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Love Nikki 10th Anniversary Hell Design Review/Discussion

Since it's the 10th anniversary of Love Nikki’s Chinese server today, I thought I'd look at the new hell’s suits and review them! The suits are all based on people and places from the game’s main story, so the character/place names will be in brackets after the suit names. Also, credits to the official Love Nikki Discord for name translations!

Note that I'll only be looking at the hell suit designs, not their prices, breakdowns, etc. I'm also not looking at anything 10th-anniversary-related outside of the hell for simplicity's sake as well.

Spoiler warning for volume 1, once again these suits are based around people and places from the story so they contain some pretty major spoilers.

This took me a while, so please check it out below.

Ballad of Lingering Clouds (Wheat Fields, Apple Federation - Bobo)

This suit is based on the Wheat Fields in Apple Federation, where Nikki first arrived in Miraland and met Bobo for the first time. Obviously this design goes all-in on the "wheat field" part, with wheat and floral motifs all over the dress, headwear, and umbrella, but I absolutely love that about it. In my opinion it manages to capture such a nostalgic and pure feeling with its various shades of dull yellow and cream. I also love what they did with the people made of clouds in the background, to me it makes it feel like the suit is embarking on a new journey with more to be discovered ahead. All in all this feels very representative of the beginning of Love Nikki and the time in which Nikki and Bobo meet. That being said, I think this suit could do with a few adjustments. The green on the end of her dress and coat feel out of place with the rest of the colour palette to me, being way more vibrant and saturated than anything else in the suit. Though it definitely would have been too monochromatic with the same yellow there as the rest of the suit, I think a brown or even just a less saturated green would have been more fitting with the wheat around her. Also, her singular glove feels strange to me - why is she wearing a ring over her glove? And why is she using a glove but holding an umbrella in her ungloved hand? I think switching the glove's hand or giving her 2 gloves instead would have made much more sense for this outfit.

Overall I'd give Ballad of Lingering Clouds a 7/10, I really like most of it but there are a few elements that feel out of place.

Sea of Neon Dreams (Wintermount, Lilith Kingdom - Yvette)

This suit is based on Wintermount in Lilith Kingdom, and the time Nikki spent at the Designer’s Tea Party with Yvette. This is the point of the story in which Nikki becomes determined to be a good designer, and I think this suit’s numerous design-related motifs capture that nicely. I love the various tape measure, button, and stitching patterns throughout, plus her expression and background ornaments really capture a sense of wonder around designing. The little heart details on the dress and headwear are also very cute. However, the colours here are an absolute mess. The reddish-purple of the gloves does not work with the bluish-purple of the dress at all, and the dress barely even works by itself either. Having such dark purples touching these very light pinks is such a strange choice, and it throws off the entire outfit for me. I think this suit would have been much more aesthetically pleasing if they had chosen pink OR purple, rather than using both in various places.

This suit could have been really nice, but the extremely messy colour scheme really brings it down. Overall I'd give Sea of Neon Dreams a 6/10.

Sound of Heaven-Shaking Tail (Cloud City, Cloud Empire - Lunar)

This suit is based on Cloud City in Cloud Empire, and the moment of Lunar's death (rest in peace you will live forever in our hearts and my Dreamweaver menu). We've gotten quite a few Lunar suits post-death at this point, but I think this one does a really good job at capturing that moment. The giant bolts of lightning and strong lines throughout the suit do a great job of representing the pain and anguish of the moment. I also love the use of Lunar's main motif, a blue phoenix, as a giant bird behind her which in my opinion manages to capture such subtle but strong sorrow in its expression. Personally, I am not a huge fan of the yellow-blue combination they used here, but the large contrast between them definitely manages to give a very dramatic impression of the moment it represents. The detailing across the outfit is also very impressive. I love the wing/feather details throughout the headwear and dress - this alongside its gracefully flowing fabric almost makes it feel like the suit itself is a phoenix as well.

Outside of the colour scheme, I don't see many ways in which this one could be improved. It is a highly detailed outfit with a lot of thought put into its presentation, so I’d give Sound of Heaven-Shaking Tail a 9/10.

Recollection of Skies and Rose (Oren City, Pigeon Kingdom - Ace)

This suit is based on Nikki’s time in Pigeon Kingdom with Ace. To be honest, I'm less familiar with this part of the story than the others, so I have less to say here about its relation to the events and character it's based around. However, I absolutely love this suit's design. Being a primarily white outfit, it's easy for it to appear washed out or bland. However, the small pops of purple along the dress’s hemline as well as the green corset and colourful headwear really make this suit shine for me. The colour scheme as a whole feels very fresh and light, reminiscent of an early spring morning. The hairstyle also feels perfect for an upper-class Pigeon lady, and the accessories are all gorgeous. The one critique I have is about the suit’s perspective, it looks like we have a bird's-eye view of her directly on top of a pond, but she is also sitting on the edge of a flowerbed which feels a little strange.

Despite not really knowing the lore significance of this suit, I’d have to give Recollection of Skies and Rose a 9/10 as well. I absolutely love this outfit as a whole, it's definitely my favourite from this event.

Live2D: Moment of Blooming Miracles (Nikki)

This suit is based around Nikki herself, showing herself through the years (with the suit animations including child and teenager versions of Nikki). I'm glad they included Nikki in this hell, considering she's the main character and all, and the base outfit here is really cute. The shades of pink they chose feel like a perfect representation of Nikki and the little scribbles around her are adorable. I absolutely love the dress and its gradual shift from white to pink, it feels simplistic but very elegant in my opinion. However, I think this suit's Live2D animations are fairly disappointing. While I appreciate the idea of having younger versions of Nikki included in the suit, their appearances here feel out of place, especially since these 2 younger versions of her don't exist in Love Nikki’s story at all. The suits used for these sprites are also not very notable in Love Nikki’s history, being a children's day event and a free login suit, and don't really fit with the original Live2D’s colour palette. I think it would have been more effective to use Nikki’s numerous story and hell sprite outfits instead, all of which are also pink, achieving a similar effect with more relevance to the game and a more suitable colour palette for this outfit.

If this was a free, non-animated suit I'd be extremely happy with it. However, because of its place as a Live2D with disappointing animations, I'd give Moment of Blooming Miracles a 7/10.

Minor suits (Ruin Island, Ruin; Ash City, North; Wind Valley Forest, Wasteland)

Since these are minor suits I have a lot less to say about them individually, so I've put them together here instead. It's definitely disappointing that these 3 nations got sidelined as usual, but I understand that they're less important to the plot so they didn't want to use them in place of the other 4 nations.

I love the Ruin suit’s colours and the magnet theming is pretty cute, I especially love the shape of the hair. The recolour is a little bland being fully black and white, but I appreciate that it's very different from the original and not just yellow or purple like most other ruin suits. I'd give the Ruin minor suit a 7/10.

The North suit feels very generic to me, I feel that a lot of North Kingdom outfits are very similar to this one. I do really like the top’s shape though, the lower part that drapes down to below the waist is especially nice with the red on its inside adding some much-needed colour to an otherwise very monochromatic outfit. I do find the recolour a lot more compelling, but it still feels fairly generic to me. I'd give the North minor suit a 6/10.

I really like the wasteland suit’s original colour scheme, it feels very fresh and reminiscent of something like a watermelon. The dress hem has some really nice details as well. However, the fur at the top of the dress feels severely out of place, with the rest of the suit comparatively being very flowy and light. Moreover, I fear that (like many other Wasteland suits in this game) it may be misrepresentative of its source culture, using a dream catcher at the suit’s waistline. I could be wrong about this so feel free to correct me if you are more well-informed about Native American culture, but after minor research of the culture dreamcatchers originated from this suit does not seem to be inspired by their people at all. To me this makes the dreamcatcher seems more like a generic “ethnic” motif rather than being something properly researched and considered together. I'm also not much of a fan of the recolour, its earthy palette is very unoriginal and generic for Wasteland suits. I'd give the Wasteland minor suit a 5/10.

Conclusion

Overall, this hell is quite mixed for me. I absolutely love Sound of Heaven-Shaking Tail and Recollection of Skies and Rose, but the other 2 major suits, the Live2D suit, and the 3 minor suits all have a few issues each. Nevertheless, I am very glad they made the 10th anniversary event so heavily based on Love Nikki's storyline, it feels nostalgic and it's nice to see moments of the main story represented in such large-scale suits. As a whole I think I'd have to give this hell a 7/10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts in a reblog or comment! I'd love to see everyone else's opinions on this event.

[danc12321]

Tried to post a giant review and it's failed twice now WHY WON'T IT WORK

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Happy birthday to... This guy... I guess

At least he gave us this banger

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Dump of some stylings I've made in Love Nikki recently because I feel like it

[danc12321]

PinocchioP is my favourite but I like a lot of other Vocaloid songs as well. I think mainly I like songs that are pretty heavily electric and/or close to j-pop? As well as the kinda slow depressing ones e.g. Hello/How Are You. I prefer ones where the vocaloids sound robotic and are used in an interesting way over the ones that try to make them sound more realistic though - if I wanted to listen to a realistic human singer voice I could just put on a non-Vocaloid song lol I don't really get it

Okay, extending another question to the pjsk community about their music taste again.

What’s your taste in Vocaloid specifically?

To give an example, mine is mostly Azari, Maretu and Shimon with like, Syudou and Maiki-P thrown in there. That genre of high energy vocaloid (with exceptions).

[danc12321]

Carnation Recollection Event and Card Analysis

I'm gonna do some analysis on my favourite Project Sekai events and you can't stop me.

First up is Carnation Recollection. This was the first event I saw when I started playing Project Sekai, and I've always loved Kanadetomosusora, so it already had a soft spot in my heart - but I think it has some interesting meaning behind it too.

Spoiler warning for Carnation Recollection since obviously you can't analyse something without talking about its plot. I'm going to recap the story below as well, so if you haven't read it in a while or don't care about it being spoiled it'll be there for you! I definitely recommend reading or re-reading the event though, my analysis references specific points that would have bloated the recap so you may be missing context if you haven't actually read the event (plus chapters 6 and 8 are amazing and never fail to make me cry).

I wrote a lot so please check it out below.

Story

Recap

Carnation Recollection begins with Kanade trying to make a new song that resonates with Mafuyu. After multiple failed attempts, the newly-created Nightcord Luka suggests that Kanade needs to consider what she's trying to make Mafuyu feel with her music or it will lead her further into darkness. As Kanade struggles to find what her music's intentions are, she visits her comatose father, which only causes her mind's fixation on desperately trying to save Mafuyu to worsen. On her way home, Kanade happens to meet with Mizuki, who impulsively takes her to a few different locations for song inspiration. At these locations, Kanade begins to be reminded of things from her childhood - a music box her father made, carnations her mother loved, and a memory of when they visited a field of carnations as a family. Mizuki sees how much these things mean to Kanade, so they try to help her find the field of carnations she remembers. As they're about to give up hope, the two finally find the carnation field - a small flower patch next to a fountain - and Kanade is able to remember the time she spent with her parents there, the picnic they had together, and the songs her father played to make her mother smile. Once she returns home, Kanade realises that her desire to stop Mafuyu from disappearing only stems from protecting her own mental health, and that what she really wants is for her music to make Mafuyu smile just as her mother did on that day. Finally, Kanade writes a new song considering these feelings, and after sharing it with the rest of the Nightcord group Mafuyu develops a gentle, involuntary smile.

Analysis

Kanade's character is, in essence, all about repression. After her dad went into a coma due to stress, she has become fixated on trying to save him and whoever else she can by making music. Because of the blame she places on herself for her father's situation, as well as the passing of her mother, Kanade has repressed all of her happy childhood memories. Her memories have become painful to think about due to the events that have unfolded since, so she pushes them out of her mind. Instead, she has become obsessed with trying to save people, blocking out any other feelings she has to force herself into desperately creating more and more music. This has led her into an extremely unhealthy mindset where she is unable to think about herself, barely keeping up with meals or sleep, while simultaneously not being able to create music to her best abilities due to her repressed feelings. However, through the course of Carnation Recollection, we see Kanade gradually remember a moment from her childhood, finally expressing the now-painful but pure and joyful memories of her past. As the story progresses, Kanade begins to accept this memory despite the pain it may bring, allowing her to feel a small amount of the relief and happiness she once felt as a child and thus allowing her to create a song that resonates with Mafuyu enough to make her smile.

Cards

Untrained

The 4 untrained cards depict arguably the 4 most important moments of the story - Luka's discussion with Kanade about figuring out her music's purpose; Mizuki's impulsive desire to help Kanade find inspiration; Kanade's rediscovery of a happy childhood memory she had repressed; and finally, Mafuyu's involuntary smile upon hearing Kanade's new song. While there isn't a lot to analyse here since the untrained cards simply depict events as they happened, the specific moments they have chosen to present in this form give some insight into what is most important for this event.

The moment in which Kanade rediscovers the carnation patch is an especially vital instance, triggering her memory of the past and thus giving her a glimpse into her true feelings. Being the main Carnation Recollection graphic, this moment summarises the point of the event - Kanade's rediscovery of a memory from her childhood, and the mixed feelings that come with it.

Trained (and 2-star)

The trained cards, alongside the 2-star card, have very clear motifs relating to Kanade's memories and family. Each card has motifs relating to music boxes, such as the wind-up key on Ena's belt ribbons, music box strip paper underneath Mafuyu and Kanade, and the gears in the backgrounds of all 4 trained cards. On the surface, this represents the music box created by Kanade's father mentioned in the event. However, considering the simplistic, innocent nature of music boxes and their sounds, it can be suggested that this is more representative of Kanade's childhood as a whole. A childhood free of pain and repression, wherein Kanade was happy with simple, joyful, warm melodies because these are what made her and her parents happy.

White carnations are also present within all 5 cards, both as part of the characters' outfits and as petals falling throughout the trained cards. While these represent Kanade's mother and are often symbols of deceased mothers in general, they are also representative of purity, love, and remembrance. These themes are all directly relevant to this event, with Kanade having remembered parts of her past and the purity and love she had felt as a child. White carnations are a greatly important motif to Kanade's character, representing everything she has tried to repress about her past.

Moreover, the trained cards of this event have greatly dynamic and harsh lighting. Luka, for instance, is subdued in darkness, with blindingly bright light peeking through a door behind her. The vocaloids are created out of the main characters' feelings, so while this is a Luka card this bright warm-toned light may instead represent the joy and purity of Kanade's memories, seeping through a wall of repression and slowly filling the cold darkness she has created for herself as she begins to think about her childhood again. This warm light is much more present in Kanade's card, hitting her harshly as she lays on the ground. The harshness in Kanade's card may represent the pain that her memories bring, hurting her to think about due to everything that's happened since - however, her vulnerable sleeping position as well as the subtle smile on her face suggests that she accepts and bears this pain instead of trying to suppress or fight it like she has previously.

Conclusion

All in all, Carnation Recollection is an event about Kanade finally expressing parts of her past again after years of repression. It is about Kanade opening up to her childhood and letting her emotions influence her again after trapping herself in an unhealthy and destructive mindset for so long. Carnation Recollection is the essence of Kanade's character, and the beginning of her journey to healing.

Thanks for reading this giant post, this took ages to write so I hope it was coherent. I don't see many people talk about Kanade as a character outside of her interconnection with Mafuyu, so hopefully this was an interesting perspective to read. Or not. I don't know. But thanks for reading anyway! Feel free to comment/reblog your own thoughts as well

[danc12321]

Miku... Save me Miku... Ouuhhhh.........