2010
holy shit, pinturillo. i almost forgot about you.
back in 2013, i would sit on skype with my best friend and we would 1v1 on pinturillo. i swear i don't remember it being pinturillo "2" and not just "pinturillo" but my memory of those days is getting more fuzzy as i get older. one thing i do remember? this was when we were DEEP in our minecraft phases, so if we weren't being cringe on wattpad we were being cringe on skype. when i think of pinturillo, i think of the skype groupchat we had. i remember spamming that stupid dancing turkey emoji, and never ever having cams on but sitting in calls for 8 hours anyways. i remember how every single prompt of ours ended up with us forcing our minecraft youtubers in it somehow like dolls, or just drawing each other.
i think we just liked drawing together, and these little guessing games were just a fun way to do that. imagine if those 13 year olds had access to magma or drawpile??? we would have been UNSTOPPABLE. the way we churned out fanfics was a testament to how dedicated we were, i cant imagine giving us access to a collaborative paint tool sai in tandem lmao.
but anyways, i still have screenshots of her pinturillo drawings posted on my old instagram account. maybe i'll call her up for a game sometime.
back in 2013, i would sit on skype with my best friend and we would 1v1 on pinturillo. i swear i don't remember it being pinturillo "2" and not just "pinturillo" but my memory of those days is getting more fuzzy as i get older. one thing i do remember? this was when we were DEEP in our minecraft phases, so if we weren't being cringe on wattpad we were being cringe on skype. when i think of pinturillo, i think of the skype groupchat we had. i remember spamming that stupid dancing turkey emoji, and never ever having cams on but sitting in calls for 8 hours anyways. i remember how every single prompt of ours ended up with us forcing our minecraft youtubers in it somehow like dolls, or just drawing each other.
i think we just liked drawing together, and these little guessing games were just a fun way to do that. imagine if those 13 year olds had access to magma or drawpile??? we would have been UNSTOPPABLE. the way we churned out fanfics was a testament to how dedicated we were, i cant imagine giving us access to a collaborative paint tool sai in tandem lmao.
but anyways, i still have screenshots of her pinturillo drawings posted on my old instagram account. maybe i'll call her up for a game sometime.
okay technically... i didn't play this, and i also don't think is:
a) very fun
b) much of a game in the first place
but im still going to rank it, count it as played, and use it as an excuse to talk about a very special thing that is close to my heart; gambling <3
just joking, kind of. i'm going to use this to talk about pachinko as a whole, but mostly because i have some COMPLICATED feelings on it. i mean really, this game was oddly enough one of the things i was most excited to play for like the past year? some context: i went to japan this summer! wow, crazy, i know. it really was a special trip for me, and i was looking forward to going for literal years (thanks, pandemic, for letting this booked trip sit in the void for 3+ years), and before going, i found out this existed. however, thanks to the fact that this game is from the early 2000s and all the information circulating comes from ONE article that is in japanese, i thought it was a REAL pachinko machine. i knew that my chances were slim since osomatsu is not at all very mainstream in japan, but i was really hoping i'd get to go to a pachinko parlor and play it. not to mention, i am super fucking cringe and i really wanted to play pachinko cause the matsuno sextuplets do it a lot in the anime, lol.
so, after like 2 days of being in japan, we get to kyoto and i spent the evening alone with this guy who would eventually become my boyfriend a week after i go back to the USA, and we decide that we're going to go play pachinko. me, because i wanted to see what all the fuss it was about, and him, because gambling seemed fun and he brought a shit ton of spending money lmao. once we entered the pachinko parlor, i realized a couple things.
1) i could not fucking hear myself think
2) wow, that is a lot of older men. i am so out of my element here
3) while there is anime, osomatsu is DEFINITELY not going to be here
we walked around before picking a random cheap 1 yen a spin machine and it was. ridiculous. the lights were so bright and the noise was overwhelming and giving me insane sensory overload. we sat next to each other, literally less than a foot apart, and still i had trouble hearing his voice when he raised it to talk to me. not to mention there is... no instructions. well, scratch that, there ARE, but they were entirely in japanese. i knew vaguely how this worked (spin slots with metal balls and trade those in for cash) but actually seeing all the dials and the screens and just everything was different entirely. you basically pull a lever that reminds me of pinball and send one of your metal balls zooming across a pachinko board where it'll fall into various holes, and depending on the hole might activate the screen where you will do a slot spin & potentially win money. if you get the screen to light up, the machine does a FUCKING RAVE and blares music loudly. combine this with the hundreds of machines in a tiny, tiny room, it's maddening.
i didn't really win for a while, but i didn't really care. it was a cool experience. my friend did (and a lot) and eventually after a little bit one of the older men who i guess was working the floor realized we were foreigners and entirely lost, so he walked over, hung around, and tried to instruct us on how the machines worked, how to win, etc. with gestures and pointing. it was a cool moment, i don't really know how to describe it. we ended up getting the hang of it, and i tapped out at 1000 yen (something like 7 dollars), but i ended up leaving with 5000 total (like 40ish dollars). it was... honestly kinda boring LOL. it was cool having all the lights going and just experiencing everything go for a bit, but sitting at the machine, holding a single lever down and just spacing out while the metal balls clinked around and played on their own was mind-numbing.
a few days later when we went to another part of japan (i want to say it was in yokohama, but i honestly can't remember), 2 of my other friends who hadn't gone to play pachinko wanted to join my boyfriend and i since we had already done it, so we said sure and went again. i only spent 1000 yen again (and i lost it all), but this pachinko parlor was HUGE. there was like 7 floors, two connected buildings, and probably like a thousand machines on one floor alone. there was re:zero, evangelion, fate/grand order, and loads more anime but... no osomatsu. it was cool to try and play some of the more gimmicky ones, but we got bored and left early. i don't think i even spent all of the 1000 yen i set to gamble with, which all brings me to my point of:
pachinko isn't fun. you only play it if you want to gamble, and even then, i can think of so many more fun ways to do it. so imagine taking away all the lights and the atmosphere of a bustling pachinko parlor with friends, and putting a fake machine that you play alone in your living room in poor quality on a ps2.
yes, you don't lose any money, but it's so pointless. the animations were cute, i admit, and i would have loved playing this machine in person, but playing it at home is just. lame. its somehow more soulless than gambling already is. i guess that isn't the fault of osomatsu-san (well, osomatsu-KUN and not -san), but it still just feels so uninspired. i think the tie-in makes sense considering every other episode has some reference to pachinko, but it's just. sad to sit and watch gameplay of this. i can't imagine spending 40 usd to play pachinko alone at home. i just, don't get it, i guess.
anyways, if you read this, thanks i guess. i hope you enjoyed a look into my japan experience for a few minutes of your life.
a) very fun
b) much of a game in the first place
but im still going to rank it, count it as played, and use it as an excuse to talk about a very special thing that is close to my heart; gambling <3
just joking, kind of. i'm going to use this to talk about pachinko as a whole, but mostly because i have some COMPLICATED feelings on it. i mean really, this game was oddly enough one of the things i was most excited to play for like the past year? some context: i went to japan this summer! wow, crazy, i know. it really was a special trip for me, and i was looking forward to going for literal years (thanks, pandemic, for letting this booked trip sit in the void for 3+ years), and before going, i found out this existed. however, thanks to the fact that this game is from the early 2000s and all the information circulating comes from ONE article that is in japanese, i thought it was a REAL pachinko machine. i knew that my chances were slim since osomatsu is not at all very mainstream in japan, but i was really hoping i'd get to go to a pachinko parlor and play it. not to mention, i am super fucking cringe and i really wanted to play pachinko cause the matsuno sextuplets do it a lot in the anime, lol.
so, after like 2 days of being in japan, we get to kyoto and i spent the evening alone with this guy who would eventually become my boyfriend a week after i go back to the USA, and we decide that we're going to go play pachinko. me, because i wanted to see what all the fuss it was about, and him, because gambling seemed fun and he brought a shit ton of spending money lmao. once we entered the pachinko parlor, i realized a couple things.
1) i could not fucking hear myself think
2) wow, that is a lot of older men. i am so out of my element here
3) while there is anime, osomatsu is DEFINITELY not going to be here
we walked around before picking a random cheap 1 yen a spin machine and it was. ridiculous. the lights were so bright and the noise was overwhelming and giving me insane sensory overload. we sat next to each other, literally less than a foot apart, and still i had trouble hearing his voice when he raised it to talk to me. not to mention there is... no instructions. well, scratch that, there ARE, but they were entirely in japanese. i knew vaguely how this worked (spin slots with metal balls and trade those in for cash) but actually seeing all the dials and the screens and just everything was different entirely. you basically pull a lever that reminds me of pinball and send one of your metal balls zooming across a pachinko board where it'll fall into various holes, and depending on the hole might activate the screen where you will do a slot spin & potentially win money. if you get the screen to light up, the machine does a FUCKING RAVE and blares music loudly. combine this with the hundreds of machines in a tiny, tiny room, it's maddening.
i didn't really win for a while, but i didn't really care. it was a cool experience. my friend did (and a lot) and eventually after a little bit one of the older men who i guess was working the floor realized we were foreigners and entirely lost, so he walked over, hung around, and tried to instruct us on how the machines worked, how to win, etc. with gestures and pointing. it was a cool moment, i don't really know how to describe it. we ended up getting the hang of it, and i tapped out at 1000 yen (something like 7 dollars), but i ended up leaving with 5000 total (like 40ish dollars). it was... honestly kinda boring LOL. it was cool having all the lights going and just experiencing everything go for a bit, but sitting at the machine, holding a single lever down and just spacing out while the metal balls clinked around and played on their own was mind-numbing.
a few days later when we went to another part of japan (i want to say it was in yokohama, but i honestly can't remember), 2 of my other friends who hadn't gone to play pachinko wanted to join my boyfriend and i since we had already done it, so we said sure and went again. i only spent 1000 yen again (and i lost it all), but this pachinko parlor was HUGE. there was like 7 floors, two connected buildings, and probably like a thousand machines on one floor alone. there was re:zero, evangelion, fate/grand order, and loads more anime but... no osomatsu. it was cool to try and play some of the more gimmicky ones, but we got bored and left early. i don't think i even spent all of the 1000 yen i set to gamble with, which all brings me to my point of:
pachinko isn't fun. you only play it if you want to gamble, and even then, i can think of so many more fun ways to do it. so imagine taking away all the lights and the atmosphere of a bustling pachinko parlor with friends, and putting a fake machine that you play alone in your living room in poor quality on a ps2.
yes, you don't lose any money, but it's so pointless. the animations were cute, i admit, and i would have loved playing this machine in person, but playing it at home is just. lame. its somehow more soulless than gambling already is. i guess that isn't the fault of osomatsu-san (well, osomatsu-KUN and not -san), but it still just feels so uninspired. i think the tie-in makes sense considering every other episode has some reference to pachinko, but it's just. sad to sit and watch gameplay of this. i can't imagine spending 40 usd to play pachinko alone at home. i just, don't get it, i guess.
anyways, if you read this, thanks i guess. i hope you enjoyed a look into my japan experience for a few minutes of your life.
okay this is fun but there is one game mode, and like no cool collectables to be collected for playing this one, very simple, game over and over. i mean, it sold for literally 5 dollars on the eshop so i guess what did i expect, but... come onnnnn !!! still kinda fun though. idk how to describe this gameplay. it's like a tile matching game, but in the sense you get a board and swipe to connect chained bubbles that have the same color. when you connect a large chain, releasing pops them and you get points. idk, its kinda fun but its not a crazy moment, i guess.
fuckin love this one as a time waster, but gets a bit stale without any of the cool cosmetics or events that other games like tabimatsu, hkw, or even shimamatsu had. the only gacha element is for essentially screencaps of hkw sets and anime/movie frames, which are admittedly very cute but do nothing to want me to pull or play the game. yes, you get upgrades for collecting, but it's... just a nothingburger in the end. why did they kill hesokuri wars for this instead of making them run parallel?
osomatsu-san matsumatsuri, i'm sorry for giving you 3 stars babygirl but you deserve it... that being said: i love this game. it's so charming, and it holds a special place in my heart alongside all the silly spin-offs that osomatsu-san specifically has had, and i'm SO glad i stumbled across it.
to begin: this game is a collection of minigames based around the shenanigans from season 1. albeit, a little loosely. these minigames are: horse racing, donjara/ponjan (based off the mahjong episode), running chibita's oden stand, whack-a-mole, fishing, sutabaa cafe, surviving a mixer, snowball fight, mr flag sync, and a space game...?
really, its quite an eclectic collection of games.
your goal is to pick one of the loser brothers and raise his popularity/likeability by winning games with him, the more games you win, the more unlockables and affection he will receive. oh, did i not mention the unlockables? we'll get to that... overall, the games are surprisingly pretty fun but the limitation of this game being pretty low budget really shines. i think they work really well, and considering this game was about 20 bucks on release? i'm satisfied with it and i can see myself coming back to this when i have just a little time to kill and want to play on my 3ds. i wanted to go in depth about each game, but there isn't a HUGE amount to say about them, so i'll just give my highlight thoughts.
- the fishing minigame is busted. it is like stupidly hard to play, and i'm not sure if it's just a flaw in me misunderstanding HOW to play it because of the translation barrier, but truthfully i don't think so. i can catch small and mid-sized fish, but the large ones are absolutely impossible. i know this game is old af, but bandai namco please tell the devs to release a patch that will nerf the large fish LMAO
- the oden stand is just a match three but the art for it is so fucking cute lmao i actually really liked this one. its just speed matching. feels great.
- horse racing is so rng, it makes me mad but its perfect for the game it is.
- i dont know who decided to make the hatabou flag minigame a rhythm game but i LOVE YOU! it is so fitting and seeing karamatsu raise his lil flags in sync with hatabou is so funny. thank u.
- the mixer one... i dont understand why they're in those costumes. what is going on over there. i know we're trying to keep the nightmare brothers away from the girls, but why tf is zombie santa ichi here. what is going ON.
- space ?
- snowball minigame is really cute and probably the most fun. just wish it was a little harder or a little faster.
so now that we've discussed THAT, it's time to get to the meat of the game: your rewards for playing. as you win and get more points and subsequently rank up towards more popularity ratings, you unlock different outfits/sprites for the brother you won with, new backgrounds, voice lines, anime cgs, and even voicelines for the brother of your choice. it's... honestly really cute. a lot of these are just ripped from other spinoffs or promo artwork, but the variety and sheer amount of artwork in here is kind of ridiculous. it's all surprisingly high quality and really fucking cute!! there are a LOT of unlockables, 48 voicelines, sprites, and backgrounds PER sextuplet, which is more than i had expected to begin with.
the artwork (and music, tbh) are really fucking good in this game. while there is some recycling from the anime, a lot of the assets are completely new, and the amount of detail they put into everything is so unbearably sweet. one of my favorite bits from the 1st season is karamatsu's ungodly glitter pants that he wears when he goes fishing with totty, and they... actually made that his default outfit when you play the fishing game with him ?! the other brothers get their default outfits, but they actually drew something new for kara cause of the episode! granted, its a whole 15 minute segment from an episode and thats what this whole game is based off of, but the fact they drew up new assets for it was surprising and very cool. its easy to have just... not done that and use a screencap instead, but they didn't and you can see where they did similar in other minigames. even the main menu is a cutely animated scene from the opening where they sit around, smiling, and idle around. there is a lot of heart in this game's entire art direction, but i shouldn't be surprised when this is something that has persisted over the years in the osomatsu dev teams.
as further proof of this, this game is... so quirky. there's a whole tab dedicated to 3 silly, non-minigame features: a clock, calculator, and alarm clock ?! both the calculator and alarm clock have 3 skins per brother, with the alarm clock/timer having a different voiceline from the brother of your choice as the sound. its so freaking cute that they did this. as far as i can tell, these are completely new lines. and the clocks have embarrassingly cringe artwork that makes me love them endlessly. have i mentioned how charming this game is????
if it wasn't clear already, i love the direction they took this game. there is so much heart in it, and i really admire that especially when this game was just a miscellaneous collection of one-off minigames meant to capitalize on the success of the first season. my biggest and only gripe, is just how little there is to do. the games are alright, and while i will probably replay this more than i'd like to admit, it's mostly from the charm of this being a series i really love and not for how fun the whack-a-mole game is (insert sarcastic cheering). the lack of games or at least game depth makes unlocking all the cute sprites and voice lines just... impossible. i dont want to set that goal for myself, because it'd be entirely unfun. i wish there was more, ultimately, and i can't suggest someone to buy this, but i am glad this was made. thank god for how wonderful all the osomatsu game devs have been and will continue to be. you can tell with each game that they love this series, and this one isn't an exception.
to begin: this game is a collection of minigames based around the shenanigans from season 1. albeit, a little loosely. these minigames are: horse racing, donjara/ponjan (based off the mahjong episode), running chibita's oden stand, whack-a-mole, fishing, sutabaa cafe, surviving a mixer, snowball fight, mr flag sync, and a space game...?
really, its quite an eclectic collection of games.
your goal is to pick one of the loser brothers and raise his popularity/likeability by winning games with him, the more games you win, the more unlockables and affection he will receive. oh, did i not mention the unlockables? we'll get to that... overall, the games are surprisingly pretty fun but the limitation of this game being pretty low budget really shines. i think they work really well, and considering this game was about 20 bucks on release? i'm satisfied with it and i can see myself coming back to this when i have just a little time to kill and want to play on my 3ds. i wanted to go in depth about each game, but there isn't a HUGE amount to say about them, so i'll just give my highlight thoughts.
- the fishing minigame is busted. it is like stupidly hard to play, and i'm not sure if it's just a flaw in me misunderstanding HOW to play it because of the translation barrier, but truthfully i don't think so. i can catch small and mid-sized fish, but the large ones are absolutely impossible. i know this game is old af, but bandai namco please tell the devs to release a patch that will nerf the large fish LMAO
- the oden stand is just a match three but the art for it is so fucking cute lmao i actually really liked this one. its just speed matching. feels great.
- horse racing is so rng, it makes me mad but its perfect for the game it is.
- i dont know who decided to make the hatabou flag minigame a rhythm game but i LOVE YOU! it is so fitting and seeing karamatsu raise his lil flags in sync with hatabou is so funny. thank u.
- the mixer one... i dont understand why they're in those costumes. what is going on over there. i know we're trying to keep the nightmare brothers away from the girls, but why tf is zombie santa ichi here. what is going ON.
- space ?
- snowball minigame is really cute and probably the most fun. just wish it was a little harder or a little faster.
so now that we've discussed THAT, it's time to get to the meat of the game: your rewards for playing. as you win and get more points and subsequently rank up towards more popularity ratings, you unlock different outfits/sprites for the brother you won with, new backgrounds, voice lines, anime cgs, and even voicelines for the brother of your choice. it's... honestly really cute. a lot of these are just ripped from other spinoffs or promo artwork, but the variety and sheer amount of artwork in here is kind of ridiculous. it's all surprisingly high quality and really fucking cute!! there are a LOT of unlockables, 48 voicelines, sprites, and backgrounds PER sextuplet, which is more than i had expected to begin with.
the artwork (and music, tbh) are really fucking good in this game. while there is some recycling from the anime, a lot of the assets are completely new, and the amount of detail they put into everything is so unbearably sweet. one of my favorite bits from the 1st season is karamatsu's ungodly glitter pants that he wears when he goes fishing with totty, and they... actually made that his default outfit when you play the fishing game with him ?! the other brothers get their default outfits, but they actually drew something new for kara cause of the episode! granted, its a whole 15 minute segment from an episode and thats what this whole game is based off of, but the fact they drew up new assets for it was surprising and very cool. its easy to have just... not done that and use a screencap instead, but they didn't and you can see where they did similar in other minigames. even the main menu is a cutely animated scene from the opening where they sit around, smiling, and idle around. there is a lot of heart in this game's entire art direction, but i shouldn't be surprised when this is something that has persisted over the years in the osomatsu dev teams.
as further proof of this, this game is... so quirky. there's a whole tab dedicated to 3 silly, non-minigame features: a clock, calculator, and alarm clock ?! both the calculator and alarm clock have 3 skins per brother, with the alarm clock/timer having a different voiceline from the brother of your choice as the sound. its so freaking cute that they did this. as far as i can tell, these are completely new lines. and the clocks have embarrassingly cringe artwork that makes me love them endlessly. have i mentioned how charming this game is????
if it wasn't clear already, i love the direction they took this game. there is so much heart in it, and i really admire that especially when this game was just a miscellaneous collection of one-off minigames meant to capitalize on the success of the first season. my biggest and only gripe, is just how little there is to do. the games are alright, and while i will probably replay this more than i'd like to admit, it's mostly from the charm of this being a series i really love and not for how fun the whack-a-mole game is (insert sarcastic cheering). the lack of games or at least game depth makes unlocking all the cute sprites and voice lines just... impossible. i dont want to set that goal for myself, because it'd be entirely unfun. i wish there was more, ultimately, and i can't suggest someone to buy this, but i am glad this was made. thank god for how wonderful all the osomatsu game devs have been and will continue to be. you can tell with each game that they love this series, and this one isn't an exception.
2012
i'm only logging this now because i can't believe i haven't said SOMETHING about it before. there is a very good reason this game has dominated japanese app stores for the past 9 years, and once you start to get just a little bit good at it you start to understand that too. i love it so much i bought 2 games in japan that i cannot translate for my 3ds because i wanted more. its fucking awesome (<- he who loves this game too much to form coherent thoughts)
i love my fucked up little meow meow (green-haired kaiba makes an appearance and suddenly my day is 100x better)
2023
rating this is weird, but i use it almost daily and like having the stats it provides. yes, you can just use a fitbit or whatever other watch, but as someone who cannot afford that kind of luxury, i like pokemon sleep! i charge my phone through the day, and let it stay unplugged at night and use it as an alarm. this has actually HELPED my sleep schedule, crazy enough, and i get cute little friends when i wake up.
my only grievance is that... well, when i wake up, i am bombarded by things to do. i've started ending my sleep tracking, and then not moving past that screen until i get up fully because looking at my phone hurts my eyes that early. wish the whole "taking photos" or "meals" systems were more streamlined & instant so i'm not forced to swipe on my phone right as i get up.
my only grievance is that... well, when i wake up, i am bombarded by things to do. i've started ending my sleep tracking, and then not moving past that screen until i get up fully because looking at my phone hurts my eyes that early. wish the whole "taking photos" or "meals" systems were more streamlined & instant so i'm not forced to swipe on my phone right as i get up.
i... actually played this on my 3ds, so i'm sad i can't list it as that for the platform! despite that, this game is... not great. i like yugioh, so honestly i still had a really fun time, but it basically draws up to: place down the highest atk card. win. it is impossible to lose against the pc, and it was just a time killer. i enjoyed it just for the sake of playing an old (maybe one of the oldest?) yugioh game that i didn't get to during my childhood, so at least it has that going for it. the sprites are also incredibly cute. bakura looks soooo sweet <3
taiko :-) can't tell if this is the one i played on 3ds, but i think it is! it's pretty fun, but the songs are very mid...
this game is really sweet! i loved a lot of the character writing in this, but it was incredibly short and only gave us a handful of encounters with them. like whyyy are we hanging out with streamer-chan and not gil or dana???? what did she add to this???? overall, really good! but some of those decisions hold it back from really being a "perfect" for me.
2021
this shit was fun af, but maybe it was just because of the people i played it with. either way, venasaur and alolan ninetales solo.
2011
goated. i played this so much when i was a kid.
2007
its chess.
2016
okay, i played this game ages ago but im just now logging it because i realised i hadn't yet. this game is amazing. otome games were nothing new when this came out, but i truly think cheritz revolutionized the genre with this one. the real time chats to make you really feel like you're romancing these guys... the phone calls... the custom chat bubbles?!?! its so perfect. the story writing might not be the most well crafted thing ever, but the experience of playing this for the first time is fucking awesome. zen is the best, and jaehee is so wonderful. i come back to this game all the time and it never fails to make me happy.