One of the biggest names in streaming and VTubing is Ironmouse. She has a large and loyal fanbase while also having humble beginnings as a creator, and she released a new song a few months ago called “Music Box of Fate.” While she’s put out other music before, this one feels particularly special, not just because it sounds incredible, but because it feels like a real high point of her journey as an artist and entertainer.
Ironmouse has Chronic Variable Immune Deficiency, an autoimmune condition that severely limits her ability to leave her home. Her success as a streamer has greatly increased her quality of life, including improving her ability to speak and even sing. That last part is especially noteworthy because Ironmouse was at one point training to become an opera singer before that career goal was derailed by her illness.
Over the years, Ironmouse has occasionally sung for her audience and showcased her abilities, but it is taxing on her body. Perhaps because of this, she has generally gone a more pop route when doing original music. However, this all changed with “Music Box of Fate”: a song created by WUNDER RiKU and StarlightDaryl to put Ironmouse’s operatic skills on full display.
“Music Box of Fate” and Ironmouse’s performance have garnered praise from professionals, and its music video has surpassed one million views. I myself believe it’s her best yet, and I feel that it will be seen as her most defining song, not unlike Gawr Gura with “Ash Again.” It’s simply beautiful, and I’ve found myself listening to it on repeat.
But what really amazes me about “Music Box of Fate” are the circumstances that got us to this song. If Ironmouse never had CVID, there’s a good chance she would’ve gone on to become a successful coloratura soprano like she had originally intended. However, opera is generally considered an elite pursuit, with minimal overlap with more standard or mainstream tastes. In other words, no matter how big Ironmouse would have gotten in opera, it’s very likely that most of her current fans would have never heard her sing.
Now, I want to make it clear that this is not presenting Ironmouse or her health issues as inspiration or tragedy porn. Instead, what I want to highlight is how Ironmouse’s specific circumstances and her decision to try to reach out to the world through a virtual guise (in a time when such a thing is even possible) resulted in something wonderful. Her efforts earned her a wider audience that is now exposing itself to a form of music they might not have engaged with otherwise. Ironmouse has created an avenue for many more people to enjoy and appreciate opera, as opposed to perceiving it as too strange or high-brow for them. In traveling along this path, Ironmouse has helped make the unfamiliar less daunting, brightening the world in the process.
One of the ideas I keep revisiting over the years (and decades!) is a Super Robot Wars game focused away from Japan. It’s a thought exercise that actually predates this blog!
With the release of Super Robot Wars Y, I’ve once again started devoting actual mental and creative energy towards this idea. What titles would appear in, say, an SRW focused around the history of the mecha genre in the US? And how would the different plots and settings be reconciled into a (relatively) cohesive universe?
I asked on Bluesky if people were actually interested in seeing this bit of fan wankery from me, and more than a few people actually said “Yes,” to my surprise. So here we go.
Also, I was inspired by some ideas for others, such as the cool fanart by Chase Burns below:
I drew this a while back, and I will forever regret not adding the Mighty Orbots or Robot God Akamatsu.How many can you recognize? The tags will name three of them, but I'll leave the rest up to you.#superrobotwars #srw #pacificrim #megasxlr #lancer
In terms of criteria for titles, I wanted mainly to have works that either originated outside of Japan and was available in the West…or anime that were significantly altered to be their own thing, and became hugely influential in the process. So while anime is increasingly part of mainstream culture, things that reached North America relatively untouched don’t count for this sort of thing.
Working from this, I think the biggest title to focus the overall setting would have to be Voltron. In combining the two anime Golion and Dairugger XIV into Voltron, World Events Productions created the notion of a Voltron stationed far from Earth and close to Earth respectively, and this creates a good opportunity to divide the titles involved into “Far Universe” and “Near Universe” plotlines to kick things off. The idea would be that you would follow each side separately, and then the two would merge together down the road when the stakes are higher.
A lot of series take place in the future (albeit with different ideas of what the “future” looks like), so it’s not too much of a stretch to set them all in a vaguely advanced era of humanity. However, there are a few series I’d want to include that are specifically tied explicitly to certain periods—namely prehistoric times and the mid-20th century. For that reason, I’d place those works under “Time Displacement.”
And I’m leaving out Robotech because eh.
So here’s how I’d break down the above three categories.
Far Universe
Lion Voltron: The Galaxy Alliance is the main governing body in this SRW. The Lion Voltron is sent to protect from threats on the other side of the galaxy, and focuses on Planet Arus. This Voltron is special because of the fact that the enemy Robeasts are magical, which is actually pretty uncommon in this universe.
Transformers: This has to be G1 Transformers, and the appearance would focus on the series around Unicron and the animated movie and through to the return of Optimus Prime (because you gotta have the Autobot Matrix of Leadership as an ultimate attack, right?) Cybertron is under Decepticon control and so it cannot be part of the Galaxy Alliance, but the Autobots do help the Alliance out. Optimus doesn’t necessarily die, and Megatron doesn’t necessarily turn into Galvatron, depending on how the missions go.
Challenge of the GoBots: Unlike Cybertron, Planet GoBotron is part of the Galaxy Alliance. The Gobots are actually cyborgs—humans who converted their bodies to transforming machines—and they were inspired to take this path by the robots of Cybertron. In this setting, the Transformers have been fighting for a long time, while the GoBots are just now leaving for Earth.
Bionicle: I will admit that I don’t know much about this series, and would need help making sense of it. What I have so far is: Some (but not all) planets in the Sol Magnis System are part of the Galaxy Alliance. However, they tend not to interact very heavily with others. The legend of Mata Nui either directly or indirectly inspired a lot of other worlds to create giant robots.
Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: Planet Shuggazoom is also part of the Galaxy Alliance. However, various factors keep the other mecha from intervening in its battles normally. The monkeys do eventually become very fond of Optimus Primal from Beast Wars, however.
Mighty Orbots: The Galactic Patrol is one of the peacekeeping forces of the Galaxy Alliance, and Mighty Orbots was made to deal with threats that the Voltrons can’t get to. While based on Earth, they’re currently in the Far Universe to mount an offensive against Umbra. Unicron tried to devour Umbra but was actually repelled; the two don’t get along.
Near Universe
Vehicle Voltron: Defends Galaxy Alliance HQ on Earth. “Entrusted with the secret of how to form Voltron.”
The Bots Master: Ziv Zulander is a brilliant robot AI developer, and this attracts nefarious forces, including the Decepticons. Jungle Fiver is made because Blitzy is inspired by Mighty Orbots and Devastator, and Blitzy becomes friends with Daniel from Transformers. Characters from other series are very fascinated by the boost the BOYZZ get from “Laser Time.”
Sym-Bionic Titan: Actually not part of the Galaxy Alliance, and comes from even further away. However, their planet was visited in the past by Mata Nui, and helped inspire the combination of heart, mind, and body to combine as one (the technology is different from what Voltron uses.)
Megas XLR: Coop built Megas XLR in New Jersey, like usual. He is actually friends with Spike Witwicky as some blue-collar dudes. Thinks Ziv is a super genius, but doesn’t know him very well. He’s always getting inspired to put new weapons into Mega thanks to all the robot shenanigans going on, and this only grows when Near and Far universe plotlines merge. Evil Coop has to appear at some point, especially with the time displacement/time travel parts of the story.
Big Guy and Rusty: Big Guy was a hero who helped the fight against aliens and the Decepticons in the past. He fought for the US as part of the Earth Galaxy Alliance HQ. Ziv Zulander is very well informed about Rusty, but doesn’t know the secret of Big Guy. Rob Simmons from Mighty Orbots and Dwayne Hunter strongly suspect each other of being the Orbots Commander and Big Guy respectively, but haven’t explicitly confirmed it.
Pacific Rim: Jaegers were developed purely by humans back when other technology hadn’t been discovered, and they needed two people to pilot. The passing of the secret of how to form Voltron helped alleviate this and lead to other less dangerous possibilities, but Jaegers still remain the best defense against Kaiju in particular.
Gen:Lock: I admittedly don’t know anything about this series, other than that it has a lot of big names for voice actors and that it ended up disappointing pretty much everyone. However, I’d like to see it get the SRW plot fix treatment. While the series takes place on a dystopian Earth, I could see a world where it doesn’t get quite that bad because of all the other things going on. Here, the setting of Gen:Lock would take place on a part of the planet rather than the entire thing.
Time-Displaced
Dino-Riders: Yes, I am counting dinosaurs wearing armor as essentially giant robots. Originally, the Valorians were working together with the Maximals in the far future, but were flung back in time by a joint attack from the Rulons and Predacons. At some point in the story, they manage to fix the Step Crystal, but the interactions with the dormant Transformers in prehistoric times causes them to jump forward. Inadvertently, their effects on the past inspire the creation of the Dinobots.
Beast Wars: Because of their nature as Transformers, they don’t need to commandeer the local dinosaurs and other animals to fight. However, they’re still inspired by those forms. Maximals and Valorians work together on prehistoric Earth, and they form a real bond before they’re all brought forward into the future to meet Gigantor and the Iron Giant.
Gigantor:While Tetsujin 28 explicitly takes place in Post-WWII Japan, Gigantor is originally set in the “future year 2000.” However, for the purpose of this SRW, Gigantor still takes place in the relative past as an early attempt at building giant robots on Earth, and it still retains the plot element of being a weapon meant for destruction that instead becomes a protector of the peace. Big Guy is essentially a government project meant to replicate the success of Gigantor. The time travel vortex drags Jimmy Sparks and Gigantor along.
Frankenstein Jr: Frankenstein Jr. and Gigantor were built around the same time. Professor Conroy was familiar with Jimmy Sparks’s father, and began his work on Frankenstein Jr. to counter Gigantor. Jimmy and Buzz Conroy are glad they’re on the same side. The Impossibles are included, and are part of a specific attack that Frankenstein Jr. can use. They are not swept up by the time displacement, but build a time machine to actively chase after Gigantor, knowing that trouble is afoot.
The Iron Giant: When flying away as Superman, the warping of the space-time continuum causes the Iron Giant to sense a similar mechanical being in Gigantor (a robot made to be a weapon), and another sentient robot in Frankenstein Jr. This causes the Iron Giant to warp forward in time as well.
I’m Open to Other Ideas
Obviously this is all just a bit of fandom thought exercise, and nothing about this really matters. I’m also less familiar with some series, so any sort of feedback is A-OK by me. Heck, anyone who wants to use this as a base for their own ideas—or tear it to shreds and do something they find better—is welcome to take a swing.
Rakuen: Le Paradis, the manga magazine that runs Spotted Flower by Kio Shimoku, announced that it will be ending in February with its 50th issue, with its web supplements going to March. While nothing is definite forSpotted Flower, the chances of it allso ending then are pretty high.
Rakuen has been a truly unorthodox publication. Rather than running weekly or even monthly, issues are released every quarter. The content is intended for mature readers, but that idea really runs the gamut. It’s been home to sexually charged adult dramas such as Spotted Flower, but also visually experimental works from panpanya (Guyabano Holiday), fetish territory like that of Kurosaki Rendou, and even gentle high school romances. In terms of different demographics as genres, Rakuen really defies easy categorization.
I hope that a spiritual successor emerges in some form. Just having something that takes the idea of “adult manga” and embraces all possible definitions of the idea was a real breath of fresh air.
It’s anniversary month for the blog again! I’m mentioning it here in the hopes that I don’t forget to write a milestone post in time (like I did a few times in recent years).
I’ve also been enjoying the new anime season. I feel conflicted about Tojima Tonzaburo Wants to Be a Kamen Rider, though. Great show so far, but as a big fan of Shibata Yokusaru’s previous work 81 Diver, the anime art isn’t ugly enough to capture his full power. I’ll still probably keep watching it, though.
As for the Patreon, here are my sponsors for the month. Many thanks to them all.
Also, V4Mirai’s DJing, retro game–loving VTuber turns out to be a Genshiken fan. Check the video!
Closing
I have been considering doing Patreon-exclusive or at least early previews/rough drafts of posts on Patreon. Is that something readers would be interested in?
PS: People shouldn’t go hungry because the powerful want to escape accountability.
Kio drew a short comic about one of the model kits from the 1/00 scale Volks Super Modeling Series: Daccas the Black Knight from The Five Star Stories.
At first, Kio talked about how it feels like he was doing nothing, and all of a sudden the release date of the adult video adaptation of Zenbu Sensei no Sei. 2. is almost out. But then he realized that he was definitely not “doing nothing,” and was drawing a manuscript, doing research for it, revising it, and even scrapping the whole thing sometimes. (NSFW)
He also made a drawing of his own replicating the ad for Zenbu Sensei no Sei. 2. There’s currently a sale going for both the prequel and the new stuff until November 23. It’s also available on DVD.
In 2023, I went to the first hololive English concert, Connect the World. In my review, I ended off with some idle thoughts:
And now that I’ve gone to a concert for virtual idols, who knows what’s next? Maybe I’ll attend some concerts by 100% flesh-and-blood musicians as well. Ironically, the VTuber rabbit hole might just lead me back to the real world.
Two years later, I finally made good on this by seeing Pat Metheny at Carnegie Hall on his Dream Box/MoonDial Tour. Given how more and more of my favorite creators and artists have been shuffling off this mortal coil, I considered him a top priority, and I’m glad I finally got the chance.
While Metheny does have a connection to anime thanks to “Last Train Home” being used as a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure ending theme, my fondness for his music goes all the way back to my early childhood, when I first heard in a commercial what I would later learn was “It’s For You.” I watched the film Fandango earlier this year specifically because I knew that song was featured in it.
I’m the definition of casual fan—I didn’t even realize quite how much music Metheny has made, or that he’s a 20-time Grammy winner, or that he still puts out songs on a fairly regular basis. I knew he was a beloved musician, but not that he’s in the running for greatest jazz guitarist of all time. Though in hindsight, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the live experience.
Metheny just seems fundamentally different from most musicians I’m familiar with—he seems to be less focused on making individual songs and more about exploring music and sound itself. It might be because I’m not very familiar with his very extensive discography, but it felt like I never knew where he was going or what he was going to try next. At one point, he mentioned a guitar maker he works with often, and how she takes his ideas for instruments and makes them a reality. In fact, this entire concert was dedicated primarily to his recent decision to use the baritone guitar more, and this included his custom designs. In his last few songs, Metheny used a bunch of contraptions to record his own guitars on the spot and then played them back to become a kind of one-man band while colorful meters flashed and shined. It was an aural and visual cornucopia.
Helpfully for a newbie like myself, he actually took time to delve into his life and history. Metheny explained how he came from a family of trumpet players, but that he didn’t take to the instrument nearly as well. It was seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show that exposed him to electric guitars and changed his life forever, despite his family’s initial dislike of the newfangled instrument. At a young age, he started playing at famous spots in his home state of Missouri. Metheny mentioned that he rarely ever talks this much during concerts, so I consider myself fortunate in this regard.
This was both a culmination of a journey as a listener and the start of something new. I wonder where I might go next.
Phantasy Star is a series whose name has always floated around in the background of gaming history for me, yet was something I never engaged with directly. I knew it was significant without really knowing why. However, I watched Jeremy Parish’s Segaiden episode where he covers the original Phantasy Star. That’s where I learned that it’s basically the first JRPG to focus completely on defined characters and an established narrative (as opposed to customizable characters and an emphasis on player choice), and that it features the first female protagonist in the genre. Knowing this and seeing the Sega Ages remaster on sale, I decided to give it a try.
Unlike many RPGs of the time, Phantasy Star includes a science fiction aspect alongside the more standard swords and sorcery. The heroine is Alis Landale, a girl who sets out to avenge her dead brother after he’s killed by the oppressive forces of Emperor Lassic. Her adventures take her across planets, where she encounters allies who join Alis on her quest.
The game is gorgeous even today, and while I don’t have a firm tack on the general aesthetics of the Sega Master System, the graphics blow its contemporaries on the NES out of the water. The faux-3D of the dungeons, the excellent music, the look and feel of the environments (especially from planet to planet), and the detailed enemy sprites all contribute to an immersive experience. Little hints or story points that crop up at the beginning don’t pay off until much later, making figuring out various mysteries very rewarding. It’s no wonder that Phantasy Star is generally regarded as one of the best titles of the Master System.
Phantasy Star is very much of its time, and it reminds me of a conversation I saw on social media recently. A younger person was trying out older Pokémon games (pre–Black and White), and they were puzzled by the fact that “important NPCs” weren’t always obvious. They questioned the need to arbitrarily talk to literally everyone in the game, but others pointed out that this is what RPGs used to be like. You were expected to approach the game as an explorer and check out every nook and cranny to find hints on how to move forward. In the context of Phantasy Star, I did feel stymied by this at times despite my familiarity with this type of gameplay, like when I couldn’t remember the names of individual random towns, making backtracking much more tedious.
The Sega Ages version comes with a mode that has a few quality-of-life changes: fewer enemies, faster leveling, more gold earned per battle, faster walk speed, and auto-drawn maps. I felt two ways about this, as I often don’t like having extra hand holding for older games, but what ultimately tilted me in favor of the Sega Ages version were the maps. If I were playing this back in the day, I would have to bust out the graph paper and make them myself, and that is something I don’t enjoy. The faster leveling also helped speed up the game and allowed me to fit it into my schedule, but I definitely think I was overleveled for most of the game in a way that allowed me to accomplish things I wouldn’t have otherwise. As a result, I’m not sure I necessarily got an entirely authentic Phantasy Star experience, even if I enjoyed the game.
From what I understand, the Phantasy Star franchise only got more elaborate and complex over time. This first game acts as an introduction to the ideas and feel that would help define Sega RPGs as a whole, but I do think it’s fun as a standalone title. It also took me back to my younger days, almost like I was experiencing an alternate timeline of how my taste in games could have gone if a few circumstances had changed. Perhaps I would have been the world’s biggest Phantasy Star fan, talking about how I never tried any Final Fantasy games.
In July this year, I attended the Dokibird birthday concert at Anime Expo—the same one that was just uploaded to her YouTube. It had a lively atmosphere, and a group of fans had assembled in front of a screen to do their wotagei performances. Others shouted with excitement. But next to me was a guy who remained silent throughout. It was clear he was a fan. He just wasn’t expressing it loudly.
The contrast had me thinking about how there are challenges to being a quiet fan. So much of how we “show” fandom these days is through very visible and very vocal gestures. Online, we have react videos and social media platforms that thrive on “virality.” Offline, we have enthusiastic crowds drawing the cameras to them. It makes sense that they would get so much attention, much in the same way that cosplayers are the most photographed element at conventions. But it can create this notion that this is the way fans “should” be, when that’s not true.
I think it’s important to remember that being quiet doesn’t make you less of a fan. You might not get all the positive affirmation or even the attention that more vocal fans do, but that doesn’t mean the passion inside you is somehow not as vibrant. I’m not a terribly expressive person myself, and it’s probably part of why I started blogging—I’m full of thoughts and emotions, but they just don’t necessarily come out through pronounced physical actions.
At the same time, the fans who do go out there and make their presence known are expressing themselves in their own way. Unless they’re disruptive to the point of ruining the experience entirely for others, it shouldn’t be an issue. Everyone is their own person. There’s no specific “right” way to be a fan, and I salute my fellow quiet types because I know the passion is there.
Back in 2019, manga artist Kotoyama was just coming off of his snack-themed comedy series, Dagashi Kashi. So when a new series of his launched, I wondered what it would be like. Would it also be a kind of silly comedy fueled by character interactions related to a specific gimmick and a dash of romance? Or would it be something more standard for a shounen manga, with superpowers and greater drama?
The answer turned out to be “Yes, and also yes.”
Call of the Night (Yofukashi no Uta in Japanese) is the story of Yamori Ko, a boy who has stopped going to middle school and is suffering from insomnia. One night, he decides to leave his apartment to see what his town is like around in the late hours. There, he encounters an eccentric girl named Nanakusa Nazuna, who seems older than she looks, and offers to help him sleep. Ko agrees to try out her services, but soon discovers that she’s actually a vampire. Rather than being scared for his life, however, he gets an idea: If life right now sucks, why not become a vampire? The only problem: In order to turn, one must fall in love with the vampire first, and Ko has no idea what love is supposed to feel like.
Unlike the eight-volume Dagashi Kashi, which is largely short and episodic vignettes, Call of the Night has a serial narrative over a whopping 20 volumes. The relationship between Ko and Nazuna somewhat resembles the dynamic between Kokonotsu and Hotaru in Dagashi Kashi, but it’s really its own thing—a dynamic geared towards momentum and development, rather than stasis.
While Call of the Night initially feels it can go on forever at a pace reminiscent of another favorite series in Mysterious Girlfriend X, it then proceeds to break its own “rules” time and again. As it adds interesting twists and wrinkles to its story, the manga achieves a nice balance between genres and the emotions it invokes. Because the series keeps adding ingredients and formulating new recipes in itself, I find it to be a very Shounen Sunday manga. This is historically the magazine of Touch!, Inuyasha, Detective Conan, etc., and Call of the Night feels like it exists in the space between these and other iconic Sunday series.
The everyday hijinks make way for a genuine friendship, and the answer to whether it will turn into romantic love always feels like it’s right around the corner yet also somehow far in the distance. And as the story progresses, the cast of characters expands and details about how vampires like (and unlike) Nazuna move through human society help to expand the world and create new stakes. There are even some supernatural brawls straight out of a battle manga. And through all these events, Call of the Night still manages to feel grounded and low-key, and also still tapped into that initial malaise that plagues Ko.
Silly yet serious, simple yet full of intriguing little complexities—Call of the Night is worth a read. I think it has something even for those who aren’t fans of vampires and the supernatural. It’s ultimately the story of a boy and a girl who come from very different circumstances who find common ground in the late evening hours, and the world that unfolds before them.
PS: It really is awesome that the anime version got the ending theme to be its namesake, “Yofukashi no Uta” by Creepy Nuts.
Mono Monet, a VTuber from the agency V4Mirai, recently revealed herself to be a Genshiken fan.
What’s more, I was directly involved in this reveal! During a chat about a different topic, I was specifically called out by Mono for having “Ogiue” in my name. It spurred her on to start talking about the series, and the possibility of doing a Genshiken watchalong at some point.
This is the second time I’ve seen a VTuber explicitly express a fondness for Kio Shimoku’s title. (The first was when FUWAMOCO from hololive sang “Kujibiki Unbalance.”)
The above clip is over 20 minutes long because Mono talks about not just her love of Genshiken itself, but also Evangelion and what she looks for in fiction. It’s quite interesting overall, and Mono is just full of good takes, particularly when it comes to the appeal of flawed and messy characters.
OGIUE MANIAX 