There’s been game-based anime (such as Fate/Stay Night, Devil May Cry and even *shudder* Pokemon) floating around for quite a few years now, in what seems to be a bit of a reversal to Western media, where games and such are normally a spin-off from a successful film or TV series.
However, in the last couple of seasons in particular, a plethora of these have hit the screens – especially those based on what are called “visual novels”. I’m not going to go into the reasons why, a friend has already pondered that point quite eloquently here. Visual novels are – to use the simplest description – stories you read on your PC screen, with occasional graphics and a storyline that can follow various paths, depending on how the player responds to various questions. Although there are exceptions to the norm, like the popular (and gory) “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni” murder/mystery series, the majority of those being animated lately are based on what is known as dating sims – where a boy, or boys, meets lots of girls and invariably ends up in the sack with one (or more) of them.
Posted by psygremlin 
I mentioned facefaults in a previous post, which are more likely to be seen in anime and manga, than in Western cartoons. That’s not to say that cartoons don’t have them, but anime seems to have a wider variety and uses them across the board to depict standard emotions / scenes / wotnots – regardless of who the anime is actually made by. So, bearing in mind that I’m really a kind of facts and figures and useless trivia kind of guy, I thought I’ve have a scrounge around and see just how many variations on the theme I could find. (Ok, and it was also a fun excuse to trawl through my collection looking for examples. That’s another reason why this took so long – I’d often end up watching 3 or 4 episodes of something I hadn’t watched for ages…)
Posted by psygremlin 
