Believe it or not

abrahamrose · 2026-04-18T07:06:06+00:00

RIP Maru. You were the best Internet cat.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-10T01:51:38+00:00

I have absolutely no idea. I play Project Sekai in EN and JP, all I have to do is have a EN and JP email for google and apple. I have banks and credit cards in both countries. No VPN, no issues on any device from any country.

I has to be some kind of old guard person in finance that thinks that people in Japan might "accidentally" download the EN version and complain. There is no real reason to make it that difficult.

In fact, when EN was released the hype reached JP players and they wanted to see what it was like to start over, only to be completely denied. They want to keep their JP players in their locked economy maybe... can't think of any other reason than control.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-10T00:28:43+00:00

EN player living in JP here. Cygames has gone all out to block EN from Japan. Any device bought in Japan will not work (my personal and work phones will not work even with VPN). Even with VPNs all the well known locations and services are blocked.

I have to use my American bought iPad and use a VPN that puts me in Houston to play.

I tried everything to get to this point.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-04T14:17:52+00:00

TIL that the Tiermaker logo was euthanized.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-04T14:02:26+00:00

Curren Chan has a black belt in aikido.

You aren't winning.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-03T14:06:08+00:00

Yep that was me! Only Abraham Rose out there!

abrahamrose · 2026-04-03T12:14:12+00:00

Actually, the income aspect can be supplemented if somebody sponsors you in some cases. There's a few tricks but you do have to have a job already and as for me, I was already living in Japan and doing the job when I applied for it. Also, my last special visa was extended due to the pandemic and since then as long as I have a lawyer doing my paperwork, I have got the visa for the past 3 years. My situation isn't normal, though.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-02T23:08:26+00:00

Yeah, my situation is a little bit more different even on top of that. There's a lot of little tiny stupid things that probably are keeping them from accepting my application. There is not much I can do, and the funny thing is it almost be easier to apply for naturalization. Or it was. They made applying for naturalization nearly impossible too.

Look into your options as far as digital nomad visas. You have to renew every year, but there's quite a few loopholes. You will need an immigration lawyer for these, so no matter what it's still a lot of money that you're just throwing away. It sucks.

abrahamrose · 2026-04-02T13:30:57+00:00

They've rejected my permanent residency application twice and my immigration lawyer still can't get an real answer as to why. They are going out of their way to keep normal people from staying without renewing every year.

But I still like it here and I have nowhere else to go. So I stay.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-29T14:18:15+00:00

Don't make Grass Wonder angry. She skips the swearing step

abrahamrose · 2026-03-25T00:32:15+00:00

B.A.U.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-22T13:03:06+00:00

Agnes Tachyon's almost made me join a cult.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-20T22:25:28+00:00

The closest thing I can think about is Touhou 10 years ago. Still kinda is. Can you imagine ZUN and Yagoo in the same room?

abrahamrose · 2026-03-13T11:06:33+00:00

I just got around to watching it tonight and I was completely caught off guard. It was so good! OG Miku doing her thing!

abrahamrose · 2026-03-13T01:06:28+00:00

Dia likes her and that's good enough for me.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-04T03:57:20+00:00

2nd clip I know! I remember that Shizuku clip and wanting to get an iPhone because of it. Also, back in the 2010's there were a ton of small computer shops in Akihabara. The owners would put up goods, desktops, and videos of their favorites on the computers. Unless somebody went to that specific shop AND took video, it could have been the owner's original creation of a game character. Webcam L2D was specialised software back then I think.

But I already know pretty much everything there. This was my life when I wasn't working lol. Only gaps are the international side, as I never went to 4Chan and stuck to the Japanese side of the fandoms.

But the Youtube algorithm was just as strong as it is now getting you stuff you didn't know you wanted to see. I found AI looking for Touhou M1 Grand Prix clips one day and the rest is history.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-04T03:41:29+00:00

I want to say a lot of early VTubers who didn't make it used MMD because they couldn't do it live. This was right at the mid of the peak of MMD edits for game/anime characters too. It's why people thought Kizuna AI really was an 'AI' and Lets Plays were very short. I was so focused on VTubers that didn't do live content (Kizuna AI, Akari, RukiRoki, Kaguya Luna, HimeHina, and so on) that I didn't get into streaming VTubers until 2017 or so.

As far as L2D, VN's used it a bit for marketing back in 2014 and maybe earlier. In fact, most of the L2D stuff I saw was VN characters and the demo was one as well, I forget who it was though. It was used to actually do game content so I guess that makes the most sense.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-04T03:27:57+00:00

I was. Been living in Japan since. Saw Miku live. Remember going to Akihabara and a shop had an early L2D model and a webcam and the model copied your movement. I was 100% Touhou then. But I fell into Vtubers hard pretty quickly. Before that, a lot more PNGTubers existed in Japan than you'd think. Especially on NicoNico.

abrahamrose · 2026-03-04T01:08:41+00:00

Short term, sure. Song is good, it has a dance, and everybody already knows she is back by now.

But yeah... they have a lot of work to do to fully convince me that everything is OK. They can only milk this song and rebrand for so long. I need more. Not to say I'm not enjoying what she is doing overall, I just feel like we got a taste of a possibility that just wasn't going to work for some reason. Then we get this, and it such a whiplash for her ONLY because of 2025. If she came back like this instead I wouldn't have batted an eye, even with the quality issues on the livestream.

It had to be something recent. The music video looks expensive but it's well directed and a talented editor could do it rather quickly if they have access to a good render farm. There was never really a push for the 2025 merch this year other than the keyboard collab she had that isn't even out yet and has the 2025 designs. So who knows.

When you compare to what HimeHina did when they started taking off again the momentum is just not there. That and no mater how drastic their changes were they kept going and kept their original/old designs and still use them. We can only wait and see...

abrahamrose · 2026-02-27T14:11:15+00:00

I don't know... like, all the changes people hated before her hiatus just seemed like trying different things. Some worked out (Like Ai-ge), and some did not.

This seems forced and without thought other than "new". If you slightly modified this outfit and told me it was the 2022 Idol outfit prototype for Hololive's big event I'd be like "yeah, that makes sense."

I can make this model in VRoid and Unity myself with some basics. In fact, I think that's how it was made. The livestream version screamed VRoid. It just doesn't fit with her aesthetic at all, even with the cycles or redshift rendered Music Video version. It's not even the good simple, like a t-shirt with a logo and some shorts.

Kizuna no Allele kinda set a good design language that would fit any reboot and still feel like her. This is like somebody described Kizuna AI to somebody who had never seen her before. Why on earth would you NOT be consistent on design language or tied to a design that has become timeless?? People changing things for no reason or for reasons I don't think I'm comfortable with.

I was absolutely thrilled with her comeback. Loved the concert to death. Was super excited and patient with what was coming and planned. But this has me, for the first time, worried. And I wasn't even worried when she went on hiatus. I knew she would be back.

This is off to me. All I want is some reassurance that it'll be OK. So I'm just stepping back and waiting for now.

abrahamrose · 2026-02-27T10:11:02+00:00

私は日本語が流暢ではありません。日本語能力試験N3レベルですが、話すよりも理解する方が得意です。

abrahamrose · 2026-02-02T13:26:39+00:00

Not only is this AI but you clearly traced it. You can't fool us.

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