[2018 Recap & Review] Bunny Recaps 2018 – A lazy long, but short year

Hewwo fellow kids, its that time of the year again where I write a very lengthy posts recapping this year of our lord 2018 and hoping people will read it because it is the only post I can write my thoughts on stuff that may not be otome related. I am your host Billy Billbus Baggins and this is the year that was.

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—Personal Recap | 2018

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This is just some mundane self reflection and blog stuff, you can skip this if you want. For those who want to read this part, thanks.

So for me this year has gone by pretty quickly but when I start thinking about it more, this year has been pretty long… if that makes sense. It’s long in a sense that I’ve done a lot of stuff and a lot of stuff has happened that makes me reflect in disbelief that all of it happened in just one year. It’s a peculiar paradox. How can a year feel like it’s gone by so quickly yet have a lot of stuff happen where it feels like all that stuff happened a long time ago?

Anyway, I’ve done a couple of changes to my life style this year. First thing, I started to drink water religiously. It may sound dumb (and it is) but for a good portion of my life I was drinking nothing but soda and refused to drink water because it tasted weird to me (hell I even just drank straight from a 1 litre soda bottle at times). Now I keep soda drinking to moderation and I think I can feel a difference. Though I only drink about 4-5 glasses of water a day, which I’m guessing is still not a healthy intake lmao.

Somewhere in the middle of the year I started watching some youtube videos on building gaming PCs and been learning a few things. Though obviously I haven’t become an expert on building PCs from those videos but it did help me choose the right parts for my new PC that replaced my 6-7 year old laptop that was on it’s last legs. I’d like to build it myself but I got a local computer shop to build it for me, hopefully one day I won’t be afraid to play around and modify my PC :lol:. I also got into doll making videos, or at least doll modifying videos as well as DIY craft videos. I really want to pick up a hobby that isn’t staring at a screen all the time and to get creative but after researching into modifying dolls and sculpting your own anime figure and making a resin copy, I found out it may be a hobby that will cost you a fair bit 😂 But I’m still interested in doing it one day. I’ve got a bit of an idea to modify a nendoroid doll to look like one of my OCs. I’m crossing my fingers that I can start that project in 2019. Though I have a good feeling it won’t look like an “officially made nendoroid doll” but hey, ya gotta start somewhere.

I’ve also started to learn to cook, both for my family’s sake and mine lol. Last year I learnt to cook tonkatsu, this year I learnt how to cook karaage from scratch as well as other dishes (though using a sauce pack as a guide/recipe). I’ve also learnt how to use the rice cooker which is easier than I expected and now eating more rice than I used to (I used to hate eating rice because my mom used to make the hardest and unappetising rice and I just got a bad impression of rice since then, though that was mainly the fault of the old rice cooker). I hope to learn more recipes, I’ve been hoping to make okonomiyaki and katsudon one day but it’s hard to find the right ingredients in local supermarkets to make dashi and find some Japanese yam. My journey to make my fav Japanese dishes still goes on 😂

This year I’ve been focusing myself to be a better person, though I guess that wasn’t my intention at the start of this year haha. Just a couple months ago I got my learners permit because I couldn’t rely on public transport to take me places… especially when I’m carrying heavy stuff like that time I bought an 8kg printer and had to walk home from a bus stop while carrying it. I really hope I continue in improving myself and I hope y’all strive to be the best you can be too.

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—Blog Recap| 2018

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This year has been interesting in terms of blogging. One highlight was my long coverage of Readyyy! Project, starting from February this year. It’s been a bit tiring trying to keep up but I’m glad that my posts have somewhat helped spread awareness of this project and now there’s a lot of people doing their best to help boost its popularity with translations and threads. It’s very interesting to see so many foreign fans of a media made in Japan before it’s even released and I hope you all continue to support it. I’ve taken a bit of a break from covering it as I’ve been busy but I still follow all the news and campaigns. Hopefully it’ll get a release in 2019.

I’m a bit proud that I managed to get out 2 full otome game reviews, now that’s a new record for me haha. Though it may seem a bit pathetic compared to other hard working bloggers who really dedicate their time playing and reviewing otome games. I guess I’m just pretty slow and lazy.

For those who didn’t read my previous blog update post, I managed to upgrade my wordpress plan so I can get rid of the ads, get premium themes for a year and use the wordpress video feature (which is just the ability to upload videos to wordpress instead of using third party sites like youtube to show your videos). I still don’t know whether or not I want to monetise this site, though I kinda find it creepy how when you monetise your site the ads that appear will be based on the person’s previous web searches, especially if those web searches are looking for items/furniture/etc. I dunno if it creeps any of you guys out but I don’t want you guys feeling uncomfortable. Plus I dunno if there’s people who actually click on those ads so it might not be worth it.

I’m thankful to those who reached out to me to review their games, wrote comments or e-mails to me etc. I mainly do this as a hobby and to share my interests so it’s nice that people are reading and enjoying my posts. So a big thank you to you all, it makes my day 😊.

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2018 Otome Game News Recapped

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A couple of things happened this year in the otome/josei-muke world. Though these are just my highlights, I’m sure I missed out on a lot of other stuff (I apologise, hopefully someone else does a better job recapping this than me):

■ Otomate Switching to the Switch – Yeah I know that’s a pretty overused headline but bear with me. In May this year, Otomate (possibly the biggest OG in terms of pooping out otome games each year) announced that they were going to produce otome games for the Nintendo Switch, a pretty new console by Nintendo that is also a hybrid between a portable console and a home console. The community had some mix feelings about this, worrying that they don’t have a Switch and needing to get another, but another worry that this might fall flat like the time Otomate ported some otome games to the PS4 as well as making new otome games to go on the PS4. Though the reasoning to go to the Switch may be clear to keen eyed viewers as the year went on…

■ Production of PS Vita game cartridges to cease in 2019 for the West – Earlier this year, the PS Vita took a blow when it was announced that America (and I guess Europe too) will no longer have PS Vita game cartridges produced. Production will cease near the end of the first quarter of 2019 (March 31st). This means that after that date, new PS Vita game cartridges will be scarce and as the last stock runs out there will be no more physical PS Vita games. The only place you can purchase games will be digitally, which will impact not only the Western otome gamer community but other gamers/companies of indie, RPG or visual novel games on the PS Vita.

■ Mobile games dropping like flies – If you haven’t noticed, there has been a huge influx of mobile games releasing in these few years. 2018 in particular has had a lot. But like a bubble, it’ll keep expanding until it bursts. 2018 may have been that burst as a lot of mobile games have shut down (I’m mainly talking about Japanese mobile games and mobile games aimed at females in particular). A lot of people say it’s because of an iOS update for the iPhone X that forced developers to create a patch to allow it to work on the new iOS update and that developers who couldn’t afford to update as they weren’t getting enough money for the game decided to shut down the game (which would explain a lot of games shutting down near the middle of the year when the update was scheduled to happen). Meanwhile others chalk it up to the over-saturation of the mobile market which caused a lot of unpopular games to shut down. I say it’s both, more in particular it’s the over-saturation of games that try to capture to popularity of other games but failing because it doesn’t improve on the game they’re aping off of, which doesn’t bring in the interest of the masses. Here’s a list of games I kept track of that have shut down this year or will shut down next year (though it’s not a full list, I may have missed out on some):

There are some good games that just had to shut down this year, which is a big shame. Sadly one of those is Yumeiro Cast, that will shut down next year. It’s been a blast 😢

■ Australia adds a tax, taxing 10% to online shoppers buying products overseas – So the Australian government introduced a tax this year that began on the financial new year where it would tax people who bought stuff online 10% the price of the product. In other words, if you bought something of the value of $100 you will need to pay an extra 10% in tax if you’re buying from an overseas seller which will bring the total price to $110. The government says they’re doing this to “encourage Australians to buy locally” but we all know that’s a load of shit because there are some things you cannot buy locally like magazines and books in another language and other products that are only sold in another country. You could say they’re only doing this to rake in more money from the people as online shopping has boomed here ever since we got dial-up internet in 2016 (I’m joking). The over and under is that anyone in Australia who wants to import stuff like games, books, magazines, other products from Japan will have to pay a 10% tax, which is another blow to our pockets seeing how our currency is so weak it makes 6,000+ yen games into 100 or so Australian dollary doos.

■ Australia banned from shopping on Amazon (USA) and it’s other international stores – Now this is a byproduct of the 10% tax of overseas online purchases. In December 2017, our Australian Amazon online store got a revamp, before it would only sell kindle shit but now it has departments similar to the USA store (though still lacking in products found in the USA store). Fast-forward to near the middle of 2018 and Amazon announces a “shipping/selling ban” in all of it’s international stores and USA store, where during check-out Australian customers on the USA store or other stores will get an error saying that Amazon cannot ship to an Australian residence. This also included Amazon Japan banning shipping to Australia, which meant anyone who wanted to shop there would need a forwarding/proxy service to send it to their residence. Why the ban? I’m pretty sure the dude in charge of Amazon doesn’t want anything to do with taxes. Of course there was an outcry by many Australians, and so months later, a week or so before Black Friday 2018, Amazon was oh-so kind to lift the ban. But only for the USA store lmaaaoooo. Last month after hearing the news of the ban lift (which was very vague to begin with) I went on Amazon Japan to buy some much needed books and stuff… only to be met with a “Cannot ship to this location”. Yes, the ban is not totally lifted. I checked the shipping prices on Amazon Japan and yep, Australia is still not listed but New Zealand is there. I’m guessing they only did the ban lift for the USA store to keep a majority satisfied, but didn’t want to lift the ban for all their stores. Press F for all the Australians who have to suffer this Amazon import ban and being stuck with a lesser and worse store: Amazon Australia.

■ Rejet’s questionable productivity– Rejet used to be one of the top companies to make games and other content to otomes/females, but as of late there have been some questionable business decisions and less amount of NEW content being produced (sorry gals, new Diabolik Lovers, Criminale, Dear Vocalists, Yuugen Romantica, Marginal#4 CDs is not new content, its recycled content). As of late Rejet has been announcing new projects but don’t deliver on them, or to put it in better terms “remain completely silent on development of promised content”. Here’s a list of stuff they announced in the past few years that have not updated its development or cancelled:

• Togenkyo Ayakashi Children (Game?) – Announced: 2016 [Questionable development]
• Dorico Toshokan (Otome Game) – Announced: 2017 [No development]
• Ken ga Toki (Mobile Game?) – Announced: 2017 [Questionable development]
• C’mon Fellows!! (CD/Multimedia) – Announced: 2018 [Cancelled]
• Star Revolution (Mobile Game) – Announced: 2017 [Game shut down 2018, about 9 months after release]

The reason why I write Togenkyo Ayakashi Children and Ken ga Toki as questionable development is because while the Japanese websites provide zero development, the Chinese websites provide a little bit more information. These two games are a collaboration between Rejet and two other separate Chinese companies. Togenkyo Ayakashi Children is in collaboration with Chinese video website bilibilli which provides more information on their website than the Japanese one, it also shows off some character action demos on it. However the development of these games are quite slow, I’m unsure if Ayakashi Children is out in China or not but I have read a fellow blogger’s post that Ken ga Toki had a booth at a con in Shanghai this year. While there is development and advertisement on one side of the collab, Rejet seems to have done nothing to update except for maybe a twitter account for Ken ga Toki. Maybe there’s miscommunications between the Chinese companies and Rejet? Which leads into the next highlight…

■ Rejet getting bamboozled by a Chinese company for a game collab on an unannounced game – I saw this on twitter a while back, but Rejet had to cancel and unannounced game due to a collaborator from a Chinese company stealing assets, music etc and possibly using it to create their own similar game outside of Rejet’s planned game collab. You can read up all about it in this reddit post. Its a big shame and disgusting how the other company acted, however it kinda makes me wish Rejet didn’t go around willy nilly collaborating with other companies when a couple of previous collab projects still aren’t complete.

■ Production of PS Vita to cease in 2019 – Hey wait a minute I thought I covered this a few dot points ago–oh wait, this is end of PS Vita console production… aka the final death of the PS Vita. This was announced back in September of this year, reported by famitsu and translated by Gematsu. I was really planning to talk about this in a separate post but I got the flu and was busy and procrastinating and all the other excuses in the book. But it’s official folks, production of the PS Vita (the console) will end in 2019.

To make things a bit more easier to read I will separate sections from here on out and by sections I mean “pages“. Each page will focus on different media I consumed in this year, you can click on whatever page you want down below. Here’s a table of contents to help out:

Page	Content
1.	Personal/Blog/2018 News Recap
2.	2018 Drama CDs Review
3.	2018 General Games Review (Non-Otome)
4.	2018 Otome Games Review
5.	2018 Mobile/Browser Games Review
6.	Bunny’s Rankings 2018 & Final Words

↓ Click a number below to go to a page (you gotta scroll past the share buttons and related posts to see the page numbers)↓

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