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My blog posts so far have mostly been about how to edit. That holds true for most every other VN editing blog I've ever seen as well. But I'm a really big believer in approaching any significant task from a "Why, What, How" perspective. So now, let's try to answer those first two questions. Even "What Is Editing" would be starting in too far (it made for a better title, so sue me). Let's start with this: why do translation projects, or even original fiction projects like novels, have editors? The goal of editing is to help the author achieve their goals. An author brings a whole lot of goals to the table: a story, characters with personalities and motivations, a setting, overarching motifs, style, ... probably a lot of other stuff I forgot. Anyway, you get the idea; there's a lot there which they're just trying to get out on paper (or bits, or whatever) and then into your brain. An editor doesn't bring any of that stuff. An editor instead strives to understand all of these things the author wants to communicate, finds the points where they can be better achieved, and refines the text to better achieve the author's goals. Although there's obviously some overlap, there are quite different skill sets involved in the raw writing and the editing, and thus the two roles are often fulfilled by two people. How about for a translated VN, rather than for, say, writing a novel? The story is roughly the same, actually. Although the translator has essentially the same goals as the editor in this case, the skill sets required are quite different, and thus differentiating the two roles is not uncommon and frequently beneficial to the project, for the same reasons as it is with original writing and editing. I'll also add that an original writer is usually considered "too close" to the original text to make a good editor. Even a writer who is also a great editor will benefit from having someone else edit their manuscript. I haven't heard the same thing said of translators, though, so that might not be relevant to this special case. But the skill set differentiation point still stands in the case of translation. Assuming you're satisfied with that explanation for Why, let's move on to What. Professional manuscript editing typically distinguishes four kinds of editing: developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading. Those are ordered based on both the scope of changes they make, and also the chronological order in which you should do them: developmental editing is very macroscopic and happens first, while proofreading is very microscopic and happens last. Let's drill into each: Developmental Editing Developmental editing is, first, the act of identifying all of those authorial goals I mentioned, and second the act of cutting, rearranging, and adding large chunks (think: add this whole new scene, cut that whole character) in order to advance the author's goals. Obviously, that second half isn't applicable to VN translation. You're not going to cut whole scenes or change how characters behave. Those decisions have already long since been made by the original writers, hopefully with the help of an editor of their own ;). But the first half is essential, and is quite a bit harder in VN translation, since you generally can't actually talk to the writer. Read it all, understand the authorial goals, and build a strong, consistent interpretation of the plot, the characters, the motifs, the setting, the tone, everything you can think of. If you don't form an interpretation while translating/editing, you're liable to thwart the author's goals as part of your translation, and as a result accidentally obscure or entirely lose key points of the original intent. Of course, you'll occasionally make mistakes in your interpretation, resulting in mistakes in translation. But if you don't even form an interpretation, the result will actually be worse: you'll still make mistakes in the translation, and the resulting translation will certainly be internally inconsistent, but you won't notice those internal inconsistencies because you have no guiding interpretation. If you form a consistent interpretation and let it guide your translation, when the text goes against your interpretation, the resulting inconsistency means you'll notice it, correct your interpretation, and then go back and modify your translation to fit the corrected interpretation. Line Editing Line editing is about assessing and fixing the flow of a scene and the flow of a line. It's about logic, language, word choice, rhythm, the mechanics of a sentence, and the sound of human speech. It is not concerned with grammatical errors, punctuation, and spelling, but more with higher-level ideas like tone, emotion, and atmosphere. A line editor worries whether a sentence ought to be punchy or loquacious, not whether it has all the commas in all the right places. "Logic" probably seemed a bit out of place there, so let me give an example for that one in particular, since it's essential. For example, unless you're editing the VN equivalent of a Beckett play (and if you are, please point me to that VN, because I'm interested), one dialog line should generally be a logical response to the previous one. A canny line editor will ensure the logical flow from event to event, line to line, and even scene to scene, ensuring consistency of the narration. This is also where all that authorial intent mentioned above comes into play: an editor in this capacity should also be ensuring consistency of a line with those overarching goals. A good line editor will help ensure that characterization is consistent, for instance, or that a motif is not buried inappropriately. An editor, in their avatar as the keeper of consistency, is crucial to achieving those authorial goals. The prose side of line editing is also key simply because stilted speech, unnatural utterances, redundant repetition, awkward alliteration, and their ilk all kick you out of the immersion. Your brain wants to keep reading something when it flows well. And nothing hits softer than shitty prose. Line editing is the meat of VN editing. It's what most existing VN editing blogs are about, not coincidentally. If you're an editor for a VN, line editing is what you should be thinking about constantly. In addition to recommending other VN editing blogs, notably Darbury's blog (mostly about line editing, though all the punctuation ones are more about copy editing) and Moogy's now-ancient blog post (basically all about line editing), I'll also suggest you go read up on line editing in a general setting. A quick search for "what is line editing" will lead you to mountains of useful links. As a random example, this is one such useful link, and it's hilarious, well-written, and edifying: http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/short-course-line-editing. There is a veritable sea of such articles on the internet. Read them. Copy Editing Copy editing is about the nuts and bolts of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It's not the same as proofreading, but it's getting close. The copy editor typically should select and enforce an appropriate style manual (AP, Chicago, MLA, take your pick). The copy editor is the person who gets mad when you write "I baked 7 blackbirds into that pie." instead of "I baked seven blackbirds into that pie.", and who calmly, patiently replaces all your misused hyphens in the middle of sentences with em-dashes. You're unlikely to have a dedicated copy editor on a VN project; if you've got the "editor" role, you're probably it. I think this is along the lines of what most people think of already when they hear "editing" anyway, but really the line editing is the most important to the enjoyment of the text. Still, the picky people among us can get awfully uppity if you start putting in stuff like ellipses with four dots and inconsistent use of the Oxford comma (sidebar for the attentive: I'm for it, as you've already noticed). Copy editing is a particularly thankless job, since it's not like you can do an exceptional job of copy editing and really salvage a bad manuscript, but poor copy editing can certainly hurt an otherwise-good manuscript. So it's worth investing the time in doing it carefully. One important recommendation for copy editing: take notes and build up a style document and glossary for your VN as you go. Are honorifics being used? What about name order? If you're going to romanize some words, is your romanization consistent? Do you 1) always write "senpai", 2) always write "sempai", or 3) mix and match? I don't care if it's 1 or 2, but it better not be 3. Write conventions like this in a shared document and make sure everybody knows about the conventions and the document. Proofreading Proofreading is the final stage of this pipeline. The role includes checking for grammatical errors, spelling errors, punctuation errors, typos, and perhaps some more exotic things like incorrect English dialect. It's straightforward and mechanical. Like copy editing, it is essentially thankless. It is, nonetheless, important. While you're making big sweeping edits doing all the stuff above, you're going to create tons of errors at this level. They need to be fixed. Make sure you have someone (preferably not the "editor", because they're too close to the text) do a proofreading sweep. You can lump it into QC if you like, but make sure that whoever is assigned to do this is looking at it carefully. Check. Every. Single. Word. There are errors in there, I guarantee you, and they're embarrassing. Getting the number of errors down to near-zero before you release your translation is going to make both you and your audience happier. In Summary There's not one editor; there are four. In an ideal world, with original fiction, you'd actually have someone separate filling each role. For a translation you don't need a developmental editor, leaving you needing three editors. In the non-ideal world you live in, you've probably got at least two of those roles to yourself. Push for someone else to handle proofreading, at least (call it "QC" if you have to), and make sure said person has the necessary ability and attention to detail. If you're the "editor", then you're almost certainly doing both line editing and copy editing. When that happens, make sure you keep a balance amongst all the things you need to do: for instance, spend 10% of your effort trying to understand what the author is trying to achieve, 88% of your effort on line editing (it's the meat, after all), and 2% on copy editing the little details like punctuation, romanization, etc. And If You Can Only Remember One Thing Focus on line editing.

Yes

Hello. I felt it might be a good idea to clarify a few things, since I see the thread is rapidly getting excited, but the exact text of our reply to him was: In addition, please see this tweet: Thank you for reading.

Because people in general are nitpicky nimrods that think the sky is falling just because color can also be spelled colour, or that Visual Novels can be classified as games, and that tsun tsuns are teh best

If you're considering plastic surgery to look Asian, I recommend at least learning Japanese first. Because then neither is likely to happen. That's my tip of the day.

From Sekai Project's discord. Rip

Nice to meet you! My name is Justyna, I'm 30 years old and I've been watching anime since it was available on TV. My adventure with Japanese animation didn’t start with One Piece or Bleach, but rather silly series like Kaiketsu Zorro, Dash! Kappei or Majokko Megu-Chan. I also prefer English to my own language, is it weird? I used to be an English teacher (if you're wondering about the weird nickname) and a copywriter, but one day I decided that I just wasn't happy. So, I quit my job and started making a yaoi visual novel To those of you who don't enjoy BL, I'm sorry but I just like the genre. I've always loved drawing BL manga but my family told me it wasn't a good way to earn money. But I've never been happier than now. I've registered on the forum to share my first game with you. I'm old and tired of the majority of yaoi cliches, so I wanted to make the characters different from what we usually see in the BL genre. Especially the protagonist (he still looks like a cute and silly bottom though, I guess old habits die hard). I have a working demo of the game and would love to hear your opinion on it. I experimented a little bit with the choices mechanics as well. I guess that's it, it's a pleasure to here^^ Please don't eat me alive just because I like BL!

Sorry, but you're deluded, and you're spreading your delusions by preying on the vulnerable. Please stop.

Finally decided to start using one of them twitter things. First thing that happens when I start is that I realize, some fucking moron has taken my name, so I had to chuck a "Mr" in front of my it. Whoever you are .... fuck you Anyways: https://twitter.com/MrDergonu Will probably post some useless crap there every now and then.

You mean this? https://jlist.com/ao300

playing I am setsuna, I don't know why is it called that way when the original one is いけにえと雪のセツナ something like sacrifice and snow of setsuna(sentsuna's sacrifice and snow??), btw her name is a reference for pain or opression..so maybe the title is a bit over the top either way fairly good so far, the combat sometimes is a bit convoluted because you don't have much time to react so you just keep attacking and you win XD The music is good, the art too and the story...well can't say much yet but so far I think it's a good rpg.

So this post is going to be about Maison Ikkoku which is an ancient anime 96 episodes long that I've finally finished. This is very old anime, and even if you have no interest in watching old school anime, I think it's important that anyone who's watched a romantic comedy of any sort in anime form should know about this. ANN Link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=376 MAL link: http://myanimelist.net/anime/1453/Maison_Ikkoku As you can see from the links above, this is a very high rating show, and in fact the most common rating (the mode) in ANN is 10/10 which is a spectacular rating. This show dates back to a bygone era of anime, dating 1986-1988 and is a landmark show that pretty much defined the whole romantic comedy genre as we know it today in manga, anime and light novel form. This is the show you need to be grateful for, and curse, for everything there is you like and hate in today's romantic comedies. It inspired other classics such as Love Hina where the manga author clearly gives a nod to the show in both reproducing some of its original opening ideas, and using names from Maison Ikkoku in his works (such as Negima.) The story involves a college failure lodger falling in love with the lodge manager, 2 years his senior, who is actually a widow. From the outset, this is a LONG show. It comes from an era where there was very little rush in telling a story, the anime series were planned way in advance and lasted for many seasons. A far cry from today's shows which may come from spectacular original sources (light novels, manga, VNs) and yet only get funding for one season, lasting 12 episodes and doing a terrible job of conveying the original source material. It takes the time to set scenes, draw backdrops, show characters simply walking and pondering in thought at times. It also spans 5 years in story line from start to finish, allowing a generous amount of character development, maturity and meaningful relationship resolution. What this also means is that by today's sensibilities, this show is SLOW. I was 16 when this show first aired and I can tell you now, if it was available at the time I would have been religiously glued to the screen for 3 years watching this show without feeling it was slow in any way shape or form. However with what we're used to today, it is actually difficult to watch a show at this pace for this many episodes and not feel it's a waste of time. The artform has changed an awful lot. That said, it was an investment for me that I'd been meaning to do for over a decade because I knew how important it was in anime history. The animation quality is very good for its time, with bluray releases that are higher resolution than the TV broadcast and consistent right to the end. The music is decent for its era but nothing special. What you get as a basic plot in this show is the classic post high school failing to get into college that falls in love with a woman, lives in a lodge shared with lots of other unique characters, ridiculous high jinx all leading to an obvious, if extremely drawn out, happy ending. This is the show that started all the tropes we've come to love and hate. Hesitation when speaking, inconvenient interruptions, dogs jumping in at inopportune moments, trains passing to make critical words inaudible, payphones running out of money at the wrong time, people abruptly finishing a discussion before the other person gets to answer/finish what they're saying, walking in on people bathing at the wrong time, missed opportunities for sickness, failing to make appointments or meet deadlines conveniently for story purposes, love rivals, complicated love polygons, arranged marriage, beach episodes, onsen episodes, blackmail, big friendly dogs, butt monkeys, knowledgeable barkeepers, first name basis issues, fanservice, ojou-samas, high school crushes, tutors... even a zettai ryouiki and so on. You name it, almost every trope is executed in this story. The difference here is that a lot of this stuff had never actually been in a romance before and was introduced by the manga and anime that this belongs to. Now having said that this show invented a lot of the tropes, that doesn't mean that it's perfect in its execution of them. Some jokes fall flat, the repeated tropes get irritating, and the pace of execution of them often becomes problematic for a modern day viewer. This is a show where the relationship tensions introduced by misunderstandings are innumerable. There is no end to the how often a miscommunication or misunderstanding will lead to a plot device in its own right, and if you watch it thinking you'll get relief from it at some stage, you need to be seriously patient as these don't stop happening till almost the end of the monster. They're frustrating in the extreme and get tiring after so many episodes. That said, the nice part is that the love rival is also not immune from these issues and these jokes actually work extremely well. Additionally, there is no doubt that the more frustration you feel during a story, the more satisfying the resolution to the story will be, and this is absolutely true here. At least the misunderstandings generally didn't last more than 2 episodes at most, usually less. Primarily this is a comedy, and to be honest I didn't find myself laughing in every episode. There are long stretches where I watched, intrigued by the story, or compelled to get towards the end, and every few episodes I would have a right royal belly laugh when things were funny to me. It was never a show that made me "sleepy at night" because of the tension that would always be implied, and many episodes the whole romance component would be put aside for character building - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having said that, I was not really "glued" to it, finding a lot of it mundane and really not that amusing till much later on, by which time I'd fallen in love with (most of) the characters. What is great about this show is the character development of the main characters. The protagonist actually starts out quite a loser and you feel sorry for him only at the start, but as time goes on he evolves into a much more amicable character and you can't help but root for him, hoping (knowing) he ends up with his one-sided love. The other characters too evolve in not necessarily expected ways and new characters are introduced until almost 3/4 of the way through the entire series, yet they work well since they get fleshed out and 1/4 of 96 episodes is still a heck of a lot. This, unfortunately, brings me to the lowest point of this series. Not all characters develop. There are 3 main characters that play the other tenants in Maison Ikkoku who are a major feature of the story, and, to put it bluntly, are a bunch of fucking annoying morons. They spend their entire time annoying, blackmailing, stealing, siphoning, interrupting, getting drunk and generally pissing off the main character and the audience. While this may have been funny 30 years ago when this anime first came out, it's plain shit now, and it's bad enough at the start of the series, yet it lasts right to the end of the story with virtually zero character development on their part. Sure they occasionally accidentally or otherwise help forward the story, but not enough to redeem how unrealistically annoying these lowlifes are. No sane person would put up with what they do to the protagonist. It's strange because the review at nihonreview gave character development in this series a glowing review but fails to mention these three characters in the light I saw them http://www.nihonreview.com/anime/maison-ikkoku/ (they gave it 9/10.) An interesting point I noticed was the fanservice. One of the females in the series wears a see-through negligee through most of the series. Right from the very 1st episode you get nipple fanservice of her, which is a rarity in today's anime, especially one of this genre, though it's hardly arousing in such old school animation. This wasn't so much the interesting part as the fact that from the second season (after episode 24), her transparent negligee magically became opaque. Presumably at the time they decided it was too risqué for the target audience and toned it down (a bit late.) The pace of this show is problematic by today's standards. Modern shows have 300-400 lines if dialogue. This has more like 200-250, which doesn't sound like much less, but it is when you've gotten used to high pace shows and for example something like No Game No Life wouldn't have lasted 12 episodes in this sort of series, but more like 50. I didn't mind it that much, but I have to admit I found a little workaround. Since I playback my videos with mpv (on linux) which can speed up playback without pitch change, I sped it up 10% to 1.1 speed and suddenly found it much more in tune with what I'd expect. So there is one thing I have to mention on its own, and that's the ending. I freely admit to the fact I started watching this show because I knew it had a very happy ending. One thing about a 96 episode series that spans 5 years, unlike a modern romance anime of 12 episodes that spans maybe 3 months and ends with a confession 30 seconds before the final credits is that they had time to conclude this story slowly and completely. It's fair to say that the ending spans more than one episode (I won't say how many in the unlikely event someone watches this) and leaves absolutely no loose end. It completes every single storyline of every character we meet, and has the most satisfying and touching endings ever. I spent the last half of the last episode in tears and moments in previous episodes similarly. The ending was truly beautiful and I did not feel disappointed after having sat through 96 episodes. This show has THE absolute reference for happy endings. Rating this show for me is hard because of its inconsistencies by today's standards. If I'd watched it 30 years ago I'd have given it a 10/10. But with the slow parts hovering around a 6/10, the good parts an 8/10 and the ending an absolutely solid 10/10, I have to balance things out and say it's an 8/10. If you're patient, up for a very old school anime, and have plenty of time and love romance and want to see how the current artform came to be I'd highly recommend it.

I'm no mythology expert, but somehow I was able to guess right away because of Final Fantasy . Let's see how long the cast takes to figure it out.

Not like Michael Jackson chose to become whiter, he had vitiligo. ofc there were rumors that he bleached his skin but an autopsy proved that he at least had vitiligo. To answer your original question tho, idk how exactly to define a weeaboo, but if there were an American culture version of it, this would be it.

Those painful minutes of waiting for the VN you just bought to finish downloading.

Join forces with her when she asks you. I can asure you, Illya will be very, very happy and it'll be a one of a kind experience. Just don't forget to save, Illya's affection can be fairly definitive...

Confession: Today I learned, how much fun it is to take your sack and fool around until both hands hurt.

I don't know what it's called, but I really like this "hairband-wrapped-around-a-strand-of-hair"-thing. I can't believe Ikikoi actually gives me the best CG example.

hello a friend tell me about this website and forum and here i am.... I'm actualy playing va-11 hal-a and Danganronpa .... sorry for my bad english

And the 18+ versions makes for even more exercise opportunities On a serious note, my answer is yes. It is basically a book, but in the end, it is a program that is run and "played" by you on a computer. That basically means it's a video game, even if the only thing you do is click the screen to advance the text.

yes

Just read it. It's mostly written by people who've clearly never met any patients of what they're diagnosing

My aspergers compels me to say that "Asperger Syndrome" is now "Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1" in the DSM-V. Whether anyone was actually helped by this is debatable. On the internet, though, "autism" has taken on a meaning of its own Being different from other people in opinions and preferences just means you need to act like you aren't if you want to fit in. Sucks and might be hard sometimes.

as the titles says. made some memes, two of which are used with panterbell. the most chill character in princess evangile and its fan disk. this one is a little more NSFW butt its for a certain fetish some of us might have.

This begs the obvious question: “So what’s Frediting, huh?” Frediting is doing all the above very, very well. For example, a good Freditor would smack you upside the head for misusing “begs the question” like that. As Fred’s proofreader du jour, I can attest both to the quality of his prose and the dank awfulness of his puns.

I wish that I had more to say. I'm just kind of stunned. But man does live for the sake of Ass, so I must give the like.

I want to say I'm an Otaku, but saying I'm 'obsessed' with those things feels like it's stretching it a little bit...I...I'm lost, Eclipsed. I don't know what I am any more...

soras rabbit is pretty adorable Sandy's massive twinblades is pretty fucking dank too I always loved momijis hat

Playing the game right now too. The English title is extremely stupid. I like the piano soundtrack. Though I must say it lacks character. Even though it's good ambient music, it's pretty bland. It reuses old Square-Enix music themes, but doesn't really find its own distinctive style. The story is pretty generic, but I guess that is the point. The game is hilariously pretentious, but to be honest, retro JRPGs took themselves way too seriously too ... and we loved it. I'm certainly enjoying it. However, the characters are really a little too bland and forgettable. Sure, they're fine.. but really nothing more. The main character with his pseudo choices is very retro ... but in a bad way. The game tries to copy Chrono Trigger, but Endir is by far no Crono, that's for sure. Regarding convoluted combat: The time stops when you target an enemy, even if you play in Active Mode. It's really important in this game which enemy you attack, so don't just button smash your way through. People saying the game is too easy and it's indeed easy ... but only if you are playing good or you grind too much (which is easily possible when you try to farm drops). If you don't use your techs wisely, it will be very hard. If you try to get drops, the combat system is actually pretty interesting and it's fun trying to find out the best combinations of techs to maximize the looting.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ Edit: Though the site is still on its slow, decades-long decline, so not every jrpg gets a full faq/walkthrough anymore.

So it turns out the voice actor for Audrey in HuniePop is a VA-11 Hall-A fan, and recorded some of Dorothy's lines. Fair warning: she's pretty excited in this scene. I would pay so much for a VA-11 Hall-A voice acting DLC featuring the best of the HuniePop cast, it isn't even funny.

Welcome! I'm always happy to see people with more diverse opinions and backgrounds popping up here (vs. most of us standard bishoujo-reading folks). And, seeing as I turned 31 a couple months ago, I'm in a good position to say don't worry, you're far from the oldest person around here. Best of luck with your Kickstarter; it's impressively thoughtfully-written! I'm not really interested in a BL game much myself, but I just kicked a little bit of support your way anyway, because you frankly look like you have your act together in a way that gives me confidence you can actually deliver something good, with the right support.

Although this should be common recommendation from Fuwanovel, I would like to recommend Tokyo Babel here if you like action. Also Kikokugai here for another recommendation (If you like it voiced, play remake version instead of original version). Hope it'll help.

I wonder...at which point do people start trying to justify taking their own life, is there such a basis? does it variate? do some people see someone else's problems and think of it as small stuff?

That's a mighty fine hat hanging there.

Gate IS pretty light hearted at many times, but it is still a serious story about dealing with a conflict with a civilization from another World, it touches in on politics, corruption and such, also, you should read the manga, they leave out a lot less stuff, and represent the coward personality of the mc better (The light novels make him look even worse), he is always a nice person, he always does (most) of the same things, but they emphasize more on his cowardice, such as, in the beginning of the show he killed an invading soldier, in the original he doesn't do that.

I never said encryption 'isn't safe', I said it isn't '100% safe'. At the end of the day, I personally wouldn't take a risk, no matter how small when it comes to personal information falling into the wrong hands. Tay asked the community for some advice, and I gave mine.

No, but had a bunch of kids break into the house and swipe just over a thousand dollars from the place while around the back yard talking. Afterward, after chatting with some people who were targeted while in the shower or doing the laundry, I always secure the place now when I’m not going to be in a position to stop people entering the house. It doesn’t matter if you’ll be away for just 10 minutes, or 5 minutes, sometimes that’s all it takes. The police won’t help much either. “We know who’s doing it, but not much we can do” is pretty much the response I got. Security is probably considered your personal responsibility, I believe, so you gotta try and make yourself not look like a soft target.

Worth, just to see this pure blissful reaction They even have the gall to play "Heart's Chime" like its some moege happy True End, gg. ~~ And hoh boy, them H-scenes Rin's a fking natural pr0n star, wtf

Nah, i'm sorry but that's not what Re;Zero is about, Re;Zero is a guideline to what not to do in another world setting, very different. The problem i have with Re;Zero...is that everything feels forced, it's like watching a shounen anime trying it's best to be a seinen anime, it feels...weird, forced.

Thank you all for the recommendations and the summoning of the NTR Queen. I have Plenty of translated Novels to enjoy and untranslated Novels to improve my skills. Stay comfy.

OK, first I am going to avoid spoilers throughout this review, so I would like those who want to comment to avoid the same, even in spoiler boxes. This is one of those games that is going to be harder to enjoy if you spoil it for those who come after, so I will personally eat anyone who spoils it. This VN is by the same writer who did Sumaga (blech), Gekkou no Carnevale (yay), and Totono (a VN a lot of people here liked). However, the style of story is much closer to that of Gekkou no Carnevale than to Sumaga, thankfully. So, those of you who have heard me bitching about Sumaga need not worry that this is going to turn into a long rant on how horrible anything by this writer is. First, I am going to give you an idea of the basic setting. It is 2199 and the world has plunged into a new ice age (this is actually one of the hypothetical results of global warming irl, if the Greenland glacier slides into the ocean early enough). Up until a decade before the story, humanity was fighting over the warmest areas of the world, putting all their power into a war that was becoming increasingly meaningless. In that war, there were many scientific advances... but the two that are most relevant to the story are Necromancy and the zombie-killing techniques developed by the protagonists' fathers. Necromancy is undertaken by injecting a special type of nanomachines into the human brain after death, turning the individual in question into one of the Living Dead and the person who did the injecting into a Necromancer, capable of moving the undead results at will. The zombie-killing techniques central to the story are the use of one vs many weapon techniques (the basic one is two pistols with muzzle spikes, which the male protagonist uses, though the female protagonist's basic fighting style is based off of the same) in combination with the EX-Brain, an analytical computer that fits onto a person's head and allows them to notice things their subconscious recognizes but their conscious mind doesn't (details the conscious mind filters out), thus allowing the person in question to fight more effectively. Tokyo of the future is a dystopian hell, where refugees from all over the world have gathered, necromancers roam the streets with their armies of the living dead, and bounty hunters (like the protagonists) hunt them for their daily bread. The city itself is kept alive by geothermal heat spread throughout the city by water-filled 'hot pipes' passed through the hot spot underground and circulated throughout the city. Main Characters (protagonists, heroines, and main antagonist) Nagaoka Souun Souun is the son of a hero of the American-Chinese War, who was killed some years ago. On the surface he doesn't show much in the way of emotion, and his fighting style is one where he uses the dual-pistols in combination with his EX-Brain to fight in the most efficient way possible, obeying the suggestions of his own subconscious like a machine. Indeed, he himself isn't really sure he has emotion, and that is one of his major internal conflicts throughout the story as he deals with his personal issues. He is a badass, to put it bluntly... the kind of guy who can re-kill thirty zombies in under a minute without taking a single scratch. His body has been trained using both conventional methods and tailor-made nano-drugs to turn it into a weapon capable of perfectly obeying the EX-Brain's suggestions. Kibanohara Echika Echika is in just about every way Souun's opposite. She is a rebel, preferring to use a chainsaw and shotgun and frequently ignoring her EX-Brain's suggestions in favor of her own impulses. She believes emotions should be immediately be shown on the surface and indulged, and she is more than a little hedonistic by nature. She is also a straight-out lesbian who has no hesitation going after pretty girls. Her outright hatred for her father is the most obvious cause for her rebellious nature and her unwillingness to use her EX-Brain (the horns, as opposed to the full helmet Souun version Souun uses). Hougyou Iria Iria is the main heroine of the story and the focus for most of the events in it. She has extreme synesthesia (look it up), though she is quite functional despite that. Her initial setting, amnesia, is one of the most obvious tropes out there, but it isn't the focus of most of the story. In a world where people are rapidly losing their emotions, both positive and negative, she is a bright, cheerful young woman whose very presence makes people feel hopeful and light-hearted. She is also an otaku. Kijou Mitsumi Kijou Mitsumi is Souun's 'other' potential heroine. She is, like him, a hunter of the undead. However, she uses a katana and muscle-enhancing suit, along with her talent for mapping out the actions of enemies on the battlefield, rather than the style used by Souun and partially rejected by Echika. To be honest, this is one girl who has a singular talent for getting herself into trouble... and a lot of it is caused by her somewhat single-minded personality. She is very devoted to any cause or person she latches onto, but that also means she tends to become dependent on those she attaches herself to, which is the cause of her personal conflict. Aso Kiriri Echika's adoptive older sister. She is the most 'normal' person amongst the main characters, ironically, despite the fact that she is a high-ranking member of the Military Police under Echika's father. She is kind-hearted and constantly worries about the broken relationship between Echika and her father, as she loves them both. She also is very idealistic, believing that her duty as an officer of the law is the protection of Tokyo's people above all other things (an idealism almost unheard of in the somewhat tyrannical Military Police organization). Kon Su Kon Su... is probably the straight-out weirdest character in the VN. She is a hard M (with bold and italics for emphasis), and she has casual sexual relations with both protagonists. She is a professional hacker, information broker, undead analyzer (dissects and analyzes undead bodies and brains to discover the individual styles of necromancers... sort of like forensics), and she is also one of Souun's and Echika's supporters. Unfortunately, explaining her weirdness is not really possible without spoiling the VN, so I'm just going to drop it. Incidentally, her path isn't really a straight-out heroine path, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who completes one of the paths. Milgram Milgram is the charismatic leader of the Researchers, an organization of Necromancers that believe the only hope for humanity is to escape from emotion through death (extinction). He isn't your standard nihilist, but the philosophy he espouses is. This guy... is the single most powerful Necromancer in existence, which means he is also an extremely emotional person (emotion and artistic sensitivity being requirements for creating the best undead). This guy is flat-out scary, eerie, and freaky. However, in many ways he is a representative of one of the major aspects of the world the characters are living in. The Story For better or worse, this story has a ton of guro and is basically an action-horror story. If you can't deal with heroine deaths, torture, zombification, and occasional rape, this definitely will be hard on you. A lot of effort goes into portraying the most gruesome parts of the story in a way that will be as horrifying as possible, and the heroines don't always escape this particular treatment, so it is best to prepare yourself before jumping in. The lighter points - mostly centered around Iria - actually only serve to enhance the sheer horror and bleakness of the setting, which is basically an extension and enhancement of what this writer did in Gekkou no Carnevale. By nature, any story as full of zombies like this one is going to be dark, and this one really does go to the extremes of the dark end at times. It is really hard to talk about this story without spoiling some of the primary elements (and because I figured out those elements too early due to certain hints, my own reactions were more ones of 'expected horror/sadness', so I'd prefer not to do that to you all). To be honest, emotionally connecting with this story was hard at some points, but as I got deeper into the characters - usually near the ends of the paths - it became a lot easier. In terms of action, this VN is full of it, but it is most emotional toward the end of the paths and in the true route. Kon Su's route serves a purpose different from the other routes, revealing elements of her past that are important to the story as a whole while showing the steel that lies beneath the stuttering, drooling do-M surface of that character. Whereas the other routes have some element of romance, Kon Su's lacks that, and I honestly thought that was for the best (I honestly couldn't imagine any ending where she was romantically involved with either of the protagonists, as opposed to just sexually involved). Ironically, if I were to say which of the routes (other than the true one) touched me in the most positive manner, it would be this one. I really suggest anyone avoid playing Iria's route until you've played all the other heroine routes. It feels a lot more natural if you go into the true route straight after finishing her route, as the true route is in many ways wrapped up the most intimately with hers. The other routes can probably be played in any order without a problem, but I do advise you take my suggestion above seriously. Visuals Normally, I don't talk about a VN's visuals that much, but because of the styles used here, it needs to be mentioned. First, I should mention the action-scene styles. The action-scenes are defined by a type of cell-shaded animation that is very similar to SMT: Digital Devil Saga on the PS2. Literally, the action scenes are animated and combined with highly-detailed battle descriptions to give a degree of depth that is pretty rare even in action VNs. I was doubtful at first, but this VN definitely benefited from using this particular technology (though it probably detonated a nuclear bomb under the budget). The regular visuals, as seen above, are more 'classic-style' Nitroplus, so if you've played a Nitroplus game made since Muramasa, you probably noticed that it is in the same general style. As a result, there is no real need for me to discuss them... except that the way the designers used them was pretty amazing. The dystopian feel of the pipe-wrapped city of Tokyo in 2199 is pretty eerie-feeling and definitely adds to the general atmosphere of the story. The tendency to dress most of the characters in dark or harsh colors (except Iria) was probably intentional, to further add to this atmosphere. This is one of the few times in the last year when I've actually felt that a company went above and beyond when designing every visual aspect of a VN. Audio Musically, this game isn't really unique. The BGMs all feel 'familiar', though they are used effectively to enhance the mood, so I give this VN high ratings for its BGM use, if not for the songs themselves. Nitroplus's use of music shows a tendency to prefer unobtrusiveness and 'enhancement' as opposed to the use of music to 'define' the mood seen in a lot of other VNs (Hapymaher being one of the most extreme examples of the latter). What really struck me is the wide variety of sound-effects, such as gunfire, cutting sounds, etc, and the use of those sound effects. To be honest, the sound of zombies being blown apart by bullets in this VN is going to linger in my ears for quite a while, as is the sound of Echika's 'Rabbit Punch' chainsaw. Overall Overall, this VN is pretty impressive. I can honestly recommend this... though not to just anyone. To be honest, the 'average' VN-reader who prefers moege-variants will probably not be able to stand the darkness of this game. If you don't have a reasonably high tolerance for guro and dark atmospheres, this is going to be a hard VN for you to enjoy. Zombie-lovers will probably flock to this VN by the thousands if it ever gets translated, because it really does draw in a lot of what people like about the 'zombie apocalypse' style movies and TV shows, while giving it a uniquely Japanese/otaku media flavor. However, this VN is emotionally draining, so I do recommend taking it in smaller doses than I did (every minute I wasn't working for the past four days). In my opinion, this VN can be considered a straight-out kamige, but it is also a VN that picks its readers... simply because it is so high-stress.

Yes.

Legality only has its place in discussing potential consequences due to it being illegal, but then you're really arguing based on those results, not because it's legal or not. Laws may often have their origin in moral judgements, but they live a life of their own and whether something is legal or not should not reflect upon its morality. Also hi neko, you did good. Could use a bit more being out there though like Okami did, would be more entertaining than just unrelenting fury at everything w