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Transparent: Black Background: How it (should) looks like on the site: There's snowflakes, therefore winter. Oh and the girl is wearing a scarf too, therefore winter. Will edit it later when I am not lazy busy. Or maybe I will make a new one since I just realized that her hair got cut.

Ratataratarata~~~~

First of all: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Now, let's get things started (yes, Ren isn't the only one who can do these). It's almost time for the holidays, and I don't know about the rest of you, but one thing I associate with the holidays is great food. So in honor of that, I will be holding a baking competition. The rules are quite simple: Bake something. This should be something holiday related/themed. It does not have to look entirely festive, although it is encouraged. If anything appears to be store-bought it will be disqualified, but using pre-made mixes (Betty Crocker, etc.) is acceptable. Take of picture of the item you baked, with a handwritten copy of your username. Then post the picture along with a short blurb on why you chose to bake that item and why you associate it with the holidays. The winner will be chosen by random selection. Now, of course, what's a giveaway without a prize right? So, the prize will be this: $20 to spend on any Steam VN you desire. If My Heart Had Wings, Planetarian, Hatoful Boyfriend, these and many more could be yours. Any combination or multiple items works as well, as long as the sum total is $20 or less. Full List Here: http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/Visual%20Novel/#p=0&tab=NewReleases All submissions must by the new year (midnight on the 30th of December PT), so you all have plenty of time to bake your hearts out. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

I know that to many Fuwans, the learning of Japanese seems to be a huge hurdle, especially considering how different it is from Western languages. However, there are a few reasons why it can be easier than you think. The Obvious No other language has so much of its media overseas, except maybe English. Moreover, the existence of tens of thousands of episodes of subtitled anime gives a near infinite amount of source material to draw from when learning the spoken language. The Less Obvious Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the average person when learning Japanese is that it is so essentially different from any Western language. However, this can actually be an advantage. For one thing, there is little of the confusion you experience when you encounter similar terms in German, Spanish, or French, which can lead to mispronunciations. Moreover, the fact that the Japanese language is so essentially different from a social linguistics perspective means that if you just take the time to understand why and how the Japanese think differently, the language becomes infinitely easier to grasp. If anything, the fact that there is almost nothing in the way of similarities between the American mentality and the Japanese mentalities makes it easier to consciously shift one's consciousness. Too many Americans, when learning Japanese, make the essential mistake of just assuming the Japanese are thinking the same as they are while speaking a different language (this is common to all Western cultures). Let go of those preconceptions and things will be a lot easier for you. The existence of Kanji also serves to make understanding easier, for those who choose to attack initially from the written perspective. By learning kanji and how it is used to form the Japanese language, one can rapidly increase understanding...if and only if this study of kanji is preceded by an intellectual understanding of grammar. A major difficulty for people who can't comprehend context clues Pseudo-anglicanisms. Basically, these are katakana terms drawn from English or other languages that are not used in the same way as they are in their original language. Most katakana terms are essentially the same as their originals, but ones like マンション (which is basically a certain type of rental apartment) really don't mean the same as their original term. About seventy percent of everyone who tries to learn Japanese never fix their understanding of terms like these, so pay attention to things that you think are used oddly, so you can understand how your initial understanding could be wrong. Internalization This is the most important step of learning Japanese. If you are having to logically consider what particles turn a sentence into and transform Japanese into English to understand it, you will never, ever be fluent. This isn't a joke or an exaggeration. Even if your speech is halting, if your comprehension is accurate without the need to translate in your head, you can be said to be reasonably fluent. The best method to reach this stage isn't reading a textbook (in fact textbook learning just gets in the way of this) is immersion, which basically means giving up your original language for a period of one to three months, immersing yourself only in Japanese media. During this period, you should avoid speaking, thinking, or listening to your native language, if at all possible. If you are in high school, I'd suggest just using your summer break for this. If you are an adult, this is harder. It isn't like you can take a long vacation if you have to work or go to college. However, this is effectively the only method by which you can internalize Japanese without your original language getting in the way of understanding at some point. The only other possible method would be to get work in Japan and just live there for a period of time sufficient to create the same effect. Internalization is really a step you need to take to become permanently fluent in any language, not just Japanese. However, it is particularly effective with Japanese, because the language is so distinct form our own. Note: Basic grammatical understanding must always precede immersion if you want it to be effective.

This is probably more disheartening to SP than to us, tbh. Can't imagine how hard that hit them. Anyway, even if it's not the complete package, I will still back it. I was reading reddit thread about this and I found this comment to share perfectly how I see things. Both of them were made by LeafCascade, so credits to him for writing this. At first I was about to get really mad at you guys for going "MUH PORN", but I can see the problem. It's bothering me too now. I personally don't give two shits about losing the h-content, but if they're going to cut out other dialogue/scenes, I can't help but to feel that we will be missing out on things, especially in Meikyuu and Rakuen. But then again: As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, I have no doubts about that there'll be patches to restore the cut out content. Someone will find a way. And even if they don't, well... regardless, the 18+ versions will be released anyway, it just won't be through the Kickstarter (is how I've understood it), but only if the Kickstarter is successful. While this will have an impact on the magnitude of the Kickstarter's success, this is after all Grisaia. I really don't see 160k being difficult to achieve, especially not with how the Clannad KS is going. All in all: if you want the sequels in English, you're going to have to contribute. If you feel the censorship will ruin the VNs for you, to the point where you'd rather have nothing at all - go ahead, don't contribute, but make sure you know what you're doing by taking this stance; I imagine the sequels won't be translated for many years, if ever, even, if this KS does not succeed. As western VN fans I don't feel like we can get caught up on things like this, we don't have the luxury to. We either move forward or we won't be getting anywhere. A couple of months ago, I had given up on playing the sequels completely, and I simply feel very lucky to be given the chance to get them translated. It seems people are forgetting what we'd be stuck with if it weren't for SP. As far as I can tell, pornographic material isn't even allowed to be Kickstarted per their policies, so it really isn't that huge of a surprise - I did expect the 18+ version to be downloadable off-site or something, though. I think part of the problem lies here. As for Japanese companies thinking "we" only want all-ages content, who knows. But it seems we'll have to change the method of funding if we want to change direction. Anyway, this is just how I feel right now, and I'm sure as soon as new information comes to light I'll change my opinion accordingly. EDIT: I don't have any solutions to this, or any understanding of what SP can do regarding negotiations etc. I just don't want to ruin this chance we've been given by making a nuisance of ourselves to Frontwing over 18+ material. Damaging relationships is the last thing we'll want to do.

Don't worry, I'll make it easier to choose.

I don't know, why do people still pay money for books? What a silly endeavor. The "Kinetic" part merely defines the format, what's important is the content, therefore there can be really good Kinetic Novels just like there can be really bad Visual Novels with choices. You can't really generalize them as good or bad since a format does not affect the content, although you can say if you dislike the format or not and in that regard you're more than welcome to say you prefer a format where you have some control over the story. I personally just feel like they're 2 different ways to read a story.

As one who hasn't finished Makina's route, I find her presence and absence of Yumiko disturbing. So here, have the rest of them. Pick the ones you like the most. Amane: Michiru: Sachi: Yumiko:

I guess I could settle for .

Not sure if posted already, but I recently found this No Brand Girls rock cover and thought it was really nice. I also just found out about Love Rise!, these girls are amazing, they actually make the dances pretty accurately, not to mention that they actually seem like they are really enjoying dancing, which adds to their perfomance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN7Vd7L1i_I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J61BE0P46zg

i can't even remember the past season's opening songs anyways,i really like akame ga kill's 2nd op... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCHnwhdqqPg do you know what's more catchy than that? monmon's version of it. especially that ratatatatata~~~

The atmosphere is quite different over there because of it :3

I'm really surprised you didn't pick this Nosebleed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRnFImuRExk

This year's definitely got to be this one

When done right (unfortunately it rarely is) bad endings help develop your perception of a character. You get to see different sides of them that you wouldn't otherwise see. It is for this reason that I do read the bad endings for the visual novels that go out of their way to make them good. However, I avoid the hassle of having to figure out the correct or incorrect choices. Walkthroughs help me avoid needless frustration and ultimately allow me to enjoy the story in a more leisurely way.

This, total immersion is not required...I never did it. What's needed is hundreds of hours of practice, and the easiest way to do that for most people is making it a close to everyday thing. Though...without exposure to RL conversation japanese (J-drama's are a lot closer than anime/VN's) and much speaking practice, I ended up both lacking knowledge of conversational phrases and skill generating sentences, replying, and holding a conversation, despite having strong grammar sense and a decent vocabulary from reading. After you hit intermediate level, it starts to depends what material you have exposure to and what you spend time practicing (reading, writing, speaking, listening). This. That in itself is not a big problem, but it's a symptom of a more serious one (see below). To be more clear: Parsing japanese in logical units of meaning and then trying to figure out the meaning from there is OK. Turning the japanese into english before deciphering the meaning is what Clephas is talking about, and you should avoid that from day one. For example, when you think of 元気（genki), you should recall the places you've heard it used (元気ですか？　はい、元気です。　；　とても元気な子。） and tie the word's meaning to that, rather than turn it into english and then interpret that english. The following is a bit more for early intermediate learners who have begun to read native material: Attaching 脆い to english definitions like "brittle" are ok, though one thing about building connotations for the word: associate the word with the contexts you see it in, not the connotations of the english keywords you are using (ie. "brittle" or "fragile").

There has not been a visual novel I read without the use of a walkthrough. I bolded "read" in my previous sentence because I don't seek to play a visual novel by making choices, I only care about the story; hence the reason why I shamelessly use walkthroughs. Having to sift through bad choices and backtracking to get the proper ending seems like an unnecessary pain in the ass when I only care about the story.

Since I almost don't care about choices, all VNs for me are kinect Seriously, I read them for the story, not for choices

My entry: Black background: The Einzberns are already associated with snow, and there are snowflakes on the logo too, therefore winter. QED

Updated version coming in 2015...

Before reading this thread, keep in mind that this giveaway is the 2nd of 2 giveaways currently going on right now. If you are looking for the Santa hat avatar giveaway and the physical copy of Clannad as a special prize, please check the following thread: https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/7583-originalrens-very-merry-christmas-giveaway-a-fuwanovel-holiday-message Please note that the giveaway linked above has now finished. That being said, welcome my friends, to the biggest giveaway you will ever experience! Welcome to OriginalRen's Secret Santa Extravaganza! Please Note: Due to the amount of items I need to focus on delivering from Japan, including prizes and mailing service items over the next few weeks, I will taking a small break from all other games/activities on the site. I plan to pick these back up once the holiday season settles down and the new year kicks off, so thank you for being patient. The Rules of the Giveaway - Simply sign up in this thread by stating your interest or by sending me a PM if you're too shy! 6 winners will be chosen at random and allowed to pick from a grab bag of goodies celebrating the holiday season. Once a prize has been chosen, the remaining prizes will be up for grabs, essentially meaning you will not be able to choose a prize if you are the final person selected. If you wish to signup, please make it very clear that you are joining so I can be sure to include everyone. The Prizes - All right, I know a lot of you are itching to know what the prizes of the competition will be, so without further ado, here they are, in no particular order. If you have any questions about them, please let me know. OriginalRen's Bag of Goodies! Prize #1: A free character good of your choice from any anime/manga/VN priced at 2,000 yen or less (~$20) (this includes things such as bookmarks, file folders, card sleeves, mugs, key chains, and the like) Prize #2: K-On! "Guitar, Elite" Azusa figure Prize #3: Love Live "No Brand Girls" Maki figure Prize #4: Majikoi S 1st press limited edition release (comes with an art book) Prize #5: Ultimate Fighting Climax - New (PS3) Prize #6: Fate/stay night + Fate/hollow ataraxia bundle pack (comes with the games, 2 art books, the side material found in the special edition of the original game, and a 10th anniversary art book)

My vote is this from Your Lie in April

Hello, I'm the project leader for Golden ☆ Spirit, an English translation group that works on otome games. (Well, for now otome is the main genre we work on). I have a main blog here - which is where I update most of the progress and recruitments. We're working on Dot Kareshi (aim to be released by the end of this year) and Ken ga Kimi. Regarding Ken ga Kimi, we're looking for translators (JP --> EN) to help with the project! The game is really long with an amount of old kanji (I'm not trying to scare off translators so it might not be as bad as it sounds), the historical theme just makes things harder, so we're lacking translators right now. We already have translators on the team, though lost contact with some of them already, but with the amount of workload putting on the remaining translators, it's unfair for them and also make it difficult to handle the project So if anyone can help us we'd really appreciate it, if you're not confident in your Japanese skills you can try translating a script from the game here and send it to me. Thank you so much! I look forward to working with you all!

ehhhhhhhh? why is there no yumiko there?..... hidoi welcome to yumiko's fan club~~~~

This can either be the best Christmas or the worst your choice Ourai

Okay Key, let's not crush my dreams again

More translations for your viewing pleasure

I noticed. Spiffing job! (all dat spam, wat if i get banned? )

This is mostly simply because of how all ages/18+ is looked at in Japan. They are totally seperate products, so I guess Frontwing wants to make it absolutely clear as such. as Koestl said https://twitter.com/koestl/status/541856002950582272 here, 1 month release delays compared to all-ages, but who knows, it's all still pretty vague. Now, I don't really care that much since I was probably going to get the all-ages stuff anyways (as long as the stuff in Angelic Howl remained uncensored, anyway, because that's kind of important) but the western fanbase does have this obsession with porn. I immagine koestl/sekai must be pretty frustrated at this aswell. To add: The whole "no porn" rule applies to live-action and photo's. Drawn/comic seems to be fine.

Maybe its the countdown until the entire franchise is blasted off into space so we can be rid of it once and for all! But its more likely its just the VN.

I'll be honest here, I misunderstood it so much you wouldn't believe it. I thought you were supposed to take a photo of a photo where you signed over it. Something like that. The kind of thing common sense wouldn't let through but since I lack any kind of semblance to common sense I somehow come up with this kind of stupidity.

New Love Live adventure translated by yours truly~ This one is called "Honoka-chan's Body Temperature" No seriously that's what Taion (体温) means. I can't find any better sounding word for it in English. When someone says something is "Taion" they mean it's at body temperature. I know it sounds awkward in English but that's how it is.

GG, nice web design

Unravel, Ideal White, Daze, Blazing, grilleto, IGNITE, Ebb and Flow, EONIAN, Gimme! Revolution, Kokan Win-Win Mujoken, Moving Soul, This Game, Rising Hope, The World's End, Golden Time, Sidonia, Black Bullet, World's End Girl's Rondo, Let Me Hear, Heavenly Blue. Too much, can't decide D:

Welcome to the forum! Have some Christmas hats on your avatar.

Waaaaa. I just saw this right now. Gonna try and read some of these.

How to make a super robot opening: 1. Take name of show 2. Yell name of show several times (if possible get Masaaki Endoh to do it) 3. Add lyrics about heroes, courage and saving the earth around it 4. ??? 5. Profit! I watched a dozen episodes a few months... wait, almost a year ago actually. My body wasn't ready. It's like the super robot equivalent of VOTOMS: so extreme in its genre that you really have to be ready to watch it. I need to pick it up again some time. I think I might be able to take its awesomeness now.

Uh... This guide is filled to the brim with very dubious arguments. His very first point is english loan words, which is precisely one of the huge pitfalls that several people brought up in this thread. Honestly if you learn japanese and know english you basically know how to say coffee and 3 other words and that's about it. In my (admittedly limited, japanese experts feel free to correct me) experience of japanese, the most commonly used loan words are precisely those that have a different meaning from their english counterparts. Lots of kana stuff have also been deformed to the point of being unrecognizable, I honestly find those more troublesome than kanjis sometimes since they're harder to look up. That aside, most of his point are non-arguments that are just describing properties of the language that don't exactly make it easier or harder to learn. (and usually he only brings up the positive side of things) I don't think japanese is any harder or easier to learn than another language, but it's simply that learning a language and achieving a certain degree of fluency takes fucktons of time and some effort, no matter what.

Sometimes you got visual novels with choices that don't add anything to the plot itself or even paths that don't make any sense (talking about the main plot always). Bad endings for example, most of the time are silly and don't add anything. So if the plot itself doesn't need of branches it's fine with me. Can't talk about fate/stay night but g-senjou no maou for example most of the side stories they dont make sense in terms of the main plot. For example:

Idk, when your thread title asks "good or bad" with you arguing against kinetic visual novels, it makes it sound like you do think they are bad but I'll accept if your stance is that you prefer standard visual novels over kinetic visual novels~ Given the choice (pun intended), I would choose a VN with choices over a kinetic VN any day. I like choices . But as others have said, there's nothing wrong with kinetic novels!

I have a feeling Akatsuki no Yona will probably take catchiest tune since the song was composed just for this anime so http://youtu.be/j5dwaIJIS58

So I can make some crappy pancakes and have the same chance of winning as somebody who made a four-tiered cake?

Well that's fine except that immersion is wholly impractical for an adult learner who is not in Japan but who wants to learn to read. And I think the ability to read is what most Fuwalings are interested in. If you have the opportunity to be an exchange student or worker in Japan, then immersion is the way to go. But if you're stuck in the U.S., then the traditional grammar method is the way to go. It requires some geekiness, but it works. It is the way people have learned to read for centuries (even dead languages like Latin). Using a computer analogy, it is simply a bootstrapping process by which you download the assertions and rules into your brain so that your natural language processing can boot up in Japanese instead of English. The comparison with English is a necessary part of this learning process, as you learn about any new thing by discovering how it is the same or different from what you already know. What you already know, you learned by studying English grammar in school. So, first you complete this learning period where you assimilate the basic grammar and some essential vocabulary, and read example dialogs and such with the textbook holding your hand. After that, you are ready to dive into reading for real. Perhaps "dive" is the wrong word here, because it's a more gradual process than that. Here is where the internalization happens that Clephas mentions. As you read, your mind will absorb that subtle language information that isn't part of the textbook rules. It is an important step but it happens automagically. The key to making this happen is to read some every day. Note that reading Japanese for an hour out of a day, and watching a couple of hours of anime, in a day otherwise spent using English can hardly be called "immersion." It is just called "practice." But it will be enough--that is, as long as you didn't skimp on grammar learning and as long as you are satisfied with just reading and not speaking.

Well, dang. You read Kare Kano. It's so good, right? (I watched it though, and then read half of it cause I'm a scrub, but seriously... so good) anyway, let me think. If you want mature/smut, then Piece of Cake (short ~24 chapters) Kono s O, mi yo (being translated currently on chapter 93) Sundome And stuff that isnt explicit: Kuragehime (being translated 65 chapters atm) Hirunaka no Ryuusei (I heard it was finished at ~100 chapters, but I've only read 60 of them because it wasnt translated that far when i read it. So good) Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou Onani Master Kurosawa Welcome to the NHK Yotsubato And a few that arent as utterly amazing but are what I would call seriously good and also more 'fun' Dear, Only You Don't Know (Manhwa being translated and still being created) Unabalance X Unbalance (manhwa, read it in a single day so good)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdFs0pYD5-0 First Western trailer for Atelier Shallie!

Anyone WAA should use

Using the True Random Number generator at Random.org, the winner of the Steam Code is Katatsumuri! I do have an additional code, but I believe we'll be doing something a bit more public with it. Stay tuned!

Welcome to the Forum kabayan.!! BTW from what part of the Phil do you live?? I'm from Cebu!! Enjoy you stay and I hope we will get along

The world god only knows: Reality is SHIIIT! Gundam Seed: Surviving close deaths like a boss. Free!(not that I watch it): Let's swim and be gay! (Jkjk)