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This past weekend marked the unofficial start of summer here in the States, and to celebrate, dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster threw down the gauntlet in a major way. The hot dog, it declared, is a sandwich. It consists of bread (the bun) holding some filling (a plump, juicy hot dog). It meets the textbook definition of a sandwich. Therefore, it’s a sandwich. The reaction from Team Hot Dog was swift. “Nooo! That’s not true!” they Luke Skywalkered across the Twiterverse. “Hot dogs are hot dogs! Shuttuuuuuhp!” Whereas Team Sandwich raised nary a peep. “Cool,” they said. “We like sandwiches. Welcome to the club.” And why was that? Maybe a look at similar sort of statement can help us try to figure it out: Gone Home is a visual novel. Nooo! That’s not true! Gone Home isn’t a VN! Shuttuuuuhp! Very light spoilers to follow. If you don’t know, Gone Home is a game that came out in 2013, created by a handful of former BioShock devs. In it, you assume the role of an American college student who comes home from a year abroad only to find her parents’ house deserted, a cryptic note from her sister taped to the front door. The rest of the game is spent finding out just what happened. Except it’s not a “game” as such. And you don’t really “play.” You simply wander the house using FPS controls, going from room to room and reading/hearing scattered bits of documentary evidence – letters, journal entries, crumpled-up notes, etc. – that help you unravel the mystery. That’s it. Some gamers have dismissively called it a “walking simulator,” but there’s clearly more to it than that. Gone Home is a digital experience that exists primarily to convey an authored text, one that shares structural similarities with traditional novels/short stories. That text is then given strong support by on-screen visual elements to form a cohesive whole. While there’s no hard and fast definition of “visual novel” that I’m aware of, the above seems to do the job pretty well. And by that definition, Gone Home is a visual novel. Nooo! It’s not a VN! It doesn’t take the form of a written novel! Sure it does – an epistolary novel, to be specific. Here, I’ll even save you the trip to Wikipedia: Some well-known entries in this genre include Frankenstein, Dracula, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and World War Z. In Gone Home’s case, the main narrative thread is told via your sister’s journal entries, which are penned as letters in absentia to you. Additional plot is introduced via other letters, newspaper clippings, and historical documents. Sound familiar? Yup. In fact, if you printed the collected documents of Gone Home in paperback, it would hold up extremely well as an example of the epistolary form. Gone Home is a visual novel. Deal with it. Nooo! It’s not a VN! You walk around in a 3D environment! So what? Macbeth is a play; we can all agree on that. Sleep No More is a highly regarded re-contextualizing of that play as performance spaces meant to be walked through and experienced. The fact that you sit on your ass through one and physically traverse the other doesn’t change the fact that both are plays. They both have actors, scenes, and staging. And besides, several other VN titles use the exploration of 3D environments to frame their textual elements – Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, Danganronpa, etc. Gone Home is a visual novel. Deal with it. Nooo! It’s not a VN! It’s a game that just happens to have text! There’s almost zero “gameplay” in Gone Home. Seriously. Most of one’s time in so-called “narrative-driven” games like BioShock or Final Fantasy [n] or Persona is spent doing non-narrative things – fighting, more often than not. In Gone Home, if you’re not reading/listening to documents, you’re usually (a) walking, (b) turning on lamps, or (c) opening cupboards and looking at cans of soup. The “game,” such as it is, exists solely to deliver the narrative. Baldr Sky, Aselia, the Rance VNs – all have far more gameplay than Gone Home could ever dream of. Gone Home is a visual novel. Deal with it. Nooo! It’s not a VN! You can finish the game without reading most of it! While Gone Home definitely gives you a great deal of leeway in what you choose to read, and in what order, there are still certain key documents that act as plot gateways. These help ensure there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end with an identifiable narrative arc in between. Anyway, I can also “finish” a more traditional VN without reading most of it. Maybe I get an early bad ending. Or I can read one route to completion and decide to stop, missing most of the content. Gone Home is a visual novel. Deal with it. Nooo! It’s not a VN! If it is, then any game can claim the same! Nope. Slippery slope denied. Just because Gone Home can be considered a VN, that doesn’t mean Tetris or Call of Duty: Jackalope can; it’s still a fairly high bar. Take The Walking Dead series by Telltale, for example. A number of people have argued that these games could (and should) be considered VNs, but I’d disagree. That could be a whole blog post by itself, but suffice to say their narrative form is much closer to that of a TV script than a novel or story. All kings are men, but not all men are kings. Just because VNs prioritize narrative doesn’t mean all games that prioritize narrative are VNs. Nooo! It’s not a VN! It doesn’t have sprites against a background! So what? Go tell that to Narcissu. Nooo! It’s not a VN! It doesn’t have hand-drawn art! So what? Go tell that to any recent VN using 3D character models/backdrops. Nooo! It’s not a VN! It doesn’t have routes! And heroines! Are we seriously having this conversation? Nooo! It’s not a VN! Its creators don’t even call it that! So what? Authorial intent means nothing. All the audience can judge is what’s on the page/screen. And what’s there is a visual novel. (For the record, the devs call it a "story exploration" game.) Okay, class. What have we learned? Our Gone Home experiment, interestingly enough, is the reverse of the hot dog situation. Visual novel fans (a.k.a., Team Sandwich) tend to be the ones arguing against Gone Home (a.k.a., Team Hot Dog) being considered part of the genre, rather than the other way around. Larger resists smaller, rather than smaller resisting larger. And why is that? For Team Hot Dog, the object of its affection is more than a tube-shaped piece of meat on a bun. It’s the whole emotional experience surrounding the idea of “hot dog” – the childhood ballgames, the smell of charcoal in the backyard grill. There’s a good reason I can watch the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on TV next month, but not the Boar’s Head Ham and Cheese on Rye Eating Contest. To admit that a hot dog is just a sandwich is to risk making it less special somehow, to blur the lines of its magic. And for members of Team VN, a “visual novel” is more than just any old game that combines textual narrative with computer graphics. It’s also the emotional experience of all the VNs they’ve played until now – experiences that are often colored by very specific art styles and narrative conceits. To admit that a “game” like Gone Home can be a visual novel is to risk making the genre seem less special somehow, to blur the lines of its magic. In both cases, the emotional experience of a thing proves to be just as true and just as powerful as the dictionary definition of that thing. And unless your name happens to be Merriam or Webster, there’s very little to be done about the latter. But the former is a matter of personal interpretation; personal interpretation remains a hill that one can choose to defend and, indeed, die upon. In other words, it’s possible for the statements “Gone Home is a visual novel,” and “I don’t consider Gone Home to be a visual novel,” to both be true simultaneously. But if you put ketchup on your hot dog sandwich, you’re just a bloody idiot. Update #1: Now watch as I argue that Gone Home really isn't a visual novel. Proof you can have your cake and piss on it too.

I know nobody cares about this type of translation in this forum (for obvious reasons, for once the novel is already translated and second nobody really speak spanish in this forum xD) I'm doing a translation of himeko's epilogue and posting it here mostly to keep track of my own translation and have a place to share it. At first it was going to be an eng>spa translation but there are some huge mistakes on the translation itself (specially on the atogaki 1980 story) and also many sentences that don't make much sense or silly grammar errors that shouldn't be there even if they are silly (tons of these)... I don't know the guy who did the translation but it seems that he just rushed it and cut corners in some places because of time restriction, with more time and someone checking the script it could have been a good work. I don't like to complain or shit on others work but come on they are charging for it...it's not a free fan-translation project. Second by looking at the files itself (again with the huge help of Schwarzstorch who is editing the images, creating the patch etc) we found: *Inside the files of himeko is almost the whole ame no marginal script (untranslated) *The game "hides" the UI in some lazy way but you can still active it, just turn the windows transparency up or down and it will appear. *They used the same engine from sorairo (probably in this whole 10th anniversary narcissu project and ame no marginal) they just changed the script and CGs (with same engine I don't mean majiro but they actually grabbed it as it was in sorairo and didn't change anything besides the script and CGs), this isn't so hard to spot, I mean check this image and if you check the menu you can still see options that don't make much sense in this game, like changing the color of previous choices (in a kinetic vn ) and so on. *There are some files from the Mahjong minigame and many more things but you get the idea. In conclusion, it's going to take more time to check line by line to see if there are errors than translating everything from 0 so in the end it's going to take more time than I thought, but it won't take more than a month, on a side note my original idea was to add 1993 short story into this patch but I don't know if that's legal or not (probably it's not) so I dropped it. それだけだ EN ESPAÑOL: Para hacerlo breve ya que no tengo muchas ganas de escribir xD voy a realizar la traducción del epilogo de Himeko, mi idea era utilizar la traducción en ingles y pasarla al español pero debido a los muchos errores que tiene, gramaticales y también simplemente de mala traducción - el traductor utilizó atajos en oraciones complejas y se nota! - también hay cosas mal traducidas, ejemplo de algo muy tonto "１９８０ 中坊の日のこと。" como "The mid-1980s... those days..." en español es "En los mediados de los 80'... aquellos días" cuando debería decir algo como "Aquellas cosas que sucedieron en esos días de cuando era un alumno de secundaria en los 80'" xD queda medio feo así tan largo pero ya se dan un idea de lo que hablo. Ese kanji raro (difícilmente aparezca seguido en algún lugar viene de acá 中坊) es decir un estudiante de secundaria de ese periodo especifico, no de cualquier momento. (si no entendieron nada de lo que expliqué no importa!) La traducción va a tomar 1 mes, ma o meno - cachito más cachito menos xD , dependiendo de las ganas que tenga de traducir , calculo que voy a traducir unas 30 lineas al día y son casi 1000, y eso es todo por ahora.

The Blurb Flowers: Le volume sur printemps (AKA Flowers: Spring Volume) is a yuri game set in an all-girls catholic school. You play as Shirahane Suou, a shy girl who has come to the school seeking friendship. You see, she has heard that at this school a certain system exists that pairs up girls who are in the same year. With a system such as this, even an introvert like Suou can surely make at least one true friend! Or, so she hopes... The Brood Let's introduce our three main characters: Suou is an introverted bookworm who has been homeschooled most of her life. Her lack of interaction with others her age has crippled her socially, and her one experience attempting to attend a normal school was a disaster. On the plus side, she has striking good looks that earn her easy praise from all around her, and when it comes to anything nerdy, including such things as fantasy novels and horror movies, she is quite knowledgeable. She's also got the mind of a detective, but we'll get to that bizarrely out-of-place addition later on. Mayuri is a cool beauty whose laid-back attitude makes her an instant hit in the classroom. She is a bit of a tomboy, and sometimes she takes things perhaps a bit TOO easy, but it's also clear that there are times when her sunny smile is just for show... Rika is the class president, and has a very mature, lady-like personality. She is very concerned with making sure everyone obeys the school rules, but even more concerned with making sure everyone in the class gets along. She is a mediator and defuser of situations, though perhaps she is too quick to help others, and not quick enough to find help for herself... I am only covering characters here who have routes in the game, though I will say that the supporting cast is full of great characters who I hope to see more of in later games in this series. Anywho, on with the review. The Good The writing in this game is very good. The feels are for reals. As you watch Suou change and grow through her experiences, and as you see the many, many layers of each character being peeled away, revealing lifelike complexity and multi-faceted personalities, you can't help but feel that you are one of these girls, going through these things with your dear friends. The emotional scenes strike home very hard, and I found myself teary-eyed multiple times on both of the routes. The music, though sparse, is very good. Especially during the opening scenes, music is used in an almost sound-novel like manner to emphasize the scenes. One song blends into another in a kind of crescendo that really sends a thrill through you as you go through the prologue. While I wish there would have been more tracks and a few more cases where music was used to great effect like in the prologue, what is there is effective (though you will get tired of the one or two 'everyday' tracks that play almost constantly when there isn't another special song to play). The CG is... excellent. Absolutely amazing. I've seen good CG in VNs before, but I've never felt as much like I really wanted to collect each one as I have in this game. Normally in non-H games CG seems to serve very little purpose except emphasizing certain scenes, but in this game the CGs are definitely rewards worth striving for. Just... AHH! And they're all like that! The Bad This game appears to be low budget. There are a few reasons why I feel this way. First, there are maybe like 10 music tracks. It's seriously hilariously bad how often they force you to listen to the 'everyday' music. I mean yeah I realize it's the theme meant to represent your everyday life at the school but it plays for 90% of the game, I kid you not. No matter how much you like it at first you will get sick and tired of it before you pass the halfway point. Second, every character has all of two poses and maybe 2 changes of clothing (with the same poses for the changes). It's bad. Especially when the text describes a character doing something they are obviously not doing. Also, for certain characters (who I will get to in a moment) the poses given them are good for basically none of the emotions they actually want to show. Now, I realize we're probably going to get more costumes in later games and that this is meant to be the first of probably 4 games (one for each season, the 2nd one is already out), but that's still no excuse to only have 2 poses. That's just sad. But a low budget can be forgiven. What can't be forgiven is the absolutely bizarrely bad character design. I want you take a look at these two characters: When I first met these two I was convinced they were going to be the villains; bullies that spread bad rumors about me or something. They don't look like friendly, puppy-like little sister characters who act in huggable adorable ways. Except that's the role they actually play in the game. Their voices are also adorable and don't fit the images they were given at all. In fact, even in CG they look completely different from their normal sprites: See? HERE they look like cute little kids, which is what they act like. If they had expressions like these on their sprites I could probably forgive the narrow necks and angular faces, but they have all of 2 expressions they can give and neither of them are cute! I don't know what the sprite artist thought he was drawing, but he and the CG artist (I can only assume for my own sanity that they were different people) obviously got mixed signals. Also, the writer gets hung up on his own cliches way too often. This is mainly targeted at two characters, one of whom we are constantly told has a 'smile like a patch of spring sunlight' and another has a 'teasing, catty smile'. Which, I mean yeah that works for description, but we are literally told this about those two characters CONSTANTLY. There are seriously times with the latter character in which she has the cat smile multiple times in the same scene. If you take a drink every time that character is likened to a cat you will be drunk by the end of your first meeting with her in the story. It's ridiculous and a small failing on the part of the writer. And, my final complaint (well, for the Bad section... I've got one or two for the Ugly) is that one of the two endings is a horrible sequel-baiting cliffhanger. I mean I should have expected that from a game that appears to be the first in a series of possibly 4 games, but it was still a low blow. A serious punch in the gut, especially because I was so emotionally invested in the characters. The Sad I've got to say the saddest thing for me (besides the stupid cliffhanger sequel-bait ending for one of the routes) was honestly the character design fail I mentioned above. I really loved those two characters and I feel that the designers really dropped the ball on making their sprites, and now they're just going to re-use those sprites for every subsequent game in the series so it's never going to get better. If this was a novel, without visuals, I never would have pictured those two looking like they do, not in a million years. All I can do is look forward to the CG, in which they are actually drawn correctly. The Mad The mysteries in this game made me mad, but we'll get to why and how in The Ugly, because they were that bad. The Fad Gahh! Everyone's wearing the same thing all the time! Even in their pajamas everyone looks fairly similar. Happily there is at least one costume that stands out during the game: Just. Yeah. You can feel the power of the prayer. I wonder what's going on in this scene? Guess you'd better read the VN and find out! The Rad There is a scene where Suou and two other girls are up at night in the library of the school and they decide to tell ghost stories to each other. The stories are great chillers and, even though they're not meant to be terrifying or horrific, they hit just the right notes to send some shivers up your spine. There are even special CG just for that scene to add to the spookiness with images. It's a great scene and it felt like a kind of bonus, since the plot of the game itself has basically nothing to do with the paranormal. Definitely my pick for the raddest scene. The Snuggly The two girls mentioned earlier could have been this if their character designs had been handled a bit better. I still liked them in the CG, but it just wasn't enough. Sadly I must say that this game really does not have a sufficient level of cuteness, so moe fans should stay far away. The Whaaaa-gly The mysteries, again, were bizarre and stupid and horrible but again we'll get to that in a bit. The Pugly There were neither animals nor pet-like characters in this title so there's nothing to discuss. The Smugly Also, no villains. Skip! The Ugly The mysteries in this game are stupid. Bizarrely so. I thought Innocent Grey was sort of known for making psychological thriller stories, so you'd think they would know their way around writing a good mystery, but in Flowers it is quite the opposite. Firstly, I don't think this game even needed the shoehorned-in mysteries that mainly just act as barriers during the story. Failing one causes you to get a bad ending and, in fact, that's basically the only way to get a bad ending. I won't even say I didn't like them because of how difficult they were. I think if you carefully read all the text leading up to the mysteries (and by this I mean ALL the text, on both routes leading up to the mystery) you would probably have a good chance at guessing the correct answer. Even failing that, you can save and just guess and check easily enough. The problem is that the mysteries make no sense IN CONTEXT. While it's simple for you as the player to pick from the small selection of answers given to you, there are several moments when I felt like there was no possible way the characters in the game could have made the logical leaps necessary to arrive at the conclusions they do. Not only that, but the ways in which the mysteries are set up are incredibly contrived and make it clear that the mysteries were apparently added in either as an afterthought, or because Innocent Grey felt they couldn't write a story without having some element of mystery in it. Characters say or do things no one in their position would say or do, people jump to bizarre conclusions based on little to no evidence, events line up perfectly so that some obscure bit of knowledge the characters just happen to be talking about ends up being the key point to solving a mystery that happens a few days later that, for all intents and purposes, should have absolutely nothing to do with that obscure bit of knowledge. The only mystery that felt like it actually fit into the plot and was well made was also the most idiotically obvious one, with the answer being painfully clear almost before the mystery even begins. When I first heard about this game a lot of the rumors said it would have mystery elements or might have a darker side due to Innocent Grey's influence. Instead what I found is that it was an amazingly emotionally complex yuri story with the most out of place, dumb obscure-fact riddles thrust in as checkpoints that made no sense in-universe. The Verdict It's easy to set aside the stupid mysteries and the low-budget quality hiccups in light of the amazing, emotional writing. This is a great yuri story, and the start of a great yuri series. The experience isn't too long, and it will leave any player hungry for the next game. I think it may be early to give a final verdict before the whole series is available to look at as a whole, but as a beginning it definitely has me sold on wanting to know more about these characters and what's in store next for them. Avoid it if you're not into yuri or games that are severely lacking in moe, but anyone else should pick this up and enjoy this short, bitter-sweet tale.

So... I can't sleep and since I was really bored I decided to write this tips about doing a translation in general (or ramblings whatever you want to call them xD ) this is aimed for those who are starting a project or want to start a new one. *I'll start by saying that If you really want to translate something just do it, don't pay attention to anyone just do it, nobody can stop you from doing it aside from yourself! (and maybe a C&D letter but that's a whole different topic that I wont address right now xD). *Before starting a project be sure that you LOVE the vn you want to translate or you are getting paid for the job in that case what you want it doesn't really matter xD , you are going to work hours with the same text, fixing errors, reading over and over the same lines so if you don't actually love the vn you are working with sooner or later you are going to give up and drop it. *This point might sound silly having the previous one but read the vn at least 2 times before starting the translation, you really need to know the plot and every little aspect of it, if you don't understand the plot or some parts of it, how a character thinks or why he/she acts the way it does etc you wont be able to do a good job, this is essential! *Internet is you friend, if you don't understand something google it, you will find the answer sooner or later, if you search in Japanese is better, most of the time someone in yahoo or some similar website already asked that question (yes I've seen japanese people asking for some really basic stuff there!) there are tons of webs where you can find examples of a word if you don't understand how it works in some specific context (weblio for example) and last you have fuwa and some great users who are always willing to help you out. I hate asking for help so I try to avoid it as much as, also the satisfaction for achieving something for yourself is much more rewarding than just asking and having the answer served for you. *Work a little bit every day, eat the whale one bait at a time. * And last but not less important, have fun while you are doing it, if it's not fun then it's not worth it! Most importantly translate for yourself! Don't translate something because someone else might like it or because is really popular (I'm looking at you moe vns), you are wasting your time, this might sound selfish but if you don't enjoy what you are doing, eventually you are going to drop it. Now this is something I asked myself a lot of times and I was sure I had the answer but I didn't... Did I improve my Japanese because of the translation aka "Do you learn Japanese by translating something"? It's hard to say, I did learn several sexual terms, if that counts for something... even some really obscure ones that I want to forget Overall I don't think so (yes Decay was right on this one) if you get stuck too often then it's probably a good idea to postpone the translation for a few months, learn more and get back to it later on. (This is what I did the first time I started translating this vn 4 or 5 months ago) And that's pretty much it I want to thank everyone that helped me throughout this project, Schwarzstorch who hacked the game, edited most of the images and helped me out with pretty much everything (he worked for more than 2 hours with a picture of a dick lol sorry dude!!) Outofthebox for helping me out with the editing (oh boy did I bother him xD) to Arcadeotic for editing the text too, XReaper for all the amazing advice, MikeY91 for being the first beta tester and Tyrosyn for testing the patch and giving such an amazing feedback, finally to all the guys who helped me in the Japanese help thread. Until next time じゃあな

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around. To 'Love', and to be 'In Love' I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate. To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation. Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you? The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them. To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question. What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake. Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you. Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society. Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me. All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love". As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic. In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these. You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance. Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now. Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward. This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless. All this said, let us surmise: Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children. The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride... I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it. In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead. Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back. Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping. Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end. This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with. Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point. I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim). But then again... what the hell do I know about love?