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Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 6 2009, 03:49 AM

So in what may be a new level of weird twists for eroge, Alcot has released 幼なじみは大統領〜My Girlfriend Is The President〜, whose plot centers around a spaceship crash killing off the real president and the aliens, attempting to fix their mistake, appoint the nearest random girl to be the new president and brainwash everyone into accepting this. The main character apparently wasn't affected for some reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwtdE8tqmJI&feature=player_embedded (safe, I think)

http://www.alcot.biz/product/osana/index.html (safe except for Graphic section and maybe some of the voice samples)

I just thought that this was something I should share with you all.

~J

Posted by: Tanegar Nov 6 2009, 04:30 AM

Japan: Earth's greatest natural supply of weirdness for over sixty years. How boring our lives would be without it.

Posted by: hobgoblin Nov 6 2009, 12:27 PM

heh, just goes to show how interesting those parts of the world that have not gotten "strangled" by abrahamic religions can be

Posted by: WyldKnight Nov 6 2009, 07:27 PM

You call em interesting, I call them weird and not good weird just weird weird. I regret going to Japan, should have gone to France instead or heck even Canada. At least there I wouldn't have groaned in sheer terror at some of the things they do.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 6 2009, 07:38 PM

My condolences that you're such a stick-in-the-mud

(More seriously, it's true, different people will have different levels of compatibility with a culture. For me, Japan was a place I could see spending the rest of my days.)

~J

Posted by: Adarael Nov 6 2009, 09:00 PM

Oh my god. One of the testers down the hall has been testing this in Japanese, and I keep passing her, looking at the screen and getting more and more confused. I kept thinking, "I am reading that wrong. That is not what they are saying."

Posted by: Stahlseele Nov 6 2009, 09:04 PM

Right now, i am more partial to To Aru Kagaku No Railgun.
Honestly? I don't even know why, and i find it funny enough.

Also, if you are go there, try sankaku complex for weird japanese stuff.
but watch out, that site is horribly NSFW.

Posted by: pbangarth Nov 7 2009, 04:14 AM

(emphasis mine)

Oh, WyldKnight, how little you know of us. We work very hard keeping the world thinking of us as singing mounties and hosers. But eight months of winter, WyldKnight. It changes a man.

Posted by: Heath Robinson Nov 7 2009, 04:30 AM

I find it strange that people are heralding this as a new level in Japanese weirdness. Major political figures have already featured in H manga. Not the ersatz political figures you see in this. Then you have Mari-tan (learn English by way of FMJ quotes), and Saya no Uta (it's about a man meeting an intergalactic alien horror after developing a psychological disorder where he sees everything as if it were made out of meat or human entrails - he sees the horror as a cute girl). There is also a serialised comic about international political leaders playing Mahjong, currently against Moon Nazis. This registers as but the merest blip on the RADAR.

I compare this to the media and reality of the west, and am really unsure if Americans have any place to declare Japan weird. There are people in the US who claim snakehandling brings them closer to their deity (they're Abrahamic), there are people who believe that a few words from a believer in an Abrahamic religion can cure crippling disabilities, there are those who believe that the Antichrist was voted into presidency of the United States of America, there is a movie about Moon Nazis attacking the earth coming up, we play games about construction and demolition company bringing their adverse operational philosophies to blows, and then we have the perverse and insane nature of the comic known as the Invisibles.

Just because you don't hear about the insanity doesn't mean it ain't happening.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 7 2009, 04:53 AM

So, I just want to offer some of my background here. I translate ero-manga as a hobby, so I've been exposed to a considerable stack of the stuff. I'm aware of some of the stranger things out there, and some of the tamer through my other hobbies. I think I know the mahjong manga, though I'm not sure as I don't follow it and thus wouldn't know about the moon nazis. I'm chest-deep in the insanity.

Nevertheless, this premise strikes me as delightfully weird. Weird in a way that nothing else you've described does. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I've started playing it and may post reviews along the way. Eroge are something that I am new to, so I may well be enthused over common features (for example, I spent about a minute laughing when I got killed for saying that I'd borrowed the game and therefore didn't have the manual. This may be a common trope, I don't know.) due to the novelty of it all.

~J

Posted by: Tanegar Nov 7 2009, 07:05 AM

Ahh, see, you're confusing "weird" with "batshit insane." There's a difference.

Posted by: Chrysalis Nov 7 2009, 08:30 AM

I suppose it could be weirder. Why does Japanese have an immense fetish on school girls?

Weirder could be a gay h-manga with the world's political leaders.

Posted by: Stahlseele Nov 7 2009, 10:40 AM

Better Question would be: Why does the Rest of the World not have this as much?

Posted by: hobgoblin Nov 7 2009, 11:41 AM

oh, but they have, they just dont want to talk about it, as its not commonly "accepted"...

Posted by: Heath Robinson Nov 7 2009, 11:46 AM

Your question should be "why do people have such a strong fetish for the accoutrements of a school age girl?"

The answer is that youth is attractive on a primal, very basic level. Youth means healthier, more energetic, less prone to disease, more likely to survive to bring a child to term and less likely to die in childbirth. It is an utterly natural thing to be attracted to girls younger than the modern prudes say is reasonable - we have adapted to find the symbols of that kind of mate more attractive. They still must be sexually mature, of course, but younger sexually mature women are generally considered better the world over.

Makeup and cosmetic procedures exist to cover up the blemishes of aging, and only in particular regions do girls try to make themselves look older than they are. Those regions are pretty much exclusively the ones that provide significant incentives to never get caught up in a relationship with a girl younger than a particular age.

The accoutrements of a school aged girl, where they are universal enough, are highly visible symbols of youth. It is only natural that people fetishise that. The fetishisation itself is easy, since you only see the uniforms outside of the context of a school age girl in the circumstances where it is being used deliberately as part of the fetish. Half of porn is self-deception, so one more lie about the age of the participants of the frankly ridiculously unnatural act you are seeing on screen is unlikely to be the straw that broke the camels back.

Where Japan has the sailor uniform, Britain has young women in skirts, shirts and ties ("back to school" nights were making the rounds in clubs a few years ago, at the very least), America has College Coeds and Catholic Schoolgirls. If I knew more about the French I'd give you their equivalent.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 7 2009, 01:25 PM

I suppose now is the proper time to link to the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA1iofeM_6k…

~J

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Nov 7 2009, 03:22 PM

Some hobby. Most of the ero-manga I found on the internet makes me feel as though I've been anally violated by Sigmund Freud. Usually I also don't "like" the art style since many of those artists seem pre-occupied with drawing boobs the size of watermelons.

Posted by: ravensmuse Nov 7 2009, 03:34 PM

This is funny, because just yesterday I was in a comic book shop and found President Evil: 100 Days Later, whose main character is Obama with a katana fighting evil zombified versions of Octomom, Michael Jackson, Kate Goeslin...

So yeah. We're just as weird as anyone else.

Of course, my favorite weird at the moment was that manga awhile back that depicted America as a generously endowed blonde, blue eyed woman in a USA flag bikini roping up evil nazis. I mean, hello?

Posted by: hobgoblin Nov 7 2009, 04:15 PM

heh, check out the american pilot in strike witches some time

basically, if she is american, she is probably a highly front loaded, airhead blonde...

i think i know the series in question btw, but the name escapes me. It basically about characters representing nations, with all the classical stereotypical traits that come with that...

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 7 2009, 05:05 PM

There are some styles that are common and tend to collect in certain anthologies; ridiculously massive breasts is one such style. I also don't generally see much in that one, but it's just popular, not an overwhelming majority or anything.

~J

Posted by: Stahlseele Nov 7 2009, 06:04 PM

Viva Freedom?
Please don't ask how i know about such things.

Posted by: ravensmuse Nov 7 2009, 07:52 PM

You could also be talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetalia:_Axis_Powers which is a representation of all of the nations in the WWI era. A (young) friend of mine is obsessed with it and I'd never heard of it until her.

And then of course, you have that Transformers thing with the young women...

Posted by: Stahlseele Nov 7 2009, 08:34 PM

Kiss Players . . Megatron is a dirty old man with a tentacoo wape tongue . .

Posted by: WyldKnight Nov 7 2009, 10:27 PM

Lol, I can only imagine and I have only 2 words for why japan freaks me the hell out.

Rape Simulator.

They could make the cure for bloody cancer and I would still say "YOU MADE A GAME ABOUT RAPING 15 YEAR OLDS!" Least any terrible things America has done can be justified with "Were a country of mostly bible tards, kinda hard not to commit a crime against humanity."

Quick note there is a different between a Christian and a bible tard. A real Christian will basically leave you alone even if they don't agree because that is literally what it says to do the others....well we've all seen them. No, I am quite sure Jesus would not agree with going to war. Kind of goes against the whole love and peace deal.

Posted by: ravensmuse Nov 7 2009, 10:44 PM

Jesus Wyldknight, way to color color two nations with one giant brush...

There's no real excusing the rape simulators, I'll give you that. It's messed up and - guess what - the majority of the Japanese completely agree with you. Hell, most of the world agrees with you. But there are a lot of really messed up people in the world with some really deviant tastes, and products like that are going to come out. It's sad, but it exists.

To completely disown an entire country because of that is reactionary and kind of messed up in itself. Study some of the things I have while doing research for some of my DDH articles - Japanese fashion, the arts, their sports, literature, culture - and realize that they're a bunch of really interesting people with some idiosyncratic tendencies stemming from the fact that they were raised in a tradition far, far different from most of the West. I think it's that difference that makes them the most interesting to me.

And then to claim that America is full of "bible tards?" and say that nothing we've done is in any way compared to the small, tiny really, niche of rape simulations? That's messed up duder.

I mean, I can laugh about a lot of the weirder things that have slipped out over the ocean, but I don't find them disgusting for what some small sector of their culture emulates. For me, the good far, far outweighs the weird shit that comes out of there.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 7 2009, 11:38 PM

Let me give a shot: "no victim".

How's that?

(The content of your point stands.)

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 8 2009, 02:56 AM

Update on progress: I've been kidnapped by the president of Russia and deceitfully convinced her that I can't seriously consider her offer of marriage until we know each other better. This despite having opened the game being (rightly) accused of sexual harassment by a random Snow House staff member.

The main character is, what with the brainwashing-not-working thing, the only one who finds it odd that Japan (actually Niipon, 新本) is now ruled by a President from a not-subtle-at-all copy of the White House.

Further updates as events warrant.

~J

Posted by: ravensmuse Nov 8 2009, 04:31 AM

Yes please, keep with the updates. It's a real shame we don't get some of the more "interesting" games over here.

Ehhh, still feel kinda iffy on that point. But it's a minor point.

Posted by: hobgoblin Nov 8 2009, 10:01 AM

well there is always the question if it reinforces the idea or takes away the drive to do the real thing...

but then thats one of the areas you can really research without pissing of maybe half the planet...

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Nov 8 2009, 10:51 PM

Well, there's certainly rape-themed porn from the US. ZOMG THE WHOLE US IS EVIL.

Also, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that if someone makes a game of something, it means the people who play the game must take on some burden of guilt. Does that mean I'm a mass murderer for playing Soldier of Fortune II? If someone plays Fallout 3 and does the slaver missions does that mean they are now philosophically guilty of slavery on some level?

Once I saw a kid playing the X Box version of Rainbow Six 3 and he executed the terrorists who were trying to surrender. Oh my god he's a little war criminal!

This is the kind of logic that had dumbasses claim that Doom caused Columbine, etc.

Posted by: pbangarth Nov 8 2009, 10:54 PM

Well, the old Catholic Church would have said yes, for the thought anyway, but you could get absolved of the sin through confession. Don't know the dogma these days. It does hinge on the basic question: To what degree can one enjoy an activity without taking on the taint of that activity?

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Nov 8 2009, 10:57 PM

Life is too short to torment yourself with guilt for purely abstract reasons. I don't think anything "counts" unless you actually do it.

Likewise if you sit around with good intentions but you don't actually go out and do anything that doesn't count either.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 8 2009, 11:33 PM

So after a failed attempt at lecherousness with the president of Russia, I tried to start a getting-to-know-you chat with her.

Her first question is what my plans are with regard to humanitarian aid in East Asia.

Now I've offended her by talking about Borscht.

No! The brainwashing didn't work on her! She knows I'm a fake! IT'S ALL OVER FOR ME!

Edit: speaking of it being all over for me, the alien called the president of Russia "cow-tits" ("udder-tits"? "cow-breasts"? However that's best translated). I can't see this ending well.

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 8 2009, 11:47 PM

I take it back. The alien used the excuse of examining the president of Russia to take compromising pictures of her. This is ending very well indeed

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 9 2009, 01:12 AM

"Don't worry. Even I only have a little of the courage needed to sexually harass a VIP."

"A little?"

Some stats: I've played for a few hours now (keeping in mind that my Japanese reading speed is painfully slow) and have made one decision. This decision got me killed, though the game kept on going.

~J

Posted by: nezumi Nov 9 2009, 02:50 PM

Okay, I watched the video and didn't think the series looked very promising. But now I'm understanding this is a game? Not an anime? And, dare I ask (I dare not google search it), what is an eroge? Is it what it sounds like?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 9 2009, 02:57 PM

It is a game, yes, and it is indeed what it sounds like—the underlying goal of the game is to engage in graphically-depicted nookie with the female leads (and sometimes second-tier characters). There are different kinds of eroge, but this is of the Visual Novel variety, meaning that it's a strange hybrid of a romance novel, a choose-your-own-adventure book, and porn.

~J

Posted by: ravensmuse Nov 9 2009, 05:35 PM

Nezumi:

A good way to understand what an eroge is like is to find the anime Excel Saga and watch the fourth or fifth episode (the school yard episode). It'll give you the basics.

I mean, I can't reccomend him Air or anything, don't want the boy to murder himself.

Posted by: Phatom Nov 26 2009, 02:17 PM

To bad he's not posting more on what he is doing. I'm lucky on that front tho I see he has yet to post about the food cook off and the exploding food but I'm sure he well get around to doing that soon.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 26 2009, 02:25 PM

"Eat up!"

"…What is that?"

"Just rolled omlette (tamagoyaki)."

"…Why does it have a censor mosaic?"

~J

Posted by: hobgoblin Nov 26 2009, 07:05 PM

heh, 4th wall, what 4th wall?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 26 2009, 08:07 PM

In addition to the fourth-wall-breaking, they have ambiguous-not-quite-fourth-wall-breaking because there's a secondary male character who advises the main character, but who is depicted as constantly playing (other) eroge and viewing the world and consequently giving advice from the perspective of someone in an eroge.

It is thus far unclear to what degree his advice actually applies (for example, in the eroge the secondary character is playing, he mentions that he has to get his relationship meter with all of the girls up to at least a certain point to be able to get funky with any of them; it's not clear yet if that's intended to hint something, or just a red herring).

~J

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Nov 27 2009, 04:14 AM

Apparently if you want sexing with females you must stand before them and freakishly recite details of everything they ever told you about themselves. If you get enough details right you do it and if you mix up a few details they shoot you.

Posted by: Stahlseele Nov 27 2009, 02:28 PM

Tell me again how this is so different from how wimen in the real world act?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 27 2009, 02:38 PM

In the real world, you don't get a list to choose from.

~J

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Nov 29 2009, 02:35 AM

From my academic research into the subject, with actual physical women you must have appropriate body language, mannerisms, and appropriate odors. If you stand in front of them in your underwear and smell like armpit they may shun you even if you repeat everything they said a week ago verbatim like you've been memorizing it.

Posted by: pbangarth Nov 30 2009, 05:59 PM

Tell us more! Journal articles?

Posted by: nezumi Nov 30 2009, 06:48 PM

Considering this, I have to wonder if there's also any justification for selling handcuffs/bondage for 'recreational purposes', since handcuffs imply non-consent. Should we say there is no reason for married couples to play bondage together because it is so similar to non-consensual sex, and therefore they shouldn't?

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Dec 1 2009, 12:50 AM

Peer reviewed forum posts from internet masters of erotic romance.

Posted by: Heath Robinson Dec 1 2009, 08:11 AM

Your understanding of the issue conflates the conception of arrest (which is most often non-consensual) with the tools that are used to implement it. People can, and do, have themselves bound consensually, and the consent to being bound has no impact on consent to further acts.

You can do non-consensual things whilst someone is consensually bound, but that doesn't change the fact that you can also do consensual things whilst someone is consensually bound. Now, if you want to claim that we shouldn't permit the sale of handcuffs for recreational purposes because they more easily permit the performance of non-consensual acts then you and I are going to have to just disagree.

You see, I see marriage in a similar light to handcuffs.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 1 2009, 01:55 PM

If it comes down to consent, what's wrong with a 'rape simulator'? Is there a party involved in this simulator who is not consenting?

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 1 2009, 04:27 PM

Yeah, people who don't play THAT sort of game.

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 1 2009, 05:04 PM

Well, because rape simulator kind of drives away prospective customers and doesn't accurately describe a vast genre of video gaming. In many of the ones I've seen, read summaries of, or had people tell me about, consent is garnered a good majority of the time. When they're not, its part of the genre or it's the kind of thing most people wouldn't want anyway.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 1 2009, 05:17 PM

Not quite following.

Nor do Barbie Horse Princess games. You think we shouldn't let people play those either, just because they're less popular?



Consent is garnered from who precisely? The player? He consents because he's playing, and could presumably stop if he wanted. The company? If there's no consent that's not rape, it's theft. The artificial, animated character displayed on the screen, who is a series of lines of computer code? It gets no consent. It's computer code. It cannot possibly give consent, any more than a rock or my car can. So who are you talking about?

Posted by: Heath Robinson Dec 1 2009, 06:20 PM

Your question was about whether we should ban handcuffs as they imply non-consent. I was merely rebutting that part of your musing. Handcuffs do not necessarily mean non-consent, they do, however, transfer quite a degree of control and choice to another party. That is not, in itself, evil.


My commentary on "rape simulators" will have to wait.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 1 2009, 06:38 PM

It should be noted that, while I'm not deeply familiar with the genre, "rape simulator" seems even less appropriate a monicker for eroge in which the player's avatar is able or encouraged to rape than the terming of first-person shooters as "murder simulator"; I'm not aware of any significant aspect of the experience that is realistically modeled.

Maybe "rape-oriented game" or "rape-oriented eroge"?

~J

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 2 2009, 01:13 PM

Eroge / Dating Simulators is actually a pretty wide genre all by itself, with really no equivalent in the west (well, one could make an argument for video game text rpgs like Zork, but who plays those? ).

I'm talking off of the top of my head here, so people who are more familiar with this genre, please feel free to expand or correct me.

You've got series like the aforementioned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_(visual_novel), whose main focus is on the story and not on gettin' it on with the girls. In fact, later versions of the game and the series edit out most of, if not all, the porn. Same goes with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanon, the game made by the same time prior to Air.

Then there's ones with a lot more focus on teh pornz, like Xchange (which I'm not going to hunt down a link to, because I'm writing this at work and don't feel like having sysadmins jumping all over me) but is really, really frigging silly. Basically, you're a boy turned into a girl, and you get yourself into all sorts of situations in order to change back (or you accept it; http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle5bsrye9z?from=Main.MandysLawOfAnimeGenderBending at work). It's a mixture between consent and no consent, but it's so weird and over the top that you can ignore a lot of the ickier implications.

When I talk about consent in these situations, by the by, I mean consent in-game, between you and the pixels. Yes, it's a weird concept to roll through your head, but as computer AI increases...

And then there's Bible Black and / or Mahou Shojo Ai (I *think* I'm getting that one right, and if you think I'm linking to either of those, you're crazy) which is basically an excuse for porn, weird porn, and oh my god porn. Consent is definitely not involved in these (barring some crazy side hookups, iirc).

As Kage said, this is analogous to the FPS genre here in the west and its wide range of what's out there. There's stuff like Mirror's Edge, which advocate jumping and dodging and avoiding direct conflict, to Halo who's direct, balls on hoo-yah Marine stuff, and the Tom Clancy games, which are a lot more tactical and cerebral. They're all part of the same "genre", but they don't much resemble each other other than they're in first person and you use guns to shoot people in the face.

And before anyone accuses me of being a dirty, perverted otaku, you pick this stuff up if you're familiar with the anime subculture. Air / Kanon got a lot of attention in the west because of Megatokyo, and the other three are rather popular if you're familiar with the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Imageboards.

So...yeah.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 2 2009, 02:42 PM

So what's the complaint?

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 2 2009, 05:26 PM

I gotta tell you, it's noon, I'm still burned out from a concert last night, and I could not for the life of me tell you.

Wanna just shake hands, nod sagely, and walk away? I'm good with it.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 2 2009, 06:55 PM

I don't know, reading about all of the eroge you keep up with, I'm a little nervous about touching your hands

(I tease, of course. Not sure what precisely we're agreeing to, but I'm happy to agree to it.)

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 3 2009, 12:16 PM

I'm not a pervert! I just, uh, hang out on perverted websites! Like this one!

*laughs* like I said, hanging out in general among older anime fans, and you'll eventually come to know about eroges and visual novels. Air / Kanon I learned about through Megatokyo; the other I learned from 4chan (yep, I'll admit I go there). So it's not like I'm some dirty pervert! You just hear about things often enough and you'll eventually pick it up through geek osmosis.

My point is, I think that I misread what you were saying. I think I thought, in my brain addled mind yesterday morning (again: late night, went to a concert, got only three hours of sleep before going into work) that you were tarring the whole of the dating simulators with the "date rape simulators" that someone else posted about, and I tried to defend it using Kage's analogy. Did I do it well? I'm not going to go up and read through that again, because god only knows how terrible it is.

That's why I was just like, screw it, I'll tell him to agree to disagree, and wash my hands of it. And here I am now..

Posted by: nezumi Dec 3 2009, 02:26 PM

Oh, no, I have no problem with dating simulators. I was just wondering why people thought they should somehow be banned as being rape simulators. It didn't make sense to me either.

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 3 2009, 03:14 PM

All right, I see where the issue came from. I interrupted an entirely seperate conversation. You can take my long-winded explanation and stick it underneath the ones where I try to explain to Wyldknight why he's being reactionary.

Anything new to report, Kage?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 3 2009, 08:57 PM

Aside from the fact that the protagonist has discovered that he possesses a power that cannot be restrained by clothing, not really.

I'm spending some time on the game this afternoon, though, so you might get more tidbits later

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 3 2009, 09:22 PM

Curiously enough, it seems to be organized into "episodes", and they replayed the intro movie at the start of the second one. I wonder if it was originally released piece-by-piece or if they're just doing this because they can?

Edit: now the tsundere character (the president of Russia) is calling Yukino tsundere.

(She isn't, not remotely)

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 6 2009, 02:41 AM

"Come to that, Yukino, why are you wearing a nurse's outfit?"

Now the power of the president's song has induced a bunch of orphans and nursing home residents to dance naked around a bonfire.

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 6 2009, 04:17 AM

"There we were, in front of the public, President and Vice President, getting lectured by the president of Russia. This is the world's most embarrassing sight."

~J

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 6 2009, 04:35 AM

Heh, now they have a little break to explain that a President can't propose legislation, and so therefore influences legislation through messages that say (and I translate, roughly) "I'd kinda like things this way, maybe?".

I was aware going into the game, of course, that Japan's government resembles a parliamentary system more than it does the US government (what with a Prime Minister who is a member of the legislature), but it's funny to see little reminders that the figurehead of state being detached from the legislature is not a familiar thing to the target audience.

In other news, I think our protagonist might be getting ready to make a move on the President! They've just retired to her room (to watch anime, as it happens, but who knows where it might end up). Watch this space for updates!

~J