Arise, Magic Knight Fandom...

... Somehow the new Super Robot Wars game (it is fantastic, thank you) has re-awakened a REALLY old fandom in me. The first three anime series I tried to collect (at $20-25 per two/three episode tape) were:
Cowboy Bebop
Martian Successor Nadesico
and Magic Knight Rayearth.

I eventually bought full DVD sets of Bebop and Nadesico but I never did finish out Rayearth, and seeing the Hikaru/Umi/Fuu trio hanging out and doing things like giving Inspiring Speeches of Hope to the Gunbuster cast and all have REALLY made me itch to pick that show up again.

Naturally it is not on any service that will stream to me, because anime rights situations are a butt that poo comes from.

...

if the show used to be $20 per tape, $60-100 for a ten disc box set isn't THAT expensive comparatively right
...
look I NEED GOOD SCREENSHOTS of dragon-form Selece and bird-form Windam okay, I NEED THIS FOR PERSONAL REASONS BECAUSE I AM IN LOVE WITH THEM

Recordkeeping: Lovers of Aether COMPLETE

Can I declare a VN complete when I've only seen two of the routes? Yeah I think I can.

So this was Lovers of Aether, the April Fool's joke dating VN from the makers of Rivals of Aether. I am of two minds about this sort of thing.

On one hand, I don't believe "lol it's a game where you don't hurt people you just talk to them and enjoy the writing ISN'T THAT HILARIOUS" is inherently a funny joke. Joke VNs are usually a low-ball pitch that only serve to re-enforce negative stereotypes about the genre. I love playing stuff like this, and "It's a visual novel now, that's the whole gag" is kind of demeaning to the genre as a whole.

On the other hand I'm a giant piece of furry trash who wants to date the absolute hell out of some fightgame characters, so here I am playing it in spite of ideological objections. And you know, it's okay? It's fairly basic, some characters seem to have more complex routes than others (there's a few that demand you live up to their standards, and with one the question is "how do you even get an inward angle here?"), but the art is sharp and the writing is...

...well, it's a high school full of fighting game characters.

Most of them are jerks to some degree until you get them to take their walls down and open up.

So I took the joke game seriously, yeah I'm an idiot, but I had a good time here and can see myself going back to try to 100% this. It's real short but sweet enough.