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About this blog

This is a blog primarily focusing on but not limited to VNs.  It is primarily designed to express my opinion on otaku media (jrpgs, anime, manga, LNs, VNs, etc), individual VNs, and otaku community issues.   Most of the posts are related to my VN of the Month and Random VN columns, originally started in threads in the forums. 

As of March of 2017, I'm also looking for people to help with VN of the Month.

Entries in this blog

Izuna Zanshinken: Character portraits

Izuna Zanshinken is a VN put out by Akatsuki Works Black back in 2011.  It is a super-violent chuunige with a vigilante assassin called Musumi Kotarou at its center.  The game is split into two main parts... the common route and the heroine routes, which are accessed at a click of the mouse (convenient).  Save for the end of each heroine route, choices are mostly a matter of seeing different scenes or the same scenes from another perspective.  Each route is split into chapters, each with a defin
Clephas

Clephas

0

Minato Carnival FD

This game is a crossover FD for Anekouji Naoko to Gin'iro no Shinigami and Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road.  To be clear, the former game (Anekouji) was a kusoge... inasmuch as it is possible for a game made by Minato-soft to be a kusoge.  In fact, its section in this VN is several degrees more interesting than the original, which is just pathetic, in retrospect... However, this fandisc is actually quite a fun read... setting aside that the Tsujidou side of things is based on a shared ending wh
Clephas

Clephas

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Ryouchi Kizoku

I'm going to be blunt... this is yet another SofthouseChara game where the entire point of the game lies in the gameplay, which is just complex enough to be annoying.  The heroines and the protagonist are non-people, and the actual endings are boring.  Basically, you are a new noble given a completely random amount of time to build up your lands before the King dies, which takes you to the ending.  The game system is split into building, hiring individuals of talent, fighting off threats, d
Clephas

Clephas

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Renai Kyoushitsu

Yes, despite myself, I played this.  Renai Kyoushitsu is the first VN from an entirely new company (the writer and artist are both new to VNs as well), and it seems to be, in concept, a simple charage of the type where a male protagonist goes to a newly-coed former girls' school and finds himself the only guy (a fairly normal situation in VNs, though less so in the last few years).  The VN has a really weird atmosphere (not psycho-weird, but rather just plain weird) at first, primarily because t
Clephas

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Random VNs: Tsuisou no Augment (both)

Tsuisou no Augment, when I first played it, blew me away.  Part of it was because it was so surprising, part of it because it was just that good.  Thankfully, it turned out to be just as good on a second playthrough. First, this VN doesn't fall into any of the standard genres.  Most of the game is hilarious, some of it is romantic, some of it is hot and sexual (seriously so), there is serious drama, and there is even some guro, though of limited scale.  The game begins with Hideya, the prot
Clephas

Clephas

1

Blade x Bullet - Kinrin no Soleil

Blade x Bullet is the latest in the Soleil series (search my blog, I played all but the most recent previous entry in a marathon a few months ago).  This series is based off of a series of parallel worlds that proceeded from the end of Ragnarok, the last battle of the Norse gods.  Some of those worlds are similar to our own, others are of a greater technology, and others are worlds of magic.  The world in this VN is in the midst of its own apocalypse, mechanical monsters from the sky invulnerabl
Clephas

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My weaboo experience: the latter days

I am a weaboo and it is good, lol. More seriously, I started out becoming a Japan fanatic through swords, rather than through anime or games, like many others.  As an adolescent, I shared the same obsession for sharp things that any number of young men in the past have had, and that eventually led me to the katana, then to the samurai, then to Japan (in that order).  I met anime and jrpgs about the same time, which only made the hunger more intense.  Like all newbie weaboos, I pra
Clephas

Clephas

9

July 2017 Release Megapost (also completion of June)

Fuyu Uso Fuyu Uso is the fourth and final game in Campus’s ‘Lies’ series, based in a mammoth school with a hidden population of magical beings. As a bit of a recap, the protagonist of this story, Sakurai Souichirou gained the power as a young child to sense the lies of others through a magical tool within his body called ‘Red Line’. In the game, this shows as lines of dialog literally being highlighted in red when a person is lying (at the precise part of the dialog they are lying). As
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Pure Song Garden

Submitted by Dergonu, edited by Clephas Pure Song Garden has a similar structure to Pulltop's previous games, Kono Oozora and Miagete Goran: a club at a school doing something together to achieve a common goal (Clephas: Seishun, lol). But this game does put a lot less focus on the club part compared to the previous games, and it actually spends very little time in the school part. During the entire common route + the routes that I played, they only stepped into the club room, and they ne
Clephas

Clephas

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An explanation of the "Golden Age of VNs"

Some veterans of reading untranslated VNs refer to the period between 2004 and 2010 as 'The Golden Age of Visual Novels'.  However, you shouldn't really take that statement at face value, as the meaning is a bit more complex than you'd think. There are some significant differences between VNs today and VNs during that period that both made it the peak of the medium's sales in Japan and produced the greatest ratio of quality VNs to crap VNs.  One of the primary differences was that, oth
Clephas

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5

Random VN: Kurenai no Tsuki

I first played this VN in 2011, having read Accany's review of it (it was on his rather long list of recommended VNs), and at first, I had trouble getting into it.  To be blunt, my distaste for mysteries is pretty much the biggest reason why I had trouble with this... but the protagonist is, in some ways, your typical 'stick his nose in everything and anything' detective, meaning that he frequently takes actions that make me want to face-palm.  In addition, his unwillingness to put the puzzle pi
Clephas

Clephas

4

Random VN: Onigokko

Onigokko is a high-quality fantasy charage that was amongst the second fifty I played after I began plowing through untranslated VNs.  Unlike many I read during that time, I find I haven't really forgotten anything significant, so it turned out to be a bit harder to get into than I expected, even after half a decade.   That said, it has a lot to recommend to it, even today. The story focuses on the protagonist, Keisuke, who is also the Phantom Thief, Ura.  He and his family have been steali
Clephas

Clephas

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June Release Issues

I'm going to be blunt... I won't be playing any more of June's releases for a while.  My reasons?  I have several. 1)  My phys copy of Haruoto isn't set to arrive until mid-September, so I can't play it right now. 2)  Aiao keeps pressing my pet peeves, but I'm feeling more irritable than I really should, indicating that I simply won't be able to rate it fairly.   Problems with Aiao I've mentioned this in the past, but I intensely dislike pop culture and the entertainment busi
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Tasogare no Sinsemilla

This is a VN frequently recommended to those who have just gotten used to playing untranslated VNs, a story-focused mystery VN focused on the village of Minagami, a small farming town in the mountains somewhere on the main island of Japan.  I remember playing this back when it came out and enjoying it immensely... but since it was like the twentieth untranslated VN I'd played, I was still not quite to the point where I was able to grasp every single detail of the story.  In addition, I was still
Clephas

Clephas

0

Random VN: Shinsei ni Shite Okasubekarazu

First, this VN was written during Pulltop's brief 'golden age', by the writer of the Kamikaze Explorer, Dracu-riot, Noble Works, and Amairo Islenauts, as well as the writer of the original LoveKami.  As such, it can be said that they had something of a dream team put together for this game...  since two of the four writers were skilled moege-with-story writers.  I pulled this game out of my 'treasure box' so I would have something to revive me from my fugue state, and it actually turned out quit
Clephas

Clephas

1

VN Staff: Higashide Yuuichirou

Higashide might be familiar to Western anime fans as the writer for the Fate/Apocrypha LNs and the new anime series, or he might be familiar as the writer of Ayakashibito and Tokyo Babel.  However, of late he has definitely begun to worm his way into the collective consciousness of the Western otakus. So what kind of writer is he?  He wrote one of my single favorite VNs, Evolimit, and his works definitely have a certain... style.  Perhaps the most obvious reason why he leaves and impression
Clephas

Clephas

3

VN Staff: Hino Wataru

Now, those who are accustomed to my praise of Akatsuki Works will probably think I have nothing but praise for Hino Wataru, and they aren't  completely wrong.  However, he has some major issues that tend to make his VNs hard for a certain type of reader to take seriously.  For better or worse, Hino Wataru is a dyed-in-the-wool chuunige writer.  Even when he isn't writing a chuunige he is writing a chuunige.  I don't think I've ever encountered a writer so completely bound by the genre's con
Clephas

Clephas

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Amayui Castle Meister part one: Gameplay

I'm going to be straight about this game... if you liked Kamidori, you'll probably like this game, gameplay wise.  It uses a nearly-identical battle and skill system, and it is all about gathering ingredients.  For those unfamiliar with the battle system, you essentially summon your characters into a dungeon, which you explore and gather ingredients from while fighting off monsters.  Your characters each fight one-on-one for the most part, in a battle system highly reminiscent of Fire Emblem gam
Clephas

Clephas

9

VN staff: Shumon Yuu

I'm going to give you my basic opinion of Shumon Yuu straight up and without embellishment... he is a genius. I generally am reluctant to call any writer a genius.  I have read thousands of stories - if I include both books and VNs - and I can only name a bare dozen or so authors/writers I can honestly and unequivocally name as geniuses.  Of course, this is a subjective viewpoint... but it is backed up by significant experience, lol. Shumon Yuu is that rarest of the rare in VN writers/
Clephas

Clephas

6

VN of the Month June 2017 update

This is an update of the play status of June's releases. Ai yori Aoi Umi no Hate- On hiatus/stalled for the moment due to gaming exhaustion.  Plan to resume by the tenth. Haruoto Alice ＊ Gram - Planned for play after Aiao.  Pure Song Garden! - Currently being played by Dergonu. Tantei Seven- Dropped and labeled a kusoge by fun2novel, our resident mystery VN lover.  No plans to include it in the contest.
Clephas

Clephas

0

Delayed Satisfaction: Putting Ai Yori Aoi Umi no Hate on Hiatus

I have numerous reasons for putting Ai Yori Aoi Umi no Hate on hiatus... including that I'm tired of slice-of-life and the oddities of the setting are driving me a little crazy.  However, the fact is that I'm just tired.  Every once in a while, I fall into a sourceless funk, where I don't want to do anything - fun or not - and I'm in the middle of one of those now.  I can tell you for certain that I'm not really interested in this VN right now, despite the fact that, until about eighteen hours a
Clephas

Clephas

1

The pitfalls of creating a unique setting

I'm currently playing Ai yori Aoi Umi no Hate, AXL's latest game by their 'unusual slice-of-life' team, and the setting is seriously bothering me.  It isn't that the concept is boring... there is nothing wrong with the concept of people living on a massive self-repairing ship hundreds of years after the demise of land-bound culture due to global warming.  No, the problem is the concept of the game and how it interacts with the setting.  Ok, I can live with the idea that advanced culture was
Clephas

Clephas

2

Akaneiro no Kyoukaisen

... are you as surprised as I am that I'm already posting on this?  It isn't because I rushed through it or concentrated on it for three days straight.  No, in this case, it is because the game is actually only about seven hours long in total... and that is probably an overestimate.  While I don't tend to judge VNs by length, I do want to be able to get to know the characters before I see them falling in love.  This game's biggest plus point is that it is story straight from beginning to en
Clephas

Clephas

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Random VN: Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas

Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas is the rarest of the rare... a charage that is also a kamige.  In fact, I've only encountered three charage that I consider to be kamige out of the hundreds I've played.  How did that happen?  Well, a large part of it is the writer.  For all that his first VN was a half-nukige with an absurd setting, his style is poetic, his settings deep, and his timing and pacing of events perfect.  Another part of it is the structure.  This VN has a very, very short common
Clephas

Clephas

6

VN of the Year 2016

As usual, I spent a lot of time thinking over this before I even considered making a decision.  The original list of candidates at the end of the year (after the initial series of in-brain eliminations) is as follows: Tokyo Necro Akeiro Kaikitan Amatsutsumi Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana (knocked Inochi no Spare out of the running) Tokyo Necro Tokyo Necro is Nitroplus's first masterpiece outside of the Science series (Steins;Gate, for those who don't know what I'm talk
Clephas

Clephas

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