Japanese Reading Report: 16 November 2025

ファタモルガーナの館

ファタモルガーナの館

I tried to put a bit more energy back into the game again, so I have a bit more to show for it this week.

I reached the end of Michel's story and reunited with Giselle once again, but we decided that we can't just leave the house as it is - we want to help Morgana out of her situation as well so that everyone can have a happy ending. So now, finally, we are entering the Final Door.

The first surprise about the Final Door is that it actually has choices like you'd expect from a visual novel. Unlike every other door, this one is established as an opportunity to "change Morgana's fate", so there's a greater sense of acting as Michel to alter events from Morgana's past to improve everything. So far I've made two choices that have caused a bad ending, and I've been given about half a dozen others.

I was sort of expecting (hoping maybe) that this door would be a quick and easy resolution for everyone, but it seems like I'll need to put a considerable amount of time into redeeming the three holders of the keys locking Morgana away.

I'm currently in the middle of a flashback for the first key holder, and I expect to get his key shortly after that ends. Maybe I'll finally beat the game this week.

少女革命ウテナ

I finished this series. Overall I really liked it, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in anime. It's an audiovisual delight. It does a great job of pacing, with a lighter tone at the beginning and a gradual shift towards heavier themes later on. There are a tonne of surreal moments, but the story remains grounded right to the end. Basically, it was everything I wanted and more.

There's definitely a lot of homoerotic subtext between Utena and Himemiya, but it's basically the last thing I would have thought to focus on. There's a much more apparent gay romance between Julie and Shiori (one of my favourite relationships), and another great taboo relationship between Nanami and Touga. Utena and Himemiya's relationship really doesn't go beyond "best friends" to me (and yes I'm aware how ironic that sounds to the yuri-loving crowd). I think the more interesting part of their relationship is Utena's breaking of gender expectations, particularly in the last two episodes.

Anyway it was really good. An instant recommendation for classic anime with great music, great animation, and great drama.

「選択肢」の選択史

Not too much of this for the week. The first chapter I read was about a game with an ensemble cast, and Vio discusses how he decided to tell a story without a single "main character". The particular game he helped write, アザナエル (Azanael), is about a magical gun that can grant wishes, so they used a Russian Roulette system to randomly set players down different routes rather than giving the player the decision themselves. It seems like an interesting idea, but I wonder how many players would just reload the game until they got an outcome they wanted. The next chapter was about a spinoff game for Steins;Gate, and to be honest I can't tell what the game is about at all by the description. But there were a few interesting points in the chapter, like how to write for the potential love interests who don't get picked by the player. That's something I've thought about a bit (blog post that sort of touches on it here), and I agree with Vio that a good balance for that situation is just to keep writing those "unchosen" girls into the story in interesting ways so it doesn't feel like they just evaporate when the player knows what they want.

Veil

The second volume was sort of more of the same. It continues to be cute, but didn't really take the story any further. In the afterword I found out that volume 1 and 2 were originally Twitter (or some social media) content collapsed into books. It made me wonder if volume 3 would be more tidied up since it was the first one made after the social media editions, but at a glance that doesn't seem to be the case.

キミと越えて恋になる

Resuming this as I've finished Utena and there was a bit more time to watch things before the week ended. I've finally broken through the content I read in the manga, including the short chapter about Ayano, a girl who always pushed to be number 1 and can't handle Hidaka, a beast person, outranking her. Naturally with his selflessness he and the other members of the hype squad cheer Ayano up and the friend circle grows a bit.

Episode 4 introduced some interesting tension with a clear development of Aida's interest in Asaka. With that, the love triangle has been completely set up. In a way the series feels less like it's about race broadly and more about the specific type of racism that emerges when a "foreigner" excels. Hidaka seems to have an aptitude for everything, so he's "taking" opportunities away from people that they feel like they deserve.