Otaku World

Kamishibai and Desktop Mascots/Window Sitters, mostly anime themed.

All material provided here belongs originally to Otaku World (http://otakuworld.com/). As of 19 October 2014, Otaku World has "removed the need for subscriptions to download anything from OtakuWorld," i.e., all this material is legitimately free.

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"What is Kamishibai?"

Kamishibai is an old Japanese tradition in which a storyteller would use an easel with drawings on it to illustrate his or her stories. Children would come around to see these stories, perhaps pay some money. In return, the storyteller might give out candy in a gesture of "okashi" or return. Many manga and anime artists in Japan have drawn much inspiration from these picture plays. For an example of the story cards used in traditional Kamishibai storytelling, go to Kamishibai for Kids, which also sells kits of Kamishibai cards.

Accursed Toys has created a program that captures the spirit of the Kamishibai. With this program, you can create a story with pictures, text, sound and music. The stories can not only be simply linear, with a beginning, middle and end, but they can also have multiple paths weaving throughout the story!"

A good one to start with is "Pastel Defender Heliotrope". This is one of the kami which was always distributed free with the Reader and is probably one of the best.
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The folder "Kamishibai Viewer" has the Install program for the Viewer, which also contains one sample story. All stories from the Otaku World archives are included here as compressed files. Many stories are multiple-episode, so there isn't necessarily just one file per folder. Extract the story file and place it within the Stories folder within Kamishibai's installation folder (typically C:Program Files (x86)Accursed ToysKamishibaiStories). However, Kamishibai can read extracted stories from any selectable location.

Story folders also contain the original descriptions of the stories and episodes. In a number of instances, a description mentions parts or sequels which do not exist. In some folders, I have noted these as assurance that they did not exist and were not just overlooked by me. However, these got so common that I gave up. So be assured, if there is a reference to future episodes that don't seem to exist -- they don't.

In a few rare instances I have corrected grammar or spelling. I also regularized the cataloging conventions: "A" or "The" appears at the end of a title with the first main word of the title used to alphabetize folders: ("Wizard, The"). Within the folder, the Notepad notes will appear with the straight title ("The Wizard"). I made one exception for a Sailor Moon story, cataloging it as "Sailor Moon Episode, A New" just to keep it with the bulk of Sailor Moon stories.

Listing By Category: should be self-explanatory; Listings (Notepad) of all the stories grouped by categories "Game", "Romance", etc. There will be some duplication reflecting multiple categorization.

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Desktop Mascots/Window Sitters
More than a thousand cute and fun window-sitters! Most with an anime theme. Mostly people, angels, elves, devils, etc., some animals (mostly cats, of course), a very few of inanimate objects (although paradoxically animated!). Most are anime themed or styled. A lot of Sailor Moon, quite a bit of Pokemon, quite a bit of Invader Zim. Also, some are from the original Kamishibai stories. Right-clicking on an active mascot will bring up a small menu including "About" and "readme" if you are curious as to any. Usage is simple and intuitive: I would suggest keeping the collection of mascots in the folder you get it in, then copying the ones you want to use into a "working" folder. Quality of these mascots varies considerably.

I'm including a folder, "Recommended", which simply are ones I like. Some of these are the more *ahem* adult mascots, so be warned. Others are just cute and fun. These are copied from the main archive folder, so no harm in deleting these from this folder.
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Still available on Otaku World are their paper doll Kisekae Set System, and many other anime-related screensavers, themes, games, and other fun things.