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We're talking about Fuwa Reviews here, you don't actually have to read the thing you're reviewing. Just put low score on it for clickbait and complain about the things you kind-of remember.

Im sorry SP but mangagamer releases euphoria in 4 days and I just couldnt bear to see myself not preordering that one and some japanese doujin VNs. (also grisaia made me wanna stay away from everything that resembles the school setting for a long long time)

While "desu" can indicate a more formal speech or a peculiar character trait (versus those who don't use "desu"), the fact of the matter is that "desu" is typically just indicating state of being, so I feel as though keeping it in English, more often than not, just ruins the sentence for no good reason. This is on a whole different level than honorific usage since it doesn't particularly indicate anything relevant in English if you were to keep it. In Japanese the word "desu" has a proper grammatical function and that grammatical function has an English equivalent so there is no reason to keep it in a translation, as much as you see it as a character trait. As much of a weeb as I am, I don't feel like keeping end particles is a good decision no matter how frequent they are in the original script. You'd have to give me a really good explanation to keep desu in an English script other than "it's a character trait", because plenty of characteres have plenty of different ways to end their sentences in Japanese. If we were to keep all these different particles, the finished product would be a mess.

Whether it’s fine translation philosophy depends on whether it's explained. The word ‘desu’ may convey a speech quirk of a character, unfortunately you are translating the game for an English audience and English speakers have no clue what the word means. Therefore the trait you are trying to convey will be overlooked by the audience you’re targeting. In other words, including a word which has no meaning is akin to leaving it out altogether, except you add a little bit of confusion to the pot as well. Deep Blue is fine with it because he has knowledge of Japanese, this is not your target audience. There are two ways to go about things. The first is to leave the Japanese word in, but explain it either in game or in footnotes. I keep saying this, and I’ll continue to say it over and over, every single professional literal translation is accompanied by hundreds of footnotes. Every single one. You cannot do literal without explanations – at least not in any credible way. I’m looking at literally translated literature as we speak and there’s a massive number of footnotes. P&V would take a Russian book, leave a paragraph in French for authenticity purposes, but translate it into English in the footnotes. If you don’t explain these foreign terms that are unfamiliar to the English speaking audience, it’s just poor translation philosophy. The other way is to localise things. I’m fine with either method what I’m NOT fine with is having to look stuff up on google every couple of minutes because somebody littered the story with Japanese words and concepts and didn’t include footnotes, that’s NOT cool. And I just looked up ‘desu’ on google, and I still don’t understand what quirk it’s meant to convey. I really don’t have the time to hunt this down purely because I want to read a story. So your translation is fine if the word is explained to the English audience. I’ve been watching anime and reading translated VNs for 20 years, and I have no clue what ‘desu’ is outside of ‘it’s a speech quirk.’ So all you’re conveying to me is the character speaks with a quirk. Unfortunately most people speak with a quirk so that’s some pretty useless information there. It may signify ‘cute and peculiar’ to Japanese speakers, but it just signifies ‘foreign’ to me. Case in point, the lady who talks in short sentences. That’s an interesting quirk right there, intentional? Feel free not to answer, just something I noticed. I don't know if you're getting the desired effect there, early on her dialogue read a but like bullet points. Not really important though. But it's a quirk, and it's a quirk I can understand because you used techniques familiar to English audiences. The way to localise this is NOT to try for a one-to-one substitution. You identify what the word actually does, you identify the tonal change it gives the character speech, and you look for a technique in the English language that affects speech in similar ways. This will most likely NOT be a word you tack onto the end of sentences because of how different the languages are, and it could change case by case. There are many ways to characterise ‘cute' and a gazilliion ways to characterise 'peculiar’ in English, you pick the way which closely approximates the desired effect. PS: To anybody who thinks my tone is confrontational in forum posts, it's not meant to be, I'm doing a few things at the same time and this is my 'business' tone.

Quick update! We've just released our first translated gameplay video for Libra. Please check it out when you have a chance. More clips are coming soon. Enjoy!

the structure of clannad is cancer good luck completing that game without a walkthrough

For those of you wondering about the meaning and usage of "desu":

They seriously don't give steam keys for physical backers? I never noticed that before. I don't know if SP was just unaware of this, but it is common practice in video game kickstarters to give a steam key to physical backers. Now that you've backed them for more money, you have to wait two or three extra months to be able to play the game? lmao.

I'm totally fine with keeping that. I mean, it's an English translation, doesn't mean we have to try so hard to translate everything into English, even the untranslatable ones. That's almost a "trait" of the character, so there is just no reason to cut it off or change it into some weird English words that cannot sound dumber. And seriously though, is there anyone here who doesn't know about the word "desu"? Hell, if anyone here follows Umaru manga, you will see that readers even demanded the translation group to include "desuwa" in Sylphi's lines. Rozen Maiden dub was horrible, btw.

It's a possibility, but~ even if it doesn't work out, I think we'd likely end things on good terms (I hope). If I'm still interested in VNs, anime and such, I doubt I'll leave fuwa just because of that. I'm not sure what question you're referring to xD. Btw, those are huuge... Confession: I'd personally rather get a dakimakura instead of a mousepad, like this one!

I like it, is like makina on grisaia when she says all the time なのよさ at the end of the sentences, there is no real translation for that(it was lost on the translation) neither for this desu. Personally I think is really charming, but like I said not everyone is going to like it.

Yeah, I said I was going to wait until I'd played at least two more heroines before I posted again... but Rin's path has enough impact that I felt a distinct need to post on it ahead of time. Misakura Rin is the protagonist's osananajimi... a childhood friend and one another's first love (this is said pretty much from the beginning, so it doesn't really count as a spoiler). For reasons the protagonist deliberately only hints at (typical Sca-ji) he has been avoiding any sort of contact with her for years... since she transferred out of the area. This is despite the fact that his memories with her are some of the ones he treasures the most from his childhood. To be honest, though Makoto's path is really good, the engagement with the protagonist and heroine is completely different in Rin's path. Unlike in my past experience with Sca-ji, the progression as Rin's personal issues are revealed in detail is carried out in a manner that is neither irritating nor excessive, and even the building of their relationship feels more natural than you generally see in a VN. Understand, if you have read a lot of Japanese literature, it is really easy to figure out where Sca-ji is going with Rin even without getting on her path. He lays the hints on pretty thickly, and the reaction of a certain fushigi-ko character (not a heroine) to Rin is the final nail in the coffin. If you honestly haven't figured out why the protagonist is so intent on avoiding building a relationship with Rin early on, you are probably pretty dense... though the details are - of course - only revealed in her path. In addition to the purely physical issues, there is a significant amount of psychological weirdness involved, and I have to make the suggestion that you keep in mind that Sca-ji can't seem to avoid inserting mysticism into any and all his stories on some level, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that read Ikikoi the way he tries to keep certain issues ambiguous throughout this path. I have to wonder if he himself has an ambiguous relationship with faith and fantasy, considering the way he writes about them. I honestly cried during the climax scene of Rin's path, and I was surprised to find myself actually ranking the path pretty high up there as emotional VN paths go... right up there with the true path of Irosekai and a few others that had me in tears. A lot of it is that the protagonist has that bad habit a lot of my favorite protagonists in emotional games have... he has an odd disregard for his own safety, health, and future when he puts them in balance with someone he cares about or even someone who simply needs his help. While I love pragmatist protagonists and even ones who can be cruel, that is mostly for the same reason as I like this type of protagonist... people that exist at extremes of the range of human personality are inevitably fascinating... far moreso than some humdrum 'normal' schoolboy, lol. Edit: Linguistic issues Now on linguistics... I don't think most people who read VNs really understand how a simple choice of words can alter how someone views a whole issue. Above, in parenthesis, I said 'typical' Sca-ji in relation to what I referred to as a bad habit in a previous post. Now, if I were a long-standing fan of Sca-ji, I probably would have said 'classic' Sca-ji. What is the difference? By using 'typical' there, I inserted a note of sarcasm/cynicism into an otherwise neutral statement. If I were to have said 'classic', that would have altered it to sound somewhat fanboyish... I wonder how many of those who read this blog even realize how much reviewers manipulate you through simple word choices like these? Not only that, ninety percent of a writer's skill is in figuring out how to insert emotion using subtle word choices like this. The reason Masada - the writer of Dies Irae - attracts writers and reading-addicts like flies is because his prose really is a work of art, designed to gain a very specific reaction without entirely making you aware that he is doing it. The reason Sca-ji tends to irritate people like me is that he lacks subtlety from the perspective of people like me. Now understand, he is perfectly subtle from the perspective of your average reader. I doubt most people will pick up on more than ten percent of the hints he gives... but for people used to figuring out subtle hints as second nature, it feels like he is laying it on a bit thick, to the point of extreme repetition. Sometimes this works (Rin's path is an example of this) and at others it doesn't (my experience of Subahibi). This is an entirely subjective issue and not one that the mainstream will ever even recognize is there without some jaded jerk like me going out of his way to point it out. However, I felt a need to say just why my bias is always going to be against Sca-ji, because I can't stop it from coloring how I write about him. Edit2: Rina and the Yuri path Rina's path is in some ways darker than Rin's. For all the depth of emotion involved in Rin's path, the entire thing was almost entirely between Rin and the protagonist, with only occasional intervention from third parties. However, throughout Rina's path, Yuumi plays an intimate role together with them. Indeed, a good portion of the path is devoted to a recounting of Rina's and her past from Yuumi's point of view, as well as the first meeting between Naoya and Rina. Yuumi as a child is pretty... messed up inside, at least partially because she is an honest to god born lesbian. In a moege, there would probably be a 3P path here... and while that kind of path is generally fun to read, it wouldn't have the depth this one did. After the recounting of the past, it splits into Rina's heroine route and a Yuri path between her and Yuumi. To be honest, I don't think I would have gotten as much from Rina's path if I hadn't chosen to do the yuri ending first, so I can honestly recommend it as something that adds some depth to Rina's ending, putting some things in perspective. Rina's path... is equally intimate to Rin's, but it lacks the kind of high-emotion cathartic drama that Rin's had (at least for me), at least in part because a great portion of the path was devoted to recounting the somewhat messed up formative time of Rina's and Yuumi's relationship. From a purely intellectual point of view, it was an excellent choice, but it had the effect of making the path deeper intellectually at the cost of emotional engagement, an occasional problem with that kind of flashback recounting.

God dammit I'll write the thing tonight and send it off to editing tonight.

Finally finally finally got my copy to work. Clannad FuwaReview coming ASAP

Clannad made it to rank 3 of current Top Sellers. I guess that's a good start alright. I don't mind the price, it's about as much as euphoria is selling for and a bit less than Maggot Baits. I'll be skipping this one, though. Already skipped the After Story part of the anime, nakige just aren't my cup of tea.

I'm sorry SP, but Clock Up releases Maggot Baits in 4 days, and I just couldn't bear to see myself not preordering that one (and there's Narcissu KS, too). (Also, KonoSora makes me wanna stay away from everything that resembles a school setting for a long, long time.) Though I wouldn't have bought Steam-infested stuff anyway. Well, at least the price is now reasonable, with that discount.

If all else fails there's always the time-honoured tradition of privateering.

The reason why Spanish words are okay is because major English speaking countries also have many Spanish speakers from surroundings countries which causes their culture to sift in. As a result, almost every English speaker in say the US will now a few Spanish words like say Uno, Adios, Amigo, etc. It's basically the same thing as how Japanese has a shitload of English words in the language that people know and use all the time, but to a lesser degree. The same thing doesn't really hold true in English for Japanese save a few cultural words like Samurai, Ninja, Sushi, you get the idea. Putting in desu in a translation isn't a smart idea because the vast majority of English speakers, yes even in the anime community, aren't going to understand what it means even if they know of the word. That's what translating is. Speech quirks typically don't have much meaning on their own beyond being a part of certain speech habits. Even if the "nanoyosa" wasn't directly translated, that doesn't mean meaning was lost in the transition. Also just translate desu as yes most of the time, be creative when you can't, there problem fixed.

reading tapestry, I already love hikari xD

makina verbal tick is not translated, the " なのよさ" that she adds at the end of every single sentence is not translated because it cannot be translated, even if you want to it would look bad. What they did manage to add was the way of her speaking, doing things like "th'" "excellen''" etc but that is not related at all with the "nanoyosa" that she constantly keeps adding. Again that was lost in the translation. This makes her sound really subservient which is probably not what you want. that's the idea, she is a subordinated and again it was just a silly idea.

I have never seen noxious being this lost for words, hes usually pretty snarky about everything but this just left him with this face xD, my fucking sides.

Indulging trap needs with Kimi to Boku to Eden no Ringo. Definitely. I love how he is just as messed up mentally as girls. And the overthinking situations just to decide on the dumbest one.

Boo. It needs to rain more. I miss getting to walk under an umbrella with my female friends

MFW people just want free shit. Considering it's huge size and the amount of work with localization, 50$ is nothing special. You don't have to buy it, if you don't like it; you have literally no obligation to do that and no one's forcing you, either. It's that kind of attitude from the western fanbase that makes things difficult for everyone.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but there you go. It does create a character quirk, I have no idea if it accurately approximated the specific quirk in question. This page has a lot of anime characters saying 'desu', but it seems a lot of the English dubs just drop it. Without seeing the dubs in question, I'm thinking most dubs may strive to emulate the effect of that quirk in ways other than a direct replacement. That's just a guess though. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VerbalTic/AnimeAndManga

I think you need to address the じーっ thing and add something like "staaaaaaaaaare" because that is in fact something that not many will understand if you don't know some japanese and adds a lot to the scene (in a funny way) just like they did with the びくびく The way to localise this is NOT to try for a one-to-one substitution. You identify what the word actually does, you identify the tonal change it gives the character speech, and you look for a technique in the English language that affects speech in similar ways. This will most likely NOT be a word you tack onto the end of sentences because of how different the languages are, and it could change case by case. There are many ways to characterise ‘cute' and a gazilliion ways to characterise 'peculiar’ in English, you pick the way which closely approximates the desired effect. PS: To anybody who thinks my tone is confrontational in forum posts, it's not meant to be, I'm doing a few things at the same time and this is my 'business' tone. I did say it was my personal opinion that it was a charming thing for her to say, I also did state that I was sure not everyone was going to like it. Probably you are right, they shouldn't target people with some understanding on the language (like me) they shouldn't take this types of things for granted, like the knowledge of the word "desu" but even so I think that "westernizing" a character or the translation itself is the complete opposite to this and equally harmful, like dropping honorific, changing the uses of surnames for names or even adding english traits to a character that doesn't have them in the first place, you are basically rewriting a character just to appeal to another audience. The best solution for this in my opinion is to add some kind of "encyclopedia" like clannad did recently or steins;gate etc etc, an easier way to do this is to add footnotes but again footnotes are not always welcomed by many readers. In the end you can't please everyone.

If you want to get the full characterization in any Japanese game, the only real solution is to read it in Japanese. Desu is one of those things that will just always be lost in translation, we should just accept that. This is a really terrible solution to the problem in my opinion. Again, this is the first time I've ever seen any professionals do this because it's usually obvious that you shouldn't. Expect to get a LOT of pushback for this.

Whatever character trait you're supposed to be representing by leaving that in completely fails to come across in the english script. When used like that in english, it's just a complete nonsense word that doesn't give us any insight into that girl's character at all. There are many characters in anime and VNs with this verbal tick, yet this is literally the first time I have seen a professional company translate it in this kind of way. It's honestly a baffling decision.

We anticipated that including desu would raise some questions . To be honest, I was curious myself after I'd seen a couple drafts of the translation. So we brought it up to our veteran translators and asked them why they were adding the desu. After a lengthy discussion, they all commented that this stood out as a character trait (a cute and peculiar one I'd imagine) of Lycoris's. So, this is why we've decided to include it.

I love the です there although I'm sure many will complain about it (hope I'm wrong)

And I'm currently working on getting all teh feelz in Grisaia. Why do I read things that make me bawl like an unmanly man? because it feels good obviously : 3. dont deny it. I dont know though, grisaia didnt rek me as much as I had hoped tbh. And actually I would like to say that "Grisaia no Kajitsu is a 7/10 game. It has great moments, yes, but overall it isn't all that impressive. IMHO it does not deserve very high a place in the hallmark of VN's." I've only made my way through one of females thus far, working on the second. While it isn't quite as loaded on teh feelz thus far, it still does catch me, in maybe a way it's supposed to.

And I'm currently working on getting all teh feelz in Grisaia. Why do I read things that make me bawl like an unmanly man? because it feels good obviously : 3. dont deny it. I dont know though, grisaia didnt rek me as much as I had hoped tbh. And actually I would like to say that "Grisaia no Kajitsu is a 7/10 game. It has great moments, yes, but overall it isn't all that impressive. IMHO it does not deserve very high a place in the hallmark of VN's."

she looks a bit young even for a loli is she the doll from Katahane?

Git gud taste pls.

Confession: I don't think I have ever been as honest to someone about myself as I have been today.

I used this guide for some endings http://www.otakulair.com/kara-no-shojo-the-second-episode-walkthrough-mangagamer/

Assuming everything related to localization got paid through Kickstarter, the only reason I can see for this price is Visual Art's taking a huge chunk of the profit or straight up having the rights to set the price as they wish. VNs in Japan have always been super expensive due to their high production values and niche market, it's not surprising that a release this big would make the developer want a good profit out of it. I still think $50 is a fair price, assuming everything has thoroughly undergone quality checking and is as good as it can be. Just because a game is a decade old does not mean the price should inherently drop a lot, especially not when it's a series as famous and as sought after as Clannad. I do think the Japanese market and the Western market operate very differently and have very different expectations though and I can not imagine this tactic pulling in a lot of new costumers but rather just pulling in existing anime fans and VN fans and then just sorta dying out like Grisaia did (Grisaia still only has about 10k owners).

I have only been reading early into Sakura no Uta so far and I'm already finding more enjoyment in it than I found in Subarashiki Hibi (I might even..). I'm sure you already know this, but Subahibi was the first considerably complete story (at least, thematically) Sca-ji wrote mostly by himself. As with but not because of that circumstance, he currently seems like more of an overtly earnest storyteller than a seasoned or great one. My bias towards Sca-ji lies at the principles he outlined in the latter most part of Subahibi and the philosophical idea he (attempted to) frame using the wonky narrative composition. Both traits of the story I put personal value into because they're certain reminders of something related to my situation and position (and because Subahibi was my sixth eroge xD) yada yada. But that bias doesn't make me love the game, it makes me love the creator as a person. At this point I'm all-accepting of his methods because I'd rather just converse with him, if through any possible medium. Although, I have no idea as to why other people like Subahibi... I feel this has to be said because I do want to look at things from a more "objective" standpoint and move on after making these distinctions. That way I can then say valuable things about his works and him as a person. Seeing your opinion honestly helps me with that.

I could spam so many pages of this manga, it was lit.

Confession: So I've been going to a conference for the last 3 days (including today) and there's this like minimum 9/10 girl in my committee, damn son Confession 2: Today's program ended with a party, which had two distinct parts, first was a dinner. The next was dancing, which pretty much meant it was impossible to stay inside comfortably unless you enjoy blaring shitty pop music (or even worse, pop remixes of stuff like Englishman In New York or Hotel California). There were only tables of 12, so I sat with this one group of ladies from Saudi Arabia. Their lifestyle was seemingly much more similar to my secular lifestyle than I expected. The seat to my right was empty and most other girls on the table were talking between themselves so I ended up talking to the girl next to me, and fucking dammit did we get along. After the dancing started, we left the building and then we just sat on some chairs and then we listened to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (the songs were Catch The Rainbow & Rainbow Eyes) and Blue Öyster Cult (Astronomy, Don't Fear The Reaper) on my phone. Was one of the best days I've had in a long while. She's apparently Canadian but lives in Saudi Arabia lol email get Confession 3: I only just recently realized that my Samsung laptop's trackpad supports the "sliding with two fingers to scroll" gesture, which has improved my trackpad usage like 100x.

I'm not really scared of buying things from Japan. But I am scared that I might waste all of my money doing so. lol

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*

1) 2)

Gonna go with here https://figuya.com/en/products/dark-angel-olivia-aus-rage-of-bahamut Its probably one of the best figures i have ever bought in terms of quality and detail.

Darkest Dungeon is currently in early access but this is probably the best early access game I've seen as far as polish goes. It has a very lovecraftian and tabletop RPG like feel to it and a refreshing art style and great music. An exciting game,Street Fight,I prefer playing Ryu

Lets just all join in one big " Michiru have the best route!" club! \ / Becase i really think her route was the bestone, romantic stuff was fitting (aside from one weird sex-scene), there actually was a development and the vox in a box was priceless too (fu anime!). The only mediocre "complain" i can give is there are no Yuji's backstory in it, all other routes told us an important part of Yuji's part, but i dont really care. I'v read Michiru after Amane and found it much more well paced and really good written. And as i already said some pages ago: Michiru = best route Yumiko = best gurl

It was good, but most of the routes sort of went into really ridiculous bullshit at times.