Girl Meets Chair by KJ Lab

I've remarked in the past how much I enjoy dōjinshi with a theme, rather than a parody, behind them. There is something that speaks of commitment behind the work of circles such as Heikinritsu, or dōjinshi like Chocolate Apple: the strong vibe that there is a concept, a design behind their ongoing work that will reward following up. It doesn't rely on ongoing narratives and plots (which usually I find don't work in the dōjin format), but also provides stronger cohesion than your average collection of illustrations (reviews of which, by the way, are in the pipeline - got a few pretty good ones last month).

Since I also enjoy bizarre anthropomorphizations, purchasing a copy of KJ Lab's Girl Meets Chair was pretty much a clinched deal. Now, when it comes to the circle's history, facts are a bit sketchy, as searching for the circle's name or artist (ケイジェー) brings up a clearly unrelated outfit (still worth a peek though). Their first book dates from late 2017, making them a fairly new circle, and their latest dates late 2018. As usual, one can't exclude that this Kj Lab circle and the one above are the same, with the usual 'wipe the past' coat applied, but I remain unconvinced.

Girl Meets Chair, as the title suggests, is a collection of illustrations featuring moe anthropomorphizations of... chairs. Fifteen examples of design chairs through the years, from Hans Wegner's Y Chair, to Eames' Side Shell Chair, is paired with a young girl whose clothes and color scheme emulates the piece of furniture's. And so, Hansen's Ant Chair has a girl, dressed in boy scout clothes, trying to save such chair from a line of ants; and Droog's Tree Trunk Bench has a scantily clad girl playing the dryad while sitting on the grossly overpriced piece of wood. The charm is, of course, in the strange and endearing ways by which ケイジェー manages to tie together the human figure and the furniture, playing each one with and against the other.

Graphically, the work is top notch: the artist clearly knows how to play with shape, layout, and especially color: complementary hues are often used, giving the illlustrations a strong and vivid vibe. The girls themselves are fairly cutesy moe, there are a couple anatomical inconsistencies but nothing excessive.

Definitely a nice little work from a circle worth keeping an eye on... assuming it still exists.

怪作戦 (寺本浩人) 妖怪写真集 原点回帰の第七巻! by 怪作戦テラ

Some stuff is just too weird to ignore - and, sometimes, stars align and you get stuff that is both funny, weird, and simply puzzling in an exquisitely Japanese kind of way. It was the case with a last minute addition to my most recent dōjinshi shipment from Japan, a homely black and white zine that held, by cover alone, the promise of unabated weirdness. Seeing is believing, so take a look at the cover below and judge for yourself...

Yup. It's a guy, donning the world's lowest budget kappa cosplay ever. 妖怪写真集 (Youkai photo album ) is, as the full title suggests, the sevent installment of a series by dōjin group 怪作戦 (Mystery Tactics? Covert Ops?), which entirely revolves around cosplaying yōkai (Japanese supernatural beings) in the most absurd, hilarious, cheap ways. The booklet's underground cred is massive: black and white printed on cheap paper and, from what I could see, hand-stapled. It also features a gigantic, full page warning against unauthorized uploading, so for this review I will limit myself to scans that are already available on the group's own blog and Twitter.

The booklet's setup is simple. The circle's three main members (main man テラ, 桂つかさ, and 蘭陵亭) plus a few guests (including a guy in a horse mask) comment on a series of real-life reenactments of old yōkai depictions from yukio-e prints. Now, if you're thinking costumes and prosthetics in the style of Link Factory... you'd be wrong. A scrawny (eyes blacked out) guy poses half naked in a public park, behind a tree... and there you have it! A Oni cosplay! Same guy, wrapped in a towel, licks the ceiling beams of a ryōkan... and he's a てんじょうなめ (Ceiling Licker - google it, it's worth it). Props are nearly non-existent, and the whole affair is clearly an absurdist, tongue-in-cheek piece of humor: the 'cosplayer' can barely hold his laughter in, and the experts' comments range from bizarre explanations behind the choice of portrayal, to out-there jabs ('Needs to stick the neck out more!' 'What's under the towel?'). Also, don't expect to learn anything about the yōkai portrayed, because you won't.

All in all, a fun piece of bizzarro that really plays on the kind of stuff I like: underground execution, out-there content, inane comedy. Highly reccomended.

Yume Nikki - Dream Diary -

So, I took advantage of a 3 euro sale, and downloaded myself a copy of Yume Nikki - Dream Diary. Now, in case you're unfamiliar with the Yume Nikki franchise (because, even though only a handful of products are available, this is basically what it's become), here's the quick rundown: about 10 years ago some Japanese anon nicknamed Kikiyama  released a small pixel-art style game called Yume Nikki. Cobbled together with rudimentary skills and a copy of PRGMaker, the game's bizarre, dream inspired atmosphere, as well as its lack of perceived basic elements of gameplay (almost no enemies or game overs, an 'ending' that is little more than an afterthought, no significant scoring system) caught on with those looking for something bizarre, different, and free.
Cue Kadokawa (yes, they don't publish just books) and their so-called Yume Nikki - Dream Diary - project: a tribute / sidequel /rehash of the original game in glorious 3d graphics, allegedly under the supervision of Kikiyama itself. A cursory browse of the web should make it pretty clear that this cash-in masqueraded as a tribute was very, very poorly received.

Because, I won't deny it, the game is a quick and dirty cash-in, designed to capitalize on the original game's popularity, while trying to get more audience by sticking on top of it more typically 'game-like' elements that might appeal to a contemporary crowd. Still I feel that, while the intentions might not have been pure, the tangible result is a flawed, but still interesting little game - for a number of reasons.

First of all, while I was very attached to the pixel-like graphics of the original Yume Nikki, I must admit that the select few worlds rendered in Dream Diary are visually stunning, keeping to the predecessor but adding a layer of eye candy that, for obvious reasons, the original lacked. Also, the couple of worlds that are 'new' to Dream Diary (a city alley and a school) are probably the best parts of the game: the school in particular could very well deserve its own small, indie game.

So, where's the problem(s)? first of all, Kadokawa's attempts to turn Yume Nikki's abstract gameplay into a more streamlined experience, both action-wise and in the story department, leave a lot to be desired. A 'good' ending tacked at the end of the game, while heartwarming, has little sequitur with both the original, and the remake's own atmosphere. Also, the many platforming elements, often poorly designed, really drive home one concept that, by now, I hoped all game designers got into their head: your game either is a platformer, or it isn't. Platforming 'elements' never work, period. Controls are wonky, and the point of view more often interferes than not with actually accomplishing objectives. Finally, the puzzle elements are ok, but very basic and could have used some more polish.

As often happens with remakes / reboots / however you want to call them, I feel Dream Diary would have worked much better as its own thing, keeping the bases but delving into its own world - perhaps building more on the 'school' levels. As it stands, Dream Diary is a largely disappointing experience, and not the least because it's hampered by the legacy left by its predecessor, a milestone in indie gaming.

If you're wondering yes, it's worth those 3 euros. Not much more, sadly.

ちとちとに by 空中セピア

As you've probably guessed by now, one of the things that I enjoy the most about the dōjin world is, we could say, its sometimes 'alternative' aesthetics. While I do enjoy the occasionally ultra-polished, plastic like visual style of some publications, I'm generally not a hug fan of the Nitroplus / Crypton / RedJuice style of illustration. I like Garo; I like Ikki; I like dōjinshi that look and feel like zines that have been stapled and printed in someone's basement. And the same goes for the story - the more abstract, slice-of-life like and banal it is, the better. Sometimes I think it's mostly a reaction to my Western media fixations, that usually revolve around bombastically childish high fantasy stuff (long time World of Warcraft player here).

The dōjinshi I'm reviewing today falls squarely into this 'alt' category. ちとちとに is, as one could guess by the title, the second in a series: unfortunately, I couldn't track down the first booklet, or any of the others for that matter. The circle, whose sole member is 藤田ユウヤ, is actually fairly prolific, though most of their output in the last few years consists of Love!Live and Touhou fanbooks, and is therefore of no interest to me. ちとちと is, as far as I know, their only 'original' themed dōjinshi series. The object itself is a black and white, stapled 24 pages booklet on what looks like recycled paper. Right up my alley, in other words.

Since I could track down only volume two, I'm not entirely sure on the whole story arc the four total volumes are meant to narrate, though all signs point to a fairly simple slice-of-life story. In ちとちとに, a young woman called Minatsu has turned to cross-dressing as a way to cope with her brother's rejection of her since they were young. She is gradually, and not entirely painlessly reintroduced to her femininity by her willowy, nameless and mysterious friend and this lady's brother, giving form to a sort of bizarre love triangle that, unfortunately, is not resolved in this volume. There is minimal conflict, the story is barebone and lives of the yuri tropes of Japanese storytelling that I happen to love to death.

Visually, there is much to be loved if you're into that pencil-drawn, barebone yet visually rich style that, in mainstream manga, is usually associated with alt slice-of-life (think Urushibara or Ashinano). There are anatomical approximations, the characters are barely posed and much more attention is paid to countryside backdrops, when present; yet, the jagged, barely inked linework has a charm of its own, and goes along well with the story's homely (in a good way) development.

So, a nice little oddity that I would gladly follow upon, if I could find the other three volumes... which I could, through Pixiv' Booth, if I could be bothered with proxies.