s not censored out the wazoo.” Not sure about part 2, but part 1 appears to have been moved up to September 17
Shuffle!, Suika, Da Capo and Higurashi were all brought over.
As games? I hadn’t seen them at J-List, but I confess I haven’t looked through their catalog in a while.
They’re available for download only at Mangagamer: http://www.mangagamer.com/r18/.
J-list does have “Gibo(Stepmother’s Sin)”, which was made into an anime, recently Bible Black, Discipline and Heartwork (by the same writer) have been translated. Demonbane is scheduled for later this year from Nitro+. In a reverse process, a game was made out of the Aoi Yori Aoshi anime and manga and also translated into English.
Hmm. Clearly the market has been changing over the last few years. Based on this, and what I see at Baka-Tsukai, I would hazard to say that the appetite for J-culture (games, anime, novels) is expanding (if not exploding), even as the for-pay market is imploding. Or at least highly unstable. Perhaps we’re seeing a “recovery summer.”
Let’s just hope it’s better than our economy’s.