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As I began this VN, I decided to change my approach to how I would handle it. My dislike of ladder-style story structures will probably cause me to go berserk when I finish the final (Haru's) route, but for now, I'm going to evaluate the story based on each arc and its associated heroine route, ignoring the VN as a whole until I've gone through the final route. Now, the protagonist of this story is a pretty archetypical character... a PI who has been scarred and run down by life living in a town ruled by a vampire, controlled by two mafia organizations, and dominated by something approaching a capitalist caste system, where the financial circumstances of the individuals involved determine their social status completely and it is almost impossible to climb up the ladder, though it is relatively easy to fall down. Technology in this world hovers about the level of the 1980's, with the biggest differences being the existence of real-life magic and magical beings, as well as beast-people (cat-people, bunny-people, dog-people, etc). The protagonist isn't a wielder of magic, if you are wondering. His role is something close to a neutral party in the realpolitik landscape, due to his role as the vampire Rizal's representative, as well as his personal relationships with high ranking members of both mafia groups. This VN has a lot of situational comedy in it, ranging from Haru 'fixing' machines by hitting them and using magic to Chiroro's (a chibi homonculus that is something like a servant to both the protag and Haru) foul mouth toward the protagonist and fawning on Haru. I honestly enjoyed the back and forth between the characters through most of the first arc, and I doubt that will change through the rest of the VN. The first arc covers the introductions to the characters and the city of Naoka, and it ranges from non-school slice-of-life events (protagonist and Haru going out to solve problems as part of their work) to moments of tension in the shadowy underworld of Naoka. The first route that branches off is Kazuha's... Kazuha is the VN's resident genkikko+doggirl. I honestly fell in love with her from the first (I mean, she is working to support her twelve siblings and is endlessly cheerful and generous by nature... what could you not like about her? Not to mention that she is a mimikko, which automatically skyrockets my impression of a given heroine based on my fetishes, lol), so, while I'm sad she isn't the true heroine, I was happy to get a chance to see her route early on. And it is a surprisingly detailed route... in fact, it is roughly equivalent to 1.2 times the length of the average charage heroine route, in my experience. It doesn't mindlessly focus on the heroine and protagonist's love affair, instead involving all the characters (a bad habit with many VNs of this type is to sideline the massive cast of characters during the side-heroine routes, weakening the setting in general) in a dramatic mess whose impact is equal to that of the story arc previous to the heroine route. So, my initial impressions of this VN based on what I've played so far are positive... let's hope they stay that way.

The second arc of this story is focused narrowly on the aftermath of the first arc and Yurika. Yurika is a rare type in VNs these days... a sexy adult woman who isn't another man's wife or widow (yes, I went there). She is a member of the 'Virgin of Chains', the more 'peaceful' of the two mafia groups dominating the area. She is the protagonist's friend, occasional partner, drinking buddy, and sex friend. She has a somewhat nihilistic attitude toward life and an absolute love of teasing the protagonist... and anyone else who leaves an opening for her. Like all the heroines in this VN, she is fairly attractive, though she is somewhat overly pessimistic at times. Of course, she has very good reason for this, but I won't spoil that for you. In the aftermath of the second arc, I took pleasure in reading her path, which was a bit more icha-love focused than Kazuha's was at first. It does fall into the classic 'it was nice up to this point precisely to outline the drama' area, so the drama near the end of the path is pretty satisfying, and I honestly enjoyed the atmosphere of the path as a whole. I will say that I preferred Kazuha's path and I thought they could have gone a bit farther with her personal story (I thought that they glossed over a bit too much detail when it came to her eye).

October is turning out to be a frustrating month, with the VN I was most interested in delayed until December (for some reason, December seems to be getting all the most interesting ones...). I honestly had hopes that October would break the 'dry spell' I've been experiencing since I completed July's releases. There is still a possibility of that happening, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Right now, I'm busy with work, trying to open up a nice quiet period so that I can get all of October's releases out of the way in as short a time as possible. This is because I have a ridiculous amount of conventional games coming out next month on my list to play, and I don't want my VN habit getting in the way like it has the last few times a new game came out (yes, I'm that much of a VN junkie). Anyway this is the list of releases for October I plan to at least try to play: Nanairo＊Clip (I haven't played anything by this company, so I have no idea of what to expect, but it looks like a standard charage) Unionism Quartet A-3 Days (the fandisc to the original game, mostly playing in case they give solid after-stories to the neglected heroines from the original) Sora no Tsukurikata (Lovesick Puppies maker Cosmic Cute's newest game... definitely my initial pick for the month) Reminiscence Collection (Random VNs rather than VN of the Month, but I can't resist) Re: Lief (seriously, the Japanese finally crossed the line with this one, but I can't resist) Signalist Stars (new company, looks like an oppai-girl charage) Furerute Love Connect (charage, obviously... might or might not bother, considering how I dropped Nephrite's first game after only two hours of play because it was so boring) Gusha no Kyouben (Akabeisoft3 is pretty hit and miss, and now they are doing comedy... I'm curious as to what this will turn out to be)

Visual Novel Translation Status (10/29/2016) Sorry for very late here, and as for the title here I didn't mean hanami (And definitely not Sakura series here) but rather it refers to Japanese folktale which tell us that there's a corpse under the sakura tree. So I think I'll just using the party part from Corpse Party (Don't care much because it was in 3DS) and sakura part from rather unknown VN. In regard of other releases, I only interested to MYTH and Sorakumo (My shortened name, since the name was quite mouthful) for now if only the graphic for those two was better than the rest of this week release and most importantly was completed and didn't released on console (Root Letter was released on PS4 and Princess Knight was still one part here). By the way, even though I knew that released Sorakumo was had the H-Scenes was cut up, I still take an interest there if only because of the gameplay there. Other This week we had some surprise from Frontwing which they decided to add another Grisaia story there with the name 'Phantom Trigger'. The reaction, let's just said it was quite mixed up here although looks like there's more who looking forward to it though. Personally I think I'll just wait and see here, because the release format here was not so favorable for Frontwing here ie instead of full Grisaia game like Kajitsu, they decided to release it by volume which is quite unacceptable imo (Chapter based usually tends to gain some apathy to the game itself). And to close this on positive note, I think blue haired long haired male MC here was quite interesting to see, if only we usually only see that MC was had black and short hair (Including Yuuji from original Grisaia). Speaking about Frontwing, this week we also had Corona Blossom volume 2 released. Well, I still did not play volume 1 yet, but maybe I will in the future. For more progresshere, Enigma will be on Steam ie launched at November 15th (By the way Conjueror also translated Miniature Garden too). And for lase but not least here, we had Libra progress advancing 15% more for Aoi's route (ie Aoi route was 30% translated) and finally they start translating 15% of Lycoris route there. Sekai Project As for them, it was only usual for them with Chrono Clock 43.98% translated, Tenshin Ranman (I always mistakenly it as Rahman) was at 61.54% translated, Maitetsu was at 47.71% translated, Bokukotsu was finally reaching 12% translated for the progress (12.01%), and Princess Knight 2 was at 81.3% translated. Other than that there's nothing special from their progress, although guess it's good that Chrono Clock finally show the progress a little bit after they stagnant for the last week. Momory Dogma demo here was released, and while I didn't play it yet I think it could be good Visual Novel there looking from the production value (Opening and seiyuu). Although too bad that they decided to release more chapter in the future, so I couldn't said that I'm interested for now (But maybe I will the future). Oh, and they had one more progress there although it was not reported on Sekai tracker though. It was Hoshimemo retranslation project, and according to the translator (Akerou) they managed to retranslated halfway of it (50%) although I'm not sure though (He was gave the info back at October 5th). Fan Translation This week we had some other progress other than usual one, so I'll list those first here. First of all, we had Majikoi A was at finalizing in which they had 75 out out of 102 scripts was finished the finalizing. While I admit here that I didn't care about Majikoi A project there if only because of a fandisc only, and beside the original one was already satisfying enough to me, look forward to it if you Majikoi fan there. Second update here we finally had Sayooshi update after there's no update for long time there, and tight now it was at 38.24% translated. The third here we had To Heart 2 was 95 edited, and according to Ittaku he was only need to editing the rest of Manaka's route to complete the editing. For the last update for unusual one, we had Nocturnal Illusion Renewal was at 4.6% for the second editing there. As for usual progress, first of all we'll had Bishoujo Mangekyou duology here. The first one here was at 95% edited and 90% QC-ed, while for 2.5 it was at 47% translated and 43% TLC-ed. In regard of Luna Translation, Tsui Yuri was at 97% translated and for Majokoi while the translation progress was slowing down there, at least there's still stable if we talk about the update here (The progress was 52.5% translated, 39.1% edited, and 19.2% TLC-ed). And for the last but certainly not the least, Loverable here showing good progress here and for more detail, it was at 22.99% (Or maybe I should call it 23%) translated, 4.74% edited, 6.93% TLC-ed, and they started the QC here which right now it was at 0.83%. That's all for fan translation section. Mangagamer As epected they give plenty of update this week, and hopefully they will go back to their schedule twice a week if we talk about update. I'll just list it first here. Evangile W was at 66.2% translated Hapymaher was 55% translated and 36% edited Fata Morgana Fandisc was 35% translated Imouto Paradise 2 was fully translated and 46% edited Suki Suki both fully translated and edited Boukaku was 40% translated and 37% edited Maggot Bait was 3% translated Pygmalion was about starting the testing Kuroinu was 44% edited Da Capo 3 and Rance VI was currently in testing Sorcery Joker was 54% translated and halfway edited Nyuu Jene was finishing the testing Hadaka Shitsuji aka Naked Butler was 30% retranslated and 21% edited for the retranslation Dal Segno was at 79% for both of translating and editing progress Not much I could said here, other than good job. And for Himawari, they only said that it was on post testing process there. I just hope thagt i will be released soon here (Mangagamer said Soon™ though, so no much I could expect here I guess). For one more progress, they also already had Go Go Nippon 2016 ready for the pre-order and it will be released at November 11th although I could care less here about that for now. Oh, and about the release they released MYTH. As for my first look, I think while it's some kind of doujin VN at least the character was look better than both of Higurashi and Umineko original design imo. The premise was apparently MC was dragged to the shadow world or something like that. Didn't knew much for now other than apparently it'll be full of question and the soundtrack was composed by some member from 07Expansion (The company between Higurashi and Umineko), so at least we could expect that the soundtrack will be fitting to the scenes imo just like in the past. That;s all for this week VNTS Review and sorry for being very late this week. See you next week.