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Hi there! I'm not sure if there is any sort of demand for this kind of post, but I thought since there's so many people interested in Japanese media on this forum, maybe some of you would be interested in knowing what it's like living in Japan as a foreigner. So, that's what this thread is for. If you have any questions about the topic, ask away! For those of you who don't know, my name is Andreas, I've been studying Japanese for about four years or so now, and I'm a freelance translator. I spent about half a year in Japan studying the language at a Japanese university, (Josai International University in Togane,) which was honestly one of the most fun experiences of my life. I am going back to Japan again soon to live there for a year this time, (starting August this year,) and I just came back from a short vacation in Japan around a week ago. Needless to say, I like it there. I haven't decided quite yet, but I think me moving there permanently down the line is a very likely scenario. Anyways, I'm not sure what, if anything, people would be interested in hearing about the topic, so I picked one thing my foreign friends have asked me quite a lot. So yeah, do ask if you want to know something else! Are Japanese people generally cold and distant towards westerners? Short answer, they might seem that way at first, but honestly, no! The thing is, Japanese people are generally just very quiet and closed off in public spaces, as they do not want to bother strangers in public. Get a Japanese person a couple of drinks at an izakaya or a karaoke bar, and you won't be able to shut them up, haha. While there might be some Japanese people who are "racist," / cold towards westerners, most people aren't like that at all, and will open up to you quite easily once you get to know them a little bit! Of course, you have to actually get to know them a bit at first for this, and sure, as a foreigner, it might be a little bit harder to get through that first stage. But, it's honestly not that hard, especially if you have some kind of icebreaker/ meet the person in some setting where it would be natural to start up a conversation, like a university, at your job, or out in a club/ bar etc. Of course, not knowing any Japanese will make this a little harder, as Japanese people generally do not speak English very well. (International universities are gold mines if you're looking for Japanese people interested in foreigners, heh. We had trouble eating at times during lunch, as we were swarmed by groups of Japanese students wanting to talk to us, lol.) One tip I'd give western people trying to get to know Japanese people in Japan, try to not be too loud and "pushy". Like I said, Japanese people are often a bit guarded towards strangers, and first impressions are quite important. If you come off as "scary" and loud, it might be harder to get someone to open up to you. Remember, westerners are pretty scary to Japanese people, haha. We're generally a lot taller, they won't know if we speak a word Japanese or not just by looking at us, (and they probably won't know much English,) and we tend to just act quite differently compared to Japanese people in general. The unknown can be pretty scary! So, all these factors can make us quite intimidating. Therefore, try to dial it down a bit, and you'll have a much easier time getting a Japanese person to open up to you. Anyways, that's what I could think of, so hit me with some questions if you want to know more!

Definitely. It’s very hard for them to learn, and they have much less motivation compared to some of us, who learn Japanese because we’re super into Japanese media. There are some "Western media otakus" in Japan too though, ofc, which is always fun to see. A friend of mine is like that, and hearing her go on about western stuff like it’s the most amazing shit ever is so funny. We’re not the only otakus out there, guys! Right. So, when it comes to polite forms in the Japanese language in general, there’s been a pretty big decline in the usage of "keigo" and such in general in the past few years. Our professor at the university I went to in Japan told us that we probably know keigo better than native speakers our age, as they simply don’t care as much anymore. To be safe, just stick with "teineigo", which is the general polite forms people use when speaking to strangers. You don’t need any higher level of polieteness than that, unless you’re going to be in some serious job related situations. (So, your standard desu/masu endings is plenty.) And tbh, I’d think just using teineigo would be enough for a foreigner, even at job interviews, as long as you make a generally good impression. For honorifics, you’re really only going to need -san. I’ve never had anyone look at me weird when using first name-san, as with young people nowadays, that level of "closeness" tends to be quite normal, with the internet and what not bringing people closer. If you want to be safe, though, you can use last name-san, especially for people who are older etc. Though, tbh, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about this stuff. Just sticking to teineigo and using -san for people you don’t know, will be more than enough. That’s what I personally do, at least.

Before Dharker Studio became the semi-competent producer of smut we know and (occasionally) love today, its founder, AJ Tilley, made a name for himself through his personal VN publishing brand, AJTilley.com. Throughout 2015 there has been an impressive number of decently-sized games released under that label, the whole endeavour fuelled by a never-ending stream of crowdfunding campaigns, making Tilley one of the most notable creators on the fledgeling EVN scene. At the same time, his activities were spawning increasing controversies, mostly over the appalling quality of some of the games in question and overuse of Kickstarter. In April 2016, after just a year and a half of presence within the EVN scene, the infamy around the label became intense enough that Tilley himself decided to terminate it, removing all of its online presence and transferring all the rights to his company’s “development arm”, Dharker Studio. The "restructured" company then both continued working on the franchises introduced by AJTilley.com and created new ones, including highly successful ecchi VNs such as Negligee or Army Gals, while its creator’s name was conveniently hidden from the public’s eye. Despite the horror stories circulating around these “dark beginnings” of Dharker Studio, the games from that period always interested me quite a lot, both because of my usual, morbid curiosity and the significant role they played in the history of EVNs. While it’s easy to argue that titles like Sword of Asumi or Divine Slice of Life did a lot to reinforce the general impression of EVNs being cheap, awkward imitations of their Japanese predecessors, I wanted to find out whether they’re really as bad as people make them out to be. In today’s episode, I’ll cover four of those pre-Dharker projects – outside of the two mentioned above, I’ll be including Highschool Romance and Highschool Possession, which, amusingly enough, have exactly nothing to do with each other, utilizing drastically different artstyles and telling stories that could hardly be further away from each other, at least apart from the obligatory high school setting. The one game I’ll skip, for the time being, is Beach Bounce, initial episodes of which were published during this time, but which was later heavily reworked and fully released as a “proper” Dharker Studio title, Beach Bounce Remastered. After that, it even spawned its own little franchise – this series, with three VNs in total, deserves a separate look and will be the next topic for Shovelware Adventures. So, going back to our main issue, are the AJTilley.com VNs really that bad? The answer is: no. Because in reality, if you treat them seriously to any extent, they’re even worse than I've expected – at least outside of one, notable exception. Sword of Asumi Imagine a game featuring a female assassin in an alternative-history Japan, where shogunate won the late XIX-century civil war and what in our world was the Meiji restoration followed a different path. The samurai class never lost its dominance, preserving its ethos and prestige till the modern day, while the militaristic government relies on secret police and agents such as our lead, Asumi, to keep people in check. At the same time, a new terrorist group rises, aiming to violently oppose the established order. Sounds pretty cool, right? Only in theory, as the reality of Sword of Asumi is one of the most amazing trainwrecks I’ve seen during my involvement with EVNs, rivalling Winged Cloud’s Legends of Talia with how absurdly stupid and tone-deaf it is. The first thing you might notice after launching the game is that Asumi is possibly the dumbest assassin in the world, spewing edgy one-liners and engaging in small talk with her victims instead of focusing on getting the job done. A moment later, when a member of the Edo's (this universe’s Japan) secret police, a Justicar, shows in the house of Asumi’s latest hit and start discussing extremely delicate details of her next assignment in the middle of the murder scene, you know you’re up for a ride. And be sure, the stream of utter stupidity and inexplicable writing fu**ups never truly ends (like Asumi causally approaching other characters in her assassin’s clothes, while being undercover – I can understand that kind of mistake in writing, but when you can literally see it happening on the screen???). The somewhat-decent romance options, both male and female, help things a tiny bit, but can’t change the overall dreadful quality of the experience. The absurd fanservice (it seems assassins have a strong taste for overly-elaborate, sexy lingerie, especially when preparing for a mission) and the fact how seriously the game treats itself are pretty much the final nails to its coffin. While the likes of Sakura games are after dumb and trashy, they’re self-aware and try to have fun with the formula. In Sword of Asumi, the only fun you can have is the kind fully unintended by its authors: the high from how astonishingly bad and absurd it is. And unless that’s what you’re looking for, there’s really no reason to read it. Sorry Kaori, even you couldn’t save this one... Final Rating: Smelly Poo Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Tbh, there isn't a lot to say about this episode. For those who were curious about Haruto's past, this pretty much reveals everything (well, since it is non-ero, it doesn't touch upon my suspicion that there was some classic Grisaia oneshota in there somewhere). It is pretty bloody - again, as usual - and it properly spotlights Haruto and the group of adults who raised him (questionable whether you can really call them adults, though). That said, it should be noted that this is obviously setting things up for the plot of the series to take a big leap forward in the next entry. As such, we can hope that the next one will be longer and the final episode of the Phantom Trigger series, so Front Wing can produce something unique (in other words, a new series, hopefully), instead of throwing us tidbits of action once or twice a year.

I appreciate the input! I've been in Japan two times before, but I didn't understand the language at all back then and thus never interacted with people in Japanese. On my next trip, I'm expecting my Japanese to be at a level where everyday conversation is actually possible, so I'm looking forward to seeing what that's like!

Gentlemen and others. This conversation is clearly not contributing much to the topic at the moment, so let us let it go. Further discussion can be had through PMs, where threads will not be derailed.

Yes, it's simply too hard for many of them to bother giving it any real attention. Japanese people do learn English from an early age in school, but because of the factors I mentioned above, they rarely actually learn much from these lessons. The people who are quite skilled at English probably learned most of it from the internet and self study. I think religion is more of a cultural thing than an actual sign of faith in Japan. I can only speak from personal experiences and from the information I know from my friends and what not, but it seems like most people go to shrines and temples more because it's a social and cultural "norm" instead of strong faith. That being said, it does seem to be important to them. At least from what I've seen, people act very respectful towards shrines and temples, and many do go there to pray fairly often. Though, once again, I think this type of prayer is more of a cultural thing than actual faith, but nonetheless, it's fairly important to Japanese people from my knowledge. As far was what the most common religions are, I believe shintoism, the native Japanese "religion", (which is more of a collective term than an actual singular religion,) and buddhism are the two most widespread religions in Japan. There are quite a lot of buddhist temples, and as well as shrines for shintoism around in Japan. Christian churches etc are far fewer in number, though there are some of those too. Most native Japanese people will go to either a local shrine or temple for holidays and what not.

I'm not aware of any VNs about superheroes. So I'll list some "chuuni" VNs, that have a lot of action.... * Sorcery Jokers . Magic users (like a steampunk JRPG) in an urban fantasy setting. * Idol Magical Girl Chiru Chiru Michiru . A magical girl spinoff of the Grisaia series. * Muv-Luv Trilogy. Goes from happy and fluffy slice of life ...... to mech combat against an alien invasion. Emotional feels and trauma galore..... Other Chuuni VNs I havn't read, but are on my future read list.... * Dengeki Stryker * The Shadows of Pygmalion * Tokyo Babel * Fatal Twelve

Superheroes, in the strict sense of the word, are not really a thing in VNs... There are some exceptions though, Dengeki Stryker probably being the most notable one - it's currently heavily discounted on both Steam and MG store. Another outlier is Trample on Shatten!!, but I mostly heard bad things about it. There's a cool freeware VN called Scrambled: Syd City which all revolves around low-level superheroes - a borderline parody of the genre, but with quite an interesting story.

If you're traveling in big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, people in service occupations will generally know enough English that you'll get by just fine as a tourist. But, the normal level of English among people outside service occupations is quite frankly atrocious. Their knowledge of the language is limited to being able to say their name, "sorry", "thank you" and hello. That's pretty much it. But, if you're worried about booking hotels and what not, you shouldn't be. At least major hotels in large cities have staff that speaks English quite well. Restaurants too, depending on where you're eating. And you can ofc just point at the menu when ordering, and making a reservation isn't that hard if you go in person. If you plan on living in Japan, though, not knowing any Japanese will definitely mean you'll have a hard time, as most people simply don't know much English. Tourists will generally manage, as they aren't staying for too long, and tend to stick with popular tourist attractions where people are used to foreigners, but... yeah, the general level is terrible. So, if you're going for something other than tourism, learn at least some basic Japanese. Trust me, you'll need it. Every Japanese friend I have says the same thing. "I want to get better at English, but..." It's very hard for them, for a number of reasons. To just list a few: bad teachers, an overall bad approach to learning the language from schools in general, and a lack of motivation due to the difficulty both from teachers and students. Reminds me of this one time I was having lunch with some friends at uni, and I asked them what they could say in English. One girl at the table thought hard about it for a good 5 seconds, then said "this is... a apple!"' それだけWW (That's it, lol) I did not have it in me to correct her "a" to "an", lol. She later also seemed to remember how to say "my name is Shiho", but yeah, you get the idea, lol.

I lived off a student loan last time, and found this to be more than enough to get by in Japan. I tried to avoid eating at super expensive places etc ofc, but overall didn't have any issues living on my student loan. Next time, I'll be living off my freelance work, and plan on sticking to VNs for the moment, as I have a rather good setup with a company that let's me do titles on a fairly frequent basis. I'm also saving up a decent chunk of money for the trip. Japan is way cheaper than Norway. Generally people can't afford to eat out in Norway except for special occasions. Eating out one time here will be the same price as eating out like six times in Japan, assuming you pick reasonable-ish options. Rent in Japan was about half of my rent in Norway. So yeah, for a Norwegian, Japan is extremely cheap. Of course, it's not like Japan is a super cheap country, I think it's more that Norway is a stupidly expensive one, lol.

No harem endings in Kajitsu (though harem ending becomes canon in later entries of the trilogy). Grisaia has two spinoff series (Phantom Trigger series, and a magical idol spinoff). Neither has H scenes though. What kind of moeges are you looking for exactly? There's light hearted comedic ones ( Fureraba , Wagamama High Spec , Chrono Clock , Kono Oozora ). And on the other end of the scale, there's moeges that have a lot of plot, or Nakige elements ( Sorcery Jokers , Kira*Kira , ef - a fairy tale of the two , Muv-Luv Trilogy ) If you're into harems, there's always the Nekopara series, or Imouto Paradise series. As well as Onii-chan, where's my kiss? (when it's released). I've heard Sharin no Kuni is supposed to be like Grisaia, but it isn't released yet (might be within months).

Chuusotsu! 1st graduation is quite underrated imo. It's a short nice story with some nice commentary on the modern society and choosing your own place in life.

My class at uni had been studying for about one year when we arrived, (a rather intense year at that,) and could communicate in Japanes well enough. We were still quite awkward though, and one of the reasons we studied abroad was to learn the language "properly." (Our 1 year at uni took us through both Genki books in their entirety.) I personally went from having rather awkward Japanese, to being able to converse with natives in Japanese without issues in those six months. So, I improved quite a lot. For food we ate out, every day, generally at family restaurants like Saizeriya and Denny's, ramen shops etc. These places are honestly cheaper than making food yourself, lol. (The kitchens in our apartments were also so small, cooking there was a nightmare.) We also bought bento boxes at convenience stores quite often, and supermarkets now and then. (The supermarket versions are more expensive, but much more healthy, as they are made fresh with natural ingredients daily, compared to the convenience stuff, which is mass produced. Still tastes good, though.) Also, if you are studying at a university, eat there! The cafeteria at our uni was not only cheap, but holy crap was the food good. Checking out what the daily specials were during lunch was one of the highlights of our day, lol. (Mainly because the days were so bloody long and tiring. 90 minute lessons, with only short 10 minute breaks in between except for lunch, lasting from 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, bleh.) Do try to get to the cafeteria as fast as humanly possible, though. Thousands of students, one cafeteria, limited supply of specials. It's a war zone out there. Mmm, I did not try to hide that I "like anime and manga and stuff" and always told people that's how I got interested in Japan. No one seemed to look at that as weird. But, I did hide how much of an otaku I am, lol. I didn't go on rants about how much I love anime tiddies, for instance. (A friend of mine did, and needless to say, she got some weird looks.) Overall, I'd say you shouldn't be afraid of admitting to liking anime and such, though there's a middle ground between that and getting weird and creepy about it in a conversation. I mean, you see some weird shit in maid cafes, so I'm going to say yes. I know a guy. PM me and I'll hook you up.