Welcome to this week VNTS Review. Since we have Criminal Border Part 3 release, once again I made a parody of Nine series by adding 'Liminal' in front of it (Liminal is from Criminal Border Steam version title, Liminal Border) because both series have same writer and director, and for the subtitle obviously I used the main girl of Criminal Border Part 3, Meryl Hathaway, so we have 'Liminal Nine 3rd Episode: Meryl Hathaway' as the title. As for this week, we have Sekai manage to release Harukuru after a brief delay, although it still didn't contain 18+ contents. Other than that, we have Shiravune release two VNs, the aforementioned Criminal Border Part 3 and Geminism, and some release date announcements. Overall, this week is quite an average one to me, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.

For Criminal Border Part 3, we have Itsuki and friends finally manage to set up a foothold in his electronic drug business, although it mean they need to face up with the yakuza group head to head with the yakuza group has enough resources to easily destroy them. So Itsuki decided to recruit a mysterious girl who was introduced as Kotoko's companion, Meryl, into his own group with Meryl turned out have been a member of the overseas syndicate with Itsuki trying his best to make the contact into the overseas syndicate, so that he finally have a way to fighting against the yakuza group and if possible destroying it. All in all, Criminal Border Part 3 is like Nine Episode 3 in which the climax of the part did set up the expectation for the final part with the writer manage to do so in mind-blowing manner, although it seems Life Sentence (The name of Criminal Border Part 4) is not as well received as Nine Episode 4, so perhaps it might be be for the better to temper the expectation. Anyway, I hope that Shiravune announced Life Sentence later, seeing Criminal Border here is kinetic VN separated into four parts. Go get Criminal Border Part 3 if you want to read the continuation of Part 2, and have fun.

What I know about Geminism is that Craftwork released this in 2023 in which it's their comeback work after they released Sayooshi (Which also dubbed as one of three legendary denpa VN alongside original Tsui no Sora and Jisatsu 101) back in 2001, so it's their first new work after more than 20 years. They also have plan to release it in English, although back then we think it'll be simultaneous release until we see there's no English support back when Geminism was released in Japan until Shiravune worked on its English translation. Anyway, in here we have the twin sisters was fighting each other in a duel with each twin out to kill their opponent while their supervisor has friendly conversation, and let's just say there's more than it seems if Sayooshi is any indication, with both this and Sayooshi have a fair share of disturbing contents even though this is not as bleak as Sayooshi. Go get Geminism if you've been waiting for it ever since the English translation was announced, and have fun.

Sekai manage to release Harukuru back in 21st after a week delay, although unfortunately it didn't have the 18+ contents. That said, Sekai also announced they'll release 18+ version of Harukuru sometimes in Q1 of 2025, which mean we may get the 18+ of it at most in March 31st if all goes well. Well, this fiasco is ended up like Grisaia trilogy when Sekai delayed the releases 18+ of the trilogy, although back then I didn't care much seeing Kajitsu was redundant and the other two are like Kajitsu's fandisc to me. Anyway, while some obviously lament the loss of the sex scenes seeing the prologue was initially set up as nukige, some may appreciate the removal of the sex scenes seeing the nukige-like beginning is hard to go through if someone want to go to Harukuru main story quickly. Feel free to either get Harukuru if you've been waiting for almost seven years since Sekai announced it at AX 2018, or maybe wait for a bit longer until the 18+ version of it released later.

Shinzou did the editing work on Sousaku Kanojo for a bit with its current progress is at 32% edited, and they also have another secret project with it is at 11% translated although I don't know if it's for fan translation or official work yet. JAST announced they need to delay Mojika release by a month with the new exact release date is now March 28th later, so let's see if they'll release it at said date or it's just another placeholder date. Apparently PQube has plan to release Iwakura Aria on August 18th later, although said date is only available for physical edition so for now it's still unknown if it'll be released together with Steam version or not. Lastly, we have Kud Wafter All Age reach 90% mark translated with the exact progress is at 91.3% translated, so we should have it fully translated in the near future.

That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.