Angemedia - a NeoRomance fan community

Hey there, folks; the Brand New Summer event has come and gone, and according to Famitsu and Gamer, Koei released some...extremely broad details about the game:

- It's set two years after the first one
- The Aube Hunters have gathered together into a new manor
- The game is scheduled for release in 2017

And...that's it. There was also a promo image shown of Angelique & Rayne looking at each other, but no one's posted it yet. The official Twitter thinks the new Neoromance credit-card promotion is much more newsworthy. Hey, Koei: you do know what the "promo" in "promo image" means, don't you? Material can't promote something if you keep it hidden under a rock.

Anyhow: I wish that the details leaked were more inspiring. It's very early on, obviously, but "there's a mansion & everything so it's just like the first one except it's two years later" isn't very stirring.

All right, I've gone ahead and made an attempt at an Ange tumblr to give the franchise a presence there.

http://ausanctuaire.tumblr.com

It's covering mostly original Ange with some Neo and Maren on the side. Any suggestions would be welcome. Some issues:

- I'm linking to the page with the original image in the clickthrough and to the main entrance to the artist's webpage in the "by ~" text citation. Good? Bad?

- Also: tags by character name are all lower case, right? It's "lumiale", not "Lumiale"? Or does it even matter? (I'm talking about how I enter the tags; I know their case is displayed differently depending on theme.)

- We discussed the NSFW problems of the "angelique" Tumblr tag in fandramon's SoulCalibur post; any thoughts on that? Should I be using the "neoromance" tag, too?

-What's with Tumblr randomly alphabetizing the tags on some posts, anyway?

- I note that none of the blog posts are showing up on the main Tumblr feed (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/clavis (or whatever)). I assume you have to have a certain number of posts to be picked up?

- It takes a bit of time to get every character represented, and I've made some admitted mistakes in the early going (3 Clavis pics in a near-row at the start). There will be coverage of the folks currently MIA.

- I'm using a minimalist premade theme, but I've come to like the clean look.

- I've reblogged a couple Ange things from tumblrs belonging to folks on the comm; if you'd prefer it'd not be reblogged, just let me know.

- Finally: what's with all the anger on Tumblr? I reblogged somebody's short impression of the original Ange game from their tumblr and added a link to a followup article they'd written, but I made a mistake with the URL (accidentally sent it to their tumblr instead of their blog), and they got huffy and snippy and brought a few friends in to provide backup huffiness and snippiness. Look, I'm sorry I messed up, but Lord Almighty. I lot of what I see on the medium is rage at people who a) like certain characters or games, b) not like certain characters or games, or c) yell at other people for liking or not liking certain characters or games. Usually all at once. Are Tumblrs just too much of a rage magnet to bother with?

Anyhow, needless to say, if anyone has any ideas on things that should be posted - or things that *shouldn't* be posted, let me know.

On another note, in my searching for pics, I found a few good photos of those prototype Neo Angelique dolls that were never produced:

( Under the cut )

I wish that they'd at least produced the Rene, because how adorable is that, really.

Nothing hugely surprising: Victor Wand is a 34-year-old soldier from Germany. Who has access to Botox, apparently. Still voiced by Tachiki.

Also, for the purposes of the game, Germany is located somewhere to the north of the Ukraine.

ETA: Unrelated, but I did come across the other Aube Hunters' sacrea affiliations in my Neo Angelique playthrough. J.D. was told by his late Dragon Tribe friend that he was Green. Hyuga was told by an unnamed somebody that he was Steel, because he liked weapons from an early age. Ummmm. Ummmmm... (He also mentions how steel can always regain its shape no matter how much it is battered and bent, which...oh, Hyuga, why'd you have to go to that aspect of your character?)
Rayne is interested in sacrea purely from a research perspective and mentioned no affiliation with any of them.

The end of Book 3; only one more to go.

( Eugene's backstory this time )

In other news, the Maren site has four new wallpapers and a new Giovanni blog post up - not much, but it's something. There's supposed to be another update late Monday/early Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a small Neo Angelique discovery I made: you know those dolls of Ange, Rayne, and Erenfried that popped up a while back? According to this post, there were originally supposed to be dolls of all 4 Aube Hunters + Rene & Bernard. A pic of the prototype J.D. doll is included in the post.

ETA on Neo Ange: Again, I've been playing around with Neo Ange, and I ran across this conversation with Nyx in asking him about Sacrea:( cut )

So, a) whoever pegged Nyx as Water in that "who's what sacrea in Neo Ange," come get your prize, and b) tease of Mel, or just random Fire Dragon?

Knights later, but two other Ange-related things now:

- Fan artist han-nama has made a Luva-centric fangame (Luva-sama to Issho/Together with Luva-sama) that I can't quite get to run on my comp - and to which I can't directly link, as LJ has apparently upgraded the "no linking"/moderation thing to screening all posts that contain a link, not just all responses to posts. *Sigh.* So, do this: click the "angelique: fanart" tag at the left, and you'll eventually run into a link to han-nama's place. Click on the blue-beige Luva banner when you get there (below the ice-blue Lumi banner). On the new page, scroll down on the right and click where it says "20.6MB" at the bottom of the page to download the game. If anyone can get it running, please post - we have to figure this out by the time Snow Lovers, her Lumiale game, is released!

ETA: As animekittysama noted, my problem is probably unique to my stupid computer; others have reported the game working fine. So: free fan game by a beloved fan artist!

- OK, you might remember that there's been a bit of debate regarding when Neo Angelique takes place in respect to the original series - the past, or the future? Well, I've finally cracked the PSP copy of Neo Ange I've had for so long in order to get it played before Maren, and I've found some strongly implicative information. Early in the game, you'll meet two Knights of the Silver Tree with whom you'll camp for the night while on an extended mission. Around the campfire, one of the knights'll start telling you legends of the Queen:

"Long, long ago, a Queen from a faraway land descended to this world when it was new.
She nurtured this world and developed it into a paradise known as Arcadia.
The queen then blessed this world and returned to her own."

Nothing open-and-shut, of course, but it seems strongly implicative that the Queen spoken of is Collet.

First, a minor bit - have three Neo Angelique song translations from Tasogare no Kishi: Hyuga's "Tsukibae no Yasouka" (OK if a bit flatly repetitive), Nyx's "Hidamari no Pureryuudo" (blah), and J.D.'s "Kimi ga Iru Kono Mune no Rakuen" (utterly heartbreaking if you extrapolate the situation).

Secondly, all this recent spate of activity needs is a Poll of Randomness to be complete. Their undisputed mistress is sadly AWOL, however, so I can only offer an essay question. I got to thinking recently: what qualities define the songs of each character? What makes a Randy song a Randy song, for instance, or a Charlie one a Charlie? Clearly, this matter demands an exhaustive dissertation.

( Below are my thoughts in tiresome detail )