Sunday, May 25, 2014

News Glimpse - May 2014

Well, first and foremost, holiday season is fast arriving, so (obligatory) happy holidays to everyone from us! May this holiday season be a great one (:

Speaking aside, there's one major consequence regarding this holiday season, though : The vast decrease of Genshiken ITB members' activity. For us - Genshiken Story - this is no exception, sadly. Worry not, though - we've compiled several exciting things around in a short glimpse of news. Feel free to take a look!

  • The 'You can (not) paham project' that we mentioned just underwent a major tweak - the project is now currently under chrovide's lead (whose real name is still not possible for us to disclose), has been renamed into Heavy Inversion, and - most importantly - has received a new logo. Although the designer himself, Maulana Mahardika // raika4freedom stated that 'the logo may subject to change', it's still possible for us to share the temporary design, so... yep - here it is:


  • Apparently there are some story-based contents (guest reviews, even) posted on the old, abandoned Genshiken ITB website (most notably this one) - it's still unclear at this point whether we are allowed to re-post the content here or not, though. In the meantime, feel free to toy around the old Genshiken ITB website!
  • The once-delayed Pen-Gen finally came into reality earlier today at SDN Lanuma Husein Sastranegara. How it went in general was more or less similar to the contains of our earlier post (no bombshells or anything), with Bima S. // ntLKM and Lisa S. Onggrid // requiem representing Genshiken ITB on the story post (I was stationed on the movie outpost myself, though, sharing stuffs about digital video editing and else). Here's a sneak peek of how this morning's event went:


    The activities done back then varies with each outpost, but for the story post specifically we did a short Chronicle of Budi-like story (a chain story where each person is only allowed to write two consecutive sentences at max, in this case) and - furthermore - we also asked the children (from Safeducation) to create a short story based on a random sequence of chosen illustrations.

    And, ah, yes! That was a joyful experience to everyone involved. We initially planned to create a full-length article on this, but the assigned commander-in-chief - Yusuf A. // KIRAfollower - asked us personally not to. Several more pictures are available to view on Genshiken ITB's Facebook Page, though - feel free to head there!

Well, yes, that concludes all we wanted to share - nothing major thus far, we can say. All Genshiken ITB divisions are still undergoing a transition between their old and new magistrates though, just for your (probably trivial) information.

Once again, have a joyful holiday from us!

Sunday, May 18, 2014

News : You can (not) paham

Don't feel intimidated (or confused) by the post's title - some great things are meant (not) to be understood, no? Say, for example, this song* - it holds the status as one of the finest neurofunk tune out there we know, yet the lyrics make no sense at all. This one, dear readers, is not an exception.

So, uh, well... Hello! This time we'd like to bring an upcoming project from the Genshiken ITB members to the spotlight, and - as the name suggests - thorough understanding on this project isn't required at all.

Let us start our journey to nowhere with the back-story behind this 'madness', which is an interesting one. The inception of this insanity occurs when one of our prolific member, Dewi Nur Fitri // Xerofit51, posted this picture on our internal Facebook group, captioning 'Genshiken ITB : You can (not) paham' in her post:


In case you're wondering, the picture above depicts the female version of the core male members of Genshiken ITB. Yes, you're reading it correctly - which character represents who is better not to told here, though. In short time, thiis picture is proven phenomenal - it spawned an overwhelming 200 comments in just two hours. Needless to say, the counterpart follows soon enough:


Now here comes the interesting part : As the picture above gained increasing popularity over time, Xerofit51 herself decided to progress further, making a visual novel based on this concept. It's right now a work-in-progress, as the VN itself is currently being developed by a small team consisting of Xerofit51 herself, Mentari Adnin M. // meongngng, Maulana Mahardika // raika4freedom, chrovide (an illustrator who prefers her name not to be disclosed), and myself included.

...no, the best thing is still ahead. Although the 'You can (not) paham' is just being there as a placeholder name, a promotional video and some merchandises (such as exclusive cards and - wait for it - dakimakura) are being planned at the moment. At the moment we write this, the theme song of this project is streamable here, and a sample of the upcoming cards is viewable below:


The storyline is relatively simple - several Genshiken ITB members played a 'forbidden' game in the area of Genshiken ITB's secretariat (Star of Destiny?) which caused the male players to turn into a girl (and vice-versa). The involved players are then desperately looking a way to turn them back as is, by... Well, we don't know how though. The project leader (Xerofit51) hasn't told us how she will continue the storyline, and - frankly speaking - although we managed to peek at the script earlier, we didn't pay our full attention on it.

At this point, a question may pop out from your mind : Is it worth to create a VN based on something seemingly unimportant like this? In our opinion, the answer is simple : Considering for what this VN is made, yes - it's worth. It's very worth. Remember the VN Carat - A Genshiken Story that we reviewed on the blog earlier? Yes, this VN is projected to be an 'introductory VN' for the upcoming Genshiken Staff Training (GST) 2014 event. 

...well - it's against our nature to showcase many pictures like this in one post, we know. But, then again, it's quite rare to see a massively ambitious project like this. Potential, yet possibly too enormous to handle. Had this project ran into succession, we'll be having a meaningful feast for sure.

What can we say about this project so far, though? It's a chaos.

A beautiful chaos.

- Nivalyx

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On a side note : Congratulations to Harris K. Yondi // HRRZ for being chosen as the head of Genshiken ITB for the upcoming 2014-2015 academic season! May this season be laden with positive energy and meaningful one under your lead!

*PS : The original song (which is also worth mentioning) is streamable here

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

GWC : Chocolates!

"Chocolates. Round chocolate. Square chocolate. Dark chocolate. White chocolate. Chocolate cakes. Chocolate bars. Gateau. Coins. Hot chocolate. Not the musical group. This chocolatier sure has a wide selection."

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Yap, yap! Kami hadir kembali dengan membawa konten baru - sebuah cerita yang terinspirasi oleh makanan yang disukai sejuta umat. Coklat!

...tertarik untuk langsung membaca? Tunggu dulu, karena pertama-tama kami akan menyampaikan beberapa berita terkait Genshiken Story. Yah, mungkin foto di bawah ini sudah cukup menggambarkan apa yang ingin kami sampaikan:


Menjelang akhir masa kepengurusannya, Rakaputra P. // Rheine (selaku ketua Genshiken Story periode 2013-2014) mengajak segenap kru Genshiken Story untuk makan-makan bersama seraya mengakrabkan diri antar anggota di restoran Warung Pasta. Sebuah kejutan yang tak terduga memang, mengingat publikasi baru gencar dilaksanakan beberapa jam sebelum acara berlangsung (tambah lagi seluruh biaya yang dikeluarkan ditanggung oleh sang ketua sendiri!)

Acara ini sendiri lebih difokuskan untuk bersenang-senang dan melancarkan regenerasi anggota, mengingat pemegang tahta tertinggi Genshiken Story periode 2014-2015 telah terpilih (yakni Zakaria S. Laksmana // Nivalyx, apabila tidak ada halangan). Topik perbincangan utama kala itu adalah program kerja Genshiken Story dahulu, sekarang, dan akan datang (meskipun topik-topik ringan lainnya seringkali terceletuk oleh anggota-anggota yang hadir)

Oh, dan *kembali ke topik utama* ada yang memesan minuman coklat pada pertemuan ini! Coklat... Err, yah, tanpa panjang lebar lagi, berikut detail teknis terkait cerita pendek ini:

  • Judul : Chocolates
  • Event : Genshiken Writing Challenge XIII (Open Santa)
  • Pengarang : Caesar Adiputra Sutrisna

Penelitian telah membuktikan bahwa coklat dapat menghilangkan stres - semoga cerita berikut ini dapat membawa efek yang sama. Selamat membaca!

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“Welcome!”

A tall, well-looking man greeted me from over the counter. I come closer and take a glance at the store’s display glass.

“What can I help with? Perhaps you would be interested in our…”

Chocolates. Round chocolate. Square chocolate. Dark chocolate. White chocolate. Chocolate cakes. Chocolate bars. Gateau. Coins. Hot chocolate. Not the musical group. This chocolatier sure has a wide selection.

“Why chocolate?”

The man seems confused at the suddenness of the question.

But then his dark chocolatier eyes shone ablaze.

“Now that is an interesting question.”

“Why NOT chocolate?” he replies.

“Did you know that the word chocolate comes from the Aztec language?”

“Chocolate, you see, is a gift from the gods themselves. The Aztecs, they really dug the thing. They drank it, traded it with it, probably even smothered themselves with the stuff. The Europeans then got in on the party and went crazy with the stuff. Probably the reason they drove off the Aztecs in the first place, so they can get their greedy hands on it all to themselves.”

“But not for long, because chocolate is a gift for all mankind. Wars were fought over it, and wars ended because of it.”

“Franz Ferdinand tried keeping all the chocolate to himself. People didn’t like it. Then there’s the thing with Tesla, Elvis, and…” he goes on and on. “…chocolate makes you happy! Chocolate is love! Chocolate is life! It is THE raison d’etre, the salt of the earth, the vivre itself! It’s…”

“The way you’re describing it, I wonder why the whole world hasn’t revolved around it yet.”

“Oh, but it will, soon. That thing called BitCoin?”

“Obsolete. Digital chocolate BiteCoins are the new thing.”

Really.

“Well then, how much will these analog chocolate coins cost me?”

He leans behind the counter and grabs a shovelful of coins and drops it in a paper bag.

“10 dollars.”

I grab my wallet and drop the cash.

“Thank you, come again!”



I step out of the store, chocolate coins in hand.  I’ve seen enough.

“Sheesh. If I had known it was going to be this popular, I should have patented the damn thing.”

“Now I know how Prometheus feels…”

That day, people around the shopping arcade said they witnessed a feathered serpent that rose up to the sky and then disappeared.