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Confession: On a more positive note

Let's see: Clannad releases in about 72 hours.Clannad takes somewhere between 70-100 hours to read, depending on whom you ask.Review copy isn't yet up and running.Hope you weren't planning on sleeping much.

You guys like to talk girls? Then let's talk girls. I have never been rejected by a girl.I have never rejected a girl.I have never confessed to a girl.I have never been confessed to by a girl.I have never liked a girl.(To my knowledge) I have never been liked by a girl.I have had various fleeting crushes. They mostly resulted from when a girl hanged out with me of her own volition: because I forget other human being like social interaction and immediately assumed there must be romantic interest involved. Typical prepubescent boy nonsense. They usually lasted a couple of weeks.I have broken three grills, despite having never owned one.I have never fantasized about girls... is what I'd like to say but I'd bet I may have done so back in school and forgotten about it.These days I don't interact with people outside of my family at all. Maybe when I go shopping and whatnot, but I don't have any such things I could qualify as friends or girl friends or ungirl friends (or ex-girl friends and vice versa).I enjoy hugging my pillow. Is that supposed to be a girl thing?What are girls anyway?Feel free to question me freely about girls on this auspicious occasion.

... I now have an idea for another Strange Story...

As some fat guy once said...

He'll probably just ctrl through half of it and then call it shit :^)

Back on the topic of women are we? *WARNING -- If you do not want to hear me gush over my relationship, continue on with your life without looking xD*

In my opinion it's not too much like Battlefield but it's not too much like Battlefront either. I would have preferred a game more like the original battlefront games with space battles and finding actual vehicles instead of tokens. More maps would also be really awe- [YOU MUST PURCHASE THE ADDITIONAL COMMENT DLC IN ORDER THE VIEW THE REST OF THIS COMMENT].

Hadaka Shitsuji!

No need to worry, it'll be indistinguishable from usual.

Bloody Hyped. So, yes. I still need to make time for it and put various scraps together to buy it, but I'm fairly excited since it's the only translated VN by Key I haven't read and, supposedly, one of the best.

I would be but I read the shitty translation already and Clannad is a really REALLY long VN. I would much rather spend the time reading something I haven't read before. I am super excited that it's finally getting a release and I would love to read the better translation someday, just not at this moment in time.

Heh, I wonder how many people know which fight this is from :3

Rooke enjoying memes and violent TV shows. What is this world I've woken up in?

Of course not. It's on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of The Leopard." You, of all people, should know that.

because SURPRISE! People do shit like that. I might check stuff like this out, you get tired of the whole "white knight" stuff in VNs from time to time

Haven't posted here in quite a while... We're still working hard on the common route! A lot of assets are being produced, thanks to the effort of everyone on the team! Guess I'll just post some assets, since sharing is caring First : our podcast episode 1 video! Cover art : Dizzyworld2, OST : Hustle & Bustle by Jason Walsh Participants : AnotherPlayer, Mac (Tips : do actually watch the video, you won't be disappointed! ) So usually, I often put a background update here with an asset, but this time, I'll do even better : a background speedpainting from Yuuko! And lastly, of course, some fanart, because you all deserved it after waiting for so long without any news : A bit late, but look at all the candy Akira got! (Drawn by Yuuko) That's all for the moment! Stay tuned for some further updates soon-ish! (And follow the thread if you haven't been yet! )

I should make a quick point regarding the art assets. I’m currently playing through Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition, and I discovered that the cutscenes weren’t reworked with modern art like the 1st Baldur’s Gate:EE. This was because people complained when Beamdog changed and modernised the cutscenes in the first game. So what was the response when Beamdog left the cutscenes alone in BG2:EE? People complained, of course. And that's a good example of how you can’t please everybody. Regarding the art assets, it’s nice to have different options for people who prefer different things. But I’m against the idea of having CG’s be ‘scrollable’, having to scroll through art assets breaks immersion when you’re reading and you’re unable to take in a scene in one go, you gotta scroll and interpret it in pieces. There’s a reason companies don’t do that. Definitely not my thing, but other people could be happy with it.

Considering someone who reaches the denpasoft page is a person who we can assume can read and understand the english language (although probably in a very crude way for some of them), can you explain me how would anyone think "unrated" means "uncensored"?

lol. You just repeated what I said Great minds think alike? Didn't even see your post, hehe.

I don't know how to operate girls. Someone halp! If they stop working you need to oil them. Copious amounts of emotion and irrationality should about do it. How is it that I can always find something that makes me laugh in every one of your posts? My deepest apologies, I am having difficulty correlating this question to the topic of girls. Please give me 24 hours to further investigate the matter and I'll attempt to get back to you.

Not hyped. Never liked any of Key novels, always get bored and sleepy. Too slow. I even was unable to finish Planetarian... Thus they are best when you have insomnia - always worked for me, calm sleep in 15 minutes max.

Confession: When I see a cyr post, I just automatically like it before I've even read it Confession 2: So, I've been rejected by the two new girls in my student organisation now

Still not sure what is more important: Clannad or exam week lol I'll probably just play "Watashi ga sukinara sukitte itte!"

haha xD Hey I've been doing school work thats due in like 3 weeks, just so I have time to no life read this thing. Havent seen a teacher as shocked as when I asked "Can I have next weeks homework in advance so I can finnish it this weekend?"

*triggered*

I believe Zeno's earlier post conveys my thoughts.

I've never read it either [3] and only watched a few episodes of it (but that's partially down to me being generally shit at watching series), so naturally I'm pretty damn excited for the release of this as well. It'll be pretty cool to play one of the 'classic' (by which I mean well-regarded) VNs too, as I've not really done too many of those. Drawing dango in anticipation.

You do realize you can just turn off the voices in the options menu in any visual novel, right? Many even offer that option separately for different characters. You could but why spend an extra 20 bucks when you're not going to use the voices? It's just nice to have the option not to buy it if you don't think you're going to use it.

Wow, that semantics thing really blew up. One of the big unknown factors I had was the quality of the translation, though I myself don't know Japanese and probably wouldn't notice a difference I would still ideally prefer the best translation so I can read the closest thing to the original story. It seems like the translation is pretty much the same with a few minor differences that I probably wouldn't even notice (except spelling errors but that's just a problem all the time). Cropping really doesn't bother me that much but it is poorly done in some cases. Usually when I have an option to play a game with or without H-scenes I always go for the version with h-scenes because it's the original I'm a horny bastard. So far my list of pros and cons are Sekai TL +Better Aspect ratio +Better backgrounds +Choice to have voiced or unvoiced (some people view this as a con but it's really nice to have the option in my opinion) -Cropped CG's - No Hentai Fan TL + Hentai + Uncropped CG's (it's nice to have the full artwork I must admit) -Shit resolution Honestly it seems like both versions of the game are not by any means bad, it's pretty much like picking between the adult and all-ages version of a VN except that all-ages has a better resolution.

The denpasoft page has mosaics as a tag. What's this argument even about?

Unfortunately Edison doesn't play a role in this one, as far as I know, so they don't play up that rivalry at all. Although it does feature Florence Nightingale and Wilhelm Reich. Most of you know who Florence Nightingale is, but I'm sure many of you have never heard of Wilhelm Reich. Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst, active from the 1920s until his death in '57. He worked under Freud and gained some recognition early on. But his theories quickly became heavily politicized. He had The Mass Psychology of Fascism published in 1933, after which he made a hasty exit from Nazi Germany. He was highly critical of fascism and, interestingly enough, attributed the rise of fascism to the repression of the youth's sexual desires. This political philosophizing caused some alienation in the psychoanalyst community, but it didn't end there. His next work, The Sexual Revolution, was a controversial work that was practically pseudo-science. It merged ideas from marxism with psychoanalysis and theorized that the source of all neurosis is the lack of "orgastic potency" in subjects. He was actually somehow even more obsessed with sex than Freud was. He came up with a theory surrounding "orgone," a supposed universal energy that drives all life, which is sexual in nature. And he came up with a bizarre form of therapy where he would have his patients strip down and he would prod and massage them in certain ways that would allow them release repressed emotions and sometimes also reach orgasm. Yeah. Suffice to say, he became a bit of an outcast, and almost no one follows his teachings anymore. So, what does this have to do with Gahkthun? Gahkthun's Wilhelm Reich is the leader of The Academia's Governing Council and actually has a fascist bent, which goes against the real-world Reich. The impression I get from his character bio is that he seems to be all business, being the kind of guy who has no time for sex and never talks about it. But what he does have in common is "Orgone." Gahkthun's Reich seems to be in search of this cosmic force he believes to be the manifestation of bliss itself. It will be interesting to see how many other ways the character may relate to the real life figure. I know this post was largely apropos of nothing, but I like it when games utilize historical figures like this and I enjoy comparing them to the game characters. It's nice to know the background of these people before going in and hopefully some of you found it interesting as well.

Heya, guys! Just a friendly reminder that The Letter's Kickstarter campaign is ending in 62 hours. We're near our goal, so check it out and consider supporting it by backing or spreading the word! You can check out and support us on our Kickstarter page!

yeah and poor holly D:, her hand im sure it was really hurt after all those quick punches to the face of ronda now seriously when I saw ronda bleeding I had to change the channel. I almost forgot, Mayweather said that he was going to teach ronda how to fight xD and I'm sure he will, I mean he did steal sorry i mean win the fight against Pacquiao

Youre playing NTR for the wrong reasons then if you easily get ticked off by women sleeping with other men. You dont play NTR hoping that the protagonist will somehow win the heroine back. You play it because you are interested by the drama that ensues because of it or just the whole fetish of the heroine being coveted by someone else. Save that "heroic rescue bs" for your vanilla nonsense.

Actually no it isn’t, the precedent for an assumed unchanged release is well established and has been for a long time. In comparison, the precedent for an assumed no mosaic release is really only been established and adhered to by MangaGamer, so the precedent is dubious at best. Additionally this expectation crosses mediums quite spectacularly, book publishers notify consumers on what has changed during a localisation, gaming companies notify consumers on what has changed during a localisation, movie studios similarly, this is the way things are done. The eroge fanbase has been spoilt by Mangagamer who pander quite spectacularly to them, but in no way is this the norm and in no way does this effect default consumer expectations in the industry. And why would it? The idea that you give information on every little thing is quite ridiculous to a company, they'd be at it all day, so the idea that a localisation is the same unless stated otherwise is useful to cut down on time. The idea that the rules have suddenly changed and that Sekai is culpable of deviousness is quite ridiculous - they are merely behaving like most other companies in the world. I would say the push for mosaics comes from a desire within certain aspects of the eroge fanbase to have unmosaiced VNs, and this desire drives them to seek out information, but I wouldn't say this desire establishes a precedent as to what information is expected to be presented every time to the entirety of the fanbase. And anyway if a piece of work has mosaics, then the company in question faces a backlash from this part of the eroge fanbase no matter what they do, so I would suggest this 'unrated' kerfuffle is a bit of a scapegoat, allowing a portion of the fanbase to vent their anger over pixellated penises. More on 'unrated' below. Your assertion that ‘everybody expects an uncensored release’ is a spectacularly dubious statement backed up by no evidence whatsoever. And even if they did expect an 'uncensored' release, what sort of 'uncensored' are we talking about? Because as I said, the term 'censored' usually applies to localisation companies adding additional censorship, not localisation companies keeping censorship which is already in place. If that were the case, very FEW works would ever be uncensored, because mosaicing out penises is only one of the many forms of censorship the original devs may have included during the making of the game. The writers, for example, may have strayed away or suppressed topics, dialogues, and description they felt would be uncomfortable for the section of the Japanese audience they were targeting, and if devs altering the images is a form of censorship, then devs modifying the text would also count. So now what are the options, get the devs to rewrite certain sections of the story to what it would have been had they been granted complete free reign? An absurd idea. And this is why the word 'censored' when used in conjunction with 'localisation' is often meant 'additional censorship applied by the localisation company.' I am going to be quite frank and say that during my lengthy discussions on ratings over the past decade or so, on anime forums and the like, the eroge fanbase is the only fanbase which seems to express confusion over the term 'unrated.' Saying the terms 'unrated' and 'uncensored' are confusing is like saying the words 'undone' and 'underdone' are confusing, they CAN be... if you don't know the language. And if Sekai are promoting their site to English speakers, then assuming their audience understands English is not an unreasonable assumption to make. It is NOT Sekai's job to hold your hand and guide you to enlightenment, they supply the information on the site, it's not hidden in an unused basement behind a sign which says 'beware: pitbulls ahead' so take some initiative and inform yourself before you make your purchase.

The true end had me depressed so I had to go watch an anime to distract me. It was Kara no Kyoukai so it didn't help in the slightest cause I bawled at the ending to it.

The "default expectation" here is "no mosaics", because almost every single 18+ VN release on the West does NOT have them. It's often mentioned as one of the advantages of official releases vs fan-translations. Why would anyone suddenly expect something else? Why would anyone even ask about it? As for informing about mosaics, MG somehow does this in a very clear way, without any controversies, and without using the word "censorship". They do go quite far with this (they dedicated 2 pages in the Ef artbook for the explanation about their localization and mosaics), but that's how it should be. They know that everyone expects and uncensored release, so they do whatever they can to inform the customers when something is different than "default expectations". For some mysterious reason, there was no outrage when they released those two VNs with mosaics. How about Sekai? They slapped a term "unrated" on it. Why? It says exactly nothing - like I said, all 18+ VNs are "unrated" on the West, nobody cares about it. Heck, nobody even uses this term in the context of VNs. Unlike the term "uncensored"... But yeah, those terms sound so incredibly different there's no way anyone would make any mistakes. It's certainly a better idea to use a perfectly meaningless "unrated" instead of a perfectly clear "with mosaic". Great job. If this really wasn't an intentional choice meant to deceive less cautious customers, they are retarded. Going back to the G-Sen case - transparency and communication seems to be a bit of an issue here again. They were treating the "cropping" topic as a taboo, and as far as I know, they didn't even say whether they are planning to release the 18+ edition on Denpasoft or not. Or maybe I'm just missing their announcements? Correct me if I'm wrong. As for updating art - there are plenty of good solutions: 1) Redrawing and expanding CG into a true, non-cropped HD. That's obviously the best solution. Definitely the most expensive one, but even though it might seem too good to be realistic, it's not unheard of - https://vndb.org/r3723 to mention just one example (and that's a total upgrade form 16-color graphics). 2) Scrolling - easier, cheaper, but less comfortable. Still, it preserves the original artwork in widescreen just fine, and you don't have to use the scrolling feature at all - you just get cropped version then. 3) Choice - you pick either cropped CGs or original ones with black borders - that's a no-brainer. Kizuato/Shizuku remake did this as well - they included the original 16-color editions. Generally, the best idea is to let people choose. It's simple - you have old artwork, old cutscenes, everything - just slap those together with remastered stuff and let people pick whatever they want. A very easy way to make (almost) everyone happy with little to no additional costs (unless there are some licensing issues, but this shouldn't be the case here). It's actually a rather common practice, now that I think about it...

I think the biggest advantage when it comes to Fan TLs is flexibility to do what you want. And I'm not just talking schedule wise, I think the ability to continuously alter your scripts based on direct feedback is something I believe official translations tend to lack. Of course a company can talk to their costumers, but there's always an element of distance between a company and the consumer, who's role is typically just waiting around for the product to be out. With Fan TLs though, you tend to actively interact with the staff, and often help them by testing their game and providing corrections, this helps the final product to be improved by the fans for the fans. However, Fan TLs can easily lack on the quality side because of that same flexibility. Official translations, if done by competent companies, will always have professionals who's sole work is to translate, and do it as good as possible so they can deliver the story in the best way they can. They also have access to official assets and game code which can greatly help in bringing the game to a Western audience. In this specific case, almost everything has been improved from a technical standpoint, although I have heard the translation/editing suffered, but I can't confirm this myself. But assuming the translation quality wasn't affected, I think this game in particular can only gain from being updated by SP, save for the fact content was cut from it. Fan translation is superior. Big uncut CG scenes, no cutted out h-content, easily changeable font. Only benefit official have is widescreen, but I plan to do a patch for that also for fan TL one day, this is not a big problem actually. >Tfw translation quality doesn't even factor in. So the translation could be shit so long as the porn is there?

As a consumer of games and electronic media for close to 3 decades now, I really don't buy the "warning the consumer angle." Sorry. The default expectations of the consumer when bringing over games from another country is that the game arrives in the same condition as it was in Japan, not that it's been magically enhanced. MangaGamer tries to go above and beyond to give out as much information as possible, and to cater to their core fanbase, but this isn't the behaviour of most companies and I don't buy the excuse that Sekai were preying on unsuspecting consumers. 'Censorship' technically means what Pabloc says, that is true. Unfortunately when publishers of foreign media plaster 'censored' on their website, consumers tend to infer that it has been additionally censored during the process of localisation. So it's a case of one word with two possible meanings, and that might be why Sekai are reluctant to do so. Shooting off a quick question should solve the issue... provided Sekai answers. But not giving the consumer all the information is quite common. I'm in a bad internet state, so I'm really annoyed with Telltale's new habit of releasing 'season pass discs' instead of having episodes stores on the discs like the good old days. Game of Thrones PC edition has 1 episode on the disc, and you have to download the rest. They don't have this information plastered on the cover, the consumer has to hunt for the information, and I'm glad I wasn't caught unaware like some people have. Providing all information relevant to all consumers is quite impossible, so they only put up information they deem pertinent for the audience they're targeting. Telltale has always targeted the digital audience, so they don't feel their new policy is that big a deal. My gut reaction is Sekai's aiming for the all-ages crowd, so taking additional time to redesign their website just to say 'we haven't modified our game from the Japanese', which to be fair has always been the default assumption, could be seen as something of low priority. I don't buy the 'Sekai - deceiving consumers' angle people are trying to peddle. @Scorp: As for the 'cropped CGs' business, it's honestly because most people don't care (unless it deletes important pieces of information.)

Just finished Kara no Shoujo 2 as well and had a blast reading through it. Really liked the way everything tied together - past to present, characters and their motivations. I found it much easier to play through blind and didn't land on any bad ends on my first playthrough. They gave more than enough hints to let you figure out who did the murders. Pacing did feel a little slow in the first part but it picked up once we get back to Reiji's POV. OST was great and definitely help set the atmosphere, although the first game's songs (azure bird) were more memorable to me. I have to agree that I found Yukiko a bit underwhelming for being the poster girl of the game (Touko best girl). Overall, it was a great sequel and now I can't wait for Kara no Shoujo 3 (dat true ending ;-;).

Hey Fuwans! I've never done a blog before (or at least, not one that wasn't a work of fiction... is that still a blog?) and therefore I may lack the basic principles of layout, appropriate language, and possibly the most important factor of being slightly interesting. Still, I figured I'd give it a crack, partially to try to understand the events in my life leading up to where I am now and partially to offer my pearls of wisdom on various facets of all things Japanese and fun. I hope that in the very least it's a vaguely entertaining read, and that it might occasionally spark a blob of discussion! -------- A few days ago I found myself wondering, while browsing the forums in a way that can only be described as a procrastinatory fashion, at what stage in my life I started to become interested in Japanese things. As a child, I never watched Pokémon, nor owned a Nintendo device, nor played Yu-Gi-Oh! round the back of the playground shed (cards were banned at my infant and primary schools for some reason). I used to like the shape of Japan on maps, but then again I liked the shape of many places on maps - including my first national love of Finland. I used to randomly drop Finnish words into conversation (still do on occasion...), spend ages reading instruction manuals with the Finnish language in, and would watch any film with Finnish subtitles because it seemed cool. In some ways, I was a Finland weeb, if that ever could be a thing. Over time, this spread to an interest in language generally, leading to me collating words from anything I could find in a big diary, divided and split into their separate categories with unconnected words scrawled in. I guess I liked thinking how different these things were. However, even this eventually petered out, and for a while I had little more than a passing inquisitive interest in anything outside of my cosy little life in southeast England. After school, I went to college, and it was here that I had my first definite experience with things of a Japanese nature. On my second or third day, I started talking to someone - or rather, he started talking to me - about an online roleplaying game which he was an active member of. He was describing to me his current character, telling me all about her personality and appearance, when he said that she was a 'tsundere'. I had no bloody idea what that was, so I naturally asked him (actually, I asked him what's a sundern', which I later found out is a town in Nord Rhine-Westphalia). Following his description, I became curious about why such a trait would exist, although I had no real reference point to go on. This friend went on to play a key role in getting me interested in anime, as at his suggestion I watched Kill La Kill, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai and Tokyo Ghoul. I sadly don't talk much with him anymore as I left college and we went our separate ways, but we still chat every now and then. Also while at college, I was surfing that halcyon land of the internet formally known as 4chan, when I came across a Katawa Shoujo thread. I'd seen them previously, but never really paid much attention - but, through a mixture of people talking about 'feels' (I liked to think I was somewhat impervious to emotion... ), cute drawn girls and the only vaguely fun 'community' I could find on /b/, I gave it a bash. Hanako showing a somewhat accurate portrayal of my experience playing Katawa Shoujo for the first time. Yeah. That. My outlook on life was pretty shit at the time, so having something which made me feel so strongly felt like some kind of emotional release for me that I had never had before (Wiosna, its theme tune, still makes me feel rather emotional to this day). It was due to this experience that I started to look out for other visual novels - in the following months, I played True Remembrance, Marry Me Misato!, Homeward, Yandere-chan, and my homeboy at college sourced me a copy of Fate/Stay Night, which with my very basic awareness at the time I'd heard was 'alright'. I started to open up socially again - not only in my actual life, but in my virtual life too, as I joined my first internet community in the Katawa Shoujo forums. It was great to be able to talk to such a wide variety of people about something I couldn't adequately discuss with anyone in the 'real world'. How I learned what a 'yandere' was. Hmm. Over the course of the next 12 months or so (so I guess April 2014 - April 2015) my interest in things drawn and Japanese-based waned somewhat. After running out of things to say on the KS forums, leaving college and starting university, I just got doing other things - mostly involving playing guitar and habitually cursing my decision of taking mathematics. However, for some reason one day I decided to Google 'visual novels' and I came across a list of 50 VNs on some site called forums.fuwanovel.net by a user called Kaguya. Now, I'm not gonna say I danced on the rooftops (metaphorically or physically) but needless to say I became very intrigued, researching and reading about and around the titles on this list, as well as starting to make a concerted effort at learning Japanese. At roughly the same time, a friend of mine recommended that I checked out a guy called 'Gackt', in particular his first two albums. I was blown away, and so started to check as many different facets of the Japanese music scene as I could (visual kei, J-Pop, shibuya-kei... and grindcore ). Not two months later, I signed up to this glorious forum and things have only really continued from there! This past 5 or 6 months have been a bit like Alice wandering through Wonderland for me. Through my investigations into all things Japan, there have been things that have amused me greatly, things that have appalled me, and some that have just left me thinking what a truly interesting place it is. I still consider myself somewhat of a newbie to things, and that is in part what this blog is going to be about: feeling kinda like a tourist to a largely unfamiliar world, and trying to learn as much as possible along the way. Please be patient with me.

I'll never see the appeal in casual sex. ._. Anyways, I'd talk to her about it. If she's not willing to show concern over your well-being, she's not worth being with. I know it's sort of mean to think of it that way, but it's bad for your mental health to stay around people that make you upset (I can tell you from experience). If she doesn't sympathize with you, break up with her and find a woman that will. It's better to have sex with someone you can truly love from the bottom of your heart. So, about my move-in. It looks like I won't have much to worry about with the guy I moved in with. He's not the brightest bird in the bunch, but he's a really nice guy and surprisingly open-minded too. Despite him being a Donald Trump supporter, he was willing to listen to and agree with the points I made against him, and acknowledge what I said Bernie Sanders. He's also very easy to talk to when it comes to my own personal interests and complaints on life. I've never been able to do that with any of the other men my mom has recently gone out with. I am so stoked to be here now! At first, I was thinking "alright, I'll just put up with being here till I'm ready to move out", but now I feel like I don't have to wait another year to get that sense of relief. Also, yay for having a queen-sized bed now! It feels so nice to be able to spread your arms out for once. ^^ Oh and I have 170 mbps download speed now.

From what one of the editors said on Steam, apparently their censorship is limited pretty much only to pictures - text is almost unaltered and the sex still remains in the story (it just isn't explicitly shown), so the plot shouldn't be affected. At least that's what he claims. And yeah, the poor job at cropping is AkabeiSoft's fault, not Sekai's. But... so what? It doesn't change the fact it's a cut version with not-that-great, cropped "HD". And since AkabeiSoft only made an all-ages "HD" version (so - no "HD" H-CGs), the chances for an English 18+ release are very slim. Buying it does NOT support "releasing VNs on the West". It supports the practice of releasing ONLY censored, Steam-DRM-ridden versions of originally 18+ VNs with no choice whatsoever. Because why bother with uncut releases, when people will buy whatever you throw at them anyway?

Oh I see how it is. Hug the Brazilian, laugh at the Jersey-guy-living-in-Florida.

Most eroge do actually have something underneath the mosaics. You have to have something there because a barebones level of detail is required even if there are mosaics. AFAIK, MangaGamer doesn't do redraws, I've never seen anyone from MG talk about that. I believe some people misunderstood a tweet from Doddler where he mentioned touching up a HCG from ImoPara in photoshop but that is the extent of it. He is certainly no artist. The reason why their CGs look so shitty is because that's the basic level of detail the original artists went with in their pre-mosaiced CGs, and that's all MG has to work with. If they were to redraw them, they'd probably look better. This is why there's such a strong inconsistency between companies. Softhouse Seal's genitals look like shit while Clock Up's look alright. Even Minori, who refused to release uncensored games in the west, had uncensored originals. You could tell there's more detail there than you'd think when you compared the original mosaiced CGs to the "reduced" mosaics in the western releases.

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