Leaderboard

I've raved on tropes before. Many times. However, as I have also said many times before, tropes and stereotypes do have an important place in fiction of all sorts. The important part is to balance the use of tropes to create something interesting and unique, rather than just using them to copy a previous work or works. 1. The 'standardized' voiceless protagonist- For better or worse, there was a long period of time when VN protagonists outside of chuunige were forbidden by industry custom (unspoken, unmentioned) to have a personality beyond the standard 'nice guy, dense, harem-building' protagonist with no voice-acting. I'm going to be straight with yall... this kind of protagonist is a long-standing attempt to create a convenient means for self-insertion into a situation, because his personality is nonexistent, he has no voice of his own, and in some cases you can even name him. Obliterating the individuality of the protagonist became a common tool in VNs around the turn of the century, even as story-focused VNs became more and more distinct from their nukige and moege brethren. This protagonist is an outdated, absolutely worthless relic of a time where people had forgotten the cardinal rule of interesting fiction... a boring point of view makes for a boring game. 2. The osananajimi heroine- Unlike the standardized protagonist, this particular trope is not evil in and of itself... it is simply misused on a massive scale in VNs. When used properly, the osananajimi heroine frequently becomes the most attractive of the heroines, her depth of character far outweighing that of even a well-designed protagonist (Kagome from Comyu, Selma from Bullet Butlers, Suzu from Ayakashibito, etc). However, when misused, an osananajimi heroine is simply an excuse for laziness in character development. I don't know how many times I've run into osananajimi heroines who had an easy relationship with the protagonist but absolutely no depth of character, no past episodes of interest, and no really deep connections to make you want to make them the protagonist's lover. I'm sorry, but a decade of hidden puppy love is not sufficient for me to take an interest in a heroine (incidentally the most common osananajimi heroine setting). Moreover, such heroines almost always have that stupid 'transfer from friends to lovers' issue pop up... and it is basically a similar issue to that of the sister to lover one, on a smaller scale (and without the delicious fragrance of immorality to make it interesting). 3. The 'week-later' ending- This is a type of ending/epilogue that pops up that ends a very short period of time after the climax of a path or story. Charage in particular tend to use this type of ending, because they want to be able to put out a FD to milk the fanbase later if the game turns out to be popular. These endings fail to provide the closure the reader desires, and it leaves you at loose ends in the wake of the story. If you love the characters of a story, don't you want to see what their lives are like down the road? I hate to say it, but by the end of the average charage, the reader is generally bored of school life and wants to move on. This type of ending is always a huge let-down, especially for readers like me. 4. Slice-of-life as an end rather than a means- Slice-of-life is something that has become inescapable in non-nukige VNs, for the most part. That, in and of itself, is not that much of a problem. If you want to get to know a character, there is nothing like seeing a bit of their life outside a stressful situation to give you an idea of who they are. However, there is nothing more boring than a game that doesn't have any conflict, which is slice-of-life from beginning to end, with no rough spots or speed bumps to make things a bit 'spicier'. My problem with this is that slice-of-life for the sake of slice-of-life has become a trope in and of itself, which means there are enough VNs out there of that type to make it easy to consider it to be such. 5. The TSUNDERE- Yes, I went there. Despite the efforts of an entire decade of otakus, the tsundere still hasn't died. The tsundere is a character who acts negatively on the surface toward someone but cares for them underneath, to put it simply. Around the turn of the century, tsundere heroines became a huge boom in anime, manga, and VNs, starting with the violent tsundere and moving on to the Taiga-chan 'barking dog' style, then finally into more and more varied types that plagued otaku media like a virus. My problem with tsunderes is that more than ninety-percent of them literally don't have a reason - personality-wise or otherwise - to be tsundere. These characters unnaturally react to the protagonist or other characters, and they don't have a reason to do so. To be blunt, this type of behavior pattern got old long ago... and yet otaku media creators inevitably include a tsundere in almost everything produced. 6. Teenaged characters- Primarily due to the moege genre and its influences, better than ninety-percent of VNs made today consist entirely of young people as main characters. I have to say this... I'm seriously tired of every protagonist and heroine being a kid. At the very least, I'd like to see a larger percentage of youthful adult protagonists, for a change. 7. School-life setting - Sorry, I'm tired of having to experience kids wasting their youth. In particular, my biggest bone to pick with a lot of protagonists is that happy-go-lucky tendency to forget about planning for the future. School-life consists a very small portion of the average human's lifetime. It might be a time many are nostalgic for, but I honestly can't take an interest in it anymore. There are others, but these are the ones that come to mind immediately, lol.

So, they finally replied to one of my comments about the TL quality. It's pretty vague and doesn't really say much, but it is nice to see a reply nonetheless. This survey could be a good way of giving them some honest feedback. (Constructive feedback, of course. Nothing is gained from just being an ass.)

Just finished up Guy Gavriel Kay's Sailing to Sarantium, the first book in a duology called "The Sarantine Mosaic." It was really good! And at $4 for a long, high-quality fantasy novel on the Kindle, it's a steal. It's got a lot going for it: I think I must like historical fantasy. This is only the second historical fantasy series I've read (the other being Elizabeth Bear's "Eternal Sky" trilogy), but they both really spoke to me. There's something fascinating about the overlay of a familiar world and familiar cultures (in Bear's case, Mongolia, when men and mares conquered half the span of the world; in Kay's, Byzantium at its decadent height, on the eve of collapse) with fantasy elements (gods; spirits; magic) which apparently really pulls me in. It's a decently long book, and the writer is definitely not shy to go to the wall on writing elaborate descriptive prose, but even so, the book never once dragged. There was always something interesting happening, someone I wanted to see doing something I wanted to read about. It didn't fall victim to the typical long fantasy novel problem of having a giant, easily forgettable cast: I never once had a "wait, who are you, again?" moment with a character, and in fact, almost all the characters were pretty dear to me. In spite of it being a pretty misogynistic historical setting, the main female characters play big roles, and they earn those parts. There are some interesting male characters around, including the main character, but the women are the reason it's fun to read. Can I say "characters" a few more times? There are a lot of them, from many walks of life: slaves and emperors, chariot racers and mosaicists. And they're all worth reading about. Anyway, I really enjoyed it; highly recommend it, especially if the idea of historical fantasy seems interesting to you.

Reading Ef, I'm, basing on the youtube playthrough playlist, around 17parts from 32, from First Tale. And while I really dislike both heroines, annoying, clingy, violent lifedestroyers, I like this tittle. Romance is really subtly written. Well, it's actually "written" and not like in most of the VNs "protag suddenly realizes he's in love". Of course, abrupt h scenes and unfunny humour dimnish the overall enjoyement, but it's still a nice read.

Yeah, the main translator from Ate the Moon (Katahane, Ayakashibito) is back and right now he she ask for the help. Or to be specific he she asked for hacker to hack one of untranslated VN (If possible a dedicated one), because he she was about to translate one VN there. The VN in question was Tsukiyori (Or Tsuritou just as the translator said) in which was had translation project here before it's stalled. I'd quite interested with the VN itself, although to tell the truth I didn't had any skill here. Here's the post from the translator himself herself if you curious. Requesting hacking help – Tsuriotsu Hope some hacker from here could help him her if possible, and I hope that it'll be translated in the future. Edit (7/15) - Now that the project was officially started, I decided to change the title to reflect that (Former title 'Request from Ate the Moon Translation').

Bakuman will soon be on this list

Assuming you're looking for VNs more specifically than eroge, here's a decent list: If you happen to like yuri fluff Hanahira is often memed as being very easy, though it might actually have enough hiragana in it to make it harder to read than something with more kanji depending on where your strengths lie.

Aishiteruze Baby - the anime itself isn't really good, but I thought it was really enjoyable. Busou Renkin - from the same author that did Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X in the West). It's pretty loyal to the manga. The story itself has some flaws, but it's decent overall. Oh, be aware that it is action oriented. InuYasha - if we consider the Kanketsu-hen that was only produced 6 years after the ending of the first season. It is also action oriented. Love Hina - although the anime's ending didn't really have a closure, the OVA that followed it (Love Hina Again), although rushed, put an ending to the story. I still prefer the manga's ending, though. All of those anime's endings fall under the kind of ending you described in the OP, imo.

I'd check the actual Japanese line before getting your pitchforks out. Tarantino is relatively popular in Japan though and didn't Makoto herself reference him at another point when mentioning the kinds of movies she likes? Either way, I tend to be in favor of replacing obscure Japanese pop-culture references hardly anyone reading an English translation would understand.

i really hope to see a release date for Tokeijikake no Ley Line, its still slated for a 2017 release