On a mission: Tobitsuki Hime, Tobi D+vine, Naoki Honda, Masashi Yano

(tags game, Windows, doujin, artist, illustrator, music, over-18)

That doujin game Tobitsuki Hime by 01 Step blew me away on three fronts, gameplay, illustration graphics, and music. I still listen to Masashi Yano (矢野雅士) tracks because they are so rockin' up beat. iTunes tells me that I've played the tracks from the OST album an average of 20 times. It's just simply excellent stuff.

It seems I didn't do my homework though. While checking up illustrator Naoki Honda (本田直樹) hanamaru channel site (over-18 tendancies), I started digging up some information about (at least one) previous collaboration between him and Masashi Yano on a commercial 18-only PC shmup called Tobi D+vine (とびでばいん). Not only that, Tobitsuki Hime's stylings are seemingly grounded from Tobi D+vine. This is the point when I went crazy. WTF?! I missed this 2001 PC shmup?! Why? It's ironic that these two artists first worked on a commercial offering, then worked together on a doujin "successor". Just swap the programmers out, huh.

And what's this, it comes with an original soundtrack for two previous Abogado Powers games Shuumatsu no Sugoshikata (終末の過ごし方) and D+VINE[LUV] with music from Masashi Yano!?! Now this is the point where I was fit to be tied. Gotta have it, gotta have it.

I had to verify most information on the official homepage. Wow, look at all the goodies. Honda illustrations FTW! Actually I got the impression that this was a all-ages PC game, since none of the pages seemed 18-older. But I overlooked the biggest clue: panty shot on the package itself. I must be desensitized to these things.

I then looked on the Yahoo Auctions to see the price and rarity. At the time, there was two TC cards out for less than 1000 yen used individually and a used first edition PC version, no picture. Hm, about 3000 yen with the OST CD. Great.

I kinda have given up on Kobe stores for anything used. Though Sofmap seems to have their used prices shared between stores, I doubted that I'd find this 2001 PC game. And indeed I didn't. But I did luck out at a mom and pop used game store in Sannomiya Center-gai. So here's the haul, though it's only one package:

We have the PC game package with the front covered. The top left is the Insanity Abogado Powers OST CD. The right is the Tobitsuki Hime OST, which I purchased previously. Notice the logos are stylized the same way. When I looked at the back of the box, there was no doubt that this was an 18-only game. Ha ha. I just ripped the CD for right now, comments on the game later if I ever get to it. As for the music itself, hmm, it doesn't rock out like I want it to, but it's fun.

So illustrator Naoki Honda has had on-off commercial career. But I like his style of drawing with the Tobitsuki Hime. On his home page, he announced that he attended Comic Market 70 with a Tobitsuki Hime full color illustration booklet and stuff he wasn't able to sell out last year, a Tobi D+vine illustration booklet. Wonderful eyes. It seems he changed his drawing style over the years. This is the first thing that made me wish I went to Comic Market 70, since there's no announcement for shop selling (委託販売).

Also music artist Masashi Yano hasn't been idling at all. I checked out his works page and he's been very busy. To top it off, he has background music credits on that new Xbox 360 game, Bullet Witch. Excellent! He's linked up with Super Sweep, and I saw that there's a Tobi D+vine original soundtrack and The Nightmare of Druaga original soundtrack also to his credit. OMG, will I go crazy again? You bettcha!