This is totally a post of substance!

Last week, I talked about the new My Little Pony cartoon and the fandom that had spawned around it. I particular, I drew attention to the creativity that has seemingly defined that fandom, and their ability to create new content. Well, here's some of that new content; cartoon horses engaged in faux-suicide to the tune of Engrish rap:

Gender Based Marketing - Time for a Paradigm Shift? Part 1

Anyone even the tiniest bit immersed in internet pop culture has no doubt heard of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (henceforth MLP) by now. For the uninitiated,  MLP is a cartoon show based on Hasbro's long running My Little Pony franchise, primarily targeted at girls ages 3 and up. And it's doing very well in the ratings, both with young girls, and adults, ages 18 to 34, primarily men.

Not to put too fine a  point on it, but the MLP fanbase is shitastically huge. The primary non official fansite, Equestria Daily, has garnered a whopping 38 million hits in it's short eight months of existence. Furthermore, it gains new hits at the rate of about 3 per second.

Even more striking than the size of the fandom however, is it's self sustaining, self renewing nature. After the end of season 1 of MLP, the fanbase didn't shrivel like many expected it to, in fact, it expended. In lieu of official content, fans took to simply creating their own. A wealth of fics, vids, art and even games began pouring in. This in turn created a seeming perpetual machine of fandom; the larger it got, the more more people it attracted into it, in turn creating an even greater amount of fan content.

In a sense, MLP is the Western equivalent to Touhou. The difference however, is that MLP holds several key advantages over its Japanese counterpart, outlined below:

• Capacity for Monetization
• The Touhou franchise is the intellectual property of the one man development team, Team Shanghai Alice. In contrast, MLP is owned by Hasbro, the toy making juggernaut which following the huge success of the Transformers film, is now entering into the entertainment industry with its television channel, The Hub. As a corporation worth billions of dollars, Hasbro has far greater capacity for marketing, merchandising and distributing as compared to a single person.
• MLP is not Absurdly Japanese
• The other key advantage MLP has over Touhou is that it doesn't have an identity irrevocably tied to its nation of origin. Touhou is ridiculously Japanese, thus meaning its appeal its primarily centered in Japan, with only limited appeal outside the admittedly wealthy island nation. MLP by contrast, can be very easily exported, which Hasbro has already done, having brought MLP to key foreign markets such as Singapore, France and others. 

Now consider this; imagine a property with the self sustaining nature of Touhou, but on an even grander scale, effectively marketing towards and monetizing its ever growing fanbase. Surely Hasbro must be swimming in pools of money made from its MLP franchise by now?

But they aren't.

The sudden and meteoric rise in popularity of MLP amongst adult fans was never planned for, and caught Hasbro completely flat footed. Almost a year after MLP debuted, Hasbro has only made very superficial moves towards monetizing this new found fanbase, primarily in the form of licensed t-shirts.

Most interesting however, is that toy sales, Hasbro's bread and butter, has also been fairly lukewarm amongst the adult fanbase.

The reason for this is that the brand marketing for MLP is intrinsically tied to gender. Unfortunately, marketing for girls' toys has been historically been condescending and lackluster. An overabundance of pink is used, cartoon accuracy is sacrificed for supposedly more appealing colours, and gimmicks are often overly simplistic.

In turn, this has severely limited Hasbro's ability to market towards its adult fanbase. Adults, especially men, feel awkward and uncomfortable walking through the girls' toys isle in stores, which are over blindingly pink. Furthermore, cultural bias and preconceptions tend to imply some sort of deviancy, or at worst, pedophilia, to men buying toys primarily targeted towards little girls. For those men who can bring themselves to take the plunge to buy the toys, they are often disappointed due to the low quality of the toys, coupled with inaccurate designs (a common trait amongst most girls toy franchises).

Ultimately, Hasbro's failure to monetize its adult fanbase lies in its failure of marketing. It is still stuck in the gender defined paradigm of marketing its Pony toys solely towards young girls.

I won't pretend to have the answers; I don't know of a truly comprehensive marketing plan that could incorporate both MLP's primary demographic as well as its sizable periphery demographic without compromising one for the other. What I do know however is this; without change, Hasbro is missing out on monetizing what is possibly the most dynamic fanbase it's ever had.

Note: This is part 1 of a two part article. On the next episode, I'll be considering gender based marketing in the context of anime and manga. 

 

A Rant Regarding Them Gay Folk - Thank God I'm Not American

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog for a legal/semi-political rant.

Those of you who follow American politics might have heard about the recent case of the three Iowa Supreme Court Justices who ruled in favour of gay marriage who were voted out of court by their fellow Iowans a few days ago.

This is balls crunchingly ridiculous.

Now before you moral guardians out there get on my case, my revulsion with this whole affair has nothing to do with gay marriage. For the record, yes, I do believe gay people have just as much right to be miserable as straight people. But that is not the issue here. Before I am a social liberal, I am both a positivist and a Dixonian legalist; part of what this entails is that I believe the rule of law must stand, regardless of any moral issues I may have with it.

My contention here is that America is the only country I've ever heard of where people vote for judges.

This is insane!

The judiciary is the last sanctuary from politics and special interests. It's very existence hinges on judges being able to make rulings without having to look over their backs to see if they've pissed off anyone. Similarly, the entire reason judges are appointed and not elected are so to keep the judiciary free (or as free as possible) of politics.

As I've mentioned prior, I'm a pretty big fan of the separation of powers. And to see one of the three arms of government metaphorically anally violated like that is kinda depressing.

Anyway, I think I need to veer this blog back into the realm of anime before Taikutsu Remedy gets renamed into Activism Remedy, so uh...dakimakuras suck. Go sleep on normal pillows. Yeah.

I Hate Anime

This is rather embarrassing to admit, but I've finally come to the same realization that pretty much everyone must have had the first time they so much as looked at my blog; I hate anime.

Yes, this is an anime blog. And yes, I watch a metric crapton of anime.

Yet, this doesn't mean I actually like the stuff. No, what this means is that I've been lucky enough to find quite a few titles that don't make me want to smash a kitten's face in with a jackhammer.

I hate anime.

I hate those stupid saucer eyed moeblobs with shit for brains.

I hate those ridiculous 20 minute long porn commercials that pass for anime now.

I hate those filthy child molesters these shows are made for.

I hate the fact that every goddamn show is set in a highschool, again to cater to pedophiles.

I hate those spineless eunachs that constitute male leads in anime.

I hate the desperate, brainless sluts that inadvertently fall head over heals over said eunach.

I hate the entire harem genre in general.

I hate the fact said harem genre even has an audience.

I hate said audience of said harem genre.

I hate that moe is a genre unto itself now.

I hate the moe genre in general.

I hate the fact said moe genre even has an audience.

I hate said audience of said moe genre.

I hate that anime tries to present 13 year olds as sexy and desireble.

I hate that fans accept said 13 year olds as sexy and desireble.

I hate visual novels.

I hate the ridiculous number of visual novel adaptations there are.

I hate all the stupid fads anime fans get sweeped up in, from Haruhi to whatever crap Key is producing at the moment.

I hate that people still haven't realized K-On is a mindnumbing piece of shit.

I hate tsundere.

I hate that entire personalities can be defined in a single word.

I hate that said flat personalities are somehow considered good, or even prefereble.

I hate the idiots who like said flat personalities.

I hate that anime has devolved into an industry that caters to retards, shut-ins and pedophiles.

I hate anime.

Holy hell it's been ages

Attention! To the two people who might actually still care, I, Snark, have returned from the vast sea of obscurity!

And so, let this land be awash with cheering and dancing!

...yeah.

Anyway, so I'm back, it's been months since I've last posted, and for once, I've got a decent reason for that; it looks like I've entered the fabled burn out phase that every anime fan inevitably faces at some point in their life, where they simply don't have the same passion for stupid, big-eyed Japanese cartoons that they once had.

Over the past few months, I have essentially watched close to no anime whatsoever. For a while, I tried to complete Eureka Seven, but then gave up when I realized that I hated Renton, even after character development, and wanted nothing more then to see Eureka get run over by a truck.

But never fear dear readers! That isn't to say I've given up entirely on anime! For you see, rather then watching crap, lately I've been wasting my money on anime related crap of a different variety; childrens' card games.

Over the holidays I had been introduced by a friend to a Japanese TCG (trading card game) known as Weiss Schwarz. To the uninitiated, Weiss Schwarz is a shitty card game where two players command their legions of moe blob characters from shitty moe shows to do moe battle with one another.

Naturally, I was first repulsed by the idea of playing such a moe-fied card game with people who I could only assume were pedophiles. But then, I had an epiphany; this was probably the only avenue where I could beat moefans and not get arrested for it!

And so began my wretched journey into Japanese card games.

In order to make sure I wouldn't be ensnared by the dread tendrils of moe, I made a promise to myself to only play the Manliest cards I had. And so, I present to you, my deck of moe destruction; the Mighty Junpei Deck!

It is with this indomitably masculine deck that I lay waste to all other, lesser, school-girl infested, unmanly decks.

But yeah, aside from Weiss Schwarz, I haven't really been doing anything anime related to be honest.

Luckily, the manga side of things are looking a bit brighter as I've been closely following Legend of Koizumi and Hayate X Blades; both awesome manga that I'll hopefully be reviewing soon.

Overall though, I've been going very light on anime and manga in the past few months. Coincidentally enough however, my interest in pro wrestling has been enjoying a bit of a renaissance, with me watching a lot more of the WWE as well as independent promotions such as Ring of Honor and Shimmer.

So if anyone is curious about what I've really been spending my time on lately, I've been hunting down videos of the now sadly retired Rebbecca Knox.

In closing, I figured I might as well address something; some of y'all may be wondering how the hell I transitioned from anime to something so disparate as wrestling. Well...LuFisto here may help answer that;

Why Super Robots are superior to Moe

So I was browsing through the anime bloggosphere when I came across Colony Drop's article on moe. It was a pretty interesting read, but what really caught my attention was the resulting flame war in the comments section.

One thing I noted, was this seeming argument between fans of Manly anime and fans of pedophilic anime, with both accusing the other of shitty tastes for a variety of reasons.

I would like to say that the arguments of both sides are superfluous.

This is not to say that I side with neither one of them; Manly anime is infinitely superior to moe.

However, all the reasons given by it's supporters are ill conceived. The reason why Manly anime is better then moe is so simple, it can be articulated with but a few pictures to illustrate two hypothetical scenarios. So here are the two scenarios, one involving a fan of Manly anime, and one involving a pedophile.

Manly Anime:



Moe Anime:





Anyway, apologies for yet another filler post, I've been having exams for the past two weeks, and literally a day after my last exam, I got hit by a bout of the flu, so as you'd imagine, I'm pretty tired (and still sick). Expect regular posts to return soon, I've got reviews of the Big O and the Girl who leapt through Time coming up, amongst other things.

So I'm finally on this twitter thing...

So after months of procrastinating, I've finally decided to give this twitter thing a shot. So readers, if you're hungry for bite sized micro posts of the non-pedophilic variety, follow my sweet tweets. Also, if any of you have twitter accounts, drop me your username and I'll follow you or add you or whatever the hell it's called.

So yeah, read my tweets. It'll make you a man. This guarantee extends to women; get ready to get yo futa on.

So I called Japan...

I have accused Japan of pedophilia many, many, many times. And whilst the numerous loli and shota titles that come out of Japan every year seem like irrefutable proof for my accusations, I figured it was only fair that Japan be given a chance to defend itself. And so I decided to give Japan a call...

Happy birthday, me!

So it was my birthday yesterday, and it was awesome. To be honest, I've never really been all that big on birthdays, but its a great excuse to ask people for free shit.

Anyway, I figured I'd show y'all a comic of the first present I got for the day;

So yeah. On my 21st birthday, my parents decided to buy me a toy. Admittedly, it was an awesome toy though, cause it was this guy;

I actually have no idea who the hell he is, but we're both named Sebastian, and he looks badass.

And then some of my friends gave me presents too, but their presents sucked, cause they were dirty communists.

Oh, and while we're at it, Taikutsu Remedy has also turned one year old recently! It was on the 12th of October last year where I made my first ever shitty post.

So yeah, I'd like to thank all my readers for pretending to care about the stuff I wrote about for an entire year. Anyways, I'd like to write more, but I'm suffering massive writers block right now, so I'll just leave it at that. Thanks y'all.

Anime and the Violence of Homophobia

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Anime has never been the most progressive of art forms. Of course there are some productions that break societal norms, but as a whole, anime has generally been surprisingly, at times even offensively, regressive.

One particular area that I wish to focus on for this post, is that of th violent reactions of characters in response to homosexual advances that is so common in anime.

With the new season underway, I have heard quite a few good things about A Certain Scientific Railgun, and have recently watched the first two episodes. Overall, it's not bad, I'm probably not its primary target audience, but I can see some of the appeal. That said however, one aspect of the show that I've found strongly objectionable has been Mikoto's oftentimes violent reactions to Kuroko's sexual advances.

For those unfamiliar with A Certain Scientific Railgun, Mikoto is a teenage girl with awesome psychic powers, and Kuroko is totally gayballs for her. And in her gayness, Kuroko oftentimes tries to bed Mikoto in ways that border on the absurd, which generally results in Mikoto pummeling her, either physically or with her bullshit magical lightning powers.

Now this almost always played for comedy, and that is partly what I find so objectionable about it. I feel as if A Certain Scientific Railgun trivialises the very real violence that homosexual men and women are often met with for no reason save their sexuality. Sadly, I can't recall particular titles at this moment, but this is not the first show I've seen that answers all homosexuality with violence; many anime in the past have had straight heroes physically assaulting homosexuals for the 'crime' of being attracted to them.

In Australia, the case of R v Green illustrates the frightening reality of violence against homosexuals. Quickly summarised, the accused, Green, had brutally killed a friend for making homosexual advances to him. In the case, Justice Kirby said;

"In my view, the ‘ordinary person’ in Australian society today is not so homophobic as to respond to a non-violent sexual advance by a homosexual person as to form an intent to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm. He or she might, depending on the circumstances, be embarrassed; treat it first as a bad joke; be hurt; insulted. He or she might react with the strong language of protest; might use as much physical force as was necessary to effect an escape; and where absolutely necessary assault the persistent perpetrator to secure escape."

Sadly, as is often the case with the law, common sense did not prevail in this case, and the High Court held in favour of Green, with Chief Justice Brennen arguing;

"The provocation was of a very grave kind. It must have been a terrifying experience for the appellant when the deceased persisted. The grabbing and persistence are critical. Some ordinary men would feel great revulsion at the homosexual advances being persisted with in the circumstances and could be induced to so far lose their self control as to form the intention to inflict grievous bodily harm. They would regard it as a serious and gross violation of their body and their person ...

The deceased’s actions had to be stopped...

A reasonable jury might have come to the conclusion that an ordinary person, who was provoked to the degree that the applicant was provoked, could have formed an intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm upon the deceased...

A juryman or jurywoman would not be unreasonable because he or she might accept that the appellant found the deceased’s conduct ‘revolting’ rather than ‘amorous’."

Thankfully, the High Court had not been entirely bereft of reason. Justice Kirby, dissented against the absurdity of this decision;

"In my view, the ‘ordinary person’ in Australian society today is not so homophobic as to respond to a non-violent sexual advance by a homosexual person as to form an intent to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm."

He then brings illustrates the logical conclusion of the High Courts' decision;

"If every woman who was the subject of a ‘gentle’, ‘non-aggressive’ although persistent sexual advance, in a comparable situation to that described in the evidence in this case could respond with brutal violence...

Any unwanted sexual advance, heterosexual or homosexual, can be offensive. It may intrude on sexual integrity in an objectionable way. But this court should not send the message that, in Australia today, such conduct is objectively capable of being found by a jury to be sufficient to provoke the intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm. Such a message unacceptably condones serious violence."

So why did I share that overly long story about the law? Well, firstly, cause I'm a dick, and I wanted to show off my awesome legal knowledge. But more importantly, I wanted to highlight the kind of homophobia that still exists in society today, even in the minds of such highly educated individuals such as the former Chief Justice of Australia himself.

And with that in mind, I guess my point would be it'd be nice to see a little less homophobia in anime. I know anime really isn't the harbinger of social change, but it'd be nice if everything I watched wasn't a guilty pleasure that nevertheless insulted my more objective sensibilities.

C'mon Japan, I'm the guy who openly enjoys shows about naked women who fight by lactating on each other, it's not a good sign when you can produce shows that offend even me.

I Kick Cute Room's Ass

I'm sure most of you have by now heard of the soon to be opening Cute Room. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a new companionship service that's opening in Akihabara, where presumably lonely patrons can pay girls exorbitant amounts of money to do all sorts of things, from playing video games (1,000 yen for 30 minutes) to messaging your hand (1,200 yen for 20 minutes) to...slapping you (1,000 yen).

And so with that in mind, I have an announcement to make; I, Snark, declare war on Cute Room! With my acute business acumen, I shall utterly annihilate Cute Room in the arena of capitalism! For you see, Cute Room has two major flaws that shall become the ultimate tools of their own undoing.

Firstly, these mercenary girlfriends of theirs are willing to do everything under the sun...except sex. Uh, what the hell? Girlfriend but no sex!? Who the hell would want to pay for an overpriced cocktease like that!?

If I was going to pay a girl to be my pretend girlfriend who'd do anything except letting me plow through the sweet fields of her womanhood, then I'd go to Church and hire one of those religious 'no sex before marriage' girls. Then at the very least, I'd save my immortal soul in the event that God exists.

And secondly and most importantly, rather then identifying a previously untapped market, Cute Room is entering a battlefield already laced with competitors. Everything from slapping to being your pretend girlfriend has already been catered to by other Akihabara-based businesses. Therefore, Cute Room is already at a disadvantage by having to compete against these more established rivals.

Snark.Inc however, is not so careless. Through years of meticulous market research, we have discovered a previously unidentified market; the lonely, socially awkward, female otaku. Whilst Cute Room and its predecessors have been busy courting the male otaku demographic, no one has even conceived of marketing pretend boyfriends to the lonely women of Akihabara.

And that's where Snark.Inc comes in! Just as how Cute Room brings companionship to lonely men with their array of girls who fulfill male fantasies, our flagship Snark Room store in Akihabara shall do the same for the women of Japan; fulfilling every one of their female fantasies, all at a very reasonable price. Below are a list of our services (unlisted services must be pre-arranged, prices negotiable);

Click to Enlarge

Cute Room, your days are numbered. With our flawless business strategy, impeccable service and competitive prices, we'll drive you and your flock out of Akihabara before the end of this fiscal year. And ladies, Snark Room will be opening its doors on 15 October 2009, we'll see you there!

I Approve of Queen's Blade

With the 2nd season of Queen's Blade I figured now would be the perfect time for me to get something off my chest; unlike the vast majority of the anime blogosphere, I, Snark, openly and enthusiastically endorse Queen's Blade.

Now the general anime fandom has had a lot of fun deriding Queen's Blade. A particularly common complaint I've heard about the show is that the story and entire premise is ludicrously dumb. Well of course it is! It's softcore porn! What the hell did you expect!?

Of course, the greatest hypocrisy is when many of the same bloggers who lay the hate on Queen's Blade go on to sing praises over the likes of K-On, which was just as unflinchingly mindless. Apparently, substanceless moe is ok, but substanceless porn isn't. I'm sorry, but if I'm gonna watch something that's gonna shut my brain down, I'd rather watch the show that doesn't make me feel like a pedophile.

And another thing that's pissed me off about how the fandom has been treating Queen's Blade is how blatantly unfair its been judging the show. Apparently, Queen's Blade has to be anime's answer to Lord of the Rings for it to be deemed good.

Queen's Blade is softcore porn, and it should be judged as such. Instead, many bloggers have been judging it as if it were trying to be an epic fantasy like Berserk or Guin Saga, which is of course isn't, all in the search for cheap laughs. Such behaviour is monumentally stupid.

Let a show be judged for what it is; it's for the same reason I don't use the same criteria that I would when viewing Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, when watching My Sister's Hot Friend.

Edit:
As an aside, I must concede that deciding on a Queen by holding a fighting tournament is the worst system of government ever conceived.

Another reason why weak willed, submissive moeblobs suck

Regular readers of my blog know that I spend much time hating on moeblobs. Now I know not all moeblobs fall under this description, but I've found many of them to be passive, submissive girls who embody so called 'traditional feminine traits'. And to be brief, that character achtype has always pissed the shits out of me.

Well, in addition to being annoying and useless, it seems that being a passive little moebitch also leads to comparatively lower self esteem. A recent study* found that women who were tomboys in childhood generally enjoyed higher self esteem in adulthood as compared to women who spent their time pursuing more traditionally feminine ideals.

So there you have it. Another reason why being a moeblob sucks! So go, women of both the 2D and 3D worlds! Embrace your inner tomboy, and pierce the heavens with your drill!

* Michele Van Volkom, 'The Effects of Childhood Tomboyism and Family Experiences on the Self-Esteem of College Females' (2009) 43 College Student Journal 736

Philosophy is the Cancer of Anime

There are many things I hate about anime; moe, pedophilia, Kyoani, lolis, real robots and so on. However there's another aspect of anime that I hate which I haven't really touched on, and that's bullshit philosophy.

Ever since the likes of Evangelion and Serial Experiment Lain, there's been this belief that anime has to be 'provocative' and 'mature', which in Animeland, apparently means having characters continuously spout vague, cryptic nonsense and drowning the viewer in nonsensical symbolism.

No, this doesn't make an anime intelligent, it just makes it unwatchable, pretentious bullshit. If you want to convince me a character is intelligent, don't make her do pointless shit like quote Descartes; make her solve a complex mathematical equation, or accurately predict market movements, or interpret confusing legislation, that's intelligence!

Anime pseudo-philosophy is a pointless endeavor; its only purpose is the temporary self satisfaction of the viewer. So in a way, its pretty much the same thing as masturbation. Only without the porn or the vague sexual gratification. Hence, its actually a lesser form of masturbation. Therefore, every moment spent philosophizing would be better spent masturbating.

Nonetheless, I've always believed that a point is best illustrated visually, so here is the crux of my argument in comic form;

See what I mean?

Sadly, studios are going to keep producing 'deep' and 'thought provoking' anime, I can't stop them. However, I'm gonna stick with giant robots rocket punching space aliens. Y'know, stuff that's actually fun to watch.

My Life is now Complete

I apologize for the length (or lack thereof) of this post, but I have just seen episode 21 of Shin Mazinger Z. And it's sheer, radiant beauty has so captivated me that I am left naught but a stuttering girl-child.

I have seen episode 21.

I have seen Beauty. I have seen Grace. I have seen Life.

I no longer have any reason to watch anime, for no moment could ever surpass this.

There is no anime before Mazinger, there is no anime after.

There is only Big Bang Punch.

(Regular posts will resume in a few days. For now, I shall enter the 8th hour of me constantly replaying the scene in the above video)

WHAT THE SHIT!?!?

So I was curious to find out how people were reaching my blog, and I decided to see what keywords people were typing into google that got me hits. When I found...this.

WHY HUMAN RACE, WHY!?!? I WAS JUST ABOUT TO RENEW MY FAITH IN YOU, AND YOU DO THIS TO ME IN RETURN!? WHY!?!?!?!?

Sayonara, Pimp-chan

Initially, I had planned to do my first in a series of post about Fruits Basket. Sadly however, a great tragedy has recently befallen us, and I believe that it is only right that we take this moment to honour the memory of the Evil Pimp in a White Suit from Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou.

On 11th of July, the first episode of Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou aired, and by all measures, it was a train wreck. It was a horrifying pastiche of poor storytelling, haphazard directing, boring characters and mediocre animation. However, there was hope, a shining diamond in the rough. There was the Pimp in a White Suit.

The sparkling brilliance of his White Suit illuminated the darkness. Like a candle in the dark, it brought light where there was none. Like a lighthouse, it gave direction to the lost and weary.

And yet, hope and light are but fickle things, and on the 15th of August, the 6th episode of Yoku Wakaru Gendai Majou aired, and the light of the White Suit was snuffed out.

Pimp in a White Suit, your suit was shiny, manly, and in the words of Baka-Raptor, non-pedophilic.

And in your shininess, manliness and non-pedophilia, you gave us many gifts;

You opened our eyes to the brilliance of the setting sun;

You showed us the benefits of petty theft;

You thought us the ways of the Jedi;

You gave free child grabbing classes;

You banished the darkness;

You brought joy to little children;

You were loved by animals;

And thought us karate;

Dear Pimp in a White Suit, you gave us many great and wonderful gifts. But there was one gift you gave, that stood above all others. That can never be replaced.

You gave us a reason to watch Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou.

Thank you, my friend.

Though you are no longer with us, your White Suit shall shine eternally in our hearts.

Good night, sweet Pimp; and flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.

Why Eroge Suck - An Objective Analysis

Eroge are the second shittest idea to have ever come out of Japan, surpassed only by oppai mousepads. This is scientific fact.

Seriously, who the hell thought the idea of a game where you interact with chicks with the ultimate objective of sex was a good idea?? I want to meet the man, so that I could cut off his dick and slap him with it!

Spending hours upon mind boggling hours talking with insanely hot, yet stiflingly boring, one dimensional women in the vain hope of sex isn't my idea of a fun game; it's what I do in real life!

But since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, let me better illustrate my point with some pictures of my own. Here, you have a typical porn game set up;

And here, you have a typical Friday night in real life;

See what I mean? The game is just as mind numbing as real life!

I'm sorry Japan, but if you want me to spend my money on your shitty porn games, you're going to have to appeal to me better then that. And since I'm in a generous mood, I'm going to tell you exactly how to make me buy your shitty porn games!

In fact, it's rather simple; just combine my two favourite things; porn and giant robots!

Here, let me show you an example;

See? Giant robots powered by female orgasms (or male orgasms, should the target market be female). Now that's a winner right there! So what are you waiting for Japan? Get cracking! I give you my personal guarantee that this will be the greatest porn game of all time!

...now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go masturbate to my best idea ever.

Toei has torn reality asunder

Now I know this isn't exactly breaking news, but Toei has recently launched the website for its latest project, a horrible amalgamation of super robots and moe.

For those unaware of this travesty, its called Toei Robot Girls, and is exactly what it sounds like; the many classic (and not so classic) super robots under Toei are now being turned into underage moeblobs.

Currently, three horrible Frankenstenien hellspawns have been unveiled;

Gai-Chan
Easily the most recognizable of the trio, Gai-Chan is based off Gaiking, who debuted in 1976 and saw a remake anime in 2005. She appears to be the leader of the group, given how she's probably the only one who someone under 30 would recognize.

Gacky
Based off 1976's Magnerobo Ga-Keen, she seems to be Gai-Chan's sidekick, or something. I dunno.

Bara-Tan
The moe anthropomorphism of the ludicrously ugly Baratack, Bara-Tan seems to kinda just stand around and look cute.

Never in my life have my very perception of reality, which was once so comforting and secure, been so utterly dismantled that all that is left are the crumbled remnants of a now forgotten facade, leaving me alone, cold and afraid.

Never before have I been wrecked to the very fiber of my being by a perversion so wretched, that it defies the very laws of physics; the union between manly super robots, my greatest love, and shitty moe, my wretched enemy.

Readers, friends, all, know this; I, Snark, no longer know what to think or what to believe. For the first time in my life, I have opened my eyes. And all I see is a vast darkness before me.

My perceptions of life, existence and the universe have been fundamentally altered. Every fact that I thought I knew must now be discarded. The very paradigm of life must be written anew. Now, as I stand at the crossroads of the universe, there is but one thing I know for sure; if these girls have the same attacks as their super robot counterparts, then Gai-chan's Face Open will be terrifying.