What started off as an offhand joke about how fast I read visual novels - after I read 22 between June and July - became a bit of a self-imposed challenge to see if I really tried how many I could get through in a month without sacrificing reading comprehension or time with my wife. To ensure I was having reading comprehension I made myself write at least a short review on VNDB for every VN completed. I also tracked exact times for each one played. I decided whatever VNDB decided was a separate visual novel would be what I'd use, so fandiscs and separate volumes if separate pages on VNDB existed would count as separate visual novels. I also would completely finish any VN, so all endings had to be seen - ended up with one exception due to technical limitations though. When I made up my rules I set the goal number at 31, or one per day, since that seemed reasonable, but I wasn't allowed to give up until the month was over. Apparently the number I could reach was 50. I wouldn't recommend to anyone to try to replicate this or beat it, and I'll go into details below. Some facts, figures, and interesting things I'll note below as well as some quick recommendations from what I read this month.

Logistical Setup / thoughts:

First the setup time I did on the first few days of the month was a lot more than I realized since there wasn't a good way to narrow my backlog by reported VNDB times. I literally just went by the series that came to mind that I knew were in installments, took some recommendations, and branched out from my normal reading genres some. There was also quite a bit of setup time between finding what store may have the visual novel I was looking for, if there are R18 patches or just general patches that need to be installed, etc. I wish I had tracked the setup time to include with this, but I did not. Across the entire month it would not be ridiculous to say I probably spent close to 10 hours doing these logistical tasks. This was also an expensive outing to say the least, which is another thing in hindsight I wish I had tracked, but a good portion of the visual novels - especially in the first half of the month - I had already picked up on various sales.

General thoughts / realizations:

Reading this many short visual novels in a row is surprisingly exhausting, far more exhausting than it would have been to read even 3-4 long to very long visual novels that added up to more time in total. All the rapid changes in story made it a bit hard to keep my head straight and in similar stories keep what characters were in what story clear after it had been a day or two. This got worse as the month went on, especially after I started playing more unrelated visual novels rather than series. The other thing I noticed early on was that emotional stories really slowed me down quite a bit as they're naturally harder to recover from, so they ended up getting largely removed from the playlist where I was aware of them. I also realized from this month that I am not a fan of pure nukige. From that - and one other incident this month with Yume Creations's works - I realized I shouldn't buy visual novels in bulk when I'm unsure of their quality. On the positive side I realized I am completely okay with and enjoy yuri stories, which I would not have tried otherwise. I also only realized near the end of the month that I rate short visual novels pretty harshly as a lot of them have some issues of developing their premises or presenting problems that they cannot solve or elaborate on in such a short runtime. Yume Creations (developer) visual novels suffer from this more than any other single developer I read this month.

Time / VN numbers breakdown:

Reading time: 97:37 (3:09 rounded per day on average)

Average VN completion time: 1:57

Average VN / day: 1.61

Longest VN read: Figures of Happiness at 7:35

Shortest VN read: My Ex-Sister in Law at 0:28

Most VN's completed in one day: 4 on both 8/16 and 8/22

Least VN's completed in one day: 0 on both 8/2 and 8/5

Average VN rating from me: 5.1/10

Highest Rated VN from me: Tie at 7.5/10: Neko Para vol. 4 and Dreamlike Love with Seira

Lowest rated VN from me: Tie at 1/10: Imolicious and Figures of Happiness (due to bug preventing multiple endings in current download version from JAST)

VN with the funniest name: Invisible Cock: They never saw it cumming!

Visual novels:

I'll provide a whole list of visual novels completed in order afterwards, but some special callouts for quality that I'd recommend people read - if you want more detailed reviews, all of them are up on VNDB, usually as short or medium length reviews:

Chihiro Himukai Always Walks Away: Pretty cute single route visual novel if you like a straightforward rom-com with a bit of a fussy heroine. 

Uchikano series: All three are cute single route visual novels with heroines that are interesting in their own rights, depending on the individual title it can be pure fluff (girlfriend), a bit more comedy (sister), or a bit more serious at points (lovers). 

Neko Para series: Pure fluff, but it made me smile throughout the entirety of it, it's just so cute.

Stay. -Fragments of Memories -: Doujin work done by the people that eventually became ALcot. Done based off the endings in the visual novel ONE. so if you haven't read it, don't read this, but if you have and enjoyed ONE. you should really read Stay. It's incredibly well done for a doujin work and provided some feels. It also has surprisingly high production levels, especially for a doujin work, as there are even multiple voiced songs in it.

OshiRabu: Very cute yuri work that helped settle into my brain that I can really like yuri work. There's nothing incredibly special here, but it's so cute it had me smiling throughout.

Megasuki: Best nukige series I read all month by a decent margin.

Dreamlike Love with Seira: Despite dropping a plot point in the middle, this was still a really comforting and entertaining read. I'm hoping the next game in the series gets localized as well in hopes that the dropped plot point gets picked back up. Like a few other visual novels read this month, it just made me smile.

Sonohana series: Yuri works that varies depending on how much you like each individual heroine set, but most I read this month were decent to good, with only one heroine set I didn't like (Runa / Takako in 7 & 9)

Full list in order:

Chihiro Himukai Always Walks Away

Figures of Happiness - bugged so only 5/10 endings could be seen as a choice was locked in current download version preventing progression

planetarian

planetarian: Snow Globe

Uchikano: Living With My Girlfriend

Uchikano: Living With My Sister

Uchikano: Living With My Lovers

Neko Para Extra, Volumes 0-4

Slobbish Dragon Princess 1, Fandisc, 2, 3

Invisible Cock: They never saw it cumming!

Stay. -Fragments of Memories-

Imolicious

My Ex Sister in Law

The Invisible Man's Stealth NTR: Convincing and Inseminating the New Announcer with an Invisible Boner

My Yandere Sister loves me too much!

Breeding Village

Yozora Rhapsody

Yandere Goddess: A Snatch Made in Heaven

Games & Girls

Daitoshokan no Hitsujukai -Houkago Shippo Days-

LipTrip -My Boss Is My Heat Suppressant?!-

Suteki na Kanojo no Tsukurikata

OshiRabu: Waifus over Husbandos & Fandisc

Megasuki: Love Through Lenses trio (Yuuki Hoshino, Ayumu Sakura, Otoha Inami)

Dreamlike Love with Seira

Animal Trail ☆ Girlish Square 1, Fandisc, 2

Amayakase - Spoiling My Silver-Haired Girlfriend

Do you believe in Santa?

Sonohana 1, 6, 2, 4, 3, 5, 7, 9, 8 (order read in couples, so Nanami / Yuuna's story, then Kaede / Sara, Mai / Reo, Runa / Takako and lastly Eris / Shizuku)

Closing Thoughts:

I'm never going to do this again. Not unless someone pays me. I wouldn't recommend anyone do this. With that said, a small part of me thinks 60-80 is completely doable, and someone who has more free time could hit 100 in a month if they were really trying with the right setup / organization. I started thinking of the first longer VN I was going to read once this month is over since probably the second week in. After I finish Sonohana 10, I think I settled on Senren Banka cause my brain is a bit overloaded and some relatively straightforward moege is needed I think.