We’re entering a special time in WWII-related history, when the 70th anniversary of many iconic wartime events will be arriving regularly. April 1st marked the beginning of the Battle of Okinawa, a desperate conflict that saw 250,000 Allied combat troops invade Japan’s southernmost island territory in a battle that raged for 82 days and saw the deaths of 150,000 local civilians. Today is another solemn day here in Japan: the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the Battleship Yamato, the symbol of Japanese power during the war. The largest battleship ever constructed, Yamato carried the most massive guns ever fitted to a warship, although ironically she did little to forward Japan’s wartime cause, only firing her main guns once at an enemy target during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On her last mission she was rushing towards Okinawa, intending to beach herself and become an unsinkable gun emplacement, but the Allies had broken Japan’s military codes and intercepted her, ending her with bombs and torpedoes. All wars are romanticized as they fade into history, and Yamato has found a truly unparalleled place in modern pop culture, first being rebuilt as the Space Battleship Yamato to travel to the Andromeda Galaxy to bring back a device to clean radiation from the earth, and more recently in the moe shipgirl game-and-anime Kantai Collection.
The Japanese are masters of influencing emotions using voice, and I’m often amazed at the eerie beauty of the voices that enter my ear here. If you watch anime in Japanese, of course, you know how talented Japan’s seiyu are, and their ability to bring a character to life that would otherwise be (literally) two-dimensional is one of the major attractions of the genre. But the strangely compelling beauty of Japanese voices isn’t limited to anime: you can find females trained to speak in a uniquely pleasing way in various professions, too, such as the bus guides who entertain passengers on long sightseeing trips, or “elevator girls,” women who stand in elevators and call out what products are located on each floor in lovely sing-song tones for shoppers. (This is quite a rare profession these days, though I hear they can still be found at the Takashimaya department store in Nihonbashi.) Another job that calls for an amazingly attractive-sounding female voices are ウグイス嬢 uguisu-jo or “nightingale girls,” the term for female announcers at baseball games who call out the names and stats of the players as they come to the plate. Their voices are so musical and perfect, there are fans who attend baseball games just so they can hear their favorite announcer’s voice.
The day is finally here: the launch of our first game on Steam. Littlewitch Romanesque is an amazing “bring-up game” in which you must teach two young witches-in-training how to use magic spells and go on quests, and win love and romance from the various colorful characters in the game. The title goes way beyond most visual novels with its high quality gameplay, which combines both strategy and amazing visuals. The game offers 30+ hours of gameplay, 300+ CGs by the dreamy art by Oyari Ashito, 79 quests to complete, and 20 endings to unlock, plus full support for Steam Trading Cards, Steam Cloud and more. We hope you’ll help make this great new release a success, and we’re having a 10% launch sale for the first week to help!
