(CR) White Album 2

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Introductory chapter is one of the VNs considered having "bad" art. It's not absolutely horrible (the original IC without any patches may be called so) but there's room to improve here.

While the art wasn't great (nowhere as close as the top 10 eroges with the the best art of 2010), i don't think you can even call it "bad".

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Newer VNs such as Majikoi or ef have almost perfect art so they don't need any improvement but that's another story here.

Minori does have a really good artists and while the EF anime did capture the essence of it, the quality of the anime compared to the game was not even close

When comparing to other recent eroges and their adaptations, which were on some kind of top list for art by Getchu

Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate (4th place on Getchu's best art of 2010)
Mashiro iro Symphony (2nd of 2009 )
Walkure Romanze (1st place of 2011)

Their anime adaptations did a far worse job with the art than WA2 (a little early to say that for Walkure Romanze, but from what i have seen so far it doesn't look as good as in the game)

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

If there's a new VN whose art can be compared to WA2, it'll be Rewrite.

My point was that to me Hinoue Itaru's art is far from good (I always prefered Naga's art style) and it's not very hard to "improve" it

[liro]

I just learned that getchu awards exist. Did some search from google, are these the right links that I'm looking for?

Best graphic 2012
Best ranking 2012

Best graphic 2011
Best ranking 2011

Best graphic 2010
Best ranking 2010

[hyl]

Yes, those ones are from Getchu. You also have other rankings made by TechGian and others

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Key Board

I don't know about his looks.

but he's a top grade student
he's the student council president
he's a model employee and sometimes overworks himself
and he can be very stubborn about things.
not sure if those qualities are something most people can relate with?

an average joe wouldn't get pass Kazusa's barrier

Actually, I think those traits you mention are probably part of the "stereotypical East Asian overachiever" image (I don't believe we ever see any of Haruki's family in the games; is he an orphan?). Granted, he only became a workaholic in CC, but the rest of what you said is true.

I'm also starting to think that what you said about "an average joe wouldn't get pass Kazusa's barrier" is actually a subtle satire by Maruto Fumiaki about how unrealistically high the standards real-life Japanese women hold these days about men they're willing to date/marry (i.e., must be well-accomplished and at least upper-middle-class in the wealth scale). One article you can read about this is here. His stubbornness and how it ends up working with Kazusa could also be a satire on the "if I'm nice enough and make my intentions known clearly enough, this hard-to-get woman will notice me and take me seriously" trope.

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

A big NO. The "Haruki" we are talking about is anything but generic.

I said "generic-looking." Eroge feed very much into the "wish-fulfillment fantasies" of "ronery otaku," after all. Haven't volume controls for all the characters' voices, including the player character's if it's included, become standard over the last few years? I bet that last bit was done so that the "ronery otaku" can better self-insert themselves into the game, especially during "winning sequences."

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

He's a complex character and so is his life. Almost all Maruto's major work's protagonists have their own face (also voice acting in Haruki's case) to emphasize that. Those stories are meant to be enjoyed from the third view, not from the protagonist's perspective (Parfait, Konoyaku, Damekoi and WA2).

I'm sure a lot of "ronery otaku" would love to have a shot at real-life women like Setsuna and Kazusa. But I'm glad that Maruto put some real depth into Haruki's personality and backstory.

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Because people tend to expect that the anime's char design will improve compared with the original design. In the end it turns out to be quite the opposite.

Sadly this was also the case with WA1, though in a different direction from the original designs. In WA2's case, they had the better character designs for the animated OPs used in the WA2 PS3 game; WHY didn't they just reuse them for the anime?!

Also, the CGs for IC clearly show that Kazusa doesn't have "tsurime" eyes all the time; she can have wide round eyes like many anime characters in certain situations. But this isn't reflected in the promotional material and designs we've seen thus far.

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Introductory chapter is one of the VNs considered having "bad" art. It's not absolutely horrible (the original IC without any patches may be called so) but there's room to improve here.

Just what kind of time pressure was Takeshi Nakamura under to push IC out the door, anyway? His art was quite professional before the debacle that was IC's initial release.

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Newer VNs such as Majikoi or ef have almost perfect art so they don't need any improvement but that's another story here.

I don't get it; the Majikoi series has been solely illustrated by Keitarou Kawagishi from the beginning, and there was never any dip in art quality despite the large amount of characters (and the character designs necessary to create them), the large amount of CGs, and the large amount of character sprites that he had to make. The art of Majikoi is not significantly simpler than WA2's was, either. Was Majikoi in development for significantly longer than WA2 IC?

Also, since the WA2 anime is likely to succeed greatly, is there any chance Maruto Fumiaki's other works will be animated? He has a Light Novel series in production now, called Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata, which is illustrated by one of the very best anime-style artists around, Misaki Kurehito--I'd like to see that artist's designs in animation, assuming they were translated faithfully to that medium. Those interested can check out the novel's website here.

[Key Board]

No.. really..

Kazusa is not an average girl and Haruki is not an average boy

I don't think either of them are people that would be fun to hang out with.

Just my opinion, though.

[Suzuku]

Is this expected to be better than the first White Album? Because I don't want to waste my time. The first one was really disappointing. Especially when it was initially getting all those comparisons to School Days.

[Key Board]

It has a different studio and staff from the first one.

Not sure how it would compare to the first WA1 anime

The only thing I can say is this is going to be a full blown love triangle story.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Key Board

Kazusa is not an average girl and Haruki is not an average boy.

I don't think either of them are people that would be fun to hang out with.

In terms of their appearance, they look similar to average college-age Japanese youth. Kazusa's appearance is partly because her designer, Takeshi Nakamura, has a major soft spot for girls with long black hair, as evidenced by several of his character designs (he even made a doujinshi titled "Black haired girl with glasses in a school uniform"--the titular character had waist-length hair as well).

I'm sure that Haruki has learned to be "professionally diplomatic," otherwise he wouldn't be the iinchou, right?

By the way, here's another example of how far apart the WA2 anime's character designs are from the original game's. This is a spoiler-free CG from the IC part of the WA2 game:

Images

Drive, She Said

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

This is a nice example of how different Kazusa looks in the game. The anime character designs don't reflect this part of her character.

[Key Board]

Oh god, that infamous image

Kazusa, the piano elf... xd

[Free]

Maruto was on the radio show this week. Highlights: WH2 is a story about toe-tips and stockings. Maruto can't stand heroine with glasses. 1st season will be covering the whole IC with 13 episodes.

When asked his thoughts coming to anime, he said he was surprised about how much he had to cut to fit stuff into the 30min shows. It came down to removing dialog or removing the theme songs, and you can't remove the songs because Aquaplus' boss is in charge of them.

The anime's director and Apuaplus' boss will be on the show radio next week.

[Frontier]

Toe-tips and stockings ?

I hope that whatever dialogue that had to be cut in favor of the songs weren't too important in the grand scheme of the story. It'd be a shame if dialogue that pertained to relationship developments or establishing/developing the characters were cut.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Key Board

Oh god, that infamous image

Kazusa, the piano elf... xd

Yep, ears in that style are dead giveaways of Takeshi Nakamura's art. But the real point of focus here are the tops of Kazusa's eyes; they're not permanently slanted like the anime designs imply.

Originally Posted by Free

Maruto was on the radio show this week. Highlights: WH2 is a story about toe-tips and stockings. Maruto can't stand heroine with glasses. 1st season will be covering the whole IC with 13 episodes.

"Toe-tips"? What on Earth is that supposed to mean? And are you sure you translated that right?

As for stockings (i.e., leggings like pantyhose or garter-supported hose, not socks), what is he getting at? The main heroines in IC don't wear them. Only a few of those in CC and later do. And what's wrong with heroines wearing glasses, anyway?

Originally Posted by Free

When asked his thoughts coming to anime, he said he was surprised about how much he had to cut to fit stuff into the 30min shows. It came down to removing dialog or removing the theme songs, and you can't remove the songs because Aquaplus' boss is in charge of them.

WA2 is infamous for the amount of "padding" it has, so I hope nothing significant was cut.

[Free]

Maruto has a feet and stockings fetish. He was just joking that WH2 was about those things, but he did point out several scenes where those items do come into view.

He doesn't like heroines with glasses because he was traumatized by one from an eroge he played. Didn't mention which one, and I have no clue. :P

WA2 IC had no padding, in my opinion. I also think it's the best part of WH2, and I can very much understand that it'd be hard to fit so much content and story into one season, especially since every part is too good to be cut.

[Yume no Hana]

Maruto can't stand heroine with glasses. 1st season will be covering the whole IC with 13 episodes.

Oh well...
Maybe "that" pair of glasses are not unintentional at all...

Originally Posted by Free

He doesn't like heroines with glasses because he was traumatized by one from an eroge he played. Didn't mention which one, and I have no clue. :P

I'm pretty sure the eroge he spoke about is "Kuon no Kizuna" (久遠の絆) by Xuse. That's the very game inspiring him to get involved in the eroge industry after all.

Spoiler for Remake edition's Cover:

Also, that game has a heroine that perfectly matches the description:

Spoiler for :

This pic certainly reminds me of a certain someone here...

Source: http://bbs.sumisora.org/read.php?tid=10883306

最后要说的是丸戸史明。当然他没有做游戏。玩了「久遠の絆」之后，这个小子很喜欢就参加了几个活动什么的， 写了几个小小的久遠的同人段子，结果被小林且典看上了，说你要不要来写写游戏啊，丸戸说行啊，结果写出来的 东西让小林感觉格外的好。于是丸戸就和企画屋勾结起来～

Rough translation:

The last person I want to introduce to you is Maruto Fumiaki. Of course, he didn't make any games at first. After playing "Kuon no Kizuna", he became very interested in taking part in activities related to it. He wrote some short doujins for Kuon. Fortunately, his work caught Kobayashi Katsunori's eyes. Kobayashi told Maruto to write game script if he wanted and Maruto agreed. His story impressed Kobayashi a alot and that's when Maruto started working with Kikakuya (?)

Originally Posted by Free

WA2 IC had no padding, in my opinion. I also think it's the best part of WH2, and I can very much understand that it'd be hard to fit so much content and story into one season, especially since every part is too good to be cut.

An anime episode nowadays is packed with many bloated scenes while time for the actual content gets shorter and shorter. An average anime episode in the 90s last up to 25-26 minutes with no or short ending scene while an episode now only has about 20 minutes for the content.

IC only took me about 8 hours to finish (and my reading is quite slow) so 12-13 episodes for it may be quite sufficient if they don't decide to waste too much time on unnecessary scenes.

[Free]

8 hours would be 16 episodes, and that's assuming there's no op+ed+preview+commercial.

As for who the glasses girl was, his hint was it was older than some Saturn remake of some game. He was conversing with the radio's staff, so I didn't get to hear what game name that person said.

[Key Board]

the green haired nurse from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien was my first guess

she traumatized A LOT of people

[Leon_Lelouch]

the other characters art.... really not looking better...
Kazusa looks worse... even closing chapter is better than anime Kazusa's art... or are they comparing it to the introductory chapter where the artist mainly doing it alone.... but the CG still came out good rather than those pointy things...=_=

well, 13 eps are enough already for the beginning I guess, I can already guessing which part goes to what episode, hopefully they will include the short novel about Kazusa 雪が解け、そして雪が降るまで

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Free

Maruto has a feet and stockings fetish. He was just joking that WH2 was about those things, but he did point out several scenes where those items do come into view.

Hmm, could be one reason why he got Misaki Kurehito to illustrate his light novel series Saenai Kanojo no Sodatekata--aside from the general quality of Misaki Kurehito's art, he also happens to be very good at making his character's feet look aesthetically pleasing (which, admittedly, is a body part that doesn't normally lend itself to doing so) and often focuses on them in his eroge CG art. Carnelian can do that as well, but she doesn't focus on them like Misaki Kurehito does (which isn't very much in the scheme of things).

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Oh well...
Maybe "that" pair of glasses are not unintentional at all...

Spoiler for Possible Spoilers?:

Is it a spoiler to say that Kazusa wears fake glasses as part of a disguise in the CODA part?

Originally Posted by Key Board

the green haired nurse from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien was my first guess

she traumatized A LOT of people

Yeah, probably because players were expecting a "jun'ai" (pure love) route from her and didn't get one.

Nice that someone brought up KimiNozo here, given how this anime will likely be remembered as "the next KimiNozo."

[Key Board]

err.. both Setsuna and Kazusa wear glasses at one point

In fact, I think you can even see Setsuna wearing it in the trailer

don't think too hard about it

[Free]

This thread has way too many spoilers. Someone should put up a warning on the top post.