Holding hands makes babies.
The first of the two fanservice videogame anime adaptions of the season has now started. After giving us Akiba’s Trip almost 2 years ago Gonzo now makes an adaption of the Conception series. The difference here though is that unlike Akiba’s Trip which was anime original and not based on one of the games the same thing doesn’t apply to Conception which is based on the PSP game released in 2012. The obvious purpose of this anime is to help promote the PS4 remaster which comes out in Japan next year.
While the second game was released here in english the first never was and since it is getting this PS4 release it is highly likely that will eventually get an english release. An english release will probably either be by SpikeChunsoft’s newly started english division since they make the series and can now start releasing their own games or perhaps atlus will since they released the second one.
Since there is a high chance the actual game will release in english that means watching this show will be a conflicting problem. Naturally by watching it you will be semi spoiling yourself of the game before getting the chance to play it. So because of that it might actually be better to just watch the raw while muted so you don’t actually know what is going on and can avoid reading the dialog. Though avoiding the dialog and not even hearing this show is something you probably really want to do and for more reasons then you think….
The start of the show begins with various silhouettes of the girls in the show in various positions. This is actually going to be very significant later on when it comes to the show’s service if you are familiar with the games. I’ll explain in more detail later when we get to it but essentially these silhouettes are a reference to an element that is shown in the games and presumably will be in the show.
The main character Itsuki is sent a message from his cousin Mahiru to talk on the roof. She tells him that she is pregnant but before she can say anything else they both get teleported into another world. While there Mahiru explains that she is pregnant despite not having sex before because she used Dr Google to look up her symptoms and because she has the same symptoms and has taken tests she believes she is pregnant. First off never look up your symptoms on google like ever. Even if you got just a bump on the head the second you start googling your symptoms you are just going to come to the conclusion that you got cancer because you have 1 of the symptoms despite 100s of other things having the same symptoms.
Also she has yet to go to a doctor to get an official test either because she is embarrassed. Can’t really blame her as I’m sure it’s not easy to go to a doctor knowing he will probably diagnose you as being clinically retarded since you somehow think you have a magic jesus baby in you since you never had sex.
Opening up taco bells in japan wasn’t a good idea.
After she throws up from her sudden onset of pregnancy pains it turns into a monster. Fortunately since this is based on a videogame and in videogames you can pull anything out of your ass, Itsuki magically has a sword appear in his hand out of nowhere like a keyblade when a crest appears on his hand and is able to kill the monster despite no formal sword training. Afterwards they find a hole in the wall leading to the outside to see the new world they are in.
If you dropped the show at this point you have did nothing wrong. I imagine at least 30 percent of everyone watching this said “That’s it” and stopped the video right here because of the character that is introduced here. So after they come out they both notice they have similar markings on their bodies now but don’t know what it is. As they are thinking on what to do they meet a raccoon thing named mana which officially kills the show. I am not joking. Have you ever wondered if there was something worse than Jar Jar Binks? Well this show has just succeeded in that goal. I’m not being funny either I would rather watch an entire Jar Jar show that is all him for the entire thing then deal with one episode of this shit thing. The second you hear this thing’s voice you will hate the show. Now I won’t go into any more details about this character since from what I could see there seems to be a spoilerish thing that I won’t bring up. But I will say this. The entire fucking show is literally ruined at this point. Everything wrong with this entire episode and the cringe comes from this character. A show that could had been tolerable instantly becomes ruined due to this single character. You know what fuck it from this point on I will just call it Jar Jar Binks.
After talking with jar jar they meet Narcisstes whom is a scholar for the kingdom and takes them back to the castle so they can have everything explained to them.
They are both told this world is parallel to their own and is a world with magic. They then meet the king Shangri-la whom tells them that the world is in danger and both of them are needed to save it. He explains that every 10 years visitors with emblems on them thus the strange markings on their body are summoned to this world and have the power needed to save them. In short if they want to return to their world they need to save this one. Afterwards Mahiru is taken to the nurse to be checked on while Itsuki and jar jar binks go to his room. I’ll also spare you the cringe dialog here from him.
So before I continue i will just say this is the first anime I can think of that actually has me seriously considering watching the dub. The second the nurse opens her mouth is holy shit. Imagine for a second the voice you would expect from a mature nurse character. It sure as well is not the one we hear here. Her voice is completely terrible and unfitting. I can’t imagine the dub I believe that is being done at the same time being any worse. Hell overall the voice acting in this is terrible all around.
Itsuki wakes up to find himself strapped to a table and the nurse Reone there. She explains to him that in the world are dungeons that have become filled with impurities and that only visitors from another world can stop them. She points out that the markings on his body represent 12 constellations which corresponds to the 12 maidens that need to help in the quest to save the world. He is told that he needs to enter these dungeons and destroy the lord there and retrieve the now broken star wards and then replace them with a new one that only the 12 maidens can make. In other words a videogame plot point if there ever was one.
The show doesn’t hide the fact that they expect you to had played the game. Which makes no sense when you consider this show is to promote a remaster that has yet to be released and the majority of those getting the remaster have not played the original psp game. Regardless they direct you to the website for more explanation on the various story elements. This isn’t even a joke they actually expect you to do that because fuck explaining plot details in the actual show. Also isn’t this what the final fantasy 9 strategy guide did? I remember a friend that got it back in the day complaining about how all the useful information told you to visit the website. Pleb should had just used gamefaqs like me.
She explains whom the 12 star maidens are and shows that Mahiru is one of them as well. She also explains that someone that is a star maiden repels their own impurities and the symptoms are similar to pregnancy hence she is not really pregnant and just sick and the monster that came out of her earlier was just her own impurities that needed to be destroyed.
Jar Jar Binks then explains that the other use of the 12 maidens is to make star children which are used to fight in the dungeons through sex. Also I am not posting all the cringy sex jokes that occur here at this part as I already want to put a fucking gun in my mouth right now every time I see this thing on screen and seeing the terrible jokes this show is filled with again will not help.
Considering Japan’s low birth rate I would say 99 percent of all Japanese males and 99.9 percent of all anime ones.
Reone tells them that she wants them to start the ritual to make children and so they begin.
So they both begin with jar jar binks giving more cringy dialog until they throw him out of the way.
So this part here is very interesting. To me it feels like that army of jar jar binks that run by is meant to function as censorship. The question is whether or not this is actual censorship or just a joke. The thing being blocked out would be the silhouettes of him taking her top off and though that seems like a minor thing to censor it wouldn’t be surprising since tv stations seem to have odd standards. However if it is censorship this brings up another question. Is this BD censorship or will the ATX version show it.
The problem is that the atx airing is a 8 days after the episode airs everywhere else. So it won’t be till next wendsday to know. There is no parental lock on it so there is nothing indicating anything will be different though. However keep in mind in the previous season the sex scene in episode 10 of Island was less censored on the atx airing removing the darkening on it despite the fact that the atx version had no warning label either. So with that said we can never really be too sure but it is something to keep an eye on and if this is indeed censorship that is removed on atx then that will make for some very interesting future episodes.
And just as they are about to start the episode ends. Now before we continue I will point out that sex is not going to occur here despite what it seems. Unless of course the show has been changed from the game to make it that it does and if that is the case then maybe it can save the show. However I doubt that will be the case. So this stuff with the two of them on the bed and taking off their clothes is not in the game and anyone that has played the series knows how babies are really made. This scene is something put into the anime to serve as a bait and switch to mess with the people that have not played the games. Seriously I am facepalming so hard when I look at any forums or anything having to do with the show and seeing so much stupid because people can’t do research.
In the games these star children are essentially artificial beings. The way it worked in Conception 2 was that the girl holds a doll type device and then the guy holds her hand. He then sends his magic power into the girl through hand holding and she puts it into the doll type device and then puts her own power into it as well. The mixture of these result in the thing coming to life and thus a star child is born. There is no sex here at all like at all. It is seriously just handholding and nothing more. In the second game your child would look like the mother and have a stat boosted from her depending on whom you used. Later on you unlock threesomes in which two girls are used and the child gets a boost in two stats but not as high as using one girl.
However as I said there is no sex involved in creating the star children and the constant jokes about it being like sex are all over the place but in reality it is holding hands only. Yet I see so many people coming to their own conclusions based on what they see without even taking a second to look at the source material. So unless this anime has seriously changed the entire plot point of the series (which would be nice if they did) something is going to happen at the start of the next episode to stop them and then explain the real way to make children. If I had to make a prediction as this wasn’t in the game from what I see then chances are this is just Reone and jar jar binks trolling them and possibly another girl will interrupt or something else is going to happen such as Reone stopping them and saying it was a joke. Point is don’t expect sex as that doesn’t happen here unless they are changing the entire series concept.
However there is symbolic imagination “sex scenes” during the handholding process. Remember the dark silhouettes at the beginning of the episode? In the game when the two characters hold hands you get scenes in which the girls move in various sex positions. However the girls are shown as pretty much non detailed models similar to these silhouettes. To get an idea of what I mean here are some of the fake sex scenes that happen in the 2nd game for you to see. Don’t have any from the first but from what I can tell the ones in the first are just recycled for the second games with just different models used obviously. So it seems for the second game they didn’t bother to create new stuff and just used the first’s again.
Since we have seen similar silhouettes at the start of the episode which are obviously a direct reference to these types of scenes we can assume these same type of scenes will happen in the show hopefully. So next week when they actually make a child by using the real handholding method we should end up getting an anime equivalent of these scenes which will be the main source of service in the show. And hopefully they do it because this show certainly needs it.
So as you can probably tell from my cynicalness in this post I am not too amused by the show at all. The voice acting in this show is just horrible (it appears they might not be using the same voices from the game from 2012) but more importantly the writing is so terrible it hurts. The second game was not a masterpiece by any means but it was not like this. There were innuendos and the like in it and the obvious jokes when making a child but you didn’t have some autistic bear or raccoon or whatever the fuck it is screeching like a 12 year old in your face with cringy juvenile sex jokes. If this is how the actual first game was like then no wonder it never got released here. The big problem is obviously the jar jar binks character. Never before have I cringed as much as I did watching this show. Sex jokes are fine but not every second and shoved in your face constantly.
For starters if you are going to do that then make it visual instead. I would have no problems with breasts, ass, or panties shoved in our faces ever few seconds but shitty sex jokes that sound like they were written by a sexually frustrated retard every second gets on my nerves. One thing I will give the show credit for is that the main character doesn’t seem to be too pissed about his situation. Even though as I already explained sex doesn’t actually occur to create the children but he doesn’t know that yet and is still perfectly fine with going along with it. So at the very least we have a main character that won’t be annoying to watch. I seriously think though that if the show eliminated jar jar binks and the endless sex jokes out of the thing’s mouth it would improve greatly to at least an average show.
Maybe this being bad is the point though assuming they plan on having the fanservice save it. Conception 2 was gameplaywise a terrible game as well with its redeeming factors being the fanservice and dating sim/vn aspects of it. The actual gameplay and dungeon crawling was tedious and boring but the game was still worth playing for the other aspects of it. Perhaps that will be the case with this. Terrible voice acting, boring story, cringy jokes, but decent service to try and make it tolerable. Or at least that is what little optimism there can be at this point. This certainly is a show in which you are only in it for the service so it best do something good. I actually wanted to only focus on the service for this post as everything else was too bad but since there were character introductions and such I had to include a little of that to give context. Overall though all I can think is why couldn’t Gonzo had given us a second season of Akiba’s Trip instead? Next week should be the big deciding factor on what we can expect service wise since the creation of the star children through the method used in the games will be where most of this show’s service should be.
Also something else to point out is that what happens with the atx version may change how or when I do these posts. For this week episode 1 was delayed on crunchyroll so this episode was later than it was supposed to be. However remember what I said before about the atx version being on the following Wednesday. This means the atx version of ep 1 will be a day after ep 2 airs in japan. Apparently crunchyroll plans on releasing these on wednesdays instead of on tuesdays when it airs in japan so that might work out for the better since I can’t do these without subs and having to wait an extra day should match up perfectly with being able to see the previous week’s atx version before doing the next post. In other words I might plan these posts around the atx version hopefully getting uploaded at the same time for the previous episode so I can compare them and address any changes that occurred in the previous episode for the new one’s post. Haven’t decided yet since we just need to wait and see if the atx version has any changes in the first place assuming it gets uploaded to begin with. On the plus side tomorrow is ninja waifus which should be better than this was.
The fact that this thing whores out the fact that the girls are all virgins is going to make me cringe so goddamn much. I can already tell how things are going to play out and it is annoying. True story last fall I was going to do king’s game posts but kept pushing them back to the point that I just gave up on them. Since I dodged covering the worst show of 2017 fate must be trying to get back at me with this. “Oh you expected something good? Well guess what bitch you get this”.
