Monday, March 25, 2024

Caffè Arti e Mestieri

 Strange stuff you find sometimes in thrift shops. There is one such shop pretty close to where I live, and I sometimes wander there to see if they have something of interest (mainly 90s Sperling&Kupfer novels, which I sort of collect). Lo and behold, I find nothing other than a book in Japanese! How did it end up in the heartland of Italy? Pretty interesting story, I must say. 



You see, in what's pretty much the city right next to the one where I live, Reggio Emilia, there is a rather famous restaurant and coffee shop, Caffè Arti e Mestieri. Or, rather, I should say 'there was', as the establishment has been under new management for more than a decade now. I know nothing about this new management, but under the old one Caffè Arti e Mestieri used to be pretty much a fixture of city life, renowned both for its cuisine, and for the many art exhibits that took place in it. 



One thing many do not know (and neither did I) is that the coffeeshop also had an offshoot in... Tokyo. Unfortunately I couldn't find any information about this dining place - I assume that, as often happens in Tokyo, it didn't last more than a few years - but one such product of this parentage was the book I am reviewing today, aptly titled Tasty Italian Cuisine of Caffé Arti e Mestieri. 



Unlike what I usually review, this is not a dōjinshi, and it shows: hardcover, full color (date is 2005), it's really more of a coffee table sort of book. It does contain recipes, but the bulk of the book consists of pretty pictures of tasty- looking italian food with the restaurant's verdant locale as a backdrop. It's pretty much food porn: money shots of polenta, pizza, pasta and various regional cuisine displayed on lush table settings; interspersed by portraits of Alberto and Enzo, Caffè's creators and long-time manager and chef, busy preparing such dishes; and a few simple shots of the emilian countryside.



 A very idealized portrait of Italy (I can tell you, I live there, and it's one of the most polluted places in Europe), but still I had to pick up the item: not only it was cheap, but it reminded me a bit of those 80s and 90s cookbooks that my grandma and mother used to keep handy for when family notes failed them - which didn't happen often, but sometimes it did. Add to it that I've always been a sucker for cool coffee table books, and this rather curious item is now in my collection. Cool stuff. 

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Jessie by John Smith

 So yeah, when I bought this 2016 dōjinshi by John Smith (a circle name, in case you didn't figure that out) I actually wasn't aware of them being sort of a big shot - from their web site and twitter I discover now they also do commercial work, cover art for novels in particular. 



Jessie is a small-sized, full color collection of illustrations ranging from pinups in abstract landscapes, to recreations of realistic scenes that I assume were either photomanipulated, traced or copied from pictures of real life locales. Little matter as, much like Inio Asano (one of my favourite mangaka), John Smith's tract injects new atmosphere in these protorealistic locales -- and, let's face it, with 3d modeling and such it's hardly a practice to scoff at. 



What matters is John Smith's visual style, which I happen to really dig: their wiry, flowery female figures almost seem at times almost created with traditional media (which I don't think is the case?), and reminded me a bit of another dōjin artist I have covered before. Just the right mix of materiality and abstraction. One could argue that the subject matter is the same old bishoujo but, at this point, who cares? I'd argue that, in the context of dōjin art, little girls are the new still life. Just a convenient subject the artist injects their own style into. As I mentioned before, some locales seem to recreate rewal life locales - probably American? the dōjinshi is, as customary, scant with info save for a few contacts. 



All in all a nice little sample of an artist that has seemingly moved to greater things. You can find much more art on their Instagram as well. 

Stay tuned, as the next review will be a double look at some very interesting ephemera...

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

プロニート家を出る by ですそーど

 Having been a NEET for quite a few years myself (before I fixed my life and... who am I kidding, my life is still a lovable mess lol), I always had a soft spot for the NEET character, expecially when it's played for comedy value over the social plague that it actually is, I guess - if you still buy into the 'get rich, find wife / husband, two and a half kids' meme. I don't, but that's neither here nor there.

I am, however, yet again reminded of how little of a weeaboo I am when ですそーど's プロニート家を出る starts dropping names I am only vaguely aware of - I do know Kantai Collection and Love Live are sort of a big deal; but, as you can guess from the topic of this blog, I approach Japanese media from a slightly different angle. I'm certainly nothing like the dōjinshi's protagonist, your average overweight otaku who thinks he's a modern day samurai (and uses samurai Japanese, such a pain to translate) because he's fighting evil... in Kantai Collection. 



Out of the blue he leaves the house, to install himself in the playground just across the street, where his first virtuous action is to help a cute but clueless middle schooler become a Love Live pro. Little he knows that his neo-samurai ideals will land him in hot waters with the girl, her friend, and his own little sister...



I do like comedy manga, especially when it doesn't devolve into the trite 4-koma format (I do like Azumanga a lot though). DeathSword's lines are super rough, and so is the lettering, but this only reinforces the alt-culture jabs delivered at the expenses of popular JP- culture products. The crude visuals are, in the end, functional to the manga's genre and topic. The story is, of course, simple and pretty much your stereotypical 'otaku makes fun of otakus' gag, but I won't hold that against the author - with such a limited number of pages you can only elaborate to a point. 



A fun little comedy dōjinshi, love it or leave it. No intention to oversell it, but I liked it! sadly, doesn't seem like the author has done much since 2014...

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Quake Remix Jam and my first Quake map

It's here - the Quake Remix Jam, featuring my very first Quake map, one of many to come - a somewhat silly rendition of DWANGO5's thekeep2.wad. Enjoy! 



Saturday, January 20, 2024

キドナプキディング 青色サヴァンと戯言遣いの娘 / 黒田何時子と私 by ぱへかへ

 So yeah, shipment from Japan, which was supposed to be here like a month ago - finally arrived, and it managed to dodge customs too! Used to get very lucky with that, then had a very bad streak in which every single order would get taxed. Good to see a return to the good ol' days. 

Pretty decent haul too, as also got a CD (Subarashii Sekai by Eufonius, who happen to be one of my favorite JP bands, scandals or not) and this thing here:



Now, I've heard some pretty dreadful things about this one - mostly, that it's basically a Zaregoto fanfiction tacked on to just sort of milk the main series on its publishing anniversary. Certainly it's been a while since Nisio got me excited at all, so expectations are not very high. I do have to say that I find the very concept of Ii-chan having a daughter rather preposterous, but meh. We'll see.

And here goes the first dōjinshi, and it's a curious one too. You might be familiary with CYOA books: whole series of novels where the text would be cut and scrambled in paragraph, and choices ('if you do this go to page 11, if you do that go to page 12) would create a sort of written visual novel. They used to be all the rage in the 90s, now they're sort of a historical relic of times past but I used to be hooked on stuff like Lone Wolf and GrailQuest.



黒田何時子と私 ("Ichiko Kuroda and me") is a short, 16 pages only, publication by ぱへかへ (circle name of Kazuto Izumi, mostly famous for the manga Binbou Shimai Monogatari, which was also turned into an anime. Here is their Booth in case you have a good proxy). It functions exactly as a CYOA book: every few scenes you are presented with a choice, which sends you to a specific page for a certain finale. 

The story is a super-simple take on the VN trope: you find yourself in the bedroom of your childhood friend / neighbor / love interest Ichiko. Will you wake her up to go to school, or jut let her sleep? make your choice, and go to the appropriate ending, or continuation - where, following different choices, she might play hooky to go to the seaside with you; trick you into drinking habanero coffee (not sure if that's actually a thing) and maybe even show you her pantsu if you really get lucky.



As one can imagine, given the medium and length, the concept is barely scratched: there are only a handful of choices, and no real 'branching' to speak of. Still, I find the idea of a CYOA  dōjinshi really charming, and Izumi's sometimes simple, but clean looking and attractive tract makes this one a pleasant surprise that doesn't overstay its welcome. Good stuff. 

Also, please enjoy my Xmassy tablecloth on the 20th of January. Yay. 

Friday, January 5, 2024

Some Doom and Strife maps

 So yeah, I do make Doom and Doom-adjacent games maps. While still waiting for that bloody dōjinshi shipment stuck in roasting Japanese airport hell, here is a few latest ones:


Strife: Low on Ice

One of those rare Strife mapsets. Requires the latest GZDoom, it's sort of an oddball (really plays more like Doom than Strife itself) but still rather proud of it. Custom OST by me. 




Sewer.wad

Three maps for Doom II, target port is DSDA. Very, very hard stuff - map02 is probably the most difficult map I've ever made. Really stretches a limited selection of IWAD resources. Custom OST by me as well. 



Penelope

A larger, single map all about atmosphere and mood - combat is weird. It's a re-release. Some people really seemed to like it, so you might enjoy it as well. Who knows. MIDI by me. 




Monday, December 25, 2023

Visual novel roundup - some other stuff I've played

 Yup, here it is, a few days later than the blog's 10th anniversary - a small roundup of more VN stuff I played /replayed recently. 


Yume Miru Kusuri

A leftover of the days when I was still subscribed to the Jast USA newsletter, before the company's owner produced a crude, sad joke on one of Italy'd deadliest tragedies. Go you, boy. 

Cringe aside, this is the only visual novel I ever bought from the site, and with good reason. I'm not sure if it's still practice or not, and I have no interest in finding out, but back then you had to log into the site to play. Yup, pseudo-DMR for a visual novel. 

And it's not even that great of a visual novel - or, at the very least, not one that lives up to the hype. Three supposedly thought-provoking, 'today kids' problems' routes that mostly fall flat on their face. Aeka's is a cringe bullying revenge story we've already seen a million times before, and in much better versions; Mizuki's is the usual 'first world problems' fest that really stretched believeability to its extremes; Necoco's catgirl route is still not much but by far the best, as well as the only route that has anything to do with the novel's title. 

Art is good, but dialogue is cringe and the H is the usual, high pitched J-whine I just can't stand. Not reccomended.




Ori, Ochi, Onoe / River Trap

Back in the days when I prowled (strictly as a lurker) LemmaSoft's forums, Mikey and his ATP Projects were a household name, mostly by sheer volume of releases - take a look at their itch.io if you don't believe me. I was an avid, but wary consumer: as you may know by now, I'm a big fan of minimal production values and 'great deeds done with zero funds' projects, so I didn't mind too much that a lot of their projects were very short and very, very barebone: the stories were good, and often tackled stuff other VNs didn't want to bother with - adult problems, established sexual relationships, etc. Still I did feel like a lot of their products could have benefitted more cooking and, after a couple too many duds, I simply didn't bother anymore.

Here are my two favorites of that bygone era. Ori, Ochi, Onoe  is, once you get to the meat of it, a rather far fetched pseudo-magical-realism story that could have sat in The Twilight Zone's lighter episodes; still, its sheer production values go above and beyond most novels of the era, while retaining that indie feel I appreciate. Special mention to ButtercupSaiyan's art and Renesis' music, some of the best I've heard in any VN (finally no fucking piano, thank you). Extra points for characters that bang right from the start, and no threesome route. 

River Trap also has the same Twilight Zone-ish feel to it but, mostly thanks to its simpler, dirtier at style slathered in blue, manages to get a far creepier mood across. This one does feature a threesome, though an appropriately creepy one I can only applaud; the barebone, atmospheric music really gets across that feeling of dread and existential despair the three main characters seem to thrive upon. I once had to make a short film for a college course and, before settling on another idea, I actually did entertain turning this one into a script. Oh well. 





My so-called future girlfriend

Meh. Middling Korean comedy romance about a girl time travelling to rekindle love with her future boyfriend / current unlikeable slob of a man. Seriously, some day VN writers will understand we don't need the protagonist to be the lowest common denominator in order to symphatize with them. Story goes through the motions, art is serviceable but nothing special. A bit overpriced at four bucks, but occasionally it goes on sale so it might be worth a shot. 



Blankspace

This one does actually feature some puzzles / actual gameplay, but I'd still call it a VN at its core. Dude trapped in a mysterious room with a mysterious girl and no way out might sound like a Zero Escape setup, but here the mood is far more relaxed and there are pretty much no horror elements, unless you consider spooooooky ghosts (that the protagonists considers getting it on with) horror. The puzzles are rather simple and not always telegraphed as well as they could, but overall you should have no problems getting to the end of a disappointingly commonplace ending. Shame, production values were nice and the co-protagonist is a true babe. Better luck next time.



Yes, why, I shall help you indeed.


Next shipment from Japan is due in a few days, when we shall be back to regular doujinshi programming. Stay tuned. 


Monday, November 13, 2023

Visual Novel Roundup

 As my interest towards Doom and Warcraft wanes, I have sort of come around to one of my original video game (if you can call them that...) passions: visual novels. 

Out of the loop for a while, I had to do a bit of digging in order to see what was up nowadays when it came to the sort of stuff I like: indie, short, possibly free visual novels, either Japanese or OEL, with that touch of the 'amateurish' (in the best possible way) underground feel I sort of enjoy in... all media, really.

Sadly, it seems like the good ol' days (yes, I'm old) are gone: insani is out of commission for the most part (no substantial updates since 2006 or so, save for a re-upload of their Nscripter, and a very useful dev journal), a lot of the blogs I used to follow are gone for good (as in, they are so gone I can't even provide a link), and the usual soulless conglomerates, even more soulless than I remembered them to be, dominate the news. At least the Lemma Soft forums are still alive and kicking, and one can always fall upon the always up to date VNDB to search for new and upcoming works. 

Then, of course, there is Steam. While certainly not a VN haven (unless you like 3d pig ugly dating simsm no offense to pigs), there are a lot of interesting games to pick up, mostly in English but with the occasional Japanese entry. So, here is what I've been playing (or sometimes, re-playing) lately. I have paid for all of them where possible, and I am skipping a couple things that I haven't finished yet, or were too tiny or disappointing to form an opinion on them.


Clannad

Yup, we start with a replay. I have to say, not as solid as I remembered it to be, overall. Very, very meandering, and the big swathes of slapstick comedy only go so far. Kyou's route is still the best, and really the only one worth playing all the way. A relic of its age, really, love it or leave it. I will reccomend the anime adaptation, however, if you're one of three people who never watched it - it's really, really good.



Planetarian

Even less polished than Clannad and, because of this, with a bit more staying power, at least for me. I mean, by today's production values (I played it right after Yume Miru Kusuri) it could almost pass for an indie work. It really has that early-2000 feel that I cherish, the story is sappy but counterbalanced by a healthy helping of postapocalyptic cynicism, and the beefy UI only adds mostalgia points. 




Katawa Shoujo

Probably the litmus between mainstream and indie, I actually followed this one's development as it happened, so extra nostalgia points. I even have one of the doujinshi the Japanese branch of 4LS published. High production values (though I think it could have done with a bit more homogeneity in the artwork department), great story (again, not all equally well developed, I never really vibed with Rin's and Emi's but no biggie), and a rabid following waiting for them to make a sequel they'll never make. I occasionally pop back into the development forums  just for kicks and to remind me of that one time I did 0 to 10k with Emi. Good ol' salad days. Anyway, reccomended if you haven't played it. 




Voices from the Sea

OELVN by Zeiva Inc., makers of a lot of very solid games I will check out in the future. A very short visual novel about a disgruntled boy and his friendship with... the sea. How literally, you'll find out on your own. The art and colors are just amazing, really hit that aqua laden sweet spot I just love. There are a few oddities: some visual gags feel a bit out of place, but fortunately they are relegated to the extras, so no big deal. Good enough to actually get me to shell a few bucks for the plus version, and I don't do that sort of stuff lightly - I am very, very stingy with gaming money. Great music too. Reccomended.




SeaBed

Also my Steam theme, in case you were wondering (oh, by the way, I am 'thelokk' on Steam, friend me and say hi!). A very well known title in the yuri genre by Paleontology, who apparently made it and then fell off the face of the earth - same old story, really. Plays with time warps, abstract deep dives into the memories and consciousness of the two likeable, relatable co-protagonists, and keeps the yuri tasty and classy. A bit sparse in CGs, but there is a lot of dialogue and it's fairly long too - big bang for the buck, in my book. Available for Switch as a physical release too. Reccomended.




Sounds of her love

The first entry I would reccomend with reservations - there is a part two by makers ds-sans in the works, with much higher production values and a more developed story - so you might want to check this out so as not to fall off the loop, but it's a bit of a hit and miss to be honest. It starts with a very interesting premise - the romance between two half Japanese, half Welsh youngsters living in Japan - but gets sidetracked into the usual teasy, 'can't you just explain yourselves?!?!' shenanigans I have little patience for. The protagonist plays harp, yet she isn't shown once doing so... and so on. It's not bad, just underdeveloped and clearly created on little to no budget. Some very mild ecchi. Still reccomended if on sale, but the main course is yet to come.




Selene - Apoptosis

For some reason, purely horror VNs don't seem to be so popular with OEL developers - most of their indie horror energy seems to be channeled into the lb/Omori format of the adventure game. Selene is the exception, as it deep dives into horror headfirst, both visual and psychological. As you unravel (or maybe really don't...) the mystery of who the mysterious cat (or catgirl?) persecuting the two different narrators is, you will encounter copious amounts of blood, suggestive adult imagery (especially if using the hentai patch), one or two yanderes, and unlock a series of short analog horror-like skits that seem to develop part their own story, part the VN's lore. Highly reccomended.




REFLEXIA (prototype version)

Short meta-piece by mahoumaiden, one of the people behind another batshit insane VN that I still have to complete so will comment upon in a later post. If you've ever wondered what a VN romanceable protagonist thinks of you, this is the novel where you find out. The visuals are astounding, stark and simple yet incredibly effective at conveying the 'let's get to the core of this' attitude of the writing, both funny and terse - maybe a tiiiiny bit dragging towards the end, but not by much. Also very funny, and the short loopy music adds to the atmosphere. Highly reccomended. 




moe era

A Russian visual novel (VNs seem to still be inordinately popular among Russian geeks, just like it was a decade ago) which sports probably the most original story of all those reviewed in this post. The twist is the perfect 'I saw it coming, but actually I didn't' stuff that, as a card carrying mystery fan, I just love. The novel-within-the-novel is hella creepy and, while the themes moe era handles could be considered quite heavy, there is plenty of humor - and, sometime, fanservice - to keep the reader away from eccessive gloom. Excellent production values, Sima best girl. Reccomended.




Missed messages

A millennial would probably argue this one needs trigger warnings, but I happen to think trigger warnings are for frail snowflakes - no one faced stuff by avoiding it, ever. So yeah, just be warned that this novel deals with very heavy topics, although it does so with just the right amount of seriousness and. when appropriate, lightheartendness. You will reconsider how important your hot goth gf is to you. Probably visually the best of anything I'm reviewing today, Angela He's tract has some of that European bande dessinée vibe that I absolutely love. Warrants multiple replays for all of the endings. Highly reccomended. 




Looking up, I see only a ceiling

Not a visual novel in the strictest sense, as you do input to move across environments old adventure-game style and there is a free roam mode after first completion, but you still click through text so whatever. Very charming art style, sort of a lo-fi take on the same pastel-y aesthetic of the previous reviewed work. The story is simple and a bit opaque, but the game is brief enough you don't feel shortchanged. Probably a good pick if you like your games to be something more than window after window of dialogue. Still reccomended.




Kidnapped girl

Ah, don't you love fanmade ero patches too? XD anyway, what's with Russia and edgy protagonists? this one here is a psychopath bent on torturing a classmate... or is he? will he change his mind just in time. Troy Holman's relatively short, charming work is sparse in assets (just a handful of sprites and backgrounds) but gets maximum mileage out of them, helped to this regard by an excellent OST, one of the best I've heard in any indie OELVN. The story starts pretty dark but don't be fooled, even the bad ending is not that bad. Reccomended.




Find love or die trying

Mostly a one-person work by Auden Cho-Wong, and you wouldn't be able to tell -- I wouldn't say production values are quite game studio level, but they get pretty damn close. Loads of CGs and sprites, a variety of backgrounds, fantastic OST and a Hunger-Games-but-it's-love story that actually offers a couple plot twists, rare fare in the genre. Five heroines to 'choose' from.. but do you really get to choose? what's their say in the matter, and what's yours anyway? play to find out. The most developed plot in an indie-ish work I have come across in a while, checks all the boxes. Highly reccomended.




This is it, for now. Next round, I'll review what I still have to finish, and reccomend a couple of very obscure things some 




Wednesday, September 20, 2023

夢想少女 by 宇一 (2019)

 Artbook time! and a very nice one it is, by another far from unknown illustrator - 宇一 (Uiti) can count on more than 100k followers on Twitter , has just published a new, non-dōjin artbook, and is generally one of those illustrators you will often find featured on daily Pixiv collections. They sport an increasingly common visual take on the bishōjo pinup genre, which sets aside the shiny, plastic-like sheen of anime-inspired visuals for a more daring, blocky visual language based around bold colors mutuated from 2000s' vector art. It reminds me a fair bit of Hirotaka Tanaka, in fact.



 夢想少女 (Reverie Girl) is a full color, 18 pages booklet collection of pinups by Uiti, centered around the concept of bautiful girls and daydreams / dreams imagery. Girls dancing with moon and stars, sailing over seas of crystal, bizzarre animals come together to create prime Pixiv material. Uiti's style is one I really dig: extremely clean, at times almost geometric in design, with little interest in backgrounds which are often abstract even when they are the center of the image's theme. There is definitely quite a bit of pop-like Murakami  / Satoshi Kon visual inspiration, although the themes themselves are not a particularly large departure from your typical 'cool anime illustration' floating around the internet. This is all about style, and sometimes that's all you need. 







Tuesday, September 5, 2023

BALMY DAYS by Hiten

 One could say that shoujo illustrations are a dime a dozen in the doujinshi world, and they'd be right - which is why I am saving all the dimes I find, 'cause I simply can't get enough of that. Young, idealized women are the sort of blank canvas subject that can accomodate more or less any art style, which is why they are such a popular subject in my opinion - there will also always be a market for them in Japanese otaku media, which I guess is another reason why the subject is pervasive, and pretty much all you'll find on Pixiv nowadays. Not that I'm complaining...



While I usually focus on smaller, obscure creators, this time around I'll present a doujinshi by someone who has made it big. Hiten is a Taiwanese illustrator who, in the rags-to-riches story so typical of the doujin  world, started out self-published and has now a massive following on all platforms, and a recently (relatively, April 2023) released artbook. It's very easy to see how they could make it so big: they have that super-polished, highly skilled, perhaps slightly generic style that just screams 'light novel cover art' or 'small run elite rice brand packaging'. Not that I know if they did the latter, but they surely did the former, and their art can be found on the cover of generic light dross sorry, I meant hits like Gimai Seikatsu and 三角の距離は限りないゼロ.




What I have here today is a self-published collection from 2022, very short at barely 16 pages but full color, stapled spine but immaculately designed (Hiten hired an external, some Tadano Yukiko, for the job). It features both two-pages spreads, as well as single page pinups with a rough sketch on the opposite page. The subject is invariably, you guessed it, pretty girls in the cool, largely pastel fashion straight out of LARME, though there are a few touches of neon here and there. All rather chaste, we are far removed from fanservice and such, yet the generic beauty of the figures, matched with the graphical skill of Hiten, is certainly the main (the only) attraction point. 

One could argue that the artist's style is as generic as they come: there is little flair or the famous 'oddity in beauty' professed by Edgar Alla Poe - the images as a whole form a sort of Arcadian blob of aurea mediocritas that shows little personality, but an extremely high degree of skill. I'll admit, I like my visual arts a bit more peppered, but that comes down to personal preference. It's visually perfect - in the end, a bit too perfect for my taste I guess.  

Monday, August 7, 2023

"Lost Dungeon" by 一幡 公平 (Ichiman Kohei) (2010l

 While I have never engaged more than a modicum in urban archaeology or ruins exploration (though one of such few times was also the only time in my life I was given a tour of a police station...) I have always been an armchair fan those who dauntlessly explore long-forgotten locales of human history, now returned to nature. There are, of course, degrees of craziness to it: while I enjoy stuff like Insiders Project, I also don't mind those who take a softer approach to the field, fully remaining within the legitimacy of law.


I have reviewed in the past a dōjin publication by Ichiman Kohei, released through their dōjin circle ヘリオトロープ (Heliotrope), though a somewhat unusual one, as it didn't focus on urban / modern ruins, but rather on moody traditional Japan alleys.  This time, however, we have a collection of photographs that squarely focuses on one of the many subcultural interests of Japan's otakuness: military history and, by adjacency, military ruins. 



Tomogashima Island, today a very popular natural park attracting both domestic and foreign tourism, is best known for its Meiji- era military fortifications, now entirely abandoned. The cannon batteries are, apparently, particularly well preserved, and the only example of their kind in all of Japan. I go by reading and hearsay, as I've never been to Tomogashima personally.




Ichiman offers, in a A5-sized, full color, 16 pages booklet an overview of their photographic exploration of the fortifications, all according to the typical style of Heliotrope: little historical insight, but a lot of very pleasing eye candy. Far from documentary exactness, all pictures are heavily edited, saturated and tinkered with, so as to turn the rather prosaic historical ruins into a sort of otherworldly, fairy-like kingdom where Ghibli characters wouldn't feel out of place (as a side note, I wish there was more scholarship studying the undeniable link between Miyazaki and his interest in history and war). Through a Hamilton-style, slightly out of focus lens, the brick batteries and barbicans take a sort of magical appearance, something out of a daydream. 

Sadly, seems like Ichiman has fallen off the radar (or changed pen name) a while ago, so all I can leave you with is a dormant blog and the usual secondhand links, should you want to get your hands on some of their stuff - which, by the way, seems to be rather rare and coveted, judging from prices.  

Caffè Arti e Mestieri

 Strange stuff you find sometimes in thrift shops. There is one such shop pretty close to where I live, and I sometimes wander there to see ...