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You can get some information about publishing figures. Just not anything about visual novels directly. All of the information about licensing fees and licensing terms is very much secret. But there are times when companies get forced to reveal these secrets: when they have to go to court. If you want to sue over something, you have to file the contracts, including real dollar figures, with the court. And court documents are public. Some lawsuits in the video game and anime business have resulted in some real interesting info surfacing over the years. The complete contract between Bungie and Activision for publishing Destiny (which originally contemplated that Destiny 3 would already be out and Destiny 4 would come out next year) can be found here. A writeup of the significant parts (a contract is rather dry and boring) is here. Now, Destiny is a far cry from your average visual novel. But it's the only time a full contract has been released that I could find. A bunch of stuff was released in the lawsuits over Curt Schilling and 38 studios: you can find more here and here (note that the actual document trove is no longer online). But even that's a bit far afield. There is some very interesting license data from the implosion of ADV Films, though. When ADV was falling apart, Funimation sued them over a debt they said they bought from a Japanese company. That led to some dollar figures being released. We know how much ADV paid for certain shows. The list is on ANN and while anime is more popular than VNs, of the three I found, it's the closest match. I'm not going to reproduce the list here (just check ANN). But there are a few things I can say about it: 1) It's not clear what these numbers are. Are these the up-front minimum guarantee prices? Or is this the total amount paid, including the up-front minimum guarantee and all the royalties that were owed? Did they even owe any royalties? The Crunchyroll coverage seems to imply that ADV paid a flat $25K per episode for 009-1. 2) Does this include the costs of translating the show and producing the DVDs? Almost certainly not. $21,335 for a TV show with 39 episodes (UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie) is not enough money. 3) The numbers vary widely. The lowest price for a TV show is $21,335 for UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie. That's barely more than the $20K for the Air movie. The highest price is pushing a million: $960K for Kurau Phantom Memory. Four of the listed shows cost ADV more than three quarters of a million dollars, and one more is just under. On the flip side, six others cost less than sixty grand. The most expensive show cost ADV nearly forty five times the least expensive. 4) Licensing costs are probably paid by every company in the business. Even MoeNovel (a Pulltop subsidiary) probably on paper pays Pulltop for the rights. This is something I learned when I got a job. I worked for the phone company for awhile, and I found out my department pays another department for the phone lines. This seemed really weird to me; I was like 'why bother?' My coworkers explained that because of the way budgets work, if that division provided the phones for free, their numbers would look terrible. The cost savings they generated would make everyone else in the company look good, but their bottom line would look terrible. This would lead to them getting punished (for being 'unprofitable') for being successful. Likewise, Moenovel is owned by Will. Money that they generate goes into Will's pockets. But they made that money off of Pulltop properties. So the deals need to be structured in such a way that the Pulltop entity reaps the rewards of Moenovel's success. It is probably safe to assume Moenovel pays something to Pulltop. The only company that might not have to do this 'one part of the company pays another' thing is Frontwing, because they might not have set up a different entity to run the overseas business. It's hard to say. 5) The non-licensing related costs are going to be relatively fixed and predictable. They will be a product of the size (in bytes) of the script, with added complications for things like actual gameplay elements. Scripting costs (engine work) are less predictable, but compared to a 45X variance factor in licensing costs? That's not too significant. 6) Licensing costs vary widely. Sol Press seems to be licensing on the cheap (i.e. not going after famous or hugely-successful Japanese projects). For all but the cheapest licenses, however? Licensing fees likely dwarf all other costs associated with the release. Witch's Love Diary's script is about 1.5 megabytes, or about 750K characters. Now I know MG pays by the character (everyone does) but not how much: if they pay 1.5 cents per, that's about $11K. If they pay 5 cents per, that would be about $37K. [Edit: Apparently some companies pay by the character, some by the line. That probably won't change this math too much.] Both of these guesstimates are on the low end of the ADV price chart. Visual Novel licensing fees are going to be quite a bit lower (they have to be, or there's no business to be done, sales just aren't high enough). But still. 7) For most titles, the licensing fee is probably the biggest cost. Since this is the part that's least predictable, it's extremely difficult to say what a given title might have cost.

We all know you secret now, you are just a tsundere towards moege

First off: Get out, this is scarily similar to some of my experiences and im not even joking Secondly: Thats amazing! I never had any japanese classes offered at my school, we only had french. +1 for Saekano, Noitamin A did an excellent job with the crisp animation in the anime, but i sadly haven't watched s2 or read any VNs of it. But i do have a vita and might get em all if they differ from the anime Thirdly: Honestly any tips? Your possibly 2-3 years older than me and somehow im in the exact time frame where i wanna learn japanese haha, i have no clue about the symbols being used and anything, so id appreciate any tips on how to get properly started into learning japanese to a point where i can at the very least read and speak it Thats pretty cool haha, as stupid as it may sound, i never finished watching clanned after i guess ep5 because someone said the VN was years ahead, guess its the perfect time to finish it then! Also +1 for toradora, even the mc was wishy washy and jesus knows how i finished watching oreimo, HenNeko was better than those 2 for me Ahem usamin ahem Jokes aside, i have no clue why i never watched grisaia, i remember the anime coming out, it was fresh and i think i finished season 1 Guess its the perfect time to read those VNs then! Haha why is it so relatable? Playing league and YS was my jam, anything thats an jrpg would keep me hooked for hours (i sunk in 150 hrs in Persona 3, and around 180 in Persona 4 golden). Needless to say i was an rpg freak, that considered turn based rpg superior to all genres! From DQ, FF, YS to any shin megami tensei game But basically i got bored with games to a point where i just couldnt even be bothered playing them, then moved to anime. And if you read my OP you know how i ended up with VNs! What if i lied and i never played a single Vn as well? What if i just want to be accepted!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hbpencilneko/717816440?ref=481002&token=940b5a2c it will be nice to have any sort of feedback from you guys. Or any mistakes. Grammar will do too. If you enjoy the project or any feedbacks, you are welcomed to reply here as well as in the kickstarter page Note that there are somethings that haven't added to the project yet. Here are the followings: Video Japanese Page Translation as well as Chinese Page Translation Some images Character introduction text Thanks

There is a term for this in English. It's called a slip of tongue, which is when you say something you know deep inside, but for some reason or another want to keep secret from everybody else. Things are going well here. We teach you better English while we get to know you better in return.

No posts here in the almost two weeks since I last posted? Oh well, so it goes. I shall double-post if I must. I was most of the way through season 1 of MariMite when I needed to find a show to watch while cooking, and I ended up with Citrus. I wrapped that up today, pleased with the choice. Very good, if not great, and very effective at manipulating my emotions, which I admit to enjoying every now and then. I was a bit tickled at first at parallels between the two shows (girls into other girls; strict all-girls school; focus on drama; banner themes notably included the importance and difficulty of reaching mutual understanding) and the places where they diverged wildly (presence of malicious characters vs. total absence of malicious characters; prurient/pandering handling of sexuality vs. much more subdued treatment). The presence of malicious people, especially, led to Citrus having a lot of outright negativity in it. It got pretty nerve-wracking for me at times, particularly during the Matsuri arc, since I don't like seeing characters I care about being put in danger, particularly danger of any kind of mental trauma. But the plot's willingness to put people in danger also makes for a more powerful story, and as Rooke pointed out elsewhere recently, as a reader, being made a little uncomfortable is often a good thing, when it broadens your experience and perspective.

Is that supposed to be a double-negative? So you're pro-moege?

Usually, it's the line playing out of sync with the text. Either ahead or behind. Reloading a save fixes it the majority of the time.

You will not get proper answers in this thread because there exist two kinds of people. Those who don't know and those who are under contract to not tell.

There is plenty of eroge on android in Japan so why not

Looks cute. Good luck.

Indeed, let's. Went ahead and hid most of the trolly posts derailing the thread.

That's one way of identifying text as originating from Moogy. He has (had?) connections, speaks with authority (which he likely never had for real) and it seems he wants everybody to feel bad because nobody sane will ever live up to what Moogy wants. According to him, everybody should learn Japanese, but at the same time nobody is allowed to go through the learning process. VNDB has boards, which is a forum like thing. It's custom made and generally poor from a forum point of view, but it's in the database, meaning it's designed to link to VNs, releases, publishers etc. In fact you look at say Ever17, to the top right there is a tab with discussions. 43 threads has been attached to this title. The benefit of this is if somebody asks about the contents or writes a review, even if left idle for years, it will still pop up for the VN in question and not die many pages back in some subforum. 43 is really high. Most have less than 5, with 0 being the most common for untranslated VNs. Around 5 years ago, the boards were some sort of wild west. One instance was that Moogy said VNs should be transformed into American culture. One person (A) replied something like "are you saying Americans are so stupid that they can't read a story unless it's changed to match American culture? I don't think that's the case". Next a new person flames for calling all Americans stupid, but aims at A rather than Moogy. Other people joins in and in a short time there was 50+ posts of people calling each other names. Another example was a recommendation thread. It nearly instantly got replied with something like "OP makes it sound like low resolution is better than high resolution. Can somebody explain the point because I'm it". This got replied with 5-10 posts of harassment and death threats for not liking VNs enough before somebody came with a valid reply and pointed out that OP wasn't good at explaining the thinking behind the request. This made both the request and the question valid. Eventually VNDB got tired of deleting posts all the time from people acting like that and announced a cleanup, which meant people who wouldn't stop doing that would get banned. That made VNDB a lot nicer, but it also lost more than one translator working on official translations. Usually it isn't, at least not the serious boards like this one. This thread got seriously trolled though as it has taken up two pages of replies by now and I just made yet another reply, which is off topic from the threads intended purpose. We should get back on topic.

Visual Novel Translation Status (04/14/2018) Finally we have on time VNTS for this week, although in turn this time my VNTS review is quite late. As for the title, you may find it quite strange, although in fact it's just another role association from me here because the seiyuu for the image header girl was also voicing Makoto back in Chrono Clock, who as we knew is the yakuza. For peace loving part, it's to adapt with another name of Supipara Chapter 2 in which it was called Peace Story, and especially it was because the 'Pi' part from Supipara is stand for Peace. It's pretty ironic though that the girl in image header (Hotaru) was supposed to the main girl of Peace Story, and yet she's quite a tsundere who managed to say 'kill' five times in a conversation with MC lol. With that done, welcome to this week VNTS Review which is to be very frank still quite anemic although at least we have two major updates from Mangagamer (One release and one planned release), so at least this week it's slightly more active. Let's see what I can write for this week as well. As for Sekai, no notable update will be very appropriate for them. For the update, we have Loveduction was fully translated and need some engine work. Other than the only update, we have Sekai revealed three additional secret projects. What I know is that we still didn't have info for that project, so I guess we better just wait and see later. However, the most probable guess would be those three projects would be another lesser known VNs considering that those three VNs were almost ready for release, and more if we knew that it's just revealed today. But even so, I will be happy though if those three secret projects turn out to be very well known VNs, almost impossible as it is. For secret projects progress roundup, the 1st project was in QA, 2nd project was fully translated and 99% translated, and 3rd project was still waiting for the third party (According to the tracker it's almost ready for release). As for fan translation once again it's only just regular updates, although this time we have Pure Pure have a break though because the translator was busy at the university. For the roundup we have Musumaker was at 52% translated, Eustia was reached 40% mark (40.06%) translated along with at 24.82% TLC-ed, Harugi's prologue was at halfway translated along with 28% TLC-ed and 16% edited (The overall progress was still at around 1%), Higurashi Tsukiotoshi was almost completely translated (At 99% translated), Shin Koihime Musou was at 26% edited, and Witch Garden was at 44% translated. Still no news from Tsurezure yet although perhaps they're quite busy lately, so that's all for fan translation section. Other This week we also have Punchline VN release news for both of PS4 and PSV at this summer later, although seeing that at the same time we'll gonna have the probable release for both of Island and Shibuya Scramble - by the way we already have another Island anime PV and apparently it'll be released as a part of summer 2018 season, so it mean that there's a chance that we'll get Island VN release at summer later. Back to Punchline, for the info it was created as anime first by Uchikoshi (Ever17, Zero Escape) and the anime have some infamy for showing too much fan service. So the bottom line here is that Punchline announcement was not interesting to me because it was overshadowed, and it was only available for console. We also have change from Sol Press in which they decided to announced another VN from the same company as Sakusakura (Yotsunoha), and it was quite an old VN from 2000's. From the first look, I just think it was just an average moege but at least it was good looking - also it have OVA as well. As for the translation progress, it was already at the middle and right now it was at 42% translated, 30% edited, and 8% QA-ed. Other than Yotsuhana announcement, we also finally have Sol Press made a new website in which it looks neat. They also made the progress for their two remaining VNs project is easier to navigate, especially in regard of Newton VN in which it was at 85% translated along with 70% edited and 40% QA-ed (At least we didn't need to take not which route was in translation and in editing). As for the release date for those three VNs, they're quite confident to announced the exact release date although keep in mind that they may have delay in regard of the release - for the date, Newton VN will be released at May 25th, Sakusakura at 30th later, and Yotsunoha at July 27th. Mangagamer From Mangagamer, we have one planned release with the exact date ready. As for the release, it was Fata Morgana fandisc in which it'll be released at May 17th later. Although it could be said as the fandisc, actually it also depict the past of certain characters who said to be the catalyst of Fata Morgana story (I can't say it freely because it was a major spoiler). Go preorder that if you want to see more Fata Morgana. Other than Fata Morgana fandisc release date announcement, we also have Supipara Chapter 2 (Peace Story) in which it's also the currently last chapter for Supipara. I said currently because Supipara itself was pretty ambitious project that was planned to have five chapters, only for minori to face the financial danger before barely saved (That's why their heroines in VNs after Supipara release have big breast). For Peace Story itself, our focus will be on Hotaru in which once again is a quite tsundere and her connection with Alice the Witch. There's also interesting fact that there's an opening that depict the heroines for the remaining two unavailable chapters, in which it should be a hint that minori did intend to continue their ambitious project, because if not I think there would be no new opening for Supipara even with the reduced cost for that (The new opening is till better animated compared to usual VN opening though). As for my opinion here while the opening itself sounds exciting (I like it), I still have some doubt that we'll be able to see this complete because it'll be need a lot of money so more or less I'm pretty wary about this. In the end, I hope taht I'll be able to see Supipara released with all of five chapters completed, although it might take very long time to achieve that. I think that's all for this week, and see you next week.

SG;0 looks great so far as everyone else has said. Oh thank god for more FMP as well - I've so missed it. Happy to have more shokugeki too; time for that to finally move forward with the plot. I actually didn't mind the new SAO either, though from history I know it'll be awesome for a while and then turn into a steaming pile of shit by the end of the series.

The Momorio Closet one is a kickstarter for physicals not for localizing the VN. They state in the kickstarter that they would localize it regardless, and that the aim of the kickstarter is the physicals. However if you look at Solpress they also have kickstarters with roughly that goal. I would assume that the licenses they got weren't too expensive considering that the ones they are working with aren't that large companies and the titles weren't well known in the west. However there is still a problem with using kickstarters as an indicator, firstly we don't know if the cost intend to cover all of the localization or if they cover some of it with their own money and assume they will get the rest needed through later sales. Secondly kickstarters also often include physicals, this means that some of the money will go to cover the production of these physicals, this will of course be taken into account by the ones making the kickstarters that make the goals.

I have no idea but I heartily endorse your use of the English language with respect to spelling.

Why did I click that link... once you see you cannot unsee... maybe links like this should expire after a day or two? I've been reading Grisaia, and I know others complain about the long common route but I'm really enjoying all the day to day stuff. Plus I'm loving that the MC is not some weak moron but someone skilled and with attitude.

don’t mind them, they’re just a bunch of 12 year olds with nothing better to do

I'd love to comment on this... but my knowledge isn't extensive. The big one is licensing costs, though. Originally, that was the biggest cost for a localization (this doesn't apply to MG or localizations by Western branches of Japanese companies). One of the early rumors I heard, when they were trying to license Clannad, was that Key wanted one million dollars for the license. However, I imagine that is at the higher range for this kind of thing, lol. Edit: To clarify, I honestly don't know how much the licensing fee thing applies under modern conditions. With the advent of Kickstarter and closer interactions between VN companies and localization companies, there is every possibility that this kind of cost is no longer valid or nonexistent. I do know that some companies pay translators by the symbol and others by the line (symbol usually is a better deal for the translator)... and costs for the average game (just the translation) can be in the low to mid five digit range depending on length. Depending on how the company in question handled the original game production, there is every possibility that royalties have to be paid out to VAs or the original team... *shrugs* This kind of crap is why I hesitate to make a guess on the total costs. When I first started getting into VNs, most Japanese companies didn't want their stuff coming over here, because they didn't want to have to deal with Western mores and companies (there were a couple of issues with eroge of the Illusion type at the time).

Tip of the day: do not act like Moogy is the god he believes he is. He has stated that the goal of a translation is localization, meaning it should be rewritten to get rid of as much Japanese culture as possible and insert American culture instead. After all American readers can't understand Japanese culture. Also if you aren't an American, you apparently have no business reading VNs in English. Moogy is also a firm believer that readers should be punished for not understanding Japanese and the way to do that is to ensure the quality of the localization will not reach the quality of the Japanese original. Despite his significant influence in the VN community, VNDB had to ban him for always starting fights. If you want a real answer to the question, Darbury already provided it on his blog. Poll summary: only one person out of 34 says honorifics should never be included in a translation. If you ask for my personal opinion, then it depends on the VN. In some titles they make very little difference and removing them will not be a noteworthy loss of information. In other titles, the honorifics carries a lot of information, sometimes more than first meets the eye, in which case keep them. In such a title, trying to include the information without actually using honorifics will not only lose information, it will also result in English sentences, which are less readable than if you would just include the honorifics. If you use honorifics, make a list of those you include and add a txt file or something to tell the meaning of each. It might not sound important at first glance, but what is the difference between -san and -kun? We can't be 100% sure all readers will know. We can't even be sure everybody on Fuwa is fully aware of this. And what if the VN decides to use some less known ones, such as -waka or -dono? If you always include a list of all honorifics in the VN and an explanation, then you will gain the freedom to use such honorifics/titles.

The first rule of fixing an error: read what the error says. Since it's not here, anybody would have to take a wild guess. My guess is that you didn't use Japanese locale. For some titles everything seems to work fine and whenever a new sprite/cg/whatever is loaded, it's only in ASCII (romaji). When you reach a point where the filename is in kanji, then it will only be able to locate the file if the locale is right and it will give an error that the file is missing. The solution is obviously to use Japanese locale. I know it's an 18+ title, but it's still a nice typo.

I was looking forward 1st episode of the 3rd season of Boku no Hero Academia, but obviously, it would just be a flashback episode =_=;;; (luckily the 2nd episode just came out yesterday) Other than that, I really don't care for anything else. Violet Evergarden kind of shattered my heart with the way it ended the last episode (Why?! Why do you Japanese love your wabi-sabi aesthetic?! Is it too much to ask for a happy ending?!) so I'm still reeling and rewatching episodes of Polar Bear Cafe. Not a new anime but I tried to watch Re:Zero on Friday to understand what all the hype was all about and gave up around episode 8. Did not enjoy the whole die-redo the last episode again feel and felt like the plot went nowhere (duh).

Definitely one of my favorite manga series

Please read Higurashi

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii loved that they referenced Saekano

This VN is an odd duck on my long list of recommended VNs. While its existence as a time loop story is a trope, the way the game's story handles it is pretty interesting. I went ahead and revealed this as a loop story because you find it out so early on that hiding it as a spoiler is meaningless. The game's story begins with the protagonist meeting (and helping out) Nodoka, one of the four heroines, and her confessing her love to him on the next day when she transfers into the class. While he is at first somewhat bothered by this, he eventually falls for her, loves her... and then suddenly wakes up on the second day of the month, the day after he first met her. Now, you will go through a lot of route loops before the game is over (you have to see all four heroine loops, plus a bunch of side loops, to get access to the endings), and a lot of these have seriously crazy outcomes. The protagonist, being a young idiot, goes off and tests everything he can find (often to hilarious results), and his 'morality' tends to be rather fragile when it comes to having fun (in one loop he ends up gambling so hard he gets sold to an organ broker, lol). To be honest, the journey through the non-heroine loops is probably the most attractive part of this VN. The music is slightly below the average quality of the industry, as is the art (though that is comparison to the present day), but the game as a whole has a lot of laughs and good moments. The protagonist, Minato, is essentially your average (slightly baka but not totally stupid) harem protagonist who is kind to everyone and as dense as the lead plating protecting a fission reactor's core. Minato has solid reasons for being dense about the three heroines other than Nodoka (Nodoka being very open), based in his past relationships with the others (Inori being his abusive childhood friend, Korone being his little sister, and Yuuki being so friendly to everyone it is difficult for a harem protagonist to see it in her, lol). That said, that is perhaps the most annoying part of his character, though it gets relieved over time. Explaining the heroines to this game is counterproductive. I'm not being mean, but if I were to start explaining the heroines, I would probably ruin the experience for you. I really advise you not to read the character profiles (both because they are deliberately inaccurate and because forming your own impressions of the heroines is important to getting into this VN. There are five endings to this game. One for each of the heroines and the true (harem, no H) ending. The heroine endings are mostly kind of bittersweet, because there are solid reasons why things aren't going to end perfectly, but the true/harem ending is pretty hilarious. Other than the true ending, I liked Korone's ending the best, both because I liked the outcome and because it was the happiest one other than the true one. Edit: Incidentally, Inori is probably the only case I've ever heard of where they handled the tsundere osananajimi realistically (rather than just using the sides as a contrast).